the annoyances

the biggest annoyance, always and forever, is the failure of every level of government in Canada to protect its most vulnerable citizens from COVID

That is a slow-match, slow-burn, never-ending anger. The dead can’t speak and so I must. Forty-six thousand Canadians have died of COVID, (that number is likely under-reported by as much as 50%), hundreds of thousands have become disabled, hundreds of thousands are experiencing loss of breadwinners and grandparents, and all of the responsibility for what should be a collective effort has been pushed onto schoolchildren and people who don’t believe in science. It’s unconscionable, and it’s daily life.

Some ratbastard trudging to work without looking where they were going nearly trod on a baby raccoon in the Seabus Station. Mama raccoon was able to effect a rescue, but no thanks to that asshole. GRRRR whole thing was caught on video, which I’m not sharing.

Family Law is a new show that I should be watching because my friend Sue Sparlin is in it. Unfortunately the lead character, ably played by Jewel Staite, is a narcissistic, petty, bullying, parental and relationship incompetent with a drinking problem.  The character is so unpleasant Jeff and I bailed after the first ep. I AM SO ANNOYED. Many good people behind and in front of the camera, but there is so much ‘humour of embarrassment’ that it’s about as much fun as getting sunstroke. Also watching children get repeatedly treated as props and dragged through their parents’ mental health issues is TRIGGERING AF. PLEASE NOTE full kudos for casting a trans woman as a trans woman as the office manager. AND SO GOOD TO SEE GENELLE WILLIAMS again.

Air quality is 50 – better but still not great. Good enough to go walking with Paul today if he has any interest.

Sent twenty dollars to a disabled Canadian via paypal this am. Sometimes people talk about their lives in such a way that you really feel your privilege. I AM SO FORTUNATE. AND I’M ANNOYED WITH TRUDEAU we were all supposed to get a double GST tax credit and now it won’t come until after Christmas and the people who need it most, the disabled, are filling up my twitter feed with tales of starvation and horror, people thinking of applying for medical assistance in dying since they aren’t given enough money on disability to live.

Katie is still too busy to see me – Friday she says.

Hoping to Darwin this fool isn’t my relative. His most recent stunt is to go on twitter and ask why the gummint isn’t doing something about

are you ready

CONTRAILS

 

jfc

JFC PEOPLE

This is what he posted, with pictures of contrails.

“You’ll notice, that not one single elected politician will say anything in regards to what we are all seeing in the sky these days. It’s absolutely disgusting. Nothing is normal about what’s happening up there yet not one politician will say a word. Right”

My responses: (and this is after I deboned it because I GOT VERY VERY SWEARY)

I was five years old the first time my pOp explained to me what contrails are. I’ve had six decades to watch people freak out about the natural consequence of applying the ass end of a 1500ºC jet to the cold dry air ten kilometres up. Fuck this wilful ignorance.

and as a comment to my twolleague ZenHeathen, My pOp was working for the National Research Council at the time…. let’s just say we don’t *worship* science in my family because science can be suborned to cruel and genocidal purposes. But neither do we pick and choose which established science to call real. eg vaccines.

PUTIN ANNEXES TERRITORY HE DOESN’T CONTROL AND BLAMES NATO. Good going dude.

A quart is called a quart because it’s a quarter of a gallon. It is annoying how many standards of measurement we have to live through. And die through, remember how close the ‘Gimli Glider’ came to being a mass casualty event and all because strangely enough gallons and litres aren’t the same.

 

 

another perfect day

Around noon went for a walk with Paul in Everett Crowley Park. First we drove all over hell’s half acre trying to find a decent parking spot at one of the usual parks. That’s how we ended up on the garbage dump park. It’s a good place to go if YOU NEED TO PET SOME DOGGIES. I got very very tired and couldn’t walk any farther very fast. Then we got home and I nuked up some chicken vegetable rice for Paul, and then he hung around. I did his toenails (they weren’t scandalous, like the last time, but they needed to be done). Then I checked my blood pressure which was 105 over 71.

Morty Face by KushMastaFresh on DeviantArt

This is 30 points lower than normal. What in the actual hell is going on. I don’t actually feel good at that blood pressure – I sure don’t feel like DOING anything. Picture shown above is Morty, from the sci-fi animated modern classic Rick & Morty. It’s okay fOlks! you are not expected to watch it or like it; it has machine gun delivery of multiple concepts, not always in the best of taste (that’s one way of putting it, check that face shown above). But I love Morty because he’s grown a spine over the last seasons.

Paul long-term-loaned me John’s resonator guitar.  <—- this after he realized at Peggy’s that he can’t even pull a guitar out of a case without fighting it. I have to add a string but it looks like all the bottle slides I bought attracted a guitar I can use them on. They’re the kind of guitar with a big perforated metal plate attached where the soundhole usually is.

Mike called and released himself from self-jail; he brought his unbelievably sweet new parlour guitar and played nothing but songs Paul knew, which was deft of him, because Paul has happy and enthusiastic about singing along.  He also gave Paul the long anticipated tour of the Delica. Long about five I kicked Paul out (nicely) but he got to have all that social contact and stay the hell out of his own house for the afternoon, which has a crying baby in it. Ryker has a cold and he freaks out when he can’t breathe and so there is much screaming. STILL NO FUNCTIONING FREEZER AT PAUL’S PLACE!! JFC landscum, you need a blunt punt.

above-noted picture is almost 15 years old. That’s Mike and Paul at a minimalist costume party, back in the day

I had ONE Fat Tug last night ENJOY MY ABSTEMIOUSNESS.

Mike finally got to look at Suzanne’s friend Richard’s bag of photography equipment. JFC IT’S A NIKON FE an absolute classic manual camera with one of the first built in digital light meters. AND THE MANUALS for it and the lenses. Cash on the barrelhead it’s worth no less than $250, but Mike doesn’t want it because he’s not a Nikon user. I am currently considering my options, but I think I’ll advise Suzanne before taking action.

Spoke to Keith on the phone. He appears to be doin’ okay.

Currently running a 12% kudos to hit ratio on Landslide – the number’s actually going up. This never happens so I’m finding it weird.

Found out that the Seagull (the one that isn’t Smokey) was put away in E minor tuning so I noodled away on that for a while and I think I may have the core melody of some soundtrack stuff.

Mike said he used to wear a special watch with a pulse ox monitor but he said he had to stop, since it kept telling him that he was dead every night. (Thought pOp would find this amusing.) It came with his new Samsung phone. His new Samsung phone is incredible, the camera alone is goggleworthy. I don’t care, I’ll probably get a simple-phone if I ever live alone again but I’m never having a cell phone again, otherwise.

Mike says his project – his Sisyphean work project – six times now he’s tried to set up a customer service department off shore and six times an internal shift in priorities has moved it. It was in Spain, it was in the US. It was in Costa Rica. This time he just sent his luckless lead tech into the mouth of a typhoon in the Philippines. Anyway, he hopes he survives all the corporate bullcrap long enough to get laid off, with a package, (word is as a French company they’re used to making big payouts to make employees who are now surplus to requirements GO AWAY) and then he’s going to take the Delica and drive across this country and dip a toe in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. Please let me know if you want him to come visit you after he’s laid off, because he IS AWESOME. HE’S SERIOUSLY THE BEST.

Jeff keeps having interesting dreams. I imagine I dream every night, but I sure don’t remember them. I guess I keep it all for waking life.

Then, a stunning variety of products, after which we watched Everything Everywhere All At Once, which is a good movie to watch while impaired, and Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and James Hong are absolutely amazing in this. I believe I raved about it on my blog the first time we watched it, but it really is a trip to set a wildly inventive and ecstatic movie amid the drab exigencies of Chinese immigrant life. Mike was impressed as hell and said some variant of (with amusement), “It’s a damned good thing they’re speaking mostly Mandarin, if it was Cantonese it would be triggering.” This with respect to the ghastly way Michelle Yeoh’s character treats Stephanie Hsu’s character in the movie. THEN I FOUND OUT THAT Yeoh, Quan and Hsu are going to be a family again in a Disney action comedy tv show? WHO’S WRITING, ALLEGRA YELLS & chomps popcorn impatient-wise.

At some point Mike went home. IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE HIM.

Worked hard on Totally Boned yesterday; couldn’t stay hydrated. Didn’t practice enough. That will change lol. I need to drink 16 oz of water RIGHT NAOW

I had another perfect day, y’all. I’ll be checking my blood pressure again for sure though. Whatever is wrong with me, it can’t kill my good mood.

heart rate accelerator

Ran my current fave pair of earrings – 75 dollar Lioness Elise gems with Swarovsky crystals and cultured pearls – through the laundry. One embedded itself in a hole in the drum – that took some doing getting it out and kneeling on a concrete floor, calice tabernak – and the other sent itself to the lint trap. Both survived unharmed as far as I can tell…. they’re clean now, I should probably wear them.

metformin, coffee and a short walk

The foregoing combination was poopulous.

CONTENT WARNING POOP

Fortunately I had my grandson Alex with me (full of Tim Horton’s finest) and he said that there were no brown stains, so I made it home without public embarrassment, just that drawn face and awkward gait that accompanies an er accidental blowout. I’m only sharing this so my mOm can smile sadly and nod. Getting old BLOWS I tell ya. I knew better, and got coffee anyway. On the plus side, I managed to avoid pooping myself until AFTER I picked up the amlodipine at the drugstore. So I managed to run an errand AND poop myself this morning, go me…..

TIME TO DO LAUNDRY well it was anyway but NOW IT’S REALLY TIME TO DO LAUNDRY

Did I ever tell you about the time I pooped my pants on the transit in Montreal? This would have been when I was in my thirties…. it’s a sad and smelly tale with a happy ending.

2238 words

 

JUST TO MAKE MYSELF FEEL BETTER, here are all the comments (all of them) for my “Accidental Mr. Right” destiel story. Look at all the strangers I made happy!

I really really liked it

This was…. everything :}

Another lovely story. Thank you for sharing.

This was absolutely fantastic. Xx

You made me cry

Amazing!!! This was fabulous and I plan on reading it again so that I can take it all in. I loved the internal monologue from both boys and I was ready to cry both when Cas went back to Georgia and when he came back to Dean. THAT SIGN AT THE AIRPORT!! Great job, thanks for sharing.

This was GORGEOUS

Your stories contain some of the absolute best banter I have ever read, ever. Coupled with the sweetness and cuddling and softness, the wit and cleverness works so, so well. One million kudos to you, lovely.

This was so good! I loved it.

Do you know how adorable this is?!?!?!?!? Do you?!?!?!? Because I loved every tooth-rotting fluffy moment of it, from the gorgeous start to the fantastic finish. This is the perfect combo of angst, thickheaded characters, fluff, and pure unadulterated love. I almost wish I could go back in time just to appreciate this from the very beginning.

Holy mother fucking shit. That was so BEAUTIFUL! Everything about it! Beautifully paced, beautifully written, beautifully characterised! I can’t get over it. So many moments made me gasp and made my heart flood with emotion! ‘The love of my life’ what a perfect realisation for the two of them! And it was truly written as a love story. I could see them truly being in love and not just ‘here’s two hot guys. Now they’re fucking!’ I can’t get over this. I’m going to reread it so much!

aaaaaaaa this was wonderful!!! I love the characterization!!!!

Very nice!

Those adorable dummies! Their banter is just perfect, especially at the diner at the beginning, comparing views on politics and sports and religion. I’d kill to write so well!

I loved this

This was very sweet. ??

Garbage day today

I get to do it because Jeff’s away still.

Something big and smelly caught fire on Mitchell Island and everything stank for a while last night. Air conditioner off until the temp starts to climb at sunup – it’s quite nice and cool right now at 19 degrees C.

Spent many hours with Paul yesterday going through all his appointments, setting appointments, putting together a family document with all of his health related to dos and contacts, then spent a while on the phone with Keith downloading. There is supposed to be a family meeting later this week. Paul’s supposed to tell his gf this week, what a non-joy that will be, following up with it.

Buster demanded to be let out this morning but he came back promptly for his breakfast. One night Jeff was gone he was out all night because the cat door was locked and he snuck out while Mike was leaving and I didn’t notice. He was super subdued when he came back at 5 am but not beat up, he had no new scratches.

He very obviously misses his hoomin.

I’m rewatching Sandman. It’s so much better with the middle of one episode, won’t say which one, gone… skipped almost half an hour. I don’t need to see that again and I understand the point Gaiman was trying to make but YUCK.

Really really re-enjoying Boyd Holbrook’s performance as the Corinthian. brrrr

49th Shelf remarks:

And Dissonance Engine (November), by David Dowker, is an exploration of time, cognition and loss; the intersection of dream and alternate reality amidst myriad systems of control.

So that gives something to look forward to.

picture me screaming about the trash

Screaming Possum Madness (40 Possum Memes) - I Can Has Cheezburger?

 

 

lots on my mind

  1. much of it isn’t my story, so I sit by the side of the road
  2. Housefilk has been moved up to today. I wish I could stop feeling this bleak – Jeff got me CHEESE SCONES and COFFEE and both are excellent.
  3. weather remains fine
  4. The Russians keep providing the Ukrainians with proof of war crimes and the fact nobody on the Russian side seems to care indicates that they don’t actually believe any international justice apparatus will still be standing when they’re done.
  5. At this point I think we’ve got about 6 months left of ‘normal’ so it’s time to batten down. Start keeping more cash on hand, among other things.
  6. Anne Heche died of her injuries. Addiction is a terrible thing. I hope her kids have people they can trust with them and aren’t exposed to too much vileness. IN DECEMBER 2022 IT WAS REVEALED SHE DIDN’T HAVE ANY DRUGS OR ALCOHOL IN HER SYSTEM.  Lesson… don’t speculate on CoD until the coroner rules.
  7. preparations for camping trip have commenced – I need to find Jim E’s old camping list. Suzanne has already told me to expect to do as much driving as I can stand because ‘she wants to look at the view’ and I am HERE for that.
  8. off to Victoria soon for a flying visit more deets later
  9. I am hoping for a breakthrough on totally boned so I guess I’ve got a date with some 3×5 cards current count is 1663
  10. allegra sloman 13/8/2022 ‘Doing it badly’

Does the dog die

  1. that is the name of a website. People are sensitive about animal loss. I told a bunch of people on reddit that the dog DOESN’T die in the new Predator series movie, “Prey” and my inbox this morning is full of thanks and praise for saying so.
  2. Time to brush my teeth and have a shower.
  3. Burnaby is going to have a festival of glowing pumpkins, 6000 of the hand carved suckers. Once we hit August it’s all Halloween all the time around here.
  4. Somebody must have put one of my stories on a list; one particular fanfic is getting all the attention these days. It’s an okay story, it’s got pacing issues.
  5. Still no joy on Part II of current story. Some extension of a fanfic.
  6. We’ve now blown through 1000 cases of MPX in Canada. It was 957 on the 5th August, what do you think?
  7. Can’t raise Mike, his phone doesn’t seem to be working.
  8. Lovely walk with Jeff in the morning, it wasn’t TOO hot. Actually walked up the hill with some speed instead of puffing and blowing and pausing the entire way.
  9. Hexavalent chromium spill into the Huron River, which would impact the drinking water of millions of people, is getting zero airplay / pixels / print space in the media. Hexavalent chromium, necessary (they say) for many industrial processes, is the single most toxic form of chromium. Staring at my Toronto friends hey you might want to move before it’s in the drinking water of Toronto in Lake Ontario.
  10. Made Jeff peppermint tea and smoked salmon green salad wrap for brekkie.
  11. The Russians have mined the Ukrainian nuclear plant they took over a couple of months back. It is apparently their intention to destroy it.
  12. I have Reddit Cute Animal disease, every time I see a video of a cute critter on Reddit I want to run out and buy it. Today’s heart-eyes – hognosed snake.
  13. Did not practice yesterday, but at least all the instruments are in the same room again.
  14. “Reddit Double Shot” – THERAPY and BREAKUPS all ’round. (AITA posts only)
  15. I got the wordle in three tries this morning. However I used a solve site on line to help me once I got to word two.
  16. That doesn’t always work, depends on how common the consonants are.
  17. I am thinking of the time I did the Grouse Grind. It took me 2.5 hours and a single human being lapped me three times; he was wearing nothing but pale metallic blue booty shorts and athletic shoes and carrying a water bottle.
  18. Doug Ford is still an asshole who took four billion dollars from the Feds to fight the pandemic and as far as anyone can tell is obscuring where it’s being spent as fast as his bean counters can hide it.
  19. I have had a poem written for me?!!! Colour me blushy.
  20. And now I shall cease with my morning raving, knowing that my fOlks don’t have internet right now so there’s no point getting this posted before six.
  21. reconnecting with an ex on social media (facebook, I believe I mentioned that I left instagram and climbed back up on facebook) is always fraught with hazard (he was my first bf from around the time the planet cooled) but so far all we’re doing is sighing heavily over what a fucking idiot Roger Waters (OF PINK FLOYD) (he’s FUCKING CAPING FOR THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SAYING TAIWAN BE OWNED BY THEM WHICH IS A BIG SURPRISE TO THE PEOPLE WHO FUCKING LIVE THERE) is, and posting youtube memories of songs gone by. Weird to see him all old and bearded though.
  22. and as a visual codaImage

accomplished a few things

Keith has his money. There was a little interest in there. I ran in, gave him the money, wrassled a teensy smile out of Ryker (Alex is in summer camp), and said hi to Katie who was about to toss some food down the baby.

Other errands accomplished. Shaw tried to talk us into getting another DVR box (or something like) and after a chat with the technician we tapped the table.

Fraser Foreshore was absolutely wonderful. In full sun, it was noticeably hot yesterday, but in the shade, by the river, the air was, in Paul’s words, ambrosial. The male of the nesting pair of herons whom we see with almost every trip WOULD NOT SHUT UP. I have heard herons make a range of noises but this one sat on the end of the log boom and HONKED LIKE A GOOSE at the crows. I’m not joking, and I have a witness. Every time the crows moved, he’d honk like a goose in irritation. In ten minutes, that heron made more noise than any heron not in a breeding colony that I’ve ever heard of. We got some Vietnamese food after.

This morning we’re going to do a schlep.

Buster is up and whining at my door. Me: “Wait for Daddy! No door! Daddy will open the door when he gets up!” He refused treats, skritches ALL HE WANTS IS DOOR DOOR NOW DOOR NOW DOOR NAAAAOW

542 words.

Lovely phone call with Dave yesterday but I am a BAD FRIEND because when he started to groan about punctuation in his in-the-process-of-being-edited poetry book I started laughing and unfortunately could not stop. I mean, it’s a lovely problem to have AND I COMPLETELY SUPPORT HIS COMMENTS REGARDING SPACES AROUND ELLIPSES, N-DASHES AND M–DASHES. He is correct. HOWEVER it looks like his publisher has a house recipe. Also, he’s now supposed to do a 3-5 minute VIDEO about his book. This is like asking the Groke to give a three to five minute speech about existentialism while juggling lit blowtorches. I have a number of suggestions, which I made to him, and here are more woven in with them.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE. Do everything they ask, but in such a way that it can’t be used.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V. 2 Do everything they ask, but get someone else to do it.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V 3. Do everything they ask while wearing a V for Vendetta mask.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V.4 Do everything they ask but be reading a newspaper while the voice over provides the information.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V.5 Do everything they ask – and let them edit it.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V.6 Do everything they ask – for other books in their catalog

E For Effort v.1 Take videos of his cats and provide a voice over indicating that it would be of societal net benefit if you made a cat video rather than a commercial for your book, which you ‘will just have to take my word is a thoughtfully crafted work of contemporary poetry in English’.

E for Effort v.2. Take Jeff’s videos of the rats scurrying up and down the alley at dawn and intersperse them with a reading from the book (one of the things they wish in the video)

He’s got to the beginning of September.

Image

Kaossilator ip ip ip

  • Brief walk and lovely sit in the sunshine with Paul. He had a good time on the Island and Jim being in better shape really put the heart back into him. Paul’s at his volunteer job today.
  • Dragged him into the music room and made him listen to what the Kaossilator sounds like when the battery is dying
  • HEY pOp RYERSON CHANGED ITS NAME TO Toronto Metropolitan University. Given that he was a colonizer who thought Indigenous people are scum I’m cool with that.
  • MUST go to the bank today, I still haven’t paid Keith back.
  • Otto back tomorrow or the day after, that’s good.
  • President Biden is apparently going to declare a climate emergency. Don’t be too happy; those parts that are useful will be turned into money making opportunities for big Democrat donors and when the next president is a Republican it will all be swept away anyway
  • The gay mayor of a town in Oklahoma has been assaulted and frightened so much that after five years of service as Councilman and Mayor he’s resigning. I spend a lot of time in fanfic talking about states where you can’t be out in public and Kansas and Oklahoma are definitely two places where it’s as much as your life is worth to be openly gay, especially outside of places like Lawrence.
  • The entire world with the exception of New Zealand and parts of China is wandering into the seventh wave like a bunch of fools. ERs are crashing and apart from the people who visit them and work at them nobody cares.
  • Despite a century of doctors and health care professionals wearing masks, the far right and the ignorant are still claiming that wearing a mask makes for ‘too much CO2, you’ll choke.’ Showing them pictures of your pulseox before and after masks is ‘fake news.’ Now I’m not saying people deserve to die, but some will die, with belief systems like that. And it will be the young, the elderly and the disabled who pay most dearly, just like fucking usual.
  • I predict that people between forty and eighty will just ‘start dropping dead’ as the effects of multiple undiagnosed COVID infections spread out through the population. Since these deaths won’t get added to the COVID total (no active COVID infection??? CAN’T be COVID!!), the ignorant will claim that it’s the ‘stress of lockdown when it was unnecessary’, ‘drugs’, ‘chemtrails’, ‘the heat’ and ‘the government’ that’s causing these unusual deaths.
  • If you don’t have a will please make one. I have a will, it’s out of date. After all, I no longer have any assets except my intellectual property, which is LOLOLOL completely worthless except to about 3 people. But I still have to change the will so the intellectual property is specifically called out.
  • Apparently the CME is pretty much missing us but check for nice aurorae tonight in western Canada if skies are clear.
  • Don’t blame me, the wordle of the day is ‘angry’
  • 393 words on Part II

the morning update

  1. 33091 words
  2. Anniversary of the storming of the Bastille today
  3. I have achieved coffee and the kitchen rugs (aka ‘Buster’s toilet paper’) are washed and dried ready to be put back down after Suzanne does her thing
  4. The repulsigans have once again distinguished themselves by announcing that there was ‘no proof’ that a ten year old girl had been raped and needed an abortion but I READ THE TWITTER ACCOUNT OF THE LOCAL REPORTER WHO WAS IN THE COURTROOM WHERE THAT LITTLE GIRL’S RAPIST WAS ARRAIGNED. Her name is Bethany Bruner and she writes for dispatch.com, just in case those MOFOs throw it in the memory hole again.
  5. Reddit esp. the sub trollxchromosomes is FULL of women getting sterilized and sharing information about good doctors. The next generation is going to have the lowest birthrate in American history and every time repulsigans complain it will just drop again. No jobs, no prospects, world on fire, pandemic, emerging illnesses, no abortion access, men have had 40 years to be trained out of how to be a marital partner; under the circumstances, who wants a baby? My mildly out of the common mold daughter I guess.
  6. An abortion yacht will be put into service in the gulf of Mexico, apparently. I’ll believe it when I see it, but apparently Mexico stands ready to be a friendly port of call since Texas has decided to war on those of us who can still get pregnant.
  7. District Court Judge Troy Daniel denied Tirany Savage a restraining order after her soon to be ex bought a gun and threatened her and her friends, so he shot and killed her, her mother and her 13 year old son. Then, in the standard coward’s exit of pissbaby men who commit DV, Bo Savage offed himself. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS murder WITH TRAINING WHEELS. Judge Troy Daniel is now implicated in murder, and so I’m making sure my blog makes his shame and Bo’s known for as long as this site is up.
  8. Have a long Covid source list.
  9. Yes it includes Canadians.
  10. Jeff has words for Microsoft and they aren’t happy birthday.
  11. Russian soldiers are leaving evidence for war crimes behind, as if they’ll never be prosecuted. Justice will come, justice will be done.
  12. MODERNA COVID VACCINE FOR UNDER 5’S HAS FINALLY BEEN APPROVED IN CANADA there is hope
  13. I’M LOOKING AT YOU AUNTIE MARY maybe you’re an alarmist and a crybaby about COVID BUT I THINK YOU ARE THE BEST and ha ha ha you’re also STILL ALIVE and I would very much like you to stay that way, so if you don’t see Paul and Keith when they come visiting I will just smile and nod over here.

tiltawhirl day

  • simply ran out of gumption yesterday. Was supposed to go see Terry but I couldn’t. I did manage to get hold of him at the hotel though and we had a brief chat. I mean he RODE A BICYCLE TO THE THE INN from the airport, good gawd yall
  • Managed to convert the leftover rice into an egg, veg and tofu fried rice so I wasn’t completely useless yesterday
  • damn i need coffee and not just a little
  • learned from Suzanne that she may be the victim of identify theft and so she’ll be bringing her computer to the house tomorrow; Jeff has (no promises) volunteered to inspect it
  • no progress on Totally Boned. My desire to finish it is undiminished
  • John Horgan saying the health care system’s on the brink of collapse should get a boot to the ass! he didn’t mind it when he got cancer and went to the head of the line, the great fool! I mean, given that he has some control over how much workers get paid and how much PPE they have access to, how can he let that air escape his mouth
  • there’s a ‘house’ for sale in Whistler for $37 million. If you see how much glass it involves you will laugh very hard; either the glazing all pops out in an earthquake or the hvac costs are enormous. messaged Katie to find out if her employer but the marble into it (she told stories, you should ask her) and she said yes
  • at first I thought ‘sleepy Joe Biden’ was a slur but honestly this president makes molasses in February look peppy and responsive and his reaction after Roe was incredibly stupid and he’s setting the democrats up for failure by not doing something about student debt.  He might as well be a Russian plant for all the good he’s doing

another list

  • I had the fiendish notion of calling any production company I ever start ‘R Schlock’ productions since it’s a pun for arschloch, which literally and figuratively means asshole in German
  • I’m starting to pool fluid in my ankles, oh joy
  • Jeff did the lawn, I trimmed around front where the grass is growing through the shrubs and got some of the grass that’s blown into the yard storage out of same
  • stinking hot day, the ac ran continuously until well after sunset, more of the same today
  • Breakfast at Foreshore yesterday, we were dining alone for most of it and they had the doors wide open
  • Obviously I should stop eating out and I will but damn that sausage is good
  • Shop this morning, out of milk and various other comestibles. If I go early enough the place is deserted. Need more N95 masks; you should only reuse them five or ten times and not if they get really sweaty. Maybe there will be tests as well although I doubt it
  • Hope to write today, yesterday I thought I didn’t do any but it was enough to send to mOm who was very happy to get it current count 32702
  • I’ll be seeing Terry today over at Planet Bachelor (I’m going to keep calling it that, I know Katie changed the name but I’m a stick in the mud). I’m supposed to remind Paul around noon. Terry’s going to cross the Rockies on a bicycle. I don’t know if he’s turned 70 yet but he’s no ‘landfowl of spring’. So you can think he’s a lunatic but I think it’s very cool and even cooler given that he’s long recovered from a hangman’s fracture acquired from a car-bike collision of some years back. Yup that man might have been a high quad but instead he’s challenging himself with a punishing regime of exercise
  • a woman’s in custody for stabbing a man in Yaletown yesterday
  • You have to wonder if the bad temper everyone is showing is a social or physical manifestation of the pandemic, or both
  • somebody is blasting through my fanfic again, (hullo fren, *alice’s reading list!*) picking only the ‘that Darn Cas’ series to read (which is the only series I wrote)
  • Elon Musk yelling at Donald Trump Sr on social media (for being old and broken) the week a censorious world finds out he has 9 count em 9 CHILDREN – most outside the confines of marriage (who cares but he comports himself like a moralist so fuck’im) – DURING a week when he basically howled about how white people are being erased is A LOOK I’m telling you, and not a good one
  • In some places in the US positivity rates are ten times what the hospitalization rate is, and some of them are NORTH OF 40% so please expect this surge to send hundreds of thousands of workers home and hundreds of thousands of tourists into airports they can’t get out of. DON’T FLY please. I beg ya (source Walgreens https://twitter.com/myrabatchelder/status/1546389769181167617/photo/1) just as an aside the positivity rate in Texas is 45%, same source and we’ve got rellies travelling by air from there. They ain’t frail elderly but they may be when this is done. Saw a picture from YYZ this morning, travellers, half of them baresnouts, jammed together like Chinese New Year at Guangzhou South station
  • I have remembered HA that there was sourdough rye in the downstairs freezer thanks to Katie’s last Costco trip and I brought it upstairs.
  • Putin wants to be called ‘ruler’ instead of ‘president’ because president is an American term and ruler is more Russian. I GUESS Führer WAS TAKEN BOY HOWDY

much foreshore

Foreshore Restaurant for breakfast w/ Jeff, Foreshore for walkies with Paul, then off to the weed store in New West for YES THEY HAD TRAINWRECK I’M SO HAPPY and also gummies, because I’m out. All in all a very nice day. Woods were full of birdsong and the weather is so splendid (and the sky so beautiful, filled with ripples of clouds) it’s just … lovely.

I complained about Beyoncé’s new video (to my friends on Social Media) having migraine/epilepsy triggering flashies. A technology journalist asked me to comment and I told her that it was my preference that affected Black people comment, I’ve said what I needed to say and don’t need to further grab the mic. Got my own platform (pat pat) right here.

the people vs. the press

Despite the overwhelming hatred and bigotry being expressed in the daily papers in the UK against trans people, one in four Britons is reporting that they know a trans person and the majority of people surveyed don’t agree with their rights and health care being stripped away. I could bang on about the basic decency of people but I won’t. I’ll just say that it’s possible people are more resistant to Nazi propaganda than you often give them credit for.

A woman in my neighbourhood published a photo of a bus creep on NextDoor (which is candidly the last fucking place on earth I’d expect to see such a thing) and it didn’t take very long before two men bounced on her hard to tell her she ought not to publicly shame people. Ie women shouldn’t complain about men. Then a bunch of other people came out to flail on the misogynists including other men.

I JUST FUCKING LOVE HOW WHITE MEN ENJOY TELLING WOMEN OF COLOUR TO CALL THE COPS ON A MAN OF COLOUR. Because that was the reaction of the naysayers WHY DINCHA CALL THE COPS.

“OH YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT TO THE POOR MAN, EXPOSE HIM TO PUBLIC SHAME… NOPE you should call the cops.” WHY should a woman of colour (Arabic 1st and last name, for all I know she’s as pink as me but I’m not betting on it) call the RCMP on a Chinese guy? If she’s a Syrian immigrant (spitballing here) what the fuck would lead anyone to believe that she trusts the cops over local direct action? Given how the local cops’ (VPD, RCMP) treat men having mental health issues in public, one might refrain from calling them for assistance when one feels threatened just so one doesn’t have a death on one’s conscience. The VPD shot dead a man having mental health issues at Clarke and Broadway and the RCMP are no better, I assure you. I mean, it’s never been proven, but I’ve seen lots of evidence that the RCMP on the Island shot an Indigenous man who was having mental health issues and WAS UNARMED in the head WHILE HE WAS KNEELING. THAT COP IS STILL SERVING.

Fuckin’ wild I’m telling you. SURE, call the cops. You’ll never regret it.

toasted sesame seed bagel, smoked wild-caught salmon, roasted garlic cream cheese, capers and red onion for brekky… Jeff’s response was a literal ‘nom nom nom’

I made coffee but Jeff’s just going to ignore that part. We have to end eating pizza before it ends Jeff’s end.

19300 words. I chug, I chug, I chug along.

I’m going to listen to Eminence Front (the Who) ON BLAST

Ghislaine Maxwell says she needs lenience in sentencing because she had a terrible childhood. NOPE

Zahn McLarnon in Dark Winds is AMAZING and the writing is 100%

I saw Ryker yesterday when I helped Katie with a Costco shop and he was crabby and nobody was wearing a mask who was under 50. FML. Katie doesn’t wear a mask in public because Ryker goes snake when she does.