Category: Domestic Life

Greetings to my new readers

I understand that a couple of lurkers have joined the smallish throng of fans of this site…. let’s just say that there are many more readers and lurkers than commenters and posters.  And I don’t want it like that, but if people have better things to do than comment on my blog, I’m for being okay with that.

I have my set list for Conflikt V, which will be made of awesome.  Conflikt is the only SF convention I have perfect attendance for.  I just wish that the border experience going through customs at Airports was less disgusting.  I got selected for special treatment the last time and it wasn’t fun.  So I am very glad to be going down in the car.

Ziva is fine, thanks for asking.  She will need a valve job at some point, and I still haven’t put the winter tires on her, but she is running great at the moment. 

Katie cooked dinner last night, wOOt!

And now, I have to face the list of things to do at work.  Everybody have a productive day and don’t miss a chance to be helpful and pleasant, you never know when your behaviour will make the difference between happiness and sadness in another human soul.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Hoban is dead.  The man who wrote Riddley Walker is gone.  Sad, sad.  He once wryly remarked that death for him would be a good career move.

Great evening!

Beloved bossy took us bowling, it was so much fun!  Also, Mike came over afterwards and watched the first two eps of Pioneer.  What a great show; I’d forgotten how good it was just in the last few months.

 

Tonight, off to practice.

I’m feeding Kira while Paul is gone, but I’m getting the feeling she doesn’t want to be fed.  (She screamed at me when I came through the door and then refused to eat). I got a call from Keith yesterday; they couldn’t get out of the airport on passes because of Jack Layton, if you can believe it.  The party faithful are flying to Ontario on the tail end of a huge weather event and at the end of the summer so everything is jammed as jammed can be.

Various thoughts.

Anarchism is now a thoughtcrime in England.  Have to wonder when that will happen here too.  The shellacking of free speech continues throughout the naughtily monikered ‘free world’.  I can just HEAR John on the subject.

I came back from Katie’s place last night after I took her shopping and took Government Rd, because that tunnel of trees reminds me of coming back from Jericho on a warm summer night on the back of John’s scooter.  Christ, I miss him.  I keep waiting for it to go away, but grief mocks timetables and stalwart resolutions with a cascade of neurotransmitters.

One of my longest term friends and noted poet Lucile Barker recently came up with these two gems: “Intermiliating…an experience that is simultaneously humiliating and interesting.
Entermiliating…when it happens to someone else.”

I’ve been worrying and fussing over Pride day, off and on the last little while, but I finally put all my errant thoughts together after posting this to facebook :

After participating in half a dozen Pride parades in Vancouver, I’m starting to feel very conflicted about it.  It’s not that I think that there isn’t more to be done to encourage love and understanding for the genderqueer, non-normative folks among us and inside us, or that we can’t do more to support young people coming out, it’s that I’m starting to feel less celebratory.

I’m having a hard time with how awkward the massive influx of sponsorship cash makes me feel when Ugandan gays are getting killed.  I’m dying a little inside about how transgendered people get treated as they get lumped in with the gay spectrum, and dumped on by “women born women” (I’m still recovering from that disgusting tshirt that was on sale at the michfest) while fending off queries as to whether they have a website nudge nudge wink wink….  I’m not saying that queer bashing in Vancouver is dead or that hosanna sexism stepped out for a beer, or that white and other interlocking  privileges have quit working their evil magic on everything. We all know that’s bs.  The millennium came and went and things have improved in quanta and fractions and lumpy little increments.  I see more freedom on the horizon, and I don’t want it sponsored by a fucking brewer, thanks.  I want to be part of a human movement powered by human love, human dreams, human actions, not a pasted on smile that gets cleaned up by the sanitation department later that day.

Of course we need to celebrate victories and agitate for better and fewer laws.  But I’m not feeling celebratory.  I am mourning for the person I used to be, believing that Pride was a sign of how advanced we are.  I’ve watched the banks and breweries opt in, and that’s the point at which I want to opt out.  It felt transgressive, asskickingly, gloriously transgressive and liberating, to participate in years past.  Now it feels like a chore, so that I, a nominally straight woman and Unitarian, can have some street cred.

This weekend I’ll try to unpack a little more of my invisible knapsack; I’ll try to engage straight people I know in that discussion; I’ll find a queer charity in town to support.  But I’m not going to Pride.  It feels like someone else’s party now, and I don’t want be the jerk that crashes it for the cachet of saying I was there.

And so since my irritation right now is directed towards oppression of transgender people, I’ve been wracking my brains for a charitable organization I can give money to that will express my values.  And all of a sudden it occurred to me that the answer has been staring me in the face.

Purpose.

Which school in the lower mainland supports TG kids the most?  Purpose!  How do I know?  Because I was at a graduation and heard it from the mouth of a TG kid (FTM) that he never would have made it without Purpose.  And because, without education, a TG kid can’t escape the employment ghetto and build himself a life of meaningful independence.  Because I know from my kids that they can be out and proud at school and their teachers, support staff and principal will raise hell if they are bullied or maltreated.  So I will support education, transgender rights and young people with one donation, and now I can feel like my Pride weekend has actually meant something.  I feel better!

We celebrated Jeff’s bday with takeout Schnitzel and the final episode of Season One from Breaking Bad.  What a hell of a show.

a few comments

From treehugger to treemugger in 15 years.  I was never allergic to cottonwoods until this year.  Now my eyes are a punched out advertisement for Gummy Residue, my brain feels too large for my skull and my nose feels all wrong.

Does any Michael’s, anywhere, ever have enough fucking checkout staff?  I never want to darken the door of that establishment ever again.

I saw agricultural workers wearing coolie hats today.

I finally saw a police speed trap that was set up in an appropriate place as far as public safety goes.  That’s like 1 for 10.

Thank God the Canucks won, this town would be a nightmare otherwise.  I still think they’re going to lose it in seven, but that’s because the officiating has sucked dog’s balls.

Ziva is a one eyed jack today.  Paul noticed. I’m going to try to fix it myself.

It’s summer!   The Headwater memorial awning is up.

I bought embroidery floss today for something to do when I’m watching TV.

I’ll be the only one who thinks it’s funny

Most of you reading this don’t have facebook, which is where I hang out much more than this blog these days.  Paul just put up that he’s In a Relationship with Janice Murray, and it’s complicated.  Oh yes.  My poor response to his relationship with Janice Murray is why our 24 year relationship went into the ground.  I’m not blaming Paul, he did what he had to at the time to maintain his autonomy, and that’s neither funny nor worth mocking.

No, what’s funny is that I immediately posted lol as a one word response, and that the minister immediately posted that she wanted to meet her.  THAT is going to make me chuckle every time I think of it for the next few weeks.  Somehow I can’t see Janice going for that, (I haven’t spoken civilly to Janice in four years or so…. and her marriage to Alan has also tracked its way into an oubliette …. point being I can’t know her mind, but I just can’t see her sitting still for meeting Paul’s minister no matter how I construe it) and she probably won’t have to as the minister is outtahere after the last weekend in June.  Then Rev Katie has to go through a year long period of non communication with her former parishioners, as per the unbelievably arcane and inhumane (but grounded in harsh experience) rules for ministry in the CUC/UUA.  There is even one more reason to find this post of Paul’s amusing, but since it involves conversations that are DNQ, I’ll have to keep my “It Gets Better” speech to myself.

Alash, it ish too bad.  Deer eats bird.

Why I think Jeff is a genius

Jeff’s tenancy with me has consisted in part of him going away and thinking for a spell when I say things like “Why can’t we have the internet on the big screen?” and “We have to many fucking remotes; when you go out of town I can’t even reliably turn the TV on; can you fix that?” mostly to prevent himself from saying something mean to me about how I’m too dumb to understand the two page instruction set he laboriously wrote, AND updated at least twice.  Jeff produces good documentation and I am dumb as a brick; these two facts are incontrovertable.  With respect to the “Why can’t we have the internet on the big screen?” question he had to do a ton of stuff and set up another computer to make it happen.  SO I get to go skipping through life asking why things don’t happen to my liking and he gets to spend hours of challenging labour AND money making it happen.  I don’t know which is worse, that I keep thinking I can get away with it, or that he just quietly goes away and does it without presenting me with an itemized bill.  On the other hand, I do cook around here.

His latest act of genius has been to bow to the inevitable.  I am indeed TOO STUPID to handle more than one remote, but universal remotes almost universally suck.  After lengthy study of the problem, he purchased a universal remote and then spent a goodly number of hours programming it to withstand the depredations not only of myself but of my son, who can be a complete ass when borrowing media.  Sorry son, it’s true.  Of course if you get hit by a car I’m going to regret this, just like I regretted my daily description of cleaning John’s apartment when he moved out immediately after he got killed in an accident, but I don’t go back and oubliette that shit because that’s just lame.  I would rather be complicated, messy and inconsistent, because, er, that’s how I am….  But the truth keeps on being the truth even when you could have picked a better moment for the reveal.

Jeff has not only programmed the remote so I can do whatever I want to do with the tv and the Xbox and the monitor, he’s SET THE AVERAGE AUDIO LEVELS.  So if you’re going back and forth between media you don’t get blown out of your seat if you land in the middle of a tv commercial.  That, friends, is true genius.  And he’s always finding new ways to tweak the remote.  Go tech!

Today is Mother’s Day.  I’m opening at church (and if I’m not, I’ll help….) and then assisting with a Mother’s Day tea.  I decided I couldn’t deal with making soup so I baked a whole salmon and made cinnamon buns.  Jeff doesn’t know I plan on making more, but I do; it’s mean to fill the house with the supercharged smell of home baking and then say oops, you can’t have any.  (Actually I let him eat a couple: “I have good news and bad news.  These are the best cinnamon buns I ever made, and the rest are going to church.”)

Yesterday I did laundry and played Buzz ALL DAY.  I do not play Buzz every day, but I had four separate guitar playing sessions yesterday and I LOVE HOW THAT GUITAR SOUNDS OMG OMNOMNOM.  Also yesterday watched chunks of Canucks game and laughed at Margot for watching Nascar again.  She really likes Darlington, and why not.  My shopping trip yesterday consisted of propane and guitar strings, because the g string ALWAYS breaks on a 12 string; I bought two whole sets and spares.  I talked to Neil Douglas about effects pedals and he laughed and asked me why I’d bother.  I s’pose.

I managed to cut the grass last weekend but I have no fucking clue when I’ll get to do it again because the sky continues to dump precip at an unholy and quite soggy-making rate.

After church, the Horde will descend and I am hoping to barbecue some MORE salmon.

Did I mention that I think my brother is a genius?

Last day….

It was sad to be in that building for the last day.  I moved into that building many years before I started this blog, and now a new and exciting chapter starts (and I’m much closer to Brian C, Tom U, and numbers of other former coworkers who are now at a company ‘across the hall’ so to speak).

We packed up the desks about noon and then went to Joey’s Coquitlam for lunch; then I drove Dustin back to the office, picked up some cleanser and a vase that had been left there, wandered back to my old desk to say goodbye, picked up the yogurt that I’d left in the fridge, and felt a surge of unhappiness.  Then I got home, struggled with the fucking lawnmower for quite a while, said fuck it and did the weed-whacking instead, and then went back, gave it a mighty heave and got the lawnmower running.  Then I finished the lawn.  Since the back lawn grass was wet as a baby’s diaper the exercise provided was kind of extreme; mowing the front yard left me exposed to the sun to the point I thought I’d pass out.

Sweating like a pig, I brushed myself down and then went and got my new stickers for the car (having thoughtfully changed my coverage to include the kids), fetched beer as per Jeff’s request, taste tested a new vodka cooler (cranberry lime) and upon making the discovery that unlike every other cooler I’ve ever had, it wasn’t disgustingly sweet, I purchased some.

Then I planted some seedlings and discovered an ant colony in our compost pile.

I was supposed to go to Tom and Peggy’s to practice, but after the exertions of the day I couldn’t move.  I eventually recovered to the point of cooking toasted ham’n’eggers and collapsed for good around nine without even looking at my computer.

Face blindness

I just took a face blindness test at Faceblind.org and got 71 out of 72 faces correct.  I always would have thought myself better at recognizing faces than average, but to avoid bias I put myself down as average.  I’m going to ask family members to take the test.

Saw Jessica yesterday at the store.  She gave me a big hug, which is always welcome.

Church was awesome.  I for one give very ‘Apollonian’ homilies and this one “What I learned from Photography” was NOT intellectual at all, very heart centered and beauty centered, and a nice change it was.

Talked to Tammy, and how good to hear her voice.

I can haz clean clothes. Also got rid of 2 bags of clothes and gave my guitar tie dye shirt to one of the youths at church.

The soup for the soup lunch went over very well.  I stayed for clean up as I didn’t notice anybody volunteering for that, and then I drove Carol home.  Made hazelnut biscotti and chicken in gravy.

 

 

Too bad

I WISH I could talk about work in detail.  There was a communiqué from Finance yesterday that managed to combine Kafka, Jacques Tati and General Nivelle in its spirit, tone and usefulness.  The originator will be receiving one of Allegra’s Famous Emailsâ„¢. Since that about covers it without being too specific or blaming individuals, I’ll let that one go out into the world unchallenged.

Last night Jeff and I had purple potatoes, steamed carrots and onions, and the leftover pork chops.  The purple taters were so om nom nom.  I will do them mashed sometime for fun.

After supper we watched Capitalism, A Love Story which had the usual annoying Michael Moore tics (I prefer people with some dignity so I always hate it when he lets people cry on camera, but that’s me being a frikkin WASP there darlin’) but was otherwise very well done, and if I disliked the crony politicians of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush eras I loathe them now.  The scale of the plunder that has occurred and the short sightedness of it all disgust me to my core.  However, a collapse at this point is inevitable, and Canada and many other places will get dragged into the maelstrom, so everybody learn to grow food.

After the movie, I dragged myself out to the Puddleâ„¢, where Paul, Keith and Katie were also swimming and soaking.  It was very nice to hang around with them.  I didn’t actually swim, I just gave my back some relief from the horrors of being attached to me for a while.  Then I came home and slept until 6:03 in the morning, which is like a frikkin’ miracle.

Also, I finished a song in Songwriter (Walk Away)… the one that goes I have tried to walk away, but my thoughts will not wear shoes, I would pity my poor mind, if I had a mind to lose (which I wrote last summer but seems very apt these days).

I don’t know if any of the foregoing constitutes staying busy or not.  When I see what other people accomplish I feel pretty slow.  Anyway, to horse!  I need to get into work and flatten some paper.

 

Pancakes are cooked….

Now that I have a lovely feeling of accomplishment (which should have a side of emptying the dishwasher, but all things in time), a little bloggin’.

Adorable stop motion animation.

No link YET but there’s a hunt on the internet right now for the Imperial March played on a banjo.  Lots of Star Wars THEMES on banjo, but no Imperial March.

HERE THEY COME2 The final version of this zombie tune is a long long way away and candidly the vocals are not my best, but it’s fun to play with, and this excerpt is mercifully brief.

Margot and Eddie are running up and down

I showed them the full moon out the back door and they’ve been skittish ever since.

Yes, I’m up.  I was up and done making Finn pancakes at 5 am this morning.

I have cream for my coffee so the correction hasn’t happened yet.  I’m about to do a leedle bit of recording.  I really want the zombie tune done.

so grateful…. and a bit sad

Spent the evening of Peggy’s most recent b-day hanging around the Puddle (I swam eight lengths but boy is my back stiff this morning) and consuming mint tea and biscotti.  Highly recommended.  Paul and Tom were there too.

Last night I dreamed that Justin Bieber was dead and I was hired to squeal like a teenaged girl at one of his retrospectives, there being no actual teenaged girls to do the job.  I was giggling and squealing like a trooper when an unidentified woman about my age came up to me and shot me in the head with a Nerf gun.  And, such are the manifold blessings of my life, I woke the hell up.  No disrespect, but I think The Bieb has peaked.

My coffee is ready.  Jeff has consumed half a honeydew melon for breakfast, but I cannot bring myself to follow his example.

I get to see the Bean soon! My time off at the end of the month is rapidly filling up.

Kenneth Mars has passed away.