Category: Friends

Got to see all my descendents

It’s always very wonderful to have all of your descendents in a single room. I only held bubs once since he’s teething and enraged about it (I AM SPOSETA BE HAPPY ALLA TIME WHHHYYYYYY) and I’m getting Alex for a sleepover tonight so we just had a brief conversation about his most recent art project (his horror drawing is LUSH AND IMAGINATIVE and getting better all the time) and CBC kids games and we’ll catch up more tonight. I had one single beer. Slept like a rock in the arms of a rock.

Keith was in fine form. The meal was sushi and tempura and we et it all, all 85 bucks of it between the four of us (Jeff has been slammed by work and equally by the urge to do nothing about it, so he stayed home and tried to play whackamole with his task list. Katie had a bad day with Ryker so she was less than communicative, just tired tired tired as one gets. Keith got off to a board game meetup.

Paul had asked me to help with something on the computer and when I got there DESPITE THE ROGERS OUTAGE THAT IS ENSNARING our entire country he accomplished it. I’m impressed.

There’s a reason we have copper coming to the door.

Today, despite my misgivings about gatherings, HOUSE FILK hopefully the weather will let us do it outside. We’ve been promised buckets of chicken soup.

I have managed not to get too outraged on / by social media today so I’m going to hopefully write. 31796 so far. Yes, I done got graphomania again. Omar and Mr. Toth are eating a Fran’s takeout meal in the waiting room on the ward where Brad is and Mr. Toth just told him that he’s been diagnosed with dementia so Omar’s feeling shitty about calling him a demented old bastard and Mr. Toth doesn’t want his kid to be mad at him so he’s making nice with Omar by feeding him, always a plan.

HUNG OUT

It was an absolutely lovely afternoon to early evening. I took Smokey the guitar and ate the lovely barbecue/charcuterie/fresh veggie plate that Cindy made and hung out with two of her neighbours and her oldest kid Jasper. Everything was delicious and we sat out on the deck and enjoyed the PERFECT WEATHER.

I am so blessed among my friends. There was a tiny bit of filking in there too.

And now my aching body is demanding painkillers and the last of my meds for the day.

much foreshore

Foreshore Restaurant for breakfast w/ Jeff, Foreshore for walkies with Paul, then off to the weed store in New West for YES THEY HAD TRAINWRECK I’M SO HAPPY and also gummies, because I’m out. All in all a very nice day. Woods were full of birdsong and the weather is so splendid (and the sky so beautiful, filled with ripples of clouds) it’s just … lovely.

I complained about Beyoncé’s new video (to my friends on Social Media) having migraine/epilepsy triggering flashies. A technology journalist asked me to comment and I told her that it was my preference that affected Black people comment, I’ve said what I needed to say and don’t need to further grab the mic. Got my own platform (pat pat) right here.

a couple of changes

I made minor changes to Extracurricular Incoherence.

Blood work today, probably picking up scrips.

Got the corned beef sandwich from Big Star yesterday. It was fantastic. The woman who delivered it wanted to buy this house. I get asked once a week if I own the house or it’s for sale.

Lovely phone call with Dave yesterday. This was followed by an equally lovely letter from Lois. That woman is a family treasure.

24029. I’m letting the steam build up, more progress is coming.

 

low key day

23828 is the count.

Yesterday I wrote 870 words ran the dishwasher did my brain exercises got the Wordle in 5 played waffle half the day (it’s a game on the cbc website) watched a Burn Notice (season three summer finale, Michael finally shoots Strickler and joy was unrefined) gave someone 30$ on Paypal to honour my Settler Saturday commitment so she can get away from a bad domestic situation, skritched the cat and talked to Dave on the phone.

He’s got a book coming out and his description of the difficulties involved with punctuation was (probably not to him) quite comical. (Once upon a time I had an Anelia font Brother printer and I helped lay out one of his poems and let’s just say it’s better left to experts. And I don’t think he’s overly fussy about any of it, it’s a component of his greatness as a poet; I’m just not as particular and definitely not as internally consistent, go go Allegra ADD.) I spent rather more of the conversation than I should have telling him WHICH social media platform he should be on, of course twitter, and how he should go about ‘developing content’ for it now that he’s a luminary of Canadian letters. I even told him that if he felt like paying for it I’d jump on a train and come visit him (but he’d also have to pay to get rid of me, ALAS TIS THE ALLEGRAGELD which considering how I eat shouldn’t be too hard a sell) if he wanted to do a reading or (bless) won an award. He even riffed on an account name, which I won’t repeat in case he decides to actually do it, and I nearly laughed my lungs up through my nose.

I got a thousand karma points on reddit yesterday by saying something uplifting about someone’s stepdad for father’s day. Happy father’s day Paul: you were a good one. Things change. We get older and less useful to our children (in some cases) but the gratitude for the experience of having been a ‘working parent’ remains.

Happy father’s day pOp, you are one of the sweetest men ever. You were a little crusty when I was growing up and Liz was scared of you remember when I told you she said of you “King Fear gripped my heart with icy fingers” which is (truth be told) a quote from a Lobsang Rampa book (and DID YOU KNOW that after being hounded out of England as a goddamned phoney he moved to Calgary and died there in the 80s?, I mean what would an Allegra father’s day greeting be without a completely parenthetical comment?) but honestly, with mOm’s help you were the best dad out of all of the dads of all the kids I knew. I did have a few minutes when I thought you and mOm must have adopted me because you – ¿ARE YOU KIDDING? – set reasonable limits on my movements and what you spent money on for me but other than that, it was pretty clear you were . the . best . dad, and your continuing kindness and support for everyone in your family, is but one external token of how wonderful you are.

Did you know that there isn’t a single googleable picture of him on the internet? if I post pics of him I don’t put his name in the alt or the metadata

ALL PRAISE THE MASTER OF NOT CARING WHAT THE WORLD THINKS.

I’ve been laying off posting about Ukraine, but check this out, open in new page if you can’t read it:

armed fucking standoffs between officers and troops on the white blue and red side? g’damn.

I love you my dearest friend

phonetic transliteration of "I love you my dearest friend" in hieroglypics
I love you my dearest friend

Literally, the above is a phonetic translation of the title of this blog post.

Many loads of laundry; conversations with me mum, bingeing four episodes of Our Flag Means Death, an expensive delivery meal, working on songs and practicing, and getting Buster to purr when I told him daddy’s coming home today.

Peggy’s invited me and Cindy for lunch on Saturday. I wasted no time replying in the affirmative.

s’all good. No writing though, after the last long blort I’m in plotting and planning mode.

that lentil soup is nommers

I’m going to make more soup today so I have instant meals when Leo and Linda come CHICKN BARELY! I meean, chicken barley.

This afternoon, me, Cindy (Hopes hopes) and Peggy will get together to sing and play PEGGY WILL BE HEFTING BASS I am so happy.

Leo and Linda have been to the mines at Britannia Bay – and I’ve been living here decades and never been, although Paul and the kids have.

Confidential to mOm I think I'm going to write a scene in which the wicket stepbro asks Omar if 'he's going to let her' (her being Blossom) 'get away with that' and he and Brad are going to slap each other laughing like frat boys and say NO YOU DON'T GET IT SHE'S THE BOSS and then she's going to say, in 'visiting professor' intonations "I THOUGHT WE WERE AN AUTONOMOUS COLLECTIVE" and they all lay about laughing. It's stupid but every time I imagine it I smile. I think I know how this is going to end now. The story logic is INEVITABLE.

I need another 15-20k to get there though. 15,302 is current count

I have achieved meds

F near died walking back – I was fine on the way there; it appears that 2 k with a solid hill component is too much for me at the moment because I had to pause, many times, on the way home.

Jeff restored my happiness by appearing with CUBAN LUNCH chocolate candies. These were a feature of my Ottawa Childhood™. Last time I saw one for sale was when I was still merrit to Paul and we were driving down the highway close to Brooks AB. Anyway a new company has started up manufacturing and they’re BETTER than I remember them so I’m really freaking happy about that.

For whatever reason I can’t get through on Peggy’s land line right now, although it appears to be working on her end. So I have to look up her cell number because I haven’t memorized it yet, or ever.

Just got an email from Mike – he’d lost his phone for a while and so apparently vanished from human ken.

 

 

glamping

So the Delica was wonderful to sleep in, thanks, after Mike sorted out the storage issues. He packed tent pegs, he swears he did, but he didn’t find them so the SUV tent extension never got put up. That hiccup aside, I got to camp:

In a new place (Sxótsaqel, Chilliwack Lake PP)

RIGHT ACROSS from the pit toilets, which were clean and unsmelly

Drank not a single whisper of anything alcoholic

Found out about recent generation camping equipment that’s most useful

with a cat and two dogs (Ninja, Zaya and Jasper)

with a raven flying through the woods

listened to the other people at the campsite play Mölkky which is a deranged Finnish version of skittles invented late last century

and three little chipmunks so we kept yelling for Alvin

with new people and old (Stephanie, the long term girlfriend of Erik (all camping trips should have a meltingly beautiful young couple to admire, she’s one of those women who without being too much into herself can put her hair into a messy bun in 1.5 seconds and then look gorgeous) and her beau Erik who instead of being Jarmo’s child at Baumfest, conspiring with Ville to lock me in an outhouse LOL LOL is in fourth year med school prepping to be a radiologist and who probably saw Tom on rounds when he was dying at RCH, and Päivi, whom I hadn’t seen in easily 15 years; and Samppa her oldest whom I hadn’t previously met and Matthias who turns out to be ANOTHER Finnish extraction med student. We got into the prolapses folks, it was intense, also hilarious)

Not having to prepare a single meal, cup of coffee, pack except for myself or do any driving. I wiped some stuff up, cleaned the small trash off the campsite, got the chairs out of the rain, that kind of thing; told stories and sang songs

—very nice gig frankly

With a view so intense that if you want to see the mountaintops through the trees you have to tip your head back

and a beautiful beach

and it’s only two hours from here, less if you maniac it down highway 1.

I have more notes and more details later, but I’m home, and happy and I can hardly wait to tell Katie about it but I bet she already knows about this campground. Maybe pics later if I can liberate them from Mike.

All hugs and kisses to Mike for underwriting basically everything

Laundry and walk

I did laundry! I went for a walk in Fraser Foreshore! 14389.

The woods were full of leedle yellow birds. I am convinced that I saw a Wilson’s Warbler almost the instant we got to the park (it was flitting about in the shrubs below the stand of cottonwoods at the western end of the western parking lot) and the two of us were stunned by the joy of all the leedle birdies’ mingled songs; it was amazing. No eagles or herons; but ducklings and small birds. And someone left a hawk feather on the path…

It was a SUPER pleasant day in the park. Paul was in fine form. After we got back we all watched a Burn Notice and then when I stood up I put my back into a spasm and the pain was so bad I mistook it for a heart attack. I staggered out to the car and as soon as I sat down the spasm cleared and I realized it was referred pain. Total elapsed time less than 5 minutes.

I apologized most sincerely to Paul and Jeff (I won’t lie, the pain terrified me and I didn’t want to go to a hospital in the middle of the plague anyway). Now I feel fine. We’re going to do a shop this morning after Jeff does the trash.

I am so lucky I have people to look after me when I’m feeling crappy.  I really feel cared for and not everybody, not even close to everybody, gets that in this modern variable hellscape.

 

gorgeous day

I suppose what I should have been doing was mowing the lawn, but if it’s not raining today that’s what I’ll do. Maybe I’ll put my two loads of laundry away LOL PROBS NO.

Tested negative for COVID again.

Putin didn’t mention victory in his victory speech. Nor did he mention nukes. Soft good traitor tyrant.

12623, I think the writing drain is unclogged and I should be able to go. It’s hard to match the 4000 word day I had earlier on this story, sigh, but at least I have all the protagonists herded into one place psychologically for their life changing phone call.

Katie called first thing yesterday and PULLED ME OUT OF THE BATHROOM and then we howled laughing, thinking ‘MY TODDLER NEVER LETS ME POO IN PEACE’ and how that just never changes because THEN WE PHONED OUR MoM and got her away from her exercises so she’s PUFF PUFF PUFF it’s so PUFF PUFF PUFF lovely to hear your – PUFF PUFF oh that’s better – voices.  Katie and I also breathed sad and mad at each other about RvW because what the fuck can you do.

I didn’t hear from Keith but I heard he was playing with Ryker when I Katie called and that was good enough for me. Later in the day, Tammy, bless her, called, and we had a good long chinwag. Trying to time the market is a hard and always potentially expensive game. Paul and I got lucky, is all. Toronto is not a good market right now.

I got amazing feedback about my ‘activism’ from back when I actually was an activist and not just a keyboard warrior yesterday and it was lovely. I’m not going to repost it but to remind myself in future, 1100 reddit karma points for my welcoming congregation post was COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED and I cried at some of the comments. REPRESENTATION IS IMPORTANT and in this case it was an asexual saying ‘thanks for making me feel seen’ and that was a moment that made me feel THIS IS WHAT I WANT FROM LIFE.

So now I suppose I need to be more of an activist. I’m doing what I can given that I never leave my rental. LOL.

I miss my filking buddies. This is the ‘other’ Jeffrey in my life, lol, and what a lovely man he is, married to an even lovelier person, Jeri Lynn (well she makes homemade raspberry soft candies that taste like a trip to the Hesperides so of course I like her better.) Jeffrey gave me his dulcimer capo, can you believe it? what a guy.

 

Camping trip!

Mike and I are going to go car camping next weekend, if all lines up (we’ll be self-testing before we go). So looking forward to it!!!

No progress on the writing. Very much enjoying the Burn Notice rewatch; Gabrielle Anwar is quite something as the volcanic Fiona Glenanne. And of course Bruce Campbell is just wonderful. I am now pronouncing the character of Michael Westen asexual – if one does, many of the things he does make a lot more sense.

 

creeping progress

12409 words (creeeeeeping)

Had an absolutely lovely and heartening phone convo with Sue, my friend from church. She has an ongoing part in a TV show here in town! which we had thought about watching but now we’re rethinking it. At least I am. An IMDb listing, good golly y’all. I’m sure she’s fantastic. Also the entire series is CRAWLING with Stargate series alumni, I was snorting at the cast list, Paul McGillion makes an appearance.

We spoke of many things. Renee Spakowski passed. She was a truly amazing person and a really good organizer. I knew about Jean Donaldson passing away. Other people from church have died, and I haven’t been making phone calls because I’ve been very wrapped up in myself.

I told her about my spot in Guest 23 magazine (thanks to Dave, being the editor lol) and she was very kind about the poem I read at Tom’s memorial service. She said that in the first few lines the congregation knew where they were and what was happening and I said all I wanted to do was write something honest that other people could relate to and she said I succeeded. That was good.

And we talked about R v W and we talked about the state of the world and we talked about what happens when you have to end a friendship and so I talked about the friendship that I had to end and how years and years later I’m still so SORE about it, because it’s a personal failure, or so I feel. But one sets boundaries and tries to live accordingly, and it’s damned hard.

and she asked me about Ryker the wonderbaby

Allegra and Ryker aged 4 months
GRANDMA AND RYKER

I send morning greetings, hope you are all doing well today!

lovely brief walk

Paul and I sat in the park down the hill and blossoms fell on us. The dogwood tree looks, in full bloom, like something from a Tolkien film. We came back and drank tea on the deck.

Buster’s wounds are healing well.

12066 words, mostly revision. I’ve done a stem to stern adjustment and tightening of the story so far, and it’s stalled a little bit because I am pantsing and there’s three ways I can go.

Survey Sunday:

If you had a choice between living your life again and going back in time and killing Hitler in 1933 which would it be?