mousme | Entries tagged with life stuff

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

Current Mood: determined

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! )

Current Mood: stressed

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!

Current Mood: busy

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!

Current Mood: tired

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!

Current Mood: tired

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!

Current Mood: tired

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!

Current Mood: tired

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!

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!

Current Mood: determined

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!

Current Mood: busy

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!

Current Mood: chipper

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…

Current Mood: worried

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!

Current Mood: determined

I am officially three days (and change) post-op.

It went super well. Better than I even hoped for, honestly. The surgery itself took an hour and a half, and I was in the recovery room for just under 4 hours. Normally they only keep you in recovery for an hour or two, but because I have Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea it was protocol to keep me there longer until they were sure I was taking in enough oxygen on my own before transferring me to a surgical bed.

I expected a lot of pain based on my reading and from KK's experience, but there was next to none. On the 1 to 10 scale I spent most of the time at a 1, sometimes inching up to 2. I once overdid it drinking water (two sips was fine, three was too many!) and the pain went up to not-quite-3 for maybe 10 minutes. At first I assumed it was that I was still under the effects of the anesthesia and then under the effects of the Dilaudid pill they gave me, but after well over 15 hours it became obvious that, no, I just wasn't in all that much pain or discomfort. So, yay, I guess!

My entire nursing team consisted of people whose names began with S: Sarah, Sophie (who was a 3rd year nursing student), Samara, and Saima. Only when the day nurse came in the morning I was to be discharged did the pattern break, because his name was Dat. They were all super sweet and kind and very patient with me, since I kept asking a million questions about what they were doing, and what was that piece of equipment for, and ooh, what were they checking for with THAT gizmo? etc. Sophie in particular was super nervous because she was obviously brand new and learning, so I assured her that we would learn together, and we had loads of fun examining the equipment, asking questions, and whenever I learned something while she was away I would tell her when she got back and she'd whip out a tiny notebook and write it all down. It was super sweet, and we had a good giggle about it before her shift was over.

The least fun part of the whole thing was trying to figure out all the unspoken hospital rules (should I use the washroom when the toilet has one of those cups meant to measure urine output, or was that meant for a specific patient? Except I have to pee and there's no other washroom! I'm supposed to take walks, but where can I walk where I won't be in the way? Etc.), and I was quite glad to leave on Thursday.

KK drove me to and from the hospital, and was somehow more wiped out than I was after all of it. She apparently overdid it by walking with me to the day surgery room and then sitting in the admittedly very uncomfortable chairs until such time as I was transferred to my bed for the night. She has spent most of the past few days napping as a result.

I wasn't up to much for the rest of Thursday, but we did stop at the pharmacy to get my prescriptions: I have about 10 doses of Dilaudid to take as needed for pain, and an antacid that I need to take every day for the next six months. KK has impressed upon me that it is VERY IMPORTANT to take said antacid unless I want to invite a world of trouble upon myself, so I've been very diligent about it. I took one dose of Dilaudid on Thursday but didn't need one last night, which was nice. I haven't even really needed Tylenol, for the most part. I am working my way up to taking all three of my vitamin supplements, because they are freaking horse pills and rather difficult to digest, but I should be able to work them into my routine (I need to take them three times a day, God help me) with some practice and a lot of alarms set up on my phone.

Yesterday the dogs were assholes and knocked over their glass jar of treats, which shattered all over the tile floor of the kitchen. KK very kindly drove me to town after her work day was over, and we stopped by the pharmacy so I could pick up some milk of magnesia (a nurse from the hospital called and recommended I pick some up "just in case"), and then I popped into Canadian Tire for some bags for our kitchen compost bin since we were almost out. KK went to PetValu to pick up new dog treats (they're the dogs' reward for going into their crates at night like good girls) and I went to the Dollarama next door to pick up a new (plastic) jar for the treats along with a couple of new pairs of reading glasses since the dogs ate one of mine and another broke very randomly the night before my surgery. It was the weirdest thing: I picked them up as normal and the arm just *fell off* like it was an injured starfish. No idea what happened there. *shrug*

Unsurprisingly, the house was in the same or even slightly worse shape than when I left on Wednesday morning. Thursday I contented myself with unloading and then re-loading the dishwasher, and yesterday I didn't do all that much except clean up the broken jar the dogs so generously provided. I did a few more dishes and put away the vacuum sealer I'd forgotten to put away before surgery (oops), and that was about it, as I was still feeling pretty tired after the surgery.

Today I was a lot more productive, but I'm still moving in slow motion. I took a shower, which felt amazing after not being "allowed" to shower for a couple of days to give my incision sites the chance to heal.

I got more dishes done, broke down a bunch of boxes for the recycling on Monday (it's a fibre pick-up day!), collected the garbage, and managed to clear a portion of the front deck so it looks a little less like hillbilly hoarders live here. I also cleaned my bathroom, which I should have done before my surgery but I kind of ran out of time (oops). At least it's clean and sparkly now! I checked on the quail and changed out their food and water and gave them all a generous helping of mealworms as a treat and as a small apology for not doing it yesterday (I did check on them and their food and water levels were fine, have no fear, I just feel guilty about them anyway). I also washed the incubator and put it away along with the heat plates for next year when I'd like to start incubating more chicks again. I won't be incubating any during the winter, it just seems like a bad idea to do it when it's super cold outside.

KK also left me a surprise in the form of a clogged kitchen sink which she'd clearly tried to fix using a plastic plumbing snake, which then got suck in the drain, and she just... left it there for me to find without telling me about it. I couldn't dislodge it (she'd rammed it in all the way, and theoretically I am not supposed to lift, push or pull more than 10lbs for the next month), and when I asked her about it she said she was hoping the sink would drain before she tried again. I had drained the sink in my attempts to dislodge the thing, so she tried again--and broke it off inside the drain. So now I have to call a plumber on Monday to get it taken out by a professional. I am not super impressed. *heavy sigh* If I didn't know better, I'd swear she was a man, given the amount of weaponized incompetence she seems able to wield at a moment's notice. The only difference is that, in this case, I didn't ask her to unclog the sink, so I guess she did try? I don't know.

I've sent out the announcements for Quaker Meeting tomorrow, and I did take a dose of Dilaudid tonight because I may have overdone it a tad today, and I was quite sore to say the least. My main goal is to not be in pain so I can get some sleep, and hopefully tomorrow I will be recovered. I still want to try to finish cleaning up the kitchen. KK said she'd help me with that today but ended up taking a four and a half hour nap instead, and there's only so much I can do at one time while I'm still recovering from surgery. Yes, in theory I should be resting/taking it easy, but if I don't get this shit done no one will, and the house will continue to deteriorate, so I'm tackling things in smallish increments and hoping for the best. Tomorrow I am planning on moving the last batch of quail that I incubated to the hutches in the garage, which will allow me to clean up and break down the brooder and put that away for the season as well. I will probably have to buy a second brooder for next year, because I discovered that while it can comfortably hold six quail, eight almost-grown quail are very cramped inside it and so they are all having very gentle squabbles with each other about food and water and mealworms. But yes, not having the brooder on my kitchen counter will save me so much space! I can't wait.

I must say, I can totally understand why people get addicted to Dilaudid. Pain? Never heard of her! I think that I'm still pretty safe since I've only had four 1mg doses in the past four days (I got a dose right before leaving the hospital on Thursday when they heard I had a one-hour car ride ahead of me).

Anyway, that's what's happened with me in the last few days. I hope you're all doing well, and I will catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: chipper

I am just about halfway through this last night shift, and I am very ready for it to be over.

Last week was a bit of a mixed bag, mostly because I really hate having to give up my sleep during night shifts, but as they say in French: "À quelque chose malheur est bon!" Which translates roughly to "sometimes misery leads to good things."

I sacrificed more sleep today in favour of staying up long enough to make a split pea soup, which I will be freezing sometime tomorrow (well, technically today, I guess). I have several other soups planned, as I mentioned, so we will see how many I have time to get done before Tuesday night. The problem is not the soups themselves, but rather my limited number of containers in which to freeze/store them. I may just use Ziploc bags for whatever I can't put into the silicon moulds in time, so that way I will have plenty of soup even if it's not stored in the way I originally planned.

I also bought extra pre-made things at the grocery store just in case I want or need something that's not soup. I picked up some protein drinks (the Premier Protein brand) because it's particularly important that I get enough protein every day, and I rather suspect that I will struggle with that, especially as I won't be able to manage meat for quite a while. I also got some unsweetened apple sauce, and I picked up several more cans of beef consommé (which I adore, but as I understand it is not to everyone's taste).

I'm really hoping that I won't find recovery too arduous, because I have a couple of small cooking-related projects I want to get done, namely I want to make apple jelly before the apples I picked last weekend go bad, and also remove the hulls from the black walnuts I gathered last weekend and get them washed and into the dehydrator for processing.

Realistically, I have too much to do to be able to get it done in the next two days, even if I don't sleep until nighttime tomorrow (which would result in a Very Tired Phnee, Indeed), and I have priorities other than the apples and walnuts, even if the apples go bad.

My main priority tomorrow is the quail. Tomorrow I will be vent sexing all the adults now that they're old enough for me to be able to reliably tell what sex they actually are. Once I've done that I will band them, so that in the future I can make sure to avoid interbreeding them too much next spring when I start incubating more eggs. KK has promised to help me replace the screws on the roof of one of the hutches with piano hinges so that I can open it from the top. Right now the newest hutch is actually really difficult to get into with food containers and waterers. I have to angle the food containers in particular, which means a fair bit of spillage, which isn't ideal.

KK also promised to help me move the quail hutches into the garage, because the weather is turning cold at night. We've had two nights when the temperature dropped to below freezing, and I don't want to lose any more of them to their habit of flinging their water around and getting soaking wet. From what I've understood from the internet, quail are particularly stupid little birds who are determined to kill themselves. Yesterday morning I got home and found one of my four-week-old chicks face down in its waterer, eyes closed, completely unmoving. It looked like it had managed to wedge itself between the waterer and the cardboard box I gave them to hide in (quail like to have little shelters to hide in to help them feel safe). I assumed it was dead, but no, it was just stuck and being Very Dramatic, so I'm relieved about that. I confiscated the box, because hiding privileges have to be earned and can be revoked if you try to use them to die by suicide, GDI.

Anyway, yes. Moving the quail into the garage will provide them with more shelter from the elements and hopefully keep them from freezing to death even if they get a bit wet. I will have to install more lighting in the garage if I want the quail to lay during the winter, since they need lots of light to lay and the garage is very poorly lit.

I fully expect Operation Quail Displacement to take a couple of hours at the very least. There's the sexing, the banding, cleaning out the hutches, fixing the hutch roof, and then moving the hutches into the garage, which means clearing a bit of space in the garage to ensure there's enough space for KK and I to carry them in without tripping over anything.

After that it Operation Cook All The Soup will continue, which I fully expect to take the rest of the day, and possibly a good chunk of tomorrow. Somewhere in there I also need to do laundry so I'll have clean linens while I'm recovering from surgery, and have a Zoom call with my parents as well. I don't know if I'll be able to get to the apples and walnuts, but I also don't want them to go bad.

The good news is that KK's shoulder appears to have recovered from whatever she did to it last week. Or, if it hasn't, then she at least hasn't mentioned it to me in the past few days, so I am choosing to see it as a win.

So, yeah. Busy, busy, busy. We shall see how successful I am at making everything work. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: productive

I slept super badly today, so I'm having trouble gathering my thoughts. As a result, I'm going to try to keep this post short and sweet. There's not much to update right now anyway, as today was mostly spent trying unsuccessfully to get a decent amount of sleep.

KK had an optometrist appointment at noon, so she let the dogs into my room at 11:00 just as I'd managed to fall asleep. The dogs milled around and trampled me for a while before settling down to sleep. Then Peggy got up maybe 30 minutes later and barfed all over my floor (at least it wasn't the bed, I guess). I put them in their crates after I cleaned everything up because Pixie was so excited that I was awake that she worked herself into an absolute frenzy and refused to settle again. Then KK messaged me to tell me that she was going to work from the office in the afternoon, and I had to wait for her to answer about when she'd medicated Rika in the morning so I'd know when to administer the last dose. I set an alarm for two hours later, and then after that I managed to get maybe another hour or two of sleep. So, yeah, sleep was in short supply today.

The new quail appear to be settling in fairly well. They're all Coturnix quail, but some have different colouring than the ones I started out with. My first quail, whom I've nicknamed The OGs, were a mix of Pharaoh or Brown Quail and Italian, and the new ones are similar but with three that appear to be Silver Quail. They are very pretty, although I am a little worried about two of them (one Brown, one Silver) which look a little unsteady on their feet compared to the others. They're eating and drinking well, at least, but if they persist in having issues with balance/walking, I am going to make sure I don't use them to hatch out new eggs, just in case it's genetic.

I am considering getting a small storage unit in the closest town for some of my "extra" stuff that's taking up a wild amount of space in the basement. I don't know if this is a good idea. I have very good intentions, of course, but we all know that those make excellent paving materials. If I put stuff in storage, it may end up being very much "out of sight, out of mind," because I apparently struggle with object permanence, like a baby. :P But on the other hand, having a place for stuff that I only use once in a blue moon but don't want to get rid of might be useful, at least until I can get some weatherproof storage on the property. Right now some of it is in my garage, too, and it's in rough shape. I'm a little worried that water infiltration and drastic changes in temperature will damage my wooden furniture, among other things. I guess I can try it out for a few months and see how it goes afterward.

Okay. I have six hours left before my night shift is over. I'm going to try to make it through without passing out from tiredness, maybe with an audiobook if things don't get too busy. I have about five hours left in Caliban's War, the second book of The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, which I've very much been enjoying so far.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: tired

So, uh, I'm not dead. Mostly.

Life be lifin', as the youths are wont to say. Or maybe it's not the youths anymore, it might be the people-who-are-younger-than-me-but-no-longer-qualify-as-youths, which I think are Millennials and older Gen Zs.

To quote Inigo Montoya: "Let me explain. No, there is too much--let me sum up."

The move is finally completely done as of August 31st.
Yes, it did take that long to get everything finished. No, KK was not particularly helpful in getting any of it done.
I was able to hire a contractor to fix the damage my cats did to the basement and the damage KK did to the upstairs wall when we moved, at a very reasonable price.
I also got a professional cleaning service to do an in-depth post-move cleanout, and left the house in as good condition as possible.
KK had her bariatric surgery in July, and it went as well as could be expected. She recovered fully, and while she's having trouble acclimating to the new diet and food in general, overall she is doing well and losing weight.
KK's aunt came out to "help" with her post-surgery recovery. I suppose she technically was very helpful for KK, but my own workload tripled as a result. I may post in more detail about this, but she is officially the second-worst houseguest I have ever had, and her visit culminated in her ramming by brand new riding mower into the side of my deck and breaking them both, and in my sobbing in my car for 40 minutes. Long story short, she is never invited back to stay (she may visit, but she will have to sleep elsewhere than my house).
The new house is an absolute disaster of clutter. I am chipping away at it slowly, one box at a time, and we desperately need to downsize more, because we definitely did not downsize enough when we moved. No, KK has not been particularly helpful in getting any of this done either, unless I specifically poke and prod her to help me, and even then she does the bare minimum and then gives up. I am trying to be understanding because she is both in post-surgery recovery and still disabled/managing chronic pain, and I am a lot less disabled than she is, but I hit my breaking point a few times this summer, and it's very hard to manage it all on my own.
I've had a slightly traumatizing summer with the quail, which I will likely elaborate on in another post, but suffice it to say there has been a lot of quail death, some of it unexplained, a lot of it due to my own mistakes which made it all very upsetting. I currently have a batch of 3-week-old quail that I hatched out, seven quail that I purchased a couple of weeks ago at an auction, 1 seven-week-old that is the sole survivor of a total of 13 that I hatched in July, and 3 of the OG quail that I bought back in April. I'm hoping they will all coexist nicely and start laying (or laying again) soon.
Work has been a mix off good and stressful. There has been a lot of talk of "leveraging efficiencies" and cross-training employees from another unit to be able to do our jobs, which I am interpreting as meaning I will likely be out of a job on March 31st when my contract expires. The government is tightening belts, and getting rid of non-permanent employees is an easy cost-cutting measure.
My mother fell and hit her head again, but luckily did not have a concussion or any major repercussions. We agreed that she should go back to regular physiotherapy to work on her balance and coordination and overall muscle strength.
My father's been diagnosed with an atrial flutter. He wore a diagnostic halter a few weeks ago and will be seeing his cardiologist about the results this week. It's likely he'll need an ablation to take care of it. It's a routine procedure, but he's 84 years old now, and that comes with some inherent risks. I'll have to wait and see what his doctor has to say on the 10th.
Speaking of routine surgeries, my own bariatric surgery is scheduled for next Wednesday. I'm excited to get it over with and move on, but I'm very worried about the upkeep of the house during my recovery. I'm theoretically not allowed to lift, push or pull more than 10lbs for a whole month, nor am I supposed to drive for at least a week. KK has never once taken out the garbage or recycling in the four years we've been roommates, and I can't imagine she's going to start now. I also can't let all that pile up for an entire month, and that's not even taking into account all the basic cleaning chores around the house. KK will do things if I explicitly ask, but I am not confident she'll be able to step up for a whole month to do even the bare minimum. I guess I'll figure it out, as usual.
I've been trying to get organized about house maintenance stuff, and I've done an okay job of that. I've hired a guy to come and install gutters, who's coming tomorrow, an electrician to fix the bathroom vent (still waiting on them to schedule a date), a plumber to install a laundry sink and hook up hot water to the washing machine (scheduled for last week, but apparently some needed parts haven't come in, so that's on hold), a septic company to empty the holding tank (done last Thursday), and a pest control company to deal with the approximately 40 bajillion (give or take) umbrella paper wasps that took up residence on the property this summer (done on Friday). I very much dislike having to kill insects, especially native pollinators, but I got stung several times, and they kept building extra nests in really awkward places like the strike plate of the garage door and the inside of the shed door, right where my hands need to go.
In "fuck cancer" news, my dearest friend tcaptain has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to his lungs and brain. I am heartbroken and very mad at the universe about this. This is something else I will likely devote a post to in the near future.
Home ownership in the country is a lot, but every time I get home after dark I step out of the car and stand for several minutes just gazing up at the night sky, and honestly that alone is worth the price of admission.

Okay, there's probably stuff I'm forgetting, but those are the broad strokes of the end of July and all of August and September. I am going to try to get back to posting every day, although there will likely be at least a few days after surgery when I won't be up to it. I just got kind of overwhelmed with, well, *gestures broadly* everything.

How has everyone been over here? I am very behind the times. Tell me your news! I will do my best to read back, but I don't want to miss anything important. :)

Current Mood: embarrassed

I got a fair bit of stuff done today.

I got up at a very reasonable 6:30am, showered, and took my car to Canadian Tire for (another) alignment. The whole process took less than an hour, so I just waited at a nearby Tim Horton's and had breakfast with a lemon poppy seed muffin which startled me by having some sort of cream cheese filling that I was not expecting. It tasted just fine, but it was weirdly jarring nonetheless. This just tells me that my capacity for dealing with unexpected change is now in the negative numbers.

Once the car was organized, I drove to Cornwall (the nearest large town, although it might technically count as a city? Hang on, I will go look that up. *two minutes later* It's a city. Okay. Moving on.) to go to Home Depot and finally bite the bullet on getting a riding lawn mower. I did a bit of research into the various options, and even though they cost a bit more money, I settled on a John Deere. All the reviews of the more inexpensive models boiled down to the same thing: "It's not worth it, just get a John Deere and have done." Mostly all the other models seem to have poor warranties, lack servicing options, have parts that are hard or impossible to get, or just continuously break down. So I got a John Deere, and it will be delivered on Thursday.

I had a rather circular conversation with the nice young lady serving me at Home Depot. She was a tiny, wispy thing, probably of Indian origin based on her accent and the bracelets adorning her wrists (although I couldn't swear to it), and the poor thing spoke barely above a whisper and had the maddening habit of looking anywhere but at me when she spoke. This may have been cultural or just a personality quirk, but either way, it was not ideal. Long-time readers will remember that I am rather hard of hearing, and so people who speak quietly and/or face away from me when they speak are my kryptonite.

Conversely, she seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding me as well. I asked about financing options, to see if I could avoid having to shell out another $5k right on the spot (everything is so expensive, goddamn), and she agreed and brought me over to customer service.

Her: "You want to finance or use credit card?"

Me: "I'd like to see if I qualify for financing so I don't have to put it on my credit card, please."

Her: "So you use your own credit card?"

Me: "No, I'd like to get financing."

Her: "You want a credit card?"

Me: "Well, Home Depot gives you one with financing, right?"

Her: "Yes."

Me: "Great. Let's do that!"

Her: "Okay, so you go over to the cash and you pay with your credit card now."

Me: "So... you can't do the financing?"

Her: *blank look*

We were saved by another employee named Ariel (I don't know the name of the first woman because she didn't have a name tag), who was able to walk us through the process, thank goodness. It took a while, but now I can pay off the mower over the next 12 months instead of all in one go, with no interest unless I exceed those 12 months.

I had to pop back to Canadian Tire after that because they had neglected to give me the readout for the alignment, and luckily they still had it in their system (apparently the machine doesn't keep it beyond the one reading, but they hadn't had another client in for an alignment yet, or at least that's how I understood it). I sent the readout to Steve the Wonder Mechanic, and he is of the opinion that the dealership simply never did an alignment on my car back in the day. What they did with my car when they kept it for a full 36 hours and charged me $150 for the privilege is beyond me at this point. I am going to have to rally some spoons from somewhere in order to fight them on this and get reimbursed for the work and for the brand new winter tires that they wrecked due to their negligence.

Anyway, I finally made it home five-ish hours after I'd left, put in a load of laundry (everyone clap, please!) and set about continuing to unpack my bedroom. As of right now I am STILL not done (goddamn), but I am down to "only" my books and office supplies (I think, there might still be a surprise lurking in one of those boxes), so I am optimistic I can get that done in the next few days. Ideally I'd like to finish that tomorrow evening when I get home, because I have to go to Ottawa back to my old house.

This is because, in Oh-My-God-There-Is-Still-Moving-Drama news, my old landlords have informed me that, even though I still technically live in the old place, they are going to start showing it to prospective tenants right away. Since it's currently a goddamned disaster in there, I am going to head out tomorrow as early as possible to try to at least tidy up all the garbage and crap that got left behind after the move, and fill up the car with some of the stuff I still want to bring to the new house. That was part of the plan for these coming two weeks anyway, but I had kind of assumed that I'd have more time to get the house pulled together before my landlords swooped in to get prospective new tenants who will likely be paying a LOT more rent than me. I don't like having to work on their timeline, but here we are, I guess. Here's hoping that I can get the house pulled together enough that they aren't going to try to gouge extra money out of me just because they can.

*lies on the floor*

My drama is so very low stakes compared to what's going on in the world, but it's very stressful on a personal level, I promise you. :P

Speaking of stressful, the poor quail had what one might call a Heckin' Escapade yesterday. KK took the dogs out before I got home from my night shift for their usual morning romp. What we didn't know is that Freeloader, the rooster whose life continues to be spared while we get settled in, had taken advantage of the door to his hutch not being latched properly (that one's on me) and gone walkabout (flapabout?). Apparently he hadn't gone far and was just bopping happily around in the grass, foraging away. At least he was, until the Brittanies got hold of him.

Fun fact about Brittanies, they are hunting dogs, specifically a versatile breed, meaning they both point AND retrieve, and because they are retrievers, they have what's called a "soft mouth," meaning that they will hold game birds in their mouths without biting down on them (because hunters don't want to have their birds chewed up by their dogs). Pixie grabbed Freeloader first and took off with him. KK forced her to drop him, only to have Peggy snatch him up immediately afterward. Poor Freeloader got exchanged from dog to dog a couple of times until KK was finally able to confiscate him and put him back in his hutch, where he hunkered down, the picture of wet, slobbery misery, but completely uninjured because the dogs were very gentle with him, comparatively speaking.

Honestly I fully expected him to die of shock, but he has hung in there until tonight, although he is a deeply unhappy and traumatized camper. I haven't heard him crow once since I got home, and he's usually extremely vocal. He has been eating and drinking, though, so I think there's no permanent harm done. And, well, he is going to get the metaphorical axe at some point, once I get my shit together.

Oh, and in the midst of all of this, the weight management clinic called today, and I am scheduled for the Pre-Surgery 2 class next Tuesday, and an in-person appointment with the surgeon on the following Thursday. That means that they are very likely ready to schedule me for surgery ASAP, which of course is something of a problem given that KK is having surgery in just over two weeks' time. OOPS. I'm sure that if I explain the situation they will be sure to schedule me further out, but my goodness, what ridiculous timing. I also have to go get more bloodwork done (so. much. bloodwork.) at the hospital, which means getting up at the asscrack of dawn so that I don't have to spend the entire day waiting in the hospital, because if you get there after 6:30am you have a guaranteed wait of at least two hours, if not three or four, and I for one do not want to spend half the day just waiting in a hospital for a blood draw. Blech. I have a lot of stuff to get done, after all.

I am torn between going tomorrow morning super early since I have to go to the house afterward anyway, or going on Friday. I think I might go tomorrow because that way it will light a fire under my ass and force me to do things. The only "problem" with that is that tomorrow is KK's in-office day, which means the dogs will be home alone for most of the day. But if I go stupidly early and get a lot of cleaning done before, say, noon, I might be able to get home by 2pm, which would get me here in time to dose Rika with her epilepsy meds AND be on time for my therapy appointment at 2:30 (did I mention I have a lot going on lately?). But in order to go tomorrow morning I will need to leave here at 5:30am to get to the hospital at 6:30, and, just, ugh. But it's for the greater good, I guess. Blargh.

And now, it's time for bed, especially if I need to be up in time to leave at 5:30. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

I managed about six hours of sleep today, which is more than I've averaged in the past few months, but I am still revoltingly tired. I got spoiled over the past couple of years of not working 12 hour shifts anymore, and got used to getting seven to eight hours a night far more regularly. I got used to not being nearly as sleep-deprived, and now I am paying for it, because I'm just not coping well with it at all. I used to be able to get things done even with next to no sleep in my system, but now it appears I can't get away with it anymore.

I either need to get more sleep or build my tolerance back up. I'd rather the former, but the way things are going it will probably have to be the latter.

I feel as though I don't have anything useful to say tonight, so this may be a short entry. I have ambitious (but hopefully not TOO ambitious) plans to spend the next two weeks getting the new house fully unpacked and the old house fully cleaned up. Since there's no air conditioning at the old house, my cunning plan is to check the weather ahead of time and to go on the days when it's coolest out so that I don't swelter to death while trying to get the place presentable again.

And in continuing The World Is On Fire news, there's been severe flooding in Texas, with 82 confirmed dead and the toll still rising. There's a lot of finger-pointing going on about why there wasn't more warning about the flooding, particularly from the National Weather Service. There are accusations that the huge cuts to the NWS are responsible for the lack of warning, but from what I can tell the NWS still managed to do its job in spite of all the cuts, so I'm not sure what's happening there. No matter which way you slice it, this is a horrific tragedy (especially since many of the victims are children), and it can be laid at the feet of the various administrations who've been blithely ignoring climate change for decades.

The wildfire season is going strong in the Western part of Canada, too. They had to close Kelowna Airport earlier today due to wildfire activity, but hopefully it won't remain closed long. At least we've had a fair bit of rain in my area in the past couple of weeks. It's kept things a bit cooler and allowed everything to grow, including, alas, my lawn. I have about 3.5 acres of lawn now (interspersed with trees and outbuildings), and no lawn mower except my tiny electric weed whacker, which is very obviously not up to that task. So on the list of things to do this week is acquire a riding lawn mower, hopefully at a reasonable price, because I am very quickly running out of money.

Speaking of which, I should fill out my time sheets so I can get paid for my shift work. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: awake

I was going to make a joke about making a sacrifice (or perhaps an offering) to the god(s) of wakefulness, but it turns out that there are only gods of sleep and dreaming and they just happen to also have wakefulness as part of their domain or sphere of influence. Either way, I made choices yesterday that resulted in my getting to sleep a lot later than my good intentions. I don't think these fall into the category of poor life choices, though.

I had some errands that I had to run, specifically to pick up more quail feed (I had thought I had enough to last until the weekend, but my calculation was off by a couple of days) and more toothpaste for the dogs. Yes, I do brush the dogs' teeth every day. Honestly, if I could manage it, I'd brush the cats' teeth too, and that would have spared me the nearly $3,000 vet bill from a couple of weeks ago, but the cats do NOT take kindly to having their mouths messed with. The dogs are wriggly about it, but otherwise they let me brush their teeth without too much fuss. Anyway, we always have a backup tube of toothpaste, but of course the backup tube is packed in a box somewhere, so I had to buy another one. I suppose we could have let the dogs go for a week either without brushing at all or just brushing without toothpaste (I am quite sure KK doesn't brush their teeth when I'm not home in the evenings because I'm at work), but it wasn't that much of a hardship to detour for 15 minutes to go pick some up at one of the local pet stores.

I got home at 6:30pm and allowed KK to persuade me to watch TV with her, although I probably should have taken that time to do something useful. I put the dogs to bed just after 8pm, then went to the basement to put the quail to bed and put away the quail feed into 5-gallon buckets. Fun facts I have discovered: 1) 1 bag of quail feed fits almost perfectly into 3 5-gallon buckets; 2) 6 quail will go through one bag of feed in about 9 weeks (I forget how much the bag weighs, but I think it's 25kg), which means each bird goes through about 600 grams of feed a day, which is 3 times their average body weight; 3) quail feed is dusty AF.

Since I was now coated in quail feed dust, taking a shower seemed like a non-negotiable, so that's what I did.

As an aside, hot showers are pretty glorious things, and honestly having continuous access to fresh running water on demand at temperatures I can regulate according to my whims is going to be one of the things I miss the most if society collapses (even partially) and the grid no longer supports us. There's a lot of stuff we take for granted in our modern society that is kind of hanging by a thread these days, not least of which is clean, potable water and pretty excellent waste management. I'm moving to a place which doesn't have access to a municipal sewage system, but it still has a septic holding tank (not a full septic system with a septic field, interestingly enough) which requires regular emptying by a company that knows what it's doing when it comes to disposing of waste in a safe and sanitary fashion. We eliminated so many illnesses and premature deaths just by figuring out how to dispose of human excrement that I don't think many of us (myself included, if I'm perfectly honest) truly understand how bad things will get once we no longer have access to good sanitation.

Anyway, all that aside, after my shower and general pre-bedtime ablutions, I ended up only getting to bed well after 10:30pm and fell asleep shortly after 11:00pm. Given that I was working the "early" 7am shift today, that made for a shorter night of sleep than I would have liked, but it was all for a good cause. As of next week, since we'll be living much further away, I am going to have to become much more regimented about going to bed at a reasonable hour, because I'm going to need to leave on average 30 minutes earlier than I have been for the last year or so. I'm probably going to have to forgo watching TV with KK in the evenings. That seems like the best way to save a couple of hours in which to get things done. I didn't sit down and watch TV per se before she moved in: often I'll have a TV show or a podcast on kind of in the background as I move around and do things like chores.

I find it weirdly hard to do any kind of chores when KK is in the house, which unfortunately is 99% of the time these days (or else it's during work hours, when I can't do chores anyway because I'm either working or physically at my office). This is entirely a me problem, a weird hangup that I have about getting stuff done where I can be Perceived(TM), especially when she's just sitting and watching TV or playing on her phone or her tablet (or all three at once, as is often the case, which boggles even my ADHD mind). I don't know what it is, exactly, but I just feel weird about cleaning up around her, partly because it kind of feels like I am cleaning up AT her, which is not my intention (although maybe I am subconsciously doing that? It's possible.). Anyway, I am probably overthinking this.

My shift is nearly over, thank goodness, because today has been nothing but a long list of frustrations because of our automated SOPs. When they work, they are great. However, today a supervisor decided to take them offline without warning (our manager gave the instructions but apparently it wasn't meant to happen until next week), and I lost all of the work I had done on a rather complicated file, which was just maddening. And then I went around in circles with said supervisor about it for a while, and finally had to start my file over from scratch using an older version.

Whoops, shit is hitting the fan. I will leave this here for now. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

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