Category: Cute

The gift

Yesterday was a gift of small pleasures and brief beauty, enamelled and jewelled and assembled with unhurried care.

I awoke early and started my rushing around for a very busy day at church and promptly forgot the single most important thing.  As I stepped out of the house, a scene of surreal beauty met my gaze: in New Westminster all the tall buildings were outlined by the effulgent glow of the sun through a wall of cloud.  The effect was enough to stop me in my tracks and call for Jeff to come and see.

I then went to Thrifty’s to buy meat, bread and cheese for sandwiches for ‘afters’, and then went to the church where I tried to help with setup and then realized I’d forgotten all the Stewardship Drive materials.  D’oh! Back home to collect them and then back to church in time for everything to start.

I gave a several minute ex tempore speech on the subject of pledging and was congratulated by no fewer than three people afterwards.  I never seem to have an accurate sense of how I’m doing, I thought I sounded ill-prepared and merely attempted to connect emotionally and practically to my church siblings.

Please imagine that I was dressed as a steam punk vampire during these shenanigans, as I was.  Somebody else took a picture.

The minister preached a mighty sermon on giving, and used the potlatch as the central idea.  The notion that gracious giving and gracious receiving is part of our human heritage was posited; the emotional calculus of feeling shamed or lorded over when we receive gifts was examined in the light of our materialistic culture.  I must admit I teared up toward the end.  The minister called me on it, asking what happened as I started out smiling and started not exactly scowling but getting more and more serious and I said sheesh if I stop smiling maybe it’s because I’m very moved.

Short talk with Rob W about a specialty item of clothing he may feel inclined to sew up for me. Planning is.

The sandwiches went over (and down) very well.

Tom and Peggy invited me to supper.

The minister helped finish the washing up.  (one of us, one of us!)

I returned home at 1:30 (told you it was a hectic morning…) footsore and tired, and no sooner cleaned one pan and changed that Paul rang.  “Walkies?”

I looked out the window.  With his inerrant attention to the weather, he had picked the one portion of the day wherein we were likely to get direct sun.  Although my feet were already complaining, we did a circuit of Oakalla (aka Deer Lake Park), and saw:

A beautiful sky, filled with cirrus and nimbus and cumulus clouds

A VERY LARGE and unidentifiable raptor soaring in the same skyfield as a gent flying his glider at the model airplane field,

A chickadee chasing a moth (I had never seen such a thing) apparently for pure sport (the moth put on an incredible burst of speed)

Dragonflies catching the last of the sun

Many happy dogs who really should have been on leashes but were well behaved anyway

Sleeping kids in strollers.

Then home, where I relaxed with ER and SG1 until it was time to haul myself upstairs and make biscotti to take.  I made pumpkin spice biscotti out of my own head’s recipe; they were well received.

I supped with all of the local Lunder-males, grampa, boys and grandbean, and it was a delicious meal of inadvertently caramelized butternut squash, roast chicken breasts, taters, broccoli, home made cheese sauce and pumpkin pie.  It was all edible and choice.  Bean-pie is so adorable as he falls asleep it was most charming.

Then home, to sleep; woke at 1:30, forced myself back to sleep and up again at 7.  A windy nasty day, but I have coffee and biscotti and the world can go hang until I watch Treme.

Today  – renew car insurance (I folded – I feel like I can’t live without a car as long as church is so time consuming and then there’s the issue of job hunting), church business have to leave the house for, more church business, another bit of church business, contact the folks in Pemberton to arrange transport of the furniture, and, if the fates are kind, some practicing and writing.

I light a candle for all those in Hurricane Sandy’s way.

I light a candle for the folks at Pennzoil who topped up my brake fluid without charging me.

 

 

wandering across the internet

kid says boo to famous horror heavies.

Cyclone Sandy is going to smash into the east coast and screw up the American election.  All the forecasters say it’s going to be worse than Irene, which made a mess of large swathes of the east coast and actually closed the NY Subway.  It’s supposed to be a century storm.  I’m really glad I wasn’t vacationing in the Dominican Republic this year.

The only time the forecasters have been this hopped up on anxiety was just prior to Katrina.

Butter chicken and rice pudding for dinner last night, but Jeff went to bed before I could put rice pudding in front of him.  Unfortunately it isn’t as pudding-y as the last one, which he very much enjoyed.

Put those Mennonites and Quakers on the rotisserie….

…. this is what I want my mother to knit me for Christmas.   And no, she doesn’t have to, and I’ll be fine if she doesn’t.

 

Just remember folks, I wrote a song once in which I said, “And my heart’s an 88” and I WAS referring to the forward cannon on a Panzer.  So nobody should be too surprised if I get all gooey over some artillery themed slippers.

Don’t you love cute pictures?

I know I do.  So, let us share!

Kitty shows babbies to friend Goggie.

Wombat!

Uncute anecdote break.  Watched Keith kill two NPC’s so they would respawn in the right place.  That was weird, kinda “We had to destroy it to save it” in the cognitive dissonance department.

Keith has already managed to get an interview, I think he has another job.

Katie’s camping.

Moar cyute!

Lady Gaga done Disney style.

Fast food restaurants weigh in on gay marriage.

Porcépic vs watermellum.

Cute man, hijjus bike AKA Clooners gotta cloon.

 

 

 

Spoon-billed sandpiper chicks, family visit, other

These English birds are critically endangered.  However if you watch this video, the only thing that will be endangered is your ability to survive the cute.

Family visit went really well.  Me happy. We laughed, we bonded, we toured the garden.  As far as we’re concerned if Katie’s beau makes her happy (which seems evident “I’m gaining weight… I know I’m happy”  BF: “Well there’s always that gym membership you paid for and don’t use”) and they speak to each other lovingly and respectfully (which so far they do) nobody is going to complain.  They are now living together, and candidly I am very happy about it.  (“Don’t the young people marry these days?” I remember Grandma saying).

Saw Keith yesterday.  His response to a five minute long rant by the business owner where he worked was “I quit”.  I hasten to add that it was a five minute rant that combined racism and misogyny in such a toxic stew that he felt compelled to leave. (“If he had kept his comments confined to my shortcomings with respect to this customer transaction I could have sucked it up. But telling me that we should stop serving customers of a particular ethnicity?  blecchh.”) I am VERY proud of him.  He’s off finding other work now, and reaffirming old ties with previous employers.

On the ferry trip outbound to my folks’ place I sang and played Otto on the uppermost deck for a while, and three people thanked me afterwards, including somebody specifically calling out the Tapioca Song (and she ASSUMED I WROTE IT.  SCORE!)  But what really did me in was the little  girl in the pale pink dress who scooched up next to me and was trying to sing harmony along with me under her breath.  I wanted to pick her up and stick her in my pocket, but I’ll just have to content myself with noting one of the more beautiful memories of the last while.

 

Evening at the Heritage

Mike, Rozo, Jeff, Katie and I consumed bevvies (I had one Carlsberg and you may all laugh, I feel quite hungover) and ate nommies and listed to live music last night at the Heritage.  Who’d’a thunk we’d actually gerroff our asses and go out someplace?

Also yesterday Katie K called me up having read my facebutt post on my unemployment.  People are being very civil to me about it and I’m finding it quite heartwarming.  We had a lovely long chat and how good to hear her voice.

Today I’m going to make more lists, practice my mandolin. watch some Stargate Atlantis episodes, drink coffee, commune with my cat by waving long stalks of grass in front of her face and commiserate with my daughter about how the first day of her 11 days off is such a sucky day, as we have “BEACH” on our list of things to do and the weather is uncooperative.  Also, trip to the Island at some point.  Also, shopping trip to the US possibly. (I don’t actually intend to buy anything but I can always provide the wheels.)

Christ, gas prices.

Upgraded the MacBook’s OS to Snow Leopard yesterday.  It was lengthy, but painless.  This will hopefully stop all of my various programs from saying I’m running an outdated version of things.  I can’t tell any difference but I suppose that’s the point.  Everything seems to be working okay.  I have to say I have been completely underwhelmed by the attitude of the MacStation employees when you walk into that store on Brighton…. their cold dead eyes, their complete lack of enthusiasm to see you.  Impressive tattoos, though.

I have a deep deep hankering for doubles today from D Roti Shak.  I will get some, but I think I’m also going to learn how.  It’s a fried bread chickpea sandwich, how hard could it be?

I also have a deep hankering for more cinnamon buns, so I suppose after the dishwasher quits swishing and clanking I should fire up the breadmaker.

Jeff enjoyed my foray into chocolate chip cookies, but my brain is not enjoying chocolate at the moment so the next cookies will be Granny’s oatmeal cookies so we can both have something to enjoy.  I am thinking of making them as refrigerator cookies so as to avoid having to cook a whole batch at once.

I introduced Miss Margot to Miss Kira yesterday morning. Margot came out to the front porch with me so I scooped her up and tossed her in the car.  She attempted to jump up on the extremely slippery dash, with comic results, and then settled into the passenger’s side footwell with nary a cry nor peep.  Kira was mewing like crazy as I came up to the door but it died in her throat when she saw Miss Margot, who dashed for the cat tree and then the entertainment system as likely places to hide.  I fed Kira and when I called Margot she came out from the entertainment center (working her way through a bunch of loose wires, which looked pretty funny) and I picked her up and took her to Kira who sniffed at her thoughtfully but didn’t fluff her tail or make any noise.  Margot growled like a watch ticking, so faint if I hadn’t been holding her I wouldn’t have noticed.  Then I stuffed her back in the car, she got back in the footwell, and seemed very relieved to be at home when next I popped the door open.  I find it interesting that she cries if she’s transported in a carrier, but not if she’s just in the car.

Woke up at 1, back to sleep at 2:30

Up again at 6:30, after a dream during which a cop with a hot dog stand style radar gun pulled me over and I said to him in annoyance “My car is supposed to go fast”. And then I woke up.

Weather is pleasant today, with many many crows.

Katie and Jeff and I had a very pleasant evening.

There’s going to be a Housefilk at Casa Libra!  I loves me those folks, the last housefilk over there was stunningly awesome.  And resulted in Jeff and I getting Al Jazeera in the house, so it’s amazing how the tentacles of filk affect all of my daily life.

The Bean is walking! Also climbing, chortling and being a very mobile Beanpie.  I am looking forward to my next chance to chase after him.

Poor Tanya, my coworker.  She’s got a pinched nerve in her back and is feeling dreadful.  All I can say is thank god it’s slow on the phone or it would be insane around here.  Hope she’s back on Monday but if not I hope she feels better soon.

Katie gave me a new top that wasn’t fitting her properly and I’m wearing it to work today.  She’s going to go look at another apartment tonight.  She has started to take my advice about dressing up to go look at apartments.  Yeah, kid, your mother ain’t a total frikkin’ moron, but whatever.

I leave you with cute video… http://icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/05/funny-pictures-videos-cat-and-deer-snuggle/

Good news, bad news.

http://imgur.com/nYl6h  Guess who wrote that….

The single most incompetent and lazy employee who ever worked here (who was released into the wild years ago by the precursor firm, at which news I danced at my desk for it was glorious in my eyes) is in the building for an interview.  This is what lies on your LinkedIn profile will do, sweetcakes.  I need to be self-employed, this is bullshit.