Just got an email asking me to apply for a job.

Damnedest thing – I applied for one job and this software company warmly encouraged me to apply for another.  I also could have had an ongoing permanent part time job, but I levelled with the temp agency gal and said, er, um.  No, because I’ll just quit.

Today I:

Made quinoa tabbouleh.  I was expecting to like it.  I didn’t expect to eat all of it.  I did.  I sat down and ate the whole salad in three installments.

Ingredients

  • One cup quinoa (prepare with salted water or chicken bouillon)
  • One bunch parsley chopped fine
  • Two shallots chopped fine
  • Lemon juice or white vinegar (two tablespoons)
  • Garlic to taste

Add the parsley to the cooked quinoa, toss with rest of ingredients and devour warm or cold.

Cheap and nourishing – quinoa is a complete protein and 12-16 % protein by volume.  Even better, it is covered with saponin so birds don’t eat it.  Better still, I just ordered some – I am going to grow it as part of my “The shit is going to hit the fan re food production within the next couple of years” plan.  So the recipe will still work after the collapse of civilization, if I learn how to make vinegar too.

Did some ironing and clothing repair which restored one of my best dresses to usefulness, always a good thing during a job hunt.  Ironing takes too bloody long, it really does.

Followed up on the job hunt with a number of phone calls and emails.

Put away all of my clothes

Cleaned the bathroom

Fed Gizmo a special treat of tuna, with broth. (He’s lost 1/3rd of his body weight since the kitten arrived, so we’re probably going to have to rearrange his eating area so he’s not harassed as he eats.)  We’ll be doing everything we can to fatten him up.

Updated the master shopping list because I don’t buy Marmite any more, among other reasons.

Ordered seeds for the spring, including Marquis, a kind of wheat that has been grown in Canada for 100 years, and is probably among the cultivars my ancestors grew.

Cleaned the washer and the dryer.

Played with Margot for half an hour. At one point Eddie joined her, which was very amusing; they were chasing a bell on a string which I dragged under a rug and which Eddie found irresistable.

Still feeling cheerful despite everything

My thinky thoughts include sadness at the dissolution of my granny, who, candidly, ain’t getting better, and why should she, being 98, and what I’m going to plant when I have a garden next year, and how I need to get going on my projects because I won’t have much time soon because I suspect I’ll be working full time, and how well the bagels went over yesterday (I took homemade bagels, plus butter and cream cheese, in to my assignment), and how I’m a bad puppy for leaving the passenger side door unlocked the last time I borrowed Jeff’s vehicle, and how not taking glucosamine for three days makes my back hurt scandalously, and how Jeff is working on getting a somewhat more modern furnace filter installed (you should see the old one – it is disgusting), and how I wouldn’t mind learning how to do different things to my hair as opposed what I do now which is wash, comb, leave it be, and how hilarious it was that Robert Wagner and Michael Weatherly got to play opposite each other on NCIS when Michael Weatherly looks so much like Robert Wagner he played him in The Mystery of Natalie Wood. By all accounts a ludicrously bad miniseries.  This all represents a tiny fraction of what I am currently processing.

Bedside reading – Worship that Works, The Artist’s Way at Work, and a Latin English dictionary.  I should probably find something fictional. It’s just, as I get older, I realize that the odds of me reading any fiction that will be as good as Dunnett or O’Brian is freaking small, so I’m a lot happier with non-fiction.

And now for something incredibly cheerful, and sexist (all the way ’round).  The person who forwarded it to me (the Luddite) called it “East Germany’s answer to West Side Story” but I suspect it’s actually West German.  I don’t know how they got all the women to dance like penguins, and all the men to scowl in such an ineffectual way, but full points for goofiness, folks!

Plotting and planning

Coffee’s up, I’ll go grab it in a minute…. here’s my New Year wishes….

Revellers, depart with care
From chill 2009
2010’s embrace may be
Nowhere near as fine
Approach with caution, friends close by
and plans all carefully laid.
Some depart this year with glee
And some with great cost paid.
Unemployment, lack and dearth
Attend some of us nightly
Easy, then, to love the earth
and live upon it lightly.
And to your fellow creatures be
as kindly as you may
And blessed be in all you seek
Next year in work and play.

Jeff gets a half day off, which is pleasant.  We’ll probably find something appropriate to watch.

I made turkey soup with barley, and butter turkey (store bought sauce) yesterday.  It was yummy.  So, no boring roast turkey in the fridge, yes; it has all been transformed back in the food…  I can hear Catherine chiding me with amusement, as I put bread stuffing in the bird and that does not improve the stock.  Next year for sure I will do the stuffing on the side.  There’s less waste and better stock, so I will do as she advises.

I will make my New Year Resolutions again; I feel like Pinky and the Brain.  “Same thing we do every night…”

Oh, well

I would have been a lot happier if Katie had deigned to show up for Christmas dinner, but I am reminded of the comment regarding 50 dollars and Kid Shelleen, so I’ll just leave it at that.  He that hath ears, let him hear.  At some point I should deliver her housemates’ presents.

We’re having a bit of an Aaron Sorkin fest and working our way through Sports Night.  We also re-watched Bon Cop Bad Cop, this time with Keith, who loved it (and why not, it’s a simply adorable action flick that dances with enthusiasm with every single buddy cop movie trope). After they were playing Borderlands in co-op mode. The soundtrack for that game ROCKS, I want to download it.

My new beau is hanging with his kids so I am free to go to the housefilk @ Cindy’s this afternoon and stay late.  So, church in the morning and filk in the afternoon.  It should be a musical day. Now to sweet talk Jeff into letting me borrow the car.

There is garlic/basil/scallion bread in the breadmaker right now; it will be ready in a couple of hours.

Paul’s visiting Lois and Bob.

Jeff wandered around the house yesterday continuing to seal leaky windows and doors.  It’s been quite cold, even for December; every morning there is a skin of frost on everything.  I heard foghorns on the river at 3 this morning; that and my back woke me up.

Happy Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year to you!

Brunch with Granny was delightful, and we even managed to suck up the fact that the heat wasn’t working in the restaurant, keeping our coats on while we ate eggs bennie and other breakfast comestibles and chocolate apricot ganache for dessert. All of her descendents, less Jeff, were present; he will go after Christmas. Much thanks to Garry and Loki for subsidizing the event.

I also got to meet the new granddog, Charlie; my cousin Greg has acquired a pug.  There was a picture of Charlie in a Christmas outfit, which given that Charlie is less than six months old is pretty funny.

The smell of sausage stuffing cooking is filling the whole house, borne on the aromatics of browning onions….

I took one biscotti loaf to Victoria to cook once we arrived; again, a Christmas message carried via the brain by the nose, as the gorgeous smell of baking fills the house.

Watched the intro to a new game, Borderlands, last night, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Margot’s introduction to the grandprimates was a success.  However she only ate two teaspoons of food and drank maybe four tablespoons of water while she was there, so she was pretty upset.  She also figured out who the boss primate in that household was PDQ and thus serenaded pappa for about half an hour at dawn yesterday from the other side of the bedroom door.  She was lucky she didn’t get punted down the stairs.  She was certainly more vocal than I’ve seen her in quite a while.  She was an angel on the trip home and when I put her in the driveway trotted straight to the stairs to be let in.  The boys ignored her absence and pretty much ignored her arrival.  She went straight to her water dish and tanked up.

I have to get back to encouraging ingredients into the shape of a meal.  Everybody play safe and don’t slip on those frost covered steps.

Food

Last night I fed Tom, Peggy, Ben, Paul, Keith and Jeff pork roast done with garlic, bacon and bay leaves (it made the house smell REALLY GOOD) and many, many vegetables, including beans and cauliflower and broccoli and beets and potatoes.  Katie and her housemates were invited, but Katie was already on tap to do shrimp and spinach canneloni that night so she turned me down with thanks.  It would have been an ‘add two leaves to the dining room table and where the hell are the chairs going to come from’ evening if they HAD come, so I don’t complain and I added some chairs to my want list.

Margot quacked like a duck for the folks.  She has a doctor’s appointment on Monday; she needs to be checked out for heart problems, which are quite common in Persians and don’t necessarily show up during the work up prior to neutering; her quacking and breathing issues may be normal Persian noisiness or it may be something more sinister.  She’s so placid, except when I’m brushing her, that she doesn’t appear to have any problems otherwise.  I keep telling myself that she’s like a kid… I get to look after her for a while, and then she’ll leave my life; I’m attached to her but I hope not too intransigent on the subject.  And it’s my own damn fault that I brought her into a household where it would be impossible to keep her as an indoor cat.  She gets FILTHY sometimes, having all that fun out in the rain and dirt.  If it’s really pouring she won’t go out, but light precip doesn’t seem to register.

Back to the Friday Feast.  I said to Ben, “There are two pinball machines downstairs.”  He said, “I’ve never played pinball in my life.”

shock,  horror!

We fixed that. Obviously he must play pinball before he goes to Hudson’s Hope.  (He got a job with Hydro).

After Tom Peggy and Ben went home, I decided I needed both air and exercise, and Paul and I wandered around the neighbourhood looking at the Christmas lights (Keith and Jeff were busy killing zombies in the trial version of Zombie Apocalypse). There are some spectacular displays, especially close to the school.  Then we came back after about half an hour and I picked up the guitar and composed another (what, another frakking tune, what the ???) song, which I think is going to be called “God Willing” and be about the immigration of my ancestors to Canada. No lyrics yet.  I know; for an atheist, I’m such a sucky accommodationist.  But you would be too if you had so many religious relatives, who also happened to be pleasant, intelligent and hard-working.

That’s the single biggest issue I have with the media atheists (I FLATLY REFUSE to use New Atheists.  That’s like calling people who are Christian NEW CHRISTIANS. Atheists are atheists, there’s nothing novel about them, and you can see their lineage throughout history from Epicurus forward.)  They are on the “All theists are stupid” train, whereas I am on the “All human beings have cognitive biases, and atheists may have at least one fewer than theists” train.  Also, many media atheists have the distinct advantage of not giving two shits what their religious relatives think of them, an advantage I don’t have.  It’s why I don’t give vent to some of my more shocking opinions (yes, hard to believe, isn’t it?  But much goes on behind my face that doesn’t come out in my blog).  I was a lot more venty when I started this blog, as I recollect.   I don’t usually go back into the old format portion of the blog unless I’m trying to figure out what happened in say, July of 2005.

Keith called up the optician’s office he was still working at on Saturday (he didn’t give that other job completely up, the wise soul) and hopefully he’ll be getting more hours later this month.  It’s hard to be a young person these days.

Today, AVATAR.  I am very stoked.  Now to check the hellacious mess that is the Translink site and plan my trip itinerary.

I so enjoy feeding people.  It makes me feel good, and that was a damned fine roast.  I miss the rosemary bush from the front of my old house.  A sprig of rosemary in the roasting pan would have made it even more wondrous.

Not one word else

Yes, I am dating somebody.  I can hardly deny it when he met everybody in my family yesterday.  That is enough on that subject.

I missed the winter spectacular as a result (Sue gave me tickets), but life presents us with many situations where bi-location would be useful, and I decided to stay home.

The rest of yesterday was a few chores and being amazed by the fury of the rain.

And now, a picture of a bat eating a banana, and a list of the best restaurants in Vancouver, and Nathan Fillion kissing his new co-star.

That’s a weird coinkidink, holidays, Margot fur

Daughter Katie (Kathryn) is living with Kat (Kathleen) and Kashka (Polish diminutive of Katherine).  Weird, hunh?

We are going to have a LOT of coming and going this holiday season.  Keith goes to Victoria from the 19th to the 23rd.  He comes back the same day as when me, Paul and Katie go to Victoria for Granny’s b’day party.  We stay overnight and then come back Christmas Eve so I can start cooking for the big Xmas dinner.  Then Jeff goes later that week.  And Alex and Darwin will be going at the same time… tis nuts, but that’s Xmas for ya.

Margot is coming with us.  I suspect that despite my pOp’s inability to understand why I took this completely useless animal on as a pet, that he will like her anyway. Many thanks to Paul for allowing me to use his car to transport her.  She’s not a big fan of car trips,

I punted her with a piece of furniture yesterday.  (Accidentally, I didn’t see her).  She just slid across the floor and neither mewed nor changed position.  She has no conception of the possibility that someone would harm her. She can spend 10 minutes being brushed, grousing the whole time, scratching at my hands and kicking like a baby with her back feet.  Any other cat would vanish afterwards, and she merely flops down on the floor in front of the bathroom door and glares at me.  She can try to bite me but she doesn’t have enough strength in her jaw to even break my skin.  This makes her behaviour with Eddie and Gizmo even more hilarious; she’s defenceless, except for the cute; why Eddie hasn’t given her a good thumping I have no conception.

I have picked her up three times in a row to keep brushing her, and she doesn’t run away.  I can’t say she knows she can’t keep up with her own fur, but she sure acts like it.

Should I start keeping her fur as an art project?  She makes a loonie sized tuft of fur twice a day.

Note to self… call Jeff before starting supper

Jeff worked at the shop today, which is unusual. I expected  him home half an hour ago.  I figured he’d had a bad day and needed filet mignon, mixed veg and potato for dinner, with scratch made chocolate chip cookies.  As a joke I made a cookie as big as his head.

Sigh, he is at a work function which he got drafted into about the time I should have called him.  So I cooked it all and supper will be waiting for him, but I’m heading out skating now.  It’s been ages and I desperately need the exercise.   He was chagrined when I phoned him, but all that stuff reheats.

The cats circled my plate like vultures.

Trading emails

My bro emails me as follows.

This is what Margot looks like to me all the time:

ಠ_ಠ

Concerned cat is concerned.

I email him back.

^    ^
O~O

is more accurate.

He emails me back….

Sez you.

_________________

The mailman was very happy I put down de-icer yesterday.  I try to do as I would be done by, with variable results.  This time it worked.

I can’t find my cell phone charger.  I have no idea what I did with the darned thing, which is rather anxiety making.  At the same time, I know it’s in the house, so I am not too worried.

My cousin Katherine had a b-day yesterday; facebutt lets you know when people on your friendslist are approaching their natal day, so I and many other people wished her a happy birthday.  Her userpic in facebook is a piece of anime art she did herself.  Talented lassie!

My mother also had a birthday recently.  She and pOp celebrated, in part, with a drive in the country, a family tradition to which I, alas, cannot subscribe, as I don’t have a car and I don’t have any friends or relatives in town willing to indulge me in my fondness for aimless carbon release.

Eddie crawled into my lap … twice … yesterday.  Gizmo, not to be outdown, followed me into the bathroom at one point and insisted on being brushed.  It amazes me; both of the cats have changed so much since Margot came along, and apart from the truly remarkable noises Eddie makes when Margot goggles at him unexpectedly, I’d say their behaviour has become more affectionate.  Now, if we could stop them from throwing up.  But in the words of Dr. Jane, the singing paleontologist (now Dr. James):

Cats they shed, and cats they throw up

Cats they defecate and spray (and they spray)

And I’m gonna be a multi millionaire

The day that I can make these products pay.

Hey, if you’re going to sing about cats, one should strive for accuracy with those, dare I say it, caterwauls.

News of note

Something in my house that I don’t own (Don’t you weep) is now finished.  I am back writing songs down again after taking a break.

Margot is cleaner.  I bathed her (again!) this morning.  I also applied conditioner, because she’s so staticky she’s attracting dirt like a CRT.  She is an indoor-outdoor cat, and they say you should never let Persians be indoor-outdoor cats because

  • They are purebreds and people will steal them (she’s chipped)
  • They get filthy laying about in the debris outside
  • They are none too smart and rather too docile

Unfortunately, the place has a cat door, so what can ya do?  Besides, she looks so cute chasing bugs in the backyard and galloping up the back deck stairs.

Speaking of stairs, I have installed the anti-skid tape on the basement stairs, and this should prevent all three cats and any relevant hoomins from skidding down those stairs asswise.  (All three cats have wiped out on the stairs).

I am glad I haven’t had the R John Caspell memorial signage made up yet because it must now include the words “And Cat Vomitarium” under “Memorial Pinball Parlour” because, like, you know, the cats enjoy throwing up on that blue carpet.