Allegra Sloman's blog

If you know about Hammy Hamster, I don’t have to ‘splain anything. If you don’t, ‘splanations would be pointless, maybe even actively painful. Sigh.

For Immediate Release

Infectious Tapioca has been identified as an immediate hazard to navigation in Vancouver and the GVRD. Symptoms include perseverative humming, mild cursing, inability to concentrate, unconvincing threats of self harm and severe thrumps.Appetite may increase to the point where non food items are ingested; keep your hands and feet away from the face of anyone so afflicted.

If you come in contact with someone with the eruptive stage of Infectious Tapioca, after you stop laughing and pointing, you should back away slowly and avoid the use of microwave ovens, and probably radar installations just to be on the safe side.

Role playing games and Bing Crosby are strongly contraindicated as palliative measures; Mahler and Cribbage seem to assist in some cases.

Do not listen to anything that a person afflicted with Infectious Tapioca may say and try to prevent them from playing with their food, although this may be difficult seeing as how you will not want to get too close to the business end.

May the Goddess have mercy on us all.

My Tapioca song is now so firmly lodged in Brooke that her normal thought processes, a concept fit to frighten us all, are being interfered with. So I thought I would riff on the notion a little.

Baby bears : Two little polar bears born at the zoo in Rostock, northern Germany, are presented to the public. (AFP/DDP/Danny Gohlke)

Big shout out to Glen, who has the Buddha nature

and Katie, who is trying to finish her English course and is having a bit of a hard time

and Robin and Cari, who used to threaten to kill Katie but have since decided to go to Katie’s school and are apparently straightening out their lives, which I have to assume is true since I have actually seen them and invited them into my house to clean their shoes off and they appear to not be threatening and at least one of them has put on weight, which is a good sign in some circumstances

and my Dad, for holding up his corner of the edifice of society, sometimes at extreme personal cost

and my Mom, whose dental surgery stitches come out on Wednesday

and my boss, for frequently acting like the only sane adult within earshot

and Keith, for being consistently entertaining and for COFFEE

and Paul, who is being extra snuggly

and Tori for her amazing art

and Mike, for being Mike (I don’t have the vocabulary to list all the reasons)

and Brother James for the phone which is working great, thanks

and John for his reading from Neal Stephenson’s doorstopper last night (the scene from the carriage ride in the snow, if anybody cares)

and Tom and Peggy of COURSE

and Brooke for offering the loan of sundry DVD’s

and our across the alley neighbours for being such a delight

and the rosemary bush out front, which is turning into a household god; what else blooms in January? And the blooms are such a pretty colour.

In a reverie between bouts of sleep Londo and Sarah Michelle Gellar meet on Babylon 5 and Londo congratulates her as if she’s Buffy, and she leans forward very annoyed and says “My name is Sarah Michelle Gellar” and Londo says, “Yes, and you’re married to Freddie Prinze Jr; I’ll be polite and not mention the divorce. My dear lady, we are all actors. Right now, you’re a human being offended at being mistaken for an actor. Believe me, it could be worse…”

Then I said I can hardly wait for bike and spuffy to do the wild thing, and realized I’m probably still too tired to talk.

I looked all over the inertnet for this and couldn’t find it, so I’m posting it (as I remember it). I think this is really cute.

The Jig of the One Celled Organizms

A paranoid paramecium
Went out one day for a stroll
And saw his friend amoeba
Contracting his vacuole
He said, now friend Amoeba –
Just what is eating you?
“It’s a mean old ‘moeba eater!
So tell me what to do!”

You just flick out your flagellum
and pump your plasma gel
stomp your pseudopodium as
You kick him all to hell
Your organelles work overtime
Your ectoplasm too
Just start binary fission
and he’ll just

get

half

of

you!

Debuted the Tapioca song last night; very much enjoyed doing that. Wrote another song “Lifeline”. When I emerge from the grip of my hormones I’ll blog some more.

2019 says I recorded Lifeline, here it is.

Our DVD player is having a Buffyverse induced Near Death Experience. Must Get Cleaner.

I’ll keep this short as I am working on a migraine and the screen is yelling at me to go away. Yet more Buffy; we watched “Crush” and the five of us (John had just got back from “Night and Gay” with the VLGC) delighted in the dialogue, which is pretty funny. James Marsters is not much of an actor, but that doesn’t prevent you from staring at him.

Paul and Keith and I vacuumed and carpet cleaned yesterday because the living room carpet was disGUSTing. Then the boys rearranged the furniture. As we have now given up on the notion that we are pretending we don’t watch TV (and we still don’t have cable) the chairs in the room now look at the TV, which is sitting in the fireplace (which doesn’t work because we’d have to spend an awful lot of money to get it to code). I like the image of a tv sitting in a fireplace. Suits me, somehow.

One of the benefits of the furniture rearrangement is that the living room now has enough space for Keith to do kata in, which he is doing; Kira just skulked off in disgust as he is bounding about punching the air and Kira is not at all convinced this is safe.

Off to Kinko’s or somesuch today to photocopy the Glorious Nosebleed.

Paul’s off to work.

I should find some other domestic project to do before I take off; the living room is making me feel all cheerful.

Rob and LJ over for supper last night. Everybody is in really good shape and we had a fine time.

Email fwded home from work….

All names redacted to protect the hoo hoo’s.

Subject: If you change the word “You” to “Beer”…

Did I ever tell you Beer’s my hero?

Beer’s everything, everything I wish I could be.

Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,

for Beer is the wind beneath my wings,

’cause Beer is the wind beneath my wings.

…

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.

Beer, beer, beer, beer is the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly away. Beer lets me fly so high.

Oh, Beer, Beer, Beer, the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, Beer, Beer, Beer, the wind beneath my wings.

The temp said we should substitute “Weed” instead. Man, ya gotta love Vancouver.

Great concert, Tom L, Peggy, Tom U, Mike J and Agnes J in attendance. He did perform Michael, Michael, Michael and Berkeley Springs and a new waltz that had me practically crying, it’s so pretty. He also sang one song in French and did a ‘world premiere’ of a new tune.

The concert was recorded for Radio Canada and the APTN, so the Vancouver audience (I really like Vancouver audiences) was even more well behaved than normal. I only heard one cell phone go off but it was one of those subdued rings and it was during patter, thank god, and the person carrying the phone was obviously mortified… did I mention my cell phone went off during a fellow comedian’s spiel the other night? I was pretty choked, but she handled it very well.

I have a fairly full dance card today but Paul is wanting to top it up with a meal invite for somebody- he just hasn’t figured out who he wants to feed. Hope they like pork chops, whoever they are.

2019 sez don’t you love how Paul would just say OKAY YOU’RE COOKING DINNER FOR EXTRA PEOPLE and wow I’m not seeing much of a happy marriage here no matter how hard I look. but hey I smile and keep trying.

I am not feeling that sociable at the moment but I imagine I’ll perk up later. My right hip hurts so much it’s hard for me to think about anything else right now. I walked down to Farm Town to get bacon with Paul thinking that would loosen things up but I’m not happy now.

I’m shipping off my French books to Brother James (sometime) and the darnedest thing happened. I got to thinking I should look at them and found a poem in the back of Teach Yourself French Grammar. After I fix it I’ll post it.

I was going to say that this was a picture of the moose that bit my sister, but this would confuse the hell out of the people who don’t know I don’t have a sister and equally do not know that it is a Monty Python reference. This apparently is from ‘someplace in Canada’ which you will have to admit takes vagueness to a new realm. There are apparently other pictures of the moose standing in the kiddy pool before it decided to lie down. What is it with me and meese? Why do I love them so? It must be the rack.

my mom sez I really need to be more regular about posting… kay.

Had a massage at work today. I think it’s really cool that they’re doing that for us. Anyway, it’s midnight. Another low energy class – but the comedy was wicked sharper, kind of interesting that way. Bought rye bread at Cobs Bakery on the Drive, Keith says it is very good.

Pic is of my teacher. He doesn’t actually look like this very often. He has the most infectious snicker I think I’ve ever heard. He doesn’t laugh out loud very often but the snicker is extremely effective.

Street person asked me for money for food, so I handed over a free bun I got at Cobs. She actually thanked me (well, she said she was hungry, and it was a fairly substantial thing, whole grain and full of dates.)

Katie’s at Jana’s and Paul hasn’t come home from hanging around with Mike J – he said something about going for a beer after work. It is SO nice to live with a guy who does what he says. Mike J is such a positive uptempo kinda guy, it’s great that they’re holed up someplace comfy hangar flying, the way they always do when they get together.

later….

I guess I don’t have too much to say on the world today. Paul doesn’t want me to post any more pix of Katie as the world is full of stalkers and bad men. Okay. I guess when I have really cool pix of my daughter I’ll just say so and people can email me for copies.

The Gorey epic is in my hands (well, not literally, or it would be hard to type) and it really is a wonderful thing.

Off to Comedy class tonight and Don Ross tomorrow. We have 6 tix reserved. Paul managed to trade the night off so he’s going, thank goodness…. somebody has to pay for my beer.

I have rewritten The Tapioca song to tighten it up; I am SO looking forward to debuting it at the sing song on Sunday.

Did the Buffy obsession thing last night and watched the commentary version of the Restless episode (which for anyone who cares is the last episode of Season 4). I had really liked the episode when I saw it the first time but the commentary was like a revelation. Joss Whedon is one powerfully weird guy. Also read the synopses of the first Angel season and now understand why Angel was so very freaked out when he came back to Sunnydale after Buffy went to visit him in LA.

Thank you fellow Buffyverse denizens for your kind offers of loaning various seasons.

Came home last night and Keith was perusing all the juggling links I had forwarded from Rob of Nine, who seems to be under the impression that I can learn how to juggle. Three balls, two hours. (But what do the men attached to them think?) I know that juggling is exceedingly good for your brain – all the studies say so – very integrative, don’t you know – but these days my thought processes are a lot like a time lapse mpeg of a whacked beehive. I am not sure juggling is the right therapy.

I am typing with a grimace this morning, as I ‘unnecessarily mutilated’ my left index finger last night while slicing biscotti. (And I should learn how to juggle? Let me start with knives, or fire at very least). At least Paul will have biscotti to take in to his coworkers- that was the plan.

I suspect that the only thing wrong with me is hormones. I am at that weird twilight state where I am still a girl, but the testosterone is starting to kick in very hard and ugly from time to time; not that there’s necessarily more of it, there’s just less of the girl stuff. Perimenopause sucks a mop!!!! There, I said it.

More Buffy. We are now officially at the end of season 4. To deal with the fact that that kids raced on ahead I’ve now read all the synopses of the episodes up to the end of season 6.

I’ve only lost 5 pounds since my most recent foray into attempting to be healthier but all of my clothes fit better. I calibrated that hideous bathroom scale against the one at the pool and was pleased to discover that I had been unduly harsh on myself. No tattoo until I hit 155 pounds and stay there for a while. That’s my reward, at least one tattoo. I know that once upon a time I weighed 132 pounds (oh, and you should HEAR Katie roar on the subject of how unfair it was that I was ever skinny, which is pretty funny) but I have studied all the health stuff, and the goal is to get myself thin enough that diabetes, stroke and heart attack are removed as being red alerts and stay plump enough that (this line deleted, and you can probably guess why).

Tori, a goddess among women, has agreed to sell me the Glorious Nosebleed, her visual meditation on Edward Gorey, for an undisclosed sum and valuable considerations. Sue and Elizabeth are smiling, wherever they are. They are the folks who got my family into Gorey in the first place.

Off to Mike’s for a soak this evening; hope I find two minutes to work on my bits, I need another three for tomorrow night. “I see that the Vancouver cops have arrested a whole bunch of Hell’s Angels. I hear jail is just like the clubhouse but the TV isn’t as new. I mean, all the guys sitting around the TV are the same. The lawyers will argue that it was all a terrible mistake; how were they supposed to know they were bribing the wrong cops?”

“Valentine’s Day is hard on married people. After twenty-five years it’s hard to find a new way to say, “Thanks for helping with the mortgage. PS Did you take out the trash?”

I am getting campaigned on here, the kitties are demanding breakfast. Why don’t you just evolve hands and leave me alone?

(moderate calypso beat) If comfort food is what you crave

(mmmm tapioca)

Don’t cook tapioca in the microwave

(nooo tapioca)

My husband said “You’re crazy, I’m not eating that!” (no tapioca in the microwave)

“It could not be eaten by a starving rat!” (no tapioca in the microwave)

Tapioca, tapi-o-ca; no tapioca in the microwave x 2

Pulled it from the pot, it made a scary sound

(no tapioca in the microwave)

Bounced twice when I dropped it on the ground

(no tapioca in the microwave)

Tapioca, make you choke-a; no tapioca in the microwave x 2

Now double boilers may seem like a grandma thing

(no tapioca in the microwave)

Harder than waiting for the bell to ping

(no tapioca in the microwave)

I’ll call NASA with a great big smile

(no tapioca in the microwave)

I’ve got a solution for those thermal tiles (no tapioca in the microwave)

Tapioca, tapi-o-ca; no tapioca in the microwave x 4

2019 sez check out all the changes! took ‘crazy out’ and tightened all the verbiage for singability

Cute, hunh?

Kids watching Cowboy Bebop. Off to the Pool later. I am desperately trying to think of something funny to take to my comedy class. I am feeling about as funny right now as the proverbial rubber crutch.

The critter is a tarsier.

2019 deletes broken links regarding American economy

Okay, I am a freaking alarmist. I ask again… who’s gonna head for the exit first? The pressures on the US dollar are immense.