Table Games

Inspirational song: White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)

I see where things went sideways. I know exactly what happened. I was there.

Today was rather productive. I cleaned out a ton of stuff, like expired OTC drugs from the medicine drawer, and scrubbed the bathroom. I tidied up all around the place, except the biggest three piles of paper and junk on the main floor of the house. I went to Target, and restocked on some heavy duty cleaning fluid (to eat away the limescale where needed) and picked up a new bathmat that the cats shouldn't be able to slide around the room (away from where I step out of the shower, and need it so I don't fall on the slick tile.) I spent the big bucks and got a humidifier, to see whether that stops the recurring-daily bloody nose I've had ever since the doctor cut out a "carat and a half" sized chunk of basal cell carcinoma and surrounding healty nasal tissue. And I came home to find the swimsuits I ordered on faith from the internet had arrived, so I may be able to toss the ones that are nearly see-through with crunchy elastic.

All in all, it was a good day. People arrived late to D&D night, and we are finding that the original party members have lost interest, and we who came late are more hardy than they. The most recent substitute was having a bad day, and she and I ended up sitting next to each other at the edge of the stratosphere. For the record, the cyclobenziprine I took for my maladies was much more strong than what she took for hers, but we each ended up not caring nearly as much about the bits of ourselves that hurt.

And that was the problem. The muscle relaxer. It helped most of me, but never touched the searing agony in my heels. (Lets just say that regardless of the nation's varying opinions on bone spurs in the feet, I can say in all certainty that the ones in my heels absolutely ruin my life.) I sat through at least 50% of the game tonight with my chin resting on my hand, eyes closed, hoping like hell I wouldn't actually nod off and stop hearing what was happening around me. I'm pretty sure I slipped over the threshold once or twice. Sorry, friends who played around me. I didn't mean to check out early.

To Nest or Not to Nest

Inspirational song: Major Tom (Peter Schilling)

Well, best I can tell, the countdown is on. More than a week ago, I got an email saying our background checks came back clean. My Rotary friends said that someone called them for references. I wrote to the youth exchange coordinator, but I may have used the address she doesn’t check very often. I just wanted someone to say yes, it has been decided, and you are getting the exchange student for the final two months of her term. I caught her attention at the end of Rotary today, and asked her whether anyone had confirmed it with her, and she said yes, people have been talking to her as if the whole thing is settled.

I have resisted doing any real nesting, until the official word came down. I will need to acquire some additional storage furniture for the guest bedroom, mainly because I have so many clothes (a sad by-product of gaining and losing so much weight so often, that I keep almost complete wardrobes in five sizes). I’m torn between buying a new small dresser either from a brick and mortar store locally or ordering off of something like Overstock or Wayfair. The other option is scouring the thrift shops and Restore, but I have no time or energy to refinish something in a condition other than “like new.” I need to reorganize the linen closet in the hall outside of what will be her bedroom, so she can find things she needs. And I suspect I will cave in to the impulse to buy her brand new towels, and maybe a new shower curtain and bathmat.

I invited her over for dinner on one of our game nights, so she could meet everyone. I want her to know what she’s getting into. She gets to go on a vacation to Hawaii with the other exchange students next week, so we aren’t sure whether she will come over or be panic-packing like I would be. Her sister comes to visit the week after that, so I will probably have a hard time getting penciled in on her calendar. 

Now that it’s starting to feel real, I am anxious and nervous and so excited. She’s a sweet girl, and I want her to be happy here. I think we are the right host family to round out her American experience. My answer is clear. It’s time to nest.

Dollars and Sense

Inspirational song: Money Money Money (ABBA)

I'm having a crisis of confidence that feels like it should be wholly unjustified. I'm stressing about money, right at the point where it seems to be picking up for everyone around me... just not for me. My kids, both biological and honorary, are all gainfully employed to a level where I really don't have to worry about them. I shouldn't, but I still do. Most of them have better, more lucrative jobs than I did when I was their age. It's hard to stop feeling like mom to all of them, though. I want to provide for them, even though I don't have any real contracts coming up for my own self. I even lost my best client, not for anything wrong, but for their own circumstances suddenly becoming uncertain. But real estate is like that. The Mr has decided his side hustle is making decent money, and he's having enough fun doing it that he wants to keep going, although he's going to have to acquire proper transportation of his own and leave my car out of the equation. I should be feeling more relaxed, more secure, with everyone around me prospering. Instead, I may be feeling left behind. I need to do something about that.

In the ongoing struggle against my own body, I went for a visit with my primary care doc. I needed to update a handful of referrals to specialists, particularly since the military switched companies to process Tricare insurance. The insurance itself has been a nightmare, as the new service provider was woefully unprepared for the contract they won. (The theory around here is that they were the lowest bidder, and as government contracting goes, they didn't have to be the most qualified, just the cheapest. In fact, it's harder than one would think to justify selecting a more qualified applicant if their bid is higher.) My co-pays have gone up and my customer service experience has deteriorated. With all that stress, I'm rather amazed that my checkup went like it did. The tech who took my vitals didn't seem to accept what her instruments were telling her. Yes, my temperature was that low. Same with blood pressure. And sorry, my pulse is always hard to find. ("I promise, I'm not a vampire," I said to lighten the mood when she started to get frustrated at that point.) So when the doc saw the numbers, without an explanation, she reached into a drawer and pulled out the pulse oximeter. My pulse was 52 and my oxygen saturation was 92. She accused me of playing dead. "We like those numbers to be higher," she said with mild amusement. I had to go to a different exam room for spirometry. After four attempts, with the computer coming back with "hesitation detected: blow faster," and "hesitation detected: blow longer," each time, alternately, I finally got to stop, and by then spots were dancing in front of my eyes. Most of my numbers were around 80-81, but I have never tried to read one of those tests before, to know what the values mean. But the gist of my afternoon was this: lupus is hard on your lungs. Time to do something about it.

From the doctor's office, after a detour to drop off a ballot for a city council special election that is due by tomorrow, I went to my neighborhood pharmacy. I exchanged greetings with my favorite pharmacy tech, a sweet, pretty brunette who I've come to know ridiculously well in the last two years, and announced, "I have decided that you don't get enough of my money. Here," I handed the new prescription, "You get some more of it." This new prescription, for a brand name inhaler, has a co-pay two and a half times what I pay for the generics I usually get. And for a year the doc has been nagging me to switch to the brand name for the go-to drug for lupus. She won't let this go. So I'll be paying more for that once I cave in. I may have to switch to the mail-order pharmacy for a bunch of this stuff, to make up the difference. But that would mean I wouldn't get to see my friendly pharmacists who know me by sight, and who are responsible for at least two social interactions per month that I would never have otherwise. (Some weeks they were the only humans outside the family that I spoke to. I love them.)

Deferred Maintenance

Inspirational song: I Got You, Babe (Sonny and Cher)

At the time I doubt I really appreciated it as much, but in now my middle years I've decided one of the things I liked most about college was living in the dorms. It wasn't the tiny rooms or pure chance of whether you'd like your roommates (I switched a week into the terms twice, once for an improvement, and once for a disaster that haunts me to this day). It wasn't the wretched food ("slop on rice" or the salsa on the breakfast burritos that turned me off of that food for life after I ended up in the hospital, dehydrated after barfing it up for two days straight). It was the communal living, where I learned to be absolutely blase' about wandering past strangers wearing nothing but a towel, on my way across the hall to the showers. There's something so comforting, something that harkens back to the dorm years, about how we go back and forth between our house and our neighbor's in jammies several times a week. I'm glad that he shows up at the door in a bathrobe, asking to use our hot tub while Barley plays out back with Murray. It's also cool that our kids and D&D group are equally chilled out when they come over, helping themselves to snacks and beverages, as comfortable here as in their own spaces. I don't do well in isolation, and this feels right.

We donned pajamas after supper, and went next door to watch a movie. It had been long enough (at least a year) since any of us watched Groundhog Day, and we felt it was time. I paid attention to the background details I usually gloss over, and that was fun. Our neighbor said he's heard theories on how long Bill Murray's lead character is stuck in that same day, refining himself and fixing defects over and over until he's finally healed inside. He said some people think he was stuck there for a thousand years or more. I'd never pondered it before. I think I assumed at most one year, but that can't be right. He learns too much for a single year. Just becoming a piano virtuoso alone would take years of serious study. We asked each other how we'd approach a day like that; what would we do? I said I had never planned it out, but obviously whatever it was, it would involve bingeing on gluten for hours. All the donuts would be mine, with no consequences in the following week.

It has been nearly two years since our electrical panel was completely rewired from the bird's nest of frayed wires that was in it when we bought this house. It took nearly a week of identifying circuits before the panel upgrade, just so we knew what we were looking at, and careful planning of how it should be laid out to make sense for the rest of the years this house would be standing, using that power grid. The identifying map was written on a scrap piece of paper, and lost in the house during the year that our emotional lives were self-destructing. Dealing with home maintenance was not high on anyone's list while we were busy metaphorically stabbing each other in the heart over and over. While I was here alone, I eventually found the handwritten diagram, and pinned it to the refrigerator. There it stayed for over a year. A few times I locked my eyes on it, and thought, hm, I should write that on the inside of the breaker box door. I never did. I'm a world class expert at procrastination. Today, while I sat in my favorite chair, determined to accomplish next to nothing today, Mr S-P walked in with the cover to the panel, and the paper diagram. He set the cold, sharp-edged metal door on my lap, and fetched a Sharpie, setting me on the task. It's done now, with only the mystery breaker (that we never could identify) unlabeled. Someday we will find out what that breaker controls, like someday we will find out what the dual light switch next to the basement stairs is for. For now, that can be punted to a day in the distant future. I got one task off the deferred maintenance list. I call that a win.

In the Right Place

Inspirational song: I've Seen That Movie Too (Elton John)

The very best good thing that happened today? I got to call and cancel tomorrow's appointment. Unless something dramatic happens, I can stay at home all day, and catch up on the things I have been putting off in favor of all the running around I've had to do. This week has been unpleasantly hectic, and I can't wait to get started on sleeping late and doing nothing, until at least noon.

I got to be a showing agent this week, meaning it was my job to coordinate with my boss' latest client, to take her around to properties, since she wanted to live closer to me than to him. It was mostly an opportunity based on proximity. We all honestly thought this would take up to a month to accomplish. Yet today, after six days of serious looking, she's ready to write an offer. I don't have to do any of that part. My job is done. All I had to do was make and cancel about half a dozen appointments, and send constant emails and texts for a week. And today, when we walked into the first of four we intended to have her view this weekend, she was home. We stood in that vacant property for an extra fifteen minutes, just chatting. That's always a big neon sign that someone is in the right property, when they don't want to leave it. I know she's in good hands, that my mentor and managing broker is writing the offer. He'll give her the best chance of securing this house, and I am confident she'll get it. The house really was lovely. I didn't want to leave it either.

Two years ago at the caucus for presidential candidates, our precinct nearly broke out in active combat. We were an "orphan" precinct, and I naively put my hand up and volunteered to run the meeting. It was pandemonium. Emotions ran high, and the room was packed with incredibly passionate supporters of each of the leading candidates. We only had two delegates to send to the county assembly, and our vote was about 65% - 35%. (These are rough guesses.) Neither I nor the secretary had any clue how to do the math according to the caucus rules to know how to apportion the delegates. We tried to guess, when we couldn't find it in the packet we were given, and that's when the room nearly erupted into open warfare. Eventually someone made a phone call, and we got it sorted out, discovering that it actually was a split, one to each of the candidates. This year, while I am still at the end of my two-year term as precinct leader (I had no idea I was signing up for a multi-year commitment at the time), I made a point of attending training on how to run a caucus. I also have a co-precinct leader volunteer who has just fallen out of the sky to help out. She and I met for the first time today, and went into the training together. I'm nervous that the people who show up to caucus will remember what a nightmare it was last time and hold that against me, but at least now I know what I'm doing, so I can handle what they throw at me. It's a toss up whether I'll be serving another term as precinct leader, though. Either no one will want to volunteer, like last time, or they'll want my head on a platter for being uneducated two years ago. As it stands, very few people have preregistered, and the marquee matchup is for governor, so it might end up a very sedate affair. Wouldn't that be nice?

We closed out the night playing games and watching bad movies. The games were two rounds of Quiplash (my favorite), and the movie was something I had never heard of from 1953 called The Mesa of Lost Women. I have absolutely no idea what happened in this movie. We heckled the entire thing. I think I managed to hear one complete sentence of dialogue, and not one word more. I swear to you, the visuals made no sense whatsoever. I think next bad movie night, I'm going to bring one of my movies, so that it's at least something I can follow along with. I almost had them talked into the 1980 Flash Gordon, the one with the Queen soundtrack. I'll keep campaigning for it.

Protestations

Inspirational song: Eve of Destruction (Barry McGuire)

I backed out of attending a protest today. I was invited, and really thought I would go. It was aimed at our senator, Cory Gardner, who is one of the top recipients of money from the NRA in Congress. With the massive political awakening of the teenagers of America, who are fed the F up with their schoolmates being shot up by other current and former students who have easy access to weapons, there was a group of Coloradans who decided now was a good time to send a message to Senator Gardner regarding this issue. I suspect the fact that it was on a Friday morning, on a day snow was expected, kept turnout modest, to right around a hundred people. It would have been a hundred and one, if I hadn't been overdoing it and in desperate need of a restful day. My friend and my husband did go, however. As a consolation for skipping out on them, I offered up some leftover poster board I had from last summer's Rotary picnic, and white paint to go on it. My friend decided her painting skills weren't up to the task, so I painted her sign for her. It was my way of protesting by proxy. I was super proud when she found an online article of the protest, with a picture of them from behind, with the sign I painted prominently featured. We're internet famous! Woohoo!

My kid resigned from her job recently, even though she hadn't found full-time employment closer to home at the time. While she searches for the right position for where she wants to be at this point in her career arc, she signed up with one of those app-based ride sharing services as a driver. Mr S-P didn't get a teaching slot this semester, and thought, hey, that would be a great time-sink, and it would pay a lot better than sitting around, drinking coffee and playing video games. His mountain climbing truck would not be appropriate for this sort of driving gig, so he borrowed my car to get established in it. I haven't driven my car a single time in three days. I dread seeing the odometer when I go to a house showing tomorrow.

So two of my family members were driving strangers all around the greater metro area (mostly in Boulder, but not exclusively). I had to get to the pharmacy before 6 pm tonight. I had no car of my own. I messaged both of them for a ride. Neither one of those poopyheads was close enough to come get me just long enough so I could get the pills I needed immediately. I think I have found a second chance to protest today. Thanks to them, I had to layer up and brave the cold to go to the pharmacy on foot instead. I sent them a picture, and whined, "I had to walk uphill both ways! In the snow!" And then I admitted, okay, it was completely level there and back, and the snow was still pretty light even as I returned (though it was heavy in Boulder at the time.) How dare they force me to walk nearly as far as I would have if I had gone this morning to the rally in Denver. Oh, the humanity.

High Quality Kitten

Inspirational song: Spinning Wheel (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)

Some days, it doesn't matter how much I've gotten through, whether it was work or play, I just want to write about the quadrupeds. Today Harvey reminded me why I chose him out of the entire litter of six kittens, even to the point of changing my mind about taking the insanely beautiful calico who I thought was going to move in with my Pride. Sometimes Harvey can be annoying as hell, getting in front of every single thing a human or two tries to accomplish. He was a pro at that today. He tripped. He knocked crap over. He killed a gift bag. He chased the other cats. He escaped the house twice and played in the snow. And he made demands: for food, for half and half (stretching up and waving a little white paw toward coffee cups), and to have the kitchen faucet drip endlessly so he could play in it. That last is his very favorite game.

I was too stiff to move much today, so after my house showing was canceled by my client, I went out to the hot tub. I had only been there ten or fifteen minutes when Mr S-P came home and within seconds, Harvey had escaped for the second time, and he ran around the yard while we soaked. He had a few ungraceful falls off the side of the tub and off the side of the house (bouncing from a high windowsill, to the hot tub lid, to a scrap piece of lumber, to the tubside table, and then out of sight as he fell to the ground). But he gamely kept playing, kept coming back. That is, until he fell completely into the tub, all the way up to his neck. He was amazingly calm throughout his surprise swim. But then he jumped out and ran through the snow, soaked to the skin. I had to hop out and chase him down with a towel, and Murray didn't want to let me get to him. He blocked me three times while Harvey shivered. Eventually his damp self was captured and sent inside to dry off.

His adventurous day sucked all the energy out of him. I found him absolutely exhausted, sound asleep in my chair when I needed a chance to sit and rest. I scooped him up, and sat down. He stayed asleep, or at least very chilled out, curled up in the crook of my arm. Even when I pulled my arm out, so I could paint my nails, he just laid back further, and stayed asleep. He moved at one point, to sleep like a human baby before they decreed all must sleep on their backs--feet on the arm of my chair, butt in the air, stretched across my knees. I knew he was just recharging his batteries. And sure enough, when everyone came over for the Thursday game, it was as if someone plugged him full of quarters and hit the start button. He was back doing loops, begging for food, and attacking toes underneath the table. I can't imagine what I would have done if he hadn't come along. We didn't know our family lacked a little white-hot spice until he arrived and showed us what we were missing.

Just Another Day?

Inspirational song: Touch of Grey (Grateful Dead)

We are just a couple of old farts now, aren't we? We moved slowly this morning, as usual. Once I got a little bit of flexibility in my joints, from being out of bed and moving, and drank enough coffee to lubricate my brain, I suggested that I'd provide some sort of birthday breakfast to the old man. I had ingredients for plain cheese omelets (no veggies to make them interesting), or I could make gluten-free berry muffins. But since it was his birthday, I threw in a curveball. We could go to Le Peep, so he could get real glutenous waffles. He made his choice thusly: "Waffles. I have to pee anyway." Excuse me? How do theses things go together? Truly, there was a glimmer of logic there. He had to get out of his chair, thus it was just as much effort to get dressed and go let someone cook for us as it was for him to go to the bathroom and then sit back down to wait for me to cook for an hour (assuming I made muffins). I was just as happy to let someone else do the work. We even got rainbow sprinkles on the hot chocolates we ordered for brunch, so it was almost like getting a cake too.

We had planned on having a house full of people tonight. I planned a moderately elaborate meal to feed everyone (as I do nearly every week when we have game nights here), and I was setting everything out on the counter to start when I found out that plans had changed. A third of our group canceled, and it was enough to postpone everything for a week. Yet there I was, with all the fixings for mango chicken ready to go. We swapped out the game, but I went forward with what I thought was going to be birthday dinner. It was until the man decided he was going to be out driving more than an hour longer than we expected him to. We ate his dinner while it was still sort of warm, and saved him some. We played card games while we waited. And as the time ticked past, we wondered whether the birthday boy was ever coming back. Once he finally got back, we had less than an hour before everything broke up. Everyone had to work tomorrow, and we were all ready to call it a night and head to bed.

Now that I reflect on it, there have been lots of birthdays for him that end on him or everyone getting tired and giving up early. I can recall trying to take him out on his 21st for his first legal purchase of alcohol with dinner, and he practically fell asleep at the table (he was working a night shift at the time). Another year, I took him to a David Byrne/Philip Glass performance, and he fully zonked out at the theater on the CU campus. Two years ago, I was in the hospital on his birthday, as I was the year before that. At least in 2015 I got to come home that day, but I was on heavy duty narcotics, and slept the entire day. So much for me celebrating with him. He has always tried to downplay his special day, like it doesn't mean much to him. I just don't get that mindset, but I can't seem to deny he lets these particular days go by with few ruffled feathers. Does he not like being reminded he's getting older, or does he really not care? After all of these years, I just can't tell.

Digesting a Day

Inspirational song: Black and White (INXS)

Today's Rotary speaker was the county clerk and recorder, who gave us a great overview of how Colorado's ballot by mail system came to be, and how effective it has turned out to be. I had been in my house three months before my first ballot arrived in the mail, and dropping it off curbside with friendly poll workers was the easiest thing I have ever done. Three years before that, I had waited a full three hours in a long line to vote in the presidential election in South Carolina. Colorado had the 3rd highest turnout in 2016, and Boulder county had something like 86% turnout (although it might have been as high as 89% -- I was taking notes for the newsletter as fast as I could, and this woman spoke exceptionally fast). I really wish the rest of the nation would take on a system like ours. We have a high level of confidence that our voting system is safe. We have paper ballots that are scanned and kept for proof for recounts. No voting machines are connected to the internet. Any thumb drives attached to the machines are scanned first for viruses, malware, or other dirty tricks, and afterwards kept in evidence bags. When you hear rumblings in your own state that what we need are paper ballots, consider pushing your secretaries of state for a Colorado-style system. You deserve no less. If you can improve on it, please do!

I'm trying to keep a happy face on, but I have to report that we don't have much time left with the Best Dog in the World. My little red-headed Bump is approaching his curtain call. His cancer is starting to affect brain function. He's still a happy, sweet dog, but he doesn't seem to recognize us well, nor is his personality still readily apparent. At best, we have weeks left. At worst, less than one week. I need to dig through my photo storage and find some of his best work for a retrospective to come very soon.

I'm watch Athena stalk Rabbit as I type. In fact, as I started that sentence, a leap, hiss, and growling happened all at once. The growling continues. I just don't get it, why Athena is such a bully. She was not raised to be mean. She just runs hot and cold. She's either the sweetest, cuddliest, little mommy's girl, or she is all teeth and claws (including testing how much it takes to draw my blood). There is no in between, nor is there any logic to when the switches will come. By contrast, Alfred is the most easy-going, positive, calming influence in the house. It would be a welcome relief for there to be a happy middle where everyone could exist, at least once in a while. Instead, I get to watch and wait for chaos. I don't wait long.

Not Now!

Inspirational song: Electricity, Electricity (Schoolhouse Rock)

This may be the exact wrong time for a problem like this to hit. Yesterday the weather was stunningly gorgeous (and completely unseasonably warm). The man drained out about a quarter of the water in the hot tub, and used it for dog baths. He took the filter to the car wash for a serious cleaning, and refilled with fresh water and chemicals. Tonight, after a long day of snowing, and a fifty degree (F) temperature drop, he went out after dark for a soak, to watch it snow. I was exhausted and sore, and followed soon after. The water was overfull, and as I slowly sank into the water (as if I wanted to be only half-in with the air temps significantly below freezing), water sloshed over the corner nearest to my shoulder, in the direction that our unlevel patio slopes. I tried not to sit too deeply, nor move too much, but water kept overflowing. My biggest worry was an ice dam on the concrete, a potential slick spot, or maybe freezing my slippers to the ground, leaving me vulnerable to having my bare, wet feet freeze like a tongue on a flagpole. Little did I know that was not the worst thing to worry about. I had suggested bumping the temperature up a degree or two, and peeked at the control panel. It looked like it was fluttering between 100 and 101 degrees. I leaned back, thinking it was trying to warm up and would be fine. Not two minutes later, The Noise started. It buzzed for a second and stopped. And then it did it again. And again. I turned to Mr S-P wide-eyed and asked, "Are we about to be electrocuted? Should we get out?" He said he didn't think so on the first, but yes on the second just to be sure. We were out of the tub in a flash.

I came inside and googled the error codes from the control panel. I learned it was a sensor error, and the first thing to do was to turn off the power for at least ten seconds, and then try to run electricity to it again. We waited at least 10 minutes, and tried it. It seemed to still be going on. The pump kept revving, like it was turning on the jets every couple seconds. The man had to go find the switch for it, and disconnect it. So now it's single digit temperatures for the next several hours, and I have an overfull fiberglass tub of water, with an unplugged pump so water may not be cycling over the heater properly. I sense bad things about to happen. This is the worst possible timing for this.

Seems Like Old Times

Inspirational song: Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen)

What a lovely homage to memory lane today has been. It was a lazy Sunday full of family, fun, and food. Specifically, our three girls (the two we made ourselves and the one who hitched her horse to our wagon partway through the ride) spent the day together, mostly with us. I made cinnamon rolls first thing this morning (I refer you to my post from January 14 of this year for the recipe, which I think is damn near foolproof if followed to the letter). The two girls who live in town came over around noon, to take the older one off to a group activity that counted as a late Christmas present. We all met back up at 4 this afternoon, and went to a matinee of Black Panther (which was AWESOME!--I can't recommend it highly enough). And before the girls ran off, the volunteer child got initiated into the club: "Daddy" talked her through being her own car mechanic, teaching her how to replace the battery in her SUV.

I can't stress highly enough what a wonderful weekend this was. Yesterday's surprise booze cruise of the county was a hit. The quick visit with our older daughter was a welcome treat. Her flight already took off, and she should be landing in LA by the time I fall asleep tonight. I'm even pleased with how well all my animals did with a new crowd of people laughing loudly and suddenly in the living room. Sadly, Bump did not seem to fully recognize our daughter who wanted to make sure she had a chance to say goodbye to him, before his battle with cancer ends. He enjoyed the attention she gave, but he didn't remember all of the cues she was trying to give him about their past. To be fair, Harvey wasn't sure he remembered her clearly either. She would make noises he used to respond to, but he only paused briefly, like he was wondering why they seemed familiar, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do next. He still liked her, and that was good enough.

I don't know when we'll all have a chance again to travel in a pack like the old days. So much has changed in the last dozen years since the first time we started acting like a family of five. However briefly, it was nice to get the band back together.

Party Bus

Inspirational song: One Toke Over the Line (Dale and Dale from the Lawrence Welk Show)

Sometimes revenge can actually be rather kind. This time it was. In the same manner that I was surprised by a group of people at a restaurant for my last milestone birthday, organized by my daughter and a few co-conspirators, we did the exact same thing for Mr S-P. His birthday isn't for a few days, but not everyone can make it on a six-hour alcoholic tour of Boulder county on a weekday. Saturday had to do. Same daughter did most of the organizing from her home in SoCal, and she flew out and set up the long tables where we all started lunch. Our younger daughter was responsible for the cover story. "I have something going on for your actual birthday, so I want to take you out to lunch on Saturday." It wasn't a stretch to convince him when we suggested starting at the pub that has "Stout Month" every February. I had to meet clients at an open house this morning, and it was sheer luck that I ended up running just a few minutes late, so almost everyone who was joining us at the beginning of the tour was there by the time we arrived. Our foster daughter very nearly gave up the ruse a few weeks ago, saying something about "that brew tour for your dad" in his presence. I think he managed to forget about it enough to be surprised. It's not like he knew which day or what the full extent of the plan was.

We rented a party bus, erring on the side of being too big rather than too small. We had a couple of people who joined the tour partway through, and they drove their own cars. But this way we knew we were minimizing the risk of DUIs, so it was worth it. The first two locations were beer-related, one a pub and one a brewery. We didn't get enough time at the brewery, but encouraged the guys to buy cans that they were allowed to take on the bus. We had an appointment at 3 to get a tour of the Redstone Meadery in Boulder, which ended up being the highlight of the tour for me. Everything there was not only super delicious, it was also gluten free. I could have happily shoved over my entire savings from last year's earnings in that establishment and regretted nothing. We concluded the tour at a local distillery that makes several spirits, but appeared to specialize in rums. Their cinnamon "Fire" rum mixed with horchata was amazing. We stayed there longer than anywhere else, but eventually we retired to our house, where we sat and chatted and caught up with old friends, three of whom had never made it to the house in the almost three years we've been here.

Returning the favor of a surprise party, especially one that centered around something the Mr and his buddies thoroughly enjoy, should serve as a message that I still appreciate all they did to do the same for me. (Remember, mine was themed around a CU football game. How perfect.) It made me feel like a queen for a day, so I hope it gave the Mr the same king of the world feelings I had. His friends and family sure got in the spirit to celebrate with us.

Freaky Friday

Inspirational song: Lawyers, Guns, and Money (Warren Zevon)

Holy moly, what a day! I mean, really, all day, so much to sort through. I'm utterly exhausted from it all, but at the same time, completely stoked that crazy cool things kept happening. I kind of wish I'd gotten home from the pinnacle of the day before midnight, so I didn't have to rush through my blog.

At first I planned for three things today: show a house in the morning, bake a cake in the afternoon, and go play games at night. The house this morning was beautiful, but I don't think my folks will take it. It's just not laid out in a way that appealed to them, even though it was exactly in their neighborhood (which is tightly geographically limited, and thus difficult to find inventory that matches). There is an open house for them tomorrow, so I'm sure that if they are planning to make an offer on it, they're waiting to rule out the other house before they commit. The other one is even closer to their target address, so maybe. The first house, from this morning, has been on the market for six weeks, so that gives us breathing room for when to choose. I may take Mr S-P back to this house in a day or two, to show him the engineering decisions on how they made a slide-out ladder to access a tiny finished attic that would be big enough to house a small reading room. It might be a style he can use at his mountain shed if he builds a loft in it.

No sooner had I come home and kicked off my shoes, did my phone buzz, and I had a message from someone needing an emergency ride. I performed my angel of mercy mission, and as I was driving away, the gigantic, earth-shattering news hit the radio annoucing that the game had changed. The Mueller probe dropped a baker's dozen of indictments that, while holding no chance to reaching prosecution, establish the underlying crime and disproving the claim of a "hoax." I would have loved to stay home and gorge on news, but I had very little free time to pay attention as analysts picked apart the stitching of this charge document. Once I have time to dig deeper, I know I will be even more fascinated than I am already.

It seems apropos that the reason I couldn't feast on the initial reports was because I was called to a quickly arranged coffee meeting with a political party organizer who is pushing me to get trained so I can help man the caucus that will be held blocks from my house, covering only a few precincts, including my own. Our marquee matchup for caucus this year is the gubernatorial race, and I only recognize two or three of the names on that list. I need to do my research in the next two weeks, in addition to precinct leader training, so I know who to cast my own caucus votes for. I'm not sure I have a clue who else is running, for state or local level seats.

I was already tired and sore when I started baking a chocolate cake. I found a promising-looking recipe on Pinterest that used a store-bought gluten-free flour, and I followed it in a general way, only diverging in a few places to make it my own style. I was asked to make it dairy-free as well, but I failed there. The best I could muster was to use lactose-free milk, with apple cider vinegar to make it like buttermilk. I skipped most of the milk or butter based frostings, in favor of powdered sugar and fruit. I ended up making it red, white, and blue for that. Seemed appropriate on a Felony Friday in which Russian cyberwarfare was charged.

We played games until midnight. My favorite, Quiplash on Jackbox TV, was first. It was hilarious, as it always is. Then, about the time my heavy duty muscle relaxer kicked in, the kids pulled out an incredibly complicated D&D spoofed card game called Munchkin, that just couldn't pique my interest. We ended with another card game, this one based on Know Your Meme, that was more like Cards Against Humanity than anything. Just like CAH, I lost horribly. Still, just playing this one was more fun than winning. The whole day was like that. Just living through it was winning.

Priorities

Inspirational song: Easter (Marillion)

There had to be a first time eventually. This month marks the first time that the band Marillion has come to the US on tour that I have not gone out of my way to get to a show somewhere. I've flown from North Dakota to Colorado to see them. I've closed my eyes and let the Mr drive 100 mph up I-95 (and I didn't screech a single time) to get to a show on time in Alexandria, Virginia when he had to be at work until 5 pm in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I got VIP treatment to see their old lead singer perform solo at the House of Blues on Sunset in LA. And for twenty years, I've had recurring nightmares that they had concerts in whatever town I was living in, and I didn't find out about it until the show was already starting, so I almost missed it. Now, for the first time ever, I have had to let a tour go past me. The closest show to me is in Dallas, which is something like a thousand miles away. I can't drive that far by myself anymore. I don't have the fortitude to sit in an airplane seat right now, and let the pain of swelling destroy my ankles and feet even more than they're hurting already these days (I can barely walk). And the concert is on Mr S-P's birthday, and I would like to stick around and needle him as he hits the same milestone I passed back in October. So with great sadness, I had to accept that I wouldn't be attending a show this time out. That is not to say I'm ignoring the postings of other fans, who have gone against the express wishes of the band, and put up videos surreptitiously recorded at the shows. I know the guy who runs a large fan group on Facebook (know in the sense that he and his wife were in my fantasy football league that grew out of a small Yahoo group of fans of the band), and I fully expect him to yank the videos down, since the band made a point of saying don't do it. I watched them while I could, a fifteen second clip of the guitar solo from Kayleigh, and a long spoken intro and full performance of the Mr's favorite Marillion song, Easter. I might have to fall asleep to the last big studio album, F.E.A.R. It's not lullaby music, but damn, was it prescient for the times we are living through right now.

Yesterday sucked. I had distractions to keep me from thinking about what was happening in our country, but I couldn't keep my mind off of it for long. I'm madder today, but feeling even less capable of changing any of it. Instead, I focused on my own little world, on Smith Park West only. I cleaned house in anticipation of having our regulars over for game night, and I brought Bumpy in for his 3 o'clock feeding and told him over and over how much I love him. His appetite is getting a little better since we started him on Prednisone, but he's still very thin and frail. He doesn't get to eat much at a time before the pressure of the tumor against the base of his stomach starts to cause him pain. A week ago I wasn't sure he would live to see another week. Now I'm allowing myself to pretend the tumor might shrink and give him extra time. I know pancreatic cancer doesn't work that way, but I am not ready to say goodbye to him forever yet.

We had several hours to act like sophomoric kids this evening. And we were as childish and gross as sophomores for almost all of that time. I shan't recount the coarseness of our humor in detail, but it was as bad as you think it was. And the whole time, my cats were swarming our group, jumping on the tables, walking through papers and dice, stealing chairs the second anyone stood up, and absolutely absorbing the game master's personal space. When our neighbor wanted to tease Harvey and spook him like he does with his dog Barley, I stopped him immediately. I know he thought it was funny, but I explained how differently cats react to threats, even pretend ones, than dogs. It's quite important to me that this crew is so calm and comfortable when outsiders come over to play. Growing up in Oklahoma, my cats were terrified of strangers. My friends barely knew what my cats looked like. In comparison, it is remarkable that mine now are accepting of a rotating group of maybe seven or eight people who come over all the time, plus Barley in the back yard and Sheba in the house when she visits. They might be annoying, but I much prefer cats who are quite literally "in your face" to ones who are under the bed at the first hint of change.

Two Very Different Schools

Inspirational song: Don't Let's Start (They Might Be Giants)

What a surreal day. At 12:55 this afternoon (mountain time), I was parking my car next to an elementary school playground. I had just come from King Soopers with packs of cut fruit and vegetables, and I sat in my car for about 10 minutes to eat as much as I could before I had to go inside the school for a volunteer project. At that time, the very earliest reports were coming out regarding the latest mass shooting at a school two thousand miles away, and I listened to the radio until the timer shut it off so that it didn't run down my battery. That early on, the reporters were calm, saying that the video they watched was difficult to interpret, but the people walking in view of the cameras were moving slowly and deliberately, like the active situation was over. The reporters said they saw one or two people on stretchers being wheeled to an ambulance (they weren't sure whether it was two different people or the same loop of video shown twice). They made it sound like it wasn't very bad, or at least on the surface it didn't seem to be. When the radio shut off, I didn't turn it back on. I whispered a tiny plea to the inside of my car for it to be okay, and I went into the elementary school.

The volunteer project was amazing. The school was a STEM focused elementary, and the project was letting the kids build their own bristle bots. These are things that can be bought complete and ready to go from a commercial website, but there were electrical engineers with connections to this school who decided it would be far more meaningful to these children to make them for themselves. They got a large case of neon plastic toothbrushes donated to them, and they spent several hundred dollars on tiny electric motors, watch batteries, and little clamps to hold the batteries in place. Our job was to help the kids solder the clamps to the motors, insert the batteries and test the motor, then help them attach the motors to the toothbrushes, and clip off the excess plastic. I helped two first grade boys and two second grade girls solder the motors and test them with batteries. The boys were rather timid. They were afraid of the heat of the soldering iron, and they seemed to have a little difficulty with the process. The girls were on it, especially the second one. Not only did she have significantly more confidence with the project, she named the tools with minimal prompts (like "do you know what this is?" "a soldering iron.") Other people in my brokerage who were helping kids noticed similar patterns. It made me have a burst of confidence for the future of girls in science.

The project itself was a whole lot of fun, teaching the kids about how easy it could be to assemble a mini-robot of their very own. Our brokerage made a donation of funds as wells as time, to cover more than a third of the cost of the supplies. This is something that comes off the top of all of our deals, for this very purpose. I have said it before, and I'll say it again, this is why I chose this brokerage to work with. Our volunteer t-shirts read: "Headwaters Realty: Where giving back begins." We mean it.

Halfway through the project, in between the first grade group and the second grade, I checked my phone. The news alert by then stepped up the reporting of the school shooting. I think at that point it said that there were multiple fatalities, but it was unknown the full extent of what happened. My heart dropped. It was difficult to separate the completely different worlds in my head. I rapidly went from enjoying the unbridled joy of six and seven year olds successfully racing toothbrush-head robots to looking at them as vulnerable babies who have to grow up in a world entirely removed from the one I grew up in. What the hell are we doing to our children? Why are we stressing them out and not taking care of their physical and mental health? Is it the demands of education? Is it the political or economic climate? Is it technology? Is it food? I don't know what makes them snap. It has to stop. It just has to god damned stop. Let children be children. Let them be safe. This is unacceptable.

I'm watching the reports on tv now, while I'm deciding which photos of the happy part of my day I should post. These things should not be happening at the same time.

 

Mob Rules

Inspirational song: Hotel California (The Eagles)

The old saying is true. You think you're free, and something always pulls you back in. It's like there are no ex-Marines, no ex-KGB, no ex-Mobsters. You can pretend that you walk away, but you're never going to truly escape. Now, while there is nothing in my history quite as dramatic as all of those career paths, I definitely have found myself equally tied to the things I have done habitually. I thought last week I had been entirely clear that the PR job was overwhelming me and when I said "find someone else" they took me seriously. Today I found the person who sort of wants to step up to the job may only want part of it, and there I was, letting the words fall out of my mouth, "I can keep doing the newsletter if (that other person) wants to do all the rest." I needed to cut it cleanly, when I happily turned my back on running for a second term as a military spouses club president, in order to save my health. After the elections, I remember saying out loud to the president-elect, "It'll be all yours now. No takebacks."

Twenty-plus years ago, when my friend and I tried to make a living designing and sewing costumes, we put in ludicrously long hours in our home shop. I was there in her converted garage more than 50 hours a week, every week, sewing until my body ached. (Luckily, I was renting my partner's basement apartment at the time, so I didn't have to try to find childcare for my toddlers, which would have absolutely bankrupted me while the money was only trickling in. The girls just played near us while we worked.) The small business startup experiment ended for me with the biggest case of burnout I ever experienced, and I had more than my share of run-ins with that particular problem. Once we split up the business, when Mr S-P joined the military and we moved to the east coast for the first time, I stopped sewing entirely for years. I had to be pushed by guilt to make Halloween costumes for the girls. It was at least 10 years before I was able to sew for fun again, and by then I'd dealt with years of ribbing from the Mr for the number of stuffed-to-the-gills boxes of fabrics we had moved to different duty stations, unopened.

I'm slowly starting to sew for other people again. Two and a half years ago, I made a cosplay coat for my younger daughter that was absolutely perfect, if I say so myself. She sure liked it, and she received plenty of compliments from other cosplayers. Last year, I made my foster daughter's wedding dress, something that took long hours and serious attention to detail, especially the days and days of hand-stitching a lace bodice. A few months ago, I made a ceremonial robe for an old friend of mine, whose acquaintance I made through the business partner long before we decided to become professional costumers. And today, I met a new person, to whom my friend recommended me to make another one of these ceremonial costumes. We met at a fabric store, took dozens of measurements and sketched out exactly what it is she wants, which while serving the same function as the last, will look significantly different in every way. This is going to be the first time in years that I've actually accepted money for my artistic skills. I'm nervous, and I want to apply myself so that the final product is appealing and impressive. I swore twenty years ago I'd never do this professionally again, yet here I am, thinking seriously about spending my non-active real estate time sewing custom garments. I will have to see how well this goes, to know what steps I'll be willing to take from here, but even before I've put scissors to the sheet of fabric for the first time, this new customer is talking about future projects.

You think you're free, but you never really walk away from some things.

Do the Unpleasant Stuff on Time

Inspirational song: A Spoonful of Sugar (Mary Poppins)

I've been freaked out for a month, missing something reasonably important. I was pretty sure that without this one thing, I was stuck, unable to move forward with something that ought to be fairly timely. I can't find the notes I took for one of the Rotary meetings, and without them, I can't put out that week's newsletter. I'm losing my mind, wondering where the one specific notebook where I kept them could have gone. They vanished when I did a deep clean of my house, because the person who is in charge of the youth exchange program was coming over to take a look at my home, to take pictures, and send back to Rotary International (or so I assume), to go with my application to host our exchange student for the last two months she is here. I got the house clean enough that I felt comfortable having pictures taken. But that notebook has not been seen since. My skin feels clammy and my blood has that made-of-needles feeling whenever I think about it, and I have been emotionally stuck and scattered ever since I lost the book. I let myself get three full weeks behind before I admitted it out loud to the person who ran the newsletter before me, but I'm not sure she understood the extent of what I was copping to. I got tired of getting nauseated and anxious every time I looked at my laptop or the easily located set of notes for the next week in the sequence, and tonight, I buckled down and made a command decision. I skipped the missing set, and put out the next two weeks' worth of newletters, one after another tonight. I don't have last weeks notes yet from the editarian for that week, but I also tendered my resignation as the PR person, subject to them finding a replacement. I'm not sure they will send me the notes for last week anyway.

I feel bad that I failed at this, but I failed because I started feeling bad. It became a huge source of anxiety and stress, which for me manifested as actual physical pain and a higher frequency of sick days. I was reluctant to take a time-sensitive, recurring-weekly sort of job when they pitched it to me, but I thought I could handle it. That was before the diagnosis of skin cancer, and before I understood that I was having non-stop migraine aura without the actual headaches (which came back with a vengeance at Thanksgiving). Too many things came down on me at once. I had to face facts and turn over control to someone else. In a 12 step program, that would have meant give over to a higher power. Well, I'm considering this a 12 step for my volunteering addiction, and the higher power this time is the executive board who have to recruit someone new. (For the record, I have already noticed there's a brokerage-sponsored volunteer project scheduled for this Wednesday, which I hope I can survive, if I've lightened the load elsewhere.)

I think I learned several somethings important about the new medication I've been on. I haven't been getting the pain relief I had been led to expect, but that may be due to a couple of factors. One, I haven't been on it long, and two, I don't take the full dose of it yet. I talked to the pharmacist last week about who has the power to ask my doc to ramp up the dose sooner to where she wanted to start me out. (She said we both can try it, and I pointed out she is far more likely to be willing to make that phone call than I.) Second, I am terrible about getting my pills taken on time. It's supposed to be swallowed at 9 pm, and the general idea is that everyone's circadian rhythm puts the brain into a similar state overnight, even if you work a night shift. Me, I am lucky if I remember to swallow pills before 10, and it's often later than that. On the occasions when I get the pills on time, I wake with slightly less pain in my feet the next morning. I also fall asleep faster (but then, on those nights I usually blog earlier too, so that figures in). If I get better about carrying my pills with me when we go play games or go out at night, I can set an alarm, and maybe see some progress again. It gave me hope and then I ruined the reliability. It's a skill I have, failing at schedules.

(Harvey ran up and shoved himself under Rabbit's chin. I'd like to say she accepted the cuddles willingly, but there were ensuing disagreements. Harvey insisted that my ankles are his spot, and he stood his ground. Or laid on it, anyway.)

At the Rink

Inspirational song: At the Ballet (Barbra Streisand)

I forgot to set my DVR. I wanted to watch the finals of the figure skating team competition, and I just never turned on the TV to figure out what I needed to record. I didn't want to do it, but I've caved in and downloaded the iPad app. It's clunky and you cannot escape watching the same seven or eight ads over and over and over and over... Also, the best part, the narration by Tara Lupinski and Johnny Weir, isn't on the pure figure skating feed. Just like the summer Olympics that I watched the same way, this has an Australian woman doing all the voiceover. I want Tara and Johnny, but beggars can't be choosers. At least I can back up and watch what I missed right away. I've already seen comments on Twitter about how the women's singles went, to the extent that someone landed a triple axel, but I have no idea who won the team medals yet. I have to hide from Twitter now until I make it through the next few hours of replay.

One of the journalists I follow, who claims to have disdain for skating in general, seems to have found a new respect for the sport. He started saying positive things before I cut myself off from the feed. I saw him say that if ever he skated, he would have performed to Ace of Spades by Motorhead, which I found funny. In a head-to-head Quiplash game matchup, where my daughter and I had to choose the song that would be the absolute worst to pairs skate to (where neither of us knew the other had the same question to answer), we both wrote the same answer. And ever since, we both now actually want to see some pairs skaters perform to Du Hast by Rammstein. I'm not picky. It wouldn't even have to be competition. I'd accept an exhibition performance. Before I die, I want this to happen. Who knows a pairs skater to suggest it? Anyone? Maybe if I start an internet petition I can catch someone's eye. It has to be on television, though. I don't tend to go to skating performances in person. I only ever did it once, in college.

It's kind of weird, sitting in my dark living room at night, watching skaters land these amazing jumps on narrow blades of steel, while I'm soaking my aching feet in hot water loaded with Epsom salts, pure magnesium flakes, and a clump of baking soda to help soften the skin. I can't imagine how much punishment these athletes dole out to their own feet (and to the rest of them when they hit the ice unexpectedly). I remember when I used to try to ice skate, just a few loops around the rink. My ankles were never strong, and I always bent them so my blades were canted to the outside. It was awkward, ungraceful, and in a very short time, incredibly painful. Even when I was six or seven years old, I just didn't have the stability to make it work. I live vicariously through these people, who can do things I always wanted to do and never found the strength and balance to make it happen.

Snow Day (Whether I Want It or Not)

Inspirational song: Vacation (The Go-Gos)

I had a very busy day planned. I was supposed to take care of several things around the house early, then drive down to Denver to meet someone to arrange a project for her. Then I was going to spend the evening hours at a movie night with friends and family. Almost none of this happened, and I'm a little disappointed at how little I was able to accomplish. After a really crummy week, I was ready to push myself to be active like a mostly normal person. I defeated negative self talk. I psyched myself up to drive on slick roads in occasionally quite heavy snow. But it was those very same slick, snowy roads that killed it all in the end. My 2 o'clock meeting called me at noon to postpone. Shortly after, a two week delay was posted in the movie night invitation. With all of my reasons to leave the house canceled, my motivation to do anything at all went away. From then on, the day was a bust. I still managed to put away laundry, and to go out to dinner, but that last part was mostly because three of us were hungry, no one wanted to cook, and I had a gift card from Christmas that matched exactly what we all wanted to eat. And thus, I found my one big adventure for the whole day.

I know I've been very positive about snow days in the past. When I need a break, they are a godsend. I like it best when there's more than a foot of snow, and the whole town feels shut down. That wasn't what we had today. There was at most a finger's depth of snow, and even as cold as it was, the roads were mostly clear. And I had my break earlier in the week, not on purpose. I was limp for days, wondering whether it was a new proliferation of the Epstein-Barr virus that makes up about 20% of my body by volume.  (Yes, I'm exaggerating, but only because it's indistinguishable from truth.) Yesterday I perked up, and I wanted to feel productive. I need to grab those days when I can. They're so rare now.

The Mr suggested to the kids to go sledding tomorrow before the snow all melts. That sounds like so much fun, but I know I have no business trying it at this point. Frolicking on downhill runs where wipeouts are possible (probable) is as dead to me now as meals with gluten are. Maybe by next winter, if the new meds have had a positive impact on my pain levels (and reversed the weight gain like the studies say), I'll leap on a toboggan a few times. Until then, tomorrow's view will look a lot like what I stared at all day today. See photo.

On Ice

Inspirational song: Ice Ice Baby (Vanilla Ice)

The last time overnight that my phone pinged the weather report, at about 3 in the morning, it said was still 51 degrees. I had trouble believing my eyes when I saw it this morning, but maybe I should have. We didn't have far to walk home when things wrapped up around 10, but it was still exceptionally mild. I heard Mr S-P and our old college roommate mumbling behind me about how warm it was, and how it didn't feel like February. Today made up for the unseasonable warmth. It was overcast, practically foggy most of the day. It was significantly colder, and the extra humidity froze to the tips of the trees. It was absolutely beautiful out there, even along the interstate on the way to Costco. There were tiny little snowflakes off and on during the day, and snow started in earnest right around sunset. Last I heard, there was no snow in the forecast, and highs well above freezing. I like being pleasantly surprised.

Of course, I did finally give in and wash my car a few days ago. It was so filthy from driving on the last snowmelt and from brutal chinook winds that scoured out the old snow and sprinkled dust on every surface in northern Colorado. I didn't even wimp out and use the drive through carwash either. I got out and made a point of carefully washing the buildup of road grime that sticks under the roof detail over the back window. The big machine always misses it, so I have muddy water dripping down the back window every time I drive away from it. I was on such a high from the day I got my Paul Harris pin at Rotary, that I even had enough energy to get out and wipe the car dry with a towel. I so rarely put forth that much effort. I got about 72 hours of clean car, which for me is quite possibly a personal best. And now, it's covered in several inches of snow. Will be filthy tomorrow, after I have to drive to Denver and back again.

Early this morning, while the dogs were still inside hiding from the cold, I was summoned to the kitchen window. The Mr had put little fences underneath some of the bird feeders, so that Elsa and Murray can't eat as much birdseed from everything that gets dumped. Without the dogs' interference, two squirrels had voluntarily caged themselves to clean up their own mess. I'm fairly certain we have the fattest squirrels in town, although until we get an extended cold snap, they're probably going to be chubby everywhere.

I'm a little flummoxed about what to do. The Olympics have started, and I have this big plan of ignoring all the bad news that I have on an IV drip every other day of my life. The last 40 days or so, the level of chaos in the news has cranked up to 11. I'm afraid to look away, as crazy bad as it has been. But I have to break free and clear my soul. I'll still be tense, watching skaters and willing them not to fall, watching ski jumpers and trying not to barf with my own fear of heights, and watching racers and holding my breath as the hundredths of seconds flash by. It will be worth it to think about something else. As I started to write, I settled in to watch last night's recording of the first skating competitions. So far, the men on the team skate are having rough goes. I don't know how much of a vacation from tension this will be. At least all of them are equally bad. What's that old phrase? They stink on ice. It will be better as they calm down.

Shut It

Inspirational song: The Dance (Garth Brooks)

You know, I wasn't mad until just before I walked home from next door a few minutes ago, when I looked at Twitter. Another government shut down. I'm really sick of the theatrics and self-aggrandizement of this latest stunt. This doesn't make anyone look brave or principled. It makes everyone look petty and childish and insanely incompetent. Mostly incompetent. Someone please explain to me what makes a person who hates functioning government want to work in that same government, only to prove that government doesn't work by breaking it on purpose, and crapping in the pieces that they break apart?

I think I might actually be speechless. I'm annoyed, but I'm not surprised. This is supposed to be a shut down that lasts only a few hours, if I understood correctly. Seriously, how much money does it cost to go about shutting things down, knowing that people have to be paid to put things on pause, and then paid overtime later to take all the holds off.

Yeah. I'm disgusted. I'm going to stop trying. Here's a picture of Barley watching his daddy walk away, after Barley stole his seat the moment he stood up. If I tried, I could probably draw a parallel. I don't want to.