listography

First, some housekeeping for the site:

On Wednesday, August 2nd, our server admins will begin restarting some VPS servers as part of a maintenance to improve stability of your VPS service. This will cause minor disruptions to your site, which is expected to last for about 10-15 minutes on average.

The maintenance process is scheduled to begin at 7:30AM PST and is expected to last for approximately 8 hours.

Weather continues fine and not too hot. Osoyoos is under less pressure.

Feasted brO with chicken and ribs from Earls, got him croissants from Cobs, and encouraged Suzanne to bring him an Aero bar (she brought him a pack, reserving one for herself!) and then Suzanne came over to collect a garment and a ring she’d forgotten, and we had iced tea on the deck and a good old chinwag for her to decompress after caring for Ryker all day (he was an ambulatory demon who fights diaper changes with all of his considerable strength.)

Spare a thought for baby Ryker who has: lost a two day a week caregiver, has to move to four new locations because his dad’s moved out from his caregiver – his mom, with whom he is now apparently at daggers drawn. Suzanne will still be looking after him but she’s got scant days to get her apartment fit for a toddler and he’ll be moving into a one bedroom apartment after having a four bedroom to literally run around in.

Walked with Paul in Foreshore Park. His Parkinson’s symptoms are bad; one of the possible triggers is TCE (trichloroethylene) and of course over the course of his career fixing things he’s been exposed to enough of that stuff to hurt him especially as TCE is often stabilized with MEK, methyl ethyl ketone, both together being used as degreasers and both being godawful toxic substances.

He’s started the Aricept, and good God, is my heart torn. He’s not feeling a diminution of his dementia symptoms, but he is feeling insight, for the first time in months, into his disease, and it was all I could to stay present with him, and not feed my grief into the conversation, because he’s got enough of his own. I loved him so much – no one can ever know how I felt about him, especially after the kids arrived – and now I have to choke it down to be his friend. He is feeling disoriented and (after I gave him plenty of silence to compose his thoughts) he said he’s finding it harder and harder to follow conversations. His ready smile is gone. He’s still got a sense of humour and deploys it, 95% of the time with kind accuracy, but you really have to listen because his voice is starting to whisper and the Parkinsons makes his face a mask.

He walks around the seniors residence twice a day. He wishes he had a microwave so he could make himself breakfast, oatmeal is what he wants, but he faithfully turns up for their excellent meals. We’ll try to deal with it this week.

He ran a couple of errands by himself yesterday – I could have gone with him but I stayed in the car or ran other errands – successfully, and walked as much he could in the park. I was having a hard time because I can’t dawdle, I have to walk with purpose or everything hurts. And he’s slower than he’s ever been so I am less inclined to walk with him because I’m practically keeling over if I have to move that slow.

We saw a yard long valley garter snake, just shed its skin from the incredible glossy scales, sunning next to the bridge, paces from where I saw the vole. I also got to watch a heron scratching itself on the neck for TWENTY SECONDS. Much relaxation and feather shuffling afterwards  – that was viewed from the observation deck on the river. Paul got to see it too.

And he got lost and turned around on the way back. And he didn’t recognize me until I got within about five metres. It’s not a cruel disease process because diseases just are, in our DNA or in our response to our environment, but it impacts like torture for the sufferers. Fifteen minutes later he managed a bathroom visit and two errands by himself. I want him to be as independent as possible but Christ I worry.

This is a hundred million yo crab in amber.

100 million year old crab in amber, four different views

weird you want weird you get

So… apparently, there’s a company called Prestige Biotech, and it, apparently, is owned by Xiuquin Yao, and sometime in March of this year it was discovered that this company is renting a ‘storage facility’ in Reedley, a town SE of Fresno CA, which was jam-packed with infectious agents, moribund mice (almost a thousand were euthanized).

From Beth Mole’s Arstechnica article from three days ago:

Local and federal authorities have shut down what seems to be an illegal medical lab hidden in a California warehouse that contained nearly 1,000 laboratory mice, hundreds of unknown chemicals, refrigerators and freezers, vials of biohazardous materials, including blood, incubators, and at least 20 infectious agents, including SARS-CoV-2, HIV, and a herpes virus.

A criminal investigation is ongoing. The tenant of the warehouse is listed as Prestige Biotech. Prado told KSEE that the company’s president, Xiuquin Yao, was not forthcoming with information. According to the court documents, Yao told officials that his company had moved assets belonging to a defunct company called Universal Meditech Inc. (UMI), to the Reedley warehouse from another Fresno location where UMI had operated before it was evicted. Prestige was identified as a creditor to UMI. But, Prestige allegedly failed to provide any licensing or permit that would explain the laboratory activity at the warehouse.

All biological materials were secured by July 7.

list

spoke to Dave, he seems in good spirits

helped with the 3 weekends running yard sale again yesterday, where I was told what I was expected (!?) to haul away from Paul’s old room, and where I found Paul’s soaring logbook since he was almost in tears at the idea of losing it (found it in seconds…Paul could describe but not *see* it) then went to Peggy’s, where in addition to being served my healthy whole wheat pasta and green salad lunch by Peggy’s preternaturally solemn granddaughter I heard (after she left) a piece of gossip so extremely

Comic book effect applied to a photo of allegra sloman, a middle aged white woman, showing extreme levels of astonishment and virtually all of her teeth

that I only wish I could share it with anyone who cared. We three sang bluegrass standards and filk of various denominations.

I am going to Orycon; we’ll drive; Cindy will be (inshallah) healing from her first carpal tunnel surgery so I may get to spell her more often than not which is fine because I fucking love that stretch of road as much as I love the stretch of the 401 between Cornwall and London…. There is a LOT of pentup demand for a con after a two year absence so I’m sure it will be a banger for all involved.

The con will be masked. Here are the deets.

a couple hundred words on TB

Osoyoos is about to burn down. In light of that how unfortunate is this?

 

Looting Corpses with You rev 2.

The moon is high and bright
It bathes a ghastly blight
Upon a battlefield
With flinty stabs of light
The little things we like to do
Will keep us ever close and true
Oh how I bless the moon
For I will soon
go looting corpses with you.

Their boys put up a fight
You know it don’t seem right
But we survived the fray
And now sneak out at night
The CO will find fools to scold
until he sees that shiny gold
Oh how I bless the moon
For I will soon
go looting corpses with you.

He used to mock my clothes
Swear he’d bite off my nose
And now he’s lying here
He don’t smell liiiiike no rose
And how I bless each little turn of fate
Their horsemen arrived two hours too late
It is now past noon
And pretty soon
I’ll be counting silver with you
Another happy memory
of looting corpses with you.

orycon mebbe

Got an invite to ridealong with Cindy for Orycon. I am so goddamned tempted words don’t cover it. I’ll decide by the end of this month, when the rates go up again. It’s in Portland OR in November, so it would sort of be a 65th bday celebration. We’d be driving, I believe. It’s only five and half hours plus rest stops and the border.

I am very much thrilled to report that Keith has found a place to live that he can afford. It’s in Richmond, but I believe it’s above the flood line; at least it’s in a locale two metres higher than the Richmond average (1 m above sea level). I know bunches of stuff about the landlord/roommate but while I have mentioned him in past posts I will maintain a discreet-ish silence going forward.

Praying with all my atheistic inclusivity that Katie and her kids also find a good space.

I’ve only written 100 words in the last three days, but I’m still feeling forward motion so I’m not worried.

I’ve had breakfast and coffee.

Suzanne was here yesterday, the enshinening happened.

Very low energy day yesterday, but I managed to make myself a decent salad and fried myself up some steak strips.

Fire risk in parts of Metro K’emk’emelay are now ‘extreme’.

there are MANY versions of this joke

A housewife takes a lover during the day, while her husband is at work. Not aware that 9 year old son was hiding in the closet. Her husband came home unexpectedly, so she hid her lover in the closet. The boy now has company.

Boy: “Dark in here.”
Man: “Yes it is.”
Boy: “I have a baseball.”
Man: “That’s nice.”
Boy: “Want to buy it?”
Man: “No, thanks.”
Boy: “That’s my dad outside.”
Man: “How much did you say the baseball was again?”
Boy: “$250.”

In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the mom’s lover are in the closet together.

Boy: “Dark in here.”
Man: “Yes, it is..”
Boy: “I have a baseball glove.”
Man: “That’s nice.”
Boy: “Want to buy it?”
Man: “No, thanks.”
Boy: “I think I just remembered something I needed to tell my dad.”
Man: “How much did you say the glove was again?”
Boy: “$750.”
Man: “Fine.”

A few days later, the father says to the boy, “Grab your glove. Let’s go outside and toss the baseball!”
The boy says, “I can’t. I sold them.”
The father asks, “How much did you sell them for?”
The son says, “$1,000.”
The father says, “It’s terrible to over-charge your friends like that. That is way more than those two things cost. I’m going to take you to church and make you confess.”

They go to church and the father alerts the priest and makes the little boy sit in the confession booth and closes the door.

The boy says, “Dark in here.”
The priest says, “Do not start that shit again.”

CONFIDENTIAL TO MOM I THINK THIS KID IS RICHIE

I’m begging you

Mother Dear Mother

I cannot find the slender black binder which contains the ‘Tales of Grampa”. Please either send it to me in printed or electronic form, or acknowledge that everyone else involved but Grampa is dead now and publish it for the world to see, because Tales of Grampa is one of the best things our family ever wrote.

Alex is the right age now, I NEED THAT BOOK.

Okay technically it’s not required for my physical survival but gloryoski I shore would plumb like that.

Spent a LONG time at Lougheed Mall yesterday with Keith as he acquired a new phone. If -and this is a big if – I need a cell phone I’ll go to Walmart for the flip phone and go to the Bell kiosk for the sim card and activation. Keith also acquired a shower curtain and some other items for his dad and I fed him at Cazba. Lovely food but takes forever. I spent so much time waiting for him that I put together a 125 item generalized list. I also picked up a beautiful new pen – Oomomo has wonderful Japanese pens – and some mini whiteboards with markers – and a pack of Pocky. Managed to stay away from Cobs Bread and the Purdy’s Chocolate. The mall keeps changing stores and it can be quite disorienting.

Keith desperately needs to get some work done on his car, it’s not starting very well. Honestly thought we might be ‘stranded’ (it’s one bus ride home, la).

Had an unbelievably frustrating conversation with him about creativity. He spends all his time worrying about not writing instead of digging in to understanding his creative process and finding tools to support it. I mean, I only found Scrivener a decade ago and before that I didn’t have an app which supports my creative writing the way I need it done. He’s always so infuriatingly vague when he talks about anything personal so after five minutes of flailing, I shut up, assuming he was finding my ‘solutionizing’ patronizing and demoralizing and candidly useless. You know, like the ‘just cheer up’ advice you get from someone who doesn’t understand depression and anxiety and finds your gloominess rude, antisocial and disrespectful.

I checked someone’s name on line after they advertised their cleaning and organizing services on Next Door and they are…. let’s just say whoever the hell she really is, someone with her exact and unusual name has a set of resumes on line which…. er …. don’t line up. They can’t all be right, but they for sure can all be wrong…. so I’m just going to skip over that part where I pay for her advice.

The red canoe is gone out of the back yard, thank you Jeff for making that possible.

I’ve gotten wordle in three tries three days running, I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. There’s been a run of words with ‘B’ in them though, I don’t think that’s unrelated.

Ah, that coffee. Milk and sugar. So good.

And in spite of it, do you know what my bp was this am? 117 over 79. That is absolutely perfect blood pressure and that’s 1.5 hours before my meds so you can understand why I feel a bit weird for an hour after I take them. (But it doesn’t stop me from doing things, I just take it easy.)

I owe Dave a phone call, hopefully it will migrate from my list to reality sometime today.

Zibethicus changed the logo on twitter. Long time nesters there are saying things like ‘EVERYTIME I SEE THAT X INSTEAD OF THE BLUE BIRD IT REMINDS ME TO GO SOMEPLACE ELSE’ Yes Elon, you dun fuct up

I’ve written 773 words over the last two days on TB.

I really wish my energy level wasn’t so variable; but that I guess is the single biggest reason I can’t work full time any more. Plus I’m actually listening to my body and peeing at first recognition that my bladder is full rather than waiting until explosive decompression is imminent.

My pOp said something HILARIOUS to me on the phone yesterday, so I am saluting him this morning WITHOUT repeating what was said. Thank you kind sir, I have been chuckling occasionally ever since. He’ll read this and think, “What is she going on about?” and that too is part of the humour.

I miss Ryker, I need to see that boy.