Good morning!

I’ve been awake since one ayem and up for 45 minutes; I had rice pudding for breakfast plus a large mug of coffee, so that puts paid to me sleeping – or does it?

Spoke to a girlfriend this morning.  Her husband is giving her grief.  I am trying to be sympathetic, but she knew she was marrying an alcoholic, and even if he’s dry now the physical and behavioural consequences of his life choices are not allowing him to be a good mate.  I am on a drama-reduced diet, myself.

I joined a decluttering group online and so far I’ve removed two bags of clothes from the premises.  I am going to deal with the tyres today (the group leader is English).  They’ve been sitting in the garage for two years, why not.

 

 

My day so far

I’ve climbed back on the writing horse, but since it’s edits I can’t really say OH I WROTE THIS MUCH TODAY.  It’s going well.  I have to figure out how to represent targets though.  Manuscript pages edited?  Dunno, that seems most likely.

I baked bacon for BLTs and made up ingredients so they are ready to go.

I watched the last Hobbit movie.  It was quite well done, although purists will be shuddering from head to foot for the duration.  I am not a purist.

I went for a walk in the predawn murk and fetched cream for coffee and milk for tea, to keep that writer’s support of caffeine flowing.

Poor Hannah, the gal who was supposed to help yesterday, was sick. I was sick all the bloody time when I was her age.  Now I literally cannot remember the last time I had anything resembling a cold or flu; how much I’m washing my hands might have something to do with that.

So many people, including the visitors from last week, volunteered that it made life much easier; the soup lunch is always quite chaotic, and then there was a business meeting at the end of it that I was just as happy to stay out of. I had Peggy’s turkey soup.  It was quite yummy.

I wore my brown snowflake motif pj’s and my steampunk hat, and was complimented.  Seriously. By everybody from Jane (who has an identical set in purple, it’s like she’s my time twin or something) to the minister, who cracked up and then told me she admired my sense of style.  The only places in the world that make me feel anything approaching the same level of acceptance, in order of closeness, Mike’s place, Planet Bachelor (but only when Janice isn’t there…. ha ha), Tom and Peggy’s, my fOlks’, Conflikt and Polycamp. I am a lucky hound, f’sure.

I told Rob to invite himself to supper sometime.  He was happy to hear it.

I’m selling printer ink on Craigslist – buyer is supposed to show up tonight around supper.  There’s nothing like buying $75 of ink and having the fucking printer promptly quit.  I’m letting it go for cheap just to get it out of the house.

Sue drove me home again, home again, and then off to an audition.  I hope I’m like her in 18 years!!

Katie didn’t come to church but she just posted that Alex rolled from his back to his tummy.  I wonder if and when he’s going to start crawling.

Margot stared me into throwing a treat to her this morning.  I can’t wait for Buster to get fixed, he’s so lively, even with the cone of shame, that it’s quite exhausting for her.

I dejunked my phone this morning.  I took out a hundred phone numbers, mostly for the café, which, duh, I no longer need, and 1.2 gigs of crapware.  Go me.

I got enough sleep last night! I went to bed at 8 pm and woke up at 5, which is wonderful.

Here are the cinnamon buns I made yesterday.

Cinnamonbuns

 

 

Churchy day

Sue is coming to get me for church at 10; I’m doing coffee today with one of the youth, who is well disposed to like me since I gave her about $300 of Fluevogs the other day.  I am trying to think of which stupid hat I should wear.  As a concession, I will wear other clothes too.

There’s a budget meeting and soup lunch today too so I’ll be there quite late. But it’s good that I don’t have to borrow Jeff’s car.

 

Vampire, pass by

Paul and I gave blood yesterday. (I drained in 8 minutes, a new personal record!) He was joshing with the phlebotomist and she turns to me and asks if she can trust him and I said, blandly, “He’s my ex so I’m the wrong person to ask” which triggered much hilarity. Paul clots so fast he literally does not have to put pressure on the sticking point, and the vampire didn’t believe him. I bruise like crazy so I follow the instructions.
 
I know it sounds kinda weird but I think of giving blood as a kind of communion; it connects me to strangers who need my help, and it connects me with John, who gave a lot of blood over the course of his life, and it connects me to the rest of my family; Katie and I and Paul and Keith all give blood when so able, and mOm gave gallons when she was a nurse.
I drove both ways.  Traffic was good, traffic was good.
Around 7 I felt like all the air had been let out of my tires so I crashed; looks like I got a solid 8 hours of sleep.
Sue and I had a lovely (and for me, hobbitly) breakfast at Ricky’s on Lougheed Coquitlam yesterday.  We noted a side room which might work okay for pub night although there’s no good transit close by; she’s going to advise the minister.
Just learned that South Fraser is being kicked out of their home.  I light a candle for them finding space cheap, fast, painlessly.
I have a song that the Conflikt folks really like in this year’s songbook, so even if I can’t go (money…) I will still represent.
Archer’s back!

At last a deadline

I am going to try to complete a couple of songs in Songwriter so I can export them as PDFs and get them into the Conflikt song book.

Much as it pains me to say it, I can’t afford to make trips to the US and otherwise spend the income I have, so I am going to go to $15 worth of church event as opposed to the $500 con.  Yes – I could spend less but I don’t like going to a convention if I have to bunk in with anyone else for the usual reasons, like my privacy requirements now I’m no longer a live in parent are rather absurdly high.

So I’ll be sending the songs along instead.  I’ll send Gateway and Dishing with Joyce, since Fred Pohl’s stuff is going to be commercialized over the next couple of years (I believe it’s going to be a tv show, which would likely work fine, helmed correctly) and Buffy never stops being popular with certain crowds and the Scoobie gang have dozens of songs and Joyce not so much. I find it amusing that I have repurposed a song with was a song about a crush on a coworker into a filk, but one of the great appeals of filk is how it mashes things together into a great media pulp.

Saw Mike yesterday, and he popped by later, after he fed me a light supper at the Oliver Twist, and I will be seeing Sue for brekkie this morning to feast her for her birthday.  She is so wonderful, I am sure we will have a lovely earflapping. For she is the Great She-Elephant, and I am her dear chum.

Okay, enough demonstrating that I left the house yesterday (I did twice, and with all the cat commotion with Buster and his collar Jeff did three times) and I have friends, I gots work to do, coffee to make and songs about Giant Squids (words) (music) to listen to for its inspirational effect on my opus.

Hate is strong

I really hate Bell Mobility and their stupid goddamned website.  I went through everything to update my plan and was told, on the same page, that it hadn’t gone through, and it had been confirmed.  I haven’t gotten an email confirming the update, so I am assuming it did not in fact go through.  Emmanuel on chat was helpful.

At some point today I’m hoping we can do a shop. I haven’t left the house to do more than put trash out in three days, so I should probably stir my stumps; on the plus side I can see some of my floor and almost all my clothes are clean.

 

Whineypants

I just backspaced over a thousand words of whining.  THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE.

Only one thing has happened recently worth reporting.  Keith came over yesterday.  I said, “I’m so happy to see you I’m going to clean my glasses so I can see you better.”  He’s rewatching Ken Burns’ Civil War with us.

 

 

Buster report

Buster is rapidly turning into one of my favourite cats.  He is affectionate, vocal without being a pain, coexisting well with Margot (she’s still not a big fan, but has started rimming him while he eats, so that’s something), athletic, a good sport about being stuck in the house while his most recent set of contusions heals, a non finicky eater and A LAP CAT.  He helped me with my most recent homily, huzzah.

 

Homily number almost 20…

I should count them up, although I think one of them has gone missing. Edited later: There are actually 21 but I can’t find the text for Garbage Day.  Drat.  I thought mOm sent it to me.

This morning’s homily, enlivened by 4 newcomers and Alex and Katie (Alex smiling and babbling in a simply enchanting way) went very well.  You can find it here. It was so cute watching Rob W in his Viking hat, being the uncleybear.

In particular, people liked the comment about the draft horse, and they loved the children’s story (different to what you’ll see, but Marilyn did a superb job of cutting it down without cutting it out AND she got participation from the chillums.)

I am going to take the rest of the day off (except for the usual snacks and laundry and whatnot) and fling myself at the novel again starting tomorrow morning.

 

Alex is coming!

I know, most of the world doesn’t care…. anyway, I have put aside a couple of kids books for him, being Koko’s Kitten and The Pokey Little Puppy, seeing as how they are family favourites.  Katie’s going to come some time this morning and we’re going to go for a walk, since I need to mail Tammy’s sweater back to her.

Keith dropped by yesterday and we fed him crudites with crockpot pork chomps and onyums.

I found my will and my burial arrangements yesterday!  I cleaned out the living room, and candidly that is not where I expected to find them.  However they are now back in my room where they belong.

We tried to watch Fleming, the 4 part miniseries, but it was goshawful, so we stopped.  We’re enjoying Salamander, which is Belgian and very suspenseful, and I love love love Filip Peeters, who is about as cute as middle aged men get and has one of the most startlingly asymmetrical faces I’ve seen east of Picasso.  Also, Mike Verdrengh would be perfect as Jordan de Riberac.

I made pancakes for breakfast.  It’s been ages since I did that.

Happy New Year!

I’d like to wish everyone who reads my blog a very happy New Year full of fun, food, family, and frolic, also paid employment and worthy activities as and when required.

I make no resolutions, but I’m going to do a couple of homilies and finish a couple of books -writing, not reading- this year.  I’m also hoping to do some sewing and dejunking.  We’ll see.

 

Bring out the festal CHHHHEEEEESE

So the sometimes annual Feste du Fromage was yesterday, at Patricia’s place. It was lovely to see her and Leanne again; I got sleepy for a second but came to eventually to get talkative again; considering I’d been up since 2 am and didn’t leave until 11 I think I did okay.  I brought cheese, which was definitely hauling coal to Newcastle.

SO HAPPY TO HAVE CHEESE in the fridge.  Because cheese makes everything yummy. ALSO I watched a cheesy movie, The Boxtrolls, earlier that day, so it was really really a lot of cheese to take in. Tracy Morgan’s voice acting in this movie, while terse IS HILARITY.  “I think I’ve lost a lot of blood” is his longest line…. it’s worth it.