Corner of Bourbon & Division

Tomorrow morning I have my appointment with the sleep specialist. I cannot emphasize enough how excited I am about this! The appointment is at 8:15 and they want me to arrive half an hour early, so I'll be leaving around 7:00 just to be on the safe side. I don't know what the traffic is like going there at that hour, and I don't want to be late. I hope that I'll be leaving with a prescription for a CPAP in hand, and it's my intention to get an appointment with a local provider I found ASAP. In fact, the plan is to call the minute I get out of the appointment and see how quickly I can get an appointment.

Have I mentioned that I am TIRED of constantly feeling like warmed-over crap?

Anyway, I am very excited about the appointment tomorrow. I hope it goes well. If it doesn't, I may very well cry. I wonder if I can get a same-day appointment. That would be ideal, but I'm not going to get my hopes up too high for that. I do hope I can get an appointment this week, though, and that they can accommodate a later time since I don't have a ton of time available to take off work. We shall see, I guess.

In unrelated news, the quail are still doing well. I changed out their food and water this morning, and once I'd closed the door behind me I heard some very loud and indignant tweedling. I initially shrugged it off, but the tweedling repeated as I went up the stairs, so I went back to investigate. I checked the quail's bin, and as I was puzzling over it I heard more loud and indignant tweedling and realized that one of the boys had managed to get out of the enclosure and was standing under the sink, making his displeasure known. I think he was mostly mad about being separated from his friends and girlfriends, or maybe he thought they'd make a break for freedom with him. Either way, I scooped him up and put him back, and he immediately settled down.

I now have four eggs! It's very exciting. I don't know which of the females is being such a good layer, but I am certainly not complaining. It might not be just one, either, but I have a completely unsubstantiated feeling that all the eggs are from one bird. I hope the other two get in on the action soon. Three small eggs a day is the equivalent of one normal chicken egg per day, which means a total of about five to seven eggs a week, if all the ladies lay regularly. I'm kind of excited for my first quail egg dish. I don't know if I should make a really simple omelette or if I should look up a recipe specific for quail eggs. I am tempted to at least do some research on that front. Quail eggs are considered a delicacy by many, after all.

I had my weekly Sunday Skype call with my parents. I tried to get them onto Zoom since Skype is disappearing in three weeks, but my mother especially is attached to Skype, so we're sticking with that to the bitter end, apparently. My mother is anxious about my move, and as usual her anxiety is translating into her getting super passive-aggressive and slightly nasty with me. This is not a trait I particularly enjoy, because among other things she tends to talk to me as though I am a developmentally disabled child who's playing with missile launchers. It particularly annoys me when she condescendingly explains to me that I will need to make a budget, and then tries to explain home maintenance to me while not knowing the difference between a septic holding tank, a propane tank, and a sump pump (literally the conversation we had today, no exaggeration).

Anyway, I have been dealing with my mother for 46 years now, and because I am an adult with good communication tools now and enough empathy to understand that it's my mother's rampant undiagnosed anxiety disorder causing her to act this way, I gently called her out on her behaviour and eventually redirected her energy to something more positive. She initially denied that she was being nasty, but eventually kind of grudgingly semi-admitted to it. The rest of the Skype call went much more smoothly after that, and she was in a much better mood by the time we ended the call.

I made a pseudo-roast chicken in the Instant Pot for dinner, and now I have leftovers for the week to go with my borscht, as well as rice, and a package of spicy lentil something-or-other that my friend Sarah gave to me last weekend. She's allergic to dairy and accidentally bough the packet even though it contains both butter and cream. Since it's spicy and has tomatoes KK won't touch it with a ten-foot pole, so that means I get to have it for lunch, which sounds delightful. KK tolerates lentils but only up to a point, so adding spice and tomatoes is literally a recipe for disaster.

I definitely need to step up my packing game this week. I've been feeling overwhelmed about things, so I think I will start in my bedroom instead of the living room, because it will (I HOPE, DEAR GOD) be easier to make decisions about de-cluttering and the like. I plan on significantly downsizing my wardrobe, which I've been meaning to do for a while anyway. I have a dresser and a night table that I need to empty, as well as my small library of reference books. I also need to get rid of my terrible broken air conditioning unit anyway, which should free up a fair bit of space for staging my boxes. I should probably consider paring down some of my linens, too. I need to let go of some of my prepper tendencies here and embrace some minimalism where it comes to my immediate possessions.

Okay. Time to get to bed so I won't accidentally oversleep tomorrow and miss my sleep appointment. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

I am nearly done. Creeping up on halfway through tonight’s night shift (and by the time I finish this post it may be past that time, depending on how often I get interrupted for work).

I love dinner parties, but good Lord, they are so much work! They'd probably be less work if my house wasn't an absolute disaster that looks like several tornadoes and a tsunami went through it.

KK and I had a really productive day, though. I got up early and got started on the roasted red pepper soup, then left KK napping on the sofa in order to take Peggy to the vet. The great news is that the vet says Peggy's bum has improved a lot since her last visit! The Gland-X finally appears to be taking effect, which is a relief for all of us. Having to take her to get her anal glands expressed every month is expensive for me and painful for her. So yay for Peggy doing better!

Next up on the list was advanced voting. I expected it to be a little bit of a hassle because I didn't get my voter registration card in the mail, but it turned out to be super easy. I only needed one piece of photo ID and to just sign a form with my name on it for their records, and that was it. I asked about the voter registration cards, and the very nice lady from Elections Ontario gave me the most long-suffering look and said "Yeah... this was a little rushed." Say less, dear Elections Ontario person, say less. Anyway, I have now cast my vote for the candidate I find least objectionable and the likeliest to perhaps win against either the Liberals or the Conservatives. I keep holding out hope that one day people will realize that they can vote for third parties outside the binary that has dominated our politics since forever, and maybe THEN we can finally change things up around here. I'm not holding out a TON of hope, but I am holding out some.

From the polling station we went to M&M Meats where I wanted to get some crème brûlée for dessert, only to discover that they've discontinued it completely, which is extremely sad. So we went to Délice Royale and picked up four pastries instead, and KK was kind enough to stop at the library so I could drop off a book that was due today. 

The afternoon was a blur of cooking on my end and cleaning for both of us. KK put in a heroic effort and not only vacuumed the entire downstairs, she cleared the furniture out of the living room and programmed the new Roomba. It mapped the room, then vacuumed a couple of times, and then we set it to mop the floor. It did a very serviceable job, too. The tentative plan is to run it 2 to 3 times a week now to stay better on top of the cleaning. It's a bit of a hassle to move the furniture, but really it's just some chairs and the ottoman, so it's not too terrible. I cleaned the powder room just in case the guests needed it, and then we were off to the races! The dogs were DEEPLY unimpressed with the Roomba and spent the entire time chasing it, barking at it, and running away from it. It was very funny to watch them go. XD

The guests in question were my old boss and his boyfriend. They've been officially together for about a year, but I hadn't met the boyfriend yet, so I was pretty excited to get to know him. He is a delight, as it happens, and I think the dinner was a resounding success! The only thing I need to work on is my homemade mayonnaise--it was WAY too acidic, so clearly the recipe I used needs a fair bit of tweaking to make it taste better. We had a really good time chatting about their recent travels, catching up on what's going on at the RCMP (my old boss still works there but in a different department), and regaling the boyfriend about past work shenanigans. We went through a bottle of white wine, the guests made very appreciative noises about the food, and the evening wound down nicely over decaf coffee and pastries.

So, yes. I am calling it a resounding success, and I hope that I'll be able to have them over for dinner regularly. 

And now it's time for me to go to bed. I handled the announcements for Quaker Meeting a little earlier, and tomorrow I've committed to First Day School at the Meeting House in the nursery room. I didn't think I was signing up for the nursery room, which is definitely not my preference, but needs must, I guess, and at least it precludes me having to come up with a curriculum, since the nursery room is mostly designed for free play.

I need to put gas in the car and also get to Meeting super early because with all the snow we've had I'm sure the parking situation is absolutely atrocious, so the earlier I get there the better. Meeting starts at 10:30, but I think I will try to aim to get there by 9:30, which means leaving around 9:00 or even a bit earlier to factor in the time at the gas pump.

All righty. Bedtime. Good night, folks!

Another short entry, because I am still tired and all I want to do is go to bed. However, I am determined not to break my streak of posting every day, even if it's just a short and mostly symbolic post. It's not even the end of February, so it seems like it's way too early to give up on this particular goal, right?

 Anyway, today wasn't much to write home about. KK and I attended the second part of the retirement course. The morning was all about maintaining your health after retirement, and it was the usual slightly gas-lighty, victim-blamey stuff you hear from people these days: most of your health is within your control if you engage in these specific behaviours! I'm not saying we should abdicate all responsibility for our health, but I swear to God, if ONE MORE PERSON suggests I try mindfulness, I will not be held responsible for my actions! Blah blah blah, exercise more and eat your vegetables, and 40% of cancer is preventable if you make good choices (that last one made my blood boil).

The afternoon was much better. Far less rage-inducing. We covered estate planning and what you need to write a will and some of the trickier legal things about financial and medical powers of attorney. Some of the stuff I already knew, but there was a lot I didn't know or realized I hadn't fully understood, so I was quite pleased with that. Sometime in the next couple of months I need to scrape together some money, hire an attorney, and have a proper will drawn up so that if I get hit by a bus, someone will be able to take care of my dogs. KK loves the dogs but she's physically not up to the task of caring for them, and has admitted as much, so another home will need to be found for them, one which can accommodate two high-energy hooligans. I wouldn't want them to be separated, especially for Pixie's sake: she's never known a life without her pack, and losing me, KK (whom she adores) and Rika and also Peggy would be scary and confusing and stressful for her. Peggy would also be stressed, but she at least has known life as an only dog, so she might be more resilient, but Pixie is a stage five clinger. With any luck, we will never need to find out.

Tomorrow I need to crisis clean all of downstairs because we're having guests on Saturday and I don't want to spend all of Saturday cleaning, especially since I need to cook dinner. It's funny because the professional organizer is coming at 15:00 and normally I'd want to leave all of the clutter and nonsense where it is so she can see the disaster she's getting herself into, but guests on Saturday absolutely trumps that. I might take some before and after pictures for her benefit. I'm fully expecting her to flee for the hills, but we shall see. The very good news is that she is perfecty happy to wear a mask while she's here, which is awesome. I appreciate people who are willing to do that these days, otherwise I wouldn't be working with her at all.

I have some semi-elaborate plans for dinner on Saturday. I am making green onion bread rolls as an entrée along with roast red pepper soup, then as a main course I have sesame chicken with curry rice and roasted asparagus planned, then a salad (Caesar salad because it's the only one KK will eat), and for dessert I plan to pick up something from a local patisserie, because the cooking alone is going to take quite a long time and dessert is not at all my forte. I hope it all turns out good!

On that note, it is time for bed. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow.

So last year, right around this time, I stopped watching Critical Role. It wasn't a conscious decision, it was more that I was kind of busy with various things, and Critical Role is a hefty weekly time commitment (anywhere from four to six hours per episode), and I got a little behind, and then a lot behind, and then it just seemed like a lot of work to catch up.

I was reminded of its existence on Thursday, because that was apparently the Campaign 3 finale, and that kind of motivated me to start watching again. Thanks to their revised schedule of only airing three weeks per month and reserving the fourth week for a game that's unrelated to the main campaign, I don't have as many episodes to catch up on as I feared I might--"only" about 30 or so. So I've decided to go with roughly one episode a day whenever I have a chunk of time. I tend to listen to the episodes like a podcast rather than watch them, because I know the actors' voices well enough to be able to differentiate them. I do miss a lot of visual cues and moments that are much better when watched, but I don't mind too much. Whenever I know that I've missed something I tend to go back and re-watch just then.

Anyway, I blithely started watching Episode 89, and then 90, in which the party are on the moon called Ruidus, racing against time to save their world. It's an extremely tense arc, and so by the time Saturday rolled around I was more than ready for Episode 91 because it felt narratively like things were coming to the climax of the arc. Then, <details><summary>Click for spoilers!</summary><p>Fucking Sam Riegel broke my heart AGAIN because FCG sacrificed himself in a blaze of glory to save all of his friends from a TPK. I was at work, on a night shift, trying very hard not to cry in front of my coworkers, and everything was terrible</p></details>.

I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT D&D.

I'm a little annoyed that watching or listening to Critical Role is incompatible with my goal of reading more books this year. Obviously I can't listen to it and an audiobook simultaneously, and reading a book physically also isn't possible, for very similar reasons. So I'm just going to have to listen to it while I'm doing chores or knitting or something. It's fine. Hopefully this will provide me with enough motivation to actually get some cleaning done this week while I'm off work after my night shifts. If I play my cards right I can probably manage two episodes a day for the entire week. It's probably not great for my brain, but it's been a minute since I binged a show I really enjoyed, so that's something to look forward to.

In two weeks I've invited a couple of friends over for dinner. It's my old manager from the RCMP and his new boyfriend. He divorced his wife of something like 30 years back in 2021 (and good riddance, because she was an abusive, narcissistic bitch), and went to therapy, and finally allowed all the feelings he'd been suppressing all his life to come to the surface. I was the first person outside his family that he came out to, and I may or may not have barfed rainbows all over him when he did. ;) It's good to see him happy after all this time.

Having guests is always a good motivator to get the house clean, and also to try to come up with some fun recipes to try out. I haven't decided what to make yet, but I'd like to try my hand at some sort of fancy appetizer, at least. Maybe I'll try a Beef Wellington. That would be something, if I could pull it off! I'll have to poke around the internet and see what I can find as inspiration.

Okay, I think that's it for now. I may put in a grocery order to pick up for this week and just get that out of the way. I still have five hours left on this shift, and although I don't want to jinx myself, it's going by excruciatingly slowly.

 ... and I'm going to call it "Good Intentions."

Okay, not really, but I still enjoy that joke a lot. Anyway, today's good intentions fell by the wayside in favour of a nap. I've been extra tired since I started working shifts again right before Christmas (I wasn't officially back on rotation, but I was asked to cover for other people's absences, so I've been de facto back on shift for about a month now, even before I was officially told I was back on shift), and I don't foresee that changing any time soon. What I will need to change is my response to it. I got used to being less tired, so now that I'm going back to baseline levels of borderline exhaustion, I will have to get used to pushing through it all again. It's getting harder as I get older, but I don't have much of a choice if I want to actually get anything done ever again.

I was also tired because Ben decided 5am was a great time to start screaming at me (he either wanted to be fed or let out of the room or both), and of course that awoke Pixie, which meant that I had to get up in a hurry or else face the Puppy Apocalypse. Pixie, unlike Peggy, is not the type to settle herself back down after a few minutes of crying. She barks and shrieks and howls, and then she thoroughly soils her crate because she's got herself so worked up, and then she thrashes around in her own poop for good measure. So rather than put myself through having to bathe the puppy at the ass-crack of dawn I scrambled out of bed to let her outside, and that meant that I was up for the day at 5am instead of 7am the way I'd planned. *sigh* So, yeah. Tired.

I'm strongly considering getting an Instant Pot, despite my reluctance to add another kitchen gadget to my inventory. The issue is mainly one of space in the kitchen (or lack thereof), but now that I'm cooking almost every day for me and KK due to her dietary preferences (I can't do what I used to do, which is make one big meal or two once a week and subsist on leftovers), I feel that it would save me a lot of time and effort to be able to just chuck things in the Instant Pot and not have to worry too much about dinner every single night.

I got two things done today: dishes, and bringing the dogs to training. I decided today that I'm not going to bring them to hunting training until the spring after this, though. When I went to pick them up, it looked like the trainer hadn't gone in all day, and left them without water for the whole day, which is unacceptable in my books. I think that no matter what he says, he's not really ready to take on clients after his big move last October/November, and so I'm going to give him until the beginning of April to get his shit together before I trust him with my dogs again. Even then, he's kind of on notice. You can't just leave dogs all day with no water, and the reason I'm paying him is not so that my dogs stay locked in a kennel all day--I pay him so they'll get training and exercise. I'm not best pleased.

Tonight I have locked Ben out of my bedroom so I can get a full night's sleep. The plan for tomorrow is to bring all the dogs to daycare (not training), then run a bunch of errands, and then if I have time I want to clean and rearrange my bedroom in the hopes of making more space in it. It's a very large room (17' x 12'), but currently it feels quite cramped as it's got my queen-sized bed, my night table, a small glass coffee table that used to be a side table in the living room that I moved when KK moved in, my dresser, a portable a/c unit (for hot summer nights), a small bookcase, both my CD stands, two large dog crates (one for Peggy, one for Pixie), my computer desk and chair, and two lamps, plus a large cardboard box of linens and a couple of plastic recycling bins stacked up by the foot of the bed because I didn't know where else to put them. The plan is to clear out the linens and the recycling bins, and maybe find a different home for the table and rearrange the lamps so they're less in the way. Then I want to turn my desk so it's facing the bed instead of the door in a bid to make the space feel larger even if it technically takes up the same square footage.

I don't know if I can get it all done, but I will at least try to get some, if not most of it done.

 I slept very well after D&D last night, and was awoken this morning by the neighbours two streets over blasting The Tragically Hip so loud it sounded like they were in my bedroom. Luckily for them it was late enough not to count as an ungodly hour and I enjoy The Hip, so my annoyance was brief. Still, I can't imagine their other,closer neighbours were especially impressed.

Today was a quiet day. I got some laundry done, picked up groceries, and then made tacos! Well, I cooked up beef for tacos and assembled a bunch of toppings. It's funny, but something about the weather getting warmer makes me crave tacos every year. I never seem to want them or think about them in the fall or winter, but the moment the temperature goes above 15 degrees Celsius my brain just starts yelling "Fuck yeah, tacos!" So now I will be eating tacos for several days straight, because making tacos involves a lot of ingredients, and I have yet to figure out how to make it for only one person. OTOH when KK moves in she may help me out with that. She has informed me she is not overly fond of tacos but is happy enough if she gets to make them herself. I know she doesn't like tomatoes or avocado (and by extension I assume she doesn't like guacamole), but I'm sure we can come up with toppings she'll enjoy too.

KK is kind of a picky eater. Certainly not the pickiest eater I've ever come across (I have come across some doozies, let me tell you), but she dislikes a lot of the food that's basically a staple part of how I eat and cook, tomatoes being at the top of that list. So I am going to have to get creative with how I cook if I want to make sure the two of us get fed. KK does not cook, for the record, but I enjoy cooking and am happy to do it for the both of us and she will pick up the slack elsewhere in the house. So I am going into research mode to find tasty, KK-friendly recipes that won't take forever to cook or cost a fortune.

Anyway, that's it for me. I am going to hang the last of the laundry and head to bed. A new week beckons, and I'm hoping it will be a bit more productive than last week.

Last night my brain decided that I should stay up and Worry About All The Things™. So I was up until at least after 2:30, which was the last time I remember looking at the clock before falling asleep. The good side to that was that I was awake at midnight when Bean woke up screaming bloody murder because he had to go to the bathroom. He's been getting up almost every night now to pee, and that has resulted in dry diapers in the morning. So we're well on our way to having him be completely diaper-free at this rate. It's very exciting!

Bean was also up promptly at 6:20, and since he came into our room to ask his mother if he could watch television, that was loud enough to wake me as well (mostly because he started whining and then screaming when she said no), although I had set my alarm for 6:30. So I got up then too, much to Bean's befuddlement. He's not used to my getting up at the same time as him and Mama.

We got Bean fed, dressed and out the door on time (three tantrums, four instances of whining and fussing, and two instances of running away and giggling instead of doing what he was told, all in the space of an hour and fifteen minutes), and I set about trying to be productive for the rest of the day.

My first stop was at the bank (though I did call to make an appointment to get my car tires changed, finally). I took the dog with me because he needed the exercise and because he was so excited when he saw me put on my running shoes to go to the bank that I didn't have the heart to tell him that I hadn't planned on taking him with me. So, happy dog was happy. I managed to straighten out the problem of the daycare check that the bank bounced, and was very pleased with the prompt, efficient service I received from the teller. They apologised (sort of), reversed all the charges and covered the fee the daycare will charge for a returned check, no muss, no fuss. If only all my problems were so easily solved.

I got home and cleaned the bathroom, and was about to start on the kitchen when pdaughter came back from school to wait for the Avon ladies to show up for their 14:30 meeting. As an aside, pdaughter is starting up her own Avon business again, so if anyone local wants the flyers for the current or future campaigns, by all means look us up! Avon has some really neat stuff, not just makeup and skin care products. You can look it up specifically on Facebook, where I encourage you to at least "like" her page, just in case. Father's Day is just around the corner, and there are all sorts of fun products and swag you can get for a very reasonable price!

Anyway, back to the exciting recounting of my day. :P I did a pretty thorough cleaning of the kitchen while we waited for the Avon ladies (they were well over an hour late due to traffic), including scrubbing down the cabinet under the kitchen sink, which had grown super scungy over the winter. We've been having trouble with ants for a few weeks, and I figured that cleaning things out down there certainly couldn't hurt. We have ant traps set up strategically, but we can't work out where they're coming from, cheeky little buggers. So right now we're mostly engaged in guerrilla warfare against the little formicidae foot soldiers. Ugh. If we knew where they were coming from we'd be able to put down corn starch and have done, but not dice. It's rather frustrating.

I headed out to do some last-minute grocery shopping before the Avon ladies arrived, but everyone was gone by the time I got home again. Despite getting caught in some pretty gnarly traffic I was still able to get dinner in the oven in a timely fashion. I don't think I've ever cleaned and chopped vegetables that fast in my whole life. I made chicken with roasted vegetables and made baked tomatoes as a side dish. Very paleo, I'm sure fearsclave would approve. ;)

Predictably, Bean's first reaction was: "But me not like that!" He demanded to have macaroni, then demanded "leftover pizza," and was upset when he was not presented with either of those options. I hadn't bothered giving him one of the baked tomatoes, figuring it would be met with shrieks of horror, but when he saw the one I'd given pdaughter he immediately insisted on having some, spurning the chicken, potatoes, carrots and green pepper already on his plate. After two small servings of tomato he then threw himself on the floor and wailed about being thirsty, and then whined and fussed and kicked at the nearest piece of furniture when he was instructed to eat a bit more before he'd be given more milk. It took some doing, but eventually we got him back into his chair, and after a bit more fussing he ate all his carrots, then tried the chicken and promptly finished that, and even managed a good number of his potatoes.

A pyrrhic victory, but one I'll take nonetheless.

Bean took a bath while I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and put away the rest of dinner into Tupperware containers. We have enough for at least one other meal, which is nice. The food turned out delicious, if I do say so myself. The chicken was moist, the veggies crisp and savoury (though the carrots were a tad too crunchy for my liking—I'll try cutting them thinner the next time I make this dish).

Although he was wound tighter than a spring factory, Bean actually settled relatively quickly once he was properly in bed (there were a lot of false starts to that), and so we were actually able to start Game of Thrones at a decent hour, and now we're going crazy and watching CSI as well. Two TV shows in the same evening! Unheard of!

Tomorrow it's meant to rain, which will put a damper on my plans to do yard work. I may try to organise my paperwork instead, depending on the weather. I have been very bad about keeping my papers in any kind of semblance of order, and it's my newest May project, to get it all sorted out properly into my filing cabinet. That will definitely help when it comes time to sell the house/do my taxes/that sort of thing. If I have time I'm also going to head to Home Depot. I am determined to get the garden ship-shape this weekend and next weekend so that we can take advantage of it during the summer months.

And now, to finish CSI and pray that I'll actually be able to sleep tonight. Obviously when I mentioned almost wishing for insomnia the other day, I should have been more careful about what I wished for. :P

Sorry, been AFK for a few days. Since Sunday, at the very least. It's been a bit of a busy week, what with Easter and Bean having the Gastro That Would Not Go Away, though pdaughter is the one who ended up dealing with the latter for the better part of the week, as I had to head back to Ottawa for work on Tuesday afternoon. I suppose that, aside from that, it hasn't been much busier than usual, though it felt that way.

( Cut for complaining )

( Food! And also nutrition! And general health stuff! )