Category: Domestic Life

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!

 

Mom’s day 2015

I suppose I should wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all of us who bore the pangs of motherhood (or got drugs, or whatever).  This year the media emphasis seems to be on the shadow mother – the narcissist, the abuser, the drunk, the enabler, the critic, the destroyer of hopes, the ‘where is the other 1 %’ when you brought home a nearly perfect score (my fOlks only did this to me once and I could tell they were joking, thank my native wit), the flirt (or outright lecher), the “fetch me my pills” mom, the wiped out by chronic illness mom, the woman who never complains about anything but dashes herself against maternal martyrdom and a husband or partner who grinds her into pieces, the mom with no boundaries, no common sense, no decency, no good moods, no good habits, who’s so full of superstition and fear and anger and bitterness and ill health and fear of germs and hypocrisy and materialism that she wrecks all the little lives she births, and every single one of those children must pupate and transform under someone else’s eye, or perforce on their own, with varying degrees of success.

True maternal love is efficient.  It doesn’t snag on the flaws of the mother, but on the needs of the child.

Yeah, thinking about motherhood.  Thinking about Kima. And Pat Murphy’s The Falling Woman.

1.8 hours on the ‘pap last night.  My eyes are still refusing to completely unstick and open. No words yesterday. I am still in a very strange mood, not bleak but blank.

I am very happy with my new dental work now that it has settled in.  Paul’s predicting that the ceramic crown won’t last too long, but I’m feeling positive.

The CT scan was so trivial I hardly wanted to mention it.  I get results at the end of the month.

Tomorrow Paul and I and the kids (unless Paul stays down south because the flying is awesome) get together for an ‘after everything has gone on sale’ Mother’s Day. We’ll be potlucking at Planet Bachelor.

Keith complained to me last night.  I won’t be specific.  I will say “Oh my sweet summer child. The human heart is complicated no matter your affectional preferences!”

I didn’t even drink that much

Gosh it’s been ages since I was hungover, I really can’t remember – and I was tipsy enough when I came home last night I fired up the computer and wrote another 200 words on top of what I’d done that day, which was approximately 500.

Now I get to take this wackiness to church, oh doodie. Alex and Katie are threatening to be there.  We shall see.

This morning Katie ponied up incredibly cute pix of Alex playing in fingerpaint.  His expression makes him look like a tagger in training. Our little anarchist.

No cpap.  Freaking allergies.

If brO gets to the lawn this afternoon I’ll do the weed whipping.  It’s not for us, it’s for a) the landlord and b) the neighbours. I’d love it if the grass got tall, and so would the cats. Also the rats.  The deluge of vermin has halted – the last one was while brO was gone.

Yay, I have the chords for Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked.

 

Here are some deep philosophical questions by way of Mary Bennett, from James Hollis PhD:

1) Where do my dependencies show up in my intimate relationship?
2) What am I asking my partner to do for me that I, as a mature adult, need to be doing for myself?
3) Am I taking too much responsibility for the emotional well-being of the Other? Am I taking on his/her journey at the expense of my own, and if so, why?
4) In what ways do I seek to avoid suffering?
5) What fears, lack of permission or old behaviors block me from living my life?

I wish I had asked these questions of myself 10 years ago.