Mensa Humour

The Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people which stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafhalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15.Arachnoleptic Fit(n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The colour you turn when you discover half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Post also published the winning submissions to another yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1.  Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanationwhile drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absent-mindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10.Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11.Testicle, n A humorous question on an exam.

12.Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13.Pokemon,n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

Crystal Day

I have seen God in Sheba's solid stool! It's over. 

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Yesterday was “anti-procrastination” day. I decided to do a zillion little things I’d been putting off forever such as cleaning out the fireplace, scraping the moss off the deck, replacing light bulbs, sewing a zipper — even vacuuming in the loft. I was motivated because Crystal and her crew (Peter and 3 fabulous kids) arrive today to spend the weekend.

I baked a cake (above); it’s three layers and has ground nuts in between the layers as well as icing. And re-did a lot of the work I did for the Arts Council because someone went into the file and screwed it up.

Late in the afternoon my sewing machine came. I can hardly wait to play with it.

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I’ve blogged a lot about problems here: The well/cistern issues, power failures, garbage sorting/disposal and diarrhea. You must wonder why I’m so happy here.

For one thing, it’s the extraordinary quiet.

I lived in a cacophony of sound in Vancouver. I was close to a hospital so there were sirens coming and going constantly and right across from me was a bus stop that served two bus lines. Buses are my nemesis; they are very noisy. And there were the constant vulgar screamers, car horns, and right below my window there were ten car-share cars that were always screaming their alarms because users did not know how to access or egress properly.

Here I hear absolutely nothing. The only sounds I hear are ones I make — or the pets, ravens, wind or the neighbour’s chickens in the morning. Once every two days or so, I will hear someone’s car drive by and the phone never rings.

As well as silence, living on an island gives me an overwhelming sense of “freedom.”

The psychological effect of needing an airplane or a ferry to connect with the rest of the world is remarkable. All the ugly things reported in the news — Trump, racism, Fentanyl, crowds, guns, traffic, etc. — it all feels so far, far away. I feel free of it all.

And then there’s my home.

The minute I saw the photos of this place online, I committed. I might have been wiser to wait to see what other properties became available. I wish I could see the ocean. But I didn’t.

Instead, I have Pinecone Park. What is cozier than a log cabin? And from the get go, I knew the billiard building would become my very first studio. But I did not envisage building a huge long fence and that the fence would become a giant canvas for my imagination inspiring me to work with large wet and often dirty material. That’s why I fell for my shed. It’s a second studio —one wet, the other dry.

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I’m not certain, but I think the new Arts Club artistic director starts on Monday. She has a month to work with Bill, the outgoing AD who leaves at the end of the month. It may mean I hear something about The Defiant Dress. If I don’t I plan to write to ask if I’m still in the pipeline in April.

A week today I go to get my ladies and restoration can begin in my beautiful new space. I can hardly wait to see (and post a photo of) my ladies in their new home.

But today is all about Crystal and her family coming. I’m pretty excited. We met in 1994 after both of us were dumped by our partners. We both moved into a new artist live/work studio and became inseparable.

Cole, her son, is now 21. I was there when he was born. Then came twins, just before the father of them all left the family. Georgia and James are fourteen. Peter is Crystal’s new man. I suspect they are coming here and to Vancouver Island to scope out life and real estate prices over here. They are planning to get a place together.

But tonight, we party.

Seizures R Us

Yay! Yay yay yay! Finally: We had a night without you-know-what anywhere this morning. It is such a good feeling.

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I have another cord of wood coming (and from a new supplier). It will be the first of six cords I will get over the next couple of months. My plan its to maintain a good supply and never get close to running out again as I am now. Next winter, I’ll be keeping two stoves going.

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“My” Cooper’s Hawk came back yesterday. I keep my binoculars at the ready to watch the raptors that come. He’s truly a magnificent bird.

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Yesterday I had a serious scare. Very suddenly I got a searing pain in my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I could feel myself tingling and getting light headed so I lay on the floor in a panic and started seizing. But the seizure, this time, was a blessing. It got me breathing.

I waited a while and slowly went to rest on the couch. Then, feeling better I went back to doing what I was doing: Cleaning the litter box. But as soon as I got near it, it started again so I went to my computer and Googled “asthma” + “Cat urine.”

Sure enough! Cat urine produces ammonia and it burns lung tissue. So I took the litter box outside to clean it and I still had trouble. So … Back to Google, then Amazon and a “military grade” respirator is on its way. I am a patient of the Pacific Lung Clinic and got the lead from them.

Plus I am going to look around carefully to see if there’s a way I can let the cats outside. It’s not easy when the walls are two-feet thick logs. It’s always something.

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Sheba dug a large whole near the base of a tree. In the “soil” of my yard, that’s quite an accomplishment; it’s nearly all rock. But instead of getting angry, I decided to plant something in the hole. That’s why I went to the nursery yesterday.

I looked around and decided on a dwarf blue Rhododendron and took it to the till and that’s where I got into a discussion with Kent. He asked me why I chose that plant and I gave him my answer. And then he said he’d asked because he wondered if I knew that the plant I’d chosen had been propagated on Gabriola.

He told me about the couple who supplied them and I left really happy that I had a locally developed plant in my garden. Sheba came from a Gabriola breeder too.

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I had to tell Sea Air people about my seizures. Had Sean, the pilot, not caught me I’d have fallen in the water and surely seized badly and that’d freak people out and they’d likely call 911 and the whole horrid cycle would spin out of control.

It hadn’t occurred to me to do that. Brenda, the lawyer with whom I fly, told me I should do so and she was right to do that. I learned an important lesson about proactive informing. I’m going to have to warn the Arts Council too.

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Now, for Crystal et al, I’m off to bake a cake.