Category: Deaths & Obits

A death and an incident involving lots of blood

I light a candle for my beloved worksibling Tanya’s grandmother, who passed at RCH today.  Go gentle across the rainbow bridge, elder.

Ahem.  So I get this cryptomundo text message from Katie saying that she’s been living in a horror movie.  OF COURSE I immediately assume that it’s Dax, and it very plainly turns out not to be, in fact, Dax behaved with more calmness and civility than anyone could credit him with, considering that a guy with a dirty great knife was alternately trying to stab him and kick his door and his HEAD in.  End result.  One of Dax’s roommates is homeless, with about 7 criminal charges pending, Katie is fine except for the strained muscles you always seem to get when some drunken animal is trying to kill you with a knife, Dax had to have stitches, the culprit had to have reconstructive surgery because he was so fecked he sliced himself across the tendons in three fingers. Katie is here, helping me cook spaghetti and vibrating gently.  Dax put his life on the line, literally, defending Katie, and has been the soul of gentlemanly courtesy since, so I am much obliged to him.

The perp is an ex drug addict (now just a drunk) who is normally a really sweet guy.  He also has brain damage from having been electrocuted and he was already on disability.  Oh yeah.

Katie and Dax cleaned up the house.  There were apparently torrents of blood… I’m debating whether to ask Dax for his cell phone footage, as he filmed what the place looked like afterwards.  Schadenfreude, anyone?

Family website

My m0m and Jeff have toiled tirelessly at the family website, so I posted a pic and commented on one of m0m’s posts to her blog (she’s blogging, ha) this morning.

Thomas Disch is dead. He was despondent after the death of his life partner, being thrown out of his rent-controlled apartment, and he did not have medical insurance. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… how can people with the intelligence and industry of the Americans not look after their people? It’s as if the Christianity of the prairie populists in Canada, which spoke with such power and persuasiveness about how medical care for all would make Canada a better place, could never penetrate the I got mine style of Christianity so popular south of the border. What a world. Anyway he’s gone, and he had a really cool Livejournal where he posted really good poetry. I left an RIP there.

Goodbye George/Hullo Darwin

My happiness at attending the Hilario Duran Trio got wiped outta my heart when I found that George Carlin died yesterday.  However I am still happy about meeting Darwin.

Some explanation of the pics.  The first is a CP train the Luddite owns.  He let me touch it.  Considering that I break things by scowling at them, this is amazing.  The second is of course Alex and the newish Darwin, who is the piggiest baby ever until you remember that he’s at the three week growth spurt stage, alternately ravenous and exhausted.  This was literally the first time I got a SFW shot, because, well, he WAS EATING NON STOP.  Anyway, Darwin made out like a bandit both in terms of food and prezzies.  The cat is the cat shown previously, this time on a roof across the alleyway, and the tea towel, if you look at it hard, looks like a girly version of Cthulhu.  You’re welcome!

Safely home

Jeff and Katie are home from their trek to Victoria; the cats appeared to have survived my tender ministrations, but Gizmo was so intent on keeping Jeff in view that he accompanied him to the landpeer’s house and would have gone inside if not restrained.  Foolish feline!  There be dogs there! Not but Gizmo doesn’t like the occasional scrap with dogs.

Bob Asprin has died.  He is memorialized by Tom Smith, one of the handful of people who make a living in filk, here.

From Patricia I have wonderful news which I cannot repeat, as the explanations would be tedious and lingering; suffice it to say that for once the wheels of justice have ground the ingredients for a tasty loaf instead of hard tack.

I sure hope the weatherpersons are wrong – it’s setting up for another partly rainy weekend.

I am now double booked for June 14th.  I don’t plan anything for weeks and then it starts piling up.

Trying times

There are occasions when being a writer and having a blog is a curse. An event will occur, or happen as a consequence of matters I am party to, and nothing would suit me better than to give a full account of it. I would have liked nothing better than to have given a full accounting to the exact reasons for and the beastly behaviour of other people during my marriage breaking up – fine, let it stand that I was self-willed and I’ll leave the name calling and cruelty and bald faced f*cking lies other people subjected me to out of the picture. To protect innocent people, and to prevent myself from looking like a goddamned asshole, more to the point, I guess, that’s what I have had to do. Nor am I complaining about the results. I am clearly happier and better off for having moved out of that house. I just wish I could tell the truth about it. I’m still on good speaking terms with my ex and kids, so no harm done, right?
I would like nothing better than to describe in gory detail what it’s been like to stop being a member of a couple and to have many of favourite activities curtailed and destroyed. Yes, I had to go there, yes, it was my idea when I was no longer psychically safe, but I really really haven’t liked it, and I haven’t talked about the times I’ve spent a day or two, here and there, crying for reasons I can’t describe. Yeah, I could definitely go on at length there. Into the memory hole with it. I’m not even keeping a private journal of those events, it’s not worth it, as in the end it’s living well that counts, not keeping a tally of every grievance. If I wrote it all out it would become impossible to forgive, and even now I haven’t forgiven… into the memory hole. There is no good outcome in setting it all out, whether for myself or others.
I would like to render a full account of yesterday evening’s events – how an entire panoply of human cruelty, stupidity, waste and denial played out as a consequence of the death of a companion animal and how I had to sit with it, and be companionable with that parade of nastiness, and deal in practical terms with it (ie, help move the body of a large Rottie cross onto a board and then a truck, and clean the inevitable leakage off the floor). When Scooter died, it was an opportunity to show family solidarity when we all went to the Lodge to say goodbye to her, in the dark midwinter; when Bounce died we were all together and had each other for one of those uniquely horrible and sad days families go through. Last night wasn’t like that. I have no beef with Mike, he lost his dog, and I am honoured he called on me to help. I have no beef for the icky factual stuff, and I now know that eating a pizza pocket and then cleaning up after a dead dog is a great way to remind yourself your gag reflex is set way high. I am angry, hurt, bewildered and rendered half daft by how mean some people are. Fifty years old almost and I still think people should be nice to each other, and here’s me upset when they aren’t. What am I, a child still?
I intend to give a donation to the SPCA in Vancouver and say a brace of prayers for the animal control staffer, who was an angel of mercy, dignity and punctuality.

I thank my mother for being a civilized human being unlike some others whose behaviour I am shielding as a result of my mother’s teachings, and my brother for his material aid yesterday in conveying me to Mike’s after work.

Willie P Bennett is dead, at home, in Peterborough

I must thank Chipper for bearing me these sad tidings.

Two mornings after Keith was born, Willie P phoned me and asked if he could come see the child, having received word from Paul that his firstborn had arrived.

He showed up reeking of cigarettes and alcohol.  My mother, radiating primate female on guard, watched him closely.   But it was merely a man lying on our bed and absorbing the experience of being with a tiny newborn child, which he did for the best part of an hour.

I had another anecdote, but I’ll leave it for the memorial service.
One time, Willie P told us a story about how he got an allergic reaction so badly – while on tour – that the hives started going down his throat.  With great difficulty he got himself to a hospital in either Edmonton or Calgary and as he sat in the exam room waiting for a doctor, the curtain kept getting pulled back and there’d be another med student standing there goggle-eyed.  He or she would say, “They’re RIGHT, you ARE the worst case of hives they’ve ever seen!” and then the curtain would close again.

He wrote a lot – a LOT – of songs, good ones.  “Willie’s Diamond Joe” is one of my favourite tunes, and “Why’d I Go Zydeco” is on my playlist.  He wrote “Music in your eyes” for a member of Paul’s family.  He used to show up at dinner time at Paul’s mum’s place all the time.
In later years he played mandolin.  Everything is connected.  Rest in peace, Willie the P.

Everything’s up to date in Kansas City

Including these signs recently welcoming George W. Bush.

The 25th anniversary of the church establishment dinner was yummy fun; I didn’t get there early enough to do the percussion thing.  On one hand I feel lousy for not doing what I said, or checking when I was supposed to be there; on the other hand I think I was miserably underrehearsed.  Public performing less than two months after you purchase an instrument seems the height of hubris.

I’m in a very strange mood.  I’ve come to the realization that there is something I keep doing which is really hurting my mental health, and I’m just trying to figure out how I stop doing it without going crazier than I was to start out with.  I think I’ll pour myself another cup of coffee, have a piece of the 85% cocoa chocolate the Luddite insisted on leaving here (“Oh, don’t worry, I have plenty at home”) and contemplate my options.  With any luck, daughter Katie will be joining me this afternoon.  The urge to kidnap her and do an intervention is urgent, but I think I can manage without doing anything dumb.

One of my LJ buddies was at the church dinner last night.  I was thinking, Gosh, we finally get to talk IRL! and then her daughter threw up and they had to leave.  For this, she commented wryly, I stuffed them all into their nice clothes (or words to that effect).

My granny is still in a lot of pain, but they found painkillers that work.  I light a candle for her, and for the heroic amount of care she’s been getting from her two sons and daughtersinlaw. It makes me shudder to think what old age is like when we have no children, loved ones, or adoptive family to help us.

I light a candle for the folks who went to Nancy’s memorial service yesterday. I hope everybody stayed cheerful and full of happy memories.  The grinding hard work of sorting the estate out – I light a big phalanx of candles for that heavy chore.

I made biscotti.

Off to meditate on mental health now.