mousme: A picture of the muppet Forgetful Jones from Sesame Street (Forgetful Jones)
 I may have overdone it a little today, but in my defense it was (sort of) necessary. See, a couple of weeks ago I got a slightly nasty email from my community garden organiser, telling me I had to clear my stuff out of my old plot so they could till it. I was at the time dealing with my parents' medical emergency, and I knew that afterward I'd be working night shifts, so I told the organiser that I would be there on the morning of April 29th to deal with it, and to please not till my plot because I had a currant bush and a whole bunch of asparagus crowns that I planted there last year (which cost me a pretty penny, let me tell you!) that I wanted to rescue first.

Then of course I got Covid, and it was arguably at its peak on April 29th, so there was no way in hell I was going to be able to get to the community garden while I was running a fever and coughing my brains out and generally being horribly ill. Luckily for me, Dylan and Sarah were absolute heroes and rockstars and agreed to come help me today, a mere five days after I said I'd clear out the plot (my deadline was May 5th, so it's not as bad as it sounds). We first met up at the dog park and they brought their dogs, Frankie and Shadow, to play with Peggy and Pixie, and a good time was had by all.

Dylan and Sarah did most of the work in my plot, because I am about as useful as a wet paper towel these days, and Sarah kept telling me to sit down because I couldn't breathe. It was a humbling experience, not going to lie. We rescued the currant bush and the asparagus, cleared out the paving stones that were my abortive attempt at an herb spiral last year, all the cardboard I put down, a few bags of soil, and my 500 litre water barrel. The rest was all straw mulch and dirt, which we left in place. 

We were also visited by a pair of mallards (a drake and a hen) who were not in the least put out by our presence, which was really sweet. They just swam by in a storm drain, doing duck things, totally unbothered.

I gave Dylan and Sarah a dozen quail eggs as a token thank you gesture, and offered to let them keep all the bags of soil, since I'm not going to be using it immediately anyway. I am going to have to figure out how to get soil delivered to the new property, since I definitely can't haul it in the Yaris and even KK's Nissan Rogue wouldn't be up to the task. It's a job for a pickup truck, to be sure. Maybe I can either rent a truck or arrange for delivery. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.

I also helped KK carry the air conditioning unit up from the basement. The weather is getting much warmer, and if we want a snowball's chance in hell of not dying of heat prostration while we're trying to pack, then the A/C needs to go in the window in the living room.

So between the dog park, the community garden, and hauling the A/C unit up the stairs, I may have overdone it slightly. All of these things were necessary, because A) the dogs were climbing the walls out of boredom and frustration, B) the community garden was threatening to till my beloved asparagus, and C) the A/C is going to be needed in the coming weeks. But hoo boy, am I very sore and very tired. Hopefully I will sleep reasonably well as a result tonight.

Speaking of sleeping well, I am on Day 20 of using the CPAP, and now that I know that it was Covid causing my throat to be super sore and dry, I can say with confidence that I have no trouble using it at all. I'm a little frustrated about the Covid because it's completely skewing any impressions I might have had about my energy levels and brain fog. I can't tell if I'm improving because I've been as sick as the proverbial dog. ARGH.

Anyway, time will tell. At least I'm not struggling with the CPAP. I switched to the largest size of mask/nose pillow, as the two smaller sizes were causing sores to develop on either side of my nose (super attractive), and that has been working well for me so far. It doesn't keep me from sleeping, and even though I wake up during the night it's not noticeably more than before, and it's mostly just to reposition the hose when I turn over and it does something weird. So, so far so good.

Okay. Time for bed. Catch you on the flip side, friends!
mousme: A picture of Wol from Winnie the Pooh, holding a note that reads "Gon Out. Backson. Bizy. Backson." (Back Soon)

I’m updating from my phone as an experiment. I’m more of a computer and keyboard person, as a rule, but I figured I’d see what the mobile interface is like. It’s not bad, maybe a little on the small side for a middle-aged woman who needs reading glasses these days. 

I’m still tired and short of breath, but improved since yesterday. Tomorrow I have to go to the community garden to rescue my stuff from my old plot before the association tills it and kills all the perennial plants I planted last year. My friends Dylan and Sarah may be coming out to help me, at least. After that we have a reservation at a private dog park, so we’ll take the Brittanies and their coon hound Frankie for a run. If KK is feeling up to it she’ll come as well with Rika, who also loves the park. The poor Brittanies are going stir crazy since we’ve been sick and stuck at home. A good romp in the park will do us all a world of good.

On that note, it’s time for bed. One day I will have the energy for longer posts, but today is not that day.

mousme: A picture of Wol from Winnie the Pooh, holding a note that reads "Gon Out. Backson. Bizy. Backson." (Back Soon)
Yes, I am back-dating this post by one hour so it shows up as being written on April 5th instead of the 6th. It's nearly 1am but it doesn't count as tomorrow because I haven't gone to bed yet. My reasoning is flawless and I will not be taking questions at this time.

So, I may have bought quail at the bird auction. Ahem. They are SO CUTE. I will attempt a longer post about this tomorrow because a lot happened today and I desperately need to go to bed and get some sleep, even if it's crappy sleep. But yes, I bought quail. The lot I bid for and won was a mix of three males and three hens, and they appear to be in pretty good health, although it's obvious the females have been overbred because their backs are in various stages of denudement. Poor biddies. I have separated them for now to give the poor hens a break from their overzealous boyfriends, and the six of them are in quarantine in the laundry room where they will stay for the next two weeks. I don't want them in contact with the cats just in case they're carrying bird flu, which cats are highly susceptible to (at least the current variants of H5N1 floating around out there). 

I visited Dylan and Sarah, who very kindly supplied me with a couple of days' worth of layer feed and some hardware cloth to put over the Rubbermaid bin in which the birds will be spending their quarantine time, and I gave them a bunch of booze that I decluttered from my kitchen last week. The booze was still good, it just wasn't likely to ever get drunk at my house, so now it has gone to a good home where it will be appreciated. 

I came home and got the quail settled and then did the Quaker announcements, and then had the misfortune of checking my emails, all of which had semi-bad news about the house purchase. Namely, all of the emails involve my having to jump through more expensive and flaming hoops in the hopes of getting the financing completely approved for the house. The desktop appraisal now costs $40 because there's acreage, even though it's a DESKTOP appraisal, meaning no one is actually physically going out to the property and they are all staying at their DESKS, so I can't see how adding some land on top of that makes their job THAT much more difficult or complicated. They gave me the option to decline the extra charge, but of course that means they won't perform the appraisal, so they're holding my house purchase hostage unless I pay them more money.

Also, my beloved father insists that he can't get a pdf statement of his bank records because his bank "doesn't give him the option." Except he and I use the same bank, and I have personally obtained pdf statements of my bank records from the online banking site. IT'S NOT HARD. But my father is eighty-three years old, and this is kind of what happens once technology gets a little bit more complicated than you can wrap your brain around. I have noticed it happening to me too with things like TikTok and video editing software: I can manage the very basics, but the bells and whistles are beyond me unless someone sits with me and takes the time to explain things. So I think the best but unfortunately inconvenient solution is to go to Montreal tomorrow and physically show him how to do it, and to also have him sign the letter saying he is giving me the money in person, so that I can then just scan everything myself as a pdf to send to my mortgage broker.

*lies on the floor*

And my mortgage broker still wants me to provide my quarterly statement for my RRSP for the first quarter of the year, which the bank HASN'T PRODUCED YET. I am not sure how she thinks I can influence an entire financial institution to move up their timeline for documents just for my benefit. News flash: they do not give two wet shits about me or my piddly little RRSP. 

*rips out hair and rolls around on the floor for a bit*

So yeah, Today has been a bit of a mixed bag. XD


mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Default)

Today has been *busy*, holy cow. I got up early-ish (I wanted to get up at 5:30 but ended up hitting the snooze button until 6:30 because I have perilously little self-control about the snooze button) in order to get all of my ducks in a row before driving to Montreal.


I managed to get showered and packed and ready in a more or less reasonable amount of time, then poured my first cup of coffee and breakfast into myself before running to the basement for the monthly meeting of Ministry & Counsel.


It occurs to me that I haven't mentioned M&C here before, so here's a quick primer for readers who have no idea what I'm talking about:


Read more... )

The M&C meeting went pretty well, overall. We covered everything on the agenda, although we have several unresolved issues that are still pending. I should probably write a longer post about that, because I have concerns that I think might benefit from processing them in written form. We were missing two members, one of whom is a brand new member who's never attended before (and I had no idea she was joining us, but that's on me because I missed our last Meeting for Business, which is where these decisions are made), and I always feel a little awkward when we're not all together to make decisions or at least find a sense of unity. Still, it was a productive time.


I am also the sole member of the Announcements Committee, which I find hilarious. My only job is to send out weekly announcements along with the Zoom link for our Sunday Meeting for Worship (we do hybrid worship, with some people coming in person and others attending online), and I have to do that from my home computer, because the accounts actually belong to someone else and I can't get them to authenticate anywhere else, which is quite frustrating. I usually do the announcements on Saturday evening and schedule the email to go out Sunday morning, but of course I won't be in Ottawa tomorrow, so I put the email together today and scheduled it accordingly. I am very proud of myself for remembering.


I spent most of the rest of the day (apart from the driving) hanging out with Luanna (I used to be able to link to other LJ users in the old post editor but I don't see that option anymore. I really dislike this new editor.). It was wonderful to see her again, since we now only get to hang out together a couple of times a year. We got caught up on everything that's happening in each other's lives, and commiserated about how terrible it is that all our friends' children insist on growing up and making us feel old. ;)


We ordered Greek food, which was wonderful. I have yet to find a good Greek restaurant in Ottawa--it's just not something my new city seems to do well. Lots of good Thai and Vietnamese places and also Lebanese, and Coconut Lagoon is a phenomenal Indian restaurant, but no good Greek cuisine that I've been able to find. I also showed her the Hubris Shawl, which is now as finished as it's going to get until I find more yarn.


I left her place shortly before 18:00 and zoomed over to my parents' place, where I have been ever since. They bought a Galette des Rois for my birthday but were really impatient to eat it so we actually started it tonight. No one got the prize so far, so we'll likely get through the rest tomorrow. They were both in an excellent mood tonight, too, which was nice.


I went over the art of sending text messages with my mother again, not that I have high hopes that she'll  actually start doing it. I've come to understand that she doesn't really retain new information, especially about electronics, the way she used to. She lacks a lot of the basic knowledge that would allow her to understand what I'm saying, and when I try to explain some of it, I can see on her face that I'm overloading her with too much information. Today was still pretty funny because one of her friends had texted her to wish her a Happy New Year and she had accidentally replied using the predictive text, which simply read "No." And then she tried to reply properly but didn't realize that she had to hit the "send" button in order for her reply to go through, so it just sat in her text box until today when I looked at her messaging app. Good times. XD


Anyway, we are all hitting the hay now, and we're planning a nice sleep-in for tomorrow morning. I am really looking forward to no longer being awake.


Good night, folks!

mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Virtual Timbits!)
I was in bed by 10pm last night, because I had to work today. I'm also starting the New Year diseased, but at least it's just a garden-variety common cold and not anything worse.

Happy New Year to all of you, my beloved darlings! May 2014 go fuck itself and die in a fire, and may its smouldering corpse be a warning to 2015.

For those few of you who actually had a good year, I hope that 2015 is even MORE awesome for you!

VIRTUAL TIMBITS FOR ALL!

I have goals/aspirations/resolutions/dreams/hopes for this year, but I will reserve those for another post. Stay tuned!
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (I amaze myself)
I spent most of yesterday out of the house, so I didn't write my June 24th entry. I have a busy-ish day ahead of me today, so I may end up lagging behind a bit on those lengthier posts once again. Bear with me. :)

Had a great day yesterday with [livejournal.com profile] luvenditti. We hung out, chatted for most of the day, and I got to see her new house. It's a really awesome house, for the record. If mine weren't so great, I'd be jealous. Then there was the traditional St-Jean Baptiste/birthday party at her parents' place, and I got to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a very long time.

I left a bit later than I intended, and then got caught in a torrential downpour on the way back, so it took me a lot longer to get home than I would have liked. As a result, I am even more tired than I was before. Ugh.

My plans are all awry this week. I'm not sure how to fix all of it, alas. Mostly I just want to go back to bed and take a seven week nap.

Anyway, I will update a bit later, definitely by tonight. Stay tuned!
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (A Little Worship)
:::ETA::: This post was written on June 9th, but due to the marvels of travel and different time zones, I am posting it and the next entry on the 10th.

Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I am writing this from the plane. You have to admire human ingenuity, that means that I have the means not only to move hundreds of kilometers inside a matter of an hour or so, but that it's barely an inconvenience to do so. I am thousands of feet above the ground, but I'm seated as though I'm in a movie theatre and supplied with pretzels and a soft drink and have my laptop out in front of me like it's absolutely nothing. In less than an hour I will be in a completely different city, and will likely have internet access again without having to think about it too hard.

(I can feel the tray bouncing as I type, even though I'm being careful. I'm a little worried I must be irritating the poor lady sitting in front of me. Hopefully she'll let me know if that's the case. )

Still, isn't it incredible? I know that on many flights in the U.S. they even have wifi available on board. It's not the case with this flight, but we've basically reached the point where air travel is as mundane (though not nearly as cheap) as driving or taking the train or the bus.

Anyway, on with today's (or, actually, yesterday's) post! t! has asked me to write about who my role models are, and though he didn't specify, I assume he wanted me to go into the reasons for which I picked these role models.

Just what sort of role model are you? )
mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Best Friends)
Today was spent in the company of [livejournal.com profile] fearsclave who was in town in order to put his lovely wife on a plane. I am sad I didn't get to see her, but the timing for that was off.

We spent the better part of the morning and afternoon together, starting with a quick stop by Sail, which is a sporting goods store I'd never heard of until today. It was very reminiscent of the Mountain Equipment Coop, and I had to fight all my outdoorsy sporting goods urges that suddenly all sprang to life again. It might be the promise of spring around the corner, but suddenly all I wanted to do was go for a really long hike in the woods and pull out my fishing gear and declare what [livejournal.com profile] fearsclave likes to call "jihad against the fish."

We dropped by a tobacconist's shop, because [livejournal.com profile] fearsclave has become a pipe-smoking redneck hipster. It was a neat little shop, though the name escapes me currently. The woman running the shop was the founder's granddaughter, which was very cool. Definitely a family business, and right in the heart of downtown Ottawa. We had a nice chat, and then it was time for lunch.

[livejournal.com profile] fearsclave had earlier suggested a restaurant called Coconut Lagoon, which serves Southern Indian food. It was absolutely delicious, though lunch time means we didn't get the full menu but rather a buffet-style self-serve. Like I said, absolutely delicious, and I will definitely have to go back one of these days.

The afternoon was reserved for the National Gallery, to which I had never been. Our goal was the Group of Seven, and we happily ogled the Tom Thomsons and the Arthur Lizmers for quite a while. It's a beautiful museum, and if my brain was more lyrically inclined right now I'd probably wax poetic about the architecture and the tranquil atrium with trees and flowers where you can sit and collect yourself if you're so inclined. I could feel the tension draining from me just by standing there for even a few minutes. I do love going to museums, greeting the paintings I know as old friends and discovering new ones as well. The last time I'd been to a museum was in 2011 when I visited Rome, which is pretty sad. I'm going to have to look up the free or at least half-price museum days so I can go a bit more often.

The temporary exhibit was super cool. It was an installation in the chapel by Janet Cardiff, called the Forty Part Motet. It's a musical piece--a reworking of Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, a 16th-century English composer. She recorded each voice part as an individual track, then set up each with it's own speaker in the chapel. That way you can stand either dead centre or next to each speaker and hear each individual voice, or "climb in the music" as she puts it. It blew me away. If you have a chance to see it, I can't recommend it enough.

We continued on with our museum tour, though we didn't get to see all the exhibits. In the Canadian works section there was one painting in particular that caught our eye. It had been commissioned by a company that mined and produced refined nickel, and I'm pretty sure that the giant-ass painting done in the style of Soviet realism was not what they had in mind. (I don't remember the name of the artist. If someone knows it, please tell me!) It was huge and featured a rather aggressive looking worker holding the tools of his trade in a way that was more reminiscent of a machine gun than anything else. There was another man bent over a microscope next to a set of beakers and test tubes, while a WWII-style bomber flew over a high-speed train. On the left factory chimneys belched smoke into the sky, while on the far right molten nickel was poured into a container not featured in the painting. Above the molten nickel skyscrapers reached toward the indifferent sky. So, naturally, [livejournal.com profile] fearsclave and I had the following exchange:

Me: "Science!"

[livejournal.com profile] fearsclave: "Industry!"

In Unison: "PROGRESS!"

It was a good moment. I think we giggled over it for about 10 minutes after that.

Alas, the day came to an end far too quickly, since I'm working tonight (and here I am!). But it was a nice change of pace from work-sleep-work-home-chores-sleep-back to work. Tonight I just have to work through being tired and the headache I developed about half an hour before coming here, and everything should be fine.

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mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Default)
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