Category: Nature

Point form updates

  1. Katie got the job, she starts today at 9:30 am.  It is ONE 20 minute bus ride from her house.  Unless the traffic is bad, then it’s about half an hour.  Commuting in the GVRD is hellish, so Katie well knows what a good deal this is, especially since her last interview was in North Van.
  2. My emotions as a consequence may be best summarized as vigilate et orate.
  3. Miss Margot is being very grumpy about having her hair done.  I may have to haul her off to the “professial Persian hedge trimmers” and get her done, which I’d prefer not to as winter is coming.  I tried trimming her myself but her fur is so very fine that it slides through the guide without ever coming near the shears.
  4. My attempt at soup making (chicken with rice) had one heart stopping moment during which I accidentally added rather more paprika than I expected.  Once tasted, however, the soup declared itself happy, and even Keith had some.
  5. This house is not a dude ranch for misfits and unemployables.  The rest of this paragraph I deleted out of deference to the feelings of him what this is in regard to.
  6. It has never gotten quite warm or dry enough for me to cut the grass one last time before winter starts in earnest.  I will when I can.
  7. I have done some more unpacking, and found some bedding which I probably can’t use as it looks doublish as opposed to twinnish or queenish..  However, it’s pure cotton, so I’m thinking of giving it to Paul, if he can stand having something in screeching lilac stripes.
  8. I carved out a pumpkin in the shape of Lafayette’s face.  I’m thinking of cutting up a white sheet I found to make wee ghosties.
  9. Jeff has posted the pinball instructions AND the high scores list.  Let the high score smackdowns commence!
  10. Homicide Season Seven is OUT THERE.  But when Munch starts spouting off (again, again) about how the government is storing information on law abiding citizens, he sounds quite prescient.  The whole show happened before 9/11.
  11. There is biscotti dough in the fridge.
  12. I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my mother, Unca Barry, Ontie Mary, and the other relatives who assisted with a newly published family project. Barry’s preface in particular choked me up… we can never know what really happened, but we can preserve and think about what we have left, and be grateful that our relatives left us something to go on.
  13. I am reading through the family letters of, and with respect to, Bootlegging Mary.  Long time readers of this blog will hazily recollect that I went to a family reunion and heard about a relative who ran a corner gas station in Saskatchewan (I am at a loss to understand HOW this could be a more Canuckistani reference) and was, possibly, likely, a bootlegger. I wrote a song for her and begged for more detail.  The wheels of family genealogy have ground slow and fine, and to my wonderment and edification, the letters have been translated and published.  Words cannot express my gratitude.  Now I’m reading what it was like between the two World Wars for my Mennonite kin back in olt contry, and I’m amazed and humbled at the crap they lived through – all the while trusting and praising God with an deep and consistent piety. (Even as they got into it hammer and tongs about a disputed legacy… may we all take suitable notice of this falling out, which had tragic consequences for some).  In one letter there is a third hand account (as it’s a letter to a relative from another relative about a third relative’s doings).  The recently married daughter walked through her mum and dad’s village with her husband, and every last person in the village was gone.  They had fled across the frozen river from Siberia to China, with nothing but transportation, food and clothing.  She had seen her father the night before, and while he looked downcast he hadn’t breathed a word of the flight to his daughter.
  14. She is alleged to have said, in describing what she did when she walked through her parents’ deserted house, “I took the cat in my arms and the guitar down from the wall.”  I got chills when I read that.  She went straight for the two things I would have dealt with first.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…..

Hello, breakfast

I finished the homily at 8 this morning and went back to bed to warm up.  Then I flew out the door and delivered it.

Just as I stood up to speak, a great blue heron landed on the metal and glass gazebo outside the sanctuary, visible to about a third of the congregation and invisible to me and everyone else.  The way people were pointing and gasping, and the fact I could hear no noise, made me think “A hot air balloon!  How nice.” And then I started talking and got kind of engrossed.  Tom dashed up to me immediately after the service and with a twinkle in his eye told me what had happened.  I had to be home before I figured it out – the heron was using this perch, well out of the way of bothersome hoomins, to case the adjacent pond for koi and other west coast delicacies / breakfast.  There being none, it took off.  See, nothing miraculous or spooky to see here, move along.

Chatted briefly with Patricia the other day, and that was fun. We will fire up the rusty old Cavalcade of Cheese… man she serves good cheese.

Spoke to Catherine today; she confirmed the presence of Sue’s last sock, and once I send her my address she’ll forward it to me.  I don’t want to lose it.  It’s the last thing I have to connect me with Sue Gillespie, of blessed memory.

I’d like to thank Paul for the lift in to both the church and the congregational dinner last night.  In two weeks the church will be closer! I’ll quit bugging people for rides! Beacon is moving to New West!  I talked about that a fair amount in the service today… telling people that we’re doing okay, in fact better than okay, because we can do church on a shoe string.  Did I mention I signed the book again (ie I rejoined)?  I volunteered semi sorta for the Worship Services Committee.  So happily, so cheerfully wacky these days.

I just watched The Man in the White Suit! I loved it!  I am not being sarcastic!

I got a copy of a song that I’ve wanted since the day I heard it.  It’s a live recording (heart heart heart) with Woodhead on bass (heart heart ooo so hearty heart) of Garnet Rogers singing Night Drive, the song he wrote for Stan Rogers, and I thought about John, and cried and cried and cried.  I saw Garnet perform it live.  I cried while I watched it and was still high on emotion when I left the concert.

Emotional pointillism

Yesterday’s practical job interview was a disaster, but a low key one.  I’m not displeased with the haircut Katie gave me in the course of the interview, but I’d like to take the woman who supervised her and fire her at high velocity from the deck of the Iron Workers’ Memorial Bridge… in effigy, of course, I do not advocate violence except when in an excited and irrational frame of mind, which advocacy, when it occurs, I am obliged to immediately retract as being contrary to both my core self interest and my belief system, spindrift as it is.  Katie was philosophical about it, which helps.

I googled Glenn Beck to find out what church he goes to, subsequent to learning that he blames atheism for the end of the American dream.  Personally I blame their judicial system, which, skipping hand in hand with television over the last 60 years, has f|cked the Americans to the point where recovery into a society where self-governance and personal responsibility are considered virtues seems very unlikely.  Anyway, Glenn Beck, a Mormon, blames atheism.  It’s a lot like blaming Canada in its charming looniness … and it sure as f8ck is easier than looking in a mirror.  Of course me blaming the judicial system without pointing to the interconnected power structures which have allowed Glenn Beck to make fabulous amounts of money by being emotional, uncommitted to the facts and verbally abusive to people who haven’t ever done anything to him personally, would be very remiss, but the courts could have done more in the last 60 years and they haven’t, so they are the notional cat I kick this morning.

Marc Emery was taken into custody on Monday.  He’s a manic self-publicist with a libertarian messianic complex and a smoking hot wife.  I still don’t think he should have been extradited.  I hope he isn’t injured or murdered in custody; I hope he comes out of it sane, or at least as sane as he is now.  I am very angry at the Canadian government, but as long as we have Harper, it’ll be like this.  I knew Marc when I weighed 132 pounds and wore aviator frames so I guess I am biased.

After the interview disaster in the late afternoon (softened by the Seabus ride somewhat) I took the girls (Cassie, Kashka and Katie) for a drink at drink.  Yes, the department of redundancy department has made adjustments, and there is a new drinking hole for adults who wish to have a conversation and properly constructed drinks.  This new establishment does not use drink mixes.  The music is not turned up full blast; the wait staff are attentive, professional and fun.  I am booking Katie’s 21st bday party now!  609 Columbia for anybody who is interested.

Today is a day of packing and worrying.  I f|cking hate travelling, but if you want to get someplace you have to travel, alas and oy vey iz mir.  Jeff says, mimicking piteous kitten for comic effect, “But what will I eat?”  He’ll be fine of course.  He got the Margot grooming course; she bitched at him exactly the same way she bitches at me, so that will be fine too.

I closed all the windows permanently in preparation for winter.  The air conditioner needs to get put away, except I’m damned if I can figure out where.

I’ve decided not to take my computer on my trip; but that’s only because the notion of backing it up before I leave makes me all exhausted.  I’ll take pot luck on internet access; I don’t imagine it will be much of an issue, as everybody I’ll be visiting has some.

Currently, it is raining.

I made mini-cinnamon crunchies yesterday and gave some to Landpeer Kim with the rent cheques for the next three months.  I had to do something after she gave me all those home grown tomatoes.  Yum!  Also, I invented the recipe while I was making it.  The two people I thank most for my current ability to cook are Catherine and Paul.  Catherine because of her very inspiring adventurousness, Paul because I got kinda competitive with him in the ‘not using a recipe’ department.  Now I feel like I’m a good cook almost without thinking about it.  I can’t remember the last time I cooked something inedible; the worst thing I cooked in the last year were those dreadful muffins; they induced heartburn of world class immensity.

My back is really bothering me, which is another reason why I do not want to fly.  Or rent a car.  Silly me.

I light a candle for those killed and homeless in consequence of the earthquakes and flooding in the Philippines and Indonesia.

People keep sending me links I’ve already posted to my blog, in one case two years earlier.  It is to smirk.

I had a lovely conversation with Patricia the other day and look forward to catching up with her live upon my return.

I am a cool hunter.  One hundred thousand years ago I would have been finding tasty things to eat for my kids and grandkids.  It’s the same, but only different, as an ex-coworker of mine used to remark.

MilkDrop is a superlative visualization plug in.  Highly recommended; trippy as all get out. I occasionally have to look at the ground when the presets go into migraine-inducing territory but that’s my only complaint.

I am emotionally sensitive to certain wavelengths of light.  The more I consider this, the more I think, what?

I can hardly wait for the first snowfall so I can take video of Miss Margot.

She is very rotund.  We will have to start meal feeding the cats, which is harsh.

I have decided never to take her to my parents’.  Given her unaccountable urge to tangle herself up in people’s legs as they are going up the stairs, the prospect that she would either trip and kill one of my folks or get crushed by accident is too much to bear.

Ethical issues

Man uses snake to ward off seizures.

1.  Does this man have the right to use a service animal that will scare the shit out of a substantial fraction of the travelling public?  Somebody coming on him unawares might have a panic attack and collapse.  I was unable to find stats on ophidiophobia, but I personally know or knew three people who were very fearful of snakes, and I went to high school with a guy for whom a PICTURE of a snake triggered a panic attack.  Does his right to any lawful treatment for his medical condition include the potential for serious emotional damage to other people?

2.  How is a service animal currently defined – per jurisdiction – who gets to decide what a service animal can be?

3.  Is it possible this guy is making the whole thing up, and that the snake is not actually feeling the onset of a seizure?  I bet no.

4.  Has he inadvertently stumbled on a nice research study?

5.  If the snake can detect seizures, what is the snake detecting?