Reasonably active day

I got through a mountain of laundry, including not forgetting to put the last load to dry; ran errands to the library and the weed store (for edibles, trying to cut smoke for my health), and went with Paul to fetch beer from the Independent Alcohol Supplier and schnitzel from Balkan House for supper. Why? because it was his seventy-third birthday yesterday AND AS A SPESH BONUS I got to speak to Ruth, his sister, as she called to wish him a happy happy. LOVELY. She got my facebook coordinates and promised photos of her trip (she was calling from Northern Newfoundland!!)

Katie went off to the coparent’s for the purpose of stuffing supper into Alex. Why? Because the two of them realized that Alex was running both ends against the middle in terms of his food foibles, so they’re introducing new food and working on his texture issues with family meals. (isn’t it interesting that Katie double booked herself for the evening – I do the same thing so often, thank you ADD.) As long as the coparent is being civil Katie just rolls her eyes. Also saw Mike Rykerdad and greeted him, and I don’t know where I got the idear that his mum’s name is Isabel, it’s Christine. Ryker pretty obviously likes his dad just fine. I did get to dandle and play with Ryker, who was in splendid form, and interacted with civility with Alex about Plants vs Zombies and other subjects, including school. Alex is trying is mother’s patience quite a bit these days, but his haircut is awesome.

The fucking landlord over there STILL HAS NOT PROVIDED A FUNCTIONING FRIDGE. The freezer doesn’t come to temp. Knowing that is enraging, we’re going for two weeks now of this bullshit.

Anyway, sorry for that ill-tempered outburst. So it was just me Paul and Keith for dinner over at their place (I made a plate for Jeff from my leftovers and gave him the fresh bread when I got home) and watched an episode of Sean Bean in Sharpe. Then Keith drove me home since Paul doesn’t drive at night these many long years. Keith and I talked about the diagnosis, but no conclusions or action plans resulted.

Jeff and I were still awake so we watched tv for another hour or so and crashed.

heart rate accelerator

Ran my current fave pair of earrings – 75 dollar Lioness Elise gems with Swarovsky crystals and cultured pearls – through the laundry. One embedded itself in a hole in the drum – that took some doing getting it out and kneeling on a concrete floor, calice tabernak – and the other sent itself to the lint trap. Both survived unharmed as far as I can tell…. they’re clean now, I should probably wear them.

A much better day

Keith told me that he went shopping on foot with his nephew Ryker in the chest carrier and he most obligingly slept through it. I wish I had a picture but >snap< you’re just going to have to imagine it. Ryker is enormous for a 10 month old; his daddy’s over 6’4”.

I spoke to my mother on the phone TWICET and also to Tammy, Dave and Paul. I arranged to get Alex for Sunday/Monday. I got a load of laundry (the towels) washed dried and put away. I put down the other clean rug in the kitchen. I transferred handsoap out of the new container into the old one so Jeff has handsoap in the downstairs biffy. I bathed and washed my hair. I walked 1.5 km to the eyecare place, where I learned that Keith is still very fondly remembered by his coworkers. I learned that my eyes show no signs of disturbance from cholesterol, diabetes or high blood pressure; I was enjoined to keep my AIC under 7 and told to come back every year now. I brought a pair of glasses out of prescription and asked them to cut me new lenses and they gave me such a deal you have no idea. I was so happy at the end of the day I ordered steak and lobster again. I want to you to know mOm that I was thinking of you and our last conversation with every bite.

I send a very gentle hug and a wish for the best painkillers that money can buy for dear pOp who had much pain occasioned by the dentist yesterday. I send a very gentle and equally virtual hug to Peggy, who has COVID again and thus we will have no housefilk on Saturday alas.

I send a hug to Dave through all his ‘birthing a book’ efforts. I send a hug to Tammy and she knows why.

For the rest of my dear readers I extend my warm and compassionate wishes for the best day possible and to keep your chin up if you can. Maybe we won’t get better days in plural, but once in a while we’ll have a good day, like Ivan Denisovich.

 

Much better today

AQI is good but may tank later today. My mood is much improved – I went to bed early and it was a GOOD plan.

I have learned that Tammy is coming to Vancouver for Christmas. yay!

The death of queen Elizabeth is forcing the closure of schools and Crown Corporations in BC. Everything else is to remain open. I think I will ask Katie if I can have Alex overnight on Sunday. (I sent the email already.)

Charles III already looks like a clumsy old fool and nothing that has happened since his accession changes anything. Tying the fortunes of his house with a tour of the UK with Liz Truss is ludicrous, he’ll pay for that in popularity.

Jeff has been overheard to wonder exactly how much changing everything affected is going to cost Canadians.

Buster came in screaming (okay, crying repeatedly, noisy for *him*) (I guess the cat door was open last night) and he was COVERED in ants. I picked half a dozen ants off him as he ‘insisted’ on being brushed. (He goes to the place where the activity occurs and cues me.) They don’t seem to be the biting kind but I guess he lay down on some ants. I also learned that he completely consumed the butter I left in a dish on the counter. Jeff, reading this, is rolling his eyes.

Three Thousand Years of Longing, the new George Miller film, is a lovely fantasy drama and I highly recommend it.

Normative af – New poem

Smart enough to be scared
But not of the right things
That is the choke point on
My sensorium
so everything‘s on blast
Until something in par
……………………………………..Ti
…………………………………………Cu lar
Wrenches my attention from
Its customary perch

Chasms got causes
Causes got chasms
Chisel at the word in your brain
…………………………………………………….Fling yourself
At that perfect marble word
And create some content god damn you
Bitter git on it

On this hand I have love, love, love, but not the love of romance, the bordering-on-unpleasant revelation that love with lies isn’t love, it’s just a convenient set of tropes that allows you to behave one way and profit from it whether or not you believe. It’s like religion but you don’t get sucked up to heaven or spat out into a new instantiation, stuck with having to learn and suffer and die again again
Again
Nope, you just hoe this row, this row. Normative as fuck, don’t look at the undersides of things.
Mock the people who know better because their teeth are crooked and their English is no good.
I can’t go back and re-hear those things, the things I heard with my racist ears. I didn’t know I was a replicator of death machines; born to give birth to workers and soldiers, and another breeding body. I didn’t know. I still don’t know.
The language I abhor grips me and dashes me at the world until the inside of my head is bleeding, although it’s probably the grease in my blood that makes it so.

The fridge has arrived

Sent the first half of Chapter 8 off to mOm.

Caspell Junction has a functioning fridge again, they’ll come get the frozen food tomorrow when their freezer’s down at the correct temp.

I am watching the Ukrainian offensive with grim satisfaction, and the fact that there are now over 50 Russian municipal officers calling for Putin’s resignation with solidarity and not a little trepidation.

 

Omnibus of suck Part the nth

Pierre Poilievre is the leader of the conservatives in Canada. Proud supporter and handshaker of Nazis, when asked what he’d do about COVID-19 he said he’d lower taxes. He’s sucked on the teat of the taxpayer since he was 24 years old and worshipped Stephen Harper.

I hope he experiences all the electoral success he deserves.

Article from Ed Yong about ‘brain fog’. Interestingly it mentions the Montreal test. Please read this – and remember that all three of my immediate family have had COVID already. I don’t have any proof I got it in March 2020 but I’ve had to deal with what felt like brain fog, and cognitive crashing, for years now. My apparent intelligence does not match my functional intelligence. And the fall of my writing output is no surprise. I do what I can on a daily basis, but even the small array of techniques I had for managing my output doesn’t seem to work any more.

I am starting to read for pleasure again but I have to not do it for more than about 15 minutes at a time. I am also rereading books, not reading them for the first time.

I am starting to understand why the internet suits my cognitive deficits right now. I feel like the mom, Hazel Bergeron, in Harrison Bergeron, that story by Kurt Vonnegut.

The amount I sleep has abruptly gone up by 1.5 – 2 hours a day, and I’m doing my best not to nap any more during the day. So really I’m sleeping the same amount but doing it all at night.

Jeff and I looked at each other around 6 pm last night and realized that the worst of the ground smoke had lifted, and it was such a relief. We didn’t even run the a/c yesterday so the house is kind of sticky this morning. It didn’t help that there was a recycling centre on fire in Vancouver for most of the weekend. On the way back from Bowen we crested one of the many hills coming into the city from Horseshoe Bay and at one point we could smell burning plastic all the way down to our navels, it was just a horrible sensation. AS IN we should be driving away, not toward.

Buster trained HARD but briefly this morning. He did the headbutt on my left leg thing repeatedly to indicate that he was HERE TO TRAIN. He doesn’t normally do pawclaps ‘backwards’ ie with his back to me, but he did it twice this morning, then did some run and chase, and then VWIP out the door (Jeff left the back door open for the cool morning air.)

3979 words. I think I’ll have some to send mOm in the next couple of days.

on Bowen Island

We are having the most lovely time.

We played spotify rounds last night and thus it was I found out I love Junior Brown and Paul Anka’s 2005 album ‘ROCK SWINGS’ where he frank sinatrafies modern hits. like black hole sun and wonderwall. IT’S FANTASTIC. Jeff and I laughed until we cried. “Und dis is ven I learnt that I AM AN OLDT FARDT!!!”

Our hosts are empty nesters. A human and dog friend came over and we watched Bear hump Maple until she got bored with it. Bear and Nelson are good friends with Maple.

The wifi connected instantly, I slept 9 hours last night – I literally faded at the stroke of 8 and woke up at 5.

Barbecue and summer squash from their garden for dins. SOOOO GOOOD

We’ll be grabbing a ferry home soon.

Brief visit

Fridge is still busted at Katie’s place – landlord swears he’ll buy and have delivered a new one (old one taken away I expect) since Paul and Keith refuse to move a fridge and it’s the landlord’s job to replace it. Paul is mildly pissed since he spent half a day lining up a good used fridge.

Keith dropped by to return a container which was now full of YUMMY YUMMY lentil stew. Absolutely superlative. That man can cook now.

Enjoying this season of Archer.

3895 words I wanted to see how many bombshells I could deal with in 800 words and Brad has managed to talk Omar into two impossible things before their tea is cold.

The pink dawn faced off the yellow moon and sent it away.

We’re getting smoke from fires in town today – Bowen will be worse if the maps are anything to go by.

It was 20 years ago today
when Buzz Aldrin punched him in the face
And I really really want to say
that he had to be put in his place
So let us all assert for you
Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and said it was a BEAUTIFUL VIEEEEEEEW

intersectionality is a cognitive aid, a tool, glasses so you can see what is happening

it’s not meant to be gamified by white guys who think that because they live at the corner of Lonesome and Hardup they get an option to score points without flak from the racialised commentariat

Suzanne hits a dinger

Aw jeez I’m dying here; Suzanne saw Janice on the sofa the other day at Caspell Junction and said (because her filter doesn’t always work) ‘WHO’S THAT???’ Janice did not acknowledge Suzanne’s existence. Suzanne was here today for the Enshinening and I laughed immoderately.

D.Y.I.N.G.

Anyway Paul drove her to the train station so she’s left town. I’m assuming Paul told her his medical news, but who knows.

Bowen this weekend.

Queen’s dead

I note it, but I’m turning the rest of my thoughts on the subject private, and will release them when the furore dies down. I’m suggesting white people in Canada stay still and listen for the other voices – to whom her existence was the worthy face, the nice conformity of colonialism, inescapable, unthinkably pervasive, destructive, violent and everywhere, dirty. Hold still, be still, be absorbent, and don’t be defensive. When you see what happens – the global party in colonial lands – you will realize in tiny portion what colonialism has done.