About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Year 6, Day 315: Day one of solo parenting. PiC is away at a work thing this week. I’ve been bracing myself for this for weeks, telling myself that I would moderate my expectations for work and household stuff. The goal: keep the kids fed, clothed, alive, get them to and from school. Don’t break myself trying to do the impossible.
How we coped: burgers at the local place with outdoor seating. Stern directions to head DIRECTLY for the shower after we got home. Everyone in bed for math tutoring and reading time. SmolAc was happily sandwiched between us “reading” while we painfully inched our way through one equation after another.
From The Diplomat – Callum: You’re a military-industrial complex papered over by a Constitution.
Boy does that description of America hits home especially hard since this administration has been murdering right left and center and has torpedoed all the soft diplomacy we used to do through USAID.
Year 6, Day 316: Day two of solo parenting. I had a very tight timetable for dropping off JB and SmolAc this morning to get back in time for a meeting. I made all the runs in exactly 60 minutes and managed to get to my meeting in time. Score! JB had an afterschool activity at school so that bought me an extra hour to “rest” (working from bed). That helped.
Picking up JB late meant that I went straight from school to the orthodontist, then to pick up SmolAc a little earlier than Monday in hopes that we’ll be able to get dinner on the table earlier, get homework done, and get to bed earlier. That’s not how things worked out of course.
We got home much earlier yes, we ate dinner earlier also yes, but JB ran into trouble with their math homework and I had to teach them how to do it step by step, work through several problems, and then figure out how to create a story around how to solve that type of problem that would stick in their brain.
We did not hit the 8 pm bedtime. We did not remember to take out the garbage bins. We definitely did not have 5-7 minutes for my workout. But we survived intact.
Year 6, Day 317: Day three of solo parenting. And there’s my limit! Did the drop-offs this morning again. Kept running into people we know who haven’t seen me in months (PiC has been doing this run to save me time) so they wanted to catch up. It’s touching that they seemed so delighted to see me but that took a whackload of energy. I drove him and felt the exhaustion buzz set into my limbs.
The best encounter was a surprise appearance of our neighbor dogs who nearly shivered out of their skins with excitement when we spotted each other. I adore them and the feeling is mutual and I never walk away from them wondering if they actually like me or if they’re just being polite/friendly like I do with humans.
The one really good thing this week: the crushing suffocating relentless fatigue of the past several weeks has finally lifted. I’d forgotten what it felt like to only have pain without dragging the 1000 lb weight of fatigue with me and it’s so tolerable. My fingers are randomly swollen. My lower back aches. My upper back and shoulders are tight as a drum. And it’s still so much better than being crushed by fatigue. I am grateful. (Update: It lasted one day. I’m still grateful for the experience of that one day.)
Year 6, Day 318: A friend shared that her Asian ex-GF has gone to become a police officer in the Bay Area and my brain stuttered to a stop. WHAT. Really? In the years 2025-2026? That PD is notoriously racist even for police.
It also made me reflect on this scene from The Diplomat that felt similar though I wonder if one could legitimately make the argument the CIA is both a rotten agency AND still does SOME good. I don’t know enough about them to comment on that. I definitely don’t feel like we can make that argument for American police. I don’t know of any police that do any amount of good sufficient to counterbalance even a fraction of the evil they do.
Stuart: How are you not furious? Eidra: Stuart, I am a young tiny Asian American woman at the top of one of the most baldly paternalistic arms of the UG government. I am furious all the time. If I could go after terrorists and human traffickers with an organization that didn’t have an 80 year legacy of racism and human rights violations, I would. Stuart: We should be getting this for the recruitment video. Eidra: There is not another better CIA or America. The ones we have are fucked up. We make compromises. Some days we feel ok about that. Some days we have gin.
Year 6, Day 319: Confusion. The garden faucet has had a slow drip for months. I’d made the mistake of using it and then it wouldn’t shut off completely. I can’t replace it because the jerks here before us installed some kind of bizarre lock on the faucet that our handy friend says has to be cut off if we don’t have a key for it. There is no key for it. I stuck a jug under the drip and have been using that to water the garden until I solve the problem. I went to do the usual garden watering dump today and the jug is empty. The drip has stopped?? Woo!
I haven’t had time to figure out how to fix our oven yet. Maybe it will also mysteriously fix itself? Please?
Small business Jack working as hard as he can to pay his rent, laboring under a heart condition.
Lily Meade and her mother are unhoused and she just lost her second book contract and her agent in succession. I know what it’s like to feel hopeless and I haven’t had to do it under as dire circumstances as she’s in.
Sonia Hale has been trying to get back on her feet after divorcing a domestic abuser.
Also feeding folks.
My friend in Alaska works with a refugee center and the facts are life is super bleak right now. Refugees without green cards are no longer receiving SNAP, refugees are no longer safe from DHS detaining them indefinitely regardless of their status, they will likely lose Medicaid sometime this year. This is despicable. We’re supposed to help people get on their feet and this is disgusting and inhumane. In response to this and many other problems created by this administration, the refugee center is working in with local groups to support local farms and provide food to those who need it: What is Grow Local, Give Local?
I’m adding this to my donation list for next week.
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
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Dividend income. We received $1156 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
Year 6, Day 308: A sad and scared worry. On the weekend, I’d been up and about for maybe 1.5 hours doing basic chores and my body buzzed with the sort of exhaustion warning that means the longer I do this, the harder the crash will be. I’ve “rested” (doing almost all the usual parenting and some of my work and some of my housework) for almost a month. What if this is my new baseline of awful? What if, unless I do something drastic like quitting my job (in this economy/fascist country??), this is the best/most my body can do?
My job sucks right now so obviously I am not fundamentally averse to quitting but I am completely averse to not having income and the consequences of that (eventual poverty). That’s the curve my mom’s reality took: work really hard to build a solid foundation, get sick, lose eveything. That takes very little foresight to predict if I don’t save and invest enough first. (And even then I occasionally wonder: really, how safe is our net worth?)
I wish it wasn’t a choice between potentially gaining health improvement in the short term by way of committing myself to the long term consequences of having cut my income at the peak of my career.
Year 6, Day 309: Today I’m reminding myself that the reason that I stay at my current job is that I have a level of autonomy that would be difficult to get elsewhere in the industry and that it’s entirely remote and that latter bit is what makes it possible for me to survive having a full time job while being a full time parent and doing all the other things that I need/want to do. I will still be sad and complain now and again but those are the two things I have to come back to – these are the things that would be very difficult to find in the COVID+6 years world where everyone is irrationally hot to get bodies back into office despite there being ample evidence that many jobs could be remove (and therefore more accessible to the disabled community). My therapist doesn’t think it’s healthy for me to think of myself as disabled but if I require a job that lets me work from bed for two months, or else I wouldn’t be able to survive doing my work AND being a parent, I’m not sure what else to call it. I don’t need to be called disabled but anywhere else in the professional world, what I need to do well at my job and manage life would be considered an unreasonable accommodation.
Year 6, Day 310: Is it ironic that while I’m still slowly shedding the tentacles of depression that bonded to my brain, death metal felt very soothing? Maybe but hattip to Fleshgod Apocalypse (a friend’s rec) and later on, The Hu, for helping ease my mind through a rough patch.
Shutterfly sent one of their “A glimpse of your memories from twenty years ago” emails and it served me a picture of me with an old friend, and an even older friend who died of cancer last year. Wow that hurts.
Year 6, Day 311: I love dental cleanings. I love that it’s only a 7 minute drive away. I especially love when I get what feels like an A or B at my exam. I got a “looks good” from the dentist, a “looks pretty good, not much build-up” from the hygienist and gum measurements show some improvement since my last exam. My goal is to have no 4s or 5s in 6 months. Hope hope hope.
Other things that are good: one friend’s divorce from a suddenly awful spouse who just upped sticks is final. Two more friends are divorcing abusive husbands. I hope their dissolutions are quick and drama free, I don’t trust those men even an ounce.
Trading unhealthy relationships for better circumstances FTW!
Year 6, Day 312: An unseasonably warm day today was an unanticipated treat. We’ve had a couple weeks of rain on and off. Even hail and a thunderstorm once! That was actually pretty neat since we don’t get a wide range of weather here.
I’m dragging into this Friday but at least still practically upright despite all kinds of staffing drama this week. I’m still putting a few of the smaller fires out but the worst of the solvable problems this week have been.
1. This line makes me laugh out loud every time I read it: “Oh thank the stars.” Caldenia exhaled. “No offense to your cooking, but the thought of going back to it was causing me actual anxiety.”
Helping folks: WatchingMinnesotans helping their neighbors has been an extraordinary experience. Ashley Fairbanks built this site, Keep MN Housed, and through it, people from all over have been able to pitch in to help the community organizers on the ground. I’m glad they’re getting some attention and I hope it brings continual support. They’re on my list each week. I also hope that our communities can learn from this to effectively fight back when it comes home.
Most of the schools in our area do a weeklong sleepaway camp and it’s time for me to make a decision about whether or not I’ll allow JB to go. I’ve been ignoring it for months but next month we’ll have to make the final decision.
I told JB that I needed some space to sit with it and consider. They have done a good job of leaving me alone to do just that.
I am coming to the conclusion that I hate it, I’m not ok with it, AND despite all that, I’m going to pack up my worries and keep them to myself, and relent on the issue. Trusted people, like my own GP and a local friend whose kid went a few years ago, all seem to have confidence in their ability to keep the kids safe even if I continue to mutter: I don’t know these people, why would I trust them?
I am going to be stressed and hate the anxiety it stirs up and the worrying if they are going to be ok and the amount of angst SmolAc is going to have about them being gone a whole week – that will all suck. That last one is going to be as bad as all the other things. SmolAc can barely handle JB being away from home for half a day when they’re at a birthday party, forget a whole DAY and NIGHT. We are not going to be fun to be around that week. But if they have fun and are safe, then I will deal with it.
Life with Smol Acrobat
We are navigating a rough patch with SmolAc where they don’t want to go to daycare for weeks on end. They sulk and grump about it every day, have a fine time when there, rinse and repeat. It doesn’t seem to be rooted in anything in particular. According to the teachers, they enjoy playing on their own, then enjoy playing with their peers, and then have some more solo time in the afternoon. By contrast, to hear them tell it, there are no endearing qualities about the place, not a single one. It’s weird. Not just because JB adored the place and after long tenure through daycare and summer camps but because when JB does summer camp there, they make it a point to visit SmolAc every day. Instead of making SmolAc like the place better, it seems to make them resent the times they don’t get JB with them. And maybe that’s all it is. They adore their sibling and the lack of them during the school year is unutterably disconcerting.
Precious Moments
SmolAc: can I have my car?
Me: Is it in my backpack?
SmolAc: Yes.
Me: Did you put it in my backpack?
SmolAc: Yes.
Me: Which pocket? *doubting*
SmolAc: The top one. I think. …….. That means I don’t know.
Me: Yeah kiddo, I picked up on that.
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JB: SmolAc, can I have some help?
SmolAc: with what?
JB: cleaning my room.
SmolAc *considering silence*
JB: Remember I helped you clean your room? Now I’m cleaning my room. Can I have some help?
SmolAc: We cleaned my room, now it’s my turn to help you?
JB: yes.
SmolAc: … Ok! Give me a minute.
I was eavesdropping and was pleasantly surprised at how this went.
Year 6, Day 301: It was a mental health crisis weekend wherein my brain was taken hostage by the depression and it was rough before it passed. I think it was, at the very least, a culmination of the pressure of having to enforce what felt like idleness (which means working like maybe one person, not 6, and still parenting, and trying to keep abreast of the most critical household stuff) for so many weeks, having the pain hit like a freight train as soon as the CFS let up even the littlest bit, and frankly, the dam just broke. I’m not past it yet, there are lots of whispers of “what would be best” but the worst of the death doldrums have passed.
Year 6, Day 302: I’ve had a white hair every few years since my early twenties so it wasn’t a surprise to find this year’s iterations. But I think it’s got company. There’s about five of them? Which led me to thinking: why do people call them greys or silvers? Do they appear grey or silver instead of pure white on other people? Yes, my brain is wandering because it is firmly fixed in the fog.
Year 6, Day 303: I’m finally just about back at my baseline which is roughly 65% human. I don’t know what the other 35% is but it’s not helpful.
Year 6, Day 304: Every Winter Games, I learn a little bit more about the sport of figure skating, mostly from social media. This year’s little learning came from Courtney Milan on scoring and medal possibilities. I don’t have any time to get deeply involved so I appreciate these small glimpses.
Year 6, Day 305: TWO wins today. Animals, of course. Our tiny dog neighbor came by for skritches and love. He’s delightful, likes to politely sniff noses, and is properly spoiled so he always smells good.
While I was doling out the love, I noticed the ravens from last week were back. Not only that, the ground one (they usually come in pairs and split up: one up high as a lookout and one on the ground) kept quoorrkkking and walking / hopping a little closer to us every few seconds. It kept a minimum distance between the strange people and the dog, but it was clearly heading my way. And the longer I petted dog buddy, the more the ground raven puffed up his feathers until he was nearly round. I can’t tell if that was posturing but as soon as our neighbor and dog friend walked away, he slicked back down to normal proportions and then looked at me very expectantly. It’s delightful and astonishing it took so little effort for them to be comfortable enough with me that I can approach within 6 feet of them now. I’m slowly building my Corvid Coalition.
