Here's the What What

So. People have nudged me about my total ineptness at updating this thing and they are correct. It's just, I don't have a life really, lately, to write about. It's all masks and pandemics and making sure there's enough toilet paper and drug regimes that would fall an experienced junkie, to control my forever ongoing bacterial infection flare ups, and oh...we moved house, there's that.

Yes, my gentleman and I, thought it would be prudent to move to the country, during a pandemic, where we now feed racoons, watch elk desecrate our yard and spend our evenings in a mothereffing HOT TUB. Yes. I cannot apologize enough for my lack of rebelliousness, but it's freaking awesome not having the huge rent payments we had in Victoria, and you know, no neighbours serenading us early morning till late at night with melodic power tools and yelling obnoxiously at their kid. 

And the racoons are cute! And we can see a lake from our living room. And there are trees everywhere. And we have a fireplace! And I hang out with hummingbirds. Yeah!

Turns out though, when you move you need stuff, and said stuff can be ordered easily online, whether it be small or large, but here's the kicker. Our drive way is long and the approximate gradient of the north face of Mount Everest, and no delivery guy from UPS to Canada Post, will venture up it in a vehicle. I mean my 1999 Chevy can manage it just fine (slowly!) as can our Toyota but you know, trucks and vans just cry when they see it. It delights me to see the little UPS guy walk up that cliff face carrying a flat packed piece of furniture I'm not even strong enough to drag two feet into the house. I think that guy will require a holiday tip.

I'm expecting FedEx to turn up today with a bed for our guest room and well, I can already imagine those shenanigans. Not going to happen.

Anyway, it's Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks and I don't care because TG is all about tasty food and hanging with the relatives, the second thing I am looking forward to but the first is pointless as I have no sense of taste or smell currently (no, it's not Covid!) and everything tastes bitter and shitty so I only eat when I absolutely have to so I don't pass out like I did in July (whole other story) or get too weak to climb the stairs, but it also means I'm five foot six and 115lbs and my legs look like beanstalks and none of my clothes fit anymore because they look like circus tents, even my favourite winter coat. 

Been drinking a lot of milk to get some calories in me as milk seems to be the only enjoyable thing I eat. I mean, I had some cake last week and it tasted like crap and I had to give it away. WHO AM I? I miss cake and wine and cooking nice things. What's the point when you can't taste it? Woe is me. Why do I hate food now? Can I have the old me back now please? I do still enjoy an occasional beer however.

There is only one acceptable Corona

Other than that things are fine. Playing my uke, sitting in my office procrastinating, trying to get stuff done, napping. It's all good.

Stay well my fine, Internet friends.

Quarantine PSA

Person: I just painted my living room and built a tree house in my yard. Then I cooked a brand new recipe I found online and now I'm learning to sculpt clay and taking online math classes!

Me: I got half dressed (top half only, pj pants down below) and watched a baby crab eat a strawberry on Reddit.

Yup. If you got up, got dressed, hit the shower, and managed to eat something today, you're doing just fine, buddy. As you were.

Pandem-onium

Here we are in a new type of pandemic situation, which is simultaneously fascinating and a little worrisome.

Me, I've practised social distancing for years, so I'm ready, goddamn it. I even have enough toilet paper and pasta to see me out of an apocalypse and that was before we all started hoarding stuff like the world was ending.

I also still have a somewhat restricted lung capacity from the stupid infection I've had for months, so don't want to risk a flu of any description or I might actually implode, so staying home is just fine by me, bar the occasional walk by the ocean where there are no people.

It's weird to see people over-react or under-react to the situation. Over-reacting I kind of get. Best be prepared I guess. Under-reacting though is just stupid. It doesn't matter if you're at low risk, because here's the thing some people seem to be struggling with: It's not about you. It's about not spreading those germs to someone who MIGHT be high risk. It's about slowing down spread of a disease which could overwhelm the health services and make treatment difficult if everyone got sick at once. So stay home, where you can, people, and just chill. Drink coffee, have naps, fix stuff you've been putting off forever, drink wine, whatever you like, do it. It's a gift of time.

Unless you're a serial killer then you know. Fucking stop that.

Me, I work from home anyway and I'm only out among people when I'm mailing orders or buying groceries, which, judging by the equivalent gross national product of canned goods we purchased this week, should prevent me having to go to the supermarket for about a decade. I hate buying groceries so this is perfect.

There also should be a lack of tourists in my town this spring which is about as fantastic as things could get, to be honest. No cruise ships, limited ferries and flights. Perfect. I have nothing against tourists per se, but living in a small town that gets millions of them every summer, it's like a holiday having restrictions in place. Seriously. I love it. Who knew there was an upside to a pandemic?

Stay safe my peeps, and enjoy these fantastic (!?) Crayola crayon scribbles I did a while ago in my little moleskin book of robots and monsters. Because I am five.

You're welcome!

Chinny monster

Starry night bots

Someone's at the window

 Wonky eyed demon

 It's under your bed

Creepy little fucker

It's an Update of Sorts

February, 2020

I've been sick lately. I never get sick, so this was an unwelcome and puzzling turn of events, I didn't quite have the coping mechanism for.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't at death's door or anything, although it felt like it at times, but I had the distinct, unpleasant sensation that my innards were all about to implode into a gaseous, gelatinous soup at any moment, which isn't ideal.

This continued for about four months in various forms and I swallowed an approximate grain silo worth of medications during that time, underwent a barrage of medical tests, with varying degrees of success, lost my appetite completely (terrible), causing me to also lose 13 lbs (not terrible!) despite the gigantic amount of fruit juice and occasional soup I was consuming since it was the only foodstuff I could deal with.

I didn't leave the house for three months at one point. Yeah.

I did take up drawing with crayons during this bout of madness. Who knew Crayola would be a serious art tool of anyone over four years old? Not me. I had a great time though, and completed an entire Moleskin notebook of crayon monsters and robots. Seriously! I also bought a new tenor ukulele and played it till my fingers hurt. Anything that involved not getting off the couch was fair game because I couldn't get off the damn couch without a major effort.

It was a bacterial infection of the gut and it was a bastard. I now have a huge appreciation for people who have digestive issues and the like, because I never had any before, and now, while I'm still recovering from this stupid thing, I'm never again going to take for granted being able to do simple things like turn over in bed, and bend down to tie my shoe because for a while there I couldn't move.

The downside? I now appear to have some sort of coffee allergy or intolerance, as every time I drink it my throat swells up a bit and I feel sick. This is beyond inconvenient! So for a while I'm going to be caffeine free. I know! This can't bode well for the world, right? Coffee is basically the reason I'm not a raging serial killer.

Hope you guys are all well? If you're still out there.

This was for you, Bill.

Use Your Words, People

April, 2019

I'm officially old as sin. I can't keep up with the kids anymore, what with their horrid club fashions, over the top crazy make up that would make Pennywise blush, and the thing that pisses me off above all else - long sentences full of emojis.

I hate emojis. I don't care who knows it. There's nothing worse than someone sending you a row of exuberant little yellow fuckers instead of actual words, because I have no idea what you're trying to say, and will reset my brain to the default setting of just thinking you're mentally retarded. 

It's even worse than back in the early thousands where texting was in its infancy, and assholes started to shorten and abbreviate words, making me hate humanity. I H8 U EMOJIS.

This is my rule; you can use the happy emoji or the sad emoji, and maybe a little mischievous guy who knows some shit, when you're being fruity, but that's where I draw the line. Once it evolves beyond the obvious, into weird images where I have to sit there baffled for ten hours trying to find some hidden, clever meaning behind it all, know that I have no freaking idea what you're trying to say and I will imbibe some strong liquor and try to quosh the overwhelming urge to track you down and bludgeon you with a large dictionary, till you make sense. 

It's like bumping your head then suddenly realizing you're illiterate, which, I'm pretty sure most people already think I am. 

Can you imagine we used this nonsense in real life? If you walk into your doctor's office with an ailment, and he asks what's up, and you respond with a poop emoji and a string of random images, I hope he gets out that mallet thing they used to test your reflexes in 1905, and bashes you over the head with it till you repent.

I may be grouchy today, it's hard to tell. Please leave me some lovely, no doubt emoji filled comments, so I can think bad, bad thoughts about you.

Well, This Was Pointless But Really What Isn't?

September 2018

Seems like the second the clock ticked over from August to September, the leaves here started to turn orange and the temperature dropped five degrees. And we got the first rain in three months. Crazeh mother nature, crazeh!

Everyone likes the fall though, am I right? I am right. It's the best of all the seasons, really, no matter how much you try to tell yourself it should be summer. It's not as touristy and full on as summer, and not as brutal an asshole as winter. I mean you can rock the sandals and still throw on a cosy sweater in the evening. It's the best of both worlds. It also makes me want to start cooking shepherd's pies, and cobblers, and weird, creamy soups featuring butternut squash and all the Indian spices there are, because autumn means comfort and nourishment and horror movies - which don't seem to fit with either of those things but oh well.

It also means time to hit up Bath & Body Works for candles that make everything stink up the place real nice. I get it, candles are a lady thing you gentlemen will never get, but man, who doesn't like to spend $12.50 on some smelly ambience that lasts a good week or more?

Most of all, Fall to me is the time I head to Walmart and buy slippers. I get a new pair every year and love them, even though within a month they've flattened out and make me walk funny, and have no spring to them, and I hate them. I know I should just fork out some real moolah and get a good, strong, expensive pair, lovingly sewn by Inuit craftsmen in Nunuvut out of like...bears, that I can wear forever, but I never do. Partly because I don't buy shit made from bears and partly because meh, I just like to get sucked in annually by the fuzzy, pink or leopard print, polyester, crappy Walmart ones that look like a big, fluffy hug, even though IT IS ALL A LIE.

In other news, I'm getting a haircut this week, anyone care to guess what kind of disaster that will be?

Lots of Random Brain Farts

August 30th, 2018

Today I got a passive aggressive email from the Google informing me my subscription to comment notifications had expired, posing two questions; 1) there's a subscription for that? and 2) I subscribed to it? Anyway, investigation showed that I had in fact received numerous comments from you lovely people, not been notified about any of them, and they were partying it up in my moderation folder, totally oblivious. Situation has now been rectified, thank you and sorry and all that...

Summer's cooling down here now, so you can wear a sweatshirt again without expiring and it feels like Fall is in the air, which means two things to me; Halloween and horror movies. And having to wear shoes again. Okay, three things.

This summer has been fairly uneventful, except for visiting the Oregon Coast, where I ate local creamery cheese stuffed with cranberries (nom!) and drank Mead (because that's a genuine thing that exists in 2018 and not just in King Arthur's court back in the day).

Yeah we drank it out of huge tumblers because we were in a hotel and that's all there was, don't you judge. Also, bonus: IT WAS GOOD.

You have no idea how much sand I found in the cuff of my jeans...

What else did this summer bring? Oh yes, I bruised my leg so badly one day on the rough corner of my bed, that I let out a shriek that could probably be heard in Seattle. Like, you know those weird, loud, atmospheric noises that have scientists around the world baffled? They're probably some other clumsy asshole hitting their leg on a sharp bed corner. But yay, a summer without an injury? Like that could be a thing.

Other than that it's the same old, same old. But I have leftovers from a delicious butternut squash veggie garlic noodle thing I made for dinner last night, so all is right with the world, currently.

Till the next cruise ship arrives anyway.