Category: Friends

visitation dream

I dream but never remember, so waking up with a dream is a good thing.

Jeff and I were living in an old house full of beautiful panelling. A whole bunch of guys appeared IN OUR HOUSE as if they were having a meeting. They were all settled in with their papers on their knees and joshing with each other the way people do before they settle in to business, I said, “Well you’ve come to the wrong house, I’ve got COVID, you all have to leave.” Then I realized it was ALL guys from Beacon, and one of them was Tom. He gave me an amused but guilty look. There were a couple of other of Beacon’s dead there too, so I got a package deal. Hi Dennis, Hi Ralph. You were so loved.

So the visitation dream is me kicking Tom out from a church meeting because I’ve got COVID. We never spoke, but you don’t normally in visitation dreams. I find it really weird that I wrote that poem the Sad Enterprise and a day later, boom. We’re coming up on the anniversary of his death. The anniversary of his diagnosis has come and gone.

Did a load of laundry and ran the dishwasher, did a shop, worked on The Sword That Cries Ruin! Got the wordle in three tries today. I can sort of feel my brain under all the cottonwool.

another perfect day

Around noon went for a walk with Paul in Everett Crowley Park. First we drove all over hell’s half acre trying to find a decent parking spot at one of the usual parks. That’s how we ended up on the garbage dump park. It’s a good place to go if YOU NEED TO PET SOME DOGGIES. I got very very tired and couldn’t walk any farther very fast. Then we got home and I nuked up some chicken vegetable rice for Paul, and then he hung around. I did his toenails (they weren’t scandalous, like the last time, but they needed to be done). Then I checked my blood pressure which was 105 over 71.

Morty Face by KushMastaFresh on DeviantArt

This is 30 points lower than normal. What in the actual hell is going on. I don’t actually feel good at that blood pressure – I sure don’t feel like DOING anything. Picture shown above is Morty, from the sci-fi animated modern classic Rick & Morty. It’s okay fOlks! you are not expected to watch it or like it; it has machine gun delivery of multiple concepts, not always in the best of taste (that’s one way of putting it, check that face shown above). But I love Morty because he’s grown a spine over the last seasons.

Paul long-term-loaned me John’s resonator guitar.  <—- this after he realized at Peggy’s that he can’t even pull a guitar out of a case without fighting it. I have to add a string but it looks like all the bottle slides I bought attracted a guitar I can use them on. They’re the kind of guitar with a big perforated metal plate attached where the soundhole usually is.

Mike called and released himself from self-jail; he brought his unbelievably sweet new parlour guitar and played nothing but songs Paul knew, which was deft of him, because Paul has happy and enthusiastic about singing along.  He also gave Paul the long anticipated tour of the Delica. Long about five I kicked Paul out (nicely) but he got to have all that social contact and stay the hell out of his own house for the afternoon, which has a crying baby in it. Ryker has a cold and he freaks out when he can’t breathe and so there is much screaming. STILL NO FUNCTIONING FREEZER AT PAUL’S PLACE!! JFC landscum, you need a blunt punt.

above-noted picture is almost 15 years old. That’s Mike and Paul at a minimalist costume party, back in the day

I had ONE Fat Tug last night ENJOY MY ABSTEMIOUSNESS.

Mike finally got to look at Suzanne’s friend Richard’s bag of photography equipment. JFC IT’S A NIKON FE an absolute classic manual camera with one of the first built in digital light meters. AND THE MANUALS for it and the lenses. Cash on the barrelhead it’s worth no less than $250, but Mike doesn’t want it because he’s not a Nikon user. I am currently considering my options, but I think I’ll advise Suzanne before taking action.

Spoke to Keith on the phone. He appears to be doin’ okay.

Currently running a 12% kudos to hit ratio on Landslide – the number’s actually going up. This never happens so I’m finding it weird.

Found out that the Seagull (the one that isn’t Smokey) was put away in E minor tuning so I noodled away on that for a while and I think I may have the core melody of some soundtrack stuff.

Mike said he used to wear a special watch with a pulse ox monitor but he said he had to stop, since it kept telling him that he was dead every night. (Thought pOp would find this amusing.) It came with his new Samsung phone. His new Samsung phone is incredible, the camera alone is goggleworthy. I don’t care, I’ll probably get a simple-phone if I ever live alone again but I’m never having a cell phone again, otherwise.

Mike says his project – his Sisyphean work project – six times now he’s tried to set up a customer service department off shore and six times an internal shift in priorities has moved it. It was in Spain, it was in the US. It was in Costa Rica. This time he just sent his luckless lead tech into the mouth of a typhoon in the Philippines. Anyway, he hopes he survives all the corporate bullcrap long enough to get laid off, with a package, (word is as a French company they’re used to making big payouts to make employees who are now surplus to requirements GO AWAY) and then he’s going to take the Delica and drive across this country and dip a toe in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. Please let me know if you want him to come visit you after he’s laid off, because he IS AWESOME. HE’S SERIOUSLY THE BEST.

Jeff keeps having interesting dreams. I imagine I dream every night, but I sure don’t remember them. I guess I keep it all for waking life.

Then, a stunning variety of products, after which we watched Everything Everywhere All At Once, which is a good movie to watch while impaired, and Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and James Hong are absolutely amazing in this. I believe I raved about it on my blog the first time we watched it, but it really is a trip to set a wildly inventive and ecstatic movie amid the drab exigencies of Chinese immigrant life. Mike was impressed as hell and said some variant of (with amusement), “It’s a damned good thing they’re speaking mostly Mandarin, if it was Cantonese it would be triggering.” This with respect to the ghastly way Michelle Yeoh’s character treats Stephanie Hsu’s character in the movie. THEN I FOUND OUT THAT Yeoh, Quan and Hsu are going to be a family again in a Disney action comedy tv show? WHO’S WRITING, ALLEGRA YELLS & chomps popcorn impatient-wise.

At some point Mike went home. IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE HIM.

Worked hard on Totally Boned yesterday; couldn’t stay hydrated. Didn’t practice enough. That will change lol. I need to drink 16 oz of water RIGHT NAOW

I had another perfect day, y’all. I’ll be checking my blood pressure again for sure though. Whatever is wrong with me, it can’t kill my good mood.

it was ‘the last perfect day’

Peggy has completely recovered from COVID – her second bout according to her, but without an antibody test we’ll never know. She was certainly well enough to feed me and Paul roast chicken, spaghetti squash, the least bitter radicchio+tomato salad, and boiled new potatoes with butter, with homemade plum meringue tarts and storeboughten pumpkin pie and ice cream for desert.

A filk never got off the ground. We’re coming up on the anniversary of Tom’s death (a year goes by like nothin’, once again) and Peg’s house is a warren of piles due to trying to get Tom’s excess after death into the correct place and also due to the internal construction (just barely replaced the floor tiles upstairs to learn that every potable pipe in the house had to be replaced. MANY HOLES. HOLESINWALLS HOLESINCEILINGS holes… holes)

The dead wizard in the poem is Tom, of course. He’s been pressing for remembrance, so I’ve been having crying jags thinking about him. The ‘chromatically’ is a musician’s joke, to put colour on a word that is sound.

I was thinking in bed how if I died in my sleep that it would have been the last perfect day – weather good, peace at home, saw friends, peace in the family, got some writing and practicing in, ate yummy food. Don’t know how many days more like this I’ll get – statistically around 7000 – but yesterday was a good one and nobody has to be thankful but me. And I am. Undeservedly lucky and content.

walked with Paul, fed him lunch

Then walked to and from the pharmacy to get my booster for COVID. Everything went very smooth. Stopped at the Liquor store that’s just opened up the street from the pharmacy and got Fat Tug and drank THREE of them and enjoyed that so much I picked up a guitar and started practicing afterwards.

Weather has been wonderful, smoke from fires variable, lower today.

Slept exceedingly well, woke up this morning with my arm sore af, (no surprise there, almost everyone reports it, and it’s sore right up to the side of my neck) but I can also tell that this will lift over the course of the day. And I walked a whole bunch more, on concrete, yesterday, so my legs and ankles are whining.

That picture of Neptune, whoooooeee.

Jeff is taking me to IHOP this morning.

Look what arrived in my mailbox this mornin’ SQUEE > Book*hug preview.

Russian women are being comforted regarding overseas vacations that they can now no longer take their husbands on, since men 18-60 are subject to an international travel ban, with the deathless advice “Swap him for your granny”.

They can ATTEMPT to mobilize 300K new recruits but since the Russian military has already demonstrated that it doesn’t have enough UNIFORMS, RIFLES, FOOD, FUEL AND AMMO for the men it’s already putting in harm’s way in Ukraine, I don’t know what will happen. Russian client states are getting restless; Azerbaijan has already started a brush fire war against Armenia. 300 people dead already, both sides pointing fingers for the continuous breaking of the cease fire.

A couple of kudos overnight, 160 hits on the new story.

on Bowen Island

We are having the most lovely time.

We played spotify rounds last night and thus it was I found out I love Junior Brown and Paul Anka’s 2005 album ‘ROCK SWINGS’ where he frank sinatrafies modern hits. like black hole sun and wonderwall. IT’S FANTASTIC. Jeff and I laughed until we cried. “Und dis is ven I learnt that I AM AN OLDT FARDT!!!”

Our hosts are empty nesters. A human and dog friend came over and we watched Bear hump Maple until she got bored with it. Bear and Nelson are good friends with Maple.

The wifi connected instantly, I slept 9 hours last night – I literally faded at the stroke of 8 and woke up at 5.

Barbecue and summer squash from their garden for dins. SOOOO GOOOD

We’ll be grabbing a ferry home soon.

No filk, just earflapping

Lovely visit with Peggy. She even drove me home. Never pulled my guitar out of the case! (Did noodle on Otto.) I am glad I went; I showered and otherwise got myself in shape for a public event and then we drank lashings of tea, (I got the water on to boil and figured out where everything was in her kitchen to make tea while she was gone) considered our children and our recent losses and retrenchments. Is she still going to be living in that big house five years from now? Ten? I told her to stay put but I can see that a summer of overseeing a bunch of in-some-cases completely unexpected and ferociously expensive house repairs has shifted her opinion on being old and owning a house.

2609 words plus sketched out a confrontation scene while at Peggy’s waiting for her to come back from walking her son’s s/o’s dog Callie who is a very nervous rescue with a rangy frame and a patrician nose but who decided to like me.

Still no word about whether Janice is still in town or how she’s going home. Very hard to have discussions with your ex which desperately need having when he’s got his bodyguard with him. If he’s driving her home that puts the discussion off again for the best part of a week. Peggy’s face as I mentioned this was a study.

The ‘real filk’ is next weekend but in the meantime I have had a proper earflapping with one of my most beloved and respected friends. And I left the house.

Mike is coming over tonight! Hope to hear his tale of work, just brushed up against the subject on the phone the other day.

HALLOWEEN IS COMING

austrian art nouveau bat chandelier

Someone else’s poem, but relevant to both my life and my mood.

221b by Vincent Starrett

221b
Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears—
Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five

 

 

 

more laundry

There is the eternal laundry pile. It grows – it shrinks – it exists.

Filk today at Peggy’s. I’m not going to tell Paul which makes me a lead-lined bitch, I know it. Katie fled her own home last night so what does that tell you.

My improved mood continues. Mike’s coming over for movies and snax on Sunday and Jeff and I are well pleased.

I hope everyone has an excellent day. The two grandsons when they were similar ages.

baby thoughtfully chews on bloody end of plastic severed leg

 

 

lovely time with Mike

Mike came by about 4:30 and we ordered fish and chips. (Once again Cockney Kings omitted the fucking cole slaw – I don’t want to order from there again) He committed retail therapy and showed up with a brand new used La Patrie which is a SWEET sounding little guitar, sharp as a knife, soft as a sigh, and we traded it back and forth a few times. It continues to amaze me how many songs that lad knows, everything from Merle Haggard to Paul Simon to Concrete Blonde. And so much Gordie Lightfoot. And the Skyrim soundtrack? I mean…. it’s a lot.

We also sang and played on the deck for a while. The next door neighbours STOPPED doing their dishes while we were singing Early Morning Rain, it was weird but also nice. Also during ‘The Bed’ and I’m thinking are they listening to the lyrics? okay….

I started falling asleep (no nap yesterday!) around 8 pm and asked him nicely to leave. It was so good to see him. And his guitar is a little sweetie. He also brought some Mango Haze over.

Can’t print out Zanne’s rental increase letter for her because I put the wrong ink in the printer and I probably need to clean the printheads.

Over to Paul’s today to encourage him to get his medical tests done, if he hasn’t already, which I doubt because he was volunteering at the charity shop yesterday.

Corn on the cob for breakfast and leftover fish and chips….

1753 words.

aircon was off most of the day, it got fucking hot in here

Does the dog die

  1. that is the name of a website. People are sensitive about animal loss. I told a bunch of people on reddit that the dog DOESN’T die in the new Predator series movie, “Prey” and my inbox this morning is full of thanks and praise for saying so.
  2. Time to brush my teeth and have a shower.
  3. Burnaby is going to have a festival of glowing pumpkins, 6000 of the hand carved suckers. Once we hit August it’s all Halloween all the time around here.
  4. Somebody must have put one of my stories on a list; one particular fanfic is getting all the attention these days. It’s an okay story, it’s got pacing issues.
  5. Still no joy on Part II of current story. Some extension of a fanfic.
  6. We’ve now blown through 1000 cases of MPX in Canada. It was 957 on the 5th August, what do you think?
  7. Can’t raise Mike, his phone doesn’t seem to be working.
  8. Lovely walk with Jeff in the morning, it wasn’t TOO hot. Actually walked up the hill with some speed instead of puffing and blowing and pausing the entire way.
  9. Hexavalent chromium spill into the Huron River, which would impact the drinking water of millions of people, is getting zero airplay / pixels / print space in the media. Hexavalent chromium, necessary (they say) for many industrial processes, is the single most toxic form of chromium. Staring at my Toronto friends hey you might want to move before it’s in the drinking water of Toronto in Lake Ontario.
  10. Made Jeff peppermint tea and smoked salmon green salad wrap for brekkie.
  11. The Russians have mined the Ukrainian nuclear plant they took over a couple of months back. It is apparently their intention to destroy it.
  12. I have Reddit Cute Animal disease, every time I see a video of a cute critter on Reddit I want to run out and buy it. Today’s heart-eyes – hognosed snake.
  13. Did not practice yesterday, but at least all the instruments are in the same room again.
  14. “Reddit Double Shot” – THERAPY and BREAKUPS all ’round. (AITA posts only)
  15. I got the wordle in three tries this morning. However I used a solve site on line to help me once I got to word two.
  16. That doesn’t always work, depends on how common the consonants are.
  17. I am thinking of the time I did the Grouse Grind. It took me 2.5 hours and a single human being lapped me three times; he was wearing nothing but pale metallic blue booty shorts and athletic shoes and carrying a water bottle.
  18. Doug Ford is still an asshole who took four billion dollars from the Feds to fight the pandemic and as far as anyone can tell is obscuring where it’s being spent as fast as his bean counters can hide it.
  19. I have had a poem written for me?!!! Colour me blushy.
  20. And now I shall cease with my morning raving, knowing that my fOlks don’t have internet right now so there’s no point getting this posted before six.
  21. reconnecting with an ex on social media (facebook, I believe I mentioned that I left instagram and climbed back up on facebook) is always fraught with hazard (he was my first bf from around the time the planet cooled) but so far all we’re doing is sighing heavily over what a fucking idiot Roger Waters (OF PINK FLOYD) (he’s FUCKING CAPING FOR THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SAYING TAIWAN BE OWNED BY THEM WHICH IS A BIG SURPRISE TO THE PEOPLE WHO FUCKING LIVE THERE) is, and posting youtube memories of songs gone by. Weird to see him all old and bearded though.
  22. and as a visual codaImage

cp from facebook

Yesterday mini house filk at Peggy’s – we went page by page through an Echo’s Children songbook interspersed with songs memorializing John, who continues to be greatly missed, although his guitar is still getting a regular workout, thank you Paul. More filking next month! Peggy as always fed us and we were continually refreshed with spearmint tea from her garden.

Her recent purchase of a heat pump = great comfort in the stupendous heat (and it still wasn’t as bad as last year’s heat dome although it was plenty rude).

When Peggy was playing standup bass for a tune it was automatically 100% better. It’s a lovely instrument with a booming voice!

veering away from Echo’s Children (as usual I wept continuously through ‘Outward Bound’, that song is my fricking kryptonite lol), I played Warren Zevon’s ‘Shit’s Fucked up”, and “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” and Brooke’s “It’s Just so Nice When Someone Knows Your Name”.

Paul played “History is Made by Stupid People”, and the Hallelujah song (aka the Fighter Pilot’s song). As always we nagged the tar out of him for not practicing enough. HE’S RETIRED like me he has no excuse. He also backed me up on cross harp for ‘Spinal Clinic’.

Cindy played “Unexpected” which is a most wonderful song based on the first Vorkosigan books, held down the lead for most of the Echo’s Children songs (plus guitar) and was as always as delightful a voice to lean my alto harmonies against as I ever I encountered.

more later

Jeff sure has been fixing people’s stuff recently.

Paul knocked a side mirror off his car so he won’t be giving me a lift to Peggy’s this morning.

It was damned hot yesterday.

Progress on Part II stalled. I don’t want to do that thing where I skip the hard part in order to get to the easy part and then never write the hard part. But if Omar doesn’t grill Blossom about her situation with Steve then it completely shoots holes in the next part of the plot. He shouldn’t trust her until he knows, and how can he know without asking, and how can he confirm it even if he asks? these are distinct problems and cracking open a case lot of story logic won’t fix it.

 

Feasting accomplished

Ordered from Cockney Kings Fish and Chips, watched the latest episode of Westworld, sat on the deck and enjoyed the evening. We hung out until the grand old hour of ten, and Mike declares the 0.0 Heineken beer quite palatable. I got Fat Tugs and drank most of two, so I was plenty plenty last night.

Mike has announced that he’s putting together a skookum gaming computer.

I’m content with the world right now and perhaps I shouldn’t be, but it is a nice feeling to see a friend.

825 words

I get Alex tomorrow afternoon while his brother gets his urology consult. Katie really stayed on top of it, she’s the matriarch now.

how about something lighter

  1. United Church is the first denomination in Canada to elect an Indigenous woman as its leader.
  2. Métis from Batoche got some #LandBack
  3. Bear about town becomes bear into bin.
  4. Escaped farm pigs add to BC’s piggish sitch.
  5. Katrina Chen is now co-running David Eby’s leadership campaign. Given how much I’ve been peeing on Eby’s head (at last check Katrina follows me on twitter) this is amusingly embarrassing. Katrina also has a kid in the same school as Alex. hey at least it isn’t private school and Eby’s still superior to many of his cocontenders.
  6. People are very stupid about love. Just thought I’d mention it.
  7. practiced hard on my mandolin Otto, so glad he’s back.
  8. MIKE IS COMING tomorrow. yay. MUST GET TO STORE FOR DE-ALCOHOLIZED BEER.
  9. Mike Parker Pearson has a lot of archaeologists in UK upset (on twitter, what a row) over basically wanting to completely kibosh the tunnel that’s supposed to be DUG UNDER A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE GOOD GOD Y’ALL. Yes indeed. However people like Raksha Dave and Paul Blinkhorn aren’t as upset as all that so it’s definitely interesting AND OF COURSE EVERY TIME THEY DIG there’s archaeology so bizarre they need to take months to check it out…. Anyway it’s a done deal; how much of the diggings will get sieved remains to be seen.
  10. Ben Affleck – demonstrating once more that you have to be in the same room with him to understand his charisma – has managed to marry the evergreen beautiful workaholic known as J-Lo …. I know, I don’t get it either. But I wish them decades of happiness and hope that he can at least keep it in his pants this time.
  11. SHETLAND SERIES 7 TRAILER HAS DROPPED. Yeah!
  12. There’s a street fair walking distance from here, mebbe I’ll go.
  13. Probably I won’t.
  14. Jeff got me brekkie at Foreshore Restaurant yesterday AND I STILL LOVE THEIR SAUSAGE MAN IT’S SO FREAKING GOOD
  15. I think there’s still coffee from yesterday. No peanut butter for me thanks, I’m finally back to not itching as much.
  16. 540 words and I READ THE ENTIRE THING TO mOm YESTERDAY which is terribly ableist of me she needs it in written form but she puts up with me and I love her.
  17. People are still reading my fanfics. Not as much, and never any comments, but it’s nice to know people are still reading.
  18. One little comment from the last time I went walking with Paul. THE ELECTRIC BIKES COMING THROUGH THE TRAILS AT 40 KPH ARE NOT CONSISTENT WITH FRAIL ELDERLY PEOPLE TAKING A CONSTITUTIONAL. I predict that shortly a senior will be injured by a cyclist who WILL UNDOUBTEDLY TAKE OFF AND LEAVE ME THERE.

Nudes of the world

    1. Just a reminder that I am a proud nudist (naturist sounds funny to me, sorry) and that if you really piss me off and I don’t have other recourse I WILL REMOVE GARMENTS. Starting with the legal stuff, and moving on. Since there’s apparently hardly anything that disgusts and freaks out bigots than fat old naked women, I’m keeping that one in reserve. Also, Peter Verigin LIVETH. (This last specifically so mOm can read it to her sister lol)
    2. Also, I did not order those copies of “Grandma Was a Nudist” they JUST SHOWED UP HERE.
    3. Jeff gets a hall pass. Poor guy. It is true that one of the first things I do when he goes away is walk around the house naked and yodelling (sometimes it’s kazoo, and it’s all very much sad for Buster, who has a demonstrated preference for me remaining clothed since I make a better lap that way and he loathes my music.) (Except in the laundry room, which has a security camera vs the raccoons and since Jeff reviews the security footage once a month I don’t want him clapping his hands over his eyes and going AUGH NOMAN HAS BLINDED ME.)
    4. Which is why, although I haven’t been over there for what feels like centuries, and so not recently, the first thing I do when I get to Mike’s is AUGH FREEEEEEDOM. (I even have a cubby for my clothes like at JJ Spa – and Mike’s place IS a spa, at least as far as I’m concerned.) Also he keeps his apartment about 28 degrees, summer and winter and he’s got it set up so you can sunbathe on the balcony year ’round. Sometimes I wave at the neighbours over by the Skytrain station. I don’t know if they’re watching, but you never know, and I don’t imagine anyone I know would ever tell me.
    5. Sigh, the salt room at JJ Spa. I MISS IT SO. But with this new COVID wave, nuh-unh.
    6. I should probably call Mike.
    7. I do very very very occasionally still wear a bra and pantyhose but that’s like a church/weddings/funerals/someone’s paying for a classy dinner scenario.
    8. I made Yorkshire Gold Tea for the household (which will end up in the sugar free iced tea, most likely), peppermint tea as a day-opener for Jeff, and coffee for me. Honestly, I don’t know how many more times I’m going to get coffee and sugar and cream all in once place again, so I really try to enjoy it while I can.
    9. I played with my Kaossilator yesterday and came up with an ABSOLUTE banger of a beat, 56 bpm / g20/ c_ key/EGY scale/94&96 percussion and yowza. In my life I’ve never spent that little money for a tech toy that brought me this much joy, and Jeff commented that a small child and an elderly adult can both enjoy it!
    10. Anyone doing waste water research says the balloon has really gone up for the latest variant.
    11. Suzanne’s computer has been scanned and will be returned to her shortly. She got a scare but it’s all good. THANK YOU JEFF.
    12. Tanya Basu reporting from Corpus Christi on Twitter: The harassment has real-world consequences. The Corpus Christi area teacher’s union president’s house got shot at earlier this week. School board members are being heckled online. Educators, mostly women & poc, are quitting their profession in droves. 
    13. There are rumblings of a NEW hemorrhagic fever out of Tanzania; it isn’t Ebola and it isn’t Marburg (so saith local testing with help from WHO) and it’s currently killing about 1 in 3 of the people it infects. Tanzania is one of the countries on earth most lethally affected by mosquitoes. It sure would be good to know what other mammalian reservoirs there are for this bug.
    14. Keith and Paul are on the Island visiting various and sundry folks and by reports a mellow and convivial time is being had and mOm was enjoying FOOD DELIVERY what a concept.
    15. I sent the first half of Totally Boned to mOm about a hunnert times yesterday. Finally I stripped off all the formatting and re-sent it and now I’m mentally hopping from one foot to the other waiting to hear back. Google mail barfing on a 30k word document just seems like bullshit to me.
    16. Forced birth advocates in the US seem to be under the impression that since they repealed Roe v Wade opponents need to shut up and be nice to them and it’s NO ACTUALLY WE’RE GOING TO PROTEST IN FRONT OF YOUR CHURCHES AND THROW RED PAINT ON YOUR VEHICLES AND RUN YOU OUT OF RESTAURANTS AND GIVE YOU AAAAALLLLLL THE CIVILITY YOU RICHLY DESERVE.
    17. Putin has signed a bill banning media outlets that don’t recount the Russian War of Aggression against Peaceful and Democratic Ukraine in a way he personally likes, for starters by mentioning that it is, you know, a war. A quote: The application scope of the law covers the adoption of measures against false information dissemination, smearing the Russian Armed Forces’ performance, or disrespectful manifestations towards the Russian Federation’s society, state, and official symbols.  
    18. LOL
    19. David Osland on Twitter this morning, retweeted by Potsherd Man Paul Blinkhorn of Time Team fame: Consider Britain and Saudi Arabia. One has temperatures that exceed 40 degrees, is ruled by a royal family presiding over a corrupt government that is militarily dependent on the US, and openly represses peaceful protest. But Saudi Arabia has its problems too.
    20. Wordle in four tries this morning, good lumosity brain workout. *here I am, sighing over having to do mental math* *here I am, trying to get my response time down under 1000 ms* *Here I am, measurably 20 percent less smart than I was in 2014 HEY NUMBAS DON LIE*  I find it funny that often, the less I’ve slept the better I do.
    21. What happened to US health care? Ronald Regan was elected
    22. Jeff reports that at 5 in the morning THE ALLEY IS CRAWLING WITH EXTREMELY LIVELY RATS. Small ones medium ones some as big as yer ‘ead! When he takes Buster for an alley walk he sees them. MANY MANY RATS. ZIP ZIP ZIP.
    23. Today I shall read the most recent Capilano Review. It’s a really good literary mag y’all.
    24. Weather most fine; a/c still working well.
    25. Stomped hard on a Facebook friend yesterday. Women contestants are tired of the pure whites of tennis, and he said IT’S A UNIFORM WEAR IT and I said FOOLISH HUMAN HAVE YOU EVER HAD A PERIOD WHILE BOUNCING UP AND DOWN AND FIRING BALLS AT A 105 FUCKING MPH AT AN OPPONENT yeah I didn’t think so. Siddown and shaddap.
    26. 33487 WORDS end of Part I. Part II – Blossom’s return, Steve and Jack get their asses handed to them, Richie shows up just in time to make things a) better b) more dangerous c) more complicated (THANKS RICHIE YOU LITTLE B-) AND MORE SHIT ABOUT EMIGRATING TO CANADA THAN ANYONE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT.
    27. I love doing research, I end up finding out things that are both hilarious and realllllly unexpected, but I now know that the Fran’s closest to TGH is open 24 hours and then I learned something actually demonstrably useful about how horselaugh bad the March time change is. See below for illustrated figure.
    29. that cliff? that’s the cliff your body falls off when there’s a time change. I had never actually seen it represented and HOOO WEEE THERE IT IS. Now imagine you’ve gone to Iceland or whatever and the cliff is literally 8 times taller.  And do you know why I saw this data set in the first place? Because I wanted to know the angle of the sun coming in to the side of TGH so I could visualize a scene (last scene in part I.)
    30. I learned that plots of land are as low as $40K out by 70 Mile House and it sure would be nice to have a family campground. This is not compatible with my current political leanings so I am irked by my inability to be consistent. If someone else tees it up I’ll help pay for it.