There's a dogwood tree in my front yard. It's been here since I bought the place and I've tried my best to take good care of it. From what I can tell, it's thriving, because I've been careful to make sure it gets food and adequate water. Most of the time, however, it's not a great-looking tree. Better than nothing, but not what I would have picked to look at out my front window.
Except for one week in the Spring when it's in bloom...
For that tiny window, it's a glorous sight to behold. Stunning, really.
Except it never lasts. One day it's in full-bloom, then a couple days later all the petals are falling off at a rapid clip and soon it will be back to its normal self. At least it will still have leaves for a while. Because after the leaves are gone as well, it's back to something bordering on depressing to look at.
I am choosing not to dwell on that, however, because yesterday the repairs on my home were completed... after six years! No more holes in walls and ceilings. And, as God is my witness, there will be no more furniture and other junk scattered around the house after this weekend. I don't care if it kills me, I'm moving everything back to where it belongs, and hanging all the pictures back up on the walls, and scrubbing all the construction dust from walls, floors, and furniture. I am done with my home looking like an episode of Hoarders gone wrong.
And then it's time to start work on the many projects I've got left to do now that I can actually do them.
Last weekend I rebuilt my coat closet so that I can have the Litter-Robot in the bottom while still hanging coats up above it with a protective barrier. I even managed to fit a small shelf above the closet rod, which was something I didn't know if I would be able to do. It ain't much, but it's enough space to put a basket of gloves, scarves, and other seasonal crap that need a place to go when I'm not using them. Not surprisingly, I did a far, far better job with my construction than the original builders did. I took the time to do it right, even though it's just a closet that nobody will look at. This wasn't easy because the door opening is askew and the walls are bowing in and out. It was like trying to build in a funhouse room of mirrors. But after warping board with a steamer, making sure all the screws were recessed and filled, and coming up with something that looked level despite that being impossible... I have something I'm very happy with.
Next weekend I'll start building the access panel covers and other stuff that's been a long time coming.
Who knows... by Winter I may just have a house that looks like a home.
Saving money now-a-days is a necessity for most people. Sadly this has resulted in my losing some entertainment options I used to enjoy, but I have much better use for the money. To add insult to injury, it can be tough to decide what you're going to cut.
Fortunately, some businesses are making my tough decisions for me. Like Netflix!
Right now I am on an ad-free "Basic" plan with Netflix. It's highly limited... just 720p quality and can only stream on one device at a time... but I hang onto it because I fucking detest ads... plus I like a lot of what Netflix has available. No, I don't think that I am getting $11.99 worth of value from it, but I don't cancel because there's no way to ever get "Basic" back again...
But, alas, Netflix is saying that the "Basic" plan is going to be killed off once and for all sometime soon. At which point I'll have a choice to make...
So let's do the math. Currently Netflix gets $144 a year out of me. Far more than I want to pay, but it is what it is. But after "Basic" is removed? They will get $32 a year at most. I'll buy a month once or twice a year and call it good. Which is to say that Netflix is going to lose $112 a year. Stupid as fuck of them. But ads are so profitable, right?
I guess I should be thanking Netflix, because I could use that extra $112 annually.
Earth Day! Which means it's been... um... 38 years since I've eaten meat. THAT I KNOW OF! Because do we really know what's in an Impossible Burger? How do they make it taste so good and meaty? Is it because there's meat inside?
And now? A question. Is this what a parent feels like when they accidentally drop their baby down the stairs?
When I got home, I sat down on the couch to answer personal emails. What I did not see was Jenny sneaking into the room. And I really didn't see her jumping on the back of the couch as I was reaching for my Coke Zero. She jumped into my elbow. Clocked her hard and she ran off. I was mortified. Followed her to her hiding place to check and make sure nothing was broken. Then left her alone.
I called her to dinner and she came down, but was wary of getting near me. She wasn't limping or appearing hurt, so I just let her be. And I've been feeling awful ever since.
Just now she came in and wanted to be petted. So I'm thinking where she hit was on her head and now she has memory loss. Poor thing. I would have been inconsolable if I hit her eye or caused some damage. Hopefully it's something she can just shake off.
And speaking of shaking it off...
There's still something going on in my urinary system. Don't know if it's another, smaller, kidney stone... a piece of the last stone which broke off... just an injury from the passing of the last stone... or lupus.
I feel the need to toss lupus in the mix because that's what House M.D. would want.
But life has to go on, so I popped a couple Advil this morning and went back to work. That's not what House M.D. would want, but he isn't paying my mortgage.
Every night Jenny naps on the cat tree where she can see me... or on the warming pad next to me on the couch. She's doing this so she knows the minute I close my laptop to head upstairs to bed. Because she knows that I'll be happy to pet her for a few hours while working or watching TV. Jake usually heads up a while later...
Then, once I set down the laptop and turn off the lights to go to sleep, Jenny leaves immediately because she knows there's no more petting happening. Jake sleeps with me a lot of the time, which is not a big deal because he doesn't need anything from me and doesn't bother me. Mostly. Sometimes he decides to crawl on me because he wants attention, but that's rare.
Well, tonight I did something I never do.
Closed my bedroom door.
It was heartbreaking seeing Jenny walking towards me anticipating getting her nightly petting time, then shutting her out. But I really had no choice. I desperately needed sleep after two nights of not getting any. And having cats on the bed would be a distraction from that.
We'll see if there are repercussions from this tomorrow. Will they shred everything? Poop in my shoes? Chew up the furniture? Nothing is off the table.
UPDATE: After getting 8 hours and 20 minutes of fairly restful sleep, I woke up and opened the door about an hour before their breakfast time. Jake was there waiting. Jenny came running in five minutes later. No repercussions that I've found. Lucky me. This time.
Here's the deal. When you sleep 20-1/2 hours in a drug-induced sleep to avoid unrelenting pain depriving you of rest... there are consequences.
First of all, you are not rested. Your body is chemically deadened to the sensation of pain which also can put you into a coma-like sleep (it sure does for me). But you're essentially being tortured, even when in deep sleep mode. I woke up yesterday exhausted.
The kidney stone pain was not too bad after I finally managed to get out of bed yesterday. Which is to say I am not going to be taking anything stronger than Advil to deal with it because I do not need a painkiller addiction on top of everything else.
Unfortunately Advil does nothing to quell the nausea that's plaguing me now. I was in bed most of the day (the orange dashed line is when I'm in bed but not able to sleep)...
The answer, of course, is to take sleeping pills to get my sleep mojo back. But the weekend is coming up, so I'm going to give it one more try to not go there. Being trapped in a cycle of drugs to get through the day is fine if you're sure you need it... you do what you gotta do... but I don't know if I'm there yet.
And I tend to not make decisions based on things I don't know. Hopefully tommorrow will be different.
UPDATE: The answer is, of course... NOPE!
And so... I guess now I know. Looks like I will have to take action after all. Which is not what I wanted, but it is what it is.
That's three full days of my life wasted. That bothers me more than kidney stone pain. I've got stuff to do.
Here's my routine.
The pain wakes me up. I take a pain-killer cocktail. I pass out. Repeat.
Ultimately I slept for 20-1/2 hours during a 24-hour period...
Not going to be great for my sleep cycle. But I'll take it over screaming my head off for hours on end.
Spoiler Alert: It's kidney stones!
Though, to be fair, I'm not really sure whether it's the kidney stone(s) from last week that didn't pass after all... or something entirely new. All I do know is that the pain is even worse than last time.
There is a silver lining, however.
Unlike last week when I couldn't keep painkillers down... tonight, I can.
Now that the Rapture is over (Spoiler Alert: I didn't make the cut, again), I was dismayed that another rapture is scheduled for April 23rd by Christian numerologists. Or whatever. I cannot possibly keep up with this stuff. It's as if people are so hot for the End of Days that they're going to keep throwing dates at the wall until something sticks.
Or... IT NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS
But anyway, I was commenting on a Facebook post about the whole rapture death-cult-fantasy scenario and dropped this little gem, almost by accident...
I have my moments.
Yes I do.
And it's true. If all these hateful bigots who are convinced that they're heaven-bound is indicative of who's going to be there? No thanks. I'm good.
I'll just stick around this mortal plane with all my friends.
UPDATE! If you have eclipse glasses you will be throwing away, donate them instead! This is so great.
The first eclipse I remember viewing was the Great Eclipse of February 1979. We were right on the edge of the "Totality Zone," which means that everybody in the region was eclipse-crazy. "We don't even have to travel to have the best seat in the house!" Except... Central Washington in February (especially back then) is usually overcast skies, so nothing (especially the "best seats in the house") was guaranteed.
But then the Big Day arrived and, miracle or miracles, the skies were not terrible. It was a school day, which meant that our science teacher showed us how to view the event with a piece of paper with a hole in it casting the shadow of the sun onto another piece of paper. AKA the shittiest way to view an eclipse. You'd think for this monumental event, the Washington State Department of Education would have sprang to give us all safety glasses, but it was what it was. We all went outside with our papers, and I remember a lot of it very well despite my being 12 years old (almost 13) at the time. But mostly I remember how thrilled I was to get out of science class.
The next eclipse was only 92% where I lived back in 2017, but I had great equipment to view it and take photos, which made it a heck of a lot more memorable than looking at a shadow on a piece of paper...
Plus... my cats had fun because I was staying home with them, so there's that.
The eclipse today wasn't that eventful... we were told it would be just a small chunk out of the bottom. I brought my glasses to work to have a look since the skies weren't too terrible, but then forgot. Oh well.
INTERESTING TO NOTE: My last kidney stone was in 2017. The date of the last eclipse here was 2017. — OBVIOUSLY NASA IS CAUSING KIDNEY STONES WITH THEIR WOKE "ECLIPSES," WHICH WE ALL KNOW IS REALLY JUST THEM REPAIRING HOLES IN THE FIRMAMENT DOME! I DEMAND THAT MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE USE HER FULL POWER IN CONGRESS TO INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY!
IN OTHER ECLIPSE NEWS: No wonder people thought that The Rapture was going to be today. It happened on Rex Manning Day! (happy Rex Manning Day to all who celebrate)...
I can't celebrate Rex Manning Day without looking up this awesome commercial that Ryan Reynolds gave us last year...
I will spend tonight watching Empire Records for the hundredth time, of course. Such a classic.
IN OTHER, OTHER ECLIPSE NEWS: So how about that Rapture? A ridiculous number of people were coming out of the woodwork claiming that the pending eclipse was clearly a sign that the End of Days was here because they were "activating" the CERN Super Hadron Collider to open a portal and invite the devil to invade so his demons could collapse society and power off the grid (or whatever dippy shit they came up with). Did God change His mind? Shouldn't all these false prophets be getting stoned to death? I'm not holding my breath that the same people posting this shit to social media are going to recant and say they were wrong. Oh hell no. They're already off to the races on whatever other stupid crap they can dream up. Like blaming President Biden for the high cost of shit while corporations are reporting record high profits. Almost as if the corporations are using inflation as an excuse to raise their prices to all-time highs so they can make billions upon billions of extra dollars without getting blamed for it (thus driving inflation even higher). Imagine that! Nope. BIDEN DID IT! And it's like, come on. The Biden Administration has done plenty of actual fucked up shit without having to push stuff like this. But, it's an election year, and high prices are an easy campaign talking point for people to understand, so here we are.
IN OTHER, OTHER RELIGIOUS NEWS: Today The Vatican took time away from their busy schedule of passing around photos of altar boys to declare that surrogacy and gender-affirming care are on par with euthanasia and abortion when it comes to being an affront to human life and a violation of God's Divine Plan...
First of all... if God didn't want surrogacy to produce life, he wouldn't allow it to be possible. Period. My theory is that Catholic priests just find confessional stories about surrogacy to be boring, and would rather hear about a parishioner confessing to getting raw-dogged by a football team because it gives them something fun to beat off to (because they're not having sex... right? RIGHT?!?). Otherwise, why are people who can't have children weighing in on how other people have children? It's insane. You'd think that they'd love the idea of the new Catholics this might create. That's just sound financial sense when it comes to the number of donations on the plate.
Second of all... as a former Catholic, I feel that I'm completely within my right to say that I don't give one single solitary fuck as to what these assholes think is "dignified" about "life." They continue to protect their priests who routinely abuse and sexually assault children. They continue to exploit people in ways that are in direct contradiction to the Bible. They are a monstrous corporation masquerading as a church. Until they clean their own fucking house, they have absolutely ZERO authority to even have an OPINION about what people do with their lives (especially when it comes to gender-affirming care, which can literally saves lives... lives that they don't give a fuck about in the first place, mind you). And even if they did clean house, they can still fuck off with their bullshit, because unless somebody CHOOSES to turn to them for guidance, their OPINION is worth less than jack-shit. Keep your idiotic bullshit within the walls of your fucking child indoctrination camps for the benefit of sexual predators, AKA "Catholic Churches."
I realize that my time as a youngster spent with the Catholic Church was me wearing rose-tinted glasses... but it still pains me to be gunning for them like this because, for better or worse, it was an important part of my life. Particularly when it comes to my grandmother. In all honesty, I don't think the majority of Catholics approve of how The Church deals with many things, but they need their Faith in their lives, so they continue to look past all the heinous shit out of self-preservation. And honestly? I don't blame them. This world is a cesspool, so whatever you need to get through the day is what you need to get through the day. I just wish that more Catholics would hold The Church accountable so that it wouldn't get to keep abusing people and ruining lives without consequences.
Now... I'm off to make dinner and get ready to Say no More, Mon Amour with Rex Manning!
I should have baked cupcakes.
I had to wake up early so I could have an early drive to an early doctor appointment that was early.
Color me shocked, there was no traffic down the usually-heinous-especially-on-a-Friday 405 East of Seattle. I anticipated a 40-45 minute commute. I did it in 18 minutes. Which means I was nearly an hour early for my appointment. I was a bit hungry (and finally feeling like eating again), so I decided to grab breakfast. Much to my delight, a Panera was 8 minutes away. Perfect.
Boo! BOOOOO!!!
Boo, Panera Bread!
Instead of the gooey, delicious, egg over-medium that you used to get, they’ve switched to that same gross, spongy, slimy "egg" that McDonalds has! DAY. RUINED. I was all "Guess I’ll just sit here in the parking lot of the eye clinic and cry." AND COULD YOU BLAME ME? LOOK AT THIS! JUST LOOK AT THIS!!!
Argh. And the shit was really expensive too.
Boy oh boy did I used to love being in a city that had a Panera in it.
But back to the traffic (or lack thereof)... what is going on? Roads in Bellevue were practically empty. In Bellevue! Didn’t even have to use express lanes to drive 65 the entire way to the city... ON THE 405, FOR GOD’S SAKE. Did The Rapture happen three days early? Are we in a National Day of Mourning because somebody famous died?!? Please tell me it’s not Skylar Astin! I need more So Help Me Todd!
But anyway... mission accomplished.
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