Corner of Bourbon & Division

Someone on Facebook posted earlier today that the wealthy (the post said billionaires, but I'm willing to bet other ultra-wealthy people whose net work is "only" in the tens or hundreds of millions also profit this way) profit off of stock market volatility, and honestly, that tracks as the youths are saying these days. (Actually, I'm not sure the youths are using that expression either, I might be a few years out of date on that one too). Trump declares tariffs, the markets tank, wealthy people buy up stock at low prices. The next day Trump declares no more tariffs, the markets pick up, the wealthy have now made a tidy profit.

Barf.

The weather also doesn't know what to do with itself, which is fairly typical for the beginning of March. We've had snow, freezing rain, rain, clear blue skies, warm weather and freezing weather all within less than 26 hours. It's been changing its mind more than Trump has, and that's saying something! Today when I tried to go to work for the early shift my entire car was frozen shut, and the windshield cover I use on my car had actually frozen closed over the side mirrors (it has drawstrings that close around the side mirrors that are great 99% of the time because it keeps the cover from blowing around), and it took forever to get it off as well as chip away enough ice to actually get in my car in order to get my scraper out. What a shitshow. Luckily this is a fairly rare weather coincidence, so hopefully I won't have to deal with it anymore this year, or at least only a handful of times before spring sets in.

In politics-adjacent news, I've been having conflicting feelings about continuing to post on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal. LJ is, of course, owned by Russians, and DW has all its information hosted in the USA, which makes me worry a little about what's going to happen to all of the posts and data if more draconian laws come into play. I'm trying to divest as much from anything US-related as possible, and that is probably going to include a lot of my online activities.

I'm still trying to figure out how to divest from social media companies that are overwhelmingly American without sacrificing my connections with friends (my family is mostly not online) and my connection to alternative news sources and help networks. I know so many people online who are wonderful and amazing whom I consider close friends even though I've never met a lot of them in person, and I have a lot of IRL friends who now live far away from me and with whom I basically only have contact online. I don't think Canada HAS a social media platform to speak of. Right now I have accounts on a number of platforms: Discord (not social media exactly, but close), Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok. All but the latter are owned by the US, and the latter is great in some ways and problematic AF in others.

Not for the first time I kind of wish I had learned how to program beyond the basic html shit I learned specifically for LJ back in 2002. ;) I'd be fine with trying to create my own social media platform, even if it was kind of small and janky if it means I could keep all my friends in my pocket like before but without supporting US corporations or sacrificing my data to shitty actors. I suppose I could always try to learn to program an app in my copious amounts of spare time. To be fair, I do have spare time, I am just bad at using it efficiently.

I have always wanted to be one of those highly organized, highly efficient people to whom others look and say "My God, I don't know how she manages it all!" However, I have to be content with people side-eyeing me and probably saying things like "It's honestly amazing she manages to tie her shoes on a regular basis." (Joke's on them, 3/4 of my shoes are slip-ons!) I have a fair number of "extra" hours in the week, but those usually get frittered away either in decision paralysis or general task initiation paralysis, or just because I can't force myself out of bed early on the weekends anymore because I'm never not tired. (My sleep test is in eight days and I am way too excited about it!)

In related news, I've started reading a new book which looks super promising. It's called Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next), and so far it has done an excellent job of defining mutual aid, what is is and what it isn't. The next part of the book is meant to have practical advice on how to start mutual aid or at least get involved, and I am excited to get into it. As usual, my brain isn't letting me read particularly quickly, so I may run out of time before the book has to go back to the library. That being said, if I like the book enough, I may buy myself a copy for future reference.

Okay, time to put this disjointed post out of its misery. Tomorrow I am off to visit my parents and I don't know how late I'll be back home, but hopefully I will be home in time to not break my posting streak. See you on the flip side, friends!

One thing you don't grasp as a child is that becoming an adult essentially means giving up a huge chunk of your free time. Until I moved out on my own, I essentially had two adults who did a lot of stuff for me without my really noticing. Don't get me wrong, I was expected to help around the house and contribute to the overall functioning of our household, but that's very much not the same as having to do it all myself on top of holding down a full-time job.

This is my roundabout way of complaining that basically every single day next week is taken up by commitments, even though I have the whole week "off" work. I am deeply annoyed by the fact that I won't have any downtime at all until I have to go back to work the following Monday. It's very rude, is what it is, and honestly I am tired just thinking about it.

The good news is that, much to my surprise, KK agreed to move her in-office shift from Monday to Tuesday, so tomorrow I shall zip to Montreal with the Hubris Shawl and a couple of other things I got for my mother, specifically some new KN95 masks for her to try out and a pulse oximeter. I have been worried for quite some time that my mother will resist seeking medical attention when she needs it because she tends to dismiss any symptoms as minor or unimportant, and I'm hoping having an objective measure will help her make that determination. The one I got has good reviews and wasn't super expensive, and I can show her at what number she should definitely seek medical care. Her compromised lung function already puts her at considerable risk, so also knowing when *not* to go to the hospital is also a useful skill to acquire.

The plan is to leave around 8am, which will put me in Montreal by about 11am, especially given the current meteorological conditions, and then leave maybe around 7pm to avoid rush hour traffic and the aforementioned meteorological conditions, which are pretty terrible right now. It didn't snow much overnight, much to my relief, but it has been snowing steadily all day while I've been at the office, so I fully expect the roads to be an absolute nightmare for the next couple of days until the city can get them cleared properly. Driving in was pretty gnarly despite the relative paucity of snow, because the ploughs weren't out yet. Logistically it makes sense. The plough drivers will likely be doing 16 hour stints and desperately need sleep, so it makes more sense to send them out once a lot more snow has fallen so as to maximize the effect of the ploughing, rather than having them scrape two centimeters at a time off the roads and then have to go off shift just as the storm hits its peak. 

Speaking of ploughs, I'm not at all convinced my property management folks will have gotten around to my driveway by the time I get home tonight, so I am bracing for having to pull out my shovel and clear myself a space in there. My immediate neighbours, who share the driveway with me, drove away on Thursday and I haven't seen their car nor any sign it has come back to the driveway since that day. I'm not sure if they just decided to park it elsewhere until the snow was completely removed, or if they just went on a little trip together that happened to coincide with the winter storm.

In the meantime, I have reached out to a local professional organizer. I am 100% fed up with the state of the house, and I can't do it on my own. KK is not going to be of any help for a variety of reasons, so I'm hoping the lady I emailed with today will not be faint of heart and will help me manage within the parameters of the current state of the house. I'm willing to purge more of my stuff to make room, but KK is not going to want to part with any of hers, so I have to figure out storage solutions for all of that in a way that will allow me to keep functioning

My main hope is to start with the garage and turn that into a more functional storage space than it currently is, then turn my attention to the main floor and the basement. I am reasonably confident I can tackle my bedroom on my own, but if that turns out to also require a helping hand, I can always avail myself of the services again. Of course, we might not start with the garage simply because it's been so damned cold lately, and my garage is unheated, so that might have to wait for more clement weather. I'd much rather do the garage first so that it can serve as a staging/storage area, but needs must, I guess. We could always start in the basement or the kitchen. The kitchen is the most in need of some kind of organizing, but we have «l'embarras du choix» as they say. 

I'm just over halfway through my last weekend shift at work. Another five hours and I can GTFO. Pray for good road conditions, friends!

 Nonetheless, I got stuff done today! Class let out very early, so I ended up going and doing some grocery shopping before I came home. It started snowing nearly 15 hours after the predicted time, but it's nonetheless snowing, and we're expecting anywhere from 10-15cm before the end of it. I've been checking outside the window, and the snow is falling much more sparsely than I would have thought. Maybe I won't have to shovel as much as I originally thought I would, which would be very nice indeed. I do like winter a lot, but I'm not a huge fan of shovelling snow.

Groceries aside, I've been trying to get some studying done today, since I got home so early. I've already done some revising of my Romanian lessons on Duolingo, and next up will be reading a bunch of documentation for tomorrow's class. I don't particularly feel like it, as the material is drier than the Sahara, but it's necessary nonetheless. The course itself is both very simple and rather difficult for me to understand: I think it assumes a basic level of knowledge that I simply don't possess, which is making it harder for me to follow. I'm hoping that going through extra course material tonight will give me a better grasp of the subject-matter.

I haven't said much on here about the political bullshit fest going on south of the border, not because I don't care, but because there's so much of it that it feels overwhelming to even scratch at the surface here on LJ. Suffice it to say that every time I open Twitter, it's to discover new lies from the Trump administration, or more examples of white people being terrible even when they "mean well." The reaction of white women in particular to the perfectly valid criticism from other members of the feminist movement (disabled women, trans women, native women, women of colour, etc.) is incredibly disheartening. It often feels like the message that's being sent is that anything is acceptable so long as cishet able-bodied white women aren't made to feel too uncomfortable.

There's been a lot of congratulatory back-patting about how the Women's March went off without a hint of violence (not exactly true, anyway), as if that's a virtue of the marchers and not a direct result of how white people are simply policed differently than people of colour. The police are reluctant to turn the pepper spray and rubber bullets on middle-class white moms, that's the long and the short of it. That's the only reason things didn't turn ugly. Women of colour have been at the forefront of the battles for justice forever, and white women have not returned the favour, only showing up when they themselves felt threatened. Like with a lot of these situations, I think it bothers me more because fifteen years ago I might have been one of these white women, but I was able to learn (and continue to learn, every time I fuck up), and it infuriates me when people just like me stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to listen. Surely white fragility can't be that hard to let go of? If I can refrain from shrieking about "not all white women," then surely all these other women can too? *hands*

Anyway, I have no good answer for any of it. I just know that my fellow white people and I are capable of doing better, and we need to try a lot damned harder to achieve it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have 100 pages or so of technical manuals to study. XD

I am a little surprised at how many dreams I'm managing to remember of late.

In this one I had arrived at work and was just starting my shift. In my dream, starting my shift meant going outside the RCMP building and making sure the weeds didn't take over the place. I was still a dispatcher, but apparently weeding was part of the deal. I'm guessing that yesterday's yard work was lodged somewhere in my subsconsious. Anyway, the weeds were plentiful, and I was very worried that I hadn't already done a better job of keeping them at bay. I thought it might have something to do with the arrival of spring, since they were springing up all over the place, but I kept thinking that I should have done a better job during my last shift, even though there hadn't really been enough time to get all the weeds in the short time I was allotted before I began my shift (about half an hour in the dream, if memory serves), since the grounds at work are quite vast.

I wasn't able to get it all done then, either, but it was time to head back in, so I hurried into the building and, for some reason I now don't recall, went into a small conference room. Perhaps I was fetching something, or had to do something in the room prior to my shift, I don't remember. Anyway, the next thing I knew people were pouring into the room. I recognised them all as being from the drug enforcement section, and realised that I was inadvertently crashing an important meeting. There was a beautiful young woman there with very long brown hair and big blue eyes, and I recognised her immediately as the girlfriend (or maybe daughter?) of an important mafia boss, and that's when I knew that she must be there to give testimony. It explained why there were so many officers and why everything was being kept hush-hush. She was being kept in witsec in return for her to turn state's evidence, as they say in the U.S.

For some reason I couldn't figure out, she took a shine to me and insisted I sit next to her. I knew her life was in grave danger just by being there, and sure enough when I turned around I caught sight of a sniper on the roof of a building farther down the street. Amusingly enough, it was Eliot from the TV show Leverage. In the dream I apparently knew him well enough that we were friends of a sort, or at least had been. I remember being very upset at the thought that he'd apparently gone back to being a thug-for-hire. I didn't want the girl I was with to die, so I waved and smiled at him and sat directly beside her, so that he wouldn't have a shot unless he went through me first, and I was convinced that our relationship was strong enough that he wouldn't take that shot. (I'm not 100% sure, but I think briefly in the dream I either thought I was Parker, also from Leverage, and I might have transformed into her for a little while, to capitalise on their bond in the show).

In the end, we got through the interview with no bloodshed, and the officers were able to take the girl back into witsec without incident. There was a strange little interlude in my dream, then, in which I shifted into spectator mode. This actually happens a lot to me in dreams, when I seem to step outside what's happening and just watch what's going on. Sometimes I'm watching myself, but more often than not it's like watching a very surreal movie. It felt like an extra scene from Leverage, but it was taking place right after what had just happened in my dream. Parker was there (perhaps I had been her after all, and was now myself again?), and she'd gone to find Eliot, and gave him a very impassioned speech about coming back to the side of the good. She reminded him of everything they'd done, all the progress they'd made, all the lives they'd improved, and I am pretty sure that by the end of the scene they had reconciled and Eliot had given up his thug-for-hire ways for good. So it was a happy ending for them.

By then, though, I was nearly five hours late for my own work shift. I sprinted down the hall and arrived at my office, where I couldn't see anyone. There were beautiful green plants hanging everywhere, though, as well as lined up on trolleys in the hallway just outside. My office was apparently in the midst of a big campaign to improve employees' lives through plants and flowers. The whole office smelled fragrant and green, and I couldn't help but feel my spirits lift when I walked in. I knew that not only would I be allowed to have plants at my desk, but that I'd be encouraged to take more plants home, which was great. I kept thinking that this would never have happened at my old posting, and was such a vast improvement over my previous job, and that I was very lucky to have such a great job now.

Still, I had to account for my tardiness. I ran directly to my supervisor's office to explain what had happened. He seemed pleased to see me, and had wondered why I was late. I explained that I'd actually arrived at work early for my shift, but that I'd been delayed by circumstances outside of my control. He seemed pretty sympathetic overall, since he apparently knew about the witness meant to give testimony, but I lost him when I told him that Eliot had been the sniper on the roof. I recall saying: "But wait—it gets better!" because I was legitimately excited about Eliot being there, but I could tell my boss couldn't quite bring himself to believe me. Nonetheless, he decided that I didn't deserve to be sanctioned, and sent me back to my desk to get to work.

And that's all I remember of that.

Today there is rain in the forecast, which means yard work will not be happening, alas. I should have gotten up at 6:00, but I was lazy and slept until 7:30, so that means I couldn't get an early start on the yard work at all. Since there's mostly rain forecast all week it's not the end of the world, as my main goal was to get the yard in good enough shape for Bean to play in it. If it's raining he won't be able to play outside anyway.

Instead I shall try to organise some of my stuff today. The back and forth from Ottawa means I rarely stop and go through my things, and so my "packing" has become increasingly haphazard over the months. So today I'm going to cull my things and try to get everything back down to manageable levels of bags.

pdaughter has been taking a cake decorating class given by Wilton at Michael's Stores (the one in Vaudreuil). It's every Sunday, which means that it's been tricky to schedule babysitting for Bean on the Sundays I'm not home, 50% of the time. Unfortunately the class doesn't appear to be held on weekdays, when Bean is in daycare, because that would make it easier for everyone.

Still, today I am home until the afternoon, so Bean and I will be spending some quality time together over the course of the morning. The last few times we've watched videos on my computer, but I'm hoping that we can find something with less screen time to do. Or at least something that doesn't involve my computer. He has his LeapPad, and if worse comes to worst I'll suggest a movie. We never did finish Sleeping Beauty the other night, so perhaps we shall do that today.

( Picture-heavy recap of yesterday under the cut )

... so consider this today's post.

The car has been dropped off at the shop. With any luck, in two days' time, I shall have a bumper that is no longer concave! I am excited. Ever since the summer of 2010 when someone hit my car in a parking lot while I was shopping, I've had a giant dent in the bumper. I never bothered to get it fixed, but after the little fender bender I had in early December I decided that the insurance could handle it this time around.

Today is a day for errands. Groceries, dry cleaning, prep for tomorrow's cooking day, and then a Capricornucopia meeting. I'm also looking forward to the cooking day tomorrow. We haven't had one in many months, and I've always enjoyed them.

Right now I am sore all over. The thaw and subsequent freeze yesterday morning meant that when I went to start my car, I literally spun my wheels. No amount of salt seemed to help, and I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to shove my car out of the icy hole in which it sat. Luckily some good Samaritans stopped by to help me out after that, but it still took two of us to push the car out of the hole while another guy drove. So all my muscles hurt today.

I did get home a little earlier than I anticipated last night, and Bean wasn't asleep yet (thanks to a nap at daycare which wrecked bedtime), so I got to give him a kiss goodnight. He asked me if I'd gotten cupcakes for my birthday, and was very disappointed when I said I hadn't. Then he all but shot out of bed to inform pdaughter: "Mama! Dah-dee IS want a cupcake for her birthday!" So it appears there will be cupcakes at Capricornucopia. No complaints here. ;)

On that note, it's time for me to get cracking. I've taken painkillers for the muscle aches and the latent headache, and now I'm running a bit behind on my self-imposed timeline for this morning. With any luck my errands will take less time than I planned for, which will get me back on track.

The dog and all the cats are sound asleep. I am jealous.

Before I got onto my amusing anecdote, allow me to express all my GLEE at my Generic Seasonal Greeting Card™ from prolixfootle.

\o/


So winter seems to have caught most of Montreal off-guard. Heck, even I was a couple of days late getting my winter tires put on the GSVCO. What a difference traction makes! It's as though a few months without cold and snow lulls us all into a false sense of security or something.

Last night, though, there was a serious mishap outside my front door. A snow-removal tractor clipped the fender of a parked car and proceeded to just about rip half the side of the car right off.

No injuries, but the car looked like it was going to need some major TLC. Inconvenient at this time of year, to be sure.

Spent the morning with karine, owldaughter, ai731 and toughlovemuse doing the knitting thing, had a delicious lunch of soup, freshly-baked rolls, and schadenfreude pie.

Have been vegging at home, watching the new season of Heroes, getting some writing done, having quality time with the cats. Good times, overall.

The weather is kind of grey, which I suppose is normal for November. Sleeping cats, however, totally makes up for that.

I've been getting up late all week. Not sure why, except that the days are getting colder and shorter, and I've never been a particular fan of this season change. I've always been more tired around this time of year, and I guess this year is no exception.

Had a really intense dream about taking a 911 call in which the only thing I could hear was screaming in the background (note: I don't take 911 calls in my regular job, since the RCMP doesn't have jurisdiction over that in Montreal. This was all my subconscious playing up.). I flagged down my supervisor who was in his office, and said: "[ADD!Supervisor], I need you to trace this call right now. Someone's getting murdered!" I remember thinking in my dream that I should have said "It *sounds* like someone's getting murdered," but I couldn't do anything about it. I tried to get someone's attention through the phone, and I got a young child, who didn't seem to understand what was going on, and wanted to hang up. I kept calling over and over not to hang up the phone, and after that things get a little hazy.

I think that after that the dream kind of switched to where I was more actively involved in the scene, and I'm pretty sure that things weren't as they seemed. There had been violence but no murder, and after that things get very very blurry in my memory. I do know that I ended up in one of my usual dreamscapes of weirdly-designed buildings, going through winding corridors and secret doors and stairs and the like that weren't quite Euclidian in design (Cthulhu! Ftangh!).

Part of me seriously wishes I was able to paint and draw well, because damn would I have fun drawing the weird stuff I dream up. It's always vast, epic scenery when I'm outside, or huge, misshapen buildings when I'm inside, with ceilings that stretch out forever and corridors that wind and twist and lead into even weirder-looking rooms.

It strikes me as odd that I remember the beginning of the dream so vividly, but not the rest. Huh.