Category: Friends

remarkable day

Jeff and I got up and went for a walk yesterday morning, just walking around the neighbourhood. The birdies were loud and it was a very pleasant walk. I’m thinking TWO WALKS IN TWO DAYs Allegra must be feeling better (finally, and I do), and then Mike called and we went for a walk in Fraser Foreshore park. I told him to take his camera and he got:

heron

eagle

log booms

skyscapes

and unfortunately the chickadees were not interested in coming to me because it was the wrong time of day, but it was still a lovely walk and one of the crows walked right up to me and begged.

(I didn’t start limping until I was coming up the walkway for home.)

On the way home Mike picked up some marinated halibut and we joyfully stank up the whole house, likely the neighbourhood, likely the city, likely all of solh temexw, cooking it (Seriously I can still smell it with every intake of breath so I can only imagine what horrors Jeff is experiencing) and I made green salad with avocado and boiled up some herb fettucine noodles. Then we watched the dubbed first episode of the anime ‘Ghost Story’ (weird, also funny) and the boys started ‘The Batman’. Since I didn’t watch the whole movie (at eight pm I announced “I’m cleaning up and taking my drugs and going to bed,” and abandoned them mid-movie (I’ll be candid; I can’t review the movie because I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it was not impressive to me), and I slept until 4:40 a.m yeah!!! So I have no idea how long Mike hung around for, but go me for setting boundaries. Also, we consumed no alcohol – Mike has quit and I’m not supposed to and Jeff rarely drinks and only drinks beer when he’s feeling good already.

Yes, it was a remarkable day – I got in two walks! At some point I hope Mike will send me pics, I’ll fire off an email to him now.

On a completely different topic, and late, I’d like to thank Unca Garry for helping pOp with the Camaro. pOp really needs that car available for drives in the country (he’s retired, go around him) and Garry made that possible. I couldn’t see him when I last went, even though he was in Victoria, because of the plague and having to be considerate of the immunocompromised (Alex has has one shot but the baby has not and we could all still carry it without symptoms) so thank you Garry and sorry I missed you Diane.

And tonight I get Alex. I have work to do before he gets here…

No words, no feedback from AO3. But the publication for the ‘Guest’ that my poem will be in creeps closer!!!

Laundry, Buster training, writing

10608 words. Haven’t checked for kudos yet, snicker. Okay, now I have, and it’s just the one.

Buster trained so hard this morning, and was so weird yesterday morning, that I honestly don’t know what to make of him. And while the communication board has shipped, I can’t get tracking data because they want me to have a cell phone to download the shipping app onto.

jesus parkour christ, seriously?

Yes, I know it’s 4-20. But every day is that for me, so celebrating it seems foolish.

 

a repeat, but a good one

The Plateau

I went walking with Jim and Jan, a long time ago, and ‘prisma’ed’ the above photo…

 

Heard from Tammy

lovely Chag Sameach call from Tammy, we talked for ages and really caught up. I am so glad that she and her family are all doing well, and that she has a trip planned for July (but to where, she can’t say).  She may or may not be back here for Christmas. Work for her as a therapist is still disturbingly busy and she’s currently caught up in the multinational maelstrom known as the Toronto real estate market, but if the winds are propitious all will be well.

Three kudos overnight (appear to have collected a new serial reader LOL with a super cute user name), 9973 words on “Totally Boned” – the working title for my little romantic thriller, wordle in five, and I ran the dishwasher and washed and dried two loads of laundry yesterday (also cleaned out the laundry room sink and tidied the kitchen).

Jeff made a Timmy Ho’s run and there were NO HONEY GLAZED!  INTERNAL WAILING well go at 8:30 am and that’s what happens. He got croissants and raised chocolate donuts instead. I’ve started an old-fashioned craving too, they are good and not super sweet.

Left a message for Mike.

Getting into Raised by Wolves! Like a lot. What a weird disturbing show.  Finished (I think this is my third time through) Elementary. I think we’ll probably go back and watch the whole thing again, forever, on repeat. It’s the most nearly perfect network TV show ever, and, unlike POI, doesn’t bloodily kill the lesbian character just as she’s about to be happy and represents an appropriate platonic friendship without being bloodless or sappy about it.

We should probably go back to watching ER, it’s nice and LONG.

another lovely day

Briefly:

a shopping expotition; the longest walk Paul and I have done in months; a lovely meal at Phó Edmonds.

Re: the shopping expotition DO NOT LIKE SHOPPING WITH NO MASKS but at least it’s an environment in which one does not experience harassment for wearing one, so that’s a plus. Also, we go first thing in the morning and we don’t both go in. It’s annoying that we can’t get the Ritter Sport MINT chockie square any more but they support the Russian invasion, so NOPE.

Jeff made sliced roast beef sliders for a snack in the evening, they were so good.

Midmorning Paul called and wanted to go for a walk, and it was an exquisite day, so Paul said he wanted a change of scene and to go back to Deer Lake Park. I wanted to go in case the snakes were out. It took quite a while to remember where the hell we’d seen them before but after scrambling up the bank I remembered… and then in my triumph I stomped too close to where the little beggars were and three of them all raced off back into their den. Biggest was maybe 16 inches, the rest smaller, all garter snakes.

The brilliant yellow of the skunk cabbage was everywhere in the low lying parts, and the birds were making a wonderful racket. Too early for frogs, no interesting mammals.

After, I had the number 32 at the Phó Edmonds (it was absolutely succulent, and the egg was perfect – and I don’t know how they make the vinaigrette for the carrots but damn that was good too) and Paul had a wrap and an order of their really nice spring rolls. We tried to go to Mezze, the relatively new Uyghur restaurant first, but they don’t open until 4 (and stay open until 8 – I have to assume that they do a roaring catering trade!)

The rest of the day I was quite lazy because hey I walked 2.5 km (we rested plenty)

No kudos, word count now 8131 so yes, I also wrote yesterday.

I spoke to Katie and she approved the pics, so….

Yes, that is the debris from a Mickey D’s brekky that Katie had delivered so my mother got exposed to her first egg mcfuffin and apple pie and hash browns and my father got a mocha and an apple pie for breakfast. For reasons best known to themselves they sent an additional pancake breakfast and that got et, too. I have to say that McDonald’s coffee has achieved an unlikely inversion of glory. From having the worst coffee of any chain, it’s now damned close to being the best and it’s definitely on a par or even better than Timmy Ho’s. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but there you go.

I have to respond to the jury duty summons that appeared in the mail on Tuesday. GRRR GRRR. I’ve been joking about appearing at the summons half naked (I’ll get arrested even if it’s legal) or declaring that it’s MST land! and the justice apparatus has no legitimacy here! but I think I’ll just get a note from my doctor saying that I have holes caused by strokes in my cerebellum and I’m not fit for service.

Rob was here

One of Jeff’s oldest buddies came over for beer, ‘za and March Madness, and all was delightful. It had been so long since I’d seen him that I mistook him for the pizza delivery person, and of course this immediately makes me remember a Supernatural (2005) trope. He’s retired, and I’m so happy for him.

Current count 6620, two kudos overnight. Sad boys are sad right mOm (I’ve been sending her updates a day at a time so she knows what I’m talking about.)

Various things are annoying me this morning. I’m thinking “Should I vent my spleen? or should I just go about the tasks of daily living?” And you know what, I think I’ll just put it down.

 

 

Daily roundup

Paul and I went for a longer and faster walk than usual yesterday. The chickadees (probably just one bold chickadee) ate sunflower seeds out of my hand. (they also rocket overhead to get your attention, and the chipping sparrows and the towhees and flickers and crows all get interested. Still as a tomb – the Fraser was like grey glass. We managed to get out during a break between episodes of rain.

mOm got the Among Us art from Alex that I mailed to her.

Pollen count is insanely high.

I don’t know whether it’s the allergens but I’m so itchy and dull-witted it’s annoying to me and everyone around me.

After, I picked up croissants and went to the bank and Paul got Cape Seed bread for Keith, and then we came back here for me to snip THE WORST toenails I’ve ever seen offa Paul. Yes I still perform acts of personal service for Paul, why not, it’s solidarity.

Watched Black Crab (MAN WHAT A BLEAK MOVIE and about a quarter of it is scenes that look amazingly like escaping from Mariupol so that’s kinda disturbing. Noomi Rapace was, as always, fantastic. BUT BLEAK MOVIE don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Today – return book to library, take Jeff to breakfast, wash two-three loads of laundry, empty the dishwasher and try to write at least a thousand more words on the story.

No kudos today, but that’s the difference between Sunday and Monday in a world organized around 5 day weeks.

lovely walk at Fraser foreshore

Chickadees buzzing us I think I was supposed to have sunflower seeds.

After, quick poke of nose into Cobb’s for MORE TREATS it’s just treats all the way down.

Fixing an email problem, got version 3 of the meet on the beach story to mOm.

Mailed some of Alex’s “Among Us” art to the grands just now.

Now I’m going to eat a croissant, see if I don’t.

Who am I fooling

Didn’t leave the house yesterday but I ran the dishes and a load of laundry. Jeff and I keystone kops’d the unloading, I wish someone had been taking video. I also mopped all the salt out of the boot tray.

Jeff left the house and returned with Swiss Chalet. Swiss Chalet has had a terrible hold on my palate ever since I visited my first resto on Yonge Street in 1980 or 81. I was working at the Delta Chelsea Inn – I was a baby, and somehow I ended up running the switchboard – an experience which made me believe it would be twenty years before I ever had the strength to be a manager again – and I’d shoot over there on breaks or go after my shift.

A couple of months back I learned to my horror that the only Swiss Chalet IN ALL OF BC was closing – it’s on Lougheed Highway, and since then we’ve made an effort to grab food from there any time we can. Jeff picked up meals for us yesterday and IT WAS SO GOOD. Then he told me that they are probably staying open and that was really good news. I want to live in a Burnaby that has Swiss Chalet. I’m not saying the food is fantastic, I’m just saying it’s a comfort to me.

While Jeff was out had a practice session so long my fingers are quite sore. ah well, if you don’t practice that’s what happens.

Talked to Paul on the phone; I read him a long twitter thread about how the Russian army didn’t rotate the tires on their armored vehicles and that’s why they can’t get through the mud (obvs more complicated than that). The big takeaway is that the Russian army is so corrupt they aren’t paying for spares or basic readiness maintenance and it’s showing in their performance. (Not so much in the south where they were more massed and the weather is better and the ground more solid.) There is also the problem of what the hell is going on with the Russian airforce. The Ukrainians are still just barely holding their own and given that the Russians have overwhelming superiority in numbers and equipment why don’t they have command of the air? Once again I’m thinking they just don’t have enough spares for operational readiness.

Go go dancers from the trendiest gay bar in Ukraine are now volunteering; the waggish comment on twitter was that we now have ‘battle twinks’. OKAY HE WAS CUTE but he’s got nuthin fer me.

A reminder that Ukraine is the second largest country on that landmass. It literally stretches from New York to the Great Lakes if you lay it on top of a map of NA.

Cried, just cried like a fool, when I saw the video of thousands of Berliners greeting Ukrainian refugees off the train so they could have a place to stay.

Too early for the kudos to come in (that’s around 3 am) but the story is at 2200 words. I’m going back to sleep, three and a half hours isn’t enough.

Dr. Appt Tomorrow

Today another day of loafing and lazing in lower lalaland.

Ate my leftovers for breakfast, so nommy.

Mike and Jeff and I watched The King’s Man and HOLY JEEZ Rhys Ifans as Rasputin is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. He fights while doing cossack style ballet kicks (obvs not him, some poor body double sod) and the whole ‘he was very hard to kill’  story gets THE FULL TREATMENT like shitbag he was extremely hard to kill. Anyway I think I had to be in the right mood to watch it and I was, because despite it being ahistorical and goofy as anything it was very entertaining and surprisingly well written and didn’t fall down in the fourth act.

Also the montage ‘once there were three cousins who ended up being the leading rulers in Europe’ really makes you think about the Great War in different terms.

There is a lot of fighting and there is a goat. Jeff called the goat’s behaviour well in advance, but that wasn’t too hard. There’s also a sequence that will not leave you feeling great about the safety of elevators that go by hand crank up a massive cliff side (the dialogue of the poor schmo stuck in it is classic).

This is a graphic of the Peacemaker dance. If you don’t know what that is or why it’s important to the ‘me’, relax. It’s just a dance.

Mike is coming bearing food

He’s off to Balkan House to pick up SCHHHHHHHHNITZEL and oh boy oh boy. He was going to stop off and get beer but we’ve got enough for an evening’s worth and Jeff certainly won’t grudge it if Mike’s paying for din din.

Here I am hopping from one foot to the other waitin’ and anticipatin’.

But I should go downstairs and finish stringing Smokey.

Russian’s invaded Ukraine. May Putin fail and fall.

 

More items off the list

I am continuing to feel much more chipper.  It wasn’t a super productive day, but I walked (really walked, not ambled) and got some social contact and the sun was a benison.

There’s a new game, Semantle. IT’S INSANE MAKING. Wordle is fun and brief and lively, but Semantle makes you understand you don’t understand English at all, and given that it is, “My bag, my thing, my evil specialty” it’s … Okay, here’s the link. Just don’t ever play the game, you will die of frustration. (suitably vexed voice, with shaken fists: CURSE YOU VIXY) —LATER LATER MUCH LATER I’m up to 3hundred and freakn 80 guesses on Semantle, I feel like me brains are leaking out my ears.

It’s supposed to be ass freezing cold tonight until Wednesday. I am not worried; I’ll have the warmth of VISITORS tonight yes that’s right Mike was supposed to come over for ‘za last night but he drank too much with sifu (sifu is master in Chinese martial arts)  and couldn’t manage it, so he’s coming over tonight.

Buster heals and complains about the door being locked.

Yesterday I ordered the bamboo charcoal smell-killers that have worked so well for us. (really helps with the damp smell in the downstairs john).  Why? As mentioned Mike got a right hand drive Delica (which I rode in for the first time when we went saunaing and dining with Jarmo and Susanna) and it’s unfortunately a Japanese vehicle which means it’s been smoked in. So I’ll give him three of those bamboo charcoal smell killers and that will keep the noxious effluvium down to a dull roar, hopefully. I ordered it from Rona and with the exchange and free shipping it’s about the same as if I ordered it from the US, so that worked.

Absolutely delightful walk in the park at Fraser Foreshore yesterday with Paul. I fed the chickadees from my hands for about ten minutes with Paul watching, most entertained; with what delicacy and firmness did they grasp my index finger as they rested a flashing moment to grab a sunflower seed. The sun was just blasting down and there was no wind, so we sat in the sun and basked for many long minutes in companionable silence. Everyone on the trail (except for those two fuckwits on mountain bikes who came through with a gopro and attitude and 90 dB of shitty club music at about 25 kph without a bell or shout) was practically giddy with joy at the warmth and sun, and even though it was the Sunday of a long holiday weekend (it’s ‘Family Day’ in BC) the trails weren’t too crowded. I masked, Paul didn’t.

Then we went back to KC Junction and I ate Keith’s leftovers, a superlative yellow lentil stew with heaps of veg and subtle, lightly heated spicing, and then we ate my choc rice pudding for dessert. (Keith enjoyed it with thanks.) Paul was much more interested in the borscht I brought (he really likes my borscht) and I realized why when I saw the sour cream container. But I can’t eat borscht two days running because anything with oxalic acid makes my kidney output scratchy so I ate lentils instead.

Keith’s loving his job… just loving it. He says it’s only a week and you can’t know for sure, and the pay is not great, but it’s work he can stand and he’s visibly in much better shape than even two weeks ago.

Katie was out with Ryker & Alex and some friends so I didn’t get to see her.

The Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians are ‘reacquiring nuclear weapons’ and I’m like wow, we can’t trust a fucking word you say now, can we.

Worst showing ever in terms of ratings for the Olympics. Why NBC keeps this boat anchor tied to its ass I have no idea. What if they held an Olympics and nobody wanted to broadcast it? That would be choice.

Twitter antifa (canuck division) is rooting around in rural Ontario to find the names of the people who are hiding the convoyancers. So far some son of a sea cook in Embrun who’s the best friend of the mayor there is one of them. LOL they can hide but six months from now the knock will come. Remember they’re still knocking on doors from the Jan 6 rebellion in the US, it’s not like the cops work faster in Canuckistan.

I’m an abolitionist; if they could all be referred to restorative justice and be filling planters and picking up garbage in Centretown for the next two years instead of paying fines and going to jail I WOULD BE HAPPY. Especially if they had to wear a PLEASE DON’T FEED THE HONKIES sign around their necks while they were doing it, but that’s not nice, I know it.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but if they reboot Futurama without the voice acting talents of John DiMaggio I won’t watch it, even out of whatever is left of my curiosity.

Side note to mOm. The Metformin did it again this morning, fortunately I know how this goes and I had plans in place and managed to deal with it all promptly. What a life.

 

 

 

 

I would like to read a newspaper headline through your breast

Said the mammogram technician. Anyway, I have booked one for May, and it’s relatively local, so all is good.

Why isn't there a more comfortable mammogram procedure? - Harvard Health

Yesterday I did two loads of laundry, and thanks to Suzanne the bathrooms are shiny again. She’s settling into her new apartment at Kingsway and Gilley (SOOOO CLOSE) and is probably going to get Alex for an overnight soon, when her apartment’s all shoved back into corners. Katie helped her assemble all her computer-y stuff like a boss.

Slept FANTASTIC. Went to sleep just after 8, woke up around 4. I may not nap tidday, boys!!!

Jeff bought me a burger and shake from Wet Spot, and it was fantastic.

I am very close to being finished writing Mary’s letter but I think it should be at least another couple of pages longer.

No kudos this morning… what a sap I am. One must be motivated from the inside.

Recent uproars on the internet:

person 1 – I ain’t taking my shoes off in your skanky ass house cause your floors are heinous and I don’t give a shit about your cultural constructs appears magically on line. THERE ARE OPINIONS

(this is all part of the editors in NA on line venues looking for ways to shit on Asian people during the Olympics, how rude)

person 2 – I ain’t putting up with your skanky ass shoes in my house because you fucking people walk through broken glass and dogshit and then march all over my new laminate floors and you laugh when I point out the scratches

person 3 – (allegra) I brought orthotic slippers to help me keep my feet warm and keep my balance, if you prevent me from wearing my indoor slippers you’re an ableist fuck and I ain’t enterin’ your skanky ass house (I didn’t actually say this, I never found a venue, so here it is on my own site) and if your floors actually are dirty I won’t fucking care but if there is a shrine in the house of course I’ll take my fucking slippers off do you think I’m a clod, deaf to the songs of the gods?

Vocabulary review: skanky – cheap, dirty, slutty, low-rent, low-class; – ass – added for emphasis.

Got a comment hijacked by a comment bot on Reddit this morning. Didn’t even notice until someone picked it out of the crap pile for me. It’s one of the funniest lines I ever wrote so of course some witless algorithm steals it.

Jeff and I are continuing to enjoy Peacemaker (it is rude, it is funny, it is freaky, it is scary) and Leverage (well written, clips along, very very formulaic and light hearted, which compared to the grimdark we watch most of the rest of the time is GOOD).

Have some Ice from Iceland to go along with today’s fog. It was 5 degrees and rain blowing horizontal, if you wonder why it’s so dull, almost four years ago, May 2018.