Category: Family

What a day!

Awake at 5:20 am, poked around the net for a while, then got up and cleaned some pots and next thing I knew I was late for the bus. All quite normal.  Late for work because both the 145 bus and the Skytrain were delayed, who knows why.  At least I didn’t kill myself by falling down that slope – I’ve posted pictures of it, just imagine it covered with a glossy slick of compressed slush.

At 9 the town hall meeting with our new squid overlords.  THEY CAN HAS SWAG!!!  They gave out jackets, and mine is very nice and will probably fit me better in a year.  But I like it. The meeting was full of my coworkers conspicuously signalling to me to get off my ass and ask the new squid overlords some pointy questions like I used to do, but I glued said same ass to my chair.  Besides, I was wearing my “Earth to the Dandy Warhols” t-shirt and I just didn’t look corporate enough.

At work today, Mike McG gamely attempted over three meetings (Patricia was also there) to a) jam Ohm’s law into my tiny pea brain; b) jam info about PV string sizing into my tiny pea brain and c) get my advice/input/loud and unfeigned praise on a totally HAWT Salesforce customization.  This will mean nothing to most of you but when I think of how much time and keystrokes that man plans to save the company I tremble in my granny panties, lemme tell you…

At lunch, Jeff the Queasy (an easily grossed out cowirker) said, “What the hell was with 206, somebody drew Ohm’s law all over the whiteboard?” and Patricia and I are thinking, “Hm, should we tell him?”

Anyway, I didn’t work much because I was in meetings or lunching for like 5 hours.  It was like being an executive, and Tanya took the worst call of the day, honestly, the customer was a jerk to her, and then of course was nice as pie to me.

OH MY STARS.  I have to tell this story, even if it gets me fired.  The marketing department, whom I have been convinced wants to either kill me or slap me into an insane asylum for at least a decade now, put my name on a document….. associated with a phone number which comes to my desk …. and a toll free number that, alas, was one digit out from being correct.  Care to guess what my name was associated with?  A front for a phone sex line. I can die happy now.  All my Dilbert dreams/nightmares have come true.  By all the gods I don’t believe in, this story is absolutely true and I can call witnesses.  And besides, the marketing department has already fixed it.

Our new HR overlord is from Suth Cahlina, and she said You All twice during the town hall.  Not Y’all, that’s trashy, but You All, that’s cute.

Much thanks to Sandy P for the hilarious email about the mighty huntin’ dogs she has, I laughed like a drain.

Then a call from Paul – I’d been expecting to take the bus to his place preparatory for a swim, but he decided to pick me up, and then when I got there it was me, Keith, Kate, Paul and Daxus, and Dan T. dropped by for some soup, and I arranged to spend most of Saturday with Katie, and she plucked my eyebrows (they were raggedy). Katie and Daxus were playing chess when I arrived – Daxus was shellacking Katie. I saw the board and went, Concede, you fool! but they played it out.  After dinner Keith and Paul and I went to the pool and swam and soaked, and then Paul drove me home.  I drove home, but it’s Paul’s car.  You know what I mean.

It was so good to see everybody.  Dan T. said, “I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I ate somebody’s dog, and it tasted like a pear, but I didn’t really like it all that much so I had two bites and threw it away, and then the owners were saying, “Where’s Fluffy?”  I cried laughing, he was so matter-of-fact about it.  I light a candle for his dad, who died recently.  I only met him the once, when I gave a homily at the Comox Valley Fellowship, but I was very impressed with him indeed.  He will be missed.

58 things I learned from being a movie buff

  1. If you call in a robbery in progress, and the robbers have automatic weapons, and you hang around to watch, you will be LUCKY if you only get what’s coming to you. (44 minutes).
  2. If you are cool, your life has a banging soundtrack.  If you are not, the soundtrack of your life is your neighbour’s dog, Viagra come-ons and shills for feminine protection. (all of them)
  3. You can kill a guy with a carrot, more than once, although you’ll need a new carrot. (Shootemup)
  4. You can kill multiple guys while having sex without making the baby cry or breaking your girl’s concentration (Shootemup).
  5. Princesses are grumpy (all of them).  If she’s not grumpy she’s probably not a princess.
  6. People will do really whacked out things to get home (Wizard of Oz, Eric the Viking, ET).
  7. Horses don’t need food, guns reload themselves, nobody needs to take a dump at an awkward time and somebody’s always got a map.  (all of them)
  8. The obesity epidemic isn’t happening. (all of them)
  9. There are no atheists. Everybody’s always thanking god, seeing a priest or minister, or going to weddings, funerals and christenings. (all of them)
  10. I learned to feel sorry for people who aren’t getting money for the product placements in their kitchens. (pretty much all of them),
  11. The walls pull away so you can get a better shot. (all of them)
  12. Natalie Portman, in addition to being able to act, looks fabulous with her clothes off (Darjeeling Limited).
  13. George Lucas should goddamned well retire. (and I need to prove my point because???)
  14. The Wachowskis only had one good movie in them because they STOLE the idea for the first one.
  15. The Wilhelm scream was by Sheb Woolley, and once you know about it, you hear it all the time.
  16. Video games don’t make good movies; they are just an extreme case of product placement.
  17. There are movies that nobody has seen that everybody refers to.
  18. Remakes should all have a generic title “The beancounter, the asswipe screenplay, the washed up actor and the witless director”.
  19. Steadicam oners are da bomb.
  20. Script first, direction second, editing third, lighting fourth, actors fifth, catering sixth.
  21. Whoever’s editing action movies these days needs remedial help. (Notice how bad the fight scene editing was for Dark Knight?  It sucked hair off a mop).
  22. Vancouver City Hall is screwing up the local industry by being chuckleheads.
  23. Not a single movie has been made in the last thirty years that realistically depicted the use of firearms.
  24. Being a science fiction movie fan is a lot like Waiting for Godot.
  25. The ratings system is hopelessly fouled up, and the creeps responsible for it should be bastinadoed with licorice while listening to “It’s a Small World after All”.
  26. It chapped Spike Jones’ ass that the most money he ever made was on Inside Man.  Mind you, it’s the best American caper film in years.
  27. Acting doesn’t run in families.  Doing what your folks did for a living runs in families.
  28. Milton Berle had an enormous penis.  I actually know this because I was working in a hotel he was staying at and he kept answering the room service knock with no trousers on and a big stogie in his face.
  29. Computers are simple to break into and all operating systems are easy-peasy and graphical. (Where do I start?  The Net, the Matrix, Jurassic  Park, Untraceable, and on and bloody on….)
  30. Your phone only rings when that chunk of dialogue is complete. (All police procedurals)
  31. You always have your phone ready to hand.
  32. Bad guys have lousy teeth. (All of them).
  33. There’s a picture of Johnny Depp in an attic somewhere. (It’s not just his bone structure, folks).
  34. Not all actors are gay, but that’s the way to bet. (This is a joke…. based on repeated and increasingly truncated conversations with Jeff).
  35. Set decoration is an art form and I salute its practitioners. (I’m thinking of True Blood).
  36. Heroes drive convertibles (this is actually a family saying, but I thought I’d throw it in.)
  37. If there’s been a movie that realistically depicted aircraft in the last 100 years, I’d sure like to hear about it.
  38. Virtually every actor I admire has a serious, serious work ethic.  Screwoffs burn out or drop dead.
  39. I loathe continuity errors, and I’ve been catching them since I was ten.
  40. It’s just as hard to make a frothy comedy as a serious drama, but you don’t get praised for doing it well.
  41. The risk free life is not worth living.  I would rather have a good bunch of people give me two thirds of a good movie trying to do something unusual than the usual gang of idiots playing it safe.
  42. I wish Charles Laughton had directed more movies. (Night of the Hunter was his only one).
  43. If the people who made SF movies spent more money on the scripts I would be happier.
  44. I really don’t like horror films – even psychological ones like The Haunting – and I only watch zombie movies as a concession to my brother.  I realize my inability to stomach violence is a serious personal flaw, but there ya go.
  45. I am prepared to forgive a movie all kinds of lapses if it’s stylish.
  46. Graphic sex is not nearly as disturbing as graphic violence.
  47. Henry and June was HOT.
  48. Watching people smoke cigarettes is a drag, especially if they don’t smoke and they are faking it (Keira Knightley in Domino, William Petersen in Manhunter).
  49. When I want to watch a movie again, it’s almost always because of the nature and quality of the human relationships in it, not because it was visually stunning or had cool special effects.
  50. I really like long takes.
  51. I really like eating takes.
  52. Most of the time, the critics are wrong.  When they aren’t wrong, they’ve still missed something.
  53. Anybody can walk into your hospital room, get hold of a doctor, get hold of a nurse, and have plenty of room to stand around and chat.
  54. It’s easy to be in the same room as a corpse.
  55. Your closest relatives can die and it doesn’t completely f*ck you up for months afterwards – you just keep on working and doing whatever you were doing.
  56. Work is just an excuse to hang out with your friends (why not, works for me).
  57. Men like to kiss way more than they let on in real life.  Women- at least usually.
  58. Food happens instantly in restaurants.

Happy New Year

So Keith, Paul and I were at Jarmo and Susana’s last night, and once again performed the stannomancy.  Katie and Jeff chose the better part – to stay home, and not to drink!

NOT A SINGLE PERSON had money for 2009.

Not one.  Out of fifteen people. You may recall Dr. Filk was told that he’d get money two thirds of the way into the year and found it laughable, and then went from John’s Jukes to Earl’s at a considerable increase in rate.  But it also said there was a baby in his future so you can’t b’lieve everything the tin tells you.

My year is smooth, and expanding, for 4/5ths of it, and then there’s a hell of a twist at the end.  I’ll post pics at some point… I actually have to pull everything off my camera and stick it someplace where those interested may view them… I still haven’t posted the Louvre, and I should, but that was, candidly, one hell of a trip and I get kind of shaky when I go anywhere near those memories.

Anyway, it was a lovely, congenial crowd, and there was even a lovely dog named Kona (lab setter cross, from the coat) who was being dogsat by some of the attendees.

Snowed more.  Lots more.

; why is the rum always gone?  Between us all we killed a forty pounder, and I had two triples so I definitely helped.  I’m still hanging on the edge of a migraine so I’d better get off the computer now.

And, via an LJ buddy, Neil Gaiman’s blessing:

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you dream dangerously and outrageously, that you make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked. And most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now) that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

Dreams & food & rellies

I have a cloth cap to keep the snow offa me
I have a cloth cap to keep the snow offa me

I stopped writing about my dreams in my blog because I read it was one of the worst and most self indulgent things you can write about.  So when I tell you that last night I dreamed that my laptop caught fire, filk went mainstream (songbooks in chain bookstores?) and I met a True Blood cast member getting a humanitarian award for bloodrelated research, be assured it was an amazing experience.

Snow has turned to drizzle.

Biscotti – quite good biscotti – has been made.  Today I’ll make and freeze turkey à la king.

The back deck appears intact.

My distaste for alcohol continues.

The carrot salad Paul sent me home with in the magic bag of leftovers is so good I got up and had it for a midnight snack.  This is while there was Brie in the fridge, mind you, just to give you some basis for comparison.

Speaking of leftovers I think I’ll nuke up the leftover sweet potato with Brie on top.  I’m so suggestible.

family!!!!

Katie was over and collected her cheque.  Keith was over and played GTA4.  We watched the third episode of True Blood and the sappy and weak Xmas episode of NCIS.  I ordered out but I’ll do better tonight.

It’s snowing and I feel compelled to go to work…. I have no idea why.

This is a candle for Mike…. he’s unemployed and while that’s actually a good thing, he will need another job shortly.

Chris, the dude what helped me with my tech support issue a few days back, loved the Werewolves Ball.  Now I have to mix it better ….

I love the titles to Dave’s stories … have heard many of them and I look forward to hearing more.

Wreck Beach on a Tuesday

I was talking to a friend on the phone late last night.  The vitamin D blasted me out of my winter doldrums (and killed my joint pain stone dead… who knew?) and I was sharing my good fortune with him.  Then he axed if I’d written anything lately. I was so disappointed with myself for saying no that I wrote an instrumental called – as you see above.  Jeff will, if I ask him nice, once more try to make me understand how to FTP something bigger than 2 megs…. I will post when I can.

This is a candle for the safety of a friend at church who is going through a very scary divorce.  I mean, really scary, like I’m scared to read about her in the news scary.

This is a candle of thanksgiving that I have money to help my kids as they establish themselves, and the support of Paul and my folks in that endeavour.

This is a candle of hope for Unca Dave.  My mOm is with him now, and I think she and Unca  Barry and the rest of Unca Dave’s kin who are visiting him are really wonderful.

This is a candle for Kopper at the turning of the year.  And one each for her unique and remarkable children.

This is a candle for Mike and his new apartment *yay*.

This is a candle for Keith, who for his recent demonstrations of manturity, leaves lights and appliances on as if he wasn’t a day over fourteen.  Typo intentional, yo.  Just in case you were wondering if hip hop is dead.  Not, just on life support.

This is a candle for Tammy, who’s back from France.

This is a candle each for my trio of friends/family in Kanata.  Brother James, a big shout out for the happiness you gave just by sending postcards to me at work and given Karen a smile from me.  Leo & fambly, thanks for sharing the pictures of your travels – and that porcupine, which made me burst out laughing when I saw it.  Deb, big warm seasonal inflected-with-cinnamon hugs for you, Jim and Jenn, and your companion animals….

This is a candle for me.  I feel human again.  Hurting, but able to think about something else besides me for a change.  It’s pretty good right now.

This is my cousin Alyssa. No, not that one, the new one.

Cousin Gerald had a kid, and that kid had a kid.  I am going to give a prize to the person who comes up with the best two or three word description of Alyssa’s expression, because I have never in my life seen its equal.  Let’s just say I’m impressed with her amazing, beautiful and mesmerizing eyes.

Win a Prize! Caption this baby!!!
Win a Prize! Caption this baby!!!

Too Long; Didn’t Read

One of the many useful internet acronyms is TL;DR.  That’s when your truncated attention span decides to step out for a soda.

Continue reading Too Long; Didn’t Read

David Byrne and Brian Eno

Ha ha, hipsters!  Die of the jellusy!  On the 20th of February Jeff and I are going to take in the above noted at the QE Theatre!  I mean, if the world doesn’t end first.

Hm, must book tix for B-52s now, before civilization collapses any further and you can’t buy tickets for 80’s bands any more.  At any rate that should be a great show.

Keith was supposed to show up last night and he didn’t show and he didn’t phone.  I have a really solid notion that he went to the Purpose High School Reunion, possibly even with his sister (can such things BE?) in which case he might have been, like, socializing with classmates.  He’s been pushing himself hard on that front lately, to my joy and astonishment.  So, one hopes for a full report but one does not hope too hard.

Coffee…. I love coffee.  I’m having some organic fair trade medium blend right now and thinking about how coffee will shift in our culture yet again.  It being so addictive I don’t imagine it will go away.

I got home around 6:30 last night after sweet talking LTGW into giving me a ride (I had glass dishes from the departmental potluck (spaghetti and sauce) and did not want to lug them home on the bus, and it was POURING rain).  We stopped off for tea and coffee at the Starbucks at Hastings and Kensington and discussed a bewildering variety of things with many violent changes of subject, which anybody who knows me will consider quite standard….  Any conversation that has somebody envying my corpus callosum can’t be all bad.

Kids were here

It was so lovely to have both of them here. We watched S2E1 of Deadwood (A Lie Agreed Upon) during which we giggled and cracked jokes and invented drinking games involving the swearing.  I bought us all Swiss Chalet. Katie did her homework.  For those of you out quietly worrying in TelevisionLand, Brandin (mentioned earlier) is a nice boy with not a great deal of education and a lot of crazy relatives, but he doesn’t smoke tobacco and he likes Katie fine.  And happy birthday, Katie, here’s a toast to you continuing to plug along when you really don’t feel like it.

Pics

In the end, only family came – and it was a great party. I am including Katie’s new squeeze, Paul, Dr. Filk and Peggy as family, of course.

Lexi quite rightly ignored the stricture about no gifts and gave me …. Well, let’s just say I squealed like a particularly happy pig when I saw this l’il guy…..

Sometime in the impossible schedule that is that of a new mother she ALSO found time to make a cake of such impenetrably chocolately denseness and yet such airy texture that the remains are now being examined by particle physicists as a possible proof of the existence of dark matter.  I think the bastids’ll just eat it when I’m not looking so I’m leaving Jeff to guard it.  Hm.  Better think about this further; leaving Jeff to guard chocolate does not have the earmarks of a cunning plan.

And here’s me; I’m listening to Rob, but Darwin’s got his eye on his mOm.

Dr. Filk is in da house

While Jeff and I were cleaning up Eddie barf at 4:30 this morning (happy barfday to me!) Jeff said, quietly, “There is a large hairy naked man sleeping in the livingroom!”  This is by way of being a family meme and is in no way a complaint.

A long time ago I wrote a poem for my mOm in which she is alleged to have said things like “Loki, Wizardry won’t boot!” and “Who is sleeping in the livingroom?”

The downstairs neighbour just back from work and is trying to sneak around and get a snack and be quiet.  We should just tell em not to worry about it… what with one thing and another we always seem to be awake by now.

Now, back to bed.