Alex

Alex has made so much progress since the last time I saw him it’s quite remarkable.  His mother recounts a story about him grizzling at her to try and get something out of her, since his ability to intuit when she needs 20 solid minutes to get supper happening is excellent.  Finally she gave in and he teasingly signed thank you about fifty times; she’s willing take the teasing for him not having to be prompted first.  Stuffing manners into kids is a tedious but ultimately rewarding task.

Alex played ON me.  I am obviously not a threat to him any more, and he ran up and started using me as a roadway for a truck (gently, and with a little furrow in his brow.) He also flung himself on me once while I was indulging in floor play, flinging his amply pneumatic stomach onto my shins as I was lying down. He played nicely with the butterfly game on my phone.

And he called me GiGi, which is my name as grandma.  More than once.

And then, proving that he is the biggest little clown in New Westminster, he brought me my shoes and umbrella, and I said to Katie, “He’s done with me! that’s my cue to leave,” so I did (it was nap time anyway.)

walkies

Ran into Kirsten at Deer Lake Park yesterday.  Her sister has a three legged dog too, which is very kind of them both.  Keith and Paul were accompanying me.  We saw a coyote as we entered the park which makes all the people who ignored us because they were wearing headsets rather amusing in a sick way.  Hey, we tried to tell them but they just wouldn’t listen.

After I got back I mowed the whatever it is that’s growing on the property.  It is no longer grass in the front yard, and the mere act of turning the mower around created immense divots in what’s left of the turf. The back isn’t so bad but it doesn’t get so dry (we never water). The house is a tear down, so we’re never going to get new sod. C’est la vie.

I got the orthotics, and twice crossed the Pattullo Bridge, which is under construction and an amply proportioned clusterfuck at the best of times. WHILE I was trying to get across the mofo’ing bridge northbound, a guy leaned out of his truck and said in a heavy Arabic accent “I give you three thousand dollars cash right now for your car” and I casually explained that it wasn’t going to happen, and he started upping the bid, reaching five thousand, leading me to explain that it a) it wasna my car and b) it was not for sale for any price. Then the traffic shifted and I stopped having to deal with him. Wish I’d taken the camera, Jeff might have been entertained by the convo.  Entertainingly, these convos always happen more in the summer.

Went and got beer and groceries and a few treats, and we ate store chicken, home made salad and corn on the cob for dinner.

Forgot to mention that we saw a grouse by the side of the road when we went up Mt Washington last week.

I will be adjusting to the orthotics by wearing them about two hours a day until I’m completely used to them. They feel pretty comfortable but I’ll know better how they are later.

Watched Eye in the Sky and Wave. Very much enjoyed both movies, but I liked Wave more since it is a classic style disaster movie, leaving no trope unturned, but effectively and non-cheesily played out.

 

 

Orthotics

I’m off to get orthotics this afternoon and then to an Aboriginal Day celebration really close to the house.

RAMSAY BOLTON IS DEAD.  He’s fictional, but dayyam, took long enough.

Brekky this morning, for the first time in ages no coffee.  Very glad to have quit, finally, it’s bad for me.

Wow… I had no idea that learning Arabic was so hemmed ’round with problems with vocabulary and intelligibility. I’m interested today because Beacon picked up the Syrian refugee family it’s sponsoring from the airport yesterday.

 

 

 

Happiness at home

So I am happy to be home.  In a few minutes I’m going to drive the rental car back.  Mike took me out to supper last night and we watched a bunch of hijabi women play beach volleyball from the balcony at Brooklyns. This was after a bunch of Punjabi guys were playing beach volleyball on the other court.

Vancouver is a really cool place, y’all.

Mike is planning a party for his birthday next month.

I was richly fortunate in being able to give Nita a ride to the ferry from Courtenay and thus had face time that I would have had no chance for prior to her nuptials.  She is one of the most wonderful and kind and intelligent people I know, and she cooked me Father’s day breakfast because I was playing gooseberry (Jan had left for work but I got up to hug her goodbye because she.is.awesome.

Breakfast as supplied by Nita (Jim helped, he can’t help himself) was home made refried black beans, mango salsa, chopped chives, gently warmed quinoa tortillas, crumbled goat cheese, perfectly ripe avocado slices and almost burned sunny side eggs, which I loved because every once in a while I really like chewy eggs.  I ate every single scrap on my plate and felt like life couldn’t be improved on. Then I got her to her appointment in Nanaimo with a princely two minutes to spare, and we just barely missed the ferry but that just meant I had another two hours to talk with her, what a shame, hunh? She is so beautiful she’s almost scary.

Wrote another no-lyrics song at Mike’s last night.  With a capo, can you credit it?  He asked me “how do you do that?” and I said, “Well I’m using mandolin chord forms and messing about on the guitar, but even I was surprised how fast it came out – I hardly touch a guitar at all these days unless I’m at Mike’s.

I told somebody this weekend that I’m the world’s most cheerful depressed person, and then I started thinking about a comic to go with that, and wished I could draw.

Right now, however, I just feel cheerful.

This song was sung at Gerhard’s memorial service.

Meal last night plus other stuff

Heather dropped by Jim and Jan’s, and how lovely to see her! They talked and I listened about the nature conservancy efforts locally and how very political it can be.

Last night’s meal consisted of lamb sirloin, fresh steamed pea pods from the garden, fresh greens from the garden, homemade salad dressing, new potatoes boiled in their skins, a simply stunning home made mint sauce with mint from the garden, and all washed down with a growler of Gladstone IPA.

I want to curl up on the sofa like a rescue cat and NEVER LEAVE.  But it’s okay, I’m coming back for another week in July. AFTER the wedding, obvs. Because I have to see the Morrison Headwaters for myself.

I’ll be seeing Mike and Nita today, yay, yay!

Also I’ll be nipping off to see Unca Garry and Ontie Diane for an hour before the funeral.

 

 

the wonders of Qatar

A man has been arrested for entering Qatar with (and candidly, this is really hard to believe) in excess of 12 kilos of bacon packed in his ass. I’m not going to link to the site, but it shows a picture of the customs officials standing in front of the packaged bacon like it was a pile of seized cocaine. Also, it looks like 4 kilos of bacon to me, but what do I know.

He was selected for special inspection because he appeared ‘nervous and sweaty’. I am amazed he wasn’t ‘ruptured and lifeless’.

In other news the World Health Organization advises you to avoid any bacon which might make it onto the Qatari black market.

Remember

From the menu:

ATLAS BOUILLABAISSE
ling cod, mussels, Manila clams, oysters, prawns, crab & salmon in a lemon fennel tomato broth with toasted garlic focaccia bread

I have rarely eaten as fine a meal as Jim and Jan treated me to last night. The Atlas Café in Courtenay serves superlative food. Then we went and got growlers of Gladstone beer. I wish I could find work here!

In Victoria

I have learned that a cousin’s husband has died during the time I’ve got the car rented, so I’ll be going to the service in Comox on Saturday.  Currently I’m thinking about coming home Sunday.

1/10th of the edits to the second book done.  It’s very very very rough sledding even with mOm’s help.

If I can ever get a car

Never heard back from Avis, have no idea when I can get a car today.

Went to Ivy’s tea at church yesterday and took K, but she realized that she needed to be home, so she returned there.  Her dog waited by Jeff’s car.  I hadn’t realized she went everywhere in the car with her people and now K’s mum has passed and there’s no driving happening and she misses car rides.  Poor critter is not getting out for walks as much as she needs to either; she walks off leash but I had to put her on a leash since I knew she wouldn’t pay the slightest attention to me.

Anyway, the tea was absolutely delightful and I saw Rob, Tom, Peggy and sundry others and picked up coffee and chocolate.

I don’t want a dawg. Picking up warm dogshit is gross gross gross.

 

I need a 43 mm emotional wrench

Anyway, although cinnamon buns happened yesterday, as did laundry and a few other things, it was mostly taken up with somebody else’s emotional crisis.  Jeff, mOm and Tammy know about it, and I’ve got *plenty* to say, but it is not fit for public consumption and I’m just going to have to sit with all the feelings I have right now.

Prime Suspect is proving quite enjoyable. Otley, played by Tom Bell, once heckled the Prince of Wales at an awards dinner and almost scuppered his acting career in the process.

I have cleaned out the kitchen window over the sink and am contemplating another set of curtains.  I really want to put up tie-dye curtains but I can’t see Jeff going for that. Next maybe Mylar to keep the sun out.  As I posted on facebook:

Since I no longer have succulents growing in the kitchen window over the sink, I took down the wretchedly filthy gauze curtains and hand washed them and hung them outside, and removed a dead solar lantern, dust collecting glassware, godnoze how many dead wasps, about a jillion bread ties, and numbers of small, useless and unidentified broken bits of crap.

*Sound familiar?*

I have only decluttered half a kilo of junk but the difference to the kitchen is quite striking. Now I am contemplating the hole where the curtains came out and thinking I want to put up summer and winter weight curtains, gauze for winter for maximum light, and something made of ceramic for the summer, because that window gets like a blast furnace.

 

Remake remodel

So yesterday I accomplished neither breakfast out nor cinnamon buns, but there’s always today.

I did call a former church sibling. Her mother died very abruptly after a month long illness and I’ll say she has big problems and no cope right now. We were on the phone for about an hour.  At the end of it I realized that I’m not actually doing very badly. At all. And that I really, really feel for her.

irksome crap

Canadian style dustup with landpeer yesterday. Nothing to speak of publicly.

Started watching Prime Suspect, and did *we* stay up past our bedtimes? Yes we did.

Today something something cinnamon buns. Apparently the recipes in the breadmaker manual (we replaced the old one it DIED) need to be adjusted for Canadian content because our flour is different, so I’m not holding out much hope that the buns will be awesome, but they will be buns. My unboxing experience was okay, let’s see how the (jenndurd slur alert) sumb*itch runs.

Goddamnit, I want to go out for breakfast. Who’s with me?

 

 

Ceci n’est pas une entrée de blog

The only thing that will fix this mood is travel, as I am well aware from past meshuggas.  I have an appointment this Friday, finally looking after a lingering and semi-permanent health issue, but after that I’m tempted to rent a car and disappear for a week into the wilds of the Island.

This is my current favourite photograph. Georg Scharf is a frickin genius; although this pic is dramatic, most of the others in his folder are also amazing in their own way.