Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
this one to Jan in Toronto
I practiced this morning, that’s a plus, also reprinted the lyrics for Shit’s Fucked Up, because it annoys me that I went to all the trouble to work up an arrangement and can never remember the freaking lyrics.
I am feeling very wretched and frightened of the future, but Mike made soup two months ago and I’m eating it today and it is so very good.
Cold and overcast and miserable here today.
Paul’s out of quarantine.
voted … NDP majority is now in
Man, the BC Liberals sure are a bunch of feckless dweebs
Walked down at New West Quay with Paul, who’s supposed to be in quarantine. Honestly, I don’t know what to say. I’m certainly not going near him without masking up. Purchased excellent chocolate and Jeff and I consumed every scrap of three high end artisanal chocolate bars over the afternoon.
Paid for yet another ad to get a cultural competence reader to look at UPSUN.
Someone bought UPSUN!!!
Skipped letter writing.
Wrote a letter to Mary this am, haven’t mailed it yet.
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So I get to take a walk down the hill to vote today in a church. I will take the folding seat and my voting card.
During the Poop Patrol I did not train Buster for more than a minute, so hopefully we’ll be back on the training today. He was showing indications yesterday of missing it. Or the treats.
Totally sold on Kim’s Convenience now, plus every time I see those big blue street signs from Toronto I nearly die of nostalgia.
Highest daily total of new infections ever in the us, something stupid, over 80K.
When I think about the flu pandemic in 1918-19, the scientists fought against it without having a complete understanding of the disease, recommending masks because they worked, even if we didn’t understand exactly how; now we understand viral diseases a lot better but social distancing and people staying home doesn’t work for capitalism so we end up with shills for capitalism standing in front of the press and saying everything’s cool……….. cool cool cool.
Had an absolutely hilarious email convo with my mOm this morning, and I can’t even repeat it, but I will say it had something to do with my own mother forgetting when my birthday is. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LOOK INTO NEXT MONTH AND DON’T PUT THE CALENDAR BACK TO THIS MONTH, mOm.
I made vegan pizza. I can’t tell the difference, so yay soy mozzarella.
Supernatural was meh.
Jeff and I are going to take a walk to various errand-y things in the neighbourhood. (later… it was fucking SNOWING when we went out so car was taken… got my flu shot, Jeff provided a Buster poop for the vet to perform augurious duties over)
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went for a walk with Paul
called Tom, no answer
called Mike, he’s alive but not great
called Dave, he sounded delightfully upbeat
Did the shop, there’s chili in the pot. I put it in the instant pot and it started burning right away so I transferred it and put it in on low over the stove.
Had my shit together enough to ask Jeff to stop at the postal outlet on the way home (different route, requires planning) and to my annoyance they moved it to London Drugs on Sixth. GRRRR I need stamps for my letters for mah peeeeeps!
I’m thinking of fish for lunch or dinner, depending. for the halibut.
Trying to get my self together to run some laundry and wash my bedding but I’ve been going flat out since I woke up at 3:30 and now I can’t collapse because there’s something to mind on the stove.
Made 50/50 whole wheat/white flower buns yesterday, when you take a loaf’s worth of dough and form it into a little flower of seven buns, one in the middle and six all the way ’round. They came out FANTASTIC and of course I tried to eat the entire thing.
lollll
there’s one for Jan and Jim as well.
I have a lot of phone calls to make today
made one already, now I have to go to the website because they’re making it as mucky as possible to do it by phone
later – I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY APPLIED TO PHARMACARE can I just not do anything else today? but NO more work awaits! la la la and only a 600 dollar deductible.
and Buster’s going to the vet today so the morning shop’s been shifted to later in the day
fic 3089 words, flowing like poop from a diaper, as in, way more easily than seems either fair or rational…. but of course when I’m writing incredibly sappy slow burn fics life is beautiful and I love unreeling the setup over a couple of chapters…. the pen just gives of itself.
letter to mOm written but not mailed
made a 75% whole wheat crust pizza with half store bought pizza sauce half storebought tomato pesto spag sauce (reduces the sugar content), mozzarella (half as much as last time, even I found the last one too much) onions olives and the very last rescuable bits of the sad tomatoes in crisper, and it was good although unlike the last time it stuck to the pan like a sonumabitch
yesterday I trained Buster, did some laundry, ran the dishwasher, practiced all my instruments, worked on tunes some more, slept hard and well,
new fic 1323 words
La Niña year, so colder and snowier in parts and possibly not as rainy, we’ll see.
somebody tell Mary I said this on twitter
My ontie Mary sez: Olive oil and vinegar, but not when your scalp’s inflamed. The vinegar kills the glue that holds the nits to your hair, and the olive oil smothers the nymphs and adults. Nit comb afterward. Cheap, effective. Downside: Italians will want to eat you.
I’m getting lovely feedback on the fanfic, it’s most restorative. 300 hits already.
Tom is still in hospital. I’m not at liberty to speak of his trials, but he can come to the phone and describe them, so it’s not currently critical. Peggy’s the only one allowed to visit.
Paul came home on Monday from Seattle and is now ensconced in the Motel. I will take him a care package in a day or two including tea and other whatnots – Keith is also tapped for same.
Jeff’s off to the chiropracter.
I have a new project idea, but it won’t involve recording Buster training. I have a piece of video now, and Buster doesn’t like being filmed, so….. sadly. No more training video idea. No idea where that lovely meme came from.
credit birdandmoon.com
LOL, no source provided
I’ve gone back to feeling really sleepy, so I had a nap. Now I have to roast something that’s thawed in the fridge, and I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE MY SNUGGLY BED. up we go!
Wrote another letter to auntie Mary. Got video of Buster doing tricks. My cinematography is so awful it’s hard to tell.
Bro briefly demonstrates brO says hi! I don’t have his permission for this. So watch it while you can, I’m taking it down if he asks.
Later: the pork tenderloin was absolutely fantastic, the roast red potatoes with Himalayan pink salt, pepper and rosemary were excellent, the mushrooms and onions with a little bit of chicken-flavoured gravy powder were really tasty, and the half squash had to be used because the fridge is set too high and a portion of it froze. All in all I’d have been happy to pay sixteen bucks for that plate (seconds of course are the advantage of home cooking) in a restaurant and that’s nothing like what it cost – the squash was either very expensive or completely free, given that I grew it and had to pay a bomb just for the dirt.
The cold pork will go into whole wheat wraps – I’ll prep a bunch of salad veggies into the right configuration for wraps and we can browse our way through them tomorrow, or eat the leftover linguine.
Because of filming Buster, the laptop should live in the kitchen now. Sure feels weird to be writing when I’m not lying in bed. I’m also handwriting my letters out here during the period of time in the morning my computer doesn’t have wifi, a habit shifter facilitated by brO shutting off the spigot during the required ‘quiet time’.
Between having the computer out of the bedroom at night and no internet in the morning, I’ve been writing a fair amount.
My presbyopia finally shifted around so I grew into my reading glasses. Given what I paid for them I have to say it’s a relief.
Jeff spent part of the day working on busted small electronic things, an activity I heartily approve of, and even more so when I stand to benefit, since he was working on a timer he inherited from Granny, and as part of my review of habits, I need timers.
I should backup my laptop.
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Yesterday was another lazy day but I managed two loads of laundry including the kitchen rugs ,,,,, why I even swept the floor, and I practiced. I wrote a tiny bit and then deleted everything I’d written yesterday.
Today I’m hoping to convince Jeff to do a small shopping expedition.
Watched a short documentary on Monty Python ‘in black and white’ on Netflix, which was quite enjoyable.
Waiting for the rain to stop to finish cleaning up the garden.
I felt much better walking up the hill today. I have no idea why. I’ve been feeling so punk. If I write a letter a day I have to mail that and so rain or shine I have to leave the house. The outside is still there. The bush tits flew over my head in the alley, and this year’s black squirrel taunted me in the yard. Collected three more squash and washed them.
Finished sorting the empty seeds from the full ones from the tray of dried sunflower seeds. Many of the seeds in the head failed to set on properly, no surprise as it never got full sun, and fell over and was totally crooked and I know Jeff backed into it at least once so let’s say it never got a perfect shot. I was a bit worried because I harvested them wet, like SOAKED from two days of rain, but I had to because the raccoons chawed a quarter of the head off, THANKS ASSHOLES. My dodge of putting them on a perforated tray as they were drying seemed to work, and I moved them around when I walked by them, and they dried perfectly, and are now resting in an appropriately labelled sealed envelope, waiting dispersal as gifts.
I started writing a letter to Barry after I mailed mOm’s, but by the third page I began to get the feeling that perhaps I was misplacing the tone a sensible woman of six decades would take in a family letter to a much loved uncle. Upon a re-read, I sounded like I was very nonchalantly in the middle of a WHOO HOO psychotic episode, so I’m shelving that project, likely forever, hey, no harm, no foul, in favour of working on my blog, instead. I don’t know what inspired me to go so Hunter S. Thompson on my own uncle but perhaps it was me reacting poorly to the notion that even after he’s dead, he’ll be a better raconteur than me, so I thought to make up in outrageousness what I did not have in sheer skill.
Phew. Really dodged a bullet. I’ll try again later and perhaps accrue a few possible topics which will be of joint interest with little possibility of causing offence or concern or possibly even consternation.
I need an alarm clock now, as I do not have a phone (why do I want a cop in my pocket) and for the meantime Jeff is loaning me a ‘not working as a phone phone’ / basic electronic minder, with a couple of games on it. That will go off when I need to take me meds, he already programmed it.
The sun has come out. It’s really quite welcome. I’m sneezing a lot; apparently mold allergies are moderate right now. My nose has been runny as well. I’m still feeling very bleak, but I’ve got cheese in the house, is one allowed to feel bleak when one has no fewer than four kinds of cheese in the house and I’m only including that ghastly parmesan on a technicality.
Lunch a cold chicken / green salad, no dressing, no added salt.
My attention span is a little speck on the move, like one of the floaters in my eyes (my floaters have been worse of late), but I’m still managing to dole myself out tasks and do them. Will today be the day of whole wheat bruschetta? Who can be certain? The signs show no favour to one thing over another. It is all a dreadful flux, and we who gaze toward certainty do not enjoy the vertiginous bumps and G-loaded slams between here and there.
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I guess I’m not good at getting up again.
One of the ways to fight anxiety is to think about other people, so I’m trying to write entertaining letters to relatives and friends.
Anyway, if you want a letter, private message me with your mailing address.
Katie dropped by for a visit. Alex was with Suzanne, Dax’s mum, and Katie had just dropped Paul off at the airport – he never, ever, tells me when he’s going to the US, it’s always been startling to me, no matter how many times I learn about it after he’s gone, which has literally been dozens of times, which just goes to show that I am a slow learner. He’s agreed to quarantine after he comes back, and if he misses his friends and girlfriend in the US who can blame him.
She said her car had a mind of its own and she ended up in my driveway. We had a very long and very necessary chat out on the deck. There was laughing, crying and swearing, and she is such a dear person to me. She was feeling a bit low, but she managed to cheer me up, and that was helpful.
Last night I had my first nightmare that I can remember in years. It was horrifying because my subconscious was saying that it’s better to be dead (or to kill someone else to spare them) than to go through whatever was happening (some unspecified apocalypse). I can’t actually say what it was about because the internet is forever, but let’s just say it was nauseating and disheartening and framed me as an entirely heartless and cruel person with no connection to the future of this earth.
And it was all so calm. HORRIBLE things were happening, and myself and my unnamed conspirator proceeded through our horrible response to them as if neither of us had a hair out of place or a care in the world.
Very slowly, as I realized what we had done, I decided to call the cops, and then I woke up.
Made chicken breasts, bok choi and onions in ginger and garlic, and green salad for supper last night. Practiced lots, still working on arrangements.
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user chewmynails posted this on reddit saying the MIL crocheted this
Speaking of kitties, Buster has been training HARD. He’s a good chonky boi.
from @gabrielsherman on twitter
This is quite the poem, eh? Inglorious in Excelsis by Brian Bilston
Woke up to a blanket of fog that hemmed the world into to a block. Couldn’t even see to the school.
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Continuing to work on a fleshing out and providing lyrics to a couple of songs.
Buster had 3 training sessions yesterday. He’s already trained this morning.
Oatmeal and tea for breakfast.
Paul reiterated that he had a lovely time hiking. He didn’t know how much he missed a walk with some challenge (for me it was super challenging, and it’s an ‘easy’ trail.) He wants to do it again so I’m looking for relatively short but somewhat challenging local hikes, if anyone has any ideas.
Spoke briefly to Keith. We talked about politics mostly, because man, there’s just so MUCH of it right now. The BC Election held our attention for a while.
Apart from mold allergens the air quality is pretty good today.
I made cinnamon sticks from the dough I made yesterday..
I did my standard ninja shop. By this I mean I make sure Jeff gets a good look at me, and then steam to the last place in the store he’d look for me. I’m pretending that I’m doing it on purpose, but it’s just the ADD. AW SHIT I NEED MILK O I FORDOTTED THE BOCCONCINI PEARLS o how I love dose tings anyway. Then there’s the moment halfway through the shop when I actually look at the list again.
I put half of the cinnamon sticks in the freezer. They are dreffle tasty. Possible not best to consume them all at once since it’s essentially half a loaf of bread with sugar and butter on top.
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