Category: Domestic Life

Brain hurts

It’s like a slap in the face to get up and realize there’s NO MORE SUN.  But hell, it’s October.  And October is SOME OTHER PLANET Month. (Obligatory Joe Hall reference).

I’m off to put gas in Ziva, maybe even for the last time as the plates expire at the end of the month and I’m not renewing them.  I will collect Katie and bring her back here for laundry and other mischief, and then churchy type stuff in preparation for the Board meeting tomorrow.

I am working on three new songs simultaneously.  One of them is because I downloaded a free app which allows me to strum chords I couldn’t play tanked up on painkillers, meth and ketamine, one of them is vibrating rapidly back and forth between being George’s theme (Lady of the Deep Waves) in my imaginary show and being something sad from the Game of Thrones universe, and the other is a Celtic style “Go forth and be happy” kinda tune.  I must be driving Jeff nuts, I’m practicing for hours every day and unfortunately it’s rather hard for me to write songs without actually, you know, like, singing.

I am contemplating the list of things I’ve put off with misery.  I’d like to trade that in for some feisty action and a dirk to slit the gizzard of my procrastination but the friendly NPC at the counter is NOT helping.

I’m enjoying having a phone that allows me to post pix directly to my blog though, I think it instantly made it more fun and interesting.

 

Yesterday, a tessellation

Jeff took me out to breakfast. I couldn’t hack a turkey just for the two of us, so it was roast chicken with taters, squash, veg and gravy. Opening (ha, everything was already open and the sound tech had just finished encouraging a rather poopy bird (flicker?) to leave via the window by which it gained entrance) and closing church; excellent service, interacting with the Bean, who is TALKING UP A STORM, finding Tom’s sweatshirt just as I was locking up, identifying it by the sawdust and getting it back to him; taking Carol home, dropping in on Kira-kitty to say hi and finding her so still that at first I thought she was dead (I thought my heart would stop) but she’s just deaf, and promptly got up when she realized I was topping up her dish. Singing and playing the compost song for the minister (I tolja I can write a song about anything); more practicing when I got home. A lovely long phone call with Jan of Courtenay – a brief one with daughter Katie – in all an entirely satisfying day. Ziva’s rooftop was retracted; glorious fall day; almost starting to be creeped out at how I’m starting to think it really should RAIN.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE.

Visits.

Visited with Sue this morning to help her download from her daddy’s funeral. He was 102.  Meshuggas about the inheritance; waiting is.

LOVELY visit with Mike last night (funnily enough I’d been kvetching to Paul, with whom I was practicing yesterday, about how MIKE WUZ NOT RETURNING MY CALLS WAHWAH) and he called around 8 and I kinda forst him to let me come over.  I brought Otto and sang Theo’s Theme and John Scalzi’s Blog and Compost and Grateful and It’s Just So Nice When Someone knows your Name, and Lemming’s Twofer, and the first verse of Wanted to Believe, and Mike sang the drop D version of Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue and another song, I can’t remember which.  We talked about various things, including how trying work is for him right now, and how the insomnia really doesn’t help. BUT HE FOUND THE TAYLOR.  His parlour guitar was lost in the move but he found it again, and so me happy.  I was VERY BAD and drank two beers, which made me so drunk I collapsed on the sofa and slept from 10:30 til 8:30 the next morning.  Two beers.  I always was a lightweight, but this was ludicrous.  Also worked on Rozo for a while, her shoulders were a reticulation of weenie little knots.  While I was there Mike called Brian and I got to talk to him for a while.  There is nothing like the sound of a friend’s voice, yanno?

This morning I came home and promptly started brekkie for Jeff, being melon and bacon and pamcakes, and then Sue called and I went off and had a second breakfast of more coffee.  Also, getting checks signed so I can pay some churchy bills. Then I wandered into a sign shop and ORDERED the John Caspell Memorial Pinball Parlour sign for reelz this time, and then my other errands got shunted aside as I had to trot home due to the coffee.

Now I am looking up the language of flowers on the internet for a bouquet I’m buying for the minister tomorrow and as soon as I change my clothes – ew, slept in my clothes, what am I, frosh at some scummy college??? – I’ll be off to buy a floral bouquet, pick up some more spray paint, and buy some eggs and butter to get going on some biscotti.  Roast chicken for dinner tonight.  MMMMM chicken.

I cooked a pork roast the other night with basil and lemon thyme from Suzanne’s deck garden.  It was nommy too, although Jeff owned that it was a little overcooked.  We did agree that pork roast should be roasted, it doesn’t cook right in the crock pot.

Paul and Keith are off to Seattle for the long weekend.  Katie is doing cat care this time; I should call her.  The only reason I know she’s alive is from her facebook comments.

Miss Margot has been extra barfy.  I need to brush her very very thoroughly and give her a lot of kitty malt.

SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SINGING NEW SONG FOR MINISTER.  he he.

Disturbed night of sleep

I woke at 2:30 and stayed awake for a couple of hours, then slept again.  I woke up and thought “I know what time it is – it’s 9:30!”  Then I checked my computer and it was 9:25.

Jeff has YAY made more coffee, so I think I’ll stagger out into the kitchen and review my to do list.

I had a lovely long chat with Keith last night.  He had a wonderful time in Toronto and had many stories to tell of old friends and family.  He very much enjoyed hanging out with Peter and Sarah, and said that getting Kaileagh and Sophie into the same room was pretty funny (they are both high energy wirey blondes with attitude).  Grandma Phyllis is about the same as always, only a little less mobile, but she must have been very happy to have so many of her family and family friends about her, given that she’s had two dreadful losses in the last few years.

My new song on Otto is NOMMING ME BRAYNZ!  It uses 7, count ’em, 7 chords, all in rapid fire succession, and also requires finger picking, so it’s at the outside edge of my ability to play.  Oh Muse darling you are a cruel and uncaring personage.

I continue to await with interest the comments of the minister on the new toon.

 

WEEEIRD

So I go outside with Otto to work on what is rapidly shaping up to be Theo’s Theme (for the evol villein of Midnite Moving Co).  Within four bars, there is a robin FLYING TOWARD ME AND CALLING MADLY.  Robin then perches in a tree, never removing gaze.  Robin attempts to keep up with me in the music generation department, getting louder but eventually quitting in disgust.  Then it moves to the dogwood, and then the top of the tree stump.  I felt uncomfortable and went indoors.  Despite everything the tune is sounding great and my finger picking is coming along nicely.  I think I’m kinda the Meg White of mandolin players, althought that’s definitely a slap to Meg.

Keith and Paul should show up shortly with corn and tales of Paul’s mom’s successful nth birthday (I can’t remember exactly and I don’t know if she’d thank me to…) I hear another family turned up en masse, which should have rendered things much more festive and apparently were awesome in that Keith got to see Peter, his oldest friend.  And the vampire family!  woot.

Also, this morning Margot tried to get into the dryer  Man, how HAS she lived this long?

Productive day of errands including two overdue ones.

Oddiculosis

I am full of weirdness.  Just found out from LTGW that he used the Thousand Sided Dice to come up with his twitter name!  He was thrilled with it… I’m just glad it’s Substantially Complete.

Paul’s Birthday celebration is tomorrow.  I took the liberty of inviting half a dozen people to it… also, I’m thawing salmon, always a good idea for a bbq.  Sadly, all the cherry wood charcoal is gone, so we’ll have to suffer without it.

I am having to deal with the stupidity of the UPS store Beacon gets photocopying done at.  I FraCKING HATE BEING TREASURER.  I’m going to run away to Courtenay, see if I don’t.  Actually, Jeff and I very briefly discussed this and whether it really happens will be in the lap of the gods.

Okay, back to contending with busy people who don’t keep good records.

wonderful dream(s)

Last night, or more properly this morning, I had two wonderful dreams, one about a Vancouver being returned as the land of the people who first lived here, and how different things were (no privately owned cars – you had to share car ownership with housemates or family, and the transit was WAY better (there was an incredible funicular down from Burnaby mountain to the inlet that was like a fricking roller coaster ride) and you couldn’t cut down trees unless you were growing food on that land, and everybody was allowed to keep small food animals if they had the space) and then that morphed into a dream that was a wonderful cross between Dunnett and Martin about a bossy young lady who picked out her husband when she was young and then worked out a plan to marry him when she got older, and how everybody fell in line with her plans including her future father in law because it was easier than arguing with her – oh, she was a sassy little thing, and so cute.   I haven’t remembered a dream in ages, and these two made me happy.

Keith came over yesterday.  He’s been having a lovely time with friends (watching a troupe of actors rehearse on Granville Island yesterday, among other delights) and is considering his next move workwise, he’s still working part time in the lab.  Katie has vanished from our sights but will respond to texts when prodded.  I’m seeing her later this week.

I made curried chicken salad sandwiches for lunch yesterday, they were yummy.

Paul came over and we went for walk and we noodled on guitars.  I am VERY happy with Smokey, tuned to a D chord.  He sounds purty.

Yesterday today tomorrow

Yesterday I bought wedding gifts, tidied, returned and picked up library books, and today I’ll do churchy things and work on the joint project Jeff and I have.  Tomorrow I will get together with Katie.  Keith charmed me yesterday by saying he will attend a meetup for socially awkward people. I have to say that whatever else my kids are they are a constant source of entertainment.

woe is -aaack- me

So I completely blew the interview yesterday – fell apart during the test.  I solaced myself with beer and lobster afterwards, so thoroughly downcast was I, and my Lumosity score fell like a rock this morning subsequent to me having two beers, so, note to self – alcohol does make you demonstrably dumber, please avoid (yesterday’s score was one of my highest ever, so it seems germane to mention the difference).  No I did no driving yesterday, for the safety minded among you.

The stye has come to its fruition and no longer hurts; it’s just making me look like Margot with the ludicrous amount of eye gunk it is producing (which is actually impacting my ability to see out of my left eye.  Very glad it’s in my left eye, my right eye doesn’t produce enough tears so I’d be in a very sad way.)

Margot fell off some boxes in my closet and trapped herself in my clothes.  I have never heard her make that much noise in that short a space – she really is getting more noisy, which means she’s just barely audible.

Amazing science / health news.

He only posted it yesterday and I’ve already set it to music.  OH GOSH HOW I LOVE THIS POEM. Mind you I wrote the choon two days ago.

I love the show ER so much I want it to be in space. Yes, Trauma 3000, in which our fearless surgeons and internists rotate between a mother hospital on the ground and a microgravity trauma unit in orbit, including tours of duty with trauma units at the front lines of an alien war.  And I want an alien social worker.  I want it to be ER x Babylon 5 x Battlestar Galactica. w00t!~

My fave Hollywood badass does his thang.

Eye stye with my painful eye

The folks where I interviewed very kindly called back and I have a second chance to demonstrate my willingness to work.  I have a stye in my left eye that hopefully won’t look too hideous.

Margot is noisily cleaning herself.

I broke the venetian blinds in my room the other day and have been getting along without window coverings.   I am thinking of something steampunk themed for new draperies.

about the town

Garageband intermediate lesson a success, thank you Lisa (also her fur babies Luna, Romeo and Chai, two chill dogs and a cat).  Drive out to Maple Ridge was HOT.  Even with ac.

While there found out that my Garageband IS gibbled, it’s not just my imagination and I should probably reinstall.  Also got an appointment for a job interview this afternoon.

Drive back was interesting.  Lisa gave me directions for taking the scenic route out of town but I missed a turn (v. typical of me) and got back to Lougheed and Dewdney Trunk Road (driving past Glenn and Maggie’s old place in the process and feeling kinda sadface).  After a turned onto Lougheed I saw a woman in a teal top and jeans (the colour drew my eye) HITCHHIKING.  I haven’t picked up a hitchhiker in 15 years but it was a fucking hot day and I recently challenged myself not to suppress every kindly instinct.  Feeling strongly that some good would come of it, I stopped.

I asked her where she was going, after she said OMG AIR CONDITIONING – she’d been sitting surrounded by concrete in the blazing sun – and she said Coquitlam close by IKEA, and I said, pas de probleme, I’ll drop you there.  What are you doing?  Picking up my grandson.  I have money to get him to his mother’s but not money to get back, so I’m hitching out.  Crappy deal sez I. Where are you taking him after you pick him up?  uh….. 8 blocks from your house in Burnaby.  Yeah.  Of all the people in the lower mainland who could have stopped for her, I think I was the correct choice.  She’s a cancer survivor undergoing a second round of chemo and radiation.  I expressed sympathy and hoped she had sufficient support.

The first place was the incredibly broken down and third world trailer park between Brunette and Lougheed (there are two, this is the one that looks like chickens should be scratching in between the trailers).

There were four feral kittens about 12 weeks old under the next trailer, which had busted windows and appeared to be unoccupied.  There were two little boys bouncing unattended on a trampoline.  Yes, my classism is showing, but I watched the boys for a while and somebody had obviously trained them to stay well away from the edges as they were playing for fun and not xrays.

As we pulled up I told the woman, It’s gonna take ages to get your grandson out, I had kids myself and I know, don’t worry, I have no place to be so don’t sweat it if it takes a while.  I’m looking at the trampoline and going Cazart it’s gonna be 20 minutes at least to pull those kids offa there.  It’s a beautiful summer day and the trampoline is in the shade and they are having more fun than a barrel of otters.

Finally we achieved cooperation and got the grandson, a sweet and intelligent little boy of five out of there and I drove them in to Burnaby and dropped them off (after I rolled through a stop sign I didn’t see…. oops.  It was a three way stop in a construction zone and the sign was behind a hedge in my defence).

I hope the next time I’m feeling impulsively helpful it works out this well.

Andrew, you are brilliant

One of my filking fen has this to say on facebutt this morning:
Insurance lawyers were put on earth so that we would learn to love the honesty and ethics of Plaintiffs’ lawyers.

 

Made Peach and blueberry glop for pamcakes.  Which reminds me I should make them.

Happy sigh.  Katie over yesterday, and as is traditional, broke something, in this case the clothesline – full of laundry – onto freshly cut grass.  We will now consider how to restring it.  Spoke too soon.  Jeff doesn’t have to consider, he’s up there rehanging it.  I’ll stay handy in case he comes off the ladder.  AND HE SHALL HAVE PAMCAKES FOR BREAKFAST!

I am going out to Maple Ridge to do something musical today – if it is successful I’ll report back.  If not I’ll slink home a few dollars poorer but happy to have gone for a ride.

I’m probably going to miss meeting up with Patricia today as she was coming into New West, but o well.

BREAKING BAD OMG it is going to a VERY DARK PLACE.  People gwine die.