Category: Family

muah ha ha!!!!!

oh ho, aha!  Trill!  Squee!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me happy.

me very very very happy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Katie went and got the last of her stuff from Daxus’ place and moved in with uh, someone else, not me, and I met her new housemates tonight and I’m THRILLED.  It appears Katie agreed to marry Daxus under something called duress, or while planning on getting the hell out.

Katie and I had the briefest long chat in recorded history (man, did we cover a lot of ground in four minutes) and then my mandolin teacher and Keith showed up and we all interacted somewhat.  So to answer your page, pOp, NEVER. Does NEVER work for you? Works for me.  Besides, she’s living across from the school now – an extra hour of sleep each night!!!

I know that Daxus is wild with grief and anger right now, and I feel sorry for him.  But he’s young and strong and he’ll get over it.  Suzanne is pretty disappointed with Katie too.  I understand that.

I light a candle for Tom, who is apparently healing up with great speed and effectiveness.

I light a candle for Yvonne, who turned over a big pile of the work she used to do and left it all clean and shiny so I could pick up the traces easily.

I light a candle for Tanya & Battery, having fun in Hawai’i!!!  snorkel with a dolphin for me, kiddo. Yes, I know someone named Battery, and it’s pronounced Battry, thanks.  Kia ora!

I light a candle for Kelsey with a side of hugs.

I light a candle for every struggling family and for the future of our planet.

Another Conservative government

and really low voter turnout.  Canadians are sheep, you know that?

Oh well.  Here’s some Nathan Fillion porn to make it better.  No, it’s not really porn.  But it’s funny (fwd by Robof9).

Apparently Katie has never memorized my phone number (%$#^%!) so… she called her dad to tell him she’s okay, and she’s all broken up with Daxus because he prevented her from going to school.  Or something.  She can only miss ten days of school or she can’t graduate.  And she’s going to go get her phone back.  That should work out well.

This next paragraph was written in rage and backspaced over with coffee.

Isn’t it funny how we dignify worry with a word like prayer….?

Later, yesterday.

Long about 4 Katie magickally appeared with Kelsey in tow.  Kelsey is her bestest girlfriend from school (you know how fast friendships blossom in school).  Katie wanted what was left of her Kaylee costume (you will have to scroll down to see it) and she literally bounced in, hugged me, grabbed her costume and left (and I got two insubstantial Kelsey hugs in there as well.)

Katie had been all sad and freaked (I am going to school… I know no one… I will have no friends).  I said, “Sit next to the girl with the nicest face.  Not the best looking one – the one who looks nicest, most pleasant and friendly.”  So she did and now she’s hanging with a hard working hard playing crowd, just up her alley.  And having fun, too. That 70 bucks I spent on that costume seems to have paid dividends.

PS.  She’s done something with her hair.  It’s darker brown and sort of ripply all over.

Soon I will go off to Famous Foods and get the last of the food I need for the awesome festival of roast fowl and tubers!  Swossage meat for stuffin’.  Hm, mmmm.  Great! It’s after 8 am and they are open…. time to get going.

My third oldest joke:  “Why does thanksgiving come a month earlier in Canada?”  “Because we have less to be thankful for!”

I still haven’t been to see Tom, but I’m still stuffed up and I dread making him sick.  Sicker.

astonishment!

Keith spent the night.  Today, the dentist and the running around which accrues with Thanksgiving meals.  I’m just waiting for Keith to get back from 7-11 and then…. waffles with strawberries, and cream for our coffee.  Keith arrived, realized he’d forgotten the eggs, and then departed again.  That’s what 4 hours of Assassin’s Creed into the small hours can do to your brain, folks!

Eddie is trying to sleep on my bed again; I left my door propped open last night so he could.  Oh, that’s odd – Eddie just whacked Gizmo over the nose for no reason I can see.  Lightly, with no malice, but Gizmo jumped down from his usual perch on the back deck.

For four years or more I’ve been talking, on and off, about the collapse of civilization.  I guess the thing I keep forgetting is that a collapse generates heat and no light.  People will HATE.  They will hate the wrong things, for the wrong reasons; they will hate and kill.  Watching what people are saying during McCain Palin rallies makes me ill, but Canada’s no different in any meaningful way, we just don’t have a focal point for it yet.

I hope that we can ride out the global economic storm without all migrating back to the ranches of our prairie ancestors; I’m a city girl, and I don’t want to leave.  But human migrations have a merciless logic, and the time has come to start making back up plans, and I am just too citified and lazy to face it.

The Barque of Concord hits a rock

I guess I tried to explain to Jeff prior to moving in that I make a lot of noise when I am singing and writing songs and that it can get quite annoying.  His response was that he could wear headphones. Well, last night I was working on a tune and he told me to be quiet because what I was doing was annoying him. It was plenty annoying, but I had warned him.  I dunno.  I hadn’t worked on a tune or come up with anything new in yonks, and only being exposed to the brutal indifference of previous roommates and other relatives prevented me from curling into a fetal ball at his disapproval.  When I was living with Paul and the kids I’d get that annoying at least a couple of times a week – I guess Jeff is unaware of the extent he’s been spared my usual behaviour.  I have been unusually quiet.

tick

tick

tick

I will be looking for rehearsal space, I guess, and once I calm down, other possibilities. It’s too bad that it’s now officially too effing cold to play outdoors.

Keith came by and picked up his phone.  What a turkey I am!  I didn’t even know it had a camera in it.  Mine’s kinda like a little rubber brick and all it has is Mah Jong and Tetris and Bejeweled and Sudoku to while away the time.

ScaryClown dines here

ScaryClown was here for dinner; he was fed buffalo sloppy joes, and he had seconds, lord love him. Also, I received from the mysterious and everedgy Mike (everybody’s favourite chinky chinaman) a call which said, “Guess where I am?” to which the answer could only be “Wreck Beach, you wretch”.

I send glories and posies, firelight and starlight and the light of the borealis, the light of the sea in the night as your oar goes through it, to Chipper, and she knows why.

I light a candle for Juliana and her efforts, and her album.

I light a candle for Carrie and her peregrinations.

For Tanya, and she knows why.

For Patricia, and she knows why.

For Peggy, in her trials with Tom and her usual daily challenges; I quail at the notion of carrying such a load myself, and can only love.

For my mother, and her traversing the dual canyons of the annual checkup and the dead and dying relatives; for my father in his travails without question or comment.

For my grandmother, may she pass into machine intelligence and live forever in the annals of my family, for gold, for good, forever.

For Mr Music and the sleeping giant he imagines into life.

For my cousins; Alex, Alyssa, Darcy, Shauna, Katherine, & John, and Gerald, of course, and his kin.

For my coworkers, Salmon Man, Cristian, Prashant, Jeff, Jenn, Hardeep, Joe, Gianna, Dale, Andy, Heather, Mike B, Mike M, Sandy, Robof9, Peter T, Al Karim, Francis, LTGW, Lindsay, Mel, Graham, Inne, Jeff, Bill.  Chris and Ky and Zari of course.

For the downstairs tenants, may they increase in health and strength.

For my Unca Dave, may he live forever in song, story, fable and myth.

For Lucile.

For Lois, Ruth and their close kin.

For Lady Miss B and her loved ones. For Dr. Filk, Swampy and Maggie.

For Suzanne.

For the ladies (and for the occasional lad) who lunch. All hail Dunnett.

For Spider Robinson and Academie Duello.

For Tammy.

For Rev Katie, and Pope Mary.

For David J. D. and the hard road he set me on,

For Alan.

For the hidden, the unreal, the unseen, for the lies which spin themselves into truth, the stories which harden into tradition, the festivals which anchor human life from one season to the next, a candle, and a warning.

For Keith, for Kate and their dad, Paul, candles, and blessings.

For the people I love and don’t speak of; for the people I hate and don’t speak of.

For my brother Jeff.

Give my head a shake, if I can’t do it for me….

I can really tell I’m upset about no more NCIS – I found myself going to fanfic sites this morning.  And… backing away slowly.  Do I really – I mean really – want to read Gibbs-on-DiNozzo slashfic?  It is to heave.  Gibbs/Abby?  Tempting, but no.  On the other hand, Salmon Guy returned my S1 Deadwood box, so I could go back to Deadwood if I wanted to.

My nose has stopped running and now I’m coughing.  A dry, hacking cough.  The next week will be joyous; I remember thinking about a month ago that it had been bloody ages since I was really sick with something.  Note to back:  Please keep improving somewhat.  I’m experiencing less pain, although I nearly went ass over teakettle down the stairs at Production Way Station yesterday morning when my leg partly buckled, so I guess I need to work on some muscle strength.  Patricia recommends running in water. Anyway, I thought “all those kids will break my fall’ – the station is jammed at that time of day – but you KNOW it never works out like that in real life – the stuff you don’t break bruises to the bone, and my back already hurts, and I don’t do pain well.  I’ve learned my lesson; I have to go down the stairs with my hand floating a couple of inches above the handrail, just in case.  The one day I thought I could go down the stairs in the middle I learned that my earlier caution was entirely justified.  Then I think about my grandmother, and I figure it’s time for me to shaddap.

Tonight, Sloppy Joes, if I can remember to ask my bro to get nice, structurally sound buns for dinner, and spaghetti if not.  Can you believe it? Katie came through and the macaroni is all gone AND she ate dinner.  Honestly cooking to make leftovers around here is hazardous. We either get bored of it or it vanishes into Katie’s piehole before we even have a chance to get bored of it.

I light a candle for Tom, who’s back in hospital.

I light a candle for Jeff, for being understanding.

Today, in anticipation of funds, I got all high on consumerism

And bought a phone, because it was PISSING ME OFF, yes, I think in a week I will still feel that vehement, that I couldn’t get hold of my son when it was mutually convenient.  The next time Keith arrives I will present him with it – I already called him to tell him.  I also bought beer.  I thought of taking a cab home, and then my conscience stabbed me and I took the bus.

Then I got home and there was a check for $6K and a night out waiting for me.  And Katie, dreamingly expecting to get fed.  So out with the leftover pork and sauerkraut (life, she is so hard) and yet more tater tots and homemade cheese sauce with steamed cauliflower. and the leftover mushrooms.  Note how little in the way of dessert I’ve been mentioning.

Katie left (of course!) and Jeff and I watched the Ken Burns documentary on the Brooklyn Bridge.

It’s raining like mad out there, in fitful, cranky bursts, with long lulls, like a teething child that you’re just putting to sleep.

I hope that you are someplace snug and warm right now.

Dreadful news

Tom was burned badly in an industrial accident yesterday.  He’s in VGH and I will learn more about his condition soon.  Unca Dave knows ALL ABOUT electrical burns, and his description led me to believe they are painful and nasty.  (Watching himself get the dressings changed from high above the bath, blown right out on morphine, asking himself, “Who is that poor bastard and why is he screaming!?”)  I will call Peggy soon and get an update, but Tom’s alive and sedated in the hospital and for this we should all be very, very thankful.

In passing

Unca Dave is expected here this afternoon.

Scarlett Johannson got married – in Canada no less – & Paul Newman died.

I light a candle for Cindy, who said, “You amuse me,” on the phone last night in a tone of voice completely free of sarcasm, when I explained something to her about the way my mind works. (I was also being the world’s largest wuss, but she was okay with that too.)  We discussed how she and a bunch of other fans got into Bridge Studios the day Atlantis died and she has pics of herself standing in the gate.  Happy swoon.  I’ve been in Bridge Studios, back in ’05. Given what’s happened since, some of the comments I made in October 05 are pretty funny.   (Like, the comment about how Katie loves to fix hair???)

I also get to think about what I’m going to say at the panel on Friday night.  Yes, I’m going to a con, Vcon to be precise, and I’m going to be on a media filk panel.  Should I tell them that my secret to writing media filk is to go to the internet, download every scripted reference to the character and then find likely rhymes?  Seems kinda mechanical, but that’s how I wrote Clem, full title Just Call me Clem.  (Clem being a demon from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

For breakfast – BLTs.  I don’t know why, except we had all the ingredaments in the house at one time.  For dinner – roast beast with veg.  Why?  It’s Sunday, and a family elder is coming by.  There’s chicken soup on the stove and I’m thinking of making refrigerator cookies.

Watched Starter for 10.  It’s a very good hearted movie, and if you love 80’s Britpop/late new wave you’ll drool on the soundtrack.  The movie is well shot, well-scripted and laugh out loud funny in spots.  Also, Dominic Cooper is bloody gorgeous.. and he’s in Keira Knightley’s new movie the Duchess, which makes me want to see it more.

My watch working again is making me happy.  Being registered to vote makes me happy (I had completely dropped off the rolls, which is perplexing).  And now, I’m going to practice my mandolin, do some paperwork, pay some bills, laundrify, and get another song written down…. and see if we can get to the end of season five of NCIS.  Yes, we’ve been watching rather a lot of it, and I’m really liking Michael Weatherly’s take on DiNozzo more and more.  He kinda grows on you.

It’s a beautiful day…. Mike was going to take me to the Wreck, as it’s supposed to be beachy today, but Unca Dave is coming. I am in a really good mood.  I assume it’s the weather, nothing else has changed.

Jeff RULES

Jeff, as all who know him know, entirely rocks, but this morning he got major “brother is awesome” points by playing chauffeur.  I got ALL my errands done and as a reward he got homemade calorie reduced potato salad.  For supper it will be ginger sesame tofu with veg stir fry with a side of rice noodles, unless I change my mind and make buffalo Sloppy Joes.  I’m thinking about it, I’m seriously thinking about it.

My errands:  Closing out my TD term deposit; getting a new battery into my watch, mailing a donation to Doctors without Borders, getting more stamps, shopping (Famous Foods and Kin’s Farm Market) and getting myself registered to vote.  Total elapsed time just over two hours.  Jeff stayed in the car and read while I did my running around.

Now I’m making chicken soup and contemplating the world – and my laundry – from my little kitchen nook.  Chicken soup is so yummy…. I’m looking forward to it.

More candles

I light a candle for Carrie, who has left her fiancé of three years and is heading back to Ontario.

I light another candle for Unca Dave, who is coming to see me and Jeff on the weekend.

I light a candle for Mike, who hauled me off to Hastings Steam and Sauna last night and pummelled my right shoulder for a while, and so I feel physically a lot better this morning.  Emotionally (to quote Dunnett) I’m a stunned bird in the reeds.  Maybe a fresh cup of coffee will cheer me up.

I gotta tell ya, Hastings Steam and Sauna is a really nice sauna.  Designed and built by a FInn in the mists of time, each of the suites has a sauna room, a shower room and a front room with a couple of extremely utilitarian bed shelf thingees.  The music that is piped in is wonderful (last night it sounded like Exchange, Eno and Norah Jones) and has been every other time I’ve been there, and the only drawback was that we were in suite 2 when the street cleaner went by on Hastings and both Mike and I went bug-eyed trying to figure out what the hellacious noise was – the whole room was shaking and the tile made for really loud echoes.  The plus side was that the horrid fluorescent light in the front room of the suite had burned out so the room was lit by candles. Instant spa experience, just add paraffin.

There’s a hallway on the back of the suites which allows access to the employees.  You get 90 minutes in the suite but only an hour in the ‘wet’ rooms so the employees can clean after each use.

I light a candle for Hastings Steam and Sauna.  Highly recommended!

Love and loss

I’d like to light a candle for mOm.  She’s lost a lot of relatives, mostly to cancer, in the last little while.  That and the fall will tend to make you thoughtful, and sad.

Here’s another candle for my cousin Marianne.  I never met her, I only met her brother Rawd, but he was a sweetie, and Marianne was less than ten years older than me when she died.  She was also a really good person…. a mensch.  I’m going to ask mOm for permission to repost her obit.

Here’s one last candle to all those whose love has become loss.