Category: Family

Katie here

Katie and I got to gab for about three hours last night, and it was AWESOME.  She’s really a remarkable person; when she talks about the elders in the care facility she works at her voice is full of such joy and tenderness and humour that it just gives me the shivers.

She’s finally gotten her hours back, as her nemesis quit or was fired, we’re not sure, and so she’s looking forward to getting her own apartment.  And not.  We talked about that for a good long while.

 

http://www.uni-mainz.de/eng/15114.php <—- article on training to manage tinnitus.

Sundry and various

Cindy and I will sing on Friday, about time.  I have three count’em three new songs for her since the last time I laid eyes on her.

Work continues breathlessly along.  The pulled pork ciabatta sammich in the caf today was like a religious experience.  Had a lovely chat with the D-man about economics and the revenge of unintended consequences.

Haven’t heard from Katie in days.  But her shit’s still at my house, sigh.

Sunday dinner we’re having the Planet Bachelor folks over for Roast something and assorted veg, and then some kind of new cool board game afterwards.

Last couple of SG1 episodes entered the meh zone.  Oh well.  It still has ‘moments’.

Margot has gotten into the habit of bear hugging Eddie as he walks by.  The visual effect is peepantsingly hilarious.

 

Dinner last night

Mike took me out for prime rib at the Oliver Twist. Jeff came with but didn’t enjoy the meal and complained about some loud barflies on the way out.  The Twist comped his meal and I brought him home some free dessert, so he was somewhat mollified.

Then Katie turned up – and promptly left again.  And briefly, the place smelled like gurl.

Happy Sigh

Patricia just showed me a lovely Art Deco platinum and diamond engagement ring.  Yup, her wild Australian laddie has made it official; they’re getting married later this year.

 

I wore my cloak to work.

 

I paid Katie $50 to call me when she’s gone from the house for 24 hours.  I was not worried (seriously, I wasn’t), but I prefer my housemates to not make me wonder at what point I’m obliged to call the police.

 

I will be singing “Dandelions Dreaming” at the Christmas Eve service at church.   Sue is worship leader.

Friday night & Saturday

Friday night Cindy took me out to dinner and then we came back here and sang and played.  I had given Paul a heads’ up that we were inbound and he was waiting for us.  We sang and played until midnight. Katie poked her head in for part of it and insisted her pop play Ramboing.  Yeah.

Yesterday I did NOTHING except run the dishwasher, watch a couple of episodes of Rome, run Katie in to work and a small amount of shopping.  Oh, and I made tea dyed cotton gloves and got steampunk findings  as part of my hat making plans.  Today, church, feeding Sue some lunch after church, and then an afternoon of real chores, as I’ve already had my day of rest.  Right now I’m going to work on songs.

The guy with whom I had “My worst ever coffee date” attempted to contact me again.  The excuse was that he enjoyed talking to me. (He was fine on the phone and, uh, how shall I put it, how about enthusiastic and inconsiderate, and in legal terms, assaultive, in person.  In public.  I had to lie like a cheap rug to escape from his company.)  I thanked him for the sentiment and said, it wasn’t going to happen.  The response was happy holidays and ‘can’t blame me for trying lol’.  Honestly.   Now that I have a little distance I’m forcing myself to see it as yet more horrifying evidence that dating over 50 is hazardous to your health.  I whined to one of my coworkers afterwards (LTGW) and he fixed me with his unblinking stare and told me that he was sorry to hear I had such a horrific experience but that I need to ask more intelligent questions prior to dates.  After that conversation – which was very helpful – I swore a mighty oath to find more productive uses for my time than trying to date.  After all, I’ve got a concert to practice for.

 

One think and another

I just messaged one of my coworkers and instead of a cute little caffeine deficient owl I sent him a photoshopped bodybuilder which is candidly a very disturbing pic.

Yesterday’s homily went great – it was sparsely attended but I must not have been doing a good job of making it a worshipful experience because there was applause at the end (this is NOT a good thing in homiletics – respectful and silent attentiveness is de rigueur.) It’s posted on this site now.  Ralph came up to me, twinkling, afterwards and said, “I was going to tell you what a nice homily that was but I figured you’d kill me”.  I heart Ralph and Ivy so much.

Katie K, Lard be praised, came along (she may have attended one other, I can’t remember, but my friends never come so it was a red letter day!) and since I didn’t have the car we jumped on the Skytrain and went to International Village for lunch.  We wound up at Kentizen, which for $16 tax in provides a lunch buffet reminiscent of the lamentably fallen off but still extant Grand Buffet. There was loads of nice sushi and acceptably acceptable Chinese food, although the reviewer who says you can get Chinese food like that in a small town in rural BC is a moonbat.  I love the decor and ambiance for a Chinese restaurant and it was a welcome respite from the wall to wall noise in the Village concourse.  We shot the breeze in a most delightful fashion and she toddled off to Metrotown to hang with her daughter.  What a GLORIOUS day it was yesterday, the weather couldn’t have been improved on.

Then to Imaginarius Fantasticus, from whence, 300 dollars poorer, I emerged.  I bought two pieces of steampunk jewellery, an additional cambric top, a pink and black confection of a corset for daugher Katie (I had taken her measurements so her absence wasn’t an issue, and it did fit her – and corsets were $60 on special, so ya can’t beat that with a stick and I was so happy that my evil plan to pick her up a nice and relatively inexpensive corset worked), a BEAUTIFUL dark blue half circle Regency style cloak with ribbon closure and the most AWESOME hood (it is so flattering it’s amazing), a bunch of ceramic nametags (hey, they had Allegra, Tish, Terry, Hank and Katie so I bought them) and I came THIS CLOSE to buying Paul the Spock costume from The Voyage Home, which he would have looked f*cking awesome in.  Man, so so tempted.

There were carnivorous plants, and Viking (no, really, antique) belt buckles, and medieval armor demos and evil female pirates and kids dressed up like fairy princesses.  And aura readers.  I would have preferred a steampunk tarot reading, but ya can’t have everything….

Keith and Paul ran into Mike and Rozo at the Quay about the same time I was releasing the last of my money into the wild, so we all had quite the nice day…and then Lost Girl, which was okay, and now work….

In Victoria

Jesus iced Christ on a pogo stick, it’s snowing.  Or trying to. We’re here, we’re going to go to Value Village and then Radjuli.  Then tonight we’re off to Brannigan’s for dinner and the trip up Island has been cancelled for reasons of harrumph won’t get into that now.  Katie has interesting friends.

I got into the wrong lineup at the ferry this morning and the car wrangler cheerfully said, ‘I don’t care, please get on the ferry.’

So much for reserved sailings.

MUMMY I love my mother, she found me a copy of Mother’s Day, so it’s on the site now.  Oldest Homily have got.

Happy Birthday to me!

Great evening!

Beloved bossy took us bowling, it was so much fun!  Also, Mike came over afterwards and watched the first two eps of Pioneer.  What a great show; I’d forgotten how good it was just in the last few months.

 

Tonight, off to practice.

I’m feeding Kira while Paul is gone, but I’m getting the feeling she doesn’t want to be fed.  (She screamed at me when I came through the door and then refused to eat). I got a call from Keith yesterday; they couldn’t get out of the airport on passes because of Jack Layton, if you can believe it.  The party faithful are flying to Ontario on the tail end of a huge weather event and at the end of the summer so everything is jammed as jammed can be.

Haven’t said it publicly recently enough

But I really love my brother.  He is such an amazing guy, and so kind, and so, so funny.

Also, really liking the person Katie is turning into – brave and funny and self-deprecating.  Already really liked Keith, so no new news there…..  It’s very pleasant to like your children and enjoy their company, and even nicer when they still enjoy yours!

Practicing

Off to La Shaddyr’s last night (Cindy) to practice.  What a silly pair of woozles we are!  We HAVE a set list, but with our usual flair we went off book and practiced other stuff as well.

I came home and filled up a hole in the lyrics of one of my songs.  THAT’s why it’s important to play music with other people …. it is alchemical, how a little music ends up being a lot, lot more.

Now I will take Jeff to Brekkie and start the day.

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.