Category: Workt in my garden

HOT, so hot

Between the heat and the hormones I had a very truncated night’s sleep last night.

I am very slowly getting organized around various church activities.  I requested a key (yes, if you have a joke about a church key, or redneck wrench, please insert here), dug into the website and confirmed commitments with those of the church who don’t have email.  I also commiserated with a sibling congregant about how married couples using the same email address is creepy (and f^ckyeah it IS creepy, especially when it means one of two things, that one spouse can read private correspondence to do with church matters or that one spouse is controlling the information spigot, and either way, EW!), and her response started with “Dude!” which just goes to show you which side of the digital divide I fall on.  I am attempting to get instructions and training for the sound system, if you can call that giant nexus of crap a sound system (and I don’t mean to beat up on the volunteer technicians because there are serious technical issues which will be neither easy nor cheap to resolve).

I rejoiced in learning (there had been hints, but now we know) that church start time has moved back to 10:30 am which is a) mostly the doing of the minister, who never gets any credit for having either brains or the welfare of the whole church in mind, which is bloody annoying for me as I find she has both and b) REALLY good news for the people who live in the hinterlands of our catchment area. Getting up at 8 to get to church is just plain horrid and you have to get up even earlier if you’re doing set up, so booyeah Rev Katie.

I have also, as of the last board meeting, gotten the okay to revive Chalice circles.  Go Allegra.  I really like small group ministry, especially when it consists of:

Meeting – checking in – lighting candles for joys and concerns – meditating – closing song – eating – socializing!

Now to consult Jeff about dates.

Church is going to eat my brain for the next two years; I know it.  Now I have to pace myself.

It’s true we’ve had a lot of departures in the last six months but sometimes the big trees gotta come down to let the little shrubs closer to the light.

New gal started at work yesterday – I think I’m going to like her.  Her uptake curve on new technology is impressive.

Mark October 16 on the calendar, we’re going to have a Social Justice Open Mic at church.

Ants

We has ’em.

Thursday, off to Lexi’s to meet up with my cousin Darcy and her charming offspring; Saturday, off to the church Board retreat.  (Yes, knowing that was coming up got me off my ass to get sussed out by the RCMP).

Went and harrassed Tom, one of my all time fave activities, to do something about Ziva’s subwoofer.  Ziva is suddenly getting better gas mileage; the only thing I can think of which would account for such a thing is that I’ve finally burned off all the sludge that was sitting in the bottom of the gas tank, because I’m getting 30 more kilometres out of a tank and believe me I have not changed my lead footed driving style.  Anyway, Ziva’s subwoofer has a crack. Jeff wants me to make the subwoofer removable so he can get his bike in the car (the bike would only fit with bungees last Friday when we met up at Swiss Chalet).

Tom gave me celery.  If I find a good place to grow it I’ll grow it next year.  I am already planning a hosta bed under the dogwood in the back corner.  Right now that part of the yard is just a cluster of bluebells and weeds, mostly nightshade, so something to improve it’s appearance and remove grass would be nice.

The quit-by-pictures girl was a fake.  O well.

I tried contacting the JetBlue attendant’s public defender to offer support but nobody is answering the phone there.

Got to get to work…. don’t want to move, although I’ll be fine when I get there.

Watched a simply marvellous movie called The Straight Story last night.  If you want a clean, sad but uplifting story that is full of kindness to strangers, check it out.  At one point Jeff and I said to each other that Richard Farnsworth’s wattles have more acting talent than Keanu Reeves’ whole body, not that we hate Keanu Reeves or anything, we do like him even if woodpeckers do land on his head.

I wish I’d taken a picture of Miss Margot guarding the rat Eddie killed.

[EDIT by Jeff] Ask and you shall receive:

Margot guarding the rat

LOTS and nothing

Yesterday I cleaned up under the deck – mostly pulling weeds and garbage removal – with Margot carefully supervising.  She madly loves to supervise humans working, I think, besides chasing flies, it’s her fave thing to do.

Pulled the first pea pod out of the garden for Jeff.

My mint got so sunburned it almost died; I have to find a better place for it  out of the direct sun.  I watered the cedar hedge at the back of the yard as I promised the landpeer I’d do.  She laboured mightily to put them in and the first year she planted them she was coming by every week to water them during the dry of the summer.

Margot has taken to sitting under my car before I fire it up in the morning.  I could wish she wouldn’t do that.

Had a lovely time at Mike’s birthday party last night.  It was good to see Heather and Margaret and Rozo and Tom U., and Jerome briefly dropped by as well. Paul and Keith and Jeff rounded out the gathering.

The quinoa is getting big.  I don’t imagine the corn will actually get tall enough to set ears and ripen, but they are fine looking plants.  The rest of the yard is looking very brown, but we don’t water the lawn, and the roots on this lawn are very very deep, so it always greens up nicely after a rain.  The pine trees I got from work are still doing fine, but I’m going to have to consider where to plant them.  I’m almost inclined to transplant them into a park – but in the meantime all I have to do is keep them alive.

The weekend’s over

Well, this was certainly a movie rich weekend.  Besides Inception and the inevitable True Blood episode, there was Growing Op and Numb, both hilarious Canadian films with American TV stars thrown in for extra visibility.  The notion of the guy who plays Hodges on CSI playing the paterfamilias of a marijuana farm in the suburbs is brain bending, and he delivers one of the best lines I’ve ever heard in a movie… no, really.  Ask Keith, he was there. Definitely worth seeing. both of them.  Both of them had F8CKING AMAZING soundtracks.  Seriously.

We got the mower back from the lawnmower place (unfixed, may they achieve decomposition in a quiet place) and Jeff mowed the lawn while I edged things and watered the peas and quinoa and whacked weeds.

This weekend we also managed to get Granny’s stamps to the dealer, so between the weed whacking and carrying all the boxes upstairs my back is unbelievably sore.

I read Plantinga’s Breviary of Sin, which Ontie Mary gave me last I was in Victoria.  Very Christian but brilliantly written and very quotable.

I’ve started taking my musical instruments to work so I can practice at lunch.  I am now practicing every day, and I have the callouses to prove it.

Lightning – the Diving Horse.

Asparagus pee… is it real?

Science to the rescue.

In other news, I planted some things that will be (with luck) food later on this year.

Ziva does not like wet weather.  Winter should be interesting.  She also decided to stop her sunroof from working when I showed her off to Tom & Peggy, the little bugger; it’s fine now.

I watched the CEO do something very difficult very well yesterday, and I still can’t believe what has happened to the company I work for…. namely, that the bunch of sociopaths and psychophants (misspelling deliberate) running the company previously have been replaced by sane people.  I was so impressed I thanked him.

I have a gig on Sunday; still not entirely sure how that happened, but I’m not complaining.

Watched Adaptation and loved it.

Sunday miscellanea

Dug out one fifth of the garden yesterday, after an entertaining visit chez Tom and Peggy (Peggy was working) to borrow gardening tools and drop off the busted mandolin.  Anybody who has seen Tom’s garage knows how this is possible.  Paul accompanied me, and there was much mirth and mocking; personally I found the image of the concrete bags which had turned solid enough to form gun emplacement material very happy making.   Tom offered four substantial pieces of wood to frame the garden plot with (I am not turning down ten foot lengths of six by six treated aged cedar for this purpose).  I didn’t need a mattock, but it was so axe murder-y I had to borrow it.  Also, I now have a picture of myself cuddling a meter long spanner, this also being the kind of thing one finds lying about in Tom’s vicinity.  I was also thinking of asking him for sand as I was thinking of doing the potatoes grown in tires thing, but really I only have so much energy, and Jeff has already registered misgivings about my ability to keep up with a garden, which is only reasonable. I volunteered for various of Tom’s plans (mostly holding the ends of things, this being a requirement for most of Tom’s plans).  Tom and I also agreed to split a cartload of topsoil; Paul is going to investigate manure for his little garden plot.

I stopped digging after I twisted my knee.  It appears to be okay this morning, so back to the grind after church.  The dirt I’m pulling up is full of earthworms (also those nasty lawn chafer larvae, which I carefully threw onto the concrete so Margot could mishandle them).  Margot croaked in excitement when she saw the measuring tape.  So shiny ! So crinkly ! So making a wonderful noise as it disappeared into its hole !  She pounced on it but I was able to wrestle it away from her.

Great church meeting yesterday.  Various matters arose and I slept on them; I will be taking a decision later today.  It’s not particularly earth shattering.

It turns out the migraines were hormones.  As my career as a breeder staggers to a close, I suppose I’ll get this crap happening occasionally.  Grr, the mama bear said.  Grr.

When I was a kid I thought my dad was the coolest man who ever lived; he let us watch Laugh-In, he bought gouramis and lizards and four eyed fish (anableps anableps) and painted a stick man on the side of the house and he had a beard and he put up a geodesic dome in the backyard and he had trophies for shooting and he’d been in the Air Force and he could fix anything and he had a succession of unusual cars (Simca, anyone?  original Mini Minor?).  One of the many cool things about him was his taste in music.  (This is no longer the case.. he listens to Muzak now, but we all get old and tired, so I won’t repine).  I used to love it when he played the soundtrack from the early sixties show “Checkmate” – he had the soundtrack album – and it wasn’t until last night that I realized that the Johnny Williams who wrote that score (which is MADE OF OSSUM) is the same John Williams who wrote the Star Wars theme, and many many many others.  Prescient dude, mi papa.

Steak and eggs and coffee for breakfast.

Biscotti are on for the first bake…. I promised some to Tom this morning, and given his many kindnesses I’d better get on the stick.  Can you tell I’m feeling better?

Memorial Service did him justice

It went long, and it was emotional.  Tre and Battery and Tanya had to leave because Tre got fussy, but Lindsay (strangely enough! my former boss and grandboss at work) came and sat next to me, and while I didn’t speak much to him, I’d like to thank him for being with me.  Tanya came back in to greet Owen with me and then we went home.

Ryan was a very special young man, in a lot of ways, and sure I was crying for myself (thinking about what it would be like to lose one of the kids) and for his parents (whose mental state is easy enough to guess), but I ended up doing most of my crying for his friends, who really loved him and who will have to work very hard to live up to his standards.

I have a packet of seeds of Ryan’s favorite flower in my coat pocket now, and I’ll plant them when it’s a bit more like spring.