Off the Cliff

flemmings @ 2026-06-01T16:13:00

2026-06-01T20:25:05Z

Today is sunny and cool, or cool in the shade at least. The sun is June hot but the sky is the deep blue they photoshop into the background of picture postcards. This is extremely rare in downtown TO. The rest of the week will warm up but I see rain forecast for Saturday ie Open Tuning wall'o'noise day. Naraba ii, says the grinch over here.

Having gardened on Saturday, Sunday I did nothing but medicate the aches and stiffness with beanbags and vodka. Today I have at least done a wash and hung it on the line, just as SND's tenant is drying hers in the back garden. I might even get at the stairs (inside) with the scrub brush I just bought, though I forgot to buy rubber gloves, and my eczema'd fingers are really not up for dipping in hot soapy water. Must hang my Pride flag as well, but my legs are once again not steady on step stools.

Did at least locate System Collapse in the safe place I put it, and have started a reread. Especially as the word is that System Collapse may be the last Murderbot installment, alas and οτοτοι.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-30T18:45:00

2026-05-30T22:55:28Z

Lovely cool sunny day, perfect for gardening, which is what I did. Filled up a garden waste bag, cleared maybe two square feet of ancient desiccated vine runners, cut back the other vines that insist on growing atop the fence. Cutting back only encourages them, I know, but what are you gonna do? Also tried cutting back the linden's lower branches out front with the extendapole cutter, which is a bit unwieldy with my lack of arm strength. I could have sworn the thing was telescoping and could be pulled out to several feet more but I can't see how.

Newly resoled shoes do seem to help my balance, but to get at the backyard vines growing along the wires I need something stable to lean against, and the fence isn't it. Shall have another stab at it tomorrow

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flemmings @ 2026-05-29T18:56:00

2026-05-29T23:08:37Z

The cobbler said, "I'll text you when your shoes are ready." So I wait two and a half weeks with not a peep. Go over there today and of course they've been finished for ten days. Men, said Jessica. But he shined them up beautifully as well as resoling and mending the heels, so fine. The new soles don't have the trademark New Balance declivities and I wonder how they'll fare on, say, wet leaves and other slippery surfaces, but maybe now they're flat again they might help with the perpetual low back tsuris.

Warm but windy today, so didn't feel the 27 it actually got to. I've been putting records into bags to go out on the front lawn tomorrow. Wondering if I should in fact buy a record player to listen to them again, but enh. CDs are easier to handle. There are record players that will turn vinyl into digital music, but I don't have the technical knowledge to play digital. Are Ipods even a thing anymore?

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flemmings @ 2026-05-28T21:36:00

2026-05-29T01:45:52Z

Cool sunny breezy day, such a relief after April's rain and May's occasional heat waves. Unfortunately breezy also means pollen blown about, so I have the sneezy spells and scratchy throat that pollen brings. Ah well, there's always a price tag.

Did a white wash and put whatever wasn't underwear on the line. It didn't quite dry-- those socks are thick-- but will dry in tomorrow's sun. Must get at the vines in the back garden which are happily growing along the clothesline , the Bell line, and the line that provides light to the garage. Getting at those will be a challenge because my back hates me. Heat wraps and vodka may be required.

But fingers crossed, the malaise seems to have gone, unless it comes for its one week anniversary tomorrow.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-27T21:17:00

2026-05-28T01:38:21Z

It's not hot-hot, is in fact warm and breezy, but I've started a phlegmy cough and still don't feel 100%. Have also misplaced my muscle relaxants so the back is chronically unhappy unless I have heat on it, which is fine except the house is also warm. And psychologically I think I'm still suffering from that outage on the weekend, even if it was only half an hour. Or am suffering from the outage because the booster was already preparing for me to feel lousy.

I still went out to return library books and have salmon teriyaki. Came back and hauled the garden waste bag from the back yard to the front and topped it up with leaves from the planter and the truly amazing number of twigs that the linden sheds whenever there's the slightest bit of wind, never mind the tempest of Saturday. Then bundled up the larger branches and dead wood from the hedge, tied them with string like you're supposed to, and put that on top of the bag to discourage the damnable dog walkers who think garden waste bags is where their dog poo bags belong. They'll probably put it in the green bin instead, but at least there there's a chance the garbage guys will take it.

Weight climbs back up and ankles swell. Need to add at least one more pint to my water drinking. Warm weather at least prompts me to drink more water.

Finished Platform Decay, after doling it out in increments to make it last, and have started it again to see if I can make sense of things this time. Though I really should reread System Collapse to remind me who some of these people are. Finished a Miles Burton and a John Bude, both with period racism rottit. Am working at The Eagle of the Ninth. But warm weather is not kind to me and summer is always a lost cause for any kind of thinking.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-26T18:45:00

2026-05-26T23:01:39Z

I sincerely hope the low grade but persistent malaise of yesterday and today is fall-out from the Covid shot, because otherwise I would despair of me ever accomplishing anything again. I did clear some greenery from the back yard yesterday but my footing was worrisome and then I could barely climb the steps to the back door porch. Mind, it would help if the right side handrail was actually nailed to something. I think some nails have worked loose there and three uprights are no longer in contact with the steps.

There's something growingout of the wall by the basement steps and from the leaves I think it might be a lilac bush. Am not going to cut and bleach it in any case but will be glad if it eventually gives me flowers, and never mind what it does to the cracking concrete pad.

I hadn't booked physio this week from excess of caution re: side-effects, also the only opening she had was at 11 tomorrow and I had no confidence about being awake at that hour, let alone mobile. But a 2:30 spot opened today and I grabbed it. Dunno if her acupuncture can unbloat my heat-bloated ankles, but it might. Of course much of the bloat is from drinking cream liqueurs and adding poundage, which yeah.

Malaise means I don't want to read anything so must take that Scandi-thriller back to the library. I have The Eagle of the Ninth which I somehow never read, but I don't want that either. Bad Things are happening and I don't want to be around for them.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-24T11:38:00

2026-05-24T16:03:46Z

Occasionally the universe pays its debts. Last night the FB group for the next neighbourhood over had a post about 'anyone else experiencing a blackout?' and people saying yeah, big tree fell down on Huron. The wind yesterday was something else and the Annex trees have been around since my childhood so whenever there's appreciable wind, down they or their branches come.

At which point the lights went out in my house. Hydro map showed two areas of blackout now with estimated restoration at, ulp, 6:15 Sunday morning. I'd been saying No I won't turn on the furnace for a mere 10C it will be 23 on Monday, and now, boy did I regret that. But anyway, got my phone flashlight to locate candles and matches in the kitchen and went upstairs, dripping red wax all the way oh dear.

Got the big flashlight from the side bedroom, changed into winter-weight sleeping gear (flannel pants, thick hoodie, wool socks), assembled winter cocoon in bed (two wool blankets plus duvet), crawled in and resigned myself to sleeping at 10 p.m. And was drifting off when the lights came back on. Looked at the outage map and there was still that large purple blob over Seaton and the western Annex but it stopped, dear god, halfway up my block.

Now you must understand that my block is always, and I mean always, the last one to regain power in a blackout. In 2003 the block south of us had power 12 hours before we did. So this unexpected blessing was, well, unexpected. I know they replaced the problem transformer at the end of the block, reducing chronic outages to mere blips, but this is a different order of competence. Though if the map was correct, the part of the block where the transformer is was still without power. Whatever. I'm still grateful.

I think SND may have had a party on her porch to celebrate. Certainly I heard talk and laughter from that side and I doubt they were in the backyard where the rain was still falling heavily.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-23T17:55:00

2026-05-23T22:20:39Z

After going to bed at 2 (Platform Decay kept me up) I was sure I'd sleep into at least 11 and must remember to get up then to be mobile before Turandot at 1. But no. Wide awake at 8:30 and couldn't go back to sleep even in the grey rainy light. This isn't a usual side effect of my boosters, quite the reverse. But anyway, I was awake and too bad. Also indoors all day because the rain never stopped and I'm currently fighting the urge to turn on the heat. We'll be back in the muggy 20s by Monday.

Turandot was OK. One can't blame singers for not being Sutherland and Pavarotti, but when you've imprinted on them no one else quite reaches that standard. I fancy half the appeal of this production is the over the top Zeffirelli sets. Still photos make it look fascinating except-- well, even my extremely amateur eye thought 'Surely you're mixing Tang with Qing here?' Yeah, I guess he was trying for anything remotely Chinese to suggest a fantasy country that never existed. And I ought to prefer that to historical accuracy which grounds the action in a real China of whatever description. But speaking of imprinting, my first Turandot was set in basically an Apocalypse Now nightmare land: dark, muddy, heads on poles in a jungle setting. Very id-tastic and much my preference.

And anyway, isn't the original story Persian or Russian or something?

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flemmings @ 2026-05-22T16:35:00

2026-05-22T20:49:58Z

Water meter man was booked to come 'between 12 and 4" ie that's it for Friday afternoon. Of course I was up at 9:30 to be exercised and fed by 11:30 when I limped down to the basement to see if the area was clear and the unused light would provide sufficient illumination. And then at 11:45 he calls to ask if I'm home and can he come now. And because people are people he has a flashlight that lights up everything in a five foot radius including the dark basement stairs. All done and dusted by 12:30 so I can trot up to Loblaws for more Robax heat wraps which are better than alcohol at calming my irritable back. Pricey and can only be used once but so worth it.

Had a cold brew, watched the world go by, and was about to leave when I remembered about that covid booster. Uhh yeah. And am not doing anything this weekend which will rain all tomorrow and do who knows what on Sunday, so might as well. Apparently I was supposed to be boosted back in the fall-- twice a year for the infirm elderly-- but I don't remember seeing any signs for it. Anyway, am now Moderna'd and free to have any side effects I choose.

Did debate buying more vodka but no, alcohol rots the brain and I have my heat wraps. Treated myself to a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie instead, very satisfying. I do love pie.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-21T17:25:00

2026-05-21T21:47:14Z

It being sunny and cool and Thursday, I went over to Sushi On Bloor to see my regulars and spent the time eavesdropping on the couple off to my left who were code-switching in English and French, almost from sentence to sentence. I know a lot of Francophones here can do this, largely because they must, and I assume these people were Canadian. Their French didn't sound particularly Québecois but there are plenty of other local accents, and their English was bog-standard Canuck. But I'm still very envious. I could only pick out words of the French conversation because wherever these guys originated, they had the true French speaker's trick of skipping from consonant to consonant like stones in a riverbed.

Went by the library to pick up a hold and to photocopy my tax return and the application for deferral of property tax. I think I now know how to use the library's machine. Scan library card, enter pin, select number of copies (two of each because I am terminally belt and braces), then press preview. Librarian says that's just to be sure you have it in right, and yes, I've messed that bit up before. Then copy. Some day I'll manage to get printing from the net down as well.

Came home by various backstreets and noted the many many gardens awash in lily of the valley. I am desolate to learn that it's an invasive plant. I mean, it invaded an awfully long time ago-- it's a flower from my mid-century childhood-- so you'd think it would be naturalised by now. I have a bunch growing between the paving stones jn my backyard, which has never happened before. And finally, half a block from home, I came across my first Tesla in the wild. Dear god that's one ugly car, and I speak as one who knew cars in the 60s and 70s when cars were as weird as they get.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-20T18:07:00

2026-05-20T22:46:37Z

We have definitely changed seasons now, after three days of high 20s. The temps may be back in the teens but it's a different teens. Windows open, fans on, t-shirts almost too warm, no need for jackets. I mean maybe tomorrow's forecast 10/50 will feel cold but if it's sunny then it will still be warm. This is when one stops dreading the gas bill and starts dreading the Hydro. But all the lilacs are blooming up and down the street, which is the smell of May.

Can't think what I finished last week aside from a Desmond Merrion or two. Am currently hacking my way through two supposed mysteries, both in translation. Open Grave by Kjell Eriksson is all about an associate professor heartburning over a colleague getting the Nobel prize, being neurotic about What's He Really Thinking About Me, and generally getting in the way of the plot. I don't know if anyone is going to get murdered or not-- the title would suggest it, but so far everyone is safe as houses. Eriksson has this annoying trait in common with Robin Hobb, that he talks too much but one can't skim his prose, meaning that it's like wading through molasses.

Then there's The North Light by Hideo Yokoyama, which is all about an architect who designed a family's dream house, his crowning achievement. But then he finds that no one moved into it, and that the couple who commissioned it were in fact divorced long before they consulted him in spite of presenting themselves as a happy family with three children, and that the father has vanished from the apartment he was living in by himself and no one knows where he is now. Architect naturally concludes that this must be a long-considered plot by the father to ensnare him into.... something. This is getting into Strange Houses territory of 'why would you automatically think *that*?' Unless this is just another case of The Japanese Are Like That and it has something to do with homogeneous cultures being able to pick up on clues invisible to yer average gaijin ie me.

Also a lot about Bruno Taut, last seen in Broken Homes I believe, and his chairs. Or chair. Architect thinks Taut's chair is the key to the mystery.

But between neurotic Swedes and neurotic Japanese I'm tempted to DNF both and take them back to the library. And to forge ahead with Murderbot. Just, first reads of Murderbot are both high anxiety and high confusion for me. Anxiety because bad things are going to happen oh no, confusion because I can never visualise where Murderbot is and what it's doing at any time. And must remember that Murderbot is an it, Alexander Skarsgård notwithstanding.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-18T19:46:00

2026-05-18T23:55:03Z

No, today was no cooler than yesterday. Didn't think it would be. Stayed indoors with the fans and various library books, and the dinner I got from Farm Boy's buffet yesterday. Some very good chicken pot pie, veggies, and a bit of basmati rice with raisins. I might go for it again tomorrow if it doesn't rain too much. One webpage says storms and 31C, the other says occasional rain and 25. Eeyore believes the first.

Dusk draws in at 8. I expect the fireworks will start soon, but the fan will drown them out.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-17T15:44:00

2026-05-17T20:01:40Z

Woke at 7:30 because the air purifier stopped suddenly. One of our famous Sunday morning blips. Lay in the dark waiting for it to come back on, except it didn't. Got the Hydro outage map on the phone but it showed nothing, presumably because no one had reported it. Tried to file a report with unanswerable questions-- are the street lights out? No idea: the sun is up so they're out-- and got an error message when I tried to file. Was getting into a bit of a state because blips usually only last a minute or two. At long last thought to try turning on a light, and there we are. From which I learn that the purifier, unlike the window fans, will not restart automatically once it's been stopped. A nuisance but at least it's not a major outage.

But then I was awake at this unearthly hour. Went downstairs to get breakfast, gritted teeth and stepoed on scale, and yes: cream liqueurs and chocolate covered pecans have done a number on me, aided a bit by summer water retention, but mostly overindulgence. Cannot quit alcohol yet because nothing else works for the back spasms but shall confine myself to vodka and fruit juice.

Today was supposed to be a reasonable 20/68 but we're in the high 20s already. They say tomorrow will be slightly cooler, which I doubt, but in any case have put off gardening in favour of sitting in front of a fan. I have a new acrostics book which is at least slightly better than tiktok videos, especially since their algorithm is now giving me AI slop and transphobes.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-15T20:33:00

2026-05-16T00:47:38Z

"You can schedule your meter change online." Well no, in fact, you can't. I filled in all required fields only for the interface to spit me back out for no reason. It might be that masses of people were also filling the form out but I doubt it. Because when I had recourse to "call a real human being" I was only on hold for a few minutes-- well, after the prerecorded spiel went on and on and also suggested I book online-- until a well-spoken young man came and took my details and scheduled me for next Friday. So that's done.

Did what is probably my last dark wash of the season and put it out on the line. Great drying weather today: sunny, breezy, warm. SND's basement tenant also had her laundry out on drying racks in the back yard and sat out reading on her phone, which had the virtue of keeping Oliver more or less quiet. He wss growling at something in Good Neighbour Chris' yard-- probably a squirrel-- but at least he wasn't barking at me.

Apparently stores are allowed to open on the holiday Monday now but I don't expect any of the ones near me to. Thus I stocked up at Fiesta for this and that, which should see me through till Tuesday.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-14T22:04:00

2026-05-15T02:19:16Z

The notice comes that they're now replacing the defective water meters, please book a visit by our technicians by scanning this QR code. QR codes are the pits. I don't have Parkinsons but no way I can hold my hand steady enough to capture the code. Bleh. Will do it online.

Grey day feeling a lot cooler than the temps said. Am cold here in my house but hot weather is just round the corner -- Monday and Tuesday to be precise-- so I won't turn on the heat. Tomorrow might get up above 16 and if the sun shines I won't need either the jacket or the long sleeves I did today. Got the Butterfly book back to the library, got a bunch of summer clothes I will never be thin enough to wear again to the clothing depot at the Orthodox church, had marvellous salmon teriyaki at Sushi on Bloor. Teriyaki is sweet and I shouldn't eat it but it definitely makes salmon palatable. Way back in the 80s I was tested for allergies and one of the things I was intolerant of was salmon. Also rice. Which actually is true, though I think I'm less intolerant of rice when it's become a resistant starch.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-13T21:35:00

2026-05-14T01:54:09Z

Got to the last story in 100 Demons 30-whatever, which involves a funeral and a buncha words/ kanji that I wot not of. The Wordtank has the kanji but not the vocab. So I hauled out my gigantic Hadamitzky and Spahn kanji dictionary which had the vocab-- mostly food names as it happens-- but OMG how did we ever manage with paper dictionaries? Granted that my arms and hands are weaker than in my 40s, still-- how cumbersome, how time-consuming, what an unmitigated pain it is, flipping through those pages. And I can clearly remember me, newly in Tokyo, painstakingly attempting to read about Ōoka Echizen and his period vocabulary with the help of H&S. Wordtanks are better and online dictionaries may be best, but of course the upstairs tablet won't do Japanese input and the phone's input is nearly as aggravating as H&S.

This volume ends on a cliffhanger oh woe. Also in the atogaki she points out that she's been drawing this manga for 30 years so Ritsu, that fifth year university student, is now 46.

Otherwise I finished Emilie and the Hollow World and am now on Platform Decay and Amal El-Mohtar's TheRiver Has Roots, which isn't quite what I want just now, but must read because other people are waiting for it. What I want is more 100 Demons but that isn't haveable, sorry.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-12T18:06:00

2026-05-12T22:28:09Z

When I woke up this morning my air purifier was making an appalling racket. Except it wasn't the air purifier but the bar fridge, whose motor was in its dying throes one more time. But last time it did this there was no death rattle, so I think now it must truly be foutu. The rattle stopped when I turned it off and then back on, but the fridge definitely wasn't cooling anything. So now I must get my breakfast from downstairs again. I try to tell myself that I did this on an unoperated knee five years ago, but I was also a good twenty pounds lighter five years ago. Oh well. Shall be doing All The Exercises before breakfast again and hope that works.

Bar fridges don't cost that much but hiring people to carry the old one down and the new one up does. Next door's owner did it last time but I haven't seen him in several years and don't quite feel like relying on the kindness of strangers. I went off and booked me a massage to help with the owies instead.

Then took my shoes over to the repair place. He says he can mend the fraying back heel as well so I said OK, then it turns out it costs $80 just for that and 120 for the resoling. With tax that comes to the cost of a new pair. I hesitated for a second but ultimately decided that no, I didn't want to give more money to the Trump-supporting founder of New Balance-- mend the damned things and hope they last another ten years. In the meantime I'm wearing my older pair of boat shoes, which are slightly too narrow even if they're boats, but feel like they actually give me more stability when standing on uneven ground. If true, I might even get some of those vines out of the hedge, which I can't reach from SND's side.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-11T22:51:00

2026-05-12T03:19:16Z

Eventually got myself downstairs this morning after virtuously exercising for half an hour and doing 2.5 Squaredle games, at which I remembered Oh yeah I was going to take my shoes in to be resoled. But having learned to be cautious, I googled John's Shoe Repair and of course it's closed Mondays. So I did a white wash instead. Which turned into a pink wash because I thought washing coloureds in cold wouldn't make them bleed and there was this pair of red pants that I will never fit into that I intended to launder and donate. I don't actually mind the bleed-- underwear and socks, who cares?-- because I also washed a new off-white t-shirt, and a pale pink shirt will show the dirt much less. Or the food, rather, because what stains my shirts is things dropping from the chopsticks I can no longer manage with my arthritic hands. I was tempted by this clothing brand since it seems much thinner than the other t-shirts I have, the ones that can only be worn in a very narrow window of temperatures ie between 17 and 19C. Anything more and even tank tops start to be too thick.

Hung the laundry that wasn't socks and underwear on the line and then left it there. Tomorrow will be equally as blowy and dry as today so if it gets damp overnight it will be dry by tomorrow afternoon.

Finished Emilie and the Hollow World which was well enough, though I couldn't figure out how the hollow world works. Also I suspect that Martha Wells is like Mary Renault in that she does first person infinitely better than third. Her third person narrative style reads tapwater to me, whereas no one can mistake Murderbot's voice for anyone but Murderbot.

Had another stab at making potato croquettes. This time I sauted the onions until they caramelised which definitely helps the flavour, but only chopped the potato, my elbows and my blender not being up to grating. So I had to cook the potatoes a bit along with the caramelised onion, and when steaming in water didn't work, dumped the remainder of a bottle of Pepsi into the mix, just to add to the sweetness. Then blended the mixture which wouldn't blend until I added more liquid which then made it into soup. Flour and egg helped but this is still not optimal. Presumably I need a proper food processor but frankly it's not worth it. Potatoes and oil are not supposed to be in my diet anyway, even if it's olive oil.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-10T20:04:00

2026-05-11T00:41:53Z

The thing about lying in of a morning, quite apart from 'if I get up I will hurt', is that it takes me forever to get to sleep at night: which is very frustrating, the more so in that I no longer have stories to tell myself while lying awake and sleepless in the dark. But in the morning I need only close my eyes again to slip back into the shallows of sleep, usually to dream that I'm looking at my clock to see the time, but never mind. If I like I can go easily into deep sleep and have those realistic resleep dreams that will often stay with me once really awake. This morning's was of my friend B gone back to being a director instead of a lawyer, who'd been hired to do motion capture for some film, something he admitted he'd never done before. But he wanted me for one part, to do the motion bit and speak the lines, not sure if I'd be right for the part. With reason: it was a 10 year old Black boy. But there I was at the studio at night, far out on some subway or railway line, and his wife had made goodies for the cast which was nice, and there were two babies and their mothers who were also there for the film. But then I was trying to get home and trains were cancelled and I couldn't get the timetable and it was a frustration dream after all, so I woke up instead.

I put a Robaxacet heat patch on my back, went up to Loblaws and got some pseudo-Bailey's, had a glass, and then tackled the front yard. Cut down twigs and vines and bits of hedge and scooped up a lot of dead leaves from last year. Came in, had some more booze and ibuprofen, went back and put it all in a garden waste bag. I trust the exercise will balance the calories. There's more to be done but my back hates me doing it. If the left side is feeling no pain because of the heat, the right side will start to spasm. This is annoying.

Meanwhile Ima-sensei is getting into some dark and heavy subjects. We've already had Grandma tricked into wearing a cursed kimono, not to mention being badgered by her two oldest daughters to sell the house and land and divide the proceeds up among her children. This in spite of a formal quit-claim (I believe is what the Japanese means) signed by all of them when their father died giving up all rights to the place and glad to do so onaccounta the bogles that infest it. Presumably they now think that if the house is demolished the bogles will disappear. The bogles are emphatic that they'll do nothing of the sort. Building a house on a burying ground has nothing on building a bunch of manshons on Kagyuu's kekkai in the back garden. But the aunts are being seriously interfering all through this book. Like telling Ritsu he can't be a grad student, he must take the job offer from the seriously sketchy real estate cum Shinto priesthood firm he gets involved in in the first story. Are we menopausal or what?

Then in the third story, the second son one never hears about has cancer and is undergoing chemo and keeps dreaming of the youngest son, the one who drowned as a boy, calling to him. I still ration myself with this but boy do I want to forge ahead.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-09T20:33:00

2026-05-10T00:45:50Z

Not much happening here. Finished the Butterfly book, started on Emilie, all I want to read is 100 Demons which is the best it's been in years, and I ought to ration it but ohhh I want to read more. Requires much use of the Wordtank of course.

Went out to the local greasy spoon and had their mixed grill breakfast which is as much pig as anyone needs: bacon ham and sossidge. Told them to hold the home fries and was thus spared indigestion. Will probably be eating rice and beans for a while to balance. Does pig count as red meat? No matter: it counts as pig and must be rationed. Tomorrow being our Mother's Day there will be no restaurants or cafés available, so I eat out while I can.

Cherry blossoms are almost all gone now, scattered over four different back yards because yesterday the wind was from the north and today it was from the south. Sayonara, sakura.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-07T22:18:00

2026-05-08T02:39:39Z

My new air purifier is excellent. Lovely white noise and, I assume, lovely clean air. Must still vacuum the bedroom sometime because even with furnace filters, dust comes up the heat vents. Which are still in use with our lows of 5C/ 40F.

I wasn't going to go on with the new 100 Demons but I started on the first story, every bit as confusing as the start of the new Murderbot except with Ima Ichiko one expects to be confused, but then it went into one of her trademark 'something is very off here but no one in the story seems to notice' and I had to go on. It had an Arthur C Clarke moment--if it was Clarke-- where our protags are going up flight after flight of stairs and ending up at lower and lower levels of the building, so they decide 'you go up and I'll go down and if one of us finds the main floor, yell.' So Ritsu is going down in the dark and he hears footsteps coming up towards him and it's his companion, whose up has taken them down again. 'We must be dead and this is Hell!' So of course I had to finish it, even if a whole bunch of things weren't explained to my satisfaction, including the Moebius staircase which actually exists in a real building. Which presumably intersects the Twilight Zone.

Meanwhile someone in my S'pore gangster novel has been kidnapped and to torture her the baddies douse her in cold water and bump the AC up high so she suffers. 'She had never been cold before,' says the author, a state which qualifies as hellish to this Canuck. Cold water or no, I doubt any AC can get anywhere under 15 or 16C; its not like you've been dumped in a snowbank.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-06T21:10:00

2026-05-07T01:43:21Z

In further 'cast not a clout' news, today was grey and windy and so cold I had to get out the winter coat and scarf and gloves. By the time I was finished with physio the sun was out and then the coat was too warm. Toronto, as ever.

Came home to a reminder to reregister for the Canadian Dental Plan which involved jumping through more hoops than I care to remember, but every step of the way involved entering yet another confirmation code. I think I racked up eight by the time I was finished, and wondered how dyslexic people manage this. The insult to injury part was that to set up an account with the program-- which I was sure I already had because how else would I have my current insurance?-- you need to register through a bank account. An online banking account. Which naturally everyone over the age of 80 has. And you need two ways to confirm your gov't account because just answering questions won't do. At least they weren't asking for biometric evidence, but one was a QR code, what I've never got the hang of, which also involves the cell phones that all seniors possess, and the second was a technical something I'd never even heard of. Managed it in the end but left a really snarky review when they were brazen enough to ask for it.

And no, there was no option for a paper form of any description. My curse upon the shrivelled soul of the technocrat bureaucrat and their blinkered view of how the world operates.

In reading I probably finished more Priestleys and Merrions and kept on with When They Burned the Butterfly. Began the new Murderbot and eventually got out of the hard to follow (for me) descriptions of space stations and cargo modules and hoppers and what-all to the actual plot. This requires most of my attention so 100 Demons is on hold, at least as far as upstairs reading goes. Downstairs I'm still working my way through When They Burned the Butterfly aka 'life is cheap in the east' aka maybe modern day Singapore's police state isn't that bad after all. The body count of the various gangster orgs is really high, like war of attrition high. Maybe that was policy? Mind, since we've got gods and magic all through this, perhaps there never were gang wars in 60s Singapore.

Ebook library-wise I sent the unfinished The Burning Court back to the 'one person waiting' and hope they have a better time with it than I. I started dragging my feet when theses amateurs began talking about doing an unauthorised exhumation from which these amateurs would deduce whether Uncle was poisoned or not. Good luck, chaps. This is forensic medicine which none of you know. I have Emilie and the Hollow World to be going on with for phone reading in coffee shops, which we will see.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-05T21:37:00

2026-05-06T01:43:33Z

Grey and blowy day when I did nothing but rescue my laundry from the basement and sit on the couch with vidka and beanbags. The cherry petals begin to fall in the breeze and polkadot the mudroom roof. Somehow I am going back thirty years to that similar grey cool May just back from Japan. It wasn't a better time, no matter what I think of it now. Was, in fact, nearly as traumatic as the present, except that I'm well acquainted with the present traumas and then I wasn't at all.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-04T23:45:00

2026-05-05T03:45:47Z

We are at the pale green, pale blue, and blossoming white stage of May. Today was warmer but breezy so it didn't feel as humid as 20C usually does. I slept in till noon, ordered in dumplings midafternoon, and didn't get out until nearly five. But managed two of the foot-draggers. While waiting for the delivery guy I got last year's leaves out of the garbage bin and into a garden waste bag, and managed to add some of the thin twiggy branches as well. This evening I got the air purifier out of its box, read the instruction book, and got it ready to go. Apparently if it makes noise there's something wrong with it, but we shall see. Anything that catches dust and pollen is a good thing.

My census form arrived today, or rather, the code needed to fill the census online did. They don't give you much lead time here: thing is due in eight days. You must apply for a paper form which I really doubt will reach you before the 12th. Heigh-ho. We must live in the future whether or no.

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flemmings @ 2026-05-03T23:02:00

2026-05-04T03:12:58Z

I took my tipsy self to bed last night without looking at the time but am pretty sure it was well before my usual hour. Woke briefly at 2 something, then slept until 6:30, and then couldn't get back to sleep. That common wisdom of every hour before midnight counting as two may well be true because I was awake awake, even if heavy-eyed and yawning through the morning. Did get to see a marvellous sunrise all gold and blue behind the cherry blossoms doing their winter snow routine, which was nice, but not nearly as good as three more hours of sleep would have been. And I ached all over all day in spite of physio and acupuncture yesterday. Consequently have accomplished very little: got milk from the super, washed dishes, and vacuumed the living room because bro proposes to visit me at some point next week and the carpet was disgustingly dusty.

Really hope I feel better tomorrow.

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