Category: Companion Animals

Shifting emphasis

I’m thinking keep the blog but make it just the release point for a podcast (with a complete and accurate transcript so visually impaired and deaf people can consume it) on a regular schedule. I have some ideas. LOL. I am, after all, an idea factory. I’m making a list of episode subjects and am considering various formats.

I don’t know why, but I’m thinking of a film made in Africa (I was 18, forgive me if I didn’t keep my class notes about which country it was filmed in and I can’t find anything in Wikipedia.) In it, the present day in a bustling city is depicted in colour; but his fantasies about becoming rich and immigrating are in black and white. I remember at the time being much struck by the emotional resonance of this; that your fantasies are so shopworn as to no longer be vibrant, and as a visual metaphor for the protagonist’s internal life I’ve rarely seen the equal.

We finished “One Day as a Lion”. mOm, picture Totally Boned if it was a het couple and set in the hottest ass end of Oklahoma (and people get shot…). I personally loved it (there were so many little beaut touches), Jeff was so so and said the script needed a punch up and the ending was too abrupt (both valid comments.) It is TOTALLY an ‘instant family Harlequin Romance with dead bodies.”

I forgive Scott Caan (son of James) his ‘career’ as a rapper (I believe I have made CLEAR my opinion of white rappers who did not come up in the business credibly integrated with Black ones) if he can produce little bloodstained film confections like this.

I have to do my Lumosity and get dressed, Jeff wants to do a schlep this morning. We don’t normally go on the weekend. Just checked to make sure they’re open at 7, since we hardly ever go on Sunday (the organic homo is usually all gone.)

As predicted air quality (the Alberta fires) is moderately bad (60 and variable) and today’s going to be the hottest day of this heat wave so don’t do a goddamned thing outside today. Just sayin.

Efforts to teach Buster to count to three are going badly. All he does is start salivating when I count to three, since that means I’m about to drop some treats on his little tuffet. Considering that other people’s pets do things like speculate as to whether a new human baby brother will cry when being stuck in the car seat I feel sad until he commands me to pet him, at which point I calm down.

 

pleasant times

Lovely indoor walk with Paul yesterday at Lougheed. He seems very beaten down and oppressed by his illness but cheered up for the walk. It always cheers folks up to eat, so we got some lo mai gai, which was particularly fine in comparison with previous outings, and there was a lone har gaw in there because they were out of enough lo mai gai to fulfil my order, and the hot and sour soup was as good as I ever remember it being there. We went to Cobb’s but I didn’t buy treats, just spongy crusty white bread which is my kryptonite for stuff I’m s’posed to lay off for my liver.

Continue reading pleasant times

quietly productive

I emptied and ran the dishwasher, wiped down the hellhole surfaces in the kitchen closest to the compost buckets and got most of the rain of tomato out of the microwave, trained the cat, made and thoroughly enjoyed a coffee, possibly wrote a song, did my wordle and lumosity training, clipped Buster’s claws, made ‘meat and potatoes’ for lunch, sent a thousand words to mOm, figured out what my next couple of scenes are (although I’m not putting pressure on myself to write) and I generally luxuriated in the life of a retired person. I took my meds at the right time. I stayed hydrated. I put in eyedrops before I went to bed.

That’s what I’m supposed to do, right?

Watched the Netflix film the Pale Blue Eye. Harry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe was wonderful. Harry Melling’s grandad was the second Doctor Who, who knew. Gillian Anderson’s bizarre mom to a bizarre family was …. bizarre and hypercreepy.  Christian Bale as the haunted detective was quite effective. I really enjoyed the script. Unlike many scripts (many, many; hear me whine) set in historical times, it neither gracelessly dropped modern slang like horseshit into a griddle nor overdid the ceremony and style of days of speech in days of yore. I didn’t hear a single anachronism. Do you have any idea how pleasant that is for a writer? I mean there were many constructions that would likely not have happened in the 1830s, but nothing so far from contemporary usage that it was repellent. For that alone, huit sur dix.

Jeff Bezos, may the intertwined Fates of a thousand cultures give him his reward, has, through Amazon, bought an Indian publishing house called Westland Publishing. It is one of the few publishing houses in India that has the wit and courage to publish ANYTHING that challenges Hindutva. (Spoiler alert, I think that all countries are idiotic, but once you have a settled state that calls itself a democracy, you should perhaps not support a political ideology that FIGHTS LIKE HELL AGAINST PLURALISTIC DEMOCRACY BECAUSE HINDUS ARE JUST BETTER, KK? Plus the caste system is groovy, men own women’s bodies, marital rape is super cool, cops can kill women who report rapes after raping them again, and Muslims are arson targets) OKAY maybe I’m being a racist asshole, oh look, I’m not. I really don’t think that China and India holding hands over kicking the shit out of Muslims is a good look for either country; people are dying in riots pogroms and political reeducation camps in both countries. Anyway, Bezos is literally supporting global fascism by doing that and we already knew he was a cruel billionaire, but HONESTLY can’t he just fucking stop.

Anyway, the closure of the publishing house means that hundreds of titles are no longer available. Absolutely no word on how and when they could be available elsewhere. There’s more than one way to be fash. Having the money to buy good things that support democracy and discourse, and destroy them (huLLLLLO Elongated Greaserat) is fascist.

a six year old is in custody for shooting his teacher. The cops didn’t arrest the person responsible for leaving a loaded pistol out. Everything you need to know about gun culture in the US in one story. (from CNN website, 6-year-old in custody after shooting teacher in Virginia, police chief says By Amanda Musa and Jennifer Feldman, CNN
Updated 7:19 AM EST, Sat January 7, 2023)

 

Christmas Void – Jan and Soon’s new cat Count Tricksy

Christmas Void, Christmas Void / hiding by the tree. / Will you ever try to drop the Christmas tree on me OH / Christmas Void, Christmas Void / hiding by the tree. / Will you ever try to drop the Christmas tree on me. / Make the tree to shed / by using it to shred / It is not alive / but not exactly dead (a ZOMTREE) / Festive all our hearts / Seasonal our joy / Now that Tannenbaum is up the cat has got a toy! OH!

 

& repeat until people throw crackers.

The return of the catfather

Buster was waiting on the back stairs for Jeff upon his return, which made for a pleasant moment. Jeff has recovered from the grab bag of indignities that ferry travel subjects him to. Before his arrival I managed to get all the food containers and compostable trash dealt with so the kitchen wasn’t armpit high in trash.

Continue reading The return of the catfather

Buster Boy

Buster slept in my room. I thrashed in my sleep and booted him off the bed so he hid in the closet. Then this morning he walked straight to his wet food dish and he didn’t even glare at me, just made it perfectly clear that he’d keep vigil there until I gave him wet food. So I did.

I hope everyone enjoys their day. I’ve got a few things planned.

9328 words Part II

2166 new fic

Rain rain

More rain forecast. The ground needs to very thoroughly soak.

Got the Wordle in four guesses today.

Whole wheat pita with cream cheese and tea for breakfast (I’m off coffee for a bit to give it a rest).

Enjoying Sharpe and Hornblower so much that I think I want to write a fanfic about Jack Aubrey, Horatio Hornblower and Richard Sharpe all being in the same place at the same time. I won’t, of course, but damn it would be fun.

Bunny the dog has a communication board with dozens of words on it; she remarked, after her owner said, YOU FARTED ALL NIGHT LONG BUNNY with the deathless words, “Sound. Poop.”

8803 words part II

we actually phoned pOp

So we got to wish him the best of the day, which it sounds like he had. Any day he can get in the Camaro and drive to the Place of the Rural Pollinators with his sweetie is a good one.

Ordered curried shrimp and rice from D Roti Shak yesterday. DOD it’s so good and as usual it arrived more or less as I clicked on Door Dash to order it. Jeff got a chick’n roti.

Keith came by and fetched the frozen food we’ve been keeping for his household. He didn’t hang around obvs; it had to go back home.

Buster trained HARD this morning, good kitty.

Kyiv still facing blackouts as the Ukrainian grid totters under Russian attacks.

More Hornblower. g’DAMN but David Warner plays such an amazing villain; in this case a Hero Gone Bad with opioids and drink, and possibly early onset dementia. Jeff and I were so thrilled that the movie/episode started with a flashback and there was no trial. (Believe that Jeff and I have made clear how we feel about courtroom episodes except for Good Wife). Now we’re shuddering because chances are the next episode will be nothing BUT a trial. Here’s hoping.

Most recent stats show one in ten americans over 65 has dementia and 22% have cognitive decline. Source: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IRVING MEDICAL CENTER October 24 press release

one quarter of the Canadian population is immigrants. Source: Statscan via CBC October 26. With climate change and other issues I think their predictions for the future are sadly out of whack, but that number will definitely rise no matter who’s rattling and jimmying the population model.

of course Indigenous people count those numbers differently, and I mean no disrespect. Population stats for Inuit, Métis and Indigenous peoples shown here.

Another chunk of the Epic of Gilgamesh has been discovered, to the joy and wonderment of archaeologists. The joke going around the internet is that our anonymous scribe from ancient times ‘dropped a new chapter’ before George RR Martin coughed up another Winds of Winter book (What Game of Thrones was based on.) If you know, you know, and if you don’t, we still have more Gilgamesh.

so happy for the rain we’ve been getting. We’re about to get a flood more, but nothing like last November.

Just heard the foghorn blow FIVE TIMES blasting up the hill. Guess it’s foggy on the Fraser.

 

This showed up on facebutt this am:

I entitle this picture I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION.

Alex and Ryker at the park Oct 2022 also you get to see which of my apps is open

Hey, feel like vomiting in disgust? look who’s back. …at a tough on crime hoedown. Good to know wife murderers are allus welcome.

And just for laughs here’s my stats from AO3 yesterday sometime. I’ve posted more than 36 stories since 2017. I deleted some; total is currently 36.

Because Rishi Sunak is a horse’s ass, (and a fucking rich horse’s ass, to be sure) he didn’t acknowledge Larry the Cat as the UK’s new PM went to Number 10 Downing Street for the first time. Larry made no comment after regarding this untoward snub.

 

I believe Anthony Rapp

I always found him more credible than Kevin Spacey the man ””’HEAVILY ALLEGED ””” and now acquitted of sexually assaulting him when he was FOURTEEN.

Cousin Alex, has indicated, in consequence of conversations with other people in show business, that she believes him too.

Kevin Spacey was small time when it happened, but over and over again older white men are privileged over everyone else and we now have a world that reflects that.

A police officer with the RCMP was murdered here in Burnaby the other day and it’s sad for so many reasons. She was specifically trained to work with vulnerable populations and one of them stabbed her. There was a handwritten note on the spot of her death, “I’m sorry you didn’t make it, I hope you heard us coming.”

I’m angry because I’m afraid the RCMP will use this death as a reason to back away from less violent policing. If they don’t that would be a proper memorial for Cst. Shaelyn Yang.

I’m angry because in all likelihood she was a good cop and good cops seem to get pushed out of the profession one way or another.

I’ll be watching the trial of the man arrested for her murder with interest.

Got my flu shot availability notification; picked up my medications.

Dunnett Day is in planning mode; I don’t think I’ll attend this year. Although I may well if we’re on a heated patio.

8215 words Part II

Suzanne was here yesterday and clean floors actually temporarily existed. She finished the Part I of Totally Boned that I printed for her and wants to give it to her sister Fran now, and I approved. Go litul bok.

I bought myself a steak & lobster dinner for delivery last night. I was so emotionally exhausted after I left Katie’s (although it was awesome to see Alex (new favorite Game ‘Doors’ on Roblox, got a brief tour) and Ryker (who made strange at me). I got very self-indulgent. Briefly saw Keith; he was going walking with a friend and he gave me a hug on the way out the door which I was not expecting and much enjoyed.

Why was I emotionally exhausted – because Paul is, despite many conversations at this point, not actually understanding or able to do anything to help slow his dementia (besides exercise), he’s still in denial about it and not understanding why pestering Keith about his efforts to get a cat (they have mice AND they are all cat people) is counterproductive (Keith’s busting ass).

The reason I went over there was to record any family story he liked with the help of family photos so he could remember and he literally could not put more than a sentence together about any of the pictures we were looking at. I asked him about The House on Wortley Road (that’s the way he says it) and he couldn’t give me more than a couple of sentences and was just randomly saying stuff and saying things like “That’s a good picture of us” (from the Pan Pacific Christmas Party… I think that’s the one where Jarmo nearly got thrown out of the hotel for playing 20th Century Schizoid Man really loud in his room or was it War Pig, I was so effing drunk that night).

I have to start approaching him for this stuff first thing in the morning. And you know what, I’m not really in any shape to do this. He’s already a shell of himself (still cheerful and talkative, just not… himself)  and I was crying in the car on the way back but not loud enough for him to notice.

Ryker is run walking falling crawling at ninety miles an hour. There’s no baby gate for the front stairs (he would basically be in traction for a year if he fell down them) and he crawls CLOSE to the stairs but doesn’t seem interested in flinging himself down them, which is a perfectly fine sign of intelligence. What he does love to do is climb things. He was climbing the elliptical machine the folks have and everything turns and I thought he would end up clipping himself and he did… cried for two seconds.

I left before Dax came over. He thinks I hate him. I don’t any more but I was damned if I was going to let my emotional exhaustion trigger some kind of autistic meltdown and really didn’t want to open that door on Katie.

Jessica’s dad’s surgery was CANCELLED. He needs a triple bypass, he’s in heart failure, and he won’t get the operation until Monday at the earliest. It’s brain-punching news and Jessica and Katie are both terrified he’ll die before he can even have the surgery.

The chaos in the UK is unbelievable, and still life persists there. Brittwitter is alternating wails of angry disbelief, extremely funny reaction pictures, and people saying that Liz Truss, in flattening the pound and killing the queen, is the greatest revolutionary of her generation.

I’m going to try to do something productive today; haven’t figured out what. The rain has finally come and it’s such a relief to be able to breathe. Okay done my daily blog, COFFEE GET IN MY TANK GODDAMN YOU

but everything is going great

 

 

 

yah, that blog post heading is a line from one of my songs.

the line before it is: Sure, the world is sliding into a pit. That’s from “The Evening News” which I wrote in Montréal and is generally considered to be one of my finest tunes (the guy I took the music course from and Paul both agree).

Suzanne dropped by yesterday with a sunflower in one hand (currently brightening the kitchen) and a beige lace tablecloth (now on Granny’s dining room table) in the other and she picked up the camera set from her dead friend Richard since I couldn’t sell it on Craigslist … and so it doesn’t matter when she shows up she brings a little happiness.

I’m still thinking about Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. I think the jumping spiders are just about the cutest animated critters I’ve ever seen. I just loved that movie.

Buster seems completely healed up. When I think how much blood was on him when he showed up on the 8th it seems miraculous.

My mood isn’t bad but I don’t really feel like moving. Practiced yesterday, sent some words to mOm (which reminds me, 6012 words on part II). Watched Sharpe’s Rifles (the first Sharpe) yesterday; Jeff dl’d a simple wonderful copy. The music though is gross. Electric guitar and French horn need a lighter hand than either of the men credited with the music could supply.

I’m supposed to get Alex on Friday.

Candles up for Jessica’s (Katie’s best friend’s) dad, who’s languishing at RCH with MRSA and he can’t get his heart operated on until he throws the infection, minimum two weeks. Katie’s liable to burst into tears at the thought; he’s been a kindly hardworking lovely human for more than half her life and she’s terrified he’ll die.

Thinking about Foreshore Restaurant for Brekky.

 

late post – sorry

Lovely visit with Alex yesterday, talked some more with Katie about her domestic situation, Keith is coming over today to help with the yard.

Ordered breakfast from Angelina’s this morning, a truly spectacular amount of self indulgence but I ordered zero meat and most of the fruit in their amazing fruit bowl is local.

Buster is very subdued, mewing in a sad way, but he’s definitely uninterested with ‘outside’ at the moment and requested that I re-lock the cat door after I opened it. I know that sounds insane since he can’t talk, but he stands in front of the unlocked catdoor and sort of nods once and walks away, then stands in the games room to show that he is *moving away from the door* and settles after the door is locked again.

No AC today until later, will probably only need it to dehumidify and cool a bit.

I got four hours of sleep. Didn’t get to sleep until 3:30 but another couple of rewatched episodes of Sandman and I finally got to lights out.