Category: Domestic Life

Much better today

AQI is good but may tank later today. My mood is much improved – I went to bed early and it was a GOOD plan.

I have learned that Tammy is coming to Vancouver for Christmas. yay!

The death of queen Elizabeth is forcing the closure of schools and Crown Corporations in BC. Everything else is to remain open. I think I will ask Katie if I can have Alex overnight on Sunday. (I sent the email already.)

Charles III already looks like a clumsy old fool and nothing that has happened since his accession changes anything. Tying the fortunes of his house with a tour of the UK with Liz Truss is ludicrous, he’ll pay for that in popularity.

Jeff has been overheard to wonder exactly how much changing everything affected is going to cost Canadians.

Buster came in screaming (okay, crying repeatedly, noisy for *him*) (I guess the cat door was open last night) and he was COVERED in ants. I picked half a dozen ants off him as he ‘insisted’ on being brushed. (He goes to the place where the activity occurs and cues me.) They don’t seem to be the biting kind but I guess he lay down on some ants. I also learned that he completely consumed the butter I left in a dish on the counter. Jeff, reading this, is rolling his eyes.

Three Thousand Years of Longing, the new George Miller film, is a lovely fantasy drama and I highly recommend it.

The fridge has arrived

Sent the first half of Chapter 8 off to mOm.

Caspell Junction has a functioning fridge again, they’ll come get the frozen food tomorrow when their freezer’s down at the correct temp.

I am watching the Ukrainian offensive with grim satisfaction, and the fact that there are now over 50 Russian municipal officers calling for Putin’s resignation with solidarity and not a little trepidation.

 

Omnibus of suck Part the nth

Pierre Poilievre is the leader of the conservatives in Canada. Proud supporter and handshaker of Nazis, when asked what he’d do about COVID-19 he said he’d lower taxes. He’s sucked on the teat of the taxpayer since he was 24 years old and worshipped Stephen Harper.

I hope he experiences all the electoral success he deserves.

Article from Ed Yong about ‘brain fog’. Interestingly it mentions the Montreal test. Please read this – and remember that all three of my immediate family have had COVID already. I don’t have any proof I got it in March 2020 but I’ve had to deal with what felt like brain fog, and cognitive crashing, for years now. My apparent intelligence does not match my functional intelligence. And the fall of my writing output is no surprise. I do what I can on a daily basis, but even the small array of techniques I had for managing my output doesn’t seem to work any more.

I am starting to read for pleasure again but I have to not do it for more than about 15 minutes at a time. I am also rereading books, not reading them for the first time.

I am starting to understand why the internet suits my cognitive deficits right now. I feel like the mom, Hazel Bergeron, in Harrison Bergeron, that story by Kurt Vonnegut.

The amount I sleep has abruptly gone up by 1.5 – 2 hours a day, and I’m doing my best not to nap any more during the day. So really I’m sleeping the same amount but doing it all at night.

Jeff and I looked at each other around 6 pm last night and realized that the worst of the ground smoke had lifted, and it was such a relief. We didn’t even run the a/c yesterday so the house is kind of sticky this morning. It didn’t help that there was a recycling centre on fire in Vancouver for most of the weekend. On the way back from Bowen we crested one of the many hills coming into the city from Horseshoe Bay and at one point we could smell burning plastic all the way down to our navels, it was just a horrible sensation. AS IN we should be driving away, not toward.

Buster trained HARD but briefly this morning. He did the headbutt on my left leg thing repeatedly to indicate that he was HERE TO TRAIN. He doesn’t normally do pawclaps ‘backwards’ ie with his back to me, but he did it twice this morning, then did some run and chase, and then VWIP out the door (Jeff left the back door open for the cool morning air.)

3979 words. I think I’ll have some to send mOm in the next couple of days.

Brief visit

Fridge is still busted at Katie’s place – landlord swears he’ll buy and have delivered a new one (old one taken away I expect) since Paul and Keith refuse to move a fridge and it’s the landlord’s job to replace it. Paul is mildly pissed since he spent half a day lining up a good used fridge.

Keith dropped by to return a container which was now full of YUMMY YUMMY lentil stew. Absolutely superlative. That man can cook now.

Enjoying this season of Archer.

3895 words I wanted to see how many bombshells I could deal with in 800 words and Brad has managed to talk Omar into two impossible things before their tea is cold.

The pink dawn faced off the yellow moon and sent it away.

We’re getting smoke from fires in town today – Bowen will be worse if the maps are anything to go by.

It was 20 years ago today
when Buzz Aldrin punched him in the face
And I really really want to say
that he had to be put in his place
So let us all assert for you
Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and said it was a BEAUTIFUL VIEEEEEEEW

intersectionality is a cognitive aid, a tool, glasses so you can see what is happening

it’s not meant to be gamified by white guys who think that because they live at the corner of Lonesome and Hardup they get an option to score points without flak from the racialised commentariat

Suzanne hits a dinger

Aw jeez I’m dying here; Suzanne saw Janice on the sofa the other day at Caspell Junction and said (because her filter doesn’t always work) ‘WHO’S THAT???’ Janice did not acknowledge Suzanne’s existence. Suzanne was here today for the Enshinening and I laughed immoderately.

D.Y.I.N.G.

Anyway Paul drove her to the train station so she’s left town. I’m assuming Paul told her his medical news, but who knows.

Bowen this weekend.

plenty of nothing

Queen Elizabeth is fixing to die at Balmoral Castle. Her dying in Scotland during one of the biggest blooms of separatism in ‘Alba’ would be quite a punctuation mark to her reign. No English monarch has died in Scotland since the 16th C.

She cooed over me in my crib at Pion-Era in Saskatoon in 1959.

Her dying is going to cast me down for a long time; I’ll try not to trouble anyone really anticolonial with my feelings, but it’s hard to have two English grandfathers and not have those feelings.

Each time I think I’m being too lazy I remember my foremothers busted ass on housework and clothing construction/maintenance every gd day of their lives, so if I read novels and eat nuked cakes in a cup (my own recipe) they are smiling down on me. They wish I’d accept Christ though, and that’s a tough one.

3005 words.

Buster killt him a rat day before yesterday. Jeff has already dealt with the corpse.

Keith bopped by with two coolers full of frozen food a couple of days ago since the fridge over there died, and I took stuff out of out freezer to put theirs in. SADLY the ice cream horns touted as treats ARE TOO GROSS which is awful because Jeff and I both enjoy them, so we’ll have to throw them out. Anyway, it was good to be of service to the family.

https://martinkendell.ca/my-platform – I guess I’m voting for him. He just cleaned a hunnert pounds of trash offa Boundary Road.

 

 

unapologetically oldfashioned

That is how I would characterize the Top Gun: Maverick movie. The flying sequences were intense and well shot, but everything on the ground took longer and felt longer than it needed to. The script hit the creaky/hokey/jingoistic trifecta, too. But a good thing to watch with friends.

Mike and Jeff and I had an otherwise quiet time and got sammies from Big Star for supper. I do like their turkey sandwich.

Four loads of laundry yesterday…. and still more to do. Mike tried to do his and found out that they’d changed the amount of money they charge in the laundry room and he literally had no change because he…. never leaves the house.  What a life.

 

 

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

 

 

omnibus post

2533 words. grinding still

Watched Railway Children Revisited. Beau Gadsdon, the lead, played ONE of the child versions of Jyn in Rogue One. I KNEW I had seen her before. (her sister Dolly played the other one) It’s a very kindly well meaning film but you’ll do fine not watching it if that’s not your interest. Although Jenny Agutter is always a treat on the screen.

Rewatched the Jeremy Brett version of ‘The Red-Headed League’ and Tim McInnerny plays a swine so well, as always.

If you needed ANOTHER reason not to fly? yeesh. As I predicted previously the science is starting to look like flying will be more turbulent thanks to climate change.

Jeff and Buster are out on rat patrol.

Two loads of laundry.

Very hot yesterday. AQI and Pollen were good, can’t figure out why I can’t stop sneezing.

Not in great shape, just putting one foot in front of the other.