Category: Writing

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

Art for Alex

the map is decades old
some maps are old and valuable
this one isn’t

it’s a paperback atlas
that centres the US
(—for which a unique Indigenous designation
(—does not exist.
(—The United States of America does not exist
(—in law; it was founded on theft and genocide.
with a map of each state.
(—The states come closer to having
(—Indigenous names – every last one pronounced wrong –
(— and the borders often respect rivers.

this page I tore out has Montréal
(—Kanien’kehá:ka Territory
(—Ga-niyen-ge-HAA-ga
(—People of the Flint Territory
in the bottom left corner

I pulled out a piece of plastic I’ve used for forty years

(I was going to say owned but
I’m getting skittish of the word owned)

and using that stencil I, in varying colours,

(bright blue, teal, bright orange, bright green
and lots of greyblack ballpoint pen. It’s hideous.
It’s supposed to be hideous. It’s a wretch’s howl
at cruel fate, not just my death but his. I could
have prevented his death. I could have never
given day to his mother.)

inscribed:

28/7/22
DEAR ALEX:
WHEN YOU ARE
GROWN, THIS MAP
WILL BE OUT-OF-DATE.

I drew an arrow to Dorval
which is just a speck on this map
and printed

This is where your mother used to live

I asked his mother if it was ‘too much’
and she said
He’ll appreciate it when he’s older.

I made this to acknowledge
that his world will burn and drown
and know such anger, and such kindness
wonder and terror
that I won’t know.

more later

Jeff sure has been fixing people’s stuff recently.

Paul knocked a side mirror off his car so he won’t be giving me a lift to Peggy’s this morning.

It was damned hot yesterday.

Progress on Part II stalled. I don’t want to do that thing where I skip the hard part in order to get to the easy part and then never write the hard part. But if Omar doesn’t grill Blossom about her situation with Steve then it completely shoots holes in the next part of the plot. He shouldn’t trust her until he knows, and how can he know without asking, and how can he confirm it even if he asks? these are distinct problems and cracking open a case lot of story logic won’t fix it.

 

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.

Otto is home

  1. The floating bridge was only out a sixteenth of an inch. TIGHT TOLERANCES YO.
  2. very nice folks at PlayMusic and efficient too
  3. Jeff very kindly assisted by driving. There are SO MANY BARBEQUE joints along that chunk of Kingsway! Plus the Captain’s Boil.
  4. I’m going to sketch the position of it in with magic marker, I don’t want to go through this again.
  5. Hard to move grain through a port in UK when the Russians keep bombing it. Starvation will stalk the world this winter.
  6. A crow dropped a plastic bag of monopoly houses on Gaston Park yesterday morning AND THAT’S A LITTLE ON THE NOSE FOR POLITICAL COMMENTARY FROM BOIDS, YO
  7. Ate some peanut butter, started sneezing immediately and I am now so itchy me wan die.
  8. 539 words.
  9. I think mebbe I’ve got ‘lurgy from peanuts?
  10. I made paneer from the milk that was going bad. It’s absolutely lovely and I’m looking forward to making spinach paneer with it.
  11. Woke up just after one this am after going to bed rather early (I was tired).
  12. Got up and made coffee and drank it since now that it’s three am it’s obvious I’m not going back to sleep.
  13. Messaged Keith for his opinion on which Don Bluth animated film is best (there was an article). Land Before Time is one of my fave animated kids movies and parts of it are flat out terrifying. I loathed Rockadoodle and All Dogs Go to Heaven; I think An American Tail is one of the funniest and saddest animated films ever. I’ve never seen Anastasia and Secret of NIMH but I hear they’re amazing.
  14. MPX (Monkeypox) is about to be declared a global public health threat by WHO. Should have happened when the global count got to a thousand, and just watch, the response will be even worse than COVID. THANKS NOW I NEED A NEW TOPIC. Marburg is back too but the Ghanaian health authorities have a good team in place and they aren’t sitting on their hands; I have more faith in them and the foreign assistance than the goddamned American and Canadian public health authorities at this point.
  15. Apparently Alzheimers research has been fabricated FOR ALMOST TWO DECADES
  16. When people talk about hating big pharma, reasons like that would apply.
  17. A junior polar bear with a can stuck to her tongue approached humans for help. Russian vets flew 2000 km to help her. Putin’s still bombing UKRAINE tho
  18. SO ITCHY. so itchy.
  19. Jeff’s about to go on ‘rat patrol’ with Buster in the alley. There were two rats yesterday.

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

No errands with Paul yesterday

Didn’t get over to his place so I still owe Keith money. MUST GET THERE TODAY.

Just about blew the Wordle this morning. Only rescued myself going to one of those ‘helper’ sites.

I got a message through reddit this morning. Four months ago I gave medical advice on reddit and this morning somebody messaged me and said THANK YOU FOR THE ADVICE I’M SO GLAD I CHECKED ON REDDIT. So I made one person’s life easier, thank you universe.

Still at 537 words. I intend to BROOD for a while, especially since I got something to do on the ‘romance’ side of things and it will make my mother mad (before the inevitable ‘happy’ ending).

I do like Only Murders in the the Building but yeesh kabobbers when the Martin Short character DOES GO ON he DOES GO ON and I throw my blanket over my head and stick my fingers in my ears.

 

Kaossilator ip ip ip

  • Brief walk and lovely sit in the sunshine with Paul. He had a good time on the Island and Jim being in better shape really put the heart back into him. Paul’s at his volunteer job today.
  • Dragged him into the music room and made him listen to what the Kaossilator sounds like when the battery is dying
  • HEY pOp RYERSON CHANGED ITS NAME TO Toronto Metropolitan University. Given that he was a colonizer who thought Indigenous people are scum I’m cool with that.
  • MUST go to the bank today, I still haven’t paid Keith back.
  • Otto back tomorrow or the day after, that’s good.
  • President Biden is apparently going to declare a climate emergency. Don’t be too happy; those parts that are useful will be turned into money making opportunities for big Democrat donors and when the next president is a Republican it will all be swept away anyway
  • The gay mayor of a town in Oklahoma has been assaulted and frightened so much that after five years of service as Councilman and Mayor he’s resigning. I spend a lot of time in fanfic talking about states where you can’t be out in public and Kansas and Oklahoma are definitely two places where it’s as much as your life is worth to be openly gay, especially outside of places like Lawrence.
  • The entire world with the exception of New Zealand and parts of China is wandering into the seventh wave like a bunch of fools. ERs are crashing and apart from the people who visit them and work at them nobody cares.
  • Despite a century of doctors and health care professionals wearing masks, the far right and the ignorant are still claiming that wearing a mask makes for ‘too much CO2, you’ll choke.’ Showing them pictures of your pulseox before and after masks is ‘fake news.’ Now I’m not saying people deserve to die, but some will die, with belief systems like that. And it will be the young, the elderly and the disabled who pay most dearly, just like fucking usual.
  • I predict that people between forty and eighty will just ‘start dropping dead’ as the effects of multiple undiagnosed COVID infections spread out through the population. Since these deaths won’t get added to the COVID total (no active COVID infection??? CAN’T be COVID!!), the ignorant will claim that it’s the ‘stress of lockdown when it was unnecessary’, ‘drugs’, ‘chemtrails’, ‘the heat’ and ‘the government’ that’s causing these unusual deaths.
  • If you don’t have a will please make one. I have a will, it’s out of date. After all, I no longer have any assets except my intellectual property, which is LOLOLOL completely worthless except to about 3 people. But I still have to change the will so the intellectual property is specifically called out.
  • Apparently the CME is pretty much missing us but check for nice aurorae tonight in western Canada if skies are clear.
  • Don’t blame me, the wordle of the day is ‘angry’
  • 393 words on Part II

roundup of trivia, opinions and news

  • v21 on twitter made the following remarkable tweet yesterday, forwarded to my attention by Tony Fabris: today I went to a falconry show and the falcon just… fucked off. flew away and didn’t come back again.
  • be free, falcon, vaya con food supply
  • Ukraine’s jailing traitors and taking impressive supplies of drones from the US. The US is inching closer to doing all the things Putin was concerned that NATO would do and since he actually thinks that letting his minions talk on Russian TV about nuclear weapons as a tool in the kit, nuclear war is tiptoeing closer. Let’s hope it doesn’t, I don’t have a thing to wear.
  • Weather was quite hot earlier this week – today’s high will be 19 C (in July?? 5 degrees colder than last year thanks el niña) so a great day for a walk.
  • Trudeau’s haircut, which literally did make him look like Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber, made the news globally. Given that the most important thing about him (SIGH SIGH MEGA SIGH) is his, you know, appearance. Also, he’s gone greyer. No surprise.
  • I’d like to kick Jagmeet Singh into the next block over (his constituency office isn’t far from here, and this is A WHINE ON THE INTERNET, NOT A CREDIBLE THREAT) and the reason why is that HE COULD GET THE ODSP rates up so that disabled people could actually pay rent in this foolish Canada where private companies are buying private homes and turning them into airbnbs. He holds the balance of power over the liberals and isn’t doing fucking much with it and is certainly doing squat about mask mandates. I growl in your general direction, sirrah. You have power you could use to help people who could really use a break. Speaking of which, I’m taking a break on donating to people with sad stories for the rest of the summer unless they’re living on MST land. I went a little luge last month. Which reminds me I still owe Keith money for his birthday.
  • Everybody is heaving great big sighs about the photos from the Charlotte’s Webb Telescope – like, everyone – and doing remixes and slow closeups and putting music overtop. BUT REMEMBER even when you look across the room at someone you love, you’re looking at the past, as your brain remembers it, and the stuff UP AND OUT THERE is so long gone that it defies the ordinary thought processes of humans to encompass it
  • Monkeypox infection levels are doubling in less than a week in the US and heaven knows what it’s doing elsewhere. Canada shows 539 cases as of two days ago, mostly in Quebec and Ontario. BC has 32 cases.  The following was lifted wholesale from canada.ca:
  • “The Public Health Agency of Canada is working with provinces, territories and international partners, including the World Health Organization, to actively monitor the situation. Global efforts are focused on containment of the outbreak and the prevention of further spread.Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer of Canada is in close contact with provincial and territorial Chief Medical Officers of Health to ensure that any cases of monkeypox occurring in Canada continue to be rapidly identified and managed in order to protect the health of Canadians.

    Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory is performing diagnostic testing for the virus that causes monkeypox. In addition, the laboratory is also conducting whole genome sequencing, an enhanced fingerprint analysis, on Canadian samples of monkeypox. This sequencing will help our experts understand the chains of transmission occurring in Canada. The laboratory is working in close collaboration with provincial and territorial public health laboratories to provide testing guidance and to increase testing capacity for monkeypox.”

  • Not a sausage about where to get monkeypox vaccine or who’s at risk. THANKS CANADA
  • wordle in four, excellent brain training session this morning, 33822 words (from editing; I was clarifying, dropping plot breadcrumbs in existing conversations, etc.) Suzanne’s read the first chapter. She says she’s enjoying it, but I won’t hold her to it. She’s got a life.
  • Lovely convo with my Swedish twitter pal Pebble regarding how Ireland was not at the end of the world but in the early medieval period was fundamental to the operation of the Catholic church because of how educated the monks were and I wouldn’t know that without Dunnett. As I said to him good fiction makes one seek facts.
  • Spoke to Alex on the phone yesterday and told him his GGMa was very happy to get his phone message.
  • The batteries on the Kaossilator are dying, so once again the ‘voice’ at 75 on the dial is skipping and doing Max Headroom vocal tics and if you get a fantastic beat going (per my post the other day) you can put on top of it this artificial voice yodelling and yelling and going ik ik ik ik or beyaaaaa beyaaaaaa beyaaaaa wup wup wup boodiwoo boodiwoo boodiwoo and it’s CONVULSING. I so wish I could record it but I still haven’t figured out how. I’d love to share it with you.
  • I am very irritated with how Otto is with the bridge sliding around and putting out the intonation so I’m going to take him to a luthier next week and try to get it fixed. I’ll get the goddamned frets carved down too while I’m at it, some of them, like the rent, are too damned high. Cindy recommended someone, hope it’s all good.
  • The screw drilled into Jeff’s skull for his new tooth is causing issues and as we all know tooth pain’s a BEAR. He loathes taking the antibiotics but he’s keenly aware that the alternative is much, much worse.
  • I’ve taken my drugs, poured my coffee, eaten my brekky and think I’ll play waffle for a while. Haven’t come close to beating my previous record yet….

Nudes of the world

    1. Just a reminder that I am a proud nudist (naturist sounds funny to me, sorry) and that if you really piss me off and I don’t have other recourse I WILL REMOVE GARMENTS. Starting with the legal stuff, and moving on. Since there’s apparently hardly anything that disgusts and freaks out bigots than fat old naked women, I’m keeping that one in reserve. Also, Peter Verigin LIVETH. (This last specifically so mOm can read it to her sister lol)
    2. Also, I did not order those copies of “Grandma Was a Nudist” they JUST SHOWED UP HERE.
    3. Jeff gets a hall pass. Poor guy. It is true that one of the first things I do when he goes away is walk around the house naked and yodelling (sometimes it’s kazoo, and it’s all very much sad for Buster, who has a demonstrated preference for me remaining clothed since I make a better lap that way and he loathes my music.) (Except in the laundry room, which has a security camera vs the raccoons and since Jeff reviews the security footage once a month I don’t want him clapping his hands over his eyes and going AUGH NOMAN HAS BLINDED ME.)
    4. Which is why, although I haven’t been over there for what feels like centuries, and so not recently, the first thing I do when I get to Mike’s is AUGH FREEEEEEDOM. (I even have a cubby for my clothes like at JJ Spa – and Mike’s place IS a spa, at least as far as I’m concerned.) Also he keeps his apartment about 28 degrees, summer and winter and he’s got it set up so you can sunbathe on the balcony year ’round. Sometimes I wave at the neighbours over by the Skytrain station. I don’t know if they’re watching, but you never know, and I don’t imagine anyone I know would ever tell me.
    5. Sigh, the salt room at JJ Spa. I MISS IT SO. But with this new COVID wave, nuh-unh.
    6. I should probably call Mike.
    7. I do very very very occasionally still wear a bra and pantyhose but that’s like a church/weddings/funerals/someone’s paying for a classy dinner scenario.
    8. I made Yorkshire Gold Tea for the household (which will end up in the sugar free iced tea, most likely), peppermint tea as a day-opener for Jeff, and coffee for me. Honestly, I don’t know how many more times I’m going to get coffee and sugar and cream all in once place again, so I really try to enjoy it while I can.
    9. I played with my Kaossilator yesterday and came up with an ABSOLUTE banger of a beat, 56 bpm / g20/ c_ key/EGY scale/94&96 percussion and yowza. In my life I’ve never spent that little money for a tech toy that brought me this much joy, and Jeff commented that a small child and an elderly adult can both enjoy it!
    10. Anyone doing waste water research says the balloon has really gone up for the latest variant.
    11. Suzanne’s computer has been scanned and will be returned to her shortly. She got a scare but it’s all good. THANK YOU JEFF.
    12. Tanya Basu reporting from Corpus Christi on Twitter: The harassment has real-world consequences. The Corpus Christi area teacher’s union president’s house got shot at earlier this week. School board members are being heckled online. Educators, mostly women & poc, are quitting their profession in droves. 
    13. There are rumblings of a NEW hemorrhagic fever out of Tanzania; it isn’t Ebola and it isn’t Marburg (so saith local testing with help from WHO) and it’s currently killing about 1 in 3 of the people it infects. Tanzania is one of the countries on earth most lethally affected by mosquitoes. It sure would be good to know what other mammalian reservoirs there are for this bug.
    14. Keith and Paul are on the Island visiting various and sundry folks and by reports a mellow and convivial time is being had and mOm was enjoying FOOD DELIVERY what a concept.
    15. I sent the first half of Totally Boned to mOm about a hunnert times yesterday. Finally I stripped off all the formatting and re-sent it and now I’m mentally hopping from one foot to the other waiting to hear back. Google mail barfing on a 30k word document just seems like bullshit to me.
    16. Forced birth advocates in the US seem to be under the impression that since they repealed Roe v Wade opponents need to shut up and be nice to them and it’s NO ACTUALLY WE’RE GOING TO PROTEST IN FRONT OF YOUR CHURCHES AND THROW RED PAINT ON YOUR VEHICLES AND RUN YOU OUT OF RESTAURANTS AND GIVE YOU AAAAALLLLLL THE CIVILITY YOU RICHLY DESERVE.
    17. Putin has signed a bill banning media outlets that don’t recount the Russian War of Aggression against Peaceful and Democratic Ukraine in a way he personally likes, for starters by mentioning that it is, you know, a war. A quote: The application scope of the law covers the adoption of measures against false information dissemination, smearing the Russian Armed Forces’ performance, or disrespectful manifestations towards the Russian Federation’s society, state, and official symbols.  
    18. LOL
    19. David Osland on Twitter this morning, retweeted by Potsherd Man Paul Blinkhorn of Time Team fame: Consider Britain and Saudi Arabia. One has temperatures that exceed 40 degrees, is ruled by a royal family presiding over a corrupt government that is militarily dependent on the US, and openly represses peaceful protest. But Saudi Arabia has its problems too.
    20. Wordle in four tries this morning, good lumosity brain workout. *here I am, sighing over having to do mental math* *here I am, trying to get my response time down under 1000 ms* *Here I am, measurably 20 percent less smart than I was in 2014 HEY NUMBAS DON LIE*  I find it funny that often, the less I’ve slept the better I do.
    21. What happened to US health care? Ronald Regan was elected
    22. Jeff reports that at 5 in the morning THE ALLEY IS CRAWLING WITH EXTREMELY LIVELY RATS. Small ones medium ones some as big as yer ‘ead! When he takes Buster for an alley walk he sees them. MANY MANY RATS. ZIP ZIP ZIP.
    23. Today I shall read the most recent Capilano Review. It’s a really good literary mag y’all.
    24. Weather most fine; a/c still working well.
    25. Stomped hard on a Facebook friend yesterday. Women contestants are tired of the pure whites of tennis, and he said IT’S A UNIFORM WEAR IT and I said FOOLISH HUMAN HAVE YOU EVER HAD A PERIOD WHILE BOUNCING UP AND DOWN AND FIRING BALLS AT A 105 FUCKING MPH AT AN OPPONENT yeah I didn’t think so. Siddown and shaddap.
    26. 33487 WORDS end of Part I. Part II – Blossom’s return, Steve and Jack get their asses handed to them, Richie shows up just in time to make things a) better b) more dangerous c) more complicated (THANKS RICHIE YOU LITTLE B-) AND MORE SHIT ABOUT EMIGRATING TO CANADA THAN ANYONE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT.
    27. I love doing research, I end up finding out things that are both hilarious and realllllly unexpected, but I now know that the Fran’s closest to TGH is open 24 hours and then I learned something actually demonstrably useful about how horselaugh bad the March time change is. See below for illustrated figure.
    29. that cliff? that’s the cliff your body falls off when there’s a time change. I had never actually seen it represented and HOOO WEEE THERE IT IS. Now imagine you’ve gone to Iceland or whatever and the cliff is literally 8 times taller.  And do you know why I saw this data set in the first place? Because I wanted to know the angle of the sun coming in to the side of TGH so I could visualize a scene (last scene in part I.)
    30. I learned that plots of land are as low as $40K out by 70 Mile House and it sure would be nice to have a family campground. This is not compatible with my current political leanings so I am irked by my inability to be consistent. If someone else tees it up I’ll help pay for it.

Graphomania part the manieth

29862 29900 words I keep slipping over there and writing.

Poor Jeff, I end up being very non verbal and weird and vague when I get like this.

Today Keith is 36 can you believe it. When I was 36 I had school age kids and kept getting stupid admin jobs when I should have been going back to school. But the economy was okay and there was no pandemic; comparisons to Keith’s life are pointless. The future is bright but in all the wrong ways.

 

good day

28711 words, super productive day yesterday, fifteen hundred words. Brad got medical attention but they’re still exposed at the hospital and need to find a place to go to ground. I am currently engaged in a coin flip. Going to baba’s sweet shop? Calling Steve’s dad and asking him to collect his boy? Asking Nima to give over his Airbnb for a couple of days? something else?

Off to Caspell Junction tomorrow for supper to feast Keith for his birthday. I may or may not sponsor a clothes buying expedition after.

 

challenges

Off to Paul’s this morning (later… after a negative RAT), sometime, to help him with various things; 26861 words, burritos for supper last night but they were really terrible so we don’t know whether we’re ordering from there again, and this morning hopefully we have a Dark Winds and a Westworld.

Received word from Jan that Jim’s in hospital in Victoria. He’s doing better that he was when they choppered him down there, that’s for sure, but no further details were authorized and we are ALL of course quite concerned for him.  Jan’s with him. All skill to the hands of his doctors, all love and patience to him and his family.

Absolutely fucking hideous breakdown of what’s known about BA.5, the latest variant of concern.

And more.

And more. But I can’t find the link. You’re safe for now.

My mood right now is pretty dark. I’m trying to keep myself right side up with a reminder that I’m not responsible for the happiness of other people, and only responsible for controlling my own reaction to people and events.

I’m going to start treating July 4 as the International Day of Mourning for failing Democratic States, and Canada’s looking like one.