Year 4, Day 122: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
This is very apt for me right now. I’m navigating a few relationships that are rough right now and it feels like the emotional white water rapids. With one, I’m very unsure if any of it is personal, or if it’s just what the other person needs, or if what the other person needs is NOT me in their life. Which leads to a lot of sadness and wondering what I did wrong. This situation just affirms my lizard brain’s conviction about my inevitable abandonment. When people know me, and I care about them, they leave me.
With another, I’ve shared some deeply personal and upsetting information that dredged up a lot of bad memories about mutuals and they’re digesting it but the loss of that enormous pressurized rock in my chest where I’ve held it in so long has me spinning out of balance. I know they need time to digest but my anxiety is out of control with catastrophic thinking. It goes straight to the worst case scenario and starts planning for that, while also direly wishing bad things would happen to me “and just be done with it”. I mean, I don’t want to leave my kids but this is a pattern I recognize that goes waaay back to when the financial abuse started. It was always too much. That load was immensely heavy.
Year 4, Day 115: A friend is celebrating a big decade birthday and commented well, at this age, they’re all big aren’t they. Better than the alternative, anyway. On an almost related note, I hate that a favorite author is fighting cancer but she also tells the best stories during treatment and it’s hard not to appreciate these Twitter threads (I very much recommend the Clocktaur Wars duo and her Paladin series having just re-read them):
Year 3, Day 116: I actually remembered to put sunblock on before taking the kids to the park but still got sunburned. Unfair!
At least I won’t need an extra blanket and heating pad tonight?
This wracking cough is still plaguing me morning and night. Sometimes midday, but less often. I feel less horrible than last week but still frustrated at being sick for so long. I’m grateful that my doctor prescribed both heavy duty cough meds that I requested without question. We’re super fortunate to have good healthcare providers right now and hate that everyone doesn’t have equal access to care like we have.
Oh, speaking of doctors, I’ll have to see a dermatologist about this lump that mysteriously appeared in 2020 when I had no time to care about anything not dire. At the time, I assumed it was a weird body acne thing that would run its course but here we are, 3 years later and it feels like time to name it or get rid of it. The consultation will be about (I hope) removing it. I also hope it’ll be a simple procedure.
I am genuinely puzzled why society continues to expect less from cishet men than trained pets. None of this strikes me as funny. It’s more like she’s laughing because otherwise she’d have to cry about how useless he is.
This lady shared 5 dumb things her husband did when she was in labor. I helped translate. pic.twitter.com/Wcq46m1YVC
Year 3, Day 117: Overhearing an acquaintance talking about her writing process, I couldn’t help but think about all the writers I currently admire, the stories and characters they’ve devised that I love, and what sort of styles they’re known for.
Just off the top of my head: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Ursula Vernon, DJ Older, Nnedi Okarafor, NK Jemisin, Fonda Lee, Seanan McGuire, Kate Elliott, KB Spangler, Nghi Vo, Cassandra Khaw.
In my 20s, I dreamed of being able to write books/something that people would enjoy reading but had no faith I’d ever have the skill. My former English teacher always reminded me that Amy Tan didn’t write The Joy Luck Club until her late 30s, there was plenty of time. Some years on, having developed a bit of a mentor-mentee relationship with a very established writer, I asked this writer to read a post I’d written here for feedback. His feedback was insightful but I didn’t have the chops to properly address it. Maybe it’s worth revisiting, it’s been over a decade since I first wrote it, but now in my early 40s (and I know that old saw “it’s not too late until you’re dead”) it feels like if I was capable of writing something worth reading, or had an idea worth the time, that compulsion would have happened by now. Not to compare myself to Terry Pratchett in terms of skill, but in terms of that drive to write, this anecdote feels like evidence I just don’t have it in me. It doesn’t feel like I’ve got anything worth saying that needs my voice to say it.
Umberto Eco said: I wrote a novel because I had a yen to do it. I believe this is sufficient reason to set out to tell a story.
Maybe my yen is faded. Perhaps it’s time to put that dream to bed instead of continuing to feel vaguely dissatisfied with myself for not accomplishing anything. Because if we’re honest, I haven’t found a way to squeeze out extra hours in a day to spend on writing, and no one (who isn’t, say, Terry Pratchett) gets better at writing without a lot of practice, focus, and good feedback.
And entirely aside from that, the author stories from the trenches of having to market their books nonstop is utterly depressing. I’m terrible at marketing.
Terry Pratchett once rang up a friend and said, “I’m exhausted! I need a break. I’m taking a six-month sabbatical.”
Six months later his friend asked him, “Hey, how’d your sabbatical go?”
Terry said, grumpily, “I wrote two books.”
— Owl! at the Library 😴🧙♀️ (@SketchesbyBoze) July 19, 2023
Year 3, Day 118: There’s almost something laughable about elderly relatives accusing us of being overly indulgent and permissive with Smol Acrobat, while complete strangers comment that they are well behaved in public (timing is everything). We’re tired, and we are trying to gentle parent, but we’re neither indulgent or permissive when it comes to the important things. Some folks just aren’t happy unless they’re dousing other people with their unhappiness and can’t feel good about themselves without insulting someone else. Must be sad to be them.
Separately: I was lucky enough to have a long heart to heart with a chosen parent about all kinds of family history including abusive parent figures and how we’ve coped with it. We’re fundamentally such different people and we have very different coping mentalities, and I’m so grateful to have found a parent in them.
Naturally, my gut couldn’t accept that they like me for me. No matter who it is, some part of my brain starts second-guessing why they put up with me. The imprints in my psyche after years of knowing that half my family of origin had no love for me, but not understanding why, keep floating to the surface. Who am I to deserve love? Nobody, that’s who.
I keep reminding myself it’ll take time to erase those marks.
Year 3, Day 119: It’s been a busy week. Mostly good, some bad, but having support from my chosen family so that I could steal a few moments without having to mind them constantly has been unbelievably amazing. I miss my community, I miss my chosen family, and it’s been pure joy to see Smol Acrobat bond deeply with Grandma. They’re far more selective about who they’re close with, whereas JB was expansive, and so this is the first time I’m seeing them really invested in a relationship with another person outside of our nuclear family.
Year 4, Day 108: When I was 17, I started my first full time retail type job. Before then I’d only worked summer part time jobs and for my parents. I met lifers whose motto was “don’t rock the boat” because they just wanted to make it to retirement (15 years off) no matter how miserable they were. I experienced managers who were so inept they cried at work over their “best friend betraying them” (a direct report). I met people who slept with married people and got pregnant. I met people who slept with coworkers and got pregnant and even though they were unhappy, decided they had to get married for the sake of the kid. I met people who slept with coworkers and broke up, making the night shift super awkward for everyone.
It was a whole lot of life in one little building. In retrospect, I’m grateful for all those experiences that informed what I was looking for out of work and out of life: I didn’t want to have to keep my head down when work conditions were terrible for fear of losing my only job. I didn’t want to have to suffer silently. I didn’t want to let people be stepped on and stay quiet. I wanted to stand up for myself, to advocate for better working conditions, to advocate for everyone. I wanted options, respect, and no drama.
While I don’t necessarily feel like I have a lot of options now in case things go sideways, I do have the latter two in spades and that’s meaningful.
Year 3, Day 109: I’m sure everyone already knew this and I was just too stubborn/unmotivated to try but it turns out cornstarch is the secret to frying up slabs of tofu that don’t stick to the pan! I used some notes from this recipe and added cornstarch and garlic powder for my first attempt at frying tofu while following actual directions instead of winging it. I didn’t even need a spatula to flip them! Didn’t even use a non stick pan, either.
The garlic flavor didn’t come through at all. It smelled good but I couldn’t taste it. I won’t waste garlic powder next time but I will keep the steps of prepping hours ahead to let the liquid drain and adding cornstarch.
Year 3, Day 110: We spent $20 on a couple bags of raised bed and potting mix to add to the potato bags. I’d filled them maybe halfway a couple summers back. We grow small potato crops now and again, half a colander full at a time. I figured, even if I don’t grow a great deal more because we’re constrained by volume, a good soil top-up would do us good. Lots of plants are poking their way up through the replenished soil now, so I’m hoping for enough potatoes in a harvest to share.
We joke that these are the most expensive potatoes ever, $100 starting up a few years back and $20 now, and we most certainly have not gotten $120 worth of potatoes out of them but I have really enjoyed having an incredibly low maintenance little garden to dig in now and again and fresh potatoes to eat. It’s rare for me to say it’s not about the money, it’s about the fun, but that’s exactly what’s going on here.
Year 3, Day 111: I’ve been sad about my brother and our lost relationship lately. I saw a car that reminded me of his two best friends in high school. They were a set and I cared about them too but we all fell out of touch after they graduated from college and moved on with their professional lives while he remained stuck in the ditch of life. In what was probably a foolish attempt, I tried emailing the one I could find a work email for to see if he might want to catch up. It’s been three weeks and he hasn’t answered.
Maybe my email went to spam, he doesn’t remember me, or he doesn’t want to know me anymore. I’m still in touch or friends with most of my high school friends, 23 years on, and had always assumed we’d still be friends too. So that’s another small sadness.
Year 3, Day 112: The idea of the “friendzone” is such a weird concept to me. Is it some Harry met Sally “men and women can’t be friends” thing? Maybe it’s because I didn’t date much in my single years. I had a couple boyfriends through my twenties but generally most people weren’t interested in me. The (very) few that were weren’t a good fit. I didn’t recognize or reciprocate their interest. We didn’t stay friends after we stopped going to the same school. Maybe that’s what they mean by friendzone: I was fine being their friend, but they had only hung around in case I changed my mind, not because they valued my friendship or me as a person. Doesn’t seem like a worthwhile (or respectful) reason to stick around, if you ask me. I would hate to find out that someone I believed to be a friend had been hanging around solely in hopes of having a different relationship.
I have four male friends, dating back to junior high through college, who are very close, through-thick-and-thin-type friends. They stood in as my date for the occasional event that required one, without it ever being an issue for us or our respective partners who weren’t available because we were friends and only friends. Never once has the idea that we had zero romantic interest in one another diminished our friendship. We’ve openly acknowledged the fact that we had zero attraction to one another at one time or another without any awkwardness or stress. It just is. We’re best friends and best as friends. I cherish that. I wonder if people worrying about being friendzoned are open to having a deep non-romantic relationship with folks of their preferred gender or if that’s the only goal.
Year 4, Day 101: WEIRDLY smooth morning routine with the kids. Turns out it was the only smooth bit of the day. PiC got stuck at Costco for hours mid-morning, then was stranded when he got a flat tire that couldn’t be fixed on the road. I had to run out twice to drop him off and then pick up everyone.
Still, I was extra efficient and got through my regular work and 2 of 3 backburner projects. Not too shabby.
Year 3, Day 102: A couple friends came over in the afternoon to grill and played with the kids. We tried to strike a balance between keeping it simple and having a nice enough spread that everyone could enjoy something.
JB helped me skewer the veggies, we parboiled corn on the cob, and they all went on the grill with a tritip and hot dogs. The pie, ice cream, and potato salad were store bought. Unfortunately no one liked the potato salad much so we’ll get a different one next time. The kids didn’t appreciate much of anything but the ice cream and pie, of course, but they were willing to eat anything to get to the dessert so two thumbs up for motivation.
Year 3, Day 103: Double Monday! Having the day off yesterday was fun. Having two kids and a scared dog 🐕 who couldn’t settle or sleep all night because of the fireworks was an awfully high penalty to pay for the day off. JB had a hard time falling asleep but thankfully stayed down once they dropped off. Smol barely slept, continually popping up to look at me between 2-5 am. Sera 🐶 only slept after I gave her a double dose of CBD treats and melatonin. She’s still dragging today. I’m right there with her. I got almost two whole hours of sleep and woof. I’m not sure I can lift my arms much today.
Thinking about money, I’m ruminating on how we calculate our net worth regarding our home. I list our mortgage on the debit side. That’s concrete debt that we owe. But nothing feels right as far as listing the value. That is entirely hypothetical, since it’s dependent on someone buying at the price we are valued for. The cynical part of me views the assessed value primarily as a cost to us on the tax side, but not as an asset that we can rely on because who knows what climate change will do to the property values in the next couple of decades?
Year 3, Day 104: Erph. My everything is drained. But I have to keep going: get the kids out the door. Clear my work inbox/desk. Finalize management proposals I need to put in for long term needs. Covering for folks out on vacation and preparing for taking a bit of time off myself.
The list goes on and on.
Usually I’m pretty good about drawing a line under the day and saying that’s all, folks! But as we’re deep into summer (though it doesn’t feel that way at all), time sensitive stuff piles up and can’t be put off.
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I suspect I’d be a more optimistic / positive person if my children would go to sleep and stay asleep at night. If it’s not one kid, it’s the other. Or both. I can’t remember the last time I had two nights of peaceful restful sleep in a row. 2013?
Year 3, Day 105: I’m nursing a cold of some kind. Tested negative for COVID, at least. I’d wonder who got me but this was probably fatigue related.
We visited our local library for the last time today. Bittersweet. They’re moving to an updated building but we love our little
Year 4, Day 94: Rough start at 2 am with Smol Acrobat’s sadly calling for me: “Mama, not feeling good. Not feeling good, mama.”
They seemed to have dodged the COVID bullet from two weeks ago but they caught a different cold this weekend instead and a bit of fever was starting up. We cuddled so they could sleep again, while I tried to read my book on Kindle and remembered sitting with JB for them to sleep at this age.
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Weirdly enough it was a very un-Monday sort of day. Work was manageable. I had time to dig into a bigger project I’d put off for months. I still forgot one I’d been procrastinating, but that’s no surprise.
I had enough time to review some plans for the rest of summer, cook bulgogi and prep rice and salad for dinner, make PiC’s coffee for tomorrow and tidy up the kitchen a touch. Heaped on top of a pile of greens, the bulgogi made an excellent “steak salad” for me where I’d normally have devoured 3 cups of rice. We have enough left over for tomorrow thankfully, when I’m going to be running to stay on top of it all.
Year 3, Day 95: Smol Acrobat decided that it was PiC’s turn to suffer last night, rejecting me totally out of hand. I was trying to spare him. He was already facing a late night working but Smol was adamant they wanted nothing to do with me.
Despite that, this morning was unexpectedly smooth. Smol was irritatingly a jack-in-the-box at breakfast but their current obsession with the timers on my phone was leveraged to get them to wash their hands, put on their socks, shoes, and sweater. Each of those things is usually a separate, exasperating, fight until I want to pull my hair out. But letting them watch multiple countdowns got us right through to getting buckled up in the car. Whew!
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PiC bought me four ounces of fresh brie and I just realized that it must be consumed before July 3. I’m on it!
Year 3, Day 96: I’ve been rehabilitating my 15 year old backpack. It was a work pack that morphed into a Con bag and then became the go-to for everything backpack. It was the best pack. When the strap started fraying and separating, in fact when half of it was detached, I mournfully tried to replace it with an identical one but of course they just don’t make them anymore. Last week, I started wondering: what are the chances I can actually rebuild this strap? And replace all the zipper pulls that aged and broke?
I set the foundation of the strap bridge over the weekend and bought some upholstery needles for the bridge/patch ($3). I searched for zipper pull replacements but couldn’t commit to any style or price. Then inspiration struck today! I gathered my old free Con lanyards that we hold onto but don’t need, trimmed off 2/3 of the length and sewed some seams. They’re ugly but perfectly serviceable, easy to clip on and off, zipper pulls! 🎉
Excessively pleased with myself.
Year 3, Day 97: What a terrible morning. Smol got me up at 6. We muddled through the next hour looking at videos on my phone until body could start to function. We made breakfast (sausage! eggs! English muffins! toast!) for everyone and things were fine. But JB was sluggish, and didn’t get in gear until it was late and way past time to go, and they were in danger of missing the field trip bus. Think they’ll learn to get moving when we tell them that they’ll be late? (No, me neither) and PiC has caught whatever Smol Acrobat and I have. Boooo.
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This afternoon was a bit of a blur. We went for a walk, put up the garbage bins, she did zooms in the backyard, I cooked dinner, and went back to work for a few hours. Usually we walk later in the day and I feed her right after but I needed to be done with cooking dinner earlier than usual so my internal clock was tilted sideways. Embarrassingly, the days are starting to blend together so much I forgot I hadn’t fed Sera 🐶 dinner until much later than usual. She’d just patiently shadowed me the rest of the afternoon, without any increasingly pointed signals like Seamus would have given like tapping the food bowl or yodeling at me.
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After dinner, I put in the first of four seams on the backpack patch. The curved needle is exactly the right tool 😍 In hindsight, though, starting on the less padded side of the backpack would have been wiser. My hands ache from forcing the unfamiliar needle through the thickest part of the padding. The seam is ugly as all get out too, but that’s less important than how strong it is. With a quadruple thread, it seems like it’ll be quite strong indeed. Again, I’m quite pleased with tonight’s incremental progress!
Year 3, Day 98: Always nice to wake up to a swollen ankle. From sleeping. /sarcasm
It’s been swollen since yesterday but didn’t think it was worth mentioning if it’d pass in a day. It has not.
As long as I keep my weight off, I do ok but just ten minutes of hobbling around in shoes leaves my whole body aching with the knock-on effects of walking abnormally.
I got my first mammogram today. Friends and family warned me about the experience and it was as advertised: painful! It hurt too much to breathe when instructed to hold my breath, so I couldn’t sabotage it by gasping for air, and the technician was quick, so it went about as well as it could have. Results were back same day: negative. Many friends and family have been through the breast cancer wringer and we lost one dear friend to ALS after she’d bested breast cancer, so despite not having a family history (that I know of), a negative result is a relief.
Year 4, Day 87: Historically, terrible nightmares have plagued my nights but they’d eased off the past couple of years. Last night, they were back with a vengeance. Genocide, cannibalism, and persecution all night long. It was a relief to wake up and shake it off.
*****
PiC and JB spent all morning and half the afternoon helping our friends move. Smol Acrobat and I stayed home, since they would only have gotten in the way, and played, ran errands, and muddled through lunch and naptime. After JB returned and both kids had eaten, I whisked them both off to the park to get them out of PiC’s hair. I got almost two hours of work done all day. 🤦🏻♀️ ah well. Tomorrow’s another day. (Look at me, I don’t even have anxiety over this lost day!)
JB was reportedly helpful but also furious that the new rental’s fridge was cleared out but not cleaned. As they scrubbed, they fumed: how rude! Who rents out a place and DOESN’T CLEAN IT??
Total spent: $31 on diapers from Target.
Year 3, Day 88: I’ve been searching for the 3-ring binders that I like at Target. I’m looking for the kind that have a very hands friendly design, a single tab to open the rings instead of the standard design where you pull the top and bottom tabs. I don’t always have two good hands to work with.
Silly me, I hadn’t flipped the binder over to check the brand. It’s a Staples brand! No wonder I kept striking out at Target. The prices on binders range wildly between $4-23. 👀 This one is the right one and mid-range at $13. I’m waiting until I have enough Staples reward money to buy it. I don’t want to be out of pocket any more than we have to be.
*****
Related: I claimed earlier today that I don’t have a problem at all with spending and this immediately disproves that claim. 🙂
I don’t have a problem spending money on other people. I have a problem spending money on things that are for me or my enjoyment. My beloved mentor, Coach Malika, would have something to say about my deprioritizing my needs and wants, and she would be 100% right.
Year 3, Day 89: Day 3 of waking up with swollen fingers crooked into claw hands. What’s up with that? Our weather has been normalish. Ah well. A thing I’ve been practicing with my therapist is not dwelling on the why because for me, right now, that generally leads to self blame and then we spiral into self flagellation. That leads to more pain. So funny swollen hands day! Wee.
*****
Today I let folks know that I’m picking our June Lakota families, plural for two reasons. First, because I noticed there are a lot of names that have been on the list for a month or more. That’s a long time, usually they get taken care of in a couple weeks. Second, I’m going to be so busy in July, it’ll be really hard to help another family so I should try to pick two before we run out of June.
I started working with the coordinator on the logistics of the first family while contributions came in. It always takes a lot of time and back and forth, and sometimes even phone calls which are at the bottom of my preferences list, to get a complete set of information.
As always, I am grateful all over again to have online friends who step up whenever I put out the call.
Year 3, Day 90: Success! We purchased 200 gallons of propane for June Family 1! This should help them heat water for cooking and bathing for the rest of the summer.
*****
I’m working on thank you cards to my long time physicians this week. No reason, just wanted to take some time to express my appreciation for their care, especially at the big moments in our lives, and supporting me through my ridiculous health journey without ever making me feel bad for seeking advice or help.
*****
This was one of my running running running days. Run to drop off the kids, run home to work, run to pick up the kids, run JB over to self defense class. Run home to make dinner. Phew! I wanted to call it quits when we walked in the door but there was still dinner and bath and bedtime to get through. Naturally this was the day that JB would drop and smash one of the glasses from the set my mom bought 15+ years ago right after dinner so I was too tired to even feel mad.
Year 3, Day 91: MERCY. We cry mercy. Smol woke up crying 4 times in the night, just sobbing hysterically, as if they were terrified. Either they’ve begun having nightmares or they’re falling ill. The latter is often what precedes a feverish day. They’ve also been pretty grumpy this week, so we’re all worn down by today. Also I can’t raise my left arm today. My muscles feel like they’re being grated through the cheese shredder if I try, so I won’t be doing that.
*****
I’m working on shopping for June’s Family 2 today. An older man who has been in the hospital and is recuperating at home needed sandals, hygiene supplies and pantry foods. It took three attempts to figure out a shopping cart of staples at Target that would be shippable, and two tries to get the best prices for the food items I can’t get elsewhere from Amazon. They’re not my top choice but they are willing to ship to a lot of reservation addresses that otherwise can’t get service.
*****
It looks like we made it through the whole week without needing takeout! That’s a surprise. I don’t hold this over my head if we do need takeout anymore, fed is fed however we manage it, but I do like to acknowledge when we managed to cook all week.
Year 4, Day 80: I usually come into Monday feeling wrecked but this Monday comes with the extra spice of marrow-deep regret after spending most of Sunday washing loads of lost and found laundry and packing them away, and sorting and packing several unexpected boxes of donations from our friends who had also kindly saved empty large boxes for us to use. Unfortunately I burned through all my energy and my reserves of energy without realizing it, so I’m burnt out today. I had to pace myself very carefully all day, taking loads more breaks than my usual one, and work wrapped in a heating pad.
We also had a call with the daycare director today. There was another incident on Friday with the Prior Offender who attacked Smol Acrobat, this time right in front of PiC, where PO started shoving Smol when they wanted the toys that Smol was playing with. PiC intervened and they kept at it anyway. It’s developmentally normal but we still don’t want them in the same classroom where they’ll be around each other all day, everyday, and I don’t know what options there are but there had better be some.
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The one bright note: Smol Acrobat sat/stood at the table and ate their whole dinner on their own. No whining, no playing with their food, no flopping all over the place ignoring their plate. They just served themselves and ate!! It was a tiny miracle. The one odd thing was they called the BBQ sauce “spicy”, wanted to try it, deemed it thumbs up “goot”, but insisted that they only dip off my plate. That was an acceptable price for their feeding themselves without fuss.
Year 3, Day 81: We recently inherited a stack of old page protectors, from someone’s closet cleanout which is perfect because dun dun dunnnnnnnn….
Big project! Going through our financial and personal paperwork making sure everything is complete and organized. The paperwork currently merely exists in two binders. It’s not going to be particularly helpful to anyone in the event of our deaths. So everything is going into page protectors. Tabs will identify sections and the claims pages for life insurance and disability policies. I’m missing some information for my supplemental life insurance through PiC’s employer, and we’re missing his birth certificate so those two items are on the To Do list. Once things are complete and in order, I’ll type up a table of contents.
I’ve started a similar project with JB’s school records and notable moments. I’ve kept a journal with notes and pictures for them, in an old composition book, but it’s bloated with all the photos and cards I crammed in there to easily write in.
This inspires me to move my recipes to a binder system, too! My old journal method is good for storing data/recipes and useless for finding them quickly. I’ll need to pick up a new binder and possibly more page protectors by the time I get all these organized.
Generally I maintain a primarily digital records existence but some things you need to have in hard copy.
Year 3, Day 82: We were notified that Smol Acrobat was exposed to a COVID-infectious kid last week. We immediately tested the kids and we all came up negative but it’s going to be an anxious few days waiting to see if anyone else develops symptoms or tests positive.
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I’ve been trying to eat fewer carbs this week to see if it would help with my persistent pain spikes of the past few weeks and my unwanted companion belly bulge. It’s a bit rough going from ALL THE CARBS to some carbs, sometimes. This is a very moderate approach, just adding more veggies which I’ve always struggled with, and smaller servings of carbs but my cravings have zero respect for “moderation” and respond disproportionately. After three days of slightly reduced carbs, my body is urging me to throw in the towel. Shan’t. I’d like to give it an honest go for a few more weeks.
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Listening to my mentor and old friend talk to another old friend, both of whom I met through the PF blogosphere waaaay back in the day, talk about money is so heartwarming.
Year 3, Day 83: I’m doing the dropoff commute today so that PiC can bike in without having to stress about JB. I don’t mind doing my share of dropping off for camp and daycare but it sure eats up a large chunk of my day.
I lost another 45 minutes this morning to observing interactions between a white cop and a Black man. It seemed calm at first but then the Black man became upset at whatever he’d been told and I immediately worried for his life. I worried even more when three more cruisers showed up and surrounded the area. Why do you need to outnumber one upset, but absolutely and clearly non threatening, person by six or more officers?
I sat there as a witness, ready to film if anything went sideways, and was so thankful when they finally all pulled away without laying hands on him or escalating.
I hate this about our society. I hate that the moment he showed anger, I feared for his safety and his life because so frequently police have taken less as an excuse to murder. I hate that this is the norm and that my Black friends and neighbors and fellow residents cannot simply be human without potentially putting their lives at risk.
Year 3, Day 84: Whoops, I lost the note I’d written for Friday. Quick summary: a huge load of work came in and I cleared it all under Monday is a holiday for everyone else and I need to take some of it off to mind the kids.
PiC and JB are scheduled to help our friends move too, so they’ll be gone for a while.
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
