Lighting candles and waiting for beer

I bring both joys and concern to my virtual table of candles.  For the people of Chile and Haiti, strength for the reconstruction.  For Patricia, who will be attending a family funeral, a candle in hope that the sight of much loved faces will be of some comfort.  I light candles of thanks and praise for the folks who have been helping me along as I deal with this last bout of hormonally triggered sadness.  I light a candle for Margot, who has been a bright, if furry, spot in the overcast.  For work, a lighter heart and patience. For home, some inspiration about cooking.  I come home and stare blankly at the cupboard, which is tiresome.  For Gizmo, a peaceful journey as he prepares for the trip across the Rainbow Bridge.  For Jeff, a good trip to Victoria.

Easter is my least favourite holiday.  Easter is often a big drama for me, threats, cars dying at the side of wintry highways, getting dumped…. I light a candle for a peaceful Easter.

On the lighter side, I wants me some, if only for the bottle.

Orange you glad there’s a baby

This is kind of jamming two things together.  After a lot of days of being sludgy and unsociable, I got out to no fewer than four social / hobby outings this weekend, not counting church, which I skipped.  After I got back from lunch, Jerome called and I went to see him and the babby (Braden) who is a busy boy.  Shannon was out so it was just the two of them.  We got in a walk and a lot of playing with Braden, who is just at the stage where the pushing backwards crawl converts to the marine crawl, and it was SO good to see both of them.  So much blonde hair, such big bright blue eyes on the little one.  He decided not to ‘like’ me, but he was okay with me; I let him completely wake up from his nap before I started holding him, and anytime I was holding him I made sure he could see his papa.  Chill Monkeys, look out!  I’ve got a lad to be spending money on now.

Then I went out to the first REAL rehearsal of Orange You Glad, the all women mostly a capella group (I got to be the guitarist, which tells you all you need to know about the instrumental skill level) and myself, Angel, Candace and Jessica worked our way through Ring of Fire, Bird on a Wire, Orphan Girl and a lot of laughs.

Then I came home, thought about putting away my laundry and collapsed in front of a S3 BSG instead.  Tahmoh Penikett is one of the nicest looking men who ever lived.  His jaw is so VERY square cut, and his frame so very, uh, masculine.

Where’s the rat???

I bailed on church… fifteen minutes before I had to leave I got a message on the wind telling me to stay put and await developments.  Developments were more or less immediate…. ScaryClown and then Keith phoned, so my posse and I ate brunch at the Heritage.  Yummy as usual… ran into Glenn from church so that was all very recursive.  Anyway, as Jeff and I were on our way out the door we noted a dead rat on the back deck – young, headless and male – and as we came back in, no rat.

So, where the heck is it?  We may not know until it starts to smell.  The joys of having a cat door.

Gizmo is getting sicker and sicker, but he has good days and bad days, and as today had some rat in it, it’s probably a good day by cat standards.  Jeff will update with a post in due course.

Jeff has taken to calling me Miss Organized.  He is being sarcastic.  I think I’m doing okay considering how tired and sad I am most of the time these days, but I really shouldn’t have left the chicken out of the fridge.  Point taken…

Singing and playing

Last night I got to sing and play with Cindy (all three kids in tow), Tom and Peggy.  I prepped the salad but everything else hit the table without my assistance.  Paul turned up but he had to leave to work; he stood patiently by the barbecue and got food happening but didn’t really have a chance to interact much. Laura from church was there for a meeting when I got there and I told her about the overgrown adventure playground at the SFU campus and now I’m trying to figure out how to mark up a map for her.

It was a lovely evening and Cindy gave me a ride home at some ridiculous hour.  Now I am going to stir my stumps and get to church.

Cindy’s son has a beautiful new ukelele.

Listen to the rain

I only had one thing besides church planned this weekend, and that’s on Sunday night.

I am listening to the rain overflow the gutters on the roof and drip onto the concrete next to the house.

I have a ton of paperwork to do, so while it’s all quiet and thoughtful, I’m going to do that.

Daughter Katie went on a date with a young man to see Alice in Wonderland.  She says nothing will come of it, but I suspect he’s a persistent young man.  I’ve never met him.

I am angry with Keith right now because I think he’s being irresponsible.  I think it’s fortunate that I can’t stay mad at him.

I’d like to thank Paul for being the only person I knew I could tell a disgusting story to.  It’s all very well to have friends, but not all of them can put up with me to the extent I like to be put up with.  Although, now I think of it, I could tell Patricia and she’d probably laugh too.

Against the enslavement of women – some links

BBC on modern slavery:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/slavery/default.stm

More about human trafficking around the world at UN Office on Drugs and Crime:
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html?ref=menuside

FBI’s work on human trafficking:
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/slavery.htm

Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=197&CM=1&CL=ENG

Today at work

Mike McG said, “And that will be when there’s a third iteration of a snowball fight in hell,” with respect to a request I made.  Okay, it was unreasonable, but did you have to come back with such a quotable quote?

The IT guys continue to rock.  I won’t say why, cause you know, but they do.

Ham scone for breakfast.  And to think I didn’t like ham, once upon a time.

The two things I had to do today are already done.

Back to work.

Denis’ Celebration

Things I learned.

Food first, talk second.  You would think this was obvious, but it bears repeating.

The Beacon food volunteers ought to be running the world as nobody does anything better with the budget they have.

Denis’ grandchildren rock.  Sean’s anecdote was perfectly tuned to the mood of the room.

Denis got his wish, and got a couple of scoldings from various people.  So no, he isn’t perfect.  The scoldings were also perfect….

If you ask a crowd of Beaconites for a drum roll, please, you WILL get one.

I really HATE it when I get people’s names wrong, and it happened twice.  I am not sure who besides the principals noticed, but oh how I go all squeaky chalk when that happens.

My refusal to have a set speech worked perfectly.  When people weren’t coming up, I vamped from his little book of reminiscences (I brought copies for the family and the Lay Chaplaincy Committee, under whose aegis the celebrations took place), and that worked really well.

Denis should have been miked for his poem but the darned cable didn’t go that far.  Grr.  Next time, guest of honour closer to Mike Rofone.

When everybody keeps their remarks brief, heartfelt and to the point, MC’s job is MUCH easier.

As you can see I’m much more able to talk about yesterday now I’ve had seven WHOLE hours of sleep.  As for my performance as the service coordinator yesterday, I would have imploded if Rev. Katie hadn’t helped me out so much.  *Note to self, get the music up to the podium, ya ditz.* Although I heard that my rendition of the children’s story was very good.  I said, “Never saw the story before today,” and folks were startled, so I guess all the weirdness and confusion going on in my brain were not communicated to the littles.  Phew.