that lentil soup is nommers

I’m going to make more soup today so I have instant meals when Leo and Linda come CHICKN BARELY! I meean, chicken barley.

This afternoon, me, Cindy (Hopes hopes) and Peggy will get together to sing and play PEGGY WILL BE HEFTING BASS I am so happy.

Leo and Linda have been to the mines at Britannia Bay – and I’ve been living here decades and never been, although Paul and the kids have.

Confidential to mOm I think I'm going to write a scene in which the wicket stepbro asks Omar if 'he's going to let her' (her being Blossom) 'get away with that' and he and Brad are going to slap each other laughing like frat boys and say NO YOU DON'T GET IT SHE'S THE BOSS and then she's going to say, in 'visiting professor' intonations "I THOUGHT WE WERE AN AUTONOMOUS COLLECTIVE" and they all lay about laughing. It's stupid but every time I imagine it I smile. I think I know how this is going to end now. The story logic is INEVITABLE.

I need another 15-20k to get there though. 15,302 is current count

lentil soup has been achieved

green lentils and tomatoes, bouillon, garlic cloves, half a lime, lots of cumin, cayenne for a little heat. Very nice and should get nicer as it rests comfortably in the fridge.

15115. I’ve done my brain training for the morning.

The weather was gross for about fifteen minutes, high winds and what sounded quite a bit like small hail, maybe graupel. I’ve never heard of graupel falling at night before, but we’re living in weird times.

The school shooting in Uvalde TX is even worse that it was originally thought. I grieve with the parents.

clean sheets

Two loads of laundry and the dishes yesterday. I ordered in a very expensive meal to cheer myself up; I ate the leftovers this morning and YES it did cheer me up. (Jeff got a meal too, I’d never order something without consulting him.)

Now it will be lentil stew for a week!

15110 words – feel sort of stuck on the story but I know I’ll get over it soon enough.

Katie and I spoke on the phone early yesterday about the most recent school shooting in the US, and we were both crying. We love our kids, but they’re just tokens in a violent game sometimes, and we want better for them, but what can we do? Hope, keep hoping, remember that hope is less expensive than despair.

irritation

I think I’m allergic to the peanuts in the Cuban Lunch Jeff bought for me yesterday. I was itchy and sleepy and messed up all afternoon, and feel fine now. Slept great.

Image

In this meme, Dr. Fauci, holding Coronavirus’s hand, gives ‘monkeypox’ a once over while Coronavirus fumes.

Got a kudo on “The Reviewer” and went back and re-read it, and fixed a typo.

There was another school shooting yesterday in the US. Stuff really sucks yo.

 

I have achieved meds

F near died walking back – I was fine on the way there; it appears that 2 k with a solid hill component is too much for me at the moment because I had to pause, many times, on the way home.

Jeff restored my happiness by appearing with CUBAN LUNCH chocolate candies. These were a feature of my Ottawa Childhood™. Last time I saw one for sale was when I was still merrit to Paul and we were driving down the highway close to Brooks AB. Anyway a new company has started up manufacturing and they’re BETTER than I remember them so I’m really freaking happy about that.

For whatever reason I can’t get through on Peggy’s land line right now, although it appears to be working on her end. So I have to look up her cell number because I haven’t memorized it yet, or ever.

Just got an email from Mike – he’d lost his phone for a while and so apparently vanished from human ken.

 

 

tired arms

Well I got to hold Ryker A LOT yesterday and given that he’s six months old he’s a heavy little cuss and he has distinct preferences about how he wants to be held and that is UP and BOUNCING. Definitely feeling it. No pictures; I made memories.

When he smiles at Alex I am so happy I want to invent words. You hear people talking about how a baby is the light of a house, but Ryker just is. He makes people happy just by existing.

However I didn’t just fawn over the little one. I asked Alex if he would like an almost endless supply of free games and he asked if there would be ads and I said, well, no, because our taxes already paid for the website. Then he went entirely nuts on the cbc.ca/kids game site (there are dozens upon dozens of games) and he had a fantastic time checking through them. I gave him useful information. I also found out that he wants a Playtime Poppy poster. (Warning this is a really scary horror game which is not 100 percent age appropriate, but I’m going to get him a poster anyway.)

Keith was in fine form and fed me vegetarian bean stew for lunch and half a Stella. Katie continues to dote on her two boys and that’s lovely.

All in all a lovely visit. Paul’s in Seattle of course.

My tinnitus is MUCH MUCH WORSE. First in my right ear, and now in my left ear, day and night I have ticking noises. It started right before the camping trip.

Lovely long talk with Sue last night; she’s auditioning for a lead role in a film AND I’M SO EXCITED FOR HER. (She’s also my canonical casting for the human form of Grandmother Zosime in UPSUN)

Good morning, morning, blues how do you do

not all pigs are beautiful (sus barbatus)

15010 words Brad is such a weirdo I love him.

It’s another beautiful day in Vancouver.

Yesterday the winds in Toronto were turning trucks over on the highway; I was talking to Dave and he reported nothing like that in his end of Toronto. As he pointed out it’s a large city.

However parts of Toronto are without power for 24 hours and the sound of chainsaws in some neighbourhoods is pretty much continuous.

Liz from London says they experienced darkness at noon and the wind blew something terrific.

I will get Alex next weekend for an overnight, hoping the crick don’t rise.

it was so good

Suzanne in the morning, washed most of the upstairs throw rugs to put on nice clean floors. Dejunking for next time

Buster is healing well.

I made and kept an appointment to donate blood yesterday. It was a temporary clinic at Bob Copeland rec centre. I took a cab both ways because I didn’t want to take the bus there and was figuring on being too bagged to get home on the bus afterward and it was all fine. It was a good stick, no bruising, and I dropped a bag no problem.

I am not completely useless yet, somebody out there is going to stay alive because of me.

Then I asked what Jeff might like for dinner and suggested burritos; and I’m getting two meals out of that Chronic Tacos burrito! I got the Al Pastor AND OMG IT IS SO GOOD. Jeff got the chicken burrito and ate every scrap. On a whim I ordered churros; UNBELIEVABLY sugary and greasy, therefore as one can imagine AMAZING. I love eating burritos because your body tells you you’re getting something wonderful, all those beans and flavours of lime and cilantro and onion and HEAT.

14719 (I removed as well as added.)

I miss Ryker so much I feel weird. Alex hugs are missing as well.

Finnish Nato Beer.

 

14701

Continuing to make slow and steady progress on “totally boned”. I believe Suzanne is coming today, and I am going to talk to her about some more severe dejunking. Marinated tofu salad for supper last night. I crashed really early and woke up really early and now I want to do absolutely nothing all day…. Which is not on the plan sigh.

Dishes have been washed, rugs are downstairs being washed. Waiting for Suzanne.

SPENT HALF THE FUCKING MORNING BOOKING THE VAMPIRES. The Canadian Blood services site is a ghastly ordeal; took almost an hour to book a pint and change my password. GHASTLY I TELL YOU.

fried eggs on sauteed veggies

That was lunch yesterday and candidly it was quite tasty. It was leftover veg from the camping trip, hooray for it not melting into compost in the fridge.

Mammogram was fine, and swift; when complete I caught the 119 at the building where the clinic is and then walked home from Highgate, after taking a cab to get there. I seem to be having more trouble than usual walking, but some kind soul put a park bench exactly halfway home (Kingsway and Stride or thereabouts) and since I’d been thinking I’d end up sitting on the wet grass just to give my legs a rest it was most welcome! That’s 1.2 km on concrete. I was quite out of puff when I got home since I was trying to walk, not amble.

Wonderful phone call with mOm; I love offering her advice on family history projects because it continually forces me to think about what family history is FOR. It’s for us, so we don’t lose our memories; it’s for our ancestors so we honour them, (even the jerks) and it’s for our kids so that they know where they are from.