Category: Weather

walked with Paul, fed him lunch

Then walked to and from the pharmacy to get my booster for COVID. Everything went very smooth. Stopped at the Liquor store that’s just opened up the street from the pharmacy and got Fat Tug and drank THREE of them and enjoyed that so much I picked up a guitar and started practicing afterwards.

Weather has been wonderful, smoke from fires variable, lower today.

Slept exceedingly well, woke up this morning with my arm sore af, (no surprise there, almost everyone reports it, and it’s sore right up to the side of my neck) but I can also tell that this will lift over the course of the day. And I walked a whole bunch more, on concrete, yesterday, so my legs and ankles are whining.

That picture of Neptune, whoooooeee.

Jeff is taking me to IHOP this morning.

Look what arrived in my mailbox this mornin’ SQUEE > Book*hug preview.

Russian women are being comforted regarding overseas vacations that they can now no longer take their husbands on, since men 18-60 are subject to an international travel ban, with the deathless advice “Swap him for your granny”.

They can ATTEMPT to mobilize 300K new recruits but since the Russian military has already demonstrated that it doesn’t have enough UNIFORMS, RIFLES, FOOD, FUEL AND AMMO for the men it’s already putting in harm’s way in Ukraine, I don’t know what will happen. Russian client states are getting restless; Azerbaijan has already started a brush fire war against Armenia. 300 people dead already, both sides pointing fingers for the continuous breaking of the cease fire.

A couple of kudos overnight, 160 hits on the new story.

Sunday roundup

  • Paul’s in Seattle. He drove himself. There will be a family council (we hope) when he returns.
  • Typhoon Merbok is screwing up coastal Alaska
  • The gyrations involved in getting Trump squared up for his ‘day in court’ continue. His most recent legal beagle asked for three million dollars cash up front and as I said on Twitter, the lawyer is still going to get his ass cheated off his body.
  • Mass graves continue to be discovered in Eastern Ukraine. Putin and his wolf pack have a lot to answer for. India and China are pulling away from him, except insofar as whatever they can pick off what’s looking like a particularly unappetizing piece of global carrion.
  • 13368 words on Landslide, 4197 on Totally Boned
  • I’m incubating a couple of poems, more when I actually figure out why I want to use heavily charged and coded words and even more when I write them. I think one of them wants to be a very dry list of my mental health symptoms
  • Almost 600 Americans are still dying every day from COVID. It’s the second highest reported cause of death in the US this week. BC reported infections and rate of infections are currently dropping, and about 200 people a week are catching it, with a very low death rate. Whether we’ll ever get anything but nonsense and bluster out of BC for the mass disabling event that is COVID is an open question; Keith thinks it’s a possibility and as a family we’re thinking of all getting tested.
  • Alex comes today, still don’t know exactly when.
  • There is a memorial for Queen Elizabeth in Queen’s Park in New Westminster at 1 pm today. I will not be there, I merely note its existence
  • Twitter is full of Brits queuing to file past the Queen. Out of towners who don’t give a shit about the monarchy are also complaining about getting stuck in traffic and the idea of voluntarily driving around London the weekend before they plant the HRH is ludicrous to me.
  • Hungary’s getting subsidy money from the EU cut because they’re a bunch of anti abortion, anti gay, corrupt fuckwits. We’re talking billions of Euros. The poor of Hungary will hurt the most, as always.
  • QUIT FEEDING THE GODDAMNED BEARS North Vancouver I am looking at you; do you suppose the conservation officers ENJOY SHOOTING BEARS I can tell you to your face they don’t, ya collection of buhs.
  • To recap: Buh is the bih-bah word that substitutes for crazy. Crazy isn’t acceptable. Buh covers: disgusting (stop being a goddamned sex pest, I don’t want to see your penis or your ass, or hear about what you want to do to me while you drive by in your best friend’s car), dirty (please maintain basic hygiene), dangerous (please do not jump onto moving cars, please do not drive cars impaired, please do not aim your car at protesters or tourists), bothersome (please leash/muzzle your pet and don’t run air tools at 3 am, please do not pull the panic stop on Skytrain for no reason, please drink/toke/inject responsibly, please wear a mask), noisy (keep it under 65 dB f’Chrissakes), wilfully destructive (seems obvious) and violent (why are you knifing me).
  • ‘Confess Fletch’ with Jon Hamm is entertaining as hell, great script, laughed my ass off. Also sticks the landing in 90 – all action movies and comedies should try to get in at 90. I’ll give superhero movies an extra half for all the eyecandy bloody CGI

lots on my mind

  1. much of it isn’t my story, so I sit by the side of the road
  2. Housefilk has been moved up to today. I wish I could stop feeling this bleak – Jeff got me CHEESE SCONES and COFFEE and both are excellent.
  3. weather remains fine
  4. The Russians keep providing the Ukrainians with proof of war crimes and the fact nobody on the Russian side seems to care indicates that they don’t actually believe any international justice apparatus will still be standing when they’re done.
  5. At this point I think we’ve got about 6 months left of ‘normal’ so it’s time to batten down. Start keeping more cash on hand, among other things.
  6. Anne Heche died of her injuries. Addiction is a terrible thing. I hope her kids have people they can trust with them and aren’t exposed to too much vileness. IN DECEMBER 2022 IT WAS REVEALED SHE DIDN’T HAVE ANY DRUGS OR ALCOHOL IN HER SYSTEM.  Lesson… don’t speculate on CoD until the coroner rules.
  7. preparations for camping trip have commenced – I need to find Jim E’s old camping list. Suzanne has already told me to expect to do as much driving as I can stand because ‘she wants to look at the view’ and I am HERE for that.
  8. off to Victoria soon for a flying visit more deets later
  9. I am hoping for a breakthrough on totally boned so I guess I’ve got a date with some 3×5 cards current count is 1663

  10. allegra sloman 13/8/2022 ‘Doing it badly’

Does the dog die

  1. that is the name of a website. People are sensitive about animal loss. I told a bunch of people on reddit that the dog DOESN’T die in the new Predator series movie, “Prey” and my inbox this morning is full of thanks and praise for saying so.
  2. Time to brush my teeth and have a shower.
  3. Burnaby is going to have a festival of glowing pumpkins, 6000 of the hand carved suckers. Once we hit August it’s all Halloween all the time around here.
  4. Somebody must have put one of my stories on a list; one particular fanfic is getting all the attention these days. It’s an okay story, it’s got pacing issues.
  5. Still no joy on Part II of current story. Some extension of a fanfic.
  6. We’ve now blown through 1000 cases of MPX in Canada. It was 957 on the 5th August, what do you think?
  7. Can’t raise Mike, his phone doesn’t seem to be working.
  8. Lovely walk with Jeff in the morning, it wasn’t TOO hot. Actually walked up the hill with some speed instead of puffing and blowing and pausing the entire way.
  9. Hexavalent chromium spill into the Huron River, which would impact the drinking water of millions of people, is getting zero airplay / pixels / print space in the media. Hexavalent chromium, necessary (they say) for many industrial processes, is the single most toxic form of chromium. Staring at my Toronto friends hey you might want to move before it’s in the drinking water of Toronto in Lake Ontario.
  10. Made Jeff peppermint tea and smoked salmon green salad wrap for brekkie.
  11. The Russians have mined the Ukrainian nuclear plant they took over a couple of months back. It is apparently their intention to destroy it.
  12. I have Reddit Cute Animal disease, every time I see a video of a cute critter on Reddit I want to run out and buy it. Today’s heart-eyes – hognosed snake.
  13. Did not practice yesterday, but at least all the instruments are in the same room again.
  14. “Reddit Double Shot” – THERAPY and BREAKUPS all ’round. (AITA posts only)
  15. I got the wordle in three tries this morning. However I used a solve site on line to help me once I got to word two.
  16. That doesn’t always work, depends on how common the consonants are.
  17. I am thinking of the time I did the Grouse Grind. It took me 2.5 hours and a single human being lapped me three times; he was wearing nothing but pale metallic blue booty shorts and athletic shoes and carrying a water bottle.
  18. Doug Ford is still an asshole who took four billion dollars from the Feds to fight the pandemic and as far as anyone can tell is obscuring where it’s being spent as fast as his bean counters can hide it.
  19. I have had a poem written for me?!!! Colour me blushy.
  20. And now I shall cease with my morning raving, knowing that my fOlks don’t have internet right now so there’s no point getting this posted before six.
  21. reconnecting with an ex on social media (facebook, I believe I mentioned that I left instagram and climbed back up on facebook) is always fraught with hazard (he was my first bf from around the time the planet cooled) but so far all we’re doing is sighing heavily over what a fucking idiot Roger Waters (OF PINK FLOYD) (he’s FUCKING CAPING FOR THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SAYING TAIWAN BE OWNED BY THEM WHICH IS A BIG SURPRISE TO THE PEOPLE WHO FUCKING LIVE THERE) is, and posting youtube memories of songs gone by. Weird to see him all old and bearded though.
  22. and as a visual codaImage

Robot Chicken and Alex Jones

  1. after years of saying we would, Jeff and I are finally rewatching Robot Chicken to make a goodies reel. Jeff, we need to include the danceoff, I changed my mind.
  2. Picture if you will a man who lies for a living. After 9/11, he fused the internet as we mostly now know it to lies about how 9/11 was a ‘false flag’ operation. Many people mostly on the right decided that there was no way 9/11 could have happened UNLESS high government officials and the standard issue global cabal had CAUSED it to happen; this man made money selling dietary supplements (which are also bunkum) to the people who took comfort in this worldview. Many millions of dollars of income later, he said that the shooting deaths of a bunch of children in a school shooting (Sandy Hook) was a false flag operation. That those kids didn’t die. Now, those kids did die, and even though the man who lies for a living knew they didn’t die, and said they didn’t die because people who are against the right to carry guns wanted to change the laws, his attitude toward the truth was not all that great, so the parents sued him for defamation.
  3. he lost. Total amounts owing along the lines of $50 million. Two more lawsuits in a similar vein are coming. His total net worth is in the vicinity of $150 Mil.
  4. perhaps he lost but he’s still very popular, as per “What does the Internet Think” website. 
  5. and in case you think this is bullshit, I give you Lee Pace’s results from the same website, BECAUSE NO ONE IS INDIFFERENT TO LEE PACE (ALSO I DO NOT APPEAR ON THIS WEBSITE LOL I CHECKED):
  6. while he was losing his lawyer’s employee accidentally (OR DID SHE LOL) sent two years’ worth of text and email messages from his phone to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The lawyers promptly asked the January 6 committee if they wanted the messages, which was truly inconvenient for the man who lies for a living.
  7. and his ex wife Kelly probably will be getting them too. She is – quite rightly – in a custody battle, and now his utter unfitness to have access to his children will soon be a matter of public record. She calls him “truly mentally ill” and a danger to society but what the hell else can you expect from an ex wife hunh?
  8. to recap, Alex Jones is a foam-flecked liar, and now he will be paying for it. It won’t stop him, and he’ll fundraise on it, but at least someone slowed him down for two seconds and between his wife, his involvement with the January 6 traitors and the Sandy Hook parents his wealth will get a shellacking.
  9. Watched ‘Prey’ which is a new film in the Predator franchise GODDAMN I LOVED IT. It’s set in Comanche territory in 1719. The French are the bad guys, just like life’s supposed to be (this is a family joke, not reality.)
  10. That dog was not trained. They had to use that dog because it’s very close to what an Indigenous dog would have looked like at the time, so holy shit the director had to put up with a lot from that dog.
  11. A version completely in Comanche is available.
  12. Watched the new Minions movie. It had a few good laughs and was about standard for the franchise.
  13. I’m feeling quite a bit better, but the weather’s gone hot again so the next couple of days will probably be uncomfortable.
  14. There’s a cat rescue outfit in Vancouver which would rather EUTHANIZE a cat that adopt it out to a transgender person. Infuriating, like it’s a REASON.
  15. 1207 words on new section, still going very slow also worked on fanfic ‘landslide’
  16. Watched the Frontline about the people living in Kharkiv for the first three months after the Russian invasion. Very scary, moving and the people there seem admirable in their resolve. The impact of the war on the elderly and disabled is just gross.
  17. For settler saturday consider a donation to Indigenous language revitalization.

boot to the head! (wah, wah)

  1. today’s blog post title is a call back to a famous Frantics album from 1987
  2. Because today I administered a social media boot to the head to the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services. You may or may not be aware that the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services ended the mandate for mask wearing while you donate.
  3. yup you heard me
  4. give blood and catch covid
  5. what a draw, what a pull, what a crowd pleaser!
  6. anyway I told them until they restored the mask mandate they can do without my blood.
  7. because they said burnaby needs 300 donors now and I’m like IF YOU COME TO MY HOUSE THAT WILL WORK FINE TOO. DEY VANT MY BLUT DEY CAN COME GET IT
  8. still stalled on story – all stories.
  9. baseball sized hail fell in southern AB August 1, I watched video of people pulled over and screaming inside their cars, it was scary af
  10. my schadenfreude over Alex Jones’ troubles at his defamation trial is great. Finding out yesterday that his ‘defence’ lawyer sent TWO YEARS OF TEXTS on accident TO THE PLAINTIFFS’ LAWYERS made Jeff and I smile quite rudely
  11. Russia keeps almost hitting Ukrainian grain shipments. Putin Khuylo! (usually translated as Putin is a Dickhead!!)
  12. heat map of the US and southern Canada on July 31 2022 shows solid red and you wonder why I’m all apocalyptic  darkest is highest temperature - us heat map 31 july 22
  13. Jeff and I remain very very happy that there’s a functioning air conditioner in this house.
  14. I have too much laundry both dirty and to put away.
  15. words cannot describe how happy I am that my mOm reads my blog posts to her sister almost every day …. and so sometimes I put stuff in that I think will make Mary laugh

Alex today

It’s 8 am and the air conditioner ran all night, and today’s supposed to be worse.

976 words

Buster is easily startled thanks to the construction across the street. We’re trying to be extra nice to him, not that that’s hard.

Here’s a blast from the past (made while I was still working for Planetkiller Enterprises™)

I have lots of thoughts and feelings but I’m going to sit on them until they’re large enough to hatch.

accomplished a few things

Keith has his money. There was a little interest in there. I ran in, gave him the money, wrassled a teensy smile out of Ryker (Alex is in summer camp), and said hi to Katie who was about to toss some food down the baby.

Other errands accomplished. Shaw tried to talk us into getting another DVR box (or something like) and after a chat with the technician we tapped the table.

Fraser Foreshore was absolutely wonderful. In full sun, it was noticeably hot yesterday, but in the shade, by the river, the air was, in Paul’s words, ambrosial. The male of the nesting pair of herons whom we see with almost every trip WOULD NOT SHUT UP. I have heard herons make a range of noises but this one sat on the end of the log boom and HONKED LIKE A GOOSE at the crows. I’m not joking, and I have a witness. Every time the crows moved, he’d honk like a goose in irritation. In ten minutes, that heron made more noise than any heron not in a breeding colony that I’ve ever heard of. We got some Vietnamese food after.

This morning we’re going to do a schlep.

Buster is up and whining at my door. Me: “Wait for Daddy! No door! Daddy will open the door when he gets up!” He refused treats, skritches ALL HE WANTS IS DOOR DOOR NOW DOOR NOW DOOR NAAAAOW

542 words.

Lovely phone call with Dave yesterday but I am a BAD FRIEND because when he started to groan about punctuation in his in-the-process-of-being-edited poetry book I started laughing and unfortunately could not stop. I mean, it’s a lovely problem to have AND I COMPLETELY SUPPORT HIS COMMENTS REGARDING SPACES AROUND ELLIPSES, N-DASHES AND M–DASHES. He is correct. HOWEVER it looks like his publisher has a house recipe. Also, he’s now supposed to do a 3-5 minute VIDEO about his book. This is like asking the Groke to give a three to five minute speech about existentialism while juggling lit blowtorches. I have a number of suggestions, which I made to him, and here are more woven in with them.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE. Do everything they ask, but in such a way that it can’t be used.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V. 2 Do everything they ask, but get someone else to do it.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V 3. Do everything they ask while wearing a V for Vendetta mask.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V.4 Do everything they ask but be reading a newspaper while the voice over provides the information.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V.5 Do everything they ask – and let them edit it.

MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE V.6 Do everything they ask – for other books in their catalog

E For Effort v.1 Take videos of his cats and provide a voice over indicating that it would be of societal net benefit if you made a cat video rather than a commercial for your book, which you ‘will just have to take my word is a thoughtfully crafted work of contemporary poetry in English’.

E for Effort v.2. Take Jeff’s videos of the rats scurrying up and down the alley at dawn and intersperse them with a reading from the book (one of the things they wish in the video)

He’s got to the beginning of September.

Image

Taiwan’s little EU problem and other things

  1. So the EU ambassador to China, a Spaniard, has announced that the Spanish government’s position on Taiwan (peaceful reunification for 1 China) is actually the EU position. It’s not. Horror across the internet this morning at this blatant contradiction of the majority stakeholder view across the EU.
  2. I’m so itchy I’m having trouble sleeping. My tear ducts seem to be blocked up too, and my eyes are sticking shut.
  3. Started working on Part II – 73 words so far.
  4. Three shootings in Toronto last night, one dead, two gravely injured, shooter or shooters still at large.
  5. Words cannot describe how much I’m hoping – and I’m an abolitionist – that Steve Bannon goes to jail in the same country where someone said that the economy would fall apart if jails didn’t contain almost free labour.
  6. Putin says Russia’s high tech sector is facing ‘colossal’ problems due to sanctions.
  7. They’re emptying the jails and putting the dregs of Russian society at the front, according to sources inside Russia.
  8. 110 degrees F in Fort Worth TX today that’s 43 degrees C. The grid in TX is teetering thanks to Repulsigan policies and chronic underspending by ERCOT on maintenance. Bad things are going to happen, it’s like sunshine and gravity.
  9. Wonderful Nova program about the JWST and the first pictures. I knew it was a hellaciously complex and overbudget project, but just HOW complex and HOW overbudget was kind of heartstopping, so thank science it worked. Ain’t nobody going to fix it if it quits.
  10. CBC is reporting lightheartedly that repeated COVID infections will be the norm and don’t pose a problem and this is directly counter to every reputable clinician and epidemiologist that I follow stating loudly and clearly that every repeat infection raises the spectre of disability from Long Covid. Fuck them for saying that.
  11. With Jeff’s kind assistance, I have taken Otto to the krankenhaus. I will receive word on Thursday.
  12. Keith reports that Jim is doing much better.
  13. I have finally seen “The Trouble With Harry”. Damn but John Forsythe was hotter than August in his prime, and what a freaking voice.
  14. 40 degree C weather in Britain. Monuments and bridges are at risk of cracking, damage and failure. Brits don’t take heat seriously so the betting is it will be super hard on the disabled and elderly. Australians and Americans on twitter are trying to help with inexpensive advice. From today’s twitter: In more “country totally prepared for hot weather” news: Blackpool Victoria Hospital (note, in the UK) has propped its doors open to keep the building cool, but now the hospital is full of seagulls  AND HERE’S ANOTHER ONE “SKY NEWS REPORTER, CITING MILITARY SOURCE: UK ROYAL AIR FORCE HAS HALTED FLIGHTS IN AND OUT OF ITS LARGEST AIR BASE IN THE UK BECAUSE THE “RUNWAY HAS MELTED” IN THE HOT WEATHER and ANOTHER:

    UK airport suspends all flights as heatwave melts runway tarmac

    A spokesperson for Luton Airport said: “Following today’s high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the runway.”

  15. My dad does not like seagulls. Not in his aircraft engines and definitely not in his hospitals. NO WORD ON HOW HE FEELS ABOUT MELTY TARMAC
  16. The ERs at Dr. Helmcken Memorial Hospital in Clearwater and South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver are on diversion due to staff shortages.
  17. let’s talk about everything that’s wrong with this article. First off, fuck that family for booking a Disney cruise in Alaska during a pandemic. Second, Air Canada SAID it was going to be cancelling flights left and right at the end of June. Did they not get the memo? What did they think was going to happen. THIRD their daughter HAD COVID BEFORE THEY STARTED TRAVELLING or she wouldn’t have popped symptoms on the fourth day…..they would have ended up on a boat with a sick child anyway. How the fuck is that a vacation? fourth they got treated terribly by Air Canada and had to sleep in airports and it’s like HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE NEWS? EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM CITED IN THIS ARTICLE has been part of the nightly news since the travel season started. There’s NO ROOM in the current Air Canada schedule for aircraft going mechanical.
  18. Maybe Roger Waters of Pink Floyd is a more important figure and musician than the Weeknd and Drake but why the fuck would he say so in public? I’ll tell you why!! HE DIDN’T GET REVIEWED IN THE MAJOR PAPERS! Oh, you poor poor man.  that’s get off my lawn style crankiness and RACISM. PS I hold no brief for either of them and Drake’s a creepy asshole who macks on minors and makes for great memes but HE’S A HOMETOWN CHILD IN TORONTO so of course it was a big deal. Not understanding the local politics doesn’t make you a likeable figure dude.
  19. Time to back up your computers, earth’s about to get smacked hard by a coronal mass ejection.  Radio and GPS disruption expected, low latitudes aurorae, first thing tomorrow. Chances of being an x event is 10% but we’ll get something for sure….
  20. WHO confirms a Marburg outbreak in Ghana.
  21. Zelenskyy remains pissed at Trudeau, line forms on the left pal.
  22. July 2022 heat dome temperature gradient europa
  23. Above is the atmospheric ‘ pot lid’ on Europa.
  24. NASA’s ‘climate spiral’ video.
  25. SO ITCHY

Suzanne plus Alex plus Katie

& I spoke with Mike today. The cup is full, the house is much cleaner. I love the world right now and need to sleep.

New Kaos: b.38/g10/bpm20/C_/gyp (music for a video game, a slow heartbeat sound quite ominous) … can you tell Alex was playing with it today and got me all inspired. Absolutely shredded Gelis and Niccolo today, I got sounds a guitar doesn’t readily make.  And I wrote a hundred words today, and washed the rugs, and made Alex lunch, and watched Elementary with Jeff. This is what a successful day looks like.

Weather quite variable today but mostly not windy, and warm.

COVID is still kicking the world’s ass. Monkeypox is established in at least twenty countries with a thousand known cases and an obscured iceberg of infections not currently recorded or understood; plus the presentation is different than the textbooks which is really not helping.

I grieve with Ukraine, what an unholy mess.

Good morning, morning, blues how do you do

not all pigs are beautiful (sus barbatus)

15010 words Brad is such a weirdo I love him.

It’s another beautiful day in Vancouver.

Yesterday the winds in Toronto were turning trucks over on the highway; I was talking to Dave and he reported nothing like that in his end of Toronto. As he pointed out it’s a large city.

However parts of Toronto are without power for 24 hours and the sound of chainsaws in some neighbourhoods is pretty much continuous.

Liz from London says they experienced darkness at noon and the wind blew something terrific.

I will get Alex next weekend for an overnight, hoping the crick don’t rise.

12859

Paul must be in the States again, I haven’t heard from him in a week. LATER – PAUL CALLED THIS AM, HE’S BACK.

There are two Disneys: a monster and a storyteller. There’s a monster of megatons of plastic garbage, not paying writers, harassing employees, gleeful racism, social control. The storyteller is a thieving panderer with catchy tunes. We forget the former to smile at the latter.

(the foregoing is my response to a tweet about ‘disney adults’.)

Breakfast was egg salad over regular salad with lashings of tea.

It’s raining AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN. All the dogwood flowers are turning brown so the beautiful shining elven tree now looks like dogs been crapping on it.

My mood is…. not great. But I’m writing and I’m safe and comfy at home, so I will do my absolute best not to make my mood someone else’s problem.

Buster trained hard this morning; I think I’m teaching him to give kisses but we’ll see. Maybe I’m just teaching him to transfer zoonotic illnesses.

 

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

Daily roundup

Paul and I went for a longer and faster walk than usual yesterday. The chickadees (probably just one bold chickadee) ate sunflower seeds out of my hand. (they also rocket overhead to get your attention, and the chipping sparrows and the towhees and flickers and crows all get interested. Still as a tomb – the Fraser was like grey glass. We managed to get out during a break between episodes of rain.

mOm got the Among Us art from Alex that I mailed to her.

Pollen count is insanely high.

I don’t know whether it’s the allergens but I’m so itchy and dull-witted it’s annoying to me and everyone around me.

After, I picked up croissants and went to the bank and Paul got Cape Seed bread for Keith, and then we came back here for me to snip THE WORST toenails I’ve ever seen offa Paul. Yes I still perform acts of personal service for Paul, why not, it’s solidarity.

Watched Black Crab (MAN WHAT A BLEAK MOVIE and about a quarter of it is scenes that look amazingly like escaping from Mariupol so that’s kinda disturbing. Noomi Rapace was, as always, fantastic. BUT BLEAK MOVIE don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Today – return book to library, take Jeff to breakfast, wash two-three loads of laundry, empty the dishwasher and try to write at least a thousand more words on the story.

No kudos today, but that’s the difference between Sunday and Monday in a world organized around 5 day weeks.

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.