Category: Friends

My day so far

I’ve climbed back on the writing horse, but since it’s edits I can’t really say OH I WROTE THIS MUCH TODAY.  It’s going well.  I have to figure out how to represent targets though.  Manuscript pages edited?  Dunno, that seems most likely.

I baked bacon for BLTs and made up ingredients so they are ready to go.

I watched the last Hobbit movie.  It was quite well done, although purists will be shuddering from head to foot for the duration.  I am not a purist.

I went for a walk in the predawn murk and fetched cream for coffee and milk for tea, to keep that writer’s support of caffeine flowing.

Poor Hannah, the gal who was supposed to help yesterday, was sick. I was sick all the bloody time when I was her age.  Now I literally cannot remember the last time I had anything resembling a cold or flu; how much I’m washing my hands might have something to do with that.

So many people, including the visitors from last week, volunteered that it made life much easier; the soup lunch is always quite chaotic, and then there was a business meeting at the end of it that I was just as happy to stay out of. I had Peggy’s turkey soup.  It was quite yummy.

I wore my brown snowflake motif pj’s and my steampunk hat, and was complimented.  Seriously. By everybody from Jane (who has an identical set in purple, it’s like she’s my time twin or something) to the minister, who cracked up and then told me she admired my sense of style.  The only places in the world that make me feel anything approaching the same level of acceptance, in order of closeness, Mike’s place, Planet Bachelor (but only when Janice isn’t there…. ha ha), Tom and Peggy’s, my fOlks’, Conflikt and Polycamp. I am a lucky hound, f’sure.

I told Rob to invite himself to supper sometime.  He was happy to hear it.

I’m selling printer ink on Craigslist – buyer is supposed to show up tonight around supper.  There’s nothing like buying $75 of ink and having the fucking printer promptly quit.  I’m letting it go for cheap just to get it out of the house.

Sue drove me home again, home again, and then off to an audition.  I hope I’m like her in 18 years!!

Katie didn’t come to church but she just posted that Alex rolled from his back to his tummy.  I wonder if and when he’s going to start crawling.

Margot stared me into throwing a treat to her this morning.  I can’t wait for Buster to get fixed, he’s so lively, even with the cone of shame, that it’s quite exhausting for her.

I dejunked my phone this morning.  I took out a hundred phone numbers, mostly for the café, which, duh, I no longer need, and 1.2 gigs of crapware.  Go me.

I got enough sleep last night! I went to bed at 8 pm and woke up at 5, which is wonderful.

Here are the cinnamon buns I made yesterday.

Cinnamonbuns

 

 

Vampire, pass by

Paul and I gave blood yesterday. (I drained in 8 minutes, a new personal record!) He was joshing with the phlebotomist and she turns to me and asks if she can trust him and I said, blandly, “He’s my ex so I’m the wrong person to ask” which triggered much hilarity. Paul clots so fast he literally does not have to put pressure on the sticking point, and the vampire didn’t believe him. I bruise like crazy so I follow the instructions.
 
I know it sounds kinda weird but I think of giving blood as a kind of communion; it connects me to strangers who need my help, and it connects me with John, who gave a lot of blood over the course of his life, and it connects me to the rest of my family; Katie and I and Paul and Keith all give blood when so able, and mOm gave gallons when she was a nurse.
I drove both ways.  Traffic was good, traffic was good.
Around 7 I felt like all the air had been let out of my tires so I crashed; looks like I got a solid 8 hours of sleep.
Sue and I had a lovely (and for me, hobbitly) breakfast at Ricky’s on Lougheed Coquitlam yesterday.  We noted a side room which might work okay for pub night although there’s no good transit close by; she’s going to advise the minister.
Just learned that South Fraser is being kicked out of their home.  I light a candle for them finding space cheap, fast, painlessly.
I have a song that the Conflikt folks really like in this year’s songbook, so even if I can’t go (money…) I will still represent.
Archer’s back!

At last a deadline

I am going to try to complete a couple of songs in Songwriter so I can export them as PDFs and get them into the Conflikt song book.

Much as it pains me to say it, I can’t afford to make trips to the US and otherwise spend the income I have, so I am going to go to $15 worth of church event as opposed to the $500 con.  Yes – I could spend less but I don’t like going to a convention if I have to bunk in with anyone else for the usual reasons, like my privacy requirements now I’m no longer a live in parent are rather absurdly high.

So I’ll be sending the songs along instead.  I’ll send Gateway and Dishing with Joyce, since Fred Pohl’s stuff is going to be commercialized over the next couple of years (I believe it’s going to be a tv show, which would likely work fine, helmed correctly) and Buffy never stops being popular with certain crowds and the Scoobie gang have dozens of songs and Joyce not so much. I find it amusing that I have repurposed a song with was a song about a crush on a coworker into a filk, but one of the great appeals of filk is how it mashes things together into a great media pulp.

Saw Mike yesterday, and he popped by later, after he fed me a light supper at the Oliver Twist, and I will be seeing Sue for brekkie this morning to feast her for her birthday.  She is so wonderful, I am sure we will have a lovely earflapping. For she is the Great She-Elephant, and I am her dear chum.

Okay, enough demonstrating that I left the house yesterday (I did twice, and with all the cat commotion with Buster and his collar Jeff did three times) and I have friends, I gots work to do, coffee to make and songs about Giant Squids (words) (music) to listen to for its inspirational effect on my opus.

Bring out the festal CHHHHEEEEESE

So the sometimes annual Feste du Fromage was yesterday, at Patricia’s place. It was lovely to see her and Leanne again; I got sleepy for a second but came to eventually to get talkative again; considering I’d been up since 2 am and didn’t leave until 11 I think I did okay.  I brought cheese, which was definitely hauling coal to Newcastle.

SO HAPPY TO HAVE CHEESE in the fridge.  Because cheese makes everything yummy. ALSO I watched a cheesy movie, The Boxtrolls, earlier that day, so it was really really a lot of cheese to take in. Tracy Morgan’s voice acting in this movie, while terse IS HILARITY.  “I think I’ve lost a lot of blood” is his longest line…. it’s worth it.

 

 

 

 

Into the Woods

Saw the wussified, bowdlerized, defanged and diznified version of Sondheim’s Into the Woods last night with Sue.  I enjoyed it.  Chris Pine ripppppping his shirt off in the Agony song was pretty funny, and Emily Blunt was bloody marvellous, but really all the cast was good, and I enjoyed it.  I’m actually glad I saw it on the big screen as it is quite pretty.

Also I ate poutine and drank beer (except for parties I’m not keeping it in the house anymore).  Now I’m going to get up, make coffee and get stuff done.  Since there is literally no more episodic tv to watch unless we’re rewatching SG1, which is okay too I guess.

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….

Sleepovers and trash

Keith and Paul and Mike dropped by last night for pizza, movies and conversation, and it was wonderful to see them all.

I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life, but picking my friends hasn’t been one of them.

Keith slept over – I put a bunch of Woly shoe creme on his work shoes, which are so trashed by salt water that the leather is starting to come apart in layers. There must be six bucks worth of it on there… I hadn’t even opened it and I’ve had it three years, so I’m glad to be using a resource.

One of my fave Beaconites, Dina Davidson, local midwife extraordinaire, got some press time on her favourite subject.

Katie cut her dad’s hair yesterday.  Given that she and Paul hadn’t spoken in the best part of a month – immediately after the birth of the first grandchild – I will leave you to parse that as best you may.

I am doing coffee at church tomorrow.  I think I’ll make a cake, but make something else to leave here so Jeff doesn’t come looking all expectant with no treats.  So I have to remember to immediately put on bread dough the instant I get up tomorrow, because if I do it today, it will be gone tomorrow. Treat Logistics.

I am learning to my horror that the second section of the book is in disarray, and the timelines are all squidded up, and I appear to have TWICE written the same scene twice without incorporating the necessary elements from the other draft.  It’s ugly and I’m frustrated.  I think I’m going to need another writing week without the siren song of Agents of SHIELD to fix this mess (although we are close to the end LOL) so I’ll be checking in with the mOmster to see when would or might be convenient.  Won’t be until after my homily January 4 though.

Autumn, who may really be Peaches, loves Agent Coulson.  She sits on the back of the sofa and gazes at him adoringly.

I have laundry.  I’m doing it, I’m not digging it.  I have to ditch a whole bunch of my clothes because they are not meeting my needs, but that in itself makes me sad.  I should just take a picture and move on.

I’m also hoping to walk over to 6th and do a mini shop.

We’ll see what happens when Keith gets up… he may want a late brekkie.  I can definitely help out with the coffee.

There’s been an update to wordpress, the engine that runs this blog, and it allows me to have an empty screen when I’m typing, which is actually kind of cool and gives you a nice electronic typewriter feeling.

My take on Hitchens

That which can be asserted without evidence should be ignored without distress.  And no, I don’t apologize to dead men.

I’m having a much harder time assembling part II than part I since I don’t seem to have as many connecting links between the pieces.

My friend Catherine was on the telly last night talking about her role in rescuing 60 cats.  Despite her allergies she is fostering two immense, extremely affectionate rescue cats, Riopelle and Smokey. Complaints about their point loading have already been registered.

We are enjoying Agents of Shield while ignoring plot holes, bad acting and the comic book world’s lack of sophistication with respect to air frame physics.

Haunting

I find this haunting. Someone has tried to reconstruct Babylonian song.

Yesterday I saw Sue in Little Women the Musical.  Unfortunately the book was not as good as the actors and musicians.  Fortunately I was able to argue my points with the actors afterwards without being dishonest or unkind, and it widened into a broader discussion of the challenges and rewards of musical theatre.  Ten years ago I would have said, Oh it was great, it was great.  Now I have the brains to respect people enough to be honest and the social intelligence to be honest without being a cad.

It was in Granville Island.  I had half an hour to Christmas shop.  I got an Alexosaurus (stuffed T Rex) and a kazoo.  Strangely, that is what I wanted.  I have rarely had a briefer and more pleasant Christmas shop.  The weather was crisply glorious and I likely won’t get to Granville Island again until Tammy comes.

Jeff and I walked to IHOP and back for breakfast.  It was very pleasant.

I think Riddle Number II is a cloud.  What do you think?

Work on the trilogy continues. Kima is pregnant – with more than 100 zygotes  by three fathers of two different morphs. This presents any number of social, emotional, physiological and ‘race’ issues.

I had a pleasant recent conversation with Dave JD.  He has joined the ranks of the unemployed.  I tried to get Facetime to reduce the expense of talking to him and repeated and lengthy attempts to purchase it were fruitless.  I really loathe anything to do with Apple customer service.  When I want an Android app or book I press a button, and free or not, it appears on my phone in about five minutes.  (I’m still on the first chapter of the Piketty book -if anyone wants to mock me… go ahead).

I can’t really deal with heeled shoes any more so I took two pairs of Fluevogs into church yesterday (the bus DIDN’T COME at 10:03, or even five minutes earlier according to the guy I ran into so I was 25 minutes late for church, screw you translink).  Anyway the teenaged co-congregant who had admired my steampunky shoes got about 300 dollars worth of footgear in a little bag, and if I did nothing else yesterday I made her very happy.  Her socks MATCHED the second pair of shoes, in a most gratifying way.

How do you detect an extrasolar planet? With objects found in hardware stores and Nikon lenses and software and a little something something to remove blur.

Yesterday morning I awoke to a dream in which Hitler’s mustache was crawling up my door frame.  I woke up for real and spent a disoriented couple of seconds looking for it.  Very odd, and not a little disturbing.

Breakfast of writing champions! Peanut butter cookies warm from the oven and fair trade coffee with real cream.  Ha!

We think Autumn may be knocked up.  It’s always something.

List of projects

My current list of writing projects, which represents pious hope rather than firm commitment, is now in my portfolio.

Paul took me for a walk yesterday.  It was quite pleasant, and we all watched tv afterwards.

I forgot to mention (what a CRAPPY grandmother) that I saw Alex on Sunday.  It is simply astonishing how much gas that kid makes.  He farts pretty much continuously. He gave me another sly little social smile.  He likes being held, that’s for sure.

Autumn is still terrorizing Margot.

 

 

 

Reporting from the front РMarilyn Med̩n

Hi, friends, and some relatives.  This is what I did today. (Thursday November 29th)

Up Burnaby Mountain to The Protest

 

Just go! I thought as I tried to find information about where to go, how much walking, what to expect.  Just show support by arriving … somewhere.  But Burnaby Mountain covers a large area, and if I went up it the way I knew, up to SFU, the only satisfaction I might have would be that I tried.  Not much support for the protest against Kinder Morgan.

After much trial and error I found a map.  Park near Curtis and Ayrshire, and just head UP, and UP, on a paved walkway, across Burnaby Mountain Parkway, and UP a little further to an information tent where you are told where the action is.

I saw Karl Perrin [of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver] at the tent.  I had heard he was arrested the day before.  Was he out already?

The drilling had moved, and the gathering was now down a very steep deeply muddy path, slippery, winding, intersected by thick roots and unexpected holes.  People said it took 10 to 15 minutes to get to the gathering.  It took me at least 30 minutes of hanging on to branches, tree trunks, people. The demographic was young.  A guy tore a dead tree limb from the ground and handed it to me for a walking stick. Everyone wanted to help.

I could hear drumming: the First Nation presence.  Speakers. Singing of an adaptation of We Shall Overcome. 

Sliding, slipping, holding on, I reached a place where I could see the yellow ribbon.  To go past that meant arrest.  Gentle arrest it seemed.  The police were friendly.

Someone was speaking.  She was telling of her arrest the day before.  The police carried her to a van.  Solidarity Notes had been singing, and some of them were arrested at the same time.  There was singing in the van.  Singing again in the room they were taken to, and yet again in individual cells.  Kraft dinner was provided.  She signed a statement. I gather that at that point they were released, with trial was set for January 12th.  That was it.  I could have done that!  But what would the arrest mean?  Would one then be a “person of interest”?  Well, if I could interpret it as interest in not having oil pipelines, in avoiding oil, that would be all right with me.

I headed back up the trail.  Home to wash my mud soaked shoes and pants.  Home to warm up.

 

Marilyn

 

 

PLEASE NOTE COPYRIGHT FOR THE ABOVE POST BELONGS TO MARILYN MEDEN

Autumn Cat

She has found two favourite hiding places and only comes out to eat and poop.  She is NOT happy about being rehomed.  Margot is actually starting to be concerned for her.  Very odd.

Very much enjoying the Danish Swedish German coproduction The Bridge.  The slobby but effective Dane and the ice cold and effective Swede make an interesting pair.

SUPER very much enjoyed an evening of frivolous drinking with SCARY CLOWN! Yes he has made a reappearance in my life and he gave me the most excellent compliment, “I had forgotten how much fun you are.”  Happy sigh!

Posted by me on social media this morning, re getting rid of friends because of their reaction to Ferguson.

 

I have friends across the political and social spectrum. I try to love them for the life they are and not hate them for what they believe. I am not going to use political events to tell me when to cull my friendslist. I am not going to edit my reality tunnel to make it more comfortable. I am going to accept that people are irrational and irascible and afraid, and I’m going to work on my OWN racism and shine a light on where that work takes me. I can’t hate a racist into being more loving, or ignore her into being more rational. I recognize that my response is from a place of privilege because I’m white, but I believe that it’s a moral response that balances the sad truth that as a white person I know racists, and that as a white person I need to eradicate my racist thoughts, words, attitudes and beliefs. If Ferguson was your wakeup call, exactly how long have you been paying attention?

Yay, it’s an Alexander day!

Alex will be at church with Katie, or so it was arranged and I piously hope will come to pass.  I do coffee today so it’s even money whether or not I get to be upstairs for the homily portion.  Sue is taking me in early and I’ll do an inventory and see if there’s enough of whatnot for coffee etc., then cross the street and pick it up.  Happy daze.  Should be a good homily though. Marilyn asked me to do another homily for January 4 – one of the worst attended days of the year – so I’m going to do what I can to boost the numbers.  If you’re reading this, why not come to church that day!!??

THE GREAT YULETIDE COOKIEPALOOZA happens next Friday.  It will turn into a filk.  A messy messy housefilk, with crumbs and greasy thumbprints on the music.  Yes, indeed.  Thanks to Tom and Peggy for hosting.  We will also have the AMERICAN CONTINGENT, being the uber crafty Jeri-Lynn and the suavely geeky Jeff.  Who are just so awesome.  Cindy and possibly others will attend also.

It’s raining.  After yesterday’s glorious sun (which I got to walk around in, thanks to Paul not understanding that the Brighton Costco parking lot at 11 am is the worst fucking place in the known universe and how long precisely has he been living in Burnaby grumble grumble, but no harm done).  I drove through the parking lot and then drove back to Planet Bachelor and walked home from there, accompanied by Keith who just felt like continuing the conversation, which was pleasant, and made the walk back go in an eyeblink.  I needed the exercise.  I really wanted to pick some stuff up at Costco because there’s some bread there I can’t find anywhere else plus cheap butter and you know, baking, but perhaps I can borrer the car.  Apart from the walk and the abortive Costco trip I basically stayed in bed crying all day, but I’m feeling much better now.  Tammy is coming in December! Conflikt 8 (I can scarcely credit it…) is coming! And I still haven’t registered or figured out how I am getting there.  If I’m staying extra long I may need to like, bus it.  Bleaaugh.

I love my mOm and pOp.  mOm provided the correct stream of unfiltered bubbliness (occasionally going off mike to inform pOp of my responses) to assist with my bad case of the Marthambles – why, she’s better than a dose of Dr. Tufts finest elixir.

Still no cat.  I suspect what has happened is that the daughter has flung herself on the ground and pleaded her mom not to let Autumn go and the mom has been too embarrassed to tell Jeff she’s changed her mind, but perhaps Jeff is right and it’s just taking longer than expected.  Sometimes I think this culture is so indulgent to its children because these are the last good days and everybody’s trying to make them seem extra special.

I removed an incredible amount of hair surplus to requirements from Margot yesterday.  She was not amused.

Day five of Vitamin D, Vitamin C, B6, probiotics and MSM.  I am definitely feeling less achey, except for my hands, which is making me not want to play my Otto.

Jeff’s playing computer games on line with somebody, I assume Andrew – I can hear him talking to somebody on the headset.  “I think we just combined to kill one of our own tanks!” is the latest.

With sadness, I have cancelled the piano lessons.  He wasn’t listening to my course corrections and I’m not paying a man $35 bucks an hour to ignore me when I can have it for free any time I want on the internet.

My most recent painting is an unmitigated disaster.  I am going to paint over it.  I got the colours right but the design has much suckage – I think I’ll paint over it as a zombie heart.

Now to make a chocolate cake for church and figure out what I am going to wear.  And I have to remember to take a tape measure, for I mean to measure some crania, I do, I do, for future hatmaking endeavours.  Hats and spats. Cravats with cats. Fingerless gloves and pleather utility belts. I have to figure out how to make a living, and since there seems to be an inexhaustible interest in the steampunk aesthetic, I shall pursue that hobby for a while.

 

It wasn’t much

I packed two boxes, unpacked one, helped get cloth underneath the bookshelves, hung an ornament, talked to Paul and drank a beer.  I was more productive yesterday.  Keith seems to be dodging a fair amount of it, as I likely would have done at his age if I hadn’t been forced into different circumstances.

 

There’s a tempest going on in SF.  A woman writer of color turns out to be … well I’m white so I don’t get to comment too much about that.  Not nice.  Anyway she’s been outed as a troll of the first order.  This was my comment in reaction to an article on the subject linked to on facebook.  I’m only copying it over because there’s a piece of invective in there that I quite like.  Benjanun Sriduangkaew is the writer’s name.

 

Is this the death of consequence free trolling? No, this is her set up for the biggest assault yet. In the end, I cheerfully predict that she will say, “As long as I was in the persona of a pleasant newbie, and you could pat yourself on the back for liking a woman fantasist of color, everything was fine. The second I turn out to be an opinionated and scathing woman who takes no prisoners, you hate me. THUS DO I PROVE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM!” TADA and dismount.

My intersectionality includes trans*folk, so she can decorticate herself with a grapefruit spoon for all of me.

I still haven’t spoken to somebody I know in SF fandom who’s ever clapped eyes on her (although I’m not assuming at this point that she doesn’t really exist or is some kind of weird long term thought experiment, as I did up until today).

People can be crazy jerks; the loathing of others can percolate through our own skins and behaviours in ways no human can count. Benjanun has a lot of feels inside; maybe she can get help for how those feelings make a scary, repellent mess for the community she is wishing to re-cut in her own image. She is living and will continue to live with the consequences of her actions.

Until she unreservedly apologizes for her ghastly verbal assaults on trans*folk I won’t read a word she says or put a dime in her pocket.

Quiet day yesterday

I helped Paul pack and clean up yesterday… yes, he and Keith are moving Planet Bachelor into the third of the four apartments in the building they are in.  They will very much enjoy having more space and a spare room.

Today I meet a former coworker for coffee and once again attempt to assemble the second section.

Philae lands today. I am quietly thrilled, and here’s something to watch about it.