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!
most of which I can’t blog about, I had the most amazing case of instant karma.
I found somebody’s watch in the hall on the way in to work. I picked it up, carried it back to my apartment, put up a sign on the bulletin board with my phone number, she called me, and I took it back to her just now.
And she gave me a pint of strawberries.
And I have cream.
My weekend started with me sitting ON MY BALCONY – literally the first time since I moved in that I sat on the balcony with somebody – and drinking panty remover, which is the nicest thing you can call Mike’s Hard Cranberry lemonade (note to self, bleaaaagh) with a friend. Fortunately there’s a big jug of fruit juice. And soon, the salad with hard cooked eggs.
The rest of the weekend hasn’t happened yet.
Katie’s birth certificate FINALLY ARRIVED. Note how I’ve kept my cakehole shut, because this situation has had me in seizures since the last time I complained of it here.
Other matters remain undecided and likewise sidewise. I should make phone calls. Apparently I’m helping with a documentary next week. More details as they become available.
Also, Sin City. It’s been an age since I went, and it should be peerlessly entertaining.
Also, I’m thinking of maybe finally buying a television.
I think I’ll finish rewatching Meet the Feebles. I got … uh … distracted, the last time I tried to watch it.
I like having Katie K around because she encourages me to eat properly. Much ear flapping and gesticulating…. a pleasant evening all round, and I even COOKED …. SUPPER …. !
One of the effects of Pride Day was a kink (very funny…) in my right shoulder from helping carry the banner. However, Mike has been here and after he doused me in grapeseed oil and worked on me for about half an hour, I felt much better and got up this morning with everything from my foot feeling less numb (unexpected bonus!) to much less pain elsewhere. He also brought my guitar back from Baumfest, which was almost two weeks ago.
We started the evening at Simba’s on Edmonds because Dosza Hut was closed for kitchen renos…. a drag as both of us had a major dosa jones…. but the meal at Simba’s, including Kenyan Tusker Beer, was a sensory delight in a very peaceful and humane setting… Best of all was being served by an Asian woman in a dashiki. Welcome to Vancouver, please check your tired old expectations at the door.
Someplace in Chinatown Mike scored a traditional chinese jacket with frog closings and traditional style pants – in fatigued jeans material. The overall effect is so “Serenity” that it has to be seen to be appreciated. Especially with that ‘red flag to a bull’ do-rag. And the long hair. Oh, and he’s clean shaven now, for those who care. He took a week off his unfulfilling in the extreme McJob and is relaxed.
Now that my resemblance to a human being has been improved so much, I think I’ll go to work and do something remunerative for my efforts.
I bought a camera (and two gigs of SD and other camera accoutrements and a cutting board and a proper paring knife) last night before Mike called. I had been on the verge of going home, feeling very lonely because the previously made plans to go into New West didn’t fly, and then…. a friend with a convertible shows up.
Took Tom and Peggy to a restaurant last night (Santali, and it was excellent, thanks) to very imperfectly thank them for their abundance of loving hospitality over the last couple of years, also to talk about my current state of mental health, which is pretty much happy and sane, and the reasons therefor.
Then I asked them to drive us to Burnaby Mountain Park where we looked at the glories of Burnaby (the view over the city, the Burrard Inlet, the dancing cranes made out of plants, the rose garden, the SFU Pipe Band rehearsing, kids running around being kids, the Ainu Playground of the Gods sculpture and a fairly >meh< sunset). Then they drove me home and I even went to bed fairly early. To work now! Where a mountain of transactions awaits me. I am floating around though. There is nothing like intelligent attention from a worthy individual, after many months of rejection and being wilfully misunderstood, as balm for one's wounded nerves. Thank you Peggy and Tom for putting up with me as I babbled about it.
Went out to dinner at the Keg with Katie K last night. I had an excellent time. The rest of yesterday was domestic stuff – all my clothes are clean tra la la – and scanning photos and shipping them off to my mom.
Daughter Katie is supposed to turn up and give herself a Harry Potter readathon sometime this week, we just haven’t scheduled when yet.
…. so their grandchildren can all starve to death. Or so my misgivings tell me.
This is for my parents, who need encouragement to avoid food. Scroll down to click next for a new page, and a new commentary, on a fifties late night cookbook.
Man, I didn’t think I’d ever, ever, write those two words in the same sentence, but Mike M. invited me along to his mother’s 71st birthday bash and …. holy cow.
I ate jellyfish for the first time. I ate abalone for the first time. I ate sharksfin soup for the first time. I ate like an ogre and then some, and still the food kept coming, and coming, and coming. Rock cod, deep fried crab cakes, rice and egg and shrimp, lobster, scallops, cuttlefish, noodles, crispy skin chicken. And cake, and dessert.
That was a totally superlative meal at a 5 star Chinese restaurant downtown and I heartily thank the siblings who sponsored it. And, totally in Chinese tradition Lily told me to make sure I had at least one long noodle at the birthday, as it is a folkway about long life. And, totally in Chinese tradition there were children there and they ate everything with glee and behaved themselves (and considering that the eldest was already 150 pages into the last Harry Potter book, he was extraordinarily patient during a three hour meal!)
I am in a state of repletion which can only be described as blissful!
and I got complimented on my chopstick use. Life is purty darned good right now.
there’s a lot of beauty going begging
and a lot of sorrow going unassuaged
Anyway Mike was over for dinner last night. Fed him lasagna. Keith got his learners permit and went for his green belt grading yesterday AND he worked at Habitat for Humanity’s Re-store, so he had a day crowded with life and incident. Paul went to watch and take pictures with our NEW DIGITAL CAMERA and I should be posting pics but I’m feeling too lazy too find them. One of the girls at the grading patted Keith on the bum. I said in my understanding girls don’t look for excuses to touch boys they don’t like. Katie took some nice pix of Pokey but once again I’m feeling lazy. I took a picture of Cousin Itt, which is this weird thing around the corner from where I live and if I ever get a GOOD pic of Cousin Itt I’ll post it. Taking pictures is harder than it looks.