Category: Health

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

Kaossilator ip ip ip

  • Brief walk and lovely sit in the sunshine with Paul. He had a good time on the Island and Jim being in better shape really put the heart back into him. Paul’s at his volunteer job today.
  • Dragged him into the music room and made him listen to what the Kaossilator sounds like when the battery is dying
  • HEY pOp RYERSON CHANGED ITS NAME TO Toronto Metropolitan University. Given that he was a colonizer who thought Indigenous people are scum I’m cool with that.
  • MUST go to the bank today, I still haven’t paid Keith back.
  • Otto back tomorrow or the day after, that’s good.
  • President Biden is apparently going to declare a climate emergency. Don’t be too happy; those parts that are useful will be turned into money making opportunities for big Democrat donors and when the next president is a Republican it will all be swept away anyway
  • The gay mayor of a town in Oklahoma has been assaulted and frightened so much that after five years of service as Councilman and Mayor he’s resigning. I spend a lot of time in fanfic talking about states where you can’t be out in public and Kansas and Oklahoma are definitely two places where it’s as much as your life is worth to be openly gay, especially outside of places like Lawrence.
  • The entire world with the exception of New Zealand and parts of China is wandering into the seventh wave like a bunch of fools. ERs are crashing and apart from the people who visit them and work at them nobody cares.
  • Despite a century of doctors and health care professionals wearing masks, the far right and the ignorant are still claiming that wearing a mask makes for ‘too much CO2, you’ll choke.’ Showing them pictures of your pulseox before and after masks is ‘fake news.’ Now I’m not saying people deserve to die, but some will die, with belief systems like that. And it will be the young, the elderly and the disabled who pay most dearly, just like fucking usual.
  • I predict that people between forty and eighty will just ‘start dropping dead’ as the effects of multiple undiagnosed COVID infections spread out through the population. Since these deaths won’t get added to the COVID total (no active COVID infection??? CAN’T be COVID!!), the ignorant will claim that it’s the ‘stress of lockdown when it was unnecessary’, ‘drugs’, ‘chemtrails’, ‘the heat’ and ‘the government’ that’s causing these unusual deaths.
  • If you don’t have a will please make one. I have a will, it’s out of date. After all, I no longer have any assets except my intellectual property, which is LOLOLOL completely worthless except to about 3 people. But I still have to change the will so the intellectual property is specifically called out.
  • Apparently the CME is pretty much missing us but check for nice aurorae tonight in western Canada if skies are clear.
  • Don’t blame me, the wordle of the day is ‘angry’
  • 393 words on Part II

Taiwan’s little EU problem and other things

  1. So the EU ambassador to China, a Spaniard, has announced that the Spanish government’s position on Taiwan (peaceful reunification for 1 China) is actually the EU position. It’s not. Horror across the internet this morning at this blatant contradiction of the majority stakeholder view across the EU.
  2. I’m so itchy I’m having trouble sleeping. My tear ducts seem to be blocked up too, and my eyes are sticking shut.
  3. Started working on Part II – 73 words so far.
  4. Three shootings in Toronto last night, one dead, two gravely injured, shooter or shooters still at large.
  5. Words cannot describe how much I’m hoping – and I’m an abolitionist – that Steve Bannon goes to jail in the same country where someone said that the economy would fall apart if jails didn’t contain almost free labour.
  6. Putin says Russia’s high tech sector is facing ‘colossal’ problems due to sanctions.
  7. They’re emptying the jails and putting the dregs of Russian society at the front, according to sources inside Russia.
  8. 110 degrees F in Fort Worth TX today that’s 43 degrees C. The grid in TX is teetering thanks to Repulsigan policies and chronic underspending by ERCOT on maintenance. Bad things are going to happen, it’s like sunshine and gravity.
  9. Wonderful Nova program about the JWST and the first pictures. I knew it was a hellaciously complex and overbudget project, but just HOW complex and HOW overbudget was kind of heartstopping, so thank science it worked. Ain’t nobody going to fix it if it quits.
  10. CBC is reporting lightheartedly that repeated COVID infections will be the norm and don’t pose a problem and this is directly counter to every reputable clinician and epidemiologist that I follow stating loudly and clearly that every repeat infection raises the spectre of disability from Long Covid. Fuck them for saying that.
  11. With Jeff’s kind assistance, I have taken Otto to the krankenhaus. I will receive word on Thursday.
  12. Keith reports that Jim is doing much better.
  13. I have finally seen “The Trouble With Harry”. Damn but John Forsythe was hotter than August in his prime, and what a freaking voice.
  14. 40 degree C weather in Britain. Monuments and bridges are at risk of cracking, damage and failure. Brits don’t take heat seriously so the betting is it will be super hard on the disabled and elderly. Australians and Americans on twitter are trying to help with inexpensive advice. From today’s twitter: In more “country totally prepared for hot weather” news: Blackpool Victoria Hospital (note, in the UK) has propped its doors open to keep the building cool, but now the hospital is full of seagulls  AND HERE’S ANOTHER ONE “SKY NEWS REPORTER, CITING MILITARY SOURCE: UK ROYAL AIR FORCE HAS HALTED FLIGHTS IN AND OUT OF ITS LARGEST AIR BASE IN THE UK BECAUSE THE “RUNWAY HAS MELTED” IN THE HOT WEATHER and ANOTHER:

    UK airport suspends all flights as heatwave melts runway tarmac

    A spokesperson for Luton Airport said: “Following today’s high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the runway.”

  15. My dad does not like seagulls. Not in his aircraft engines and definitely not in his hospitals. NO WORD ON HOW HE FEELS ABOUT MELTY TARMAC
  16. The ERs at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater and South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver are on diversion due to staff shortages.
  17. let’s talk about everything that’s wrong with this article. First off, fuck that family for booking a Disney cruise in Alaska during a pandemic. Second, Air Canada SAID it was going to be cancelling flights left and right at the end of June. Did they not get the memo? What did they think was going to happen. THIRD their daughter HAD COVID BEFORE THEY STARTED TRAVELLING or she wouldn’t have popped symptoms on the fourth day…..they would have ended up on a boat with a sick child anyway. How the fuck is that a vacation? fourth they got treated terribly by Air Canada and had to sleep in airports and it’s like HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NEWS? EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM CITED IN THIS ARTICLE has been part of the nightly news since the travel season started. There’s NO ROOM in the current Air Canada schedule for aircraft going mechanical.
  18. Maybe Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is a more important figure and musician than the Weeknd and Drake but why the fuck would he say so in public? I’ll tell you why!! HE DIDN’T GET REVIEWED IN THE MAJOR PAPERS! Oh, you poor poor man.  that’s get off my lawn style crankiness and RACISM. PS I hold no brief for either of them and Drake’s a creepy asshole who macks on minors and makes for great memes but HE’S A HOMETOWN CHILD IN TORONTO so of course it was a big deal. Not understanding the local politics doesn’t make you a likeable figure dude.
  19. Time to back up your computers, earth’s about to get smacked hard by a coronal mass ejection.  Radio and GPS disruption expected, low latitudes aurorae, first thing tomorrow. Chances of being an x event is 10% but we’ll get something for sure….
  20. WHO confirms a Marburg outbreak in Ghana.
  21. Zelenskyy remains pissed at Trudeau, line forms on the left pal.
  22. July 2022 heat dome temperature gradient europa
  23. Above is the atmospheric ‘ pot lid’ on Europa.
  24. NASA’s ‘climate spiral’ video.
  25. SO ITCHY

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.

challenges

Off to Paul’s this morning (later… after a negative RAT), sometime, to help him with various things; 26861 words, burritos for supper last night but they were really terrible so we don’t know whether we’re ordering from there again, and this morning hopefully we have a Dark Winds and a Westworld.

Received word from Jan that Jim’s in hospital in Victoria. He’s doing better that he was when they choppered him down there, that’s for sure, but no further details were authorized and we are ALL of course quite concerned for him.  Jan’s with him. All skill to the hands of his doctors, all love and patience to him and his family.

Absolutely fucking hideous breakdown of what’s known about BA.5, the latest variant of concern.

And more.

And more. But I can’t find the link. You’re safe for now.

My mood right now is pretty dark. I’m trying to keep myself right side up with a reminder that I’m not responsible for the happiness of other people, and only responsible for controlling my own reaction to people and events.

I’m going to start treating July 4 as the International Day of Mourning for failing Democratic States, and Canada’s looking like one.

feet

Second last time I spoke to Katie on the phone she said could I please do something about Paul’s feet, so I took him out on the deck (it was GORGEOUS here yesterday, just a hint of the heat that will fell us on Friday) and trimmed his nails. We none of us bend all that well. I can still do my feet but it’s hard and I sort of have to wedge myself into the bathroom in a particular way so that if I have a fainting spell I won’t kill myself falling over.

Beforehand we went for a walk in Hilda “It Says I’m an Avenue but Actually I’m a Street” Park. We listened to the crows and talked to a nice lady and her easily perturbed pooch. And we actually talked about Paul’s medical condition like adults for the first time ever. This probably has something to do with how the kids lowered the boom this week. I told him that for his own longevity, comfort and safety, he should get a diagnosis. He’s unconvinced anything can help him. So I tried to be encouraging.

After the walk, he sat on the deck and I brought him sugar free home made iced tea (using the carton of Splenda I got from Mike) and a nourishing, light lunch. (Smoked salmon, red onion, capers and garlic cream cheese on sourdough muffin with a side of the last of the cole slaw.) THEN I did the feet. Anyway, I try to help look after him as best I can, and it will be easier when he stops pretending everything is fine.

Katie and Alex are going camping Canada Day weekend. Ryker will be with his dad. Ryker’s no longer eating at mom’s (it’s not a problem; there never was a child more interested in solids in the history of getting fed).

There’s other family news too but it’s not for public consumption. Age is reflective and brutal, should we live so long and have the brains to think with.

Got my bloodwork and my meds, thank you Jeff for the boost of energy required to do it. Jeff got us fish and chips for early supper and SO GOOD. I’m going to turn the leftover chips into Really Bad Poutine Imitation. Since I have neither gravy nor cheese curds.

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.

 

New Beyoncé dropped

Yeah, so this is me right now. I have a crown made of pain and iron wrapped around my head and I think I’m going to have a very low key day. Also, expect the aforementioned song to be errywhere this summer, because it will be.

I am annoyed for other reasons this morning but there’s no point memorializing them for a censorious future, plus it could be argued that none of the fucking monkeys currently loose in my brain belong to MY circus. I will say that it has nothing to do with any family members.

irritation

I think I’m allergic to the peanuts in the Cuban Lunch Jeff bought for me yesterday. I was itchy and sleepy and messed up all afternoon, and feel fine now. Slept great.

Image

In this meme, Dr. Fauci, holding Coronavirus’s hand, gives ‘monkeypox’ a once over while Coronavirus fumes.

Got a kudo on “The Reviewer” and went back and re-read it, and fixed a typo.

There was another school shooting yesterday in the US. Stuff really sucks yo.

 

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.

 

 

fried eggs on sauteed veggies

That was lunch yesterday and candidly it was quite tasty. It was leftover veg from the camping trip, hooray for it not melting into compost in the fridge.

Mammogram was fine, and swift; when complete I caught the 119 at the building where the clinic is and then walked home from Highgate, after taking a cab to get there. I seem to be having more trouble than usual walking, but some kind soul put a park bench exactly halfway home (Kingsway and Stride or thereabouts) and since I’d been thinking I’d end up sitting on the wet grass just to give my legs a rest it was most welcome! That’s 1.2 km on concrete. I was quite out of puff when I got home since I was trying to walk, not amble.

Wonderful phone call with mOm; I love offering her advice on family history projects because it continually forces me to think about what family history is FOR. It’s for us, so we don’t lose our memories; it’s for our ancestors so we honour them, (even the jerks) and it’s for our kids so that they know where they are from.