Category: Disaster

More items off the list

I am continuing to feel much more chipper.  It wasn’t a super productive day, but I walked (really walked, not ambled) and got some social contact and the sun was a benison.

There’s a new game, Semantle. IT’S INSANE MAKING. Wordle is fun and brief and lively, but Semantle makes you understand you don’t understand English at all, and given that it is, “My bag, my thing, my evil specialty” it’s … Okay, here’s the link. Just don’t ever play the game, you will die of frustration. (suitably vexed voice, with shaken fists: CURSE YOU VIXY) —LATER LATER MUCH LATER I’m up to 3hundred and freakn 80 guesses on Semantle, I feel like me brains are leaking out my ears.

It’s supposed to be ass freezing cold tonight until Wednesday. I am not worried; I’ll have the warmth of VISITORS tonight yes that’s right Mike was supposed to come over for ‘za last night but he drank too much with sifu (sifu is master in Chinese martial arts)  and couldn’t manage it, so he’s coming over tonight.

Buster heals and complains about the door being locked.

Yesterday I ordered the bamboo charcoal smell-killers that have worked so well for us. (really helps with the damp smell in the downstairs john).  Why? As mentioned Mike got a right hand drive Delica (which I rode in for the first time when we went saunaing and dining with Jarmo and Susanna) and it’s unfortunately a Japanese vehicle which means it’s been smoked in. So I’ll give him three of those bamboo charcoal smell killers and that will keep the noxious effluvium down to a dull roar, hopefully. I ordered it from Rona and with the exchange and free shipping it’s about the same as if I ordered it from the US, so that worked.

Absolutely delightful walk in the park at Fraser Foreshore yesterday with Paul. I fed the chickadees from my hands for about ten minutes with Paul watching, most entertained; with what delicacy and firmness did they grasp my index finger as they rested a flashing moment to grab a sunflower seed. The sun was just blasting down and there was no wind, so we sat in the sun and basked for many long minutes in companionable silence. Everyone on the trail (except for those two fuckwits on mountain bikes who came through with a gopro and attitude and 90 dB of shitty club music at about 25 kph without a bell or shout) was practically giddy with joy at the warmth and sun, and even though it was the Sunday of a long holiday weekend (it’s ‘Family Day’ in BC) the trails weren’t too crowded. I masked, Paul didn’t.

Then we went back to KC Junction and I ate Keith’s leftovers, a superlative yellow lentil stew with heaps of veg and subtle, lightly heated spicing, and then we ate my choc rice pudding for dessert. (Keith enjoyed it with thanks.) Paul was much more interested in the borscht I brought (he really likes my borscht) and I realized why when I saw the sour cream container. But I can’t eat borscht two days running because anything with oxalic acid makes my kidney output scratchy so I ate lentils instead.

Keith’s loving his job… just loving it. He says it’s only a week and you can’t know for sure, and the pay is not great, but it’s work he can stand and he’s visibly in much better shape than even two weeks ago.

Katie was out with Ryker & Alex and some friends so I didn’t get to see her.

The Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians are ‘reacquiring nuclear weapons’ and I’m like wow, we can’t trust a fucking word you say now, can we.

Worst showing ever in terms of ratings for the Olympics. Why NBC keeps this boat anchor tied to its ass I have no idea. What if they held an Olympics and nobody wanted to broadcast it? That would be choice.

Twitter antifa (canuck division) is rooting around in rural Ontario to find the names of the people who are hiding the convoyancers. So far some son of a sea cook in Embrun who’s the best friend of the mayor there is one of them. LOL they can hide but six months from now the knock will come. Remember they’re still knocking on doors from the Jan 6 rebellion in the US, it’s not like the cops work faster in Canuckistan.

I’m an abolitionist; if they could all be referred to restorative justice and be filling planters and picking up garbage in Centretown for the next two years instead of paying fines and going to jail I WOULD BE HAPPY. Especially if they had to wear a PLEASE DON’T FEED THE HONKIES sign around their necks while they were doing it, but that’s not nice, I know it.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but if they reboot Futurama without the voice acting talents of John DiMaggio I won’t watch it, even out of whatever is left of my curiosity.

Side note to mOm. The Metformin did it again this morning, fortunately I know how this goes and I had plans in place and managed to deal with it all promptly. What a life.

 

 

 

 

I have guitar strings!

So I picked up mando and guitar strings yesterday, which is good, because when I play “Gelis and Niccolo” I am pulverizing my guitar strings, which start to blister and unwind and go dead. So I shall take the guitar tool which the esteemed M. Mike provided and change my guitar strings with speed and ease. Also Otto’s strings because he sounds deader than Beethoven right now.

I actually picked up the ukelele yesterday and played for a while!

Buster is PISSSSSED that he can’t go outside. Then he cries like a sad kitten, it’s heartwrenching. But he’s still covered in scabs from his last failure to carry the field, and he cost Daddy somewhat with this last ear ding, so we are being brutal and keeping him in. We may break out the catnip just to keep him vivified.

After some very disturbed sleep and a lot of napping I seem to be back diurnal, sleeping until four in the morning YAY. I don’t like it when Jeff and I are out of sync, even when he’s working it’s like we don’t talk for a day and all of a sudden we’re eating supper in front of Elementary….

The kitchen is a nightmare but I can’t find the energy to clean it. (actually I just emptied the dishwasher and threw out the cruft, but that doesn’t make a visible dent lol)

Fed Paul and Jeff pulled pork sammies on brown buns, smashed taters and green beans for lunch yesterday. Paul and I went for a brief walk and toured around and got veggies and went to the guitar shop. I drove.  Although I have not spoken to Keith, Paul reports that he’s loving his new job. This heartens me; his recent previous brief foray into employment left him quite disgusted with the state of employers, like that is hard these days.

Arrests have commenced in Ottawa; when the aptly named Lich was arrested and went on social media to complain about how the jig was up I really enjoyed that.

Duly noted here is the dubious morality under which I may be said to enjoy the arrest of the people who’ve been making Centertown unliveable for three fucking weeks (as of today), when I have repeatedly (in this venue and others) stated that I am an abolitionist, and wish for the amelioration and end of incarcerated punishment, except where no acceptable community alternative is possible. I am still the child my parents raised and I enforce the carceral state in my life and my mind and with my words and actions, but I am trying very hard to turn from such darkness.

I would like to state here that at all times during the last 3 weeks the cops in Ottawa have had ALL THE LEGAL DEVICES THEY NEED TO CLEAR THE STREETS and they didn’t because AND YOU KNOW WHY, DON’T YOU, MR. JONES. Anyway there’s something called a riot act. The activities downtown WERE and ARE a riot. FUCK THE GUY ON REDDIT WHO SAID IT DIDN’T MEET THE CRITERIA, HE WAS A FOOL AND WRONG ANYWAY.

Not only is this political cartoon one of the weirdest and creepiest I’ve ever seen, it would get me pushed out a window in Russia and disappeared for three months of reeducation and weight loss in China, possibly longer than that. @listen_to_me is the source on twitter; it’s a cyrillic alphabet account I accessed through following @alexey__kovalev, an absolutely hilarious giant-testicled Russian journalist who keeps running afoul of Putin and his slavering minions.

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Nusantara

It’s a word that means ‘archipelago’ in Malay, a language spoken in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, Singapore, parts of Thailand and the southern Philippines by a quarter of a billion people, give or take, with lots of regional variations.

It’s also the name of the new capital of Indonesia.

Jakarta, which was the capital, a city with 11-12 million people, 1 million of whom live in the kind of shithole poverty that you can only achieve in the tropics (more diseases, I’m saying), is sinking. Not like New Orleans. Like Jakarta. Thanks to corruption and non-regulation, it’s not illegal to pump out groundwater, and… sag. Subsidence runs 1.5 to 11 cm PER YEAR depending on where you are. The subsidence is also a consequence of the complete fucking failure of the colonizer Dutch (who actually know how to handle low lying areas menaced by the sea, but obviously not on colonized land har har) to do anything about building a capital in a swamp.

Jakarta is also close to Krakatau, in an earthquake zone. Just a reminder that it was built where you can drown in ash or get crushed by your house, on a bad day. Mt Merapi is the most active volcano, and it’s further away, but hey, volcanoes are a fact there, so also to get away from the worst threat of an ashfall, they’re moving the capital from Jakarta on the island of Java to Nusantara on the island of Borneo.

Just think about the amount of graft and corruption this will bring up. The Pres says it’ll all be done and dusted by 2025 but even his press secretary doesn’t believe that.

It’s in a relatively unspoiled part of the island so they’ll have to cut down ALLLL the trees. And build highways to connect it to the closest port (Balikpapan, a pleasant coastal city)  and an airport and ALLLL those amenities.

I predict an economic, population and environmental disaster with almost all aspects of the move, but hey, what are you supposed to do when you’re living with bad history and worse decisions since?

Also, the pres of Indonesia picked a name for the new capital that betrays his total lack of imagination. Would you like to live in a relocated capital called ‘archipelago’? Calling it Widodo’s Folly or Jokowi’s (Pres’s nickname) Folly works better for me thanks.

In other disastrous news from the Pacific, Tonga is buried under ash, there’s no internet, one of the tsunami waves was 15 m high and an international relief effort is being gently restrained by the locals because hey, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and they want full control over and the ability to quarantine incoming goods. Eighty thousand people are thought to have been affected by the blast from the no longer visible volcano, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai; there may be more coming. The wind’s blowing westerly right now.

The only officially sanctioned (by Tonga) relief effort fundraiser is here.

The direct death toll is apparently tiny, but the knock on effects of hunger, thirst, disease and a poorly coordinated rescue/response remain to be seen.

at wit’s end

My doc was a no show for my last appointment, when I was supposed to get my prescriptions updated, and I got victim blamed after half an hour of trying to get through to the clinic for not realizing she doesn’t do phone renewals. I knew that, I just COULDN’T GET A FUCKING APPT and now I can’t for FOUR WEEKS.

I’m about to run out of meds that, if I don’t take them, will cause me to be at risk of stroke or brain bleed so FUCK MY BLOOD PRESSURE DURING A PANDEMIC, RIGHT?

ANYWAY if I die, please ask Jeff who my doctor was so you can send her my regards posthumously. I’m so angry and scared I’m losing it, hard.

AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO GIVE BLOOD TODAY and I can’t because I was reluctantly given an emergency appointment that my doc may very well bail on that falls at the same time. I’M TRYING TO BE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE HERE and fuck my life, seriously.

 

BISCOTTI HAS OCCURRED

Today Jeff will help me move it to where it’s supposed to be, Peggy’s place, not my greedikum gullet.

Off to the dentist today to see if I need repairs for a molar chip.

Still puttering along on the fanfics. Submitted a poem for publication yesterday. I doubt it will be published but I had a lot of fun writing it and there’s some vivid language in it.

Omicron doubles in 2 days. Apparently the highest testing area in Canada is Vancouver Island right now and Keith’s off to the grands shortly to visit them so I hope he stays in his car for the ferry ride. He is currently employed, and I couldn’t be more pleased, although he sounded bagged the last time we spoke.

Christmas gathering this year will be a) takeout b) at Katie’s c) after Christmas Day and d) just immediate family.

Earthquake this morning off the coast, a leedle one. I woke up IMMEDIATELY after the posted time so it’s possible that’s what woke me, but I doubt it; Jeff knows I slept through when a raccoon dragged the plastic container full of cat food to the stairs and launched it gravity-wards so I probably did sleep throught it.

The only hospital left in Afghanistan that can treat covid just ran out of oxygen.

 

 

whoo hoo

First ever Monster Jam Truck front flip
byu/cenabollywood insports

I want to punch every manager that told those amazon workers in KY to be at work during a known tornado.

RIP Mel Lastman, I’ll never forget him having what looked like drug ramped hysterics about a snowfall in Toronto. We were out of Toronto by then thank goodness.

Drone footage of what’s left of Mayfield KY

the Barrowtown pumping station is about to fail

it’s apparently the second biggest pumping station in North America

and if it fails

surrounded as it is with 150 volunteers packing sandbags as fast as they can

Sumas Lake will reappear after 97 years

50% of the eggs and dairy for BC will be gone, possibly never to return

and collectively we will have lost one of the most critical pieces of farmland in BC history

 

you need a million calories a year and 5000 litres of water

LATER

anyway the mayor and chief of police in Abby have reported that the pumping station is holding but it was a near thing

 

what’s closed

  • Hwy 1 between Hope and Lytton
  • Hwy 1 between Lytton and Spences Bridge
  • Hwy 3 between Hope and Manning Park
  • Hwy 3 between Princeton and Keremeos
  • Hwy 3 near Fernie
  • Hwy 5 between Hope and Merritt
  • Hwy 7 on both sides of Agassiz
  • Hwy 7 between Maple Ridge and Mission
  • Hwy 11 between Mission and Abbotsford
  • Hwy 93 between Radium Hot Springs and the BC-Alberta border
  • Hwy 99 between Pemberton and Lillooet

from Kelownanow News

walking at Lougheed

We went to Lougheed Mall for a mall walk, and I bought Purdy’s chocolates (Sweet Georgia Browns) and choc croissants for Jeff (okay I had one). Paul finally collected the bouncy exercise ball for Katie.

The rain, which has been unceasing, has caused landslides and flooding all around Abbotsford and Agassiz. Power’s out in loads of places and there’s a evac centre that’s been opened. Hundreds of cars are stuck on the highway between landslide points.

For the middle aged woman sitting on the roof of her car waiting for rescue just this minute, I’m thinking of you and hope you make it.

a few odds n sods

Yay! went for a walk in the Byrne creek parks yesterday with Mike.

Boo! nearly passed out from the effort of staggering up the hill back to his place.

Nets out as: No benches or places to sit, no walkies; do not leave house without cane. (I can’t FIND the one Mike bought me and I bought a new folding one.) I told Mike that if I had known I was going to be so out of gas I would not have suggested the walk, but we GOT OUT OF HIS APARTMENT.

Yay! got to watch the weird weather from the Aerie!

Boo! the fucking elevator was crapped out when I left yesterday!

Yay! I was well enough to walk down 13 flights of stairs!

BOOO my legs shook for half a fucking hour after I got home.

YAY! JEFF filled in the edges of the jigsaw puzzle I got last week while I was away (He needed things to do while BC Hydro turned the power off.) The rest of the puzzle will be even harder now but at least I have the edge.

YAY! I have ART for struggling Great Grandparents who have insufficiency of AMONG US FAN ART DRAWN BY A SEVEN YEAR OLD in their lives and on their fridge.

 

I have been looking for a substitute for Red Deer Lodge in my life and I thought I might have located one. It’s about 3 hours with the ferry to get there. Then I realized they only book through Airbnb and I said fuck it, I want to stay somewhere that isn’t ruining rental housing and messing up the economy.

I have learned that early in the new year there will be a proper bus from the Carvolth Station to Chilliwack, which means I don’t need to drive to the ‘wack to see Jarmo and Susana!

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I think I’ve posted this meme about reincarnation before…. in a previous life perhaps??