Category: Friends

Ingredaments acquired

Yesterday was a day of cleaning out my car, and the kitchen, acquiring ingredients for spicy soup, and feasting Tom at Tom and Peggy’s.  Poor guy has some kind of lungcrud and was muttering about whether a girdle would work for his rib pains from coughing so OF COURSE I told the family story about how when Grampa got kicked by a horse he repurposed Gramma’s girdle to ease his rib pain.  She even wrote a poem about it.  Good times!

I assisted in the making of cheese sauce and it was lovely to see Lady Miss B and her energetic lad; I’d been up late and Jeff was feeling distinctly poorly and so we ate our lovely roast beast and skedaddled early.  Paul and Keith were also in attendance.

I updated my resume and sent it off to the recruiter.  However I have not stopped sending out resumes, hopeful as I am this lead will pan out.

Ah, soup lunch.  It’s worth it all to see the happy congregants sucking back lovingly prepared food.  I guess I’ll always have that corner of momness in my brain.

Poor Carrie… she’s having a hell of a time moving off Haida Gwaii.  After saying they would, now the Ministry is saying not only won’t they move her she’s going to get any ‘profits’ she makes from the sale of her furniture that she scrimped and saved for deducted from her income.  She’s got disabilities that make packing and hauling a bit problematic.  And gosh, she’ll be making 10 cents on the dollar, if that, for the furniture seeing as how people are leaving Haida Gwaii in droves after the last two big earthquakes and the weeks of aftershocks which followed.  The west coast of Haida Gwaii could get a tsunami anytime.  Jeff and I feel for her and we have room for her for a month, but no room for her furniture even if by some miracle she gets to bring it with her.   And really, she wants to live in Victoria and Juliana has no room due to her tenants, and the parental units have no time or space for stuff or drama.  I looked at my friendslist here in town and I have no suggestions.  Anybody disciplined enough to not have junk overflowing every room is already renting space.  It’s awful to feel so helpless when friends are in need.  I’ve already told her that if she puts her stuff before her safety life may get very very uncomfortable.  I like to think I would not go running back into the house on fire to fetch Otto.  I am more important than my stuff! But I still feel bad, this is something I’d like to fix… if I had any spare cycles.  I’m also very very concerned about other stuff going on in her life which I don’t feel comfy about posting.

 

I know I have never

fallen asleep like this.

It’s a dog with its paw in its mouth.

Chalice circle was a very big disappointment.  Like uncomfortable making disappointment.  It got better, but I still felt very withdrawn and disconnected at the end.

1.  I did some but not all of the homework.  I was supposed to print out the homework and bring it with me, and also a show and tell item, but I didn’t do that.

2. Lot of no-shows.  This is hard to bear; a lot of organizing went into this and I feel for both host and facilitator.

3.  The ritual was in my view goofy, poorly worded and ever so sincere (we’re doing this out of a book called Soul to Soul and while I admire the effort put into it it’s all a bit ‘canned’) with that reverent spoken word Unitarian sincerity which long timers will completely get and the rest of you will go hunh?  And it got my atheist back up.  I don’t give a shit about facing north and thanking mother earth for her wisdom or toenail clippings or whatever.  I was sneakily pleased that I wasn’t the only person in the room with the ish.  NOTE: If it had been a real Cree or Salish greeting of the directions, I could have stood that.  That has emotional resonance; not some made up pseudo Wiccan horse maneuvers.  However the ritual was brief, I’ll give ’em that.

4.  I was appalled, and I mean it, when I brought 10$ worth of cheese and got told to take it home with me as these chalice circles were not to involve food. I could feel the ghosts of a hundred Mennonite relatives cluster round me with staring eyes and pointing fingers, Matthew 25:35 “I was hungry and you fed me!”  How can the soul be nourished without the body!?

5.  The long pauses in between sharing were good.  That was stabilizing.

6.  There was housekeeping afterwards and my comment about food got taken seriously.  We will have tea or something bracing and then have the sharing.

7. The goofy ritual is supposed to be tried 4 times until we get used to it and THEN if we don’t like it we’re supposed to ditch it.  Hard to believe this never caught on with the Catholic Church.

8.  And there’s @@@@@@ homework.  We covenant to do the *$YO homework.  Srsly.  The point is to increase sacrifice and therefore commitment and it counts as religious education, which the minister is getting marked on, and it means that everybody is going to go through the curriculum at the same time in much the same way (varying by facilitator of course).  If it was my puppy, I’d be doing it SO DIFFERENTLY AND  there would still be more time for sharing.  I totally get why this is happening this way, and the increased emphasis on shared experiences to somehow account for how we don’t really have a liturgical year or specific faith wide rituals has to do with gluing newcomers into the church and broadening and deepening fellowship.  I get all that.  But without food?  Jesus wept.

I believe it could be done better, but since I’m working on other stuff for Unitarianism (my current in process homily is called “Threat Level”) and there’s this LITTLE NOTION THAT I CAN’T FIND A FUCKING COMPETENT BOOKKEEPER TO SAVE MY LIFE and I’m desperate and miserable and anxious and horrified and frightened about it really is not helping.  I thought I had a back up plan but I can’t get anybody.  It’s so painful and awkward it’s warping my frame.

On the plus side I’m getting a lot of money back on my taxes, or so the accountant tells me.

 

This is a year when my faith will be tested and toyed with, and it was ever so.

 

 

 

 

Lovely long chats

In the last week or two I have spoken on the phone to Lois and Terry and Bonnie and Carrie and Ron (an old family friend I probably don’t often mention) and Tammy and Dave the poet and my mother and the minister…. I keep forgetting what it’s like to really talk to somebody who knows me from when I was a pup.  And sometimes I am doing more listening than talking, but…. I believe there’s something about friendship which occasionally requires this ‘sacrifice’.  Tammy more than anybody I know makes me feel heard.  It is a most wonderful sensation, even if we are murder on each other as travelling companions, heavy sigh.  Carrie is being driven spare by repeating earthquakes and aftershocks and her moronic and supposedly no contact order former spouse.

Chalice circles start up again tonight.  There is homework, darn it and we have to COMMIT to going twice a month for four months.  It’s down at Sue’s place which is nice and close.  I hate that there is homework.  The free form chalice circles of yore worked a lot better for me.

Out to brekky with Jeff this am.  I am hoping to convince him to combine it with a trip to Thrifty’s first as there are tiresome holes in our larder, like eggs and cream for coffee and white sugar (we have brown but it just doesn’t cut it for certain kinds of baking).  Yes, he has agreed – as long as we don’t get anything frozen.

RGIII’s knee injury last night during the Seahawks Bengals game was just about the most disgusterpating thing I’ve ever seen lovingly replayed about a hundred times.  Blergh.

Between now and shopping and brekky, it’s JOB APPLICATING TIME!!!

KATIE was at CHURCH YESTIDDAY!  I haz a happy!  (Song went okay).  JEFF fixed KYLE’S COMPUTER.  I haz a happy!  I can’t get hold of the new bookkeeper!  I haz a panic attack!  TRE AND BATTERY dropped by for an impromptu visit and TRE PLAYED ON THE PINBALLS while BATTERY AND JEFF CHATTED!  Tre is three and really really enjoyed it, although Margot wishes him to the uttermost pit.  We haz a happy about dese tings!  EDDIE IS UPSET AT SOMETHING in the yard.  We haz a scaredy.  LIZ MCINTOSH FRIENDED ME ON G+.  Yay, my second oldest friend has gotten back in touch with me electronically.  I HAVE AN EVIL PLAN TO MAKE MONEY IF I CAN’T GET A JOB.  I can haz a scheming plot!   And so, from asterisk to asterisk, from ALL CAPS TO italicized, from call to call and packet to packet and cheque to cheque and cheek to cheek and from plug to drain, these are the expostulations of our lives.

 

 

 

 

My favourite story about myself

My favourite story about myself brings together many of the threads of my life in one place.

I was working at the Canadian Mental Health Association Ontario Division office in downtown Toronto.  I had a job I liked, a boss I adored, and coworkers who taught me a lot and accepted me as I was.  I was expecting my first child and they threw me a surprise baby shower.

Like most expectant moms I was reading baby books as fast as I could and had absorbed an incredible amount of information.  I was planning on breastfeeding and the night before the shower had read how doctors had once told mothers to run bristle brushes over their nipples to toughen them up for nursing.  I considered this to be entirely barbaric and even complained to my then spouse about it, and he agreed with me.

I was so flabbergasted and so touched when they brought me into the boardroom for presents and cake that for a brief moment I was speechless.  Then I started reviewing the gifts which were thoughtful and kind, until I got to a present that was a brush, labeled ‘Nipple Brush’.

I got quite irate.  “If you think I’m using this on myself you’re out of your mind!” I said firmly.

Then.

I realized.  This was for a baby bottle, not me.  What I had been reading the night before was so close to my mind that I had just assumed….

As realization flooded over me I blushed to my hairline and muttered “Never mind,” while my coworkers sat around me and laughed until they cried.  Pretty soon I was laughing too.

Not all of the misunderstandings in my life have been so funny.

Some phrases are so evocative

I am currently reading Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein.  Which is, textual evidence to the contrary, about memory and memory palaces and the history of memory.

 

He has provided a phrase I find particularly memorable.  On the day of his bar mitzvah, he was a ‘parrot in a yarmulke’ which essentially means that I will not ever be able to think about a bar mitzvah ever again without this mental image.

 

I was writing cheques for church this morning over at Sue’s place (she also joined me for breakfast) and her cat punched a hole in a letter I have to send.  Most entertaining.

 

Wonderful Christmas film

 

 

Almost 100 years old! no work no more

Tammy is here for Christmas, yay! I’m going with her to Granville Island today.

If you’re near water and have a drum, beat it in solidarity with the Idle No More movement at 11 am today (PST).

Now, the laundry before I leave for downtown.  Tammy’s mum has already told me where to park for free at Granville Island… but I’ve lived in Vancouver 15 years and I already know.  Tee hee.

I get to see a gospel concert in the next couple of days.  I am a bit foggy on when and where, but I’m hoping I don’t have to drive too far.

It’s time for me to start practicing my Compost song for the sermon in January.

Duck Duck

 

A Christmas Duck not for eating.

Went to the job hut yesterday and I’ll see a career counselor today at 9.  I know how to write a resume and get interviews but since I’m not finding employment I’m obviously doing something wrong.  And when you’re doing something wrong, you have to stop doing it and get on the right track… you know, that stop digging advice.

O gosh the bean with bacon soup is amazing!  There is lots of yummy food in the fridge right now.

It is snowing very steadily and the wind has picked up.  V. glad I don’t have to cross a bridge today.

What would Jack Do and My Needle have gone off to the songbook compiler (Cindy!) for inclusion in the Conflikt 6 song book.  Hard to believe that John was still alive for the first Conflikt.  He sure brought the fun with him.  And I think he would have enjoyed SG1, and every time I write a new song I can see him rocking with laughter or listening intently (or going meh) as the song required.  I think also he would have approved of me finally practicing enough… speaking of which, another item on the to do list!

Paul gave me some coffee that he bought in Maui.  I made it really strong, but I haven’t had any yet so I think I will follow Jeff’s example (he said I made it like espresso).

Paul’s mum dislocated her hip.  Lois is with her now and Paul will be going later.  I hope she can stand the idea of assisted living; I know she’s still sharp and fiercely independent but sometimes the flesh does not cooperate with the spirit.

Watched the documentary about Boubakar Traore called I’ll sing for you.  Mali does not come across as a place I’d like to visit, although Dogon architecture kicks ass, and the guitar work (a Takamine!) is cherce. And too infrequent.  At one point, with no commentary, there are a group of pictures shown about the ‘grin’ (shebeen) movement and there’s a line of people, including a woman with a huge shiner, and I’m thinking, oh great.  I know, I can get downcast too easily.

The Dalai Lama’s book on interfaith dialogue is very interesting (Toward a True Kinship of Faiths).  He says that a global religion is both impossible and undesirable because of cultural and linguistic divisions, but interfaith dialogue is crucial because of the underlying human drive towards religion (or the numinous, or the feeling that we are all part of one big family).  Interfaith action enobles all religion.  (Yeah, as long as we’re not hating on queers…. and women…. don’t think I’m not seeing the lacunae, but I’m trying to elevate the tone here.) He talks about his relationships with other faith leaders, and what a naive little monk he was in 1956, when he first got exposed to other religious practices. He spends a lot of time on India as the model of interfaith dialogue, which is interesting, because they really have been doing it longer than everyone else.    He also talks about his understanding of the other major faith traditions and their similarities and differences… He also talks about how he wishes his English was better – he uses a translator for everything he writes in English.  Anyway, recommended.

xmas cards

Almost 20 stamped, addressed and ready to go.  I concentrated on people at church who don’t come often and people I wanted to thank for their presence in my lives, including people I normally only interact with on facebook or elsewhere on the Internet.

also, mOm when you see this can I have mailing addys for Greg and Tracy, ontie Mary and Uncas Barry and Gary, as well as Phyllis?  I can’t find my mailing list from years past…..

Despite everything – unemployment, the weather, and other things one shouldn’t publicly relate – I’m in a really good mood.  I got a ‘wretched chore’ off my list yesterday and everything balanced to the penny, so I’m a happy happy girl.  Also, I went to London Drugs yesterday looking for Blue Heron Coffee and couldn’t find it.  Now normally I’d lose my shit and panic, but old age is causing me to do things like (literally, in this case) step back and look more carefully.  THEY CHANGED THE EFFING PACKAGING.  grr.  So then I looked, and there they were, for 8.99 A PACKAGE.  Normal price 14.99, normal discount and London Drugs 11.99.  I bought 5.  Glad I went! And if anybody from church is reading this, this is why I don’t buy coffee at church.  Plus I hate Spitfire Longbottom with a passion, it tastes like mud a Komodo dragon got busy in.

Also I dropped off more receipts at the accountants and I may actually get my taxes up to date, and I found the perfect gift for Jeff, which I have no intention of buying – it’s coasters made of Antarctic maps.  Jeff’s on a really serious “READ ALL THE BOOKS ABOUT ANTARCTICA” kick; he’s relating all the best anecdotes.

I still have to go to Surrey, but maybe I’ll combine it with another errand. A leathery or musical errand.  Or maybe I’ll just grimly go straight to my errand and come back.  Thinking about my mortality doesn’t please me, and thinking that my final resting place is going to be a funerary park in Surrey about blows my tiny mind.  Paul was so sweet – when I told him I was getting the cremation ‘package’ I bought back in 95 transferred to the Lower Mainland he asked if he needed to pay for it (there’s room for two in that niche, haw haw), and I said, “Considering we had a joint checking account in those days, uh, no…. you already did.”  And besides the separation agreement says we no longer owe each other anything, although I keep thinking I want to break into his apartment and steal the damned rug we bought on Pender Island.  I LERV DAT TING.

Margot is still playing “Go Home Fly You’re Drunk” in the kitchen.  I don’t know where all these sleepy, weaving, falling down flies are coming from, but even so they’re more than a match for Miss Margot.

Andrew forwards this for Xmas (from facebook/filker)
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my Facebook feed sent me:

12 Wonka’s snarking
11 rants at Congress (Canadians use Harper)
10 McKayla’s scowling
9 Gangnams dancing
8 jokes a-milking
7 pics Takei-ing
6 geese from Farmville
CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!!!

4 game invites
3 LOLcats
2 friend requests
…and a cartoon from xkcd!

frabjous news

I have simply spectacular good news but I can’t say anything about it until I receive authorization.  It has to do with me and music.  I’ll leave it at that.

Board meeting was excellent and productive.  We had a board meeting/potluck and Jeff grazed on leftovers.  One of the joys of Unitarianism is candle wax, and I got some on my gran’s linen tablecloth but sing HA I have already ironed the wax out and I’ve run the tablecloth through the laundry.  So no harm done.  We had to make some hard choices, but Debra is an awesome minister and she is completely unFaZed by organizational change, is a great communicator and gosh darn a nice person.  She told her partner recently that she’s falling in love with Beacon.  I dearly love Rev Katie and really enjoy her posts (and her hubby’s) on facebook (the only way I keep track of her as there is meshugas about a retired minister poking head back in to a church for a couple of years) but she is a reserved individual and Debra is a gregarious individual and it’s obviously playing out in an interesting way in congregational life.

I’m seeing Katie for lunch today – her treat, yippee.

TAMMY IS COMING THIS MONTH.  So looking forward to seeing her and her mum, whom I usually see at the festive season.

Sue is playing Santa Claus in a play which I am going to go see.  She says playing Santa Claus is hot and hard, which kinda makes it sound pornographic now I write it out like that.

I got a completely unprintable and exceedingly welcome compliment from somebody recently, to the point that I must now quote Mark Twain: “I can live two months on a good compliment”.  I may have to stretch it out even farther than that.

I have a very obnoxious complaint to make about somebody and I am not going to publicly state it.  I want a medal or something.

I think Jeff is thrilled we had company; there’s whipped cream in the fridge and the kitchen table is now clear.  Oops, just put laundry on it.  O well, it was nice while it lasted.

This afternoon after my Katietime I will do something productive, just haven’t figured out which of my piles of shit I should attempt to render into something useful first.

I love Lockout.  Guy Pearce is A GREAT SMARTASS. Man after my own heart.  Here’s a quote from him: [2007, on his music] “I don’t want to make music to get into the pop charts and make a career out of it. I just want to play music with other people. Sometimes I record it. I think there is a value in recording it in the same way that you might write a diary. Writing a diary does not mean that you want to publish it. If this is my diary, I’m not sure that I want it to be read. And anyway, I think there is an automatic disdain for somebody who is too ambitious. People think as an actor you are gifted and don’t have any troubles in life. You are lucky to be doing this thing where all you have to do is go around telling lies and you get to kiss beautiful women. So how dare you want to be able to do this other thing. I am not interested in releasing music to a skeptical audience.”

I mourn the passing of Dave Brubeck, and light a candle also for the victims of the Montréal Massacre

More life

  • Wonderful meeting with Bareld; I am now feeling MUCH better about being a treasurer. He said “I’ve seen it all” and he shared.  We often end services with “You are not alone” as the benediction, and he provided coffee chocolate and sage advice so I really felt the benediction!  Also got to see Marylke briefly as she came in from erranding about.
  • Paid UPS so we won’t lose our church mailbox.  Given it’s the address on the cheques…. you see the problem.
  • Tomorrow, cleaning and cooking for the board meeting at my house.  It will be a potluck.  I’m actually kinda looking forward to it.
  • Keith has framed and will be hanging up his ‘shingle’ – his diploma and professional designations – at the place he is now working.  I AM THRILLED.
  • Katie phoned me yesterday to ‘hear the sound of my voice’ (and can there BE words a mother more wants to hear, at least a partway functioning mom) and to tell me she’s trying to rearrange her sched so she’s got Sunday Monday off.  This is partly because she wants to actually SEE Kyle, and also because as she said, “If I get it you’ll see more of me in church.”  THRILLED ALSO.  Two very very happy making convos in one day, it was rather delightfully dizzying.
  • Saw Premium Rush AND LOVED IT.  I had heard it was a guilty pleasure of a movie, but all I can say is that it was very well constructed and didn’t have airs or pretensions – it was made to entertain, at which it succeeded marvellously.  I now have Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s evol chuckle percolating through my brain.
  • Margot barfed on my copy of Red Roses and Dead Things.  This does not accord with my opinion of this fine work of music.
  • Jeff continues to be the World’s Most Awesome Broâ„¢.