Category: Exceeding strange

I can haz new.used guitar

His name is Smoky, and he’s an electric-acoustic cutaway with a built in tuner, made by Seagull.  I put desperately needed new strings on him, and he sounds lovely.  Got him for approximately half price, and there’s not a mark or fretwear on him.

Also, I solved an extremely irksome problem in Finale Songwriter this morning, so now I can continue working on writing tunes down.

The office move went well.  The only thing that got lost from my desk was a trash can and one of my stalwart coworkers bagged me one.  I thought I had a shitty deal in terms of location, but the proof of the seating plan is in the actual results, and in this case I declare myself pleased, and I’m glad they put the cacklers close together, because G. and I both cackle when we laugh.  Also, who the hell’s idea was it to leave our fax number on the floor above?  GawDAMM.

Jerome dropped by yesterday, and how awesome to see him!  Shannon’s expecting again, and of course my family can never be too big.  He was describing how Braden plays with the harmonica I gave him, which of course nearly made my heart ‘splode with joy.

Time to go put some more laundry away.  I can hear Jeff blasting shit in Skyrim.  Herewith Dara Korra’ti’s lovely song, Fuck You Skyrim.

 

 

 

Wrasslin’ with Homiletics.

I will have been kicking homiletics ASS!  BOOYAH!  Boy Howdy!  Awright!  Right on! Good one! I’ll say!  Yeehaw! Yoicks! Tally-Ho!  Andale! By Your Command! Hip Hip Hooray! Good Show! Commendable!  Most Impressive! Indeed! Life, Health, Strength!  Blessed Be! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

Oh, yeah, I haven’t finished it yet.  Children’s story is done and thumbs up from the irrepressable Sally and her happy making aesthetics.

Tarot poem

She sits with her knees apart, the II of Swords
her eyes bound, her mouth seeming both stern and sad
She is the querent; she is myself caught in the act
being torn between equal things
swords crossed on her shoulder, crescent moon in a mocking pose
the beach and rocks poking through a tranquil sea behind her.
She is of two hemispheres and thus two minds
Her garment may be white, and may be gray

and I lay upon her breast the V of Wands
contention, disagreement, a donnybrook of all against all
with no driver but youthful exuberance, perhaps stupidity

Above, the VII of Swords
the very picture of a man making a retreat he finds most opportune
He abandons a campfire and the tents of his friends
what is he, why flee, and what is there of him in me?

Comes Temperance, to pour consciousness into unconsciousness and back again
for Temperance is what must be lived to make the work happen
that work of being awake, truly aware.

The Knight of Cups offers once again allegiance, wise counsel.

And the Tower blasts me back into the present
The shock, the bitter fall, the almost-had-it.

The II of Pentacles strolls up, juggling on a clear day
full of high seas adventure and what looks like
a child’s rendering of a tsunami.

And seated in honour next his knight, the King of Cups appears
and puts his bold chin in my view, saying
listen to Temperance! Govern yourself or be governed
by the debt you need not pay to regret.

The Knight of Pentacles, so solemn, his horse so placid
bits of greenery stuck in his helm and his horse’s harness –
offers me what?  Money? Nothing but an expanse of yellow sky.

The Magician, to point out the obvious
Infinity, the secret names of things inherent

in their common atoms
the binding up of secrets and knowledge

in the faintly whispered text.

 

author’s note

I did a reading without asking a question, and look what happened.

Mark Twain quote from a review

“What a little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words!” he offers at one point. “His real life is in his head and is known to none but himself…” If this internal monologue were to be written, he suggests, prefiguring Leopold Bloom by 20 years, “every day would make a book of eighty thousand words, three hundred and sixty-five books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of a man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written…”

 

You should all be very very VERY glad that I don’t spew it all out every day.  I think, despite my father’s glum misgivings on the subject, I’m the very soul of discretion … at least sometimes.

Wackdoodle Wednesday

Oh my.  There be lots of crazy for you this am.

This is a very special kind of Canadian crazy.

Ya gotta be effin kidding me.  Lady Liberty is a minion of Satan?

Star Wars Crafts?  Ok,

Put your hand over your crotch – gently.  Now open this link.

A life of infrequent contact with the police is not likely in the cards for this gent.

Fox – where mammon collides with art.

 

Tuesday’s terrific tracks through the intarwebs

The thing about higher chordates is how we can look similar.

Jesus!  Potentially toxic extremophile fungus in the dishwasher?

Playing with our food.

Not finding any food at all.

I keep finding reasons to want to go to Chicago.

I didn’t much like the article, but I enjoyed the illustration of proto writing.

Jesus! That’s a big statue.

In Victoria mit kinder

The weather, thank goodness, is absolutely glorious; we had a lovely tour down the highway with the eponymous Sheryl Crow album blasting, and then the sumbitch quit…. I really like that album and it’s annoying to think I’ll have to replace it.

The kids and the folks are having a lovely discussion in the sun room so I thought I’d slip away and catch up on my blog.

Yup, still the same laundry list of shiz I can’t talk about.

So I’ll talk about something else.

With my own eyes I’ve seen a little naked girl, slowly walking along a path, holding a frog on the palm of each hand.  “Look, mummy, they like me!”

With my own eyes I’ve seen a great blue heron fly over the car I was driving, and I watched it poop, and cover my windscreen with runny pale blue shit.

With my own eyes I have seen the classic UFO lenticular cloud.  mOm can confirm; she was in the car with me.  I saw it looking west from the Hamilton escarpment.

With my own eyes I’ve seen what it looks like to do the approach into Montréal, through thin scattered, at night, in an Airbus.  (Wild, lemme tell you.)

With my own eyes and ears, I have seen a man play arpeggios on a flute to a common loon, which answered him.

With my own eyes, I have seen Keith’s name written into the ice up at Red Deer Lodge.  (repeated freeze thaw cycles at the base of reeds cause the ‘writing’ effect’).

With my own eyes, I have seen a cat fall into a full bathtub and not get wet.

I’ve seen a lot of wonderful things in my time.

I’ll be the only one who thinks it’s funny

Most of you reading this don’t have facebook, which is where I hang out much more than this blog these days.  Paul just put up that he’s In a Relationship with Janice Murray, and it’s complicated.  Oh yes.  My poor response to his relationship with Janice Murray is why our 24 year relationship went into the ground.  I’m not blaming Paul, he did what he had to at the time to maintain his autonomy, and that’s neither funny nor worth mocking.

No, what’s funny is that I immediately posted lol as a one word response, and that the minister immediately posted that she wanted to meet her.  THAT is going to make me chuckle every time I think of it for the next few weeks.  Somehow I can’t see Janice going for that, (I haven’t spoken civilly to Janice in four years or so…. and her marriage to Alan has also tracked its way into an oubliette …. point being I can’t know her mind, but I just can’t see her sitting still for meeting Paul’s minister no matter how I construe it) and she probably won’t have to as the minister is outtahere after the last weekend in June.  Then Rev Katie has to go through a year long period of non communication with her former parishioners, as per the unbelievably arcane and inhumane (but grounded in harsh experience) rules for ministry in the CUC/UUA.  There is even one more reason to find this post of Paul’s amusing, but since it involves conversations that are DNQ, I’ll have to keep my “It Gets Better” speech to myself.

Alash, it ish too bad.  Deer eats bird.

My name is Miss Margot

In which I candidly admit I have nothing else less controversial to talk about.

My name is Miss Margot.  I am a tortoiseshall Persian of champion stock.  I was delivered by Caesarean section on December 13, 2009 and named after the veterinary tech who assisted in my delivery.  My face is very flat but I do have a tiny little nose.  I actually have a tiny little everything, except attitude and fur.  I weigh about 6 pounds and have very short legs, so Uncle Eddie makes me look very tiny.

The first time Eddie saw me he barfed.  He really doesn’t have much use for me, but I love him, and love licking his butt while he’s eating.  He will growl and eat at the same time which is very cute.  He gets the top tier of the cat tree, because he is old and wise and crabby. Sometimes I follow him around outside but mostly I stay indoors.  Allegra wasn’t supposed to allow me to be an outdoor cat but she thinks me going outside will help prevent me from getting fat.  I also like looking at birds.  Someday I will catch one.  I don’t think I will ever catch a rat, although I like the ones Eddie brings in.

I love paper and plastic bags…. the way they sound, and how they feel.  I especially like how plastic bags crinkle.

I like food a lot.  I eat the same thing for breakfast and supper, and sniff other things but don’t eat them.  I hate car rides and people sneezing.  I like Jeff because he feeds me and has many interesting things on his desk which sound great when I push them off onto the floor.  Catnip is okay I guess.

I have a number of cat toys, and it is my sad duty to report that Allegra does not play with me enough.  I prefer toys with feathers on them.

I like watching people do things.  It seems insane to me that anybody would expend any effort to do anything but eat sleep stare and groom, but humans are, candidly, morons.

I am not a lap cat.  I like being near, but not on people.  I’m not a big fan of being picked up, either.

I enjoy live music.  Eddie hates it and runs away, but I’ll sit close by, grooving along quietly.

I usually make an entrance if Jeff and Allegra have people over.  I come around and sniff everybody once to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

I like sitting on the back deck watching the world go by.  In the summer I like crossing the alleyway to see what’s happening over there.  I also wait to hear the sound of people’s cars coming and greet them at the door they come through because that’s polite.  Also, treats.  You never know what’s in that bag.

I extremely very much hate baths, even though when I can’t get the dingleberries off it’s the only way to go.  I get giant economy sized dingleberries, but fortunately not very often.

I love malt extract even though it’s good for me and helps me get rid of all that hair.  Sometimes Eddie comes and shoves me out of the way when Allegra gives me some so he can get some too, and I think that’s rude.  But I just stare at him; he’s twice my size and grumpy.

I don’t mew very much, but I have hundreds of other vocalizations including snuffling and munching, slurping while cleaning myself, quacking like a duck when I’m annoyed or have just exercised, snoring when I sleep, and wailing softly while Allegra brushes me.  I hate being brushed.  Fortunately it’s over really fast.  I also hate having my claws trimmed and immediately sharpen them again on Jeff’s bed.  He tells me not to but I ignore him.  He calls me Muffers and picks me up and tells me my bum smells.

My favorite tv show is Stargate Universe. As soon as I hear the theme song I come watch it.  I especially love the blue flashes out the windows and the space battles.  I also like Nascar races and my head whips back and forth as the cars go by. Sometimes I watch other shows for as much as ten minutes at a time before I get bored.

I don’t like dogs.  The dog next door, Creamy, really wants to meet me but my dance card is full.

I hate it when the bathroom attendant isn’t on the ball. It’s better in the summer, I hardly ever pee indoors in the summer.  I like sitting under the deck and getting covered in weird guck and then making somebody else clean me up.  I am a little better at grooming myself when I was a kitten; back then I’d lick myself once, see the scale of the job and then give up.

I hate the blue rug in Jeff’s bathroom. I don’t know why, but it gives me the willies.  He thinks it’s because it feels weird under my feet.

I don’t mind having my eye gunk cleaned off as long as Allegra keeps it snappy.  I can breathe and smell better afterwards and my skin doesn’t get as irritated.  She can go through ten Qtips, both ends, cleaning me up.  I super extremely hate having my ears cleaned and make a noise like an air raid siren anytime she tries.  I don’t understand why she can’t be more like Jeff, who feeds me and pets me and doesn’t poke and prod and pull at me.

Anyway, that’s enough about me, I am bored now.  Please don’t respond in kind; I have no interest in anybody but me, and possibly Eddie and Jeff and Allegra.