I was having a dispute with a neighbour (I was living by myself again in a walkup apartment, like THAT would ever happen) and she chose to respond to it by drowning three kittens in my ornamental fountain, which was in the entranceway to the apartment. They were still warm when I picked them up. I guess bathing Margot so frequently (she had a poopy bum again so she got bathed this weekend) is making me used to the feel of wet cat fur, because I could feel their warm little bodies as I picked them up. I thought, who could do such a thing? And then I remembered. My subconscious could. Thanks, subconscious, you suck.
Category: My bad
Mt Laundry has been conquered
Yeah, but that’s not what everybody will be talking about at work. Sitting down to watch the amazing US-Canada gold medal game yesterday I knew the Canadians would win, but it was a nailbiter there for a while.
Foreigners who have covered 17 Olympics say that when it comes to public drinking at the Olympics, there is no second place. On that basis I am very very very glad I never went downtown.
Watched Zombieland. It’s got Sean of the Dead in a headlock for the title of the best Zomcom. Woody Harrelson is fantastic, and I really liked Abigail Breslin, even if her character nearly gets everybody killed.
The start of the thing before the thing.
Here are the lyrics and here is the song that Katie likes the most these days. Safe for work and utterly charming. Katie says the song is about insomnia…. speaking of which she cured her insomnia. She quit eating sugar.
My chance to dig out the garden plot was yesterday afternoon and it corresponded with the hockey game. Sigh.
Miss Crankypants sits in her corner
I have lots and lots to complain about. Like, lots. But I’ve decided to save my best and purest bile for real live people instead of the intarboobs, and the saddest and teariest of complaints for other real live people, and the horrid consequences of brutal self-examination strictly to myself. Continue reading Miss Crankypants sits in her corner
My letter to the folks that are looking after my retirement money
Dear K and G,
The $xxxx.xx was not transferred into my account on Friday. I am curious. Did you folks, in the process of transferring my accounts out of one bucket into another, forget that I had a direct deposit set up?
What are the odds your company will recompense me for the overdraft charges I’ve incurred as a result of the mishandling of my money? Or am I going to get a polite version of ‘suck it up, buttercup’? It seems I have much to look forward to. I’ve been getting the deposits since July of last year, and two out of the seven deposits have been late so far…. Alas, my creditors aren’t as sloppy about dates as I am. It’s sad, isn’t it, how consistent and heartless my creditors are in the face of my incompetence. Yes, I take one hundred percent responsibility for the money not being in my account on Friday, because, after all, I chose you as my service provider and now I must live with the results. See how helpful I’m being? I told myself to suck it up.
I know that what I have parked with (your company) isn’t much money the way you folks calculate things, but it’s all I have, and you don’t need to keep custody of it, if it’s too much like work. Hope to hear from you on Monday to get this sorted out. I’ll be in a great mood, since I will have spent the whole weekend worrying about what’s happened to my retirement money.
Allegra
Needless to say, I await their response with interest.
I just did something I’ve never done before. I had people doing Christian witness on my door step; I smiled graciously at them, said, “Sorry, I’m an atheist,” and closed the door. Seeing as how I was in the middle of writing the above noted letter, it wasn’t hard at all to be in a truth telling mood.
Odds und sods
Doris Lessing interviewed. She has a way of saying things that is resonantly remarkable.
Alan Moore is inta majic. Now why the heck would anybody be startled by that. What he says really resonates. I know I am supposed to be a hard ass atheist, I should be a materialist, blah ha ha woof mew. There’s a lot I don’t know, including my own mind, sometimes.
A picture…. The guy who plays Esposito on Castle getting ‘bit’ by the Eric Northman from True Blood. For shiz like thiz twitter was invented….
Onion-style article about the stupidity of contemporary Brits.
So about all this type casting, stereo typing, and other mental short cut stuff…. Will be very hard to read, but I thought it was pretty funny.
I would have posted links to MP3s of Emma Goldman’s writings, but when there was a mispronunciation in the FIRST 30 SECONDS I say to myself, damn those modern anarchists, can’t they get anything rite write right??
And with this last link, I realize that irony explodes into a cloud of multiversial memes, and go back to transcribing Dennis’ reminiscences.
Success all round
Waffles = success.
Stationery trip = success.
Band audition = success.
Leftovers = success.
Priceless moments with our furry housemates = success.
Laundry = success.
Walking in the brilliant, glorious, dazzling, heart-drenching sunshine for 40 minutes while carrying a mandolin = success.
This line deleted on advice of counsel, but trust me, it was delectable and loathsome, like a verbal confection of the Marquis de Sade translated by Patrick O’Brian and interpreted by Hunter S. Thompson, and afterwards rolled in a dusting of H.P. Lovecraft. Still with me? I guarantee it equalled success.
Watching Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Woods in The Wrestler = success. Evan Rachel Woods supposedly getting back together with Marilyn Manson = you must be kidding = hope he’s quit drinking.
Having transcribed some of Dennis’ interview already = success.
A brief descent into vers libre, big kisses to the one reader of this blog who will actually appreciate this….
the what I do the thinking with, o
it makes a buzz
just like a beehive
teenaged boys have whacked. So much
to think about . life echoes in continuance . life dancing
through doorways . life unfurling its logic . life burgeoning .
life expiring on its own pyre .
life continues
to have that golden glow
Tonight in the fey
the fading moonlight
I am an avatar of the Parking Goddess
soon this divinity will drop
into the day / day
into whispers . into a rush of sea-borne sound . into the pale
and steady light of winter .
Holy ^%$! Batman
Debbie forwards this gem from the nation’s capital. There’s more than enough **** to go around in this story. Calling something a blowback makes it sound like a rough breeze, not feces at high pressure.
I had an amazing morning with Katie here, doing tech support and getting out of her way so she could work on her song. The tech support was trying to find cabling and making sure the inputs were set to record properly in Garageband. Later in the day, my date, alas, was overcome by weariness from his exertions feasting a friend the previous night at a birthday bash, and cried off… this after texting me at 8:10 this morning that he was just going to sleep. People nowadays have no idea how to pace themselves (this of course will cause Patricia to burst out laughing when she sees it, since she knows what an utter lightweight I am when it comes to weekend excesses.) I sang “The Weekend’s Over” to myself, which cheered me immensely, and then worked my way through “Freedom”, “Wish it was Mine” (how I love that song, and the mad crush that prompted it), and about half a dozen other songs. Seeing Katie with my guitar in her hands this morning nearly made me hyperventilate with excitement and glee. I got her to visit this site for strummable guitar chords (which makes songwriting so much easier) After she left (her dad walked her home), I sat down with the piles of sound equipment I got out for her this morning (the USB midi input cable for the Casio keyboard, the mucho expensivo mic which Katie found since I had no clue where the damned thing was, the second best set of headphones, the Kaossilator and associated cables, the laptop of course) and made gamenoise1, and that’s only a fraction of the extremely cool music I composed today. Getting more callouses on my fingers, seeing both my kids and writing tunes have put me in a very happy mood… and I didn’t cook dinner, I ordered pizza and then made Jeff pay for it. Tra la la. Oh, and I watched the boys kill zombies, because of course, Elferd Ito is in the house. (L4D2, Left for dead 2, bad pun.)
Dinner and schlepping
Went into New West for tp and a grooming item, which for reasons unknown was not at the London Thugs where I expected it to be.
I was calling it London Thugs before Mike started working there. Now when I say it I really mean it.
Deposited the cheque from my grandmother (note on orthography, I have not yet made my mind over whether I am going to drop the que and just call them checks. The only reason I hesitate is that, while I think the American orthography looks better, I want to maintain my Canadian heritage). But Jiminy Christmas, don’t you find it odd that I’m getting birthday checks from my Gran when I’m 51 bleeding years old? I vow to spend it all on beer and chocolate. What a useless, parasitic enemy of the people I am.
I’ve been ruminating over ‘you’re as young as you feel”. I’m siding with it being true, if you’re just talking about your emotions. I don’t know; do older people have more subtle emotions because they’ve lived longer and seen more, and understand more of the implications of things? Or is that utter bs? I saw too many times, over the course of my life, the youngest child in the room being the wisest, not least because she was so uncannily observant. She was Katie Sharpeyes until she was 16. Insert brief grouse. Sure wish she’d call me back, or at least text me that she’s having far too much fun to call.
Damn, I can’t get that row of tequila shots we did out of my head. Yes, Jeff sprang for a round of shots last night, and ah, with the festive. That effin’ princess, Kashka (with what indulgent love I say it) had to have a lemon wedge, as she just can’t tolerate lime. Katie’s crush observed that when somebody else is paying, as a matter of form you take the shot as is. Indeed.
Still in New West, but fast forward to this evening. There is a butcher shop around the corner from Sixth and Sixth. I bought a really good steak there once, and I dashed in. I beheld the liver and my whole body shivered with delight. Yes, that’s just about the most disgusting sentence I could come up with on short notice, hope you liked it, hackneyed internal rhyme and all.
I thank Paul for the transpo into and out of New West… in rush hour, very much appreciated. I get anxious when I run out of toilet paper. I make jokes about it, but I get anxious too.
I cooked the liver, dredged in flour, salt and pepper, in butter which onions had been frying in for a while. I just barely cooked it, and it was so good. Margot got some too, I shouldn’t have, but she was finding my plate more than usually interesting.
Now I feel like sleeping. Life is so good.
Grr
Things keep happening in my personal life that are amusing and appalling and entertaining, and I have to keep my mouth shut. I feel like a kid on the wrong side of a bathroom door, dancing up and down and clutching my cameltoe, but no, no talky about any of those things that are on my mind, whatever the infelt urgency. I think that there aren’t many kinds of human speech; bragging, stroking, complaining, and sharing information. I want to brag 80% and share information 20% and those proportions make for long odds against my hypothetical communiqué being of interest to even my mother, who has had little use for tiresome blowhards as long as I can remember. With this sad and frustrated concession to common sense, good manners and self-interest, all things I show little respect for under most circumstances, I must turn my attention to other things and not splash my business about in an irresponsible or tasteless fashion.
Okay, that’s enough whining, nobody frikkin’ cares. On the plus side, Katie was here and we blasted through a whole bunch of recorded television. Last ep True Blood, season openers for NCIS, House and Castle. Yup, sat through 5 hours of tv today, but at least I got the f=cking DVR on without calling Jeff at work for the nth-t-nth time. Also, got one more song written down, being Cash Flow… a sweet little tune. In the last couple of days I got Calliope and Wish it was Mine done too, or did I report on that already (grumbling fuddy duddy noises.)
The weather has been g for glorious.
My memory is muddy
When I was living in Montréal with Paul and the kids, I used to watch Homicide. I found it a quite remarkable show.
I’m watching it again, with Jeff, and if anything it’s even better than the first time around, as I think I am a more observant and trenchant critic. But it’s sure got me thinking.
One of the episodes was even more powerful than usual, and I had two very strong memories of it. One is of a scene where the mother of the shooter and the mother of the dead boy end up in the same waiting room. I remembered a couple of pieces of that conversation accurately.
At the end of the show, I remember Yaphet Kotto as Giardello giving advice to the shooter, who’s about to spend the rest of his life in jail. I remember them being outside, against a grey building.
It wasn’t Yaphet Kotto – it was Andre Braugher. They weren’t outside, they were inside.
What I remembered was the emotional intensity. I remembered a lot of what was said. I just didn’t remember it accurately.
The older I get, the harder it is to be positive about anything. I’ve straightened out that little bit of inaccuracy, but now all I can think of is Patricia saying, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
Rounding up some unusual suspects
Really thought provoking article about the ‘institution’ of marriage by a gay writer in Seattle.
An 8 minute video about Medicare. For Americans, by Canadians. Rational, good tempered and funny in spots.
Adolf Hitler doesn’t like Avatar. The last line slew me. Three minutes or so long.
How come and for why hasn’t this extra solar planet burnt up? I suspect that they aren’t actually seeing what they are looking at properly.
How many dimensions did you say? Assistance in visualizing multiple dimensions. Brain so hurts.
Do the wave…. the gravity wave.
It’s unbelievable what people will get messed up over. Personal comment: It may reveal me to be a philistine, but I like Verdana. I don’t understand the issue. I just don’t.
Chrissie Hynde told meat eaters in her audience to fuck themselves. Mike and Jeff and I sat there with hot dogs in our tummies and just looked at each other. On the other hand, just to prove I’m at least TRYING to see the other person’s point of view, here’s a PETA press release about some of her animal activism. Hint: she doesn’t like McDonalds.
The New Miss Universe. Beautiful, and without a hint of distinction.
The Milky Way has rarely looked so beautiful.
That’s just MEAN. So why did I snicker?
Do it yourself Horrrrorrrr F/X. Shows Peter Jackson filming Bad Taste.
The difference between a man and a boy is that a man takes pictures of his toys.
“I’m an atheist because I’m efficient.” Or so you can infer from Bill Gates’ interview excerpts…
Crabby at the craigslist again
Everything in italics is quoted from Anonymous Dude’s ad. This is what I wanted to email him but I decided to mock him on my blog instead. He is in search of A Muse.
I am absolutely astounded by your craigslist advertisement.
Good day. I am a writer in need of a woman who would like to assist me in typing and editing several works of prose and poetry. I am a fun loving and easy going man with a great deal of interests.Uh, that would be a great many interests, or a large number of interests.
I could be described as accentric,
No, you couldn’t, because that isn’t a word.
but I will except that as an artists perogitive.And perogitive isn’t a word either. Except should be accept. Artists should read artist’s.
I am also a true romantic and adventurer who is world savy and passionate.You mean savvy, which looks less and less likely.
If you would like to be involved in the creative process send me a reply and I will send you a link to the stories I am working on presently.
You don’t need a muse, you need spell-check. Good luck with your search. If you were trying to be funny with all the typos and problems with usage, it didn’t work; a woman with any sensitivity or smarts regarding the English language would be as taken aback as I was. If, on the other hand, English isn’t your native language, congratulations; you have achieved success in appearing to be a native speaker with a learning disability.
In Victoria
Paul and Katie and I made the crossing – my new boss, may he be praised and adored – another Finn, what is it with the Finns anyway? – let me out early enough that we could easily catch the six o’clock. It is one of the new boats, the German ones, and it shudders and groans like it was a twenty year boat needing drydock. Paul of course went and talked to a staffer and learned that the screws don’t submerge deep enough and the damned things burn fuel like a Viking funeral. Argh, what the hell is wrong with this province? Didn’t we learn about this kinda crap with the Fast Cat? Argh I say again.
Work ended, amusingly enough, with me going to my new boss, who is, as far as I can tell, a man who prizes his ability to keep his facial expression under tight control, and saying, “Hey, somebody is going to come by you and say that I’m lazy, incompetent and a menace to the company!” “Which somebody?” “Really? When she comes to complain can I ask her about the 15 emails I’ve sent her that she’s never answered?” Then his face twitched, and I burst out laughing. What happened to Patricia? Alaaaaaaaaaas, she went to the dark side and into Inside Sales. LTGW said, tersely, “A good fit for her skill set.” Well, duh. Anyway, I have to come up with a good nickname for my new boss, because he richly deserves one and I am not going to use his real name because he does not have the same sprightly approach to life, work and all that as my previous (and much missed for the joy of her physical presence, I have to say) boss.
The middle part of work was also amusing. The new VP engineering sat with my lunch bunch, which freaked the hell out of me. VPs never sit at my table. I looked around at the guys and said, uh oh. New VP sez, What? “Well I’m not really used to controlling my language,” to which the response was, “It’s okay, I was in the navy.” “Not like this you weren’t” but of course that just meant that everybody at the table peppered the new VP with questions about life on a fast attack nuclear sub, for which he was the chief maintenance dude. I should mention at this point that the new VP is in his mid forties, could give George Clooney a run for his money in terms of looks and charm, and is a triathlete.
SIMULTANEOUSLY ScaryClown and I asked if he’d ever been attacked by a giant squid. Actually I got the question out first, but ScaryClown said, “I wanted to ask that!” Then we burst out laughing and gave each other a fist bump. Our new squid overlords are turning out quite fine.
The rest of the day I sent angry emails, entered returns, made Tanya laugh, missed Cris, had yet ANOTHER email encounter with the WORST CUSTOMER EVER and wrote one email which triggered another email which said, “Oh yeah, we didn’t actually consult customer service about that. My meeting, let me show it to you.” Then I abruptly remembered that I have a new boss, and made a pretence of consulting him, and then he said, “Uh, I think that’s a meeting I want to attend… I have a few questions myself.” So once again, I poked the bear and lived. And my boss let me leave early. And Paul let me drive.
Back to Victoria. Lexi and Darwin -asleep and thus not evident- were here, as were the parents and Unca Barry. Unca Barry had brought a really interesting documentary about the last sailing of a four masted cargo vessel around Cape Horn, which I didn’t watch because I was too busy blabbing with Lexi and Katie.
I had a really good night’s sleep, although I miss wireless, because normally I sleep with my computer (what? What?) and I just roll over in the morning and start surfing the internet. (Yes, I know that will have to change when the heavens open and I actually have a special somebody to sleep with on a regular basis, in the meantime, it’s how it is in my life. At least it’s warm.)
Paul went off to stay with his bro, Dr. Filk, and will be back to collect me as we will be flying up the Island Highway to see his cousin Ruth IF the weather cooperates because it’s supposed to bucket snow.
Keith really wanted to come but somebody had to feed kitties. Also, unlike Katie, he is actually physically and emotionally capable of getting here on his own; thus the requirement to have an adult always accompany her.
I can hear Darwin!!!! Time to go be a cousin.
Feeling lazy… cross posted from Facebook
Since Rob H and Lexi have both tagged me….
Here is a list of 25 things about me….
1. I talk and sing to myself all the time. Bugs the crap out of Jeff.
2. I can see three of my mother’s quilts from my bed. Uh, actually that’s four.
3. I am uneasily unreconciled to being committed to rationality … and liking the Tarot. That ‘for entertainment purposes only’ sticker goes only so far.
4. There a couple of people who are still alive and contactable but they’ve gone to a place where I can’t reach them, and I miss them every day.
5. I love Wreck Beach.
6. I’ve written at least 200 songs, and of these have sheet music for about 25, lyrics for about 140, and of that pile maybe 40 are good enough for posterity.
7. All of my close male relatives loathe my singing voice.
8. If I’d married and stayed married to the first man I was engaged to, we’d be celebrating 32 years of marriage this year.
9. I’m really happy I didn’t marry him.
10. I have obscenely self-indulgent requirements for privacy, sleep and down time, which motherhood did little to dent.
11. Is deleted, so as not to offend gender warriors.
12. Is deleted, so as not to offend friends of friends on Facebook.
13. Is deleted, as being TMI. And kinda icky.
14. I started blogging at allegrasloman.com in April 2004. I lost the first couple of months of posts so the archives only go back to August 2004.
15. I am entertained by the fact that my daughter has used the blog to track the various events that have led her to have PTSD.
16. I love my parents and wish everybody had parents like them.
17. I love my kids and am thrilled that they are really close to being finished school AND that they are turning into wonderful adults.
18. Is deleted. Because Facebook is forever. But it was funny!
19. I give money to fellow bloggers doing primary research in fields I’m interested in, my kids, my church, Medecins sans Frontieres, Breast Cancer Research, the BCCLU, Americans I like who don’t have health insurance and have dirty great medical bills, the Salvation Army, BCSPCA, International Red Cross/Red Crescent, Gaza relief, and street musicians.
20. I love giving homilies at church.
21. I am in constant pain.
22. I think free speech is more important than how people keep using it to hurt my sensibilities.
23. I think freedom of assembly is even more important than free speech and that participating in mass demonstrations is very empowering, which is one of the reasons I love Pride Day so much.
24. I often say what everyone else is thinking but is too smart to articulate.
25. I feel anxious if there isn’t at least a week’s supply of toilet paper in the house.
Sleep and food and Saturday links
Casting the witch in the Wizard of Oz.
I heart Margaret Hamilton.
This is just freaky, but I’m only posting it because of the Firefly reference.
I was really suspicious of the do not call registry right from the beginning, mostly because after the gun registry debacle I didn’t think the Canadian government could organize something conspicuous in a camouflage store. Now we learn, surprise! bafflement! that the government is SELLING the list at a nominal price to whoever will pay for it. Alas, Ottawa.
In about 2 hours I’ll be jumping on the transit for my coffee date. Instead of swithering, I’m sorting laundry, acting as cat doorwoman, paying bills, cooking AWESOME split pea with ham soup, making breakfast for me and Jeff and answering emails. I had a wonderful night of sleep – slept maybe 1 1/2 hours longer than normal. I actually feel good.
Perhaps it has something to do with the departmental meeting with the new Ops great grandboss at work. Like Holy Paradigms Batman. I was buzzing like a thwacked beehive and dancing up and down like a little kid when I got home last night (met up with Keith at Brentwood station and the little bugger did a ninja on me, sneaking up behind me in the bus line up) because I was so happy with the meeting.
There are four priorities in the new configuration of the company. Safety, Quality, Customer Service and Financial Results. So I recited them to the dude to indicate that I’d stayed conscious during one of the town halls, and then I asked him to give me the matching 4 mantras of corporate culture. In a very TED lecture kinda way, he said, “Respect, Metrics, Voice of the Customer and We’re Only in One Business, and that’s the Only Business that We’re In” (not phrased like that and over a much longer period of time) and gave examples to support it. The previous group he’d been with had just sat and stared at him. Patricia and I peppered him with questions until he told us (respectfully) to let the men get a word in edgewise (and just think about the state of the world that this would be the case… I love the 21st century). Then I insulted his wife’s taste in sweaters (yes, I know, and I am going to be punished, I’m sure) and we went home. It was supposed to be a half hour meeting and it took nearly two hours and the time FLEW BY. My hopes and fears for the future remain the same, but my hopes definitely have my fears in a hammerlock.
I’ve been conversing with Deb about her daughter Jenn and her Pitbull rescue organization. Here’s the link. Unfortunately it’s not possible to get a tax receipt for Canadian donors but I urge my American readers to make a donation if it meets their criteria for a worthy charity.
And tomorrow, time for a baptism. Me happy.