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
Year 5, Day 281: There’s something I can’t stand about the audio of dubbed TV shows or movies. The voices always sound too breathy and feel mismatched to the people they’re dubbing. Even when I’m not looking at the screen, that offness remains.
Wrote to all our Congresspeople again today to tell them, again, we do NOT want bipartisanship with this administration. I don’t want to see one single CA Senatorial vote for any of their nominations or bills or anything.
Stand up for trans rights, immigrants rights, reproductive healthcare rights. Stop pissing away what little goodwill remains for scraps of recognition or Republican “cooperation”. Also instructed all of them to SPEAK UP against this federal funding freeze bullshit.
Although I’m being worked into the ground, I’m also keeping it front of mind that I cannot exist solely to deal with W2 work, chores, giving and activism alone. We must carve out room for rest (even if it’s not enough) and joy. We need to sustain for many more days, weeks, and months. We don’t have to pretend life is NORMAL but we do VERY much need to deliberately choose to have good in every one of our days. We’ll burn out spectacularly if we don’t.
Year 5, Day 282: The “purge if you don’t miss it in a year” cycle doesn’t work for me. My regret cycles kick in at 2-4 years, and I never know which it’ll be for, or if it’s silly.
At the moment I am regretting getting rid of my Top Shop leggings a few years back. I’m wearing the one remaining pair under my cargo pants for warmth so it matters very little how they look or fit, it only matters that they’re oh so soft. Then again, I don’t think I’d still fit at Petite 2 size anymore, so maybe this is rose colored glasses at play too.
JB is so bitter that they have the day off school tomorrow but isn’t allowed to stay up late tonight doing crafts. We still have to get up for the dentist early tomorrow morning. I don’t think I knew they had the day off when I made the appointments but it worked out, mostly.
Year 5, Day 283: Smol Acrobat loves counting my reps for me. After 30 lateral raises, 14 squats and 15 glute bridges: “what are you doing NOW.”
Lying on the floor like roadkill, kid, I’m tired!
It’s been a hell of a day. Meetings all morning, then getting into actual work but an idle checking in on people led to finding out I have to take more meetings because folks have needs that need to be heard and their managers have totally dropped the ball so I need to pick it up. Fahhhhh.
I’m extra tired. So tired I WANT to cry emotionally but physically am just too damn tired to and who has the time to anyway?
This all-the-meetings! life is hell and I hate it. I’d like to think or know that it’s temporary but due to upcoming reorganizing, probably some of it is here to stay. I have to figure out how to share the pain so it’s manageable workload and not just pain.
Soothing background show for the day: Man on the Inside. So many The Good Place alum, I hope they keep adding more in the second season.
Year 5, Day 284: We’re saving for the roof replacement and travel and replenishing the dog fund. It feels very jarring to be thinking of these trivial things (and how do we suddenly have tiny poppy plants spread all over the place?) this week with everything going on.
It feels like we’re living in 1930s Germany. I know many people outside the US see the same thing when they look at us. Even though we’re safer than most being in California, my gut screams that we have to fight and plan for the worst.
Asians have historically been OTHER. Just because we’ve been temporarily useful in recent years as a model minority (which is bullshit, not safety, and woe to most Asians who believe otherwise) we’ll be a target just as much as our fellow minorities. We may not be the first but our turn will come. I sure as hell don’t plan to be compliant. We have to fight to help the folks on the front lines, now. Trans people, sex workers, they might be first because the world thinks they’re expendable, but no one who isn’t a cishet white male is safe. I remember the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese internment camps and Korematsu v. United States and the millions of racist indignities before, in between and since then.
Soothing background show for the day: Madam Secretary. I find the competence and (sometimes unflappability) of Tea Leoni’s Elizabeth McCord and Bebe Neuwirth’s Nadine Tolliver comforting.
Year 5, Day 285: I shared CA Senator phone numbers with two more people, asking them to call and leave voicemails when bad shit is happening (when is bad shit NOT happening these days) to pressure them into taking action.
I called the Costco feedback line to thank them for maintaining their line on DEI policies and not caving to pressure internally or externally both as a customer and a shareholder. 1966 positive calls today, she said! This is important that they hear from us that they should be continuing to hold this line. I need to get a phone number to yell at Target. Wait, here’s the number to yell at Target, or (thanks to Celeste Pewter).
Nicole and Maggie have lists of actions, pick one or two that you can do? Jan 26 and Feb 1.
I chose a new churning credit card: Chase Sapphire Preferred, 60000 bonus points for $4000 spend in 3 months. I should have done this last month, the kids’ dental bill alone was $1000. But we have more coming up, hitting that requirement will happen pretty quickly. Making a note for myself that I should plan to do this early next year. Again that double feeling of surrealism with planning: will we be here next year? Will we be able to make use of points hoards?
I could not do this without y’all, my online community, contributing to help make heavy lifting a little lighter all year round. I email the contributors who want to hear from me by email 4-6 times a year depending on what life is doing. People contribute depending on their own personal factors and somehow it all works out that we can help people.
Some numbers for 2024: 217 jackets and sweaters.
15 giant boxes. Giant means they’re always big enough to fit a small adult or maybe even two.
We spent several weeks washing donated bedding and clothes, and packing up books, toys, and shoes for shipping to the Allen Youth Center for distribution to the local community.
We sent 20 towels to the Youth Center which was offering hot food and showers to many unhoused folks this spring.
We helped 9 families directly with all their needs.
We bought diapers, wipes, and formula for an infant. We bought loads of canned food, pantry foods, and dog food. Household goods: soap, shampoo, conditioner, dental supplies, cleaning supplies. We bought winter boots, winter coats, warm socks, clothes for school, clothes for toddlers, clothes for elders. We sent piles of warm blankets to families whose trailers had no heat or insulation.
The quilting community donated a sewing machine, 23 lbs of fabrics, and all the necessary quilting supplies so a quilter could carry on her family tradition.
I can’t tell if this covers the amount of work that actually went into it, feels like it doesn’t look like much, but as a friend reminds me, every little bit counts.
And it’s true: every single penny and every single dollar makes all of this possible.
I’ve been shopping for our January families, so as always, your donations and sharing are most welcome.
Send a gift to any of the following with a note saying “Pine Ridge”:
Year 5, Day 278: A plague is upon our house. Having successfully taken down JB, the (noro?)virus moved on to me and I’m wiped OUT. It’s gotten PiC too. Smol Acrobat has a whole different set of symptoms so we’re collectively a mess. Days and weeks like this remind me – we definitely can’t have a dog for at least another year. It’s too hard to get sick, be unable to rest because you need to keep someone else alive, even harder when you need to keep a pet alive and well. My antivirals are doing a fine job of keeping me off death’s doorstep but it can’t make me well.
It’s fine, I miss my dogs deeply but we need this time and energy cushion so I’ll be using this time to rebuild the dog savings account. We can always build money margin by saving more and earning more where possible but I don’t know how to build health/energy margin.
Year 5, Day 279: Now obviously I’m nowhere near being a billionaire so there must be something I’m missing but I have a quibble with this quote from Warren Buffett: Real estate is generally a “good investment” during times of inflation, according to Buffett.
“They’re the businesses that you buy once and then you don’t have to keep making capital investments subsequently. So, you do not face the problem of continuous reinvestments involving greater and greater dollars because of inflation,” he said during the 2015 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting.
No subsequent capital investments? Nothing like general maintenance and replacement appliances (we provided fridge, microwave, stove and oven), or refurbishing the whole place when a tenant trashed it? I got out of real estate because I tried to keep rent low, and that meant that the ongoing costs of maintenance and the cost of lost rent weren’t sufficiently covered. Even if the tenants always paid on time, there’s always something that needs to be maintained annually. My friend with multiple rental units ran through all of their reserves carefully built up over the entire several years they have been doing rentals because one tenant both refused to pay rent, drove away fellow tenants, and trashed two places. They have to start all over rebuilding so they can continue to provide appropriate maintenance for the remaining tenants. My other friend with multiple rentals who is committed to ethical landlording with low-priced rent, doing all the work themselves and promptly, hasn’t broken even in years. I’m well aware there are many predatory landlords and rental companies out there who are more than making ends meet but it’s hard not to look at that statement without full on skepticism about how exactly they’re avoiding any further investments. Though I suppose he’s probably talking about a much larger scale than anything I’m talking about.
Year 5, Day 280: Related to billionaires, I was thinking about this Courtney Milan thread about money and dopamine. My corollary theory to hers is that people whose only hobby and dopamine generator is the pursuit of more money are up a creek, existentially speaking, when they can’t derive dopamine from making or spending money anymore.
On my own personal scale I’ve experienced this in a multitude of ways. In the early days of this blog I needed to work inhumane hours to survive, and then my brain correlated the dopamine of survival = the dopamine of thriving, therefore the path to happiness must be working too hard all the time. That’s one pattern and a brain muscle memory that I still have trouble breaking back out of when I have an intense period of working. Last week, for example. And when the thing you’re expecting to bring you dopamine doesn’t anymore? Problem. That was also last week for me. I did so much work and felt zero satisfaction. It was frustrating.
Then there’s just forgetting how to have fun or relax. That happens a lot for me, too.
My personal fix: I try to pay close attention to small pleasures. Having a batch of cute small inexpensive but well made earrings I can swap in and out without pain is this month’s tiny pleasure. Maybe next month’s too. I hope I’ll always cherish this tiny feeling of satisfaction.
Year 5, Day 281: Woke up exhausted, as usual. Nearly spread sour cream on my bagel exhausted. That’s not great but not unusual. Not as usual: those episodes I’ve have now and again at night? It hit me when I got up this morning. Even after a lot of water, Gatorade, some food and a lot of sitting, the dizziness, dark spots on my vision, and feeling like I was on the precipice of vomiting (but without nausea weirdly enough) remained all morning and afternoon. Absolutely awful.
And then there are so many reasons for the perpetual screaming in my head this week.
Taxes and the inability to know anything right now. I have no idea if we’ll owe, last year was weird in enough ways I can’t even guess, and I cannot do anything about it until the end of the month or mid Feb at best because our documents take forever. Mid Feb may be optimistic even.
Work: so many unanswered questions. So many answers I did get, and don’t like.
Worrying about friends in bad relationships, I wish this one were never a line item but it feels like it always is.
I need a deep therapeutic scream, join me?
Year 5, Day 282: I have no idea what happened to the Friday entry! Which is kind of apropos for how this whole week has gone.
1. Things I got done despite marrow-deep exhaustion and illness (in addition to bare survival): dealt with a post office issue, oversaw the addressing and stamping of our new year cards, cooked a nourishing and tasty chicken broth with ginger. Contacted all our Congresspeople to encourage them to keep voting NO on the Laken Riley Act (which is so dangerous for minorities, doesn’t matter if we’re “legal” or not) and to actually stand up against this presidential administration. (I’m furious that they passed it. So that sort of takes away from the “good” aspect. This is open season on minorities, because a false accusation’s free and still gets people deported under this act.)
2. Treated myself to a Cinnabon this week. Delicious but holy crap they’re pricy now.
3. I don’t think there’s ever been a song that I’ve heard Kelly Clarkson song that didn’t sound amazing. I didn’t know she covered “It’s Quiet Uptown” years ago.
Year 5, Day 271: PiC found our local HMart and got Korean takeout for dinner!! It was SO good. Gochujang, so good. That was the one bright spot for the day. It was nonstop today, starting even before the day began with an 11 pm kid-call for comforting and a 5 am wakeup because one kid didn’t feel well and then the other kid didn’t feel well, and then it was morning and time for questions, emails, checklists, to do lists, questions, chats, updates …. ! It was nonstop with people needing things.
There’s something awful going around right now. This one’s not COVID, flus A or B, or RSV but definitely something that overlaps the same symptoms. I know several people are down with the ick. I hate that we still got gotten even though we mask. It’s not perfect of course, but it probably keeps our infections down to a minimum. Even if it doesn’t feel so best case scenario when you’ve got a kid hurling the contents of their stomach.
Sometimes the state of my brain feels like I can’t learn new stuff because I keep forgetting and then relearning random old stuff. Like the definition of an archipelago.
Year 5, Day 272: We found garlic toum at Costco and it’s amazing (the brand is Toom) – highly recommend. The kids eat so many fresh veggies with it.
I love the ol Donyo Lodge Wildlife Live Stream, it’s so soothing when I’m frustrated with software.
I’m on Week 24 of trainer workouts! And uhhh I am starting to crave some kind of feedback. Maybe this was set off by my doctor’s appointment last week. My doctor (who is the exact same age as me, mind you) commented that she thinks we’re good parents and that she’s proud of me for being self aware and acting on that self knowledge. Having gotten an A in doctor’s appts, now my dopamine seeker wants approval on working out. Tsk. Some impulses are as bad as sugar cravings.
I’m still not reading the Vulture article reporting on Neil Gaiman yet. I intend to at some point, when I have the bandwidth. That said, while I appreciate my friends giving me a heads up that it’s a tough read, it was awfully annoying to have total strangers exhorting me not to read it to protect my peace. You know what, mind your business!
Year 5, Day 273: Our neighbor’s lab is adorable and sweet and hilarious. She walks by our house at least once every two weeks when we’re outside and it just makes my entire day because she wants ALL THE PETS and I want to GIVE all the pets! A match made in heaven. We touch noses and then it’s off to the races: skritches til my arms cramp up. She has that really beautiful thick water dog fur which requires really strong fingers.
I was so stressed by an email at work (it was the opposite of what we needed to hear) it sent me on walkabout through the house so I decided it was time to get my planks out of the way. Now, I don’t hate any of my exercises but do hate that it never feels like planks are getting any easier. I need to do them earlier in the week. By the end of the week, I’m out of time and energy with planks left to do and they don’t always get done. So that email was kind of a lose-win situation.
Year 5, Day 274: JB and I are whining in equal measure about (respectively) homework and work. I’m indulging in excess whining since it’s easier to match their mood than it is to ask them to get it together.
Sometimes I wonder about other people’s finances. In a nosy curious kind of way. We’ve got multiple neighbors with four kids in multi-generational homes with expensive cars and taking expensive vacations (several week trips, international, and theme parks like Disney and the like) every year. I’m so curious about how much that all costs because I couldn’t swing that. We make ok money for here, not that kind of money. Ignore the six figure car. That’s just a “won’t” (even if we could. But we can’t). We priced out Disney last year for a two day pass and almost passed out at the cost. Well over $2000 for the four of us for 1 day. Are we just cheap? Because that seems really expensive. Maybe we’re just cheap?
Maybe the older generation pitches in? In my family the elders are provided for, they don’t contribute financially though they might help around the house. Oh well that’s actually probably the difference isn’t it, they didn’t have to pay for daycare for any of the four kids. At an average of $2000/month per kid, four kids for say five years, they did not spend $480,000 for daycare. That pays for quite a lot of vacations.
Now I’m curious how much we’ve paid for childcare over their lifetimes. If I were on my computer, I’d go find out.
On second thought, best not to.
Year 5, Day 275: You know what I like about Elementary? On my 6th runthrough of it. There’s a pattern of Sherlock growing as a person and however begrudging he may seem about affection in the beginning, truly embracing the value of Joan as a person and as a partner, but there are moments I didn’t catch on in previous viewings like the moment when Joan snaps at Sherlock about his being tetchy with his professor friend and her annoyance with Sherlock who chooses to be alone. He says in this incredibly hurt tone: “Watson?!” but later in the episode, he obviously takes in the point of her upbraiding. It’s a little thing but I liked it.
This, friends, has been an intensely hard week. With sick kids, and intense work loads, our household is a shambles. And I am TIRED.
Part of my stress response to uncertainty is to work more, which is only contributing to the fatigue and stress cycle. Admittedly I actually did need to log some extra hours to clear out a backlog that was going to cause real problems in a couple weeks, so that’s actually a relief but when it’s just about caught up, I forget how to cycle back down to more acceptable levels. I’m waiting on some pretty important answers to very important questions, and it’s not like working myself into the ground is going to do anything at all to change that outcome right now. I need to stop working after dinner, for a start.
Courtney Milan shared these in her newsletter: “In all of these cases, I personally know someone who is connected to these families, and who has vouched for their authenticity.”
