trip to southron office

Almost forgot to blog this am, which probably would have annoyed my mother. I’m off to rent a car and pick up a coworker to drive to the sister office in the US. I haven’t done anything wrong, and I still feel like I’m a smuggler when I cross the border. It’s so dumb, and I can’t help it.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to it. I’m going to have a fairly long day today but the results should be worth it. The car better have a cd player, I told my coworker to bring the tunes…. more later.

Thoroughly nasty nightmare last night, woke Paul up for a change. Won’t describe it except to say that there was a lot of violence and insanity.

Came home and found Katie out cold on the sofa. She woke up just long enough to tell me what to cook her for supper. I know I don’t miss being a teenager, but maybe it’s because if I’d tried to order my mother around in quite that fashion my pater would have given me what fer.

Off to the sister office tomorrow so will be blogging from the road again.

Spoke to Jan (previously referred to as Vampire Mamma in this blog) this am, in my frantic efforts to locate bed space for my family for my visit to Toronto. Then Paul called and told me we’ll just buy bedding and foamies for Tammy and then we can all stay in the same place. If she’ll have us! We won’t be there for the whole time, thank god. Must remember to show up with massive groceries, it’s quite the undertaking to have that many people over. The worst thing about the visit is that subgroups of the people I want to see loathe each other (in that icy, cordial Canadian way – ie I wouldn’t refuse to loan you jumper cables, but you’d better say thanks and mess off when you’re done kinda thing.)

This means that a lot of my visiting will be rather truncated, because Paul doesn’t feel welcomed by some people, and various of people’s spouses loathe me, and the kids can’t deal with some people, and this next phrase deleted even if the person it’s aimed at never reads it. Of course, will I see the people I really want to? For long enough? Unlikely. But I have a list.

I have lots of other stuff to say, but it’s time to run away to work.

Brother James has interesting friends

Brother James from our Eastern Climes (he asked me what I should give the visiting POTUS and I said nothing, Homeland Security already hates me) has yet another story about why you should NOT dick around with intelligent people. pOp, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one….over to Brother James

A friend of mine here in Ottawa just got let go from his job of five years. In the five years, he had acquired a fair number of t-shirts, jackets, hats, pens, etc., with his old company’s name and logo. Well, he didn’t want to wear the stuff (editor’s note: Dja figure?) but he didn’t want to put it in the trash either. So he washed all the clothes and headed down to the missions. He stood outside the missions and handed the gear out to the less fortunate.

About a month later, while waiting for the bus in the financial district, he saw a homeless person going through the trash while wearing his jacket and hat. He turned to the nearest suit wearing person at the bus stop and pointed out the homeless person. “You know, that used to be a great company, and now the employees have to get food out of the trash.”

 

2019 sez WELL HELLLLLLOOOOO CAPITALISM

food food food music

We had a spectacular seafood potluck meal at Paul and Anna’s last night. Unbelievably good. Mike J, Victoria, Thomas, Paul, Anna, Myself and Paul in attendance. Marie and Pierre showed up in time to go to the concert.

The Powder Blues Band was uniformly tight and excellent and I have no regrets about the money spent to see them. However, as I left, I vented my opinion of the DJ by writing all over the condensation on his vehicle TOO LOUD DUDE!!!! TOO LOUD DUDE!!!!

Peaceful protest is better… it’s not like I could have made myself heard over the utterly bassed-out and distorted assortment of “classic rock” he was blasting out. I just loved watching what got people on the dance floor. Billie Jean pulled hardest; AC DC cleared the floor like a stink bomb, it was very amusing to watch. Then all of a sudden Frankie Goes Hollywood’s “Relax” comes on and I was interested to see that it didn’t have quite the dance floor emesis effect of AC DC. The guy I was sitting next to was surprised I knew what every tune was. It’s really hard to explain that it’s my JOB to know about pop culture references; what people really don’t get is how I can do it and not watch network tv. It’s a gift, what can I say. Tom and Peggy showed up later and Peggy danced quite a bit. I only danced for two tunes, being Love Shack (I’m sorry, but I cannot stay in my seat for that) and something the Powder Blues Band did. Then my hips and ankles started screaming something along the lines of “You twit, sit down”. So I did.

Now we’re off to church to do sound set up and I’m opening. La La. Then we do a shop.

Then we come home and listen to Katie complain about what it’s like not to have any cigarettes. She’s complaining about other things too these days, but with some justification, and to protect her feelings I won’t mention what. She did enough housework this week to get an allowance, so she actually has more money in her bank account than she has had since it opened.

drumming

Spent an enjoyable two hours at the Masabo Cultural Centre last night, pounding the hell out of a djembe for the first time. This west African drum is large and versatie. Fano, the guy leading the drum drop in, was having a wonderful time riffing overtop of whatever beat he established with us. I of course lost the beat about 60 times, but I was having way too much fun to care. Then over to see Mike’s place for the first time, he’s moved in underneath Jarmo (still no hot tub) ;(. Anyway, I’m being hauled out the door to grill fish and see the Powder Blues Band at a private function. In White Rock. And then, the very last time opening the church tomorrow morning. More tomorrow.

P up a Tree

I always thought that humans have pretty weird notions of how to establish reproductive fitness; reciting poetry, skateboarding, amassing piles of cash and real estate in the absence of need, being good at grinding the faces of the poor, collecting debts for the mob, wearing really really tight and semi opaque clothing while clanking with bling, getting breast augmentation, being able to belch Archbishop of Canterbury all in one go, nude beach volleyball, Nascar racing, etc etc, but I have to admit male pandas for sheer creativity have got us all beat.

Male pandas establish who’s da man by peeing up trees. The higher the urinary fountain, the more impressed the ladies are by his athletic and excretory prowess. Pictured here, caught on camera for the first time, is a male panda showing everything he has got in one diuretic display of headstanding glory.

This does not exactly qualify as a “cute” animal pic, but it sure as hell got my attention when first I viewed it. Stolen from the BBC website, no photo attribution.

riffing on stupid

Ah, how glad am I, in my node of nodes, when I behold a truly stupid person. I view the stupidity and burst into a paean of joy, because I’m not that dumb. Please view, if you are hard of heart and stern of conscience, the gentleman behind the roll down cage.

Is this a teenager, floating on hormones and beer? No, it is a 33 year old man, and you must admit that at 33 one can reasonably expect a man to have shed some of the crudities of youth. He smashed the window of a pawn shop (is this starting to sound like a blues tune, or wtf) and as he tried to achieve ingress, he turned in disbelief to watch the rolling cage come down and lock shut.

Ah, the pity of it. A concerted effort by the authorities present was unable to extricate him from his lamentable state of busted dejection, and so (oh, my, I’m getting palpitations) they HANDED HIM THE TOOLS and let him extricate himself so he could get himself properly arrested, rather than threatened rather convincingly with arrest.

Is it true that this man, at 33, is as clueless as he was when he was 13? Or is he delusional and drugged out? I doubt it somehow. He is alleged to have said to the pix snapper “Doubly punish me by taking pictures, hey?”. The arresting officer is also alleged to have remarked that they had control of the suspect but had not yet arrested him, and the head of operations responded that in this case it was a distinction without a difference. He did have blood on his hands. But don’t we all these days, don’t we all?

 

2019 says ALLEGRA STOP USING ABLEIST LANGUAGE

Wolf meets Pokey

This is a picture of Lobo, Sam’s dog, meeting Pokey. Pokey is the biggest cat I currently know, so you can tell from this picture that Lobo is huge. He currently weighs 147 pounds, and I can assure you (he is now stomping round my living room, to the intense terror of my cats) precious little of it is fat. Okay, get the hell out of the cat litter tray……

Lobo is 7/8ths wolf.

stop ze presses

Stop the presses! Hold the phone! Get very very excited! Tom L is making blackberry jelly.

Now I know that to most of you this is not exactly earth shattering news, but you have NOT had Tom L’s blackberry jelly. Superlatives fail when confronted with with his blackberry jelly. They crawl off into corners and whimper, and examine themselves for some possibility of expressing the joy, the delight, the marvel, of tasting autumn’s bounty in the dead of winter. With a little bit of butter, on a big slab o toast. While listening to cars skid in the alleyway. All those scratches on Peggy’s arms have been transmuted into a substance which is addictive in the nicest possible way. And neener neener boo boo to you, folks, because this nectar, this soma, this evidence that our redeemer liveth, will be available only at the craft fair at church on December 5th (12 pm 1200 Place Maillardville), and if you aren’t there, well it’s your sorrow and lack and woe.

If you come for a visit and you are particularly nice to me I may break out a jar in your honour.

I will be buying some for me and some for my esteemed pater. Hey pOp, you know what you’re getting for Christmas? As many jars as I can afford. And I know that you will have a carefully metered teaspoon of it every day until it is gone. I’ll dance upon dishes, I’ll trip upon trenchers (to quote Dunnett, quoting some Scots poet) it is now perfect day!

xmas free zone

I don’t imagine I’ll be able to avoid Christmas entirely, but I am hoping to keep it as Christmas free as possible this year. To that end, please be advised that I am not buying Christmas presents for anybody except my kids, my parents and my brother. I am not expecting or hoping for anything to come my way; unless the prezzie fairy feels like dumping a hot tub with all the trimmings into my back yard. World peace would be nice. And maybe a winning lottery ticket for my old man, so he can spend his twilight years on top of the largest pile of tech toys in history.

My coworker Mr. G. said that he was at an athletic tournament in Alaska just before Xmas one year, and as he’s relaxing in the motel, Santa came on TV advertising a Beretta – on special for Xmas. You have to admit it’s quite the image. There’s more than one way to punish naughty children…. Lump of coal, my fundament!!!

hard to see but

Believe it or not, at the very centre of this picture is the flare of a tiny meteorite striking earth. The superheated tube of air that attends such a strike is also very faintly seen. Wayne Pryde of the Northern Territories in Australia took this picture while taking time lapse photos of clouds building up.

Please do not repost without attribution.

I know it may not be very exciting for YOU but I sure thought it was keen; picked it up from Fark today.

If you can believe it ALL FOUR OF US went to the pool last night. I lifted weights and swam (briefly); mostly I soaked in the swirlpool and lazed around in the kiddy pool and watched kiddies, trying to remember that it was actually likely that I had once had that much energy and sense of fun. I wasn’t planning on lifting weights but Katie threatened to stay home if I didn’t, so I kind of had to.

Had a wonderful dream last night but can’t remember much of it, just remember feeling cheerful from it when I woke up.

Just got Katie up – it’s ridiculously early but she had to have a shower.

A breaker blew this morning in the house, but Paul spoke to the misbehaving portions of the electrical system and it all seems to be working now.