Category: Writing

Got up the highway okay; am now in Courtenay. My daysign, which I hope to post at some time soon, is a hyla, which we found in Jim and Jan’s yard. Talk to yall later.

Posting from my folks’ place; daysign three Stellar Jays, who are not designed to hang upside down, trying to get suet from the hanging suet cage. Hang, flap madly, right themselves, hang, flap madly, right themselves. Paul off to his class at Camosun College; he said he was a little anxious about it but I’m sure he’ll do fine. Off later to Comox to visit a small horde of relatives. Hoping to see Pagan and Eric – baby should have arrived or is about to – and will definitely see Jackie and Barry, Garry and Diane, Granny, Mary, and I guess I if I was sane I’d be phoning Jim and Jan and making sure they’re still expecting me, ha ha, otherwise I have to figure out where the hell I’ll be sleeping tonight. I will be delivering the sermon The Seven Deadly Sins Unitarian Style tomorrow at 4 pm at the Comox Valley Unitarian Fellowship, which meets in the United Church in Comox. I will, unfortunately, have to bail on the potluck supper and head straight down island for the ferry. Picture is of my mom, Mary and Barry when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Ashley and Matt slept over. Picture of Matt shown doesn’t quite correspond to his charm, wit and intelligence (and for once I’m NOT being sarcastic). There was another picture with him playing with an orange section which definitely reduced his IQ by about 300 points, but I’ll be nice and post the ‘good’ one. Off to Victoria tonight and Courtenay tomorrow. Daysign yesterday on the Skytrain between Lougheed and Lake City was a great blue heron, heading off to Burnaby Lake. Lots of mist, looked very European art film.

Today at work I say goodbye to Jim A, who in the brief span of his employment became one of my all time favourite coworkers, and Tony Z. who has left the company after fifteen years. They will be missed, although likely for different reasons.

Jim gets a bunch of time off and will now blitz the VIFF and sit in a dark room absorbing angst as fast as those little filmmakers can shoot it.

Tony’s gone off to work with a bunch of ex employees of my current locale; I really wish him all the best and hope his skills get put to better use.

Work just got fun and interesting again. But lonelier… my grandboss is moving downstairs. There’s nobody but me and Linds there now. If I’m lucky, or feel like hopping up and down in my seat, I can just barely see the top of Kevin’s head; although in the normal course of events I can hear Arzina and Harry squabbling like an old married couple. Really, it would be very hard to tell, from the outside, that they are in a reporting relationship; usually you don’t hear employees yelling What the Hell are You Doing? to their bosses. I remember Harry telling me one time how happy he was not to have anybody reporting to him, but that didn’t last.

Yes, employee relations can get lively. I remember the time I left my underwear at Mike’s place – he was then my boss – because I had neglected to entirely attire after having soaked in the hot tub (and yes, my husband and kids were present so it’s either much worse than you thought or much less interesting) – and he brought them in the next morning and put in on my desk with a flourish. The good old days. There used to be beer on Fridays at work, too, but that was before my time. And I remember when Gary signed off, his last email was a forward of the very first email he ever got, which was Jim E.’s deathless line, “Tony Z farts too much”.

Arden is sleeping a little better, but not much (see earlier picture). Rob looks a little redeyed, but he was certainly returning fire with a will at the product meeting yesterday. His son would have been proud.

Tried really hard to go to bed early and get enough sleep last night but it just didn’t happen. Tammy and Phil split up this past week and Tammy called me last night. Paul pulled an all nighter – basically he worked 24 hours trying to get this stupid aircraft entertainment system sorted out and everytime I woke up and he wasn’t there I had a hell of a time going back to sleep. I am a wuss, I cheerfully admit it.

Kids have a PRO-D day today, no school for 4 days. Ashley over for a sleepover tonight. Matt is supposed to come for a visit as well.

Keith didn’t set the bread early enough for me to get any, grr.

Not feeling quite so icky today. The closer the Good Soldier Svejk gets to the front, the nastier the book gets, and the more brazenly communist in tone. I thought yesterday that the translation bit mops, so I went on line and found out that it DOES bite mops, so I should have been warned when Parrott (the translator) whined about how it was ‘impossible’ to translate the colloquial Czech.

Somebody else has done a more recent translation and it’s only available on line. I’m very tempted to get it, but only the first book is available, and it’s ten bucks US. I’ll have to think about it.

Paul did NOT have to go to Calgary, and Katie’s friend Ashley had dinner with us last night. Katie didn’t – she was working out with Lexi. My life is too freaking complicated.

Ashley asked Paul how much John was paying for rent (this was while we were driving her home) and Paul said, in a tone of voice I wish I could reproduce, but let’s just say bemused and frustrated, “None of your f*cking business!” and I laughed so hard I hurt myself. Sometimes you just have to tell it like it is. I assured Ashley, through my gales of laughter, that we still liked her, but there are some questions you’re just not supposed to ask. Ashley has very severe ADHD, and although she is a sunny natured creature, she has the impulse control of a housefly.

It’s okay, I’d say it to her face, too.

Had the pleasure of meeting Katie’s new boyfriend Matt yesterday. If he can be civil to both of my children, he will always be welcome in my house.

MOTHER OF GOD! You should see what Katie’s wearing for picture day at school. Maybe you shouldn’t. It’s pretty, um, well, uh. Okay, let’s just say that most of the boys at the school will greet her appearance with attention and enthusiasm. There, how’s that for a nice way of putting it?

Last night I dreamed a Russian couple tried to kidnap me to be their sex slave. We had been sitting in a restaurant, out on the patio, eating dinner, and all of a sudden they do this stick their hands in their pockets and pretend they have guns thing. I started laughing and said, “Oh, right, you’re going to shoot me in public. Get lost, I’m not going anywhere.” As I was waking up I realized they had stuck me with the cheque. Damn! So the gypsy put a curse on me, but only half of it stuck. I am now remembering dreams at about ten times the frequency of six months ago, but interpretation of the damned things is completely beyond me. The curse was, you will remember your dreams and you will be able to interpret them, but like I said, only half of it took. If somebody can help me with the second half of the curse, I’d be obliged. On the other hand, do I really WANT to be able to interpret dreams like that? Who are you, and what have you done with my brain????

I am feeling entirely blah, joints achy, fighting off some form of ick. Katie is still headachy but not light sensitive so I am hoping it isn’t a migraine. All I want to do is curl up and drowse, maybe with Svejk to hand, and I have to go to work today.

Paul off to Calgary to fix a recalcitrant airplane. Not an airworthiness item – more light pipe problems. The thing about fibreoptic stuff is that it has many more ways to go weird than plain electrics. And a single box has 18 connectors and if you get one wrong the whole thing is squirrelly. And instead of troubleshooting the techs who aren’t really familiar with the system replace boxes, which frequently doesn’t fix the problem and adds a whole new level of complexity to it. And also people don’t report error messages, on the time honoured military principle that if you don’t report it you don’t have to do anything about it. So wish him luck, the airplane is only going to be on the ground for four hours. We all know Paul is a genius, but four hours to get a fix in for an ongoing glitch in an entertainment system with four separate operating systems all interfacing madly, AND it could be a power issue, AND it could be just cabling, is a bit much. Just a wee tad. Mind you if he pulls it off he’ll be very pleased.

Keith was sparring last night, and he nearly got off unscathed but he fell down when somebody trapped his foot.

Katie and I and Paul and Ashley went to the Canada Games Pool last night and all I did was soak, I was so freaking exhausted. Ashley kept exploding out of her bikini top in the most entertaining way. I’m so tired I can barely lift my arms to type. SIgh.

I didn’t REALLY get enough sleep.

Great time singing and playing at Tom and Peggy’s last night. Mike J, Nicki and Denise in attendance, as well as the usual gang of idiots (myself, Paul and John). They fed us exquisite cherry broiled salmon. And then bickered about how it was overcooked. Some people!!! Paul and I thought it was perfect… maybe they got the wrong end or sumthin.

Picked Katie up at Jessica D’s afterwards and she was complaining of a headache so I fluttered around her and fed her various nostrums until she went to bed. Then I forced Paul out of bed to ask her if she was feeling well enough to sleep now. Paul is really hesitant to talk to Katie because she can be pretty crabby towards him, but I said that if he doesn’t occasionally act like a caregiver rather than an authority figure he’s missing some points when he’s counting his crib.

The sunshine yesterday was glorious and I’m so happy I was out in it. Homemade chicken soup for lunch today, and it’s yummy. Put some dirt in the hole in the front yard and planted some digitalis and camas and dill and something else, I can’t remember. Very random, just like me.

I light a candle for Darfur.

I light a candle for all victims of cross border kidnap for the purposes of prostitution, and all the child victims of prostitution.

I light a candle for my sermon next weekend in Courtenay….hope it goes well. But my MOM and my GRANNY and my AUNTIE will be there, so it will be swell. And I get to drive up the island highway…. road trip road trip road trip!!! My mother is ECSTATIC that I’m driving. Frankly so am I, I love that stretch of road.

 

(note from the perspective of 2019 – I did not mention that I had an IBS attack and everybody else had to wait in the car while I had an attack of brown sad just off the Island Highway)

Watched Heroes of the East last night with Mike. Very funny movie, just begs to be remade with a post millennial sensibility. Chinese Kung Fu expert is tied in an arranged marriage to a Japanese martial arts expert (female, of course) and they get into a cross cultural argument about which form of martial arts is best. Well, one thing leads to another and she goes crying back to Japan after hubby whips her butt in a couple of fights using different techniques. He kind of remonstrates with her about ninja techniques and that’s when she blows town. (Subtext: Why are you trying to f*cking sneak up on me and kill me? Wa, you don’t love me any more!)

Hubby writes her a letter saying, c’mon home, I’ll whip your butt again, and it falls into the hands of her sensei’s best pupil (who thinks she’s kinda cute), who takes it as a challenge to the honour of Japanese martial arts. Many many many many many fight scenes ensue.

The dubbing and the sound effects are so bad that words cannot begin to describe the watery monstrous depths of their incompetence, but as is the case with so many badly dubbed Chinese chop socky films, the bad dubbing ends up being part of the fun. There’s even a crypto homo thing in it which just had me rubbing my eyes. The guy with the sai (now there’s a nice phrase) is represented as being a flamer. Watch the movie and tell me I’m wrong.

Anyway, it’s kind of a seven samurai thing. Given that the Nipponese f*cking hurt China really badly, I think there’s much less racism in it than one would expect given the date (1972) and the Chinese are represented as gracious victors (of course the Kung Fu types win, which is not really what happens in real life when you do freestyle stuff these days because it’s the kickboxers who are cleaning up).

This movie could really stand to be remade and if I warnt so busy I’d be sitting down with Mike and hammering out a script; talk about a piece of cake. I would DEFINITELY leave in the part where she destroys the garden during a practice. “Master Master! She’s kicking down the walls!” “What the ffff? You stop that rightnow, or we’ll have no house!” “But you didn’t give me a place to practice!” “Practice in the gym, you crazy woman! And wear something less cheesy than that stupid gi, your bazooms are hanging out.” “Hmph! Okay, but only if I get to throw out all your Chinese junk martial arts weapons.” “Over my dead body, you maniac!” “Hya! I kick your worthless ass!” FIGHT SCENE.

And I’d leave in the scene with the food fight. With CGI you could have a real picnic, all those little grains of rice falling to say “Kung Fu is better!” and “Karate rules”.

And I’d leave in the scene where they slap all the hand weapons they are concealing in their robs on the table between them. That was really weird and funny. The way things are between men and women in this culture right now, that could be made very political and quite cutting. The drunken Buddha fight scene is a classic. So all I’d be doing is writing about 30 lines of script and putting “Insert really nicely choreographed fight scene here” and then I could go back to sleep. Life is grand.

The best thing about a remake, of course, would be the ability to actually give people hairstyles that suit them. Big hair for men? Holy crap! Big hair that never moves during a fight scene? Bleechhh!

Coat and bustier received with thanks from Sally. When I have the complete ensemble (2 weeks hence) I will have a photo taken. The coat makes me look nine feet tall, and people get the hell out of my way when I’m wearing it. (Tried it out at Superstore, just for giggles). The bustier is just plain rude, there’s no way around it. (Paul and Mike approved, though! Mike referred to the material as Nauga-conda.) I think I will substitute a black turtleneck when I’m wearing the outfit to church. I’m keeping an open mind about wearing the bustier to work though. I think about the time I shaved my head (okay, buzzed my head) and how Ina screamed and threw all the mail into the air when she saw me for the first time after I did it. I suspect this will have a similar effect…. Who could pass up on such malicious joy?

Many pardons for the typo in the previous post, should read ROBES, not robs.

Great youth session today, although the adults outnumbered the youth…. hm, there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Off to get some calories, much love to all.

(2019 I gave the coat away but the bustier’s sitting around somewhere. Sally died two years back – she’d complained to her doc for months and by the time they found it was cancer she had about a month left. FUCK DOCTORS, FUCK EM HARD)

I am in the process of assembling a list of music to be played at my funeral/wake. I remember reading about Anselm Adorne’s funeral arrangements… how many ells of cloth for him to be wrapped in, later to be donated to the poor (note to self, blecch)… how many prayers to be said by how many holy people, which pieces of property went off the the church to grease his putative entrance into the life of the redeemed, etc etc.

You start off, when you make funeral arrangements, with a very comfortable and in some ways ludicrous assumption, which is that there is going to be a civil society to look after all that, and relatives who won’t just be rolling you into the nearest convenient hole.

Having acknowledged that it is at best morbid and at worst a wretched waste of time to think about it, here is a brief selection of the music I want played at my funeral (not in order):

John Hiatt’s The River. Very elegiac and appropriate.

Bill Nelson’s Flaming Desire. Guess that’s more for the wake, being a quite secular song. Bill’s got a nice blog, or did the last time I checked.

Enya’s Crazy Day (also for the wake).

Meshell Ndegeocello’s God Shiva.

Dead Can Dance Saltarello (of course) and Song of Sophia.

Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

Sheryl Crow’s Every Day is a Winding Road.

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp God’s Monkey.

Radiohead’s I Might be Wrong.

Oysterhead’s Oz is ever Floating.

The Cult’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

Just Blue – Can’t remember the artists, it’s a cylinder record at my parent’s place, but it has quite the most remarkable clarinet solo on it I have ever heard.

Anyway, that’s enough to go on with. I guess most of that is stuff for the wake… I should sort through the list at some point.

In family news, those anxious to hear about Zeek! should be at ease. He in fact had no rotten teeth, and merely needed a good cleaning. Zeek’s attitude towards awakening from having his teeth cleaned and sitz platz glands cleaned out was to unlimber his appetite (I didn’t get breakfast, you know) and eat everything he could con us into putting in his bowl.

Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Vet, I’m going to eat like a front end loader, CAUSE I CAN.

Kira’s vanished. There was lightning this morning, so she will probably not be in a hurry to come home, she’s terrified of lightning and probably cowering somewhere.

Mike’s bringing Heroes of the East over. If he says it’s his favourite Kung Fu movie of all time it should be pretty spectacular. We will probably be turning his laptop into a viewer again. Must remind Keith to prep the speakers.

Off to Sally’s in Maple Ridge to get the bustier and the pants fitted at 10 this am, then back into town to do a food shop (Paul says he’s coming with), and then if it quits raining some yard work and if it doesn’t some long overdue dejunking. Paul has made it quite clear that something, hopefully a long list of something, has gotta go; the clutter is increasingly a mental health issue for him and I can’t really argue the point.

I am seriously considering posting an open letter to the VP HR at my work to this blog, but I imagine the sane coworkers who read this will hold my hand, look deeply into my eyes over the lunch table and say, “You rahhhhlly don’t want to do that, do you?” and I’ll probably sigh and agree. It’s going to be great though, I was taking as my text the Clue Train manifesto and the definition of a court jester I found in a scholarly book from the University of Chicago. It was going to be a masterpiece, honest.

Well, I’m burning daylight. I have food to prep, dishes to do, and a very grumpy husband to placate. He’s spent the last two days of his days off busting ass on fixing yet another rotten spot in the basement (I guess I didn’t mention the flood in my blog), and what with that and teens at home (Katie busted ass too I might add, she washed the kitchen floor yesterday among other cleaning activities may the saints be praised) and hauling Zeek to the vet, why, he hardly had any time to go flying with Dan P. Funny that. The kids and I went downstairs to watch Star Wars – Episode IV, thank you very much – and about 1/3 of the way through the movie the sound track mostly deregistered from the video with F_CKING HILARIOUS results. Imagine, HOWL HOWL WHURF SNORG GARGLE ‘rescue!’ HOWL WOWWOW BRRRRRUMMMM, while they’re about to shoot their way into the trash pile. I laughed so hard I nearly hurt myself. Keith and Katie were laughing too. Then Keith said he could fix it and I disbelieved him and he did so fix it. So there. But I think the tape is pooched now. Then I came upstairs and Tom L. was sitting at my dining room table, along with Dan P and Paul, who had called Tom L. to come collect his trailer as we had filled it with junk. Next time we’ll MAKE him put the tarp on the damned thing. Long about 4 I heard the rain and groaned. With all that Drywall in there the rain will go SPONGE and the tipping fee will be much higher. Note to self, Tom L. needs a trailer tarp. I have a bunch of phone calls to make today and I’m feeling roughly as sociable as a Trappist monk, to quote Dunnett. Oh well.

Circle at Carol’s last night, very pleasant. Paul and Dan busy ripping up the basement floor (again) and Dan reputed to have said, How attached are you to this house? Brr.

I see Christy Clark is off to look after her 3 year old son Hamish. I think she’s off to look after Christy Clark, personally. Christy Clark, for those of you who don’t follow BC politics, is the deputy premier and generally considered one of the sharpest (in a political sense) of Gordo’s Merry Band of Troughlickers. She’s been stuck in the McFamilies portfolio with no hope of parole and has said so in public, so you know she’s choked.

So supposing you’re young, and well-connected, and energetic, and you’re hanging around with a bunch of guys who hate women and are too smart to say so in public? And your connections tell you something entertaining – get the f*ck out of cabinet beFORE scandals that will permanently taint you come rolling out of the Basi investigations? She hit a convergence – all the motivation in the world and a keen understanding of her life span as a politician – and she’ll be back in politics in a few years as the familiar-but-fresh-faced, has her priorities straight, untainted by scandal small-l liberal to prop the party up after Gordo’s gotten too smelly to approach. Mark my words, Christy Clark will be Premier during the 2010 Olympics. If that isn’t what she’s planning, I’ll eat something leathery; and I was going to put something rude in here, but my lawyer said it was a bad idea, although within the bounds of satire. Had something to do with Dick Clark.

Zeek! is off to the vet to have dentition rearranged. Wailed like a baby the entire ride; he didn’t get breakfast and that’s a hanging offense as far as he’s concerned. Kira still coughing every morning and every night.

I light a candle for those dead as a consequence of Ivan. There is a much higher fatality toll in the Caribbean than was reported as the truth is bad for tourism, don’t you know. And when there’s no oil to bring the tourists, falsehoods will not avail you.

And Jeanne is coming. I suspect the current track is wrong and she’ll make landfall at the top of Florida. Time to buy orange juice again.

Katie dragged Keith and me down to the puddle (Canada Games Pool) last night to work out, and I couldn’t stand the idea of being alone in my pain so I called Tom and Peggy. I’m already down two pounds from Monday so I can’t say I’m unhappy, and I’m sleeping lots better.

Couple hundred thousand people without power now in the South, but I guess people actually took the warnings seriously and not many fatalities. Katie’s bitching about her math and socials and how hard it is to do this year. She only does two courses at a time and it’s compressed and you can’t possibly miss a day, and there’s some inducement because you get a free lunch every week if you have perfect attendance. Keith is not talking about school much, but he did get a cinnamon bun off Natasha 2 yesterday, so that was the high point of his day. Must fly, have to herd kids into car and get to work.