Category: Domestic Life

Cleaner

Suzanne cleaned, and the house is cleaner. Obviously since it took a decade to get into this state it’ll be a while getting out of it, but it’s lovely to have a completely clean upstairs bathroom, and she’ll do the downstairs bathroom next time. Thank you Suzanne! Yes I paid her, because it’s work.

Side effects are diminishing in intensity. I do feel somewhat more alert, which I don’t think was intended, and the nausea is dropping down to acceptable levels.

We did a shop this morning. Weird not to buy a ton of treats. No more whole milk, now at 2%, and I got two percent cottage cheese, too. Had chicken breast and salad for lunch and ate Holy Crap! for breakfast, so I’m at least trying to be reasonable about my food.

Got called by a telephone poll autodialler today, listened just long enough to hang up again.

garooooovy

Shit. Metformin doesn’t get along with Inderal. They may intensify each other’s side effects according to this long list of side effects….

In about an hour someone’s coming over to look at the hand drum to see if they want to buy it.

 

and in yet another outburst of schadenfreude I am sharing that a well known religious pest, street preacher and homophobe WHO IS NOT BEING NAMED because the RCMP doesn’t want a lawsuit has been stabbed at Metrotown, was treated and released in hospital

fill the cup

For the beauty of the lands and waters and the strength of the people and creatures, I give thanks. To walk on this land is a great gift.

Got a plum cake over to Tom and Peggy, it was still warm in the pan, yesterday morning. Mebbe it wasn’t biscotti (me yelling over the phone at Tom I’M NOT A ONE HIT WONDER YOU KNOW while Peggy was no doubt rolling her eyes) but it sure is edibibble.

Walked in Fraser Foreshore Park and received the gift of a new bird; it was a yellow-breasted chat. I got a good long minute of him, yellow underneath like a waistcoat, over pale trews, and browny-green on top, and then my goodness he flew so I got his flight pattern and then there was his call, which was what got my attention in the first place.

I walk those woods, or I should say that little strip of biodiversity jammed and vulnerable between Sto:lo and Burnaby South’s industrial zone, often enough that I know what the background noise is like; nothing but crows and possibly eagles on a really hot day in August. A pleasant sunny day with a bit of wind in May and the woods ring with everything avian that has the capacity to sing, pretty much all blowing up their syrinxes at once. But this fellow was alone, and he said chak, like a bird four times his size and bellicose, and I thought who the hell is that? for he is not much of a conversationalist and I have not heard him before.

He kept making noise, that irritating chak! noise, until by great good fortune he turned out to be as yellow as a goddamned Minion and thus almost comically visible to an amateur such as I. (Less than five metres off the trail, less than five metres up a tree, and in bright frikkin sunshine. HULLO. He flopped from branch to branch and he didn’t care who saw him. And I could have stood there a while longer but chose not to, because I don’t persist in standing as well as I used to, and I had enough markers to be able to figure out what manner of critter I was looking at (I’d also clocked the eyestripe). This species is omnivorous. He’ll do well in that park if he eats millet, someone is feeding the ground birds.

I offered to take Paul to lunch and he deferred to Keith who was on another call. We were on the way back to my place and heard from Keith, so we went over for a late lunch there and I got to see the whole family including Alex, which was very pleasant. My plum cake was well received. Paul and I then spent an hour singing and playing (I of course, even with my recent illness, am well rehearsed, so I made it hard on myself by picking up an instrument I do not regularly play at this time, a standard sized mandolin. I felt like butterfingers and clumsy had come to live in my hands, it was quite comical.)

THAT BUILDING IS CONCRETE. I sang as loud as my body can when I’m sitting down and Katie didn’t hear a thing.  It was so good, so very good to see her. Alex had a new game which he was playing with his oldest friend on line, which is in my view cute as hell. How else are kids supposed to sustain friendships without some technology I esk you.

I ate the bean chili that Keith made, and drank beer, and came home.

Doc appt today

mOm have you seen this birding site?

Writing along

“And we want to remind you American and Canadian citizens, that you are still our guests here and we are still your hosts.”

– Beau Dick, featured on “Skoden” by Snotty Nose Rez Kids (2017)

Beau Dick made a brief visit to this blog March 11 2020.

Eighteen hundred words yesterday and today on the cursed object story; in this short span I have managed humour, horror and character introductions, with about a hundred show tropes layered in, and all in broad daylight in an alleyway.

We’ve started a rewatch of Fringe. That show really flies out of the gate at 100kph. So we’re watching two JJ shows at the same time, since we’re rewatching PoI.

just knowing

For the peoples, lands and waters; I give thanks to be in MST country, may I be a good guest and visitor.

Just knowing that the picture exists….

My last post was very inspirational to me. I considered, for a moment, that I would be allowed to go to a peeler bar, a noted local establishment catering the devotees of ecdysiasts, were I accoutred with this ! As a person who is easily inspired (even more easily downcast, sadly) I was pleased to be inspired to download my vaccination certificate.

Just imagine- that what inspired me to do it was NOT my mOm telling me about her recent acquisition of same, and pOp’s, along with much waggery about how she did not want to go to any such establishment which was now, by all accounts, slavering over her custom now that ‘the pandemic is over’ which just sounds like a complete failure of the 5th estate to me. In her view and mine there’s nothing in those places she could want that would be worth not understanding her husband’s conversation! and along with that princely bargain getting a chance to swap respiratory particles, fomites and the dog shit other people have walked through with every other overexcited stranger in the joint. Gee thanks says mOm but no, and even if the prospect of being surrounded by raucous strangers doesn’t appeal, there’s the whole yelling at the servers thing and what’s with how hard they make it to pee, anyhow. So my mOm tried to lead by example but only the thrill of once again being able to attend a peeler bar made it possible for me to ACT.

It seems clear to me, not to anyone else, that sometimes the BC government is my un-indicted co-conspirator and sometimes it’s selling my data to shadowy hypertoxic arms of the Chinese Army and sometimes I want to protest the RCMP but mostly I just want to disband them from the comfort of my own home, an idea that any serving member of the RCMP would find: one of a) boring b) asinine, given the positive impact of the RCMP on the course of my life c) aggravating d) indicative that I need to die. You can’t expect the critter you need to stop drawing your blood to enjoy your attempts to unfasten them.

Plum shortcake in 20 minutes

Dang those are nice plums.

Crows demanded food this morning, so I put out some almonds and closed the blind on the kitchen window so they can’t see me as I walk back and forth cooking.

Started a letter to my folks.

I’m a couple of hundred more words into ‘the Haunted Sideboard’. By the end of it it’s going to be a grand festival of community burning of cursed items, big kumbaya energy, plus romance.

Spoke to Mike. He’s a week into being off nicotine (he said he was lying awake at night listening to his lungs rattle and it was either quit vaping or die) and absolutely wild with rage at absolutely everything, plus, work is so gross that it’s honestly worse than quitting a major body fuck drug like nicotine. My coughing, after a day of being calm, has taken off again, so no Mike tomorrow simply because I don’t wish this on anyone SORRY JEFF.

Jeff has pronounced the Plum shortcake to be edible.

 

Can’t criticize China

Poor Simu Liu. The idea that the Chinese government believes it owns anyone of Chinese descent seems a little propertarian for the twenty-first century. But if anyone reading this doesn’t understand what the implications are for a city like Vancouver, then you probably won’t like UPSUN very much.

PLUMS appeared on my doorstep yesterday. They were grown in the yard of one of Peggy’s friends and I got four pounds of them. Plum duff today.

5450 words. The graphomania, along with the migraine symptoms, seems to be dying back.

Cleaned most of the dead stuff out of the fridge. What a ghastly ordeal.

Made ovenbaked chicken thighs paired up with store-bought cole slaw and potato salad, nom.

WORST REDDIT TYPO OF THE DAY content warning slur alert

Crip tonight.

I nearly tore my eyelashes off in horrrrorrrr JFC.

then I start thinking about punchlines for jokes because I can hold two opposed ideas in my mind at the same time

Ratcatcha

Buster caught a teeny weeny rat outside the building this morning, then took it inside and either ate it or let it go. Hopefully it’s not curled up dead someplace, I find dead rat odour to be one of the most trying things psychologically.

Storm Ida had a few things to say about rats too.

If the link disappears, apparently the storm drowned almost every rat in NYC.

That’s what happens when you get too much water. How about just enough?

Above noted link is about how reintroducing water to a dried out river in Tucson has had stunning ecological effects. I prefer dragonflies over rats.

Ever notice how white ladies love to steal Indigenous ancestry?

WHERE IS YOUR KOKUM, KIES. I prefer people who don’t lie about their ancestry over rats.

 

4251

Jeff and I were just desperate for coffee yesterday so we picked up brekky at IHOP. I mean we would have been fine with coffee alone but I insisted. I think it will be a while before we eat out again. AND we got coffee this am.

The Mu variant is in Vancouver, apparently. Now we wait to see whether it drives the Delta variant off the pitch.

Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short have a new show called Only Murders in the Building and apparently it’s really funny. Looking forward to it.

The story, obviously, (4563) is continuing to come along nicely. I have also started another story which is tentatively called ‘The Haunted Sideboard.” It’s about a guy who tries to give away a cursed piece of furniture and the neighbourhood man who convinces him to salt and burn it instead. Then everyone else in the neighbourhood decides it’s BURN YOUR CURST OBJECT DAY and well, you know, shit gets both weird and romantic.

Fuck the police. Seriously. I mean I’d settle for them wearing masks but they don’t want to do that either.

I say SCHNERK unto you

We managed to wait until this morning to finish Peggy’s apple tarts. Go restraint! I’m printing up a large print letter for Auntie Mary, including the usual curated funny picture from the internet. Laundry done but not ‘whisked’ upstairs.

We’ve started a Person of Interest rewatch.

Lousy night of sleep, I’m congested when I lie down and not if I’m prone or sitting up. I am SCHNERKING und SCHNERKING.

I’m suspecting Katie’s very busy, haven’t heard from her since the Victoria visit. It’s an observation not a complaint.

Lots of kudos and comments on my new stories last night so that was pleasant.

PLEASE BE KIND, PATIENT AND COOPERATIVE WITH RETAIL WORKERS TODAY AND EVERY DAY.

Big hugs for everybody reading this morning! As Allan Jaffee once remarked, “Serious people my age are dead.”

A little flicker feather in my cap

20% kudo to hit ratio on my latest fic, that’s outrageous, either that or I’m benefiting unduly from filling a need for the fans…. the amount of fanfic has died back since the show ended. I’m 1100 words into the next one, which is a slaunchwise take on Groundhog Day. There are a couple of people reading one of my fics per day and then issuing kudos… they’re going through about 200K of fic lol so I’m keeping somebunny busy.

Completely congested and my rib sprung again when I woke up this morning, but Jeff and I are both coughing considerable less. Got some paperwork and banking done yesterday.

Somebody on Digg posted video of people dancing in the 80’s ‘everybody looks so happy’ and I’m thinking buddy did you KNOW how much COCAINE there was in clubs in the 80’s? of course people looked happy.

Toad-o list

I’d like to have an effective to do list and even more I’d like to never do anything again because even putting half of the groceries away nearly killed me.

I wrote a 4K word fic in two days, actually finishing it.

Still coughing like I’ve sprung a lung. Jeff has borborygmus so bad he was literally drowning out dialogue for the Time Team.

Buster training report: I needed to get some hairball remedy into Buster. He hates this newer stuff so I have to literally womanhandle him into a hold and jam it in his gob. His response: to jump up onto one of the training chairs and Jack Nicholson-eye me until I gave him treats (he knows if he jumps up there I will give him a treat). As plain as day: If you’re going to mess with me I GONNA GET DA MONEYS MODDER