It’s a sad long story

But if you want a brief good death, you might want to consider it.

There was a LONG convo on facebook this morning about people always wanting to know how somebody died.  I want to know so there wasn’t any suffering.  However, some people want to know so they can shame the dead for asking for it.  It was a really interesting conversation and I’m glad I participated.  I just don’t want to say the wrong thing, yanno?

Fraser Health is coming by the shop tomorrow to inspect it.  Good thing it’s clean and free of vermin.

I guess I have to announce a re-opening date.  I will advise the inspector that this will entirely depend on what my doc says.

Got some mando time in, happy sigh….

Great, there’s a new, big, formal, scary climate change denying group of scientists.  If they look right, they’re right, right?  The basic tenet is that nothing humans can do can change the climate.  Everything problematic about the climate is external to human beings.  In a sense, they are right, I suppose.  When it comes down, nothing humans can do will help, I spose.

Funniest thing about this is not the SKY DRAGON of bad climate science they want to slay, it’s the methane that’s going to come out of the ocean.  So let’s worry about SEADRAGONS instead.  Go on Jeff, I know you heard that the same way I did…

Sad face – again

The new nova that showed up in Delphinius is alREADy losing luminosity, so we may not even get a chance to see it before it fades beyond binocular recall.

Andrew Brechin is dead.  He was active in the poly, SCA, pagan, lantern festival, fannish, filkish, trans & queer rights, union and clown band communities; he could pun without apparent effort, was a wonderful coparent to a number of children, not all of whom were biologically his, made me laugh harder than any of my other facebook friends, and he was younger than me.  He wore OUTRAGEOUS hats, and once showed up to Fetish Night dressed as Cthulhu (man, he musta sweated his balls off in that head to toe gear) with no fewer than 8 skimpily dressed women in attendance as his priestesses. (The pic is now going round the internet like a dose of salts).

He apparently died in his sleep, which is definitely the way to go except it should have been at minimum 30 years hence.  I only met him half a dozen times, if that, but he was the menschiest of men and had more friends – more real friends – than many people could claim.  The last time I saw him IRL he and Mike M. realized that they had sat next to each other in engineering school (and they both flunked out, mOm tell pOp that as I think he will find that mildly amusing).  And we ate. There’s a memorial dinner for him next week and unless I feel really bad I’m going, because I want to hear more stories about how awesome he was, and I think he had the coolest friends circle in town.  I will miss his wit, his humanity and his mighty heart for justice.  I had no idea Cindy knew him – her precis of her relationship with him on livejournal practically had me in tears.

The video camera aimed at the cat door has revealed that Miss Margot does not re-enter the house daintily.  Generally she rockets through the door at such a rate of speed that the effect is quite comical.  Hope to have video at some point.

Physiotherapist scolded the crap out of me. NO I MAY NOT DRIVE.  I may do the following three exercises.  I may not sleep on the injured shoulder.  MY POSTURE SUCKS (HOW HE FROWNED).  Here is how I should sleep.  I crept out of there in a very sad frame of mind, but I’ve been doing my exercises faithfully.

Showed the shop two days ago, showing it to a different set of customers tomorrow.  I am no longer worried about it…. it is what it is, I have a roof and food and friends and painkillers, so tra la la.  Also Cadfael on Netflix.  Man, I do heart Derek Jacobi.

I have the tester cpap machine.  A new one is going to cost 2400 dollars, but it’s the ResMed, and it has all of the features I want.  The tech said the Respironics machines break like clockwork just out of the warranty period, and he’s sold 300 of the ResMeds and only one ever came back and that was because the dumbass customer left the water in when he put it in his car and of course fried the circuitboards.  I haven’t started using it because CANDIDLY I am feeling just that little bit overwhelmed at all of the changes I’ve had to deal with in the last six months.  Getting into and out of the restaurant, Audrey and Andrew and Bareld dying, breaking my shoulder, deaths and breakups in my circle of close friends, Kira dying, estrangement from one of my children, not being able to drive…. and there’s more but listing it all seems a mug’s game.  And of course if I don’t mention how my church family has rallied round me I’d be a true mug.

Jeff and I are heading out to Home Depot.  Type atcha later.

 

Sad day

Kira died yesterday.  She had quit eating and drinking and suffered convulsions.  She is now resting with Bounce and Gizmo and Zeek! her adoptive brother in the back yard.

I have new glasses. They look great.  I’ll be getting another pair next week.

Jeff and I are about to take off to see Pacific Rim.  A full report later.

 

My car is finally being worked on.

I am feeling very low in spirits – my shoulder hurts a lot and I think it isn’t healing right, although I won’t know until tomorrow.

 

I am still working on Midnite Moving though.

sore

I am obviously healing, but this is gonna be slow and unpleasant, I can tell.  No point going to physio until I have heard from the doc.

I am probably going to lose weight… I feel not at all like eating most of the time.

Keith visited last night.

Paul is going to take me for a walk later.

Bareld’s memorial service is tomorrow.

I wish I could rewind the tape sometimes.

roasting beef, baking macadamia biscotti

I’m at the shop (Katie out again WARNING RELATIONSHIP IN PROGRESS) and so far, in the 2 hours I’ve been here I’ve:

  • Run through the morning set up
  • Started baking macadamia nut biscotti (first attempt.  Nut flavour is so mild I added no spices, just vanilla, also thinking of Nora I leave cinnamon out cause she’s allergic to cinnamon).
  • Made myself a chai latte
  • sold muffins and coffee to a couple of people
  • Put beef on to roast
  • Put away a good chunk of the ingredients we got last night at Costco
  • got the bread out of Bertha, which I always forget to do so I’m glad I remembered
  • Taken all the fridge temps (report: we are nominal son)
  • Put my hair back and donned an apron
  • Figured out how to form my lips into a trumpet trill so I can blast through the William Tell Orchestra
  • Blown level 70 in Candy Crush Saga AGAIN.  It is a demonaically hard level.
  • sat up front and watched it droozle out there
  • Thought about awnings for the street fair July 21st.  I want to buy one, mostly because I know that the awning Jeff and I bought four years ago is not going to make it through another year and so when I’m done with it here I’ll just take it home.
  • Thought about the data entry job Tom gave me.  I was supposed to work on it some more last night but the Costco run intervened and then Katie tried to get me to go for a walk, but my sciatica into my right heel is making me limp like hell.
  • Thought about the big pile of cardboard at the back of the shop I need to flatten and recycle.
  • Thought about the very interesting news I got from the landlord’s agent yesterday about what’s going on next door as far as ownership goes.
  • Thought with irritation verging on acting out about the THREE UNLICENSED VEHICLES sitting in the parking lot of OUR CAFE.  The landlord’s agent says I can approach the miscreants responsible and ask them to move the cube van, the stake truck and the not-licensed-since-October-2012 shitbox compact sitting out there.  The Hino is parked crossways, FFS, taking two spots.  What the hell is wrong with these people?  It’s not the antechamber to a scrapyard.  Dayyum.
  • Thought with love and deep sympathy about my dear one Tammy who is burying her father today and will have to deal with that hard on the heels of breaking up with a man she has been trying to partner up with for 3 years.  It was his idea and he won’t stop calling her.  I know he’s not a complete asshole but sheeshkabobbers, folks, take a hint. And her complete and total born bad asshole of an adoptive brother is going to be at the funeral, and I tried to bet with her that he would show up at mom’s drunk, raring to steal money and valuables, but she wouldn’t take the bet.  He’s already been banished but you know how sociopaths press once they perceive an advantage.  Tammy and her mother took the high road and at least let the brother know his dad was gone.

frabjous news

I have simply spectacular good news but I can’t say anything about it until I receive authorization.  It has to do with me and music.  I’ll leave it at that.

Board meeting was excellent and productive.  We had a board meeting/potluck and Jeff grazed on leftovers.  One of the joys of Unitarianism is candle wax, and I got some on my gran’s linen tablecloth but sing HA I have already ironed the wax out and I’ve run the tablecloth through the laundry.  So no harm done.  We had to make some hard choices, but Debra is an awesome minister and she is completely unFaZed by organizational change, is a great communicator and gosh darn a nice person.  She told her partner recently that she’s falling in love with Beacon.  I dearly love Rev Katie and really enjoy her posts (and her hubby’s) on facebook (the only way I keep track of her as there is meshugas about a retired minister poking head back in to a church for a couple of years) but she is a reserved individual and Debra is a gregarious individual and it’s obviously playing out in an interesting way in congregational life.

I’m seeing Katie for lunch today – her treat, yippee.

TAMMY IS COMING THIS MONTH.  So looking forward to seeing her and her mum, whom I usually see at the festive season.

Sue is playing Santa Claus in a play which I am going to go see.  She says playing Santa Claus is hot and hard, which kinda makes it sound pornographic now I write it out like that.

I got a completely unprintable and exceedingly welcome compliment from somebody recently, to the point that I must now quote Mark Twain: “I can live two months on a good compliment”.  I may have to stretch it out even farther than that.

I have a very obnoxious complaint to make about somebody and I am not going to publicly state it.  I want a medal or something.

I think Jeff is thrilled we had company; there’s whipped cream in the fridge and the kitchen table is now clear.  Oops, just put laundry on it.  O well, it was nice while it lasted.

This afternoon after my Katietime I will do something productive, just haven’t figured out which of my piles of shit I should attempt to render into something useful first.

I love Lockout.  Guy Pearce is A GREAT SMARTASS. Man after my own heart.  Here’s a quote from him: [2007, on his music] “I don’t want to make music to get into the pop charts and make a career out of it. I just want to play music with other people. Sometimes I record it. I think there is a value in recording it in the same way that you might write a diary. Writing a diary does not mean that you want to publish it. If this is my diary, I’m not sure that I want it to be read. And anyway, I think there is an automatic disdain for somebody who is too ambitious. People think as an actor you are gifted and don’t have any troubles in life. You are lucky to be doing this thing where all you have to do is go around telling lies and you get to kiss beautiful women. So how dare you want to be able to do this other thing. I am not interested in releasing music to a skeptical audience.”

I mourn the passing of Dave Brubeck, and light a candle also for the victims of the Montréal Massacre

La dia de los muertos

Celebration of the ritual goes back to prehistory in Mexico.  Today November 1st is the day of the innocents (children who died) and November 2nd the day of the dead; November 1st is a national holiday.

Today I mourn for a number of people.  Granny and Grandma; Grandad and Unca Dave; Cousin Michael and Cousin Deirdre; John and Kaitlin.  I mourn for lives cut short and the grief that spills over into the lives of those who miss them.

 

 

Visits.

Visited with Sue this morning to help her download from her daddy’s funeral. He was 102.  Meshuggas about the inheritance; waiting is.

LOVELY visit with Mike last night (funnily enough I’d been kvetching to Paul, with whom I was practicing yesterday, about how MIKE WUZ NOT RETURNING MY CALLS WAHWAH) and he called around 8 and I kinda forst him to let me come over.  I brought Otto and sang Theo’s Theme and John Scalzi’s Blog and Compost and Grateful and It’s Just So Nice When Someone knows your Name, and Lemming’s Twofer, and the first verse of Wanted to Believe, and Mike sang the drop D version of Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue and another song, I can’t remember which.  We talked about various things, including how trying work is for him right now, and how the insomnia really doesn’t help. BUT HE FOUND THE TAYLOR.  His parlour guitar was lost in the move but he found it again, and so me happy.  I was VERY BAD and drank two beers, which made me so drunk I collapsed on the sofa and slept from 10:30 til 8:30 the next morning.  Two beers.  I always was a lightweight, but this was ludicrous.  Also worked on Rozo for a while, her shoulders were a reticulation of weenie little knots.  While I was there Mike called Brian and I got to talk to him for a while.  There is nothing like the sound of a friend’s voice, yanno?

This morning I came home and promptly started brekkie for Jeff, being melon and bacon and pamcakes, and then Sue called and I went off and had a second breakfast of more coffee.  Also, getting checks signed so I can pay some churchy bills. Then I wandered into a sign shop and ORDERED the John Caspell Memorial Pinball Parlour sign for reelz this time, and then my other errands got shunted aside as I had to trot home due to the coffee.

Now I am looking up the language of flowers on the internet for a bouquet I’m buying for the minister tomorrow and as soon as I change my clothes – ew, slept in my clothes, what am I, frosh at some scummy college??? – I’ll be off to buy a floral bouquet, pick up some more spray paint, and buy some eggs and butter to get going on some biscotti.  Roast chicken for dinner tonight.  MMMMM chicken.

I cooked a pork roast the other night with basil and lemon thyme from Suzanne’s deck garden.  It was nommy too, although Jeff owned that it was a little overcooked.  We did agree that pork roast should be roasted, it doesn’t cook right in the crock pot.

Paul and Keith are off to Seattle for the long weekend.  Katie is doing cat care this time; I should call her.  The only reason I know she’s alive is from her facebook comments.

Miss Margot has been extra barfy.  I need to brush her very very thoroughly and give her a lot of kitty malt.

SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SINGING NEW SONG FOR MINISTER.  he he.

RIP Herbert Lom

Died in bed at 95 in London.  May his memory be blessed with laughter and tears.

Stupid bill re recriminalizing abortion did not pass; the Minister responsible for the Status of Women should be escorted from the Commons in the electoral equivalent of chains.

Although the title and the illo are THOUGHTLESSLY hyperbolic, this is a good article about privilege. 2020 says Hugo Schwyzer turned out to be rillllly problematic, but I’m leaving this here as evidence of progress, and it’s amazing given the drubbing he took that this writing is still available

I have a very heavy day of appointments and church related work in front of me.

VCon starts, I’m not going.  All I will do is spend stupid amounts of money on clothes.  Hilariously, RobW called me last night to complain about the Vcon website; this does not bode well for how good the con will be.

Paul and Katie and I had a lovely walk in Deer Lake Park on Wednesday; we saw a dozen frogs, a juvenile eagle, a Douglas squirrel and possibly a baby bunny, who did not linger to make our acquaintance.  I got some video of the frogs but it’s basically a streak heading for the rushes.  I also got a pic of the Douglas squirrel but not at very high resolution, even though the little guy POSED in TWO SEPARATE POSES for me.  We also picked up a hawk feather, which I stuck in Margot’s fur when I got home and resulted in a couple of charming pictures, one of which I posted to twitter. 2020 says that was a flicker feather, not a hawk feather, no kidding.

I’m going to ask Jeff to help me figure out how to post pics directly to my blog through WordPress, although possibly not today.

After many months of being okay, my temperature regulation at night has gone off the rails.  I have acceptably ordinary physiological reasons for this but waking up poaching in my own bed a couple of times a night is harshing my mellow.  This too shall pass.

Yet another sports figure is being accused of sexual and physical abuse of youngsters in his care.  The way it’s being reported in the press is quite bizarre.  I guess we’ll let the courts sort it out; the reporter had more than half a dozen affidavits detailing misconduct in hand before writing the story, and while we all know that there are false abuse allegations, it’s not the way to bet, especially since we’re talking about a Catholic residential school for falsely imprisoned young aboriginals.

Raincoaster just tweeted that an alarm went off close to her and a stern voice is speaking in German.  Helluva way to get woken up, unless of course she was already awake.  She and I trade tweets in the middle of the night fairly often.

What’s up on facebook:  18 billion reposts from reddit, mine among them, and people commenting about the things that make them upset – relatives dying abruptly in car accidents leaving young children, angst about how this is the first time her only child is out with the non-custodial parent on a football game day, the fact that 27 million people globally live in slavery, and me attempting to get a copy of (this poster). 2020 says it was something cool by Matt Danger but now it’s gone.

Rantoglot

The new Kside word is for the weird almost English raving that shows up in youtube comments.  Also known as trollspeak.

Sue’s dad died.  He was over 100 years old, and she was planning on visiting him this week.  Now her mum and dad are dead, her mum passed last year.  She’s not the only person I know who is over seventy and lost a parent.  mOm I am glad you made that scarf for her.

I09 talks about epistolary novels today.  In SF format.

I am actually working on an epistolary sf novel.  In my family there is a cousins’ letter that rotates between numerous people over the course of about three years. The cousin will write whatever he or she wants to and then send it along.  Once it gets back to the origination point it is collected by mOm and the next iteration fires up.
The novel follows the cousins as they a) attempt social work with a trispecies gang in an orbital (blocked out) b) sell tickets to the only real tourist attraction (but it’s a doozy) on a fleabag planet (in process) c) found a Unitarian church on a wholly-owned planet and accidentally become the lightning rod for a debate on interspecies marriage (this letter is written) d) join the Forces to see the galaxy, kill monsters and blow shit up real good (this is in process) e) have boring lives on Earth (anything but, climate change and volcanoes)  f) get old and have themselves uploaded so they can continue to work on family history projects they didn’t want to die in the middle of, thus becoming the de facto all purpose family elder.

 

Quote of the day

Social media has turned modern friendship into a pixellated bar that serves kittens, soundbites and RPGs. – A Sloman.

Tony Scott, noted director and producer and brother of Ridley, committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.  He left a note. He was 68.  Depression’s a hell of an illness, and my condolences to his family, friends and associates. …added later – he had inoperalbe brain cancer.

What the hell I don’t even.  Binge drinkers are happier.  Science sez.  I only post this because this was the first weekend I really really really wanted to buy beer, but I managed not to.  Most of the time I don’t even think about alcohol but I came piteously close to purchasing same when I came out of the Heather Dale concert, and no jokes about how she drove me to drink.

Should get a call back about work today.  Guess I need to run some laundry.

Saw the Helen Mirren version of the Tempest.  Loved it.

Margot breathes at 14 -16 breaths per minute, which is apparently low.  She’s very noisy right now… I’m assuming she’s asleep.  Eddie did a phantom barf yesterday morning.  Jeff and I both heard him and we looked everywhere and couldn’t find it.  Speaking of Eddie, he’s scratching at the door, so I’ll get up and let him in.

I find this article really disturbing and can’t articulate why.

 

Sundry and various

I had cold chard salad with two pieces of cut up bacon for brekky this morning, plus coffee.  I am currently in love with chard, it makes my digestion very happy.  Then I read that it’s terrible for my body because it is full of oxalates.  Oh well, guess I’ll drink a gallon of water today to keep my kidneys happy.

Sad face for the Philippines; it’s very wet there and 22 people have already drowned in weather related incidents.  Sad face for New Zealand; one of the bigger volcanoes is about to let go.  Sad face the Canadian Olympic Women’s Soccer Team, the ref was an oversized Foley catheter style moron of an incompetence rarely seen EVEN IN INTERNATIONAL SOCCER, which is ludicrously bad.  Sad face for the kitties.  We had to lock the cat door again, so they may egress but not ingress.

Happy face for Dog Swims With Dolphins.

Just left a message for Chipper to find out how her weekend went – it was supposed to be the best revenue this summer and I am hoping it wasn’t a disaster.

I can hear flickers outside my window.

Marvin Hamlisch has passed away.

Hope everyone has a lovely day.

 

 

 

Happy 4th of July to my American readers

All three of you!

Kaitlin’s memorial service was yesterday, 300 attended.  Keith said it was all very appropriate.  I am very glad he was there; he made a lot of personal and financial sacrifices to be there and to do the right thing, and was loving and supportive to the folks who needed it.

Today I go collect my repaired kicks, go to Dressew, and wander around downtown in the sunshine getting some exercise which I desperately need.

I can hear Jeff working out downstairs; he’s a lot happier since he started exercising again.

Keith is going to come over before work today, but I’ll probably be gone.

I am going nuts trying to notate the theme for my imaginary TV show (not that one, the other one).  It’s very annoying. I think my problem is that I don’t understand what key to notate it in as my usual cheat for determining it doesn’t seem to be working.

Off I go now…