Category: Festival

The Golden Seam

At 2:51 today, this appeared.

It is an everyday magic
And yet you’re in my every dream
Very little of the tragic
With you life’s a golden seam
Mining jewels of contentment
And adoration most divine
Living in a loving present
Home and family are kind

Into our perfect home of respite
Perhaps a snake, perhaps a fire
The scalding words, the lip bit
But it can’t make our love expire

Promise me and I will swear to you
By all that’s beautiful and free
I will always love and care for you
As I hope you will love and care for me.

Folkfilk I accomplished

“Folkfilk I” accomplished! Planet Bachelor v3.0 has been housewarmed!

1. Paul, *while cleaning up* thanked me profusely for arranging it. Hey I just wanted it at your place so neither Peggy nor I had to clean up afterwards. But that, my friends, is what makes Paul, Paul.
2. SO lovely to hear Alexis Hinde singing again, and her swansong was Amanda F. Palmer’s Ukelele Anthem, which Brian, Paul, Mike and I enjoyed immensely.
3. Finding out Hal trains people in medieval Japanese martial arts, specially with pole weapons = win. Also, he is a very flash guitarist.
4. Chili got et, but not all of it, so my brother gets some. Peggy brought plum cake.
5. Brian C. has an extremely lovely electric guitar and his noodlings added that je ne sais quoi of 60’s twang and reverb.
6. Brooke Abbey sang “The Wreck of the…..” to the plaudits and open amusement of the crowd. Peggy chimed in with that bowed bass which provides the one moment of gravitas. Plus I asked for “It’s just so nice when someone knows your name.”
7. Next one’s at Lunders in a couple of weeks, more deets later, and the one after that at my place (Geekhaus). Everybody wants more, so why not??
8. My evil plan to relieve the Lunders of every last one of their kazoos continues apace. Mine is an etc etc etc.

Happy New Year!

I’d like to wish everyone who reads my blog a very happy New Year full of fun, food, family, and frolic, also paid employment and worthy activities as and when required.

I make no resolutions, but I’m going to do a couple of homilies and finish a couple of books -writing, not reading- this year.  I’m also hoping to do some sewing and dejunking.  We’ll see.

 

All is merry and bright

  1. Paul gave me and Jeff motion detector lights; the upgetting to pee is now a lot easier.  Paul’s approach to Christmas gifts is to buy a bag of useful objects and let you pick which one you like – this year the theme was light, so it was headlamp, motion detector light or keychain flashlight.
  2. I was really resentful about ‘having’ to do Christmas dinner, and then I asked myself what it would take to be less resentful.  I immediately thought “If I don’t have to buy the turkey and lug it home!”  To which Paul happily agreed, and Keith lugged it over here.  Resentment vanished, I went to Granville Island with Tammy for the rest of the veg and happily lugged that home.
  3. I made vegan squash soup – there wasn’t enough for everybody and it was damned good.
  4. so much good beer – pumpkin ale, winter ale, shipwreck IPA! Tammy brought some nice wine.
  5. The turkey was good – the meat delicious, the skin like an advertisement – but what was really amazing was the gravy. I ended up eating it cold as a side for leftover pie, and it was SO GOOD.  It was pan dripping gravy.  I stuck the pan drippings in a blender, added a tablespoon of cake flour and about half a cup of milk, blended the shit out of it and then nuked it for a minute.  From such pedestrian beginnings came a voluptuously smooth gravy with a meaty and almost nutty flavour.
  6. Mike and Tammy and Paul and Katie and Keith and I sang and played afterwards, and Alex grooved along.  He really really likes music, and he is most fabulously strong.  He apparently likes his Christmas present, which was a stuffed T Rex. Paul introduced Tammy to Never Set the Cat on Fire, which was wonderful.
  7. Wine was spilled on Granny’s linen tablecloth… horrors! and it came out again the next morning with some Amaze.  Tablecloth is clean, folded and ready for use.
  8. Earlier this week I got the lobster dinner I have been drooling for, except it was lunch, and it was with Tammy, so it was pretty much perfect.
  9. Although the kitchen is once again the habitation of orcs this morning, I HAD cleaned up and ran a dishwasher and got rid of the empties and straightened out the living room the next morning and returned some sanity to the proceedings.
  10. Today I hope to get cat litter.  With two cats, more shit.  It is the law.
  11. Autumn is a boy.  He is now Buster.  Jeff and I are fine with this, but not fine with not noticing earlier.  He will be snipped in a week or so.
  12. He has been to the vet for suturing because he’s already gotten in fights. Margot was disturbed by him before, but with a cone on his head she is Miss Hissy each time he approaches.
  13. I am really enjoying everybody’s pics of how happy their Christmas has been.  The various traditions from around the world and around the various ethnicities of my friends and flist make me happy in their variety and conviviality.
  14. I am sad to have missed Christmas Eve service because it was the last time a certain church member will ever provide music for us, because he is awesome, but also sick.  As sad as I am about this, I made happy memories in my own home with my loves and kin.
  15. Keith was sober, and he was Mom’s taxi.  He: ferried Tammy to and from Edmonds, drove his sister home, drove Rob to Church and drove Mike and his Dad home.  As happy as I was to see Alex, Keith did a lot to make the evening perfect, and I am now considering (which I can do here, since he never reads my blog, haw haw) how I shall appropriately reward him for his service.
  16. A car was stolen from in front of our house at 3:30 am Christmas morning.  I spoke to a Burnaby RCMP officer about it… Jeff and I were asleep at the time, or in no position to see what was happening.  I thanked her for working Christmas Day and wished for her to stay safe out there.
  17. I made chocolate cake.  I am thinking perhaps cinnamon rolls later. The turkey soup is made and in the freezer.

This concludes my report….

Today’s meal

The bird goes in the oven at 1.  No stuffing this time.  The rest of the day is me counting back from when supper hits the table (’round 5:15), prepping veggies so they have a fighting chance of being ready to go at the appointed time, fetching guests from Skytrain stations and cleaning things.

Watched this PG family adventure movie yesterday and quite liked it: Ragnarok. With bonus Sofia Helin from the Bridge series.

 

 

Laundry list

This is for mOm. Art and cancer.

I said to Paul IF YOU WANT ME TO COOK IT YOU MUST BUY IT. So there’s a fresh turkey in my fridge, and I now have Katie, Alex, Keith, Paul, Rob W, Mike M, possibly one other person from Mike’s work and I hope Tammy for Christmas Eve dinner.  It’s a family plus orphans dinner!!!

Today I have to buy vegetables and hopefully I’ll remember the cranberry sauce. Also I need to lay on at least a couple of bottles of wine and some beer.

I’m seeing Tammy for lunch at Granville Island today.  Hope it’s the Keg, I am dying for lobster.

If you like Downton Abbey, you must see the Christmas Text to Santa special, in which George Clooney appears.  Happy sigh.

Andrew Wakefield, you are POND SCUM. Or, a carelessly formed biofilm of dubious utility.

Family drama is blergh.  But I like watching it sometimes anyway.  My reaction. (Sorta for Jeff, who’s doing a complete TNG rewatch).  I’m talking other people’s families… I am doing okay.

Chocolate cake for breakfast, FOR REASONS.

Heavy sighs for all the dust I’m going to raise getting the living room ready, har har.

 

 

 

 

blergh

I have now invested large chunks of many days in a row in Paul and Keith’s move, and I’m finding it rather a trial.  For me a move is something other people get to show up at for one day.  That means you pack everything, etc.

Too much on my plate today – Church, then moving, then cat acquisition, then Katie’s baby shower.  It’s the story of my life, nothing for months and then everything piles up in one day. I have met the cat (her name is Autumn) and she is stunningly gorgeous, exceedingly athletic, and very clever.  Margot’s gonna wonder what hit her if Autumn meets with Jeff’s approval.  She needs to leave where she is because she is one cat surplus to the landpeer’s okay and she really is an outdoor cat, which she can be here, as Miss Margot is an outdoor cat.  She shouldn’t be – you know it and I know it – but she is.

2020 says Autumn was male.

I was hoping to get out for a nice dinner tonight but I will probably curl up in a fetal ball and collapse instead.

My hot water bottle perished and voided itself on me this morning.  I managed not to get any water on my computer or me, by a special mercy of providence.

The nerve of that guy! Jeff won’t take me to breakfast unless I change out of my pjs.  Thank you Jeff for yummy noms.

 

Casino night

Last night I went to the Hard Rock Casino and learned first hand how very odd casinos are.  I, Amanda, Mike, Stuart, Ian, Sarah and Otto got together for a simply lovely meal / some drinks.  Catching up with the old Statpower folks was really wonderful, and I’m in a really good mood this morning.  I thought I was going to gamble going in, and after quite the lecture on statistics from Meester Mike, I no want do that.  So I didn’t.  The food at Asylum was standard pub grub, perhaps 10 percent more expensive that was reasonable, so pretty ordinary for Vancouver.

Jeff is off fixing things and making the world a better place.

I’ve already done my homework for my first piano lesson.

Today I’m going to clean things, write things, sing things, dance things, ingest things, and excrete things.  Isn’t it wonderful that the word things even exists.

Always wanted to try it, this just makes it more interesting. Ayahuasca, that is.

Party at our place in December, details later!

Alexander’s First Thanksgiving.

Comments having nothing to do with Alexander:

Margot likes babies.  She doesn’t even leave the room when they cry.  Every time I think I know my cat she reveals unexplored depths of character and personality.

It was so good to feast the folks, including Mike and Casey.  The meal consisted of (because mOm will want to know, not because I am a food porn type): Roast turkey stuffed with parsley, one head of garlic and a lemon, boiled and roasted yams, brussels sprouts parboiled in chicken stock and sauteed in butter, sauteed parsnips, iceberg lettuce salad, stuffing made in the crockpot (sadly lacking onions, but still damned good), boughten cranberry jelly, homemade gravy and possibly the worst – the most gluey and lumpy – smashed potatoes I ever made.  Everybody else ate them so it’s not like they were inedible, they just weren’t choice.  Absolutely no sweets, but white and red wine, plus beer, to go with the meal. I did promise Paul his mother’s lemon snow recipe for dessert but that will wait for our next meal together; he very kindly did veg prep and ran people ’round town and brought wine glasses and suchlike, for which I offer thanks and praise.

Keith got off work early; Katie turned up around 4, so we all sat down together around six.

The carcase, less the sandwich making leftovers, is in the stockpot; I made beef and bean burrito fillings yesterday as well, so I don’t think I’ll have to cook for a while, yay me!  I mean apart from deboning the soup ingredients.

Around 8 Katie got toothpicks, and Casey was in the same boat, so Paul took them home.  For another hour Mike, Jeff, Keith and I sat around downstairs and watched Archer, and then since the boys both work in the morning, off they went.

It was not a spectacular meal, but it wasn’t one that anybody else in our group would have WANTED to cook, so I’m glad I stepped up.  After I could sit down, I had a lovely evening.

 

And Alexander was there.

 

Alexander disapprovesHappy Grandma

Divine decadence

I love my friends.  Mike took me out to dinner (lamb) and pummelled me until I felt a lot better.  I had no idea I was sore! He told me about some of the stuff that’s happening at Schneider and I laughed quite immoderately.

Check out this example of divine decadence, being a chair shaped like a scorpion.

REALLY glad I mowed the lawn yesterday; the rain is going to last 5 days.  So the place won’t look like an abandoned house when we have guests on Monday.

I have a big table for Thanksgiving. My immediate fam in town plus two orphans. (Neither of whom are technically orphans). This totals 9.  We are going to eat like FOOLS. Really looking forward to it, even if I’ll be trapped in a tiled cell with a dead bird for a day.  There will be parsnips.  I found a crockpot recipe for stuffing that sounds nommerful.

 

more filking

A lovely time filking yestreen at Tom and Peggy’s, Cindy also in attendance. I got to sing soprano for most of the evening, which is fine if I’m not singing loud.

I hope everybody has a happy pride day! or not.

I light a candle for pOp, and he knows why. You have a visit from Jeff to look forward to, and once he’s back I’ll come out and see you.

Got a call back from an employer NOT A FRICKIN AGENCY. I have to wait another week.

Saw, and loved, Edge of Tomorrow (stupid name, good movie though; it’s Starship Troopers meets Groundhog Day.)

Jeff and I have been permanently ruined by A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology. Mr. Nosepuller told us to pay attention to the recreation of the couple, and now it’s in every single thing we watch.

Made wordcount yesterday and practiced.

I very much enjoyed this cartoon. SFW.

Leaving for Georgia soon

I will be keeping a trip diary and posting irregularly… I have decided not to take my computer because I simply cannot afford to have it confiscated by the US government.  I have NOTHING on the computer which would warrant that, but I’ve been complaining under my real name about the US government for 10 years now.  Most hotels have a guest computer room.

If I do write any George stuff while I’m gone it will be cursive, or uploaded to Google drive…. they aren’t likely to confiscate that. I will take my phone and charger.

I pack today.  It will be a big batch of weird stuff I take, I hope the TSA and Customs can deal with it all.

I’m going to drop the keys for the business off with the landlord.  I have been trying and trying and trying to sell it, and almost 60 people enquired, and I showed it to at least 30 sets of people, but I can’t pay rent any more.  I closed the file with Fraser Health yesterday.  It has been a year out of my life, and we only operated for three months.  I learned a lot, got my heart and my shoulder broken, and I really think I’m a better person.  I certainly have more self-knowledge, a lot more respect for restaurateurs.  Knowing that I will never ever step through that door again is, candidly, more of a relief than I can say.  Anything else I say will be oversharing.

I am practicing and writing every day – music or one of my other projects.  That’s really the only thing that counts.

Jeff can handle getting a bolus into Eddie by himself with no difficulty, so I don’t feel like I’m abandoning Jeff over that.  Eddie is moving as little as possible to accomplish his goals of just barely eating, just barely drinking, and getting to the litter pan.  I’ve taken to leaving a hot water bottle next to him as he was cold to the touch the other day, and lifting him up into the chair he is sleeping in pretty much 24/7 these days.  Margot is being very sucky towards us and practically knocked Eddie over with her tail the other day, a liberty he simply would not have tolerated a couple of months ago.

So many people have told me how much they are looking forward to seeing me at GAFilk!  I feel genuinely underrehearsed, but I recently read that if you’re feeling nervous, make yourself MORE EXCITED.  So I will.

ATL is not currently experiencing delays in or outbound with the exception of international flights outbound.  Travel will be icky, but not impossible due to weather.

I’d like to call out Patricia for helping arrange a drinkypoo on my return, and a very warm hug for mOm and Chipper, who have been extra specially supportive beta readers for George, and for Tammy, who provided me with the book that unblocked my last objections to the writing.  I have something very specific to say on the subject of first contact, which is that we’ve had 100 years of science fiction in popular culture, and we have to start writing first contact fiction that allows humans to respond intelligently to aliens.  Not to freak out or say stupid things. To say, “Cool! Weird! How can I help? What’s in it for me?  Where’s your ray gun?” when somebody who really does think globally comes along.

 

Everybody who can, have a good day!

Catching up

It’s been a lively couple of days.  I’ve been writing hard, practiced almost enough, played at church to sincere and life affirming compliments, showed the shop, made the decision to hand the keys over to the landlord, got into last minute negotiations with guys that came in at Christmas, had a spider drop onto my keyboard and scare the shit out of me, I’ve stopped having nightmares but the insomnia has fired up again, we finished watching Jazz, which made me unhappy because it was SO wonderful, and I received some Buddhist wisdom which allowed me to release a lot of stored animus toward my life and situation.  I learned that my travel plans into the US are probably going to be completely fucked up by the INSANE weather ongoing in most of the US – shit, it’s warmer in Alaska – which reminds me of the time that I wanted to get to a con which would have been crucial to my development as an SF writer and 9/11 intervened, except this time it’s all expenses paid and guess what, they’ll WAIT for me, as I don’t imagine I’d be stranded more than two days so I’ll still get to do it.  I learned that Pearl, Cat Faber’s octave mandolin (ALSO by Peter Cox) experienced technical difficulties and is now in the shop, meaning I do not have an octave mandolin as a back up if United destroys or loses Otto. (And I know that as sad as that might be, I would just ask for the bits back or get Peter to make me another one, him being obliging that way, if remunerated.  Who’s to say the replacement wouldn’t be even more amazing?)  This means I would have to do the entire concert on a regular sized mando – which I DO NOT WANT – or transpose EVERYTHING to a guitar, which for a couple of songs would be fine and for everything else would probably cause my nervous system to implode – or sing the entire concert a capella, which would be extremely wearing for my audience.  I will be taking Lemming’s advice about packageration seriously.  I reproduce it below.  Jeff invented the word garbarcage to describe when tv shows are shitty because they have too much arc and too little of what we watch the shows for.  Eddie is needing fluids at least every other day, he has started to refuse his meds and he’s gone off his food, although he’s still making the trek to the litter tray.  Margot has gotten very sucky, which is unusual.  I’m making plans to travel after the shop is gone.  I found out that the Squamish name for Thomas Mulcair is “Angry Beard” (okay it’s just one Squamish dude who is calling him that, but DID I LAUGH when I read that) and that it’s too cold outside right now for the Lincoln Park Zoo Polar Bear. I’ve been applying for jobs every day, no response. However, I am relaxed about it.  What will be, will be.  No use flinching or being rebellious.  The leathern thong descends whether I’ve been a good girl or not.

 

Tip #1: Depending on size of body, sometimes banjo cases work for octave mandolin type instruments. Tip #2: A way to save money on a case AND protect the instrument: Call guitar stores in area and see if one will give you an instrument-size box. A banjo box would probably work. Check airline regs for box measurements before proceeding. They’re supposed to allow some leeway for musical instruments. Invest in some bubble wrap. Loosen strings. Wrap instrument in bubble wrap, inside soft case. Wrap case in bubble wrap. Stuff bubble wrap in bottom of box, put in instrument, put bubble wrap on all sides and top filling box, seal box with heavy 2″ wide packing tape, about twice as much as you need. Pack one roll of packing tape so you can re-pack before you leave to go home. Add handle (easy to make one with tape, or tape on a handle, or tie on some rope. Mark stuff on package with large black magic marker “THIS SIDE UP! FRAGILE: DO NOT BEND. CONTAINS ANGRY ELVES WHO WILL HURT YOU IF YOU WAKE THEM UP” or some such thing. Tip #3: First, find out if the planes you’re flying on all have closets. Second, carry the thing with you, in the soft case, but do wrap it in bubble wrap inside the case. Make sure it’s small enough to fit in the overhead. Go up to the counter and ask if they’ll find space in the closet for your instrument. If they’re crazy enough to want to gate-check it, well, that’s what the bubble wrap inside the case is for, but if they do that, ask them if they’ve seen the “United Breaks Guitars” video, nicely. If you have to put it in the overhead, stuff a large coat or something all around it so no one tries to smash it with their luggage. Again, bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is your friend

Oh, and don’t forget the loosen strings part. Most of the time, no difference, but the changes in air pressure in the luggage compartment plus string tension will eventually cause the neck to break at the nut.

And take along spare strings because one often breaks when you retighten.

Loki lowkey Christmas

Showed the shop on Christmas day AND Boxing day.  It will be a Syncretic Agnostic Festive Miracle if I sell the place, but I’m okay with what happens.  Everything changes. Failure hasn’t killed me yet.

As part of our Syncretic Agnostic Festive Season, we acquired Chinese Food, watched documentaries and SGA, and bought zero presents, sent zero cards.  I did go to a Christmas Eve service which was about the advent and deliverance of joy, love, peace and hope, framed by the story of the Christ child and Mary.  (Joseph always gets left out… I’m gonna make a sermon for him some day).

One of the best things about filk is that if you change the lyrics to be less sexist nobody will comment.  I say this looking at Uplift, a wonderful song written in 1999, but it contains Mankind.  I will sing it as Humans.  All will be well.

I’ve already blasted through the second hand book Tammy gave me for Christmas.  It’s called The Forty Rules of Love, and I cried BUCKETS while I was reading it, but it is about the love between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and it is a very wonderful and sad story.  In the end, Rumi is a poet, but everyone around him paid a high price for it.

Poetry doesn’t come from nowhere; for me it is language reaching through my emotions to a page; to the release and abandonment of expressing a feeling in the most charged and delicate way possible.  Poetry is like the sprite that forms above a massive thunderstorm.  So brief, so beautiful, and invisible unless you are looking RIGHT AT IT when it happens. She who has not seen will say it doesn’t exist.  She who has seen will pummel words and rhythms, grasp at floating down, weave spider silk and daydreams, stare at bones, bond with discards, trace the impression of a car tire in tar, build launching pads of paper and foil. Her dissatisfaction is the human eternal, embroidered with a great ‘Ah!”

Lumosity, mando practice, paperwork.  That is at least part of my day.