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
Read More
October 1, 2021
1. I made a huge batch of lemongrass chicken for dinner and for freezing. It seemed like the ratio of lemongrass to chicken was too low but it turned out ok. Still doubling the lemongrass and garlic for the next time I make this, though.
2. The bad news is that I got really sick. The good news is that PiC was not taken down and was able to get us delicious tofu soup take out which really hit the spot. The bad news outweighs the good overall but I still give him credit.
3. My favorite AAM comment this week: “Dead employees tend to be unresponsive and don’t return paperwork, but rarely commit outright sabotage. They could be described as uncooperative, but only in a purely passive sense.”
Followed closely by this one:
ACT I, SCENE iii: Sally’s bedroom
(Sally, kneeling bedside, deep in prayer.)
SALLY: God, please if you’re listening, don’t take Bob from me. Bob is a saint! He loans me money. Take Ted if you must.
GOD: WTF
GOD: who gave u this number
4. After 9.5 months in a box, I finally have our sewing machine on my shelf where it belongs. May it be far less than 9.5 more months before I figure out how to sew a straight seam.
People who need direct aid:
- Ill mother and daughter need roof repairs: Go Fund Me
Challenges this week: my dominant wrist was swollen and couldn’t bear weight for days. Not awesome.
I then got sick and plunged deep in a sickness-induced pain flareup all week. This. Really. Sucks. Every joint is angry and Has Words for me.
Smol’s had a hell of a week. Teething, sores on their tongue, sick and feverish.
(more…)
September 28, 2021
Social Media
Oh goody. I thought I had a few more years before the social media conversation. They have been learning drawing from this YouTube channel and they ended a video with “post your pic to Instagram!” So of course JB came over and asked if we could take a picture of their art to “send to the art people”.
I said no, we do not use that service. But also since we have already talked about how advertising and marketing works, I explained that sort of thing is partly about sharing but partly it’s about advertising and we do not do free advertising for companies.
In truth, sure we do sometimes, but we’re not starting now at age 6.
I guess I have to start laying the groundwork for a healthy way to use social media now.
Related: Squidding Around
PiC picked out a new graphic novel from Scholastic for JB. We were reading it together and it happened to have the perfect theme for us to continue our talk about social media and how people are motivated to do things for attention. Without giving away too much, Squizzard, the main character is angry about not getting published and goes on to pull a misguided and hurtful prank. We talked about how adults will even do foolish things for attention on social media (without getting into specifics), how people lose sight of who is really important because of a thirst for 15 minutes of fame (people who actually know and love them vs people they’ll never know or meet) and how people can make foolish choices for attention.
We also discussed how social media itself is just a tool and tools are neither good or bad overall (though biased algorithms absolutely are a thing, that isn’t something I’m going to dive into just yet with a six year old), it’s about how you use them about remembering that you don’t know all the other people who use them too. We won’t let them start using anything until we’ve had a lot of discussions about behavior, how social media works, all of that. There’s this Jack Prelutsky poem we’ve read in the past that I reminded JB of that’s very relevant:
I had a little secret
That I could not wait to tell,
I whispered it to Willa,
who repeated it to Nell.
Nell had to tell Belinda,
Who told Laura and Lenore,
I think my little secret
is no secret anymore. (more…)
September 27, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 190: I woke up and realized it was Monday. Boo. But it doesn’t feel terrible right off the bat. Especially since Smol managed to sleep til 615 and PiC took them for an hour so I got to roll over and doze for a little longer before getting up and getting breakfast ready. I’m liking my current iteration of eggs: scrambled with diced tomatoes, ham, and cheese. It checks off the JB requirement of cheese and mine of incorporating some kind of vegetable (or … fruit?).
*****
PiC and I are so different. I interrupted him doing his pre-walk round up of things and he forgot to grab a poop bag for Sera. Me? I won’t risk running out without one so I stuff two bags in every jacket pocket and two rolls of poop bags in my dog walking pouch.
He buys supplies as we run out. I insist on stocking up two months’ or more of non-perishable or long-storing food and supplies.
I think this is fairly representative of our different approaches to life and money. 😂 (more…)
September 24, 2021
1. I didn’t feel good Saturday morning, having been up until about 3 reading with painsomnia, but I was in a surprisingly ok mood anyway. I reminded PiC that I would take the kids so he could go for a run, and then he came back in time for me to have a brain therapy session. While he was gone, JB and I did some Lakota Family giving work together so we could talk about ideas like understanding how fortunate we are compared to others and how that means we have a responsibility to do our share to support our community. Also the idea that we can only do the best we can with what we have, and we can’t help every single person all at once right now as much as we want to.
2. I was thinking last week it’d be great if my stuff on Poshmark would sell so I’d have more cash to put towards giving, so many people need some help right now. Then on Monday, I got a half decent offer! Woo!
3. A copy of my Milestones book sold. Eep! I hope they love it.
Challenges this week: My pain was sky-high this week and there’s a lot of direct aid needs right now.
- My dear friend has had an incredibly tough year and a mutual friend set up this GoFundMe for her. Her situation has spiraled terribly since her major heart attack, despite her best efforts. She was so close to getting out of her abusive situation, then was sandbagged by a devastating financial secret her abuser had been keeping for years. I very much remember that feeling of being financially devastated by the lies of an abusive parent. If you’re able to help or share, it would be so much appreciated.
- Chad Methner and his partner Nancy are having a tough year.
- This Native family is trying to get together funds to buy the house they’ve rented for generations on ancestral lands.
- Anne is organizing this year’s support of the kids in Nunavut.
(more…)
September 21, 2021
Every so often, a PF blogger tweets: do you think you’re rich?
For myself, I like Done By Forty’s approach to the question. I like reflecting on our good fortune and where we’ve done well, where we’ve made mistakes, how we can better appreciate all that we have.
The conversation on Twitter took a somewhat irritating to me turn. In the land of at least semi-self-delusional personal finance, you apparently can’t be rich if you don’t have at least $10M in spending money, or if you don’t make at least $100k more per year than whatever tax bracket or income level is being scrutinized for tax purposes. It turns out the latest furor is something along the lines of $400k annual income “isn’t that much”.
O RLY.
This latest meltdown was linked to the proposed changes to the treatment of the backdoor Roth. People can really fix their mouths to say that four freaking hundred THOUSAND dollars a year in income doesn’t equal being wealthy or rich or whatever equivalent to NOT POOR that is. Look. I don’t make that kind of money. Together with PiC we still don’t make that kind of money. But we also aren’t playing the kind of nonsense that is PF bloggers crying poor. That’s just ridiculous. Tennis coach ridiculous.
In any case, with that sort of conclusion, the phrasing seems silly. You can think anything you want. That doesn’t make your thinking right or true. Case in point: One blogger who regularly tweets about their $4.4M net worth replied that he doesn’t think they’re rich. Okaaaaayyyy. If they can snow themselves into thinking they’re not rich, I wonder what other lies they tell themselves. Then I walk away because I don’t like hanging out with liars.
We may not FEEL rich when compared to our neighbors and coworkers but we are. Here are a few ways that we know. (more…)
September 20, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 183: Ow.
Spiritually: I had a dream about dead loved ones being alive and that always hurts my soul. Emotionally, I’ve been reading Codependent No More and some of the stuff I identify with there is slightly jarring. None of it is actually a surprise, I’d already identified those compulsions in myself as things that don’t serve me and need to stop. But it’s still a bit jarring in the early phase. Physically, I put Smol Acrobat in the baby carrier for a short walk today and the impact on my entire body is unbelievable. Ow ow ow and ow.
Parenting pain: we’re in some kind of regression with Smol where they don’t want much solid food, we have to compensate with formula, and they aren’t sleeping even 9 hours at night.
*****
I could feel the urge for retail therapy nipping at me today. I noticed it and I acknowledged that I felt like that. Eventually it passed.
Which is not to say I don’t have plans to spend money. I have a couple but they’re very intentional. One is for my holiday gifts for a large swath of niblings and supporting a creator while I’m at it. One was for supporting an author whose work I have long enjoyed. I did the latter already.
But those plans exist separately from that urge to distract and numb from my real feelings.
After a while, I felt like I recognized what was bubbling up. I’m feeling lonely and isolated emotionally. I miss my dearest friends. I feel like my second child isn’t nearly as loved and cared for within the community as JB was. I know a huge part of that is because of the pandemic. People literally cannot be here to visit the way they did with JB was this age, nor does anyone really have the capacity to show their caring in other ways. That doesn’t mean they don’t care, they simply can’t be here. Much like my pregnancy, the flip side of not hearing all the judginess and the snark and the unwelcome advice because no one was around is that I also didn’t get to feel loved the way I might have in non-pandemic times because no one is around.
Even if it’s not true, the feelings feed the monster in me that insists I don’t deserve love and my fear of rejection. One of the things my therapist will ask me is “is that reality or is that perception?” In a lot of cases I don’t feel like I can tell the difference. It feels true that I don’t deserve love, that I won’t amount to anything, that nothing I do matters. I don’t know if that’s true because if not by my own measure, then by what would I be judging this stuff? In this case even if it feels true that I am isolated from my community and I feel that it’s because no one cares about us, it’s probably more true that people are just really busy with their own lives and own troubles and it has nothing to do with us.
I’m noticing this more as I make my way through therapy and my reading. I’m partway through “Codependent No More” and so far it’s not telling me anything I don’t have some sense of but it’s good to read it.
(more…)
September 17, 2021
1. Feeling super grateful for our food exchange friends. They dropped off a bounty of fruit and a super special treat of ribs fresh from a beef share they had picked up. We’ve never had such fresh beef! I had a meal from a recent big batch of cooking saved specially for sharing with them but it pales in comparison to their trades. I’m looking forward to making a giant batch of lemongrass chicken to share with them. I just need the chicken. And energy.
2. My body was so thrashed after a hard week that all Saturday was spent in some stage of rest and recovery. The good part was that PiC and JB had gone out so, with only Smol Acrobat to look after, I managed to execute a long-awaited big tidying up in the office. So satisfying!!
3. Oh thank goodness the recall failed. I’ve been faintly nauseous during this entire campaign imagining the worst.
Challenges this week: we are struggling a lot with our interactions with JB right now. I hate this.
(more…)