Category: Domestic Life

pictures

a small white boy plays with two purple shaker eggs

there’s the little boy I love. He got bigger, and he’s still loveable playing with shaker eggs like a true filkkid. There’s the houseplant Jeff’s kept alive for decades, which continueth. There’s a rondel of art created by Alex. There are the kazoos we both still play. There’s the fabric curtain I made to keep flies out in the summer time. There’s the Guatemalan fabric bag Catherine gave me two decades ago. There are the chairs we got from Granny’s estate. There’s the expensive cat food Jeff feeds Buster. There’s the table I bought at IKEA when Jeff and I moved in together. There’s the place where Margot used to sit. There’s the place I hide Halloween candy.

There he is again, playing Xenon.

There he is with Margot in the background.

No kudos, no increase in wordcount.

I haff asket off da shpeshialist

I don’t know why I think krummy German accents are funny, but I do, I always have, it’s transgressive somehow. Maybe rewatching Foyle in gulps is doing it to me. My blog title today is an acknowledgement that Suzanne is a specialist. I asked after talking it over with Jeff. Suzanne was made aware of our slippery rug situation, and I told her we’d been thinking about bath safety strips but that we’d very much like to hear her opinion, and although it’s currently being used for something else, I actually have a chunk of the material she’s suggesting for the purpose. Yes, the specialist has made the judgement. Other solutions are available, we agree, but there are nice-to-haves to go with any solution.

Anyway, you can buy it by the yard at the fabric place down the hill, or in short expensive rolls in the stupormarket or in relatively short reasonably priced rolls at Rona. SOLUTION is: movable, washable (nay, even sanitizable!), flexible and unlikely to make things worse. Yes, this is the solution we were looking for. IT SHALL BE TESTED as part of the great experiment that is “Making Our Dump More Comfy,” the name of me and Jeff’s new podcast. He will specialize on the bathrooom side of things, and I’ll be more about cleaning with brain damage. I’ve hated it with rancor and pustules and bilious vomitings my whole life, yes, that would be my attitude toward housecleaning, and I have to tell you, a small but troubling amount of brain damage and an increasing inability to bend is not turning it into a catered picnic with a live trio, if you catch my drift.

I am laughing very hard right now, mostly because I’m picturing Jeff’s dismay at me saying anything about the two of us having a podcast about, “Making Our Dump More Comfy,” since absolutely anything BUT that will happen in our household, I can guarantee it with mirth and complete certainty. Sorry to perturb you, if perturb you I did there brO.  It’s just that I know you’ve got at least two good bathroom episodes in you (I mean descriptions of ‘the manufacture of comfort for the benefit of all’, not some recent feat of excretion, in terms of  subject matter) and I’m likely underestimating both your creativity and lived experience.

It shall remain an ever-receding possibility in terms of joint projects! and everyone said GOOD and turned to other things.

Like this.  I think it’s apropos.

I never loved you because you were fighters//I loved you because you were shitposters! Two panels of Drummer addressing her lovers.
I never loved you because you were fighters//I loved you because you were shitposters! Two panels of Drummer addressing her lovers.

well that worked

went to a social media platform – shan’t say which one – to tell everyone there where my fanfic is located on a03 – and got 26 kudos overnight.

From three people, most of it was a single person. That person, wherever (she?) likely is, spent at least 12 hours out of her one wild and precious life bingeing my shit and so this morning my reaction is a classic MWAHAHA.

I have a LOT of laundry to hang, lol.

10078 words.

 

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.

background processes

9973 words, no kudos, lots of fermentation happening.

I seem to have handled the medication changes reasonably well.

Cow appreciates man outstanding in his field.

Did some kind of weird EDS thing to my knee yesterday – the tendons on the back of my knee wandered around and it hurt like hell but I put it down to how I hadn’t been using my insole-slippers and once I found them and started using them again the pain started to lift and when I woke up this morning it was gone.

Buster’s communication board is inbound.  I’m excited and concerned that he’ll just ignore it, but I know for a fact I’m not going to have any problem reselling it for what I paid for it…. so I’m not too worried. This morning he didn’t want to come into the bathroom with me and walked into the kitchen. I figured he wanted the door rather than skritches so in the bathroom I said “Do you want the door?” I let him out and then raced downstairs to open the cat door. Within seconds he’d come back in the cat door and was staring at it. I couldn’t tell whether he wanted me to close the door again (he wants that sometimes if there’s a mean cat outside) but after a second he trotted away and quit glaring at the door, so I brushed him for a while.

I owe Jeff a meal so we’re going to pick something up from IHOP.

Maybe I should leave the house today

I just can’t be arsed. It’s horrible out there, and so nice in here, although I probably need to do a schlep.

Ran the dishes; it was mostly pans that had been sitting around waiting to be fitted in. Once they were all in… dishwasher was full.

Peanuts are all gone, the crows will yell at me. They got the last of the moldy cheddar yesterday MAN DO THEY LOVE CHEESE. Haven’t seen Curvebeak. I am starting to recognize one of the bold ones; I think I’ll call them Fluster.

I need to get some bloodwork done and I don’t want to do that either, although I don’t mind blood draws.

Apart from feeling a little less alert than usual the change up in the medication doesn’t seem to have done anything. A benefit is that I’m taking meds twice a day now, not three times.

Where I sit most of the time I can see the photo cousin Alex took and had matted and framed for me; a yellow tulip standing out against a mass of purple tulips. I can also see a piece of map/squid art Mike gave me, a piece of quilting my mOm made, and roses cross stitched my pOp’s mOm.

Sheets and the bolster need a wash…I hate changing my bed so much because it’s very hard work and it reminds me how weak my hands are and how hard my knees yell even if I kneel on a soft surface.

I wrote to the jury duty people on line and told them exactly why I can’t serve. No dramatics (like I threatened, because I’m dramatic) just … I can’t and here’s why. Within half an hour I was excused duty. What a freaking relief. It just makes me sad to admit that I’m too disabled to work and too disabled to serve as a juror. I feel weak and old and useless and my fOlks will read this later today and go WHAT THE FFFF GIRL ADD TWO DECADES ONTO THAT FEELING !! Yes, I know. But this is all relatively new.

No kudos, word count stuck.

sleep is plentiful

slept literally 7.5 hours last night; I should feel like I can lick my weight in wild bunnies or something. As it is, I have risen, made tea, made coffee, skritched Buster and fetched him some treats, and now I contemplate the morning.

Three incredibly loud bangs of thunder in the late afternoon yesterday.

Two different people read the chicken story last night; I have to wonder if one of them messaged the other and said YOU HAVE TO READ THIS, IT’S ABOUT DEAN, AND CHICKENS or whether it was just one of those magical coincidences. So, two kudos last night and 9375 words so far.

Watched a bit more of Story of Yinxi Palace (our heroine has now met the Empress, who is amused and impressed by her rhetoric and smarts.)

Took Jeff out for breakfast yesterday and now I’m eating my leftovers and drinking coffee. Jeff got sammies from Big Star for supper; half of mine is still in the fridge downstairs. They are very good! Very highly recommended.

Paul tried to coax me out of the house for a walk but I just jellied. As in, turned into a jellyfish incapable of outside perambulation.

Okay, time to get up, prep a week of drugs for the pill holder, (I’m changing what time of day I take a BP med and reducing the dose so this should be innarestin’) and maybe write a few words on some subject or other. The shootyness I was referring to will happen off the page – but it will impact Our Heroes (and Heroine), and lead to further action later because right now? if I get rid of the bad guys then story tension has to come from somewhere else. Maybe some snarky dialogue lol.

another day sleeping

After a beautiful night of sleep – I slept the whole day away. Woke up at 4 pm, made a couple of phone calls (finally called Keith when we were both awake and not working, he’s fine, and it was lovely to hear him plan a visit to the grandparents), watched TV with Jeff until 9ish, slept again, awake at 2 am.

I sure would like a regular sleep schedule.

2 kudos, 9060 words. Things are about to get shooty.

overslept – late post

It was a lovely day to do laundry yesterday so I put the kitchen mats back down and did three loads, and got them back upstairs, yay. Got up this morning and Jeff had filled the dishwasher again, which was a great feeling. I’m slowly eating the leftovers from yesterday’s breakfast at the Fraser Foreshore. I think I will see if there’s any coffee left.

8953 words, two kudos overnight, Wordle in three, and did I mention I had A GREAT NIGHT OF SLEEP!?

Dave D. has finished editing the poetry mag he was asked to guest edit and apparently the poem I wrote for the occasion has been neatly fitted into all the others. I will have a contributor copy eventually, mOm so you’ll get to see it.

Brekky from Foreshore this morning

We haven’t gone to get it yet, but we will. They open early, so anytime after Jeff gets up we can go.

Got Wordle in 4 tries (it’s been brutal lately); 1 kudo overnight, currently standing at 8823 words. mOm has been enjoying what I send her.

Suzanne was here yesterday and took care of the Buster fur, and I did three loads of laundry, starting with the rugs in the kitchen, so the kitchen floor is lovely and clean. The rest of the kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it, sadly, but I’ll get to it eventually.

One of the things I found out while at the parental units’ was that peyote plants are no longer illegal in Canada. Mescaline still is, but not peyote. That means that I can talk about peyote, so I will. Just not right now, I have to organize my thoughts about it first.

I found a free legal busking place one bus ride from the house!!! so pleased. That’s Bully’s.

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.

Jiggety jig

Excellent night of sleep. Ryker’s teething but didn’t hear a peep out of him all night so that was good. My auntie Mary arrived by cab with a book of Scythian grave goods and I hadn’t seen half the illustrations and photos so that was amazing. She also gave me a copy of all the newspaper clippings from when I was seen by the Queen of England at Pionera in Saskatoon in 1959 and the biography of an archaeologist.

We went after that to the Country Bee, and then after that mOm and pOp peeled off to go home after a simply exhaustingly wonderful visit; we went on to the Butterfly house, and then I’ll just drop a hanky over what happens when three people with ADD get trapped in a car. Once again I didn’t acquit myself well but Alex and Katie are still speaking to me so …. yeah. Gentle parenting is very very hard to do. I applaud Katie for her efforts and her success.

Came home, ate cheesies and drank beer and watched Foyle’s War.

I have pictures; after consideration I decided not to post them.

Everybody have a peaceful and productive day! I am back to the salt mines of writing today, and if that doesn’t work out for me, I can always go for a walk, clean things, write letters, and sleep.

What is this site and how do I:

What:

This is the personal website of Allegra Sloman. I’ve been doing it for almost two decades. It’s a public on line diary. I try to post every day and I’m generally feeling punk or travelling if I don’t post. KEEP SCROLLING FOR MORE

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

How:

Contact me? info  at  allegrasloman   dot   com.  If you send me a soliciting email it gets trashed.

Get a user account on this site? info   at    allegrasloman   dot com.

Buy a book? leanpub.com/upsun

Read a book for free? https://allegrasloman.com/midnite-moving-co/

Check out my music? Search on Song-a-day or check on ‘pages’ for Portfolio.

 

 

Low energy day

Once again, another day of being tired. I felt dizzy after we got back from the store (didn’t last long, but my balance was shot all day) and after watching a Time Team with Jeff I went back upstairs and …. slept until supper time? I mean I woke up around midnight and couldn’t go back to sleep so more sleep was in order, and I just had a normal night of sleep and feel fine, but that was weird. Fortunately Jeff had both lots of work and lots of squeaky squeaky time (March Madness) to watch.

The little tweety birds have a series of songs and dances that they do to encourage me to put down more seeds. (Juncos and chipping sparrows.) Bought peanuts yesterday for the corbies. They made what I put out disappear in a real hurry.

I mentioned that I ordered a Fluent Pet starter board which will ‘allow’ Buster to talk and they emailed me a 36 page starter guide to read before the six buttons and the panels they sit on get here. I think Jeff is quite dubious, but I am really looking forward to it.

No work on the story because I slept all day but much pondering – the next convo is going to be hard to set up and write so that it flows correctly. One lead character is being an asshole to cover how traumatized they are and the other lead character’s about to drop the hammer and explain (kindly, firmly) that ‘your trauma doesn’t suddenly give you an all access asshole pass’….. Four kudos overnight. The gal who’s reading all my stuff on AO3 is, as promised, reading all my stuff. Squee.

Alex is coming for a sleepover tonight. I’m thinking of doing things a leedle differently than normal but mOm I’ll be trying to give you a call before bedtime tonight so you get to hear his voice. Tomorrow, bouncing around the lazy river at the community centre with my grandsons and co-grandma and Mamabear.

Fuck Ginni Thomas, I hope she goes to hell through a cenote-style sinkhole appearing in the goddamned floor. Stories all over the internet about what a great *** she is.

Despite everything that’s wrong with me yesterday I wrote A NEW INTRO for Gelis and Niccolo (I cannot let go of that song) – one that uses fingerpicking style rather than hammered guitar – and I’m thrilled with it because it just came to me in a lightning flash and there’s a really wonderful rhythmic change that makes me feel like I am, you know, a musician with a little flair, a little showpersonship.

Vyshyvanka are about to get reaaaaallly popular. I predict it. They are the Ukrainian national shirt. Go to Etsy and look it up for examples. The black shirt with buff and gold embroidery made me DIE OF WANT.

Here’s a photo that is really hard to interpret because none of us speak or read Russian. Here we go:

So there we have some bog standard Russian iconography from the days of the Soviet Union. This looks not particularly rude in anyone’s terms, it’s a hammer and sickle with the words “Mow” “and” “Hammer” BUT according to Alexey at Meduza, it’s an extremely sophisticated visual pun.

Why? because ‘Reap’ (aka ‘mow’) is Russian slang for DODGE THE DRAFT and ‘Hammer’ is Russian slang for IGNORE DRAFT NOTICES. So this means that the iconography of the former Soviet Union is now UNIVERSALLY ESTABLISHED as a symbol for draft dodging, inside Russia, and that is to my mind so fucking hilarious I want everyone who reads my blog to know about it!

There’s also a joke going around (not in Russia) that the reason the current war symbol is a ‘Z’ is that, thanks to Russian Engineering, the other two arms of the swastika fell off.

this is Mariupol: