Category: Friends

Grr bleugh

Well it’s a good thing the transpeople I know personally aren’t assholes, because  the idea of having a transwoman tell me I’m oppressing her for occasionally mentioning that I have a Gold Star Darwin Approved Vagina would really really piss me off.  And I wouldn’t be nice about it.

The transpeople I know would roll their eyes and ask us to return to a more useful discussion.

Some woman who is not a professional medical person on the internet put up a 7 minute video on exercises for Pubic Symphisis pain, and in a shocking development, they really help.  Mike took me for Yellowtail Thai food last night down at the Quay  (I just ate the leftovers for breakfast… there is something of decadence in being able to have deep fried oysters for brekkie) last night and I crashed at his place.  He was still sawing logs at 5:30 am like any sane human so I let myself out and walked home.  MAN WHAT A DIFFERENCE.  I can honestly say that’s the longest and fastest walk I’ve had without pain in probably a year. And the sun was lovely, and the fresh breeze, which will probably resemble a damp blanket by midday, was restorative.  So I had a 2K walk in perfect weather as a start to my day.

Still sad about Anita.  She was a good woman.  I’ll post her obit later; she was a public figure in BC so there should be one in the local papers.

Sue comes to get me at 9:45.  I FOUND MY CHURCH NAME TAG more or less in time for the last service of the year.  Go me.

I think I already mentioned I wrote 1024 words yesterday, but here I go again.

New deadline for completion of the manuscript first draft is the end of August.  If I keep up my current rate that will be accomplished.

Visits and departures

A church elder died last evening.  The elder leaves an immense gap in our spiritual life, for the elder was a person with great institutional knowledge, practical wisdom and a steadying presence.

I’ll say who when all the family and everyone else knows.

BUT  Battery is coming today, and he always brings happiness with him, so that is good.

I will try to write today, and work on other projects if I can’t.

writing and eating

SO… Mike took me to Taqueria Playa Tropical for dinner and it was WONDERFUL genuine Mexican food.  The Carne Burrito was super and Mike had Flautas.  I had a Negro Modelo for beerskis and Mike had the Coronorita which is a mini Corona upended in a really tasty Margarita.

Life is good.

Working on another Pharos scene.  Katie just called and she and I and Paul and OF COURSE ALEX WHAT YOU THINK SHE WOULD ABANDON HER BABY will go for a walk later.

Weeping with joy

So I wanted to whiff on church yesterday because hey no surprise I always do. But it was very very worth it.

Preamble: I walk in the front door grouchy because having left it so late I had to park in the Gods up on Keary Street. The Minister approaches with a look of what I interpret as horrified concern, but she tells me to kick the rock away from the door so it can close and then says “Oh and good morning!”  (He is risen, he is risen, he is verily risen).

One, I need to put my Secret Buddy letter in an envelope (it’s a church thing to help us get to know each other and make stronger intergenerational bonds.)

Two, it’s new member Sunday, and old members should show up and show how happy they are FRESH MEEEAAAT FOR COMMITTEES.  Or BRAAAINZ, I can never figure out what I should be moaning…..  I couldn’t – I was too busy crying.  Because I was so happy that 9 ADULTS AND 5 CHILDREN joined our church.  I got intensely drippy, and it was wonderful. Yeah sure they mostly came from other congregations but the two sets of young families did NOT.

Three, I always like to light candles.  I got up during the service and was grateful for the thought provoking meeting yesterday.

Then Luc and Carol got up and announced that they had ELOPED and BROUGHT CUPCAKES.  You can well imagine (I hope you can) which of these two announcements stirred us most.  The cupcakes were freaking awesome. Oh, and congratulations Luc and Carol.  (Hopefully the out of town Unitarians who occasionally read my blog and know the principals will be dancing around, much as I did.)

Rob W. came late, as is his wont, (this from the woman who looks every week for an excuse NOT to go to church) sat next to me, and as part of our ritualized sideways hug when he sits down, we accidentally bonked heads realllly hard, and then both cracked up because it was funny. Hugs n concussions r us.

Two of our beloved church elders are dying of cancer, and it makes me really sad.  One of them I loved since the first time I spoke with him, and the other kinda grew on me, until now I’m just as sad as if two of my relatives are dying.  We were talking about that at the meeting on Saturday, how good it is that people are joining, because people are literally dying out of the church.  We sing “Gathered here in one strong body” but sometimes the body ain’t so strong.

The choir mistress got a lovely  bunch of fleurs for her service.  She has really moved the choir along in terms of dynamics and intonation.

The sermon about moral beauty had me nodding in a couple of places.

I talked to a couple of people after church and then went home and very late in the day wrote about 650 words.

I made curried pork chomps.

The carafe of cold coffee is calling my name. I have an interview at noon and see the financial advisor at 9.

Woke up at 1:30

I have been passing wind continuously for 90 minutes.  My abdomen makes noises – “borborygmus” – so loud my whole bed frame shakes. A couple of minutes later, spectacular, long, windy choruses free themselves from my body. There is no pain, no high exhaust gas temperature, no stench.  Just LOTS OF GAS AND NOISE.

’bout one hundred words yesterday.  I’m feeling sessile.

Also, people keep dying. Somebody I was in an APA with 20 years ago (Morgan) has passed away.  She was close to people I really like and I haz a bit of a sad as a result. She told the most wonderful stories.

On the plus side…. It was lovely to talk to Chipper and Tammy on the phone yesterday.

 

Words yesterday, words today

I’ve already made wordcount (over 1000) today, so now I’m thinking about working on churchy business and making something for the Circle Dinner tonight.  Sue’s going to give me a lift.

And that’s about all.  I had a lovely time with Katie and Alex and Jessica and Ellie at the Quay yesterday, but she hasn’t sent me the pics yet…. sadface.

Also, VERY SORE from yesterday’s walk. Five more days until I see the specialist.

I have a job interview on Monday.

What a meal

I thought Mike was going to feed me in a restaurant, but he made pot roast, with veg, mashed potatoes and gravy, and afterwards (since we started late and I had eaten myself in a ‘pleasant state of repletion’) I faceplanted. Awoke at quarter to six and walked home.  What a glorious morning!  The sky is a pearly pale blue and it was just the right amount of walk.  Mike gave me about 20 minutes of very pressure conscious massage on my lower back last night and something let go with an almighty crack, and I remember waking up and thinking “no pain!”.  Course, no cpap either, but o well. I got Mike with about 20 minutes of calf massage – he tried the Wreck Beach stairs for the first time this season this last weekend and he was a hurting unit (should have heard him moaning as we went down the basement stairs).

I am still in prodrome, but I’m doing my best to ignore it.  The hardest part is knowing that whatever mood I’m in, super agitated and cheerful, or super sludgy and meepish, is all, if not false, then certainly questionable,  and that the dishes must still be done and phone calls returned.

I am working on a song for BB King.

Buster, after giving me such a scare with his absence yesterday, was on hand to greet me and thank me for filling his dish, and all in all the world is a very pleasant place this morning, and it will be even yet more amazing after coffee, toast and eggs.

Jeff should be back today.

Rantroid

I just read Murray Rothbard on the subject of whether parents should be legally obliged to feed their children in a libertarian paradise, and since I find his views so repellent I shan’t repeat them here.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to church, and didn’t, because Sue never got my texts and didn’t respond to any that I sent her.  I couldn’t contact anyone at church and Jeff, sensing that my neurotic desire to find out if my friend was dead in her apartment was not just a passing phase, assisted with that.  Finally Robbie called me back and all was well and Sue was at church and we agreed to phone instead of text in future, but I was quite prostrate with concern and then embarrassment in consequence.

Also mOm I figured out what I was seeing (Jeff helped.)  The hummingbird was chasing the jay because it had just eaten its egg.  Happy Mother’s Day indeed!  I thought it was funny, and it was tragic.  How often our opinions are shaped by our location when we form them.

Katie knows me so well she figured I’d bail on our mother’s day walk after this contretemps, and actually I wanted to go after a while but she’d already changed plans to hang out with Suzanne. Oh well.

So yesterday was a day of thinking about the dark mother, and of course Kima trying to be pregnant and not dead.  I wrote about 500 words yesterday.  Pudding’s philosophy may not make it into the book, but the 250 words on Kima’s new section will. Yes, one of the babies is named Pudding. Her naming story will be included in the book.

I need to write some more query letters and there are a couple more beta readers.

No cpap – after a couple of days no problems with allergies, the nice weather has kept the pollen count moderate, so my schnozz is rejecting having anything stuck on it.

Miss Margot is continuing to learn how to fight the rodent menace under Buster’s tutelage.  I heard a ratling squeak as it ran into her googly face the other day, scaring it back toward Buster who admittedly is better at catching everything except flies.

Buster’s covered in scratches again.  There’s a big black and white cat from across the street that he always scraps with.

I have a google news alarm set up for Dorothy Dunnett.  Everytime something comes up on the internet about her I scan it to see if other Dunnett heads have any interest and then post it to the twitter Dunnett fan account.  I also have one set up for filk and then post to the Filker account on facebook.  Somewhere in the English speaking world the perfect actor to play Lymond has been born….. sigh. Show up soon!

 

I thought it was in Portuguese

It was actually in Catalan.  Anyway, it’s an awesome song, and unlike those ghastly times when you go to translate a song and find out that it’s a love song to some aspect of human behaviour you find repellent, the lyrics even in google translate are beautiful. That’s art.  The carelessness of the transmission of the idea does not overcome the idea.

Crashed at Mike’s, we had brekkie at Amelia’s on Sixth and now I’m back here trying to write.  Rozo was in attendance last night.  She’s fretting over the state of the plants.

2020 says she was a difficult person who almost wrecked Mike’s life and man it’s hard not to say more but let’s just reiterate that poly done badly ain’t pretty

We were all so bagged we just sat around and watched the world’s weirdest feed of unlabelled metal videos. One of the bands was Wolf Stone or something like that and they do METAL FUCKING HURDY GURDY HRR FRR and then I got into thinking about how metal iconography is just so much more respectful to women than contemporary rock or rap and that just made me rock back on my drunken, prime-rib stuffed heels a bit.  Then there was an amazing metal video – the external shots made me think it was set in Montreal – the visuals were mind bending.  Lots of screaming.  More flailing.  Finally the feed more or less died and I realized I was not actually keeping my eyes open any more so I faceplanted.

Now writing or something. Jeff’s gone to get rat traps.

Practice day

I couldn’t write, I couldn’t work on the church project, I was swithering like a’ idiot, so I said it’s a Mental Health Day and when Paul called and said, “Let’s give blood” I said “What a great idea but I can’t stand it for today.  I’m coming to your place with my mandolin on my back.” So I walked over there and it started to rain just as I got to the stairs and he left the front door open and I went up the back stairs so he had to go lock his front door and we had a good laugh about that and then I played Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked for him, which he hadn’t heard before.  I left him the lyrics and chords, and played it enough times that he started to work up some guitar and I started to practically bleed out my finger ends. It hurts to type today, bwa ha ha. Then we played our way though a couple of Oscar Brand air force tunes, I played my way through the In the Lineup for the Ferry song (I had played it through once and this time he could play along) and then we dawdled and noodled and messed about for a couple of hours, him marvelling that I FINALLY have the intonation problems sorted out on Otto.  He’s been out of sorts since GAFilk and he’s now perfect (gotdamn that floating bridge!!! it’s the one thing Peter C. did when he was making Otto that I hate) and if anything he’s louder and more resonant than before. Then I played Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked AGAIN a couple of times because I’ve shifted how I play it a bit, and was now comfortable enough that a) the tune as sung was actually sounding a bit more like the recording and b) the chord structure still doesn’t sound like the recording but it’s better.  Then I told him that if we ever play it when Katie and Keith are present for music night they will be singing along with the choruses – Katie and I had it as part of the ‘get going’ music mix for the café – and Keith knows it from the opening titles of Gearbox’s video game Borderlands, which we used to rewatch all the time because it’s like the best opening title in gaming.

Then he fed me lentil soup and beer and crusty white bread toasted with butter and a Non Refrigerated apple – the last apple he served for me nearly made my back teeth pick up their skirts and flee, it was so durn cold – but I admired his new fridge, for a net cost of $175 he got a bottom drawer freezer Kenmore with the door hung the right way although he did nearly spavin himself getting it up the stairs and he now has to replace all the brand new nosing for the stair treads ’cause they all have divots in them now.  (It looks like an alien dragged its nasty bits up to the first floor.) Apparently Keith hated the old fridge and did handsprings when he saw the new one and realized that HE wasn’t going to get roped into hauling it up the stairs (his job is very physical) or getting the old one out.

I told him about Replens, as Lady Miss Banjola had told me about it, and how along with eye drops the advice given ensured my life was a better place, except it’s FRIKKIN expensive and could he find eight packs in the States for me and he said he’d look.

We discussed putting together a book of family stories from his side of the family, while his mum’s still with us (doing fine apparently), as inspired by mOm’s numerous efforts, talked about some flying he’d been doing (he’s enjoying the soaring in Enumclaw, and of course I crack up every time I hear that name, for all the wrong reasons.) We talked about Keith and Katie and their marvellous young lives and challenges, the retirement party he went to at the Shark Club (where, apparently, the last pleasant drink servers in the lower Mainland have taken refuge) and the highly excellent noms he ingested there.

Then he took me for a quick shop including healthy food and unhealthy noms and beer AND helped me haul in groceries.  If there is a nicer ex in the whole universe then whoever has him / her isn’t publicly bragging.

Then at home we watched a couple of titles from the second season of POI and I turned the steak into itty pieces and cooked it fast with mushrooms and lots of onions and chili seasoning, not too much, and so to bed, where I got 2.2 hours on the cpap and am now ready to start another day, and maybe get a little more done.  Maybe.  Not a betting woman normally.

Happy Birthday Jerome

It was delightful to participate in his birthday barbecue and even more delightful to have folks to play and sing with.  Fresh meat!

Thank you Mike for conveying me to and from.

His party was full of boys under 5 (like half a dozen boys under 5) and the really weird thing is that it was fine.  It’s good when little boys can be themselves without getting yelled at by grownups.

a word

1034 of them to be exact, plus 1.5 hours on cpap.

Paul came over after supper with beer and he, Jeff and I watched a documentary about the sun.  That man sure knows how to cheer me up. I baked a cake as soon as I heard he was coming…. just one of those things.

I have an appalling craving for Indian noms.

Success, or an approximation

So I’m off to get a CT scan of my unstable pelvis, and the tooth Dr. Katz fixed is now completely perfect in all respects, plus he ground just a smidge off a cuspid and now my mouth feels normal again.  The scan will be booked and they’ll call me, and then I back to see the bone doc about ten days after the scan to give them a chance to read it.

3.0 hours on the CPAP.  I feel very refreshed and not particularly in pain, which is pleasant.  No words yesterday.

I am ashamed to say I bailed on Paul last night, he wanted to go swimming, but I biked to and from the dentist and had a rather trying day in other respects, sitting in cold rooms waiting for doctors not being one of my oh doodie moments. Went to bed early, went to sleep early. For some reason the mask felt very comfortable last night, although I still took it off.  I think I was contemplating getting up and yelling at Buster since he was making so much frikkin’ noise.

Jeff is home, and Buster is much, much happier.  (With Margot, you can’t tell; her baseline temperament is so incredibly calm.) He is a daddy’s boy.

I did the math; if all the people who live in Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kamloops, Kelowna, Abbotsford, White Rock and Chilliwack were homeless, that would still only be half as many as have been rendered homeless by the earthquake in Nepal.

Sometime in the next two hundred years Vancouver will get its own rumble. If it’s a megaquake it’ll be felt across Cascadia.  I’m starting to keep extra water on hand.

This sweet little piece of satire is from a filking buddy.

The worst slave trader.

Continued drug gang related violence (or so one supposes) in  Metro Vancouver.

Chipper sends me this hand flute playing virtuosity.

She also sends me this cute panoply of chordate behaviours.

I will endeavour mightily to get back on track today.  Except I have to do something for church.

the rest of the day

After the transcription of my notes, I had to clean things for a while. My bathroom is more orderly and possibly more clean (I dusted light fixtures, so who knows… the amount I cleaned may be cancelled by how much better lit it is now.)

At one I phoned Mike per arrangement and he comes by in his BRAND NEW Honda Fit.  He then delights me by spending 10 minutes showing that you could cart anything but a horse in it (anything from a houseplant to someone in a body cast, as best I can scrutinize). So roomy, so comfy, so feature packed, so not spendy for fuel.

The Mustang is a tremendous disrespecter of a wallet.  Before it became the last resting place of many easily rotted liquids, it was a great car, although I will own that it makes me carsick at speeds lower than 100 k but then again, there was that incredible run down the highway from Birkenhead with Van Morrison blasting, the top down, the sunset over the mountains, the perfectly paved and entrancingly windy road.

Anyway this time we went to Steveston and he drank Back Hand of God stout from Crannóg Ales. I had some, it wuz nommy, and I totally call a comparative lack of sweetness and lighter body compared to some others of the ilk like say McCauslan Oatmeal stout which is practically syrup with a sprig of hops drug through it, and damn even though I make that sound like an insult it really isn’t.

F*** I wish that inconvenience would attend the motorcycle riding butthair that lives next door. It’s been idling for 8 minutes.

Anyway I had scallops and Mike had soup and then we walked about my limit to where people were flying kites and Mike asked nice and a woman allowed him to fly her sport kite for a while.

Thank Saint Dismas and Saint Dunstan, the f***** finally rolled off.

I picked up a prezzie for Jeff and Mike got beer and that’s when I found out Mike’s a Eurovision weenie. We watched Eurovision until eight. We even watched the retrospective, 1956 to 2014, and it was like trying to pick diamonds out of a candy coloured manure pile.  But entertaining. Finland you rock.

Now I’m going to crash.

Bloated stank vs. celestial friendship

messier-101-10995_1280It’s a study in contrasts, ain’t it, life.

I’m typing this while the bloated stank of the motorcycle, the badly tuned, badly maintained motorcycle, of the careless young person next door farts into the air.

And yet I am sustained in celestial friendship… when we are with our friends we remember the stars we are made of. Last night was a circle dinner, and it was nommy, and full of laughter and the shiny contentment of people who are well fed and feel listened to.

No hours last night. 470 words.  I do NOT know why the next chapter is turning into a just barely standing up routine, but it is.

Thanks to Mike for the opportunity to be of loving service yesterday.  I promised him half an hour of body work and I had to bike over there to give it to him and I was feeling so NOT LIKE GETTING ON A BIKE and it took til bloody 3 pm to make wordcount and then I remembered that the world can go hang but you keep prosocial promises to close friends and then of course when I got there, it was the last rays on Mike Beach and I wound up just sitting with him as he remained in a state rather close to that of a cheerfully somnolent lizard.  We were both tired from the musical night before. After a while Mike achieved verticality long enough to collapse himself down on the massage table in the living room. (The apartment gets the sun and all that glass makes it fookin hot like a spa or something.) I pummelled him for a while… he’s pretty much non-verbal.  I leave.  I knock the chain off my bike.  I call him in a panic. I put it back on. I tell him not to come downstairs.  I ride home, which is much nicer than riding to Mike’s place because the elevation trends downward on the ride home. And I’m in my goddamn shirtsleeves, and I just sat with a friend, and the weather is so glorious.  And now, all hot and sweating from my ride I have to prep beans for the Circle Dinner, and I now return you to the top of the post. Yay loop!