Busy day

I HOPE I didn’t catch what Tammy had.  She was not exactly deathly ill while she was here, nor was she knocked much out of her usual cheerful demeanour, but man, she was sick, and I am really glad I could put her up where she’d get some TLC. I got the car around 9 and drove her to the airport.  We had an extremely long and involved conversation on the way out there – and Tom L. tried to run me off the road in HIS Prius, which was amusing after I stopped cursing at this bozo who couldn’t stay in his lane.
I dealt with the flat (total props to Joe at the Shell at Main and King Eddy) and then thought f*ck it, I’ll call ScaryClown and ask him what he’s up to, seeing as how he lives about ten blocks from where the tire got fixed.  He was sitting with Tyson and Luke, two buddies of his, in the Starbucks at Main and 14th, and then we had a late brekky at the breakfast joint on the south side of the intersection.  His buddies (whom I have heard MUCH about, mostly positive and somewhat in relation to alcohol consumption, life threatening illnesses and mischief making) were funny and sweet and entertaining and it was a remarkably successful lunch given I’d never met them before. ScaryClown had of course said much about ME, which gave me pause, but it must have been mostly positive because they seemed disposed to like me.

Got a call from Kopper saying that I need to do something political soon, and I agreed, smiling at the notion that given what an absurd bunch of clowns we have on council in Burnaby anyway, why not have a comedian run for office?  So I will be supporting same.  Updates as events warrant.

Then I paid the March rent for the new place, crossed the alley and tried my front door key for the first time, and in a burst of energy, unpacked the kitchen so that when Jeff gets there in about three hours there will be one room of the house (besides the bathroom) that isn’t a complete disaster.   Then I called him and gave him an update.

Sigh.  Unpacking is way more fun than packing. I have now reassessed how much room will be in the new place and I will be storing every stick of furniture I have except my bed and dresser.  I literally won’t have room for anything else.  Oh, and I must have been taking colour blindness pills when I looked at the kitchen.  The kitchen is red white and green. Yup, I have a red (REDDDDD!!!! RED RED RED counters) and white (trim and cupboards) and SLIME GREEN (remember slime green???) kitchen.  The slime green is going to get buried under eggshell white as soon as I have the paint, the energy and the buy in from brother dearest.

Tammy was all upset on my behalf that Jeff is getting the lion’s share of room for stuff, but I think we’ll both be reassessing things after we’re in, and his furniture’s way nicer than mine anyway.

I am SO excited.  My life is about to drastically improve, and I’m already thinking of ways I can improve the shining hour during my commute.

Happy

Despite everything I’m happy.  Things are clicking along very well in my personal life.  It’s Facebook style complicated but loads of fun.  The Luddite has sent me a number of Muppet Show links, including Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger.  With Turkish subtitles.  All Hail the Inertnests!

Also the last line of his last email he made me laugh so hard I had a five minute coughing spasm afterwards. I am however getting better and I figured out which cough medicine to buy so I’m getting less coughing and fewer side effects from the cough medicine, all a good thing.  Also in the email was a querulous “Why would your daughter want to meet me? If she wants to inspect me she can come on down to the shop and I won’t even know who she is.”  Men, o my god.  The answer to that question is “Because I never shut up about you, how’s that?”
My apartment is somewhat cleaner, but with all the boxes, quite cluttered.  I am trying, in the midst of the chaos, to keep all my tax receipts in one place…..

Two more days and Jeff is here!!!! For good.  Katie says, “It’ll be weird having him here,” and I said, “Like you swapped uncles.”  For Dr. Filk is in Victoria, and Jeff is here.  “I’m used to him being far away.”  For me it will be weird getting through the “Meet my crazy friends stage.”  I know he’ll like Kung Fu Mike and vice versa – the rest of them who the hell knows.  It’s not like ALL of my friends are crazy (I can HARDLY WAIT until he meets ScaryClown, he’ll either like him or loathe him, and versy vice) but they are certainly pegged out against the smarter end of the spectrum and they have that delightful Fun Loving, Common Decency, Brutally Practical combination that makes me melt. Melt Melt Melt.  I heart my friends.

My Buffy Valentines are all over the office.  Te hee.

I’m thinking of giving cooking lessons once I’m in the new place.  Everybody tells me I can cook.  Then they wish they could do it.  Oh, I guess this is not the time to start fantasizing about lesson plans. I learned how to cook an omelette in the nuker from Keith the other day…. he fed me last weekend, I guess I forgot to mention it.  Did I mention that I was happy?  Stressed, but happy.

I light a candle for my grannie.  Without going into details, she was in and out of hospital on a pre-existing condition and everything is managed and she slept in her own bed last night.  I am very grateful that she’s living in the same town as relatives who adore her and help her every chance they get. I light a candle for all the grannies who face old age without much help or sympathy.

jammed up but wanting further punishment (tech report)

Between Jeff moving to town, work, packing, Tammy visiting and the state of my apartment (somewhere between DIRE and GRIM)  I am feeling a trifle blank.  Loki has remarked that he enjoyed the biscotti I mailed him, or plans to if he can get close enough to them to consume them; myself, I am just amazed that I got to the post office while it was open with his address, sufficient cash and the biscotti in hand.

I will mention that instead of using paper or styrofoam peanuts I used puffed wheat as packing material.  A stroke of genius; perhaps my definition of genius is more pliable than yours.

Anyway, here’s the drill:

I will mail you biscotti by the end of April if you are a tonstant weader and you send me your snail mail address (or if I already have your snail mail address and you ask for them).  After all, I talk about the damned things all the time.  I am thinking of doing an instructional video on biscotti making and putting it on Youtube, as well, which you have to admit would be odd, especially if I just used the mike and cam built into my MacBook (I think I will use the camera instead and have Katie help me with it).  Twice in the last week I’ve had people tell me I should do it commercially, but that would be like charging money for sex, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but you know what I mean.  (The rest of this paragraph deleted).

I hear Take Two Interactive won’t take 2 billion from Electronic Arts.  In six weeks they are going to wish they had.  I cheerfully predict it.  They will be called Didn’t Take Two in the future, and are they gonna look dumb. (Take Two makes the Grand Theft Auto series and EA is a local game powerhouse, although their UI’s for various games use restroom mops for floss at least according to some gamers I know).
I hear bars are pulling people in by having Guitar Hero and Rock Band nights.  Kung Fu Mike tells me that Rock Band is so ridiculously fun that it’s amazing it’s legal.  I prefer to play live music for real people, but that’s just my Mennonite roots showing.

The new MacBooks have gesture support. I always buy too early and get out too late….

aiyeee 

indeed 

Paranoia for breakfast. 

I can think of a couple of people I’d fill this out for…. 

ROFL 

I suppose worse things could fly into your hand as you’re coming in to work in the morning. 

DJ kitty scratch. 

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee. 

I am so easily amused. 

That’s all for now.  So much for getting up at 3:45 in the morning……

The week in prospect

Tammy is coming to visit this weekend and my brother is moving to Vancouver this weekend.  I am hopping from one foot to the other excited.

A lot of people think I am quite odd for wanting to live with my brother (many comments about how “I could never live with MY brother in a million years”) but I think this is the wave of the future for a lot of baby boomers.  Tammy being here means I can’t help with the move proper but after I drop her off at the airport I’ll be over to the new place helping kick stuff into corners.  As Jeff has more stuff it’s good I’ll be moving in second as it will be a serious inducement to get rid of stuff.  I’ve already gotten rid of one box of boox and more to come (I joined bookcrossing.com).  It’s a wrench giving away books.  In fact, it’s virtually impossible, but I will have little room in the new place – essentially about one third of the floor space I have now – so goodbye sofa of Morpheus (does anybody want a REALLY AMAZING SOFA?) and the ditzy Ikea furniture I bought when I moved in.  Goodbye stupid desk.  Some of the good furniture is going into storage, but most of it, I freely admit, is trash, including all the bookshelves.
The cold continues apace.   I got more cough syrup last night but was able to sleep without it. A detailed enumeration of my symptoms can be collapsed down to the heartfelt, “Eew, gross,” so we’ll just leave it at that.

I have one last family bit of news.  As far as I can determine, Katie has actually quit smoking.  I’ve been coming and going on it myself but I haven’t had a cigarette in about two weeks, and Katie’s been off for a week.  Given the temptation – she’s currently living with smokers – I’m sure it’s a hard thing, but she’s also broke, and that helps.

More packing

More briefing?  More briefing!

Fast forward to 4:55 it that’s the audio what you want…..

I have a cough and cold but I’m ignoring it.  Today, more packing and maybe more movies.  After we knocked off yesterday, we watched three movies.  Radio Days (it was on my lifetime list and MAN did I enjoy it), Eulogy (OMG what a great movie) and Eastern Promises (fabulous movie, and the naked fight in the bathhouse was all it was billed to be and more).

Jeff has provisionally agreed to the Friday Night Veg-In being reinstituted in our new home.  The Friday night Veg-In will be two Fridays a month.  You show up after work with whatever you are planning to drink (or contribute to the beer jar) and you get a) one free meal b) one free movie c) adult conversation…  That’s the last 4th Friday of the month.  Second Friday will be kid friendly; depending on the age of the kids we’ll either watch in the living room or I can ride herd on kids in the guest bedroom or depending on the weather we can go play in the park across the street.  Can’t let my grandmother in waiting skills get all rusty. I can’t even remember these days whether you’re supposed to swing a toddler by it’s arm or it’s leg.

No, I’m not trying to scare anyone with the grandmother comment.  Last I checked, Keith was not situated to provide me with grandchildren, and Katie shudders from head to foot in a fashion only to be described as Grand Guignol-esque if you even breathe a hint about the possibility.  Dang, it’s almost ten o’clock, time to attack the boxing situation again.

I’m sleeping so well I’m wondering if I should just say screw it and buy a softer mattress.  I sleep better on a soft sprung mattress than on foam, that’s for sure.   I slept like a log in the DR and that mattress was as soft as a waterbed, damned near.

Anyway, I’m having a lovely time..

It is all connected

Cats!!!

Catherine told me about Selkirk Rex kitties.  I couldn’t find the one she was telling me about so this one will have to do.  I love the fur, and the enormous eyes.  Then she told me that there’s a video of a kitten getting into a Rottie’s face; I couldn’t find that either but check out the following.
Cause cats pwning dogs never gets old…. 

Okay, more disparity in size, same principle. 

Change of pace:

Yeah, I don’t like Cosmo either.

The Luddite sent me this one…

A duo performing I WILL SURVIVE in a way that will RENDER IT IMPOSSIBLE for you to ever hear that song without snickering, ever, again.

I am streaming with tears, having watched this lovely cross post from the Luddite. What’s Opera Doc brought into the 21st century.

I’m waiting for my biscotti to cool.  I’ve done all of my valentine cards and now I just need a quick shower and I’ll be ready for work.  Sundae this afternoon in the caf!!!

Little bit of everything

My explosive happiness of the last couple of days has simmered down somewhat.  I have all new shiny tunes on my music player, and I set foot out the door yesterday to the strains of Dion’s “The Wanderer” and next up was Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” which, inshallah, will be played at my funeral. Work was work and Trevor got up at lunch so I could sit down, so that was nice.  Then on the way home I turned around and walked backwards for a while so I could listen to Dylan’s “Visions of Johanna” and watch the sunset at the same time.  Today I’m going to lunch with my boss and someone from one of the furrin offices.  Monday I had the second best workmeeting of all time (the best one was with two of the US office guys and a pitcher of beer); the convenor, who has been with the company less than a year but has always impressed me as a very clever man, ran things in a very collaborative and fun way, and the other person was my colleague from day one at the company whom I reverence greatly (he ALWAYS sends me fraternal greetings on International Women’s Day, which is beyond words sweet) and we actually accomplished what the meeting set out to do which is how meetings go when you have the right people in the room and the wrong people aren’t invited.  And minutes were provided within a day.  Yeah.  That’s how things should be, gorramit.

I light a brace of candles for my gran, who essentially hasn’t been sick since she was recovering from gall bladder surgery, which I think was back when tv had been invented but the colour hadn’t, and who is finding her current trials painful and frankly undignified (but not life threatening).  Given that she is the sweetest woman who ever trod this ball of mud, I wish her speedy relief so she can get back to more interesting activities.

mOm is dejunking…. she is dejunking an immense piece of guilt inducing junk onto somebody who’s doing handsprings of gleeee at the prospect of receiving it, and the person who gave her the guilt inducing junk is the one who suggested it.  That’s what I call win win.  I mean, when the person who’s getting the junk is paying to have it crated and shipped…. this is success!  And no, it’s not junk.  But one of the definitions of junk is ‘useful stuff in the wrong place’ and this terrible blockage will be cleared, with satisfying results, shortly.

I am working on the Valentine’s cards for work.  One must be careful.  But one must live up to one’s reputation as well…. not always an easy balance to strike.

Katie had her first day of work at her new job yesterday and pronounced it tolerable, except that it is JUST BARELY on the other side of the line in terms of zones for bus passes.  Personally I think she should walk it but you know kids these days.

I am SO looking forward to purchasing a bicycle.  And actually living someplace I can use it!  I never did get rid of my bike helmet (or my motorcycle helmet, as I secretly believe that one day I will again have a sweetie who rides) because I didn’t want to give up that last bit of hope I’d use it.

This weekend I’m off to the Island to help my bro pack.  I am looking forward to that as well.  Hope he’s got lots of good things for me to cook in the fridge.  Hint hint.

I have much curtailed my beer consumption, which is good. Quoth the Luddite, “You don’t have to stop on my account,” after suggesting we go pick up beer to take back to is place and I’m thinking, “But I don’t need to drink beer when you’re around.”  Ah, I’m just being socially malleable.  If my friends all drank and smoked, I probably would too… no spine, that’s me.  I am going to bed at a reasonable hour and not spending hours on the computer.  All good so far…. can it last? Probably not; the cheerfulness is probably just an artifact of having the sun on my face when I went home last night, after months of darkness.

Oh, snap.  My printer is out of ink.  Think fast about this!!!! what shall I do?  Oh, yeah, there’s a reprographic place in this building, it’s not like I just ran out of airspeed, altitude and options all at the same time.

Cats.  There will be cats back in my life!  Eddie and Gizmo are wonderful, staunch, middle aged cats. Nothing too spectacular, except Gizmo took a dog out once, and both of them are mighty hunters.

Two dreadful nightmares and a commute

I guess I am having fever dreams or I’m working off the last bit of sleep dep. Now, when I say I had two dreadful nightmares, I don’t have nightmares like other people, who wake up filled with existential dread and needing medication to go back to sleep; nope, I just have bad dreams. The first one involved cleaning spots off my parents’ wall. Somehow one wall in their house, which is not the house they currently live in, got COVERED in two inch across wax splatters. Think “meditation circle gone horribly wrong” and that would about cover it. And not nice white paraffin wax splatters, either, multicoloured nasty Chinese candle wax splatters that left stains. Sigh. Continue reading Two dreadful nightmares and a commute

Success – we hope

Looks like the place we looked at on Monday night is a go.  I will be forwarding my credit info to the landpeers shortly.  The place is a three bedroom upper floor of a house in East Van bordering on Burnaby.  It’s definitely ‘centrally located’. 

Yes…. we could be looking at lots of places for a lot longer, but frankly we both saw it, we both liked it, and the place is quiet and well kept.  Let’s see if this bears fruit or we have to keep looking.

Cooking cooking cooking

I feel MUCH better for Jeff having been here.  I cooked up a storm and he devoured everything with the judgement of an adult and the appetite of a teenaged boy (a delightful combo) and now he is going to head for the nine o’clock ferry.  Many people were called yesterday, they will hopefully start calling back today.
I had a supremely useful half day off yesterday. I got some really irritating banking done, a flu shot, a physical, a pile of bloodwork and other crap put on the to do list, epsom salts, more almonds and eggs and butter for biscotti, got the block taken off Katie’s phone so Dax can call her again (I willl be glad when she’s working again and can start paying for the damned phone – o did I mention she starts work in a call center on Thursday?) which is not happy making, but I promised.  There was other useful shopping and errand running in there but that’s the general idea.

I am fatter than I’ve ever been in my life.  This is an emergency!  Send out for more cheese dip! (This is a Laugh-In reference, in case you were wondering.)  My next vacation will be to a fat farm; in the meantime, I need to eat more soup.

Everything’s up to date in Kansas City

Including these signs recently welcoming George W. Bush.

The 25th anniversary of the church establishment dinner was yummy fun; I didn’t get there early enough to do the percussion thing.  On one hand I feel lousy for not doing what I said, or checking when I was supposed to be there; on the other hand I think I was miserably underrehearsed.  Public performing less than two months after you purchase an instrument seems the height of hubris.

I’m in a very strange mood.  I’ve come to the realization that there is something I keep doing which is really hurting my mental health, and I’m just trying to figure out how I stop doing it without going crazier than I was to start out with.  I think I’ll pour myself another cup of coffee, have a piece of the 85% cocoa chocolate the Luddite insisted on leaving here (“Oh, don’t worry, I have plenty at home”) and contemplate my options.  With any luck, daughter Katie will be joining me this afternoon.  The urge to kidnap her and do an intervention is urgent, but I think I can manage without doing anything dumb.

One of my LJ buddies was at the church dinner last night.  I was thinking, Gosh, we finally get to talk IRL! and then her daughter threw up and they had to leave.  For this, she commented wryly, I stuffed them all into their nice clothes (or words to that effect).

My granny is still in a lot of pain, but they found painkillers that work.  I light a candle for her, and for the heroic amount of care she’s been getting from her two sons and daughtersinlaw. It makes me shudder to think what old age is like when we have no children, loved ones, or adoptive family to help us.

I light a candle for the folks who went to Nancy’s memorial service yesterday. I hope everybody stayed cheerful and full of happy memories.  The grinding hard work of sorting the estate out – I light a big phalanx of candles for that heavy chore.

I made biscotti.

Off to meditate on mental health now.

I have added Corey Mintz’ food blog to my blogroll

He’s a foodie in Toronto; he’s an amazing writer and I have a soft spot for him because he was just about the cutest 8 year old I ever met.  HE’s the one who came up with the line Jew on Jus action, so blame him, not me.  I hope he’ll review some of my favourite watering holes on my tab when next he’s in town.

Continue reading I have added Corey Mintz’ food blog to my blogroll

Katies here

Both of the Katies were here last night… Katie K was only too happy to collect a massage on my NEW MASSAGE TABLE and daughter Katie had to be talked into it. I made shrimp salad for dinner and then daughter Katie worked on my leftovers.   I think all the way around everybody slept better last night. I woke up at 7:40!!! Now I have to jet or I will be late for work.

I light a candle for my granny, who is poorly (not, I hasten to add, mortal poorly) and for my mOm, whose back is owie, and for people experiencing unexpected and unhappy making breakups.

Persepolis was wonderful, see it if you can, unless you hate movies with subtitles.