walkies

Jeff frowns, swings closed

Jeff and I went for a little walk in the gorgeous sunshine yesterday afternoon. Jeff said that he should go for a walk and I said, “I’m going to stagger up the stairs, stagger up the hill to the park and stagger back again,” and he thought I was joking; he joined me after watching me put my shoes on. This is the same park at the start of the pandemic; the logo has all washed off that hoodie but the hoodie remains.

I missed the DD celebration yesterday. I am not sad, I don’t feel sad. I am somewhat immobilized though.

Russians out of Kherson. They’re starting to put anti tank cement blocks on their side of the border, which triggered Finnish Twitter to do a most pointed and technical takedown of how insanely useless it all was. (Altho the discussion was in Finnish you can translate tweets on the fly and man the Finns were just shaking their heads, it was wonderful. There were also comments that since it WAS useless, some oligarch musta got paid for it, ten times what it’s all worth. Lovely.)

Supposedly the new washer will come in the downstairs back door around 11 am today. No movement on the tree, not that I’d expect it on Sunday.

 

by aquilegiaformosa on tumblr
guys we’re not being cringe to keep out the twitter users. we’re being cringe to keep out the ALGORITHMS, the CAPITALISTS, the INFLUENCERS. twitter users are welcome as long as they agree this site is UNMARKETABLE

In other words become ungovernable by being someone you can’t make money from…. by being cringe. You know who’s cringe ? autistic people, by virtue of the intensity of their many hobby horses.

I prefer to be ungovernable by having my own website, that nobody ever looks at, but which will be invaluable to my family after I’m dead. That’s how things work. It’s the longitudinal and continuous energy of it, not the content, necessarily.

Worked on yet another fanfic, “Special Deputy on the Run” yesterday.  I’ve poked into the file for Part II but I think I added 36 words.

The amount of shit kicking Zibethicus (my name for Elon, means muskrat) has taken on the internet is amazing. In a few short weeks he’s scorched his fortune, facing a lawsuit for over 50 billion dollars from a former investor choked that he essentially stole shares from Tesla, received the brickbats of the commentariat and been held up as a model of everything not to do in business. Every time he says so much as boo on twitter hundreds of thousands of people tell him he’s a fucking idiot; it’s glorious, but not enough to get a twitter account.

Continuing counts in the US election still trend Biden’s way. They didn’t poll people who never voted LOL__  so many pundits have tender buttskin hanging out on this that another public spirited activity on twitter these days is going through the pundits’s last two weeks of salty prognostications and retweeting it, saying things like THIS AGED LIKE MILK or DO YOU SUPPOSE YOU WILL EVER BE RIGHT ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT AS THE SPECTRUM FOR YOUR POLITICS etc etc.

It is GLORIOUS and marvellous in our eyes. The night show hosts are having a field day.

Mitch McConnell, easily one of the most corrupt and disgusting politicians in American history, is not Senate GOP Leader any more, and rumblings are someone is going to grab his 15 year old perch in the Senate. The people who are candidates in replacing him aren’t as likely to be as competent at either whipping votes or stealing anything they can reach.

We are about six episodes into Farscape. Every episode is weirder than the next. Truly bizarre show.

Virtually every pediatric ICU in the country is at double capacity. There are so many sick children that you cannot buy children’s aspirin in this country right now.

Spoke to Tammy on the phone the other day, she called. She confirmed that she’s coming at Christmas and I’m seeing her on Boxing Day.

 

Still no washer, still no tree fix

I’m going to take my meds and ignore the world right now. Filk cancelled again, and although it’s Dorothy Dunnett day I have concerns about zooming for a meeting today… oh well.me in the water in the Dominican Republic

I have no idea where the above came from.

the hotel room in the Dominican Republic. A married couple who checked in at the same time got a room full of sewage for two days… this room was much better. Also a bottle of rum was like 4 bucks.

Katie was damned lucky I took a spare bathing suit. This is Saona Island.

can’t tell the difference

Elon Musk cannot tell the difference between bots and new users.

He believes he’s driving growth, instead Romanian bot farms are chugging along hard. User numbers are up? Must be his free speechification of the site.

I felt so good this morning and my mood has crashed again. Hard.

Shown below is the Rosette Nebula, credit the Hubble I do believe

Rosette Nebula, which looks like a human skull

various

To remember is to end all war. I thank my pOp and my unca Dave for serving. Not everyone gets in an airplane during a nuclear crisis and after kissing his baby girl goodbye, prepares for a vile, hot death.

I’m back on twitter. Honestly, I’m back just in time to watch it implode.

Alexis Madrigal: Something I’ve been thinking about Twitter: for those of us who are word people, this was once our place

People took off to Mastodon, another social network, and the previous users attacked and shit upon women of colour. BIG FUCKING SURPRISE

Victor Shi: NEW: data confirms 18-29-year-olds voted for Democrats more than *any other* age group yesterday. Young people literally prevented a Red Wave & saved Democrats. Full stop. If you know a young voter, please thank them. (from the 9th of November 2022)

WT.Social is a heap of dweebs with a user interface like a rainy afternoon in a Welsh mining town.

I was supposed to hang out with Paul yesterday but my gut raunch from the previous day continued. I made cinnamon buns not to make it better but to give me something else to have trouble digesting, I guess. I also made pork stir fry but the onions were weird.

Pawel Kosior painted the above in oils in 2020. Perfectly captures my current mood.

No progress on writing. I do feel much more cognitively with it this morning, we’ll see.

Someone came to take the tree down but it has to be the next door neighbours paying for it and then insurance blah blah I have no idea but the tree is still leaning on the neighbour’s garage. Not exactly sure what the landpeer was up to there, but Jeff seems to think things are headed in the right direction.

The washer? 2 moah day.

I just want to shout out to Jan Maxwell, a friend from Toronto, this morning, because she’s put many smiles on my face over the years and the picture of her and Soon’s grandson on my fridge gives me a smile every time I see it.

I send out love to Dave this morning SO THRILLED about your book and very happy that you’ve survived some ghastly, sad shit over the last half dozen years and remain your relatively good humoured and pragmatic self.

I send out love to Sue Sparlin this morning. I am very very happy she decided to work on being a professional actor and now has a RECURRING PART in a show made here in Vancouver. Big hugs darling.

I send out love to Lois & Bob this morning. I think about the bees and the chickens and that phenomenal steak Bob cooked for me the last time me and Paul were there. I AM CHEWIE I THINK WITH MY TUM. Did you know that Chewbacca’s ‘real’ nickname is CHAINBREAKER!? He spent a lot of time freeing other Wookiees.

I send out love to Onty Mary this morning. I regret that I have not sent you a letter recently, so I’m reaching up to my ancestors and asking them to bless you with a wonderful day of whatever the hell you want to do.

I offer love and thanks to the Best Roommate Evar™ Jeff.

And as always beeg hogs to Ryker and Alex and Keith and Kate.

 

 

 

 

Roundup

Midterms went better than expected. Ron DeSantis is now expected to be the Republican candidate for 2024’s presidential election. Everyone Trump rallied for lost; he’s obviously not helping the GOP.

Orcs (a humorous slur for Russians) are getting out of Kherson. Current casualty figures as stated by US military spokesmen is about 100K on both sides.

Spent a chunk of yesterday mall-walking with Paul and running errands, including picking up printer ink for Keith so he can at least try to get his passport application updated and sent (since Paul isn’t visiting friends in the US unless the person driving has a passport), grabbing yummy treats to stick in Katie’s face as she was assembling Ryker’s birthday present (a trampoline with a grab bar WHICH HE IMMEDIATELY COMMENCED TO USE APPROPRIATELY) and eating the amazing gluten free chicken soup Katie made and looking at watches (I want a watch). So I got a meal and a bit of family time. Suzanne was there, getting ready with Ryker for the new routine.  I’m sad but what can you do but hold yourself ready for the long campaign?

Spoke to Paul and Keith (separately) about care ideas for Paul. I just can’t believe how emotionally exhausting dealing with all this is; it’s flattening for me. And nothing happens fast. I tell Paul I want a watch and for the next hour he asks me every five minutes if I’m going to buy a watch today. I have to keep cheerfully saying nope. My sheltering tree.

Honestly I think he’s relieved he’s not driving any more.

He always had great nap game but he can now pretty much nap anytime anywhere.

The challah from Cobbs is gone already, lol.

 

Blue Lava

I have to CHARGE MY GUITAR isn’t that amusing. So my laptop is plugged in and it’s charging the battery in the new guitar. This looks pale blue, Mike got me a white one.

Lava Music Blue Lava Review | GuitarPlayer

unique no?

Also, this is just for mOm; you know how I’ve ‘invented’ a disease for Brad… I just read a reddit post and the poster, who’s a caregiver, described her mother’s physical and mental challenges…. and it sounded as if she had symptoms exactly like Brad, and she’s post COVID too.  (awake and aware and then just… not)

That gave me a turn.

the latest fic

is about a bunch of heading for middle aged guys in a cover band, their rehearsals and romances….

and the first song our two heroes rehearse is “Addicted to Love” which of COURSE is a cover band song given that it was a number 1 hit in 1985.

And it was playing on the Muzak in the store this morning so I started to laugh.

I am easily amused.

Nothing done about the tree

No progress on writing. FINALLY got my package to m&d into the mail to them; includes Alex’s art and the Guest 23 mag I have a poem in, thanks to Dave.

Ball lightning: shown in the video is either ball lightning or a transformer dying, although there was no ‘bang’. … there are family stories about ball lightning that EERILY mimic a story from 1963 recounted in this article. (pOp saw ball lightning move down the centre of the fuselage of the Argus he was flying in). Also, Grandma Susie Hinde saw a troika of ball lightning moving above the frozen surface of a river, as she told me sometime in the 1980s about an event from her girlhood in SK.

Drove Paul around to run errands and get him out of his apartment yesterday. He was in much better shape than on previous days and we had something approaching fun. Keith was about to go for a walk with a friend and Suzanne was there cleaning when I arrived.

Ukrainians who are Orthodox are switching up when they celebrate Christmas to distinguish themselves from a version of Russian Orthodoxy whose Patriarch Cyrill the Biggass Hypocrite has announced that any Russians killed in the UK campaign go straight to heaven. VOOP! YUP  up we go! Local parishes have a choice now about the 25 December or 7 January date for celebrations..

Shlep this morning. I already bought milk at Walmart in Lougheed Mall yesterday. Also came home with about 20 bucks of Purdy’s chocolate TIS THE SEASON.

Justin Trudeau is ‘standing up to China’ which basically means whining and not putting more federal money into chasing down Chinese nationals openly laundering money in this town, the single biggest reason nothing is being done about it.

I HAVE COFFEE, the world is ok.

No brain yesterday

I realized that what was happening was that I was grieving, so I let Jeff know I’m at a low ebb and gave myself the chance to do that. I had a long soak and washed my hair and smoothed my footies, lit a beeswax candle, listed and grieved for my dead, wrote bad poetry which I won’t share here, acknowledged my other losses, made cinnamon buns, and lay in bed staring off into space (or watched the final game of the world series on DVR while staring off into space.) It certainly was baseball at a very high level in front of an extremely noisy crowd of Astros fans.

I am feeling much better this morning. I will contact Paul later on and ask him what errands he’d like to run today.

9728 Part II

3205 new fanfic

 

 

a day of pizza

Made vegan pizza; home made dough, soy mozzarella, WF brand pizza sauce, capers, roasted mushroom and red and yellow pepper, a solid plank of sliced tomatoes, capers, fresh red pepper. Jeff pronounced it tasty. I should have left it in the oven longer; next time I’m going to bake the veggies, whip it out and add the cheese last.

Ate it with Paul and Jeff after the Foreshore walk.

Took Paul to Fraser Foreshore. Despite my being prepared, the little tweeting birds did not come to me. Paul is as cheerful as ever, but watching him slow down to do up his jacket and then not be able to do it makes me sad for him. I ended up doing it for him and he thanked me. He’s also having trouble with buttons. I once loved that man so unreasonably much and now it’s like watching a snowman melt, as I shore up my love and loyalty on a daily basis. And I feel like a bad person, over and over again.

We watched Sharpe’s Waterloo and the last Hornblower. We are about to exit the Napoleonic Era.

Absolutely no action on the downed tree. New washer is to come on the 9th, I’ll believe it when I see it. Next door neighbour who owns that house wants to know what’s happening. I’ll call Kim again today.

I don’t really have any other news and I’m feeling a little beat up. Peggy’s filk didn’t happen since she had no power at her house after the storm.

Working my way through the instruction book on the guitar.