Category: Family

Rides in cars

mOm and pOp picked me up in the Camaro yesterday, so by the time I got to Dan’s I looked like the Wrath o Godâ„¢. The trip to the ferry was horrible, and I’d like to kick the ass of the 620 bus driver into an interdimensional sling.  Drove right past me AT THE CORRECT STOP and two appalled American tourists who insisted on sticking to me until we got on the ferry, and then I asked them to get bus tickets before the wicket closed, and they came back to where I was sitting and mOm saw them briefly when they debarked.

I had a lovely nights’ sleep. I’m definitely tossing my mattress when I get home and getting something like the bed in the guest room here, it is like Morpheus’ fainting couch or something.

I should go make myself some tea – it’s noon and I’ve had nothing to drink so far today, which is just ridiculous, but I loathe Victoria water so I have to flavour it with something.

Yay internet in the guest room.

Blackberry jelly from Tom to pOp, hummingbird finger puppet from me to mOm.  (Level up noise.)

There’s a letter from Lois to mOm thanking her for putting up Kaitlyn’s plaque.  That made me cry.  Everything these days makes me cry, but that doesn’t bother me.  Not being able to feel would bother me a lot worse. If you read the hashtag on twitter #ifIdieinpolicecustody you’ll do some more crying.

 

One feels better after a drive

There are certain activities that almost always make me feel better, and I suppose it’s part of my conditioning, since from the time I was quite small convertibles were part of life.  So a long drive, in the luscious dusk of Vancouver in July, was just the ticket; also, more pragmatically, I was supposed to check that the dash lights were working.  I also enjoy being able to help people, and knowing that I was going to reduce Keith’s ride into town by about an hour and a half helped.

Keith was full of feels and family news. He didn’t have his jacket so I reluctantly rolled up the window, and we enjoyed a simply wonderful ride home in the MR2; and Jeff’s car collected two compliments while I was out.  I ripped BC Ferries off for four dollars as I flatly refused to pay for parking.  (Not getting the job at the parking lot machine company has made me even more grumpy about paying for parking.  I checked for drones; there being none, I just sat there in the lot.)

One of my aliens (Michel, since mOm will want to know) just said, “I wish your mouth was shorter and your fuse was longer.”   Another character just accused another of practicing lemonade stand feminism.  He he.

I have coffee, I have arrowroot biscuits, and a book and a half to finish.  Better get back to it.

Happy Pluto Flyby and Bastille Day

763 words on a new chapter.

Watched Girlfight, an excellent, excellent film.  Very glad Jeff pulled it out of the pile for me.

In about half an hour I’m going to go pick up Keith from the ferry.  Maybe we’ll stop off somewhere on the way home if he’s not too bagged.

Tim Horton’s is threatening to make poutine.  I will stick to the Spud Shack or Anny’s, merci bien tout le monde.

Words today, words yesterday

325 today so far, about 300 yesterday.  I am slowing down again and I hate it.

Perhaps the prospect of a meal out will assist. Mike will cruise by around supper time.  Sounds like he’s had a gharstly week.

Spoke to Chipper today – and she was.  Things are looking up, and that is wonderful.

Sent along some pics from Paul to mOm, who is grateful to have a recent picture of Phyllis and Alex.

brO has been very very helpful today with computer stuff and I’m grateful and pleased.

Practiced this morning for almost an hour.  Tried to write a song but noodled instead.

 

Blerg

I am reading Patton Oswalt’s Silver Screen Fiend and IT’S OUTSTANDING.  Borrow it or buy it and read it.  Won’t say more, don’t have to.

And I have Caitlin Moran and the Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines to look forward to after this.

I can feel the well of my writing soul going dry, and there’s nothing to do but fill the cup at someone else’s spring.

Or have some more Great Blue Heron coffee. Yeah.

I have a couple of potential songs in the queue and since I’m ahead of schedule I’ll pause.  I practiced a good long time yesterday, it was very pleasant.

Paul and Keith are off to the Island this weekend.  Yay for family visits!

Today is Keith’s nth birthday, and glad I am I gave birth to him n years ago, about three hours from now.  I am more glad that we live in the same town/time zone, because he continues to be a good soul who takes no shit from me, and that is a good thing.

Back to Mr. Oswalt, who in his book is lodged firmly in the midnineties catching up on classic cinema.

Hot like blazes

After the walk yesterday Paul and I repaired to our separate dwellings, and then he and Keith took me to New West Quay.  The plan was to sit it out at the Paddlewheeler, but no go, so we sat at the Yellowtail Kitchen and had front row seats for the very nice (but not as nice as Rosemary AB, the new gold standard for these things) fireworks display for Canada Day.

Then I came home, fell on my ass trying to get into the new hammock and Keith and Paul and I regarded Venus and Jupiter and the Moon through borrowed field glasses.

I’ve never seen the moon so bright.  It was wonderful.  It hung behind the fireworks – an amazing sight.

I think I’m going to take a break from writing today. I’m stuck in a couple of places, and the characters aren’t talking to me.

 

 

The bliss of a perfect summer day

I went to IKEA yesterday with Mike; we met up there with Jarmo and Susanna and Ville.  His hair is as satisfyingly rotund as I remember it – like a scale model light brown version of Phineas – and that is more than enough for me to say on the subject.

Then Mike purchased blackout curtains and I purchased what seemed like a good deal in plastic containers, plus another IKEA bag to take it home in.  Hey, they come in handy for laundry.

We sat on the deck and looked at the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter and drank beer and he went home.

Today Paul came over around 1:30 and we walked in the shady part of Oakalla.  Everything is dry and still and creepy – leaves crashing off the trees.  The only critters were a tiny flash of a great blue heron, a cute little butterfly, a couple of towhees, and a russet thrush up in the trees trilling.

He accompanied me on a shopping trip so I loaded up on veggies.  Now I’m waiting to hear from Keith to see if he’s saved us a seat at the pub at the Quay in New West where we can watch the fireworks.  I know from twitter that the fireworks barge is already there.

If he can’t reserve us a seat, and who knows what will happen, I’m thinking I borrow that stool of Jeff’s and grab a blanket and then I can sit wheresoever I please.

Wrote yesterday but can’t remember the count, 497 words so far today.  It was so pleasant to watch the word count tip over 50,000.  Only 40,000 to go. Writing today has been infill and closing chapters for further addition.  Sometimes I feel very penny dreadful in the way I have to always be throwing something new and potentially scary at the reader, and then very nursery-sloppy about how I try to soothe the reader after the scare.  I’ve tried hard to give my lead character’s language a jarring, neo-Victorian feel.  And that’s way more than I should talk about because that all sounds like I’m taking it seriously.  I do, but it’s supposed to be fun and I’m trying to write it that way.  I think I have vast reservoirs of fun in me, but difficult of access at times.

I feel very blessed to be among my friends and family.

I should probably go chop vegetables and what not.

May you all have a good Canada Day, and I salute the First Nations of this land, without whose continued stewardship, under such duress, we could not be as we are.

 

Justice is what love looks like in public

Here’s another take on the Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Three hundred words yesterday.  I really kinda did take the weekend off.

Yesterday I went to Mike’s AGAIN for lunch and he fed me andouille sausage with red pepper and asiago and the salads we had yesterday.  Then we exchanged body work (for me my back, for him some muscles I can’t pronounce because his martial arts training as a 20something included snap kicks which literally pulled the femoral head out of its normal spot and he’s got pretty much permanent pain 20 years on, plus he had a family meal Saturday and it was a cascade of underslept monkey vs. weasel family meshuggas). Then we napped.  Like adults do when they are two beers drunk, well fed and laying about in the sun. Mike hadn’t slept for an atrocious length of time and he was much refreshed.  Then I got up and rode my bike home (it was around 7 pm) and it was deliciously cool since it was mostly downhill, and then I asked Jeff if he wanted to go to Sunset Beach with us (he was too sleepy) and I grabbed Otto and Mike grabbed his parlour guitar and we traded instrumental and lyrical songs and addressed the bay while the sun went down, and the light made rippling rows of Loch Nessie clones roll up and down the bay. We toasted each other in beer in plastic cups. I thought of John, and how proud of me he would have been for all the song writing I’ve been doing, and how he would have laughed his ass off at the books I’m writing, and mocked me roundly for my many errors and just how jeezly much I miss him.  I will never hear him wheedle me again “Dear sweet, kindly, agreeable sister in common law…” when he wanted a haircut or some assistance wrangling his succession of massive and inconvenient cats.  Then mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds silently arose from the ground and swarmed me and we fled to the exceedingly conveniently parked car, because Mike’s parking-fu is of a calibre to excite the comparison “Magical”.

For a while our only audience was a Canada goose, who booked it when a dog named Jack got too close to him, and a pair of mallards, who sat right at our feet.  I knew they were hoping for schnacks but still it made me feel good, as did watching a pair of herons fly over 4th Avenue. Then other people sat down without crowding us so we had company.   This is the weird bunch of signs from behind where we were sitting.

IMAG0968_BURST002

Going there we went through Richmond, and we didn’t hit a light until we were were on Granville. Going back we went through town and we counted the number of pot dispensaries on either side of Kingsway after Main before Boundary and there were four on his side and three on my side and one hydroponics shop.

Then he took me to Phó Boi and I had a small number 3 and ate ALL of it. An insanely attractive interracial couple was having their first date at the table next to us and Mike and I tried to drown their inanities out with soup slurping, but there’s only so much you can do with the audio when the man next to you is mansplaining how he doesn’t know how to order phó.

Mike was shaking his head as we left.  “Phó for a first date is a terrible idea.”

In the morning yesterday I was in church, Sue came and got me, and John H. was there, first time he’s come since Anita died, and we many of us wept to hear him mourn her, and Debra, who has her earned her bread with us with great skill, asked us to be silent for a while after he spoke.  We gave a cheque for $2700 to a local charity which helps homeless people and I took what were probably not very good pictures of the handoff.  We mourned the deaths in Charleston, and thanked all our volunteers, and broke for the summer recess.

It was a good day.  Today I have no plans but to write.

 

Hey they are potboilers

Why am I so worried?

Yesterday was a day I saw all of my descendents, and how lucky I am to have any at all. Katie is recovering nicely from her trip and Alex was a little trouper (who practically turned himself inside out with smiles when he saw his papa upon his return.)

Alex prefers women, apparently.  He liked Phyllis.  Paul apparently spent a lot of time trying to get his mother to walk.  I can see Keith doing the same thing to me if I’m spared.

Two hundred words yesterday.  I do like Pharos and George.

I’m going to call it.  There is another American Civil War.  Unlike the previous one, it is undeclared… in keeping with current US policy.

 

the nullity, the lack, the absence

So, not a word yesterday.  I won’t repine, I’ll try again today.

Went for a walk at 5 am (wut no cream for coffee??? this is an outrage…)

Feel like doing the Michigan Rag?  I thought you might.

More jazz from a rather unexpected direction.  Thank you Lemming!

Waiting for my peeps to come home (sad face) – no word on when Mike and Paul and Katie and Alex are coming home yet, or maybe they’re home and haven’t called me, which will make me more than sad face.

 

 

Updates and more death

Pentium, Tammy’s remaining kitty, was euthanized yesterday.  I am so glad Mike was in Toronto.  I’ve supported him through a pet death so this seems like karma sneaking in.

Got to talk to Paul and Phyllis on the phone yesterday. They and Katie and Alex were taking the sights in Port Stanley, always a family favourite with the folks.  Phyllis (to be candid) sounded exhausted so I hope he’s not chivying her too hard.  Phyllis seems smitten with Alex, although how things could go differently is hard to figure.

Keith came by yesterday.  Being on the spectrum – both of us – makes our communication extremely intense, haphazard and painful at times, but this turned out well so I’m going to characterize it as a win.  He’s enjoying the mix of work that he has right now, including supplying eyeglasses through his company to X-Files.

Buster’s back/butt wound should get veterinary attention in my view, but I don’t own him.  All I know is that had Margot received such a wound I’d have her into the exam room in 12 hours; portions of the wound are now 72 hours old and not crusting over so I am quite concerned about an abscess.  Fortunately Margot is only subject to persistent eye goobers, thanks to her allergies, and I’m trying to stay on top of those by removing them every time her eyes get droopy.  She does not thank me, but she usually quits running and lets me pick her up when I’m persistent.

It’s been deliciously sunny and breezy and not too hot.

412 words yesterday, mostly on Pharos.

Mike is planning on renting an entire commercial sauna for his birthday.  Man o Man, that’s gonna be some party.

 

There’s this woman in Spokane who is white and has been pretending to be black since she was in University.  This is what I have to say about her:

Libertarians are calling Rachel D. the ultimate manifestation of white guilt. I’m calling her as a gender-flopped urban Grey Owl.  Her romanticization of black culture without living through a black childhood isn’t guilt, it’s a minor mental disorder.

Further:  SHE EMBODIES WHAT MY TAG RACEFAIL IS FOR.

 

For you and you alone

HERE IS NATHAN FILLION HOLDING A BRACE OF OTTERS.

Paul came by yesterday to take me for a walk down by the Quay.  I shared with him some ground chicken meatballs in pasta sauce and we had a beer (Hop Circle IPA by Phillips) apiece because it was so deliciously cool on the deck once the sun went down.

On Wednesday Katie and Paul are planning on going to London to see Phyllis, and I’m really happy about that although poor Katie – Alex is the perfect baby inside his routine but he doesn’t do change well and he’s likely to roar. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it when he gets back.

Mike’s going to fly to Toronto and visit Tammy soon (so happy!!) It’s always good when your friends get along.

Watched Run All Night.  It is a fairly pedestrian thriller, but I’m a Joel Kinnaman fan and he was good in this movie.  There’s a scene where he’s been kidnapped by dirty cops and his da, as played by Liam Neeson, CRASHES INTO THE COP CAR while his kid’s in it, and then levers him out of a busted window, asking, “Are you all right?” and the kid says, which stunned asperity, “No I am *not* all right!” which made Jeff and I laugh.

I think I may take a day off writing and work on edits instead.

And now, coffee.  I put it on a couple of minutes ago and now it should be ready.

Have some fungus.

Amaze is no longer amazing

I’ve been using the laundry product Amaze for almost a quarter of a century and it’s off the market.  I’ve been to all the places I used to buy it, and I’ve been on line, and I’ve been to the brand website and it’s vanished.

So apparently the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet has shed so much ice to climate change that it’s changed gravity.

So apparently we have ants.

So apparently I hurt my left knee walking yesterday

So apparently Pluto has 5 wobble-orbited moons.

Well then.

No words yesterday but a lovely long walk in the park (Oakalla, aka Deer Lake) with Master Alex, who was completely adorable and said Ma-ma when Katie put him back in the car.  Thanks to Paul for providing car. We saw frogs, great blue herons, towhees and little twittering birds of some description. Katie particularly enjoyed the sound of the wind in the long grass.

 

writing and eating

SO… Mike took me to Taqueria Playa Tropical for dinner and it was WONDERFUL genuine Mexican food.  The Carne Burrito was super and Mike had Flautas.  I had a Negro Modelo for beerskis and Mike had the Coronorita which is a mini Corona upended in a really tasty Margarita.

Life is good.

Working on another Pharos scene.  Katie just called and she and I and Paul and OF COURSE ALEX WHAT YOU THINK SHE WOULD ABANDON HER BABY will go for a walk later.

Blog post from July 2005

So Keith has been coughing and looking and feeling horrible, and last night around bed time he said, I’ll see if I feel like going in to work tomorrow. Paul and I both said, why don’t you call in sick NOW and then you can sleep in!

He sez, “I can do that?”

So he calls in sick. What I heard, “Hi, it’s Keith; feel like ratshit, so I won’t be coming in on Thursday.”

What he REALLY said was, “Hi, it’s Keith, I feel wretched, so I won’t be coming in on Thursday.”

Then I hear Paul say, in his proud voice, “Very professional!” at which point the top of my head caved in. I think I’m slowly going deaf…. it does run in the family.