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!
Well, I found my Air Canada tix, and I found out how to get from Roissy (which is what the locals call Charles Degaulle airport, who knew) to the hotel on rue St Lazare. It’s only an hour, including walking, but it’s 5 fare zones, so we’ll have to get money in the airport to get there or maybe get walking around change in Euros before we leave.
The day approacheth, I am excited.
I’m at the folks’ place in Victoria recovering from one of the more memorable days in many moons.
I got up at 4:30 and left the house with Jarmo and crew around 7:30. We launched from Burrard ramp. There were eagles at the launch site. The launch was hilarious, mostly because the Suburban’s muffler was under water for a good chunk of the launch. Anyway, that was successful. Out into the Georgia Strait where the combined one two punch of the Fraser’s two arms dumping into the strait caused incredible lumpiness. I lost my hat (I had sunscreen), applied sunscreen to the back of Jarmo’s neck and his bald spot, and stood for the first 1.5 hours. We stopped at Galiano and got ice cream bars and pumped the bilges, after which the boat behaved in a much peppier fashion.
Got to Victoria Harbour long about 11:30, with bunting flying and hordes of people for the tall ships festival, including the Nina, and Jarmo just moseys up to the nicest section of dock and gets everybody a pass to the docks. I bail to go to Pondside for the filking.
Shortly after I got there me and twenty other people ran through the Tapioca Song… EVERYBODY there knew it off by heart, it was amazing. Instruments included stand up bass (thank you thank you Peggy) hammered dulcimer, banjola, many guitars, resonator guitar and many harmonious happy voices….. AND – and this makes me so happy I could burst – it was simultaneously signed in Ameslan.
I played with Devon Rex cats and listened to some of the nicest and smartest people in the world tell stories and sing songs and play exotic instruments. Happy, happy sigh.
Then I realized I was exhausted and begged Dr Filk for a ride to my folks’ place on his scoot, which he kindly provided. There I was thinking I wouldn’t get a ride on a motorcycle this summer, ha! THEN I got to ride to my granny’s place in the Camaro, with the top down, during a cloudless summer evening. I had a lovely (and brief) visit with my gran, then came back here and drank a cup of tea. There was a deer in the parking lot across the street from her apartment while we were there.
You have to admit I had an amazing day and I send big hugs and kisses to Douglas and Juliana for sponsoring the amazing event that is Pondfilk. But I am sun- and windburnt and entirely bagged and my bed is calling me in three part harmony with stand up bass accompaniment, so good night moon. mOm’s going to give me a lift back there in the morning, and then with any luck I’ll hitch a lift back to Vancouver with Tom and Peggy.
Tired and happy. That’s me right now.
My flight to Paris (destination being Rouen) is booked. Now Tammy is working on car + hotel.
Keith was here last night with some Bushmills tucked under his arm. It’s very nice stuff, I’d never had any.
We watched Buffy, Futurama (the ‘girl Bender’ episode), and ate barbecued haddock and various leftovers.
Two hundred thirty seven reasons to have sex. Guess I am going to have to read the original research to get the list. This was forwarded to me – but I won’t say by whom….
How will you know when the housing market has bottomed out? A handy formula.
A canonical list of “They do it” one liners. Definitely some giggles in there.
Brian Kiely goes to Kenya in February for the UU movement, and reports back. I’ve seen him deliver a couple of sermons and the guy is fracking awesome, and he’s also the only minister I’ve ever seen who incorporated Chet Baker music into a service. By way of sidestream comment, has anybody else besides me had a conversation about genocide in Canada recently? The existence, the possibility?
I asked my brother for advice about a haircut and after a blank stare, he said, “Uh, not a brush cut,” which now concludes my attempts to ever ask him appearance related questions again.
Since some of my readers will be progenizing shortly, and some have progenized and like getting reminders of how traumatizing it was (sample conversation with my mother. “Remember when I here insert description of frankly horrid and unsafe and at best unsanitary teenage behaviour?” “No.” “Well one of us is luckier than the other.”) So I am providing a link to an interesting list of things new moms should know. When I read it I nodded a lot, and I also went hunh?? a couple of times too.
The science behind monster waves.
Interesting green blog. Obviously it exists to sell things, but there’s cool stuff in there too.
I LOVE THESE PICTURES. The expression on the young man’s face, the poses, the clothing that he’s wearing. And he was hanged. I just think of Deadwood, and melt.
Maybe it’s not a safe place to put money, but it’s an interesting place.
And now… a dancing walrus.
Life on line…. death on line.
Your opinion? I poop on it!
Finally, a joke. What’s Australian foreplay? “Brace yerself, Sheila!”
Tammy is quite sick but well enough that I don’t have to feel guilty about ducking out long enough to help with the move. I’m going to set her up with a bunch of food and drink and then take off.
At some point I’m going to ask her if she can give me the full on rational/emotional description of her HORRIFIC trip back from Palm Springs. Honest to God, if I’d been on the flight with her I’d have clipped the air hag in the face and devil take the hindmost.
Boy, it didn’t take long for my mood to change to something more sombre! I waited at the airport until 10 after 10, and Tammy phoned to say she was stuck in SF. She sounded like she’d been through the old wringer washer. The plane she was booked on ‘went mechanical’ as they say. On a whim I phoned Paul and found out he was almost done work and hadn’t brought the car, so I bought a magazine and sat in the parking lot and drove him home. I poked my head in to say hey to Keith – who just got 40 out of 40 on a practical test, how a mother’s heart sings – found out that somebody had phoned in a ‘creditable threat’ whatevah the hell that means to David Lam campus so he had no school today – and got home around midnight.
Tammy offered to pay for the CAN car booking, I couldn’t believe it. After what she’d been through my troubles seemed pretty minor.
…but life is gooooood. It shows every sign of being better yet soon.
Off for three days, and off to Renton, WA…. I may or may not be able to blog.
I will definitely try to take pictures.
Space Ship II going for a ride with White Knight II.
Cousin Gerald forwarded that link; he will forgive me for not exactly offering grateful thanks.
I am going to Conflikt in January, and and and… I have set myself the task of writing three songs before the con. The first one is substantially complete. It’s a filk based on that Dutch children’s song I posted here recently, and it’s about that ever loving bastard Nicholas Van Rijn. Next up; an Octavia Butler filk and an Eric Frank Russell filk. This should be interestin!
and he left a really cool picture from Lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona.
I used to have a picture of Kung Fu Mike, figleafed by a laptop but otherwise starkers, which had that title. I suspect it’s on the old computer back at Planet Bachelor; I must recover it at some point.
I had a very productive day yesterday, having drawn some of my bile during my long conversation with Patricia, and then I had a very pleasant evening with one half of the Minions of Loki, since we ate at the Penny, which is more or less halfway between her place and mine on Hastings. The Penny is the very model of a Chinese greasy spoon. I had sufficiency of leftovers for another two meals, yay.
I need help from a Mac geek to figure out why I am having problems with making my RAR or avi files run. I suspect a compression issue.
Saturday is the company Christmas party…. Katie K and I are going. She is planning on wearing a dress and getting an updo, which is a lot like saying Eddie Izzard has given up on high heels. I am trying to figure out how I’m supposed to acquire a second hand tux between now and then; I think it’s more likely I’ll just wear what I wore last year. It makes me look immensely fat and I have to take the whole thing off to take a whiz, but it’s comfy and dressier than what I normally sport… as Catherine once remarked, “Oh, Allegra, you dress like a grad student” which, considering I was raised by grad students, seems no stretch. As for the tux, I can picture the William Hamilton cartoon with a woman sporting a tux with no difficulty, which is probably why, besides the expense, I am resisting. There are apparently going to be Engineers in Tuxes at the Christmas (oh hell, the Company Holiday Cheer) party. The following Saturday we’ll be going to Katie K’s company holiday buntoss, the biggest difference being there are TWO free drink tokens, and people will be bringing dogs. I am OBVIOUSLY working for the wrong company.
Daughter Katie’s 19th passed without incident; Dax gave her a handmade plaque with her name on it, so it sounds like he was doing something to improve the shining hour while she was gone.
It’s been quite frosty up here in the mornings; walking to work has been an adventure.
By copy to Chipper, on the subject of Christmas songs, have you ever heard Dominic the Donkey? I think you have to be Italian to be familiar with it; Gianna at work exposed me to it and now I can’t get the little beggar out of my head. It’s all about how Santa has to deliver prezzies with a donkey because reindeer cannot climb ‘the hills of I-ta-ly!’. It was a new one on me.
Saturday will be a busy busy day for me, because the Dunnettfolk will be Spitting over at Jan’s that day. And Spits, as I must explain, are the names those events where Dunnett fans gather and eat and talk and drink and show slides of their trips to Dunnett places (like Iceland and the Orkneys and the west coast of Africa and Cairo and the Crimea and Russia and Bruges). My father’s eyes glazed over at gather.
We woke up the first morning to this view.
Our room
Swords at the museum
Katie in the water
Katie took this lizard pic – only saw one other lizard that colour.
More beach at the Barcelo Capella
Beach at Saona Island. The water was an unbelievable colour. The whole day was like living in a dream.
The cave at Tres Ojos
A turtle which came and checked us out at Tres Ojos cave
This woodpecker came out in the rain and had a meal next to our hotel room.
Look, I’m having fun in the water at the Barcelo Capella.
Exceedingly cool mural detail from the National Pantheon in la Zona Colonial in Santo Domingo
