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!
The ongoing crisis looms a little closer to North Americans. Sell your Airline stock. I’ve asked Paul to retire. Or to consider it if and when we get an Ebola sufferer coming through town via YVR.
Katie is having a rough go, poor lassie, not getting enough sleep.
Turkey soup is bubblin’ away.
Jeff’s at work and going to bring home treats. I am going to curl up with Thomas Piketty.
Comments having nothing to do with Alexander:
Margot likes babies. She doesn’t even leave the room when they cry. Every time I think I know my cat she reveals unexplored depths of character and personality.
It was so good to feast the folks, including Mike and Casey. The meal consisted of (because mOm will want to know, not because I am a food porn type): Roast turkey stuffed with parsley, one head of garlic and a lemon, boiled and roasted yams, brussels sprouts parboiled in chicken stock and sauteed in butter, sauteed parsnips, iceberg lettuce salad, stuffing made in the crockpot (sadly lacking onions, but still damned good), boughten cranberry jelly, homemade gravy and possibly the worst – the most gluey and lumpy – smashed potatoes I ever made. Everybody else ate them so it’s not like they were inedible, they just weren’t choice. Absolutely no sweets, but white and red wine, plus beer, to go with the meal. I did promise Paul his mother’s lemon snow recipe for dessert but that will wait for our next meal together; he very kindly did veg prep and ran people ’round town and brought wine glasses and suchlike, for which I offer thanks and praise.
Keith got off work early; Katie turned up around 4, so we all sat down together around six.
The carcase, less the sandwich making leftovers, is in the stockpot; I made beef and bean burrito fillings yesterday as well, so I don’t think I’ll have to cook for a while, yay me! I mean apart from deboning the soup ingredients.
Around 8 Katie got toothpicks, and Casey was in the same boat, so Paul took them home. For another hour Mike, Jeff, Keith and I sat around downstairs and watched Archer, and then since the boys both work in the morning, off they went.
It was not a spectacular meal, but it wasn’t one that anybody else in our group would have WANTED to cook, so I’m glad I stepped up. After I could sit down, I had a lovely evening.
And Alexander was there.
Or my cooking will be screwed up.
And I have Some Load of Cooking to do today.
Having fun with the song I wrote last night,
The boys of Planet Bachelor were here yesterday; Keith watched some Archer with us and Paul took me for a walk in Oakalla and consumed cake (I made some more chocolate cake). The walk was simply lovely, and took place in the only block of fair weather we’re going to get for the next few days. Keith is considering getting a pufferfish.
THANKS TEXAS YOU RATFONDLERS. Ebola is in the news and you sent a man with a fever who had just returned from West Africa home. ZMapp is a long way from commercial production. A million dead by January 2015, and everybody from the WHO on down lying; the only people I really trust to report with any candour are Medecins Sans Frontieres.
2020 says ha ha fuck you
Haven’t heard from Katie, but I imagine the babymoon is continuing quite nicely without me. Keith will go see her and Alexander today and make the acquaintance of his new nephew.
I love my friends. Mike took me out to dinner (lamb) and pummelled me until I felt a lot better. I had no idea I was sore! He told me about some of the stuff that’s happening at Schneider and I laughed quite immoderately.
Check out this example of divine decadence, being a chair shaped like a scorpion.
REALLY glad I mowed the lawn yesterday; the rain is going to last 5 days. So the place won’t look like an abandoned house when we have guests on Monday.
I have a big table for Thanksgiving. My immediate fam in town plus two orphans. (Neither of whom are technically orphans). This totals 9. We are going to eat like FOOLS. Really looking forward to it, even if I’ll be trapped in a tiled cell with a dead bird for a day. There will be parsnips. I found a crockpot recipe for stuffing that sounds nommerful.
Last night Leo and Linda feasted us at Balkan House; the server tried to get us to eat dessert and we’re all looking appalled and Linda said, “None of us finished dinner” and we got leftovers. Then Jeff walked home, not feeling too great, (we had all walked there, it being quite manageable) and Leo and Linda and I proceeded on foot to Planet Bachelor, where we caught up with Katie and Ayesha while waiting for the Bachelor Brothers to return home. Keith arrived first and Paul arrived quite late (late arrival AGAIN just like what happened for his birthday) and we had a nice visit. By ten pm I was so tired I was toothpicking and practically snoring against Katie’s shoulder, but Paul was giving Katie a ride home anyway, so I did not actually have to walk home. What a relief, I was pretty torpid at that point, but I did get in 2.8 k of walking.
Leo and Linda visited the motherhouse of the Daoist Tai Chi society yesterday, so not only did they have exercise in the morning, they walked for yonks down at the Quay and then walked that additional 2.8 k… so I think “Not Slowing Down Just Because First Grandchild, Thanks” pretty much describes it.
The folks had lots of fun at the Quay, which is an interesting place to spot boats and whatnot.
Now Leo is making Finn Pancakes and bacon, and coffee’s dripping. They will be heading out later this morning. I really really hope that their flight isn’t affected by the meshuggas in Chicago this morning, where a deliberately set fire in the ATC utility room is causing chaos across the US.
It’s always interesting to go for a walk in the neighbourhood with somebody who’s never been around the ‘hood. I look at gardens and cars mostly. Leo took a gorgeous cloud pic which you may be able to see here.
Tonight we’ll head over to Planet Bachelor to catch up with Paul and Keith and Katie, after supper. Keith and Paul don’t get home until late so we’ll have to eat first.
Jeff barbecued a salmon yesterday for us. I tried to set the veggies on fire but managed to extract them just before the moment the burning pot smell would have gotten into it (I forgot to turn it down from HI). Jeff mournfully noted that I was in the process of destroying all his kitchen equipment; all other things being equal I’ll buy him replacement items at Sears if and when we break up our household, because I kind of have.
It is so wonderful that the folks and kinder are enjoying this phase of their lives (well that granddaughter is so sweet…). They are off to Tai Chi this morning. Leo, aware that parking can be the pits, carefully plotted the route and determined where to park. You’d think it would be easy enough to just drive down the Kingsway, but no. Vancouver is not a fun place to drive around.
They arrived yesterday evening. We had slideshows, conversation and pizza.
I hope to get some of Leo’s pics to post here, as some of them are quite stunning. They took a tour of Meares Island which sounds amazing and produced some memorable images. Definitely worth it.
Of course, they’ve had most clement weather so far; the instant they get here the skies open and the wind starts to blow.
Later today we will get some foodicles.
Listen children and let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time there was a man who loved a woman but didn’t want to live with her. She was okay with that. She had to move and at the last minute the landlord said no and at the last minute she had to make arrangements to move in with the man who didn’t want to live with her. They lived together for years. Their love ended. Their living arrangement did not. Six months went by. The woman made arrangements to move into a shelter because she figured out that accusing a man of being abusive would move her up an intake list. She called movers. The day was set.
The elevator broke.
The man looked out across his life and wondered why despite all his rationality he believed that this event wasn’t random. Couldn’t be random.
Mike, Keith, Kate, Jeff and I got together yesterday. Keith put too much pressure on one part of the hammock and it split. We congratulated him on taking one for the team, because if it had broken when Katie was it in we all would have been very sadface, although an eight months’ pregnant woman would not get in a hammock. Keith was uninjured. Mike demonstrated yoga. Keith rode off in search of beer. I massaged Katie’s feet. We mostly stayed on the back deck, as brilliant afternoon turned into brilliant evening. Keith rode home after dusk; Mike drove home; I put Katie in a cab. We ordered pizza and talked and were together and laughed.
So blessed. I told Mike that we’re part of his tribe.
Chris O’Shea, filker, is responsible for this charming instafilk.
“I woke up ever so slightly later this morning …
… And I was feeling ever so slightly more blue.
Yes I woke up ever so slightly later this morning…
… and I was feeling ever so slightly more blue.
Hard to tell the difference from yesterday.
I’m sufferin’ from the Delta Blues.”
Katie cooked dinner for me, Jeff, Keith and the Birthday Boy Hisself, Paul; it was roast beast, gravy, yorkshire pudding, asparagus, carrots and smashed potatoes.
It was very pleasant. Poor Paul was late for his own dinner by the best part of an hour. Planes don’t wait.
We were sitting in the dark in the back yard when a skunk wandered through (this years’). Ayesha maintained a goodly distance. She was all over Jeff, it was very cute.
Paul has NO PLANS to retire! He really doesn’t look his age.
Drew, Tre’s baby brother, has been born, congrats and all well.
The visit with the fOlks was very good and we had a SPECTACULAR trip back. The wind and the sun were in perfect proportion, and we got chocolate soft ice cream for a snack. Thank you Paul for subsidizing that trip (pOp too….) and mOm for the baby stuffs. It was fun noodling around Victoria looking for baby stuffs.
Why I love Susan Sarandon. She just so effervescently and totally rocks.
Watched Boyhood. I really enjoyed it, and then immediately read a black critic’s takedown of it and have to now file the movie under guilty pleasures. Sigh. Jeff bailed partway through since various characters were being jerks.
Sahara Delights is now in the space Kitty Kate’s Cafe was in.
Went singing at Tom and Peggy’s last night. The alto part for Word of God is wicked hard.
Paul and I got together for a lovely walk at the Quay, then swam for an hour in Katie’s pool with Katie, and then Paul took me home and took Katie for dinner. Now we are all three of us heading to the Island which is bad because I haven’t told my mOm yet. But good, since it means she doesn’t have to get us.
We’re going to hack away at the list of things to do for the garage sale. It’s not to make money it’s to dejunk and declutter, as I brought way more stuff into this house than I should have.
Of possible interest to Jeff. We finished the Chasing Shackleton series. Even though you know how it comes out, it was still darned thrilling. Also of possible interest to Jeff.
Aw crap, Jack White’s coming to Burnaby and I’ll be out of town on the 28th.
Premade salad plus a big slab of the previously bbq’d salmon on a bed of baby spinach with mango salsa. The new fish is in the freezer.
I’m in contact with an editor in Saanich and should meet her next week.
This data visualization of the earthquakes in Iceland is very interesting.
They just announced a dancing baby Groot doll, which is adorable. Wish I could crochet, there’s an equally adorable pattern for it.
There were earthquakes in Chile and California and Turkey overnight.
Liberia’s health care system, never good after 14 years of civil war, has collapsed in the face of the Ebola crisis. So many healthcare workers have died that even if the hospitals and clinics were open there’d be no caregivers. The official death toll is rising at the rate of about 15 per day with an upward trend, with about half of the reported cases resulting in death. Even with Ebola if somebody keeps you hydrated and clean of your excreta you may survive. You can’t find gloves; there’s civil unrest and food prices have jumped. WHO reports that since you can’t fly into West Africa any more it’s delaying the few health care professionals and supplies that are actually headed in the right direction.
Enough of that.
Now a couple of humorous safe for work pictures.
This is SERIOUS. We haven’t finished eating the last fish.
