Corner of Bourbon & Division

March 8th, 2026

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 09:48:01 GMT

1- State of the Phnee( Read more... )

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March 5th, 2026

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 08:40:45 GMT

I think I’m just going to have to accept that updates are going to be sporadic for a while. I’m finding my home setup not especially conducive to sitting at the computer to write updates, because it either means putting my entire bed up, which is inconvenient, or else sitting on the edge of the bed to type, which is not super comfortable and puts pressure on my lower back. So I mostly get the opportunity to update when things are quiet at work, and things have not been quiet for a couple of weeks now. It wasn’t even quiet enough the last two nights to give me a chance to update. Oh well.

Anyway, this is a very long update, so I will put it behind a cut.

1- State of the Phnee

( Update under the cut! )

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February 11th, 2026

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 01:35:48 GMT

Oof, it’s been a minute, hasn’t it? I’m not going to try to catch up on everything I’ve missed, because that would take way too long. To quote Inigo Montoya: “Let me explain. No, there is too much—let me sum up!”

1- State of the Phnee

Okay. There is not a ton going on with me that I haven’t already covered.

Clerking for Ministry & Counsel is proving pretty challenging. The one guy whose wife appears to be using him as a puppet/mouthpiece has been kind of AWOL for a while, and instead of that taking the pressure off, his wife has decided to insert herself back into M&C (she was the clerk a few years ago) and is trying to “force” me to do things her way. So I’ve been having delicate conversations in which I am trying to let her feel heard while simultaneously maintaining boundaries and not catering to her every whim. She’s already produced a two-page written document about how much she hates the hybrid Meetings (I’m paraphrasing), and insulting the people who attend online (she called them “auxiliary” to the Meeting, which made my blood boil), and is insisting that the proposed Claremont Dialogue be help on the date and time of her choosing, which may simply just not be practical at this point. Bah.

We’re having a minor drama with a new attender, who shared personal ministry during a Meeting when I was at work that had a lot of people worried she might be having thoughts of suicide. The two active remaining members of M&C spoke to her and asked her about it point blank, and she denied it. She then apparently went on a fairly long tirade about how the Meeting needed to become vegan as it’s “the only ethical choice,” and they gently suggested that not everyone in the Meeting would agree with her, although of course everyone would respect her choices and do their best to accommodate her (we have lots of vegan Friends!). We thought that was the end of it, but it seems she took the conversation very poorly, and she emailed the new M&C email that I created and said she was “accused” of being suicidal and that she was ordered not to talk about being vegan because others would disagree with her. Which, uh, is not what happened. Anyway. I wrote back and am waiting to hear what she hopes will happen next in order to help the situation.

I did finish the first draft of the State of Society Report and have sent it off to the Clerks for review at the next Meeting for Worship for Business, which is this coming Sunday. Hopefully it won’t require too many edits once Meeting has finished ripping it apart.

In the meantime, I still haven’t heard whether I’m still going to have a job at the end of March. I am definitely not stressed about this at all. Nope. Not one bit. Apparently if they don’t respond by the end of February that means that my contract will automatically renew, but even then it’s uncertain whether they’ll renew me for one year, two years, or just four months to cover summer vacation and training. WHO KNOWS.

In brighter news, I’ve been doing a decent job at exercising on a regular basis. I’ve been a bit hit and miss with the weight lifting, but I’ve been pretty diligent about getting on the treadmill and have steadily increased my walking speed until I can comfortably walk 2mph and still work without getting noticeably out of breath. I am in fact writing this while on the treadmill! I’m continuing to lose weight after the surgery, albeit more slowly than my numbers-obsessed brain would like, but my brain doesn’t necessarily know what’s good for me. When I visited my parents a couple of weeks ago I took advantage of the fact that their condo has a pool in the basement and went for a 1km swim two days in a row. I was very sore afterward, but it reminded me how much I enjoy swimming, so I will be looking into finding a local pool where I can do laps or something in the coming weeks.

My parents are doing pretty well, overall. They haven’t said anything about moving into a smaller apartment for a while, and I’m not sure if that means they’ve given up on the idea for now, in the face of political uncertainty which might make the value of their condo plummet (and thus prevent them from living off the interest of the proceeds). I am not convinced they have the stomach and the energy for a big move like that anyway. My mother is turning 89 in a couple of weeks, and my father will be 85 in September, and moving is extremely hard and stressful, even if they hire a company to pack and unpack everything for them. They need to downsize most of their furniture and a bunch of other belongings, and while they have been making some progress in getting rid of some stuff (mostly books), I am having trouble imagining them “sacrificing” all the antique furniture and art pieces they’ve been collecting for over 60 years each. You never know, they might surprise me!

2- State of the smallholding

I have been torn between trying to purchase farm-related equipment now, while I still have a job, and saving money. I am leaning toward the purchases, because if I can get everything set up in time, then I will theoretically have the means to grow and raise more food at home in the spring and summer and preserve a lot of it to hopefully last us through the winter. I have so far been kind of failing at the whole “eat what you grow” thing, but as long as I don’t lose the house as a result of being unemployed, then I have a pretty good chance of setting up some more permanent infrastructure to help with becoming more sustainable, at least from a food standpoint. After that, depending on finances, I will start looking into becoming more energy efficient and sustainable—a wood burning stove, maybe some solar panels, or some sort of backup generator for the house.

I’m trying not to bite off more than I can chew, but the temptation is very high. If the weather cooperates, the optimistic part of me wants to spend every spare hour of sunlight I have available building infrastructure in the spring like the fence I so desperately need, raised beds, chicken coops, rabbit hutches, etc. I also need to set up a good water catchment system, since our area is prone to drought in the summer and I plan on having a fair bit of livestock that will require a lot of water. Given how much time each of these projects could potentially take, I am a little worried that it’ll just take all summer to get things built and I won’t be able to actually get the livestock installed before the weather turns again. We shall see, I guess. I am, as we all know, extremely prone to wildly overestimating both my abilities and energy levels as well as wildly underestimating the time it will take me to do stuff. So, this could all be a serious problem for me when the snow melts and the mud dries enough for me to be able to start work.

I really hope I can live up to my own ridiculous standards for once. I am pretty sure that the main barrier I’m facing is my woeful lack of good physical condition, which is one of the many reasons I’ve been hitting the treadmill and the weights to a lesser extent. If I can manage to do more building and assembling without throwing out my back or otherwise being in constant physical discomfort, then I might have a snowball’s chance in hell of accomplishing what I want. These days I have found I have a very low tolerance for manual labour before it becomes painful or at least intolerably uncomfortable because I am just not flexible in the slightest and my back objects to bending for more than five minutes at a time. So I need to drastically improve my endurance and flexibility if I want to get things done.

3- State of the news

*gestures wildly*

I don’t even know, friends.

It’s the Olympics, yay! The world is on fire, aah! The Epstein Files are being released but not released but redacted but not redacted but sort of kind of something something can we overwhelm everyone with the horror? ICE is gunning down people in the streets and not complying with lawful orders to release people in their custody. Trump has threatened to seize half of the Gordie Howe bridge which Canada paid for in its entirety and has an agreement with the State of Michigan, because somehow Canada has been “unfair” to the USA, even though Trump himself approved the bridge in 2017.

Yesterday British Columbia had a mass shooting in which 9 people died and 25 more were injured. The whole country is reeling, because mass shootings are rare (but not unheard of), and already the internet is alight with misinformation. It’s all so goddamned terrible.

IT’S A LOT.

Okay, this has gotten pretty long. I’m going to leave it there and come back later with more updates.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 25th, 2026

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 21:22:16 GMT

1- State of the Phnee

It’s been a rather sleep-deprived weekend, entirely of my own doing. I was up late on Friday night for the usual writer’s meeting for Project Nimrod/the Soopar Seekrit Prodjikt I’ve been collaborating on since last September (ish), and then I couldn’t get to sleep right away so I only got about three hours of sleep before I had to get up for work. Then yesterday was the first session of the new D&D Eberron campaign, and once again I was up until about 1am and had to get up at 4am to go to work. *cries in very tired*

It was worth it, though. D&D is amazing, and it’s nice to have a creative outlet for writing again, even if I’m only doing it sporadically.

I have been procrastinating on my Quakerly duties this week. I have to draft the State of Society Report and come up with a draft of the queries for the Claremont Dialogue on hybrid Meetings. I am feeling decidedly uninspired, and I need to learn to write even when I’m not feeling it, because responsibilities and deadlines don’t wait for inspiration.

I’ve also booked train tickets to visit my parents this coming week, which will hopefully go well. My parents and I typically get along really well (ever since I stopped living at home), but after a few days we usually all end up remembering why we don’t live under the same roof anymore. It should be fine, and I do genuinely enjoy spending (limited) amounts of time with them. We will probably have more conversations about the future, because they’re both getting older and dealing with more limitations. In an ideal world I’d build them a fully accessible bungalow on my property, but I don’t have the money for that and they are understandably incredibly reticent to get a loan against their condo in order to finance that sort of endeavour. So in the meantime I am encouraging them to figure out how to maintain their independence as time marches inexorably forward, because I live just a tiny bit too far away to be of real use on a daily basis.

2- State of the smallholding

The polar vortex is in full swing. It’s been -26 Celsius for the past two days, and my poor GSVCO (which long time readers will remember is the name of my 15-year-old Yaris) is struggling a bit in the cold but has been rallying valiantly the whole time. I have been in touch with Steve the Wonder Mechanic because she needs a bit of TLC, but he hasn’t yet got back to me about when he’ll be able to see her. This work was supposed to happen right before Christmas, but he had a scheduling conflict, so things have been pushed back quite a bit since then.

We’re going through a worrying amount of propane to heat the house. When I first signed up in October the nice lady I spoke to said that based on the previous owners’ usage, I could expect to pay about $1,500 a year for heating. However, we’re at the end of January and we’ve already had three deliveries totaling $1,100, so I am starting to doubt those numbers. We’re not even cranking the heat—I’ve been keeping the thermostat at 17 Celsius which, while not cold per se, is still on the cooler side of things. We’ve been averaging one delivery per month, at about $400 a pop, and given that I got accustomed to paying about $100 heating with natural gas, is a bit of a shock to the system, especially since summers are expensive now due to the horrifying cost of air conditioning. I’m not a huge fan of A/C, but it’s non-negotiable for KK, so A/C it is. *sigh*

Part of me is wondering if it’s an insulation problem (at least in part). I’ve basically run out of money at this point, but I’m going to add “fix the basement insulation” to “build a wheelchair ramp” on the list of things I need to do to make the place more accessible and hopefully less expensive in the long run. Somewhere in the next few years I’m going to need to do something about the septic system too, but that is considerably more expensive than the smaller projects (anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 depending on the work, which I very much do not have).

*lies on the floor*

Why is home ownership so freaking expensive? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have the place, but I thought I was getting a pretty “turnkey” house, and it turns out that there is still a shit ton of expensive work to be done. Woe.

3- State of the news

*grimaces*

So, uh, this all seems… horrible, to quote Bruce Banner.

Minneapolis is up in arms, and rightly so. ICE has murdered another protestor (and yes, I’m using that word on purpose). Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse out there protesting and filming/observing ICE’s atrocities. He tried to help a fellow protestor who’d been hit with (I think) pepper spray, and when he did that ICE agents swarmed him and executed him on the spot. They’re now trying to spin it, saying he had a weapon (he did by some accounts have a gun for which he had a permit, which he had NOT drawn), calling him a terrorist, accusing him of trying to assassinate ICE agents and whatever other lies they can come up with in the moment. There’s a strong counter-narrative emerging, singing Pretti’s praises and documenting all the good things he’s done in his life, but honestly even if he spent most of his spare time kicking puppies and taking candy from babies, he still would not have deserved to be executed in the street simply for exercising his right to protest.

In less horrifying but still depressing news, Trump is once again threatening tariffs against Canada because we had the temerity to sign a trade deal with China (which Trump was all on board with last week, as I recall, but whatever, we are not expecting coherence out of him). He’s got his panties in a twist about Carney’s speech at Davos, very clearly, and has now started spouting off about “Governor Carney” and the “51st State” the way he did in November of 2024, and you’d be safe it’s getting the same reaction as it did the first time he tried this shit.

Speaking of home ownership being expensive, my township has approved a 5.46 percent increase in municipal property taxes, a 2% increase for water and sewage (not applicable to me since I have my own well and septic) and garbage taxes are going from $165 to $180. It’s not unmanageable for me, at least while I’m still employed, but I can imagine it’s going to be a struggle for the lower income people in my area.

All right, that’s it for me. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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Mark Carney's Speech at Davos and Four Responses

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 14:23:30 GMT

I'm posting this here for my own records, because social media is ephemeral and this feels like something worth recording.

*Edit* Oh my God, the new editor is a nightmare and I CANNOT make the text cuts work properly. Sorry, friends!

( Carney’s Speech )

( Commentary 1: Metthew Behrens )

What I heard today was a warmed over rehash of the 1948 basis for the world order for which a rupture has been named: PPS 23, written by American mandarin George Kennan, that laid out the "pragmatic" (a term Carney loves) rationale behind the global system of violence that has murdered tens of millions of people since 1945 in the name of democracy, human rights, and a stable investment climate. "We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population... In this connection, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security….We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.""

This world order was fine as long as we white people were not the ones being genocided in Sudan or Gaza or Vietnam or East Timor or Guatemala or Rwanda or Turtle Island, among many others, as along as our Muslim loved ones were not being interned in Chinese or Syrian concentration camps, as long as our loved ones did not have to spend decades on boil water alerts in a land occupied by a genocidal state that kidnapped and tortured and mass-incarcerated our children, and still does.

Carney’s pretence that the past 80 years of Canadian-supported, funded and armed state terror (with its big brother the USA in the lead) was somehow an OK norm that has suddenly been ruptured because supply chains for massive corporations are at risk, along with bottom lines. It's the ultimate pulling of the wool over our eyes and throwing out the bleak history in which we have played such a nefarious role.

Canada as a "middle power" has done significant damage to the global ecosystem and human rights infrastructure. I will have more to write on this, but if we take a breath, appreciate the fine words, and THEN look at who is saying them and why, I think it will become clear why Bay Street and Wall Street (indeed, the Global elites who cause this massive violence and sustain the gross economic inequality and gave Carney a standing ovation) are applauding. Someone is going to save the most rapacious predatory system the world has ever known (notice how Carney used an example of communism, not capitalism, to talk about the illusions of false promises), and we will retire to our elite villa suites in the Swiss mountains to cogitate on it all.

It's because what Carney is proposing is predatory late-stage capitalism on a slightly different axis. We can continue to mine the earth, invade Indigenous territories, burn through fossil fuels, cook the planet, steal from the poor to give to the corporate warfare profiteers, and maintain a good return on investment for all you who can afford the ticket to Davos and reminisce about Vaclav Havel over sherry.

To the folks desperate for a warm space tonight on Canada’s freezing cold streets, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in today’s speech for hope. To Indigenous people bearing the full frontal force of climate catastrophe, not a word. To those worried about the repressive new Carney legislation at home, that will strip whole classes of refugees of their status, that will ramp up the deportation machine, that will justify invasions of Indigenous territories, absolutely nothing. For folks in Gaza continuing to be blown up with Canadian weapons, or folks stateside fleeing ICE violence enhanced with Canadian-made armoured vehicles and drones, nothing.

Since he came to power, Carney has made Trudeau’s gaslighting look like child’s play. And while the wool is over our eyes, we will continue supporting the most dangerous economic system the world has ever known, one that threatens to drown or burn us to death on the road to a good day at the stock market.

Applause for a good show, King Carney. But that’s all it was. Oh, and in the meantime, about this Canadian troops STILL embedded in Trump’s violence…. While I cannot access the whole story, the reporter, Christy Somos, points out: "Canadians should be asking questions about how deeply our military has been collaborating with American ops of questionable legality.

((From my first email Jan. 12 to now I have requested answers /statement from the DND – “we’re still working on this” will go on my tombstone))

PS: What is the alternative, you might be wondering. While I think there is lots of space for that discussion, let’s actually make sure what we are discussing IS an alternative, not a sequel. But the path to an alternative is being realistic in assessing who our greatest opponents are right now. And many of them are quite close here at home.

( Commentary 2: Steven McSweeny )

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech presents itself as bracing honesty, but it is really an exercise in elite self-soothing: a technocrat narrating the collapse of a world he helped build while insisting that the same tools, values, and class interests can somehow rescue it. He is right about the rupture, the weaponisation of trade, the exhaustion of the “rules-based order,” and the end of comforting fictions. What he cannot admit is that these are not deviations from liberal capitalism but its logical outcomes. The speech diagnoses symptoms while fiercely protecting the disease.

The most revealing moment is his invocation of Havel. Carney borrows the parable of “living within a lie” to scold states and firms for pretending the old order still functions. Yet in the same breath, he sneers at the slogan “Workers of the world, unite!” as a hollow ritual, missing, or deliberately obscuring, that the slogan failed not because it named a falsehood, but because it named a truth too threatening to be realised. Carney’s real discomfort is not with lies as such, but with lies no longer working. When he urges companies and countries to “take the sign down,” he does not mean dismantling exploitation or hierarchy; he means adjusting the branding of power so that liberal capitalism can survive in a harsher geopolitical climate.

Throughout the speech, capitalism is treated as a neutral terrain on which values compete, rather than as a system that structurally subordinates people, nations, and ecosystems. Carney laments coercive supply chains, financial weaponisation, and extreme global integration, yet proposes more trade deals, more investment corridors, more militarised infrastructure, and more competition, just better coordinated among “middle powers.” This is not a break from the logic that produced Trump or US imperial overreach. It is an attempt to manage that logic more politely, with spreadsheets instead of slogans and multilateral dinners instead of unilateral tweets.

The core contradiction is stark. Carney wants sovereignty without breaking from global capital, resilience without challenging accumulation, and peace secured through expanded defence spending and arms production. He calls this “values-based realism,” but it is simply realism for capital, with values stapled on after the fact. Doubling defence budgets, fast-tracking trillion-dollar investments, and deepening extraction of energy and critical minerals are not neutral acts of self-protection; they entrench the very material rivalries he claims to fear. You cannot outgrow militarised competition by feeding it.

What makes the speech politically dangerous is its tone. Carney speaks calmly, reasonably, and fluently in the language of responsibility, which is why many people, especially those repulsed by Trump, are celebrating him as a voice of sanity. But this is precisely the problem. Liberalism in crisis often rebrands itself as the sensible alternative to barbarism, while quietly normalising surveillance, militarisation, border fortification, and economic coercion. The content shifts rightward while the rhetoric stays humane. This is how authoritarianism with good manners enters through the front door, applauded for not shouting.

Carney insists this is not a return to naive multilateralism, yet everything he proposes is an attempt to reconstruct a pre-Trump world minus its illusions, not its injustices. He wants the same hierarchy with better risk management; the same global capitalism with more insurance; the same dominance of capital over labour, just distributed across a broader club of states. The people who suffer most under this system (workers, migrants, indebted countries, those on the front lines of climate collapse) appear only as abstractions, never as agents. Their role is to be protected, managed, and spoken for, not empowered.

By framing the crisis as one of middle powers versus great powers, Carney carefully avoids the more uncomfortable conflict between capital and life itself. The real rupture is not just geopolitical; it is social and ecological. A system that requires endless growth, extraction, and competition cannot be stabilised by better coordination among its managers. The reason the old order is not coming back is not Trump’s personality or China’s assertiveness, but the exhaustion of liberal capitalism’s legitimacy.

In that sense, Carney’s speech is less a vision of the future than a plea for continuity: a request that we trust the same class of experts to steer us through the wreckage they helped create. It is not living in truth; it is living in a newly updated lie, one that sounds mature, responsible, and urgent, while foreclosing the more radical honesty the moment actually demands.

( Commentary 3: Simon Dougherty )

Mark Carney's Davos speech redefines Progressive Conservatism, and not in any good way.

On one hand, it is amusing to see him describe the liberal "rules-based international order" as it has been accurately described for decades by the left:

A "nice story," but a "false" one, of "accommodation" with, and "subordination" to, the powerful – "living within a lie" in order to benefit from the "brutal reality" of "American hegemony" while concealing the empire's coercive violence and hypocrisy by avoiding any acknowledgment of "the gaps between rhetoric and reality."

Carney declares a "rupture" with this old world order, but in thoroughly anti-communist terms so that people will not associate his meaning as conceived by a communist like Alain Badiou. Here ends any progressive pretence of Carney.

On the other hand, it is deeply troubling to see that Carney's "solution" to decades of intensifying capitalist crises is to double-down on the same conservative remedies that got us into this mess in the first place:

"...cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment"..."[remove] all federal [regulations] to interprovincial trade"..."[fast-track] a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors"..."[double] defence spending by 2030"...remain "a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors" to NATO's proxy war in Ukraine...rapidly sign corporate free "trade and security deals."

Without irony, Carney believes, as Tony Blair originally did, that all these neo-liberal "solutions" are a "third path" that will transcend "the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination." But sovereignty for whom?

Carney is only talking about the sovereignty of capital and the military-industrial complex in middle powers that are already integrated with the imperial core.

He is not talking about the sovereignty of everyday people (especially not that of workers and Indigenous people), nor is he talking about planetary needs over Trump-like profiteers beyond the United States. There is nothing liberating or emancipatory in his speech, despite its core conservatism being bookended by ostensibly progressive and even radical rhetoric.

Carney's answer to one false story is to create another that deliberately sidesteps the possibility of peace with justice on a sustainable planet. Ultimately, his vision is the militarization of capitalist enclaves that Trump is attempting to Balkanize and more directly colonize.

Don't fall for it.

( Commentary 4: Zilla Jones )

Several people have asked me for my take on Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech at the World Economic Forum yesterday, so here it is.

(Several paragraphs of “this is my Facebook page and I can express my opinions and if you don’t like it you should fuck off!” removed for purposes of clarity and messaging because it’s just not relevant for the purposes of my own blog.)

Mark Carney begins with a plea for honesty, and then delivers several minutes of lie upon lie.

He launches into a story from the Communist ruled Czech Republic, about a shopkeeper putting up a sign saying "Workers of the World Unite" although he doesn't believe it, just to go along with the crowd and avoid trouble.

I'm already annoyed. What's the problem? you might ask. The Communists were bad, and they did suppress freedom of speech. It's a valid example.

The problem: Carney chooses a Communist regime in Europe that was dismantled 35 years or so ago. He chooses a leftist, socialist regime. However, the current threat to the world is from the right. We have had extreme right-wing regimes also denying freedom of speech over the past 35 years. Yet Carney makes his attack on the defunct Communist bloc. He's reminding everyone that he's a capitalist first and foremost. He's not here to truthfully analyze and critique late-stage capitalism. He's here to unite the corporations and billionaires of the world through a shared hatred of the old Commie bogeyman - the lowest hanging fruit there is.

It gets worse.

Carney says, "For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order," and then says, "We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false."

NO IT WASN'T. It was wholly false. In fact, there was no rules-based order.

Let me back up here. I have to go back to the birth of modern European colonialism. If you don't like me talking about this, you really need to leave now. But this is where the story starts. And this isn't a comprehensive history of colonialism, just some thoughts.

When Europeans first began realizing that there was a world beyond their shores, it was intoxicating. There were all these foreign places just full of free land and untold riches - gold, jewels, wood, furs, spices, rubber, sugar - with just the pesky obstacle of the dark skinned peoples living there. But this too was a blessing because they were heathen souls who could be brought to Christ, and even better, could be used as a workforce to harvest this wealth. By conquering these lands, Europeans could both grow rich beyond their wildest dreams and earn favour with God.

There was a race to claim these lands, with no thought that they were already occupied. But it became a free for all. Wars were fought over this place or that place. Pirates sailed the seas robbing merchant ships. There were attempts to create order. The Pope divided up the yet unconquered lands - one side of the line to Spain, one side to Portugal. Much later, the Berlin Conference divided up Africa amongst European powers. Euroepan nations absorbed the newly acquired territories into their Empires and competed to see whose was the biggest.

This isn't ancient history. These countries didn't begin to gain their independence until India in 1947. For most, it was the 1960s and 70s. Some are still not free. And once they became independent, they were ravaged and broken after centuries of exploitation and violence. They became what was variously known as the Third World, the underdeveloped world, the developing world, and now the global South.

The other thing that happened just before 1947 was the end of World War II, which some believe was a continuous conflict with WWI. After WWI, the League of Nations was formed. It was founded in response to the horrors of the Great War in an attempt to promote peace and security in the world. Countries that were still colonies were not represented, unless they were Canada and Australia, say, who were majority white settler colonial nations and were granted representation.

After WWII, the League became the United Nations. The United Nations was set up with a Security Council as the primary body for ensuring world peace. It has five permanent members: Russia (formerly the USSR), China, the US, the UK and France, and a rotating cast of other members. The permanent members each UN was being established, colonized nations of the Global South were demanding independence. One of the great fights was in India. Britain was opposed to losing what they called "the jewel in the crown." Here's where I remind you that Winston Churchill (to whom some have compared Carney's speech) said regarding the displacement of Palestinians,

"I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

He also was recorded as agreeing with the slogan "Keep Britain White" and as having said regarding white US racists "why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority, that we were superior, that we had the common heritage which had been worked out over the centuries in England and had been perfected by our constitution".

So at the same time that the UN was being set up to promote peace in the world and make the new rules, it excluded much of the world from having a voice and gave the greatest power in that body to their oppressors who had contempt for them. As the post-colonial era began and they were admitted, the former rulers had little patience for their grievances or concerns. The UN wasn't intended for them so why should they get to claim space in it now?

Now - back to Carney's speech.

"This fiction" (of a rules-based order) was, he says, "useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.

So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetorics and rituals. This bargain no longer works."

Here's where I feel the full weight of the gaslighting and disregard I have felt my entire life. And it comes not from the fascists, not from Trump, but from our smiling, liberal, corporate, banker Prime Minister.

Listen to what he is saying. We knew it was BS. But we didn't care, because we benefitted from it. So we didn't care about who was being harmed, and we didn't speak up for them.

In 1983 when the US invaded Grenada illegally? A few words of criticism, nothing substantive.

Apartheid in South Africa? We traded with them for decades until finally shamed out of it.

Unjustified US boycott in Cuba? Look the other way

US interference and violation of international law in Panama, Nicaragua, Chile? No problem

US support of death squads in Chile, El Salvador etc? No problem

US starting a brutal war in Iraq based on a lie? Ehhhh. We'll keep cozying up to war criminals like Bush and Cheney. We'll even help them out in Afghanistan.

As long as the sea routes were open and banking was good, nothing to see here, folks. It wasn't us being invaded and terrorized, so.... so what?

This is like a man saying "I knew there was sexism but I benefitted from it - free labour at home, no accountability for my sexual crimes, earning more than I deserved, so I went along with it."

Or a white man saying "I knew there was racism but I didn't care because I got to take advantage of it."

So you might say: well, at least they're acknowledging it. That means they're going to repudiate it and do better, right?

WRONG.

Complaining about tariffs, etc. Carney says "You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination."

BECOMES? For much of the world it always was. The global integration he speaks of rests on the sweatshops and child labour of the global South.

And the solution? Carney says:

"As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy...... When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself." He goes on to describe a new approach of being "principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights."

Really? Isn't Canada still sending weapons to Israel?

He also calls for us to be "pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values."

Isn't this in direct contradiction to what he just said about principles? We stand for human rights, but if we want to trade with, say, Qatar, where migrant workers are enslaved and dissidents often vanish off the face of the earth, we recognize that they "don't share our values" and go ahead anyway with no more than a little finger wag at them. That's pragmatic, but it's not principled.

"We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for the world as we wish it to be."

So enjoy your poverty, your genocide, your second-class status. It's not like anyone can do anything about it. It's not like this isn't a room of billionaires from nations sucking up a disproportionate amount of the world's resources and causing a disproportionate amount of its climate change.

That's it for the global South. That's all you get. But then Carney turns his sights to home. And this is what he has to say about life in the true North strong and free:

"Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond. We are doubling our defence spending by 2030 and doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries."

Wow. We've CUT taxes. We have a housing crisis and an affordability crisis and we've cut taxes, not on the most vulnerable (who don't pay taxes anyway) but on capital gains and business investment. Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, we've given them yet another break.

We're fast-tracking investment in energy. This includes OIL and pipelines. We're going to continue destroying the environment.

We're investing in AI? Which also wrecks the environment, not to mention is devastating to arts and culture.

We're investing in critical minerals? What's the environmental impact? Do we just not care about climate change anymore?

He goes on for a while about the great things he's doing. Gives a nod to standing with Greenland and Denmark - of course, he will never name the threat to them, because that might upset the big, bad bully, and we're pragmatic, you know. All that stuff about honesty at the beginning of the speech? That was a lie too. So when he asks "What would it mean for middle powers to live in truth?" and answers his own question, "It means naming reality," my question is, whose reality?

There is nothing in this speech about Indigenous peoples on overcrowded, underserved reserves, some without water. There is nothing about the immigrants and migrant workers our government has blamed for every problem Canada faces. Nothing about the guy on the street who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from, or how he will get out of the cold tonight. There's nothing there, because these people don't matter. They were expendable in the old order and they're invisible in the new one.

And I know some will say "That's because it's the World Economic Forum. They're there to talk about the economy, not all that social justice stuff."

My answer? The poor, the unhoused, the vulnerable ARE the economy. You cannot talk about the economy without them, because they are the victims of the late-stage capitalism Carney is describing. If you do what he's advocating, you create and maintain an underclass of people who get left behind - and who are overwhelmingly racialized or otherwise members of vulnerable minorities. Just like the UN left the colonized world behind. You build them out of the system and then blame them when they don't make their way back in. You certainly don't do anything to help them.

But there's also nothing about the rest of the populace. Nothing about strengthening Canadian arts and culture in the face of threats from the AI you want to invest in and US aggression.

Nothing about protecting our democracy from foreign interference. Nothing about building our social cohesion by addressing systemic discrimination in all its forms.

So to sum up, Carney has a few more gems. He tells us to, "Stop invoking the rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised."

It always has functioned as advertised. The one rule is: the US can do what it wants. Always was the rule, is still the rule. You just don't like what it wants any more.

Near the end, he tells us "The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it."

I'm not mourning it! I've been talking about how harmful it is for almost my entire life, and have been gaslit and condescended and talked down to and insulted for daring to do so.

In summing up, Carney uses a whole bunch of words he's used throughout the speech. Values. Power. Cooperation. Strength, Strong. Honesty. Gain. Build.

My final thought: you know what word never appears?

Justice.

Any new world order worth having must be founded on justice. Reparations for the destruction of colonialism and capitalism. Racial justice. Class justice. Global justice. Climate justice. A strong and effective and fair justice system domestically. A properly functioning international court that actually deals with war crimes and human rights violations. I have been waiting my whole life to see justice, and it seems I will have to wait longer.

A politician who actually has the courage and honesty people are attributing to Carney would call for justice and would take steps to make it happen. None of them have done this. It doesn't matter if the leader is a woman, it doesn't matter if they're Black, it doesn't matter if they're Indigenous. Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Harris, Kinew, they love their drones, their bombs, their pipelines, their jails as much as anyone else, which is why there are limits to representation. And it is why it so often feels so isolating, so heartbreaking and pointless to exist in this world where denial of reality is called truth and celebration of exploitation and greed are considered greatness.

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January 22nd, 2026

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 02:34:48 GMT

1- State of the Phnee

I’m back in the saddle, more or less. I am having trouble getting myself going in the mornings still, and I have to figure out either how to manage my life without getting up early, or else how to get myself out of bed at a reasonable time. I have not figured out either of those things. It’s partly inertia and partly a feeling of being constantly worn out. I was hoping that solving the mystery tired/sleep apnea thing would also solve the can’t-get-out-of-bed problem, but nope, turns out that wasn’t it.

I have to confess that I live with a constant background noise of vague frustration and annoyance that I am apparently immune to all the “life-changing” miracles of modern medicine that everyone swears by. People swear that ADHD medication allowed them to focus and get things done, that using a CPAP made them miraculously no longer tired and cleared up their brain fog lickety-split. It’s all amazing stuff that will change your life! Except I have not experienced any of this. The CPAP does help, in that I have noticed that I feel noticeably worse if I don’t use it, but I don’t feel noticeably better or more energized day to day. I’ve taken almost every ADHD medication under the sun except for straight-up Ritalin and Adderall (because my doctor doesn’t want to prescribe them for… reasons), and I have not seen any improvement in my symptoms the way other people describe. Not even a little bit. So, yeah, I am low-key mad (as the youths were saying fairly recently but maybe aren’t saying anymore) that I am apparently the exception to the fucking rule for everything. On the plus side, I have a pretty high pain tolerance threshold and tend to have fewer side effects from medications even in higher doses, so I guess that’s something? Meh.

In other body-related news, I have aaaalmost hit my unofficial “halfway” mark for my weight loss goal. I have been sort of procrastinating on workouts, so I’m going to do one once I finish writing this post. Motivation is really difficult to sustain, mostly because lifting weights is really uncomfortable and I find it kind of unpleasant. Still, if I want to actually become stronger and be able to do things around the house and around the property without injuring myself or just being in pain for days afterward, I need to do the thing.

I had a decent day, all that complaining aside. I got up early enough for a day off, and I spent the day very casually puttering around doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen. It’s not perfect, and our new dishwasher is one of those new water and energy saving ones which means it takes two hours and thirty minutes for a single cycle instead of the 40 minutes that my old dishwasher used to take. I do appreciate the water saving aspect, given how small our septic holding tank is, but good Lord am I not a fan of how long it takes. I also got more glass food storage containers for my lunches because there have been a lot of casualties in the past few months and I was starting to run out (two of mine broke at work and the dogs broke one yesterday, much to my annoyance).

2- State of the Smallholding

We’re looking at a record cold few days coming up thanks to a polar vortex, so I packed the quail enclosures with as much straw as I could without smothering them in the hopes that they will be properly insulated. They’ve been doing okay since the last one died weeks ago, and I am really hoping that will be the last of the casualties.

I did plan to start incubating eggs in mid-February, but I am a little worried that they won’t be viable because so many of them are freezing during the winter. I may try collecting eggs multiple times a day on my days off in the hopes of staving off the freezing, but I’m not too optimistic about my chances. If I weren’t worried about starting a fire in the garage, I’d consider putting in a little space heater, even if it’s just for extremely cold temperatures, but yeah. Fire hazard.

3- State of the news

I was busy doing dishes and quail chores all day, so I haven’t actually checked the news and am a little afraid to do so now. I am going to let the news be until tomorrow, I think.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 21st, 2026

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 02:37:00 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

Okay, I missed a few days, there. I blame the sleep deprivation, because I just forgot about posting for three days and only remembered a few minutes ago. Oops? I’m going to give myself a bit of grace, there, because the last few days of night shifts were rough AF, as the kids are saying these days.

There’s actually not much to report since I last posted, at least. The State of Society worship sharing went well, even though I had some moments of frustration beforehand. The current set of Friends who are “in charge” of things are really bad at communicating with me. It could just be that my very neurodivergent brain is not picking up on all the neurotypical subtext that’s happening, but they act as if I should somehow read their mind and know when they are going to deviate from the standard operating procedure, which I cannot do. My ESP has never been as well developed as other people would like.

The same Friend who has been bitching about hybrid meetings suggested, less than half an hour before the worship sharing, that we should postpone it, because there was a clothing swap happening at the same time which had been “on the calendar for a really long time!” I had to forcefully remind myself that the Peace Testimony is an important part of being a Quaker, and that it would be very un-Quakerly indeed of me to reach through the computer screen and strangle her. Luckily another member of M&C who was there in person gave her a very firm “no,” because we have very tight deadlines for the SoS report. When the Friend pushed back, the M&C member gently but firmly told her, “If you would like to come to the worship sharing late, that is a choice you are welcome to make, but we will be starting on time.” Shockingly, she did not come late.

I tried to attend the Continuing Meeting of M&C in the afternoon, but the Zoom link didn’t work for me, and since it was right in the time that I needed to be preparing for work, I decided after 15 minutes of trying that I didn’t want to spend any more time on it. I had already been up for 26 hours by then and did not have the wherewithal to fight with emails and Zoom and what have you. I will try again next month.

I don’t think I mentioned it before, but KK gave me an Oodie for my birthday, which for those of you who are not immersed in American apparel companies, is basically an oversized hoodie made out of fleece that is extremely cozy. Mine is teal coloured and has lily pads, tadpoles, and frogs in various normal-to-weird poses on it. It is VERY cozy. Knowing that I was exhausted after not sleeping since the previous day’s threshing session on Israel and Palestine and the Apartheid-free communities pledge, I anticipated that I was going to get very cold at work. I am generally a person who runs hot unless I’m very tired or getting sick. So, I decided to bring it to work with me, which was both a genius idea and a terrible idea. It was genius in that I was very, very warm and cozy. It was a terrible idea in that I was so warm and cozy that I kept nodding off at my desk because the shift wasn’t very busy and so I didn’t have anything to work on to keep me awake. My shift partner was very understanding about it, luckily.

We had a mandatory Town Hall meeting on Monday, where our execs blue smoke up our asses and then pissed on us and told us it was raining. Okay, I am exaggerating ever so slightly, but it was 45 minutes of them patting themselves on the back for all their cost saving measures, and oh, by the way, we did sort of kind of lie a little bit when we said we wouldn’t be cutting jobs and your managers will be in touch with you over the next few days to tell you if you’ve been affected. Oh, but WE EMPATHIZE WITH YOU and we want to make sure you know WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER except that, of course, we execs are keeping our jobs, and it just sucks to be you, sorry not sorry. Blech.

Yesterday I got to sleep in a bit, then puttered around the house, then had a therapy appointment, and then I went for a walk with my friend Jan and her dog Lightfoot as well as Peggy and Pixie. It was a very nice walk, but poor Peggy was having a “clacky hip day” (she has hip dysplasia) and was struggling a bit by the end. We let them romp around in a field at the end of the walk, and Lightfoot and Pixie had a blast chasing each other through the snow, but Peggy was tired and sore and didn’t want to run, so she got quite cold standing still, and we called it pretty soon so that she could go inside and warm up. Next time I will bring the Brittanies’ winter coats with me to help keep them warm for longer. They’re usually okay in the winter, but I think we pushed Peggy a little too hard.

Today was a very quiet day too. I did some shoveling, took the recycling away from the curb because they changed the schedule on me over the holidays and so I’ve been putting the wrong recyclables out and my cardboard boxes were blowing all over the countryside. I spent most of the day hanging out quietly with the dogs, took some time to refill the quail’s food and water, and did some dishes. Nothing to write home about.

KK has bought herself a walker with wheels (purple, naturally) and is looking into acquiring a motorized scooter as well, for getting around outside the house. We’re not sure if our insurance will pay for both or only one, so she’s holding off making a claim until she gets the scooter and will go from there. Hopefully that will improve her pain levels while outside the house, because that’s been an increasing problem for her for the past few months. She got x-rays taken a few weeks ago, and the arthritis has progressed to her hips and her back, which is not good news. I’m hoping she and her doctor can discuss better pain management than what she’s been getting so far (which basically boils down to a lot of NSAIDs and Tylenol Arthritis). I don’t know at all what the future holds there.

2-State of the Smallholding

Apart from shoveling and quail, there’s nothing major on the home front. Given KK’s deteriorating health and pain levels, I am seriously considering talking to our local handyman about what it would cost to install a ramp in front of the house. Apart from KK my friend Amy is also a wheelchair user, and my mother’s mobility is getting steadily worse as well, so it would make a certain amount of sense to make the house more accessible. That being said, cost is going to be an issue, because I am not made of money, and while there are theoretically grants available for making your dwelling more accessible, I am above the income threshold where that would be available to me. The threshold is very low, meaning I would basically have to be unemployed or making minimum wage to qualify, which is luckily not the case. It’s one of those situations where I don’t have enough money to afford the thing, but I have too much income on paper to qualify for any kind of assistance in affording the thing. Oh well. So, yes, I will be taking to AJ (the aforementioned local handyman) and asking for an estimate and we will go from there.

3-State of the news

The entire internet is creaming its pants about Mark Carney’s speech at Davos yesterday, and all I can do is roll my eyes at all the people who apparently cannot see beyond the surface level of his words. The speech was a very pretty one, and definitely an understated “fuck you, we’re not playing with you anymore!” to the USA, so naturally Trump has his panties in a twist over it. However, anyone who knows even a little bit about Canada’s history, its current political state, and the current state of the world, would have to side-eye that speech quite a lot. It was a speech that was designed to comfort the comfortable, and all those comfortable people at Davos gave it a standing ovation. There have been a few very well written critiques already, and I may post or link them in future entries for future reference (because the internet is only forever for things you never want to see again).

*sigh*

I’m hoping to get a good night’s sleep and get a bunch of stuff done tomorrow. I would like to get in a workout, do some tidying around the house, and I need to do a bunch of work on the State of Society Report and finish up my D&D character’s history to send to my DM. So much to do, so little time!

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 19th 2026

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 06:16:17 GMT

1- State of the Phnee

I am no longer a Phnee. I am an ex-parrot. I am pining for the fjords. Do people still make Monty Python jokes these days? I don’t know, but I am tired and so I am making Monty Python jokes. Something something Spanish Inquisition!

*lies on the floor*

Today was incredibly frustrating. I’ve had about 40 minutes of sleep in the past 36 hours, and I don’t get off work for another 7 hours, after which it will take me an hour to get home, meaning I’ll have been awake for roughly 43 hours and change.

The Quaker Member who called the online attenders “auxiliary” to the Meeting tried to postpone the worship sharing on the State of Society Report today because there was a clothing swap happening at the Meeting house, which had “been on the calendar a really long time!” As if the SoS Report doesn’t have extremely tight deadlines that we need to respect. It’s a good thing I wasn’t in the same room as her, because I might have done something distinctly un-Quakerly to her at this point. I am sleep-deprived and she pushes aaaalllll my buttons.

Then another member of M&C told the people at the end of the worship sharing to send any additional thoughts in writing to her personal email, even though I spent a chunk of time last week setting up a dedicated email account for M&C for precisely this sort of thing. The reason? She said the emails MIGHT GET LOST if they were sent to the DEDICATED M&C EMAIL ACCOUNT. I just… I can’t. WE AGREED. We talked about this and EVERYONE AGREED we should have a dedicated email account. But no no, she’s going to received them and then send them to me. I FUCKING CANNOT.

*rips out hair*

*screams into the void*

I will have to have a chat with her when I am less sleep-deprived and crabby. I understand that she has a ton of institutional knowledge and experience, but that doesn’t mean she can unilaterally make decisions like this. I do NOT like the idea of her funneling emails like this, even though I know she has no ill intent. It feels a little bit power grabby/controlling.

We had a little adventure at work last night when one of my coworkers’ cell phone mysteriously went missing. She’d last checked it when she went to the kitchen, but when she went to grab it from the lockboxes (we have to lock put our phones away before we come into the room where we work) it had gone. We’re usually four people on shift, and all of us took turns searching for it—the washrooms, the kitchen, all the common areas. She checked with the commissionnaires (basically a fancy term for building security but specific to federal government buildings), and no one had turned it in. They checked the cameras and saw nothing out of the ordinary, either. This went on for several hours, with the coworker getting increasingly distressed because it was a new phone that she couldn’t easily afford to replace, and the rest of us powerless to do anything about it. Then, closer to the end of our shift, she found it! She had put it into one of the lockboxes but one that she never normally used because the door is janky, so she hadn’t bothered checking in there because why would she? Night shift brain is wild. We were all very relieved for her.

“Phnee is not allowed to sleep” news, I am really not looking forward to the mandatory all-staff meeting tomorrow (technically later today) at 13:30. For those of you following along at home, that means I will be up for 43.5 hours, then get a maximum of 4 hours of sleep before I have to drag myself out of bed to attend this [censored] [censored] [censored] meeting. I DUN WANNA. *whine moan bitch*

In happier news, I have been working away on my D&D character background. I’m inventing a cult/high control group in which she grew up, and having waaaaay too much fun making it horrifying in that nice-on-the-surface-terrible-underneath way. I don’t know if I’ll have the brainpower to work on it tonight, but I will be giving it a try.

I have a lot of “creative writing” to do this week. There’s Hazel’s background (as I mentioned), plus the Soopar Seekrit Prodgikt, and the State of Society Report, because as I said earlier, we have a pretty strict timeline for that. I am very out of practice with writing, so I will have to hope for a lot of inspiration before next Friday.

2- State of the smallholding

Not much to report on this front. Today was all about the self-inflicted sleep deprivation, so I didn’t get much done other than all of the Quaker things,

3- State of the news

I have not had a minute to myself all day to check the news, so I only hope World War III hasn’t been officially declared while I wasn’t paying attention. These days, you can never be too sure.

Okay, that’s it for me. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 18th, 2026

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 06:26:18 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

Holy Hannah, I am TIRED, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I woke up on time for the threshing session and managed to stay alert and pay attention for the whole two hours of discussion. It was the usual blend of informative and frustrating, the way all group discussions tend to be for me. I’ve found lately that I don’t have as much patience as I used to for listening to people who don’t listen to instructions or speak only to repeat the same thing four other people have already said or to only talk about themselves when the subject matter is about a much larger issue.

This is not a flex, as the youths say these days, it’s a character flaw that I am working to correct in myself. I need to find more compassion and understanding and make space for people who are interacting with the world in a way that I think is incorrect. I recognize that this is an example of rigidity in my thinking, but I’m having trouble with the praxis part of things these days. I don’t have the emotional reserves to hold that much space for people I don’t know well and who are getting under my skin for their perceived flaws. Work in progress, I guess.

I got the announcements done for tomorrow’s Quaker Meeting, and since no one from M&C has volunteered to be the Greeter, I will have to forgo most of my sleep tomorrow in order to get up in time for the start of Meeting. If I’m lucky I may manage to get a one hour nap before Meeting, and then I will have to be awake for the rest of the day until I get home around 08:00 Monday morning. I will have to invest in some caffeine, I think, to make sure I get through my shift and also don’t kill myself accidentally while driving home. It’s not ideal.

Speaking of work, there is a mandatory all-staff meeting on Monday at 13:30, because of course there is. So that means even less sleep, since that’s the time when I would have been recovering from my night shifts. *sigh* It’s a meeting addressing government cuts and what’s called “Work Force Adjustment,” which is the government’s fancy way of saying “layoffs.” This doesn’t affect me directly, as WFA only applies to indeterminate employees and I am a term employee. They can simply not renew my contract, and it ends there, whereas an indeterminate employee subjected to WFA is subject to different regulations and still has some rights. Still, it will be interesting to see what our execs have to say, since they swore up and down that they would be addressing budget shortfalls without resorting to cutting positions, and I am quite sure that that was horseshit. I am cynically curious as to how they are going to spin this.

In unrelated news, I have been putting off three things of varying levels of importance because they all involve having to make phone calls to people I don’t know. The least important is calling a local(ish) hairdresser to address the absolute disaster that my hair has become in the past year (it’s been at least that long since my last cut, and our well water is very hard and does my poor hair no favours). I also need to make a long overdue dentist appointment and am hoping to find someone local(ish) so I don’t have to drive all the way to Ottawa every time I need to get work done. I haven’t been to the dentist in a long time and am quite sure that my teeth are… not in great shape. I had a referral years ago to a periodontist for receding gums, and since I didn’t have $10,000 at the time to spend on treatment (still don’t), I can only imagine things have gotten worse since then.

Last but not least I need to make an appointment with my doctor. She and several other doctors left the clinic where I was a patient for over 10 years without so much as a by-your-leave, moved even further west from where I live (so that now it will take me at least an hour and a half to drive there), and are now charging an arm and a leg for a bunch of services they used to offer for free at my previous clinic. I was never offered the option of staying with my previous clinic, which is very frustrating, and now I can either pay out the nose and individually for things like forms and faxed prescriptions or pay a yearly “flat fee” for the privilege of accessing medical services. I fucking hate the slow creep of privatization in our healthcare system, it SUCKS. And of course when they moved their booking system was down for nearly six weeks and I can’t even access it without having to call first. I was supposed to get an appointment six weeks after my surgery, but since there was no way to contact them (no phone, no online system), it’s now been three months with no follow-up to make sure that, for instance, my blood pressure medication doesn’t make me violently ill the same way it did to KK. *sigh*

If I had even a little bit more energy (and a lot less anxiety!) I’d consider running for office, because things have absolutely gone to shit in this province and if I’m going to bitch about it I should probably try to do something about it. Of course, I don’t think I’d win. I am a terrible public speaker with the charisma of a boiled potato. However, I feel like the effort needs to be made in some way. Of course, I’d probably have to go and lock down all the fanfiction I wrote all those years ago, which all seems like a lot of work. ;)

2-State of the smallholding

The water heaters I got for the quail somehow got unplugged, so the poor things had no water when I check them this morning—everything was completely frozen over. I plugged everything back in and added some fresh water to tide them over while I waited for everything to melt again. I have no idea how it got unplugged—the only explanation I can think of is that I must have accidentally pulled on the extension cord when I was changing out the food and water at some point.

Sometime tomorrow I also need to make a point of putting out all the paper and cardboard recycling as well. I missed the last collection day, and things have really started to pile up.

There isn’t much else going on right now. I’ve been very passively trying to think of how to get help with “farming” things now that KK appears to have more permanently injured herself. She’s looking into getting herself both a walker and a motorized scooter to help her get around outside the house, and whereas in the past she was able to at least walk over to the garage to turn the light for the quail on and off and sometimes even check their water and food levels, she now either can’t or won’t do it. That means that when I’m working evening shifts or weekend night shifts, or in cases when I’m visiting my parents in Montreal, I will need to find someone else to come look after the quail and eventually the other animals I want to get. The original plan was that I was going to be primarily responsible for all the smallholding stuff, but that KK would be my backup on the rare occasions I wasn’t available or if I was ever ill. Obviously that’s no longer the case, so I need to find a new solution for that problem.

3-State of the news

There hasn’t been anything really new since my last post, just updates on the current (very) long list of global garbage fires. Greenland, Ukraine, Iran, Palestine… it’s a depressingly long list, really.

Our Prime Minister is now in Doha, talking trade with Qatar of all places. After China, I suppose it wasn’t that big of a stretch for him to decide that we can absolutely ignore all those pesky human rights violations and atrocities if it means making the big bucks. *sigh* I was already side eyeing the deal with China a little bit, but Qatar is in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations. I remember the horror stories that came out during the last FIFA cup, and I am disappointed but not surprised that our PM continues to prove himself a Conservative wrapped in a Liberal trenchcoat.

Okay, time to get some other stuff done. I have to figure out a reading for tomorrow’s Quaker Meeting, and then if there’s time I have some personal projects I want to work on. I need to write up the background for my new D&D character, and I’m also working with some other people on a Soopar Seekrit Prodgikt which could possibly turn into a TV show (probably not, but the chances are not zero), so I have some writing to do this week.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 17th, 2026

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 07:06:03 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

I am at work, albeit very reluctantly tonight. The sleep deprivation is starting to take its toll, even though I went to bed reasonably “early” (shortly before 9:00am) and got up at 16:00, which means I got almost seven hours of sleep, which is way better than my average this week. Still, my eyes are sore in a way that tells me I can probably expect a headache later if I’m not careful. I do have Tylenol with me, so I will head it off at the pass if I can.

There’s not much to report on today, as I spent most of it sleeping. I didn’t get in a workout the way I’d hoped, so I will have to try that tomorrow at some point (ugh). I do have the treadmill out at work, and I plan on getting in a couple of miles tonight at least.

I will say that I miss the longer breaks we got at the RCMP during our night shifts. I’d gotten into the habit of taking a nap mid-shift, and that was a game changer in terms of being able to get through those rather grueling 12-hour shifts. We only have two 12-hour shifts at TC, but they come right after five 8-hour shifts, so the full effect is brutal. Sometimes I can get away with putting my head down on my desk for a few minutes with my eyes closed, but it isn’t at all the same as having a dedicated space for a full-on comfy nap.

2-State of the smallholding

I did manage to crowbar myself out of my very cozy bed at a halfway reasonable hour and went to the Martintown Market. The good news is that on Fridays they have an even better selection of fruit, and I was able to snag some celery, which I’ve never seen there on Saturdays thus far. I made myself a very tasty improvised “stir-fry” (I use the term loosely) of root vegetables from the market along with some garlic and soy sauce. I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

Otherwise, I didn’t get much done today on the home front. Night shifts are hard, and I’m really not sure why I keep expecting myself to be ultra productive during my night shift weeks. I guess it’s eternal optimism paired with perfectionism. 😉

3-State of the news

A poll has come out showing the results of the question: “If Canada were ever to face a situation in which the United States used military force against Canadian territory, what do you believe should be Canada’s primary response?” The numbers are surprising.

Nationally, 17% percent said they didn’t know/had no opinion, 24% said we should “avoid military confrontation and make concessions to prevent further harm,” and 59% said Canada should “defend itself militarily, even if the odds of success are uncertain.”

More interesting is how those numbers break down along political lines:

Liberal: 16%, 11%, and 73%

Conservative: 16%, 47%, and 38%

NDP: 14%, 8%, and 78%

Block Québécois: 23%, 31%, and 46%

I’m more surprised by how many people didn’t have a response than anything else, but it is VERY telling that the supposed party of law and order and military expansion are the very ones who want us to roll over and show our bellies to the USA. My belief is that it’s because they actually *want* the USA to take us over and make Poilievre into the governor of the “51st State.” Gross. Luckily the majority of Canadians still seem to have some common sense left. I may be a Quaker and a pacifist, but pacifism doesn’t mean letting fascists stomp all over you.

In further Canadian news, Carney has apparently brokered a successful trade deal with China. As far as I can tell the main deal is the removal of tariffs on electric vehicles from China in exchange for a break on tariffs for Canadian agricultural products. Gotta move that Canola oil, I guess! I think it’s overall a good thing that we’re moving away from dependence on the USA, even though China is potentially an iffy partner human rights-wise. But since our choice appears to be fascism down South or communism out East, we have to pick our battles.

Carney has also accepted to join the “Board of Peace” to rebuild Gaza. I am not holding my breath on that front.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 16th 2026

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 10:26:36 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

You know, the Almanac swore that we were going to have an especially dry winter, which had me all sorts of worried about drought next summer, but it sure doesn’t *feel* like a dry winter. I think we very slightly exceeded the average for December and we’ve had several inches (I don’t know exactly how many) since last night with no sign of the snow stopping until tomorrow. Now, maybe the “dry winter” means we won’t have much snow from here on out, so I will reserve judgment for the moment, but I have been shoveling way more snow than I was led to believe I would.

Yesterday was a day of even less sleep than Wednesday. It was slow going to get home because of the snowstorm, and I had a bunch of things to do. As I’m pretty sure I mentioned in my previous post, I decided it would be a good idea to run some errands before going home because I needed to get gas anyway. I did that, then wandered around Canadian Tire and picked up some not-quite-essentials: a small plunger, a small drain snake, two more water storage containers (more on that later), and a few impulse buys in the shape of some wrist weights, new scrubby brushes for the dishes (one of ours broke and the other is on its last legs after many years of loyal service), and an apple corer/slicer that was on sale that will hopefully make my life a lot easier next year when I’m processing the apples I harvest from the local trees.

Then, probably in a fit of madness, I decided to stop by Ritchie’s Feed & Seed on the way home. In fairness I am down to my last 5-gallon bucket of quail feed, and because of my work schedule it would mean a deliberate 2-hour round trip to Ottawa just to get a bag sometime in the next two weeks. This way I at least got to save time and gas, even if it meant getting home even later than I’d planned. As I mentioned, we got a bunch of snow dumped on us today, and driving home was a much slower go. I arrived close to 11:00 and did a bunch of shoveling, because otherwise getting into the house was going to be a challenge.

I had originally planned to take a nap for an hour or two before my appointment with the bariatric clinic, but since that appointment was at 11:30, that did not happen. Instead, I finished shoveling, let the dogs out, and logged on a few minutes early. I thought I was supposed to meet with the nurse practitioner, but it turned out to be with the nutritionist instead. Not a big deal, really. I asked about my blood test results and she said she’d spoken with the nurse practitioner and that they are not worried about my values as a certain amount of fluctuation is to be expected in the first 3-6 month post-surgery especially.

I finally got to sleep around 1:00pm, but Rika (KK’s chihuahua) decided that I was not allowed to keep sleeping. She started scratching at my face a couple of hours after until I got up and let the dogs out to pee, so I put her in KK’s bedroom in the hopes that she would settle on the bed and nap. No such luck. She barked and squeaked and shrieked and threw herself bodily at the door at intervals until I finally gave it all up as a bad job and just got up. So, in short, I am quite sleep deprived. I’m hoping to get a decent amount of sleep today since this weekend will involve next to no sleep due to all my [censored] Quaker commitments.

Work has been quite busy tonight. I may have to cut this post short so that I have time to finish and post it before the end of my shift.

I’ve taken a break after finishing the last Expanse novel and listened to Where Are the Children by Mary Higgins Clark, which was a slightly jarring change of pace. It was a fun thriller, but a lot of it felt a little dated, and I couldn’t tell if the rampant misogyny was intentional on the part of the author or just simply a product of an author writing in 1970s America. I’ve only ever read one or two of her books, but they are quick and easy reads, so I may continue with some more if I can find them.

2-State of the smallholding

I feel very lucky to have a generous neighbour who comes and clears our driveway with his tractor whenever it snows. He has saved me so much work already this winter! I don’t want to take it for granted, however, so I will have to whip up a baked good or something as a thank you soon.

Something has gone wrong with one of the quail waterers, because I’ve noticed it gets emptied within hours compared to the other two which take anywhere from 2-3 days to be emptied (for a comparable number of quail using them). It doesn’t have a leak, so maybe the quail are flinging the water around or maybe causing it to leak as they use it somehow.

Today’s plan after I get some sleep is to head to the Martintown Market for more produce and maybe stop by Alexandria for a few other essentials I can’t get at the market. I don’t know if I’ll make it or just opt for more sleep. We’ll see how much willpower I have to drag my sorry carcass out of bed later. The market only opens at 4pm on Fridays, so it’s not like I can go before then anyway.

3-State of the news

I’ve been a bit under a rock today due to all the errands and appointments and aborted attempts at sleep.

Iran’s complete internet blackout is in its second week. European military personnel have started arriving in Greenland in response to the US’s threats, which does not bode well. Trump has threatened to use the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis and has apparently declared that the US “shouldn’t even have an election,” surprising exactly no one who has been paying attention to his regime. Maria Corina Machado gave her fucking Novel Peace Prize to Trump, presumably trying to play nice so he’ll “allow” her to actually run the country that fucking well elected her. It’s so gross. And Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in their continuing efforts to annex the country.

That’s it for now, I think.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 15th, 2026

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 09:59:37 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

Today was very light on the sleep and very heavy on the Quaker. To quote one of my favourite TikTokers: “I shall explain.” (Seriously, if you are on TikTok, check out Philogène, she is hilarious!)

I think I mentioned that I had to sacrifice some sleep today because of the Worship Sharing on Health Concerns. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, but boy howdy was I wrong about that! We were plagued by the weirdest tech problems I have ever experienced using Zoom. I started out by clicking the new link the organizer had sent just last night, and it didn’t connect, but kept showing a message that it was “waiting for the host to connect.” Now, I knew this couldn’t be right because the host/organizer has set up this meeting to not have a lobby/waiting room. I exited the meeting and went back to the original link that had been sent out a few days ago (identical to the one I clicked, I might add!) and immediately found myself in the meeting with two other people, but with no sign of my co-hosts, which was very weird as it was now a few minutes past the hour.

Before I could figure out what had gone wrong, though, I had to go into de-escalation mode with one of the attenders. She is one of the main reasons we started this worship sharing circle, because she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s sometime last year (if memory serves). She had been worried when no organizers were there when the meeting started and then struggled with the mute function and promptly burst into tears because she was so flustered and upset. We worked through it, but it was pretty distressing to have her become upset by the very thing which we hoped would be helpful. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, folks, even in the very early stages.

I got hold of the host by phone, and she was in a state because her internet had gone down, and then once it was running again Zoom insisted on updating, making her very late to her own meeting. That was when she told me that she and the other host were in another meeting with three attenders because they couldn’t get the first link to work at first. I have no idea how that’s even possible, but here we are. She agreed to bring everyone over because I didn’t want to force the attender with Alzheimer’s who was already super upset to have to log off our meeting and then log onto another one, but a few minutes later she texted to say they couldn’t do it and so we were going to simply have separate meetings. Oof.

Things actually went well after that. The two attenders and I had a quiet, intimate conversation about the challenges they were facing, and I talked a little bit about the challenges we’ve been having due to KK’s increasing levels of disability, as well as the frustrations I’ve been having at work trying to get a very simple accommodation (I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here before, but basically I have nerve damage in my spine from 2022 and I need a functional headset to do my job. One of the workstations at work has a phone which cannot take a headset because the jack is broken, and I’ve been asking them to replace it for nearly a year with no apparent progress.). It was a really nice conversation. The other attender is a really nice lady, but she is VERY ADHD and kept talking long past when the attender with Alzheimer's had mentioned she was tired and wanted to stop, so I stepped in after about five minutes when she asked yet another question and firmly but gently told her we were going to stop and have a few moments of worshipful silence. And THEN, bless her heart, she KEPT TALKING during the silence about how great silence was and how much she needed it. *facepalm* She is a sweet lady, but my God, the irony.

Once we were done, instead of being able to go back to bed, I then had to debrief with the other two hosts, because of course we weren’t privy to the contents of each other’s meetings. That debrief took another hour, so it was nearly 1pm by the time I was able to go back to sleep.

On the one hand, I am lamenting my lack of sleep, but on the other I am glad that I did choose to go, because otherwise who knows how upset that first attender would have been when no one showed up to talk to her? And my co-hosts and I were able to talk through some solutions for next time. We’ll be implementing some best practices moving forward so that we have some redundancies in place.

I’ve been working on Quaker stuff on and off since I got to work, too (when not dealing with actual work, that is). I’ve realized now that I’m the clerk of Ministry & Counsel that I really need to step up my game. I’ve been sort of coasting in a more advisory role for the past two years but now is not the time to be indecisive about things. The first thing I’m going to work on is our organization and communication. I decided after some deliberation and discernment with the other members of M&C to create a dedicated Gmail account for us. Originally, I thought this would be useful in preventing Members and Attenders from Ottawa Meeting from constantly bombarding only one member of M&C (who is a registered therapist) for advice and services. This way most of the requests will come to all of us, rather than just her. Now, however, I think it will serve a much more vital role. I’m going to use the calendar function to schedule all of our monthly meetings, as well as to handle the Greeter schedule on Sundays (we need an online Greeter and an in-person Greeter every time), and also all of our worship sharing sessions, Claremont Dialogues, and whatever else comes up. I’ve also created a bunch of folders in our Google Drive for agendas, meeting minutes, and reference documents. I don’t know how much the other members of M&C will use it (all of them are in their seventies and eighties), but at the very least it will allow me to track and share things more easily.

I’ve also sent out a bunch of emails from the new account to try to wrangle all the cats that have gotten loose in the past week or so. Here’s hoping I can get all my ducks in a row on this front. I want M&C to start being more active and present in the Meeting, because I get the feeling that we’ve been at a bit of a remove for years (long before any of the current members were there, for that matter) and many younger attenders at Meeting have no idea who we are or what we do. I’m going to reach out to the clerk of Adult Education and Outreach (I hope it’s the person I think it is—I will have to double check) to talk to them about the possibility of hosting a series of Ministry & Counsel 101 sessions: basically very short sessions, probably online, when people can come online, listen to a 5-10 minute presentation on a specific topic that M&C deals with, and then ask us questions if they have any.

I still need to write queries for our Claremont Dialogue about using technology/hosting hybrid meetings. I have a bit of writer’s block because I know that I’m super biased on the pro-tech/hybrid meeting side of things, and I want to write queries that will allow everyone to express their opinions but also encourage them to be nuanced and discerning when they do express said opinions. Being a spiritual leader is hard, yo!

In completely unrelated news, I’ve continued listening to Persepolis Rising and am happy to report that my favourite character is not dead and is just much older and even crankier than before. I am overjoyed. ;)

2-State of the smallholding

The kitchen sink appears to be stopped up again, which I only noticed just as I needed to leave for work. I can only hope that KK doesn’t somehow make it worse the way she did last time. I’m not sure where my plunger is, but I will try to locate it and maybe go to Canadian Tire to get a proper plumbing snake on my way home. I’m working an hour of OT this morning anyway for a coworker who has a medical appointment, and then I need to stop for gas, and there’s a Canadian Tire right next to the Costco where I’ll be getting gas for the car anyway.

I need to get over my weird psychological aversion to finishing up the tidying/cleaning/organizing of the main space in the house. Like, yes, sure, it’s all overwhelming and A Lot, but if I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done, and I am the only one it bothers, so obviously if I want it fixed, I need to fix it myself. Part of it is that I am resentful at having to do it by myself when I am not responsible for a significant portion of the disaster. I do realize that this is kindergartener reasoning: “It’s not my mess! So-and-so made the mess, it’s not fair that I need to clean it!” No, Phnee, you live in a communal household, so communal chores are communal. Even though I don’t have an official autism diagnosis, I suspect that this falls under the rigid thinking/strong sense of “justice” criteria as well. Having a strong sense of justice often gets mistaken for a person being more moral or ethical or just than other people, but that’s a misconception: it’s an internal sense of justice, based entirely on values that you pick up from your family, community, and immediate surroundings. Much the same way a toddler will stomp their feet and complain it’s not “fair” that they have to go to bed when older people “get” to stay up late. So, yes, I think that’s probably a chunk of what’s happening, here. The other part is that I just hate cleaning because it’s hot and painful and time-consuming and mind-numbingly boring, regardless of whether I listen to music or a podcast or an audiobook, or whatever else to distract me.

I’m not really going to have much time to do any of said cleaning until next Monday, after all that. Today I have my follow-up appointment with the bariatric clinic, tomorrow I will need to carve out some time for grocery shopping, Saturday there is the “threshing session” that I mentioned the other day, and on Sunday we still don’t have an online Greeter for Meeting, and then we have the worship sharing session for the State of Society Report, followed by the Continuing Meeting of Ministry & Counsel for all the M&C folks across Canada. All of this means that I am going to be absolutely *fried*, and that attempting to do anything other than very light cleaning is going to end in tears, either metaphorical or real.

Next week, however, I have several days off, and even though I have a couple of commitments I mostly have a fair bit of time to schedule as I please.

3-State of the news

Well, François Legault has resigned, sort of unexpectedly and sort of not. The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) has had a horrible year full of scandals, resignations, and horrifying budgets. They’re currently in a neck-and-neck race for last place in the polls. He has no clear successor, and they’re staring down the barrel of an election in the fall. It looks like the Parti Québécois may be poised to form the next government unless something huge happens between now and the elections.

In international news, all eyes are still focused on Iran and Greenland. There are ICE agents moving into multiple cities and states in the US, terrorizing the citizens and violating the constitution right, left and center. The silver lining is all the videos that have been posted online of ICE agents who don’t understand winter slipping and falling on their asses on the ice-slick streets. ICE defeated by ice. The irony is delicious.

Canada is looking at a 2.3% increase in dairy prices starting on February 1st. Ugh. It’s not a huge increase, of course, from an individual standpoint, but having dairy go up while all other prices are skyrocketing feels like an extra kick in the teeth.

In happier space news, a Canadian astronaut is heading to the moon this April, as part of NASA’s first crewed mission to the moon in over 50 years! This is very exciting. His name is Col. Jeremy Hansen, and he’s part of the Artemis II mission. Slightly disappointingly they will be orbiting the moon only and not landing, but still, it’s pretty freaking exciting. I hope they livestream the launch so people can watch. Yay, moon!

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 14th, 2026

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 08:02:56 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

Yes, it’s only been a couple of hours since my last post, but since I’m working night shifts I figured I would take advantage of the relative peace and quiet to do a bit of writing. As such, I expect this will be a short post, but it will allow me to feel less rushed when I update tomorrow night so that I don’t feel compelled to backdate my post. I know I don’t have to, but it feels weird and wrong to post on the “wrong” date. There’s probably some rigid thought processes in there that I should unpack at some point in the future.

This is another update from the treadmill at work. There’s a sign-up sheet for all the treadmills so that people don’t double-book during the day or keep the treadmills for longer than their allotted time slot, but so far this year my name is the only one on the sign-up sheet and I haven’t even been using it during the day, since I’ve been exclusively working evenings and night shifts for the past two weeks and change. I know at least one other employee is using them, but he apparently doesn’t seem to feel the need to use the sign-up sheet. I’ve been diligently filling it out because this is a pilot project, and collecting accurate data is important so that they will continue to provide the means for employees to be able to implement healthier habits at work. I want to encourage my work when they do good things! Anyway, I still like the treadmill at work. I can do a gentle 1 mph rate for a couple of hours without any difficulty, and although my personal data isn’t comprehensive enough to draw a good conclusion yet, I am tentatively hypothesizing that I feel a bit more energized after the shifts when I use the treadmill. Obviously more study is needed, but I am cautiously optimistic.

On an unrelated note, I’ve been wondering about recurring dreams lately. My dreams don’t recur in the classical sense, but I have noticed recurring themes over the years. I have a lot of dreams about travelling, about taking public transit (usually buses but sometimes the metro or a train), and about moving house. I also have a kind of recurring dream in which I discover a pet or multiple pets that I’ve somehow forgotten about that’s either died or else managed to reproduce (usually hamsters) and are now overrunning part of my home. I can trace all of these themes going back about 25 years, or ever since I moved out of my parents’ home and started living on my own. Also, I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I have lots of dreams in which I am watching events unfold like a story being told to me, rather than my being the POV character. Interestingly, in the dreams with recurring themes I am almost always the POV character, but not in the “stand-alone” dreams. I have also had a lot of the “classic” anxiety dreams of being in school for final exams and realizing I haven’t attended all semester, teeth falling out, etc., but those ones aren’t as common for me. I don’t know what any of it means, I’ve never been much into dream interpretation, although I do find it interesting in a vague way. I don’t think my dreams have any psychic or supernatural meaning but subscribe to the more common understanding that they’re just a way for the brain to process information it absorbed the previous day. That being said, I’m not sure how typical my experience is compared to others. Brains are weird, y’all.

I’ve been making my way through The Expanse audiobooks. I am really enjoying the series, even though it’s a little bit “crunchier” than what I usually read. I’m finding the worldbuilding reminiscent of C.J. Cherryh, although not the same at all in terms of the contents. It’s more of a vague vibe than anything else. I should do a C.J. Cherryh re-read after this. The Expanse novels have been a bit of a slow go, as the novels are quite long and I’ve been listening to them in audio format. I will confess to listening to them at increased speed, because the narrator is a bit slow for my liking, even if it does make the voices sound a bit odd and distorted. The novels themselves are compelling but often have parts that bog down seemingly interminably before the pace picks up again. I’m on Book 7 out of 9 (Eeeeeey, inadvertent Star Trek reference!), not counting any of the novellas, and this book began with a 20-year time skip, and I’m not sure what to make of it. Time skips can be tricky to navigate, and I’m only just starting the story, so time will tell. The skip probably means that my favourite character has died of old age, but there’s no confirmation of this and it is set in the future, so she might still be alive if people in the future have significantly longer lifespans (I don’t recall it being mentioned one way or the other in previous novels). I guess I shall have to wait and see!

2-State of the smallholding

Obviously, I’m still at work, so I don’t have any actual updates about the property. However, the new coworker who brought me borscht and I had a conversation about urban chickens and other poultry, because he’s thinking about getting some chickens. I warned him that I’m far from an expert but that I was willing to ask more experienced friends any questions for which I don’t have a solid answer. He then very generously offered to help me build the new chicken coop(s) I want to put in place this summer. Now, I don’t know whether he is the kind to follow through on this sort of promise, nor do I even know if we’ll still be in touch come the summer, since I may not be employed here anymore, but it was a very nice thought.

Our conversation reminded me that I’ve been planning to research more chicken coop plans online and find ones that are beginner-friendly while also meeting the chickens’ needs and my needs. And other poultry too, obviously, but my plan is to start with chickens. I’m hoping I’ll be able to snag a bunch of birds at auction over the summer. There are also plenty of Facebook groups that seem like they will provide some good leads on acquiring some lovely heritage breeds.

It's actually quite interesting to see how many of my coworkers have similar interests to mine in terms of growing their own gardens, acquiring a small number of livestock, and generally living a semi-independent lifestyle. It’s been nice to find like-minded people at the office. Several of them are also D&D geeks like me, which is delightful and hilarious when we all get going talking about nerdy things.

3-State of the news

You will be relieved to know that nothing of substance has happened in the past couple of hours, so I will leave this section to be update after I’ve had a chance to sleep and then do other things.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 1th. 2026

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 05:56:08 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

A shorter post tonight, I think. Yesterday’s got away from me, but today has mostly consisted of sleeping after my night shift. I was very, very tired after my OT because I hadn’t had the opportunity to take a nap right before work, so I got home, fed and watered the quail, and then (metaphorically) swan-dived into my bed for some mostly restful sleep.

Of course, I had to wake up early to meet with Mary from Ministry & Counsel to discuss the presentation we want to do reporting on the “Conflict in Meetings” workshop we attended last year, so I am not as well rested as I’d like. We had a really nice conversation, though, and have a game plan for the next week for how we’re going to manage the workload between us. Mary is a lovely woman, and I am hoping she and I will be able to get to know each other better in the coming months.

After that I improvised some dinner in the form of leftover goose, rice, and chicken broth for a not-quite soup. It was not as good as if I’d properly cooked it, but it was quick, easy, and tasted fine. If I have more time tomorrow, I may cook it properly in a pot, maybe with some aromatics, and see if that improves it at all.

One of my new coworkers is from Ukraine and he brought me homemade borscht for my late-night meal. I am very excited about this because I loooove borscht and rarely make it myself because KK doesn’t like it. My coworker makes his with pork, whereas my recipe is vegetarian, so I am very curious to see what it’ll taste like. As a thank you I brought him a carton of 18 quail eggs, because he’d mentioned before that he was interested in acquiring some from me. The girls aren’t laying super consistently because it’s winter, but I have more than enough quail eggs for now, so I’m happy to hand them out to folks who appreciate them.

My new treadmill also arrived while I was asleep! I haven’t had the chance to unpack it yet, so I will likely do that when I get home tomorrow and maybe give it a try in the evening after I’ve slept. I learned the hard way many, many years ago that trying to train or do exercise right after my night shifts is a recipe for disaster—I need to sleep before trying anything like that or I hurt myself. The last time, I was working with a trainer, and he was having me do the bench press. He put a weight on that normally I could manage with no trouble, and the next thing I knew, one of my arms buckled and I nearly brained myself with the bench press because the damned thing fell sort of backward. Anyway, the trainer was spotting me, so he grabbed the bar and all was well, but it was a definite learning moment. In short, I will sleep and THEN I will try the new treadmill. Yay!

2-State of the smallholding

I got seven eggs from the quail (in two days, I didn’t check for eggs yesterday, but still!) and Pixie stole one right off the table and ate it because she is a hooligan who can’t be trusted. *sigh* So far, the quail seem to be still doing okay, even though I am now super paranoid ever since the last female died because I just don’t know why it happened. With all the others I could make an educated guess (they got cold and wet, they overheated, they got snagged by a dog, etc.), but this death remains a mystery, so I don’t know what mitigating measures I should be taking. It’s all very frustrating. But yay, eggs!

I need to do some shoveling tomorrow if the weather holds up. I noticed things were warming up again today a little bit, which is perfect for shoveling because it means the snow will be wetter and I won’t have to fight with a layer of ice on the bottom. #CanadianProblems, amirite?

3-State of the news

It kind of feels like more of the same, which is both good and bad. Good, because it means there hasn’t been a new fresh hell to add to the previous fresh hells, but bad because the previous fresh hells are still going strong.

Trump has apparently declared the USMCA to be “irrelevant,” possibly forgetting that he took all the credit for negotiating it the last time he was in power. He’s basically throwing a temper tantrum because Carney is negotiating for trade with China, as far as I can tell

Iran is cracking down on protesters with a swiftness and ferocity that is breathtaking and terrifying. It has classified protesters and dissidents as “foreign agents” that need to be “dealt with.” Drones, CCTV surveillance, signal jammers, and a metric fuckton of propaganda have been their anti-protest tools of choice, according to CNN. They’re using the drones to spy on and record people in their homes, which is especially chilling, and managed a complete internet blackout almost instantaneously with military-grade signal blockers. State television also aired a report from a morgue showing rows of body bags, presumably as an attempt to deter more people from going into the streets to protest. And Trump, of course, is fanning the flames by posting inflammatory things on Truth Social, with no regards for the consequences of his actions.

The Narwhal is suing the RCMP in BC, alleging that they violated the rights of Amber Bracken, a photojournalist, when they arrested her in November 2021 while she was covering the RCMP trying to evict protesters from a camp on Wet’suwet’en territory. Alert readers may not even remember these protests because they were overshadowed by the [censored] Freedom Convoy’s antics in January of 2022, but for a couple of months this was a really big deal. The RCMP had tried to impose an “exclusion zone” that tried to bar people from the camp (including journalists, importantly) so that Coastal GasLink could build their pipeline without being bothered by pesky water protectors and other indigenous people. They arrested Bracken and seized all her equipment (camera, computer, etc.) and held her for three days before releasing her without laying any charges. This is going to be a precedent-setting case about people’s right to protest and the press’ right to cover the protests, so I will be watching the outcome with some interest.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 12th, 2026

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 06:58:02 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

I got called in for overtime tonight, as I mentioned in my previous post. The OT money is nice (albeit not as much as it could be since it’s “only” an extra four hours this week), so I will take what I can, when I can, especially since I might be unemployed come April. Every little bit of extra money helps, after all. (I’m totally not stressed about being unemployed. Nope. Totally fine, nothing to see here, move along.)

The supervisor on duty made a bit of an oopsie with the OT today, which is hilarious but also a little annoying. I am the “early” shift tonight, which means my shift partner arrives at midnight and I come in an hour before. I was asked to come in at 8:00pm to cover a few hours, but they forgot or didn’t notice that the person who was working evenings was ALSO the early shift, and therefore scheduled to leave at 11:00pm, leaving me alone for an hour with only a trainee as backup. OOPS. We are risk-managing the situation, because it would have meant approving another hour of OT otherwise, because it’s impractical to ask someone to come in to cover that one hour, since it would take them longer than an hour to even get to work. Yay risk management! /o\

Luckily tonight hasn’t been too busy, and weirdly enough this same situation happened to me at the RCMP AND we happened to have a proper crisis happen when I was alone with a trainee. I handled it like a fucking champ at the time, and I actually had a lot of fun (it was the kind of “crisis” where no one got hurt and no one’s life was immediately at risk, which is the best kind of crisis to have!). Whenever I go to job interviews, it’s my go-to answer for the almost universal question of “Tell us about a time when you had to manage a stressful situation at work!” and it never fails to impress people. :)

Other than that, there’s not a ton to report. I did find a suspicious rusty looking stain on my shower floor today, which makes me think either Octavia or Juno might have a urinary tract infection. I really hope not, but cats hide illnesses super well, and Juno hasn’t been gaining much weight back since her dental surgery at the end of last May, unlike Octavia who has filled out again nicely. So I bought some hydrophobic sand/cat litter and a couple of urine sample collection kits and my cunning plan is to sequester each cat separately to see whether I find bloody urine (KK tells me she’s found diarrhea in the litter boxes, but it’s impossible to tell who from) or anything else, and then once I have identified the victim I will call our local vet to schedule an appointment and bring a urine and/or stool sample with me. Ah, the glamorous life of a pet owner.

I keep swearing to myself that I will stop burning the candle at both ends during my night shift weeks, and then life keeps throwing responsibilities at me. It’s very annoying. So in spite of my best efforts, I will be sacrificing my sleep for several days this week. Tomorrow afternoon I have meeting with another member of M&C to discuss a workshop we both went to on resolving conflicts in Meetings, and we’ll be preparing a report to present first to M&C and then to Ottawa Monthly Meeting if there is interest there. Then on Wednesday at 10:00am we have a Worship Sharing for Health concerns, which is a fancy Quaker name for a support group for people dealing with both acute and chronic illnesses, as well as people who are caretakers for ill and disabled people. But since I’ll be getting home around 8:00am it means I’ll get maybe an hour of sleep before I have to attend, and then go back to sleep afterward, which makes for a pretty broken “night.”

Then on Thursday at 11:00am I have my three-month follow-up after my bariatric surgery (thank goodness it’s a virtual appointment, at least!). It’s the whole reason I went to get blood tests done on Saturday. I already got my results back, and my hemoglobin, MCH and RDW are all out of whack (albeit only marginally so), meaning I am probably back to being slightly anemic. *sigh* I’ve always struggled with my iron levels, and I knew this was a risk with the surgery. Boo. I will chat with the nurse practitioner on Thursday about what to do about this. I also have slightly elevated ALT (2 U/L higher than normal), which the internet tells me is potentially a sign of liver cell damage like fatty liver disease. Unfortunately, the internet’s solutions are to drink less alcohol (I already don’t drink anymore and haven’t in a year, and before that I could count on my fingers the number of drinks I had in a year), to eat more fruit and vegetables (yes, already doing that) stop taking OTC pain meds like acetaminophen (I haven’t had any in, like, two months), drink coffee (I’m not really supposed to drink much coffee now due to the risk of ulcers), and consume more folic acid. I will check with the nurse practitioner about that too, I guess. Stupid body, I am TRYING to take better care of it, and this is how it repays me! :P

Speaking of trying to take better care of my body, I got in another workout today using FitBod. The app is hilariously optimistic about how much weight it thinks I should be able to manage with my noodle arms. 15 to 18lbs for each exercise, whereas I can barely manage 10 right now. Luckily it allows me to modify the weights in the exercise, so I can track my progress a little better. I think I will be happy if I can progress to the prescribed weights by the end of the month. My hope is that by the end of the year I will be using the maximum amount of weight allowed by the locking dumbbells I bought a couple of weeks ago (which is 50lbs, for those of you following along at home). I think that’s a pretty reasonable goal over 12 months. I will be hitting the treadmill at work tonight as well, maybe in a couple of hours when the 2:00/3:00am blahs kick in, especially after I didn’t get a chance to nap before work today because of the OT.

I began experimenting with different forms of wraps today. I love wraps so much, they are often a go-to for me for breakfast, but my new stomach does NOT like flour-based tortillas. They make the new stomach super duper unhappy, to the point where I often have to lie down afterward for at least an hour and wait for things to stop hurting. It’s not ideal, but I keep hoping against hope that today might be the day I tolerate them again! Alas. Anyway, I consulted Reddit and got a bunch of neat suggestions. One person suggested I try egg wraps, and since I wasn’t planning on a grocery run today I decided to make my own at home, since it’s pretty straightforward: two eggs, 1 tsp flour, 1 tsp water, salt and pepper to taste, cook like a super thin omelette. Easy and filled with protein! Unfortunately this, too, was rather too heavy for my stomach to tolerate, so I am going to try different kinds of lettuce to see if they cooperate any better, and then after that move onto different recipes (there’s apparently a lentil wrap made with red lentils and chickpea flour that has potential) and maybe rice paper or nori. Experimentation, ho! I am also wide open to suggestions from my delightful friends here, too! Your suggestions for tuna salad were great!

2-State of the smallholding

I am having to fight off my tendency to build castles in Spain. My ambitions, as usual, far exceed my time, energy, and financial resources. Like, right now I am barely keeping up with my daily responsibilities, but someone on Facebook put up a halter-trained pregnant Jersey Cow and I found myself briefly tempted to contact the seller, even though I have no money to buy a cow, no vehicle with which to transport it, no barn, no equipment, and no fucking clue how to handle a 1-ton animal that can kill me with one well-placed kick. Good fucking Lord, self.

I am considering moving my tools to the garage from the workshop until I can figure out why the workshop doesn’t have electricity anymore. The garage isn’t heated, so I might have to invest in some thermal underwear and fingerless gloves so I don’t freeze to death, but it might at least give me the opportunity to get some woodworking practice in and maybe get a small project going before I start tackling the really large stuff later this summer. My main concern is the quail, because I think the sawdust is not good for their sensitive little quail lungs. I did spot a portable dust extractor at Lee Valley Tools (a very dangerous place to shop unsupervised!) for $475. Not the cheapest ever, but certainly in the realm of affordable (as long as I don’t lose my job) by my current standards. Having a portable one would allow me to place myself in the furthest possible corner away from the quail to try to limit their exposure as much as possible, and then when I get electricity back to the workshop I could simply move it back there.

My hope is to build a bunch of sturdy, weatherproof enclosures in the early spring and summer for more poultry and meat rabbits. If I start working on it all in March, that gives me a fair bit of time for trial and error during the cutting/preliminary assembly process and eventually for the full building/assembly process outside where I want the structures to be “permanently” installed. I use the term “permanently” very loosely here, as I am quite sure I will have different opinions over the years about where things should go.

I haven’t yet fully decided where the enclosures should go. Ideally, they wouldn’t be too far from the house, because it’s kind of terrible to have to trek all the way across your property in the dead of winter to do animal husbandry of any kind. The quail are right across the way in the garage and even that is kind of miserable, and this winter hasn’t even been that harsh! I don’t want future!Phnee to curse me for forcing her to schlep through the snow and ice at -35°C during a serious cold snap in the coming years. :P It would also be helpful if the enclosures were partially sheltered from the wind, so it might make sense to put them up near the house, but I also wonder if that might not have unintended consequences for the walls/structure of the house (bird droppings and rabbit urine and general moisture come to mind). It could be a problem, or it could be nothing, but I simply don’t know. I will have to talk to more experienced owners and get some educated opinions. I could also put the enclosures just on the other side of the garage, but since I will have to tear down said garage in a few years, I am loath to do it. Mind you, I could also just do that and have it be a problem for future!Phnee, as long as I accept that she will likely curse my name when the time comes. It’s a quandary, for sure.

Because I understand my propensity for building castles in Spain that are well above my actual capacity, what I am trying to do with this planning is to eliminate as many of the barriers I know can and will crop up that would prevent me from tending my animals properly: inconvenient clean-up is a big problem, as is access to water and electricity. I will have to make sure that all the enclosures are close enough to an electrical source so that I can heat the water dispensers in the winter, and also not have to schlep dozens of gallons of water super far so that no one dies of dehydration. The ease of clean-up will be largely dependent on the design of the enclosures, so I will have to do more research on the best designs that are also relatively beginner-friendly, or I may have to ask some of my more experienced friends for help with some of the cutting and building.

None of that is going to happen this week, of course. This may be a project for next week, which is my first week off after my night shifts, or it might have to be pushed to the last week of January, depending on time and energy levels and just how much “disposable” money I have after most of my paycheque goes to everyday expenses. Life has become very expensive indeed. *sigh*

3-State of the news

Well, Trump is still threatening to use military force to seize Greenland “whether they like it or not.” For fuck’s sake. Denmark’s Prime Minister is not having it, unsurprisingly, and both Germany and Sweden have spoken up in defense of Denmark, so things could get very interesting, diplomatically speaking. The NATO Supreme Allied Commander has also stated that alliance members are “discussing Greenland’s status.” Not ominous at all, nope.

I haven’t talked much about Iran, mostly because I am embarrassingly not fully up to date with what’s going on there. Right now almost 650 people have been killed in protests there since December 28th. As far as I understand it, the protests began in response to rampant inflation but quickly transformed into general protests against the country’s regime and spread across the country. The US has, of course, threatened to intervene if Iran uses force against the protestors, which has as far as I can tell only fanned the flames, although it appears Iran is making somewhat conciliatory noises in their direction. The Grand Ayatollah Khamenei has basically told Trump to mind his fucking beeswax, and of course Trump does not wish to mind his fucking beeswax, because his fucking beeswax is full of pedophiles and fascists and he would like people to not focus on that, please and thank you.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Carney is off to China to try to diversify our trading portfolio and attract new investors, since the US is becoming an increasingly volatile and unreliable trade partner. I’m a little conflicted about this, mostly because the Chinese government is, well… *gestures expansively* But it’s undeniable that China is one of the great global powers to be reckoned with, and they are pioneering a lot of green(er), environmentally sounder initiatives, among other things. Their foreign policy, especially with regards to Taiwan, is personally abhorrent, but I also understand why our PM would not want to snub them from an international relations perspective. It’s complicated, I guess!

BC is either flooding or under flood warning, depending on the area. The Chilliwack River area in particular has been hit hard by the floods, and the residents are under an evacuation order at this point. I hope everyone makes it out safely.

Speaking of BC, there’s a case going before the Supreme Court now that’s going to be challenging the constitutional validity of a provision that prohibits MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) in publicly funded faith-based institutions. Right now, if an institution is faith-based (i.e. probably Christian) they can refuse to provide MAiD on their property and force terminally ill patients to be transferred to another hospital in order to end their lives. Now, I have very mixed feelings about MAiD. I think that, in principle, it is an excellent idea: everyone should have the right to choose their manner of death if it’s feasible (sudden and accidental deaths being a common enough phenomenon). However, there has been a lot of evidence over the years that the system is being used/abused in order to target lower income and disabled people, especially those with long-term but not actually terminal diagnoses, and to pressure them into accepting MAiD in order to relieve the system of the “burden” of their care, and that is abhorrent. If it’s an issue that could be solved by better access to health care services, then MAiD shouldn’t even be on the table. Also, medical practitioners should not, in theory, ever suggest it to the patient, the patient needs to bring it up themselves. Since the system exists, however, I do agree that religious healthcare institutions, if they are publicly funded, have a duty of care to all members of the public. It’s for the same reason I firmly believe they should not be allowed to deny birth control or abortion care: health care should be evidence-based, not faith-based. Faith is wonderful (I am a practicing Quaker, after all), but it should be there to support people on their journeys and not needlessly add to their suffering. I am interested to see how this court case goes!

There was apparently a pretty massive anti-immigration rally in Toronto this weekend as well as a counter-protest, all of which ended up with eight arrests and 29 charges being laid. It looks like it started with a “Stop Mass Immigration Rally,” which is laughable because the federal government has already slashed immigration quotas and the country is suffering because no Canadian citizen wants to do the low-paying jobs typically taken on by foreign worker programs and other marginalized folks who have come to this country. Like, is the mass immigration in the room with us, buddy? Are you feeling okay? Do you need some water? Anyway, things got out of hand, police are blaming “both sides,” and everyone is scheduled to appear in court at the end of February.

I do NOT like the direction in which Canada is going. We’ve had a growing problem with the far right, exemplified by the so-called “Freedom Convoy” of 2022, and it appears nothing is being done about it. I must confess I’m at something of a loss as well about what I can do about it personally, but there must be something I am missing. Maybe I will check in with some activist friends and see if they have concrete suggestions for me. Otherwise I can easily see us going the way of the USA if the right “charismatic” leader comes along.

Oh, and in “no one is surprised” news, Ontarians have continued to drink way too much since the inception of the pandemic. Weekly binge drinking is up 3.6% since 2019, hazardous or harmful drinking (i.e. early signs of alcohol dependence) is up 3.3%, and symptoms of alcohol dependence increased by 4.7%. There’s also been a spike in the abuse of illicit AND prescription drugs, and a spoke in people reporting mental distress and poor mental health. Suicidal ideation increased from 3.9% to 6.4%, too. Gosh, I wonder why ALL THAT could be? The article, of course, blames it on social isolation from Covid, which is such contrived bullshit, I cannot even. We have not socially isolated in five years. People are getting multiple Covid infections a year, which is wreaking havoc on minds and bodies. Inflation is out of control, people are getting priced out of being able to live under a roof, let alone comfortably, and all around us people and governments are sliding into fascism. PEOPLE ARE STRESSED OUT BECAUSE OF COLLAPSE, BOB.

*rips out hair*

ANYWAY. In more neutral news, I wasn’t able to go to my town council meeting today because of the overtime at work. I have marked my calendar for the next meeting, and I will make a point of reading the minutes when I get a chance.

I wonder if I can find some good news on which to end this post. Otherwise, it does feel horribly depressing. Ooh! Apparently, there’s a generic version of a very expensive Cystic Fibrosis drug becoming available! From what I can see the name brand costs a horrifying $300,00 to $370,000 a year, which the pharmaceutical company claims is based on their trying to recoup the costs they incurred while producing it. However, a Bangladeshi pharmaceutical company will be offering a generic brand for about $6,750 a year for adults and $2,000 for children, which will make it a lot more accessible (although it still won’t be free, which would be the ideal scenario). This is very exciting news and I am very pleased that I found it so I can end this post on a high note.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 11th, 2026

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 02:53:27 GMT

I’m backdating this post, and we’re all going to pretend that’s not what’s happening, mmkay? ;)

1-State of the Phnee

It’s been a pretty quiet weekend. Last week took a bit more out of me than I thought, so I did take it a bit easier today than I had initially planned, but I did get stuff done!

Starting with yesterday (Saturday), I got up at ridiculous o’clock to go get blood tests done. KK also needed blood tests, so we planned to go together, except she forgot to set an alarm, so we ended up leaving forty minutes later than I wanted to. I should know better than to rely on her for early morning departures—the only time she ever gets up on time is when she has to go to work or to a medical appointment for herself. We get our bloodwork done at a local lab which KK said only takes walk-ins on weekends (but that I learned after the fact does in fact take appointments, so I will know for next time), so I guess there wasn’t enough urgency in it for her to get up on time.

Because we got there 40 minutes later than I wanted (i.e. right when they opened), we had a very long wait. KK has been reading a supernatural romance/comedy/smut novel about a half-demon(?) girl named Clarissa and made a valiant attempt to explain the plot to me as we drove there, as we waited, and all the way back home. For a lighthearted romance it was very convoluted. :P

We took advantage of the road trip to stop first by Canadian Tire so I could pick up more extension cords (you can never have too many!), stopped by the bank so I could have cash on me for my later trip to the local market, and we also stopped by the U-Haul self-storage facility where KK moved all her stuff late last year which she had in storage in the city ever since she moved in with me. She wanted me to see the space, since there’s room left to store some of my furniture as well, which will be useful. I’m not convinced I want to use the space, but I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense since it’s available. I’m just leery of taking on yet another of her expenses, since I’m pretty sure it means she’s going to start reimbursing herself from the joint account diligently, and there’s already not enough money in there to cover our expenses as it is if I don’t supplement it with my own money. *sigh*

I went back to the Martintown Market for produce, and I am pleased with the quality of the produce on offer there. I don’t think it’s necessarily local produce, but they source it very cheaply, so I can buy almost all that we need any given week for $15. I also bought a pork shoulder for $20, which I cooked tonight in the Instant Pot. The meat itself was spectacular, but I made the mistake of trusting the recipe I found online despite my misgivings about their choice of spices, so the flavour was not what I was hoping for. Next time I will eschew trusting the process and trust my gut instead. Luckily the meat was so delicious and tender that it more than made up for the lacklustre and slightly odd flavour.

I stayed up way too late with my D&D friends chatting about the new campaign and joking about the fact that we were a pack of neurodivergent nerds just parallel playing as we created our characters for a while. I think we sat in near silence for almost an hour at one point while we were all looking up statistics and various bits of gear. It was a lot of fun, and I am jazzed about the upcoming campaign. I need to firm up my character’s backstory and then write it all down for the DM to exploit as he sees fit, and I have a little under two weeks to do that. I may bore you all at a later date with my character concept and stuff, but not right now, as it’s not all clear in my head yet. But yay D&D!

A hefty chunk of Sunday got taken up by Quaker Meeting for Worship, followed by Meeting for Worship for Business, which lasted until 2:30pm! Ugh. I understand that Quaker processes are important, but sometimes they feel unnecessarily ponderous and cumbersome. Oh well, it’s a good way for me to keep a finger on the pulse of the Meeting, even if I don’t participate super actively.

There’s a bit of a controversy happening right now, because a member of Peace and Social Concerns wants us to sign the Apartheid-Free Community Pledge written by the Apartheid-Free Communities Coalition (which is a network of communities—mostly spiritual—that joined together loosely in 2022 to work to end what the consider the crime of apartheid in Palestine, which I agree with) along with the American Friends Service Committee. However, there is a small group of Friends who don’t want to sign the pledge, not because they don’t think that Israel is committing apartheid, but because the pledge contains the phrase “We declare ourselves an apartheid-free community,” and those Friends have rightly pointed out that we as a Monthly Meeting, as a Yearly Meeting (Canada-wide) and as a country have a LOT of work to do to dismantle our own system racism, oppression, and injustice. When we still have Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) massively overrepresented among victims, Indigenous people massively overrepresented in both the judicial and “child protective services” spheres, and dozens of Indigenous communities that still don’t have access to clean drinking water, I agree that it is a stretch to call ourselves “Apartheid-free.” Other Friends have said that the pledge should be aspirational (I paraphrase), but it does not sit right with me, the way it doesn’t sit right with the first group of Friends.

There is a “threshing session” about it this coming Saturday, but as I’m working night shifts, I don’t know that I will be able to attend. I already have to sacrifice most of my sleep on Sunday for the Worship Sharing for the State of Society Report, and working two back-to-back 12-hour shifts on less than 4 hours’ sleep each time sounds like an absolute nightmare, especially since I will be working nights all week this week with extra overtime to boot because we have people off sick and others doing training course so that there’s very little wriggle room left on the schedule. Extra money is nice, even if it’s just a handful of extra hours here and there for me. I am near the bottom of the OT list, so I know when they contact me it’s because they are kind of desperate, too.

2-State of the smallholding

I got stuff done! There was a thaw on Friday that stretched into Saturday, so I took advantage of it to clear all the snow and ice that had accumulated on the deck and got it perfectly clean and smooth and safe to walk on. Of course, it promptly started snowing again last night (Saturday) mere hours after I cleared it, and it continued snowing for the rest of the weekend. *sigh*

As I said before, a hefty chunk of Sunday got taken up by various Quaker things, but once that was done I made good on my promise to myself to start getting the house better organized. I didn’t make a ton of headway, but I DID unpack the last two boxes of books in my bedroom and tidied up everything except my desk (that might be a project for this week, since I think it won’t take more than an hour or so to do). So now I have a bit more floor space to work with, and the whole room is looking a little bit better than it was before. I got rid of some trash that had wedged itself in nooks and crannies (mostly rogue packing paper), swept the floor, and consolidated the laundry into baskets to be dealt with by future!Phnee.

The rest of my free time that day was taken up by making dinner and then having my weekly Zoom call with the parental units, who were in very good form, I am pleased to report. We have tentatively made plans for me to go visit them during the last week of January.

3-State of the news

I must regretfully admit that I spent the weekend under a rock and did not check any news headlines, let alone try a deeper dive into my usual outlets and sources. If you happen to know of anything important that I missed, please let me know!

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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I forgot about D&D

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 04:37:23 GMT

My online D&D group is getting back into the swing of things! We're going to be playing in Eberron, which is a brand new setting for me. :) Unfortunately I forgot that was today, so there will be no proper post today. It's been a pretty good day all around, though. I will update in more detail tomorrow.

Good night, friends!

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January 9th, 2026

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 02:39:59 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

Day 2 after “leg day” has been bruuuuuutal. I can’t tell if this is just normal muscle soreness or if I maybe overdid it a tad yesterday. It didn’t feel like I overdid it, but right now I have to hold onto walls and tables if I want to get in and out of chairs because my thigh muscles have gone on strike. I pulled out the treadmill at work and managed about a mile before I had to throw in the towel because I felt a little woozy. I sat down with a fan blowing on me for a few minutes and feel mostly recovered now, so I guess today is going to be a 1-mile day and no more. Still, today is apparently “National Quitters’ Day,” when most people give up on their New Year’s resolutions (citation needed!), so if that’s true I have made it farther than most!

I miss having a bathtub. In the past I would have drawn myself a nice warm bath and had a very nice soak, but unfortunately my bathroom only has a shower stall. KK got the master bedroom with the ensuite bathroom with a jacuzzi tub when we moved in because it made more sense for her to have the extra space for her metric fuckton of stuff, but I will confess to being a bit envious of the tub (which she does not use, more’s the pity) on days when I would like nothing more than to soak with a good book. I do plan on eventually adding a bathtub of some kind to my bathroom, one of those narrow upright tubs like you get in France which are designed with more depth than width. I have always loved that kind of bathtub ever since my parents took me to Paris for the first time when I was 12. Shallow and long North American tubs are vastly inferior, in my opinion.

KK apparently also has to get bloodwork done tomorrow, so we will be going together at Fuck My Life O’Clock because the lab only takes walk-ins on Saturday. Normally I don’t mind getting up at 7:00am, but that’s on days when I won’t be getting to bed at 3:00am because I was working an evening shift. I’m going to try to get to sleep a little earlier tonight, but best-case scenario, that will be around 2:00 am, because I finish work at midnight and it takes at least an hour to get home, plus right now there’s a bunch of freezing rain out there, so it’s likely the drive will take longer. Ah, well. It will be worth it to get the bloodwork over and done with. I will just have to resist the urge to take a nap the minute I get home.

Today’s Ministry & Counsel meeting was super productive, and I am very pleased with how it went. Our “guest” brought the “concern” I was pretty sure she was going to bring, and I am irrationally annoyed at her about it. To be clear, I don’t think it’s irrational to be annoyed, but the level to which I am annoyed is probably irrational. She is very anti-tech (I think I mentioned this), and she has invented an elaborate fantasy in her mind in which M&C makes unilateral and draconian decisions, possibly specifically to ruin her life and the lives of others who agree with her, I’m not sure. She’s convinced that we moved from two tech-free Meetings a month to one tech-free Meeting with no consultation at all, whereas it was in fact the plan the whole time to reintegrate the online attenders with the in-person attenders as much as possible. Having one tech-free Meeting a month was the *compromise* so that people like her could have some time without the thing they loathe so much.

Anyway, her proposal is to go back to at least two non-tech Meetings a month (I’m not mad at that part, actually). More importantly, while she acknowledges that some people can’t come in person due to health issues, mobility issues, and distance issues, she wants anyone who is online to not participate in any way and to remember that they are “auxiliary” to the Meeting. Oh, sure, the Greeter at the Meeting House should make sure to greet the online attenders, but that’s it. They get to be second-class citizens who should only speak when spoken to, I guess.

*makes throttling motions with both hands*

Like I said, I am irrationally angry about this, and I am waiting to calm the fuck down before I do anything else about it. We’ve set a date for a consultation in the form of a Claremont Dialogue to see if there are as many people as she claims who agree with her (It very much has the energy of “People are agreeing with me in private messages!”), and to discern the best way forward after that. I need to be a mature adult about this because I’m the Clerk of M&C now, so I can’t just run around picking fights with people even if I think they’re being obnoxiously ableist.

2-State of the smallholding

Much like yesterday, I don’t have much going on right now. I’ve been checking in on the quail, and they seem to be doing pretty well as far as I can tell. Of course, I thought that before and one of them just spontaneously died, so I don’t know how reliable my judgment is on that front.

Given how little sleep I’m likely to be getting tomorrow, I’m going to have to be extra firm with myself in order to get the cleaning and such done that I have planned. The temptation to just take a nap and/or doomscroll on my phone will be very, very high. I’m also mildly concerned that my body will revolt, as it sometimes does when I haven’t provided it with enough sleep, and give me a crippling headache or something else that will sabotage my efforts to get shit done. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen!

I will report back in the evening on my cleaning and tidying progress. I know no one is actually interested in that, but I am using it as a form of accountability rather than anything else.

3-State of the news

The fallout from Renée Good’s death continues. A bunch of (hopefully) well-meaning white people have been using the phrase “Say her name!” and got really shirty when people gently asked them not to use a phrase that was specifically started by a movement that was about the erasure of black women who died violent deaths, usually at the hands of the judicial system.

*sigh*

How hard is it to just not do something when a marginalized or oppressed group asks you not to? But yeah, my fellow white women got all up in their feelings about it, which is depressing.

More video footage was released today that supposedly “proves” that she was trying to run over the ICE agent who shot her, except the video shows her smiling at him, saying “I’m not mad at you!” and very clearly turning her car *away* from him. I can’t decide whether the people in charge in the US have never read Nineteen Eight-Four or if they have read it and think the rest of us haven’t.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Alberta doctors have called on the government to declare a state of emergency due to overcrowding in emergency rooms. I’m guessing that Danielle Smith will be doing no such thing. Hey, remember when she was elected in October of 2022 and said she’d be fixing the healthcare system within 90 days? Yeah, fun times.

Otherwise, between work and the 2.5 hour M&C meeting today, I haven’t had much of a chance to get through the news, so I shall leave it there for now.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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January 8th 2026

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 04:17:06 GMT

1-State of the Phnee

My new-to-me app gave me a “leg day” workout, and now my legs hurt. Who could have predicted this? I discovered that one of the muscles I engaged today is one of the same muscles I use when pressing the brakes and gas pedals on my car. Owie. Bodies are so, so silly.

I am working on integrating more protein into my diet, which is especially important after bariatric surgery (mostly so my muscles don’t atrophy and so my hair won’t all fall out), and I’ve been experimenting with tuna, because I love canned tuna. I know there are concerns with mercury, but I’m not eating it in quantities that are of concern since I’m neither pregnant, breastfeeding, nor a child. I’m perfectly happy to make a little homemade tuna salad, and my go-to recipe just involves diced celery, a little mayonnaise, and dill. Still, I figured there must be some pre-made tuna kits out there, so why not give some of those a try for days when I’m in a bit of a hurry? So yesterday I tried out the Ocean’s SnacKit, and was very pleasantly surprised (it comes with six rice crackers and a little wooden spoon!). Today I tried a Clover Leaf tuna salad with quinoa and olive oil, but it wasn’t nearly as good. I think the olive oil made it feel greasy in my mouth, and it was edible but not texturally pleasing. I have a couple of different Clover Leaf tuna salads to try, but I may end up sticking with the SnacKits for now. I should look up other tuna salad recipes to try out on days when I have time to make them at home. If anyone reading has a favourite tuna salad recipe, please tell me so I can give it a go!

Speaking of surgery, I need to go get blood tests done soon, because I have a follow-up appointment next week with the nurse practitioner. I will probably go on Saturday, because I have a Ministry & Counsel meeting at 9:00 tomorrow morning and I am not confident that the blood tests will be done in time for me to get to work if I go afterward. Cornwall is about a 35-minute drive from my house, which would put me there at 11am (give or take), and I have to leave for work from my house at 2pm in order to give myself a good buffer to be on time, taking weather and traffic into account. So while I don’t think it would take three hours to get a blood test done, I also can’t guarantee that tomorrow won’t be somehow really busy, so I’d rather go Saturday when I can be confident that I won’t be rushed.

In “let’s shorten Phnee’s lifespan” news, I got an email yesterday from the bank that provided my mortgage saying my insurance company notified them that my home insurance had been cancelled. Now, we DID have a payment not go through in November because KK didn’t put any money toward expenses in the joint account for reasons that I still don’t fully understand and which she’s never explained save to apologize rather halfheartedly but also didn’t tell me about until several payments bounced. I had to pay a lot of NSF fees in November, let me tell you. So, the insurance company threatened me with cancellation, but I was able to rectify that situation and I thought all was well. Turns out no, they sent the SAME letter to my mortgage people, but they only sent confirmation that it wasn’t cancelled to me. I called them today, and the nice girl I spoke to sounded somewhat embarrassed and apologetic and said it’s “just how they work.” So, yeah, that shaved about 10 years off my life, I’m pretty sure. At least I got it sorted out pretty quickly.

2-State of the smallholding

I don’t have much to report on the home front today. I’ve been working evenings all week and have done very little around the home. The quail are doing okay in spite of that one death earlier this week. At this rate, though, I may be on the lookout for more auctions in April to add a few more birds to my flock to diversify the bloodlines. I really hope the rest of them live through the winter and I’m doing the very best I can to keep them alive, but the learning curve has been rough on the poor birdies.

Apart from that, my plans for the weekend remain the same. Get some bloodwork done (blech), try to figure out the snowblower and why it’s not working, try to get the outdoor GFCI outlet reset (I still don’t know what KK did to trip it, nor why it’s refusing to reset, but I’m going to try flipping all the breakers and seeing if that fixes it, otherwise I’ll have to call the electrician about it), and then spend the rest of the time doing some tidying and organizing. Somewhere in there I will also very determinedly continue to get some exercise in, whether it be taking a walk or doing some strength/balance training.

3-State of the news

There’s been a fair bit of fallout after yesterday’s shooting in Minneapolis. As I said before, this was a Nice White Lady that was shot, so all the news outlets are still talking about it. ICE agents also shot two (not fatally, thank goodness) people in Portland, Oregon, and killed a 41-year-old black man a week ago. Minnesota governor Tim Walz, whom most of us remember better as Kamala Harris’ running mate for VP in last year’s presidential election, has apparently authorized the National Guard to start staging in the wake of the shooting. Several other Minnesotan politicians have spoken out strongly against ICE, and there’s a lot of online chatter about whether Minnesota and/or other states will actively resist the federal government. If that happens, we may well be looking at a civil war, or at the very least localized violence. It’s easy to forget that the United States is enormous, so fighting in Minnesota wouldn’t necessarily have a direct physical impact on other places in the country. There would be ripple effects, of course, but it’s the same as when BC and Alberta get wildfires while Québec starts to flood in Canada. Same country, very different regional impacts.

The Trump administration is also continuing its slash-and-burn approach to international diplomacy. The US is leaving 66 global organizations and has said a firm “fuck you” to anything to do with addressing the reality of climate change. *headdesk* The withdrawal from international climate negotiations is probably going to face legal challenges, but the entire administration’s motto appears to be “I DO WHAT I WANT!” so I guess we’ll see if the courts can make it stick. It’ll take years of proceedings to untangle it all anyway, by which point we may all have cooked to death regardless.

In news that will surprise absolutely no one who was paying attention, the Calgary water main break continues to be a shitshow. Calgarians have been urged to conserve water, and they have responded with “SHAN’T!” by the looks of it. Apparently, they’ve known about the weaknesses in the system since at least 2017, but every city council kicked the can down the road until they couldn’t anymore. There’s been a similar situation happening in Montreal, but it hasn’t been as dire there in terms of impacts to the population. From what I’ve heard from my parents there have been some water main breaks, but nothing on the scale of what’s happening in Calgary.

Doug Ford wants to build what sounds to me like another white elephant (correct me if I’m wrong, anyone who’s still reading this) in the form of an underwater electricity line for Toronto through Lake Ontario. Like, I get that Toronto is demanding more and more electricity, but this seems… well. Like I said, white elephant. There’s no better way to do this? It’s not nearly as bad as some of his other projects, but his track record isn’t exactly great.

I really need to find a less depressing way to conclude my posts. XD

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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Why are post titles so hard?

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 01:37:23 GMT

Maybe I will simply start using the day's date rather than coming up with titles each time.

1-State of the Phnee

I spotted an injured fox while out driving earlier today. I’m not an expert in wildlife by any means, but it looked very young, maybe less than a year old. It was crossing the road and limping badly, but it tried to hurry away when I approached. I didn’t think it would let me get near, but I did at least have to try. I hope that it was just a sprain and that it will be able to heal and not die during the hard winter months. It was a real bummer, but it fled across the fields and I don’t think there’s a reliable way for me to go back, locate, and trap it to bring it to a wildlife rehab centre, alas.

In other news, ADHD is a wild ride sometimes. Remember how I got myself some locking dumbbells so I could do weightlifting exercises at home? Yeah. So, it turns out I did not read the product description carefully enough when I bought the product, and the box only comes with ONE dumbbell in it, which makes for some pretty lopsided exercises in many instances (especially when I want to use them to assist with squats or lunges or whatever). Fine, easily fixed, they’re on sale, whatever. I also thought that they went up in 5lb increments, but no, they go up in 10lb increments, which is a LOT for a baby beginner like me. My current thought is that I’m going to try to find some 5lb wrist or ankle weights and “attach” them to the dumbbell whenever I need to go up by 5lbs, but I’m not sure how feasible that is.

I’m keeping all of my new-to-me equipment in my bedroom, which faithful readers will remember is on the small side (9 x 11 feet), to the point where I had to invest in a Murphy bed in order to save on space. Right now my itty-bitty home gym tucks away nicely under the bed, but I can’t get much more “extra” equipment without running out of floor space in which to actually perform the exercises I want to do. I did invest in a 20lb kettle bell as well (I have a 15lb one already) as well as a jump rope and a set of small resistance bands to complement the longer ones I have. The portable treadmill should be arriving in the next week or so as well, and I am very glad it stores upright and seems to be pretty compact.

I do need to take some time, maybe this weekend, to organize my room a bit more so I’ll have more space to move around. KK has loaned me her dresser for my clothes, but I’ve found I’m not really using it and it’s taking up lots of space that I could be using for other purposes. I didn’t use the dresser I had at the old house either, and KK’s is kind of busted so the drawers stick in a way that makes it really hard to use, so it’s an extra reason not to use it. I’m going to try to haul it to her storage unit this weekend and free up that space.

Unrelated to anything, I miss playing video games. Between work and the much longer commute and the responsibilities that go along with a new smallholding, I have managed to play for maybe 15-20 minutes a handful of times since we moved. I’d like to get back to Stardew Valley and Don’t Starve and Borderlands and all the other games I enjoy. I don’t foresee getting into new games anytime soon, but being able to just turn off my brain and get some free dopamine sounds really appealing these days.

2-State of the smallholding

I discovered a quailbreak when I checked on the quail last night. Sometime in the previous 24 hours two of the quail somehow got out of their hutch, probably when I was changing out their food/water/bedding and were sitting next to it huddled together for warmth, looking extremely out of sorts. I chucked them back inside and they seemed much happier to be back with their covey where the food and water and friendship is to be found. Because I suspected they might have been out there for about 24 hours, I was quite worried that the stress, cold, and dehydration might kill them, but I checked them a few times today and they appear to be hanging in there. I’ve had a lot of quail die in the past year, some of which was entirely my fault and some of which I assume is my fault but I can’t figure out what I did wrong, and I don’t know which feels worse, to be honest.

I’m really looking forward to the spring/summer, when I will be building some proper poultry housing for the quail as well as for future other poultry (chickens, ducks, maybe some other game birds because I like game birds). I am still researching different models and layouts in order to find one that I not only like but that seems like it won’t be too difficult to build as a beginner carpenter. Is it carpentry when you build an outbuilding? Or is it woodworking? I think it’s carpentry. Words are hard! I also want to build rabbit hutches and start down the road of breeding meat rabbits. Ideally, I’d like to get to the point where we are raising most of our own protein, moving away from beef and pork. In theory I could start growing Timothy hay (which is one of the main things you feed to rabbits) on part of the property, which could help to reduce feed costs, but I may be getting out over my skis with that one. All in due time, I guess.

I need to figure out how to hack my own brain between now and the springtime so I can get over my problems with task initiation, especially with larger projects that feel intimidating to me for any number of reasons. I have noticed that if a project seems really big or labour-intensive or involves using a tool with which I’m not familiar, it builds up into a Big Thing in my mind and I put off doing it. The problem, of course, is that setting up the things I want on the property is going to require a ton of very large, labour-intensive projects, almost all of which involve using new-to-me tools (everything from power tools to lawn mowers to snowblowers).

This is part of the reason I’ve started working out. I figure if I improve my cardiovascular fitness, my overall strength, endurance, balance and flexibility, then some of the work I want to do will at least feel physically less terrible. That will, I hope, remove one of the self-imposed barriers I have when it comes to getting shit done. I hate feeling hot and sweaty and struggling with heavy things (especially when I can feel my back *trying* to give out on me), and if I can train myself to better deal with the heavy things (I will be hot and sweaty in the summer regardless, but I want it to be because of the heat and not because my physical conditioning is shit). Losing weight will also likely help with that: if I have to haul around less of myself, then it stands to reason it should make things easier.

I’m hoping to leverage my very accommodating friends to help me with the psychological barrier of “OMG I have never used this piece of equipment and I am SKURRED!” In some cases, I will just have to find a ladder and get over myself, of course, but I am trying very hard to acknowledge where I get in my own way and try to accommodate the fact that I am apparently neurodivergent as all fuck and see how to remove barriers in the most effective way possible for now.

Speaking of projects I don’t want to do, I am going to do my best to find the aforementioned ladder to get over myself this weekend and work on continuing to organize the house. I mentioned doing that in my bedroom, and I think that will be my priority, but I also know that I feel better and am able to get more stuff done when I don’t constantly live in cluttered chaos. It doesn’t help that KK is constantly adding to the mess and clutter faster than I can clean and tidy up after the both of us, but I think if I push really hard I can make some progress on that front. The main reason I haven’t is what I mentioned above: the project feels too big and overwhelming (and I’m tired and I don’t wanna!) and is physically super uncomfortable because I’m constantly having to move and bend and twist in ways that range from unpleasant to painful. It’s so much easier to just stay in my room or find a chair and fiddle around with my cell phone, but that’s no way to build a life that feels rich and meaningful, you know? I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage it this weekend, but I am setting my intention to get started on that and maybe start picking up some momentum there. The cleaner it gets (I hope) the more motivated I will be to keep cleaning, and eventually I will have it tidy enough that I can hire someone to come in twice a month and help keep it clean and tidy.

I am also going to try once again to get the snow blower to work. Dylan showed me how to get it started during Un-Christmas, but even he couldn’t get it to keep running after it was started. I will have to consult YouTube to see if I can find some instructions or better yet a tutorial. We’ve had even more snowfall in the past 24 hours, and I would like to clear some pathways around the property so that I can get around more easily (I have compost that really needs to go in the bin, for instance).

3-State of the news

In today’s “Well, this is horrifying” news, an ICE agent was filmed straight-up murdering a woman today in Minneapolis by shooting her rep. This isn’t the first person they’ve murdered, of course, but it’s the first white woman, so it’s making headlines the way it never would for a person of colour. *sigh* I suppose in a way it’s “good” because this might (might?) be a catalyst for change, but I’m not holding my breath, here.

Seasonal flu is an absolute BEAR this season, with hospitals already overwhelmed and tapping into overflow space. It seems especially contagious and deadly, too, a strain of H3N2 which tends to be more virulent, from the very little reading I’ve done. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lot of HPAI hiding among all the Influenza A cases, since NO ONE APPEARS TO BE ACTIVELY TESTING FOR IT, JFC. /o\ Sorry for the all-caps, I am frustrated beyond all get out.

Oh, and the USA is still threatening to invade Greenland. No big deal, I guess. Fuck everything.

Maybe I should stop ending these posts with politics, it’s way too depressing. I’ll have to do a “feel-good” segment, like on the local news where they have the cute pet of the week or something. ;)

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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Updating on the treadmill

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 02:24:38 GMT

1- State of the Phnee

a. Work has been incredibly busy the last couple of days. I’m not entirely sure why, but I assume it’s something to do with everyone returning to work after the holiday, although it can’t be only that. It feels like everything I touch today requires me to send complicated updates and/or make a bunch of phone calls, all of which is very time consuming.

b. Work was so busy yesterday, in fact, that I didn’t have time to go get the available treadmill and do any walking, but I have rectified that today. I am in fact walking as I type this post (shh, I am totally working). The FitBod app for which I have a two-week trial gave me exercises that require heavier dumbbells than the ones I own (it seems to be ignoring the fact that I have resistance bands, so I shall have to play around with it to see If I can fix that), and I decided to get a set of modular ones that were on sale at the local Canadian Tire today. I am hoping to get in a workout when I get home from work tonight, even if it will be Fuck My Life O’Clock when I get there.

Bodies are ridiculous things, aren’t they? I was chatting with friends about this earlier today (okay, I was complaining).

Me: “I would like to improve my fitness.”

Body: “Sure thing! It will be incredibly painful, hot, and sweaty, and on the best days you will actively feel like you’re dying!”

Me: “Wait, what?”

Body: “The pain is good! Except for the pain that’s not.”

Me: “Which pain is good and which pain is bad?”

Body: “TRY IT AND FIND OUT, SUCKER!”

Alternately, it could just be that bodies like to freak out about whatever you’re doing. *frantically producing lactic acid* “I JUST FIXED THOSE MUSCLES YESTERDAY, ASSHOLE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?!?”

But overall I am pretty pleased with the humble beginnings of my strength and endurance training. It turns out that doing exercise really does help with mood and energy levels, curse it, although I haven’t had miraculous results by any means. I have noticed that I feel better after the shifts when I use the treadmill, and feel less tired behind the wheel when driving home, which is a very good thing.

The trick will be maintaining the practice long-term. I am not exactly known for my follow-through on these things. I’m posting in a group chat, so I’m hoping that will keep me accountable.

c. I have changed my mind about getting a new computer. The main problem right now is that my disc memory is low, so I am thinking of getting an external hard drive instead of a whole new computer and put off the computer part until maybe next November for Black Friday sales. I have a lot of files that I need to keep but am not actively using these days, so just putting that onto external storage should hopefully extend the life of the computer by a few months, and it’s considerably less expensive than a new computer, by a few orders of magnitude. Fingers crossed that I can get away with it!

2- State of the smallholding

a. There’s not much to report for this today. We’ve had quite a bit of snow, as I mentioned in a previous entry, so I need to do some shoveling to clear the front deck. KK bought us a little electric snow shovel which was super helpful, but the last time she used it she tripped our newly installed GFCI outlet and we haven’t been able to reset it. I am still actively trying not to be annoyed at how much stuff around the house she breaks and then just… leaves for me to deal with. A few months ago it was the kitchen sink, which she clogged and then tried to unclog with a plastic snake that she then got stuck in there and left for me to find. When I pointed it out she then broke the plastic snake off in the drain, and I had to call a plumber (and pay for it myself because she’s consistently broke). I had the GFCI outlet installed a few months ago and also paid for it entirely, and it’s all extremely irksome because it seems like she’s being awfully casual about my time, energy, and money. I don’t think it’s malicious, but goddamn.

3- State of the news

a. International news reports Maduro in court facing charges, to which he’s pled not guilty. Interestingly, China has opted NOT to respond with a show of military force, but with legal recourse, and honestly, I think it’s a move that may serve them well (even though I’m not a political science expert by a long shot). China has provided economic loans to dozens of countries that are contingent on that country’s government being able to fulfill its contractual obligations during its tenure, and also future governments’ ability to adhere to said contract. The USA swooping in and removing the government and then not stepping aside to allow the new democratically elected leader to take over makes all of that pretty moot for Venezuela, so it makes sense that China would withdraw its funding and send 10,000 lawyers to recoup their losses. I am going to be watching with interest to see how this plays out, because I have no doubt that China will be willing to throw military force behind their legal threats if push comes to shove, but if they don’t have to, why would they?

b. The big news in Ontario is that a court has ruled that Doug Ford needs to turn over his private cell phone records for review. Normally a Premier is entitled to privacy, you see, but Doug Ford decided to abuse that by not using his government-issued cell phone to conduct government business at all. His government is well-known for being corrupt as all get-out, and I guess he thought he could hide behind privacy laws in what seems to me like the most inept way possible. *snort* “I’ll use my personal phone instead of my government-issue one! They’ll never catch me this way!” Oh, Douglas. Anyway, part of me hopes that this blows all the corruption scandals wide open, and another part of me rather cynically thinks that this will slide off him like Teflon, as usual. I continue to be baffled by how rampant the corruption in that government is with seemingly no consequences. It’s like a more sanitized version of what’s been happening in the US: we’re all watching it happen, and yet we can’t figure out how to make it stop.

Okay, that’s all I have for today. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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Happy Birthday to Me!

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 03:50:09 GMT

Holy shitsnacks, it has been a day! First off, I turned 47, which is no mean feat. Somehow, 47 feels a lot closer to 50 than 46 did. I don’t know why, it just does. Brains are weird.

1- State of the Phnee

a. I spent the morning of my birthday trying out a “foot mask” for the first time in my life. I’m not usually a beauty products kind of gal beyond using moisturizer and lip balm, but the soles of my feet got really dry this year and it’s actually not nice from a sensory standpoint when I sleep and the sheets catch on the dry skin. It’s not the worst problem to have, but I figured it was one I might be able to solve without too much difficulty. Apparently, it takes about 4-5 days to really start doing its thing after application, so we shall see.

b. The rest of the morning falls under the heading ISN’T HAVING PETS GREAT. The cats left a present for me in the form of a dead mole in the basement. The reason I discovered this is that I had to bring down emergency laundry after Peggy barfed prodigiously all over her crate and therefore her bedding (she has a cozy blankie to lie on). So, this morning was a glorious symphony of vomit and mole carcasses. Delightful.

c. Since it’s my birthday I brought doughnuts and Timbits to work for everyone. I’m working evenings again this week, so the crowd is a little smaller than the day shift, but whatever, it’s fine. The night shift will get some too, and tomorrow’s day shift might even get the leftovers. It’s usually the day shift who get first pick of that sort of thing, so it’s okay that other shifts get to have the slightly fresher stuff for once.

d. I chatted very briefly with my parents who sent me very nice birthday emails and tried to reply to everyone who sent me nice messages on various messaging platforms. I get overwhelmed by emails and messages a lot more easily lately, which is not something I enjoy. I’ve always struggled a little to respond on time, but now it’s gotten a lot worse, and I don’t like it.

e. In Quaker news, one of the Meeting Members has asked to bring a concern to our next M&C meeting, and I will confess to being apprehensive about it. She hasn’t said what her concern is, and this lady and I don’t see eye to eye on a few very important matters. Notably she is anti-vax, which I learned about her long before the pandemic. She’s also very anti-tech in the Meeting, which means she wants to do away with our hybrid system (partially online and partially in-person) because she finds the tech disruptive. I disagree with this pretty fundamentally, because the people who attend online are the most vulnerable Members and Attenders: people who are disabled, immunocompromised, frail, elderly, or who live far and don’t have access to good transportation. And all these people would be more likely to come to Meeting in person if people already there were to mask consistently, but of course they don’t, and while she and I have never discussed it, I get the feeling this Member and I probably don’t see eye to eye on masking, either. Hopefully things will go smoothly at the Meeting. I can manage my feelings of anxiety and apprehension, and maybe it’s not a concern related to anything I think it could be. I will find out on Friday, I guess!

2- State of the smallholding

a. No more quail casualties, at least for now. I added more pine shavings and straw to all the enclosures. I’m sort of doing a half-assed version of the deep litter method of bedding for the winter, because it allows the old bedding to compost and generate a bit of heat. I don’t know how well it’s working, however, because the quail enclosures are considerably smaller than your average chicken coop, so I think the “compost” might be freezing or at least cold rather than generating heat. The straw does serve as insulation, however, and they seem to like the pine shavings, so I’m going to stick with that for now.

b. I should be thinking about starting seeds, probably in late February, and that means digging out my seeds from whatever box I packed them in before we moved (oops). I also don’t remember what I did with my asparagus crowns, which is super annoying because those were expensive as fuck. Hopefully I can find them and also hopefully they haven’t died. They’re hardy little fuckers, though, so fingers crossed that they survived. If not, I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get more. *sigh*

3- State of the news

a. Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry: I got a notice by email of a special meeting for zoning amendments in the area on January 26^th. If it’s like the last meeting I went to then it will start half an hour before the usual town council meeting and consist of “Welp, so-and-so would like to convert this from Agricultural to Agricultural Special Exemption and here are the fifteen reasons why this is a good idea.” And then it will pass unanimously and we’ll all move on with our lives. It’s administrative and rather dry, but I find it interesting to get a glimpse into the workings of the area. I may find myself in the position of requiring either permits and/ore exemptions in the coming years, especially if I decide to replace the septic system down the line. I don’t currently have the $40,000+ required to redo my septic system, alas, so we’re coping with what has turned out to be a rather limited holding tank, but eventually I’d like to get it whipped into more manageable shape.

b. We’ve been having a colder and snowier winter than usual this past month in the Ottawa region, which honestly isn’t a bad thing. More snow means hopefully less drought next year, although I am a little concerned about the melt in the spring causing some flooding, especially in my backyard. Cow Shit Creek, as we have affectionately nicknamed the little rivulet that runs through the property (it has a real name but I’ve forgotten it) overflowed its banks thoroughly last spring and filled the back acre right up to the big retaining wall that I assume was built exactly for that purpose. By the end of the summer it was bone dry, not even so much as a patch of mud, so there are some pretty interesting extremes happening there.

c. OC Transpo has increased its rates, which a lot of people are disgruntled about, given that the quality of the services has declined pretty steadily over the years. I myself am hoping that the extension of the LRT eastward will be finished soon (it was meant to be this spring, but it appears to be delayed). I’d love to be able to drive to a Park ‘n’ Ride and take the train in the rest of the way to work. Transport Canada is right on top of a LRT station, and if I get the new job I applied for, it’s also within walking distance of a LRT station (albeit one with significantly less parking, which could be an issue).

d. Ontario politics have been quiet of late. The big headline is Doug Ford threatening to pull Crown Royal from LCBO shelves in response to the company shuttering its bottling plant in Amherst, ON and moving those jobs to the US. Ol’ Douglas is using the move to capitalize on the anti-American sentiment that’s swelled since the trade/tariff war began. Kind of cheap, but given his general antics I am not surprised.

e. I am pleased to not be alone in being displeased with Canada’s weak response to the kidnapping of Maduro and the blatant attempt at colonizing Venezuela. One commentator remarked of Carney that it looked like he was trying to carry a Fabergé egg across the ice, referring to the delicately phrased statement that was clearly designed to not upset Donald Trump. Meh. I still think it’s pretty spineless as a response and we should be doing better. Pierre Poilievre of course lurched forward to lick Trump’s boots with his response, but at least Don Davies (interim leader of the NDP) came out with an unequivocal statement about it.

f. In a move that I will confess I don’t understand, Chrystia Freeland will be stepping down as MP and taking an uncompensated (?) role as an economic advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I am kind of baffled as to why he would pick her when there are approximately a gajillion more qualified Europeans, but I guess politics move in mysterious ways.

g. In the Continuing Adventures of the Dumpster Fire to the South: Stephen Miller has essentially come right out and said that the US is more than willing to take Greenland by force. Here’s a snippet of an interview between him and Jake Tapper of CNN:

“TAPPER: Can you rule out the US is going to take Greenland by force?

MILLER: Greenland should be part of the US. By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? The US is the power of NATO

T: So force is on the table?

M: Nobody is gonna fight the US militarily over future of Greenland.”

*beats head on table* I’m sure this is fine. FML.

Now, I don’t think that Canada is in immediate military peril the way some other people appear to. However, it is pretty anxiety-inducing to have a fascist regime next door with a leader rapidly succumbing to some form of dementia or other cognitive degeneration who has repeatedly talked about making our country the 51^st state. I’m more concerned that the US will use its considerable economic leverage to try to control us rather than risk incurring the wrath of NATO and fighting a war on multiple fronts. Either way, it won’t be pretty.

Oof. Okay. Time to get back to work.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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There will be a more comprehensive update tomorrow

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 03:27:01 GMT

My very hardworking desktop computer has decided it no longer likes me after nearly 9 years of loyal service. It's too old to upgrade to Windows 11 and today every application on it keeps crashing, including my web browsers, which does not bode well for the future. It looks like I may have to bite the bullet and spend money on a new desktop, and since several places still have extended Boxing Day sales, it seems like now would be the more logical time to proceed.

*sigh*

Why does everything have to cost so much money?

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It's only been three days, and the USA is starting the year off with a bang

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 17:01:19 GMT

Whoops! I got distracted yesterday and forgot to post. Nevermind, I shall backdate as needed and we’ll pretend this never happened. 😉

1. State of the Phnee

a. I am slowly getting my ducks in a row for improving my fitness. I obtained some resistance bands with a bit more oomph than the ones I got myself for physiotherapy a couple of years ago, as well as some interlocking/puzzle-type mats for my bedroom floor because I am a wussy who doesn’t like sitting or kneeling on the floor (it bruises our boneses, precious!). My friend fearsclave gave me a two-week trial of an app called FitBod (a bit on the nose, but whatever) which provides me with exercises based on not only my fitness levels but also what equipment I have available, which is quite handy. It has a couple of bugs I need to work out (pun only sort of intended), such as giving me dumbbell exercises when I don’t own dumbbells, but it still seems well worth a try.

I also went for a one-hour walk in the late afternoon yesterday and got rewarded with a winter rainbow in the distance. I had never considered that winter could also produce rainbows, but it makes sense: snow is just crystallized water, right? And this rainbow was more of a large smudge than the classic arc shape, so that makes sense to my amateur brain. Anyway, it definitely made the walk in the ice and cold worth it.

b. My friend Jan put me onto a local market (the Martintown Market) which stocks up once a week on low-cost produce and also has locally raised pork and chicken. I went yesterday for the first time to check them out and was pleasantly surprised. It was smaller than I’d imagined, just a very small room with a dozen or so produce bins and two upright freezers right off County Road 18. I almost missed it because the only sign on the road is an itty bitty one that says, “Come in, we’re open!” without specifying what it is. Still, I was able to fill half of a regular reusable grocery bag with fruits and veggies for $15, which likely would have cost me twice as much if I’d gone to the grocery store. I tried to be mindful of how much I got, because a lot of people depend on that little store for their produce, and since KK and I are just two people and she doesn’t eat a lot of produce, I wanted to make sure there was plenty left for other people. I’m pretty pleased overall. I will see how long this produce lasts, and I will probably make this a regular part of my route.

c. I’m taking over as Clerk of Ministry & Counsel this year, which means putting together the agenda for every meeting, but more importantly I am responsible for writing all our reports and for putting together Committees of Care, Clearness Committees, and general care for the Members of Ottawa Monthly Meeting. I am a little terrified that I won’t be able to fill the shoes of our last Clerk, who declared they were stepping down last fall. Even if they wanted to come back, they are now facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, so they will have to focus on their health and family for the next few months. M&C are a great group, so I know I will get lots of support, but I’m still pretty intimidated.

2. State of the smallholding

a. I lost one of the quail on Friday. I’m pretty bummed because I couldn’t figure out why she’d died. She was dry, so it’s not like she got wet and then couldn’t get warm. I don’t think it was lack of food or water, and she showed no signs of illness or injury. I wonder if she didn’t get eggbound but didn’t suffer a prolapse like last time, but I’m not about to perform an amateur necropsy, so I’m just going to have to keep doing my best and see.

b. I got myself a new-to-me John Deere snowblower a few weeks ago, but I can’t figure out how to keep it running. It turns on just fine, but the moment I switch off the throttle (I might be getting the terminology wrong), it sputters to a halt. I will have to go to YouTube to see what I’m doing wrong and hope I can figure it all out.

3. State of the news

a. WELP. The United States attacked/invaded Venezuela during the night of the 3^rd, and kidnapped President Maduro and his wife and have declared that the US will be serving as an “interim government” until further notice, with no end date given. Also, apparently American oil companies will be taking over Venezuelan oil to “revitalize and rebuild” or some shit.

American interference in South American politics, and deposing dictators in general, has a terrible track record. This is blatantly not about the dictatorship, anyway, just about gaining control of Venezuelan oil. They’re just using it as a thinly veiled excuse to install a regime more favourable to the US, which will result in the population getting oppressed and exploited for several more years before they rise up and overthrow that government and then it gets replaced with something that may or may not be just as terrible. Fuck American imperialism, frankly.

I was hoping for a less mealy-mouthed response to this by other world leaders, especially Canada. People seem so impressed by Carney, but I am not seeing it. I wish Canada would grow a fucking backbone and take a firm policy stand on these matters, but I guess that’s too much to hope for. It will also be interesting to see how China reacts to this, since I believe Venezuela sells the majority of its oil to them. It’s likely to get messy…

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State of the Everything

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 23:17:04 GMT

Okay, I am going to attempt a State of the Everything kind of post for today, following (more or less) the template I created for myself so I can stay a bit more on top of not just what’s going on in my life (and in my head), but also what’s going on around me politically and just generally. Bear with me, this may get long.

1- State of the Phnee

a. Work has been uneventful of late, although the holiday season is always a busy one for travel, especially air travel. We get a much higher volume of “unruly passenger” reports at this time of year, and that means proportionally a higher volume of unruly passenger with escalation reports. The holidays combine a ton of stress with a lot more access to alcohol, especially in airports and on planes, and the results are pretty predictable. My own belief is that airports and airlines need to stop serving and selling alcohol, and that would reduce the number of incidents by about 90% (that number is an educated guess on my part, not based on actual statistics, but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark).

I applied to a similar job in a different government department, one that’s not part of the Core Public Service. I was sent a two-hour online evaluation without any indication of the format or what would be in it, which was more stressful than the test itself. I was reminded of Pete Anderson in The War with Mr. Wizzle by Gordon Korman: “Sir, what’s a Keat?” I should really find those books and re-read them. They were pretty great at the time and I only hope they’ve held up after all these years. Anyway, I think I did pretty well, but I submitted the evaluation right before the holiday season, so I’m not expecting a response before next week at the earliest. They could also easily just never answer me again, because of the neat little disclaimer that “only successful candidates will be contacted” at the bottom of the application page. Gotta love those. How hard is it to send a one-line email to unsuccessful candidates? You can program that shit, too. I know whereof I speak, because I have been the person in the hiring seat, and I think it’s shitty to leave people in limbo, especially in the government where hiring processes are slow as fuck.

If I get this new job (fingers crossed!) it would be a step up in terms of compensation from where I am now, and it looks like it would be an indeterminate position (which is as close to a “permanent” job as you can get in the government these days), so I really hope it works out. It’s the kind of job I know I’m good at, so it’s really just a question of slogging through the application process, which is very hit-or-miss these days. The physical location is also a tad closer to home, so I might save an itty bit of money on gas and wear-and-tear on the car.

b. I had my parents and my friends Dylan and Sarah over for Un-Christmas this year, since I was working on Christmas Day proper. It’s been a couple of years since I had to declare Un-Christmas, but it went very well. I did not at all follow through on my previous meal plan which was far too ambitious for the amount of time and energy I had. I ended up roasting the goose I had ordered and making lemon pepper buttery green beans (made with not-real butter because of various dietary restrictions), and Sarah brought roasted root vegetables. In the end, we had more than enough food even as it was, so I don’t have many regrets on that front. I always end up making way too much food, so this way there was considerably less waste.

I also managed to muster enough spoons to actually chuck the goose carcass into a Dutch oven and made broth, which I will try to turn into something useful this weekend. I have a bit of leftover goose meat, so it will likely be a soup of some kind.

c. We had a bit of a scare with KK a couple of weeks ago. She woke me up about twenty minutes after I’d gone to sleep (I’d decided to call it an early night because I was super tired) and I found her covered in blood because she’d passed out repeatedly and smashed her face on her bathroom floor. I ended up calling an ambulance for her because she couldn’t even sit up, let alone get to her feet and walk to the car. We spent the night in the ER and she spent the rest of the day there as well after I went home to get a few hours of sleep and take care of the dogs, including medicating the epileptic chihuahua. She got stitches in her nose and a tentative diagnosis of mild dehydration combined with too high of a dosage for her blood pressure meds now that she’s lost weight post-surgery. We’ve had no incidents since then, but she also fell badly and further injured one knee and hip, so she’s been having a lot of trouble getting around even just from her bedroom to the living room. It hasn’t meaningfully changed anything for me in terms of workload, though, since I’d already been doing most of the housekeeping stuff since long before we moved, let alone after her surgery and other stuff happened. I had hoped that she’d be able to help out more once she lost some weight and was able to move around better, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case.

d. Speaking of surgery, I have almost fully recovered from mine in October apart from some lingering fatigue. I’ve lost about 45 lbs since the end of September, and although my weight fluctuates a lot from day to day, the trend is definitely downward. My main struggle is remembering to take my medications and supplements on time. Before I could just take all my meds first thing in the morning and forget about it, but now there’s a schedule, and some things have to be taken with food and other things have to be taken at least 30 minutes before food, and it all wreaks havoc with my poor ADHD brain.

I finally started incorporating a tiny bit of exercise into my day. Work has a pilot project with under-the-desk treadmills, so I’ve been using those for 1-2 hours almost every shift at a slow pace (1 mph, because for some reason the treadmills measure everything in Imperial), and my legs are mad at me for reminding them that I have muscles for stuff other than sitting on my ass. I’m making an effort to use the treadmills as 1) it’s good for me and 2) I want to encourage my employer to continue making good decisions about employee welfare (and yes, I’m aware of the irony, but we do what we can). I’m considering getting one for home, as well, as there are some available for under $200 that look decent enough. I had originally planned to get a gym membership, but I’m veeeeery cautiously optimistic that I can do some walking and use resistance bands at first to get my strength and endurance up, because I know myself, and getting to the gym when it’s a minimum 30-minute drive from my home is going to be a struggle, psychologically speaking. There’s a chance that the home equipment will gather dust, but there’s a much stronger chance that a gym membership would just drain my bank account without ever getting used, so lesser of two evils, here.

e. I had to take Pixie to the emergency vet on Tuesday after KK told me she had been throwing up. I had flashbacks to November when I had to take Peggy in for the same reason and came out with a bill close to $1,000, a diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis, pain meds and several cans of special food (she’s fine now, albeit on prophylactic antibiotics for her anal glands). Luckily Pixie was not nearly as sick, and I ended up paying a $50 triage fee and then took her home for observation, and she’s now back to her usual frolicky self. She is on a strict diet of rice and probiotics until tomorrow, however, until I’m completely satisfied that whatever ick this is, is out of her system.

The cats are still going strong so far. I’m worried about Libby, who still refuses to come out of the basement even at night. I don’t think KK has been feeding her her special kidney food, and because I don’t go to the basement much it’s hard to keep an eye on her weight. I’m considering catnapping her and taking her to the vet to be weighed and evaluated, but I should probably check with KK about that. Octavia is fully back to her old self after her dental surgery, but Juno doesn’t appear to be gaining weight back the same way, which has me a little worried as well. Libby is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 or even 16 years old now, and Juno is around 13, while Octavia will be turning 12 this May (give or take), so none of them are spring chickens, but I’m still concerned there might be more going on with Juno since the dental surgery hasn’t had the same effect as on Octavia.

2- State of the smallholding

I’m not using the word “homestead” anymore, because of its roots in colonization. I haven’t found a good word to describe what I’m attempting, and the closest I’ve come so far is “smallholding,” so I’m going to go with that until something better comes along.

a. Welp, the house hasn’t improved much since I last updated here. I’ve mostly lacked the motivation and energy to do anything about it, especially after surgery in October. I did do a bit of a crisis clean for Un-Christmas, and I’m hoping to build on that in the coming weeks. I need to get over the mostly psychological barriers around cleaning and tidying that I have built in my own head and just do it. Once the main floor of the house is clear I am going to find a local cleaner/cleaning service to help me keep on top of stuff. If someone can come in once every two weeks, even, that would allow me to concentrate on more decluttering and making progress with other areas of the house. My friend Jan has also offered to come over and lend her organizing expertise to help pull the kitchen and basement into a shape that will make them more usable, and I am probably going to take her up on that.

b. On the “farming” front, the remaining quail are doing pretty well this winter. I have 14 survivors in total, four males and eight females. I purchased some heaters for their waterers because their water kept freezing within hours. Dylan had told me he managed by changing the chickens’ water twice a day because he could just dump out the ice and replace it with water, but the quail waterers are so much smaller that it just wasn’t practical for me. The heaters, even though they appear super flimsy and cheap, have actually been working super well to keep the water liquid, and the quail appear to appreciate it.

I did have a bit of a scare about a month ago when I got home on a Saturday morning after a night shift and found an alarming splotch of blood in one of the enclosures. It took me a bit to identify where it had come from, and it turned out that one of the females had a pretty gnarly prolapsed vent. I tried calling around to various vets, but even though I now live in the country, I couldn’t find anyone who dealt with poultry—it was only pets or large livestock (cows and horses, mostly), so I was left with the internet and whatever I had on hand. I took the quail inside, bathed her in saline solution (where I discovered she’d been sort-of egg-bound with an improperly formed egg), applied a bit of sugar to shrink the prolapse, and then used a lubricated q-tip to gently nudge everything back inside her. I kept her in a “hospital” box in the dark with food and water for a couple of days, and then she started spontaneously laying eggs without a new prolapse, so I returned her to her enclosure, where she’s been happily laying eggs for me ever since. I am quite proud that I managed to successfully treat her and not have to cull her.

I was sorely tempted to start beekeeping this summer, but upon reflection I have decided to wait another year before embarking on that journey at least. There is a lot of equipment required for bees, and I have a lot more reading and learning to do before I dive into it. There’s a good chance that my first hives will die (because beginner beekeepers are a fucking menace, apparently), so I want to improve the odds that I don’t kill my bees because of a stupid mistake. I

This year I will be adding livestock that’s a little more straightforward, i.e. rabbits and maybe more poultry like chicken and ducks and maybe geese. The rabbits in particular will be good for meat, and I am curious if I can find something to do with their pelts: maybe tan them myself or just sell them to anyone who wants them. I tested out dehydrated rabbit ears on the dogs and they lost their tiny doggy minds about them, so at least I know I’ll have a steady source of dog treats if I play my cards right.

c. I have a lot of ambitious goals this year in terms of acquiring new skills around the smallholding. I wanted to practice woodworking this winter, but unfortunately the electricity went out in my shed for reasons I can’t quite figure out, so I think it will have to wait for spring when I can figure out why there’s no power out there.

I’ve also talked to Jan and Dylan and Sarah, and there is a tentative plan in place to cooperate with all three of our little farms to get larger projects built more quickly. We’d alternate weekends where we all gather at one farm and do a building or gardening project, followed by a celebratory barbecue in the evening once the work is done. We’ve also tentatively agreed that we should have dinner together more often, after a really fun Hallowe’en dinner in October. I want to make sure I keep fostering my local bonds and friendships, because it’s all too easy for me to crawl under a rock and just live there, especially because of the shift work.

3- Local and national news

I promised myself I’d keep my finger on the pulse of the news this year, so in spite of working an evening shift this week and next week, I’m making an effort to learn about what’s going on.

a. Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry: there isn’t a ton happening in my immediate area right now, but I went to my local town council meeting in late November (or was it early December?) in order to stay abreast of local happenings. The next meeting is in two weeks, before my next night shift, and I plan on attending again at that time. It’s important to me to understand what decisions are being made locally, just in case I decide that something is important enough for me to voice an opinion or whatever.

b. There hasn’t been much going on in Ottawa from a city news perspective over the holidays, but I’m keeping an eye out.

c. Ontario politics are a bit of a shambles ever since Doug Ford’s government won a THIRD fucking majority. I am still angry about that. The provincial Liberals and NDP seem to be in shambles, and the NDP in particular appear to be struggling with who they want to be. I hope they get their shit together soon.

d. Federal politics have been on hiatus for the holidays as well, although I saw that Prime Minister Carney met with President Zelenskyy earlier and will be at the peace talks in Paris next week. What he’s bringing to the table is a mystery to me, but better Carney than Trump, I suppose.

We’re still embroiled in a horrible trade ~thing~ with the USA. It’s not a war, but it’s not NOT a war. Tariffs and jokes in poor taste and all of that. Anecdotally a lot of Canadians are still not purchasing American products when there are alternatives, and tourism to the USA has plummeted (partly due to the animosity engendered by Trump, partly because there’s a reasonable likelihood that Canadian citizens could be apprehended by ICE and disappeared for anywhere from a week to forever). I miss my US friends, but until things stop being fascist down there, I don’t plan on visiting any time soon.

e. Speaking of the USA, it continues to be a horrifying dumpster fire. The ICE raids continue, they are building data centres faster than anyone ever imagined, the economy is tanking, and the President is very obviously suffering from some sort of advanced dementia. Charlie Kirk was murdered, which triggered a right-wing backlash from which some parts of the US are still reeling. The Department of Education has been gutted, among others, and we still don’t have a good idea of how many people have died as a result of the dismantling of USAID. I don’t have any real good thoughts or analysis about this right now, but luckily there are plenty of people out there smarter than me who have written or spoken about this topic.

Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Thanks for bearing with me this far! I promise future updates won’t be nearly as lengthy, since I won’t be trying to catch up on basically six months’ worth of updates.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

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