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!
Little Miss Margot
Samantha is a mastiff cross, and small, dainty and elegant do not describe her. What she is, is big, although as we slogged through the rain and mud at Trout Lake yesterday there were bigger dogs yet at the offleash part of the park. My companion was amazed that there could be an offleash park where there were nesting birds, and I asked, somewhat rhetorically, if he’d ever been to Trout Lake in the summer time, when it is a warm green hymn to avian fecal material. Given that human beings also swim there (I have seen it, although you wouldn’t catch me in there unless the person next to me was encouraging me with a semi automatic) I don’t imagine the city fathers care if a few birds get harassed. The fewer nesting there the better, and none of them are exactly what I would call endangered species.
While we were there, the tree next to the parking lot was full of birds, all singing as loud as they could simultaneously. The light was crappy, but it sure sounded like starlings and red winged blackbirds having a smackdown. It was so loud that I just stood gaping in the rain.
Samantha got in the water and got very dirty.
When my companion came to pick me up, we attempted a greeting kiss. We both ended up kissing Samantha’s nose. I can’t remember laughing that hard in quite a while. After the park we went to Burnaby Palace (Jeff got the leftovers, so apart from waffles on Saturday morning I dodged cooking every meal this weekend), and had a lovely time.
Church was great yesterday morning, Marci Green did the service, which was about the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign.
The sunset, annoyingly enough, didn’t cooperate, but the rest of yesterday evening was loads of fun. I finally have a date for meeting Sammy (my date’s dog); that will be next Sunday afternoon. I am going to secrete a couple of milkbones about my person and then I should do fine.
Horizons Restaurant is just as excellent as it ever was, and I will be thinking about the Arctic Char for a while – it was superlative. By mutual consent, our next meal will be someplace much less classy.
Biggest space disaster. Dr. Filk told me about this some years ago.
Gahan Wilson explains it all for you. The SF movie plot generator.
Oh look, a rat playing banjo…. and standup bass.
Once upon a time I made up a character named Pockets. She was an alien and she carried everything she needed. Now, there’s Eric le Fou.
Fellow Performers! How to craft a good set list.
You will notice my mother’s blog is now on the blogroll.
Gerald dear, when are you going to start blogging????
This is taking the internet by storm… and that really looks like Mary Lou Gutscher at the end of that video. I for the life of me can’t find contact info for her, and I don’t see a phone listing in TO.
Sniff, I am so sentimental….
I didn’t see any service ferrets in the article. Also, I know three people off the top of my head that are sh*t scared of birds, so a service parrot in a backpack could trigger hyperventilation in somebody else while preventing it in the owner….
of a raccoon the size of a Shetland Pony rummaging through a trashbag on the back deck. Jeff is now dealing with it.
So Keith, Paul and I were at Jarmo and Susana’s last night, and once again performed the stannomancy. Katie and Jeff chose the better part – to stay home, and not to drink!
NOT A SINGLE PERSON had money for 2009.
Not one. Out of fifteen people. You may recall Dr. Filk was told that he’d get money two thirds of the way into the year and found it laughable, and then went from John’s Jukes to Earl’s at a considerable increase in rate. But it also said there was a baby in his future so you can’t b’lieve everything the tin tells you.
My year is smooth, and expanding, for 4/5ths of it, and then there’s a hell of a twist at the end. I’ll post pics at some point… I actually have to pull everything off my camera and stick it someplace where those interested may view them… I still haven’t posted the Louvre, and I should, but that was, candidly, one hell of a trip and I get kind of shaky when I go anywhere near those memories.
Anyway, it was a lovely, congenial crowd, and there was even a lovely dog named Kona (lab setter cross, from the coat) who was being dogsat by some of the attendees.
Snowed more. Lots more.
; why is the rum always gone? Between us all we killed a forty pounder, and I had two triples so I definitely helped. I’m still hanging on the edge of a migraine so I’d better get off the computer now.
And, via an LJ buddy, Neil Gaiman’s blessing:
I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you dream dangerously and outrageously, that you make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked. And most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now) that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
I only have three days of work and then another 4 days off. I will probably have forgotten how to turn my PC on this morning it’s been so long since I looked at one.
The cats (or cat) peed and pooed on my clothing and bedding in Jeff’s absence, but all is forgiven; Gizmo grabbed my hand with both paws the other day to convey it to his head in the international cat sign language of PET ME YOU THUMBED FOOL! (THUMBED being two syllables, natch). Also Eddie did the same thing he did the last time he was talking to Jeff on the phone, which is to nuzzle the phone and start purring.
It was so slushy yesterday, it was like being trapped in a tasteefreeze machine that had run out of food colouring, except, well, iccky brown.
One of the many useful internet acronyms is TL;DR. That’s when your truncated attention span decides to step out for a soda.
Working backwards, I am ‘staying above the fray’ as Tammy and the exterminator battle with termites (this part of Toronto has them, and what can you do, eh?), I ate her goat cheese and garden picked oregano omelette (and it was nommy) with fruit and nut bread; I slept great, and in fact about two hours longer than I normally do; we had a very pleasant evening (she bought me Tuborg, the saintly creature, as she never has beer in the house); we figured out where I’ll be spending at least part of my restaurant money in Paris; I arranged to see Dave JD at Jump today around supper time (but nobody else in Toronto, I’ll make a special trip back for that) while Tammy’s at choir practice; I had a pleasant trip by transit from the airport (this being possible because I got to sit the whole way even though it was rush hour when I arrived) and then Tammy picked me up at Pape Station; I had a very pleasant flight because at the last minute I changed my seat selection from 34 row to 44 row (767-200, but Paul probably already knew that) so I had nobody sitting next to me fore. aft, port and starboard and I was close to an aisle and washroom AND I’d never been on an aircraft with functioning video-on-demand in the cheap seats, so I was actually SURPRISED when they called ‘we are starting our descent’; I got my money back from the WORST breakfast sandwich evar and by way of apology the server brought me a free bottle of water; Jeff very kindly dropped me off at the airport; I got a reasonable night’s sleep the night before.
Anyway, I’ll only be going near a computer or screen in the most minimal way for this time off, as it’s obvious my internet addiction is hijacking what’s left of my life, so if you don’t mind I’m off to abuse Pentium and George, two of the nicest and most sucky middle aged cats I’ve ever met, both of whom think I’m kinda keen. George slept on my feet last night and emitted never a peep. Happy sigh! Also, and this if for Keith, Tammy of Surpassing Excellence has Alan Moore’s Lost Girls in hardcover… can such things be? Who needs the internet? PS it’s snowing…. that desultory November snow….
It has suddenly occurred to me that I Don’t Want to Go To France. I want to stay in bed for two weeks. However, life will likely hand me that kind of vacation in the form of a dire illness at somepointinmylife so maybe I should just do a tarot reading for the trip to France and see if I can apply some mellow to my pre-travel jitters.
Gee whizzickers spirit of the Tarot, leave the rebukiness at home wujja?
Anyway the tarot reading said, and I paraphrase “Don’t be such a ****** wuss; it will be a great trip, there will be great spiritual benefit and you will return in triumph. Are you nuts? Do you think you don’t deserve a trip like this?” With (harrumphing) a side of references to self-delusion and feeling lonely.
I tell people I got the world’s most no nonsense tarot deck and they don’t believe me. I still can’t believe my last reading for Tanya; she asked for a blind reading (no question, and no cues for the reader) and at the end of it, I said, “I will stake my reputation this reading isn’t about you at all – this is about your brother”, because she’s been really concerned with his fate, of late.
Anyway, I’m slowly going through the checklist. I feel better though; I know it’s ludicrous and after all what would I have done if it had all been death and destruction (which was Tanya’s reading…). How can I possibly reconcile reason and the tarot. I guess I’ll have to sit down and work through the rationale at some point. I’ve tried in the past but I think I need to take another stab at it; please expect references to string theory and archetypes.
In an hour Jeff and I are off to Petcetera… kittehs HONGRY om nom nom and muts be fooded! Here’s Gizmo grabbing the mike to sing Bella Chow.
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