Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
The sunset, annoyingly enough, didn’t cooperate, but the rest of yesterday evening was loads of fun. I finally have a date for meeting Sammy (my date’s dog); that will be next Sunday afternoon. I am going to secrete a couple of milkbones about my person and then I should do fine.
Horizons Restaurant is just as excellent as it ever was, and I will be thinking about the Arctic Char for a while – it was superlative. By mutual consent, our next meal will be someplace much less classy.
Don’t I look pleased with myself. Thanks Lady Miss Banjola.
Health Wolves was written as an insta-filk at the Saturday Brunch. I missed the Saturday brunch last year and this year I got to sit next to Frank Hayes. I would describe him as acerbically charming o.0 and exhausted.
Frank “U Scum” Hayes, sufferer of “Frank Hayes Disease” and also the writer of “Never Set the Cat on Fire”.
Yes, that is a homemade theremin, and I heard it, and it rocked, but the sign says, “Will not play for $1/minute.”
All pics credit Lady Miss B.
I fed Katie and Dax last night, at Brentwood because Dax is not 100% with the welcome mat here and Katie didn’t bother telling me until I was committed that Dax was with her, then came home and saw Jeff hauling in a ten kilo bag of flour, which is a good thing, because there was no flour in the house, and we all know what that means. No waffles. I’m not saying that me continuing to live with Jeff is contingent upon me making waffles at least once a week, but I’d like to not take any chances.
The Luddite resurfaced in my inbox long enough to forward about ten links to educational videos from Vivid Entertainment. I only watched half of one; I am not sure I want to advertise myself as being someone who needs remedial sex ed.
I highly recommend 101 Reykjavik.
So I went with my/an “I-met-him-on-line-so-I-don’t-know-what-to-call-him” to a dinner party last night and I had more fun than I knew to predict, that’s for sure. I mean any evening that starts with “Bring your mandolin, they’ll love it” is shaping up to be okay. I drank a lot of beer, and two shots of Grand Marnier (when did that stuff become so yummy?), ate perfectly cooked prime rib, laughed until I cried about three times, sang and harmonized my lungs out, listened to Pete Seeger’s greatest hits on the stereo, stood up to play Spinal Clinic and got hijacked into playing backing instrumental on Heidi singing/improvising “Border Collies are smarter than you” and got called outside to see the ring around the moon. I met some wonderful people, I mean really seriously wonderful folks, and now Jeff and I are consuming waffles and trying to figure out if we really need to do any running around today.
Jerome and Shannon came over last night and GUESS WHAT!!!!
Yeah, well, what news would you expect from a couple who got married last summer. They are progenizing, and Shannon looks glorious and Jerome looks pleased. I hope they have a hundred fat children. No, actually, I hope they do whatever they want and have fun doing it, and that seems to be a) how it’s been and b) the continuing plan.
I fed them spaghetti and they watched The Road to Guantanamo with us. As we said to each other after we watched … Going to Afghanistan 3 weeks after 9/11 was their first mistake, and it got mistakier from there.
The crowd consisted of Paul (who had to leave for work at 7:30 and thus missed the movie, and brought the bread I made french toast this morning with as there was otherwise no bread in the house), Keith, me, Jeff and the developing duo.
I suppose I should say that after the best part of a year of saying, “Aw, c’MON – where do you get your goofy ideas about movies anyway??? Don’t you trust me?” Jeff talked me into watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Yes, I liked it. Now, cleaning and tidying and working on Valentine cards and getting read to go to a dinner party tonight. I’ve been asked to bring my mando. Yee!
Yeah, well. I got off the bus this morning and experienced searing chest pain, pain radiating into my back, and my vision greyed out for about ten seconds.
Panicking, I called work and got the First Aid attendant on the blower, and he came up with another coworker and met me halfway down the path. The pain quit pretty much as soon as I got the oxygen, but I feel really strange and I’ll be talking to the doctor today.
I got into an ambulance but assured the attendants I had perked up, went to work and promptly got sent home again by a very stern and uncompromising version of Patricia, who hand delivered me to Jeff, who came and got me. I’m glad she sent me home, ’cause I do feel off colour.
I’m still having waves of discomfort, but I’m thinking this is either radiating back pain, a pinched nerve, some new and entirely weird variant of a migraine, or just plain who the hell knows. I know it isn’t my heart – they ran a tape on me in the ambulance and it all looked fine.
The paramedic asked me if I’d been under stress lately. I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t think a LOT of stress. Like I said, who knows. It was embarrassing though, and next time I think I’ll wait until I can’t move to ring the baloney alarm….
I would very much like to publicly thank John V. for his professionalism and for the relief I felt when I knew he’d be dealing with it. And I’d like to thank Sandy C for calling the ambulance, and the folks who responded. I feel very cared for today. Although it seems there wasn’t anything wrong with me that being fondled by an ambulance attendant (joking, joking!) and supplemental oxygen couldn’t fix….
That was really good football. It was exciting, it was close, and there some aMAZing plays. That Holmes touchdown catch was simply stunning, as was Harrison’s 100 yard run.
I didn’t see the first half because I was driving back from Renton (and yes, I was driving, and yes, I enjoyed driving that Prius with big happiness) with the Tom and Peggy travelling stringed extravaganza. Conflikt II was great and I’ve already pre-reg’d for next year.
Today, more singing and playing. But first, unpacking, grr.
and there are still 35 filkers up and singing. I left the big room just now and Cindy was singing John’s Song (about Shepard from SGA). Anyway, the biscotti fairy has been through both filk rooms and I STILL HAVE BISCOTTI LEFT. Just goes to show how much I made and how many people are allergic to nuts and wheat.
I had just enough energy in me when I woke up to do the rounds, and now I am going back to bed.
It was all I could do not to cry. (There’s a play button so you can hear the first minute.) It’s a song about Inara. I hope I get to listen to the recording (all the filk circles are being recorded this year).
Jeff picked up an instrument and played Rock Band last night. Now I will relate to you a story of such …. well, I’ll just tell the story.
The boys (Jeff, Keith and Mike) were crashing through the final chords of Creep by Radiohead and….phhht. The power went off.
There was no reason for the power to go off. The inevitable – the inescapable – conclusion was that their playing was of such total awesomeness, they rent the space time continuum enough to make the fuse go. Is that not amazing?
Apart from my home made cole slaw I didn’t actually do any cooking, Mike did it all. But steak and chicken and home made french fries? And cole slaw? That’s a meal.
I attended the baptism of Darwin this morning. He was angelic. That’s always nice. I briefly spoke with Unca Barry and Ontie Jackie, as well as the happy parents, but alas my excesses of the night before caught up with me and after I woke myself up snoring during the service I realized I should go home. Fortunately, an IGA was on the way to the Skytrain, so I could buy yummy snacks, and the Granville cold beer and wine store was awful handy, so I’m now stocked up again for the rest of the day. This is a good thing, because I’m going to be watching Army of Darkness.
I am thinking that I’d like a steam or soak though. I don’t know whether I’ll go all the way up to Hastings Steam and Sauna – I’ve never been there stag, which is funny when you think about it – or just to nearest rec center, which would definitely be cheaper and closer. Hell, I may even walk.
I have a coffee date with a guy I met on an online dating site. Since I don’t have his permission, I will provide no details. Don’t worry mOm, it’s in a public place in daylight.
Very much looking forward to the Darwin Dunking on Sunday. Atheists can have an infant dedication through the Unitarians if they want a party-time equivalent.
Go Obama team on the whole Getting the Constitution off Life Support concept.
I didn’t see Aretha Franklin’s Inaugural hat, but I hear the dude what designed it has orders for over a thousand, and thanks to the power of the internets his phone started ringing about two minutes after the Inauguration. Having seen it I am somewhat amazed that a giant fruit bat swathed in Swarovsky crystals managed to drape itself so nicely on her head, but there’s no telling what animal trainers can get up to these days.
I’m gonna call B’nai Brith today and find out which English language Arab websites refer to Jews as apes and swine so I can tenderly remonstrate with them. I’m sick and tired of being called a racist by Jews because I don’t want heavily armed dudes killing babies because their parents didn’t have the money to emigrate to Canada. I don’t want the destruction of Israel, but the last campaign was more a demonstration by a bully than the continuation of diplomacy by other means. Hamas is a greedy, lying, violent sack of putrescent ideology, and I hope they all keel over from necrosis of the brain. On the other hand, if I don’t actually challenge both sides, Jews are right to call me racist, so I’m going to suck that one up. I will calm myself by watching Pat Cadell videos. You know he lived in BC for years, and once gave one of his rants wearing a Canucks t shirt which made me crack RIGHT up.
I liked seeing Keith last night. He was here for supper, to drop off my memory stick and to pick up his cell phone, which was eaten by Jeff’s bad, bad, sofa.
I liked seeing Kate last night. She appeared at the front door of Planet Bachelor at the same time I did last night and I burst into tears I was so happy to see her (and just as rapidly calmed down). Let’s just say I didn’t have a good day yesterday and leave it at that, oh, but how could I not mention I’m hundreds of dollars poorer AGAIN because I had to buy new glasses and they won’t be covered, but my prescription has worsened and the expensive ***** coatings on the old ones are trash. Nikon lenses are the gold standard my *****. Then when we got on the bus to leave (I was only there for an hour and had a snack with Paul and Katie) we met up with Wendybird! It was lovely to see her and talk to her again. She lives with her brother like me, and while she’s no Rhodes scholar she is one of the most cheerful and sweettempered people I ever met.
Katie’s doing super well in school still and got 95 on her last test.
Comcast layoffs are affecting people I know in the US.
This month is a three paycheck month, and happy I am about that.
The cats have trained me to pour them a glass of water if we happen to meet up in the bathroom. Go thumbed primate.
Last night when I was coming home I realized I wanted retail therapy, so I got Robaxicet, a teach yourself to read music book (which actually taught me something I had not understood before in the first five minutes, so that was useful), a miniature Gumby and Pokey set for Jeff, Ecuadorian chocolate, Cutthroat beer & a proper set of headphones for work including volume control. Now of course I realize that I’m an idiot and I just should have gone straight home, so I would have avoided a broken down bus and…
ick….
wait for it….
auditions for Canada’s Next Top Model in Brentwood Mall – when the batteries in my camera had just quit. Oh, and my cell phone batteries quit in tandem, so I couldn’t fire off an irritated text message to Jeff. I wanted to take a picture of the swarm of identical, malnourished, streak haired, pointy faced hopefuls, but instead I got an eyeful of leering men and resigned looking parents. Rechargeable NiMh batteries do not cut it for this application.
I am just about finished my laundry, finally, and will be moving on to other interesting events today, like trying to sweet talk Jeff into accompanying me on a shopping expedition. Yes, I know, but I want two things you can’t get nearby or easily, being my favourite kind of soap (French, honeysuckle scented) and more Sculpey so Katie can finish her chess set. And more paint. I think I need blue, clear coat, and maybe a bronze or silver metallic. And a fatter brush so I can really slop it on. ScaryClown says he paints everything he does flat black and then paints overtop of that. I will defer to the master on that one. He has severely restricted his alcohol intake, but frankly, he doesn’t look happier. And he’s bringing his lunches these days. So has the Dalai Jarmo, but that’s traditional for Finnfolk in early January, and he looks very happy these days and he’s going to be sitting close but not too close to me in the new regime. PS note to self I need one of those who the **** is behind me mirrors for work.
Katie, bless her, did not actually look for work yesterday, rrr. But Keith fitted his first set of contact lenses (perfectly, so he says) the day before yesterday so it appears that continuing to support his efforts to get edumacated is wise.
Jim and Jan are here this weekend and I can’t wait to see them. They are so wonderful. I wish I could just buy a city block and move everybody I love here. Except that many of them, like a kitty cat struggling to escape, would not be happy about living in Vancouver. It’s a nice place to visit, etc. And when I get a house I want laundry on the same level as my bedroom. I got that when I was living in the Cornerstone building and gosh darn, I want that again, although that might have something to do with how steep the basement stairs are. I nearly fell down them this week and it was scary as hell, because Jeff had his headphones on and I might have had a very poor time of it.
Biscotti. Again. I will be shipping it off to people by mail.
Valentine cards. Since I am sending work valentines to Barcelona, California, Indiana and Washington, I have to start early this year. There are 150 people on the list!!! I have created a monster, yet again.
I know somebody personally who is going to the inauguration, and I will be able to hear about it later this month. Me happy.
Awake at 5:20 am, poked around the net for a while, then got up and cleaned some pots and next thing I knew I was late for the bus. All quite normal. Late for work because both the 145 bus and the Skytrain were delayed, who knows why. At least I didn’t kill myself by falling down that slope – I’ve posted pictures of it, just imagine it covered with a glossy slick of compressed slush.
At 9 the town hall meeting with our new squid overlords. THEY CAN HAS SWAG!!! They gave out jackets, and mine is very nice and will probably fit me better in a year. But I like it. The meeting was full of my coworkers conspicuously signalling to me to get off my ass and ask the new squid overlords some pointy questions like I used to do, but I glued said same ass to my chair. Besides, I was wearing my “Earth to the Dandy Warhols” t-shirt and I just didn’t look corporate enough.
At work today, Mike McG gamely attempted over three meetings (Patricia was also there) to a) jam Ohm’s law into my tiny pea brain; b) jam info about PV string sizing into my tiny pea brain and c) get my advice/input/loud and unfeigned praise on a totally HAWT Salesforce customization. This will mean nothing to most of you but when I think of how much time and keystrokes that man plans to save the company I tremble in my granny panties, lemme tell you…
At lunch, Jeff the Queasy (an easily grossed out cowirker) said, “What the hell was with 206, somebody drew Ohm’s law all over the whiteboard?” and Patricia and I are thinking, “Hm, should we tell him?”
Anyway, I didn’t work much because I was in meetings or lunching for like 5 hours. It was like being an executive, and Tanya took the worst call of the day, honestly, the customer was a jerk to her, and then of course was nice as pie to me.
OH MY STARS. I have to tell this story, even if it gets me fired. The marketing department, whom I have been convinced wants to either kill me or slap me into an insane asylum for at least a decade now, put my name on a document….. associated with a phone number which comes to my desk …. and a toll free number that, alas, was one digit out from being correct. Care to guess what my name was associated with? A front for a phone sex line. I can die happy now. All my Dilbert dreams/nightmares have come true. By all the gods I don’t believe in, this story is absolutely true and I can call witnesses. And besides, the marketing department has already fixed it.
Our new HR overlord is from Suth Cahlina, and she said You All twice during the town hall. Not Y’all, that’s trashy, but You All, that’s cute.
Much thanks to Sandy P for the hilarious email about the mighty huntin’ dogs she has, I laughed like a drain.
Then a call from Paul – I’d been expecting to take the bus to his place preparatory for a swim, but he decided to pick me up, and then when I got there it was me, Keith, Kate, Paul and Daxus, and Dan T. dropped by for some soup, and I arranged to spend most of Saturday with Katie, and she plucked my eyebrows (they were raggedy). Katie and Daxus were playing chess when I arrived – Daxus was shellacking Katie. I saw the board and went, Concede, you fool! but they played it out. After dinner Keith and Paul and I went to the pool and swam and soaked, and then Paul drove me home. I drove home, but it’s Paul’s car. You know what I mean.
It was so good to see everybody. Dan T. said, “I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I ate somebody’s dog, and it tasted like a pear, but I didn’t really like it all that much so I had two bites and threw it away, and then the owners were saying, “Where’s Fluffy?” I cried laughing, he was so matter-of-fact about it. I light a candle for his dad, who died recently. I only met him the once, when I gave a homily at the Comox Valley Fellowship, but I was very impressed with him indeed. He will be missed.
Yeah, well I got stuck at Mike’s (big surprise) with a foot of newfallen snow (okay, maybe six inches). I have no clean clothes, the buses are only marginally running, and the streets are full of morons. Seeing as how the invite was to watch True Blood and drink beer, I guess that this will continue, although I’m not up for beer at this time of the morning.
Mike doesn’t think there’s going to be a big depression multi years long. His line of thinking is that the Chinese are holding so much American paper that they will do everything they can to slow things down. Imagine, the poor people of China get to carry me and my lifestyle a while longer….
The snow removal in the GVRD sucks. If we get weather like this during the Olympics, we will be the laughingstock of the world. Just another thing to look forward to – it’s only a year away now.
Tom messaged me and told me I have a ride to Conflikt. If you get this sentence phonetically instead of realizing that it’s about a Filk con, that would be a pretty funny message. We ALL have a ride to Conflict, know what I mean?
I love Mike’s apartment. He has a temperfoam topper on his Murphy bed (he slept in the living room like the gentleman he is) with adjustable air settings so I am slavering to get over to where he bought it from and get one for my bed… it’s SO comfy. I slept better last night than I have in ages, although that might have something to do with the 45 minutes of body work I got last night. This is the perfect bachelor pad -a room JUST for massage, a room just for eating, a room just for TV and a room just for sleeping, and tons of closet space. I’ll post pics when I get home, whenever the hell that is.
THERE IS SO MUCH SNOW.
Jeff called, he’s doing snow removal right now.
So Keith, Paul and I were at Jarmo and Susana’s last night, and once again performed the stannomancy. Katie and Jeff chose the better part – to stay home, and not to drink!
NOT A SINGLE PERSON had money for 2009.
Not one. Out of fifteen people. You may recall Dr. Filk was told that he’d get money two thirds of the way into the year and found it laughable, and then went from John’s Jukes to Earl’s at a considerable increase in rate. But it also said there was a baby in his future so you can’t b’lieve everything the tin tells you.
My year is smooth, and expanding, for 4/5ths of it, and then there’s a hell of a twist at the end. I’ll post pics at some point… I actually have to pull everything off my camera and stick it someplace where those interested may view them… I still haven’t posted the Louvre, and I should, but that was, candidly, one hell of a trip and I get kind of shaky when I go anywhere near those memories.
Anyway, it was a lovely, congenial crowd, and there was even a lovely dog named Kona (lab setter cross, from the coat) who was being dogsat by some of the attendees.
Snowed more. Lots more.
; why is the rum always gone? Between us all we killed a forty pounder, and I had two triples so I definitely helped. I’m still hanging on the edge of a migraine so I’d better get off the computer now.
And, via an LJ buddy, Neil Gaiman’s blessing:
I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you dream dangerously and outrageously, that you make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked. And most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now) that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
