Category: Domestic Life

Dayum! Missed the zombie walk

Did not get the email this year.  Got it last year. Why am I unloved?

Jerome came by for lunch in the middle of a day which was to be endured and not enjoyed.  He was the only bright spot.  I love him so… I could get extremely mushy about him, but when I like people I’m pretty happy animal about it and don’t bother hiding it.  Anyway, I got to introduce him to my coworkers by their blog names (bwa, likewise ha!).  Best part of lunch: getting outside the building to talk to him alone and then having one of our old workmates come up after his run and beg forgiveness for not attending the stag (which was a good mix of coworkers old and new, and family, not too big and not too, uh, well, dumb).  Second best:  Allegra archly announces “Jerome is getting married this week!” to which ScaryClown responds, “What the fuck do you want to be doing THAT for?” while Robof9 murmured, “Run away, run away!” in demented counterpoint. (They too are my coworkers….)  I’ll leave out Jerome’s immediate response, which is not for public consumption (at least if he wants to stay on course for getting married on Saturday) and cut to his next words, which were said with that large, eerie blue gaze of his, “She doesn’t appear to be crazy!” at which point I was justabout helpless with laughter, because all I could think of was how amused my dad would be at the shenanigans (and you would have been, it was like being in a really good sitcom for about 30 seconds).

AT SOME POINT, Katie is going to have to negotiate staying here while she’s in school.  She’s talked to me and she’s talked to Jeff, but we’ve never had the dreaded “all three of us” talk.   Sooner or later you have to have the dreaded talk, and the only comfort you can take is that somebody is lying, and maybe even you, but ground rules are necessary and will require reiteration. (Otay, that sounded bitter, but I was thinking of something other than the sweet gig I have here with Jeff – even if the landlord’s dog shat in the yard just as I was getting home last night).  Katie stayed overnight, and she has a cheque in her bag which would be sufficient to bring tears to my eyes if the leg cramp which woke me up at 4:15 hadn’t accomplished that task.  Rule number one is gonna have to be a little comment on the toilet lid.  It stays down.  Otherwise I can hear Eddie slurping in the night about three feet from my head, an uncanny noise which does not make for cheerful dreams, what with the toilet being just the other side of the wall.

Katie K’s Vegas postcard came here after she got back.  Made me smile.

I answered another Craigslist ad. For Jeff’s response, scroll up and check with ScaryClown.  More politely stated, of course; Jeff is never rude by accident.  I have YET ANOTHER email address now, but I hate my hotmail and telus and sfu accounts and I will be collapsing them all down by the end of the year.

Migraine signs.  Oh, it’s gonna be a peachy peach of a day.

Peaceful weekend

It was the kind of weekend when I did a little cooking and a little laundry and a lot of lazing around, so I consider it a success.  The crows are flying to their day jobs, the sky is strewn with grey, pink and purple, there’s a siren in the distance and it’s just like a regular Tuesday….. except there’s tapioca in the fridge.

So what happened in the world.  Looks like Canadians are headed to the polls, although the date has not yet been set.  McCain picked a running mate without vetting her seriously first, which strikes me as mildly insane but not really surprising.  The Tories want to revamp public health in the wake of the food borne pathogen outbreak.  I thought this meant they were going to hand out free Pepto-Bismol but apparently they are going to do something a little more substantive.  Well, good luck on that; it’s kind of hard to enforce standards when you have no inspectors.  Maybe they will get more inspectors. Funny family story; when my uncle Gary was a youngun he helped inspect food production facilities in Ontario for a summer and at the end of it the only thing he would eat was Laura Secord chocolates.  I really don’t think much has changed.  When I was a puppy I worked for a structural engineering firm that did the upgrades to the Maple Leaf plants in Toronto and the boys would come back from site inspections and regale the other employees with what actually goes on in a meatpacking plant, especially if the other employees decide they don’t like you.  Blech.  Plus ça change, baybee.

I guess it wasn’t a peaceful weekend for everybody.  Amy Goodman discusses her arrest.

Katie K

FINALLY – after literally months – I got together with Katie K in her ‘impressively staged’ condo.  Why, when I recollect what it looked like the last time I was there…. okay, maybe I’d better rephrase that.  There is virtually nothing in the condo.  I mean, a hotel suite has more furniture in it.  The repulsive colours on the walls are now amazingly similar to the Dusty Roads Paul and I painted the Augur Inn (note, that was really Unca Dave who painted it), and the hunter green carpet is now the same laminate flooring Paul and I put in the basement after the flood.  All in all, it looks lovely & you can actually see all the closet space, of which, given the size of the condo, it has a lot.  Yes, the condo is still for sale. Her new place closes in a month. Insert vicious comments about the horrors of getting a mortgage when you’re a woman on your own, bridge financing lamentations, etc., etc.

After we be trading smoking hot gossip and footrubs (when, pray tell, are footrubs NOT in order?) she got a thoughtful look on her face and showed off all the fancy lingerie she got in Vegas (okay, boys, you can all go to your happy place now) and she mentioned her weight loss, and then said, “Try these on” so I now have a really nice fitting pair of Gap jeans and the knowledge that Katie K is a size smaller than me.  At least in the ass department.  I’d need a really venal plastic surgeon to be able to approach the magnificence of her balcony. There followed a discussion about shipping ourselves off to a fat farm for a month next summer, this summer being jammed full of other things as well as almost over.  Maybe I should just get my jaw wired shut; it would get me off the phone at work, my brother wouldn’t have to listen to my yammering, and I’d quit eating as if I had a tapeworm.  Mm, tapeworm.  I could always try that too.

Jeff and I had considered going to the Harlan Ellison biomovie at Cinémathèque but when I got home from Katie’s we just looked at each other and went meh.  Then more NCIS.  Pretty soon Season 3 will be all gone, so we’ll have to go back to watching movies.  With respect to NCIS, I have noticed some really glaring continuity errors, and I’ve finally warmed up to Michael Weatherly.  The Ziva character, of course, is wonderful.

I woke up to “Young Dumb and Crazy” playing in my head, with full 60’s style accompaniment, kinda a cross between Nelson Riddle and Bert Kaempfert (aaaarrrrgggghhh!) and some beardless tenor wailing out the lyrics.  Let me tell you something.  You know how you can get a song stuck in your head?  Try having written the damned thing, c’est pas un cadeau.

Spoke to Paul yesterday about kid stuff.  I am so happy to be able to communicate with him reasonably well about the important issues without being all hissy towards him.   Human communication is such a fragile thing.

Today, laundry.  And other cleaning matters…..

Grr

After my exalted state yesterday, OF COURSE I don’t get to keep it.  Instead, here it is 6:30 in the morning and raining comme un batard (I think I’m missing a circonflex in there) and I’m feeling ill and sad, because I just accidentally read somebody else’s correspondence on my computer.  I was looking for all the midi files on my Mac so I can fire them over to Mr. Music and he can sort through what he likes…. but smacked into Katie’s IM with Dax at midnight because it was the first thing that came up on the search.  How’s that for a coincidence?  Now that I’ve admitted I’m a jerk, I think I’ll have some more coffee.  I have no witnesses to the fact I did not go looking for this intel; I hope you’ll take my word for it.

Yup – Katie is visiting.  I’m not entirely sure how long she will be here, but I think it’s safe to say she will need a lot of love and support over the next little while.  She’s scheduled to start school at VCC in September; she says she’s looking forward to it and I believe her.  The rest is me being silent, but if you can visualize me squirming in sympathy, that’ll cover it.

I can’t get the Angstones version of the Lonely Goatherd out of my head.  That infernal yodelling!  It’s bouncing off the inside of my skull like a veritable Pachinko of billiard balls.

The CEO of a 17 billion Euro company is coming through the office today.  No, I’m not making that up either.  My response was to go to his corporate website, print out his picture, and stick it up over my desk with a cheerfully deflatory comment; I know that the cubicle police will come through at dawn and take it down, so I’m perfectly safe.  They will never comment.  They know what I’m like.  Hey, he said on his bio on the corporate site that he had a sense of humor (also that he likes white water rafting).  It’s everybody else’s reaction that I’m going for….

Jeff has once again improved the house, this time by putting sound dampening on the toilet lid.  NO, not fur trim.  Blech.  He put it on the toilet tank so that the bathroom no longer rings like a gong when you put the lid up.  We leave it down because the cats like to drink from the john, which we judge to be lacking in aesthetics and hygiene both.

Last night we fed Keith, Katie and Paul something of a feast.  It was very good to see all of them, and we watched a couple of NCIS episodes, which have Ziva in them, trying to gel with her new team…  Mike was supposed to drop over, but it’s like waiting for the bridegroom.  I have to keep the lamp trimmed at all times.  Or maybe he didn’t want to drop into a family gathering; that would not surprise me.

Back to the midi files.  Having revealed the cause of my unhappiness, I feel somewhat better.

Marcus Aurelius

Chipper sent this link to me under the rather cryptic header “Big Head”.  Marcus Aurelius was a great writer and his contribution to the philosophy of Stoicism should not be forgotten. Here’s a link to the Meditations.

I’m off to see Music Man tonight.  I am starting to think about writing a musical and rather than having a discernable plot, it’s a thirties style attempt to jam about 100 songs with the most minimal amount of plot or discursive linking possible into 2 hours. Like, my parents hate the plot and fast forward to the musical numbers.  Eddie Izzard in an enormous red ball gown as the Master of Ceremonies?  A little girl asking for pirates and ninjas, and she gets the pirates but you never see the ninjas? Of such is the coloured marzipan from which I wish to confect a musical….  A giant squid sings a sad song about the depths of the sea, with its limbs operated by the cast members?  I even have a name for the opus.

OMG. Gizmo, when he’s cleaning his nether regions, makes a noise like the quacking of a really subdued duck.  He just gave about five demonstrations in a row. The quack he emitted on the sofa last night cracked me and Jeff up.

Soon, the mandolin lessons.

Lovely visit

ScaryClown showed us around his ‘hood, being Main St., and after a lovely (and on ScaryClown’s part, quite intensely liquid) brunch, we wandered over to Voltage and Solly’s Bagelry and the Organic Grocery store. I picked up a black and red squid Tshirt from Voltage (LMB probably knows the one I mean). I must say, I’ve never watched somebody pack away three lime margaritas before noon….I didn’t even know you could ORDER lime margaritas before noon. Much as I love alcohol, my day would end the instant I got home and kicked my shoes off. There’s only one beer left, but I’ll fix that tomorrow – I should probably lay off today. Anyway, we picked up sesame bagels and smoked salmon cream cheese and these little intensely chocolate swirly things, and Keith and ScaryClown got cinnamon buns. At the organic grocery I picked up a San Pellegrino for Keith – he loves it – and organic coffee, because I’m out, and organic walnuts, because I saw them and decided to go nuts. Yeah, very funny.

ScaryClown wanted to know why he hadn’t been told about Brian’s going away and I said, “But you’re always over at Uncle Jimmy’s, drinking, on Friday nights. You’ve been doing that every Friday since I met you, almost.” And he burst out laughing, because he thought he hadn’t been invited because he and LTGW are semi-feuding (which, by the way, I am not commenting on because I have a garage-sized crush on LTGW and consider ScaryClown to be my sibling, so there’s no way I can win no matter what I say on the subject, although I will say that they are both very smart and very sensitive).

Ah! Paul just phoned. He’s going to bring food over and we’ll have dinner together with Jeff and Keith AND he’s going to stop and get beer. So I’ve got about three hours to do the Tasmanian Devil cleanup (my room is a DUMP) and maybe blast through the bathroom like a pink tornado.

Jeff and I were thinking about opening Crazy Bob’s Discount Funeral Home. Some conditions apply, bagpipes not included. Hm. I guess it was funnier at the time.

Life is pretty good. Yes, my back still hurts, but I’ve learned that complaining about it never helps.

PARTAY

We saw Brian C off to his new job in fine style – and I used the opportunity to record Buy me a Beer in front of a live audience.  Yes, I got permission from Party Boy and the management of the Golf Course first, so I may be a self-involved putz, but I’m not entirely without a clue. Also, I distributed neck rubs all round, except for the people who said NO, and it’s amazing how many of them I just said, “I know YOU’RE passing” to, and they just looked at me… then the next person would openly mock them and thank their good fortune.  This happened more than once, so the cumulative effect was quite funny.  One of the people I worked on had been shit on by a crow, but I worked on her ANYWAY because the crow was considerate enough to let fly along her spine well below her shoulders.  Also recorded Housewife’s Lament.  There were forty people there at the height of the festivities, largest turnout I’ve seen in 11 years of employment…. Maybe 45.  There was a LOT of people there.  I was going to do a guest list.  LTGW gave me, Jeff, Keith and Patricia rides home, or roughly home- the 25 bus was waiting for us at Brentwood, as if it was meant to be.

Another NCIS blowout day.  I made waffles for breakfast, unbelievably good meatloaf for dinner, wiped off the back deck table, wiped off the kitchen counters, folded some laundry (which Jeff did, and thanks cats! for urinating on Keith’s bedclothes!) and otherwise did squat.  I’m having a lazy day.

Tomorrow Scary Clown and Keith and Jeff and I are going to eat brunch down on Main St.  Then in the afternoon I hope to see daughter Katie, who really is a very nice woman to talk to on the phone.  And I talked to Peggy, and I talked to my mother, and Mike called to tell me that Bounce’s clone, in the form of a 5 month old male kitten, has cruised into his life.  He’s been adopted.  That makes him happy.  Happier making still is that it’s Jerome’s stag tonight.  Mike vaguely quoted the email saying something about how Jerome didn’t want anything too stupid or strange, but uh, anytime I’VE ever gone drinking with those guys, magically delicious, improbably fun things happen, so seeing as how they will be drinking AND the Dalai Jarmo will be there, I suspect a good time will be had by all.

Jeff bought an elcheapo camera to record the antics of the cats in the living room, as time without number one of the cats has done something unutterably cute and we’re blocks from a camera.  It lives in the living room now.

I watched my newly posted video a couple of times, and about halfway through the video (deleted as being pretentious bushwah, with a side of smug).

The air conditioner is running.  A Kenyan took gold in the marathon.  The world is okay.

Teaching the children to swear

Jeff says he likes it when I rant.  Not in person, of course, that’s yucky, but the written rants are okay.

Today I’d like to rant about teaching children to swear.

Now, in traditional child rearing, parents don’t swear and so…. children don’t swear.  If they do swear, they get paddled, or grounded, or whatever the traditional punishment method is.  Paul and I were not so much with the traditional child rearing, except those parts that are kinda apple pie, like getting them immunized and taking them to school and feeding, clothing and housing them adequately. But we did a lot of non traditional stuff, like nursing until they could talk and cosleeping.  And, not to put too fine a point on it, we both swear.  Paul is less pungent than I on most occasions, but he can certainly let out a beaut from time to time, and so, we had a dilemma.

The child rearing books frown most creasingly at hypocrisy on the part of parents.  We were essentially left with two options; scold the children for imitating us, or – and this was not an easy decision – TRAINING them how to swear.  On the face of it, this is nuts, but this is how it works.

About the time the kids start swearing – usually around four but you could probably profitably do it until the kid is about eight – you sit them down with all of the words, and you go through them all.  FIRST.  Do not assume that children know what the words mean.  Make sure they know.  This took almost an hour, because the kids got right into the swing of things, and also there were many side trips… kike, paki, chink and nigger took a long while to explain especially to kids who were in racially balanced daycare from the time they were tiny, and went to equally racially balanced schools.  SECOND.  Having defined the words, EXPLAIN WHY THEY HURT.  The blasphemy words hurt people who are religious, the bodily function words hurt people who are squeamish, the slurs hurt real people ‘Fag” being an example, even if partly recovered by Dan Savage – anyway, you get the idea.  You don’t tell kids that the words are bad, you tell them that they have varying effects on different people, and that some people would rather be slapped than listen to foul language.  THIRD.  You tell them – and this is really important – that there is not a single word on that list that they can’t say, in or out of context, at home.  You also give them a list of adults they may swear in front of.  In other words, you kinda sorta keep a secret – that there are people who know, and people who don’t know.  There are people on the inside, and people on the outside. There isn’t a four year old on the planet who isn’t familiar with this level of mild social hypocrisy but you’re also providing a safety valve in case the kids need to talk about something important with a family intimate – who isn’t you – thank you Jan and Soon and Catherine.  FOURTH  You give them the Canonical List of people NOT TO SWEAR IN FRONT OF.

  1. Grandparents, font of all prezzies.  Why?  Because when little kids swear, it’s not their fault, it’s the parents’ fault, and you don’t want the grands to think we’re bad parents, right?  I know you aren’t going to believe this, but this is precisely the kind of reasoning you can use on a child that age.  Then you casually mention the prezzies again.  Kids aren’t stupid.  Also, we mentioned older folks, as having a higher standard of behaviour than the rest of us.
  2. Babysitters and babysitters’ children.  Why?  Because babysitters can hire and fire us, and if we make life difficult for them or are ‘bad influences’ on their kids, out the door we will go.  Kids got that one in a real hurry.
  3. Schoolteachers and schoolmates.  Why?  It’s not worth the hassle.
  4. Anything in a uniform.  It can be a busdriver or an escalator repair mechanic, but if you get out of the habit of swearing in front of uniformed individuals, you will be in good shape later.

At the end of our dialogue – imagine keeping the attention of a four year old girl and a six year old boy for two hours, which we did, and many times Paul and I were blown away by the observational skills and emotional savvy both kids demonstrated that day  – the kids had a working knowledge of swearing and they didn’t break training until Katie was 11. After that I didn’t really care – nobody was expecting me & Paul to have ‘control’ over their behaviour at that point anyway.

YMMV. Blessed be!

Beach, Beach, Beach

I got a little crispified around the edges – enough to make me powerfully sleepy – but otherwise it was a great beach day.  I slept until 11 yesterday, and was relieved to find Jeff hadn’t made himself breakfast yet, so it was waffles and bacon, and then we watched a little Nascar and NCIS, and then Mike came and got me, and then we beached for about four hours.  The stairs going back up this time were much easier and much faster.  I only stopped three times and then just to catch my breath, standing, not to have full bore collapses like the last time where I had to sit down and pant for about ten minutes each time.  Despite the heat, and Cheez Whiz, was it hot yesterday, it was a lot easier to manage. I have to climb three flights of stairs every morning when I go to work – usually faster than I want to if I’m going to catch the train – and I think that’s made stairs somewhat easier overall.  I think my assessment of the horrors of climbing the stairs last time was correct – I tried climbing the stairs during a hot flash and thought I was dying as a result.  When you’re already overheated it’s hard to tell the difference!

Jeff came and got me at around 5 and we drove cross town to Tom and Peggy’s where we had Walnut Smoked Salmon.  It was DAMN GOOD but still, IMO, not as good as cherrywood charcoal salmon. Paul definitely found a keeper with that recipe…. The rest of dinner, as always, was entirely yummy; the peaches and cream corn was amazing and perfectly cooked, and the new potatoes were the classic salute to summer.

I should have gone straight to bed but it was just one more NCIS (actually we were finishing one) and then another one; Jeff indulges me shamelessly as I am sure there are other things he’d rather be watching.

Must retrieve laundry and get going on the day.

I didn’t see Keith this weekend.  I missed him.

Wedding and videography successful

At least I have my priorities straight.  The wedding was absolutely gorgeous, and took place in Stef and David’s back yard.  I sat with the dykes and a way fun teen named Jacob (we had each other in fits within minutes); the twenty-something hipsters had made me want to cry when they asked me if I salsa, so I got up and went where I immediately felt much more comfortable.  Long about 9:30 I sang “The Housewife’s Lament” and David said afterwards, “Normally when amateurs start singing I cringe, but that was great.”  I smirked and said, “I get that a lot.”  I will never be famous, childer, but I will always have a reputation.

The videography was fun, and I tried to sleaze one more video out of Tamara, whose patience with me should be legendary at this point.  However, the notion of recording “The Weekend’s Over” where I recorded it proved too much for me…. I only wished I’d done it inside, but I doubt the security guard would have been happy about that.  That’s one that will never make it onto Youtube, snicker.  That’s going to go onto a memory stick and stay there.

The NCIS blowout continues apace.  Mark Harmon moves so gracefully – I mean, he’s the yummiest middle aged man on television, although Olmos comes close – and I’m finally not hating Michael Weatherly.  Any guy who was disowned by his rich father for going into acting can’t be all bad.  Sasha Alexander’s laugh could be used as a marital aid.  All right, all right, I’m a fan, but I won’t be insane on the subject until I do filk or write slash, m’kay?

I await a call from Mike, and then, the beach.  But only until 5 pm because at that point Jeff’s going to come get me and take me to Tom and Peggy’s for supper!  Must remember to take mandolin.

Crap, crap, crap.  I have to do laundry today!  Unhappy sigh.
And the stairs at Wreck, twice.  Getting to the beach is always easier than leaving.

Because I am evil / Sunday roundup

I am posting this link of “More Snappy Answers for Christian Questions”.

Talked to Dave D (the poet, not the photographer) and he said he didn’t notice anything exploding in Toronto.  He is just barely on the outside of the evacuation area too, fortunately.

Damn whiny pilots.

More churchiness.

Huffpo review of Pineapple Express which I intend to see…

Keith’s taking Jeff to the Keg for his brithday bash. I am coming along to ensure they don’t get into any trouble.

Jeff coaxed me into watching A Mighty Heart.  It’s a fracking excellent movie, but a total goddamned downer and believe me you won’t have any fondness for the Pakistani government when you’re done watching it.  The editing is so good that it kicks the ass of most contemporary films.   Angelina Jolie was awesome – the gel can act, folks – and I particularly liked Archie Panjabi who was also in Bend it Like Beckham.

How will the US buy itself back after this?

Journalism continues to be a dangerous form of employment in some parts of the world.

An interview with the author of the brilliant “Fungus the Bogeyman” and “When the Wind Blows”

I’ve met the downstairs neighbours.  They are lovely. Jacqueline and Jason….  Large amounts of relief all ’round.

Visit

Keith and Paul and Mike were over. We watched Coffee and Cigarettes. Somehow I’ve got to get off my duff and get this place looking like there weren’t drunken frat boys partying here last night. Supper was barbecued chicken breasts (with Paul taking the helm there), swiss chard of such exceptional wondrous tastiness that it bankrumpts my powers of description, garlic bread (of course), salad and European style cheesecake from the Austin Deli.

Paul has the daintiest snore of anybody I ever met. Coffee and Cigarettes, after he’s hauled a brace of midnights, was not enough to hold his attention, and he flaked out on the love seat. I like the Iggy Pop/Tom Waits and Steven Wright/Robert Benigni segments the best, although the ‘twins’ one is also pretty funny. Especially since those two men are actually cousins.

Sigh. Back to housework.

kids over

It was lovely to see the kids; we lazed around and ate takeout and watched CSI reruns and Scent of Green Papaya (Keith was bored).  It doesn’t sound too exciting but frankly I was still recovering from my day in the sun.  Jeff should be back either today or Friday. I miss him ferociously, and the cats do too; Eddie did the CUTEST thing I have ever seen a cat do.  When Jeff phoned day before yesterday, on a lark I held the phone up to him so he could hear daddy’s voice and his ears immediately perked up, he looked straight at the speaker on the phone, and then he started rubbing up against the receiver, all in less time than it takes to describe it.

For reasons best known to god and my volunteering spirit I will be orgalizing an X-1 company reunion. In otherwords, the company I joined when I moved to Vancouver, which morphed into the company I am now working for.  I am now racking my brains for a venue… there could be upwards of 100 people, if we crack open the invite list to spouses.  I’ve got to figure on a date, too.  I know we could do it in a restaurant but I would prefer a quieter venue.

Pride

I’m off to Pride for 11:30. Mike came over last night; we swapped bodywork and drank beer and my shoulders FINALLY feel good enough to hold a banner for however many hours we have to for the parade.  The rest of my back is also so much better, but I am very much hoping I don’t have to carry for the whole three hours.  Somewhere around here is the “Queen’s Fluffiest Pillow” t-shirt Keith designed and had made for me.  It’s amazing how good life can be when your kids grow up and get money and start buying you little gifties.  I am still stunned that he did that for me.

The new downstairs tenants didn’t stop running the dryer until midnight last night. The buzzer went off under my head just as I was dropping off to sleep.  I will have to go have a firm and pleasant chat.

Not much to report

Apparently I’m supposed to meet the new downstairs tenant or tenants today.  One of the cats, presumably Gizmo, threw up all over the back deck.  One can appreciate just how boring things are from the notion that this would be newsworthy.

A friend of mine is getting married and has asked me to come up with the wording on the gift that will be given to each guest.  After the wedding I will reveal why this is extremely funny.  In the meantime I’m cudgelling my brains for something which will have the right ‘flavour’.