Category: Friends

Sundry and Various II

Katie has announced, after spending a weekend with Sapphire (born last August, and her equivalent-to-niece) that she has no intentions of going into the baby making business anytime soon.  Tonstant Weaders of this blog will likely feel MUCH BETTER upon reading that.  Not that Katie doesn’t LIKE babies, she just said it was exhausting.  I forebore comment, can you credit it?

Paul appears to have located a 3 bedroom apartment close by the current house.  We shall see if the landlord goes for the plus 1 cat situation.  Seeing as how we don’t even have the house listed yet…. no, better not go there.
Work continues to be interesting, challenging, and suboptimal; I think my performance is suffering.  See what happens when you get a bonus? There’s no point, really…..
Jeff comes tomorrow.  I have to think of a good nickname for my brother, but my brain hurts right now so it will have to be later.

Keith took a tour of the David Lam campus for his Optician course.  He says, “They remembered me!” as if this was a startling occurrence.  Keith is pretty damned memorable, and I don’t just say that because I spawned him.

I would like to sing, shout, and rattle a sistrum for the sistahs!  Catherine, Tammy and Sandy – thank you for the long and heartening conversations.  I note with amusement verging on hysteria that Catherine, one of the most militant atheists evah, recently spent a day making Easter altar scarves.  Yes, her mother roped her into it, and yes, she volunteered.  But it’s a lot like finding out that Shostakovich keeps the dial on Rock 101.
This part of the blog deleted.

I rehung the Inuit hunters on the wall.  Now that the walls are the right colour, they look like they were supposed to be there.

I looked out the window this morning and saw the pear tree starting to bloom and burst into tears because that’s the last time that will happen.  It’s the little things that get you.

I slept 12 hours yesterday, but the allergy / cold thing is grimly clinging to my facial mucosa with the adamancy of one of the Old Ones denied a sacrifice…

Celebration of another year survived

Burnt, who is in his early thirties and has more energy than any sane human can compass, allowed me to attend his b-day celebration last night, which was very kindly of him. Alas for my 48 year old sagging bag of mostly-carbon, I had gotten two hours sleep the night before and after a couple of beers (okay, three beers) I felt my hold on consciousness become rather greased.

I did meet Phd, Burnt’s astonishingly awesome and recently highly educated fiancée, and numbers of his other friends. Scary Clown indulged me by bringing enough dead cow to the barbecue to feed me. He had a hard time believing me at first when I said that barely seared pepper steak and salad was indeed my idea of the perfect meal at that moment, but I guess he believed me after I consumed both steaks in short order. I told him that I wanted to adopt him as a sibling and he made a number of comments about my sanity, but from the first second I laid eyes on him he’s felt like family to me and nothing he’s done – even (or especially) the really gross or inappropriate stuff – has changed my mind since. I’m going to have to get a wav file of his clown laugh and post it to my site…..

Patricia, LTGW and I started the evening by leaving directly from work to visit Hellsgate Mall. Now, I don’t mean to berate the young folks, but a mall is no place to be on a Friday night (or the equivalent) and a liquor store is to buy liquor in. So I dashed in, grabbed a six pack of Thirsty Beaver, and dashed back out to the car (the mando was in an exposed area of LTGW’s scabrous diesel Rabbit, and I’d take a bullet for that instrument, so I wanted to stay close to it). I then got 20 MINUTES to people-watch as it took Patricia and LTGW that long to get the fuck out of the liquor store. What on EARTH were they doing in there? And do you know what it’s like to stand around a parking lot in East Van clutching a six pack of Thirsty Beaver beer? It was…. a slice.

Then Patricia and I inspected LTGW’s apartment. He had mentioned that it was small. It’s hard to find the diminutives which could adequately convey how weensy it is. LTGW, not to put to fine a point on it, looks like a cat in a carrier in that apartment.

Then we went to Scary Clown’s, where he greeted us by blowing a raspberry into the enterphone while we were still about 30 meters from the apartment block (it echoed terrifyingly in the entrance way and just about stopped me in my tracks). There we listened to his most excellent music collection – he really has exquisite taste – and viewed some pictures he took, some of which are, um, disturbing, and others of which are quite amusing, and also reviewed the personals on Craigslist Vancouver, which proved to be v. amusing. Then we staggered the two blocks over to Burnts, ate, hung out, and then home.

Well, not quite that fast. I managed to get myself to Main Street to get on the bus to the Skytrain Station, but not after walking rather farther than I wanted to because of construction along that stretch of road. A street person addressed me about something but I stood there radiating exhausted calm and good humour and only spoke the minimal amount (I was just about speechless from being so tired anyway). On the bus I got to listen to a girl from the Interior go on about what a hick she was. I found myself laughing at her and when I looked around I noticed that almost everybody at the front of the bus was trying not to laugh aloud, so I wasn’t the only one affected by her rather endearing looniness. Then on the Skytrain, which came right away, I was accosted by a young man who was just a big friendly puppy dog of a guy, and we traded comments about the difference between drinking when you’re 22 and 48 respectively and people sitting close to us started giggling. Then a smartly dressed (picture Ice Cube) black dude sat down and apologized in advance that he wasn’t going to be as interesting as my former seatmate which again made me laugh. All in all, it was quite an evening for entertaining and pleasant interactions with strangers. I lugged the mando around all freaking day and never got to unlimber it, though.

OMG. The walk from 13th and 6th to my place when I got off the bus nearly killed me. Now to the garage to move boxes….

Yrch.

Darned inertnests – every time I turn around the access is dead again so I’m chipping away at blogging….  Anyway, I am currently locked out of the garage so I cannot get my gear for the sermon together – but the sermon itself is locked down.  One up, one down.  Mum’s here and had the benefit of one of Tom and Peggy’s salmon dinners (hey pop she ate two desserts, but she has a care package which may be of later interest).

inertnests weirdness

We’re running bareback —- no router…. or is that commando?  I can ne’er tell.  Anyway, the only way we can get the internet to work is without the router.  As Lady Miss Banjola remarked, welcome to malware land, population, you.

I have tons of news, most of it not fit for public consumption, alas, but I guess I can say that there will actually be bonuses at work this year.  I think mine will come to just enough for one really fun bender, but hey, it’s all in the game. I associate work with alcohol, or at least the requirement for same.
Katie and I are off to Ikea to purchase the bed hardware that got lost when the bed was taken down.   Pic is of my brother’s house.  He’s coming to visit soon so I am thinking of him and I miss him more because I know he’s coming.  Does that make sense?

Carpet being laid today

I ran the vacuum over the upstairs, but it’s really hopeless.  Once the underlay comes up, there will be enough dust in the old homestead to decorate a haunted house.  I’m still liking the paint job, but now… the exterior.  When I get home tonight it will be grab the last hour of daylight and police up the front bed, or at least get a start on it. And now to wheedle a pressure washer out of Tom, which shouldn’t be too hard. 

The cats are in full-bore freakout mode.  Kira keeps running to Keith’s room to hide under his bed and it’s….  GONE!

 

Spitted briefly yesterday with the Dunnettfolk, and picked up my Sheep In Helmets Mug from Ingrid, may she be blessed and adored.  We also watched a wonderful travel video about Venice, which is much mentioned in Dunnett.  May Dee be blessed and adored – she got me to and from the Spit in good order and it was really good to talk with her about the whole ‘dayvorce’ thang.  Pretty much all the Dunnettfolk are never marrieds or long-divorced, either with relentless cheerfulness (à la Jan, who really is almost obscenely cheerful, AND energetic, and she teaches very young kids one third of whom speak no English) or more soberly (à la Dee).  I brought Camembert, and we ate the whole damned wheel.  Oh, and Ingrid BAKED a coffee cake which was the last word in succulence, and she never bakes, so we all felt especially happy about that.

If I talk about the other stuff that happened this weekend, I’ll just cry until I puke, but at least I know that Paul and I have agreed to disagree.  That’s what civilized adults do.

Scary Clown makes a fish for me

This is kinda what happens when Scary Clown falls asleep and dreams of Nemo. Either that or in honour of International Women’s Day he’s telling me I smell like a fish. You never know with that guy.

photo credit Dalai Jarmo, and don’t blame him for the image quality, it’s from a cell phone cam…

Rainy day, sunny heart

It’s entirely crappy outside, but for some reason I feel way better about the world today.  Keith seems almost entirely healed up from his wisdom removal (he isn’t, but the swelling is way down) and he is hardly using any painkillers.  He is steadfastly opposed to the unnececessary use of any drugs, prescription or not.  Katie is cheerful about the world too.  She’s decided not to get too upset about anything.  Of course I could go on at great length about THAT.

One of my regular readers complained recently that I’m not WRITING ENOUGH.

 

Honestly, I didn’t know how to respond.  With some effort, I said, “Well, I was kinda trying to take Thumper’s Mom’s advice, If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin at all. But how ‘me’ is that?  Perhaps I should be locking and loading, rocking and rolling, twitching and foaming, as per usual.  But is this wise?  Should I not be aspiring to Buddha like calm and a world view which encompasses monts et merveilles without losing any cool?

Speaking of cool, I’m off to see Cory Doctorow at SFU on Friday.  I got the afternoon off.  I’m going to go and get a beer, and then go to the washroom, and then line up, and then call Rob of Nine (typed Nice, which is hilarious, because Rob of Nine is many things but ‘nice’ is not in the top ten soubriquets which I would apply to him) to come up the hill and join me.

Air Canada is full of devastated employees today.  The North Hangar is going to get entirely cleaned out.

Well, it’s time to suck back coffee and head for the salt mines.  More later.

Wii Party & other stuff

Brother Jerome held a Wii party last night. I mopped the floor with him bowling – the only game I played. Then I had a very satisfactory evening drinking a few beers (Paul found more Lion Winter Ale!), talking to Cam and Yoni (and getting Yoni’s version of Cam’s proposal after I admired her tasteful emerald engagement ring), and watching Margaret, Paul, Keith and Jerome go Rabbid and play golf. The avatar construction was the most fun of all. I wish I had a screen cap of mine. Keith’s looks like a, uh, chemically challenged Weird Al Yankovic.

It was probably too soon for Keith to be out flailing around – he had all four wisdom teeth pulled out on Friday, for gosh sakes – but man, it was nice to see him not thinking about the pain and swelling for a while. He kept some of the teeth, and they are quite impressive. Dr Rondeau actually called him on Saturday to check up on him! Keith, of course, is following the aftercare instructions scrupulously.

Kate is home asleep. There was some kind of emotional upheaval yesterday that got really ugly… details thankfully not available. She claims to be done with Daxus again, but I am past the point of believing it. The lure of his – whatever the hell it is that has such a zombie hold on her – and his family, of whom Katie is inordinately fond – will probably resurface. At last report he was making noises about coming up here. I have to say, Dr. Filk will be disgusted if he shows up when he’s not around to give Dax the welcome he may hastily prepare; Dr. Filk is on the island for the weekend.

Today, more dejunking (we got banker boxes and shredder yesterday) and I’ll be heading over to Tom and Peggy’s to catch a lift to church shortly.

Calling all Zombies and Jews

From the VanZombieWalk listings….

Calling classy zombies of all persuasions for a …

! Gala Premiere Screaming of “Fido” !
A heartworming film about a boy and his pet zombie…

Thursday, March 15th; show up at 6:30pm SHARP!
Paramount Theatre (Burrard and Smithe) – sophistication neon style!
Zombies get in free!

also… from the PD Wohl update & no you don’t have to be a Member of the Tribe to go…

JEWMONGOUS — MARCH 20 2007
(604) 681-9253, CDN$16 advance / CDN$18 day of show, doors 6:30pm,show 8pm, 1300 Granville St (V6Z 1M7).