Category: Companion Animals

Visits.

Visited with Sue this morning to help her download from her daddy’s funeral. He was 102.  Meshuggas about the inheritance; waiting is.

LOVELY visit with Mike last night (funnily enough I’d been kvetching to Paul, with whom I was practicing yesterday, about how MIKE WUZ NOT RETURNING MY CALLS WAHWAH) and he called around 8 and I kinda forst him to let me come over.  I brought Otto and sang Theo’s Theme and John Scalzi’s Blog and Compost and Grateful and It’s Just So Nice When Someone knows your Name, and Lemming’s Twofer, and the first verse of Wanted to Believe, and Mike sang the drop D version of Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue and another song, I can’t remember which.  We talked about various things, including how trying work is for him right now, and how the insomnia really doesn’t help. BUT HE FOUND THE TAYLOR.  His parlour guitar was lost in the move but he found it again, and so me happy.  I was VERY BAD and drank two beers, which made me so drunk I collapsed on the sofa and slept from 10:30 til 8:30 the next morning.  Two beers.  I always was a lightweight, but this was ludicrous.  Also worked on Rozo for a while, her shoulders were a reticulation of weenie little knots.  While I was there Mike called Brian and I got to talk to him for a while.  There is nothing like the sound of a friend’s voice, yanno?

This morning I came home and promptly started brekkie for Jeff, being melon and bacon and pamcakes, and then Sue called and I went off and had a second breakfast of more coffee.  Also, getting checks signed so I can pay some churchy bills. Then I wandered into a sign shop and ORDERED the John Caspell Memorial Pinball Parlour sign for reelz this time, and then my other errands got shunted aside as I had to trot home due to the coffee.

Now I am looking up the language of flowers on the internet for a bouquet I’m buying for the minister tomorrow and as soon as I change my clothes – ew, slept in my clothes, what am I, frosh at some scummy college??? – I’ll be off to buy a floral bouquet, pick up some more spray paint, and buy some eggs and butter to get going on some biscotti.  Roast chicken for dinner tonight.  MMMMM chicken.

I cooked a pork roast the other night with basil and lemon thyme from Suzanne’s deck garden.  It was nommy too, although Jeff owned that it was a little overcooked.  We did agree that pork roast should be roasted, it doesn’t cook right in the crock pot.

Paul and Keith are off to Seattle for the long weekend.  Katie is doing cat care this time; I should call her.  The only reason I know she’s alive is from her facebook comments.

Miss Margot has been extra barfy.  I need to brush her very very thoroughly and give her a lot of kitty malt.

SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SINGING NEW SONG FOR MINISTER.  he he.

WEEEIRD

So I go outside with Otto to work on what is rapidly shaping up to be Theo’s Theme (for the evol villein of Midnite Moving Co).  Within four bars, there is a robin FLYING TOWARD ME AND CALLING MADLY.  Robin then perches in a tree, never removing gaze.  Robin attempts to keep up with me in the music generation department, getting louder but eventually quitting in disgust.  Then it moves to the dogwood, and then the top of the tree stump.  I felt uncomfortable and went indoors.  Despite everything the tune is sounding great and my finger picking is coming along nicely.  I think I’m kinda the Meg White of mandolin players, althought that’s definitely a slap to Meg.

Keith and Paul should show up shortly with corn and tales of Paul’s mom’s successful nth birthday (I can’t remember exactly and I don’t know if she’d thank me to…) I hear another family turned up en masse, which should have rendered things much more festive and apparently were awesome in that Keith got to see Peter, his oldest friend.  And the vampire family!  woot.

Also, this morning Margot tried to get into the dryer  Man, how HAS she lived this long?

Productive day of errands including two overdue ones.

Miss Margot watches the screen

A couple of days ago Margot was sitting on her tuffet in the den while Jeff was copying files.  She watched intently as the files flew between the folders, and then for yuks Jeff started shifting the dialog box around, and she watched that too.  Eddie never watches TV although occasionally he responds to sounds from the speakers.

Margot needs a bath, she’s getting a bit pee-ie, and it’s Jeff that has to put up with her rank rear end.

I have a new phone, an HTC One S (I bought it on Thursday last but it was DOA so I replaced it).  I am very much liking it but I’m still getting used to the keyboard.

Bobcats

this spot used to hold a link to pics of bobcats in Calgary HAHA WHO KNEW THAT LESS THAN A DECADE LATER I’D SEE A BOBCAT HIKING DISTANCE FROM MY RENTAL okay back to 2012

Yesterday I saw Katie briefly.  Night before Paul and I went to Jericho after feasting here on pork chomps and green beans and corn and salad.

I was super tired yesterday and napped for a good chunk of the afternoon, with Margot fizzling and burbling and napping with me.  This morning she tried to join me long before sunrise but I thrash around too much so she left and is now guarding my door.

This sentence deleted in 2020 because it makes zero sense.

Eye stye with my painful eye

The folks where I interviewed very kindly called back and I have a second chance to demonstrate my willingness to work.  I have a stye in my left eye that hopefully won’t look too hideous.

Margot is noisily cleaning herself.

I broke the venetian blinds in my room the other day and have been getting along without window coverings.   I am thinking of something steampunk themed for new draperies.

Quote of the day

Social media has turned modern friendship into a pixellated bar that serves kittens, soundbites and RPGs. – A Sloman.

Tony Scott, noted director and producer and brother of Ridley, committed suicide by jumping off a bridge.  He left a note. He was 68.  Depression’s a hell of an illness, and my condolences to his family, friends and associates. …added later – he had inoperalbe brain cancer.

What the hell I don’t even.  Binge drinkers are happier.  Science sez.  I only post this because this was the first weekend I really really really wanted to buy beer, but I managed not to.  Most of the time I don’t even think about alcohol but I came piteously close to purchasing same when I came out of the Heather Dale concert, and no jokes about how she drove me to drink.

Should get a call back about work today.  Guess I need to run some laundry.

Saw the Helen Mirren version of the Tempest.  Loved it.

Margot breathes at 14 -16 breaths per minute, which is apparently low.  She’s very noisy right now… I’m assuming she’s asleep.  Eddie did a phantom barf yesterday morning.  Jeff and I both heard him and we looked everywhere and couldn’t find it.  Speaking of Eddie, he’s scratching at the door, so I’ll get up and let him in.

I find this article really disturbing and can’t articulate why.

 

Bizzy day

I have to go down to the church and pick up the banner and literature for New West Pride.  It’s going to be so Nixonianly hot today I might as well pre melt myself and pour myself in Margot’s water dish.  Then I get to come home, lie down in front of the ac for a couple of hours, and in the evening get up and go (it’s in Burnaby, thankfully) to see Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps.  Morosely hoping there’s ac at the concert site.

And I don’t want to do any of it as the heat is making me wretched. I am also suffering the consequences of having worn pantyhose and heels for the first time in three months yesterday.  What ties a fool to his body?  A promise.  And lest anybody be upset, it’s a Dunnett quote.  It was CRUSHINGLY hot in here last night and the ac ran all night, which is just ludicrous for this part of the world.

This morning Margot came into my room and jumped on my bed, and at one point even sat on my pillow. She hasn’t done that since she was a kitten.  It turns out she was trying to get me to let Eddie in for his breakfast, at which point she joined him.  I wish she’d vocalize, it would make it easier.

blah

Unbelievably loud and continuous thunderstorm last night starting around seven thirty – four hours at least maybe longer.  You should have seen Margot’s face as she bolted in the door as the first thunder hit.  Eyes like saucers. Then she stayed right next to my bedroom door all night.

Katie’s here; she cut my hair and helped me run some errands.

Can’t settle to anything…. feeling blah.

A mad wor(l)d my masters

Snoop Dogg went to JaMAIca and came back a Rasta.  He now goes by Snoop Lion and his next album will be entirely reggae.  Tis fabulous news!  Hope he covers at least one Sublime tune…

OMG  I just spent two hours reading RADFem and Transfem blogs and the hate and bigotry are so tiresome and frightening that I went to a Men’s Rights blog for a while to help me get my bearings.

Unclear on the concept – private company tries to trademark Anonymous.

Paul’s back from Ontario, brown as a walnut and sporting a rather luxurious multicolored beard.  He poked his head in briefly last night and it was good to see him in such good spirits!  Then he had to go to work….

Eddie haz a sad.  He hates it when Jeff is gone for any length of time.

Had brekky with the lovely and everblooming Sue, and how good it was to spend some time with her.

Now, back to work.  I have learned that when you’re writing trombone lines, you need lots of places for players to take breaths, as they need more air than any other brass instrument.

 

 

Friday teh 13th o noes.

Today the horror of the landlord’s minion coming to pressure wash the back deck, which will probably disassemble, it’s so rickety (or at least parts of it are).

Last night the horror of the evil across the street black and white cat whom I narrowly missed ejecting from the house. He came in and started fighting with Eddy, who has taken to guarding the cat door with Margot sitting about three metres back from him. Margot is showing signs of developing a healthier regard for her skin than has been evident previously.

Saw Brave yesterday with the kids and Katie’s beau, who was much distracted by the transmission on his month old car crapping out. I really enjoyed it. Lovely animation with some awesome sight gags.

Had a fucking uninspired and oversalted meal at Ihop yesterday, but Tamara’s company more than made up for it. We caught up (it’s been AGES since I saw her, like 10 years or something equally ludicrous) and LAUGHED our faces off. She looks radiant with health and enthusiasm and that is a special privilege to be around.

Too hot to bake today so I’ll go off and do other business related things, god knows there’s a list a mile long. I’ve already practiced and I’m just finishing up the instrument case for Otto so it will be ready tomorrow. I need to find some upholstery tacks.