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.

 

a word

1034 of them to be exact, plus 1.5 hours on cpap.

Paul came over after supper with beer and he, Jeff and I watched a documentary about the sun.  That man sure knows how to cheer me up. I baked a cake as soon as I heard he was coming…. just one of those things.

I have an appalling craving for Indian noms.

Success, or an approximation

So I’m off to get a CT scan of my unstable pelvis, and the tooth Dr. Katz fixed is now completely perfect in all respects, plus he ground just a smidge off a cuspid and now my mouth feels normal again.  The scan will be booked and they’ll call me, and then I back to see the bone doc about ten days after the scan to give them a chance to read it.

3.0 hours on the CPAP.  I feel very refreshed and not particularly in pain, which is pleasant.  No words yesterday.

I am ashamed to say I bailed on Paul last night, he wanted to go swimming, but I biked to and from the dentist and had a rather trying day in other respects, sitting in cold rooms waiting for doctors not being one of my oh doodie moments. Went to bed early, went to sleep early. For some reason the mask felt very comfortable last night, although I still took it off.  I think I was contemplating getting up and yelling at Buster since he was making so much frikkin’ noise.

Jeff is home, and Buster is much, much happier.  (With Margot, you can’t tell; her baseline temperament is so incredibly calm.) He is a daddy’s boy.

I did the math; if all the people who live in Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kamloops, Kelowna, Abbotsford, White Rock and Chilliwack were homeless, that would still only be half as many as have been rendered homeless by the earthquake in Nepal.

Sometime in the next two hundred years Vancouver will get its own rumble. If it’s a megaquake it’ll be felt across Cascadia.  I’m starting to keep extra water on hand.

This sweet little piece of satire is from a filking buddy.

The worst slave trader.

Continued drug gang related violence (or so one supposes) in  Metro Vancouver.

Chipper sends me this hand flute playing virtuosity.

She also sends me this cute panoply of chordate behaviours.

I will endeavour mightily to get back on track today.  Except I have to do something for church.

The day of the specialists

I have survived one specialist appointment – I now have to get a pelvic CT scan – and I have been given a range of exercises after I burst into tears and said, “Hey I’m unwaged and I can’t just cough up 75 bucks twice a week for physio!”

The exercises are not hard. They are stretches and “Kegels in interesting positions”.

This afternoon I get my incisor fixed. Oh doodie.

217 words and 3.1 hours (my back feels very good today!). Sadface about the low productivity but I’m feeling kinda blerggy and with all the goldinged scotch broom blooming it’s like my eyeballs are scraping themselves against a concrete wall.

Other projects are calling me away.  The biggest one is for church, but I shouldn’t put it off any longer and it’s only about 2 hours of work anyway, plus the fidgetty bits once it’s actually updated.

Anyway, much love to those who deserve it and the rest of you can quit thieving my spoons.

Brief mentions

I’m in cleaning mode, so I’m skipping church (hey, it’s a miracle I feel like cleaning, church would only interrup’ things.)

.5 hours last night, 1.2 the night before.  No writing.  Day cards are the Devil and the ten of Pentacles.

HTW dowsing…. Found out about a woman named Hannah Adams who wrote a book of comparative religion in 1817 in which she deliberately avoided pejorative terms in describing heathens (haw haw), Muslims etc.  No surprise that a man who would find such a book interesting would have Quakers, Baha’is, atheists, agnostics and Unitarians among his descendents.

 

Just the basics

laundry

chocolate cake  GONE

Jeff putting up the clothesline! yay.

497 words and no hours

applying for jobs

asking if somebody on facebook can get me into a wind tunnel lab at UBC

and tomorrow in Victoria for a conference.  Paul and I are leaving tonight and crashing at the fOlks.

 

Apropos of nothing “I perceive it as a demonstration of the categorizing power of the academic hipster essentialist”.  Man o man, when feminists trash talk….

 

Good day

I probably should have walked around or biked but I had a lazy day of life maintenance and writing and watching tv. Castle is blah and NCIS Body Count is likewise.  Monday night now that Better Call Saul is done for this year is turning gooey.  Perhaps I can be braced with some PoI and Daredevil, which is proving to be loads of fun.

.5 hours and 1000 words.  Already at 250 words this morning, but this chunk is super fun to write.

Applied to one job yesterday morning.  I will do the same this morning.

I have yet another dentist appointment this week.  All part of the human panoply.

I can hear Jeff emptying the dishwasher.  I’m thinking time to make some coffee!

When the weather is good…. it’s amazing how good I feel.  There is a buttload of pollen out there though.

Good bad ugly

brO and I are waiting for MR2 to come back from the krankenhaus so we can do a proper shop.  We went for a walk this morning and I picked up some milk and cream so that if the car doesn’t come back today I don’t have to leave the house again,

which is fine,

cause I’ve already written 500 words today and I think today will be furtherly productive.  Kima’s first pregnancy chapter “Someday it’ll keep you” is maybe a couple of pages from done, and I’ve got a good start on Brendan’s first chapter “Check unheard messages” which is all about what happens when you let the Sixer version of nepotism determine who your collaborators are.

And the great thing about writing English goodest is bragging rights.

Ayuh.  All I know is that when I think of the ideas I want to introduce and the hearts I want to break  MUAH HAH HAHHHH! choke gargle.

Fuel oil spill at English Bay.  I’m sickened by it.  The province says “It’s a federal matter” and the feds have killed all the funds for boats for oil spills.  Harper won’t be visiting I’m sure and the boat responsible can’t even be pinned down and fined f’chrissakes.

The grown child of a friend of mine (and a facebook friend) was metres away (indoors thanks be) from the police incident at 5 last afternoon.  Perp got all stabby with two dudes rendered more topologically complex and one woman clinging to life as of this morning; and when bean bag shot didn’t slow him down they gave him summary justice, lead punctuation edition. Vancouver seems to be abloom with police shootings. IA is all over it.

1.3 hours.

ALRIGHTY THEN BREAK TIME IS OVER.

 

Companions

Lady Miss Banjola’s kitty Toby has crossed the rainbow bridge, and I really feel for her and the Beanpie.  They live with us every day, with their moods, and their fur and their appetites, and their surprises, and then the only surprise is how fast they exit, and how our grief pangs us.  I only met him a couple of times.  He was a fine companion, and he will be missed.

In about an hour I’m going to do something I rarely do.  I’m going to get off my duff and go protest something.  More after I get back.

1.8 hours last night.  I cleaned the hose (I almost wish somebody had recorded my death struggle with the damned thing, it was probably amusing to watch) and although my face didn’t hurt, I forgot to put it back on when I took it off in the middle of the night.  I’m usually good for one sleep cycle and then RRRRIP.  Must remember to apply eye goop.  I couldn’t get my eyes open for about ten minutes this morning.

 

Approximations

I thought I’d just untighten all of the cpap straps evenly and see if that helped, and it turned out to be perfect – sort of like a hole in one, since I figured I’d be fussing with it for half an hour.  As soon as I settled the mask on, I realized I had indeed overtightened everything to a farethewell.  So, 3.4 hours last night.

Paul and I went for a walk and I had a turrible craving for barbq ribs so I bought some (and treats, which was evil of me).  Paul is really enjoying being retired so far and headed out to Delta Air Park after we got together.

The ribs were amazing.  I boiled them and slathered them with sauce and baked them with tiny new red potatoes, and the potatoes were so well done that the innards were almost liquefied, and so sweet – best taters I’ve done up in an age.  The leftovers will serve for another two meals, so that was four tasty meals for $14.

Off to the dentist today.

No word yet regarding the last interview…. but I’m patient.

 

Reflection and droopery

As is often the case, a happy moment is followed by reflection and droopery.

I think I invented a new area of economic inquiry yesterday.  It combines stealth feminism, libertarianism and a new way of viewing productivity data.  I’m going to cruise around the web and see if anybody is actually, like, already doing it.  I’m betting not.

Somehow, in adjusting my cpap mask for tightness I fixed it so it doesn’t actually feel comfortable and it pinches my nose like crazy.  So .4 hours last night.  I am so bleary this morning (and I slept nine hours) that I made coffee for the first time in weeks.

Buster just jumped from the tv stand to the top of the tv, balanced precariously on that while my brO and I dropped the air pressure in the room by a couple of kilopascals, and then leaped up to the shelf above the tv where lurketh the handmade Cthulhu stuffies. For a second we thought he was going to jump onto the secondary screen, in which case I’d still be cleaning up glass and debris. Must figure out how to anchor that!

 

 

No hours logged

Keith has done his download.  Paul and I broke up years ago, but that doesn’t really set a timetable for when Keith processes it, so that is what it was about.  My final comment to him was, “I understand it takes a while to process things, and you might wish to consider talking about it sooner than later.” So, all good.

No hours logged last night.  I honestly think I forgot to put it on, which is weird, because I loaded in more distilled water. So I feel a little sludgy this morning.

I think I will make waffles.

Saw Louis Malle’s Crackers with Keith and Jeff yesterday – it is a most wonderfully strange movie.  Many aspects of the script you couldn’t get made today.  Wallace Shawn as Turtle is amazing.  Donald Sutherland as the would-be supervillain is hilarious.  The scene where he’s expertly blowdrying his hair had my eyes popping. The film is not very highly rated and I enjoyed it anyway, mostly because I had no idea what was going to happen next. Also, a young and sizzling Christine Baranski wears a startling array of lovely lingerie, and that by itself is worth seeing.