I decided to stop in at the Goodwill yesterday while out and about. Want to see what I found?
First up, this tee:
Lacuna Coil merch!
I couldn’t believe it when I found this. Lacuna Coil is an Italian goth rock band, and it’s not every day you find Italian goth rock band merch in the Goodwill. Broken Crown Halo is one of their albums. The shirt is in excellent condition, and it’s my size. It was waiting for me, friends.
Love an obscure thrift store find.
Here, I’m dropping in LC’s “Veneficium” music video; I will take any opportunity to bring The Witcher into a blog post. You know I will.
Lacuna Coil and The Witcher!
Next, I found this long-sleeve top with an asymmetrical zip closure. It’s fabulous. It actually looks like a cross between an old hair salon cape and a straitjacket, and maybe that’s why I love it.
Hair salon cape meets straitjacket.
It’s faded and worn. It’s perfect.
And I love the snakeskin print detail.
On to housewares!
Pretty sure I exclaimed triumphantly when I discovered this mirror leaning against the art wall in the far back corner of the store. We’ve been wanting a large mirror to hang on the wall near the door in the living room, but good mirrors are pricey. This one is heavy and well-made, and it’s already situated in a black gothic frame. It was $14.50.
Large mirror, black frame, less than fifteen bucks. I’m easy to please.
Finally, here’s the reason why I went: For the kitchen, I’ve been wanting a small thing – any kind of thing – that could work as a holder for a damp cloth/dish rag. I was after something functional, and I found just the thing. I’m not sure what this thing is actually for, but it’s going to serve its purpose well, I believe. It was $1.50.
Whatever this is, it will work.
That’s it for this post, friends… just a mini post to share this mini haul. I love a thrift store steal of a deal.
With that, I’ll leave you to go about your night or day or what have you. See you next week!
Hello, my friends. It seems that this is my first April post. Things have been busy on my end. I’m finding that working out six days a week hastens the calendar along, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. How I feel about my return to fitness dedication and the physical conditioning I’ve managed to recoup thus far, though, is capital E Elated.
So, let’s see… in a shiny spring 2024 nutshell, here are some things accomplished in non-gym life in the last few weeks: A couple of medical appointments; a Saturday spent outdoors on an emergency tortoise burrow repair mission (successful); several social engagements with family and friends; a lot of housework of the slash-and-burn variety (e.g. decluttering/purging and reorganizing); outdoor laundry room and back patio overhaul; the usual trips to grocery stores for provisions (getting braver at Costco over here, friends); and a respectful number of hours watching movies and shows, because.
Happenings with the kiddos: The big news is that Geronimo came out of hibernation! He’s been out since Tuesday the 9th. It’s more accurate to say that we took him out. You see, we had to artificially hibernate him again, unexpectedly, when his burrow met with disaster during an early winter rain. Geronimo survived, as he does, and he spent the rest of hibernation season tucked away in the tool shed, hunkered down in a Sterilite bin nested in a larger Sterilite bin with layers of newspapers and hay at the bottom and in between.
Geronimo is out, and he is happy. He’s active and robust, gleefully a-stompin’ and noshing on the abundant array of grasses and weeds in the yard. I keep the yard wild for him, to the approval of the reptile doctor who’s the state’s well-known veterinary desert tortoise authority (who actually visited and surveyed the yard situation last year).
That said, there is a threshold beyond which the backyard can use a little work, and that threshold is where the yard gets brambly and difficult to navigate in places. Geronimo hangs out indoors while yard work is underway. Sadly, the indoor furbabies prefer to have nothing to do with their scale-baby brother, who doesn’t understand why they can’t all be friends.
BEWARE DINOSAUR IN THE HOUSE.
Roary normally doesn’t slink in trepidation.
No basket is too small for her. She will prove you wrong.
For her part, Sabrina stays in the cat room to keep her distance from Geronimo.
She of the silken fur.
Side-eye Sabrina, I should say…
…a little feline side-eye actionSide-eye purrfected.
Now back to Geronimo!
First order of post-hibernation business: The Long Soak.
He lounged in his soaking dish for a good half-hour before clambering out to begin the rest of his post-hibernation business.
Second order of post-hibernation business: The Devouring of the Hibiscus.
Because why wait?
(I always try to get a side tongue shot, because it’s adorable, in my opinion.)
It’s so good to welcome Geronimo back!
Third order of post-hibernation business: inspect every square inch of yard.
This brings us to the end of this updates post, my friends.
And on that note, I wish you all a magnificent day or night, whatever this is for you. Until we meet again!
2022-2023 brought stretches of inactivity due to work-related injuries, an aspiration event and subsequent aspiration pneumonia, and other unforeseen crises of one nature or another. Over the summer of 2023, I lost my high-activity job when my company tanked. I’ve been mostly sedentary since July last year.
Another notable event from last summer was that I stopped using hormone patches (HRT). I’d been on HRT since I had my ovaries removed in my 30’s. I’m now 55, so menopause is natural for me rather than merely surgery-induced. With my doctor’s blessing, I tossed out the hormones. Seven months of full-blown menopause has not helped with my body composition in my inactive state, and it certainly (to this day) makes sleeping even more difficult – and humans need adequate, high-quality sleep in order to keep in top condition.
Rolling into 2024, I decided to move forward with my fitness come-back, regardless of my lingering lung injury symptoms. Every day, I use a Wixela inhaler (that doesn’t help at all but I tell myself that it does and then I proceed with my workouts, and yes, in case you were wondering, I sometimes deliberately string words together to create run-on sentences because I enjoy rebelling and making up my own punctuation rules and I hold an MFA in Creative Writing so I’ve earned the right to get creative when writing).
I’ve been working out at home, using dumbbells and Les Mills On Demand. (Les Mills for life!) I started out the year with three workouts per week (Body Pump), then added in my beloved Body Combat for conditioning, muscle endurance training, combat fighting technique practice, and H.I.I.T. cardio. Three weeks ago, I finally worked myself up to three Combat workouts per week.
2024 FITNESS OVERVIEW Current workout schedule: 6x/week Workouts: LM Body Combat 3x; LM Body Pump 3x Strength progress: 100% regained, and then some. I’ve increased my weights in some muscle groups. Conditioning progress: 98% regained. I’m now stronger than I was before, but it will take more time to return my body to its former fighting condition. I’m mostly there, though! Problem(s): My one lingering aspiration pneumonia symptom is wheezing, and sometimes it’s hard to get a deep breath. This often slows me down in Body Combat. When that happens, I just take a minute.
In this post: Workout date: 3/27/2024 Workout: Les Mills Body Combat, release #65 Fighting styles featured: Boxing, Kickboxing, Tae Kwan Do, Capoeira, and Muay Thai Favorite track: 5, Power Training 2 Favorite song from the release: “The Day is My Enemy” (The Prodigy)
Music is hugely important to me. In each LM workout release, I think of my favorite song as the theme song for that release. In case you’re interested, here’s my theme song for this workout:
And, finally, I’ve got screenshots from the workout. To record, I leaned my phone against a wooden dog statuette on a bookcase shelf, and the only lighting came from the room’s two lamps, plus the kitchen lights. The picture on the back wall is crooked. I do not look cute. I will never look cute when I work out. I like to work out in (mostly old) t-shirts, and shorts or leggings that I’ve had for over ten years. This is your clue that I’m not here to be a fitness influencer in any way, shape, or form.
But first, have breakfast with me:
My current go-to breakfast is a mixture of almond Ezekiel cereal, Bob’s Red Mill Old Country Style muesli, fresh or frozen berries, and half of a vanilla protein shake for the milk. I use Orgain plant-based protein powder.
On this day, this is what I had as a pre-workout snack:
Pre-workout snack choice of the day: a brown rice cake spread with a mixture of PB powder, monk fruit sweetener, and cinnamon.
Now let’s put on our Body Combat workout gear!
Shoes and gloves, of course, and a brace for my bad right ankle. Knee braces for my bad knees. The braces are game-changers. I call them my “exoskeleton.” I can write a whole fitness post about them, alone.
Snaps from the workout, not in chronological order:
Sprints(Some kind of) fighting stanceHookSide kickSquat jumpsSquat jumpsUsing my t-shirt as a towel. Jump turn Ginga Squat touch-downsLunge (turn sequence)
These next five show the stages and levels of a roundhouse kick:
Roundhouse kick, startRoundhouse kick, extendingRoundhouse kick, extendedRoundhouse kick, slightly higher (to the limit of my flexibility). I am not flexible.Roundhouse kick, bringing it down.Fast-paced push-upsFast-paced push-ups with shoulder taps.Taking a second to try to get a deep breath.Descending elbowAscending elbowPower kneeUppercut
As always, there’s much to be improved here, and that’s one reason I value these fitness posts. I can refer to them to see where I can do better.
That does it for this workout, friends! I gave it a “B.” My form needs improvement, and my conditioning’s not 100% back. To describe my enjoyment level, though, I gave it a solid “A.”
Hello, friends. I’m afraid that all I’m here to offer tonight is this blurby update – all good things, albeit busy things: Last week’s festivities involved guests from out of town, this week’s festivities also involve guests from out of town, and I’ve hit all of my workouts throughout. My focus has been on fitness, and I have updates. I also have a new tripod for my phone and a dedicated workout space in my living room that’s been fantastic, so I’ll be able to (finally) do a proper “fitness updates/living room workout” post soon.
I hope that you’ve all been well! Until next time, when the glorious equinox ushers us into the new season.
Things I could’ve written about for tonight: Fitness updates. What I eat in a week. My current skin care routine. A deep dive into my love for the Arctic Monkeys. (I may yet write about these things).
But tonight, with everything and nothing in my head, I decided to go back. Hey! It’s been ages since I’ve looked at Craigslist Missed Connections!
Those of you unfamiliar with my Missed Connections Exquisite Corpse poems can read this post for an explanation. It’s my most recent in the series. I wrote it in 2022! Not to my surprise, I skipped 2023.
The take-away of that explanation is that I don’t write a single line of these poems. Every line is a line that I find in Craigslist’s Missed Connections section, harvested over time; 99% of the poems is written by strangers. I just select them and cobble them together. In tonight’s post, I added the word “Dear” to the beginning of each stanza, because…
I’m calling this one
Missed Connections Valentine’s Day Letters
Dear Briana with the Pipersong chair: The gym. You left your oats at the gym. Brick Road coffee Friday night?
Dear Tall Waste Management Guy: I gave you and your friend a ride to Jack’s. ’72 Dodge Challenger. (Sunshine, they call you Sunny) You knocked on my door in Flagstaff, all I wanted was a Modelo.
Dear Mandy: Valley of the Sun dispensary. Sticky Saguaro. Craft fair at Sundial. (Something in common?)
Dear McKenzie’s Party Greeter: Talked to you in the guitar store, Tempe beach park, Desert Diamond. I had pneumonia.
Dear Nameless Valentine: Chess on flight to Phoenix. Lost glasses In the Orpheum Theater. We met at a bar on Sunday.
I left my heart in Mesa.
~~~~~
As usual, there were a few line selections that ended up on the cutting room floor. For instance, I wanted to use “On the Rocks Saturday,” but it didn’t fit anywhere to my liking. I also wanted to include “Flight from Detroit to Phoenix,” because Kyle is from Detroit and we met in Phoenix, but again, it didn’t fit into the poem. And I really wanted to use “Penny the mini black Schnauzer at Pet Smart” for obvious reasons. That didn’t work out, either, but I found myself looking into miniature schnauzers in the process of creation and I momentarily wondered whether I’m a future mini schnauzer mom in an alternate universe, but the schnauzer rescue organization I found is in Chandler, which is in this universe, so I specifically imagined a collision course with an orphaned mini schnauzer in some sector of the multiverse at some point in time because stranger things have certainly happened, but since then, further research strongly suggested that mini schnauzers and cats are best not mixed in a household. All of this to assure you that you can learn about mini schnauzers from Missed Connections, lest you had your doubts.
Writing this post also prompted me to look up Pipersong chairs. If I ever decide to throw $500.00 at a desk chair, it’s going to have to be one of those.
Thank you for hanging out with me here, friends. Until next time.
Okay! Some of you may remember how I used to post a Monthly Favorites “favorite little things” list on a regular basis, mainly food, entertainment, and skin-care products. Right? It’s been a while, I know. In this post, I’ve got a throw-back in two senses: firstly, the post, itself. Secondly, I’m looking back at last year. After a certain point in 2023, I more or less checked out of the real world and immersed myself in science fiction (mostly), e.g. sci-fi thrillers, action, and drama. I was there for the alternate worlds. It was the year of escapism, and I thought I’d share some of it with you tonight. Please to enjoy the retrospective.
The first was actually a novel.
1). Novel: The Kraken Wakes (by John Wyndham)
The Kraken Wakes (novel by John Wyndham)
So far I’ve only read this one novel of John Wyndham’s, but I can already say that he’s now one of my favorite authors. His writing is exquisite. I’m currently reading The Day of the Triffids, and my reading experience is unfolding in the same way as it did when I read Kraken: I’m engrossed in the story and enchanted by the writing.
Now to get into the movies and shows… actually, there’s only one film on this list. The rest are series. Of these, my absolute FAVORITE favorites are Silo, The Expanse, Severance, and Utopia.
As usual, I’ve provided trailers.
2). Silo (T.V. series, Apple T.V.) – Highly Recommend
Silo
3). Severance (T.V. series, Apple T.V.) – Highly Recommend
Severance
4). Devs (T.V. mini-series, Hulu)
Devs
5). Outer Range (T.V. series, Amazon Prime)
Outer Range
6). Night Sky (T.V. series, Amazon Prime)
Night Sky
7). The Expanse (T.V. series, Amazon Prime) – Highly Recommend
Aside: I understand that an American version of this brilliant British show exists. I refuse to watch it.
Utopia
There you have it!
A dear friend recently let me know that my Monthly Favorites lists have been missed, so I’m going to start compiling and posting my favorites again. Why not? I’m happy to share, and I’m happy to honor requests.
Question: Why did the small glass Pyrex container spontaneously explode in my sink? Answer: No, I am not kidding.
At 5pm yesterday, I was sitting at the peninsula counter in my kitchen when a very loud smashing sound broke the silence, violent in its suddenness. It was thunderous. It came from the kitchen sink. Before sliding off my bar stool, I did a quick assessment to verify that I was alone in the kitchen, which was unnecessary, as I knew that I was. Not only that, but I was facing the sink; I would’ve seen anyone who’d have come along. The cats were snoozing in the living room. Kyle was in his office, working. Mystified, I slid away from the counter and went over to investigate.
In the kitchen sink, I found that the small, square glass Pyrex container I’d set in there hours earlier had exploded. All. By. Itself.
The sink was full of broken glass. There were splinters, shards, and pieces big enough to grab with tongs. Those larger, intact pieces were patterned with shatter cells. Now, tempered/safety glass has RULES in the case that it breaks. One rule is that the glass will break into crumbly, dull little cubes. Right? Am I right? We’ve all seen those little cubes in parking lots, like pebbles on the ground. As in, safety glass car windows smashed by thieves.
Here’s another RULE of exploding tempered/safety glass that this piece of Pyrex did not follow: heat stress/temperature stress would be a likely culprit. That particular Pyrex container had never been subjected to extreme heat, or to extreme temperature changes. It hadn’t gone through repeated cycles of heating and cooling, because I didn’t use it for heating food. I’d used it for storage, or for preparing small quantities of recipes. The last thing it held was the chickpea (“tuna”) salad that I’d prepared in it, and it never made its way into the refrigerator, as I’d eaten all of the salad in one sitting that same day.
I used tongs to pick up the larger pieces of Pyrex glass intact after it spontaneously exploded. The glass broke into splinters and shards, as well.
Such an occurrence as glassware spontaneously exploding is extremely rare, from what I read. It’s so rare, I naturally went online in search of theories. These are the two that make sense to me:
1). Good luck on the horizon. “Breaking glass is often seen as an omen of good luck. It’s true that some say broken mirrors are bad luck, but not all broken glass is a bad omen. Broken glass is often a sign of release or freedom, and likewise often signifies good things coming your way. In fact, in Pakistani tradition, a glass accidentally breaking in your house is a definite sign of your luck taking a turn for the better.”
2). Supernatural activity. “Someone is speaking to you from the afterlife. Some say that breaking glass is a sign of spiritual activity somewhere nearby, or that someone is trying to communicate with you from the afterlife. The spirit may be attracted to your own energy, or may be trying to tell you to release negative energy.”
It’s worth pointing out that two very dear people in my life passed away at around this time last year. They were both metaphysically oriented, spiritual mentors of mine. One of them was my biological father, who died exactly one year and one week from the event of the exploding glass. He died on February 13, 2023. The other was a fatherly friend (in his 70’s, like bio-Dad) to whom I’d grown spiritually close over the decades that I’d known him. He died on February 20, 2023. They passed away one week apart from each other, and the glass spontaneously exploded one week before the date of the first death. February 7, February 13, and February 20th. The glass exploded in my presence, only, in the sink that I was facing as I sat at the counter.
Now, I know that Nicked Sulphide Inclusions are a thing, but as I’d said, this Pyrex piece didn’t follow the rules. Is it so outlandish that I speculate friendly paranormal activity?
In any event, no one got hurt in the explosion. The sink is deep and large, and it contained most of the debris, though we did later find a few shards on the counter behind it. It’s a mystery, but I’m not worried about it. I’m heartened to think that a dear one may have reached out to me through the veil around the anniversary of his death.
Why hello there, friends. First, I want to say “thank you,” sincerely, to those of you who’ve commented here recently. Replies are forthcoming. Late, but better that than never.
Secondly, this post is not any of the ones I’d thought I might write. I actually have a list of things to share with you, fitness being the major one, as I’ve been on track and well on my way to restoration. A fitness update post hovers in the wings! There are various others, but today was not a day that allowed for such writings. I ate lunch after a busy morning and then immediately left for a medical appointment.
Let me be clear: I didn’t think I would write this ever, because I never thought I’d actually spend moments in an elevator such as those in which I found myself today.
If you know me, then you know that the elevator is the foe I’d never want to meet in an alley. My PTSD-driven phobia has abated gradually over the years; I can now step into an elevator by myself, though I’m still and will always be a fan of taking the stairs. In the absence of stairs, I’m capable of entering an elevator more or less gamely, cajoling myself and breathing.
Hands down, the best elevators are the ones in which I’m not alone. If stairs aren’t an option and there’s no one around needing an elevator, I’m forced to be brave, and that is what happened today. I found myself shrouded in ominous solitude, needing to get down from the fourth floor of a building in mid-town Phoenix.
It was an old building with an old-timey elevator, and not to be ageist or anything, but that old-ass elevator had seen better days. It was small. It exuded a cranky vibe that bristled the skin over my spine the second I boarded it. I didn’t like it, and it didn’t like me, and it let me know. The door closed behind me, and the elevator began its descent. Then it paused.
I waited.
I held my breath while listening hard, imagining that I could hear a faint creaking noise.
Scanning the operation panel, I found the Door Open button and briefly considered pressing it, but drew back into myself in horror at the idea of the elevator door opening to reveal cables and a wall, because as much as I admire Edgar Allen Poe, I couldn’t be charmed into submission by any measure of third-person gothic dread the idea might inspire. The reality was that I was not strolling moodily through the damp, gas-lit streets of nineteenth-century Philadelphia in predawn darkness. I was trapped inside a wizened and rickety old elevator, and no amount of romanticism was going to change that.
At last, the elevator resumed its grumpy descent with a creak and a jolt, pulling me from my thoughts and moving, I thought, rather slowly. Alarmingly slowly. When it finally stopped at the first floor, it didn’t open its doors. It sat there.
Again, I listened, but heard no sounds of acquiescence on the part of the elevator. The elevator was sullen. It had clammed up, and I was inside, alone with my panic and my rue. As if by divine intervention, the door opened just as the walls closed in around me. I lunged over the threshold and jaloppied myself into the lobby, lurching down the short hall, out the door, and into my car, which I’d parked in front of the building’s entrance. I fell dizzily into the driver’s seat, just then realizing that I’d been holding my breath.
Friends, I am never going to take that particular elevator again… at least, not alone.
Here’s my proof of life:
Post-panic, finally home.
So I guess I’m not as over my elevator phobia as I’d thought I’d been. Huh.
At any rate, I’m heading off to bed. Stay safe and do not think unkindly of elevators, my friends. They can hear your thoughts and smell your fear.
It was mid-September 2023 when I became aware – because two family members brought to my attention as soon as they found out – that long-term benzodiazepine usage could result in early-onset dementia. My nightly very-low-dose of Klonopin helped me to sleep for years. Without it, I would go to bed, lie down, and have a panic attack. My anxiety led to insomnia and nightmares. Kpin knocked me out. It took just a tiny crumble of a dose, and I (perhaps miraculously) never developed an addiction. How wonderful it was, though! How well I slept! But I was about to marry a man considerably younger than myself, and I knew that I needed to do everything possible to spare him a wife with early-onset dementia. I decided to quit Kpin immediately.
I contacted my shrink right away and let him know that I wanted off of Kpin. Thus began my odyssey of benzodiazepine tapering-off, a process that took months. With professional guidance and in accordance with the printed schedule given to me, I very gradually weaned myself off of the drug. Referring to the schedule with studied diligence, I applied myself to the effort even as the year continued with its onslaught of challenges. It was especially difficult in the wake of the death of Nenette, my cat, but I soldiered on.
To start me along on my tapering-off journey, my doctor prescribed Trazodone, a non-narcotic sleep medication. I took it one time, and never again. It didn’t help in the slightest with my anxiety-induced insomnia, and I felt foggy in the brain for hours the next day.
Next, I tried melatonin for a short while. It was even more dissatisfactory. I could feel it working to make me sleepy, blissfully so, but at the same time, my restless legs went from occasional and mild to every night and severe. It was maddening and absolutely inconducive to sleep. When I looked up melatonin side effects, a worsening of restless legs was on the list. Next.
I did some research and visited a local dispensary, where I made an educated choice. I brought home a low-THC/high-CBD product, cut each gummy into four slivers, and ate just one each night. It might have worked just enough, but not enough that I felt that the gummies were worth the expense. Not enough to be conclusive. I didn’t want to take more than a quarter of a dose at a time. I planned to look elsewhere for a solution once I finished the container.
At that point, turning my attention to yet more natural remedies, I started using lavender body lotion at night and spraying my side of the bed with lavender room spray. No improvement. The therapy part of “aromatherapy” just wasn’t enough.
I started wearing an eye mask, my comfortable old gel-filled sleep mask that I’d rarely used. It was lovely, but it didn’t help much, either.
Camomile tea, then, I thought. I’ll continue with the lavender products and add a cup of camomile tea to my nightly routine. Still no significant improvement, yet I felt that I was getting somewhere. The tea was definitely soothing.
Something was missing from my developing regimen. What could it be? What could extinguish the rafting clamor of thoughts in my brain as I tried to fall asleep?
White noise might work, I realized.
Kyle had a Google Nest Mini that he said would play nature sounds upon command. He unearthed it from the box whence it was stashed, and we set it up next to my side of the bed. I instructed it to play ocean sounds. It did. That same night, after drinking my camomile tea, I ventured to boost my aromatherapy game and deposited a drop of pure lavender essential oil to the top of my eye mask, on the inside. I ditched the lavender spray and used the lavender lotion on just my hands, which I can take or leave on any given night (it’s not an essential component of the combination).
And lo, my friends. Hallelujah! That did it. The magic combination yielded results that night with no ill effects, and the next night, and all the nights thereafter. The deep scent of lavender works with the calming effect of the camomile tea, and, most importantly, the ocean sounds white noise lulls me to sleep, my eyelids heavy beneath the gel eye mask that blocks any ambient light in the room.
Sleeping better these days.
I’ve finally arrived at my perfect sleep-inducing trifecta.
My sleep routine involves a mug of hot camomile tea, “ocean sounds” white noise emitted softly from a Google Nest Mini, and a sleep mask anointed with a single drop of lavender essential oil.
Now I just need to work on getting to bed earlier, as always. That was always my struggle, benzo or no benzo. Maybe one day I’ll have found a way to master this, though I don’t think there’s really a fix to being an inherent night owl.
If you’ve made it this far in your reading, thank you. I wanted to share my experiences in benzodiazepine-tapering and also in disordered sleep, namely insomnia, in hopes that my story will help even one of you. Not to mention, I’m so grateful for this combination solution to insomnia – relaxing herbal tea, aromatherapy, and white noise – that I didn’t want to keep it to myself. For me, it’s a godsend of a sleep package.
Enjoy your week and stay safe and healthy, my friends. Good night!
As I’d mentioned previously, I’m excited about this new year. I’ve taken some time to recenter myself, and I’m feeling energized in moving forward with clear focus.
Here’s a blurb, a brief summary, a bit of backstory for any of you who are new here: 2023 was a horrendous, heinous, atrocious year. Yours was, too? I am so sincerely sorry.
2023 got the better of me because I allowed it to. I found myself focusing on each awful thing that happened because I got swept up into the whole of it. I lost my footing, which I guess was easy to do. After all, before I could recover from one thing, the next thing hit, and so on, and so forth. Not only was there no respite between events, but many of them overlapped.
The one blissful, magnificent, luminous spot in the clouded-over year was our wedding and honeymoon. As soon as we got back, 2023 started up again.
So I got swept up in this ridiculous tidal wave, and I allowed it to set me back. At some point, instead of working through my grief, I withdrew from the world.
And I got nothing done.
And I’m in pretty terrible physical shape.
So this year, I’m going to get shit done. I’m going to get back into great shape. Most importantly, I’m going to get strong again and return to the level of physical conditioning that makes me feel right. (I do not need or want to lose weight. I want my muscle mass back, thank you.)
You know what I find to be interesting? On the surface, my personal set-backs looked, to me, like failures, but upon reflection, I recognize that they were not. I didn’t fail. I flailed. It was my own fault that the year was a gigantic flail-fest, and I’ve learned from it. There will be no flailing in 2024, my friends. I know that there won’t be, and not because I believe that nothing will go wrong. I’m under no such impression. I know for a fact that I wasn’t born yesterday; I have zero expectations of uneventfulness from this new year. Indeed, 2024 has already thrown in not one, but two crises. They hurled in quite rudely only 13 days into the year, but I was mentally refreshed and ready for them.
This year is going to be better because I’m going to make it better, I’ve decided. I’ve written out some goals and other notes in a journal that I keep at hand:
NEW YEAR – 2024
It’s been going well. Really well. Firstly, I had to get back on course, and I have, and I’m pleased with this accomplishment. My life required a compass calibration, and I made that happen. I’m heading in the right direction.
Secondly, we’re 18 days into the year, and I’ve logged in workouts on nine of those days! I’m currently working out at home, lifting weights (6x) and throwing punches and kicks (1x). The other two days were walking days. It’s a start. What I’m aiming for is three strength-training workouts and two combat workouts per week, plus a walk every day. As it is, I’m feeling good despite my slow start – because it’s a start! – and I’m enjoying the feeling of strength coming back.
Today: January 18, 2024
Oh, but – if consistency is key to fitness success – and I believe that it is – then I did fail in 2023, in this regard. To be fair, though, two unique medical events occurred and disrupted my fitness momentum in 2023: respiratory aspiration and subsequent long-term pneumonia with residual lung damage (May-present), and COVID (November).
I’m incredibly happy and grateful to be back after losing control of my health and well-being in the midst of 2023’s villainous shenanigans. Getting out of shape was as detrimental to my mental health as was my shutting down and withdrawing. I have PTSD. I need structure and physical activity in my life in order to function in a healthy, balanced way.
Preview to next week’s post: Also in 2023, I decided to wean off of benzos and ditch hormone replacement therapy. This threw a double blow to my sleep. Never mind my classic chronic issue of getting to bed too late! That was – is – a behavioral pattern. What’s happening now is physical: sleep has been an actual struggle in and of itself. I’ve been working on it, and I think I’ve finally arrived at a method that promotes drug-free sleep for Yours Truly, who has taken Klonopin every night for, oh, 20+ years.
I’m excited to share this part of my journey, too, and I’ll do so in hopes that someone (one of you?) can benefit from my trial and error.
Speaking of sleep, it’s well past that time. Stay healthy, my friends. Until next week!
Hey Friends! Okay, here’s the deal: as of today, I have a schedule for what’s left of December, and it’s likely that I won’t be able to post here again until January. There is a slight chance that I’ll be able to show up and say hey in the last week of the month, but I don’t know for sure that I’ll be able to make that happen.
I’ve missed you. I hope to get settled into a routine again – routines, I should say, as all of my routines have been splintered – and post here on a regular basis again.
As for what’s going on, I’m afraid I’m still not able to say more than this: one of my family members is seriously ill, and I need to be available 24/7. I’ve been spending a lot of time going to medical appointments and conducting my own research, being on hand to do whatever needs to be done that can’t be done because of these circumstances, and also trying to stay on track with my lagging household projects. With all of this going on and another two family members coming in next week from out of town plus the seasonal celebrations afoot and “normal” life happening in between, there’s been no room for, well, anything else. I’m not working out, posting here, sending out Christmas cards, keeping my own medical appointments, meeting up with friends, or looking for a job. I have not been on social media.
Thank you for understanding. This medical situation started at the end of October, but things really ramped up with the beginning of this month. We are feeling hopeful, and that is a good thing. We have reason to celebrate. There is always reason to celebrate. Sometimes it’s just harder to see those reasons than others.
Good evening, my friends. Just popping in here to wave hello and wish you all well. I’ve been devouring videos and other media pertaining to the medical challenge my family is facing, and tomorrow will be an early wake-up to get to a doctor’s appointment with them. This will not allow for my usual stay-up-until-3am approach to hanging out with you.
Friends, at this point, 2023 has me in tears of hilarity. This shit is funny. I can’t stop laughing. If you don’t laugh, you’re going to lose it.
Can’t deal with it! DEALING WITH IT.
After a year of assorted losses, tragedies, crises, and set-backs, November rolled around. Week One did not disappoint. It stuck with the 2023 program. By November 8 – last week – a very dear and important family member had surgery and was diagnosed with cancer. Kyle got Covid. Five days later, I got Covid. I fell ill last week Tuesday, tested positive on Wednesday, and spent the next few days in bed without realizing that somewhere in there was a blog post that didn’t happen, not to mention five workouts (HA! HA! HA!), and also, Veteran’s Day.
Happy Belated Veteran’s Day, fellow American Vets!
Now it’s November Week Two, and things are looking suitably rosier: Kyle is Covid-free with no symptoms, and I’m shaking the last of the congestion. I’m on Prednisone because my bad lung was “triggered” by the virus, but I’m otherwise fine. I started regaining my sense of smell yesterday. In the days before that, I spent a good minute mulling over the possibility of a new career in homicide crime scene forensics. If I could stick my nose in a jar of Vicks and smell absolutely nothing, surely I would be none the wiser for the withering odors of biological decay.
With that, my friends, I bid you good-night, or good-day, or what have you. Veer far from the evil eye, for it has some reach.
…there’s been a family emergency, so again, I’m here to pop in with apologies for not having a proper post. I didn’t sleep at all on Monday night. Most of Tuesday was spent at the hospital, from 5am to 1am Wednesday, yesterday, with just a few hours elsewhere in between. Also yesterday, I had to get up early for a medical appointment of my own. With maybe four hours of sleep in a 72-hour period and every waking hour in a state of high stress, I spent all of yesterday in a daze. Last night’s sleep was adequate and good, so today I decompressed and got a few things done around the house. And here we are.
2023, I tell you.
There was a magickal moment since we last met here, though:
I’ve been before. Arcosanti is a place that never ceases to inspire.
Art is life.
Here’s hoping that you and yours have been well. Merry night, friends.
Ahem. Please to allow an interruption of this Short Horror October 2023 series as I slip in a fitness updates post, because I’ve got updates. After starting and stopping and twice slogging through post-workout soreness, aka Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), aka agony that made walking practically impossible the last time it happened, I’ve at last managed to haul my “return to exercise” mission back to a place of consistency.
My right lung is still somewhat of a mess, and it may never be the same again, but I can’t allow it to control my fitness. My CT scan of two weeks ago showed “near resolution of consolidation,” along with scarring (and some other nonsense of which I won’t speak at the moment), meaning that I still haven’t completely cleared the pneumonia, and there’s now a bit of damage as a result of the infection. I’m under the care of an excellent pulmonologist who continues to have no objection to my working out, so it’s entirely on me to do what I can fitness-wise. She sent me in for a pulmonary functioning test two days ago, results forthcoming, and I’m continuing with my treatment regimen of twice-daily Wixela inhaler.
All of that to say that if I can work out to any extent, I will. Lung damage or no lung damage, I’m lifting weights three days a week. Today was workout Day 4, and I’m already starting to feel like myself again, energetic and happy to be in my body.
Current breakfast of choice, Monday-Saturday: oatmeal cooked in water and combined with chocolate plant protein powder, cinnamon, and plain unsweetened soymilk.
Several months ago – since I lost my job, actually – I quit intermittent fasting and got back to eating protein-packed oatmeal six mornings a week. I’m hooked. Peanut Butter Pancake Sunday is sacred and will not change. I still use Birch Benders plant protein pancake & waffle mix for that; it is delicious.
For my workouts, I’m back to living-room gym sessions using dumbbells to do my favorite Les Mills Body Pump classes (Les Mills On Demand), and I have my eye on a certain Funk Roberts workout, as well. Stay tuned for that! Have I mentioned that I rearranged the furniture in the living room so I’m not having to work out behind the couch anymore? I’ll be able to start posting fitness updates with pics again.
On that note, friends, I’ll leave you to your agendas of the moment. Oh! This Saturday in the cosmos we’re having a full Hunter’s Moon/partial lunar eclipse/Blood Moon situation, and it is going to be magickal.
Friends, I am so thrilled to share this short horror movie with you tonight. I’m not an expert film critic, and art is subjective. My opinion is just my opinion, and my opinion of Return to Sender is that it lacks nothing.
Every aspect of this film inspires admiration: the writing and directing, the casting and acting, the set and sound design, the pacing of the story, and the story, itself. I instantly loved Julia, the protagonist, and I emphasized with her; she had my emotional investment within one minute. It’s amazing to think of the hundreds of hours I’ve spent watching full-feature films over my lifetime that failed to capture my interest in this integral way at all, much less than inside of a minute. I felt that I knew Julia and wanted to be friends with her, and that is what made the events of the 18-minute film devastating to me.
As with last week’s featured horror short, this film is devoid of violence and gore, which would please those of you who prefer your horror without. Impressively, there’s no villain in sight, nor any element of the supernatural. No monsters. No natural disasters. Return to Sender manages to brew tension and stir The Creeps in an absence of horror tropes. It is 100% well-crafted psychological horror with a scenario that’s chilling, in part, because it could happen to any of us.
Allison Tolman’s delicate performance as Julia brought the character to multidimensional life and lent unsettling realism to the story, a tale told elegantly despite its layers and complexities. There are no villains, but there are demons, and they are real.
Hello, friends. Firstly, if you’re reading this, it’s because my site is back up. There was an issue with my domain, you see, which resulted in last week’s broken blog. Fortunately, WordPress was able to assist me with it, so here we are!
Secondly, I realized just today that it’s October and I haven’t posted any short horrors yet, as per TALC tradition. I’m a bit behind here. I figure it’s better late than never, though, so tonight, I come bearing the first short horror film I enjoyed and stashed away since last year’s Short Horror October extravaganza.
We’re starting with Highway, a gem of a short film by Vanessa Gazy, starring Odessa Young as Hester.
Now, I’m somewhat at a loss in categorizing this film neatly in a traditional horror sub-genre. There’s no brutality, gore, home invasion, or supernatural presence. It’s not a psychological horror, nor a found-footage horror, nor a body horror. It’s not a creature feature. I would actually call this well-paced short film a sci-fi horror, one definitely worthy of a watch. I’m delighted to share this excellent film with you! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Without further ado, then, I present you with nine minutes and 41 seconds of sci-fi horror. You don’t have to be a fan of either sci-fi or horror to enjoy this short film. You’ll see what I mean:
[…and it turns out there’s now an issue with embedding the video. If it’s not one thing, I tell you!]
Womp, womp.
I don’t know whether this new issue is related to last week’s domain issue, but I shall return to WordPress Help this weekend to figure it out. Meanwhile, friends, do go to YouTube and check out Highway.
Thank you for your patience, and Happy Spooky Season two weeks into the month, friends.
Friends, I have a post to share, but I need to sit on it for a week. Meanwhile, enjoy this pic of my cat Sabrina who sometimes answers to “Sabrina Ballerina” for good reason:
Sabrina Ballerina, complete with a fluffy black tutu.
I hope this finds you all enjoying the early days of the beautiful equinox, whether you’re in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere.
It’s been four and a half months since I got sick after inhaling a horse pill into my lung, and I just finished working out for the first time. It was humbling, to say the least. BUT I DID IT.
The doctor gave me exercise clearance a while ago, and I’d spoken in all seriousness of starting back up: I’ll do yoga, I decided. But that didn’t happen, because Life, so it wasn’t until today that I finally put on my gym shoes, and when I did, I did not do yoga. I pulled up a Les Mills Body Pump workout and jumped into strength-training with dumbbells.
The workout kicked my ass, BUT I DID IT.
(Granted, I’m still wheezing. I have a pulmonary appointment in a few weeks, so we’ll see.)
Here’s how it went:
Track One, Legs: Halfway through the squats, I had to give up the pace and bring it down to half-time. This was necessary in order to maintain perfect form. That is how out of shape I am. BUT I DID IT.
Track Two, Chest: It went well despite my legs shaking in the aftermath of the leg track.
Track Three, Back: Another successful track, but I called it a day as soon as it was over. I was feeling tired and slightly nauseous BUT I DID IT and it was fine because the first 30 minutes of Body Pump’s large-muscle-group tracks constitutes a full-body workout.
So I followed the doctor’s orders exactly: I took it slowly, listened to my body, and tapped out accordingly… and I took it light. I used three-pound dumbbells for the full-body warm-up, and five-pound dumbbells for the leg, chest, and back tracks. My normal dumbbell weight for the back track is 12 pounds. It was a struggle even with very light weights, BUT I DID IT.
Now I can really relate to those of you who are starting your fitness journeys from level 0, because that’s about where I am.
Well. WordPress’s “posts” section was down most of the night so I couldn’t get a post together but I wanted to let you know that I was thinking about you and since I’ve now found the glitch fixed at this lovely 02:00 hour I’m here to say good-night and nothing more, but hey, it’s the thought that counts.
Also, I can offer the entrance to your alternate reality:
Welcome to your dreams.
I’m going to go to bed and attempt to trick my insomnia – I’m on a roll with the insomnia this week, friends – with a visual of this hallway entrance to the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit, still my favorite of the photos I took at the event (that I visited twice).
Sweet sleep and/or good day to you, all. Until next week.
August 30, a week ago yesterday, we went to nearby Papago Park a few hours before midnight and stood in the shadowy desert beneath this year’s blue moon – also a supermoon – and Saturn, my own astrological planet.
Clouds partially hid the moon, but my favorite bright-moon moments lie in cloudy skies. Such a sky frames a moon with the metallic depth and dimension of dark, layered, and silver-edged clouds, a moon in mirror-like reflection turning the sky into a galactic lake, creating celestial beauty whose mystery can’t escape the lens of my humble cell phone. I gaze at moonlit clouds and imagine sailing away on them into the interstellar unknown.
August 2023’s second full moon – a blue moon.
There have been a few magick moments this year, but none so brilliantly moonlit as the desert sky on this night. I found this pic in my photo gallery and wanted to share it with you before heading to bed.
Have wonderful dreams the next time you sleep, friends.
Friends, I want to thank you all a thousand times over for your kind condolences and hugs and comments with words of love and support in response to my post about Nenette’s death. I appreciate you more than I can say, and I don’t take you for granted. Thank you so much for being here.
It’s been 12 days since Nenette’s death. My grief has quieted down into a constant, low hum that’ll crescendo suddenly at random moments, like I’ll be doing something and all of a sudden she’ll come to mind and I’ll fall apart briefly before straightening up and carrying on.
The specter of death is always one that we pet parents dread from the moment we welcome our babies into our lives, as more often than not, we know that we’ll likely outlive them. When that fear becomes a reality, it just… hurts. It’s always excruciating, no matter how many times we go through it, and I know that many of you can relate to this. If you’ve ever lost a beloved pet or any other family member or friend, my heart goes out to you.
Humanity has this wonderful aspect: we know that we need each other, and we know that we’re there for each other, even if we’re not in contact. Our collective energy of compassion and understanding prevails. The pain of loss is universal. So whatever you’re going through right now, I’m with you.
Forever grateful that I was chosen to be Nenette’s Mom in this life.
Go in peace and go safely, friends. Until next time.
A week ago, I had no idea that I’d be writing this post today.
Once again this year, my heart is in pieces. On Sunday night, we had to put Nenette down at the E.R. when it was discovered that she was suffering with end-stage cancer. It was a total shock.
Nenette had been in and out of vet clinics and E.R. facilities since October last year. She finally got onto a treatment plan in December, but (as we found out once it was too late) it was for a condition that she didn’t have.
Nenette’s doctors fucked up six ways to Sunday, treating her in accordance with their misdiagnosis of her condition while the whole time there was a malignant, lobulated mass growing into her bladder from the ventral bladder wall. Transitional Cell Carcinoma is a bladder cancer. It’s cancer of the urinary tract. It was the reason for Nenette’s bloody urine (her doctor insisted that Nenette was exhibiting a stress response, so she diagnosed Nenette with Idiopathic Interstitial Cystitis and treated her with Prozac). When Prozac seemed to be ineffective, they kept her on it and put her on a prescription canned food diet for urinary tract health. Bladder cancer was also the reason for her constipation (she was put on laxatives without further investigation). She was constipated, they said, because of dehydration, so to treat that, she was put on a strictly wet-food diet. Bladder cancer was the reason for her increased trips to the litter box, as well, and the decrease in volume of her urine. It was the reason for her vomiting. It was the reason for her lethargy. Eventually, it was the reason she lost weight, stopped grooming, and then stopped eating entirely.
Nenette’s July 11, 2023 urinalysis came back showing elevated, rafting transitional epithelium, which strongly indicated Transitional Cell Carcinoma. On the report… which I read carefully when I requested it upon the event of Nenette’s passing… the pathologist’s primary concern was neoplasia (cancer). Her secondary concern was inflammation of the bladder. The pathologist advised doctors to “pursue further evaluation of any masses or thickenings associated with the bladder or urinary tract.” So what did Nenette’s doctors do? They did the opposite. They decided that inflammation of the bladder was the primary cause, and that cancer was the secondary suspicion, “because that type of cancer is so rare, and Nenette already has cystitis, so it must be due to inflammation of her bladder.” (Again, Nenette never had cystitis. There was never any clinical evidence of it; that diagnosis was speculative.) They downplayed the indication of cancer, low-tiering it while ramping up their treatment of cystitis by adjusting Nenette’s treatment plan: More Prozac. Because, you know, Nenette was a nervous cat, and nervous cats are known to pee blood.
“Take her to an internist to check for the remote possibility of cancer if her bleeding hasn’t resolved in six-eight weeks,” they said. “The higher dosage of Fluoxetine (kitty Prozac) should work, but give it six to eight weeks.”
Wouldn’t you think that they’d call us back in to run an ultrasound scan first, to rule out cancer, as suggested by the pathologist who analyzed Nenette’s urine? After all, the pathologist’s primary concern was cancer.
As it turned out, we didn’t have six-eight weeks to find out whether the increased Prozac dosage worked. We barely had five weeks. Nenette died on Sunday night with a sizable mass in her bladder that could’ve been detected much earlier with a simple, five-minute ultrasound scan.
Nenette’s doctors started off on the wrong track, and they stubbornly stayed on the wrong track, even as months went by and she never stopped bleeding. Even as other symptoms piled on. Even after strong evidence of cancer came back on her July urinalysis. Throughout it all, from December to July, “Idiopathic Interstitial Cystitis.” “Prozac.” “Hills C/D canned food.” “Miralax.” “Wet food only.” “Increased dosage of Prozac.”
A quick swipe of an ultrasound scan, friends. That was all that was needed to find the mass in Nenette’s bladder. But they didn’t do it.
The doctors’ negligence and carelessness and, I don’t know, cluelessness…? robbed Nenette of a chance at a better end-of-life, as we could have focused on keeping her comfortable as her cancer progressed. They robbed me, her Mom, of a chance to provide this special comfort for her, and a chance to emotionally prepare for her death. They robbed us all of more quality time together as Nenette was dying.
I’m devastated. I’m livid. And I’m writing a letter. You’d better believe it.
Last photo of Nenette, minutes before her death.
Pics of Nenette over the years:
R.I.P Nenette, 2009-August 20, 2023.
Ironically, two of the dear ones I’d turn to for comfort – in this situation, especially, as they both loved and parented cats – also died this year, within weeks of each other. Nenette’s death makes me miss them even more.
Also ironically, Nenette’s passing makes me even more grateful that I lost my job. Because of that, I was able to spend more time with her and provide her with care to the extent of my knowledge… at the least.
Take-aways: -Get a second opinion. -Question everything. -Request a copy of pathology reports from labs taken, so you can read the findings for yourself. -Spend every minute with your furbaby as if it’s your last.
That’s especially what hurts… that we didn’t know that Nenette was terminally ill. If we could do it again, knowing what we know now, there’s so much we’d do differently, and so much else we would have done. We could have known about Nenette’s cancer in July had her doctors followed up her pathology report with a due-diligence ultrasound, as directed by the pathologist. Because of that failure, we were not given a chance, and neither was Nenette.
It didn’t have to be that way. We didn’t have to be blindsided. The information was right there.
I don’t know, friends. Nenette was my child. She was also my government-recognized emotional support animal, as I’m a combat veteran disabled with PTSD. She was always there for me. She got me through some of the darkest days of my life over the last seven-eight years. She was my angel baby, and I miss her so much.
Friends, I have stumbled upon an avocado selection hack that’s so good, I would be remiss to keep it from you. It’s super easy!
All you do is you watch and wait while someone else vets the avocados, and then you take the avocados that didn’t make the cut. These are the runners-up, and they’re pretty close to perfect. Rely on someone else’s effort! I learned this from a guy who relied on mine this one day not too long ago.
Standing in front of the avocado bin at the grocery store, I was so engrossed in my avocado selection process that I didn’t notice the guy standing off to the side. I mean, my peripheral vision caught him, but I wasn’t aware that he was watching me. (He wasn’t focusing on me so much as he was on what I was doing, I later deduced.)
There were a hundred or so avocados piled up in the bin. My task was to find specimens that were at that very tricky right stage of ripeness, because with avocados, that’s all that matters. If the avocado is unripe, it’s bitter and hard and inedible. If it’s past peak ripeness, it’s sticky and sour-ish and inedible. This is the way of the avocado: it’s too green, too green, too green, and then perfect for precisely FIVE MINUTES, after which it’s overripe and ruined. I’m exaggerating, of course… but seriously, an avocado seems to go from sublime to vile within a day. If you know, you know. I’ve been selecting avocados long enough that I usually get it right for both day-of and the next day. A perfect avocado is so delicious, it’s worth the effort.
So I had several avocados lined up on the edge of the Roma tomato bin that was directly above the avocado bin, because they were contenders, and as such, they had to be separated from the rest. I picked each one up several times, comparing them to each other while searching out other avocados, setting new contenders up on the tomatoes and returning the rejected ones to the bin below.
When I had five contender avocados that were all nearly perfect, it was a matter of deciding. I took the three least-promising-but-still-very good contenders from the tomato bin and set them on the low edge of the avocado bin right in front of me, so I’d have them at hand if I decided I wanted them… and that was when this guy (who’d been watching me and my process) swooped in and took those three, bagged them up, and walked off.
It took me a second to realize what he’d done, and I then burst out laughing. I couldn’t be annoyed, because his strategy was brilliant. I was impressed and amused, and my heart was light knowing that someone else was also going to enjoy beautiful avocados that evening. Maybe he’d take them home to his partner, and they would be ecstatic that he’d found good avocados! I had my two perfect ones. I was happy.
So that is what you do. SO easy, my friends.
Now that I’ve shared this with you, I’m craving avocados. Methinks a trip to the grocery store will take place tomorrow. On that note, I wish you all a fine night or day.
Hello. Just sitting here on a Wednesday morning, sipping coffee in disbelief, staring at my screen. An historic island town in flames, a town that I knew since childhood – Mom is from Maui – and last visited in 2016. I’m glad that my grandparents aren’t alive to witness the apocalyptic nightmare and its tragic outcomes taking place a half-hour drive away from their home in Kahului.
R.I.P. Lahaina Town, and those who’ve died in the disaster. Gratitude and strength to the first responders – and others – risking their lives to save others. My heart goes out to all who’ve been impacted.
~~~
Thursday morning now. Drinking coffee in continued disbelief, looking at footage showing what’s left of Lahaina, which is virtually nothing. No words. No words on Day Two of the destruction of Maui homes, businesses, and entire communities, with a rising body count and hundreds more missing.
My brain and emotional bandwidth are maxed out, so I flip over to YouTube, where I watch a blessedly mundane Halloween décor hunting vlog uploaded by one of my favorite content creators. Our cat Sabrina – indeed, she’s been as yet unintroduced! – hops up on the counter to see what I’m watching. She matches the image paused on my screen. She matches my coffee mug, too. Every day is Halloween.
Three of my favorite things: cat, coffee, skull – check, check, check.
The short story: Kyle moves in with his cat, Roary; it’s proven that Roary and Nenette cannot co-exist; high-octane Roary needs a playmate; enter Sabrina, a rescue from our neighborhood shelter.
Speaking of rescue animals, the Maui Humane Society is overwhelmed with its influx of wildfire animal refugees and casualties, animals in desperate need of shelter and medical care, food and supplies. If you’re on the mainland and you wish to help, please do so here.
Good evening, friends. Let’s talk supplements, shall we? For I have updates. I’ve shared my supplements regimens in the past, and I believe I said that I’d share my overhauled menu. I’m happy to deliver on that. Perhaps this may inspire or enlighten.
So!
In a manner unsurprising given a misadventure with a large supplement – ashwagandha, in this case – going down the trachea into the lung, one would consider alternative methods of supplement consumption. I settled on the idea of procuring supplements in the form of liquid extracts and sugar-free, vegan gummies, thus I now find myself with just such a collection. It covers everything I normally take: a multivitamin crafted for women; vitamin C; a collagen-builder; antioxidants; omega-3 fatty acids; and the aforementioned ashwagandha, which is neatly formulated in a complex of seven mushrooms.
About that: Prior to my aspiration event, I’d decided to cycle back into medicinal mushrooms, so the fashioning of a new mushroom menu didn’t occur without premeditation, nor did it necessitate inhaling a vitamin. This time around, my mushrooms of choice are lion’s mane; cordyceps; maitake; reishi; chaga; shiitake; and turkey tail… altogether coated in sugar, which, I know, I know! – I generally avoid. My supplement gummies are all sugar-free, except for the mushrooms. It’s okay. I’m really that skittish when it comes to taking supplements these days.
Here’s my new line-up:
Current daily supplement menu. I have these after lunch every day.
The liquid extracts go down in a single shot of zero-sugar Gatorade, and that is that. The gummies, too, seem to be just fine. None of them taste terrible. The mushroom gummies are straight-up candy. I can work with this.
(I can’t help but reflect that being home all day makes it easy to take these supplements. I don’t have to pack them up and worry that they’ll melt and then deal with the shot of Gatorade and so on and so forth. There are silver linings all over the place, it turns out.)
I hope this finds you doing well in this first week of August. Blessings and good health to you all!
[::Exaggerated Newsflash::] I was seven on the day of the cemetery visit in my last post, not five. My brain is on vacation.
I’m not, though, however much I might as well be.
Tomorrow marks the one-month-versary of losing my job to the unfortunate demise of my company, and I’ve got a check-in report for any of you who may be interested. How am I doing? What am I doing?
I’m doing well. I’m working on projects – some important and time-sensitive ones that would otherwise have been relegated to weekends, and some back-burnered projects, as well. It’s been a great feeling being able to work on stuff.
Truth be told, losing the job’s turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened, because Nenette became a special-needs cat at around the same time I became unemployed. It was a developing situation that evolved into the situation that it is today, which is Nenette requiring special care around a strict schedule, and it’s only because of job loss that I’ve been able to provide her with such care. It was fortunate for us that things turned out the way they did.
Additionally, I’ve found my way back to some good old fundamental perspective. I’ve spent most of 2023 worrying about losing my job, and now, in retrospect after I have lost my job, this classic flow chart returns to mind:
It was the uncertainty about my company – my job – that caused my nervousness and worry, but I’ve since realized that there’s a fine line between nervousness and worry. You can be nervous without being worried. Nervousness is a state of being, while worriedness is a state of mind. Nervousness is about feeling, and worriedness is about thinking.
No one needs the two things going on at the same time, but worry can cause nervousness, so that’s the thing to address.
I’ve been wanting to do more fitness posts, and I’m not there yet, but I consider this one to be a mental fitness post… because in terms of the mind/body connection, it counts. Worrying isn’t healthy for the body. I figure if I can do something about a problem, I will. If I can’t? Then I can’t. I’ll find a workaround, or whatever, but in any case, I shouldn’t worry. There’s no sense in worrying about something that you can’t change. You simply have to find other ways. Drive on.
I’ll always have to deal with nervousness in and of itself. I have PTSD, OCD, and clinical depression. These days, my practical approach to this largely involves identifying worry, getting to the root of it, and finding action to take. Action. It’s key.
So I’m doing well in the aftermath of losing my job. I’m here for those who need me, I’m getting shit done, and I’m restoring my health, getting lots of sleep consistently and whatnot. 7+ hours of sleep every night!
As sad as it was to leave a workplace, job, and people that I loved, I’m relieved that things turned out the way that they did. This is what needed to happen. This is The Universe looking out for me. I’m very fortunate that I’m able to get along financially, as well.
Thank you all for sticking with me, friends. I appreciate you more than you can know.
Good evening, friends. I’m back with another post from the pictorial archives of my childhood. This one is special. Some of my more cherished childhood memories include those from our various family outings at the local cemetery, where we fed large exotic birds and knew absolutely no one who was buried there.
Mind you, we went to feed and admire the wild peafowl who happened to live at the cemetery. A blue peacock in full bloom amongst the headstones was a resplendent sight to behold, and I have dark, grainy old photos to illustrate it.
Me on the occasion of my 7th birthday, which we celebrated with a family outing at the local cemetery.
Hence, I learned at an early age that beauty and death go together. My fond memories of the peafowl in the cemetery hearken to Edgar Allan Poe’s famous opinion that “the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.”
I was born with my love for mystical darkness; always, for as long as I can remember, fascinated by the paranormal and the supernatural, the ghostly and the macabre, and curious about the veil between worlds.
With such proclivities woven into my DNA, my natural aesthetic needs no further explanation… but that I was a darkling child taken to a cemetery to feed beautiful birds in nature adds to it. Unsurprisingly, I immediately gravitated toward a black top when given my first opportunity to make my own selections during back-to-school clothes shopping. Yes, I love gothic music and the horror genre and all things witchy, and I love that there are (still?) wild peafowl living in the cemetery, displaying their brilliant and glorious feathers on the graves of loved ones lost.
Going through a pile of childhood photos to scan, I came across a few of my brother and I sitting in the snow in Long Barn and I noticed that the snowman we made was either surrendering to authorities or absolutely giving up on life with contempt for all who’ve fallen for the lies, in either case beyond fed up, and I can’t remember whether we knew it and didn’t care, or knew it and continued on in total denial. I was afraid for us in retrospect because we knew from certain fairy tales that things children create can sometimes come to life, and in this case our creation coming to life would mean inevitable doom for us all. The snowman we made was very angry.
I’m in red, my brother’s in blue, and the snowman’s in complete disgust.
We are artists.
Of the four of us, I’m the only one who looks pleased.
FUCK THIS SHIT.
We didn’t give him a cheerful scarf like other snowmen get. He is not a magical fairy tale, because the magic is in the top hat that we didn’t give him, either. Neither did we give him a pipe. Maybe that’s why he’s angry. He wants a pipe. He cannot be a jolly happy soul without a pipe. He has no intention of dancing around. When he melts away, he’s not going to wave good-bye singing, “Don’t you cry, I’ll be back again someday.” He’s going to give us the finger and say, “You’d better hope I don’t come back or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
So I’m not sure what my apparent joy over the situation indicates other than a lack of empathy for the snowman, but that might mean that I was a budding psychopath, so let’s just say that it’s my love of the horror genre being a case of nature rather than nurture and leave it at that.
That Asian-Looking Chick 