Rain Rain Go Away

25 Jan 20

21:00 hrs

     Happy Robbie Burns Day! 

     And, with a wee dram of whiskey we toast the Haggis. 

     Have you ever had haggis? The traditional haggis is a sheep's stomach stuffed with a mixture of ground oats, barley, onions and meat that is boiled or steamed. It's not bad. Kinda bland actually. I think it's the sheep's stomach that puts everyone off. I've had it made in a very large sausage casing and it was well seasoned. The flavours were good and the texture was very peasant, if peasant can be a descriptor, and I think it can

26 Jan 20

7:45 hrs

     Yes,the Valley is in the depths of winter with never ending bands of rain sweeping across the Island and the Left Coast. As I had mentioned before, if the temp is 7°C or cooler all that rain will be snow up on the Beauforts and that, if there is a slow melt will keep the reservoirs full and the forest damp reducing the chance of a forest fire. 

     My early rising allows me to get in some Netflix time which is good because Vanna is not on Netflix. I watched Marshall, the story of Justice Thurgood Marshall. A good movie. Well worth the watch. Now, I'm on to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It's a view from the other side of the fence, so to speak. I have to stop watching it now as i hear the Oma-nator getting up. Such shows are very disturbing for her.

09:30 hrs

     I am currently attending the annual CVWS conference. Two days of workshops for authors and would be writers, poets, playwrights and the like. My class today is a Point of View workshop. It might come in handy for the rewrite of Who Let the Goats Out?  The class today is all about the POV. First, second d and third person. This whole thing reminds me of Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe episode Morely's Book Club wherein Morely,  Dave's Lobster, has decided to join a ladies book club where she finds some of the members to be snobbishly high fallutin as they discuss the attributes of books such as Fromage au Guerre - the Napoleonic War as viewed by a piece of ripe camembert cheese. Today had too much Louise May Alcott and far too much Margaret Atwood where we looked at the POV of the play Penelopiade.

27 Jan 20

13:30 hrs

     This morning, early this morning, my Sr. Couch Monkey called me on his cell. He had just ditched his car on his way to work. My Better Half sent me off to see if he was okay. He was. Nothing was leaking from him. The car was a write off. The police attended for traffic control. The wrecker arrived to yank the vehicular carcass out of the ditch. The one thing that pissed me off is I had deployed two emergency strobe lights to warn the approaching traffic of the accident and I'm pretty sure some driver coming to the scene stole one of them. Can't trust anybody!

Just another day

17 Jan 20

21:30 hrs

     It would seem that the amount of white shit that fell from the sky and covered vast portions of The Rock was more than enough to close the schools, choke roads and paralyze most motorists because their vehicles do not have winter tires. Dolts!

     Our Jr. Loin Fruit has made a daring sojourn to our closest neighbouring state. He and the Improv team have gone to do some training south of the border. He got hit by the snow too and all he has is runners. He took no boots to school. In fact, I don't know if he even owns boots anymore. Well, he's an adult with more money in the bank than I have so if he needs or wants books he can buy them.

     Elric the Stalwart and his Lobster are joining us for supper tomorrow. Chef Blaine had me drag the smoker out of the shop as he's making two smoked road killed chickens. One spicy and one not. The not spicy one is primarily for the Oma-nator whose seasoning preference includes salt, paprika and.... That's about it. In her lifetime she has tried very little  and she has an extremely small comfort zone. Chef Blaine is planning on making a meatless chili. It's made with mostly mushrooms and some beans.  But she doesn't eat beans and the Sr. Couch Monkey gags at the thought of eating fungi. I think that he'll probably make his own growlies and if she doesn't like beans there's not much Chef Blaine can't do about it. One thing that is certain is 80% of the menu at the Wayward Inn has been relegated to the dust bin. I don't know when the change will happen but it will be soon. Now, Chef Blaine will not make just one dish or not offer an option to the main but the plan is to bring healthy exciting zesty food to the table while allowing the Oma-nator to enjoy her bland repetitive dishes. I'm sorry but there it is. I know she won't eat a lot of things and I'm not going to force her but I'm not going to suffer because of it.

18 Jan 20

08:00 hrs

     It's warm and raining turning the streets into a sea of slush. On the East Coast of the Great White North close to a metre of snow fell with level 2 hurricane force winds created a state of emergency. But, like true East Coasters they partied through it.

19 Jan 20

08:30 hrs

     Supper last night was enjoyable. The two smoked chickens we devoured. The potato casserole was filling. The tea smoked devilled eggs were a surprise hit. The happy tomatoes were refreshing. After the meal Elric and his Lobster and my Better Half and I played a rousing game of Double Series that ended in a tie.

     The weather has changed. Rain and warm winds have melted most of the snow in the residential areas of the Valley, which is good as many residents still do not know how to drive in the snow.

     An interesting movie on Netflix...The American Hangman, starring Donald Sutherland. I'm halfway through it. Love his acting.

     Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that on Friday I had replaced the forced air fan on the fireplace in the Wayward Inn. The bearings had been going and last year we had adjusted the rotational speed of the fan to a point where it did not make any noise. However, this year it started to get worse. I found the part number and sourced it at a local company. They said that their supplier wanted $450 for the part. Excuse me? Asshole sez what? I'm not buying an entire new fireplace. I looked up the same part from the Prime online supplier and it cost $75 delivered to my door. The installation was pretty straight forward for an ex-aircraft technician and that included transferring the control wiring and the mounting from from the old fan to the new one. Total time was about 2.5 hours including a quick run to the local HomeDespot to pick up some spongy double sided tape for mounting purposes. While working on the problem Mr. Teddy Buttnuggets lay down beside me on the carpet to assist me.

15:45 hrs

     My Better Half just returned from treating the Oma-nator to a symphony performance of waltzes at The Sid. She said there was a lot of Bugs Bunny music.

      The Regional District is now in their new digs. The new building is big enough to bring departments that had been previously relegated in outlying structures all under one roof. From my experience new buildings are never big enough when all the parts are brought together. Take the Billy Bishop building for example. A seven story building - three of which are underground - was to be big enough to house all the command components of the RCAF. It's a beautiful glass and steel structure but as it began to fill in offices and even cubicles had to be shared to squash all the functionary fart catchers into place.

The warnings were clear.

09 Jan 20

21:21 hrs

     Unless you've been under a rock for the past couple of days you will know by now that dispute between Persia and the You-Alls has come to a head. The Tangerine Tyrant ordered a well known high ranking Persian general given an early retirement by means of several Hellfire missiles. In retaliation, Persia announced that the will no longer adhere to the nuclear production agreement and then launched a dozen long range missiles at the You-All military bases in the country next door. Reports from the field indicate the missiles were targeted to hit nothing of value and merely killed a couple of chickens and scared a goat. However, as Persia was on a full alert status it appears that a Russian built SA-15 anti-aircraft missile battery may have been set to automatic as a Ukrainian owned 737-800 was hit by two missiles as it lifted off. It was struck at 8000 feet agl and quickly descended where it impacted with the ground. All passengers and crew were lost, one third of which were from the Great White North and two thirds of which were bound for the Great White North. In my opinion, the loss of life rests squarely on the shoulders of the Tangerine Tyrant because of his bullshit rhetoric and base driven bravado. Of course he would never admit that he had erred. To never apologize is his mantra. He's such a dick.

10 Jan 20

05:45 hrs

     The Valley is in the process of being drenched. We're expecting 40mm of precipitation. My Friends Over the Hump are probably getting snow and will likely experience a power outage. It's par for the course. The Wild Wild West will get snow too as they are just that much higher in elevation than we are.

13:00 hrs and change

     My Lobster sent me a text with a link from CBC news. It has been reported that Neil Peart - the percussionist from Rush - had passed away on Tuesday after a three and a half year fight with brain cancer. It was likely the same strain as what took Gord Downey from us. This would mean his diagnoses may have known at the time of the R40 tour, the bands final concert. Canada and the world has lost a true artist and humanitarian.

11 Jan 20

21:00 hrs

     Today was the anniversary of my Lobster's father's passing. I'm sure the Oma-nator and my Better Half shed a few tears. 

     The Onion came for supper and to play some games. She is still struggling with her studies and trying to find steady meaningful work where the managers do not take advantage of her. She is such a trusting soul that her bosses soon learn that she will take on any task, any shift at any time. Assholes!

12 Jan 20

06:55 hrs

     The weather here in the Valley is going to get cold this week. Not cold like the Keystone province but cold enough that our Residentially Challenged persons will be having a tough good it. If you haven't donated to helping these people a package of new wool socks goes a long way. When the Couch Monkeys were members of the Scouting movement they had conducted several clothing and blanket drives. They had gathered a dozen or more industrial garbage bags of winter clothing, wet weather clothing, blankets and hats. It was given to one of the Valley's organizations that aids our Residentially Challenged persons on a daily basis. 

     Travel plans have been made for March. My Lobster and the Oma-nator will go back to the Nation's Capital to close out her condo. I'll meet up with them for a week to assist then return back to the Valley. Shortly thereafter I'll have to head down Island to retrieve the Jr. Loin Fruit. Busy times. Plus I have to finish writing Who let the goats out? 

     

     

Happy 2020...for what it's worth.

02 Jan 20

05:25 hrs

     And to all the ships at sea...Happy New Year! 

     Yes, it is now 2020. The start of a new decade. It will most assuredly be an interesting one and hopefully a kinder one. If you're waiting for something interesting to occupy your time simply pay attention to the Circus Congress south of the 49th Parallel. Each time the Tangerine Tyrant erupts over some personal slight the comedy continues.

     If you have Netflix I suggest that you take a look for a movie called The Irishmen. It's a long movie, over three hours, so get comfy but it certainly is interesting. It's based on the book I heard you paint houses. 

      You will have to either watch the movie or read the book,  which I bought yesterday at a major bookstore in Hub City that surprisingly had a book that I actually wanted. We were on a road trip to visit long time friends in Hub City. My Better Half said that we should stop and see if the book store was open. It was time for a break anyways. Not so much for me but for the Oma-nator who was riding shotgun in the Ram. 

     I'm awake because some individual from three time zones ahead of us called with information of a personal matter. This was their only saving grace but this has happened all too many times by people from the Golden Horseshoe who think the populace of the entire country, including those living on the Left and Right Coasts of the Great White North, are in the same time zone as they are. When I was subcontracted by HomeDespot to build Flame Pits my manager in the GTA would often call me at 05:00 hrs asking if I was able to go in to work. Work that I was already planning on attending to when I woke up. When I asked the mindless administration drone why she was calling so early I was told that it was after 08:00 hrs and the start of the work day. Really? Well, not on the Left Coast it isnt!

19:00 hrs

     It's pouring buckets out here in the Valley. Reports from the highway towards River City state there is snow and slush on the road. Tomorrow will be more of the same. The weather is supposed to break on Saturday which will be perfect as we - my Better Half,  the Oma-nator and I - will be returning the Jr. Couch Monkey to his place of higher learning in Capital City. We may even have time to have lunch with my Lobster's Travelling Relatives - who we have not seen in several years. It will be a whirlwind trip to be sure.