Sundry and various

Church was good; I like the water ingathering service because people do the “How I spent my summer vacation” by using the physical and metaphorical linking of water.  The Tea Lights (my secret name for a harp/recorder/cello trio composed of church members) were fabulous, as always.

I was opening and closing, too; I had to be there for 8:45 and didn’t get out until 1:30, and I forgot the flipping signs so I had to drive all the way back and get them.  I was going to put them back in the building and realized that they need to have the times amended so I am going to get little laminated bits to cover the inaccurate times this week… and THEN put them away.

Paul and Keith came over and Paul and I attempted to put 25 years of being incapable of sharing a kitchen behind us.  The chicken stir fry came out pretty good. Then Katie turned up and we watched True Blood’s season 3 finale, all together for once, and I have to say A-Skars (Eric Northman) got all the good lines.  Then Keith, who has his driver’s licence (did I mention that he finally broke down and got a driver’s licence previously? Guess not!) drove his sister home.  Aw.

Now I’m going to fold laundry and have a shower and really get at my day.

I have a very long list

Phone calls

Cleaning

Writing

Opening for church tomorrow.

I am actually too scared to write everything down that I need to do, as I will just make myself very upset.

Took Jeff out for Schnitzel last night, Paul and Keith came along, and then we watched some Deadwood and a CBC special about flight.  NOT ENOUGH ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE to make the game worth the candle, so we shut it down.

I let Paul drive Ziva last night

And I complained non stop.  Some things never change.

Anyway, I ate supper (stellar meal, fresh tomato and fresh basil salad, pork chomps with Paulegra spicing and Chilliwack peaches and cream corn so fresh it was like an explosion of sweetness) with Paul and Keith last night, and I was expecting Part II to be me whining at Paul to put the new Resophonic strings on John’s resonator guitar, but instead he says, “We’re going to Rev Katie’s place to get her hockey gear.”

Turns out Paul’s having a visitor from Seattle who is a ginormous hockey fan who is planning on taking it up as a hobby – she’s about my age.  She’s coming to town and Paul thought, “Rev Katie doesn’t play hockey any more, maybe she wants to ditch her equipment”.  Strangely, she did, and we also got in a nice visit, more social than bitching about church thank goodness.  But honestly, I didn’t think I would be hauling women’s hockey equipment across the Pitt River bridge when I got up yesterday morning; all I can say is: my life is full of incident.  Got home around 9, watched tv for a bit and collapsed.  I drove home BTW….

Unbelievable, very stressful but ultimately good things happened at work yesterday, and of course I can’t talk about it but I am very, very, very stressed out.  Good stress and bad stress.

Sad Face

It is with blank incomprehension mixed with sadness and dismay that I bring to you my woeful tidings.  Rev Katie has resigned.

Now, she gave us a year’s notice, so it’s not like we immediately have to run out into the street looking for another minister, and it’s most likely that she will stay in the lower mainland, so we won’t lose her presence, but I called Paul when I got home from the board meeting last night and we just went “Wow” at each other for about fifteen minutes.

I am exhausted this morning; it took ages to get to sleep, I was so keyed up.

blah

I feel weird.  Not sick, not sad, not stupid, but spacy.  A little out of sorts.  Not quite 100%,  Marginal.  I’ve been in prodrome for what feels like weeks now, so I’m wondering if I’ll erupt into a full scale migraine soon.  Or whether my trick of thinking happy thoughts will keep Mr. Megrim at bay.

I’ve had more hiccups in the last three weeks than I had in the previous ten years.  Whatever you do DON’T go to the intarwebs and type in “Differential diagnosis hiccups.”  You just don’t wanna go there.  Trust me.  Because now I know my hiccups are a sign that I’m about to expire of something grisly… or so I would think if daughter Katie hadn’t complained about having hiccups a lot lately.  Prob’ly something in the air.

bipolar children

Give me a fucking break. The  extension of the agri-militari-pharma-entertainment complex into family life marches on.

1.  Kids with behavioural problems are almost always a) malnourished b) badly parented and c) badly educated.  IMHO.  Some of them may have genuine mental health problems, but this shit does not happen in a vacuum.

2.  Let’s just medicate these problems so we don’t have to challenge the little snowflake parents, who get right pissed and litigious if somebody calls them a bad parent.

3.  Let’s just medicate these problems so we don’t prevent teachers from doing their jobs.  However they are defined these days.  On the basis of the ‘education’ my children received until they went to Purpose, I think high school teachers are in many (not all, but many) an unholy combo of jailer and propaganda peddler.

4.  Let’s just medicate these problems away because pills are cheaper than family counselling and don’t take as much time, which we need to spend in front of the television, imbibing messages that bad behaviour is good, up is down, and idiots make money every day by being idiots.

5.  Rinse, repeat.

6.  In twenty years, when all the kids that were medicated are obese, have diabetes, kidney failure and are still fucking nuts, open up a big can of class action lawsuits….

7…… Rinse, repeat.

Round up of events

Up at 4:30 yesterday, fed myself and Jeff breakfast (bacon scrambled eggs), then fighting with two different printers to get the order of service printed out. Got to church around 9:30, discovered we had a plethora of sound people (after my initial fears) but my karma must have just been to the spot remover, because there wasn’t a single feedback squeal all morning.  I hug them all, those sound sound people.

Lots of people out to church and we had a lovely service talking about how it is normal to be afraid of change, and we have had had a lot (as in far too much for this cowgirl), and we’ll be okay, but we have to stick together and be nice to each other.  I know, a hopelessly Pollyanna-ish take on events, but accurate, and my goodness people were thankful to have everything brought up to date.  We did our absolute best to neither minimize nor dramatize the financial and volunteer crises facing our church.  The minister was in the congregation, which provided some reassurance that the board is coping with this crisis as a unit, which never hurts.

It will be okay.

Then I took Sue to lunch at the Amelia, then I bought lemons, then I made lemonade, then I took it to Tom and Peggy (with special guest Joe, squee, whom I haven’t seen since he made his wife so spectacularly rotund) and I watched them pour concrete and then beat a hasty retreat.  Then I came back to my place and apart from a half hearted attempt to throw food into the microwave for Jeff, Katie, Keith and Paul (had them all over, heart full of happy) I didn’t do another thing for the rest of the day, oh, except take the awning down with Paul’s help.  It was full of insect eggs, so just as well.  Either moth or katydid, I’d have to look it up. I looked at the wind and sky and determined it was time to get the awning down before the weather got wetter or windier.

Now, for nautilus3, a flickrset of Birds of BC. I only know about this because Paul found a dead bird and took pictures, and be darned if I can identify it.  I may need to call on experts.

Eddie let me cut all his nails and he hardly struggled or wailed, and he made no attempt to bite or scratch.  The same cannot be said of Margot, who popped her claws into me the last time I trimmed her.  I guess Eddie is finally getting over his antipathy to me.  If, and only if, I’m sitting on the downstairs couch and Jeff’s sitting there too, Eddie will let me scritch him.  Sometimes.