Category: Domestic Life

schlep today

Yesterday we had a houseful, but it’s all people inside our bubble: Suzanne the Baby Whisperer, Alex the Tube Shot Master, Ryker the teething baby who still managed to be only cry for ten minutes or less, and Katie the magnificent. She came over at the end of Suzanne’s cleaning tenure and we had a simply lovely time. Alex played that xBox game with the crashing cars, and Ryker cried because he was teething and was calmed fairly readily by Suzanne. (Also by me, but survey says Suzanne is a marvel for that).

No writing yesterday because there were people here from 10 am to 5 pm and I took a break. Too early (as I type) for kudos.

I keep opening the fridge door to marvel at how clean and empty it is. Also that nothing DEAD wafts with all the delicacy of a hippo at a wallow through the house as soon as you open the door.

Suzanne vacuumed in the guest room; we determined that it had been just under a decade since someone vacuumed in there (it was a very amusing conversation). She also made the bed god bless her, I’d put everything on the bed so she could vacuum, snicker.

hey mOm I got Jeff to take a picture of me in my Oodie with Ryker (it was cold in the house) so ask him to send it to you also Jeff could you send it to me.

Three whole kudos this morning; all the same person. She started reading my fics two days ago and is working her way through them all by the look of things.

today the enshinening

Okay, that didn’t really work as a blog post title, but the Suzanne the Cleaning Specialist and Carer will be here today and Jeff and I have sworn a mighty blood oath (okay maybe it was coffee and PowerAde) that we’ll clean out the fridge today as our part in the enshinening.

Two kudos overnight; word count stands at 4890; my fave sentence out of the last writing session is

He tried to get in the front seat and she stared at him, a bleak and judgemental reckoning which took in every aspect of his appearance until the impossible happened; he got redder.

They’re about to visit a brothel, but not for any regular reason. Aren’t you anxious to learn why? NB he’s red because he’s sunburned, and not because he’s a tourist.

Jeff and I emptied the fridge of its rottenness (Jeff was the motor). We now have three different kinds of cheese, and condiments. Shop tomorrow I reckon. I am taking a 20 minute break because my back is screaming and then I’ll wipe down the bums of all the containers and plug everything back into the fridge.  Next up: scheduling the next clean. (later it’s on the household calendar) I believe according to the Sidetracked Sisters you’re supposed to do the fridge once a month but if we do it twice a year that would be amazing. Suzanne will do it but she’s only marginally bendier than me and Jeff and she does charge extra for that, so …. (Later, still have to clean one piece of glass and wipe out the freezer but it’s done)

and in war news, the tank manufacturer in the former Soviet Union has shut down the line, no parts. Whoever told Putin YEAH SURE WE ARE TIGHT AND GOOD FOR SUPPLY CHAIN ON ARMAMENTS is probably licking out privies in NovySibirsk now under the lazy eye of a guard who’s probably busy wearing out his pocket icon of Our Lady Derzhavnaya in thanks for not being posted to the front.

aaaaaand them damn gritty Ukrainians be torching Russian ships, which are large and invitingly shootable-at and pretty much defenceless given the collapse of daytime air support for Russian assault troops and supply chains…  since it turns out that the Ukrainian air force, tiny as it is, is blisteringly effective, and the mobile rocket launchers are STILL BEING OPERATED from inside Mariupol which means that whatever the fucking Russians say, Mariupol has not been pacified.

Tyler Rogoway, whom I started following on twitter some years back (he’s an American military aircraft journalist with Ukrainian ancestors) says that Putin has to quit, because if he wins, he’ll be facing the worst insurgency in the history of warfare; porous borders with hundreds of millions of dollars of modern mobile armaments, and a civilian population armed to the teeth, properly trained and disciplined and bitter af, and people around the world who can’t tell the difference between a sh and a shch will be raising money to make it even worse for the grunts on the ground; while Russians starve and he’s forced to figure out whether to withdraw troops to pacify his own civilians, especially the ones closest to Ukraine who are getting more of the real story. If a billionaire who isn’t a citizen of the NATO countries starts ordering and shipping aircraft to Ukraine man that would be entertaining and horrific — and I want the Russian army to go home and stay there.

Katie’s coming with both the boys after Suzanne leaves.

 

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.

wonderful couple of hours in the pool with Alex

Ryker was with his pop. It was just a lovely time. Suzanne came late but she was having A DAY so no problem.

Total 2721 words… sent the first lot off to mOm who I think is quite pleased that I’m writing mystery romance without leaning on the TV characters quite so hard. Omar is a nice guy with a terrible step family and ‘Brad’ or whatever the hell his name is, is kind of a piece of work. I have to story logic my way through the first porny bit (now kisssss lol) and that’s going to take at least another 1000, mebbe 1500 words. We’ll see if I’m this productive tomorrow.

Now to finish off my Big Star Sammy.

immobilized

Slept most of the day yesterday. I think my eyes are so itchy from the incredibly high pollen counts that I slept in self defense. Once again missed the chance for a walk. Sleeping during the day is not a good sign when you’re my age – dementia is calling! However I do run cognitive tests on myself every day and I seem to be about the same.

1368 words so far, rum has entered the chat. Two kudos this morning.

Russians have started deporting Ukrainians to Russia. Just in case this wasn’t clear, deporting civilians during wartime RILLY looks a lot like GENOCIDE.

Clean sheets really are a beautiful thing. I also washed the cover for the bolster. I am so happy I figured out how to keep both ends of the bolster closed without having to do any sewing. I tie a knot in both ends, it’s that simple. If I don’t, the pillows the bolster is stuffed with come barfing out, usually in the middle of the night. waaa what dat noise… oh.

I am adding words to Bih-Bah, my conlang made out of basketball hoop noises. I always add words during March Madness, when it’s nonstop games for days at a time.

I should go downstairs and let Buster out. He asked to have the door locked last night but he prob’ly wants to pee.

A Katie halloween costume from days of yore

My what big green eyes you have

productive day

Should have gone walking with Paul but I was writing and didn’t feel like driving.

2 kudos overnight, one for one of my faves and the other for the most recent story.

895 words total on the story. I have a grip on the characters and the location and now I am wondering how much rum they should consume. Weed’s illegal there so I can’t rush sociability with that. LOL.

I washed and replaced my bedding, compensated my roommate for the money he’s loaned me over the last two months (in the normal course of household events because all the utilities are in his name) and we did a shop.

later in the morning: Spring is truly here, the crows are pruning the dogwood for nesting materials.

 

a few more words

778 words so far on the new story. It’s about a mining engineer kidnapped by illegal gold miners in Guyana and the poor schlub detailed by the company to babysit him in-country until the person to accompany him back to Canada arrives. One kudo on the most recent story overnight.

This is what the haircut looks like first thing in the morning. I didn’t brush it or nothing, it came out my head that way.

I think you all probably know but I super detest Vladimir Putin.

Will the laundry get put away? who cares

six kudos last night, on three different stories.

Like a fool, like a positive fool, I’ve started writing a romance with original characters.

Mariupol is under siege, 300K people are trapped, 1500 civilians have been killed there. Zelenskyy addressed Canadian Parliament yesterday and Candice Bergen sat on her hands. What a (slur/slur) that woman is.

Nazanin is free. 

She got her passport back today. It’s incredible, I wept for joy, reading that. She’s going home to her daughter and husband, who has starved himself and thrown himself at the UK diplomatic apparatus since 2016 when she landed in her predicament. Nobody with a brain or any pull believes that she’s guilty of the spying charges. I haven’t mentioned her on the blog before but I’ve been following her incarceration for at least five years.

We dined on takeout from Big Star sandwiches and it was FANTASTIC. They have a turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing sandwich (small, which is still large) which I customized with crispy onions and Jeff had something large and equally tasty. Which reminds me, I owe Jeff for that.

 

 

Three loads full

I give thanks to the people, the land and water, the sky and creatures, the weather and the seasons, of this place. I will keep working to restore the stewardship of the Salish peoples and uphold their immemorial relationship to the beautiful lands and waters. It is not mine although they share it with me. #LandBack

Three loads of laundry yesterday. I haven’t dragged it back up the stairs to put it  away but, apart from my lilac hoodie which I neglected to include and must be laundered right away because it’s foul with spilled food (sigh), my clothes be clean.

Schrödingers dishwasher – did I run the damned thing or not.

Cleaned out Buster’s gammy ear this morning. Normally he bats at me and protests, but he was purring and gave me a little thank you chirp when I was done, so I think he was mebbe a little itchy.

Paul straightened things out with his housemates, and acknowledged to me by phone that his behaviour was boned. But Katie’s mellowed and I have not talked to Keith. Still thinking about the driving issue.

Curls fell out of my do but it’s still really cute and I love it. A bad haircut can ruin you but not for long and a good haircut just makes everything better. Interestingly I thought my hair was all the same colour but the ends were both darker and more washed out, if that’s possible, and now all the hair colour seems quite even to me, and the silver shine is (according to my stylist) something people pay thousands of dollars to obtain and maintain. God (for some reason) thinks I’m cool to extrude this stuff, and it’s great, because I can be harassing someone on reddit or going to the bathroom and I can still grow hair with undiminished vigour.

I told the stylist that one liner from James C., one of my all time favourite coworkers at the big X. About 15 years ago, at work, I read something like, “Hair is a sexual signalling device” so I wrote all the coworkers that I liked a little email, asking what their hair says about them, and he said, “My hair stands straight up,” and it was the best joke ever because he didn’t swear or even say anything particularly rude but it SURE got the point across and it makes me helpless with giggles every time I recollect it. And that email would get me fired these days and I’m okay with that.

I want that turkey sandwich from Big Star with cranberry sauce for lunch, calice. If it’s as good as the number 27 I’ll be happy. If you charge twelve fifty for a sammich it had better be good, and that was superlative.

Fourteen kudos this morning including one from my third fave fanfic writer. So that was pleasant. I’m thinking of sending mOm a variant of the drunk on the beach story (I ended up writing THREE VERSIONS OF A SINGLE STORY – I wrote one version in word (I never do that) and LOST IT LIKE WHOOSH INTO THE ETHER WHAT IN THE ENTIRE FUCK and then rewrote it, and then rewrote it again to be even more sappy. BABY GOATS BRINGING THE RINGS TO THE GROOMS AT A WEDDING NOOOOO. Actually not but the idea of a baby goat gambolling down the aisle at an outdoor wedding and then running off with the rings made me laugh so hard I put it in to troll one of the characters.

STOP WAR AND EAT POUTINE says the pic from a recent antiwar demo in Paris. Apparently Vladimir Poutine is what some convoyancers call Justin Trudeau.

Pierre Poilevre has a fortune of 9 million dollars – which he got pandering to oil companies – and it’s more than Trudeau has – and he’s speechifying about Trudeau being a rich elitist etc. Get bent Pierre and while so posed please do ram a caltrop through your scrotum, you’ll never be PM. Some people want Trump to run Canada But I Sure As Fuck Do Not.

scanged from WorkingClassHistory on Insta:

Women Anarchists have become the terror of world’s police – Their Daring Crimes are said to have outstripped the deeds of brothers of the red

Search for the woman is becoming a safe rule in crimes proceeding from anarchistic violence – the guardians of the world nearly always find a woman implicated when a ruler is stricken down – EMOTIONAL WOMEN LOSE SENSE OF FEAR.

yeah baby

New do

 

B-Bombshell took good care of me. The gal who sheared me was an absolutely lovely person and we cracked each other up, it was a jolly time. (I went to Big Star for lunch first, got the number 27 small, shoved half in my bag to take home for Jeff, I do believe Jeff enjoyed the crispy onions. Nearly died when JJ Cale’s ‘Travelling Light’ came on the sound system, I haven’t heard that song in 30 years if it’s a day (bugeyes))

They have a reading area that is NOTHING BUT CONTEMPORARY LARGE FORMAT COMICS and I read an entire Groot special while I was waiting because I was early. B-Bombshell specialize in loud hair but I am only going to get my hair dyed if I’m nommed for an SF award. I’m sitting in bed under a fluorescent light and I still manage to look okay, so I’m happy.

Still laughing to myself about how the precut looked like several dead tribbles on the floor….

pleasant day

Paul and I went for a walk, went out for phó, and went to Walmart (sigh) to get a bathing suit for me and a Blood Pressure Monitor (same model as mine so he could calibrate it) for Paul. Imagine my ire and stomping when I learned that he’s BEEN GIVEN BP meds and isn’t taking them. So I didn’t actually stomp, I listlessly itemized the medical problems caused by high blood pressure.

Made some phone calls.

Later that day I was looking outside and it was absolutely pouring rain, so the rest of the day it was pleasant to either watch tv or hole up in my room and write a little (295 words on one project, a hundred on another).

I’m getting my hair cut on Monday. I may go back there for a dye job – Cindy goes to the place I am going and she’s always had lovely colours in her hair; but not the first time I go. I’m bidding farewell to my long long hairs because they keep ending up curled into one armpit and then they spring like a trap when I roll over in bed AIIIIYEEEEE

Must buy swimsuit today

also, I lost my frikkin sunglasses and need to buy more, sigh.

Whether I will actually gumption up and leave the house is another matter.

Next week, I have a haircut booked. I have decided it’s time to cut the long hair off and go shoulder length again. I said I’d keep it long but I am starting to have issues and my hair ends up errrrrywhere.

Working on the ‘snow under starlight’ story again, which will end up with another name. No kudos.