Balls and the Time Traveller's Grandma

Yes, two balls.
Now that the weather is getting somewhat more autumnal rather than Indian summerish, I am able to wear the dog-walking jacket. This is a coat of many pockets, all of them full of useful items such as scooby snacks, poopie sacks and balls.

Whisky has yet to master the art of ball catching. Well, at least, he catches it and brings it back, but never gives it up. Therefore twice the number of balls are needed, one for him to hold in his gob and one to chase after and herd along. I realised after a while, that this was not dissimilar to the pastime known as Curling. Perhaps it's in the air here. He sort of jumps and skips as the ball rolls to rest, sometimes nosing along the ground, willing it to move here or there - although whether dogs have will or not is a whole other debate, and not for here. Well, at least not for now.

There was a great post on Womanist Musings today, by a feminist Muslim woman, on gender segregation at prayer and beyond. Very interesting article.

Then there are two articles that Austen has sent me today. The first defies belief, and in fact, so does the second, but in a different way.

In Hungary, a midwife has been arrested and faces up to five years in gaol, for delivering babies, at the choice of the mother, in the mother's home. There is an interesting statistical comparison at the end. In most European countries, women have that choice, but few take up the option. In Holland however, 33% are home births.
Outrageous that a government should think it has the right to dictate this.

The other article is about a film-maker from Belfast who has discovered evidence of time travel in a Charlie Chaplin film made in 1928. I would certainly agree that the clip is fascinating. I would also agree with most of the commentators who say the man is very boring and most probably just out to publicise his films - in which endeavour he is successful, because here am I doing just that for him.
Mmmm, time travel, that would be my first thought when watching this.
Or not.

What really occurred to me was that computer programmers put Easter Eggs in Microsoft Office, so why wouldn't their muckers the digital re-masterers do likewise in films?
The woman looks remarkably like Margaret Rutherford playing Miss Marple, and although in 1960 there were no mobile phones either, in 2010, we have wonderful digital manipulation programmes.
So I'm opting not so much for the time travel theory and more for the digital enhancement one.
Of course, if I'm wrong, I may already have found out.

The Dog's Bollocks

Another day, another dog-walker. This one spoke very little English, but he asked questions. I tried to return the favour.
'What type of dog is it?' I asked, but there was no response. I don't know why I thought this would be any easier to understand, but I then asked,
'What breed?' at which the man pulled up the dog's hindparts and showed me where his bollocks used to be. He made some attempt at 'snippy, snippy', although I think he said, 'cutty'.

I could imagine this being some kind of ancient Chinese insult, like on those HSBC TV ads, where different cultures find it insulting to see the soles of someone's feet and so forth.

Sleepy thought this could be surreal, quite my favourite of the realities, so I had a little wander there.

We were always told that those small dogs were bred as lap dogs, but I can picture the ancient Chinese, all long moustaches, pigtails and silk pyjamas, walking around with small, neutered male dogs under one arm, revealing their debollockedness as a way of saying, 'fuck you, ignorant peasant!' The practice only ceased when Communism started and 'ignorant peasant' was no longer a slight.

Yep, that's all I've got, a recycled convo from earlier ;)

Shocked and Horrified of Richmond

I was shocked and horrified today, to discover that Paul the psychic octopus had died. I'm not kidding, it didn't even make it onto our news. But worse - there is a conspiracy theory that Paul actually died three months ago, and in true sitcom style, was replaced by the aquarium keepers. Jaysus, what is the world coming to?
Disturbing.

Superstore, my supermarket of choice - full name 'The Real Canadian Superstore' has finally discovered back bacon. It is being marketed as 'Wiltshire bacon' which is apparently made from Irish pigs. Hmmm... Kevin was shocked and horrified at the price I paid for it, but I felt I needed to show support. On the back of the packet were instructions for frying bacon.
Phew.

I feel that the new series of Dexter is about to dip its toe in the waters of Lesbos. I just can't believe that they would bring in star lesbian Katherine Moennig, the L Word's Shane, just for one flirtatious scene with male impersonator Dexter's sister. I mean it has to go somewhere, otherwise I'll be shocked and horrified.

Heat

That heat thing again.

We haven't yet had cold enough temperatures to warrant putting the heating on in the house, yet some shops are already running at ridiculous temperatures. I'm sure this must account for why the average per person energy consumption in North America is so much higher than in Europe.

I was discussing this with Austen and I said that I never used to be quite so aware of people having their homes at uncomfortable temperatures back home. But it seems as though the future may not be so orange. Or indeed rosy.
Austen made the point that people are starting to get out of the mind set of having winter clothes and summer clothes, and I certainly think that is a large part of the problem here.
A lot of people think that they should be able to wear just a T-shirt or short-sleeved top indoors during the colder months.
And really, it's more fun to have to put on jumpers, hats and scarves in the winter, just as its fun to snuggle down in bed with a hottle on a cold winter's or autumnal night, and have the window open.

One of the great things about being at The Static is that, although we have heating there for when it gets really cold, so far, we have only once had to use even the small oil-filled radiator. It's the place where I can actually wear a jumper and feel completely comfortable - in fact, as we are being encouraged to do by the government. It's also where we can have the window open in the bedroom, since there are no aeroplanes.

On a non heat related note, there is an absolutely brilliant post on I Blame the Patriarchy, about the Bechdel Movie Test as applied to Toy Story three. The writing is sheer, unadulterated bliss, worth reading for its own sake, but the points made are also sound and pertinent. Most of all, I love the idea of a 'handydyke utility belt'.
Fabulous post, fabulous clip.

Horror Stories

This morning it seemed as though CBC were trying to distract us from what is going on within Canada. We saw rioting in the streets in France, we saw David Cameron's pasty face and were told of swingeing cuts in public spending, then five minutes later we saw it again. Sarko's efforts to get fuel to the consumers, then Cammo again, then....oh, here's Canada's disgrace.

A high-up Air Force officer, Colonel Russell Williams, who has been breaking and entering homes and sexually assaulting women over a number of years, culminating in the brutal murder of one woman after a protracted rape ordeal, all the while commanding CFB Trenton, the largest airbase in Canada.

CBC can't even report the horrific details as they come out in court. They had a whole segment, in between Sarko and Cammo, telling us how they had decided not to give out details. A good thing too, the family of the murdered woman has suffered and continue to suffer enough.
How does this happen?

And how does this happen? The tea party are gaining support in the States. It shows lazy thinking and that lazy habit of just thinking someone can just wave a magic wand and make it all better, without any effort from anyone.

And then, another item from Britain, pointing out that excluded pupils are falling into crime. More lazy thinking and easy blame. Those kids don't fall into crime because they're excluded, they are excluded because they are already petty criminals.
Someone do some joined up thinking, please.

To make it all better - well, not quite, but it helped - Kalinda on 'The Good Wife' did a brilliant, 'fuck you, wanna make something of it?' scene on this week's episode. She's easily the best character in an already superb show, more power to her I say.

Lurkers

I'm still stuck on Zombies. I think I'm going in the wrong direction, trying to make them more interesting in themselves, maybe the point is that we have vampires for that sort of thing. And after all, I do love a good subtext. Perhaps I need to embrace the idea that when we give up our humanity there's no way back.

Ok, but I keep coming back to the 'but all we have to focus on in a zombie story is the survivors' side'.
And when I thought about it more deeply, it still seems to be oddly religiously themed.
Yeah, I know, a stretch, but this is what I mean.
If our bodies were able to keep on working after death, our brains would too, if you believe that they are mechanical. It's only if you believe there is some special aspect to mind or soul that it would be consistent for the brain to stop and not the other mechanical aspects of the body. Although, even that is self-defeating, because we don't actually BELIEVE in these beings, just tell stories about them, and really, there doesn't HAVE to be consistency within the paradigm.
Disappeared up my own backside? Maybe.

So...moving on. High fructose corn syrup. Whilst Alex has been working at a health food store, I have been learning more about healthy eating. One of the things I find most scary, is HFCS, because, like zombies, it's bloody well lurking everywhere. Earlier this year, yet another study came out, this time from U.S. university Princeton, confirmed the findings of previous studies, that this ubiquitous substance is helping to make human beings obese, more obese, and with high levels of triglycerides. The result is fifty percent more weight gain for those eating high levels of high fructose corn syrup and an adverse effect on metabolism.

It's very difficult to find foods that don't have HFCS in them. I now always look at ingredients, but I can still get caught out. I bought a salad that Kevin and I both like, from the deli counter in Fred Meyer at the weekend. You don't see the ingredients until you get your little tub with the barcode and voilà! There it was.

I'm glad to have been educated on this lurker. I'm pretty sure that we don't know half the problems it causes yet, but being at an age when my body chemistry is finding it hard to keep in balance, the last thing I want to do is overload my system with unnecessary crap.

Carpe high fructose corn syrup.

Zombie

A little while ago, my friend Gail started writing a Zombie story. The majority of the people in the writers' group were all,
'Phew, yeah, go Zombies, we are so over Vampires.' I, on the other hand, am certainly not over vamps, but was interested in Gail's story anyway. I feel that the problem for anyone writing a zombie story is finding a new way to tell it.
On TV last night, a new zombie show was being advertised like crazy. It's starting on Hallowe'en, and it's called, not terribly originally, 'The Walking Dead'.
Poor start really.
Now, here's my theory. The reason Vampire stories are so endlessly varied and engaging, is that the vampires are characters themselves, can out-think humans and have to keep their numbers small in order to be able to feed, so there's no mad rush to complete annihilation.
Also, vampires are sexy and zombies aren't.
Vampires can also control, or be at war with, other species, such as werewolves.

When a human gets turned into either, they experience a painful transition, but with zombies, when the metamorphosis is completed, the human loses reason, whereas with vampires, they gain clarity.

On the other hand, both vampires and zombies are undead. Why couldn't there be zombies as actual characters. You get it occasionally, in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels for example, Mr. Shoe, I think is the name of his zombie, and in the Canadian TV series Lexx.

This is the way forward for Zombies I feel. What motivates them? Could they organise themselves better? Is (un)death reversible? Why don't they communicate? Why must they wave their arms about so obviously?
I think we should be told.

That Cranberry's song was awfully good though, particularly when sung by Dilana. Apologies for the bad language at the end.
Mwwaah!

Empathy Pains

Kevin's flight gets in at one minute to midnight tonight. He is one stressed out camper. Some of the stresses I can empathise with, others, not so much.

The heat thing I totally get. No Mr. and Mrs. Spratt going on here. Neither of us would seek out heat, and just as the temperature gets to our most comfortable level here, he has to go somewhere hot.
The weekend I spent in San Francisco was like this for me. We'd had the first snowfall of the season here, but I was flying away from it and into uncomfortable warmth. It starts you off on the wrong foot.

Then there is the idea that you're going on some kind of jolly. This I also get. When I was taking school trips out to France and Germany, you'd always get some parents who made comments about your having a holiday during term time. That would piss me off no end because whilst I would certainly go to either place in my free time, I wouldn't take 70 kids that my staff and I were responsible for 24 hours a day. This was my work, and instead of getting to go home in the evening, I was never off duty until we handed the kids back.
Kevin, on the other hand, hasn't even gone somewhere he'd ever choose to go except for work.

I DON'T know the frustrations of trying to find information pertinent to your area of expertise from a trade show, which to some must seem like walking around looking at machines, what boy doesn't want to do that?
We would always take kids to a theme park in whichever country we were visiting, but, aside from the fact that I definitely wouldn't go to one of those on my days off, again, no fun when you're having to keep 70 odd kids out of police custody.

The other thing I can relate to is what you've left behind. Kevin's on some tight deadlines at work, and so he worries about the jobs he has left behind for various staff to do, getting done.
I was always worried about my department, because I had always left behind one member of staff who would unashamedly bully anyone and everyone, (and not in a good way) not to mention back-stabbing me. The one colleague who was most vulnerable to the bullying - I took with me.

Then there's the food. The one thing Kevin was looking forward to was some good grub. Could he find any? Not without a two-hour wait, no.
The grub was good when we took kids to France, but they hated it and would buy burgers as soon as we went anywhere, then throw them up later.
In Germany, the kids liked the food because it always took the form of some kind of breaded meat and chips, but we staff would spend our time trying to get hold of vegetables.

At the end of the day*, you do what you have to do for your job, but I'm glad it's not for any longer.

* I used to have a Head of Department who was constantly saying, 'at the end of the day...' and after a while, we would jump in with, 'it gets dark.' Now, I'd have to add, 'except in Alaska in the summer.'

The Tao of Poo

The house across the way from us has recently been re-painted. Not the violent violet or the body-fluid yellow of the others, merely, the colour of what comes out of one's backside when one is slightly off-colour, but not totally hepatic.
But....this time it's not the colour that's bothering me, but the Feng Shui. A new set of front doors has been installed. One of the other dog walkers, normally a mine of misinformation, tells me that the old doors - facing west - were really bad Feng Shui, the new ones face north.
But here's the thing. The builders haven't been seen for days, and yet general rubble and crap strews their garden and spills over onto the pavement. How's that good Feng Shui?

Somewhere in the city, on my travels yesterday, I spotted a new development called 'Broadmoor'. Does no-one research these things? At least some proportion of the potential customer base are British ex-pats.

Further to the bad Feng Shui, I happen to know that Sarah Palin was in Vancouver yesterday. Perhaps her visit was eclipsed by the Chilean miners being rescued - and thank God for that - but so far as I can work out, her visit has been relatively low-key, I only know because someone I know was going to see her speak, and would be allowed to ask a question. Personally, I would find it difficult to narrow it down to one, but if I had to it would be why?

Straight is the New Gay

Kev's gone to a trade show in Las Vegas.
He's not amused.
Nor am I.

This morning, I popped into church, only to find that the place was heaving. It was Homeless Connect day. At the point when I walked in, there was a Northern Irish preachery person on the stage, put me in mind of the Reverend Ian Paisley. There were people giving out second hand clothing, others cutting hair, some offering dental advice, and in general, just....people, everywhere. I even saw at least one of the politicians who claims that we have no homeless in Richmond. Whisky did some equal opportunities barking and I barked at a person of indeterminate-but-deffo-not-white background who told me he was a 'Pastor' but addressed a group of girls as 'guys'. He said he saw my point, but that they were high school students, so they understood that type of language.
'And you, my friend, are supposed to be a leader, modelling a better way, not reinforcing to those young women that they are less than men,' said I.
Probably way over his head.

Howevs, to brighten up my afternoon, which, to be fair, was technically bright, best of both worlds, sunny, but not overly warm, Sleepy sent me this YouTube clip, which I've watched over and over. It has kept me chuckling. My favourite lines were,
"I was icing cakes with thirty chicks while you fuckwits were showering together," and "They're not tough? They fuck men, that's hardly gay!"

Harvest Thanksgiving

At the weekend we had the most supreme storm. The wind in the trees was mental enough, but then we had intense, pounding rain, fabulous, FABULOUS, there's just nothing quite like it.
The morning after, all the birds came out to play, herons were standing patiently in every inlet, eagles were riding the azure, the garden Jays were bouncing from branch to branch of the spruce, and the Juncos are back for the winter.

This business with the Chilean miners is freaking me out. Less since I found out that they're not inside the tube for an hour, but less than twenty minutes, still, just thinking about it gives me the cold panic. At the same time, I am so glad they are bringing them out at last, and weeks earlier than at first anticipated.

Wow, I can't believe Claire Rayner has died. I also can't believe she was 79. Surely people stay at the age when they were most on the telly. Mmmm? No, s'pose not. She was like everyone's real aunt, sensible and down-to-earth, and she had a really chocolately voice. Loved her.

Bad driving was very equal opps today. Firstly, taking Alex to work, I was driving in the right hand lane, and needed to move over into the middle lane. I signalled, the lane was clear, and started to change lanes. As I did so, a woman driving in the left hand lane, simply moved over without signalling and clearly without looking. She was too busy applying her lippie.
On the way to Ikea, a man came gunning it across an intersection, no matter the other traffic he was ignoring and barely missing. Of course, he had a full map open over his steering wheel and appeared to be reading it.

In some ways, I feel a bit mean blogging this little interchange, but it was cute really.
On our morning walk, Whisky met a new dog friend.
'What is your dog's name?' I asked,
'Belly,' said the owner. Strangely appropriate and yet odd, thought I.
'This is Whisky,' I said,
'Oh!' said the owner, 'both have drink names,'
'Um...????'
'Yes, Whisky and Belly's Irish Cream,' he said.
Right!

Change in the Weather

Rain is a-coming in, a weather front is approaching, and it will be staying for the foreseeable future. Ergo, I have done a bit of outside painting in anticipation of the winter.

SO, Ed Miliband is the new Shadow Leader huh? Is he even the right Miliband we wonder? He's not Diane Abbott, that's for sure. Seems he's already upset brother David and caused Harriet Harmon to cavort bizarrely, although she never needs too much excuse. In general, the change seems to be well received - Polly Toynbee was, as usual, quite eloquent.

On the TV front, we watched a new episode of Law and Order UK - presumably a second series. This really is television at its best, no doubt about it.

Got the Bottle

On our TV news this morning - the upmarket one that still doesn't come close to the BBC, we have the shocking news that a British study shows that pregnant women can drink moderately, although modestly would sound more à propos, without it harming their baby or its future as a reasonably behaved citizen.
CBC seemed outraged by this.
'Canadian women may interpret this study as saying that pregnant women can drink moderately without harming their babies,' they said. Well duh, only if they are actually listening, yes. They kept coming back to it, like a ferret poking its annoying head out of a hole. As though, by constantly going on about what a stupid study it is, it will go away.

I took the bottles and cans back to the recycling depot. The Grey Goose bottle from Duty Free at Gatters stood higher than the others.
'I don't think you can give me money back on that one,' I said, 'it's from British Duty Free,'
'I don't understand,' said the assistant. I repeated what I'd said.
'I've never heard of that,' he said, 'I've heard of Duty Free in the States, that's all.'
'Right.'
And since he'd never heard of it, he gave me the money back on the bottle.

And here's the link to Ellen Degeneres giving her reaction to the suicide of the young man who committed suicide after his privacy was savagely violated by his roommate.

Chinese Illumination

One of the dog walkers, at great length and in very much less than fluent English, explained to me about how evil the Chinese are. He kept punctuating the explanation by,
'And I should know, I am Chinese.'
He is. Mainland Chinese. Sometimes, here, the Mainland Chinese and the Hong Kong Chinese don't get on, although both seem to agree that the Hong Kong Chinese are in some way superior.

According to my informant, the Chinese have no sense of community, no public responsibility. They use pesticides in a city where they aren't allowed, because they want perfect gardens, they care about the welfare of their own pets, but not about that of others. He told me that they see dogs as food,
'I should know, I am Chinese,' he said.

They keep their own houses clean (?), but litter outside.
It all sounds so at odds with Communism. If he's right then it makes me wonder whether Communism has some unforeseen side effects. I mean, it seems such a perfect system, apart from the someone-having-to-be-in-charge problem, which inevitably opens the door to corruption, but then through the other door is anarchy, so no getting round it.
But does it take away civic pride, and if so, why? How can it dull the spirit it is supposed to engender - mutual interest and co-operation?

Interesting to ponder, but I have also found that information gleaned from my co-dog walkers is frequently inaccurate.

Dogs, on the other hand, abounded in church on Sunday, at the service to honour Francis of Assisi. Whisky was the loudest, and the bossiest, but he calmed down eventually and out-stayed the rest. Then he pooed on the grass at the front of the church.
Food? Not likely.

Wizardry

The Static this weekend has provided some minor irritations, of the human kind. I have begun to wonder whether people who simply refuse to take the simplest measures to help the environment are simply, thick, just downright lazy, or actually evil.
Alex started me thinking on this when she reminded me of the utter arrogance of a woman who came into her shop. When asked whether she needed a bag, after some initial, 'well duh yes,' response, gave the line of the morbidly stupid, 'well one bag won't make any difference.'
Actually, she's wrong, because one bag makes one bag's worth of difference either towards solving, or reinforcing the problem.

The Static next door has permanently glowing fairy lights, the old fashioned coloured ones, not the newer low energy or LED ones. Strings and bloody strings of them, and they're not on a timer, they simply use energy night and day. Mysteriously, they got disconnected.
The other day I met her for the first time ever, I have not seen her the whole time we've been there. She introduced herself, mentioning not a word about the lights.
The following morning, as I returned with Whisky from his walk, she was walking towards her trailer, with a bath towel.
'I've been to use my neighbour's shower,' said she,
'Oh no,' said I, 'what is wrong with yours?'
'Nothing,' she replied, 'it's just not worth putting the hot water on when we're only here for a couple of days.'
Wtf????

Crossing the border was equally disappointing. Even the NEXUS queue was stalled, as, to be fair it cam often be on a Friday night. There are signs on the side, saying, 'BC is idle-free,' and reminding you to turn off your engine. But either I am the only motorist who can read, or the only one who bloody cares. Somewhere in the lines of cars, I can hear one other ignition turning every time we move.
Seriously, what is wrong with people?

On the subject of TV, which I wasn't, but I am now, has Glee, as Alex put it, already jumped the shark? The Britney episode was so outrageously lame it was like watching paint dry, only more boring and annoying. Sue Sylvester was only on the screen for a few brief seconds, for the rest, it was utter dross.

One surprisingly good newie, and I mean surprising, I was not very motivated to even watch it, is Hawaii 5-0.

Having enthused about Momford and Sons recently (they need to consult me about some of their lyrics, but in their own time), it seems as though M&S (NOT Marks and Sparks) are the new Snow Patrol when it comes to TV series' emotion music.

Snidelines

You know that old joke, 'laughter is the best medicine except for diabetes, and then it's insulin,'? well, on TV there was just an ad for insulin. A man says, 'diet, exercise and tablets just weren't working for my diabetes, so my doctor suggested..' and we wait, expectantly, 'insulin'.

So Christine O'Connell, Tea-Bagger extraordinaire, claims she went to Oxford. She claims it on her CV. Turns out she was there for two days as part of a course she attended, the organisers had rented a room at the university.

And this bizarre behaviour in contrast to Canada, where, on the one hand, we are talking about going over to electronic medical records, and on TV we see a doctor turning to her computer screen as the patient walks in - exactly what my doctor always did in Britain.
On the other hand, someone having read the Stieg Larsson novels, (my assumption)we are possibly going to de-criminalise prostitution. This should lead to safer conditions for sex trade workers, and hopefully a decrease in human trafficking.

Yesterday, I couldn't help being amused at the idea, via Womanist Musings, of a multi-coloured muffin, a rainbow muffin if you will, being gay and therefore likely to corrupt. On the other hand, I couldn't avoid the feeling that the religious freaks involved, were really confused about what the word gay means. What a bunch of utter tosspots.

The Dell

Every once in a while, one has a weekend that just works out. Many, many a weekend doesn't live up to its promise of weekendly goodness, but this last one - for me at least, just did.

The promised storm didn't.
And yet Saturday was such a glorious early autumn day in Dingly Dell ....er, I mean Birch Bay, that we took the kayaks out and ventured further than we had before, on sparkling waters.
Then in the evening, the rain came sweeping in and thrummed on the roof whilst we sat out on the deck and watched it, and then as we lay in bed and listened to it.

I had forgotten how much I love the drawing in of the evenings, but that too added value.

And then finally, as I drove towards the border at around 21.00 on Sunday, two cars greatly broke the speed limit to overtake me. So it was with satisfaction that I passed them in the NEXUS lane as they joined the end of a very, very, very long queue, and we...just drove straight through.

Words and Music

Off to the Static this evening, and there's a storm a-coming apparently. The Static is an ace place to be in a storm, owing to the metal roof. This may or may not turn out to be the case. I mean it deffo has a metal roof, the other stuff, we'll see.

The Sleepy Mansions on tour brought me a CD from Austen, which brought me tracks from Mumford and Sons, which in turn were reinforced by the Sleepy Mansions on tour soundtrack.
Anyroad, I'm hooked and went and bought the CD. Four London lads to watch.

So that's music.
Reading, not the sprawling city where Beautiful People is set, but the inactive activity.

I bought an e-book by a historical writer, Alison Weir, and I think she actually is an historian, because I had previously read a non-fiction book by her.
The current book is about Eleanor of Aquitaine, and thus should be interesting, but I find that the constant set-piece sex rather interferes with the story. On the other hand, now that I'm used to it, I suppose it does explain people's motivations sometimes, it's just that it's so 'he thrust his throbbing penis between her damp thighs' type of thing. It's how I imagine Barbara Cartland must write sex, not that I'd ever want to take one for the team and read her.

Sleepy kindly left me her copy of the Hilary Mantel she was reading, 'A Greater Place of Safety'. I thought I'd get a little taster and started reading a couple of pages. Instantly addicted, but I've had to put it down until I've finished with the Queen of England.

Blackheart

Wednesday, huh.

So, at 10.15 this morning, I found myself at the Liquor Store. I selected some BC stout called 'Blackheart' I took it to the checkout.

'This is certainly the time to come to the Liquor Store,' I quipped,
'Yep, sure is,' said the assistant, 'as soon as the 9.30 rush is over, it gets much quieter,'
'The 9.30 rush?' said I, 'seriously, you have a 9.30 rush at the Liquor Store?'
'Oh yeah,' he said, 'all the regulars,'
'Er, I suppose I'm a regular,'
'Nope, you're not, if you were I'd recognise you,'
'Right, aha, yeah,'
'So, Blackheart is really good, great choice, have you had it before?' he asked, enthusiastically in my opinion,
'I...don't actually drink beer,'
'Oh, well do you drink dark beer?'
'I don't drink beer,'
'Oh, so it's a gift?'
'Not....no,'
'???'
I felt like I was letting him down, but I had to fess up,
'Erm, I'm using it in a stew,'
'Right,'
'Right, hmmm... good that it's good, um, my husband will enjoy drinking the rest...I expect,mmm, right, bye.'

Later in the day, I discovered that torture and Amy Winehouse keep Whisky quiet. Maybe they're the same thing. The torture takes the form of having his ears combed to get the tangles out. So far as the music goes, The Clash works too.

TV has started up. House - meh, they need new writers.

Seth-low

So happy birthday to Seth, he has been experiencing the long birthday of the distanced-from-home.

Yesterday, in American Eagle, I searched for the son-in-law gift. Some jazzy underpants perhaps, suggested the assistant.
'That would be too creepy for a mother-in-law,' I reminded him,
'It's what cool mothers-in-law buy,' he countered,
'Creepy ones,' said I.
I loathe these people. And most likely, they loathe me.

Today, the Sleepy Mansions road trip down the West Coast, winds to a close. I thought for a while there, we might have to gird our lions (rather than loins) and drive down to Seattle, but all is well....ish. It sounds as though things have not been without incident, but not having to face the I5 unexpectedly on a rainy night is good. Actually, not having to face it expectedly in the rain is good, the I5 in the rain can be rather challenging.

The Book Depository, normally my best friend, has been playing cat and mouse with me.I am trying to purchase an e-book from them and they keep telling me it's out of stock. How can an e-book be out of stock? Then they say they'll notify me when it's back in stock, which they do, but as soon as I click on it, it's 'out of stock' again.

Next week, the telly scheduling goes berserk. This week, there has been a telly drought. BUT....we do have the new - and modern - Sherlock Holmes. Not, however, so modern that either of the main characters could be women.

Yesterday, we had the unappealing sight on TV of a woman, screaming at women priests, that 'Jesus chose twelve MEN to be his disciples,' to support the Pope in his misogyny. Oh yes, many misogynists are women.
Some people are such lazy thinkers.

I hope the Pope noticed that the Head of the Church of England is a woman.

Septemberish

Another Septemberish day in paradise lost.

Cool in the morning, tending towards rain, decidedly hot in the afternoon. The shops however, are cumbersome beasts whose heating goes on at some set date or minimum temperature, and there it sits.

Canadian Tiresome, a store I needed to visit for two items, was so hot, I felt ill. Around me, other shoppers and staff looked decidedly flushed. No staff were visible and nor where the intended purchases. It became like a rat trap, and naturally, whilst fanning myself with a no-smoking sign, and generally being stroppy to no-one in particular, a not-very-much-English speaker came and asked me where he could find something.

My next stop was The Bay. From Tiresome to the Bay, there must be eight sets of traffic lights, but somehow,somewhere, the traffic light programmer for Richmond is either colour blind, or thinks the green wave system isn't as challenging as a red wave system. And she or he would be right.

This year, apparently, men are wearing neither bathrobes nor dressing gowns. The places where I would expect to find such items had yielded nought. The Bay had two rails and I found a suitable one, purchased it and attempted to leave the store. Red lights started flashing and a loud man's voice said something about their associate having obviously failed to remove the security tag. I returned to the desk. She did the magnetic magic again and assured me that it had been deactivated. Sadly, it seems, some customers just set off the system, and I would have to boldly go...and ignore it. Which, indeed, I had to do.

On the way back, an advert on the car radio informed me that, 'the one thing she always wears every day and all day, is her engagement ring.' What bollocks, I thought. The one thing most women probably wear all day, every day, is their knickers, and in probably more cases than would wear an engagement ring, a bra. But although I shouted at the radio, no-one was listening, so I had to settle for hexing the jewellers'.

Friendsy

When people say,
'One of my Facebook friends,' what do they mean? I mean, do people have friends on Facebook who aren't real life friends? I mean, I certainly have a few people as friends on Facebook that I've never met in real life, but the friendships didn't start, nor are they dependant on, Facebook.
So what pray, is a 'Facebook friend'?

Yesterday, I read an article about a different kind of friend and a different kind of friendship, 'mate hate'. Evil monsters who befriend the learning disabled in order to take advantage of them.
In 2007, a young man was murdered by such a group. They tortured and humiliated him for over a year, and then forced him to take 70 Paracetamol, on its own enough to destroy his liver several times over, then hung him off a viaduct and stamped on his hands until he fell to his death. Every time I think about it, I'm overwhelmed with sorrow and disgust.

Mortal Coils

Right. Right?

Had difficulty getting up this morning. The thumping headache had progressed to thundering and then back to merely thumping and my throat was sore. When I was a child, the doctor used to call this type of sore throat 'dirty tonsils'. My tonsils did indeed feel dirty, and not in a good way.
At my age, it's difficult to make the call that I'm running a mild fever, but I believe I'm running a mild fever.

But enough, my day has been dogged by mortality. By day I mean the last twenty-four hours.

Last night I watched a docu-drama that hypothesised a smallpox outbreak in modern day Montréal, following the same pattern as the one in 1885. It really was quite horrid, especially the impossibility of knowing that one person has it if they only have a mild case. Then the hotel cleaner changes the sheets on the bed.....

I missed how it would break out after it had been globally eradicated in 1979, and also, surely, since it was eradicated as a result of vaccination, wouldn't the majority of adults still alive have been immunised against it or passed on that immunity to their children?

Astonishingly, a doctor on the documentary bit of the programme, said that vaccination was the single most important medical breakthrough of all time, and yet for some reason, people are resistant to it....er, but not in a medical sense natch.

Didn't make me feel any better, but certainly validated my decision to keep my bugs to myself, (as did my friend Bozo5).

This morning, I found the above-pictured mushroom growing amidst my Oregano. As a general rule, one should never eat mushrooms with white gills. This has white gills. In fact, it rather resembles the deadly poisonous Destroying Angel. It is so toxic, it stops the liver and kidneys from functioning and death occurs within 48 hours.
However.....I think it is more likely the edible Leucoagaricus leucothites. Obviously I'm not playing Russian Roulette with these puppies.

In the afternoon, two cars moved on from the visitor parking, revealing a dead rat that looked as though it were asleep. Asleep with flies buzzing round. We don't have to notify the public health authority here, so I merely buried it.

On the way back from Superstore, where I spread my germs far and wide, but not in close proximity, there had been a very unpleasant traffic accident involving two cars, one, an SUV, was on its side and ripped open. There were three ambulances, three police cars and a fire engine attending. People were being removed on stretchers.

I'm sensing a theme.
Not a good one.

Middling

After a day of quite literally doing nothing, I have had an almost entirely sleepless night culminating in mild fever, thumping headache and a vague feeling of nausea. Actually, not so much vague as definite.
I'm middlingly unwell.

Middlingly unwell is a most unsatisfactory state of affairs, because I'm not ill enough to doze fitfully in my bed, drinking hot Marmite and watching daytime TV (a small mercy), yet not well enough to actually do anything.

Then the dog joined in. After an extended bout of yelping, he delivered evidence of an upset stomach, which of course, I had to go and clear up.

So now we're in synch. He lies limpidly on the floor, whilst I half-heartedly wash-up. Then I feel ill again and sit down, but sitting down puts me at eye-level with some dust, so I get out the lambswool duster, which re-animates the dog, who thinks of this as a yearned-for toy that he may not have, and barks and leaps at it, making the dusting even more trying. Then we both collapse for a while.

And of course, when you're ill, whatever you have in your medicine cabinet is insufficient, thus rendering it imperative to drive to Shoppers' Drug Mart, where you end up in the line behind the woman who speaks no English yet wishes to interrogate the long-suffering assistant about the points on her loyalty card. Behind me, two men shuffle and mutter. I try to will her to move on, but now she must make another fuss about bags.

Back on the road, things are even more mental. Getting out of the car park is no joke at any time of the day or night, but there appears to be someone weaving back and forth across the lanes and coming towards me. Will the driver mount the curb and plough into me I wonder, but she swerves away, narrowly missing a pedestrian.

Almost home, when, with no warning whatsoever, a car does a complete 180 in front of me. The driver grins at me in what I can only assume is some kind of soppy and useless apology. I give him my grim reaper stare, which is all I can currently manage, but this merely causes him to grin more stupidly.

On second thoughts, I must be more than middlingly ill, there's chocolate in the cupboard and I don't fancy it.

Birthday Girl

Thank-you for all the birthday wishes. It has been a week of eating, drinking and fire-making in this instalment of 'Sleepy Mansions visits the Schloss and the Static'.
Intense and enjoyable.

Today, the birthday proper, we went to see Henry the Fifth at Bard on the Beach.
Firstly, I want to say that I do understand the snobbery associated with driving a car with manual gears, I am that snob, but people, learn how to do a hill start for the love of dog.

But Henry was good, oh so very good.
"Cry, 'God for Harry, England and St. George!' " fair made me swell with patriotic pride.
There was some choreography to represent the battle scenes - superb. And there was some French - hohum, but classic humour to be got from it. And there was a rather cheeky joke in French that....may not have been cheeky if it appears in the original, but if it's an addition, then it is. I s'pose I'll have to get orf me backside and walk to the book shelves.
King Henry himself looked remarkably like my friend J's partner, to the extent that it was disconcerting.
But wonderful.

And then there are the pressies, perfect, perfect pressies. I have my Kobo e-reader from Kevin, I love it. Bowls from the Mansions, to match my extremely expensive and beloved salad bowl from Dix Mille Villages. A book of poetry from Austen and Sue, and the biggest of all my pressies, a London bus looming through a grey Piccadilly circus from Alex and Seth.

And then, and then....the Philly cheese steaks, cooked and assembled to perfection by Kevin.

Perfick!

Book Magic

Three-day wedding. My friends are well and truly married, which is what should happen if the bish marries you at the cathedral.
Lovely, lovely wedding.

Whilst there, I discovered that the Anglican cathedral has a Rabbi in residence. Truly, I wonder if we have an Imam in residence too. Maybe our church could get a Rabbi in residence, it might be better than some of the locum priests.
Ah, endurance is a skill best acquired young.

I have an early birthday present, finally, I have my e-reader. And I am loving it. I discovered that the back-lighting from e-readers can mess with your melatonin production, which in turn messes with your sleep patterns. Mine has no back-lighting, thus, although, just like with a book, if you want to read in bed, you need light, you CAN read in sunlight, and of course, it doesn't mess with your sleep patterns.
Lovely.

My first e-book is the last of the Stieg Larsson trilogy.
My last paper book was the INCREDIBLE 'Fingersmith' by Sarah Waters. I envy anyone who hasn't yet read this book. Book magic.
Lovely.

Sockeye

The denizens of Sleepy Mansions are here, and we have been touristing. Whistler, Steveston, monsoon day (yesterday), Liquor Store, Liquor Store, Liquor Store.

And much salmon.

This year, after several lean years, we have a record salmon run, and my goodness, have we had some amazing sockeye. Today, we bought one straight off the dock and it was superb. Er...well after Kev had cooked it of course.
We'll be well above our mercury level before the week is out.

Tomorrow, Alex and Mary get back from the Kerouac tour. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Not Secateurs

Yesterday evening, a gift from a thoughtful god, thunder and lightning and then some much needed heavy rain.

Some random and often disconnected thoughts and links.

Creator of the Dilbert cartoon, Scott Adams, tells about his attempts to build a green house - natch as opposed to a greenhouse - and how he has a responsibility to do so.

Vampires are very fragile really, and we have created them entirely in our own image.

'True Blood' is too gay for some, not gay enough for others. A great post by Sparky on the site 'Womanist Musings'. Well argued.

Alex and her friend Mary are currently doing the Jack Kerouac tour, although the only on the road bit seems to have been my driving them to Seatac. The rain on the way back from there was more like a gift from a pissed-off-at-humanity style god.

At the Peace Arch border crossing, on the U.S. side, there is a sign giving the names of the people in charge. Painted onto the board is the name Barack Obama, but oddly, his title, 'President of the United States of America' has been stuck on as an afterthought. It was as though, when they got the board printed up, someone thought,
'We know who we want, but we're not sure what job to give them.'

Presently, the Women's Rugby World Cup is on. You probably wouldn't know this, but I don't care much for sport. I do, however, care for a woman's right to play it and to be lauded every bit as much as her male counterpart. Thus I mention it, and hope that sports enthusiasts will take a look.

Cladding

If you could see houses being built around these parts, you probably wouldn't want to spend a night in one. It looks as though they throw them up from mdf which then gets to stand around in the rain a while before being clad in coats of many,though subdued, colours.

Houses are built from timber around here because that's what there is a lot of, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because they fare better in case of earthquake. A lot of planning and money go into earthquake preparedness here.

Ok, so back to the cladding. Now, it's really no-one else's business what colour anyone paints their own house, but hey, I have me this blog, just so that I can diss other people's taste in paint jobbies.

A short while ago, one of the other dog owners told me that a particular firm of decorators were cheaper than others. Very keen on low-pricing the dog walkers are. He pointed out the house they were painting at that time. Far from being subdued, it was more vivid, livid even.

There are certain colours that I think of as food colours, brown and yellow for example. And frankly, what goes in as food, comes out as bodily functions. If Dulux had a shade for the colour that house was being painted, they'd have to call it 'dehydrated urine stream', from their 'bodily function' range.
And who wouldn't want their house to stand out from the crowd thus?

Today, another house was being painted in a vibrant shade. This time, the colour was purple, violet in fact, bright, screaming violet.
Nothing wrong with that, in principal. I'd wear clothing in that colour, food would be...interesting. But for the outside of a house, it, well it shouts.

A couple of weeks back, Kevin was watching one of the TV progs that he watches that I don't. A pair of men were mixing paint colours from donated paints. It was somewhere in the San Francisco area I believe.
People would bring their unwanted paint in, it gets mixed and then it goes out again, free, to anyone who wants it.
And that's my guess. The painters want the same thing as the dog-walkers, they want a bargain and they are painting houses in secondhand paint.
Either that, or they're colour blind.
Doesn't bear thinking about.

Kid Gloves

Lafayette (the French one) "Merci Napoléon, ces maudites prisons autrichiennes me font chier!" (Thanks Napoleon, those accursed Austrian prisons piss me off).
Lafayette (the Bon Temps one) "Dem fuckers is a whole other dimension of trash". No kid gloves there.
Actually, I made up the first one.


Now, the current Head Prefect of Canada is Mr. Stephen Harper and he is not winning any hearts and minds apart from those of the nutjob bigots. His latest idiocies have been to make the Census optional, thus rendering it pointless, and preparing to dismantle the long-gun registry, thus sending Canada back about 100 years. Police chiefs are furious and plan to campaign against him on this.

My beef with him however, is more sartorial. Now, in general, male public attire is not very liberated, the un-reconstructed men have not taken the brilliant lead of the gay community in making their standard clothing more stylish or individualistic. But that being said, Mr.H. doesn't even do the shirt, jacket and tie look with panache. Or even competence.
This thing where they leave their top button undone and the tie at home on the special tie-hanger, is all very well in casual settings, but when talking to the public on TV, in your role as its leader, you can't be doing with this half-arsed look.
When we had Mr. Paul Martin as our PM for all of twenty seconds, he could work the 'rolled up sleeves, tie-less' look, because he looked like a man who was PM in his spare time, and for the rest of the day, pulled a shift on the shop floor.
Mr Harper on t'other hand, looks like he spends his day sitting around twiddling his thumbs and waiting for some lackey to come and give him a latte.
Not a man for kid gloves and yet somehow... a man for kid gloves.

Kid gloves have been on when handling the gradual reveal of my friends' wedding. Yesterday, in the Parish Bulletin, the gloves finally came off and it was announced that our vicar and her missus were to be tying the knot. So far, only positive and supportive feedback I'm very pleased to say. And actually, that is quite a thing to be able to say, given the general age group of most Anglican audiences.

Adventures with my Dog

It's not that I thought painting would be easy with a small dog in tow, it's just that I hadn't entirely envisaged how difficult it would be.

It goes without saying that every time another dog barked, I'd have to stop what I was doing and go and shut him up - which process involves the 'submit' position (for him, not me), but for some reason I hadn't worked out in advance that it would also involve him stealing the drop cloth, pulling the decorator's tape away from the skirting board and that after about thirty or forty such interventions, I would start tiring and walk into a bit I'd just painted. That it would of course involve his objecting to every person who walked or cycled by, every lorry or van, digging in the garden, hiding in the garden, finding a flower pot and recycling it orally, and of course, the fearful silence.
Silence.
If it had gone quiet for more than ten minutes, I also had to get down off the ladder and go and investigate. He'd chewed the cover off my book because I'd stupidly left it on the chair I'd sat in when I had eaten my lunch. He'd found a folded up paper towel somewhere and was shredding it. He'd gone over the sofa and behind a chair to get a colour sample.
Progress was slow.

But enough of that.
Austen sent me this BBC interview of Professor Deborah Cameron, Professor of Language and Communication at Worcester College, Oxford, by Stephen Fry, about whether women and men use language differently. Cameron really knows her stuff, sadly Fry drops the ball a couple of times. However, nil desperandum, it's an interesting interchange.

And lastly, or rather most ghastly, Sarah Palin. On this occasion however, these Mamma Grizzlies speak out and against her nonsense. Make sure you click on the link to see the video clip.

The blog picture is inside the Capitol, the government building in Juneau.

Wheatgrass

Wheatgrass - it kills 99% of all known germs and then some. And it's growing in our kitchen. There it is, full of....grassy goodness. Think it tastes wheaty? No, no, no, no, no. It tastes of grass. I imagine Gillian McKeith eats nothing else.

But the most insane thing about wheatgrass is that you can practically watch it grow!
Alex has a seed sprouter, so it germinated very easily, and then we planted it. I make the coffee at 7.00 and take it back up to bed. About twenty minutes later I go down and pour a second cup. I swear, the wheatgrass had grown in that time. Why are we not air-dropping wheatgrass into areas of famine? - I mean apart from the fact that those places usually have no water. Oh, and that it tastes of grass. As soon as we work out how to extract all the anti-mortality ingredients from it, we will be ingesting it like mad.

Wheatgrass is mental. But it's hypnotic and it cleans your colon.

The Sun and the Moon

This is a picture by Alaskan artist, Rie Muñoz, it has a First Nations' legend across the bottom, 'The Sun and the Moon belong to Women'. We saw it in a small shop/gallery in Juneau, which, I believe is the Rie Muñoz gallery. I can't say I loved her style, but this one spoke to me.

So it is Ramadan. I found this out from a Dawn via Facebook. I am taking the liberty of re-posting her link here, because there are some reflections on Ramadan by women and men of Islam, and it's of course, another indicator or reminder of how close people of faith can be.

At church today, M gave us some powerful images that had stayed with her. One was of being on a train going into New York. The suburbs were grey and dreary and then suddenly, a bright, colourful image, an advertisement. There was an attractive young couple against a happy, countryside background, but across the bottom, the surgeon general's warning that smoking can kill, an ad for cigarettes.
This vivid colour against the grey, with the message, 'buy this, it will kill you'. This is what society is reduced to.

Yesterday, I went to my first ever bridal shower. I went because of the two people involved and the equally wonderful person who was organising it. In general I think I could give them a miss. It was a very pleasant occasion, fantastic food and great company in a lovely home. As such events go, it was well done. The two brides already have a home, so the host had made the theme 'wine'. Clever.
I think I would personally encourage a more streamlined method of gift receiving, go in, give gift, done.
Ah well.

Right now, if the sun belongs to women, then they must be having one very long hot flush. It is impossibly hot. Going outside is almost to give up breathing, and no end in sight.
Coming back up from the Static on Saturday morning, the line going down to the States was so long it wound back onto the motorway, it must have been three hours plus-worth of waiting. I reckon people had decided it was perfect weather to go down to the seaside, and then instead, have sat on the tarmac with the sun beating down on their metal box so that they could inch forward towards the equally over-heated women and men of the Homeland Security.

Vikings

You know how sometimes you have all the information but don't make connections? Well that happened to me yesterday with Norway.

Norway, as we know, has its own really excellent line in Fox's Glacier Glaciers, and fjords, famous for their fjords to the extent that I had no idea anyone else had any until I went to Alaska. This could be partly connected to my baffling and inexplicable hatred for the subject of geography when I was at school.

One of the up-sides of there being very little TV on during the summer, is that occasionally you get to watch some gems you wouldn't have even bothered looking for. And last night, we found such a gem, a programme about Norway.
Now, had I been asked about Norwegians, the only one I could have thought of was a rather odious man I worked for in an office for about two weeks before I went to the Nature Park.

But of course, really I know many others. Who, for example, hasn't read Thor Heyerdahl's 'Kon-Tiki Expedition'? It was almost compulsory reading for my generation. And Ibsen, everyone's heard of Ibsen. Amundsen, and then the Norwegian Whaling ship that rescued Shackleton after he had shown true grit by walking hundreds of miles across the ice in just his gym shoes. Liv Ullmann of course. Alright, so not that many really, but some.

Ibsen's 'A Doll's House', it transpires, was banned at first in Britain, for portraying women and men as equals.
And there's the thing.
The Vikings. Yes, not just a bunch of horned-hat wearing, sea-faring marauders, but actually a very advanced society, and one in which women and men were equal. They took equal parts in the governing of their society, in fact, negotiation and discussion, arguably more female methods of governance, were how it all worked.

So what could possibly have gone wrong?

Christianity. Yep, good ol' not-supposed-to-be, but-turned-out-that-way, misinterpreted Christianity came along and it all went pear-shaped.

Fortunately, with all that Vikingocity in their blood, the Norwegians are back on track again and remain in the top three of the global index of gender parity.
Which just goes to show you can't keep a Norse God down.

Out Rage!

The little town of Juneau.

A lot of rage on the news this morning.

There was the sorry spectacle of a woman who couldn't get chicken McNuggets during the breakfast service and so tried to push herself through the drive-through window and actually socked the employee working the window twice.
Seriously.
My son has worked this crappy job, not for McD's, but for another fast food joint, and whilst I am impressed with and astonished by the level of hygiene the place insists on, I was equally astonished by the level of abuse these workers have to face. Add to that actual physical violence and this bizarre sense of entitlement that some people have, I can't begin to understand why anyone thinks they have the right to treat other human beings like this, nor that they have some right to be able to just drive up to a window in their oversized vehicle and be served whatever food item they happen to fancy.

Then there was the incredible, changing story of Stephen Slater, the flight attendant.
On the first report on CBC, Stephen, a 38 year-old flight attendant, asked a man who had stood up and was opening the overhead locker whilst the plane was still moving, to sit down. The man let Stephen have it with a stream of verbal that couldn't be repeated on CBC, at which point the item of luggage fell out of the locker, hit Stephen on the head, who then proceeded to let out his own invective, stomped off, taking a bottle of beer with him, activated the emergency chute, which he used to exit the plane, went to the staff car park and drove himself home. Later he was arrested by the Police.
The second report, not ten minutes later, made it seem as though Slater himself was more to blame, by leaving out the passenger's bad language and the force with which the flight attendant was hit.
On the radio, later, the male passenger had become a woman and the whole interchange had been elongated. Stephen had now been with the airline for 28 years, which meant that he must have started with them at the age of ten.
Suffice to say, the real point, in my eyes, is yet again how staff are treated by customers. Apparently a lot of people feel this way and Stephen Slater can hopefully look forward to a career on the talk show circuit.

Why, wondered the CBC, was there more outrage over the awful situation in Pakistan than the awful flooding in China?
A British reporter explained very clearly, so that even those who hadn't yet had their critical number of cups of coffee could understand, that the Chinese government were well enough staffed, resourced and prepared, to be doing everything that could be done for their own people, what was making things difficult were natural circumstances, that no amount of equipment nor drafting of additional machinery, could improve.
Pakistan on the other hand, was not dealing well with its natural disaster because its government was not helping, the President had gone off on a tour of Europe whilst his country drowned and starved, resources were not getting through and the people worst affected were getting, basically, no help at all.

Lastly, rage I anticipate, or rather, rage I DON'T anticipate. Rod Stewart is to become a father again at the age of 65. And this, to my mind, is entirely his beeswax. But when a woman of any remotely advanced age becomes a mother, there is generally an outcry from people who think it's some kind of public outrage and something they should personally have a say in, rather in the same way they think they have the rights to make decisions about any woman's reproductive rights.

Jack and Jesus

I don't understand where the time goes too. I swear it's accelerating - which is bad news really. Still, the good news is that we've had some rain. The grass was almost entirely straw coloured, except, of course, where people had ignored the hosepipe ban and sprinkled their lawns and the pavement with it. This morning, a very fat man with earplugs, sitting on a motor mower, was attempting to cut non-existent grass in the park - for this, we pay our taxes.

Like the Governator, and in fact, almost everybody except the hard core religious right, I was ecstatic to see that Proposition 8 has been deemed to be unconstitutional. Of course, this doesn't mean that ordinary, tax-paying Californians can just go out and marry the human of their choice, since they have to put up with another time-wasting challenge by a bunch of imbeciles whose purpose on this planet is to poison everything, but hey, in time, we could be back to normality. The Governator gave a nice speech about how California should be leading the country not slowing it down, and I have watched this video with Jack Black as Jesus, about 17 times.

On the cover of Time magazine's 9th August issue is this picture of a young woman who was mutilated by her husband and his family because she tried to run away. It doesn't even bear thinking about, and yet, we need to, because it's just a matter of degree. Men in Afghanistan can get away scott-free with this kind of violence against women. Men in the west still commit acts of gender-violence and it's not ok just because it's not as horrifying as this. And both men and women allow a society to continue to treat women as the second sex and create an ethos where this happens.

This article in 'The American Prospect' shows how, when men are challenged on sexism, they simply continue it behind our backs, and it's still just as damaging, and underscores my point about how sexism in language works against gender equality.

But this article also brings home another point, and one that Kevin has brought to my attention before. Subversive workplace sexism like this damages men as well, and I don't mean in a 'what goes around comes around' version of reality.
No, because the good ones, the ones that fight sexism simply because it's wrong are excluded from these 'in groups', in exactly the same way that women who are happy to be 'one of the guys' are able to be included on the surface. Of course, by accepting that male is higher status and female lower status, those women are accepting that they are a lesser part of the group.

Likewise, men who believe that women are not the second sex, that gender equality is an absolute priority, are treated as though they are part of the outsider, lower status group. But at least they have integrity, and come the revolution.....

And then there is the casual sexism highlighted in this article by Bidisha in The Graun. Read it, it's startling, but so right.

The Unreasonable Coldness of Being

Oh, Lardy, Lardy, I wish I were sitting on that Fox's Glacier Glacier right now. It is too hot to move. I envy those in the south of England their recent thunderstorm, I'm prepared to storm the met offices of CBC if they are lying to me about the forthcoming rain.

Now, whilst I am a hot person, Alex and I have a theory about cold people, or in fact, anyone who has some kind of 'special need' as it were. If you go out in public, then you should, like any follower of Lady and Lord Baden-Powell, Be Prepared. You don't go to someone's house and expect them to supply you with insulin if you're diabetic, if you have small children, you normally take a supply of nappies and other assorted accoutrements with you, so why does someone who knows in advance they are freezing in the middle of summer at say, 25°, not bring warm gear with them? I mean, I get that ANY of us can be caught out, I myself had to ask for painkillers the last time I visited Sleepy Mansions, and of course, there are certain things it's reasonable for a host to supply, water, extra blankets for the bed in the winter for example, coffee, toilet paper, wine, internet access.

Likewise, Alex came up with the example of gluten intolerance. She frequently has people visiting her shop asking about what they can feed their guests who are coming for dinner and who have gluten intolerance. Again, it's a matter of degree. If I invite a vegetarian to dins, I would cook something without meat. One tries to remember one's individual friends' peccadilloes, Sleepy can't be doing with the pig flesh, Susie doesn't like mushrooms, that kind of thing.

But gluten-free tucker is expensive and hard to find, and if you have a doctor's note, you can claim your gluten-free nosh against tax, ergo, take it with you.

Or, if you don't have enough foresight to plan for your own special need, then at the very least, pre-establish a completely off-the-wall persona with random, peculiar behaviour, for example, this would be an advance warning indicator, some kind of foreign accent that comes and goes....ahh, right.
Hmmmm.....

Oops, I thought I'd better add that I am absolutely NOT talking about Dawn here, who, whilst being a colder-than-me person is the absolutely perfect guest and travelling companion and brings her own jumpers.

Fox's Glacier Mints

Only there is no polar bear sitting on it, nor a smarmy fox pointing at it, and in fact, it's not really a mint. Just a glacier. A beautiful, incredible, disappearing glacier.

On board ship, we had a naturalist called Milos, who told us interesting stuff and gave illustrated talks. One of his talks was about the sky at night. He took us all the way back to the big bang, it was fabulous. But it wasn't far enough for me, so I had to work out for myself what must have happened before then.

Imagine it, Sicily, 1923. No, sorry, that was Sofia in 'The Golden Girls'.
Imagine it, Infinity, six billion and a funny squiggle years ago. The Celestial Programmers are having a cuppa in the staff room.
XGVG - So, the new proggie, is it ready to go yet?
YHWH - Yep, yep, just about, I've fixed the little time blip,
XGVG - Excellent, I knew you only had to remodulate,
YHWH - Pretty much, yeah, oh and I had to get my head around this whole procreation thingie.
XGVG - Wha? Procreation, wtf's that?
YHWH - Oh, it's something I've built in to make it all a bit more interesting, actually, I'm anticipating it being very interesting,
XGVG - I'm intrigued, do tell...
YHWH - Well, it's a bit of an odd concept really. See, when I boot the whole thing up - I'm calling it 'The Big Bang' as a sort of working title, stuff gets formed, then it sort of spills out everywhere and some of it sticks together and whatnot, anyhoo, cut a long story short, after a relatively short amount of time, we get to the really good bit of the programme, and what I am calling 'Life'..
XGVG - Working title?
YHWH - Working title, pops up, in fact, some might say it looks like a bit of a googly in the programming, but I can assure you it's intentional. So, 'Life', gets more and more complicated, but in order to keep going, it has to somehow reproduce itself....
XGVG - Ah..because of the time thingie....
YHWH - Because of the time thingie, right, so, at first, the units of 'Life' can reproduce by splitting themselves, but when it gets VERY complicated, and here's the beauty of this, I'm dead pleased about it, two units will have to get together and sort of fuse and then divide to form a new unit.
XGVG - Huh, clever, I like it, so what's it based on?
YHWH - Was hoping you'd ask, here's the bit I really like, it's based on numbers,
XGVG - No way...
YHWH - Yes way, numbers right? Numbers work here, numbers work within the programme,
XGVG - THAT is elegant,
YHWH - Right? AND...to make it even more interesting, I have made two equal but different halves, but I've given them a different number of coding strings,
XGVG - Awesome! Wait, do we still say awesome?
YHWH - I believe we do, and are! So, one type will have three strands of code, the other four,
XGVG - Equal, different and one has an extra string of coding, I cannot wait to see it running. So, the whole programme, do you have a title for that?
YHWH - Eh...I dunno, I'm a bit stuck really, I thought of 'Creation' but then I thought, hmm...maybe The Sims? I mean it is a simulation...of sorts....
XGVG - One type has three strands of coding, the other four, it's just brilliant, brilliant! And what could possibly go wrong?