Tom’s service, that is.
It was wonderful, and it was a privilege to see so many honest and eloquent expressions of loss and grief packed in with so many testimonies to just how fucking wonderful Tom was.
Category: Deaths & Obits
Raining hard today
Tom’s memorial service is today. I gave him that hat. Yesterday we gathered at Peggy’s to rehearse and eat Chinese food (I brought home Singapore style noodles) and I got home about 8:30. It’s almost giddy making to be experiencing SOCIAL INTERACTION and then I got home and had a panic attack for about an hour (thought I was having a heart attack until I realized that the pain went away when I was breathing properly). Talked to Brooke about how to wean off of Inderal, which was super useful.
Jeff C GAVE me his dulcimer capo but I got him back by paying for dinner. It’s so lovely to be able to sing in a group again.
Sad news
Tom died today – yesterday now. I wept briefly but now I just feel numb and my heart quails thinking of the weight the kids and Peggy are bearing.
I am so glad I went to see him that last time, he was close then and I made sure there was a little laughter in the room, and I played my uke for him. And I’m glad I didn’t go after that. Minutes are precious.
I have so many thoughts and they are all very good thoughts I’m sure but they never get very far, and even if they did they wouldn’t belong here.
He was a good, kind, funny, hardworking man and we may see him echoed in his children but his vices and his virtues will never be assembled in that way again, and it’s so fucking unfair I can’t tell you and I’m up way past my bedtime and I need to try to sleep again.
Ten year anniversary
On this day ten years ago, my first husband Phillip passed away in Toronto of complications of diabetes and kidney disease.
I think about him all the time but I don’t talk about him much. My last conversation with him was kindly, but very sobering. I saw what happened to a man who gets sick with a disease that requires a lot of management, but who has an executive dysfunction (like me, Phil had terrifically bad ADD, but only time has allowed me to look back and see it.) It’s easy to be drawn to someone who has the same bent and creative fire….
He was a remarkable man, and if he could forgive me for my cruelties, and I forgive him for his, I won’t beat myself up too hard for my failures in being his partner. I hope you’re listening to T. Rex playing new music and working on model cars, while wearing a special outfit covered with cats, wherever you are, Phil.
Not a single photo of him appears to survive on the easily searched part of the internet – I’m assuming there’ll be something on facebook, but I don’t attend there any more.
Interesting
Norm Macdonald is dead and the only people I can see who are mourning him are men on Reddit…. quite interesting. Waiting for a woman celebrity OTHER THAN SARAH SILVERMAN who really is a Sspecial cKase to praise him.
When Robin Williams and George Carlin died there was an incredible outpouring from a huge range of people and with Norm… just men. And Sarah Silverman. Makes ya think, don’t it?
I have started taking the medications. I’m not experiencing side effects so far, bar being a little off my feed. The real whoopsiedoodle will be the ADD meds, but I’m going to wait a while to start those.
Ken Burns made a documentary about ‘the greatest athlete of the 20th c’ – Mohammad Ali. That’s funny, because by many objective measures the greatest athlete of the 20th C was Babe Didrikson, and she sewed her own fucking clothes while she was winning.
Michael K. Williams, Omar in The Wire, dead at 54
My heart hurts. I was hoping for another couple of decades of work from this remarkable talent, and apparently the scourge of opioids has laid him in his grave. He has left a remarkable body of work.
We must love each other while we can.
about to leave the house whooooppeeeee
Paul’s arriving shortly for masked walkies and pho.
Jeff and I are halfway through “Swan Song” an Udo Kier film. I’ve already cried six times I’m sure I’ve got some left in me but GAh I’d better take water in a bottle.
Gene Roddenberry would have been one hundred years old today. He was a massively imperfect human being and sexist af and Star Trek is an important cultural inflection point. We can think these things at the same time, because imperfect beings are always thinking about imperfect beings, and think they can still get it right.
Uncle Fester, Bloedel Conservatory’s titan arum or “corpse flower,” bloomed on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. (YouTube/Vancouver Park Board)
RIP Colleen
Colleen Savitzky, a member of the PNW filk community, passed away on July 12. I remember her as being the linchpin of her family and just always being a very superior and cheerful kind of person, and I was moved to tears by Steve’s description of her last hours, which I won’t cross post because that would be quite inappropriate.
May we all be so good that we leave a hole in life like that when we go.
I sent an extremely brief private note of condolence to Riley. I can’t imagine his loss either.
home for the espresso machine
I have just now provided dimensions to Mike, who is finally going to adopt the pourover espresso machine I bought for the cafe.
Into the relative cool of the morning to mail a whole bunch of letters, plus the rent cheques.
RIP the Florida Man who banged an oxygen tank on the ground trying to get the valve off to scrap it….
lovely productive day with a dark ending
Leftover Desi Turka takeaway for breakfast. A couple of loads of laundry done. A little bit of planning for writing. Practicing musical instruments. A lot of CBD gummies, my back was scandalous.
Steps from where I got takeaway on Wednesday after the cleaning at the dentist (the mango lassi was SO.DAMNED.GOOD) someone was shot dead last week in broad daylight.
Last night someone was shot dead steps from where we get donuts of a morning. He was sitting in his car, a young East Indian man, eating a hamburger, and pop pop pop.
It doesn’t make me want to rejoin the world.
Hives continue
Lost a good chunk of sleep last night to them. Topical creams help a little but it was kinda rough.
I’m going to try not to doomscroll today, even though Horgan is doing his best to try to kill me.
It’s possible that what I’ve got, hive wise, is actually a mild and late reaction to the AZ shot. If so this will slowly pass. Sigh.
Jeff’s doing a timmy ho’s run and then we’re going to watch Time Team in our LA-Z-BOY CHAIR. Did I tell you folks that we set it up? I had to mess with my half, but it sure is comfy.
RIP MICHAEL COLLINS. You were, as Phil Plait remarked this am, the ultimate team player.
Prince Philip isn’t dead
I announced his death on my blog but it was just wishful thinking.
He’s probably got many minutes of rich life left in him.
I very much enjoyed having home made mac and cheese for breakfast.
I need to spread the joy of biscotti this am.
700 words on UPSUN
I have a doc’s appointment for my prescription renewal tomorrow, and I have called the clinic to confirm my scan appointment. I won’t get a call back unless they’re confused about something.
Miss Margot’s been gone three years (Margot’s song)
Has it been that long? Yes…
This is just me singing in my room, so don’t expect much. Also I had to do about a hunnert takes from crying, so this is the point my mood hit the big red NO MORE button. There was a dulcimer accompaniment but it morphed into another tune.
she was a funny cat – she definitely had more of a sense of humour than most. And she didn’t hold a grudge…. also most uncatlike. This is her consulting on me entering ‘The Evening News’ into Finale.
I have gone where my friends are waiting
Don’t you worry ‘bout me
And it’s not like I could forget you
Or you forget about me
You will miss me lots
Wish it wasn’t so
When I fill your thoughts
You will know I was here
I was here a moment ago
My old bowl is back in the cupboard
And my grave’s in the yard
Your old heart isn’t made of rubber
And you’re taking this hard
All the love you felt for me
Will never go away
It’s in the universe we made between us
and it is here to stay
I have gone where my friends are waiting
Don’t you worry ‘bout me
And it’s not like I could forget you
And you will never, ever forget about me.
Luke O’Neill is responsible
He said this:
I’m saddened by the passing of Rush Limbaugh yesterday at the age of seventy but only because I wish it had happened much sooner.
Don’t I just, don’t I just wish I had said that.
on learning that Rush Limbaugh had departed this world
Speak nothing but good of the dead? I shall certainly oblige you in this instance, goodsir, most directly, by ejaculating: “He’s dead? good!”
I have to add, because I am a fucking asshole, that he leaves no children to grieve him, so either he was sterile or the women he married were smart enough not to breed with him. Sometimes a heavy hearted world catches a break.