Zero Holds His Tongue

I have been griping more than my fair share the last couple of weeks.  I am going on gripe hiatus long enough to appreciate one of the truly wonderful things in my life: Cathy McDonald (whom I *never* call Cathy), my partner and friend (oh, and incidentally, we’re married — so she’s my husband as well).

This morning we were running an errand in town and we stopped for coffee on the way home.  The individual who took our order (for some reason an offensive, five letter word beginning with “b” and rhyming with “snitch” comes to mind) did their best to counteract the general cheeriness of the sunny weather, and we both griped about her on the way home.  Also, all of our receipts got dumped accidentally into our paper recycling before I could enter them into Quicken.  With that as preface, I just received this from Cathy in an email titled “Zealous about Paperwork”:

I’m feeling proud of myself. I just spent too long on a phone conversation with a passport official that made the coffee chick this morning look cordial. Then I overassembled the documents they requested from me to annoy them.

I also went through the reclying piece by piece and retrieved all the receipts. Now I feel holy.

Darling — you are holy and wholly wonderful.  I am so grateful to share my life with you.

Okay, now I’m going to wipe the besotted expression off my face and get back to the serious bidness of griping.  If there is an occasional smile on my face…  well, you can’t blame a fellow for occasionally pausing to count his blessings.

This morning, I noticed something subtly difference about the appearance of the woods behind my house in our view from the second story skylight.  Turns out they weren’t woods in more — they had become a lake.

The water appears to still be rising.  I walked down Lynn to West North street and then down North West street (a ridiculous juxtaposition of names, especially considering that Northwest Road is just a few blocks away).  There were people *everywhere* — it looked like a sporting event. Where Squalicum creek passes under Squalicum parkway and West street, the extremely capacious waterway had been completely overwhelmed, and the street surface looked like a river in its own right.

Crazy.  Feels a little biblical.  But cool, so long as Noah doesn’t forget to stop and pick me up before my backyard falls into the creek and washes out to Bellingham Bay.

In my opinion, nothing will bring you closer to reliving your childhood than spending some quality time with someone else’s children on a snowy day.  Greyson taught me three things this morning:

1.   I am getting old.

2.  One of the advantages of getting old is that your old-person hands enable you to make *massive* snowballs.  At least compared to those that a 10 year old can make.

3.  All those childhood memories of snow making your hands tingle and ache until it feels like your fingers are going to fall off?  Those memories are TOTALLY accurate.

(Incidentally, if you look closely you’ll see that my right ear is packed full of snow in this picture.  I thought I’d lost hearing in one ear, a la George Bailey.)

In other news, I was overcome by a new form of modern “rage” in the supermarket today.  On the way in, I inadvertantly crossed paths with this other fellow — one of those accidental “dances” where, traditionally, you keep saying “excuse me” and “oh, I’m sorry” after each step, and then getting in each others’ way again.  Except in this particular case, I was the one saying “pardon me,” “excuse me,”"how silly of me” and this other guy just glared at me through the whole thing.

Once inside, I brooded about this exchange — and about how ridiculous it was for me to be so civil and apologetic while he was so arrogantly terse.  After a while, I parted ways with Cathy and went to fetch some tea.  When I saw this other fellow in baked goods, I looped around and came back along the same aisle he was in and, when he turned around, I used my cart to force him to back out of my way, glaring at him the entire time (he looked totally flummoxed).  Later, I realized I was probably suffering from something best described as “cart rage” — and even though it’s something I should probably be ashamed of, and might even need professional help with, I felt a little pleased with myself.

Watch out, all you scrooges and sourpusses out there — this is Kevin, full of The Milk of Human Crankiness, and ready to unleash it upon you.  Beware!

Wow — I moved into my new place in July.  It’s not until now, at the very last breath of September, that I find myself where I imagined being the whole time: sitting around a demure little fire in my immaculately cultivated back yard while twilight fades out above me, composing a blog over wireless, the beer at my feet slowly exhaling its carbonation into the salty atmosphere of Bellingham Bay that wafts up Squalicum Parkway in the evenings.

I’m still sore from installing that damn wireless router yesterday — running cables through my 24″ high crawlspace is *not fun*.

But worthwhile, for sure.

Damn it, a hot coal just hopped out of the fire and landed on my foot.

A flock of Canada geese just flew by overhead, dimly silhouetted in the last afterglow of twilight — heading south in anticipation of what will be, Ia hear, a rather cold winter.  I can smell my cord of wood from here — light notes of alder and birch on top of aromatic cedar and tannic maple. The smell of it when I was stacking it reminded me of my childhood so acutely it almost hurt, but it’s an altogether pleasant smell now.  It is so peaceful here.

Fucking mosquitoes.  Time to invest in some more citronella.

It’s funny: I’ve been so busy and so otherminded over the last three months that I think I overlooked what a landmark this is in my life.  Place (and more importantly, a sense of rootedness, of tangibility) has always been important to me, yet I’ve been living the transient life of apartments, condos, and rentals for almost a decade and a half.  I feel like I am finally standing on bedrock again.

Michael Dodd, that dirty rat, posted this to my last post (which is only a couple of months old):

Aged words grow staler
Dark corner of the internet
A blog’s lonely death

This blog is not dead, Michael.  It’s simply in cryogenic sleep.

For those of you who may have been wondering, I’m not dead either — but neither have I been sufficiently animated to be blathering on endlessly about myself or my undertakings.   Actually, I’ve been very animated — setting up my house just so, landscaping, working fiendishly, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum, e pluribus unum, and so forth.  Good times.

I shall return to blogging soon, but the nature of the blog must change.  For I am bored.

Peace out.

P.S.  I hope I’m not the only one currently enjoying Gov. Palin’s journalistic misadventures.  Good stuff.

last night in this house

we mop the dust of good years

tomorrow’s too soon

On that note, I am shutting off my computer in this location for the last time.

Gods, I’m tired.  Evidently my allergy to cardboard dust makes my hayfever look insignificant.  Tomorrow will be so exciting!

…and I have proof. Tamar, my neighbor across Ellis St., knowing that I am a particular fan of the sweet pea for its color and fragrance, cut the first two sweet pea blooms of the year and gifted me with them. They are sitting in a small water glass next to me now as I type, perfuming my air and giving me a marvelous case of the sniffles.

In other news, I am now a (mostly unwilling) member of Facebook. Humph. You can only drag me into the 21st century kicking and screaming… but I do appear to have arrived.  What next?  Twitter?

Okay, I generally frown on content-less (that is, rant-free) posts. Nevertheless, here follow three videos I have greatly enjoyed recently. My musical tastes are expanding again after a long period of contraction (must be spring).

The Class of 73 Bells
Prefuse 73 with School of 7 Bells

It’s Showtime
Electric Six

Gotye
Heart’s a Mess

I must add — I hate the older wordpress issues with mangled/mislocated