Category: Family

lovely evening

We had two men out of six at the able, highest Dunnett ratio yet, lol. The Faux Bourgeois is a lovely restaurant, but quite loud. I had the soup oignon (divine) and escargots (not so, but still nice). I will have the beefsteak next time, Ingrid was almost overcome with happiness with hers; there were a lot of duck confits on the table too, and Simon had never had sweetbreads before. Jan had TWO desserts LOL. No alcohol for me but we killed three big bottles of San Pelligrino. Remembered to lard my tights with hand cream and so managed to kill the static.

I didn’t nap all day so I was tired. So tired I started getting migraine signs so I taxied hoping it would clear, it did. First guy drove like an idiot and cheated me, second guy was a total sweetheart with a delicate understanding of the needs of other motorists and how to increase and decrease speed without popping me through the fucking headrest….. Life’s like that. Seating was for 7:30, I got home at 10:30, absolutely shaking with tiredness… at which point I could not sleep. LOL

And I’ve miscalculated leaving dates, I’m actually leaving tomorrow morning. So I’m making dispositions for coverage thank you Jeff.

Love the world, hate its governments, be well everyone.

little squib of a post

Katie and Alex were here sleeping in the basement but they’re gone now. She’s got flu, picked it up from Rikes by the sound of things. She woke up and grabbed Alex on the way to pick up Ryker and she’s headed home to her own bed. Jeff and I are glad to have helped and are equally glad to get the basement back.

I’ve revised “Set of Steps” and once I’ve finished tinkering I’ll post it again.
Tink
Knit
K-Tin
Inkt
don’ worry that’s just a note to myself for later, four new characters just stepped up in a whole new world.

yesterday Eighth of its name

we didn’t eat until 1:45, but what a meal. Oven baked chicken with onion gravy, oven baked spud cubes and carrots and green beans, fresh prepared. After we watched ‘Currahee’ the first episode of Band of Brothers. Peggy showed up for 2 seconds to give Keith GGma’s knitted sweater back and fled to other errands.

Paul had an excellent time, – he had half a beer, free healthy food, social contact, and the only thing he cared about was Buster making an appearance, he misses his cats so much – but he also showed issues with his illness; as much as he could recount watching TV with the woman across the hall at home, the stairs here were hard on him, and he recounted a tale of being assaulted in the hallway at his residence by two care workers who told him he smelled bad and stripped off his tshirt right there in public. He says he called Ruth to complain and she blew him off and none of that actually sounds plausible. 

Keith was in very high spirits when he arrived but he was exhausted when he left. I know the feeling, but it was a super good visit generally. He was very happy I went to the efforts I did to clean the kitchen, and I did all the clean up afterwards after his half hearted offer to assist, mostly because I move a lot faster. I imagine it’s very annoying to Jeff, but I hate cleaning up at night, I’d far rather do it in the morning when I’m first up and energetic; in this case I attacked everything right away, like the oven sheets and the cast iron pan.

Mike called, and then showed up with equal but even more theatrical result; he brought my birthday present early – a chromebook. I’m currently setting it up, having charged it. I’ll have a computer with nothing personal on it TO TAKE TO THE STATES which is why he gave it to me early. I was blown away and loudly and repeatedly thanked him.

And I didn’t have Alex yesterday, he stayed home with his dad. So I didn’t have to run away in the middle of a conversation to be with him, and that was nice timing too.

disgusting thought (you have been warned)

I just passed wind of such malign pungency that Jeff begged for a new air supply and threw his mother’s ancient quilt over his head in a futile bid to maintain the desire to keep breathing. His distress was so great that I was obliged to turn the fan on, full blast, but the room is small and the stench recirculated with great speed. I then bid him adieu, glad that I had shared my bounty.

 

a trifle of luck

Jeff has won two Global Privilege Levels™ hockey tickets so I am thrilled he will be able to share this bounty with a friend and eschew the cheap seats. I basically told him I’d be happy to go if everyone else on his list was busy, but this is too good not to share with a hockey-loving friend.

I am feeling lucky meself. I got to talk about my grandchildren at lunch yesterday but I said, “Sorry, no pictures, I think it’s gauche, especially when you can look for grandson goo on my vanity site and fill your boots.” THE RELIEF ON THEIR FACES I am going to write a song IT WAS SO INSPIRING, three relentlessly childless-by-choice people not having to deal with interminable grandson pics LOLOLOL. And of course, I’ve known most of them for 20 years as acquaintances so I know to the eyebrow raise just how little they want to see those pics. I’m so glad I lost my phone, at least for now. It was also a good day to be a well-masking autistic, believe me, because if I’d brought my 11 year old inner self to the party I would have had so much more to say, to less happiness among the attendees, equal parts LOL.

Because I have a minor child in my on-loan car 8-10 times a week, as a responsible adult I should have what the current technology supports in terms of safety, to wit a phone. Who wants to give me a phone and I’ll get going on that. Yes I know I said something different in the last paragraph~ what are you, the thought police. Tsk, tsk. I want a granny phone, only as much access as it takes to text and phone.

Bsky continues to be fair winds and strong engagement. People are much more accepting of my content and I wander around ‘liking’ things and occasionally commenting but I have zero urge to land on people’s necks and scold the living crap out of them like I had for the entire last six months I was on Xitter.

They need money, and if they provide a couple more robust in-app services (thread unroll, good CHRIST, mebbe DMs tho I’m onthefence about that, better list curation, GIF SUPPORT SEE EARLIER BLASPHOOMERY, block lists of words) I’m all for a $5 per month subscription. It’s that much in entertainment, news, self-expression and validation, and that indefinable sense of community that makes you adopt a chaos bi expat Scot in Anchorage because he’s ABSO HILARIOUS and then stop following him because you really are not that interested in him emitting an extended oops chronicle of the married women he’s boned because he was too drunk to ask for life stats first. Farewell, you know who you are, and please don’t drink yourself to death even if you think it’s mandated.

LOOONG discussion about earthquakes in the vancouver subreddit. Got some good ideas, shared some. My song about Vancouver mods will soon be a memory. Maybe I’ll go back and delete it har har. (No. I mean it will disappear when the site goes down later this year, although I’ll have a backup.)

various, the 21st post of that name

Leo and Linda successfully and with only a slight delay safely ensconced in Victoria with les unités parentales.

Alex thanked me SO SWEETLY for letting him dodge school yesterday. “Thank you for letting me stay with you yesterday” was how he put it and honestly how can you resist such a child, I can deny him nothing. Still think it was a stroke of genius on my part to take him to his mom’s work. He ran his hand over the marble samples ($5 a pop) and marvelled at the arrays of colour. IN PERSON they are well nigh overwhelming in their scale and beauty. Verde Fantastico and Maui were my faves. abso gorgeous.

In Indigenous news, I want to slap and verbally abuse the racist dunderheads who are telling Buffy Sainte-Marie that she isn’t Cree. Hands off Indigenous family structures!! SHE’S CREE BECAUSE THE PIAPOT CREE SAY SHE’S CREE, GET FUCKED RACISTS. Buffy represents every person who was able to rise above being stolen from their family and return to roots and none of that would have happened OR BEEN NECESSARY if Canada wasn’t a seething pit of racism today and in the 40s when she was born.

Updated Paul’s care spreadsheet. As will come as no surprise his next in person with his doctor is not scheduled until November 16, a date that should mean something to some of you. I didn’t even comment. THE FUCKING DOCTORS OFFICE NUMBER APPEARS WRONG IN ALL OF THE ON LINE STUFF EXCEPT THEIR OWN WEBSITE AND YOU HAVE TO DIPSYDOODLE EVEN TO FIND IT. Just tell us you don’t want to talk to us, jfc. So annoyed !!! however I made my point and moved on when I FINALLY got someone live. calice.

Got really good numbers for a post on bsky today, and a fair number of reposts, for a quote meme I actually made this morning, but which I’m not going to repost here since I don’t want to cross the beams between the two on line personas.

HOKAY I POSTED I got wordle in 3 today. Alex is at school. There was ice on the car. Jeff’s back from the dentist. Alles gut.

what a frikkin glorious day

hugged Leo and Linda goodbye and then buzzzzzed out the door to finally do the errand with Paul that Lois tasked me with. Alex had stayed home from school today. But he didn’t just stooge around on his tab-a-let, o nosirree.

First off in the morning before L&L departed, we recorded the first episode of our podcast Alex and GG Make Things Up and there’s an excruciating ad lib about the five great lakes. If I figure out how to post that audio clip I probably shouldn’t until I’ve talked to Alex.

Then we picked up Paul, got a printout of the drugs he takes, made an appointment at a walkin clinic, and then we had an hour and a half to kill so we ate at the Wendy’s on 6th Street and took Alex to run around the playground at the northeast end of Robert Burnaby Park for a while, then we went to the appointment and talked a locum into covering a scrip gap because Paul’s doctor’s office makes it IMPOSSIBLE, like MANY BAD SWEARS IMPOSSIBLE to contact them by phone; literally called the number from two different phones and they said the number’s NOT IN USE. sad mismanagement some fuckin’ wheres I do assure you. Doc L only did it on account of I was going to make an appointment that very day and I haven’t been able to because I either didn’t have internet access or the line appeared to be disconnected. Never mind, scrip’s still good and we filled it, pick it up in three weeks, in blister packs to help the people who are now helping Paul take his meds every day. His blood pressure is awesome though.

THEN we went back to Paul’s and I used his cell phone (37 percent charge YAY) to message Lois that I had indeed done what she asked and then I called Tish who had apparently left a message and so Paul got to get an errand done, see his grandson, talk to friends and relatives, eat out and meander about in the brilliant brilliant sunshine.

and then and then and then, I checked to see if Paul could actually use the thumb drive I bought on his fancy new TV and he can’t. No video files, just audio and photos. Damn. Then I put up his new write on wipe off note on his fridge.

AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN I had a fuckin’ genius idea. I said to Alex have you ever seen your mom’s work and he said no so I called Katie, twice ! I forgot to get the address the first time, and I took him to see how hard his mom works and the gorgeous Italian marble she works with, and the water saws (she’s a sawyer now) and Katie got to take her son straight home instead of duking it out on Canada Way so she probably got home about fifteen minutes faster. ALEX WAS BESIDE HIMSELF with how glorious the marble was, saying every thirty seconds NO THIS IS MY FAVOURITE and he started coughing so it was time to leave… so much dust. You can imagine.

And all that happened in less than 4 hours. I’m still high from how much absolutely down home family fun we had and how thrilled Paul was to talk to his peeps. And Alex…. What a wonderful, wonderful human being. He was helpful and kind and appropriate with old ladies and he said “I want to see a baby” at 8 am because he missed when Ryker was tiny and he got to see a tiny infant in a basket at the old folks home coming to visit and he looked as pleased as if the child was a relation. What an absolute sweetheart he is.

Leo and Linda overnight

Wordle 857 3/6

I very much like the effect of having two 3/6 Wordles in a row. It’s a cognitive thing, I trust you understand.

I’ll pass on the hard stuff first. Two thousand Palestinian children have died in the last seventeen days. A thousand times Ryker and Alex. What can one old Canadian granny do?

Leo and Linda arrived. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that a family elder showed me a new use for google maps – he pinned himself to a map while in the rental car so I could watch he and Linda approach. I figured for sure they’d get nailed by traffic or construction or the utter deranged randomness of Vancouver driving, of which Jeff and I have so often spoken. But no, they sped into Vancouver from Squamish like a rocket sled on rails, got their Bags of Capacity into the basement, and met Alex briefly.

Katie, because she is a complete darling and understands things, BROUGHT RYKER IN FROM THE CAR. That seems like nothing, but Leo and Linda got to at least experience The Cuteness and Whirlwind That Is Ryker for two minutes while Alex chased him around the center of the house, laughing. And then poor Katie had to stuff him back INTO the car and drive home. No pics it was too brief.

HOWEVER Fisherman’s Park yielded this for Leo’s lens:

L&L kindly ordered dins and I have leftovers for first breakfast and after I drop off Alex we’ll go to Foreshore for second brekky and then I have a long and tiresome errand with Paul which Lois asked me very nicely to do and it needs to happen if Paul’s going to comfortably keep living where he is, which he likes, and wishes to continue to do, with support, which, in part, I am. I can grouse but Paul needs the help and I have his freaking car.

IT’S BIRTHDAY WEEK FOR BOTH PoP AND LINDA!!!

I’m sure there will be super low key celebrations across the Salish Sea when the folks head across on Thursday.

I could say something about the loss of the ‘music room’ since I need to practice so much for Orycon BUT I AIN’T BEEN PRACTICING ANYWAY so there’s that.

and some fluff; The Accidental Mr. Right has been added to the Lesser Known Destiel Fics on AO3

wordle and visitors

I used to post my Wordle score every morning on facebook but I’m not on facebook at the moment.

My score for today: Wordle 856 3/6

What timing! I think I did a great job keeping up with everyone! LOL this is a joke for anyone who did Wordle this morning.

On tap for this morning, now that I’m awake.

Mek kafi Make coffee McCaffey

Just letting you know that learning to cope
with my rejection sensitivity dysphoria
means that I make fun of myself so that it appears other people aren’t hurting me
with their jokes, but even if they think they’re joking, and I act like it,
I’m still hurt. Days later. Sorry for this aspect of my humanity.

Kitchen table and fridge; musical instruments out of the guest room; towels into the guest room; night light into the guest room; shower; tek pills; mek salad. Later pick up some more foodstuffs for meals to make at home while they’re here after consulting  with them.

I am still vibrating with happiness about Peggy coming with us to Orycon. We are going to have truly oooootrajjjjious amounts of fun, I can FEEL IT.

There will be a season 3 Goom Odens. Neil sayeth so, it shall be so.

Thinking about the 1996 storm in Victoria. Damn, but that was a lot of snow.

Thinking about having to reduce my kit, going to the con, if Peggy’s bringing her bass. Mebbe two cars? seems not right somehow.

 

 

JUST LEARNED

that Keith and Paul just got back from Seattle. I gently pointed out to Keith that he hadn’t bothered to tell me he was leaving, but thanks anyway.

Still no Echo; I have to leave to pick Alex up momentarily and it will be in Jeff’s car I reckon.

All done. Alex had a ‘controversial’ conversation in the schoolyard today. He posits that a hot dog IS NOT a sandwich and a bowl of cereal is NOT soup.

Still waiting on the Echo.

JUST FOR FUN

above noted sign not technically true and provided for entertainment purposes only Sign Generator Here.

 

The above noted sign has a quite remarkable typo, and I added the PS Gritty says f you because Gritty is the popular and ecstatically chaotic Phillie hockey team mascot. He would say something like that. This is a cutified version of him.

Gritty images IRL

grittney

Grittney, the feminized parody of Gritty (woman’s actually a Brit, which makes it even funnier)

 

 

 

Alex has gone home

He’s still a teensy bit under the weather, but no temp or productive cough.

Saw Paul today, got his cell phone working AGAIN at which point THE PHONE STARTED RINGING.

One of the calls was from a bill collector in Washington. I told him just hang up if you get calls like that.

One of the calls was from the Alzheimer society – she’s going to keep checking on him and will send some info out.

One was his friend Laura – we exchanged contact info just in case.

And the other was his financial advisor. Anyway, I got his TV working again (I have not idea how it stops being set to cable, but oh well) and I’m thrilled I was able to help him but gosh I was tired when I left – holdin me temper in when he’s having a really good day otherwise, talking to people, happy to be on the phone – is actually a lot like work.

OH THE FOOD IS HERE gotta go