Category: Friends

Barry’s Bay

July 17

Today we went in to Barry’s Bay and in short order ditched the empties and got more IPA, went to the bank, got Sandra into a newly cropped set of hairs, visited the two grocery stores in town plus the health food store, and saw Clem.  Clem has a fine homestead on 120 acres just south of town. There’s a dock and lake and geese who march up and down and eat all the bugs and a dog with his own sandpit, (he was completely recessed in it when I came out, imagine being a dog encouraged to have your own little sandy pit) and an enormous garden and quaintly rusticating farm machinery and cars and a bunkhouse overlooking the lake and two big old wooden barns and fields of wildflowers including milkweed which meant there were monarch butterflies to be seen flitting among the flowers.  It’s like somebody took two generations of rustic Canadiana and mashed them together; the whole place was a photo op, and me with just my memories and neither camera nor smartphone. The message on the wind told me to go there and once I got there the beauty of the place put me into a high state of aesthetic intemperance. I mean this is a guy who can throw a busted geranium stalk at a wall, and it blooms. Entirely amazing. I am glad that the message on the wind did that.  And when I got back the message on the wind said CALL YOUR MOTHER and I did and when she didn’t answer I fretted.  Yes, I did, such a sap I am. Because you should call your mother, and certainly not assume the worst when it’s a lovely day and they are journeying in their VEHICLE OH MY GOD THEY’VE BEEN IN A CAR ACCIDENT THAT IS WHY THEY ARE NOT really, Allegra, wait upon events.

Now it is Friday already.  I’m going to go play with George.  Ah, 610 words later  I scrubbed out Sandra’s tub (I got the impression it was the epitome of filth and I’ve taken baths in tubs that were FAR less clean) including the interesting purple marks, and once it’s a better time of day to have the hot water on I’m going to have a soak – it’s a massage jet tub and working much better poor lamb since the filter was put on the water system.  The water is good but a tad too much iron.

Still kvelling on the radishes Clem gave me yesterday.  He pulled two ordinary sized and four potato sized radishes out of his immense garden and I IMMEDIATELY took them home and cut them up with a) rather more salt that you’d think justified or necessary b) fresh ground black pepper c) enough pecans to make it interesting, two palmfuls say and d) drizzled all over with white balsamic vinegar.  I ate ALL of it in two sittings and nothing repeated because fresh radishes don’t repeat.  Also amid yesterday’s comestibles was the amazing beef liver and pineapple with onions and ginger. The beef liver was barely thawed and barely cooked, set aside, then the fresh cut pineapple was added to the reduction and then the onions and ginger were cooked in what was left over from that and then it was all added together.  The first bite had me sliding off my chair with my eyes rolling back in me head, ’twas of such surpassing excellence.  mOm, you would have been enchanted.  We ate it over noodles from the previous day’s linguine and beef tomato sauce.  Then we watched the Bobby Darin biopic, in which Kevin Spacey once more reveals himself to be an actor of such calibre that I can’t imagine there’s a role he couldn’t convincingly play.

Wrote a little ditty on the 17th – think I’ll go practice now.

Life is beautiful, for the guest…..

Earlier in the day I watched Sandra work.  Apart from being her driver, turning a few lights on and off, scrubbing the tub and pulling some weeds I have loafed and lazed with startling ease; I have neither touched a dish nor cooked a meal since I got here (I don’t count tea and toast).  It’s marvellous.  I wish the bedroom door closed all the way, but since Shadow isn’t in at night there’s no cat to come importuning and shedding half a campground of debris all over my bed at night. She was fresh off a catnip buzz when she came nuzzling this morning as we stood outside.  I performed a brief interpretive/vocative dance, addressing the spirits to send business Sandra’s way.  It’s glorious, and the campground is practically empty.  Sigh.  As soon as I finished my dance a car pulled in but it was somebody in the cabins. Sandy really could have had me going there….

Trip to Bancroft

Flying squirrels have a really weird distress call.  There are plenty of them here.

Yesterday we made the trip to Bancroft since the weather didn’t cooperate with respect to grass cutting.  We provisioned and avoided big piles of junk food or beer.

Military aircraft just went by about 30 meters off the deck.

The cat here, Shadow, is an elegant longhaired tortoiseshell who hides in the catnip bush and minces through the tall grass.  I’ll have pics later.

Today I pulled tall grass out of the rose bed and deadheaded the roses.  They will probably set on more blooms.

The Least Flycatcher female sat still and let me admire her, then her hubby came by and told her to move along.

Sandra made me roast lamb and red wild rice and I just et a really fabulous mulligatawney soup.  World is a tasty place here.

I hope everybody is having a good day.

A child I once went on a camping trip with has turned out to be an evilly-reputed international call girl.  What a world.

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Friday the 13th and the Liberals are in power in Ontario.  Sandy says it never works well for Ontarians when the parties running the country and province are the same, but I think it will work out pretty much the same anyway.  I am a cynic at this point.  She also says that for the last election only PC voters got onto the rolls.  I don’t like living in a country that is getting used to low levels of election fraud, cause that shit never turns out well either.

 

For a couple of people

I struggle with wanting you all the time, so please don’t mistake my silence for indifference. It’s just I have to hold myself back because I feel too much. Too often. Too wildly out of my control.
–Tina Tran, “My words don’t say much at all”

Katie quoted John Hiatt on facebook this morning, that’s never a good sign.  I hope she’s okay.

Today I am going to look at the clock and wonder why I’m awake.  Then I’ll check the moon phases and understand that the moon is doing it….

I’m probably going to Ontario 1st week of July or thereabouts.  Depends on my teeth situation. And employment situation, but it’s going to take months for the right job to pop up, so patience is good.

No responses from any job applications yet, but that’s really no surprise.

Haven’t had the chance to go ramble and look at salamanders up at SFU as planned earlier this week.

I’ve started taking vitamin D again.

Pork chops for breakfast!

unchurch was delightful

/// but I still had to wash dishes, LOL.

I am feeling kind of icky still but definitely better than late last week, when all I wanted to do was take to my bed.

I’ve been practicing a lot. Otto sounds great.  The housefilk on Saturday evening was fun even if I bailed early.  If I was going to sleep over that would have been different. Jeri Lynn and Jeff were there which meant there was cello (SO AWESOME ON THE HERE THEY COME ZOMBIE SONG!!!) and Appalachian dulcimer, which is just the sweetest sounding instrument.

Jeff and I bought another awning and sprayed it with anti UV goop in a hopefully successful attempt to get the material to survive more than four years.

This week… job applications and selling more stuff, I hope. Also a walk around Burnaby Mountain and a quote for a replacement awning.

Awning

We’re off to Crappy Tire to buy an awning – the awning we bought to shelter Headwater for the birthday gig they did for Jeff has gone the way of all awnings. I may retain a friend to make another cover as there’s nothing wrong with the frame on the old one.

 

I’m into the list of Human Universals.  The Sixers share many of the human universals but where they are different from us it’s like the bottom dropped out.  They aren’t materialists because they don’t need anything and can’t be made to need anything they can’t get from their environment, unless their thinking is disordered by religious fanaticism. They don’t experience the incest taboo, or groups larger than about 5 people living in one place, although they gather in groups to mate because it’s convenient.  They don’t care about sharing food. There are no tabooed utterances or hierarchies; males and females travel the same amount over their lifespans and are equally likely to take leadership roles on the rare occasions enough Sixers agree that a leader is required – mostly it’s when Bossypants decides to take action and then grinds conspecifics  into agreeing.  They don’t have proper names, they don’t have polysemetic words (at least in the social linkage language) and part of George’s sophistication is that he recognizes puns.  I’m having a gas with the list because it’s allowing me to see just how different the Sixers are from us, and how similar.

My facebook buddy Sean Haugh is a libertarian running for office.  Fox News just found out about him. They hate him because OH NOES He’s a WORKING CLASS LIBERTARIAN.  I didn’t think I could hate Fux Newsishness more.

He’s principled, funny, an SF fan, and a feminist libertarian (for realsies).  And he drinks beer.  If I lived in his district I’d work for his campaign.  If I was a US citizen I’d donate to his campaign.  I will be sending him funds earmarked for beer for his campaign workers after the results are in.

I feel somewhat less burdened by physical ickiness today.  What I want more than anything is a really long road trip.

amusing anecdote

I heard a delightful story from Rob W this week during which he recounted how he chose to wear a kilt to a knee exam (the practical sort, obviously). Later that day he attended a Religious Education meeting (during which people apparently said nice things about me…  which was pleasant to learn) and found to his amusement that he was the only one there wearing a skirt.  Smashing the patriarchy can be a subtle proposition sometimes.

 

Chuck Wendig on Men’s Rights Activists… “a great deal of misspellings and dogshit grammar and the reading comprehension of an aging, mule-kicked spider monkey.”

 

bwa ha ha

6 more days

Spamalot was absolutely wonderful, and Marylke a delight as a companion for the theatre.  She’d never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail so she came new to all the wonderful gags. Then I came home and saw something that you will see too if you google Morgan Freeman Helium.  B’lieve me, it’s worth it.

I’m underslept and it’s a crappy day out there, but I have one week and one more day of work and it’s starting out a good day here in dried fruit and pasteurized nut land.

Here I am at the end of another week

It is NOT as if time was crawling when I was unemployed, but now it’s going so fast I’m feeling like every second is a blur of paper.

I am making stupid mistakes and good catches at work.  I hope it averages out to continued employment.  You just don’t get a team like this every day… everybody is so civilized and hardworking (compared to me).  I could whine about the variability of it, but that’s what food is like.  Prices go up and down in the cycle of the seasons and nothing stays the same.

One of my fave coworkers is off in her homeland visiting rellies. I miss her because she is one of the most intelligent and yet sunny tempered individuals I have recently met. (I keep wanting to introduce her to my son, which would be grossly inappropriate in so many ways). I miss her because the most administrative portion of her job fell to me in her absence and it’s fussy and important.  So, nervous.

I am going to work on crochet and forgiveness this weekend; along with some stuff I should have attended to ages ago.  Although I am tired all the time, certain kinds of energy I didn’t have last fall have come back into my life.

I am having better communication with people I am intimate with, and that makes me calmer.  I don’t feel like everybody should be able to read my mind any more.  I know I can be a sore trial as a friend sometimes, when I’m not expansive and entertaining.

Jeff loaned me the vehicle yesterday.  I got home much faster than usual and it made a big difference to my mood all day.  I am very grateful, especially since it did inconvenience him.

Keith is apparently hiking off to Edmonton in mid May.  I will miss him, but he’s at the point in his life when he’s going to take off and adventure, and that’s good.

I learned from Katie that the baby will take her last name.  That was a calming bit of news.  I had lunch with her on Sunday as I was checking out.  It was a blessing to see her.  She’s still not showing; yet the ultrasound shows what looks to be a very robust looking kiddo.

Rob W phoned last night and we talked writing.  I don’t know what makes me an expert, except that I do more of it.  Volume is not necessarily a good aspect of production – think farts and you’ll know what I mean.  And yet it is by writing crap that we open the channels to the good stuff.

Well, off to find clothes and bus tickets and get out the door.  Boss lady is back today and much activity is in store.

Cuppa Joe serves the best hot chocolate in the city.  Srsly.

It wasn’t very good banana bread

But it all got et anyway.  It certainly wasn’t good enough for church but Jeff didn’t mind.  I took some nice bag tea into church, and Sue did too.  Soup lunch was yummy.

Yesterday was a laundry and church and mini relaxicon kinda day, with phone calls interspersed to various people.  I am woeing at the moment over various things, but I had a nice long talk with Sandy yesterday.  We were messing about with tarot again.  She asked recently for pull cards for purpose in life of various family members.  The deck was messing with me again and most of the cards were correct if reversed.  I said to the deck, are you for real???? and pulled a card she hadn’t asked for, for her.  It was the same card we pulled the last time, which had me laughing most immoderately, because that is what the deck is like.  Just at the point everything is random and screwed up, it reminds me to look harder.

Then I pulled the Hierophant for me.  (Sandra said, what you haven’t already?  I am incurious about some things.) Well well, telling me I’m an institutionally based spiritual authority less than a month after my last homily is not exactly a slap, but it was pretty funny, and got me thinking.  I know that UUism is my spiritual home but it’s annoying.  Do I set myself up in authority?  If so, what can I do to stop being like that?  I’m not a minister or even a good candidate for ministry (although given my gabbiness in the pulpit I get asked about it occasionally).

I was proud and humbled when this was read in church on Sunday. This is part of the context for the anti racism curriculum.

Brother Jerome called me!  He congratulated me on my new job.  (Woke me up from a sound sleep too, but other people are not responsible for keeping track of my goofy sleeping hours).  I forgot to tell him about how the Green Man came back into my life since he’s one of the few people who’d appreciate it.  I am so blessed in my friends, they’ve been really good to me.

Did cat coverage for Paul this weekend, Ayesha is a sweetie.

Yuck, I’ve had two spiders crawl across me in the last twenty four hours. I flung the last one onto the floor.  I hate killing them.

There is brie in the house. And fresh sourdough bread. And smoky, luscious Russian Caravan tea. I know what I’m having for breakfast!

Shorter commute

I was only an hour door to door getting home last night so that was pleasant.  I’m going to try to work something a little different this morning going in as well.  There will be a ‘sweet spot’.

This is an entertaining comic.  Human sexuality is weird, but what the animal kingdom gets up to is amazing. Very mildly unsafe for work.

Indian food for dinner last night.  Desi Turku (2020 says THAT’S DESI TURKA AND WE ORDERED FROM THEM LAST WEEK)  is a new restaurant but I don’t think we’ll be ordering from them again, their food is all too salty for Jeff’s taste – I can tell but I don’t mind.

Sandy is calling me this morning for a tarot reading.  Wonder what’s up?

 

Funeral and party

Janice L is about to pick me up to take me to Maple Ridge to Partay! which is funny, because we just came from Ralph Greer’s memorial service.  What a splendid brace of families he made and came from!  What a solid, hard working, unassuming, gentle, intelligent, straight forward and loving guy he was!  It was a privilege to be there.  And 99 when he went!  A long life well lived. Thanks to Franci for safely conducting me to and fro the UCV which is where the service was, ably led by Rev Debra.

I have wrapped up Otto and now I’m gonna find a sweater. Hopefully I’ll get back from Maple Ridge in time for church tomorrow. I’ll figure something out!!!