Category: Domestic Life

Moar wurz

600 wordie word blurdie birdies yesterday. I am very much enjoying having the editrix on facebook now, we are trading witticisms with much amusement.

I broke the small fan yesterday.  I accidentally kicked it over when I was carrying laundry and one of the fan blades snapped.  I had only recently rearranged the airflow to bring ac air to the basement and the difference was so remarkable Jeff was saying FAN under his breath within minutes. (The fan also pushes air down the hallway so cooler air has easier access to our bedrooms – I was FUCKING SWELTERING last night and it’s not a good look on a post menopausal woman.)  We’re off to the hardware store to get another one as soon as it opens.

Sorry Jeff.

 

 

Roxane Gay rules and this post is TMI

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED…..

So my very favourite Bad Feminist Roxane Gay, who has to deal with so much more intersectionality than I do, has participated in a puff piece in stylist.co.uk talking about her hygiene routine.  I told her I would follow her example.

At this point I can hear Jeff saying something, and then when I ask him to repeat it, he says, ‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’

I probably should shower more frequently than I do, being about three times a week, but as I get older I get dryer, and I feel like I’m turning into a desiccated old piece of sod.  I use Belle de Provence Honeysuckle soap because it smells very good, lasts a long time and is the one piece of luxury in my hygiene routine. Hardly anyone carries it and since it’s 6 bucks a pop I tend to buy in bulk when I find it.  I use Head and Shoulders brand shampoo/conditioner and buy it in the large pump size as it’s cheaper.  I use no other soap products.  I wash my hands every time I handle the cat, before I prep food and after I come in from being out in public as well as after I groom myself or go to the toilet.  I didn’t give a shit about washing my hands before I ran a restaurant.  Now I really, really do care about it, and it’s the simplest, fastest and easiest way to prevent illness, so why the hell not.

I hate all deodorants but I stink if I don’t use them.  When I’m feeling radical I wash, dry thoroughly and apply baby powder to my pits, but that’s good for about 12 hours before Jeff’s eyebrows do something improbable (the fan in the basement blows my effluent in his direction when we’re watching tv, so … yeah.)  Otherwise I use whatever kind of bo juice isn’t loathsome, and I’m like a lightning rod for deodorant being discontinued, so I try to be cool, but right now it’s a pretty loathsome vanilla smelly thing.  Gak.   Still better than the alternative.

I use two different kinds of eyedrops, thanks to the amazingly practical and super unjudgey Lady Miss Banjola, one for day, one for night, and I am not consistent in their use but by gar it’s a good thing to have them, because when you need them you’re like ACK MY EYES MY EYES I CAN’T GET MY EYES oh thank goodness I can see!  Also, thanks to her I found out that dryness amidships can be ameliorated by the twice weekly anointing of der ladygel, and she made brand recommendations, and I can get them reasonably cheap on line.  With that one small recommendation she made my life go from a meepy, withered parody of what Beeker sounds like after he’s been mugged, to me being able to contemplate having a boyfriend.  I don’t actually want a boyfriend, and the men in my life who squire me around do not wish to fill this or candidly any other vacancy wheresoever situated, but at least the prospect shifted from being painfully impossible to being ludicrously improbable, and only the Rumi’s Beloved could parse that shift in meaningful terms, but I view it as an improvement.

I pluck my eyebrows every day.  I watched the best eyebrow guy on the planet do a tutorial on youtube, and I thought “Hey, my OCD and some grooming tips wa-ho!” but I tell you my brow game is fierce, and it helps with the performative feminity, although I have not recently been mistaken for a man (it only happened the once, and I think the person was altered.)

This upping of the eyebrow game was subsequent to Keith picking out to extremely flattering and stylish frames for me.  I was looking really hard for a job and I wanted to be ready to interview at a moment’s notice, and now, provided I have a clean dress, I really am.   I pluck my chin hairs, and my (sigh, fuck my life) chest hairs.  I do not shave my legs or pits and anybody who wants me to can shave his or her legs and pits all they want but this lovely, amazing, FEATURE of adult life called BODILY AUTONOMY does not stop being awesome just because you are creeped out by my hairy legs, and the next time somebody calls me on it I’ll just say that sexism is uglier than hairy legs and any sensible person knows that.  Body hair sure makes men who have basic issues with mansplaining and feminism go away right quick, and smell ya later, ya squirrelfondling preverts.

Also, I got really really bad frostbite on my lower legs when I was in public school, so bad that the skin on my lower legs (the shaving zone) is burst-into-tears sensitive, so yeah, no, fuck your leg shaving.  It HURTS.  I bleed, and then all the little hairs growing back in catch in my bedding, so fuck you and go AWAY if you think I should shave my legs for any reason whatsoever.  As for my armpits.  When more than 50 percent of north American men shave their armpits, I’ll sign up for one of those monthly boxes of shaving gear, but until that day (bwa ha ha, coming soon!) yeah, just no.

I used to use Garnier number 60 hair dye and I still have some tucked away, but it really really bothers Jeff and I’m not a fan of doing it, I am a fan of having it done. Fortunately the colour is almost exactly the same as the two remaining stripes of colour I have in the mounting nest of grey that is my hair so even when I let it grow out it looks reasonably okay.  If I get another interview, which will be hard, as I am officially as of this moment no longer looking for work since hey we’re in a recession, and nobody would want to hire me even if I wanted to trade the best part of me for 24K net a year, which I don’t, and which makes me an elitist asshole. Ok.

I make my own perfume, which is called Cyprus, and has a secret blend of floral oil ingredients, and which smells fantastic on me (to the point where other women have demanded I sell them some, which I did) but everybody from my mOm to my brO thinks it smells like I’m hanging truck stop air freshener from my pits AND about 40% of my friends have chemical sensitivities and find it overpowering even when I’m using it gingerly so it’s only for special occasions.

My last pedicure made me limp for THREE FUCKING MONTHS and I am never paying for one again as Hecate may bear witness; now I cut off the parts of the toenail that stick out and abrade down the rest with a number of different kinds of pedicure gear.  I occasionally soak my feet and use footrub on myself or get somebody else like Katie to help out.  I am very very on top of my toenails because I can go from Happy Feet to ballerina outtakes (thankfully not shown here) in less than a week.  My hair, feet and nails grow at a tremendous rate, which is great because I get rid of heavy metals that way, but I must cut, hack, saw and file away with vigour.

I used to be an assclown about dental hygiene but I brush and floss every single day now (occasional lapses, but not many) since I can’t afford to lose the use of any more teeth when toothpaste and floss is so cheap.  I buy firm or super firm brushes and brush whatever way feels right and I pay for getting my teeth cleaned professionally once a year.  I am seriously considering investing in dental picks.

I have incredibly clean ear canals.  I hate the feeling of anything in there except air, but I no longer scrape them out with anything hard because it removes the hair that grows in the canal and I’m so clumsy I might deafen myself.

I wash my face with soap once a week.  Any more and I dry out like something that went with Scott to the Pole.

Once every three months I apply a clay facial mask.  I like how my skin feels afterward.

Once in a very long while I get a massage or a spa half day, but I can get the same results from rolling around on Wreck Beach and probably get exposed to the same amount of coliform in the process.

 

And there you have it.  Nobody asked for it, but that is my hygiene routine.

Finally

Six hundred forty-five words yesterday, all praise to moving around and trying to write in a different location.

Sad news, Joe W’s dad died this week.  He was a frequent guest at parties at the old place and part of the Trent/Joe/Mike gang.  It’s very sad and Mike will get me funeral details.

Also, the son of a friend who was in rehab checked himself out by destroying property and making threats, and I feel so sad and sick about it that I’m almost on the ground.  But we must rise, and rise and rise again.

Swimming with Baby Alex tomorrow, plus mamma.  Today I’m thinking about a trip to the New West Farmer’s Market this afternoon.

I made tomatoes and scrambled eggs and toast this morning for brekky.

Now to find something to either write or edit.

Justice is what love looks like in public

Here’s another take on the Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Three hundred words yesterday.  I really kinda did take the weekend off.

Yesterday I went to Mike’s AGAIN for lunch and he fed me andouille sausage with red pepper and asiago and the salads we had yesterday.  Then we exchanged body work (for me my back, for him some muscles I can’t pronounce because his martial arts training as a 20something included snap kicks which literally pulled the femoral head out of its normal spot and he’s got pretty much permanent pain 20 years on, plus he had a family meal Saturday and it was a cascade of underslept monkey vs. weasel family meshuggas). Then we napped.  Like adults do when they are two beers drunk, well fed and laying about in the sun. Mike hadn’t slept for an atrocious length of time and he was much refreshed.  Then I got up and rode my bike home (it was around 7 pm) and it was deliciously cool since it was mostly downhill, and then I asked Jeff if he wanted to go to Sunset Beach with us (he was too sleepy) and I grabbed Otto and Mike grabbed his parlour guitar and we traded instrumental and lyrical songs and addressed the bay while the sun went down, and the light made rippling rows of Loch Nessie clones roll up and down the bay. We toasted each other in beer in plastic cups. I thought of John, and how proud of me he would have been for all the song writing I’ve been doing, and how he would have laughed his ass off at the books I’m writing, and mocked me roundly for my many errors and just how jeezly much I miss him.  I will never hear him wheedle me again “Dear sweet, kindly, agreeable sister in common law…” when he wanted a haircut or some assistance wrangling his succession of massive and inconvenient cats.  Then mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds silently arose from the ground and swarmed me and we fled to the exceedingly conveniently parked car, because Mike’s parking-fu is of a calibre to excite the comparison “Magical”.

For a while our only audience was a Canada goose, who booked it when a dog named Jack got too close to him, and a pair of mallards, who sat right at our feet.  I knew they were hoping for schnacks but still it made me feel good, as did watching a pair of herons fly over 4th Avenue. Then other people sat down without crowding us so we had company.   This is the weird bunch of signs from behind where we were sitting.

IMAG0968_BURST002

Going there we went through Richmond, and we didn’t hit a light until we were were on Granville. Going back we went through town and we counted the number of pot dispensaries on either side of Kingsway after Main before Boundary and there were four on his side and three on my side and one hydroponics shop.

Then he took me to Phó Boi and I had a small number 3 and ate ALL of it. An insanely attractive interracial couple was having their first date at the table next to us and Mike and I tried to drown their inanities out with soup slurping, but there’s only so much you can do with the audio when the man next to you is mansplaining how he doesn’t know how to order phó.

Mike was shaking his head as we left.  “Phó for a first date is a terrible idea.”

In the morning yesterday I was in church, Sue came and got me, and John H. was there, first time he’s come since Anita died, and we many of us wept to hear him mourn her, and Debra, who has her earned her bread with us with great skill, asked us to be silent for a while after he spoke.  We gave a cheque for $2700 to a local charity which helps homeless people and I took what were probably not very good pictures of the handoff.  We mourned the deaths in Charleston, and thanked all our volunteers, and broke for the summer recess.

It was a good day.  Today I have no plans but to write.

 

Updates and more death

Pentium, Tammy’s remaining kitty, was euthanized yesterday.  I am so glad Mike was in Toronto.  I’ve supported him through a pet death so this seems like karma sneaking in.

Got to talk to Paul and Phyllis on the phone yesterday. They and Katie and Alex were taking the sights in Port Stanley, always a family favourite with the folks.  Phyllis (to be candid) sounded exhausted so I hope he’s not chivying her too hard.  Phyllis seems smitten with Alex, although how things could go differently is hard to figure.

Keith came by yesterday.  Being on the spectrum – both of us – makes our communication extremely intense, haphazard and painful at times, but this turned out well so I’m going to characterize it as a win.  He’s enjoying the mix of work that he has right now, including supplying eyeglasses through his company to X-Files.

Buster’s back/butt wound should get veterinary attention in my view, but I don’t own him.  All I know is that had Margot received such a wound I’d have her into the exam room in 12 hours; portions of the wound are now 72 hours old and not crusting over so I am quite concerned about an abscess.  Fortunately Margot is only subject to persistent eye goobers, thanks to her allergies, and I’m trying to stay on top of those by removing them every time her eyes get droopy.  She does not thank me, but she usually quits running and lets me pick her up when I’m persistent.

It’s been deliciously sunny and breezy and not too hot.

412 words yesterday, mostly on Pharos.

Mike is planning on renting an entire commercial sauna for his birthday.  Man o Man, that’s gonna be some party.

 

There’s this woman in Spokane who is white and has been pretending to be black since she was in University.  This is what I have to say about her:

Libertarians are calling Rachel D. the ultimate manifestation of white guilt. I’m calling her as a gender-flopped urban Grey Owl.  Her romanticization of black culture without living through a black childhood isn’t guilt, it’s a minor mental disorder.

Further:  SHE EMBODIES WHAT MY TAG RACEFAIL IS FOR.

 

No words

I messed about with editing.

I suspect I’m feeling jelly of all my travelling friends and rellies.

I’m going to buy a bead curtain on line if I don’t cobble together something from around hear out of scraps. I have an idea that would be fabulous and would take about two hours or less to make, but it’s one of those things that would turn into a HALF DONE PROJECT and go back in a drawer if I didn’t power through it all at once.

(note from 2020, I did make it, and it keeps flies out and Jeff quite likes it, and I used fabric scraps from DRESSEW.)

Love this comic.

Love this collection of critters.  Next time somebody starts talking God’s law to you regarding the proper constitution of a family, remember the Goose, the Hen and the Ducklings.

I made ONE OFFHAND COMMENT on Reddit, and doubled my comment karma OVERNIGHT. The internet is a wacky place.  Oh, and I had to school a guy who was telling me that I wasn’t being a good feminist.  He didn’t respond, but I got 16 upvotes, so go me.

Amaze is no longer amazing

I’ve been using the laundry product Amaze for almost a quarter of a century and it’s off the market.  I’ve been to all the places I used to buy it, and I’ve been on line, and I’ve been to the brand website and it’s vanished.

So apparently the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet has shed so much ice to climate change that it’s changed gravity.

So apparently we have ants.

So apparently I hurt my left knee walking yesterday

So apparently Pluto has 5 wobble-orbited moons.

Well then.

No words yesterday but a lovely long walk in the park (Oakalla, aka Deer Lake) with Master Alex, who was completely adorable and said Ma-ma when Katie put him back in the car.  Thanks to Paul for providing car. We saw frogs, great blue herons, towhees and little twittering birds of some description. Katie particularly enjoyed the sound of the wind in the long grass.

 

Weeping with joy

So I wanted to whiff on church yesterday because hey no surprise I always do. But it was very very worth it.

Preamble: I walk in the front door grouchy because having left it so late I had to park in the Gods up on Keary Street. The Minister approaches with a look of what I interpret as horrified concern, but she tells me to kick the rock away from the door so it can close and then says “Oh and good morning!”  (He is risen, he is risen, he is verily risen).

One, I need to put my Secret Buddy letter in an envelope (it’s a church thing to help us get to know each other and make stronger intergenerational bonds.)

Two, it’s new member Sunday, and old members should show up and show how happy they are FRESH MEEEAAAT FOR COMMITTEES.  Or BRAAAINZ, I can never figure out what I should be moaning…..  I couldn’t – I was too busy crying.  Because I was so happy that 9 ADULTS AND 5 CHILDREN joined our church.  I got intensely drippy, and it was wonderful. Yeah sure they mostly came from other congregations but the two sets of young families did NOT.

Three, I always like to light candles.  I got up during the service and was grateful for the thought provoking meeting yesterday.

Then Luc and Carol got up and announced that they had ELOPED and BROUGHT CUPCAKES.  You can well imagine (I hope you can) which of these two announcements stirred us most.  The cupcakes were freaking awesome. Oh, and congratulations Luc and Carol.  (Hopefully the out of town Unitarians who occasionally read my blog and know the principals will be dancing around, much as I did.)

Rob W. came late, as is his wont, (this from the woman who looks every week for an excuse NOT to go to church) sat next to me, and as part of our ritualized sideways hug when he sits down, we accidentally bonked heads realllly hard, and then both cracked up because it was funny. Hugs n concussions r us.

Two of our beloved church elders are dying of cancer, and it makes me really sad.  One of them I loved since the first time I spoke with him, and the other kinda grew on me, until now I’m just as sad as if two of my relatives are dying.  We were talking about that at the meeting on Saturday, how good it is that people are joining, because people are literally dying out of the church.  We sing “Gathered here in one strong body” but sometimes the body ain’t so strong.

The choir mistress got a lovely  bunch of fleurs for her service.  She has really moved the choir along in terms of dynamics and intonation.

The sermon about moral beauty had me nodding in a couple of places.

I talked to a couple of people after church and then went home and very late in the day wrote about 650 words.

I made curried pork chomps.

The carafe of cold coffee is calling my name. I have an interview at noon and see the financial advisor at 9.

SUMMER

It is Suddenly Summer after a long spring.  It wasn’t forecast, but Vancouver got the May 2-4 weekend we’ve been longing for.  Normally, we have overcast in May.  This weekend was rilly glorious.

No cpap, no writing.  I did get the disgusting hell hole that was the front hall where the litter pan was mucked out, ran some laundry (and used the line to dry, yay!) and hacked away at The King Will Never Die (the BB King memorial song, which is, as frikking usual, morphing away from me into something else.)

Jeff took me to brekkie.

The agent for the landpeer comes over this morning and we re-up on our lease.  And why not, they aren’t raising our rent, which in Vancouver is better than winning a lottery because then all your friends and relatives aren’t bugging you for cash, but you still have more in your pocket.

Time to go make three days of wordcount.

What a meal

I thought Mike was going to feed me in a restaurant, but he made pot roast, with veg, mashed potatoes and gravy, and afterwards (since we started late and I had eaten myself in a ‘pleasant state of repletion’) I faceplanted. Awoke at quarter to six and walked home.  What a glorious morning!  The sky is a pearly pale blue and it was just the right amount of walk.  Mike gave me about 20 minutes of very pressure conscious massage on my lower back last night and something let go with an almighty crack, and I remember waking up and thinking “no pain!”.  Course, no cpap either, but o well. I got Mike with about 20 minutes of calf massage – he tried the Wreck Beach stairs for the first time this season this last weekend and he was a hurting unit (should have heard him moaning as we went down the basement stairs).

I am still in prodrome, but I’m doing my best to ignore it.  The hardest part is knowing that whatever mood I’m in, super agitated and cheerful, or super sludgy and meepish, is all, if not false, then certainly questionable,  and that the dishes must still be done and phone calls returned.

I am working on a song for BB King.

Buster, after giving me such a scare with his absence yesterday, was on hand to greet me and thank me for filling his dish, and all in all the world is a very pleasant place this morning, and it will be even yet more amazing after coffee, toast and eggs.

Jeff should be back today.

Lots and lots

Yesterday I wrote 1700 words, only 1200 of which will end up in the novel unless I tweak them hard.

Keith came over and blitzed through GoT after taking me for a walk (we went to the Twist and got beer, which Keith kindly carried home, which is good, because I am very sore), and I made bread rolls, which was pretty much all I had to do to get Keith to come over.  (I think in some ways Keith considers my cooking to be pretty good.) The rolls are incredibly dense and chewy.  I will have to do that again, this time when Jeff’s here and before they vanish.

1.2 hours.

Margot and Buster are irritated that Jeff’s door is closed. Margot mewed as loudly as she could to wake me up this morning, which is not very loud but reasonably effective when she’s jamming her face under my door (the gap is very big.) Margot’s in the living room right now and Buster is on the top bunk sleeping in my suitcase.

Back to writing.  Pharos and George are working their way through a long to-do list.  mOm is enjoying it and so I wonder what I’ll dream up today.

whatevs

I am in a super strange mood, as I often be when the migraine (atypical) is pending (which it can do for weeks and then go back into its hole).  I shall make no decisions heavier than what to order for dinner (Mike’s treat) for the next 24 hours, and somebody please shoot me if I start making meeping noises about how nobody loves me, cause it just ain’t true.  Also, I’m doing laundry, because no matter what I do I get food on mah clothes.

Bwa ha ha, mistook Mike’s voice for Keith’s on the phone today.  I blame my brain chemistry.

I made word count yesterday (500 words a day is the recommended minimum) but continue, even after cleaning it with serious thoroughness to rassle with the cpap.

Wrigley!!!! omg Chipper you are the best.  I wish you could have heard me scream when I read that, you would have laughed your ass off.

Sometimes the cops have to use deadly force.

But sometimes it really seems like they don’t.

Back to naming babies.  Michel is NOT THE PERSON FOR THIS JOB.  Which is why he volunteered for it.  And of course he has ulterior motives, which add up to “The sooner the babies are born the sooner I can go back to making time with Kima hurrr durrr.”

Paul is supposed to collect me mid-afternoon to go walkies.  I am having trouble even making 2 k, but I suspect if I stick to someplace flat I’ll be fine.

 

Light mother

Still feeling very loved from last night; it was good to be with everyone, and getting a ride home from your son and not having to worry about how he drives is very pleasant too.

Alex is very vigorous.  I got to hold him and bounce him a couple of times but really he’s all about his ma.

Archie Panjabi is getting her own show.  Yay!  Hopefully it won’t be crap.

 

Rantroid

I just read Murray Rothbard on the subject of whether parents should be legally obliged to feed their children in a libertarian paradise, and since I find his views so repellent I shan’t repeat them here.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to church, and didn’t, because Sue never got my texts and didn’t respond to any that I sent her.  I couldn’t contact anyone at church and Jeff, sensing that my neurotic desire to find out if my friend was dead in her apartment was not just a passing phase, assisted with that.  Finally Robbie called me back and all was well and Sue was at church and we agreed to phone instead of text in future, but I was quite prostrate with concern and then embarrassment in consequence.

Also mOm I figured out what I was seeing (Jeff helped.)  The hummingbird was chasing the jay because it had just eaten its egg.  Happy Mother’s Day indeed!  I thought it was funny, and it was tragic.  How often our opinions are shaped by our location when we form them.

Katie knows me so well she figured I’d bail on our mother’s day walk after this contretemps, and actually I wanted to go after a while but she’d already changed plans to hang out with Suzanne. Oh well.

So yesterday was a day of thinking about the dark mother, and of course Kima trying to be pregnant and not dead.  I wrote about 500 words yesterday.  Pudding’s philosophy may not make it into the book, but the 250 words on Kima’s new section will. Yes, one of the babies is named Pudding. Her naming story will be included in the book.

I need to write some more query letters and there are a couple more beta readers.

No cpap – after a couple of days no problems with allergies, the nice weather has kept the pollen count moderate, so my schnozz is rejecting having anything stuck on it.

Miss Margot is continuing to learn how to fight the rodent menace under Buster’s tutelage.  I heard a ratling squeak as it ran into her googly face the other day, scaring it back toward Buster who admittedly is better at catching everything except flies.

Buster’s covered in scratches again.  There’s a big black and white cat from across the street that he always scraps with.

I have a google news alarm set up for Dorothy Dunnett.  Everytime something comes up on the internet about her I scan it to see if other Dunnett heads have any interest and then post it to the twitter Dunnett fan account.  I also have one set up for filk and then post to the Filker account on facebook.  Somewhere in the English speaking world the perfect actor to play Lymond has been born….. sigh. Show up soon!