I really like a .38

It’s a .38 special for me, thanks.  Fits my hand and my accuracy is good.  Menfolks had fun too.  65 bucks poorer, I emerged.

Today I have a 30 year old child.  WITAF???

Dallas.  Black mens’ names.  Grief and rage.

This is what I’m doing about it.

  1.  Here is How To Make a Police Complaint in BC.
  2.  I (time will tell) gave money to BLM:Van
  3.  I am not forgetting that EVEN THOUGH Canada still has a ‘racial problem’ regarding black people, (most seriously in Toronto and Nova Scotia, but definitely elsewhere) first and foremost settlers have a FIRST NATIONS racial problem, and so I continue my anti-racism work around Land:Language:People which is my short form construction of the work that needs to happen for a more equitable and intelligent sharing of the land we call home with the peoples who lived here first. (The number of FN activists who want all settlers (‘whites’) gone is vanishingly small compared to those who want to kill the Indian Act, formalize their borders and do something about clean water, sound education and health care for their peoples.)
  4. My antiracism work is being quoted and passed around on social media.  I don’t even care if it’s attributed to me if it helps push the peanut.
  5. I am calling out famous white people on social media when they say something racist, while owning my involvement/complicity with racial systems and institutions. One finger points forward, the other three point back.
  6. I’m leaving racist family members out of this work.  It’s mostly for me, and other people who want to pry the lid off their unwitting selves.  I make no excuses and I take comfort in what POC activists have said to me on the subject of having racist relatives. Intersectionality has many dead ends.
  7. I don’t drag my poor dead ex-husband to any street parties hoping for anti-racism cookies.  It’s just a variant of the “some of my best friends…” argument and did I mention he’s dead? Since he can’t defend himself or me, I’ll leave him in the peace of his grave, and spare his bereaved family the notion that some white clownbag married to one of their relatives 30 odd years ago is trying to score points from prior association with him. This will be the last time I mention him in this context, since I prefer to think of him listening to art rock and writing poetry and being settled in a chair with cats draped all over him and making wry comments, than sighing heavily while delivering Negroes 101, as he was forced to do many times during our brief (2 year) marriage.

“Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions”
Frantz Fanon

Going shooting with the boys later.

Jeff took me to brekkie at Coming Home and we watched in horror as the fire inspector came in and started the process of shutting the restaurant down.  God.

Made chocolate chip cookies.  They are damned good.

Now I’m going to head downstairs and watch the rest of the UEFA game, Germany France.

 

ZiZi

Apparently when you show Alex a picture of me that’s what he says.  I get a name, me happy.

I think the BLM:TO activists did the right thing, and I don’t give a shit, I said, and I repeat, I do not give a shit whether this puts the TPS in a rough position with respect to Pride TO or any other group.  The police have the legal monopoly on the use of force and they have done quite enough to abuse the honour this century so far.

According to Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein:

I wish people were this upset about the stop and card programs. Or the databases of Black people that police are maintaining. Or Toronto police killing Black men. Or the fact that half of Black children in Montreal live in poverty. Or the fact that half of Black Toronto’s youth may not graduate high school. Or the fact that the Prime Minister talked during the election about “cultural problems” and “their music.”

Don’t take the side of the oppressor, it’s like trying to block the sun.

Off to do family oriented things later today which will not make it onto the blog, but all is well, and all will be well.

Daw, Iceland lost

Glad they got two goals in the second half, though.  I think France really wants to win the UEFA tournament, and I also think if they face the Germans it’ll be volcanic.

Wales got through, and good for them.

Made lemon curd again.  It’s even more sour than the last time.

Burns Bog is on fire.  It’s one of the lower Mainland’s ecological jewels but with climate warming it may just burn out. A transmission tower is already down; no revisions to air quality have been made but it’s already making apartment dwellers pull the fire alarm miles from the fire, so I’m sure you can work it out.  Let’s hope it rains and rains hard.

 

Warcraft

I expected to hate it and it was quite enjoyable. This is the movie… I only ever watched Keith play the game.

Mike called after the soccer semifinal and of course Germany finally won over Italy in the shootout. We went to pho at Miss Saigon across from Metrotown. I’m now contemplating having it for brekky.

ALMOST 3 weeks now, no coffee. Jeff says you can have a small amount every month or so, but I figure twice a year if that will be good enough for me.

New orthotics are working out well, I’m very pleased.

Elie Weisel is dead the same week Trump used AntiJew imagery on his Twitter feed. God is most assuredly an iron.

Weak as a kitten

I’m going to check my temperature. I’m weak as a kitten, slept most of yesterday, could not eat anything, feel entirely crappy since all of my bones ache.  As is usual when I’m subpar my night was filled with wacky dreams and scary crap.

My back hurts so much I’m practically weeping as I type this.  Off to the painkillers.

two pillows

Using fabric from mOm and fibrefill that I think also came from her I made two pillows today, one for the long suffering butts of Beacon (Christ those chairs are hard) and one for Mike for his birthday.  Since he doesn’t read my blog, he don’t know nothing about it. The one for Beacon is a brilliant gold, black and peacock, and much more stuffed and smaller in dimensions, and the one for Mike is tiedye, mostly purple, and understuffed, it’s sort of a combo beach pillow and meditation cushion.

 

Second surgery

Paul’s second surgery went great; he skipped the Ativan and so experienced more discomfort and less jolliness than usual (n of 1.)

Actually did some editing yesterday while I was waiting for him.

Today I have his car while he waits to get the eyepatch off so I’m going to do a Major Garbage Run and get rid of as much trash that’s lying around the yard as I can in one go, plus putting down more dirt on the front beds and if I’m feeling really ambitious more weedwhacking in the front yard, which candidly looks like a playground for dirt bikers and chafer beetles.

Margot and Buster are getting along really well, it’s cute to watch them interact.

Still haven’t done anything about video from Tuesday, hope to get to it today.

I did not cook yesterday

Brekky out, lunch provided by Jeff and supper at Katie’s.

For whatever reason, Katie’s s/o didn’t join us for the meal, although he was there, watching TV very loudly, and then he left which makes the Mennonite part of my bones all sadface because sharing meals is the primate thing.  However Young Sir was in fabulous shape although he refuses to call me GiGi anymore.  I am now Zaza, and I told him most solemnly that he could call me anything as long as it’s consistent.  He is using lots more words, just not consistently, which is making his mama somewhat anxious.  He’ll be fine.

This time Katie booted us out; Alex was ready to party all night long but Young Sir needed a bath and a story and bed.  Keith joked “So he’s going to Bed, Bath and Beyond,” which I found quite comical.

Fixed the bug curtain for the back curtain by the simple expedient of sewing pennies into the bottom; I found a use for pennies!

Brekky and dinner

Brekky at IHOP, where I wish I had some of those atheist business cards lying around so I could circle Matt 6:5 for the dudes loudly thanking heavenly Father for their sodding breakfast.  As well thank the woman who brought it to them, I wonder if they’ll leave a tract instead of a tip? Such behaviour is apparently tiresomely common across the US.

Dinner tonight at Katie’s.

The cacti are all set up in the kitchen window now.  I cleaned the window ledge out before I went to the Island, and now it feels prescient since we actually had enough room for them all, just barely, in what is the only decent window for the purpose in the house (we may move some into the south facing window in the living room, but we have to ensure that the cats can’t knock them over first.

I knocked over my manuscript for book II.  I’m thinking of saying fuck it, since none of the pages are in order any more, and editing it in random chunks. I tried to take some advice about editing this morning and just ended up feeling worse; it didn’t help and I can’t imagine who it would help who wasn’t already loco.

As expected I’m stiff as a fricking board this morning.  I always hurt worse the second day.

Fabulous day

The weather simply couldn’t have been improved upon.  I was able to successfully navigate Mike through the Bridgeport to the Arthur Laing clusterfuck.  JESUS GOD THIS TOWN HAS SO MANY FUCKED UP INTERSECTIONS I hate it, I really do.

There was a strong (strong!) onshore breeze when we got there around 11. Got back to Geekhaus around 5:30. (Had a shower the INSTANT I got home, the beach was marginally more disgusting than usual.) I managed the stairs at Wreck going down with a couple of stops and stopped at least half a dozen times coming back up, as I was messing around with heat exhaustion (sweating then clammy, sweating then clammy) and my knees kept saying YOU SUCK.  I was fine once I got to the car. So glad I didn’t take Otto.

Cops busted two guys on the beach, and then left without putting them in cuffs.  I think the bustees argued successfully that if the cops were okay with both of them falling in cuffs on the stairs they were okay with going up the stairs, and the cops hate filling out paperwork so bustees were going to report to the cop shop later.  Or maybe not, it went on for the best part of an hour and really cast a pall on the beach since nobody could openly drink or smoke while they were there.

We got beers and a sammy.  God, I am so happy Mike has that beach shelter, I’da fried without it.  I did slather myself up with 50 sunblock and I am not burnt anywhere. My pubic symphisis doesn’t even hurt!  what marvels are all these new sciences!

Today I’m fine, yay orthotics (I am finally convinced.)  Tiny bit of pinching in my calves but I did all the stairsing at home to get the recycling and trash out and no problems.  Margot was so concerned about me doing the trash instead of Jeff that she very patiently supervised me.  Now she’s presenting her floofy tail and demanding skritches.

Buster is getting antsy.  Where is Jeff!? and I want to know too. Apparently the ferries are jammed this morning, he’s due home later today.

damn stairs

I will be attempting the Wreck Beach stairs today in my new orthotics so that should be painfully interesting. Mike’ll be by in a few minutes.

I practiced for hours on the mandolin today ( I was awake super early and then went back to bed.) I hope Mike’s packing the parlour guitar, I’m likely to be too clumsy to carry Otto plus my other junk.

Margot is purring next to me. She tried to watch videos with Buster yesterday but I sneezed and she ran away (she’s terrified and disgusted by sneezes which is funny since she sneezes herself all the time, snuffly wet sneezes, usually directly into Jeff’s face or ear.) Buster just ran into the room and he and Margot are having little kisses and bum sniffings all ’round.

I wrote 1500 words yesterday on a new story called “Relevant Criteria” about a medtech who’s got PTSD and his mysterious new girlfriend which is set in the “Cousins Letter” universe. Wow, I must be really desperate to avoid editing.