home a day early

For a variety of completely NON BAD reasons we came home a day early, and glad we are we did. She did all the northbound driving, I did all the southbound.

I had a fantastic time, met one of Suzanne’s inlaws, got rather closer to a wildfire (put out in two hours though) than was pleasant, saw a lot of wildlife, and thanks to said inlaw INSISTING THAT WE SLEEP IN HIS TRAILER, I had three nights of superbly restful sleep next to a beautiful elderly lab cross named Stella. At one point I was awake and they were snoring and it was all I could do not to laugh.

Suzanne and I got along fine and laughed our asses off. I will give you a hint in life. Take HER camping, not me, she’s prepared like a quartermaster….

Many more details will come later. It was FUCKING AWESOME.

Alex Goat-Boy

 

Alex held a kid at the Country Bee

When Katie and I and her children went to Country Bee, it was with a message for the workers there that the parental dyad was feeling too punk to join us and that they knew the workers would be worried about them.

You would think this was unnecessary but IT WAS NOT. As soon as we mentioned to the sweet young grain goddess at the till that they weren’t up for it (not sick, just tired, like you’re allowed to be at however old I misremember them to be), another woman, older and shorter, popped out of the back like something in a TV show and loudly said, “I wondered.”

We had a brief but cheering conversation and then went outside to chase wall lizards, find peacock feathers and as you can see above, Alex got to hold a baby goat. It was amazing and Katie got pics.

Alex and a baby goat are centred in a picture, surrounded by goats

I love that little man so.

Katie got me a salted choco chip cookie and some iced tea, Alex got a honeybee cookie and preferred mine … I WARNED HIM. Ryker and Alex did well on the ferry wait given that it was a hot day and they were bored silly. pOp I managed to help Alex stave off the horrors of boredom in the the digital age with the

 

fanfare pls & ty

VIEW-MASTER

leaving today

Bubs the Magnificent Baby, Alex and Katie just visited me and Ryker is SO HAPPY TO SEE ME HE SMILED SO HARD HE NEARLY SQUIRMED HIMSELF OFF THE BED and his mom cotched him and threw him up in the air while he fizzed with toothy mirth.

I have finished Shirlene Obuobi’s ‘On Rotation’ and it is a very satisfactory romance. VERY. I shall exercise my critical (not very) faculties on a full scale review shortly, but not right now.

Katie’s about to order us a McDonald’s breakfast and I am here for it, quite literally.

The psychiatric attic has once more been breached! it now reveals a View-Master. The box that the View-Master and the reels are was made by my maternal grandfather and when I reached into the box to randomly pull out a reel…..

IT WAS FOR THE ADDAMS FAMILY TV SHOW, IN COLOUR.

I think I probably screeched. John Astin as Gomez in a 1920’s style pure white driving costume? It with its hair in curlers? LOLOLOL. MORTICIA KNITTING? lololololololol guess what my mother was doing all day yesterday in the sunroom, it’s just TOOOOOO RICH

Making happy family memories is a wonderful process. Only people missing as descendants were Jeff and Keith. And you were both missed!

Absolutely no writing except for the blog and a couple of tweets.

 

in Victoria

Ryker is charming his great grandparents with everything he’s got. He’s inches from being able to walk so that means he falls down and cries a lot. And then he promptly stops because he’s extremely cheerful.

Alex is also being delightful.

Trip over was nominal.

Back in Van tomorrow afternoon.

pOp showed me the two most important books in his collection. A science fiction short story omnibus with some brightly coloured and horrifying aliens, which he first ran across when he was reshelving books in the kids section of the main library in Saskatoon in the 1940s, and a Mickey Mouse book which was the first book he was ever given at the age of four, and which he had re-bound because the cover was trashed.

mOm found and donated to me and Jeff our old Viewmaster. FIRST ONE I PICKED UP WAS OG Addams Family IN COLOUR god I love my family. She also gave me Shirley Obuobi’s ON ROTATION because I told her to buy it and give it to me after she read it and SHE DID she read it and now I have a brand spanking new romance in a medical setting to read when I hit the bunk tonight YES.

lots on my mind

  1. much of it isn’t my story, so I sit by the side of the road
  2. Housefilk has been moved up to today. I wish I could stop feeling this bleak – Jeff got me CHEESE SCONES and COFFEE and both are excellent.
  3. weather remains fine
  4. The Russians keep providing the Ukrainians with proof of war crimes and the fact nobody on the Russian side seems to care indicates that they don’t actually believe any international justice apparatus will still be standing when they’re done.
  5. At this point I think we’ve got about 6 months left of ‘normal’ so it’s time to batten down. Start keeping more cash on hand, among other things.
  6. Anne Heche died of her injuries. Addiction is a terrible thing. I hope her kids have people they can trust with them and aren’t exposed to too much vileness. IN DECEMBER 2022 IT WAS REVEALED SHE DIDN’T HAVE ANY DRUGS OR ALCOHOL IN HER SYSTEM.  Lesson… don’t speculate on CoD until the coroner rules.
  7. preparations for camping trip have commenced – I need to find Jim E’s old camping list. Suzanne has already told me to expect to do as much driving as I can stand because ‘she wants to look at the view’ and I am HERE for that.
  8. off to Victoria soon for a flying visit more deets later
  9. I am hoping for a breakthrough on totally boned so I guess I’ve got a date with some 3×5 cards current count is 1663

  10. allegra sloman 13/8/2022 ‘Doing it badly’

Suzanne has been here

  1. The Enshinening has occurred, the kitchen rugs are clean again.
  2. Finished the Sandman. After one horrible episode in the middle it got WAY better again and I loved the last two eps for this season.
  3. YAY we get to watch more Shetland, because there is more.
  4. Having lots of insomnia.
  5. Steve Bannon says that ‘the Deep State may try to assassinate President Trump’
  6. LOL
  7. The documents the FBI was looking for at Mar-a-Lago had to do with American nuclear secrets.
  8. The internet is ablaze with the notion that it was Melania who turned him in.
  9. Sadly, the picture of Melania standing over Ivana’s grave is photoshopped. I almost fell for it.
  10. 1594 words. Suzanne got her copy of the first 6 chapters of ‘Totally Boned’. She’s four chapters in and loving it so far.
  11. Spoke to Mike yesterday. His 36 year old boss dropped dead while on vacation and his only remaining report’s niece just died in a brutal car crash that orphaned her 10 year old son, so abruptly Mike’s answering the phones again which he swore he would not do. Christ knows when he’ll catch a break.
  12. Enjoy the following anecdote.
  13. man shoots himself in head
  14. “Health is the finest thing for mortals the second finest is to bear noble children, third to win riches without fraud, and fourth to be young among one’s friends.” Not 100 percent sure but I think that’s Plutarch.
  15. I feel sad and have no reason to.

better today

  1. knees much less sore, swelling gone down, bruised area is still very hot to the touch. The place I hit my head is hurting today, but not enough to take pain killers.
  2. You now aren’t supposed to drink rainwater anywhere on earth. That’s a hell of a thing.
  3. wordle in 4, haven’t done my lumosity yet this morning. Sorry I’m late, I had a very upset night sleeping wise
  4. CNN referred to Elon Musk’s increasingly bizarre and market stampeding behaviour as ‘antics’ is ludicrous. Four year olds stacking chairs to get at cookies is antics, for the love of god.
  5. Hoping to see Mike some time this week, even if it’s to drop by and have some takeout.
  6. Officially starving, I’m off to get some breakfast.

my knees are bruised and abused

and I appear to have subluxed one of my finger joints during my sleep, again, but I am awake and aware enough to get the wordle in 4 this morning.

1594 words

There’s a dead rat in the alley that you can actually see from the end of the alley. Disgusting, but I’m not touching it, that’s what the crows are for.

Jeff is currently having a low key sneezing fit. I am not low key about sneezing. When I was young and impressionable I read that suppressing a sneeze is bad for you. I know how, I just don’t. KACHOOOO change the airpressure in the room lol.

Exchanged an abso hilarious note with Alexis this morning but I cannot alas share it with you. The kids are all right.

 

to the right to the right

  1. I must start today’s Symphony of Yeesh with the observation that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property has been raided (right down to the safe) by the FBI. Hear now in the ear of your mind an opening blast of strangely discordant horns, resolving into a mixed chorus of voices swelling in triumph, followed by a faint rippling echo of ‘Yakety Sax’.
  2. Someone’s serial killing Muslim men in ABQ. Apparently he attended the funeral of one of the men he killed, followed an attendee home and killed him there. This along makes me think that it’s an unhinged member of the community. LATER: CALLED IT.
  3. Putin seems to think shelling one of the biggest nuclear power plants in Europe is a great thing to do with modern weapons.
  4. had a medium length phone conversation with Keith yesterday. He wants a conference call with mOm at some point and I said sure.
  5. Absolutely loving Neil Gaiman’s the Sandman. It’s not an exact take on a thirty year old comic but things have changed since then
  6. This paragraph deleted as too enraging / clickbaity
  7. I love speculaas cookies. They are bad for me.
  8. 1581 words on Part II
  9. blew wordle this morning
  10. Taraji P Henson’s ancestral kin was the first man at the North Pole! her family must have the most amazing stories
  11. Must go one last time to the Swiss Chalet before it closes.

Does the dog die

  1. that is the name of a website. People are sensitive about animal loss. I told a bunch of people on reddit that the dog DOESN’T die in the new Predator series movie, “Prey” and my inbox this morning is full of thanks and praise for saying so.
  2. Time to brush my teeth and have a shower.
  3. Burnaby is going to have a festival of glowing pumpkins, 6000 of the hand carved suckers. Once we hit August it’s all Halloween all the time around here.
  4. Somebody must have put one of my stories on a list; one particular fanfic is getting all the attention these days. It’s an okay story, it’s got pacing issues.
  5. Still no joy on Part II of current story. Some extension of a fanfic.
  6. We’ve now blown through 1000 cases of MPX in Canada. It was 957 on the 5th August, what do you think?
  7. Can’t raise Mike, his phone doesn’t seem to be working.
  8. Lovely walk with Jeff in the morning, it wasn’t TOO hot. Actually walked up the hill with some speed instead of puffing and blowing and pausing the entire way.
  9. Hexavalent chromium spill into the Huron River, which would impact the drinking water of millions of people, is getting zero airplay / pixels / print space in the media. Hexavalent chromium, necessary (they say) for many industrial processes, is the single most toxic form of chromium. Staring at my Toronto friends hey you might want to move before it’s in the drinking water of Toronto in Lake Ontario.
  10. Made Jeff peppermint tea and smoked salmon green salad wrap for brekkie.
  11. The Russians have mined the Ukrainian nuclear plant they took over a couple of months back. It is apparently their intention to destroy it.
  12. I have Reddit Cute Animal disease, every time I see a video of a cute critter on Reddit I want to run out and buy it. Today’s heart-eyes – hognosed snake.
  13. Did not practice yesterday, but at least all the instruments are in the same room again.
  14. “Reddit Double Shot” – THERAPY and BREAKUPS all ’round. (AITA posts only)
  15. I got the wordle in three tries this morning. However I used a solve site on line to help me once I got to word two.
  16. That doesn’t always work, depends on how common the consonants are.
  17. I am thinking of the time I did the Grouse Grind. It took me 2.5 hours and a single human being lapped me three times; he was wearing nothing but pale metallic blue booty shorts and athletic shoes and carrying a water bottle.
  18. Doug Ford is still an asshole who took four billion dollars from the Feds to fight the pandemic and as far as anyone can tell is obscuring where it’s being spent as fast as his bean counters can hide it.
  19. I have had a poem written for me?!!! Colour me blushy.
  20. And now I shall cease with my morning raving, knowing that my fOlks don’t have internet right now so there’s no point getting this posted before six.
  21. reconnecting with an ex on social media (facebook, I believe I mentioned that I left instagram and climbed back up on facebook) is always fraught with hazard (he was my first bf from around the time the planet cooled) but so far all we’re doing is sighing heavily over what a fucking idiot Roger Waters (OF PINK FLOYD) (he’s FUCKING CAPING FOR THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SAYING TAIWAN BE OWNED BY THEM WHICH IS A BIG SURPRISE TO THE PEOPLE WHO FUCKING LIVE THERE) is, and posting youtube memories of songs gone by. Weird to see him all old and bearded though.
  22. and as a visual codaImage

dear ones

Long … long talk with Paul yesterday about his life changes, and then home made sugar free iced tea, tuna salad and a small serving of chocolate ice cream for lunch.

Buster has been in a weird mood of late. He’s been asking for stuff at odd times of day, at times when there are other people in the house, which he very rarely does. Training or ‘sitting pretty’ for brushing usually takes place under specific circumstances or times of day. I think he’s got one hell of a furball parked up in there somewheres.

Watched 13 Lives – the dramatization of the rescue of the Thai soccer team from the cave. Viggo Mortenson is AMAZING. Colin Farrell quietly disappears into his role. Viggo embodies a highly intelligent, very autistic and brilliant technical diver; the script is fantastic. The Thai people and government aren’t represented as ‘needing rescuing’ they are ‘asking for assistance on something they don’t have the expertise for’ and the way people come together for the outcome is better than any fiction. Congrats Ron Howard on another great movie and RIP Saman Kunan and Beirut Pakbara the Thai Navy Seal divers who perished at the time of the rescue or afterward from an infection acquired during the rescue.

retraction without redaction

Johnny Depp is a violent misogynistic creep and his sole purpose in suing Amber Heard for defamation was to bankrupt her, which he has done.

Now various items which did not come to light during the suit have demonstrated that Depp has A LONG HISTORY of spousal battery, shit talking and bad vibes. His Hollywood buddies who stood next to him during the suit have started to ‘quit following him on Twitter’ which probably means they aren’t taking his calls any more, or they go through an intermediary.

I have mentioned him half a dozen times on this blog since it started nearly 20 years ago, praising his appearance or commenting on his performances. I’m not going to take those references out; I’m just stating that as of the time the Amber Heard defamation suit came to court, I fucking loathe Johnny Depp and wish him a long life of total obscurity, relative penury, and wrinkles.