Category: Uncategorized

A more than satisfactory day.

In the morning, started a pot roast.  Puttered for the rest of the morning.  In the afternoon shopped (a big, necessary shop) with Jeff and put everything away, which is a pain when you’re buying bulky stuff.  Then went to interview Dennis.  That was absolutely wonderful and I enjoyed every minute of it, and I did appreciate the chance to catch up with Mary as well.  I think she’s looking very well, but she said she was feeling a bit off colour.  I recorded the interview and am looking forward to the transcription.  Because I am clinically insane, obviously.

Then I got up to the old office and talked to Mohammad.  He’s all happy because his wife’s sister came last week after they hadn’t seen each other in aeons, like, 30 years, so there must have been a rapturous family reunion.

And then I came home, watched a really strange Simpson’s episode, a good chunk of Monday Night Football (New England in New Orleans, and the New England guys font dur ce soir, b’en sur.)

Everything I had on my list today I got done, including mailing a thank you card to my grandmother (finally). And I got some sun on my face, always a blessing at the bag end of the year.

Now, sleepy byes.  All I’m missing is someone to snuggle with and life would be a Maxfield Parrish dream, except I’d have something softer than all those damned rocks to snuggle up on.

wacky roundup

Is everybody going to have more panic attacks as atmospheric CO2 rises?

I think this guy is brilliant.

You’ve gotta be kidding.  Nope, not kidding.  I AM IN THE WRONG FRACKING BUSINESS.

In time for Christmas, a recipe for butterbeer.

It all makes sense now that I know I have a neurological problem. Actually I don’t have a neurological problem big enough to attract the attention of a doctor.  I went to the neurologist, described my symptoms and got told, “You have atypical migraines.  If you don’t want drugs I can’t do anything.  Next please.”  Then I found out I can rid of my migraines by THINKING HAPPY THOUGHTS which is the stupidest thing I ever heard of, except that it works.  Whoda thunkit?

Where one of the stickiest memes in history came from!

I am exactly the same age as Marg Helgenberger. I love her in CSI – her combination of observation and street smarts, and her ability to stay focussed while being sexually harassed by a dwarf… what an actor.

Hell of a way to find a new species of lizard.

Swimming and brussels sprouts

Last night Keith and Paul took me down to the Puddle and I got exercise (so much I was shaking when I got out of the pool).  However the shakes vanished when we pooled (ha) resources to make dinner over at Planet Bachelor, which consisted of rice, butter chicken and brussels sprouts.  I include the link to the wikipedia article because I think it’s charming to think that some of my all-time favourite fictional characters dined on them, even though brussels sprouts weren’t formally mentioned in any documentation until the late 1500s.  Nor was I aware that they are goitrogenic.  Nor was I aware there even IS a word like goitrogenic.  Man, the schtuff you learn on wikipedia.

Then home, where I found I missed Jeff so much (he’s in Victoria) that I had to call him for tech support on the entertainment system.

He told me, after a long, long pause, that it was the very same thing I’d called him about the last time, and could be fixed exactly the same way.

I include this anecdote for my mother… everyone else is going to think ?+!, and candidly, so do I.

Eddie barfed all over the carpet next to the workbench.

Today I will mount an assault on the cat litter pans, work on a new – and undeliverable – homily, run a vacuum over things, finish a laundry, make some bread preparatory to Jeff’s arrival, and wash the kitchen floor and the cat accoutrements.  This is four times as much work as I will actually do, but let’s see how things look at sunset.  I’m feeling kinda perky, and that’s just plain wacky for 5 in the morning.

I’m going to have butter chicken for breakfast.  Why not?  Maybe I’ll drape a piece of bacon overtop.

Wretched weather

According to Vancouverite, there has been a surge in the deaths due to swine flu in Ontario.  Stay well, all my Ontario kith and kin.

The weather is horrid. The wind was rattling the plastic siding last night; it sounded like a large and uncomfortable animal scrabbling around in the wall right next to my ear.

Katie is supposed to be back from her business trip today.  Two weeks ago she wasn’t working and now she’s travelling on business. Bizarre.  I hope for a full report soon.

Yesterday I did a lot of laundry and shifted things around and took up the curtain in the entertainment room and played with Miss Margot (she really likes the thunder tube).  Jeff brought the cat furniture upstairs earlier this week and the cats are very happy to have their perch back in the window.  Now we have to figure out how to re-cover it.

The crossover CSI-NY-Miami-Vegas episode we watched was so gruesome, and so disturbing, that I’m not surprised folks we know are reporting that it’s giving them trouble sleeping.  The episode was about human trafficking.  There are more slaves alive today than ever in human history.  It’s a horrible thing to think about; worse is knowing that there are very likely sex slaves walking distance from my house.  Here’s a link to information about human trafficking in  BC.

I have Keith/Jeff’s cold.  I thought it was going away but it’s hanging about.  Given that I have a dinner to go to tomorrow (the place the church is now located is holding a fundraiser to pay for the roof, and we kinda sorta have to show our flag (at $50 a pop, which I will get refunded)) I am really hoping it just goes away.

Brief interlude of sludge, with a echidna-heavy pause.

I haven’t been very productive in the last couple of days, but I am not particularly worried about it.  I’m getting back on the horse, so to speak.  I’ve noticed that after a ‘high’ – like the trip, which was remarkable in many ways – there is a ‘low’.  I feel sludgy, contemplative, grumpy and immobilized.  That part doesn’t last either.  It’s all a question of balance.

And you can laugh at me, but my mOm still loves me.

Every time I see an Echidna, I think of Gerald Durrell.  He’s one of my all time favorite writers – he crafts a sentence so very well, and his descriptions are pithy and memorable.

This morning I’m going to treat like a work morning.  I’m going to get up and make Jeff brekkie, then I am going to sit at the kitchen table and make a paper list, and then I’m going to do it.  It’s all boring domestic stuff, and when it’s done, I suspect I’ll get back on task.

Last night I made a phone call that I’ve been dreading for two weeks now.  To preserve the dignity and privacy of those involved (and also to prevent myself from looking a right asshole, always a difficult task) I can’t really talk about it.  With that behind me I can start feeling a little perkier again.

But I would like to thank Deb and Tammy for helping me get to the point I could actually make that call.  Without friends, we’re wild animals in a lonely and challenging place.  And thanks, Jeff.