Category: Weather

complaints, kudos, complaints, lists

Nothing to complain of regarding Alex. Some mornings he wants to cuddle, other mornings he wants to go downstairs. Dropped him off in time for school, thought about going to Lordco because one of the Echo’s wiper blades flung itself off and lodged itself so firmly under the other wiper blade that I could still use it but it stuck to the car. This is the kind of luck I always get issued; sloppy but welcome.

Weather seasonal, rainy, not too cold.

Later this morning I have to go to Thornebridge, roust the wasband and tell him his girlfriend’s been admitted to hospital in Seattle after taking the wrong medication for a cold. She has a history of absolutely horrific, interpersonally damaging and completely avoidable meltdowns, usually thanks to hospitals ignoring her when she provides them with a list of what she reacts to. Everyone is calling COVID a cold now I see. I am not saying I hope Janice ups and dies, after all, I wrote “Invective” for her and I always have a soft spot for anyone who provides me with the impulse to compose, I just fail to see why I have to be all tenderhearted about the woman who brazenly busted up a marriage that I didn’t – as it turns out – want to stay in. Alan’s role in all of that got called out very close to the beginning of the end by Glenn, so HI GLENN THE SHIT CONTINUES BUD, same planet different day. So I acknowledge that I’m …. conflicted …. possibly hypocritical …. definitely snarky. Fuck it, have to go to Thornebridge. Nobody OF COURSE can raise Paul on the phone and I’m closest. I told him to go to Strong because memory care is a seamless transition, but the sisters put him in Thornebridge and those of us close to the problem get to watch him decompensate expensively. I loved that man far more than I can say and I wrote songs and poems and stories for him and now I’m wild with what a sting love has at the far end of that long tail.

almost 100 reads on the last story and ten kudos. Only one comment, sigh, but it was a beaut and I shared it with mOm.

This morning I on the downlow shared my distaste for an extremely popular sf/sff novel by agreeing with a poster “so polarizing I don’t have a public opinion about it’ so that’s as subtle as you get. After all, Canadian authors are supposed to close ranks – LOL: define Canadian, I’ll wait.

Jeff TOUCHED the dryer and it started working. Kiss pOp for me mother, he obviously passed the gift down. I’ll probably break it again when I go to load it up in a minute.

Must empty dishwasher.

 

 

regular day

Did a little shop with Alex after school to get some SCHNAX into the house.

Brief aside. For the CHEESE TAX.

I am awake far too early. Miss Jeff. Forgot to lock the cat door yesterday and haven’t seen Buster since supper, I’ll update once he’s up / home. Started rewatching Good Omens S1 because I’m a dolt.

Apparently there were immense streamers of northern lights across the north shore mountains last night.

mOm’s given me her marching orders with respect to the next Brad and Omar story, which will have YAKS. I will take some time to ruminate and then start writing again.

Next order of biz coffee.

 

Quiet day

Talked to Katie. She wants me to come get the cat tree so I should talk to Jeff about that.

369 words on TB

aqi is between 100 and 200 throughout the lower mainland. ABSOLUTELY no walking outside today.

Jeff wants to go schlepping this am but I find Sunday morning there’s nothing at Saveon and the veggies are really picked over but yes I will if he’s driving.

 

From a court case in the US:

“Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of deciphering their submissions. With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care, laugh-in-the-face-of-death, life-on-the-razor’s-edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins.”

— Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp., Inc., 147 F. Supp. 2d 668 (S.D. Tex. 2001)

off to the showroom

Keith needs to buy some furniture to fit in his new room. We’ll go off to see that midmorning. He’s also setting up ‘the last family meal at the Manor’ for Sunday so I’m hoping Jeff will come.

Weather continues okay, pollen except mold is low.

Laundry done, now I need to put it away. har har

Ukraine has lost a lot of warriors in the offensive. Things are gonna snap.

Tanked all my Lumosity games this morning. I don’t mean to dip but using a trackpad instead of a mouse is kinda bogus and I should stop doing it.

Made more iced tea.

Had my leftover pad thai for breakfast. DAMN it was good. Jeff enjoyed his Mongolian stirfry so we’re putting that restaurant in the rotation. The soup (sort of like Tom Ka Kai but called Coconut soup) was so good I could feel my soul leave my body and then come whooshing back in with a big ass THANK YOU. I asked for Mild-Medium spicing and they NAILED IT so well.

Reviewing my to do list. Amazing how many items I’ve already crossed off.

360 words over today and yesterday.

Just found out that the only Guyanese person I follow on twitter… his dad was a chauffeur. And so is Blossom, so I’m thinking that is one strange echo.

it ain’t the end of the world

It just reads like it on the page

 

from the NOAA site today

Valid 12Z Mon Aug 07 2023 – 12Z Wed Aug 09 2023 …Increased threat for severe thunderstorms and flash flooding today from the Tennessee and Upper Ohio River valleys into much of the eastern U.S… …Record heat expected from Texas, eastward along the Gulf Coast into Florida through Tuesday… …Elevated fire weather risks for central/western Texas and around the Four Corners region… …Heavy rain and localized flash flooding possible for the interior Pacific Northwest into the Northern Rockies today… A fairly strong storm system will track eastward from the lower Great Lakes and Midwest today, with an associated cold front reaching the Mid-Atlantic coast late Monday night/early Tuesday morning. Numerous thunderstorms are expected ahead of the cold front today, some of which are expected to be severe, containing the potential for tornadoes, damaging straight line winds, large hail and flash flooding. The greatest risk for all of these hazards will be across the northern Mid-Atlantic region but the severe storm and flash flood threats will extend across a broad region covering the Upper Ohio/Tennessee valleys into the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Thunderstorms are expected to develop in the early afternoon and increase in coverage at they move to the lee of the Appalachians later this afternoon and evening. Daytime heating is also expected to develop the potential for severe thunderstorms and flash flooding across the central High Plains with wind and hail being the primary threats, maximizing during the afternoon and evening hours. Across the Pacific Northwest, an approaching upper level disturbance will track over Washington and Oregon into the northern Great Basin over the next 24 hours. This system will aid in the development of diurnally driven convection, posing an elevated risk for flash flooding from northeastern Washington into the Idaho Panhandle and far northeastern Oregon where Flood Watches are in effect through late this evening. Drier conditions are expected across the Northwest for Tuesday. While another upper level disturbance will approach for Tuesday night, flash flooding and/or severe storms are not expected at this time. Across the South, dangerously hot daytime temperatures will again set up from the Desert Southwest into Texas, extending eastward along the Gulf Coast into portions of the Southeast and Florida today and Tuesday. Record high temperatures are expected to occur again from western Texas, eastward to the eastern Gulf Coast region with temperatures reaching from the upper 90s to middle 100s. Heat index values of 105 to 115 will be possible both today and Tuesday for these same locations and Excessive Heat Warnings or Heat Advisories are in place from the Desert Southwest to the Southeast, roughly from I-20 southward (locations east of Midland, TX), or near I-10 for locations across the Desert Southwest. In addition to the hot temperatures across the southern tier of the nation, there will continue to be an elevated fire weather risk across portions of the Four Corners states into Texas. Dry ground conditions, low relative humidities and gusty winds will continue to support the fire weather threat across these areas.

a few items

Mo-no-ny-mous
I mean Shakira
Mo-no-ny-mous
And also Cher
Mo-no-ny-mous
Adele and Bono
and Plato, & Cato,
Colette – and don’t forget Voltaire

(This above for mOm, I sang it to her the other day and she laughed so I thought I’d write it down for her.)

Made fruit salad for the meal yesterday. Last I saw, leaving their house, Paul was going to eat the rest before anyone got seconds. It was that good. And candidly, given that he daily complains about how hard his poops are, who minds that he inhales some food value with his roughage.

It consisted of pieces of melon, blueberries, strawberries, mangoes, the best fucking Bartlett pears I ever et, and oranges. The dressing which is from a recipe I got online, I’m not smart enough to invent it, and it’s for those who can eat dairy: a cup and a half of 10%BF Greek yogurt, three tablespoons of maple syrup and half a capful of vanilla. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS how nommy it is, and like I said I would have taken home leftovers if there had been any. The mouth feel, good god yall.

Oreo sat on my shoulders a good long while and purred hard in my ear.

I PLAYED A BOARD GAME WITH THREE QUARTERS OF MY DESCENDANTS YESTERDAY. It was Alex’s idea and I had so much fun. Hasbro’s latest version of Clue, if you need to know.

Dax changed the oil in my car. I asked him anxiously from the back deck if the oil was very dirty and he swilled it around in the container and considered the matter and said, ‘Yes’ so dryly that I burst out laughing. I owe him forty bucks for the filter and the oil so I’ll be heading out to drop it off sometime today. Perhaps I’ll combine it with a trip to Peggy’s to ditch that weird fretless bass ukulele.

Made soup yesterday. Started with a litre of unsalted Campbell’s chicken stock, added organic ramen (so damn good), chopped carrots, mushrooms, baby bok choi, a little tiny dab of veggie soup base, a splish of soy sauce. Today or tomorrow I am going to attempt Instant Pot (did you know the parent company is going out of business thanks to asset stripping? Capitalism HOW YOU SUCK) red beans and rice. I may bake up some chicken breasts and taters since the weather seems to be veering off into ‘June-uary’ temperatures.

Thunder and lightning two days ago. Not usual for these parts. We talked about the weather a lot yesterday.

Ryker was just down for his nap and Alex kissed his head AND WOKE HIM UP. He was down for most of the meal and the board game but since he’d gotten no other nap that day and was up at 6:30 Katie was SPARE while Ryker ran around the house terrorizing everything he could and parroting everything his mother said. WITH HER INTONATION. He’s got dozens and dozens of words, some clear enough that people who don’t live with him can understand him. Keith was like that, pristine pronunciation from the git. But Ryker is DIFFERENT. He is stronger, braver (yeah, like no sense of self preservation) smarter, faster, funnier, more able to understand what the adults around him are saying, more able to self-soothe, more durable – he took hits yesterday that would have had me bawling and just walked it off – picking up language so fast. Mike the father brought him back with a pinch bruise on his leg from a recliner, apologetic af, and Katie wasn’t bothered. What can you do? He’s not Alex, or Keith, who conducted themselves from a very early age knowing that the world can bite ya. I told her they should promise each other ten bucks and hand it to whichever of them DOESN’T have to take him to hospital with a broken bone first. You should have seen Katie rubbing her face as she contemplated how many TIMES she’ll likely have to take him to hospital. Like the tshirt said, today we keep the tiny human alive. Except he’s NOT tiny, he can open and shut doors with the handle.

everything about the visit is overshadowed by the fact that Alex is crying every day about how he can no longer go to second street school because his mother can’t afford to live in the catchment area. And the landlord fucked her over by not giving her a duly completed eviction notice so she can’t move up the BC housing list. This world is a horrible place for my children right now and I am helpless.

Over 500 words on TB yesterday. Richie and Blossom have finally met.

morning haiku set

grating on your skin
you tense; relaxing you think
it was just sugar

pour out your coffee
onto the firestorm of news
and remark, ‘no change’

the moon, thank goodness
is no longer a pale green
I guess that’s something

Yesterday the moon was green when I got up. I went to look at ‘the Strawberry Moon’ and got a sickly looking moon, scary as hell. If it’s truly an omen for the strawberry moon – the month upcoming – I’m holding myself in braced posture for a lousy time.

The summer will be hot and dry, and that means full of fire and smoke. I just had a vision of Vancouver on fire. Under exceptionally bad conditions we could have urban fires in Vancouver (remember 25 percent of Burnaby is parkland and open space…) and I just had a vision of standing on the back deck and hearing the cops on bullhorns trying to get people out of their houses…. I need to do something else. Sigh.

Russia has repelled a Ukrainian counterattack.

Absolutely none of my Ukrainian and western correspondents are saying this. How easy it is to successfully repel a counterattack that never happened!

However I’m DEFINITELY hearing desperate and very concerning rumblings about a planned ‘event’ by the Russians at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant TO COINCIDE with a Ukrainian counterattack, to get everyone in the west so upset they –I don’t know —  start dancing with the lizard people in their tightie whities while saying nasty things about Zelenskyy, mebbe??  who the hell knows with the Russian strategists right now, they have a century long playbook of assorted misinformation, genocide plus deeply personally vicious tyrannical AND casually banal state actions to pull plays from.

Russia’s ‘many arms in many sleeves’ tactic for its mis/dis campaigns is now extending to SOLICITING SCHOOL CHILDREN to go on podcasts, video streaming and TV platforms to ‘report’ on the ‘military operation’ ie be the next generation of propagandists. These poor kids and their parents are going to be dog meat when the war’s over. I’d like to warn them but no one can.

Jeff and I continue to rewatch Elementary and Stargate Atlantis, are into S2 of LawnOrder, S4 of Medium, and are dipping into Archer, Disenchantment (Eric André voicing Luci and Nat Faxon voicing Elfo are always standouts), Time Team and a couple of other shows.

Oppressive sky

brown to the horizon – supposed to lift tomorrow.

We tried to go for a brief walk and it was like holding your breath and trying to swim. For me, chest and head pain, which lightened but did not vanish when I got home.

Practiced and worked the Kaossilator for a while. Setting 75 continues to provide more mindless entertainment than you can imagine. Practiced Smokey, Otto, and Rowena. I have finally decided I’m going to call my most recent gifted uke Mahu (goldingit the diacritics don’t appear properly) (the word’s literally ‘in the middle’ which is the Hawaiian term for gay and gender non-conforming people). Appropriately I will call the first ukulele Kameamua which means ‘the first one’.

Still laughing to myself about singing Que Sera sera last night. I don’t know why I think it’s funny but –don’t I deserve to laugh.

aircon is back

What a difference it made yesterday. I can’t imagine how it must have been for a frail elderly person with no AC – it wasn’t even a heat dome situation, just an ‘unusually warm spell’. Staying warm til Friday, and much particulates so my eyes are gritty and I feel ‘oppressed’.

I have a few errands to run today including calling Paul and seeing if he wants to go for a walk. We did manage a walk yesterday, Jeff and I, but that was the extent of our external travails.

I haven’t been reporting on it, but I’m still doing wordle and lumosity every morning. I just made tea, the iced tea pitcher is full in the fridge (it’s that time of year again!) Buster’s been let out and the cat door is open. I’ve been practicing on my instruments pretty much every day. As soon as the dishwasher’s done I’ll run some laundry. Couple of hundred words on TB.

Stay busy and stay cool!

Shifting emphasis

I’m thinking keep the blog but make it just the release point for a podcast (with a complete and accurate transcript so visually impaired and deaf people can consume it) on a regular schedule. I have some ideas. LOL. I am, after all, an idea factory. I’m making a list of episode subjects and am considering various formats.

I don’t know why, but I’m thinking of a film made in Africa (I was 18, forgive me if I didn’t keep my class notes about which country it was filmed in and I can’t find anything in Wikipedia.) In it, the present day in a bustling city is depicted in colour; but his fantasies about becoming rich and immigrating are in black and white. I remember at the time being much struck by the emotional resonance of this; that your fantasies are so shopworn as to no longer be vibrant, and as a visual metaphor for the protagonist’s internal life I’ve rarely seen the equal.

We finished “One Day as a Lion”. mOm, picture Totally Boned if it was a het couple and set in the hottest ass end of Oklahoma (and people get shot…). I personally loved it (there were so many little beaut touches), Jeff was so so and said the script needed a punch up and the ending was too abrupt (both valid comments.) It is TOTALLY an ‘instant family Harlequin Romance with dead bodies.”

I forgive Scott Caan (son of James) his ‘career’ as a rapper (I believe I have made CLEAR my opinion of white rappers who did not come up in the business credibly integrated with Black ones) if he can produce little bloodstained film confections like this.

I have to do my Lumosity and get dressed, Jeff wants to do a schlep this morning. We don’t normally go on the weekend. Just checked to make sure they’re open at 7, since we hardly ever go on Sunday (the organic homo is usually all gone.)

As predicted air quality (the Alberta fires) is moderately bad (60 and variable) and today’s going to be the hottest day of this heat wave so don’t do a goddamned thing outside today. Just sayin.

Efforts to teach Buster to count to three are going badly. All he does is start salivating when I count to three, since that means I’m about to drop some treats on his little tuffet. Considering that other people’s pets do things like speculate as to whether a new human baby brother will cry when being stuck in the car seat I feel sad until he commands me to pet him, at which point I calm down.

 

Some positive movement

Absolutely gorgeous day. Stunning. And we’re going to have a mini heat dome for Mother’s Day, la la la!! Emailed the kids and said I want nothing but a phone call for Mother’s Day.

Paul, Keith and I went to a local (walking distance…) independent living manor and it had many, many amenities and conveniences to recommend it. It’s a swingeing amount of money per month but all the food, internet, cable and cleaning is included so it’s actually a pretty good deal, and there are tons of activities and many different rooms to do things in. The org that runs it is a non-profit and the building itself is almost brand new (our family watched it being built.) We will be visiting other places this month as well, or at least the menfOlks will.

Paul was engaged, communicative, task-oriented and equable throughout the visit and continued to contribute to the conversation for about half an hour after the tour was over (they let us sit in an absolutely gorgeous common space to talk, and of course because the weather was perfect and there were floor to ceiling windows along the corner walls looking out into a courtyard completely surrounded by mature trees, it was a nice place to chat.) He liked the apartment (we saw the show suite and a vacant mirror image, both on the top floor and looking into cedars and fir trees) and the three enormous closets and was pleased to hear that the two malls that he is most familiar with in terms of amenities and layout are also the two malls that they bus folks to twice a week. The food looks fantastic and residents are served restaurant style with servers taking orders at the table.

Dax dropped by in the late afternoon to collect an air compressor from Paul’s Echo’s trunk. Why? Because the grandsons have deflated balls. Many, many deflated balls. All the deflated balls, apparently. There will be some vigorous kicking in their future I imagine.

Today I’m taking Paul to get boxes at the Staples down the hill and hopefully finally getting that watch fixed. I also want to pick up some more veg (I like the veg place in Market Crossing and maybe the Cobbs has reopened YUP just checked, they were renovating) and maybe a treat or two if the winds are propitious. And maybe a visit to FISH to get some halibut, always a welcome basis for a meal.

Finished the run of Endeavour. Abso loved it, it’s going in rotation, and thank you Dave SO MUCH for recommending it. Desperately seeking something of equivalent volume and quality to replace it!

129 words on the fic, brain is sort of working, towels washed and put away, one load of laundry done but sitting around downstairs.

Plane crashes and setting the mixture lean

So there was a plane crash in Langley yesterday. I heard about it on the radio. Then I read on line that the airplane – a small private craft – CLIPPED A TRUCK on the highway before coming in for a crash. Ya know friends and neighbours that is most likely to mean that HE DIDN’T SET FUEL TO RICH MIXTURE so he had ZERO OOMPH when he needed it. Since this is exactly like the plane crash I was in I’m of course predicting that’s what happened. Everyone including the poor bastid in the truck got conveyed to the hospital and in true Canadian fashion, lived to complain about it all.

I picked Keith up in his own car from the Ferry Terminal at Tsawassen yesterday. It was a STINKING HOT DAY, much hotter in Burnaby than the records might indicate. I had to drive in traffic. People who drive from east Burnaby to the southern terminal know well that there are a couple of choke points. One is the bridge access southbound on 20th; queued there for 20 minutes or so, cursing most immoderately the entire fucking time. One is the ‘curve’ on highway 91A where the traffic ALWAYS slows down even though there are no on-ramps? Like- what the hell, people. There is no earthly reason for this to happen, so I unscrambled my brains and gave it some consideration and I guess it’s because trucks have to slow down because it isn’t banked properly or something and that has a standing wave effect on the rest of the traffic. And of course another is the run up to the Massey Tunnel, but that was barely a blip because they had the counterflow set in favour of the traffic direction I was on.

After all that, got there in plenty of time to greet him for the ride home, and he thank god did the rest of the driving because I was once again pretty crispy toast from driving with due care and attention in that relentless traffic and heat. I didn’t want to put the air con on because we had less than a quarter tank of gas and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get stuck behind an accident with no gas.

All was well, Keith efficiently gave me back the stuff I’d left in his car after the trip, and discovered ANOTHER BAG OF BISCOTTI – I told you I made a lot of that – which is going over to Peggy today because she is awesome and could use a break. With coffee, and biscotti. I won’t stay, I’ll just biscotti fairy it over to her when Jeff and I go to errandry later this morning.

Right now, I must dress, brush teeth and watch Endeavour, and then we’re going out. The downstairs toilet needs a part, and I want to get the Marvin the Martian watch I got from John’s stash running again. Curiously, I found the identical watch (right down to the watchband, which is an unusual leather and colour) for sale, secondhand since it was made in 94, in Europa for 339´€ and in the US for $39, so someone’s getting hosed and it’s not me.

Embarrassing as it is to relate, it is entirely possible that I will purchase another cell phone. Spending time with a dementia sufferer and being out of touch while I’m driving him around (he often forgets his phone) has made me understand the value of access. As I was driving to the ferry I kept thinking if I’m in an accident I’ll have no way to contact Keith and it made me unduly fretful.

Long COVID testing regime

List of Long COVID tests from Lifelabs, BC, April 2023

Someone ACTUALLY POSTED ‘It’s a fine spring day in Saskatchewan’ on one of the video social media sites; it shows a my kind of fine looking young white man trying to pour coffee, which emerges from the carafe at about a 30 degree angle in a fifty-knot gale. With snow. While he is inadequately dressed for the weather. While smiling charmingly. It would take me longer to figure out how to cross post it than describe it, so I described it.

Eye test today. I will be getting the dreaded ‘drops’.

apology accepted

Jeez I could have gotten this over days ago. C. has been kind enough to hear and accept my apology and did not consider my considerable display of ill temper enough to make her hate me…

Don’t know what I did to deserve this life.

Shipped off 1450 words to mOm this morning after an 850 word day, thank you very much.

The brilliant sunshine is so wonderful. I just popped the back door to let the late afternoon sun and air flush the house.

Paul took me to lunch after we took EIGHT BAGS of mostly clothes (I did a quick peruse to ensure it’s stuff he can lose) to Value Village. Next time per his specific request they’ll go to the Sally Ann at the bottom of the hill. I can’t talk him out of it, that’s fine, he’s entitled to his preferences.