Category: Companion Animals

wind

Exceedingly windy right now, I’m worried a bit about our travel plans

My head’s empty and my mood is blank. I have a ton of things to do before I leave.

Heard from Mike. It was good to hear his voice.

Heard from Paul. He was having trouble with the website that you have to fill out a form for in order to return to Canada. After I, like a fool, volunteered to help him I learned that I had to actually be logged in to the site which I couldn’t do, so I told him to go talk to Hank (where he’s a houseguest) about that. Hopefully he’ll make it home, the alternative is an enormous fine.

7623 words, quite a bit of ratchet editing; two kudos overnight. If the averages hold, that means that twenty people across the surface of the planet were reading my fanfic last night.

I really should pack, lol. The wind better die down or they’ll cancel the ferry.

I am cautiously pleased about the price I should be getting for some books.

thinking of John tonight, this is a drawing by Brooke…

another cat pic

Low energy day

Once again, another day of being tired. I felt dizzy after we got back from the store (didn’t last long, but my balance was shot all day) and after watching a Time Team with Jeff I went back upstairs and …. slept until supper time? I mean I woke up around midnight and couldn’t go back to sleep so more sleep was in order, and I just had a normal night of sleep and feel fine, but that was weird. Fortunately Jeff had both lots of work and lots of squeaky squeaky time (March Madness) to watch.

The little tweety birds have a series of songs and dances that they do to encourage me to put down more seeds. (Juncos and chipping sparrows.) Bought peanuts yesterday for the corbies. They made what I put out disappear in a real hurry.

I mentioned that I ordered a Fluent Pet starter board which will ‘allow’ Buster to talk and they emailed me a 36 page starter guide to read before the six buttons and the panels they sit on get here. I think Jeff is quite dubious, but I am really looking forward to it.

No work on the story because I slept all day but much pondering – the next convo is going to be hard to set up and write so that it flows correctly. One lead character is being an asshole to cover how traumatized they are and the other lead character’s about to drop the hammer and explain (kindly, firmly) that ‘your trauma doesn’t suddenly give you an all access asshole pass’….. Four kudos overnight. The gal who’s reading all my stuff on AO3 is, as promised, reading all my stuff. Squee.

Alex is coming for a sleepover tonight. I’m thinking of doing things a leedle differently than normal but mOm I’ll be trying to give you a call before bedtime tonight so you get to hear his voice. Tomorrow, bouncing around the lazy river at the community centre with my grandsons and co-grandma and Mamabear.

Fuck Ginni Thomas, I hope she goes to hell through a cenote-style sinkhole appearing in the goddamned floor. Stories all over the internet about what a great *** she is.

Despite everything that’s wrong with me yesterday I wrote A NEW INTRO for Gelis and Niccolo (I cannot let go of that song) – one that uses fingerpicking style rather than hammered guitar – and I’m thrilled with it because it just came to me in a lightning flash and there’s a really wonderful rhythmic change that makes me feel like I am, you know, a musician with a little flair, a little showpersonship.

Vyshyvanka are about to get reaaaaallly popular. I predict it. They are the Ukrainian national shirt. Go to Etsy and look it up for examples. The black shirt with buff and gold embroidery made me DIE OF WANT.

Here’s a photo that is really hard to interpret because none of us speak or read Russian. Here we go:

So there we have some bog standard Russian iconography from the days of the Soviet Union. This looks not particularly rude in anyone’s terms, it’s a hammer and sickle with the words “Mow” “and” “Hammer” BUT according to Alexey at Meduza, it’s an extremely sophisticated visual pun.

Why? because ‘Reap’ (aka ‘mow’) is Russian slang for DODGE THE DRAFT and ‘Hammer’ is Russian slang for IGNORE DRAFT NOTICES. So this means that the iconography of the former Soviet Union is now UNIVERSALLY ESTABLISHED as a symbol for draft dodging, inside Russia, and that is to my mind so fucking hilarious I want everyone who reads my blog to know about it!

There’s also a joke going around (not in Russia) that the reason the current war symbol is a ‘Z’ is that, thanks to Russian Engineering, the other two arms of the swastika fell off.

this is Mariupol:

Three loads full

I give thanks to the people, the land and water, the sky and creatures, the weather and the seasons, of this place. I will keep working to restore the stewardship of the Salish peoples and uphold their immemorial relationship to the beautiful lands and waters. It is not mine although they share it with me. #LandBack

Three loads of laundry yesterday. I haven’t dragged it back up the stairs to put it  away but, apart from my lilac hoodie which I neglected to include and must be laundered right away because it’s foul with spilled food (sigh), my clothes be clean.

Schrödingers dishwasher – did I run the damned thing or not.

Cleaned out Buster’s gammy ear this morning. Normally he bats at me and protests, but he was purring and gave me a little thank you chirp when I was done, so I think he was mebbe a little itchy.

Paul straightened things out with his housemates, and acknowledged to me by phone that his behaviour was boned. But Katie’s mellowed and I have not talked to Keith. Still thinking about the driving issue.

Curls fell out of my do but it’s still really cute and I love it. A bad haircut can ruin you but not for long and a good haircut just makes everything better. Interestingly I thought my hair was all the same colour but the ends were both darker and more washed out, if that’s possible, and now all the hair colour seems quite even to me, and the silver shine is (according to my stylist) something people pay thousands of dollars to obtain and maintain. God (for some reason) thinks I’m cool to extrude this stuff, and it’s great, because I can be harassing someone on reddit or going to the bathroom and I can still grow hair with undiminished vigour.

I told the stylist that one liner from James C., one of my all time favourite coworkers at the big X. About 15 years ago, at work, I read something like, “Hair is a sexual signalling device” so I wrote all the coworkers that I liked a little email, asking what their hair says about them, and he said, “My hair stands straight up,” and it was the best joke ever because he didn’t swear or even say anything particularly rude but it SURE got the point across and it makes me helpless with giggles every time I recollect it. And that email would get me fired these days and I’m okay with that.

I want that turkey sandwich from Big Star with cranberry sauce for lunch, calice. If it’s as good as the number 27 I’ll be happy. If you charge twelve fifty for a sammich it had better be good, and that was superlative.

Fourteen kudos this morning including one from my third fave fanfic writer. So that was pleasant. I’m thinking of sending mOm a variant of the drunk on the beach story (I ended up writing THREE VERSIONS OF A SINGLE STORY – I wrote one version in word (I never do that) and LOST IT LIKE WHOOSH INTO THE ETHER WHAT IN THE ENTIRE FUCK and then rewrote it, and then rewrote it again to be even more sappy. BABY GOATS BRINGING THE RINGS TO THE GROOMS AT A WEDDING NOOOOO. Actually not but the idea of a baby goat gambolling down the aisle at an outdoor wedding and then running off with the rings made me laugh so hard I put it in to troll one of the characters.

STOP WAR AND EAT POUTINE says the pic from a recent antiwar demo in Paris. Apparently Vladimir Poutine is what some convoyancers call Justin Trudeau.

Pierre Poilevre has a fortune of 9 million dollars – which he got pandering to oil companies – and it’s more than Trudeau has – and he’s speechifying about Trudeau being a rich elitist etc. Get bent Pierre and while so posed please do ram a caltrop through your scrotum, you’ll never be PM. Some people want Trump to run Canada But I Sure As Fuck Do Not.

scanged from WorkingClassHistory on Insta:

Women Anarchists have become the terror of world’s police – Their Daring Crimes are said to have outstripped the deeds of brothers of the red

Search for the woman is becoming a safe rule in crimes proceeding from anarchistic violence – the guardians of the world nearly always find a woman implicated when a ruler is stricken down – EMOTIONAL WOMEN LOSE SENSE OF FEAR.

yeah baby

Ayesha’s buried in the yard

She has Miss Margot, Gizmo, Eddie, Zeek!, Kira and Bounce to keep her company. Paul said he’ll miss her head butts, and her little chirps, and her full body wriggles.

Paul’s grief stricken. I made him a light lunch and Jeff made him tea and we’re just being peaceful and mellow and unutterably sad at 2 pm. (we then watched a documentary about the Concorde and SST and a Hudson and Rex). Now it’s 5:30 and Paul is going home. His blood pressure is troublingly high and I told him to go to hospital but likely he won’t.

There’s more than one thing to be worried about. I left a message with Katie and wrote out the numbers for him and he put them in his wallet.

poor Ayesha

Paul’s kitty Ayesha is sick unto death and probably won’t make it (her kidneys have failed). I am sad for Paul. I haven’t spoken to him yet, Suzanne my co-grandma told me about it. It’ll be four years two days from now that Margot passed. sad faced primate.

I spoke today with someone whose near relatives are in Romania, and they have their bags packed pending such time as Putin drops the big one. I have this jejune childish urge to become hysterically patriotic and speechify. Instead I set it aside for things I can do that either enlarge someone else’s capacity to do good or enlarge my own. The stoics have asked me to have a care for that which I can control, and so I will try to be kind to other people and kind to myself. The nurse reminded me to be kind to myself; my blood pressure, amazingly, is way down.

More items off the list

I am continuing to feel much more chipper.  It wasn’t a super productive day, but I walked (really walked, not ambled) and got some social contact and the sun was a benison.

There’s a new game, Semantle. IT’S INSANE MAKING. Wordle is fun and brief and lively, but Semantle makes you understand you don’t understand English at all, and given that it is, “My bag, my thing, my evil specialty” it’s … Okay, here’s the link. Just don’t ever play the game, you will die of frustration. (suitably vexed voice, with shaken fists: CURSE YOU VIXY) —LATER LATER MUCH LATER I’m up to 3hundred and freakn 80 guesses on Semantle, I feel like me brains are leaking out my ears.

It’s supposed to be ass freezing cold tonight until Wednesday. I am not worried; I’ll have the warmth of VISITORS tonight yes that’s right Mike was supposed to come over for ‘za last night but he drank too much with sifu (sifu is master in Chinese martial arts)  and couldn’t manage it, so he’s coming over tonight.

Buster heals and complains about the door being locked.

Yesterday I ordered the bamboo charcoal smell-killers that have worked so well for us. (really helps with the damp smell in the downstairs john).  Why? As mentioned Mike got a right hand drive Delica (which I rode in for the first time when we went saunaing and dining with Jarmo and Susanna) and it’s unfortunately a Japanese vehicle which means it’s been smoked in. So I’ll give him three of those bamboo charcoal smell killers and that will keep the noxious effluvium down to a dull roar, hopefully. I ordered it from Rona and with the exchange and free shipping it’s about the same as if I ordered it from the US, so that worked.

Absolutely delightful walk in the park at Fraser Foreshore yesterday with Paul. I fed the chickadees from my hands for about ten minutes with Paul watching, most entertained; with what delicacy and firmness did they grasp my index finger as they rested a flashing moment to grab a sunflower seed. The sun was just blasting down and there was no wind, so we sat in the sun and basked for many long minutes in companionable silence. Everyone on the trail (except for those two fuckwits on mountain bikes who came through with a gopro and attitude and 90 dB of shitty club music at about 25 kph without a bell or shout) was practically giddy with joy at the warmth and sun, and even though it was the Sunday of a long holiday weekend (it’s ‘Family Day’ in BC) the trails weren’t too crowded. I masked, Paul didn’t.

Then we went back to KC Junction and I ate Keith’s leftovers, a superlative yellow lentil stew with heaps of veg and subtle, lightly heated spicing, and then we ate my choc rice pudding for dessert. (Keith enjoyed it with thanks.) Paul was much more interested in the borscht I brought (he really likes my borscht) and I realized why when I saw the sour cream container. But I can’t eat borscht two days running because anything with oxalic acid makes my kidney output scratchy so I ate lentils instead.

Keith’s loving his job… just loving it. He says it’s only a week and you can’t know for sure, and the pay is not great, but it’s work he can stand and he’s visibly in much better shape than even two weeks ago.

Katie was out with Ryker & Alex and some friends so I didn’t get to see her.

The Russians are claiming that the Ukrainians are ‘reacquiring nuclear weapons’ and I’m like wow, we can’t trust a fucking word you say now, can we.

Worst showing ever in terms of ratings for the Olympics. Why NBC keeps this boat anchor tied to its ass I have no idea. What if they held an Olympics and nobody wanted to broadcast it? That would be choice.

Twitter antifa (canuck division) is rooting around in rural Ontario to find the names of the people who are hiding the convoyancers. So far some son of a sea cook in Embrun who’s the best friend of the mayor there is one of them. LOL they can hide but six months from now the knock will come. Remember they’re still knocking on doors from the Jan 6 rebellion in the US, it’s not like the cops work faster in Canuckistan.

I’m an abolitionist; if they could all be referred to restorative justice and be filling planters and picking up garbage in Centretown for the next two years instead of paying fines and going to jail I WOULD BE HAPPY. Especially if they had to wear a PLEASE DON’T FEED THE HONKIES sign around their necks while they were doing it, but that’s not nice, I know it.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but if they reboot Futurama without the voice acting talents of John DiMaggio I won’t watch it, even out of whatever is left of my curiosity.

Side note to mOm. The Metformin did it again this morning, fortunately I know how this goes and I had plans in place and managed to deal with it all promptly. What a life.

 

 

 

 

Buster is an indoor cat

Buster had an immense weeping ear infection from a long cat scratch down his ear canal. He’s to be kept indoors and fed antibiotics and gooped for the next ten days. We are both very relieved, and Jeff says he was a brave boy at the vet. He peed in his carrier again, but he does that every time. He’s also up to date on his shots again, so tranquillity abounds, etc etc.

I had to replace ALL the ink in the printer yesterday which would have been even more annoying if I hadn’t previously stocked up on ersatz cartridges and didn’t have to go anywhere or spend any money to make it happen. Part of having ADD is hoarding, and part is being therefore prepared, and the rest is having a million iterations of shit that don’t fit. BUT IT IS OKAY because I finally got Mary’s letter printed and I’ll be mailing it today.

Got my balance ball back and that will make making music a lot easier. I love playing music on a bouncy ball, I can really rock out. While looking like a loon.

Saw Ryker the other day, he’s still an adorable baby with a commitment to sleep that outpaces my own.

Absolutely sweet comment – brief, too – on the most recent story yesterday.

Haven’t received word from Keith about how his first day on the job went.

 

Poor Buster

I think he has ear mites. His ear stinks godawful and of course he’s cuddling up to me to be friendly what with Jeff being gone and I don’t want to go near him, bleaugh.

I have put away every scrap of my clean laundry! Now I’m going to clean off the desk (Suzanne cleaned it off once already but paper cruft has crept back onto it.) Then I’m going to set up the speakers, and bring the chair back in here, and dejunk some books, and then tidy the kitchen a little.

This is Buster with Mike a couple of years back.

Buster interaction

I think Buster is almost ready for OAC speech buttons on the floor. I had the following postural conversation with him today:

Hey  Buster, would you like skritches (this is specifically when I take a fork to his face. Yes, I know this sounds outrageous, but he loves it.)

I offer him a choice of forks – plastic or wood. He chooses plastic.

Since he’s sitting in my chair (my half of the LaZboy we picked up at a neighbours’ house) I just barely touch the blanket (I usually pull it out from under him) and instead of it being a tussle (he usually calls and is very reluctant to move and must be coaxed) he steps out of the way, I sit down, and give him a nice long skritch with a fork. Practically took longer to describe than to happen.

I love being able to communicate with Buster. He’s an admirable cat.

Bang bang rrrr

So there were SO MANY EXPLOSIONS in my neighbourhood last night. Buster basically ASKED to be locked in the house (ask Jeff if you don’t believe me) and he was hiding in various places yesterday, since the bear scares started around 11 am and are STILL GOING off in the distance.

This was interspersed by ratrunners zooming at godless speeds and ludicrous RPMs up and down Kingsway. I thank my heritage that I can sleep through damned near anything once I’m asleep but I kept waking up and thinking you bastards.

Cockney Kings Fish and Chips yesterday. They fucked up the order, but not the delivery and more or less said gee that’s too bad when I complained via phone, so no cole slaw with the order.

First world problems, right?

Started transferring musical instruments around in a bid to get all the instruments I actually play or want to play in the same place so it’s more fun for Alex when he has sleepovers. I’ll bring the two instruments I’m not playing upstairs and take the keyboard downstairs.

Jeff and I have an errand to run today, I’m hoping it’s nice enough to walk over there since it’s very close by.

I haven’t been talking much about writing. I’ve been working on fanfic (the current ones about a bad restaurant review (lots of social justicey side comments regarding restaurant workers and COVID) and a do it yourself spa day for two men, (which is very funny IMO) (pretty skinny structural supports for stories but ah well), but I may actually try to do something for November Novel Writing Month, also called NanoWrimo, in which case I’ll talk about it next month when I’m finished.

Left a message for Mike. I’m hoping he’s okay, but I’m not really in shape to be socializing, so.

Time for some more tea.

Buster has never been so clear about wanting me to keep the cat door locked. He peed in the cat litter tray right in front of me; normally if the weather’s decent he likes to commune with nature while he’s draining the main. So I locked the door again. He can’t stand the noise outside, and he feels protected from it if the door is locked. He’s been hiding all over the house; in the towels in the bathroom, under the stairs, under my chair downstairs, on the top deck of the bunkbeds. Poor lamb. He’s also compulsively licking himself so he may be working on an anxiety disorder.

Forbidden Vancouver

Missing John today

I offer my thanks and praise to the protectors of these lands and waters. It is a good day to be in MST country, stolen but never ceded, surveyed but never yielded. I live in a state of obligation and I am a guest and visitor here. For two foot and four foot, many foot and no foot, all the creatures and people, may it be a good day.

I hate it when I pay for a craigslist ad and the first person who answers is a scammer using a phone service in Spanish who can’t even answer a basic question about the lower mainland. I know I’m a delicate flower and sensitive to rejection but it just makes me want to borrow a nerf gun and go on a low casualty rampage. You will remember that it was a threat of violence (a slap…. not a gun shot, not hacking someone’s feet off and making them eat them, not machetes, or claymores, or eating Eatmores till you burst, or being turned into a skid mark under a halftrack, or being asphyxiated in a ten foot deep tub of glitter, or being made to watch the ten worst episodes of Supernatural in a row, or being bisected by a thermal lance, or being shoved off the Trümp Tower, or any such life ending stuff a slap people, that’s all I offered the racist piece of shit) that took me off twitter in the first place. No sign that I’ll ever get back on, unless I create a whole new persona. NNNNNOOOOO THANKS.

This morning at 10 am I’m going to do the same thing (but different) with Tammy as I did the last time she was in town, mostly because we enjoyed the hell out of it – Forbidden Vancouver’s tour of the historic sites of Gay Vancouver. (The last time was more of an architectural walk, and what an eye opener that was! Seeing the place opium was manufactured? Seeing where the anti Asian riots broke out… not a pane of intact glass in Chinatown!? Seeing the first skyscraper in Vancouver, in context… it was wonderful! Nearly getting run down by a woman cop driving a squad car and laughing immoderately up in her face! ah the pleasures!) Anyway, full report tomorrow, at the latest. And between 8 and 9 am I have to ensure that I have a proper carry seat, because Tammy was amazed how much more pleasant it was to walk all over hell’s half acre on pavement when you can whip out a chair and sit for 2 or 3. (We shared, like one do.)

I’m writing this at 5:15 to 6 am in the morning; I don’t have internet from 4 am to 7 am in an effort to ensure that I’m actually writing at that time of day, or at least not disappearing down that rabbit hole. Now that twitter (an aching gap in my day, which speaks alas more to my self-indulgence (verging on addiction) than to its utility… because really what I wanted was to have a bigger audience than I do on my blog, which simply isn’t interesting enough to have 500 visitors) is gone, I’m mining karma points on Reddit.  I got 4000 points in two months, so you can tell I’ve been a busy lassie. And, as with this blog I have no freaking idea what people will respond to. It all seems to be timing.

The last time I was at the Junction Keith commented that the r/vancouver subreddit has cleaned up a great deal over the last, say, six months or so. Less overtly anti Chinese racist bullshit – still a lot of hate for the homeless, I’m still stinging from my dog pile of downvotes from the last time I stuck up for the unhoused, and fuck you, a certain user on reddit who would like to push the homeless around with ‘scoops’ like Soylent Green, I hope you think better thoughts and type less nasty words in future.

So looking forward to this morning!

I checked in with Stella the talking dog today and she used the word ‘mad’ after being told she couldn’t go play in the park until after mum and dad ate. She was very calm about it though. I love that dog. (hunger4words on instagram) Apparently ‘all done happy’ translates in dog to THANK CHRIST YOU’RE OFF THE PHONE

Training advice from hunger4words

from Christina Hunger, Speech Pathologist and the woman who taught Stella to ‘talk’:::

As you introduce new vocabulary to your dog, teach contrasting words together.

It’s easiest to teach a word when you have something to compare it to. This helps differentiate word meanings! Here are some examples of pairs of words to teach together:

Outside & inside
Happy & mad
All done & more
Yes & no
Your name & your dog’s name
On & off
Now & later
Ball & Toy
Come & go or come & stay

Example 1: When you’re playing with your dog, you can model “more” each time you throw a ball or toy for them. When you stop throwing the ball or toy, you can model “all done.” The meanings of “more” and “all done” become clearer with each other’s point of reference.

Example 2: Every time you come over to your dog, you can model “come.” When you leave the room or walk away, you can model “go.” The meanings of the actions are more defined when you have the opposite action to compare it to.

Ratcatcha

Buster caught a teeny weeny rat outside the building this morning, then took it inside and either ate it or let it go. Hopefully it’s not curled up dead someplace, I find dead rat odour to be one of the most trying things psychologically.

Storm Ida had a few things to say about rats too.

If the link disappears, apparently the storm drowned almost every rat in NYC.

That’s what happens when you get too much water. How about just enough?

Above noted link is about how reintroducing water to a dried out river in Tucson has had stunning ecological effects. I prefer dragonflies over rats.

Ever notice how white ladies love to steal Indigenous ancestry?

WHERE IS YOUR KOKUM, KIES. I prefer people who don’t lie about their ancestry over rats.