Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
First, this incredibly cute crosspost from reddit.
Second, church was awesome…. John Hagen played trumpet for Danny Boy and Last Post, and we sang This is My Song as the final hymn and oh yeah the sermon was good.
Third, Keith is over watching Brave with his uncle.
Fourth, I made rotelle and beef and tomato sauce for supper. Why, I even ground up parmesan.
Fifth, the pledging for next year is still coming in and I’m starting the breathing thing again. All will be well.
Paul, Katie and I went to give blood today, and then Paul stood us to supper at Gino’s. The lamb was so succulent it and I am not lying brought tears to my eyes. Then I thought about my blood pressure today (highest so far to my recollection) and I knew that I would have to abjure such injuriously greasy food.
Sigh.
Oh well, there’s always another one, right.
Keith got told yesterday they were going to be reducing his hours and 18 hours later had another job. A more effective way of saying ‘FUCK YOU’ is difficult to imagine. He was quite pleased with himself and got mom’s fusilli and slow cooked spaghetti sauce as a reward.
Also, the new Homeland, which was awesome, but I like any Homeland where Brody and Carrie have face time.
Carrie is getting MOTION SICKNESS from all the aftershocks in Masset. I don’t think she wants to be living there any more. Time to inspect the earthquake kits again.
Is unsuccessful. Sigh. I have a big clean up in front of me. On the plus side, I just pulled some more home made chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.
Had a salmon dinner with my new extended family last night. Since the Katie’s pinnacle of DO NOT WANT exboyfriend may read this I am not going to provide kidlet names, but it was awesome, even if I got tired really fast. I got to drive them home. They are EXTREMELY CUTE and reasonably well behaved. NEVER underestimate the power of a large and robust cardboard box to maintain the interest and imaginations of four and five year olds.
I love Showtime’s Homeland so so so much. Just watched S2E2 and all three of us yelled “Holy s@@t!” as the credits rolled. Keith said, “I did NOT see that coming” and is just now catching up on the most recent Castle. Time to close the laptop and go back to folding lawwwwnnnndray.
Keith took me to lunch at Hi Dozo, the dear one. My prescription has IMPROVED. That’s crazy, but that’s middle age. My eyeballs are healthy. I will post a picture….
Visited with Sue this morning to help her download from her daddy’s funeral. He was 102. Meshuggas about the inheritance; waiting is.
LOVELY visit with Mike last night (funnily enough I’d been kvetching to Paul, with whom I was practicing yesterday, about how MIKE WUZ NOT RETURNING MY CALLS WAHWAH) and he called around 8 and I kinda forst him to let me come over. I brought Otto and sang Theo’s Theme and John Scalzi’s Blog and Compost and Grateful and It’s Just So Nice When Someone knows your Name, and Lemming’s Twofer, and the first verse of Wanted to Believe, and Mike sang the drop D version of Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue and another song, I can’t remember which. We talked about various things, including how trying work is for him right now, and how the insomnia really doesn’t help. BUT HE FOUND THE TAYLOR. His parlour guitar was lost in the move but he found it again, and so me happy. I was VERY BAD and drank two beers, which made me so drunk I collapsed on the sofa and slept from 10:30 til 8:30 the next morning. Two beers. I always was a lightweight, but this was ludicrous. Also worked on Rozo for a while, her shoulders were a reticulation of weenie little knots. While I was there Mike called Brian and I got to talk to him for a while. There is nothing like the sound of a friend’s voice, yanno?
This morning I came home and promptly started brekkie for Jeff, being melon and bacon and pamcakes, and then Sue called and I went off and had a second breakfast of more coffee. Also, getting checks signed so I can pay some churchy bills. Then I wandered into a sign shop and ORDERED the John Caspell Memorial Pinball Parlour sign for reelz this time, and then my other errands got shunted aside as I had to trot home due to the coffee.
Now I am looking up the language of flowers on the internet for a bouquet I’m buying for the minister tomorrow and as soon as I change my clothes – ew, slept in my clothes, what am I, frosh at some scummy college??? – I’ll be off to buy a floral bouquet, pick up some more spray paint, and buy some eggs and butter to get going on some biscotti. Roast chicken for dinner tonight. MMMMM chicken.
I cooked a pork roast the other night with basil and lemon thyme from Suzanne’s deck garden. It was nommy too, although Jeff owned that it was a little overcooked. We did agree that pork roast should be roasted, it doesn’t cook right in the crock pot.
Paul and Keith are off to Seattle for the long weekend. Katie is doing cat care this time; I should call her. The only reason I know she’s alive is from her facebook comments.
Miss Margot has been extra barfy. I need to brush her very very thoroughly and give her a lot of kitty malt.
SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SINGING NEW SONG FOR MINISTER. he he.
So I go outside with Otto to work on what is rapidly shaping up to be Theo’s Theme (for the evol villein of Midnite Moving Co). Within four bars, there is a robin FLYING TOWARD ME AND CALLING MADLY. Robin then perches in a tree, never removing gaze. Robin attempts to keep up with me in the music generation department, getting louder but eventually quitting in disgust. Then it moves to the dogwood, and then the top of the tree stump. I felt uncomfortable and went indoors. Despite everything the tune is sounding great and my finger picking is coming along nicely. I think I’m kinda the Meg White of mandolin players, althought that’s definitely a slap to Meg.
Keith and Paul should show up shortly with corn and tales of Paul’s mom’s successful nth birthday (I can’t remember exactly and I don’t know if she’d thank me to…) I hear another family turned up en masse, which should have rendered things much more festive and apparently were awesome in that Keith got to see Peter, his oldest friend. And the vampire family! woot.
Also, this morning Margot tried to get into the dryer Man, how HAS she lived this long?
Productive day of errands including two overdue ones.
Took a chicken soup to church today for the soup lunch, and despite there being 7 SOUPS (A new record) every drop and smidge of it was consumed. Thanks to Shane for his peppery beef soup, it kicked ass.
The homily this morning was amazing, about how readily various faith traditions coexist inside Unitarianism. I have a copy of the homily, and intend to carefully re-read it.
I have two commissions for church; one to write a song about compost, and one for Beacon’s birthday celebration (church is 30 years old in February). La la! Also I took Otto to church today and lightly exercised him.
How to make it. Includes links to a smoker.
Last night, or more properly this morning, I had two wonderful dreams, one about a Vancouver being returned as the land of the people who first lived here, and how different things were (no privately owned cars – you had to share car ownership with housemates or family, and the transit was WAY better (there was an incredible funicular down from Burnaby mountain to the inlet that was like a fricking roller coaster ride) and you couldn’t cut down trees unless you were growing food on that land, and everybody was allowed to keep small food animals if they had the space) and then that morphed into a dream that was a wonderful cross between Dunnett and Martin about a bossy young lady who picked out her husband when she was young and then worked out a plan to marry him when she got older, and how everybody fell in line with her plans including her future father in law because it was easier than arguing with her – oh, she was a sassy little thing, and so cute. I haven’t remembered a dream in ages, and these two made me happy.
Keith came over yesterday. He’s been having a lovely time with friends (watching a troupe of actors rehearse on Granville Island yesterday, among other delights) and is considering his next move workwise, he’s still working part time in the lab. Katie has vanished from our sights but will respond to texts when prodded. I’m seeing her later this week.
I made curried chicken salad sandwiches for lunch yesterday, they were yummy.
Paul came over and we went for walk and we noodled on guitars. I am VERY happy with Smokey, tuned to a D chord. He sounds purty.
So I completely blew the interview yesterday – fell apart during the test. I solaced myself with beer and lobster afterwards, so thoroughly downcast was I, and my Lumosity score fell like a rock this morning subsequent to me having two beers, so, note to self – alcohol does make you demonstrably dumber, please avoid (yesterday’s score was one of my highest ever, so it seems germane to mention the difference). No I did no driving yesterday, for the safety minded among you.
The stye has come to its fruition and no longer hurts; it’s just making me look like Margot with the ludicrous amount of eye gunk it is producing (which is actually impacting my ability to see out of my left eye. Very glad it’s in my left eye, my right eye doesn’t produce enough tears so I’d be in a very sad way.)
Margot fell off some boxes in my closet and trapped herself in my clothes. I have never heard her make that much noise in that short a space – she really is getting more noisy, which means she’s just barely audible.
Amazing science / health news.
He only posted it yesterday and I’ve already set it to music. OH GOSH HOW I LOVE THIS POEM. Mind you I wrote the choon two days ago.
I love the show ER so much I want it to be in space. Yes, Trauma 3000, in which our fearless surgeons and internists rotate between a mother hospital on the ground and a microgravity trauma unit in orbit, including tours of duty with trauma units at the front lines of an alien war. And I want an alien social worker. I want it to be ER x Babylon 5 x Battlestar Galactica. w00t!~
One of my filking fen has this to say on facebutt this morning:
Insurance lawyers were put on earth so that we would learn to love the honesty and ethics of Plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Made Peach and blueberry glop for pamcakes. Which reminds me I should make them.
Happy sigh. Katie over yesterday, and as is traditional, broke something, in this case the clothesline – full of laundry – onto freshly cut grass. We will now consider how to restring it. Spoke too soon. Jeff doesn’t have to consider, he’s up there rehanging it. I’ll stay handy in case he comes off the ladder. AND HE SHALL HAVE PAMCAKES FOR BREAKFAST!
I am going out to Maple Ridge to do something musical today – if it is successful I’ll report back. If not I’ll slink home a few dollars poorer but happy to have gone for a ride.
I’m probably going to miss meeting up with Patricia today as she was coming into New West, but o well.
BREAKING BAD OMG it is going to a VERY DARK PLACE. People gwine die.
I’ll be talking to a commercial baker next week regarding one of two locations he has close by the house for biscotti bakes. w00t!
I had cold chard salad with two pieces of cut up bacon for brekky this morning, plus coffee. I am currently in love with chard, it makes my digestion very happy. Then I read that it’s terrible for my body because it is full of oxalates. Oh well, guess I’ll drink a gallon of water today to keep my kidneys happy.
Sad face for the Philippines; it’s very wet there and 22 people have already drowned in weather related incidents. Sad face for New Zealand; one of the bigger volcanoes is about to let go. Sad face the Canadian Olympic Women’s Soccer Team, the ref was an oversized Foley catheter style moron of an incompetence rarely seen EVEN IN INTERNATIONAL SOCCER, which is ludicrously bad. Sad face for the kitties. We had to lock the cat door again, so they may egress but not ingress.
Happy face for Dog Swims With Dolphins.
Just left a message for Chipper to find out how her weekend went – it was supposed to be the best revenue this summer and I am hoping it wasn’t a disaster.
I can hear flickers outside my window.
Marvin Hamlisch has passed away.
Hope everyone has a lovely day.
Mars landing today. It will either be an expensive failure or a spectacular success.
I think I’ll head off to Costco once it opens and pick up some serplies. I definitely want to do it before the sun is up too high.
I have fallen in love with fresh chard salad. Chop bunch of chard. Nuke until soft. Add butter and lemon. Refrigerate. Nom. It doesn’t get much simpler than that and my body provides very happy feedback when I ingest it. (Oh, iron… b vitamins…. you love me, you really love me!)
2020 says THIS SHIT IS TURRIBLE FER YER KIDNEYS
I really wish it wasn’t so hot. When it’s this hot at 8 in the morning it’s hard to get enthusiastic about any kind of physical labour.
Cleaned up the guest room, which used to be Katie’s dumping ground for all of her clothes (she refused to sleep on the guest room bed, always sleeping on the downstairs sofa). I have removed the last of the Katie debris, cold medication, her assessment from the fitness club, half an earring set and suchlike, and now I’m contemplating dragging the vacuum cleaner downstairs.
I just want to stay curled up in bed with a Dorothy Dunnett novel, except it’s too hot to even do that.