Category: Friends

Porker face or poker face

Never in my life have I had pork trigger a migraine as fast as it did last night.  It took two hours for the flashies to go away.  It was going to resolve in to a headache so I just went to bed.  I thank Tom and Peggy and their descendents and daughter in law for their LOVELY meal.  Ben made me a mint julep.  It was wonderful, but it perhaps also contributed to the migraine, I am not supposed to drink spirits.  Happy Turkey day everyone.

It was a perfect storm.  I didn’t sleep more than three hours, I had a homily, I didn’t eat a proper breakfast, I sat in the sun for an hour.  I had a meetup with someone, and then I had a large dinner with some pork in it.  Et voila, migraine.

Feel okay now though.

 

VCon roundup

VCon vignettes: Getting asked by a new to filk fan if we “Had any Star Trek songs?” causing Creede and Shaddyr and I to look at each other wildly and flip the book open to Banned From Argo. Great concert by Creede and Shaddyr and I ran through our OVFF song list which was also well received. Songwriting panel I was on was attended by two very shy teenaged girls. Larry Niven was EVERYWHERE; saw him in the hall, the filkroom, the art show, the dealer’s room. The very model of an affable and approachable GOH. Dropped ludicrous amounts of money on clothing, including a sick confection of a steampunk hat, two corsets, skirt, buffalo belted purse, froofy blouse and bi-coloured leather wrist band with steampunk details and an alien glass eye on the top. Outfit is supposed to cross filk, steampunk and Browncoat fandoms. Shout out to foxipher – can’t wait for Conflikt ! Shout out to Casey Wolf. Saw the Best Assassin’s Creed costume EVAR; anytime the wearer passed somebody in period costume he’d go into the ‘blend’ posture which caused me to howl with laughter. There were half a dozen excellent Dr. Whos, the best Stormtrooper costume I’ve been up close to, and there was one poor chica who was the living model for Venus and Mars and had to change her costume every two hours as a walking billboard. Which she very much resembled as she was wearing the tallest platforms imaginable outside a KISS concert. Ran into various former coworkers and friends and friends of friends and had some lovely conversations and some long overdue catching up. Also, given that VCon is a smallish Gencon with about 1000 members, the art room was nothing short of spectacular. There were at least 10 items I wanted to buy and even the stuff I didn’t like was well done. And my costume was so cool (I changed into it as I was buying it, to the amusement of the dealers) I had requests for pictures. No VCon for me today as I am opening church and have life maintenance. But even so I call it an unqualified success.

Practicing

Off to La Shaddyr’s last night (Cindy) to practice.  What a silly pair of woozles we are!  We HAVE a set list, but with our usual flair we went off book and practiced other stuff as well.

I came home and filled up a hole in the lyrics of one of my songs.  THAT’s why it’s important to play music with other people …. it is alchemical, how a little music ends up being a lot, lot more.

Now I will take Jeff to Brekkie and start the day.

From the road trip

Lady Miss B, hubster ‘Seph and baby Bean are traversing the Black Hills of Dakota (I’d be stopping in Deadwood, but meh, that’s me).  Anyway the highway they are on is lined with ‘creepy’ pro life billboards, one of which was, “Your mother was Pro Life” at which point the entire family yells, “NO SHE WASN’T” which you have to admit is pretty funny and there’s an extra frisson of joy from knowing the principals.  I added the bit “But she does wear army boots.”

Mike made it through second interview.  I CAN’T DESCRIBE how tense I am about this.  If he doesn’t get it I’ll be reduced to a quivering mass of jelly.

I have not mentioned the newbie but I haz one.  He alphabetized a bunch of stuff for me yesterday and you’d think it was trivial, but it was huge.  Part of being promoted means telling people to do shit.  ‘svery hard.  Anyway, I won’t refer to him by name, but I will call him Luke Deskwalker, because his most strenuous accomplishment this week is making the x-wing fighter out of office supplies, as per reddit.  Some things about being a stupervisor are not at all hard – especially if you have a sense of humour.  Oh and he’s devving auto hotkey scripts but I told him to stay the fuck out of the live database.

Castle season closing show SUCKED A LIBYAN JAIL MOP.  fuck the writer; fuck the director.  The actors did what they could.  If the next season opener is this lame I’m giving up on the show.

 

Impossibilium ain’t just a song

Canadian scientists plus international cooperation FOR THE WIN.

Hmph. Listening to “The Future’s so Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” on a day like today on the way in…. wrongness, somehowerother.

Lovely time re chicken dinner at the ‘Villeans last night and then singing filk and other stuff. I HEART HEART HEART that 12 string of Tom’s and Peggy expressed surprise that I can actually play a 12 string now.  Didn’t mention that my left fumb now feels crabby.

Peter A at work has come back from another vacay with his lady wife, and once again they have brought me a tshirt, this time a flaming dragon from Tintagel.  This word will set off a long happy sigh in my parental units….

Mike got a phone interview.  He has passed the first gate… will he slay the dragon?

I KNOW TWO PEOPLE IN PERSON who have been omnominated for Hugos.  Ay!

In The Correction news…. Aughh.

Sad cats are sad

Both of the cats are wandering around the house crying because “Daddy’s not here” (Jeff’s visiting on the Island).  Margot was so upset that Daddy wasn’t here for her to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, she came into my room and started attempting to destroy things.  I said “Shoo!” and “Scat!” (as in feces) but all she did was stare at me with the stare that indicates every functioning neuron in her head is currently dedicated to keeping her eyes open, but that no other brain activity or anything one could call consciousness was otherwise employed.

As I mentioned in my comment, Yunte wrote me back, which was very decent of him.  I had mentioned to him that when pOp sent me the Charlie Chan movies on DVD I couldn’t bring myself to watch them as I’d drunk the Koolaid on them being racist garbage; as I said to him “I can now watch them with more nuance and less angst”.  Still not happy that Chan was played by white guys (except for the first two movies) but I can at least appreciate that they are entertaining movies now.  I think it’s great that my filial piety prevented me from throwing them out.

At some point today Katie and I and Keith and Mike and Rozo are going to brave the nipply weather of April and head to the beach.  Top down (da na na na na na!) in the sun (da na na na na na!)  I was thinking of taking a musical instrument, but given a choice between hauling sammitches down those effin’ stairs and something la di da like a mandolin, I’ll go for the eats.  Katie is NOT living with Daxus so my unconditional love faucet got turned back on.  Keith had his friend Chris over here last night.  They played Portal 2  and ate leftover spaghetti.  I was sorry to miss Chris as I quite like him; I’m thrilled that Keith has an intelligent, kind hearted friend.

I washed one of mOm’s quilts and it’s hanging on the line now.  I also did a compost run  The most immense pillbugs in Canada (latin name the ENTIRELY CHARMING Armadillidium vulgare) are currently noshing on my coffee grounds.  That would be my late Earth day news.

Heard from Paul.  Work has started on Lois and Bobby’s flooded buildings.  He called from the ‘Hat about an hour ago sounding like he wanted to do something family tomorrow.  When I mentioned the beach he groaned from pure jealousy.

Night before last, out drinking with the old Stat gang, and IHTA (It Had The Awesome).  Last night, Lost in Yonkers at the Langley Playhouse with Tom, Peggy, Rev Katie, Al, Joan, Ev, Gary, Elva AND the choir director Marnie and her daughter. As I mentioned on facebook half the church was in the audience.  Sue Sparlin was really good as the ferocious Cherman Grandmuzzer.

I look back on the beginning of February like somebody who had a bad dream, the effects of which still linger.  Did I really want to kill myself???? What’s up with that?  You know, I’m blaming it on February, because February in Canada sucks, and February in Vancouver, as I can say from personal experience, makes ya wanna die.  And then when the sun comes out you’re thinking…. oops.

I heart Tom and Peggy.  Right now I am really appreciating what lovely, talented, hospitable, intelligent and forward thinking people they are.  Also, they are newly minted grandparents, and I swear Peggy is leaving little curly trails of multi-colored stars when she talks these days.  Tom’s grouch factor is only barely moving the meter since the Bean arrived.

 

Buzz is in da house (well, actually Paul’s ’cause that’s where the amp is).

With singing heart, I tell you that after a year long search, I have acquired an electric 12 string. He’s a solid body, glossy black, strung Rickenbacker style, and the action is so light I can play for an hour – bar chords even! – and his name is Buzz.  (The six string is Kehaar (cause it’s a Seagull, bonus points if you get the reference) and the mandolin is Edith).  Buzz sounds AWESOME and I’m very lucky that Craigslist Dude was downsizing his immense guitar collection.  Everything on board is super clean and all the bells and whistles work.

There are enough effects on board that I shouldn’t have to buy any additional gadgets for quite a while.  I followed Jim E’s advice about buying, and played for a while with the practice amp on, and once I had some volume, I got ze shivers.  I didn’t completely get into tune until I got it back to Paul’s so we could practice, and once it was completely tuned up, that was it, it’s love love love all the way down.

I left it at Paul’s ’cause he’s off today so he can mess around with it and I didn’t even let him touch it last night.  Mother’s Day SOUNDS VERY VERY DIFFERENT on an electric 12 string.  OMG.  I suspect I will be writing more tunes.

My transition to folk rocker is occurring!

Last night I dreamed I was at outdoor SF convention and the organizers had strung EVERY KNOWN SPACESHIP MODEL, some two meters long, above the audience at the bandshell.  I woke myself up going, Holy Ship!  where’s my cell phone camera!  and of course I was dreaming.

The TV show House came roaring back from it’s script battiness last night, and I’m very glad to see that.

Anyway, time for a shower and I’m off to work.  Oh, and I got a raise.  Yeah, this week’s turning out okay.

Hey hey my my Ai Wei Wei

One of the most brilliant and humane artists of this or any century is Ai Wei Wei.  I recently saw a documentary segment on Frontline about him and both Jeff and I were blown away at how amazing he is.  He’s being set up for a long jail sentence.

The church spring potluck was last night.  It went very well and in the end, as always, there was enuff fud.  I contributed two entrées, set up, clean up, butter, a starch dish and the Tapioca Song and I was exhausted when I got home.  Paul turned up for as much as he could stay for and contributed his best ever quinoa salad and home made bread.

Face blindness

I just took a face blindness test at Faceblind.org and got 71 out of 72 faces correct.  I always would have thought myself better at recognizing faces than average, but to avoid bias I put myself down as average.  I’m going to ask family members to take the test.

Saw Jessica yesterday at the store.  She gave me a big hug, which is always welcome.

Church was awesome.  I for one give very ‘Apollonian’ homilies and this one “What I learned from Photography” was NOT intellectual at all, very heart centered and beauty centered, and a nice change it was.

Talked to Tammy, and how good to hear her voice.

I can haz clean clothes. Also got rid of 2 bags of clothes and gave my guitar tie dye shirt to one of the youths at church.

The soup for the soup lunch went over very well.  I stayed for clean up as I didn’t notice anybody volunteering for that, and then I drove Carol home.  Made hazelnut biscotti and chicken in gravy.