I have lots and lots to complain about. Like, lots. But I’ve decided to save my best and purest bile for real live people instead of the intarboobs, and the saddest and teariest of complaints for other real live people, and the horrid consequences of brutal self-examination strictly to myself. Continue reading Miss Crankypants sits in her corner
Category: Friends
Off to work in 45 minutes
And I have to say it’s a really good feeling.
Vilma fed us (me Mike Jeff and Keith) chicken and salad and baked apples and cake with fruit and whipped cream, and it was HER birthday. This amuses me; anybody who knows me knows I’ve often done the cooking not only for my birthday but for mother’s day, as I don’t really take any of those days seriously anyway, much as I know other people do.
Then we watched a film that was so amazing I am going to have to obtain a copy and watch it repeatedly. It’s called It Might Get Loud and if you’re a guitarist, or a fan of any of the bands Led Zeppelin, White Stripes or U2, or like slide guitar, it is a must see. It’s pretty overwhelming, and when they break out ‘the Weight’ by the Band and play a three guitar/two singers version of it it’s like every campfire Mike ever played at got slapped up onto the screen. Mindblowing. The best parts are the thirty second bits where all three of them start ramping up on one of their hits (like Ramble On) and all three guitar sounds come crashing together. Spinechilling. I was gawking like a complete hick and exclaiming under my breath during the entire movie.
Vilma is 42. Devoid of makeup and fresh from an encounter with a hot stove, there is no way in hell you could give her a day over 35. She says she has good genes. Mike, you lucky barstard.
Tonight I will attempt once more to get bandified or at least singing groupified. We shall see.
Birthday party
Last night I attended a co-birthday party with Kat and Kashka and Katie and their friends, which included the following events and observations.
- Kick ass margarita courtesy of Kat.
- Hugs from Cassie, which were improved by her Dita-von-Teese-worthy hat and veil.
- Communing with Speck, who LOVES my hat.
- “O my gosh, there’s a snake on your hat”.
- Feeling better after letting a snake crawl around my hat, collar and glasses for a while. I have no idea why this would be, but it is so. It might be the beautiful, incremental muscle motion; it might be knowing that somebody really enjoys my body heat. Speck is a lovely, lovely snake, pretty and sociable.
- Getting a chance to hang with my current favourite teenaged boy (in terms of raw appearance). I gots nothing to say to him, but he’s so pretty and good natured that it hardly matters.
- And what music were they listening to? The very same stuff I was listening to in Toronto on CFNY during the eighties. At least half a dozen times I said, “The first time I heard this song I was your age.” All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
- I told them about the fan made Brad Sucks “Making Me Nervous” video and we watched it.
- The girls got Pocky and lamb kebobs for their birthday.
Today, The Dreaded Tapioca Song goes to church.
The chocolate chip banana pistachio bread is all gone
ScaryClown was here last night to ingest food, beer and ZULU in that order. We had fun. I have seen that movie at least twenty times, and every time it blows me away. Keith was here too.
Today I am being different versions of myself. Off to a meeting in PoCo this afternoon. Perhaps I will go to some kind of social media Tweetup tonight but then again, maybe not. I’m finishing up a couple of songs, you know how it is when you’re hacking away at the ends of things and they take slightly more time than anticipated; at the same time starting things seems to go much faster. nautilus3 is scowling. Then she smiles.
I’m getting the playing callouses back on my fingers.
A friend just emailed me a job listing that sounds perfect for me. I heart my friends.
Jeff cleaned the furnace filter. Unless I can come up with a better word than disgusting, it will have to do. The furnace filter appears to have been manufactured sometime prior to the dawn of time.
nautilus3 will like this. It’s the Gordon Mackay catalogue from early in the last century. The colours and textures and design are wonderful. Colin forwarded the link via facebook.
small world
I follow Salim Jiwa on twitter and regularly go to his site vancouverite.com – he’s a professional independent internet reporter, which makes him kinda cool in my view. He doesn’t represent me personally in the information collection business, but ANYBODY who is trying to make a go of independent reporting, especially if that person makes their political biases known, is okay by me. I know people who don’t have much use for him because of his reporting (“self-serving, incomplete and useless” were among the characterizing words :)) of the Air India bombing (for which I got call up papers as a potential juror, as did Patricia, and this is long before I met her), but you can expect anybody in the court system to pretty much loathe anybody with “Press” tucked into their hatband. As I have now spent a good portion of my life for the last 5 years trying to come up with ‘news’ (only had one scoop, but o well) on a daily basis, I have some sympathy for how bleeping hard it is, and thus am somewhat more prepared to cut slack.
Anyway, I saw somebody mentioned on his site the other day, and as soon as I saw the name I thought, “I grew up with that kid in Ottawa, except he’s a dirty great grown man now with a really really fine ‘stache.” So I messaged Salim and yup, he lived across from me when I lived on Dunham in Cardinal Heights. He even remembers me. I remember him, he was one of the sweetest kids I ever knew. It’s no surprise he grew up to be an RCMP officer; we grew up living next door to the Chief of Police. The reason I know he remembers me is because I messaged Salim, and he contacted Dan, and then he emailed me. Thanks Salim!
So yeah, small world.
In other news, The Reader is a harrowing movie, (either because of the subject matter or because it has some of the longest pauses ever outside of a film adaptation of Pinter) but you get to see David Kross naked (and he’s cute) and you get to see lots and lots of Kate Winslet naked. Yeah. I remember saying, “She breastfed her kids!” (She has two).
I know nothing about modern music
Jeff and I recently listened to Pet Sounds. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about the album (I had previously heard it at 15 in my girlfriend Liz’s bedroom) but I sure as hell knew nothing at all of the existence of this bassist. This one’s for you, Peggy.
Thus the title of the post. I can’t believe I never heard of this woman; her list of credits is so long and so impressive that it’s just painful.
Jeff, Paul and I watched Glory. Matthew Broderick is magnificent as Shaw. The supporting cast is superlative. And it’s another one of the MANY movies Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman are in (Washington won a best supporting actor for his role).
Food
Last night I fed Tom, Peggy, Ben, Paul, Keith and Jeff pork roast done with garlic, bacon and bay leaves (it made the house smell REALLY GOOD) and many, many vegetables, including beans and cauliflower and broccoli and beets and potatoes. Katie and her housemates were invited, but Katie was already on tap to do shrimp and spinach canneloni that night so she turned me down with thanks. It would have been an ‘add two leaves to the dining room table and where the hell are the chairs going to come from’ evening if they HAD come, so I don’t complain and I added some chairs to my want list.
Margot quacked like a duck for the folks. She has a doctor’s appointment on Monday; she needs to be checked out for heart problems, which are quite common in Persians and don’t necessarily show up during the work up prior to neutering; her quacking and breathing issues may be normal Persian noisiness or it may be something more sinister. She’s so placid, except when I’m brushing her, that she doesn’t appear to have any problems otherwise. I keep telling myself that she’s like a kid… I get to look after her for a while, and then she’ll leave my life; I’m attached to her but I hope not too intransigent on the subject. And it’s my own damn fault that I brought her into a household where it would be impossible to keep her as an indoor cat. She gets FILTHY sometimes, having all that fun out in the rain and dirt. If it’s really pouring she won’t go out, but light precip doesn’t seem to register.
Back to the Friday Feast. I said to Ben, “There are two pinball machines downstairs.” He said, “I’ve never played pinball in my life.”
shock, horror!
We fixed that. Obviously he must play pinball before he goes to Hudson’s Hope. (He got a job with Hydro).
After Tom Peggy and Ben went home, I decided I needed both air and exercise, and Paul and I wandered around the neighbourhood looking at the Christmas lights (Keith and Jeff were busy killing zombies in the trial version of Zombie Apocalypse). There are some spectacular displays, especially close to the school. Then we came back after about half an hour and I picked up the guitar and composed another (what, another frakking tune, what the ???) song, which I think is going to be called “God Willing” and be about the immigration of my ancestors to Canada. No lyrics yet. I know; for an atheist, I’m such a sucky accommodationist. But you would be too if you had so many religious relatives, who also happened to be pleasant, intelligent and hard-working.
That’s the single biggest issue I have with the media atheists (I FLATLY REFUSE to use New Atheists. That’s like calling people who are Christian NEW CHRISTIANS. Atheists are atheists, there’s nothing novel about them, and you can see their lineage throughout history from Epicurus forward.) They are on the “All theists are stupid” train, whereas I am on the “All human beings have cognitive biases, and atheists may have at least one fewer than theists” train. Also, many media atheists have the distinct advantage of not giving two shits what their religious relatives think of them, an advantage I don’t have. It’s why I don’t give vent to some of my more shocking opinions (yes, hard to believe, isn’t it? But much goes on behind my face that doesn’t come out in my blog). I was a lot more venty when I started this blog, as I recollect. I don’t usually go back into the old format portion of the blog unless I’m trying to figure out what happened in say, July of 2005.
Keith called up the optician’s office he was still working at on Saturday (he didn’t give that other job completely up, the wise soul) and hopefully he’ll be getting more hours later this month. It’s hard to be a young person these days.
Today, AVATAR. I am very stoked. Now to check the hellacious mess that is the Translink site and plan my trip itinerary.
I so enjoy feeding people. It makes me feel good, and that was a damned fine roast. I miss the rosemary bush from the front of my old house. A sprig of rosemary in the roasting pan would have made it even more wondrous.
Last 24 hours
Skating was wonderful, although I have a blister half an inch across on my calf. Then, I wrote a song. I went outside for a second and got inspired and came right back in and sang it into the mp3 recorder. Slept. Wrote another song. Got up. (Particularly pleased with this most amazing piece of multi tasking, what with the lying in bed and thinking up songs). Got dressed, and did not realize until I had left the house that not one piece of my clothing was on speaking terms with the next. Girls, I looked like I had slithered through six closets and only wore what stuck. Went to church. Witnessed the single cutest moment I’ve ever seen after a very entertaining and well received children’s pageant. I’m not going to try to describe it, but I hope there are pictures. Got a phone call from ScaryClown and went to a late lunch with him AND dragged him back here for Primer (neither he nor Keith had seen it, from which you may infer that my gorgeous, vivid, witty and perceptive son is here) and classic Warner Brothers cartoons.
Snow has been falling off and on since church got out.
I swept up straw from the manger this morning.
I had a day with my peeps… Jeff ate his late repast with gusto …. boys killing pixels in the basement. Beautiful and people-filled day, with music ringing in my ears. One of the songs I wrote is “Christmas in Vancouver” which is a very Accommodationist-wing-of-contemporary-atheism-anti-hymn, and the other is “Load On”. The latter is a very Band-ish tune meant to be played trad instrument, light percussion and at least four voices. Okay, that’s how I hear it in my head. It’s from Deadwood, when Sol goes to back Bullock’s play with that tomfool popgun his girlfriend Trixie loaned him. And, like one might reasonably expect, gets shot for his pains. The song is about Sol loaded up on laudanum before, during and after the extraction of the bullet, and the stuff he raves about while he’s wrecked. I know, isn’t that the damnedest thing to get an instant song about? I had sung my song about Al Swearengen earlier in the evening and it made me think about Deadwood, so I guess I was primed for it. I still can’t believe how fast it came on.
I have a quiet happiness inside me which corresponds to chocolate chip pecan cookies. Happy Xmas to all reasonable people, in the very broadest humanistic terms and without reference to goshes, I mean gods.
News of note
Something in my house that I don’t own (Don’t you weep) is now finished. I am back writing songs down again after taking a break.
Margot is cleaner. I bathed her (again!) this morning. I also applied conditioner, because she’s so staticky she’s attracting dirt like a CRT. She is an indoor-outdoor cat, and they say you should never let Persians be indoor-outdoor cats because
- They are purebreds and people will steal them (she’s chipped)
- They get filthy laying about in the debris outside
- They are none too smart and rather too docile
Unfortunately, the place has a cat door, so what can ya do? Besides, she looks so cute chasing bugs in the backyard and galloping up the back deck stairs.
Speaking of stairs, I have installed the anti-skid tape on the basement stairs, and this should prevent all three cats and any relevant hoomins from skidding down those stairs asswise. (All three cats have wiped out on the stairs).
I am glad I haven’t had the R John Caspell memorial signage made up yet because it must now include the words “And Cat Vomitarium” under “Memorial Pinball Parlour” because, like, you know, the cats enjoy throwing up on that blue carpet.
Here is my hat with a rainbow on it
Part of my remarkable afternoon at Mike’s last week was coming back into his place from a couple of hours on that nice toasty balcony and finding my hat with a rainbow splashed across it.
It reminded me…
… of the rainbow on the living room floor in the house on Oakridge Drive when I was growing up. We had a fishtank in the front entrance way, and at the right time of day, at the right time of year, the light would hit one end of it as if it was passing through a prism, and throw a spray of brilliant colour on the hardwood floor. I think we got at least one picture of that squirrelled away someplace.
…. of the rainbow on the slate floor in the cafeteria at my old job. Same thing… light would come into the atrium, bounce through the an edge of a glass plate on the railing, and throw colours on the floor. As far as I know, Jarmo and I were the only people who ever noticed, or at least commented about it.
Deb, that tiny feather is from your bird room. After all this time it hasn’t fallen out or blown away.
Photo credit Mike. The rest of the pics from that afternoon are, thanks to the mental image of my brother clawing his eyes out, NOT being posted.
Just a backhanded comment
Young men are all very well, but I prefer women my own age for conversation. Needless to say, my dinner with Katherine poured balm on my wounded soul. Since it was all informational gossip (as opposed to judgemental gossip, and yes, there is a distinct and important difference) about third parties, none of it can leach out onto the blog, but, wow, yeah. Fade into inarticulate gratitude.
And for visuals, this time lapse tour of the alps.
Mathemagic
For some of my math geek buddies, here are some jokes.
Speaking of math geeks, I had a nice long call from LTGW last night. He came perilously close to moving to California but decided to stay here and work on a business – a math related business, if you can believe it. Then he described what he was doing and it sounds exhausting, creative and fun. Then we traded bragging and complaining about our love lives and that’s probably enough specifics on that subject.
The parmesan herb bread turned out really really yummy, but the top of the loaf still hit the glass peephole at the top of the breadmaker, and I’m wondering just how little sugar I need to put in that recipe before it stops doing that. It’s very irritating because that model of breadmaker does not have a removable lid, so cleaning it is a righteous pain.
Carrie and Tom are in town… I hope to see them tonight.
I played with Margot for about an hour last night. That cat makes me laugh. And she LOVES music. She was attacking my laptop when I was playing something on it yesterday.
I get to interview one of the elders for church. We’re having an “I’m not dead yet” program, where we talk to elders about their lives BEFORE they die, so we can appreciate them more fully and with less saying of things like, “Gosh, I wish I’d talked to him when he was still alive.” I drew Denis, so I am very happy; Denis has one of the most beautiful and original speaking voices ever, and his passionate love affair with life and literature make him a good fit for me and that kind of work.
Jeff is back today. Haunted House is now closer to being functional at Gadget House. Yup, that’s Jeff, leaving a trail of order and repair behind him.
Dinner and schlepping
Went into New West for tp and a grooming item, which for reasons unknown was not at the London Thugs where I expected it to be.
I was calling it London Thugs before Mike started working there. Now when I say it I really mean it.
Deposited the cheque from my grandmother (note on orthography, I have not yet made my mind over whether I am going to drop the que and just call them checks. The only reason I hesitate is that, while I think the American orthography looks better, I want to maintain my Canadian heritage). But Jiminy Christmas, don’t you find it odd that I’m getting birthday checks from my Gran when I’m 51 bleeding years old? I vow to spend it all on beer and chocolate. What a useless, parasitic enemy of the people I am.
I’ve been ruminating over ‘you’re as young as you feel”. I’m siding with it being true, if you’re just talking about your emotions. I don’t know; do older people have more subtle emotions because they’ve lived longer and seen more, and understand more of the implications of things? Or is that utter bs? I saw too many times, over the course of my life, the youngest child in the room being the wisest, not least because she was so uncannily observant. She was Katie Sharpeyes until she was 16. Insert brief grouse. Sure wish she’d call me back, or at least text me that she’s having far too much fun to call.
Damn, I can’t get that row of tequila shots we did out of my head. Yes, Jeff sprang for a round of shots last night, and ah, with the festive. That effin’ princess, Kashka (with what indulgent love I say it) had to have a lemon wedge, as she just can’t tolerate lime. Katie’s crush observed that when somebody else is paying, as a matter of form you take the shot as is. Indeed.
Still in New West, but fast forward to this evening. There is a butcher shop around the corner from Sixth and Sixth. I bought a really good steak there once, and I dashed in. I beheld the liver and my whole body shivered with delight. Yes, that’s just about the most disgusting sentence I could come up with on short notice, hope you liked it, hackneyed internal rhyme and all.
I thank Paul for the transpo into and out of New West… in rush hour, very much appreciated. I get anxious when I run out of toilet paper. I make jokes about it, but I get anxious too.
I cooked the liver, dredged in flour, salt and pepper, in butter which onions had been frying in for a while. I just barely cooked it, and it was so good. Margot got some too, I shouldn’t have, but she was finding my plate more than usually interesting.
Now I feel like sleeping. Life is so good.
Angry and perturbed turns into meh, and then huh, and then te he.
I spent a good chunk of yesterday angry and perturbed, but as is typical for me, once I figured out what to do about it, I quit being angry and perturbed. Continue reading Angry and perturbed turns into meh, and then huh, and then te he.
Various kinds of news
Jeff took me out for wiener schnitzel at Balkan House yesterday. It is a truly superior meal. For the price you cannot beat it.
I have reduced my beer consumption a great deal… but that will get fixed tonight. Today Katie is 21 and I’m taking her to Drink in New West with a bunch of her friends. I don’t think I’ll stay too late, drinking with your children’s friends is like saying you don’t have friends of your own. At least it’s one bus ride home, for both of us.
My brain turned to mush when This Guy called and said school stuff will prevent him from seeing me this weekend, but then my brain started functioning again as I went into planning mode. Hopefully I’ll see him some time early next week. Cue the evil grin.
According to twitter world famous Canadian writers message each other all the time about incredibly trivial stuff (for example the slug post from yesterday started as a tweet from Margaret Atwood), Nathan Fillion is having a bromance with Seamus Dever (co-star on Castle), and Dita Von Teese just ordered a “thanksgiving in a box” from the American Store in Paris. These little peeps into other people’s lives are kinda cool, actually. It’s interesting to see which celebrities ‘get’ twitter and which don’t.
I follow Stephen Harper; all his tweets ever do is say exactly what he is doing at a certain time. It’s like a GPS for the PM. Never any opinions expressed… just where he is. I know what John would say about that if he was still alive….
A number of celebrities (referred to by Perez Hilton as celebutards) are already in train to be sued by people they have (while high as f*****g kites if the internal textual evidence is to be believed) slandered. Other celebrities somehow think that misspelling every second word and sounding like an ignorant, lazy, disloyal chenozzle is, too use the parlance of happier times, cool. As a single example, Courtney Love.
Other celebs, like Weird Al Yankovic, tweet stuff like this, as of twelve minutes ago… 
Didn’t see anybody famous sitting in First Class. If this plane crashes, I am TOTALLY getting the headline!
Which you have to admit is kinda hilarious, spelled correctly, and provides insight into how he thinks.
John Cleese’s tweets are alternately content laden “I am here with so and so” and funny. Bruce Sterling is always going off about exotic locales in Europa – but this morning he linked to a Pop Mechanics article about Robert Heinlein’s house. William Gibson passes along Amazon reviews from his wife (who must be one of the funniest women who ever lived, if her taste is anything to go by). So yes, I’m enjoying twitter.
Anyway, I’m off to a church meeting. Everybody, as you were.