Category: Whining

Moar effin precip

Moar shovelling today I imagine. It’s supposed to stop today and start again tomorrow, might be as much as 15 cm but my heart misgives me and I think it will be more. AND STILL THERE IS NO SALT IN THE STORES.

Much horror, humour, excitement and a happy ending –  with the fam over in Victoria – yesterday. To preserve the privacy and dignity of those involved I shall say nothing here except that we are all well, and perhaps some of us collected some bruises. I shall also note that in the midst of my hysterics (yup, cried like a baby on the phone with my mOm), when I was first informed of the precipitating event, that I kept my cheese assembled long enough to provide useful and actionable advice to someone under stress, so go me. Everything came out as okay as it can but I sure learned that I’m a hair from weeping and flailing about pretty much anytime.

Jeff and I, partly because of the effin precip, partly because of the news, and partly because (WAVES HAND OVER THE IDEA THAT A MILLION AMERICANS AND QUITE A FEW CANADIANS GOT DIAGNOSED WITH COVID YESTERDAY) did not have a fantabulous day yesterday. I ran the dishwasher and shovelled and fed the birdies but other than that I can assure you I did not do a thing. Okay, I did write 1391 words on the ‘meet cute in the airport during a snowstorm’ story.

Tammy comes to town today to visit friends and fam on her way to Hawaii. Fingers crossed for her travel luck; there’s a break in the weather on both ends but if COVID knocks too many people off work, that plane won’t leave… Like I said fingers crossed. She’s double boostered. If anyone is safe to travel in a pressurized aluminum skin full of plague she is. She just messaged me to say her flight’s still showing on time. With luck she’ll call me a little after noon.

I observe that when white people stick their noses in the ‘pan-Indigenous’ concept it’s usually about control over, grift from and erasure of distinct nations and persons. Only nations can determine belonging and categories of belonging. It isn’t a single, simple concept or law.

I have opened YET ANOTHER PROJECT FILE this one non-fiction. It’s called Common Human Cognitive Issues and What to Do About Them. I realize I have zero experience with that! (actually that’s not true, but it wasn’t peer reviewed, which is a grift anyway) which is why it’s going to be a jolly parody of self-help books.

Tea and toast

Woke up just after three after a restful sleep. Three kudos on my dashboard this morning. Always fun to see what people are reading. Another person has subscribed to my mailchimp account for UPSUN as well. In addition I logged into dreamwidth (the ‘replacement’ for live journal for people who don’t want all their data stolen by the Russians) because I really wanted to read something one of my filk buddies has posted and …. I hadn’t posted since 2018. uff dah. I posted. It was sad having to mention that Tom had died.

Worked on the fanfic a bit, not much. In the portion I just wrote one of the brothers is teasing the other about his new relationship and I very much enjoyed writing that because one of the great wellsprings of Supernatural fanfic is the abiding love (and shittalk) between the bros… it’s very easy to write the shittalk because they are constantly teasing each other (and would die for each other).

Still not experiencing hunger and thirst properly. It’s very strange to be forcing myself to eat, unless it’s something sweet.

The wind is gusting hard and it makes the plastic siding creak in an alarming way.

Ryker’s got a mucousy cold, poor wee tyke. Alex is a snot factory whether he has a cold or not. Just sayin’.

Had to shovel again; the lack of walkway salt was mitigated by the fact that it started raining and melting, so we didn’t get freezing rain. Lawks that was one big raccoon we got through the property night before last though, HUGE pawprints.

It’s very pleasant to no longer be required to run a heater all night in my room. It’s quite pleasant in the house now.

Well, I boiled water but I haven’t made tea, and the toast is still waiting for my work, so time for some foodicles and to start my day. FIRST TASK. Wrestling my weighted blanket back into its cover. This will literally take me half an hour as it’s like a USB cable. First you attach the WRONG zipper, and then you attach the RIGHT ONE, IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, and then omg maybe THIS will work. Heavy sigh. Still haven’t put all my clothes away.

This morning my twitter feed is full of: Trans people commenting (still) on Matrix Resurrections, including the best tweet sized appreciation of it I’ve seen so far; disabled people saying CAN YOU PLEASE STOP TRYING TO KILL US BY NOT WEARING MASKS AND SHITTY POLICY; Glenn Greenwald, may the great Parent of the Universe buy him a fucking clue, saying how twitter doesn’t have the right to eject people from its platform cause free speech, when it’s already been established that it really isn’t. He’s defending Marjorie, by the way. Candidly, clownbag is too kind for that man.

The Cincinnati Beagles won the division (over KC). We did not see that coming. It was a weird game with some patently ugly and bad calls. I mean, how many times is it possible to repeat 4th down?

@ElSangito:

i understand finding matrix 4’s lack of subtlety grating but i would never wanna use metaphors again either if the metaphorical allegory i wrote before got co-opted by far right patriarchal fascists whose whole thing is to eradicate my entire people

 

 

7 am and I’m a tad underslept

She’s only been booted off twitter for a week, but Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bile emissions in twitter form are gone for now thank Christ. One of my faves said good so I wrote a leel poem

alas alas / tis for a week / then once again/  she’ll start to beak.

Then another of my faves said NO IT’S PERMANENT and so…. I bringeth you the newis gladde!

Shoulda put ‘BURMA SHAVE’ at the end of that poem.

Today, a plan of action for all the medical related stuff I have to do. Get my tits squoze for health and science! (Mammogram appointment, the arrangement thereof.) Overnight BP monitoring! I DO NOT WANT IT, NOT AT ALL, EXCUSE ME, because they warn you that you won’t sleep that well, but at least I got my BP down substantially before I’m doing it, which is cheating OR IS IT. Remember that adequate roborative sleep is REQUIRED for lowering BP and then they give you a gadget that prevents you from sleeping properly.

scuse me? Say waht? You’re going to find out what my blood pressure is doing over a 24 hour period during which I have to forego restful sleep, get bent.

Also, getting re-ups on the Metformin and the Crestor and the Inderal. (So glad Jeff nagged me into using a weekly pill organizer, what a difference.) My abdominal pains and brain fog might actually be the Crestor, but didn’t I have that before?? tho’ in general I’m no longer getting side effects (except for the poopiness of Metformin, and I will never forget my convo with mOm about that, it definitely sticks out in the rear view…ahem) from the meds I’ve been prescribed.

Also, a plan of action for THE ADDITIONAL SNOW THAT AN ANGRY DEITY WHIZZED OUT ON US. WHEN WE HAVE NO ROADWAY SALT. grr. AND NONE TO BE HAD IN THE PNW calice tabarnak

I appear to have lost a couple of pounds, hopefully it’ll make that unprofessional ice witch of an RN at my doctor’s office chide me less.

ALSO, more writing, since I’m in the mood again, and I’m in a nicely domestic portion of it. Domestic Alternate Universe (AU) is mah bag. Sleepy cuddles and changing bandages, happy sigh.

One kudo from AO3 this morning, for my second most recent story. That one seems to have landed very well among the fandom. (mOm liked it too)

I keep thinking how weird it is that I literally feel better (less foggy, more energetic) than I have in ages but I really did not get a lot of sleep. Good thing my whole life is configured around my bed. Which I changed the sheets of last night, and restuffed my bolster too. (Had to use my feet, get in there ya goddam pillows.)

Gosh that sounds rude. But it gets ruder still.

“Henry Cavill can stuff my bolster any time. But maybe not with his feet.”

I only say this sexually harassing thing to segue into how Henry Cavill gets sexually harassed (fondled and called yummy etc etc) mostly by young white women bingo callers (callback to Frank Magazine – bingo callers = television personalities) on the tube all the bloody time BUT if I ever met Henry Cavill in real life I’d try to have a conversation with him about his dog (the one he says saved his life) and maybe how he’s a fucking icon for mental health and gaming being an activity for everyone and I wouldn’t say a thing about how his frame is nigh perfect; it’s not the most important thing about him. Nothing about the work, because apart from his grunting and swordsmanship in The Witcher, which is world class, I’m not really familiar with a lot of his oeuvre. He was so very adorable in I Capture the Castle though, I remember that much.

Jeff and I have had a couple of laugh until you cry moments recently. I watched some ads go by on fast forward while Jeff was watching the Rose Bowl and I conflated that Tom Hiddleston and Kate McKinnon were now in a show called the Spy Who Dumped Me. I thought that sounded great and I wanted to watch it and Jeff said, well, you were watching ads for a series of shows and movies on a network and none of the images you saw had anything to do with each other. I felt very stupid but abrumptly we were both laughing our asses off. It was one of those why are we laughing moments. But I try to read meaning into everything and having my assumptions reproved in such a kind way landed as hilarious.

The Spy Who Dumped Me is a 2018 movie with a 6.1/10 rating.

 

sleepy day

I was asleep most of yesterday but I feel fine this morning. Clearheaded and properly slept.

So far this week I’ve gotten kudos every day for the stories I’ve put on AO3. It’s nice to know someone is enjoying them.

Boris Johnson told journalists that he has ‘buyer’s remorse’ from marrying his most recent wife. What a fucking asshole, srsly.

The RCMP is arresting journalists for doing their jobs and not releasing them from jail.

Jeff and I can’t stop thinking about K*le Shitinhouse and Amber Bracken.

AND BC IS ABOUT TO RECEIVE MORE RAIN. North Central Coast and interior. It likely will not be an atmospheric river of the size of the last one (which made the epithet ‘Biblical’ look size small) but it will hamper rescue efforts and kill more livestock and render more people homeless WELCOME TO YOUR 2020s

 

aphasic episode

I had a lengthy aphasic episode in the Saveon this morning. “Aphasia?” Jeff said helpfully which was actually helpful. I can force a word or two out but it takes all the brain I have to manage it. This was preceded by a lengthy and weird dizzy spell. As long as I was hanging on to a counter I wasn’t dizzy but the second I let go, whoopsy!

As far as I can tell I’m fine now.

They’re evacuating about 7 blocks of Merritt BC right now

Those fuckers in the provincial government, who passed on the cell phone alert system for weather that the rest of Canada has, have been bald-faced saying that they haven’t heard of any deaths and that weather alerts ‘are for local governments to handle as per their local requirements’. YEAH THANKS A PANTLOAD Mike.

No deaths have been reported in the MSM but I have seen pics that make it impossible to believe we got through this unscathed in terms of loss of life, and farm animals and wildlife have almost for sure been victims.

The storm has dumped up to 250 mm of rain on an enormous swathe of Solh Temexw. The average yearly rainfall is 2351 mm, so that’s one tenth of the annual precip in 48 hours.

I know that this is the wet coast, but I’d like you to picture how we get 2351 mm of precip annually in Vancouver and got ~250 mm in 48 hours (probably closer to 180 here, but BIBLICAL). To put it another way we normally get the same amount of rain in the entire month of November. Locally *as at the Burnaby South collection station* 100 mm in the last 24 hours.

MY EVIDENCE

The wind picked up and rolled Paul’s red canoe.

On its Twitter page, the City of Burnaby says the following roads are closed until further notice:

  • Still Creek Drive from Eastbrook to Douglas
  • Douglas from Norland to Goring
  • Westminster Avenue from Still Creek to Regent Street
  • Limited access to Regent Street from Douglass Road

Image

from twitter. East Abbotsford overlooking Matsqui. On a normal day there are no fucking lakes there. Name of photographer will be added if learned. From @justmehereM

I’m now getting pics from reddit about condo building parking structures flooding in Langley. People are joking shut up now they’ll charge an extra 200 per month for pool maintenance….

Tulameen and Princeton are also as of noon today subject to evac orders.

Roundup of news I cannot use

Queen Elizabeth was hospitalized for tests on Wednesday. Some wag on twitter was exclaiming that she couldn’t possibly have it lined up to die on Remembrance Sunday. Personally I think she’ll at least make her mother’s advanced age, she drinks less than her mom Mary did.

The fucking TURNER DIARIES a horrific pile of racist trash about white supremacists attacking Washington, like that never happened, is carried by the venerable Powell’s Books hq’d in Portland. Now, candidly, I wouldn’t mind because I’m not keen on censorship, but the fucking REVIEW OF THE BOOK is stomach churning.

Because ALMOST FOR SURE Powells is going to get fucking roasted and take it down, I’ve copied it in jpg form.

To say that this is glossing over a) one of the worst novels ever written in English which b) shows the protagonists killing Black people like they were houseflies and c) CONTINUES TO INSPIRE GUNTOTING FASCIST SYMPS is putting it small. Read the Wikipedia article if you want to see what they’re window dressing for.

DISGUSTING.

Canada FINALLY has a vaccine passport. I don’t mean to fly any more but I would like to see my friends in the US of A and this is a step forward.

ALEX IS COMING AT 4 PM TODAY.

Barometer so low I thought my head would explode yesterday. I couldn’t get anything done I was so distracted. Paul took me for a short walk but the kids on the school grounds were too plentiful, running on the path, and Paul needed the washroom so it was abbreviated.

knackered awready

It’s 8:30 in the morning and thanks to a fasting blood test which took an hour longer than expected I’m ravenous, exhausted, soaking wet and I’ve got two more appointments today when I really don’t want to leave the house.

I’d like to fire all the BC health people into the sun for not confirming a mask mandate for school aged children. Get fucked yall

somebody in Burnaby is 70M$ richer this morning and I didn’t buy a ticket….

swithering

Dishwasher is running thanks to me, tea is seeping thanks to Jeff, and I just realized that I didn’t get my goddamned bloodwork done because I was about to go in to Lifelabs and I got an email that Tom is sick and it literally (THANKS FOR NUTHIN ADD and also may I just mention that not getting a fucking email reminder of your pending requisition from the doctors office doesn’t exactly fucking help even if you don’t have ADD) knocked doing that out of my mind. So I must must do that today. Which means I have to walk over to 6th and 10th anyway, maybe I can mail the 9 page (large print) letter I wrote to Mary over the last week, and pick up a coffee for Jeff on the way back since he was hankering for one.

weather is frickin GLORIOUS  I mean seriously.

I have a list as long as my hair (which reminds me, I need to tie it up again or Jeff’s going to be spitting out my hairs reproachfully while watching tv as they drift over his face (sometimes he goes GAAAH and flaps his hands because it’s like having a spider web land on you and then OH THE REPROACHFUL LOOK)) and slightly more motivation than yesterday for attacking it. More laundry, working on Finale writing down songs and messing with the voicing, tidying up the music/guest room, working on a couple of new fanfics, responding to Tish’s letter, actually reading the rent increase notice and diarizing it. A small fraction of the goo sticking to me.

I have subscribed to the NYT for a year, it was 1/20th the normal price so I actually thought that was fair. Jeff, it was the article about Jared Harris that made me subscribe, I am such a celebri-fluffer.

Crows called for food this morning, but I put out sunflower seeds instead of roasted unsalted peanuts so they are sulking. (later, there they go again. It’s four-call, whoever she is)

Keith has apparently had an excellent visit with the grandparents in Victoria. I’ll be meeting up with Paul at some point today to walk and possibly visit Tom and exchange stuff, since items keep migrating between our two households.

Jeff’s car is still in the krankenhaus. The problem can’t be replicated, so we’re beginning to think it’s bad fuel.

I think I have blown through yet another set of orthotics, so that’s going on the list as well. NO DO NOT WANT. I mean I want comfy feet but I do not want to spend 400 dollars even if my fOlks are underwriting it with my remittance woman stipend.

ADD meds day two. I AM ITCHY. Is it allergies? is it medication? LOL who knows. Much imitating of the Archer character Woodhouse saying in his crackly voice, “It’s going to be an itchy weekend.”

I bought some Red Racer Street Legal Pilsner and IPA for Paul so I have something festive to drink while I’m over there. Got some for myself as well. It’s about the equivalent of a piece of bread, for carbs.

I now have a nightgown for every night of the week. And okay, enough potchkeying around on my blog, I have to go have a phlebotomist stab me, baby.

what a thing to have a brO (and friends)

REPENTANCE BEFORE UNITY

With thanks for the many simple pleasures of MST Country, with thanks to the people and the stories that make this place, for the sky, land and water, for all the beautiful creatures herein. It is a good day.

Jeff has (like Thorkel) stood in the ‘undeviating stream of my complaints’ as I whined about my health (okay the rumours about brain damage are true! what it is!) and survived!

Also I called Dave and wordsaladed all over his uncomplaining ear. He’s got to haul himself off to a doctor as well, shortly, and he’s looking forward to it about as much as I did. I have to go into the clinic 14 days hence.

Today I am going to wander down to the drugstore and find out what manner of side effect lies in wait for me there. DO NOT WANT a YEAR OF NAUSEA.

Tomorrow I’m going to the Junction to help Katie set up the baby room and nag her dad about how old he got, since he’ll be 72 tomorrow. Last time I was there we had a talk about the things that could have killed him, like the time he hit a wall on his motorcycle at 50 miles an hour, then (limping four ways from Sunday) rode what was left of it to Ron M.’s place in London and crashed on his couch. Shook it off and beat most of the dings out of it the next day. The shit we get up to when we’re young! and then after we’ve survived it we wake up in a cold sweat decades later going HOLY SHIZZBALLS OF RECKONING. I still get a chill when I think about the plane crash. Surviving stuff like that should make you a better person, but as best I recollect the only thing that came out of it was that we should have wills, although we didn’t actually DO anything about it until years later.

I’m up to 2700 words on the haunted object story and I’m loving the dialog, it’s most hilarious and effective (and yes I do say so myself, dialogue is one of my writing skillsets).

I now veer wildly off into Schadenfreude land. He was a cruel and evil and anti-science man, and now he’s fondling Satan’s dick in hell, and GOOD. For when the link disappears:

(Ed Mazza, Yahoo News, Monday September 13 2021)

Bob Enyart, a notoriously homophobic right-wing radio host who refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, has died of COVID-19.

The death was announced on Facebook.

“It comes with an extremely heavy heart that my close friend and co-host of Real Science Radio has lost his battle with COVID,” wrote Fred Williams, co-host of the ironically named show, which routinely pushed anti-science talking points, including creationism.

Enyart was 62, according to Newsweek.

My age. LOL Fred do tell me your vaxx status

after all, repulsigans, you have taught me that the cruelty is the message as “Cops” returns to Fox Media

later that morning – Mike called and told me about the Reddit Herman Cain award and it’s all for vile people who said covid was a hoax and then died of it so I was able to tell Mike I already had an award recipient on my blog this morning DOUBLE LOL

the plums

are freestone. I was anticipating ghastly prep but I’ve processed most of them already, they come apart with a single swift slice of the knife

Burritos are coming, or so I piously hope, I certainly paid for them.

1/2 an hour later…..

well i fucking jinxed us, we got the wrong order and I guess I’m out the money.  i tried to raise hell with Doordash but once I realized where the call centre was I decided to say fuck it, so I have now requested a refund. Goddamn it.

new story

2700 words (3192) (3516) (3945) of a new story so far. I just cannot stop writing stories about men being loving and supportive to each other; it’s not like it’s happening that much in real life so this is very powerfully fictional and massively therapeutic.

Other people’s fanfic complaint. ELICIT IS NOT ILLICIT. GAWDAM, PEOPLE.

It’s possible that graphomania is a migraine symptom. Given how weirdly distant from reality I’m feeling at the moment (sort of cotton woolley) it seems possible.

I printed off the Advanced Care Directive document / worksheet for Paul yesterday after our walk in the school park, and Katie called me last night and we had a chat and among other things she said Paul seems to be studying it. I marked my copy up quite a bit but I’m nowhere near done; I’ll talk to Jeff and the kids when I am done. Alex was burbling continuously in the background while we were talking.

Beautiful weather yesterday, perfect clear sunny almost fall day.

In the middle ages the places that maintained civil society better than others in Europe during the Great Pestilence were places where the notaries were allowed to do their jobs, and transfers of wealth happened in an orderly fashion. No comparison of course to what’s going on now.

Bunk/Wendell talks about Omar / Michael

Can a clothing store be racist.

Redneck Darwin.

the worm’s eye view

For about thirty years now I’ve thought about a polemic called ‘the worm’s eye view’ which is about the state of employment in Canada. I always thought I would get to it while I was still working and the blood boiling in my veins from the insanity of the workplace animated me to rant like a little steam engine.

Mike called to say he was once again unable to get together this weekend. Today he’s going in to the office in Burnaby for the last time to clean out his desk. TPTB (The Powers That Be) have decreed a teleconference for 7:30 am Monday and ANOTHER one at 5:30 am Tuesday. A more vile Fuck You to the people who are expecting to be laid off on the 15th of this month can hardly be imagined. Mike’s mood is thus explained. It’s very hard to pin a smiling face on under the circumstances and I certainly won’t jib at that when I’m still coughing a lung up about four times a day. I’m working my way through his lovely chowder as a consolation prize. ALSO GODDESS PEGGY HAS DISCHARGED A VOLLEY OF APPLE TARTS ONTO OUR FRONT PORCH.

I was feeling sorry for meself and we went and got a very abbreviated Timmy Ho’s order. I was the one who stood in line and it was godawful, slower than bullet time and scattered with people not wearing masks. I always thought people of colour would be more sensible about masking but no, this morning was a standard cross section of humanity but with the usual bullshit men not masking (all the women were masked) and I just wanted to vent so hard and I pasted silence into my brain and a smile onto my face until Jeff turned up in the parking lot after a side trip for cat food. SO MANY CARS  ATTEMPTED TO IMPEDE OUR EGRESS that it was hard not to take it personal. I want to stick a camera there; some of the parking interactions must come close to mayhem, public mischief and homicide — occasionally.

Anyway, with respect to the worm’s eye view, I’m just going to jot down what it would look like

chapter one ONBOARDING – all the horse puckey that happens when you join.
chapter two TRAINING – the even worse busssshit that happens when you are training
chapter three – BOREDOM, OVERWORK, performance issues, CAREER PATH, JOB-HOPPING – the five states of employment
chapter four – MANAGING THE MANAGERS WHO CAN’T MANAGE
chapter five – THE PETER PRINCIPLE, IF YOU HAVE A PETER YOU GET TO BE THE PRINCIPAL
chapter six – HOW TO BE A MEMBER OF A MODEL MINORITY
chapter seven – CUSTOMER SUPPORT
chapter eight – And now, the end is near And so I face the final curtain
CONCLUSION – IT’S ALL TAINTED, CORRUPT AND EARTH-DESTROYING BUT HEY A GIRL’S GOTTA EAT.