Category: Whining

Domestic tranquillity update

I phoned Jeff last night after going a little wacky at the mall (total haul $100, shoes and tights) and said, “Don’t feel like cooking.  How do you feel about the Keg?” which plan met with enthusiastic endorsement.  Out of respect for mOm’s diet I’m going to skip the usual trough report.

My plants arrived!  Gai Lan, peppermint and Thai Basil.  I’ll be repotting them this weekend. I just gave them a little water.

I have a mild two inch scratch from Eddie, having helped clip his back nails.  No other injuries were reported.

There are at least fifteen blossoms on the strawberry plants out front.  I must go water them.

I send good thoughts to: mOm, Granny, Tammy, Katie daughter, Kopper, LTGW for the unwitting suggestion which finally broke the dam on the homily, the Luddite, Jeff and kitties of course (although one side growl for the unbelievable amount of hall-running they did last night), Tom and Peggy (get over here for dinner!), Glenn and Maggie (ditto!), Tom U. (ditto!), Mike, Heather, Jarmo and the gang that’s going to Indiana Jones tonight, Patricia, Tom McM, Carolyn Porco, everybody at JPL, all Dunnett fans, and all filkers everywhere.

Oh, I ordered a Zoom H2.  I couldn’t help myself; after almost a year of drooling on Lady Miss B’s H2 I gave in to the dark side and ordered it.

I have cancelled my planned trip to Denvention – I’m going to be needing every penny for France.

I am thinking of a certain pregnant woman, and confecting an especially airy and happy nest of thoughts for her.

A particularly happy and grateful shout out to Jeff, who has shouldered my tech support issues with the understated competence of a true professional.

Oh, and a big hug to the HR department at work.  I approached them and said, calmly, “I want to kill a co-worker.”

Response:  “Really?  Have some chocolate and tell me about it.”

End result:  15 minutes later, I’m back at my desk, snickering, and feeling much better.

Oh.  Nobody in my department – somebody else.  The folks in my department entirely rock, I love them.

Cryptic

Chipper sent a cryptic – and exciting – email about a very special event which will be happening in her part of the world.  Absolutely no details now but as soon as the official announcement comes through I will be posting it.

It feels very odd to be in the house alone with the cats.  Jeff and Katie are in Victoria.

More banging, screaming, crying and thumping from downstairs last night.  The folks were gone for most of the evening and the first I knew they were back their daughter was crying.  Fortunately, I know the difference between what a four year old girl sounds like when she’s crying with tiredness and annoyance (she was) and when she’s crying from pain or fear. Anyway, the crying seemed to trigger another domestic imbroglio.

Got my hair cut at Azzi’s.  It’s always the same goddamned thing.  I tell them what to do because I don’t DO anything to my hair, and they go “Insufficient challenge” and then they do something tricky to my hair.  And my hair looks like crap until it grows out.  Never, never do I learn.  Never do I grab chickiepoo by the hair and say.  Do  It  My  Way.  Thanks.  So I’m really unhappy with my hair this morning, and I wasn’t yesterday morning, and I had $35 yesterday that I don’t today.  I think she was trying to go all Terry Moore on me, but I got Phyllis Diller instead.

Got totally nuked by a fellow employee yesterday.  Fanboy Joe and I were discussing BSG and Gaeta’s song, which has the interwebs all hopping and antsy, and one of the business analysts came over, eyes a-popping, and said, STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP.  I don’t mind spoilers – they seem to devastate other people – but Joe and I desisted in the face of his obvious distress.

I will NOT be wearing my earphones on the way into work this morning, just in case brother bear is there.  They don’t usually hang around more than a day, but ya never know.

hot hot hot

By noon yesterday it was so hot in the house that I started thinking that it’s gonna be a very hot summer, and time to get a small window fan. By about two, I was sitting with Mike in the Mustang – top down, of course – heading over to Wreck Beach, which was full but not packed, if you know what I mean. Mike brought a UV blocking cabana (made for Spalding, it weighs less than a pound and keeps the sun off ver’ nicely) and then it was homemade music, surf, kids laughing, startlingly vast gusts of fattie smoke, a nice breeze which died around 4 pm, and the goddamned RCMP creeping up and down the beach several times, forcing me to hide my beer, the bastards. Yes, I know, what am I doing drinking on the beach? Well, it’s all part of the ambience. I even went in the water. Twice. The first time I thought that somebody was stabbing me in the feet with icy knives; the second time, basically just to make sure that I hadn’t had a physical hallucination, the icy knives were stabbing in all directions up to my navel. Don’t think I would have done well in Bastogne. Mike and I conversed about a number of things, but it was not a day for heavy conversation.

Left the beach to hook up with the kids to watch Narnia II, but (oh look, Gizmo is sniffing the barbecue in a hopeful way) unfortunately the 7:20 was sold out, so I bought them a snack and Keith headed out to my place with one of my parcels and I hung out with Katie briefly and then headed home.

Left the beach – I laugh to see that effort compressed into three words. I have been climbing a lot of stairs lately because I changed my route to work a bit, so I’m actually in good shape to climb stairs. I just couldn’t because of how hot I was. I stopped five times on the way up those 375 stairs (normally I stop once); but there were people skinnier and younger than me doing the same, so I didn’t feel bad. One middle aged guy (I must have been VERY red) asked me if I was okay and I just nodded. I didn’t push; I just climbed when I could. Got a shuttle bus almost instantly, then made the Big Mistake of the day and got on the 41 instead of the 25. The bus, which was driven by a woman in the first grip of a manic episode (I wish I was exaggerating) went mechanical (speedometer, a no go item), so I get tossed off my nice comfy seat and forced to stand in the blasting heat for twenty minutes until the replacement bus came, which was not a replacement bus, but just the next bus, which already had standees. That’s when things seriously fell apart. It took ten minutes of haranguing on the part of the bus driver (another female, this one justifiably testy but quite sane) to get everybody onto the bus – I lost sight of my bags – and every goddamned stop was accompanied by yelling to allow people on and off the bus. When I hit Joyce Station I learned that the movie was sold out (I was late anyway) and that’s when I met up with the kids (they appeared just as I pushed the door open at the mall, a wonderful feeling) and fed them a snack.

The sun (yes, the sun, I only had two beers) having had a wicked effect on me, I collapsed. Really, I should have had a shower first, but the way things have been going I figured the only way to make sure I actually wash my sheets today is by bringing the beach home with me. Out of courtesy to the other people who use the laundry machines I’m going to shake them out off the back deck first.

My back feels great. I like the sun. I even like moderate amounts of exercise. But the best part is coming home and thinking that I’ve lost a dress size off my butt from the exfoliation. I really love the beach.

Ow

Overdoing it just seems to be my style – 1.5 hours on a bike yesterday and my bum is providing me with much feedback this morning. The vaccination points don’t hurt, but my arms hurt from hauling groceries. I deked into Brentwood Mall, supposedly for beer and veggies and there was no spinach. This completely put my dinner plans into disarray (as Jeff can no doubt attest – I’m not even going to post what I ‘cooked’ for dinner last night but will say it was heavily augmented with rice pudding, ice cream and strawberries) and I was so discombobulated that I started wandering around the mall looking for somebody else to take my money, although I did pick up fresh fruit as part of my ongoing efforts to provide pleasing nourishment to myself and Jeff.
Cobb’s didn’t work out. Usually it’s a great place to spend money, but some jackass cut in front of me in the lineup. I went to the other bank I use and changed my address; I drifted upstairs and got robot socks and pink skull socks for a buck each (v. nice socks) along with a more nondescript pair of blue socks and three t-shirts all for less than $15; I went to Sears to see if my sore butt could find new pants and believe it or not, I emerged with cords and jeans which fit me for $50 (& you should have seen me sitting and squatting and doing truncated high kicks in the dressing room – it would have been a top ranked video on youtube I’m sure, either under the title Middle Aged Woman has Spazz Attack or Woman dislodging small mammal from pants). Then I bought beer. My carrying capacity at that point having been reached, I went to the bus and the driver scowled at me when I tried to pull out my bus pass when he was trying to pull out of the bus loop. “I KNOW you have a bus pass,” he said.

Then home and a couple of Deadwood episodes and early to bed. I am going to be finding a lot of reasons to stand up today.

Saturday roundup

The fourth building block of circuitry built and tested.

Chipper sent that link.

Defining atheism – harder than it sounds.

Stuffed bats. And other plush toys. From one of my LJ buddies.

Sleepy bear. Sorry about the commercial first. And the Nepalese demonstrators getting truncheoned afterwards.

Albino Kangaroo. Aw.

How mad was this guy? Mad enough to buy his adversary’s company’s name as a domain name and post a lot of really angry, and quite justified, comments. For anyone who’s ever been screwed in a used car transaction……

What colour blind people see.

I have conquered an ongoing, crazy-making, recurring low grade bacterial issue with a simple household substance. Given that it’s been bugging me for 18 months and I got rid of it in 48 hours, I am REALLY HAPPY. No, I’m not going to provide details, but believe me, you would be happy too.

Daughter Katie made a date with me to see the next Narnia film when it comes out.

Paul and Keith here last night. Paul dropped off Ginger Chicken (which is funny, because I was talking about it at the lunch table yesterday) and we all watched The Name of The Rose which we quite enjoyed. They went home after the movie around ten.

Raining buckets…. Eddie woke me up at 5 yowling on the back deck.

My back really hurts. I want to go walking someplace today, but see previous paragraph re rain.

Today I have to go get a new bank card, and do some other boring bank stuff, put away laundry, try to find my tax stuff, shove some things into boxes for the storage locker, restring my guitar, itsy bitsy oddsy sodsy stuff.

LMB writes a traditional ballad

And fails gallantly.

I got to the end and thought – gonna have to learn that one.  That will make a nice companion piece to Judith Hayman’s song about signing your donor card. Or maybe we can start a thread of public health messages…
Last night helped Kopper orgalize and shove furniture around.  It took me 20 minutes to get home from her place!  Amazing what making your connection will do for your timing.  For my pains I received a spice rack, which I needed.

As predicted, the furniture was assembled and in place when I got home, and the barbeque was set up.  I am going to learn to char meat!  That is if I can touch it, we all know about the keepers of the sacred flame…. Guys and Q’s.

Continue reading LMB writes a traditional ballad

Political punditry and conspicuous consumption

This dude takes on ‘bittergate’ – supposedly Obama’s bitter misreading of middle America.  As is frequently the case, the post is excellent and some of the comments are even better.

What kind of strange middle class fffreak am I turning into?  Going shopping at IKEA?  Yes, we bought a kitchen table and some kitchen shelves.  I rented the Montana (finally learned how to put the back seats down and up again, with some struggle) and we went to the Richmond IKEA and I have to say Monday evening around supper time is a way better time to shop there than the weekend.  The last time I was there on the weekend I thought I’d died and gone to a special corner of hell.  I’m glad Patricia suggested eating in the cafeteria at IKEA.  The food was excellent (they have a license! but of course I had a CAN car so I stayed off the sauce) and with milk and cookies and meatballs included it was 16 bucks for the two of us.
The car smelled funny.  I am almost inclined to get it detailed to try and offload the curious “what the hell is that?” aroma that is in the car.  The Prius was like that too, especially on a warm day.

After much delay, I’m off to see Katie K tonight.  What with her staging her condo and me moving, it’s been ages since we’ve seen each other and we are long overdue for an earflapping.

There was snow at the same time the sun was out yesterday; then snow pellets; then this morning a skin of ice on everything.  Winter is clinging like a cast off lover with a personality disorder.  Except, of course, you can’t call the cops on the weather.  Even if you could, I can’t hear Mother Nature saying, “Don’t tase me, bro!”

Eddie has been to the vet, and now he has medicine.  The vet at Petcetera is pretty good and his staff are too, so says Jeff.

When I come home tonight, the furniture will be assembled.  I asked if I could help, and Jeff just looked at me like I’m nuts; being my brother he gets to do that a lot, since I provide loads of evidence that it’s true. Let us hope all the hardware is in the fracking box.

Man, is BSGs4 going to a dark place or what???

Watched Breach last night.  That was a damned good movie.  I may want to see it again sometime.   If you want to see a movie that has very little swearing, no graphic violence whatsoever and only one little bit of violence, no explosions and no car chases, but a gripping plot, good acting and a great script, check it out.
Shoot.  It’s 7am.  Time to don the gay apparel and grab the next shuttle to the mothership.

Trying times

There are occasions when being a writer and having a blog is a curse. An event will occur, or happen as a consequence of matters I am party to, and nothing would suit me better than to give a full account of it. I would have liked nothing better than to have given a full accounting to the exact reasons for and the beastly behaviour of other people during my marriage breaking up – fine, let it stand that I was self-willed and I’ll leave the name calling and cruelty and bald faced f*cking lies other people subjected me to out of the picture. To protect innocent people, and to prevent myself from looking like a goddamned asshole, more to the point, I guess, that’s what I have had to do. Nor am I complaining about the results. I am clearly happier and better off for having moved out of that house. I just wish I could tell the truth about it. I’m still on good speaking terms with my ex and kids, so no harm done, right?
I would like nothing better than to describe in gory detail what it’s been like to stop being a member of a couple and to have many of favourite activities curtailed and destroyed. Yes, I had to go there, yes, it was my idea when I was no longer psychically safe, but I really really haven’t liked it, and I haven’t talked about the times I’ve spent a day or two, here and there, crying for reasons I can’t describe. Yeah, I could definitely go on at length there. Into the memory hole with it. I’m not even keeping a private journal of those events, it’s not worth it, as in the end it’s living well that counts, not keeping a tally of every grievance. If I wrote it all out it would become impossible to forgive, and even now I haven’t forgiven… into the memory hole. There is no good outcome in setting it all out, whether for myself or others.
I would like to render a full account of yesterday evening’s events – how an entire panoply of human cruelty, stupidity, waste and denial played out as a consequence of the death of a companion animal and how I had to sit with it, and be companionable with that parade of nastiness, and deal in practical terms with it (ie, help move the body of a large Rottie cross onto a board and then a truck, and clean the inevitable leakage off the floor). When Scooter died, it was an opportunity to show family solidarity when we all went to the Lodge to say goodbye to her, in the dark midwinter; when Bounce died we were all together and had each other for one of those uniquely horrible and sad days families go through. Last night wasn’t like that. I have no beef with Mike, he lost his dog, and I am honoured he called on me to help. I have no beef for the icky factual stuff, and I now know that eating a pizza pocket and then cleaning up after a dead dog is a great way to remind yourself your gag reflex is set way high. I am angry, hurt, bewildered and rendered half daft by how mean some people are. Fifty years old almost and I still think people should be nice to each other, and here’s me upset when they aren’t. What am I, a child still?
I intend to give a donation to the SPCA in Vancouver and say a brace of prayers for the animal control staffer, who was an angel of mercy, dignity and punctuality.

I thank my mother for being a civilized human being unlike some others whose behaviour I am shielding as a result of my mother’s teachings, and my brother for his material aid yesterday in conveying me to Mike’s after work.

Sane parenting??

Not that I did any. Here’s a blog about raising ‘free range’ kids. Paul and I TRIED not to raise fearful timid kids…. but you have to remember that both of our kids have been assaulted since we moved to Vancouver, and somebody tried to abduct Katie when she was thirteen. Trying to raise free range kids in the face of that is a daunting proposition. Even so, I think of the freedom I had as a child and I think the world is hopelessly uckfayed.

In other news, I left the bedroom door open last night in case either of the kitty cats got lonely, and long about 5 am Eddie came in and serenaded me and then jumped on the bed and thought dark, “Where’s Daddy?” thoughts at me.  Well sorry, bud, but Jeff’s out of town right now, and he’ll be back later.  As for me, I’m off to unlimber chairs at church.  Which reminds me of the scene about a robotized chair stacker in a science fiction story that I would have had critiqued by two famous sf writers at a workshop in Edmonton… except 9/11 happened.  o well, I can still daydream about Unitarians in Space!  I should blow the dust off that story and submit it someplace.  Or maybe I should just post it here, that would be easier.

Plotting n planning

April 18th, so I learn, will be the date for the Willie P Memorial concert in Victoria.  I will consult with the folks and assemble a tune or two… more details as they firm up.  I am thinking about taking the day off.
This weekend a SPIT.  It’s been bally ages since we did that, and we’re meeting up Saturday in a bookstore, so all is good and beautiful.  Then church again on Sunday to set up chairs.  I will be faster this time as I know the drill.  It’s not particularly onerous, but I did feel it on Monday when I woke up; given that my set up partner is well old enough to be my dad further complaining shall be nixed.

This evening, if the fates are kind and the winds propitious, the Luddite will turn up for supper.  I’m thinking home made tortillas. Which reminds me, I should back away slowly from the computer and do some prep so I don’t have to when I get home.

I’m finding the commute okay.  I’m also thinking of finding alternate routes to shake things up a bit, like walking over to Rupert and taking the bus down to that station, to see if maybe I can’t work a little more exercise into the morning routine at least on mornings when it isn’t pouring rain.  The commute is improved by having an MP3 player.  Current set list is a bit eclectic… it’s everything from me singing Lifeline – (I usually skip over it, because as much as I love PD Wohl’s tasty backing I’m not liking my singing) to Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony, the Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again, John Hiatt’s Walk On, Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools… eclectic, yup.  Oh, and the Bastard Fairies We’re All Going to Hell; it’s impossible to sit on the train and listen to that and not smirk.

Further plotting includes maybe taking a songwriting class with the aforementioned PD Wohl; considering maybe taking a course at BCIT now I’m ten minutes away by bus; and figuring out which of Vancouver’s cultural events of the month of April Jeff and I might want to take in.  Also, planning dinner for Friday, the first inaugural fall down.  Honestly, I’m thinking takeout.  Hopefully this large blank where my cooking thoughts usually get scrawled will fill in between now and then.
I can more or less see the floor in my room.

We appear to have blown a fuse in the kitchen.  Sigh.

Jeff, saintly geek that he is, has run his hands over Suzanne’s laptop and restored it to health. (Don’t anybody else get any funny ideas).  Suzanne and Katie dropped by yesterday to collect it with thanks.  Katie got her stipend for helping me move and get my deposit back which was awesomely swift – I hadn’t expected to see it until mid month, but Ray at Cornerstone is the best of landpeers, and he does what he says.

The landpeers here have not responded to Jeff’s polite enquiries about which of the minor irritants he can attack next, which means that he’s going to ignore their ignoring him, and I’ll have my doors fixed shortly.

Somehow I ended up with an autographed Groo in my belongings.  Happy sigh.  I love Groo.

Yet more Deadwood last night after supper, which was spaghetti.

Time to chop veg.

Lazy weekend

You know it’s a lazy weekend when the most impressive thing you did was stack and unstack chairs at church. (Good service.) That and go rescue Season 2 disk one Deadwood out of the DVD player in the storage locker (Jeff had other, arcane power supply business in there as well). Both of the kids were here yesterday; Katie insisted that she had to drop off Suzanne’s laptop for TLC from Jeff (note to everyone in Vancouver… Jeff is not some free Geek Squad wannabe) and then leave and then stayed for porkchomps Paulegra and The Scent of Green Papaya.

You must understand… getting Katie to watch a movie with virtually no dialogue and subtitles is like telling ball lightning to pose for paparazzi. She entirely volunteered, but I was gobsmacked.

Keith just hung around (he left just before dinner) and either watched Nascar with his uncle or played non stop computer games. In desperation, Jeff is building him a ‘good enough’ computer out of various scraps to perhaps stem the Sunday tide. Every other day of the week Keith is very busy; Sundays he wants to blow his brains out on computer games. This would be okay but Jeff can barely use his room; I’ll let them sort it out but the parking at the computer combined with Keith leaving about half his coiffure in Jeff’s soap made for interesting times. No, I do NOT want to live in a sitcom; it just keeps happening with grisly regularity.

Back to work, where a group of senior managers has decided to manage by cancelling the one useful meeting we all attend once a week. I could expound at career limiting length on this subject, but we polled the attendees and we’re going to book the damned meeting anyway, and if the managers don’t want to attend for their own reasons, that’s no reason not to meet and exchange information and work our projects, which is what we were doing before. My manager supports the meeting, at any rate, and gave me a thumbs up on rebooking with the relevant attendees, so my precious heinie is safe for the time being. Heavy sigh.

Biscotti for partti

There will be an assortment of other pleasant things to munch which I won’t enumerate out of respect for my parents, who might be tempted to get on the ferry and join us if I did.  I am feeling very odd still, but I think it’s a migraine.

Jeff says he drifted off to sleep last night to the smell of almonds toasting, and now we are waiting for the first bake to be done so’s I can slice ’em and throw them in the oven. Lost my bank card last night, or at least one of them.  As I’ve had to replace it twice in the last year through no fault of my own I was a bit blasé about the whole thing, but earned a mercifully brief lecture from Jeff about being more organized, and maybe I should just leave it off there while pointing to the small grin distorting my phiz at the moment.  I am also smarting from having packed the season two disk one DVD of Deadwood in the *^%^* DVD player, which is resting comfortably in storage. Hopefully that will conclude my acts of dummheit, and I can fix these problems on the weekend, and hey, maybe even do some important banking that I had been putting off.

Okay! the biscotti, a perfect 10 of goldenbrown-ness, are sliced and back in the oven. If the downstairs neighbours are awake they are probably wondering what’s up – it’ll fill the house for sure.
Patricia’s coming home with me from work tonight and we are going to prep for the party together.  Either that or start partying early, I wouldn’t put it past us.   No.  I wouldn’t.   Turn up ze musique!  Dansez, mes enfants!  I have made the determination that just in case the Luddite shows up I am going to stay reasonably sober (he doesn’t care, but I do) by which I mean having three whole beers, instead of maybe six over the course of the evening.  We shall see.

One last comment.   I watched The Thing, the last 45 minutes, last night.  I had forgotten what an amazing bloody movie that was.  Then I watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which was on my lifetime list.  It’s always good to have a conversation starter for the office….

Sundry & Various

I came home from work last night and Jeff had moved all of the boxes we moved on Sunday into the spare bedroom. I was a little off colour yesterday, I’m not precisely sure why, and I was very grateful not to have to physically move anything.  I’m still feeling ‘strange’ today but I think it’s yet another one of my ‘atypical’ migraines. Nothing like being told by a neurologist that you’re ‘atypical’…. as if I could be anything else.

In an explosion of efficiency and organization (his response when I said this, Ha!) Jeff has prepared a list of everything that needs to be done around here. We find the taps in the bathroom, both sets, to be a trial; the bathtub taps have a really unpleasant mushy feel as if you can never get them entirely open or shut; the vanity taps squeak in an astonishing way. He’s already fixed the kitchen tap, and he moved the freezer downstairs on the weekend and it’s now running (the landpeers said we could have a freezer in the laundry room and the downstairs neighbours can use it too if they like). Earlier in the week I finally passed along the box of coloured pencils to the little girl downstairs (whom I have heard but never seen…I gave them to her parents.) It felt weird to have hung on to some stuff of Katie’s for years after she’d stopped using it, and really good to give it to somebody who would use it. Now if I can just get rid of the rest of my crap, life would be a glorious thing.

Scratch made meatloaf and tater tots for dinner. Jeff bought commercial biscotti earlier this week and I laughed at him.

Spoke to Tom and Peggy last night. They will be coming early and leaving early for the party on Friday as they have another event to attend, but even seeing Peggy for two minutes would be lovely (mind you I am going to church for the next two Sundays to help with set up and take down so I’ll see her again soon). I also spoke to the Luddite and assured him that my friends and family would consider his sitting in a corner and reading a book for the entire duration of the party to be unworthy of comment or criticism, but I don’t think I managed to sell him on the idea of coming on Friday, and given that I haven’t laid eyes on him in the best part of a month… oh well. Saturday’s out as he has another engagement and I have to be out the door at hours ongodly for church on Sunday morning. Grr.

My mOm has FINALLY received the results of her followup tests, and everything looks fine. Having braced herself for bad news she’s feeling a little blah. Granny is now well enough to do her own shopping although she fatigues easily. When you’re pushing a century with a broom you’re allowed to get tired; I’m just amazed after her last horrid illness that she’s made the recovery she has, and I am thankful beyond words that my parents are doing such a great job of looking after her while she preserves what independence she can.

At some point I’m going to imitate Jeff and start making a list of the stuff I want to do around here, but I’m still in confusion and error mode, so it may be a while before I’m back on track.

I have a HUGE bolus of work to digest today after many weeks of prep, so I should get off this thing and go deal with it. Have a great day, everybody.

One last thing. I just read a restaurant review which contained the line “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I’d ordered thin slices of mole poached in Ovaltine.” Bleaugh!