Category: Family

When dinosaurs roamed the earth

… and I lived in Ottawa, somebody came door to door asking my parents what they thought about contemporary television.  My parents said they hated Disney stuff because parents were characterized as idiots, and preferred The Addams Family because the parents were actually parents, and there was love and affection and mutual support in the household.  Further to that theme, a little somethin’somethin’ from the intarwebs.  Happy Saturday, nautilus3 and Loki!

Angry and perturbed turns into meh, and then huh, and then te he.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday angry and perturbed, but as is typical for me, once I figured out what to do about it, I quit being angry and perturbed.  Continue reading Angry and perturbed turns into meh, and then huh, and then te he.

Various kinds of news

Jeff took me out for wiener schnitzel at Balkan House yesterday.  It is a truly superior meal.  For the price you cannot beat it.

I have reduced my beer consumption a great deal… but that will get fixed tonight.  Today Katie is 21 and I’m taking her to Drink in New West with a bunch of her friends.  I don’t think I’ll stay too late, drinking with your children’s friends is like saying you don’t have friends of your own.  At least it’s one bus ride home, for both of us.

My brain turned to mush when This Guy called and said school stuff will prevent him from seeing me this weekend, but then my brain started functioning again as I went into planning mode.  Hopefully I’ll see him some time early next week. Cue the evil grin.

According to twitter world famous Canadian writers message each other all the time about incredibly trivial stuff (for example the slug post from yesterday started as a tweet from Margaret Atwood), Nathan Fillion is having a bromance with Seamus Dever (co-star on Castle), and Dita Von Teese just ordered a “thanksgiving in a box” from the American Store in Paris.  These little peeps into other people’s lives are kinda cool, actually.  It’s interesting to see which celebrities ‘get’ twitter and which don’t.

I follow Stephen Harper; all his tweets ever do is say exactly what he is doing at a certain time.  It’s like a GPS for the PM.  Never any opinions expressed… just where he is.  I know what John would say about that if he was still alive….

A number of celebrities (referred to by Perez Hilton as celebutards) are already in train to be sued by people they have (while high as f*****g kites if the internal textual evidence is to be believed) slandered.  Other celebrities somehow think that misspelling every second word and sounding like an ignorant, lazy, disloyal chenozzle is, too use the parlance of happier times, cool.  As a single example, Courtney Love.

Other celebs, like Weird Al Yankovic, tweet stuff like this, as of twelve minutes ago…


Didn’t see anybody famous sitting in First Class. If this plane crashes, I am TOTALLY getting the headline!

Which you have to admit is kinda hilarious, spelled correctly, and provides insight into how he thinks.

John Cleese’s tweets are alternately content laden “I am here with so and so” and funny.  Bruce Sterling is always going off about exotic locales in Europa – but this morning he linked to a Pop Mechanics article about Robert Heinlein’s house.  William Gibson passes along Amazon reviews from his wife (who must be one of the funniest women who ever lived, if her taste is anything to go by).  So yes, I’m enjoying twitter.

Anyway, I’m off to a church meeting.  Everybody, as you were.

It is with sadness and relief that I relate my woeful tidings

Uncle Dave died this morning.  I will always hold him in my heart as a vibrant, somewhat ornery, disciplined, fun, rational person, whom it was an honour to know and a deeper honour to be family with.  I see him sitting on the back deck at the Augur Inn, back on 2nd St, laughing and talking and eating and smoking his pipe after a hard day arguing with the walls, or the flooring, or mudding, mudding, mudding.  Remember the time he and Paul tried to set fire to the house? … yeah, it’s funny now.   I’d be in the kitchen, listening to him and Paul laughing uproariously, and thinking how very happy I was.  That’s the image I will hold. So many anecdotes, about his travels, his time with the Princess Pats, his time on the boat in Australia.

I light a candle for Alyssa and D. and the girls, Paige and Chloe.  I am thankful beyond words that he died at home with his loved ones around him and I so feel for Alyssa, who took herself to the end of her strength to perform this last office of love.  I didn’t cry on the phone with mOm this morning, but I’m sure as hell crying now.

I had breakfast over at Paul and Keith’s so I was there when Jeff called me, and now Paul and Keith know too.  I just called Katie.  It’s not like the world is so full of good human beings that we can suffer the loss of one without impact……

Paul and Keith are back today

kira REALLY misses them.

(Cat and Parrot video.)  When they are little I just eat them.  When they’re big, they’re kinda hawt.

I sometimes wish I could make money out of my fetishes, but then I read things like this and decide to stick with regular paid employment.

This story about Libyan freedom fighters, Gadhafi’s kid (Saif al Islam al Gadhafi) and a challenge to the moral leadership of al-Qaeda is remarkable, if true.

In a Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber says I don’t mean to be crude, but it appears that testosterone basically has two, and only two, major drives: f*** it or kill it. Perhaps that is true, but I would add three items to that list: “Be First” and “Be Best” and “Submit your will to no one else”.  That is certainly how I have seen testosterone, properly utilized, play out in a man’s life.

On this Remembrance Day, let us remember the fallen dead, the falling dead, in all the past, present and future wars.  As the candles are lit, as the hiss of the wicks and the warm smell of beeswax fills the shrine, remember the dead.

Holy cow and other comments.

I didn’t realize it until I went to the translink.ca site this morning, but I am now One Bus Ride from church.  I walk out to the Kingsway, get on the 112, and it takes me straight to church.

This makes me very, very happy, and probably means I’ll be doing a lot more church stuff.  I mean, it’s right there!  No more not going to church because I want a lift!

Later on today I am going to go off to a Tim Horton’s and – yet again – see if a guy I’ve talked to on the phone a couple of times is going to actually show.  I don’t think Timmy Ho’s has wireless, though.  I may bring a small mending project just to keep myself out of trouble.

Lady Miss Banjola was robbed at gunpoint the other day – at work I hasten to add.  She’s fine; she is one of these people who does not get upset about the normal things people get upset about.  Exciting times we live in.

My unca Dave is not eating very much, but he talked to mOm on the phone for a while the other day, and it’s little things like that that keep us going.

Keith and Paul are off to see Lois at some point.  I imagine somebody will tell me eventually exactly when I am supposed to feed the Kira critter.

Margot has abrumptly (sorry, this was a word emitted by one of the Xantrex overlords some years ago, and I liked it so much I kept it) decided to quit washing her rear end.  I will give her a day or so to smarten up and then it’s off to the groomer to get all her butt hair shaved off.  I tried shaving it but my clippers are anaemic to the point of mollescence and I’m terrified to cut her fur with scissors.

Busy day

Today I am going to go and see a music teacher who lives close by to see if I can take lessons; then I’m going up to my old workplace for lunch; then I’m going to Surrey for a while, and then I should be home for supper.  This is the most I’ve been on transit since the fireworks last summer.

Last night Tom and Peggy and Paul and Keith came over for broiled pork chop, cauliflower and home made cheese sauce, salad, cole slaw, corn and garlic bread.  Dessert was fresh fruit and pecan torte. It was all nommers.  Then we sang and played for a while.

I light a candle for everybody killed and injured at Fort Hood yesterday.   I am sure there will be an uptick in attacks on furrin brown people as a consequence.  I light a candle for the man who thought he could made a contribution to world peace by slaughtering his fellow soldiers.  It’s just so grisly, and so wrong.

Point form updates

  1. Katie got the job, she starts today at 9:30 am.  It is ONE 20 minute bus ride from her house.  Unless the traffic is bad, then it’s about half an hour.  Commuting in the GVRD is hellish, so Katie well knows what a good deal this is, especially since her last interview was in North Van.
  2. My emotions as a consequence may be best summarized as vigilate et orate.
  3. Miss Margot is being very grumpy about having her hair done.  I may have to haul her off to the “professial Persian hedge trimmers” and get her done, which I’d prefer not to as winter is coming.  I tried trimming her myself but her fur is so very fine that it slides through the guide without ever coming near the shears.
  4. My attempt at soup making (chicken with rice) had one heart stopping moment during which I accidentally added rather more paprika than I expected.  Once tasted, however, the soup declared itself happy, and even Keith had some.
  5. This house is not a dude ranch for misfits and unemployables.  The rest of this paragraph I deleted out of deference to the feelings of him what this is in regard to.
  6. It has never gotten quite warm or dry enough for me to cut the grass one last time before winter starts in earnest.  I will when I can.
  7. I have done some more unpacking, and found some bedding which I probably can’t use as it looks doublish as opposed to twinnish or queenish..  However, it’s pure cotton, so I’m thinking of giving it to Paul, if he can stand having something in screeching lilac stripes.
  8. I carved out a pumpkin in the shape of Lafayette’s face.  I’m thinking of cutting up a white sheet I found to make wee ghosties.
  9. Jeff has posted the pinball instructions AND the high scores list.  Let the high score smackdowns commence!
  10. Homicide Season Seven is OUT THERE.  But when Munch starts spouting off (again, again) about how the government is storing information on law abiding citizens, he sounds quite prescient.  The whole show happened before 9/11.
  11. There is biscotti dough in the fridge.
  12. I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my mother, Unca Barry, Ontie Mary, and the other relatives who assisted with a newly published family project. Barry’s preface in particular choked me up… we can never know what really happened, but we can preserve and think about what we have left, and be grateful that our relatives left us something to go on.
  13. I am reading through the family letters of, and with respect to, Bootlegging Mary.  Long time readers of this blog will hazily recollect that I went to a family reunion and heard about a relative who ran a corner gas station in Saskatchewan (I am at a loss to understand HOW this could be a more Canuckistani reference) and was, possibly, likely, a bootlegger. I wrote a song for her and begged for more detail.  The wheels of family genealogy have ground slow and fine, and to my wonderment and edification, the letters have been translated and published.  Words cannot express my gratitude.  Now I’m reading what it was like between the two World Wars for my Mennonite kin back in olt contry, and I’m amazed and humbled at the crap they lived through – all the while trusting and praising God with an deep and consistent piety. (Even as they got into it hammer and tongs about a disputed legacy… may we all take suitable notice of this falling out, which had tragic consequences for some).  In one letter there is a third hand account (as it’s a letter to a relative from another relative about a third relative’s doings).  The recently married daughter walked through her mum and dad’s village with her husband, and every last person in the village was gone.  They had fled across the frozen river from Siberia to China, with nothing but transportation, food and clothing.  She had seen her father the night before, and while he looked downcast he hadn’t breathed a word of the flight to his daughter.
  14. She is alleged to have said, in describing what she did when she walked through her parents’ deserted house, “I took the cat in my arms and the guitar down from the wall.”  I got chills when I read that.  She went straight for the two things I would have dealt with first.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…..

Another day without beer

I haven’t had any beer in three days.  I think this is the longest I’ve gone without drinking beer for at least three years.  Somehow going to Ontario made me less susceptible to its bubbly siren song.  I certainly have noticed now that I am drinking coffee as an occasional stimulant and  much less beer that my digestion is better than it has been in years.

Last night I cooked roast beef and home made gravy, side of horseradish, potatoes and onions done around the roast, peas and carrots, broccoli and spinach and brussels sprouts, yorkshire pudding (one recipe yields 12 pudding-lets) and others had ice cream for dessert but I skipped that part.  I had a wonderful time preparing it and eating it, and watching Paul, Jeff, Katie and Keith demolish it.  Frankly I think Katie enjoyed it most.  She’s trying to cut sugar out of her diet and her eyes lit up when she saw all the vegetables.  As Catherine said, at this time of year the produce in Canada is quite astonishing.

Today I have many ugly tedious chores to perform, a list of which would likely be more detail than any sane reader could bear.  I hope to squeeze writing down one song in there… I am also hoping to listen to the two albums Dave gave me all the way through.  And more Homicide… we’re close to the end now.  The show ran 7 seasons and it’s been my constant companion for months now.

He should be glad he didn’t find it in France.

And now for something completely different.

Ten reasons I love Val Kilmer.

1.  He once punched out Tom Cruise.  (On the set of Top Gun).

2. Madmartigan in Willow.

3. Jim Morrison in the Doors.

4. Ray Levoi in Thunderheart.

5. Doc Holliday in Tombstone.

6. Heart heart heart Chris Knight in Real Genius.

7. He named his kids something reasonable.  Jack and Mercedes are sane names, in my view.

8. He THOUGHT about running for Governor of New Mexico and decided against it.

9. He helps with wildlife rehabilitation.

10. He’s slept with Joanne Whalley, the lucky dog.