Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
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
this is Lottie Fry riding Glamourdale in the FEI Dressage World Championship Individual Grand Prix Freestyle
Ever seen a horse skip? yeah
happy Halloween! I light a candle for our precious dead and the ancestors crowding close…. This post is LONG so I’m going to shorten it.
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
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.
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 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
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.
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.
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
As mentioned Suzanne did all the driving to the campsite. It is on Big Bar Road close to 70 Mile House. Photos and further details will not be provided. It’s all paved highway except for the last 25 or so klicks, which starts fine and gets progressively worse. There are half a dozen cattleguards on the road so even if you get to the decent speed of 50 kph you must immediately slow down.
During the trip I learned that she knows of a kitten source. I have discussed with Jeff. I hope to obtain a female tabby kitten. I said I wouldn’t but gosh darn it.
Our host, a brother in law of Suzanne’s, has a Ram 3500 Diesel Dooley with a 100 litre spare tank. He also owns a blue Ford tractor, a Case double ended back hoe, a quad with a box full of tree cutting implements, and the single most impressive trailer I’ve ever seen. It’s so impressive I’m going to go back into one of the fanfics I’m working on and rewrite it.
It has a Honda 6500 inverter genset; industrial cooling; a built in engine hoist (for game but sure, he could use it for that), a walk in fridge, a fifty inch tv, three INCREDIBLY COMFY BEDS; and a gunsafe. To say this guy is prepared for everything from a camping trip to a moose hunt to a zombie apocalypse is putting it mild. He installed hardwood flooring on the TRAILER CEILING. He is iggzackly the kind of guy you want on your team.
The property has a somewhat sulfurous artesian well (water is fit to drink, just a little skunky) and cold as anything. The well leaked – so after a great deal of fucking around on his part he got the overflow into a culvert across the road so there’s no flooding. He ended up with an artesian beer fridge / dog trough. There is nothing quite so satisfying as making up something to drink and then shot-putting it into a pond to chill. Suzanne
Stella the wonderdog is 14, black lab cross, grizzled but still lively, and she decided to follow and obey me at one point (she was tired and wanted her bed; I announced “I am going to bed” and she followed me and then I held back the mosquito curtain and got in the trailer and she followed me in and waited for me to clap my hands twice to join me on the sleeping platform. (I think she was tired of the mosquitoes). There’s no point complaining about the mosquitoes. I’m covered in bites. I didn’t want to be covered in DEET for the best part of a week, so I paid.
I had the sum total of one can of beer with supper the middle night, did not otherwise drink alcohol.
Apart from washing dishes, sweeping the outhouse before we left, writing some poems and driving back, I DID NOTHING but get sun, bug bites and a lot of fantastic sleep in the chill of a plateau night (screened windows wide open; after singeing hot days the nights were so cool it was delightful). The company was entertaining and educational (I believe he has memorized every single one of his moose kills for entertainment purposes and I had a mooseburger the first night) and all in all it was absolutely amazing.
Cell service is er spotty, so I’m just as glad I didn’t take any electronics.
Big Bar Lake is cold and beautiful. Loons can be heard at night. Eagles soar overhead during the day. Stridulating insects everywhere. Sulphur butterflies, mourning cloaks, some fritillaries. Chipmunks. Deer. Bears come through a couple of times a year. No cougars apparently. Very dusty; the place is still a construction site and our host built three courses of fence while we were there, took down tons of trees, replaced a tractor tire and was in general extremely hardworking.
I don’t even want to talk about it any more, I might jinx it. The co-owner is a drunken rude lazy fuck (I got AMPLE EVIDENCE FOR WHICH) but we stayed away from him and it didn’t impact our fun.
Suzanne is a miracle to camp with, she had everything. Her car was BUNGFUL. I drove back and we found a GENUINE MEXICAN TACO STAND in Cache Creek (‘Zanne is celiac so it was like YESSSS!) called Hola Taco. For five bucks we got a memorably delish pork taco with sauces and MEXICAN COLA yes.
Fire ban, but it didn’t bother us.
Host asked for my advice for playsets for grandkids. You know me, I got lots of ideas.
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.
So the Delica was wonderful to sleep in, thanks, after Mike sorted out the storage issues. He packed tent pegs, he swears he did, but he didn’t find them so the SUV tent extension never got put up. That hiccup aside, I got to camp:
In a new place (Sxótsaqel, Chilliwack Lake PP)
RIGHT ACROSS from the pit toilets, which were clean and unsmelly
Drank not a single whisper of anything alcoholic
Found out about recent generation camping equipment that’s most useful
with a cat and two dogs (Ninja, Zaya and Jasper)
with a raven flying through the woods
listened to the other people at the campsite play Mölkky which is a deranged Finnish version of skittles invented late last century
and three little chipmunks so we kept yelling for Alvin
with new people and old (Stephanie, the long term girlfriend of Erik (all camping trips should have a meltingly beautiful young couple to admire, she’s one of those women who without being too much into herself can put her hair into a messy bun in 1.5 seconds and then look gorgeous) and her beau Erik who instead of being Jarmo’s child at Baumfest, conspiring with Ville to lock me in an outhouse LOL LOL is in fourth year med school prepping to be a radiologist and who probably saw Tom on rounds when he was dying at RCH, and Päivi, whom I hadn’t seen in easily 15 years; and Samppa her oldest whom I hadn’t previously met and Matthias who turns out to be ANOTHER Finnish extraction med student. We got into the prolapses folks, it was intense, also hilarious)
Not having to prepare a single meal, cup of coffee, pack except for myself or do any driving. I wiped some stuff up, cleaned the small trash off the campsite, got the chairs out of the rain, that kind of thing; told stories and sang songs
—very nice gig frankly
With a view so intense that if you want to see the mountaintops through the trees you have to tip your head back
and a beautiful beach
and it’s only two hours from here, less if you maniac it down highway 1.
I have more notes and more details later, but I’m home, and happy and I can hardly wait to tell Katie about it but I bet she already knows about this campground. Maybe pics later if I can liberate them from Mike.
All hugs and kisses to Mike for underwriting basically everything
Paul and I sat in the park down the hill and blossoms fell on us. The dogwood tree looks, in full bloom, like something from a Tolkien film. We came back and drank tea on the deck.
Buster’s wounds are healing well.
12066 words, mostly revision. I’ve done a stem to stern adjustment and tightening of the story so far, and it’s stalled a little bit because I am pantsing and there’s three ways I can go.
Survey Sunday:
If you had a choice between living your life again and going back in time and killing Hitler in 1933 which would it be?
so yes! documentary evidence of yesterday’s walk. I am so glad I suggested that he might like to take the camera along. He’s such an accomplished individual; I’m glad I could remind him.
Which photo do you like best and why?
