Category: Weather

not a lot of money, but a really good day anyway

Katie is increasingly stoked about her camping trip.  Wish I could say where but we don’t want uninvited guests now do we…

The shop SMELLS OF BACON.

We experimented with a new soup recipe and it’s so simple and so tasty Katie and I are both doing the Snoopy happy dance.  We can haz cheezy broccoli soup!

It’s raining, and we don’t mind.  Only one more hour to go, and then I pick up Ziva (again) and we go to Costco (our home away from home) and then… ep 4 Band of Brothers with Jeff, since we are rewatching it.  SUCH A GOOD SHOW.

Gotye’s Heart’s a  Mess is playing on the shop sound system.

Yeah, so not so much revenue, but a good day anyway.  Regulars came by, newbies came by, I got my CRA letter off to the post box, all the fridges are behaving, I organized a bunch of receipts, wrote down the new recipe… and Katie’s crush forked over his phone number.  I can now let my breath out after a month.

I light a candle for a close family friend who just lost a baby.  I sucked in my breath when I heard she was expecting… she’s multi-risk.  And now she knows why women don’t announce pregnancies until they quicken.  It’s horrible, it’s sad, it’s completely messed up, and it is life in it’s glorypain.  She and her husband are going to lie low for a couple of days.  Hell of a thing to happen on Mother’s Day, god help us all.

 

 

Katie is here

Baking up a storm of maple bacon muffins, some of which will accompany to her foodsafe 2 class today.

Keith is going to the grands this weekend, and he will have biscotti in tow if the gods are kind.

Today I am ENDURING THE HORRAH of completing my first tax documents for the church. I will be glad when this term is over, despite all I have learned.

It is astonishingly windy – the recycling bin keeps leaping up and trying to make a run for it down the porch stairs.  The cats really don’t like it the noise.

Jeff says Margot had some kind of fit the other day.  Her eyes were open but she was impossible to rouse.  Then she perked up and was completely normal or as normalz as that crazy little fur machine ever gets.  Obviously I am mildly concerned but when cats are eating and drinking as per normal it’s hard to stay that way.

mOm, you will be amused to hear that Katie just came up behind me and said “can you read that in the dark?” and turned the lamp on.

Long and amusing phone call with Chipper yesterday.  She’s in much better spirits – her wordplay and sense of proportion have been somewhat restored – and she has been the biggest booster of the plan for the cafe.

I suppose I should pick up the phone and apologize to Carrie for our unfortunate text exchange, but I am still a little mad about it and if I am still resentful an apology will just make things worse.

Saw Mambo Kings the other day. I enjoyed the musical numbers and costume design a lot, and Antonio Banderas is a wriggling sack of puppies cute.

Lots of people asked me for the lyrics to my Beacon bday tune, so I am happy about that.

Receipting for tax time for donors at the church is done…. I will also be stuffing envelopes today.

And laundry.  I thought I was all caught up but the laundry basket is telling me different.

 

Big News, small news, glad news, sad news

I put a deposit down on the cafe yesterday.  So begins an enterprise.

Expert, schmexpert.

The only thing I don’t understand about the rogue LAPD cop Christopher Dorner is not why he hasn’t been caught – he will be, and I cheerfully predict that he’ll go quietly and not die in a hail of gunfire – it’s why nobody’s bought the domain name yet.

My fellow board member Audrey has lost her mother.  She was well into her nineties.  Blind Lemming Chiffon, when we had dinner at Conflikt, said that until you’ve lost a parent you can’t understand what it’s like.  That was also the same supper where he gave me the Ebay overview on what allows him to sell like a master, and where he recommended Searching for Sugar Man, one of the best and most astonishing music documentaries I have ever seen.

Jeff is having pie for breakfast.  He’s a rebel.

I was thinking (as I had another crying bout thinking about John last night) about loss.  I thought, “Ah, so selfish.  It is not my love for him that hurts me.  I will have that forever; I can’t stop loving him just because he’s dead.  I’m sad because he loved me, and he’ll never stop me from falling off a mountain, or give me a lift on his motorcycle, or make me laugh, or sing with me, or feed me or lift my spirits or be a familiar face in a crowd of strangers ever again.  And that is why I am sad.  Not because someone I love died.  It’s because someone who loved me died.”

I saw both of the kids yesterday, yay, and fed Rob and Keith as well as Jeff.  I made pork schnitzel, taters, broccoli and carrots, and there was a tablecloth and pie and two kinds of ice cream, so it was rather festive, even without beer.  I’ve gone off beer again.  There is a medical condition which I’m too polite to whine about in public which improves by about 30% when I don’t drink beer, and it definitely hurts the insomnia when I drink beer.  I just love beer and wish it wasn’t so mean to me.

It’s a fine axemurderer’s fog out there this morning.

Obviously I have a lot of work to do before Katie calls me for our trek up to City Hall, so I’ll get to it.

What the Grand Joculator brings us

1.  Jeff says he’s paying too much money for rent.  In Vancouver that is not true but he sure could pay less rent elsewhere in the province, someplace on the Island for example.  He says he’s going to give me plenty of notice so I am very relaxed about this.  Not having in house tech support would just about kill me, as would giving up the flat screen and cable and the PVR, but life is full of interesting times and changes.  It definitely means I might end up with a different roommate though, and that raises the specter of a whole other series of maddening things; Jeff is/was the best roommate evar, as I believe I have stated a number of times.  I can see his point though and we all have to take care of our own needs.

2.  The new Galapagos BBC 3D documentary from David Attenborough is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING.  Highly highly recommended.  Don’t forget to watch the “making of” too.

3.  Signed off on my taxes for the last 4 years.  I should get a large amount of money back, but of course the feds will have to look at the returns before that happens.  I remain sanguine.

4.  Job hunting is interesting.  I got a lead from my network of contacts, and it is wonderful that it happened BEFORE I started instituting the new job search parameters (working the network).

5.  South Fraser Unitarian Congregation may get me as a speaker for Easter.  I’d whip out my previously provided Jesus service.  We shall see; I have not yet received a response.

6.  The sun is out, and I walked around in it, and of course the world seems like a better place.

7.  (link removed for safety) This.  Oh, this.

8.  I came up with a really cool idea for a science fiction story and forgot to write it down.  It has something to do with old people and robots, and damn I’m mad – I have a pad downstairs for all the ideas I get while I’m watching tv and there are tons of them so far.  Why, o why, blarp blergle.  I could have just written it down.  That’s what pen and paper FOR, SILLY APE.

9.  Did I mention I am on the waitlist for the Translink busker program?  If I’m still not working, I may do that to raise cash.

10.  I’m going to have some of the roasted squash and roasted garlic soup for lunch and then back to the job hunt.

11.  I’ve been sleeping downstairs and completely NOT HAVING ANY SCREENS in my sleeping room.  As a consequence my back is much better.

12.  WOWZERS.  Great news for deaf people.

very foggy

It’s a spooky foggy morning out here in east Burnaby.

Jeff’s coming home from Victoria today.  The cats sure make a lot of noise when they go up and down the stairs; I keep thinking it’s something that weighs 200 pounds, but it’s just a cat.  Not nice when you’re in the house alone.

I was in bed by nine last night and slept through the ball drop.

I called the minister to wish her a happy new year.  She was going to be ordained from our church this year but her dad’s coming to the end of his life and she’s helping her mother.  Sounds like they are doing everything right and bringing him home.

Margot really really hates firecrackers.  She was sitting next to me breathing hard and wincing every time something went off.

I suspect 2013 will be the weirdest year ever.

 

 

 

 

an unusual discovery

Jeff was looking at the drives pOp gave him and there are slide shows.  Oh, yeah.  Here’s the best out of the lot.

Bean with bacon soup is simmering on the stove; I don’t have to cook any more today, yay, as there is lots in the fridge to eat and the soup will be ready by noon.

Snow has fallen – it was hailing earlier.

Jeff’s watching feetsball on the PVR and I’m trying to get my exciting song about bears recorded in some fashion.  I hear people scraping off cars.  I am amused.  I will salt the walkway now, it’s the fiendly thing to do.

 

AllegraJeffBalcony

Weather report

To quote an Aberdonian “Aw naw, snaw!”

Yup, soggy shit be fallin’ from de skies.

Open and close at church again today (traded with someone so she could be with her family).

I am currently working up yet another shopping list (this one will be official and look purty).

In family news, the grandsnake is now called Izzy.  HE IS HONGRY ALL THE TIME OM NOM NOM.  Kyle said he wanted to feed him live ones, but he’s eating reconstituted frozen ones as if he was a high school linebacker let loose on an all you can eat buffet.  So Katie’s year of snake care (she actually slept in Opal’s room) comes through again.  He’s shedding, so he’s crabby.  Katie says he’s becoming hand tame very fast…. provided YOU move slow.

Now I need to jump in the shower and get gwine.

wandering across the internet

kid says boo to famous horror heavies.

Cyclone Sandy is going to smash into the east coast and screw up the American election.  All the forecasters say it’s going to be worse than Irene, which made a mess of large swathes of the east coast and actually closed the NY Subway.  It’s supposed to be a century storm.  I’m really glad I wasn’t vacationing in the Dominican Republic this year.

The only time the forecasters have been this hopped up on anxiety was just prior to Katrina.

Butter chicken and rice pudding for dinner last night, but Jeff went to bed before I could put rice pudding in front of him.  Unfortunately it isn’t as pudding-y as the last one, which he very much enjoyed.

Bizzy day

I have to go down to the church and pick up the banner and literature for New West Pride.  It’s going to be so Nixonianly hot today I might as well pre melt myself and pour myself in Margot’s water dish.  Then I get to come home, lie down in front of the ac for a couple of hours, and in the evening get up and go (it’s in Burnaby, thankfully) to see Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps.  Morosely hoping there’s ac at the concert site.

And I don’t want to do any of it as the heat is making me wretched. I am also suffering the consequences of having worn pantyhose and heels for the first time in three months yesterday.  What ties a fool to his body?  A promise.  And lest anybody be upset, it’s a Dunnett quote.  It was CRUSHINGLY hot in here last night and the ac ran all night, which is just ludicrous for this part of the world.

This morning Margot came into my room and jumped on my bed, and at one point even sat on my pillow. She hasn’t done that since she was a kitten.  It turns out she was trying to get me to let Eddie in for his breakfast, at which point she joined him.  I wish she’d vocalize, it would make it easier.

blah

Unbelievably loud and continuous thunderstorm last night starting around seven thirty – four hours at least maybe longer.  You should have seen Margot’s face as she bolted in the door as the first thunder hit.  Eyes like saucers. Then she stayed right next to my bedroom door all night.

Katie’s here; she cut my hair and helped me run some errands.

Can’t settle to anything…. feeling blah.

Curiosity has landed

Jeff and I stayed up, and were pleased when everything came out as planned.  Al Chen should do an audiobook of classic porn, I’d buy the hell out of such a thing.

I made some steampunk bling for Otto yesterday.

Other than that my day consisted of me lying around attempting not to die from 28 degrees at 77 percent humidity yesterday.  The air conditioner ran night and day.  It was hot all through the house, basement included; I felt like a lizard panting on a rock all day.  Miserably sweaty.  Finally I dragged out one of the fans and it actually made a difference.

 

 

 

Sundry and various

Mars landing today.  It will either be an expensive failure or a spectacular success.

I think I’ll head off to Costco once it opens and pick up some serplies.  I definitely want to do it before the sun is up too high.

I have fallen in love with fresh chard salad.  Chop bunch of chard.  Nuke until soft.  Add butter and lemon. Refrigerate.  Nom.  It doesn’t get much simpler than that and my body provides very happy feedback when I ingest it.  (Oh, iron… b vitamins…. you love me, you really love me!)

2020 says THIS SHIT IS TURRIBLE FER YER KIDNEYS

I really wish it wasn’t so hot.  When it’s this hot at 8 in the morning it’s hard to get enthusiastic about any kind of physical labour.

Cleaned up the guest room, which used to be Katie’s dumping ground for all of her clothes (she refused to sleep on the guest room bed, always sleeping on the downstairs sofa).  I have removed the last of the Katie debris, cold medication, her assessment from the fitness club, half an earring set and suchlike, and now I’m contemplating dragging the vacuum cleaner downstairs.

I just want to stay curled up in bed with a Dorothy Dunnett novel, except it’s too hot to even do that.