plenty of nothing

Queen Elizabeth is fixing to die at Balmoral Castle. Her dying in Scotland during one of the biggest blooms of separatism in ‘Alba’ would be quite a punctuation mark to her reign. No English monarch has died in Scotland since the 16th C.

She cooed over me in my crib at Pion-Era in Saskatoon in 1959.

Her dying is going to cast me down for a long time; I’ll try not to trouble anyone really anticolonial with my feelings, but it’s hard to have two English grandfathers and not have those feelings.

Each time I think I’m being too lazy I remember my foremothers busted ass on housework and clothing construction/maintenance every gd day of their lives, so if I read novels and eat nuked cakes in a cup (my own recipe) they are smiling down on me. They wish I’d accept Christ though, and that’s a tough one.

3005 words.

Buster killt him a rat day before yesterday. Jeff has already dealt with the corpse.

Keith bopped by with two coolers full of frozen food a couple of days ago since the fridge over there died, and I took stuff out of out freezer to put theirs in. SADLY the ice cream horns touted as treats ARE TOO GROSS which is awful because Jeff and I both enjoy them, so we’ll have to throw them out. Anyway, it was good to be of service to the family.

https://martinkendell.ca/my-platform – I guess I’m voting for him. He just cleaned a hunnert pounds of trash offa Boundary Road.

 

 

unapologetically oldfashioned

That is how I would characterize the Top Gun: Maverick movie. The flying sequences were intense and well shot, but everything on the ground took longer and felt longer than it needed to. The script hit the creaky/hokey/jingoistic trifecta, too. But a good thing to watch with friends.

Mike and Jeff and I had an otherwise quiet time and got sammies from Big Star for supper. I do like their turkey sandwich.

Four loads of laundry yesterday…. and still more to do. Mike tried to do his and found out that they’d changed the amount of money they charge in the laundry room and he literally had no change because he…. never leaves the house.  What a life.

 

 

No filk, just earflapping

Lovely visit with Peggy. She even drove me home. Never pulled my guitar out of the case! (Did noodle on Otto.) I am glad I went; I showered and otherwise got myself in shape for a public event and then we drank lashings of tea, (I got the water on to boil and figured out where everything was in her kitchen to make tea while she was gone) considered our children and our recent losses and retrenchments. Is she still going to be living in that big house five years from now? Ten? I told her to stay put but I can see that a summer of overseeing a bunch of in-some-cases completely unexpected and ferociously expensive house repairs has shifted her opinion on being old and owning a house.

2609 words plus sketched out a confrontation scene while at Peggy’s waiting for her to come back from walking her son’s s/o’s dog Callie who is a very nervous rescue with a rangy frame and a patrician nose but who decided to like me.

Still no word about whether Janice is still in town or how she’s going home. Very hard to have discussions with your ex which desperately need having when he’s got his bodyguard with him. If he’s driving her home that puts the discussion off again for the best part of a week. Peggy’s face as I mentioned this was a study.

The ‘real filk’ is next weekend but in the meantime I have had a proper earflapping with one of my most beloved and respected friends. And I left the house.

Mike is coming over tonight! Hope to hear his tale of work, just brushed up against the subject on the phone the other day.

HALLOWEEN IS COMING

austrian art nouveau bat chandelier

Someone else’s poem, but relevant to both my life and my mood.

221b by Vincent Starrett

221b
Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears—
Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five

 

 

 

more laundry

There is the eternal laundry pile. It grows – it shrinks – it exists.

Filk today at Peggy’s. I’m not going to tell Paul which makes me a lead-lined bitch, I know it. Katie fled her own home last night so what does that tell you.

My improved mood continues. Mike’s coming over for movies and snax on Sunday and Jeff and I are well pleased.

I hope everyone has an excellent day. The two grandsons when they were similar ages.

baby thoughtfully chews on bloody end of plastic severed leg

 

 

many thoughts one result

Jeff is getting me breakfast today.

Yesterday I was not having a good day (mega understatement) and Katie swooped in, baby in tow (Alex was with his pop, who had a workplace injury (he is luckiernshit that he didn’t slice a tendon in his hand and it was his day anyway.) Suzanne came in her own car. Katie researched and located a breakfast/all day joint in Maple Ridge called Big Feast Bistro which serves gluten free. (Suzanne is celiac, which now means all her descendants have to be tested for it too.) She got the maple bacon french toast (gluten free) and Katie got the same thing non gluten free. I got the poached eggs on pulled pork and roasted yam hash (MUCH LOUD PRAISING OF GOD) and Ryker pulled his wonderbaby routine on ANYONE WHO WOULD MAKE EYE CONTACT. We were right next to the bathroom (Jeff knows what I’m like when the caffeine hits, although I was smart and just got tea) and the music wasn’t too loud and it was just wonderful.

THEN we went to Whonnock Beach which is absolutely beautiful and given that it was the Thursday before the LHW you’d think it would be jammed. WELL IT WASN’T. There were MAYBE thirty other families there. Nobody was yelling. It was almost beyond belief in how mellow it is. Babby crawled through sand, used his grandmas (genetically Suzanne isn’t but YOU TRY CONVINCING THEM of that) for furniture, fought his teething pain and sleep with equal facility and was in general our beautiful brown-eyed boy. (who stands two inches taller than babies the same age, he will be MONSTROUS Katie is literally saving money to feed him when he’s a teenager given how he eats now with a terrifying, catholic enthusiasm.) Halfway through an icecream truck with gluten free treats showed up. Shoulda seen Suzanne (her hair is pink right now, and god did she get ROASTED by her brotherinlaw at the property a few weeks back when she was the ONLY one of us getting harassed by wasps) book it to the ice cream truck and come back triumphant with her gluten free mango ice lolly.

KATIE IS THE BEST.

Then I came home, ate the last of the meatball sub Jeff got me day before yesterday, watched a bunch of TV including the latest Shetland, and found out that there’s a prequel series to Mystery Road available and watched the first one of that. It’s beautifully shot.

Still can’t get the alien from ‘Nope’ out of my mind. It’s a shape changer and some of its morphs are crazy beautiful. Also scary af.

I am in a much better mood but when I consider how much work I have to do to get my goods whittled down to a single room in size…. I clench.

Made a snarky remark on a post on Twitter day before yesterday. The s/o of the person I critiqued presented an extremely well reasoned request to kill that remark, so I did. Social media is not making me a better person except perhaps by accident.

Took the RAADS self test – 75 score. Test is at the bottom, here, but read the blurbs first. For autistics by autistics.

 

The ‘many thoughts one result’ = blank stare.

NEED COFFEE

omnibus post

2533 words. grinding still

Watched Railway Children Revisited. Beau Gadsdon, the lead, played ONE of the child versions of Jyn in Rogue One. I KNEW I had seen her before. (her sister Dolly played the other one) It’s a very kindly well meaning film but you’ll do fine not watching it if that’s not your interest. Although Jenny Agutter is always a treat on the screen.

Rewatched the Jeremy Brett version of ‘The Red-Headed League’ and Tim McInnerny plays a swine so well, as always.

If you needed ANOTHER reason not to fly? yeesh. As I predicted previously the science is starting to look like flying will be more turbulent thanks to climate change.

Jeff and Buster are out on rat patrol.

Two loads of laundry.

Very hot yesterday. AQI and Pollen were good, can’t figure out why I can’t stop sneezing.

Not in great shape, just putting one foot in front of the other.

 

 

 

 

 

it’s the little things

Paul drove back from Seattle with his girlfriend in tow, didn’t bother to tell the kids first. Well, at least I can scratch that off the list of people Paul must inform. It will be interesting to see which mode of transport she utilizes to go home.

Katie has asked (the way atheists do…) to keep a friend of hers in mind today. If things go well Katie’ll be walking distance from her best friend. Pray your asses off in other words, it would be SO GOOD for her mental health.

2525 words and NOW you’ve got that STUPID song in your head.

I called myself a ragesloth this morning.

what a day

Spoke to both of my former sisters-in-law regarding Paul’s medical situation. Lois had to call back and then we had quite the earflapping. Ruth was as smart and kind as I remember her. Terry, may he receive his recompense, had already told both of them what was going on, so they were not freaking out when I called.

Got Keith over here (for pay, expecting broke rellies to work for nothing is horky) to rip out as much of the deadly nightshade as possible (including the nightshade that was growing up into the air conditioner water outlet) while I mowed the lawn. Jeff, you need to buy some gas, cause all that’s left is in the lawnmower.

Got a splendidly indulgent supper delivered after a splendidly indulgent breakfast (I ordered two coffees just in case Keith wanted some later). SO MUCH FRUIT nom.

Tried to write. 2330 words.

Watched some more Sandman again.

I have a long list and no desire to do a damned thing about it

have some doggerel!

East Burnaby, East Burnaby
At least it’s not New West
We tried to keep the homeless out
We really tried our best

Alas the housing crisis came
Our Derek lost his bearings
So now we’re building shelters
And not acting so uncaring

To watch the cops throw up their hands
As you cross 10th Avenue
Reminds one of the benefits
Of police force overview

Like all good Burnabarians
I love our Mounties dearly
How could they ever use us ill
Or treat us cavalierly

But should you need assistance
From the New West PD
You’ll see a difference written plain
From our RCMP

East Burnaby, East Burnaby
Samosas on the breeze
Within two steps it’s dim sum
Pork adobo follows these

East Burnaby, East Burnaby
So great it almost hurts
And housing’s tight so now we fight
For legalizing yurts

A multi ethnic youth gang came
And shovelled all my snow
I’m lucky to be living here
I hope I never go