About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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September 17, 2025
We’re doing our best considering real life constraints. Sometimes our best isn’t the ideal solution, but neither is life or circumstances.
We stopped shopping at Walmart and Sam’s Club 20+ years ago. This is much easier here in Northern CA because I don’t know where Sam’s club OR Walmart is.
Our replacement was Target and I’m currently mostly boycotting them, and emailing investor relations to remind them why every couple of weeks, for being jerks about DEI. That’s really annoying.
We avoid Amazon as much as we can so we’ve reduced our spend there a significant amount. I still have to use it to ship food to the reservations when we can’t get it any other way, so I also use Prime Video to get my money’s worth on Prime. I’m considering whether we should just
We won’t buy from Lululemon, having been founded by a racist. Even if it’s not owned by him anymore, I haven’t bothered to look, there’s no reason to add them to our lives.
Costco’s been solid, thank goodness, and I was smug when the VAST majority of shareholders rejected the anti-DEI proposal. They do have some labor slips that need improvement but, by and large, they’re much better than many others.
I stopped using Duolingo because they went fullbore on using AI in their lessons. I won’t use Adobe’s AI either.
I have similar stances with artists who are horrible. We’ll never give the Harry Potter franchise a dime. Neil Gaiman can go to hell for his serial bad treatment of women, he’s been pulled off our shelves. As we learn we change what we consume.
Where do you shop and where have you stopped shopping?
September 15, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 140: New goal: be independently wealthy so that I can help as many people as I can reach and so I can quit my job and go work with animals all day. I was vetting some pet boarding facilities, initial research for one of the two problems I have to solve before I can adopt again, and saw a job listing which made me go YES I WANT TO DO THAT. Sigh. I miss being around and working with animals all day or night. Having an office dog when we have dogs at home is great, but it’s not the same. I don’t know if my body could actually handle that physical commitment anymore but if I was wealthy then I could do it part time! Win win!
Year 6, Day 141: Did I fail down the jetpens rabbithole? Yes I did. Did I doubt I’d want enough stuff to meet the $35 minimum? Yep. Did I find ten things to buy? Also yep. A mix of wants and gifts. I sent all the links to myself to ruminate on for a few days because I’m pretty sure I told myself I wasn’t allowed to buy more pens. But look, so cute! A Uni-ball One P mini gel pen! Panda donut washi! Kitty washi!
This is one of my current forms of meditation, I don’t use it often as it is habit forming, and it works like magic.
Year 6, Day 142: Walking back to the house, I realized I feel human again!? For the first time in weeks. Not good, but physically back to the usual baseline of aches, pains, and tired which is tolerable. What a huge relief.
This means I can tolerate a 5 minute shower again. I can now walk for 10 minutes without being bed bound for 4 hours. I can work and take JB where they need to go without collapsing like my skin only contains a mass of jellyfish! These things don’t seem like much to a normal person but they are everything when they’re gone.
I’m very slowly adding back very low-rep sets of my normal exercises. They’re still pretty low key to begin with and I have missed being able to do them.
Year 6, Day 143: Wow, are my children WHINY. SmolAc has started their transitional kindergarten program at daycare and one exciting (/s) addition to their routine is they now have take-home (optional) homework. It is terrible. SmolAc just spontaneously forgot how to write some of their letters that they’ve been writing just fine for months and so we had to practice it over and over with a letters book where they could trace and then write. I helped guide their hand a few times, then had them retrace and re-write. It was like pulling teeth. They whined and pouted and stomped and tried to quit over and over and over. Good grief, child, it’s ONE letter. Lots of deep breaths until I couldn’t take it any longer and I sent them to have a snack.
This was published back in July when I was too busy to read the news and now it’s looming on the horizon: “In around 90 days, millions of Americans will learn about out-of-pocket cost hikes of more than 75 percent on average.” Open enrollment is around the corner in October so we’ll see how much of that giant percentage increase is going to impact us. This and losing the charitable deductions for itemizers are the two expected blows to our 2026 operation budget that I know of so far. It feels like I’m always adjusting for yet another hit to our finances, these days.
Year 6, Day 144: Two blows of bad news at once. A friend from blogging and Twitter for well over a decade has been fighting cancer and it’s now terminal. They aren’t that much older than me, and it is heartbreaking to imagine my world without them. This isn’t fair or ok or right. Another loved one is losing their dad to a serious illness, and it’s heartbreaking that this whole section of the family is having to absorb another loss so soon.
Several friends have come down with COVID or the flu, and JB’s been congested all day, so this cold/flu/COVID season is just roaring in. We just got the news that Kaiser will be stocking the COVID vaccine starting the 15th though, so with the Joker at HHS trying to do us out of vaccines with his ACIP meeting later this coming week, PiC and I are strategizing how we can get our vax ASAP without doing it on the same day. We’re grateful that it’ll be available! And we’d really appreciate if we could count on it being available for everyone and for more than 5 business days rather than being subject to the whims of the multitudes of anti-vaxxers.
September 12, 2025
1. I’ve been ogling dogs again. They’re very cute and I want them.
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September 10, 2025
Life with JB
JB has been unusually clingy with me lately, constantly wanting to hold my hand (which leads to fights with Smol Acrobat over the hand they want to hold), constantly wanting hugs, constantly needing to be in the same room as me when we’re home together. I’m feeling smothered this summer.
I was mildly horrified by my therapist’s suggestion that this is partly because JB might be emulating me now but she may be right. Dammit. I don’t know what to make of that, they’ve been PiC’s kid so long.
They’re also moving out of their mostly pink and purple but generally rainbow (never black) stage into a solids and black with sparkles stage. (SmolAc is fimly in their own rainbow stage.)
Life with Smol Acrobat
Remember when I used to gripe that I couldn’t even have private bathroom time because the dogs would always open the door and stare at me until I came out? Well, I found something worse. I opened the door late at night to a Smol Acrobat just standing there, silently. I about jumped out of my skin! “WHAT are you DOING THERE??” They were upset that a stuffy was not in its appointed place, but PiC was asleep so they couldn’t complain to him.
We’ve been dealing with their little temper tantrums, generally short but very intense, when they don’t like an answer they’ve been given. I thought they’d grow out of that intense reaction, but nope. It’s going to take a lot more active adjusting. I’ve been telling them calmly (most of the time. Sometimes less calmly) that they need to use their words to ask for what they want instead of stomping their feet and snarling like a rabid cougar. (Mistyped that as rabbit cougar and now I’m going on of that tangent.) They are very resistant in the moment but I’m seeing some improvement day to day. Usually when told to go start their shower routine, if I stick with mine instead of PiC’s, they snarl and wail. After a solid week of firmness, they asked if they could do it the other way ’round instead and I agreed “because you asked so politely”. It’s slow but we’re making tiny steps of progress.
Precious Moments
SmolAc trying very hard to get their way: Can we eat our snack? I’m just asking. If you say no, den I will say “yes, mommy“.
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PiC told SmolAc to go “Say good night, and you’re not coming back for another round of good nights!”
“Ok!” SmolAc happily replies. Then proceeds with his good nights: “Good night leggy. Good night toe-y. Good night other leggy. Good night other toe-y. Good night eyebrows. Good night cheek. Good night other cheek. Good night nose. Good night ears. Good night chin.”
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JB was minding SmolAc for me during one of my flares. OH: I won by a couple hundred points.
SmolAc: You won? So, I woose (lose)?
JB: Yeah.
SmoAc: Aw.
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PiC: mom’s work friends are probably already here.
JB, listening: I hear them laughing. They’re probably making jokes with curse words.
Me: oh like you haven’t heard those words before.
September 8, 2025
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area
Year 6, Day 133: A while ago, I asked Darcy at I Want Guac if she would share what she knows about international banking and currency, and I’m delighted that she obliged. Her post led me to Wanderer’s Norbert’s Gambit which was new to me, and also Wanderer’s banking operational security post which is very relevant to my interests.
I’m still absorbing a lot of this information to see what we can incorporate in our emergency planning (for one of the worst case scenarios: if we have to flee this country), and our day to day online and banking security practices. Those are two very different scenarios. In the former, I have to figure out how we’d survive if we couldn’t get access to our money in US banking institutions because fascism; versus functioning as normal day to day.
The comments put Fidelity on my list for possible international ATM-friendly cards and accounts. I hadn’t thought of them before, but a couple details sounded appealing so I need to do more research to confirm these will be useful to us:
Your Fidelity Cash Management account will automatically be reimbursed for all ATM fees charged by other institutions while using the Fidelity® Debit Card at any ATM displaying the Visa®, Plus®, or Star® logos. The reimbursement will be credited to the account the same day the ATM fee is debited. Fidelity does not charge foreign transaction fees; however, if you choose to pay a foreign debit card transaction in US dollars, your transaction may be processed at a rate different than market exchange.
Year 6, Day 134: Corporeality was such a mistake.We’re now on Day 11 of this Fucking Flare.
Is it just me or are the Amazon First Reads Historical Fiction selections ALWAYS WW1 and WW2? I’ve been skipping most of their free book selections because there’s only so much WW1/2 set fiction I can take. But I now need to decide if we cancel Prime entirely. We’d been splitting the cost with a few other people for years, and they’re taking that sharing ability away October 1st, so I have to decide if we cut them loose entirely and give up access to Prime Video which has been one of my main (Leverage Redemption!) reasons for continuing the sharing arrangement. We have been using them less and less for shipping reasons. Our primary shipping use case is that sometimes there’s literally no one else who will ship to the reservations and when people need food and babies need diapers, you get that to them any way you can.
Year 6, Day 135: TWO bits of good news today. After 12 days I might finally be turning a corner on the CFS part of my flare. We may be moving into the “is just excruciating fibro pain” part. Yay! I’d sound a little sarcastic there but honestly just being in terrible pain, while not fun, is more manageable than pain and overwhelming fatigue. Fingers crossed.
And one crow friend was alerting on the neighbor’s roof today, and came over to ours for a snack so I ran to oblige. Usually I only put down two treats at a time in case they don’t spot me distributing them. This time I was pretty sure they were waiting so I put out a handful. They were flying solo so they took a few minutes to eat some before stuffing their beak with the rest and flew away. It was fun to watch.
Year 6, Day 136: Labubu dolls: I don’t get it. At least, even though the Beanie baby craze was also irrational, they were cute.
The start of a new school year is a lot. Back to school night. Fundraisers start up. Parent teacher conferences are at the end of the month. The big fundraiser culmination celebration event is this month. Start of the monthly PTA events (which JB wants to attend and PiC often feels obligated to volunteer at). PTA meetings that come with the side of guilt I can’t seem to shake about not doing more than paying for membership, attending meetings virtually and attending some of the community events. I absolutely don’t have time or energy for more. And yet the stupid guilt always bites at me. It’s worse in the first meeting because they’re asking for volunteers for committees. They do put on a lot of events that the kids love and it’s meaningful. But there’s just no wiggle room I can eke out and if I could, this wouldn’t be top of my priority list. Maybe I’ll shake it by the time SmolAc is through elementary school.
Year 6, Day 137: This year is the band year for the local districts. All kids are invited to join the band and learn an instrument this school year. The lessons are free, you have to supply the instrument. The teachers strongly encourage all the kids to try it. It’s a great way to dip a toe into music! I haven’t been able to figure out how to fit in music lessons in JB’s schedule so this is good. This is also Yet Another Thing.
I talked to JB very seriously about how challenging it’ll be at first and once they’re committed, they aren’t allowed to quit just because it’s hard sometimes. The work will pay off. It’ll get easier only with practice. We were able to borrow an instrument from a friend, and had to spend $100 on the other required supplies. Otherwise we would have had to rent one for $30-40/month.
Sadly, their nemesis, a kid I’m heartily sick of, has declared their intentions to join too because they’re going to “master the flute just like their sibling” and good God can we not catch a flipping break from this obnoxious brat? They’re in JB’s class, they’re assigned to JB’s small group in PE, now they’re joining band, they’re constantly picking fights and stirring shit and lying about JB to other kids to turn them against JB. Half my imaginary empire for this kid to move to another state.
I keep reminding myself that JB knows they’re loved. They have dozens of friends their age and trusted adults all over the country. World, even. They have a buddy in the UK who comes to visit them once or twice a year! They have multiple activities and friends at every one. It’s the very rare library visit (PiC takes them almost every weekend) that they don’t run into a friend or three to play with entirely unplanned. A couple jerkface kids, annoying though they are, shouldn’t make or break their school year. They are thoroughly over the kid, I certainly am, but they’re still enjoying life and school and they’re not miserable over school. But I would still give half that empire for that kid, the source of so much annoyance for everyone, to disappear. They’re that classic mean kid who everyone placates in hopes of delaying the target on their backs a little longer. Ugh. Anyway as long as it’s petty stupid shit, we try to focus on all the ways we can make life and school positive in spite of the misery-maker.
PiC asks me if I think the parents of the crappy kids know their kids suck. I say, no, the kids are both themselves and the products of their parents in varying degrees. Unless the parents are garbage, they probably think their kid is the normal one.
September 5, 2025
1. Coming up with a good office storage set-up/layout is a weirdly slow process. Slow is better than never and sometimes fixing your longstanding storage issues is a multi-step process especially when you’re dealing with many crafting, office, life, and school supplies for yourself and the kids. We could really use more storage space here. I just wish I could settle on one good overarching system and stick with it but I’m always finding that I have time or energy to get 25-50% of the way through, stop, and come back to it months later wanting something “better”.
All that to say, it occurred to me to try rearranging my mask storage boxes so that I could reduce it to one medium bin and all it’s now left me with is a bag of well used old fabric masks, once paired with filters, to figure out what to do with. JB used them constantly over three years and they simply can’t do the job anymore. There should be no shame in repurposing them in the scrap bag but I feel terrible about taking apart the hard work that went into them. But it would be worse to waste the fabric, in the end, so I’ll get over it.
2. Every so often I dabble into beginner sheet music on a keyboard to try and remember what I learned as a kid. I wish I’d been able to muster the discipline to practice as much as I should have back then, the way I was willing to run for track or workout for martial arts, but I wasn’t so my muscle memory is a shabby shadow of what it could be. Another thing to do in retirement, teach myself how to play again. Try to get good enough to play Howl’s Moving Castle for fun.
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September 3, 2025
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from investing in index funds and dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks, cash back sites (Rakuten, Mr.Rebates) and affiliate links to Bookshop and Amazon occasionally pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running. The sidebar has ways to support the blog and our charitable giving.
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
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Dividend income. We received $1,141.16 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. It’s re-invested.
It’s taken five months to get to the point of someone processing my raise. Naturally, they did it wrong and it’s going to take ages for them to fix. Who knows when that’ll actually be done.
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