Category: Writing

bye!
2005-03-21— Posted by: allegra

Effective immediately, blog operations are suspended. I might as well just be sending a daily email to three people anyway.

It’s been fun. I’ve got the domain for another year and may do something else with it than blog.

enough sleep
2005-03-21— Posted by: allegra

Nothing much to report here. Survived another weekend; kids off to school (during March break, alas!) to get their Food Safe Certificates so they can get summer jobs. Turns out the commute to Cap College isn’t that bad, only about an hour. I don’t know whether I’m working on that flu that Keith had or I just overslept (I actually got more than 8 hours total yesterday, with the afternoon nap). Sang and played at Tom and Peggy’s yesterday evening and had fun as always. That 12 string Larrivee sure sounds good when Paul plays it. Zeek! is being a righteous pain in the ass; he is being much suckier than normal and since he has zero claw control it ain’t much fun. The Sea to Sky Highway was closed the first weekend of March break due to a mudslide. The ski folks in Whistler must be ripping their hair out. Noam Chomsky’s study is a mess, with pictures of grandchildren perched on top. Pokey seems not to be a psycho kitty any more, which is a relief. Some drunk on an airplane started yelling and came to the attention of a rugby team, who chivalrously took over from the flight attendants…. At some point he quit breathing and the medics failed to revive him once he got on the ground. My advice is don’t drink on airplanes. Hey mom, remember when you could knit on airplanes? Pic (sorry about the quality) is of a portion of a double rainbow which appeared at sunset yesterday.

corporal works of mercy
2005-03-20— Posted by: allegra

Upon hearing that Mike had had “a bad day” (no details) Katie and I assembled a SWAT team (that stands, in this case, for Special Warmth and Therapy) and a) helped him assemble a sofa bed – it’s very cool – b) drank a single beer and c) worked on his feet and shoulders for 15 minutes (I took the shoulder end, Katie took the feet) and left him, while not in an appreciably better situation, at least in a better mood.

I am a devious, deeply troubled woman, but my friends know my worth.

I have a stupendous picture of Mike, but I don’t think he’d thank me for posting it. He’s naked, but figleafed by a lap top…. Zow. I guess for people just walking in, I should make it clear that I, and most of my close associates/family, with some notable and exceptions, are not nudists (that would involved being fanatical) but definitely relaxed about skin. We have central heating to thank for that little quirk….

Keith is still very happily working his way through all of the Red Dwarf episodes; the kids are both working their way through the borrowed Angel season one; Paul has just gone to church (?!) and I’m being dragged downstairs to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Pray for me.

Oh, and one last thing. The Motherhouse of the Consorority of the Brides of Lymond just sprang into existence. Legend has it that Sister Brooke fell into a trance and was pierced by a wondrous love (and a need to organize something. A Unitarian failing, to be sure). All we need is a mission statement and a dirty great sword to jump over, and we’re in business. I’m a-hankering for a really cool dress, too, so that should work out nicely. Hunter green velvet, with a embroidered bodice, and a reliquary with the toe bone of St. Dismas at my belt. One thing’s for sure, there will neither vows of chastity NOR poverty in this select group…. (For those who don’t get the reference, St. Dismas was a saint, since unbeatified, who was the patron of thieves and swindlers, and is much mentioned in Poul Anderson’s Nicholas van Rijn stories, viz. Trader to the Stars, which I cannot recommend highly enough – they have aged reMARKably well).

romance
2005-03-20— Posted by: allegra

Paul secured his position as the King of Romance this morning with this exchange:

I’ve been watching you sleep.

Subtext: you snore like a frog!

Subtext II: I’m insomniac again.

You have a very pretty mouth from this angle.

At that point, I opened my mouth, stuck out my tongue and shook my head.

Without changing his tone of voice, which was a low, romantic murmur, he said, “Course, it looks better when it’s closed.” Then we laughed very hard. Ah, romance!

Katie’s supposed to be cooking breakfast, but it’s nine o’clock and she only just got out of bed. I helped things along by cooking potatoes, she says this breakfast needs a couple of boiled potatoes.

I have an insane amount of cleaning to do today by which I mean, any. Have a good day, y’all.

enough sleep
2005-03-20— Posted by: allegra

January 4, 1998

Title redacted

Editor’s note…. Paul is making me clean off the hard drives of soon to be dead computers, and look what I found from a LONG time ago.

My personal situation at work currently bears no resemblance to this, by the way; I just like the tone of restrained fury.

Classic management practice is to get the employees to work as much as possible without paying them for overtime. There are many tactics for doing this. The easiest is to hire people, who despite everything that has happened to them in life, still have a strong work ethic. This means you surround employees with other employees who work very very hard and tacitly ask them to meet the standard others set (the Microsoft tactic). Another tactic is to offer undisclosed and potentially unclaimable future rewards. A common ploy is to tell them what must be accomplished and that performance pay depends on it. (Then the managers tell you that everything depended on ISO certification, and even though you made the audit, you are not getting your perf pay. This is called bait and switch – everyplace but the workplace.) You can guilt them, offer stock options, scare them with the competition and stage promotions for the very hardest working. You can yell at them, but this is not as fashionable as it once was.

The problem is that older employees have seen this all before. Us knowledge workers have a horrible sense of been there & done that, and as seductive as it is, we are not buying it.

The corporate meanspiritedness of the Eighties is with us still. Management still wants to run a lean mean fighting machine, without looking at the long term costs of doing so. They make us read books about The Immense Need for Total Quality, Total Customer Focus, Total Commitment and catechize us about it, and then spend no money on it, as if telling us these things made them happen.

We are still, after all this time, stuck in a quarter by quarter performance review mentality. If the customer is not reviewing us on a quarter by quarter basis, why should management? This is the open secret of corporate life. Because, dear children, the people who own or hope to suck money out of the enterprise we work for, besides us, are our REAL customers. And the second we forget it, we are out on our little tushies in the snow. It is not our customers who determine who goes or stays around here. Management does it for them, and sometimes not too well.

Anybody who thinks that the current customer focus is real is living in a cubicle located on another level of reality, well away from the rest of us. The current focus is on what bankers can measure. As long as certain measurements meet what passes for criteria in the minds of senior bankers, and the managers can deliver those numbers, there will be happiness at Board meetings.

For people like me, answering the phones and dealing with genuine and thorny customer issues daily, the focus is on staying sane while my managers rearrange my workload without streamlining, diminishing or training me for it.

So I am working ONLY 8 hours per day, and encouraging my co-workers to do the same. My reasoning is thus:

Every study I have been able to get my hands on indicates that working unpaid overtime does nothing for the company in terms of overall productivity and is actively bad for your health, morale and ability to think straight.

There is also the interesting question which I ask myself before I decide to work unpaid overtime, which is….Why am I subsidizing the stupidity of the company? If there are not enough people to do the job, then stretching myself over the gaps is merely a cosmetic effort. I will not get rewarded and the person whose shortsightedness put me here will be covered in glory, that we made it through another month with only three people in the department, when we need five.

(This deleted as I got rather detailed.)

The sooner the system experiences major problems, the sooner management will quote unquotes fix them, or process them out of existence. My confreres and I know that one of us will snap or forget something crucial, and we will either be disciplined, fired, or told to attend more meetings. Which prospect is more daunting?

After all, you do NOT get to be a certain age without having had to look for work. You get fired, reduced hours, laid off, demoted, transferred, you quit with pleasure, as I have three times in my life, you quit in despair or fear of something worse; the work that was fun becomes torture. The commute gets to you. The perks evaporate in another round of cost cutting. A whole department quits overnight and there is a job suddenly waiting for you someplace else. You get headhunted, your husband tells you to take a leave of absence or he will be committing you, and there is no job when you go back. These are familiar variants of an old theme.

I am not looking for work right now. I used to get angry, and now I am somewhat more relaxed about it. The work experience is mostly defined by coworkers, and my situation is good. Most of my coworkers are intelligent. Some of them are downright fun and wise and humane. Sometimes we kvetch, sometimes we nod and say how good it is, because we have ALL been someplace worse. That is scary.

My opinions about improvements are useless at work because I have no way to frame them in money terms. I can quote Harvard Business Review articles until I am blue in the face, but only examples I can pull from current reality mean anything to my managers, and even then my demeanour will kill my message. I am not the kind of person who gets taken seriously by employers. It is only people who have seen me at my best – away from work – who take me seriously. Managers consider people like me to be useless bellyachers. Ainsi soit-il. To share it with my friends is merely ventilating uselessly, but if I feel better afterwards… okay.

Looking for work does not scare me. There is a really easy algorithm for finding work, and I will use it only as necessary. I am utterly replaceable; so is everyone else. I used to think that all the knowledge we assembled in a company as employees was worth some money and some respect, but I know now that it is only worth some money, and if I want respect I will go to church, eat supper with my children, have a long talk with my husband, visit friends, phone my mother and pay my bills. Looking for respect at work, that is a mug’s game, and I won’t play no more.

(2019 SEZ CHRIST WHAT AN ASSHOLE)

http://www.grayace.com/dex/bunny.html

Cute, but not life enhancing.

Rob of Nine, may he find a level of hell to make hotter, has introduced my family to a ridiculous card game called Munchkin. The game attempts to provide the ‘Dungeon Experience’ (ie, Dungeons and Dragons, not the ‘nails and lashes’ type) in card game format. It includes such things as the Boots of Butt Kicking and the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment in the Armoury, and The Potted Plant as an enemy. I lost all my cards in the first hand and came in, as you might say, a distant fourth. Paul, despite being the most cursed individual in Munchkin history, still managed to win.

Katie at Dax’s – responded with horror when I told her I was coming to get her at noon. Dax not answering my email about spending the night over here for a change.

Paul and John, having finally obtained the Holy Grail of the right ****ing part for the Beemer, are about to strap the thing back together, not that the riding weather this day will be much good.

Read the airplane accident reports in COPA magazine this morning, and there is something so unintentionally amusing in there that I am going to copy it, and since it’s a government report, I will mention that the copyright does belong to Transport Canada, Transportation Safety Board. Data is preliminary and subject to change. I have made small edits for brevity.

An RAF 2000 amateur built gyroplane left Medicine Hat AB on a pleasure flight. Following a normal climb to approximately 250 feet above ground, the gyroplane began to lose altitude. The pilot confirmed that the airspeed, engine rpm and rotor rpm indications were normal for a climb configuration; however, the gyroplane continued to descend, and a forced landing was performed on 10th Avenue in the southwest corner of the city. (Editor’s note. Oops.)

There was no damage to the gyroplane and the pilot and passenger were uninjured. The winds were reported as north at 15 to 25 knots and the temperature was approximately 15 degrees Celsius. The take-off had been accomplished towards the South Saskatchewan River valley, located about one mile to the north, and the anticipated rate of climb was 200 to 250 feet per minute. The wind and terrain conditions were such that the gyroplane may have entered the downdraft side of a wave of air flowing over the south bank of the river valley, which exceeded the climb capability of the aircraft. (Editor’s note; Paul, an experienced glider pilot, made a face when he heard this. “May have?” But the best is yet to come….)

The pilot taxied the gyroplane back to the airport, with a police escort, following the incident.

And that’s when I cracked up. I woulda paid money to see that.

Paul has his game face on. Must go clean things.

The news….
2005-03-19— Posted by: allegra

The balloon has gone up.

http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/031805_world_stories.shtml#1

There has been a presentation on Peak Oil in Congress.

pomo moose
2005-03-17— Posted by: allegra

Man, it’s been ages since I posted a pic of a moose. This moose is from Sweden, and when he’s not suicidal, he’s self-referential.

I hear the Swedish parks people hate German tourists. Germans apparently can’t see that sign without feeling compelled to steal it… which means the mooses have nowhere to scratch themselves, and the government has to be replacing hundreds a year.

St. Patricks Day
2005-03-17— Posted by: allegra

I’m gonna paint myself green and go to work. Ackshully, it’s too chilly.

I light a candle for all the people who are getting jerked around by immigration right now. I light a candle for all the people who are being separated from their favourite activity due to illness.

I am making biscotti again, it seems to be a mental health issue. This time I added enough salt and the dough seems somehow better, and as I commented to Rob of Nine on the bus last night, “and I *did* toast the nuts.”

I am thinking this will be a superlative batch, rather than the last batch which was just very good. I know, I know, most people greet my biscotti with screeches of delight, no matter their condition, but after almost ten years I’m a bit of a weenie about these things.

I should take a pic of a biscotti and post it. Yeah like I don’t have enough things on my list of things to do.

Last night I dreamed I went purse shopping in a city that was entirely a mall, and the cheapest purse that I found, that I liked, which turned out to have a tesseract in it, was 90 bucks on sale from a thousand. I reached into the purse and it promptly got much bigger. Now I know, and the people who’ve seen it with me know, that that’s because I watched ‘delivery’ a couple of days ago. I have to tell you that is right up there along with Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli doing a 30’s style music video and a number of other things in the top ten of neat crud I’ve found on the internet for free. Anyway, the link to the 8 minute long “delivery” is on Screenhead.com. Try not to step in anything on the way by.

Anyway, I put the tesseract purse down, thinking “Ya know, in every story I’ve ever read this kinda thing NEVER turns out well, although I will be whining about how cheap it was for a year” and then all of a sudden I’m at the finish line of a snowmobile competition, standing next to a woman on a pay phone, who’s addressing an unknown person in chiding tones, “If you want more beer, you’re just going to have to put your skis on and come down here and get it.” I step away from the pay phone, thinking, “Well, that was weird” and then a bunch of park rangers haul a bunch of drunken teens and pre teens (all boys) out of the bush and start assigning them marks on how beautifully they puke. Then I woke up, may St Patrick and St Bridget ever protect me.

So there was a lot of drunkeness in my dreams last night…. I can only assume I was channeling the drinking going on in other time zones. Like England, where my server is….

I send you all a big hug and hope you have a lovely day. Must go cut biscotti now.

bahamastammy
2005-03-17— Posted by: allegra

I esPESHially like the dragon lady nails. From my buddy Tammy who recently returned from da Bahamas.

graupel
2005-03-17— Posted by: allegra

It graupelled at work today and I ran out in it. It’s my favourite kind of hail, and we usually get it at least once a year, in March, here in Vancouver. Google it if you want to learn more. I first ran into graupel in Montreal, on the day when everything fell out of the sky in a four hour period (rain, several kinds snow, sleet, freezing rain, graupel, hail – including thunder and lightning – and let’s just say it was the single most interesting day, meteorologically speaking, I’ve ever lived through.)

bill vaccaro took this picture
2005-03-16— Posted by: allegra

scanged from Gaper’s Block. I find this pic deeply disturbing.

it’s raining!
2005-03-16— Posted by: allegra

This means that all the tree pollen has been reduced to the point where most of us can breathe again. Yippee! Paul continuing to feel much better.

enough sleep
2005-03-16— Posted by: allegra

Katie blew off her goddamned art class, the little weinie.

The reason for this post is the pic, which shows a Sumatran tiger attempting to eat a camera … a remotely operated camera, she hastens to add…. Man I didn’t think I’d see a tiger’s uvula before I went to bed tonight, but there it is, big and pink and cartoon like.

too cheerful
2005-03-15— Posted by: allegra

Asian banks offload their greenbacks

By Josh Gordon, Economics correspondent (Canberra)

The Age (Melbourne, Australia)

http://www.theage.com.au/

March 12, 2005

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Business/Asian-banks-offload-their-greenbacks/2005/03/11/1110417685655.html?oneclick=true#

reprinted from copvcia.com

The US dollar's status as the world's main reserve currency is under threat as Asian banks back away from the superpower's ballooning twin deficits.

Over the past three years, central banks in the region have been scaling back their holdings of US dollars amid jitters about the United States' ever-expanding current account and budget deficits, which collectively soaked up at least $US1000 billion ($A1265 billion) of foreign currency last year.

A report by the Bank for International Settlements has estimated that the share of deposits held in US currency by Asian banks dropped to 67 per cent in the September quarter of 2004, from about 81 per cent of total deposits three years earlier.

The figures suggest that a dramatic but not widely publicised regional shift away from the US dollar is under way.

They follow a warning from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that the Japanese central bank should consider diversifying out of US dollars. Korea expressed similar sentiments last month.

The report said the shift had been most pronounced in India, where the ratio of reported US-dollar holdings has plummeted from around 68 per cent to 43 per cent over the three years to September 2004. China has also been scaling back its holdings, taking its share from 83 per cent to 68 per cent.

enough sleep
2005-03-15— Posted by: allegra

I didn’t actually get enough sleep, seeing as how consciousness smites Paul long about 4 am these days. Anyway, after snarling at him for a few minutes (he was gloating about how all this feeding people Sunday dinner is going to force me to clean our house, which isn’t actually that bad right now, although Paul was going on about it like we had two hundred cats and a beeg ball of aluminum foil that we hadn’t turned into capacitors yet…. oh yeah, I never told that story… anyway, stuff him) he ran away to run, which is good, because it would make us both feel better. Anybody who wants to buy me the t-shirt shown, which is at www.t-shirthumor.com, is certainly welcome to. I won’t stop you. Or you might consider some of the other fine products at that site. Mom, if you go there, there is a t that says “Acid Reflux Made Me Do It”. I know you will immediately want to buy this shirt, but before you do, you should probably know what the popcultref is. Ashley Simpson, a young woman whose talent may not be in proportion to the amount of money spent advertising her, was caught lip syncing on Saturday night live. (By the way… she got a rave review in Georgia Straight. The reviewer was not expecting to enjoy it, and did anyway.) That was her excuse for not singing live…. acid reflux. There, don’t you feel better informed? Keith is running a temperature and may stay home again from school today, and Katie is practically living at Daxus’ (she got in the car last night when we went to pick her up, and said in an extremely mocked out Hispanic accent, “I -Lovv- Heem!” and she keeps doing that and it’s really unutterably cute). All the biscotti are gone. But I have toasted some more almonds. I gave some biscotti to P.D…. did I mention I recorded on Sunday? It was good, definitely heading into Joe Raposo, Burt Bacharach territory…but it ain’t done, I figure another couple of sessions. Oh, and did I mention Sin City? It was fun. Two things stand out, apart from seeing Sabrina and Colin… I like Sabrina, she’s adorable. Anyway, there was a guy there who is A DEAD RINGER FOR OZZIE OSBOURNE. Like who cares, but when you turn around in a line up and there he is, it’s quite startling. And he had spare coupons, so he saved us nine dollars. The other visual I must share is five women all got up like Catholic school girls doing shots in unison. I dunno why, but it got me, right here… (vaguely thumps chest). Apparently my caps glow purple under black light. I’m gonna have to check that out sometime. Good thing they are on the same teeth so they match; would be a drag if they were uneven. In December there was lots of red. This time it was a sea of black. We simply MUST get Paul better pants. I was in a process meeting yesterday, all day, and I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE. I am deleting the next few sentences. But it’s true, damnit. I did enjoy it. I stayed til 6:30 to type the notes up, I was so happy. I know, I’m nuts. It was a grindingly hard days’ work, too, we didn’t dick around. I had fantastic roast lamb at the Main on Sunday evening. I am lighting a candle of healing and strength for Heather…. well, lets’ just say she’s glad she’s got a trip booked for Turkey in October… it’s always good to have something wonderful to look forward to, especially when the near term is gonna be so hard. I light one for her husband as well. Paul got up this morning actually sounding cheerful; now he’s back from running and I sumpose I should face the feces and get gone. Everybody have a great day.

enough sleep
2005-03-12— Posted by: allegra

It’s 6:37 in the morning and all the sane people (comparitively speaking) are still asleep. Paul actually slept last night, which is interesting considering that he went to a semi-wake last night for a fallen aviation comrade. Paul was of two minds to go but I convinced him that he should; the aviation community is an interesting bunch and he’s there just as much to support the guys who are unhappy that a long time member of the Boundary Bay community died while flying as to hoist a few in his memory. So he went, and he’s not sorry he did. He tried to convince me to go back to sleep but my head is buzzing like a recently whacked beehive, and there are other things militating against sleep.

John’s boss, may be he praised, grabbed the wheel from Shales for John and John is now going to be able to reassemble the Beemer and grab some of this weather from a two wheeled vantage point.

This week my boss and I stood and watched in awestruck horror as the deciduous tree across the driveway released onto the gentle breeze a cloud of pollen SO THICK that it looked like fog. As far as I can recollect that was the only time this week my boss paused to do something that wasn’t work related.

Pic is an artist’s conception of a black hole – or more properly, the accretion disk – from Astronomy Pic of the Day, of course. Paul just got up and somewhat grumpily requested my attendance for hugs. Since I can’t find a news item I want to comment on, and don’t feel that my laundry list of things to do, physical ailments and ranting about the things I’m exercised about right now would be entertaining, I should slurp back the last of that cold tea and oblige him.

enough sleep
2005-03-12— Posted by: allegra

I’m listening to a Leslie Alexander album. She has a great voice, and I’m regretfully skipping that next thought and going on to something more cheerful. Liked Waiting for the Sun and Bad Girl. Album is called Bird in the House and came out in 1995.

Next up, be still o be still my heart filled up with joy, I get to go see Jerome tomorrow (after the dreaded get groceries shop), who hasn’t appeared before me since the day Mike got the hot tub operational last fall.

Sigh. He’s such a nice young man. Haven’t met his new squeeze but I am waiting with bated breath to be impressed out my socks; he always picks such ugly, uncomely, stupid women …. joking okay~~!? The last one was a complete stunner on four different levels; so scary smart that I felt like a 3 toed moron in 2D in front of her. My lawyer screeched and gripped my chair as if having a seizure upon seeing the next sentence, so I took pity on the crazy old bat and hit the backspace key. Some of my best interests are prurient, I will say that.

Anyway, my interest in Jerome is that of the thoroughly bizarre but occasionally useful oldest sister. I stand in sibling relationship to Jerome, and actually dragged him in front of my mother, calling upon one of the gods for a witness, and told her that I had adopted him and that I was not placing her in that relationship, merely advising her. It was a very beautiful moment in my life, which I contemplate in remembrance with peace.

Anyway I get to see him, and if my luck is extra-crispy, I’ll see his roomie Cam as well. Oh, crunchy goodness of it all. Pretty soon there will be nan bread. Wonder if I can tease Keith into doing the work. Frankly, I think it’s about my turn. I’m the only person in the ****ing house who actually rolls the dough out thin enough. It’s not really food construction as much as an outpouring of bilious energy onto a non-sentient and almost inanimate object. You can beat the hell out of the stuff, and instead of complaining it magically turns into food, most wond(e)rous and strange.

Katie just finished flinging herself around the living room while doing an interpretive dance about young love. It involved touching her hair… a lot. Fun to watch if you like that kind of thing.

I can’t say I was much help. I told her, Give him a deadline in your own mind. Tell yourself he’s got six months, or some other arbitrary length of time, and if he hasn’t smartened up, tell him you’re dating other people.

The timer on the dough just went off as I finished that sentence, how apt, lor. If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with the most complaisant of my acquaintances.

Work today was amazing. On about four levels. Oh, shut up and make snackiepoos.

Comfy Cactus Cat
2005-03-11— Posted by: allegra

It’s Darla. Cute kitty day for Allegra.

damn, she’s cute
2005-03-11— Posted by: allegra

Winky, in a very typical pose. As Mike wryly remarked, who needs a pet carrier….

upgrade my baloney detector, puhlease.
2005-03-11— Posted by: allegra

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm

Thanks to thatcoloredfellasweblog for the link. I have the Baloney Detector on my desktops, but this is even bettah.

enough sleep
2005-03-11— Posted by: allegra

Good things are slowly taking shape in my life. Wish my ‘mono no aware’ wasn’t cranked up quite so high, though.

all the trees are having sex
2005-03-11— Posted by: allegra

I am considering my next move (although I’m not on my aunt Faye’s couch <—- warning warning PopCultRef.) Should I seek to obtain the imprimatur of Time Magazine as the World’s Most Disgusting Woman? Should I retire to a hut and catch up on my World of Chastity subscription? Perhaps I should go door to door trying to raise money for the Revoluccion? ‘Course, guns make it easier. Should I convert to the Cult of Cthulhu, just in time to collect some eyeballs for the Old Ones’ return? Perhaps I should find a nice hill and contemplate clouds for a while, by myself. Actually, that would almost be nice. Okay, put that one in the almost nice pile.

Sporadically spontaneous. Believe it or not, about 60 seconds ago that’s how Katie characterized herself (after using her brother as a walking dictionary). Very funny. It’s like that all the bloody time around here now. Like living in a sitcom except for watching the implied sex, well, you get the idea.

Hey MOM. If I say Telefunken H-bomb, does it make you inadvertently smile? Isn’t memory weird? For those on the other side of the reference, it’s from an LP we listened to as a young family.

Arden came into the office today, and he’s so cute and lively and cheerful… Can you believe I resisted grabbing him? I knew he’d get grabbed sixteen ways from Sunday that day (and one of the guys who wants pregnancy vibes OBVIOUSLY let him sit in his lap….extremely funny, all that body language.)

The new guy is a woodworker; it’s like there’s a quota or something. I told him the anecdote about the motorcycle engine and the kitchen table and your boss, Mom. He laughed.

Thanks to Grant for triggering the thought that I should do a standup routine about teaching Americans to do customer service for Canuckiphones. “Everybody! after me; calice! tabernac! Ah, good, good, they’ll think you’re natives in no time.” Enough about that. I’m off to Circle tonight…. but Paul isn’t home yet – he should cruise in within ten minutes.

It was good to see P.D. at the ‘Corn last night.

There’s a ‘shopped pic of an 11 engined aircraft on my desktop. I have no certainty who put it there, but I suspect Paul’s got something to do with it.

Katie has drifted ever closer to wanting a bass. A big red one. Wait till she finds out how heavy those sonsabitches are.

I hear a car door, gotta run. Ooops, front door open. Caught with my blog down, yet again……..

???
2005-03-11— Posted by: allegra

Louis Farrakhan is doing outreach to the Black Gay community? Inviting them to march on Washington? Saying they’ve been marginalized within a marginalized community???? I’m rubbing my eyes and wondering if I should file this under Apocalyptic Signs.

Pills
2005-03-10— Posted by: allegra

Here’s a gallery of advertising art for psychiatric medication. Japanese style.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/kazano/gallery/index_e.html

Link courtesy of screenhead.com, which I highly recommend.

enough sleep
2005-03-10— Posted by: allegra

I’ve been reading to Paul from Don Miguel Ruiz’ The Four Agreements. It’s great bedtime reading; he either falls asleep, which he needs desperately, or it gives him much needed food for thought.

I promised my coworkers faithfully that I wouldn’t talk about work, so I just went back and deleted the last two paragraphs. It was positive, upbeat and wouldn’t have adversely affected our share prices, but these are parlous times, so I won’t.say.a.word.

Went to the Abercorn “Children of the Corn” open mic in Richmond. It’s run by Lesley Alexander, who has a nice voice, a wonderful Gibson, and is a fabulous host. As I had suspected would happen I went first after the host, and debuted, in public, before an awestruck audience of perhaps twenty beer swilling souls – the TAPIOCA SONG. Folks were singing along before the end, but it is infectious, so there you go. Wash your hands before you rub your eyes! Between the pathogens, the grease and the jalapenos, it’s always a good idea. Also played Lifeline. Very happy to go up there and sing (worked VERY hard on standing, moving, singing and pattering properly, but Paul was running on 3 hours sleep so we baled at 10:16.

I’m in a great mood this morning. Wonder what earthly delights await at the office. Hey, I said I wouldn’t talk about work, but what if I like my job, like my company and think I’m doing something that makes money and the world a better place at the same time? (Okay, cue up JLo whispering “Is that a crime?” from that hit of hers “That Song” a couple years back. I can do dat popcultref wit’ da woist of dem.) Yesterday I told a coworker that he was a wretched and cynical burnt out hulk and he placidly agreed with me. I didn’t tell him what I really think, which is that he has the most amazing eyelashes (and voice) of anybody I work with… because it’s a respectful workplace. Much better to be verbally abusive than complimentary, it looks better in court. And besides, it’s like grade school….. If I am going to go to the trouble of verbally abusing you, it just means I (gasp!) like you, cooties and all.

Still looking for video of female triplets who sing and do acrobatics. I saw some when I was a kid, and I’m thinking that would really make me happy right about now. I’ve decided to be grossly self indulgent. I remember it was really really bad. They couldn’t sing, and their acrobatics were creepy.

In the process of looking for acrobatic singing vaudeville triplets, I tripletted across something else. Whatever you do, don’t visit limbermen.com. You may end up doing something undignified with your coffee.

I also found somebody who’s put together a list of all the movies that have contortionism in them. It is quite unintentionally funny, but I don’t have the link handy. My thumbs used to be double jointed, does that count? I go contort myself now. Thank you. I’ll be here ’til Tuesday.

Boring blog about racism
2005-03-09— Posted by: allegra

It’s bad enough that she spawned me, lo these many years ago (and don’t remind ‘er of how old her oldest kid is) but then I have to go and make fun of yodelling. She sends me an email, all confused-like and says, but I LIKE yodelling, and so I had to do the soothing/patting thing. Personally I like yodelling too; not so much that I’d pay to see somebody do it though. It kinda reminds me of my white heritage. Okay, cue up the worst segue in history…..Like this site here (WARNING – CONTAINS EXTREMELY DISTURBING IMAGES AND WORDS; RACISM, SEXISM, VIOLENCE and really bad cartooning)

http://www.resist.com/CARTOON%20GALLERY/CartoonIndex.htm

Now you can ask why I would post a link to a gallery of White Power cartoons, and the answer is simple. This is my blog, and if I want to, I can. (NOTE: I actually laughed at one of these cartoons, although probly not for the reason the artist intended.) I was actually thinking of reposting one of the cartoons, but the link will have to do.

I have tried very hard to understand the mentality of people who are racists, as well as to come to terms with my own racism. Unlike a lot of pink people, I don’t pretend I’m not a racist. I just try to keep what I think and what I do separate, and I try to remember that being white in Canada is like winning a lottery because somebody tucked the right ticket in your diaper at birth. So I’d like to thank my mother for making me so very pink. I know it was unintentional, but really, it’s been great so far. I understand my colour will change as I get older; c’est la guerre. Anyway, the real reason I posted it is because I’ve been popping off about my life instead of talking about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Canada Erwach! And one of the cartoons in the pile is specifically directed at people like me, so I realized that as far as the white power people are concerned, I’m dead, come the “day of reckoning”; it’s nice to know that on that day, I’ll be counted with all the other ‘racist slurs’.

Believe it or not, the dog in the picture is having a good time.

dibs on the drumstick
2005-03-09— Posted by: allegra

This is supposedly an album cover.

greetings from Bonaire
2005-03-09— Posted by: allegra

My dear friend Tammy took this underwater pic in Bonaire. A while back, not recently. I’m gonna eat you little fishies……

pandas in the snow
2005-03-08— Posted by: allegra

from lycaeum.org
2005-03-08— Posted by: allegra

Contact info
2005-03-08— Posted by: allegra

wohl of sound

production, recording, mixing

p.d wohl (AKA Paul D.Wohlstetter)

pdwohl@shaw.ca

604-684-6075

Can’t recommend him highly enough, I’m going back to record soon soon soon. Also there’s an open mic p.d. mentioned in Richmond which I am going to investigate this week if the winds are kind and the fates propitious.

I’m waiting for hubby to show up so I can get the car. I scarcely slept last night, I was so excited. Woo hoo! Maybe I’m going manic again! That would explain the dancing, I s’pose.

Nice long talk with Toribird (Tori actually means bird in Japanese, so I could also call her Toritori) last night about art and other stuff. I keep shaking my head at the upbringing other people get and being very humble and thankful about the upbringing I got, and I light a candle in my heart for her, she’s very wonderful. I love your voice, you know that!? I wish you weren’t so busy at Emily Carr, I’d be dragging you into the studio with me. But other people have their lives…..

Hm, if I am doing my spring insanity thing I should probly take my credit card outta my bag. Nah. I won’t do anything stupid, all I have to to is thingk about Paul glowering at me. Glower, glower. Why do I have this sudden urge to giggle? It’s all the bloody sunshine in February. I haven’t felt like this since I lived in Montreal, that memorable spring where I went completely ape and this part deleted. Ah, Montreal in the spring. It’s like sex with your clothes on. It’s like Saint Saens organ music rushing through your spine and leaving you hollowed out and marvelling. And the maple trees give me two weeks of laryngitis and post nasal drip.

Worked on the mando part for that sappy love song last night, after listening to Lifeline about 5 times. I still can’t believe p.d. and I did that, it’s like waking up from a coma and finding out you had a baby in the interim. Keith is making nan bread right now, having made the dough yesterday. There’s nothing like fresh nan, it’s like the happiest thing. I’m just happy all over and a few places undescribed.

Katie is still in the blissful stage of young love, and wanting to know how you transition to the solid, we’re together and bad things and bad communication and bad moods can’t wreck it phase. Wish the hell I knew, I could make a lot of money, she opined gloomily. But I can’t stay gloomy. I may have made another convert to Lymond !!!! I am the happiest woman in Canada. My description of Lymond so intrigued Brooke that she is now borrowing “The Game of Kings” and she will soon find out some interesting facts.

The crossover between Buffy fans and Lymond fans is very very close. I remember when I first started going to Spits (Dunnett fan club meetings are called Spits for reasons I won’t get into here) that everybody was raving about Buffy and OF COURSE since I don’t have cable and I don’t watch network television anyway because it activates the consumptive parasite in my amygdala I didn’t know wtf they were talking about. Not all Buffy fans are Dunnett fans, but a LOT of Dunnett fans are Buffy fans, mostly because Dunnett is A LOT about Moral Ambiguity. And Buffy is chock full of it. So if Brooke falls into the evil clutches of the ladies (and guy, we have one wonderful AND TALENTED O MY GOD gent) who spit, then she will be assimilated with nary a belch nor backward glance. And Lymond. The best hero ever. Nuff babbling, my chariot has arrived.