…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.
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.
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.
I’m ready for tomorrow. Coffee maker: prepped with ground coffee and water. Peanut butter sandwich: made and ready to throw into my bag before I leave the house for work. Now I’m reclining on the bed, leaning against pillows beneath a blanket, fresh out my nightly lavender aromatherapy shower. My hair is clean and damp, and that is one of my favorite feelings. There’s a glass of ice water at my side, and a large mug of hot water with the juice and pulp of half a lemon – one of my latest obsessions.
^ I wrote that paragraph last night and then got too sleepy to continue. Typical. I took this selfie first, though:
Post-shower, post-aromatherapy, post nightly skin care routine. [15 June 2023]
Picking up where I left off, I find it interesting how illness often seeds new obsessions and rituals. I now look forward to the nightly mug of hot lemon water. (Is there a name for that beverage? Lemon tea?) I started drinking it at night at the suggestion of a nurse at the beginning of the pneumonia – going on five weeks ago – yes, I still have it, though I’m on the mend. I’m waiting patiently for my lung to heal, and it’s been tricky, this waiting. I’m terrible at it, impatient with taking it easy, with the wheezing and gurgling in my lung when I breathe (gross). But instead of focusing on that, I lie in bed every night all cozy and clean and aromatherapied and counting my many blessings as I sip my hot lemon water.
And now it’s morning, and I’m sitting at the kitchen counter writing this as I sip from an enormous mug of coffee before I get ready for work.
Yes, I’m back at work.
No, I haven’t yet been cleared to work out. Two days ago at the hospital I posed the question again and was told in no uncertain terms that I’m not to do any lifting, not even light weights. No lifting at all. No elevating my heart into the aerobic zone. My body, said the doctor, is trying to heal my lung, and it can’t do that if it’s busy lifting things and experiencing any kind of heart-rate increase. Being inactive is going to help my body in this bizarre reverse universe.
BE THAT AS IT MAY, I’m grateful that I can otherwise go about my regular life. I go to work and then go straight home; I haven’t run any after-work errands since I’ve been sick. I’m grateful for the health that I have, incredibly grateful for Kyle, who’s been taking care of me and making sure that I don’t do too much.
Oh! Speaking of working out, I have been cleared to do stretches for my exercise. I’d been getting into that, anyway, as you may recall. That’ll have to be the main event rather than the supplemental event, and the more I think about it, the more eager I am to see where that takes me. Perhaps I’ll get back into yoga, proper. Perhaps it’ll shape the future of my fitness life in ways that wouldn’t happened otherwise. Illness, as I’d said, seeds new obessions. I don’t know about you, but interests easily become obsessions in my world.
Hello, friends. I’m sorry for my inconsistancy here… still. Again. You know. But I am, really.
We had a houseguest all last week, so that and related festivities took precedence. This week, I’ve been trying to get back into a schedule. Work has been busy, and good, and I do not feel inclined to get online when I get home.
I’m not going to lie: I’m still working through grief from events of a few months ago: two people very special and dear to me passing away within weeks of each other. To say that we were close is a massive understatement. They were two of the most important people in my life, one since the 1990’s, and the other since before I was born.
There’ve been other ongoing situations, none of which I’m at liberty to divulge, I’m afraid. And that’s the thing: I’m not used to having compartments of life that need to stay locked when I’m here to share with you.
Certain aspects are sharable, though. Fitness. Spiritual practice, to an extent. Fur- and scalebaby updates. For these… at least for the first and last of the above… I will want to include visuals, which means taking pics. Posts about mental health and wellness, not so much.
This brings me to the point in the morning where I start to get ready for work; it’s Friday. I’m still so grateful to have a job that I love. My job is like pain medication for heavy life events. I go in with a purpose, mentally focused and out of the dark part of my head that wants to wallow, and that probaby would wallow were I to sit at home. Work is a balm. Leaving at the end of the day with a sense of accomplishment helps to combat the lows.
Here is my secret to achieving that sense of accomplishment and doing my job with joy: My Dad. He’d said to me that he’s proud of me for working hard, and I want to always know that he would be proud, every day. Every day, I check in with myself periodically, self-evaluating with questions like, Would Dad be proud of me right now? Is my work performance today making Dad proud? Would he be proud of me if he were here? If the answers are anything but Yes, I assess and make adjustments in whatever way I’m falling short of his (and my own) expectations as I continue on. Sure, there are days that it’s a bit of a struggle. On those days, it’s enough to know that I tried, because he would know that I made 100% effort… and that would make him proud.
That’s my advice: Work like someone who matters to you is watching.
With that, I’ll say good-bye for now, my friends. Until next time!
A magnificent thunderstorm rolled over the Valley last night, with dramatic winds and violent, cold rain. Tempe got pounded. The air smelled so fresh and crisp in the backyard where the creosote shrubs grow. Creosote is to the Sonoran desert what eucalyptus is to the Bay Area, where I grew up, and what plumerias are to Hawaii, where I spent my childhood summers. It’s funny to think that I have a longer history with creosote than I have with eucalyptus and plumerias. I moved out of California decades ago, and I’ve only been to Hawaii a handful of times since Grandpa died. That was at the end of the last millennium.
I’ve been feeling contemplative of late. A little saddened. As I’ve mentioned over my last few posts, there’s been death again in my small world, the deaths of two people whom I loved, and who loved me. They passed within weeks of each other. I’ve been thinking about death and deceit, and about how nice it would be to jump into a post-apocalyptic world in which everything mattered. In the post-apocalyptic world I imagine, nothing that is said would be anecdotal. Every utterance would carry weight… healthy weight… and ethics would be built into the structure of existence out of necessity, as in the new world of opposites, people would simply look out for each other, politics be damned.
Lightning struck my crossroads last night. That was interesting.
The downside of the rain is the humidity. It’s a psychological closing-in, and at the superficial end of the spectrum, I have to say that “founding father” is not a good hairstyle look on me.
That said, I’m grateful. Above all, I’m so very grateful.
17th-century magistrate hair.
That’s going to do it for now, friends. Have a grand time in your daily adventures until next time!
Good morning, friends. Thwarted by technical difficulties and nearly all manner of peripheral distractions, I come to you with only a wish for a good end-of-week, if your schedule makes you a traditional weekendist, or, if not, a good two days to come.
My weekend plans involve working out, doing taxes, cleaning and picking up around the house, shopping for flooring for one of the bedrooms, having dinner with Boyfriend’s mom, playing with cats, and secret plotting. A movie will be watched. A music playlist will be completed, and another one begun.
It’s exciting stuff, and I’m not being facetious. It’s the little things. Little things are the tendons and ligaments that hold life’s big things together, the connective tissues without which we couldn’t function. Out of little things comes daily moments of joy, revelation, and feeling of accomplishment, as well as learning that leads to inner growth. Stresses and sorrows teach gratitude. Challenges encourage innovation. Creative endeavor promotes mental and emotional wellness. Big plans are thrilling, but the no-plan plan can be a balm.
Mundane is good.
I hope you’re all enjoying a magickal turn of season, too, wherever you are in the world. Until next time!
When a co-worker told me that he would occasionally take a photo and post it online with a lengthy caption, I knew that I wanted to follow suit, because I loved the idea of it. I, myself, enjoy a peek into the lives of others. It’s the connectiveness, the feeling of sharing in an experience, whether superficial or internal. An unremarkable snapshot in the course of a day or night. A letting-in.
This is my first “Life in a Snap” post. The scene: the wall in front of me as I sit on my bed, cozy in the warmth of the electric fireplace.
My thoughts scatter like stars as I look at the fireplace and the dresser and the moon phase calendar and the white cat statue; namely, they scatter into constellations of magickal moments.
Because there’s more to a magickal moment than gazing at an electric fire and a moon phase calendar and a cat statue.
Headbanging to the Arctic Monkeys’ earlier albums while rolling through the psychedelic auto car wash is a magickal moment.
Climbing into bed fresh and clean after a hot shower, stretching out, and breathing deeply of aromatherapy while falling asleep is a magickal moment.
Getting out of bed in the morning is a magickal moment, especially when it happens without pain.
Caring for the body is a magickal endeavor… nourishing it, exercising it, giving it enough sleep. (I know, I know! Still working on it. Still failing at it. But still trying.)
Nesting in the home is magickal.
Simple, tasty foods: roasted, salted peanuts in the shell; whole wheat crackers with hummus; steamed leafy greens; pumpkin seeds; dried apricots; brown rice, and dark chocolate.
Things that make me feel magickal: the smell of fire; a charged deck of cards; wearing or carrying a crystal; practicing daily color magick; tracking moon phases; journaling my spiritual workings; music; sleeping; the desert; candles; Stevie Nicks; being underwater, nature, weather; animals and their rights; cooking and baking; poetry; plants; incense; cats.
Learning from mistakes and not making them again is magickal. The splendor of personal evolution is magickal, and also blinding, sometimes, in the best of ways.
A smile shared with a stranger is a magickal thing.
Human stories about real humans with real struggles, humans with all of their faults and foibles… magickal. Not a one amongst us is perfect or without problems or flaws. The human experience is too far-ranging and varied for judgement to collapse itself into the big picture of it, and yet we all judge, whether we know it or not, want to or not. That’s why I feel that…
…open-mindedness is one of the most magickal traits that an individual can possess.
I’m stopping here on account of sleep-deprivation-induced rambling, friends! I love that you’re here, reading thoughts that emerged from a photo.
Well, it’s been roughly 5,000 years since my last “favorite little things” post, so I figured that now would be a good time to share a few favorites since then. We’re one month and two days into 2023 paradise, after all. Thought I, why not share some of the things that I discovered in recent months of the former year?
Without further ado, then. Let’s get to it!
1). Film: Smile
Of the horror movies I’ve watched in recent years, this one creeped me out the most. I’m not saying that it’s the best movie I’ve seen of late, horror genre included, nor was it my favorite. I just found it to be the most effective solid scare of the lot. I felt obliged to share.
Trailer:
2). T.V. show: The Last of Us
Ah, The Last of Us! Both seasoned and uninitiated fans recommend reading the book and/or playing the video games before getting into this new post-apocalyptic horror action series. I, on the other hand, recommend that you watch the delightful documentary Fantastic Fungi on Netflix as your preparatory material. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Trailer:
3). T.V. show: Taboo
If you like your revenge salt and peppered with treason, incest, and explosives, this series is for you. True story anecdote: my bio-father in England – who had no idea what I was watching or that I was even watching anything, and who, himself, doesn’t watch anything – phoned me while we were in the middle of an episode, and he randomly lectured me on the three main components of gunpowder. Coincidentally, that very topic crept into the remainder of the episode after we hung up, and the story widely revolved around the making of gunpowder thereafter, with the explosives expert character describing its components almost exactly the way bio-father did on the phone. I mean this literally. The series is British and takes place in England, so my British bio-father in England calling and educating me on the components of gunpowder right in the middle of it was uncanny. (My boyfriend assured me that the FBI definitely listened in on my phone conversation after that topic came up.)
I super-enjoy this salad. Whole Foods carries Urban Remedy refrigerator cases in their stores (the ones here do, anyway), and the offerings include a number of delicious salads. This one contains beets, and yet I love it. Beets, my friends. You heard me right.
Back when my boyfriend and I were in denial about our feelings for each other, he dropped off a sumo mandarin along with the grapefruit he offered to bring me when I was coming down with what might have been (but wasn’t) Covid. It was the beginning of last year’s January. When citrus season came to a close, we spent the rest of the year looking forward to the return of this spectacular winter fruit. Needless to say, our 2023 paradise has been gloriously citrusy.
Like my old favorite Clifs Builders bars, this one contains 20g of plant protein. Unlike Clifs Builders, the Garden of Life bar is not a glorified candy bar. It’s not particularly scrumptious, but I do like it, and it’s filling enough to serve as an effective meal-replacement bar if I find myself without time to make a sandwich for lunch. It takes precisely one second to throw one of these bars into my bag.
I mainly drink water, water all day long. I have a large coffee in the morning. I enjoy Pure Leaf plain, unsweetened iced tea. And when I tried a Steaze Peach Mango organic iced tea, it immediately became my go-to flavored iced tea. I find that it’s scented somewhat of guava juice, and tastes a little bit like it, too! It is heavenly.
Nenette, my feline daughter, is now taking kitty Prozac, and Purrfect Bistro Chicken Recipe Pâté landed on this list because Mommy loves that she loves it. She loves it so much, I can mix her powdered medication into it daily, and she doesn’t notice. I warm it up slightly, mash it into a paste, and mix in the contents of one of her capsules. Thank you, Purrfect Bistro, for making a food that my very picky cat likes so much, she laps it up without a clue that it contains her medication.
12). Skin care, body: Alba Botanica Very Emollient Body Lotion Maximum. (Vegan and cruelty-free)
I’ve tried for years to get into a routine of using body lotion nightly. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon this lotion of Alba Botanica’s that I succeeded. It’s just so good! I use it on my arms and legs after my shower. It feels amazing.
13). Skin care, face: Derma-e. (Vegan and cruelty-free)
I’ve used Derma-e here and there in the past, but this last year I started using Derma-e products on my face almost exclusively. My skincare arsenal has gone from a hodgepodge to 99% Derma-e. It’s not cheap. (Fellow skincare junkies, you get me.) I use too many products to list – I have a morning routine and a night routine, both with their own products. That’s a lot, so I’m just dropping the entire brand into this space for you to explore at your leisure, if you’re so inclined. I could not recommend it more highly!
This one cosmetic item cut my daily make-up routine down to seven minutes, my friends. I adore it to the point where I stocked up in the event of discontinuation. I use it on my eyelids and on my cheeks, and on the weekend, I wear it as lipstick, as well.
This lipbalm is so good!! I have a different lip balm in every room, and one of them is this one by Soothing Touch. I plan to replace the others with it so it’ll be the only one I use.
The End.
I hope this finds you all well, my friends. Thank you for being here.
My favorite thing about the new year so far is that I haven’t dragged anything old or unwanted into it.
2023 feels like a prairie scented with clover and bluebell and violet, subtly alive with faery rings and grasses brightly animated in sunny breezes. Fresh. Magickal. It’s January and therefore mid-winter here in the Northern Hemisphere, but my world beams from within as springtime energy pierces the cold nights and dark mornings. Perhaps the exceptional rainfall we’ve had here in the desert this winter speaks to the illusion of spring, as well.
(Or, too, it’s my candlelit inner world, dusted and brilliant.)
I made moon water under the light of the year’s first full moon, the Wolf Moon, on the 6th.
The moon right now is a sliver of a waning crescent, my favorite moon phase. (Blessing and bane grow on the same stalk.) The new/dark moon will rise in two days, and I’m eager to work with her energy. My new year’s resolution is to get more sleep. It’s been a joke thus far. The new moon will help a lot.
Because as always, really the only thing standing between me and a solid seven to eight hours of sleep is my 10:00pm burst of energy, which no amount of fatigue can squelch. I’m tired and then instead of winding down, I come alive. It’s difficult to get yourself ready for bed – and then actually go to bed – when your internal wind-down mechanism goes haywire and does the counterintuitive thing, night after freaking night. I know that some of you can relate, as surely I’m not the only night owl attempting to riddle this out. Don’t get me wrong… I love my late-night drive to do things… it just doesn’t work when you have to get up at 5:30am.
New Year’s, though. It’s special. It’s actually unfathomable to me, the power that we create together in welcoming and celebrating the new year. Can there be a more potent time in the energy than at the turn of the calendar year when millions of humans are setting their intentions all at once? Millions of people getting that energy of determination out there into the Universe can only be a powerful thing. It’s a mass-scale charge of energy, an energy of hope, and let’s face it, it’s a great opportunity. What a shame it would be to waste it, right?! We ought to make an effort… at the least, join in with the intention-setters. At the most, show up for one’s intentions. And at the best, continue pressing forward. This is what the new year asks of us, I feel.
Oh! I celebrated my birthday a week before the new year. I can’t begin to express my gratitude. I’m 54, my friends. I never could have taken this glorious age for granted. One never can; one’s life can end in an instant, without warning. I’m simply in awe that I’m here to roam the Earth beyond half a century. I love to reflect and marvel at world events that’ve taken place during my stay here, and I anticipate witnessing more. I’m here for it all, the good, the bad, and the proverbial ugly, despite my occasional grumblings about the absurdity of the human condition and how it sometimes makes me want to stay in bed forever.
On a more mundane and superficial birthday note, I feel obliged to report the usual; e.g., nothing has changed: I’m still not wearing granny panties, still haven’t had anything “done,” and still have yet to field a midlife crisis. I’ve experienced various other manner of crises, but none of the midlife sort. Perhaps my version of a midlife crisis is a rebirth. If that’s the case, I’ve arrived, I suspect. (I turn 54 and life is a magickal prairie.)
Methinks that this is a good spot for the obligatory birthday selfies, so have at it!
I took these tonight. [19 January 2023]
My favorite answer to a filter is light in front of my face. I still haven’t gotten onboard with fancy filters and adjustments and what-have-you, but I have a lamp!
(You may recognize that I’m in my office. An office update post may or may not be forthcoming – I’ve indeed changed things up again around these here parts.)
Aaaaand with glasses:
My boyfriend loves this pic the best, so I had to include it!
(Yes, I’m in a relationship. It was a surprise to me, too. I am blessed.)
In New Year’s summary, I’m trying not to ask too much of myself. There are many avenues of self-improvement I need to follow this coming year, but it all has to start with getting more sleep, so I’m leaving the official resolution at that. That’s the intention, and I’m setting it. I have set it. I’m going to show up for it.
I wish you all the very best in 2023, friends. Here’s to 2023 and you!
I’m just popping in here to insist, yet again, that I’m not abandoning you or this space. I was going to post a post tonight! But then! A trip to the veterinarian emergency room had to be taken, as Nenette, my daughter of the feline persuasion, had been suffering with a severe flare of her Feline Interstitial/Idiopathic Cystitis (FIC). It was a doozy of a flare, poor baby. This time she also had vomiting and diarrhea. We just got home now, and it’s after midnight.
She’s doing much better after several hours in the E.R. She’s been subcutaneously hydrated. She was administered an anti-nausea drip, and she was given a dose of probiotics as well as a painkiller with sedative effects. We’re okay. Tired, but okay.
Somewhat out of it and feeling better.
The best time to capture Nenette in a pic is when she’s taking something.
Speaking of taking something, there was an interesting moment in the waiting room when a vet tech came out with a gray French bulldog and handed him over to the guy sitting in a chair by the door. “Here’s Fester. He’s fine. He’s exhibiting telltale signs that he got into some marijuana. He’ll sleep it off.”
In case you haven’t seen one before, let me tell you what a stoned French bulldog looks like: a French bulldog. It’s the eyes.
And so that’s where we are at the moment. I wanted to talk about the New Year rather than unwell cats and stoned French Bulldogs, but it is what it is.
On that note, I shall leave you all to your days and nights, wherever you are. I hope your New Year is off to a magnificent start, my friends. We all deserve it.
Hello, friends. It feels odd popping into this space. It feels all of a sudden, though I started writing this post last week. I wrote it with every intention of posting it. I mean, I’m never one to feel like I’ve got it all together – I’ve long since given up on that goal – but these days I’m feeling it more than usual.
Nothing has been “usual,” though.
Firstly and most importantly, I haven’t lived in one place consistently in the last two months. I’m currently (as in again) not living at home.
Me without stability:
I am in no place, or I am in one place, and not another, or I’m not in a place, and yet in another, or I have one foot in one place, and one in the other,
or
I have one foot in one life, and one in the other.
There. I think I nailed it with that last one. I’m between lives.
I have a life, but. I have no place. But. My head rifles the in-between, looking for… whatever. Looking for everything. Looking for a thing, somewhere in the bardo, disconnected. The calendar says holidays, and I say what day. What days? There are no days. There is one day. A day. Like today. Today was a day.
It might be “fine and well,” which you wouldn’t suspect after reading up to this point. Is it weird to state what I’ve stated above and yet maintain that things are good? I’m happy. It’s hard to explain when I can’t explain what I can’t explain.
There’s no mental or emotional hand-wringing going on here. I just want to find land and then swim somewhere. It’s that kind of go-from-here situation.
Another thing about the last two plus months: I haven’t worked out at all, my friends. This is a huge, HUGE deviation from my normal routine, as many of you are aware, and I’m not okay with it. I don’t approve. I don’t feel good or do well when I’m not working out. The disarray will continue up to the New Year, after which I’ll be able to reinstate my regular workouts in my schedule. Thus I will unwittingly join the ranks of the fitness Resolutioners. The best thing about this prospect is that I’m heartily amused by it.
(I stay strong because of my job, though, so there’s that. I have my functional strength. I just know that I’m not in my usual shape.)
The holidays? I usually do Christmas cards. This year, I’m not.
In the last two-three months, I’ve been erratic here in this space, and I’m not okay with this, either.
There’s just a lot these days. I feel like I’m usually at my worst when I’m living out of a suitcase, but here we are, and to my surprise, I don’t actually feel like I’m at my worst-worst. I feel like I’m okay, so I’m not sure what I’m rambling about here.
Tonight I went to my work’s holiday party and took a pic before leaving:
Tonight, being Not At My Place (undisclosed location). [15 December 2022]
I think the main thing is that I have one foot in one life, and the other in another life, and I can’t talk about either life at the moment. I’m sorry for the vagueness. One day it shall be explained. Just… today is not the day (though today was a day).
At any rate, I hope this finds you all doing well on this beautiful weekend eve. Go in peace, friends.
Good morning, boys, girls, and anyone else who may be reading this. I’ve missed you.
It bothers me to go so long between blog posts. I’d gotten into my Thursday posting groove and then suddenly, in the last month or so, everything that happens happens on a Thursday. Seriously! Last week’s holiday vacation included! Oh, but I went somewhere, if you can believe that. I went road-tripping to Utah with a bunch of friends and found myself off-roading in a Jeep in Moab. It was brutally cold and gorgeously sunny and bright and altogether epic, despite the former.
Of course I come bearing pics from that little getaway. I took hundreds of them and decided to deposit my 39 favorites here – memories, you know – so you can hopefully get a feel for the wild and magickal energy of the places we visited (we stopped at Monument Valley on our way back through Arizona).
Without further ado!
Starting with some views from our Jeep and some of the places along the way… we were divided between two Jeeps…
Fun times!
Trekking out on rough and beautiful terrain.
Watching the vehicle in front of us gave us a glimpse of what we were in for…
I wasn’t driving, natch.
This pic is not crooked. We were. In several places I thought we’d flip over for sure, but we were fine.
This is what I look like bundled up in three layers of clothing plus a super thick puffy jacket, hat, and gloves. It was freezing, but 100% worth it!
We often stopped to take in the nature around us.
Love the texture of these rocks…
A little hiking was involved, which made the whole experience even better.
Obligatory selfie. (Ahem)
…and later, we went off in a different direction – not in Jeeps – to do some sight-seeing. It was nature in every direction, my friends, and there were very few people at most places we explored.
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I could feel the presence of deities here, I swear.
It was like being on another planet.
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As in the Land of AZ, the sky was SO beautifully, ridiculously blue. I love the American West.
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Extra-terrestrial rock formations everywhere we looked. I couldn’t take enough pictures.
The way I imagine Mars to be… the sand was so red and soft.
The La Sal mountains in sight all around…
And a lot in the way of balancing boulders.
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Every direction.
Rounded. Cragged. The winds of ancient times carved these gigantic natural artifacts at which we can marvel today.
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Those snow-capped mountains, though!
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This bird was quite large and so blue. I wish he held still enough for a clear pic.
Breathless.
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A watery horseshoe.
Canyonlands as far as the eye can see.
…with dramatic late-afternoon skies.
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I love this tree.
In town, I tried on this sweat jacket and ended up not purchasing it.
Then we stopped at Monument Valley on our way back!
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I didn’t want to leave. It was fabulous getting to get away.
The End… thank you for scrolling through my crazy plethora of pics, my friends!
And thank you for putting up with my recent inconsistencies. I’ll get back into the groove, I promise!
Friends, on this beautiful moonlit night in the early hours of November 11 – Veterans’ Day here in the States – I opened Selected Late Poems of George Trakl, and my eyes fell on his poem “In The East.”
Allow me to share:
In The East by George Trakl*
The grim anger of nations, Like the wild organ-sounds of the winter storm, The purple wave of battle, Stars that have shed their leaves.
With shattered foreheads & silver arms Night calls to the dying soldiers. The spirits of the battle-dead groan In the shadows of autumnal ash.
A desert of thorns surrounds the city. The moon chases the terrified women From steps that are bleeding. Wild wolves have broken through the gate.
It is Veterans’ Day in America, and Trakl’s haunting lines of verse give me pause. I feel more reflective this Veterans’ Day than most, and I’m not sure why. If I were to attempt to listen and characterize the energy of the American people right now, I’d say that we are anxious, restless within our borders, like dogs straining forward at the ends of our leashes.
My cat sleeping on the chair next to my bed calms the world… I’m convinced of this, and I’m grateful. It’s always the little things.
Happy Veterans’ Day, my fellow veterans. Thank you for your service.
*George Trakl was a German poet who served in the army during World War I. He died of suicide at the age of 27. He’s one of my favorite poets.
It’s been a month. It’s been a good two months. I don’t know about you, but on my end, life has mimicked a fault line in constant tremor and sudden change and general chaos where there used to be order (a workplace moving into a new building will accomplish the latter pretty well). I missed you last week when another circumstance arose out of nowhere. But we’re here now.
And the desert, my friends. The desert can always be relied upon when you’re in Phoenix or anywhere else in the magickal Land of AZ in which I’m so blessed to live. Last weekend I escaped into nature and did some magickal grounding with the Earth.
This was a mere just-over-two-miles in, but you don’t have to go far.
The healthiest ocotillo I’ve ever seen, lush and alive in the wild after a series of rains.
Into the distance…
The sky was wild that day.
November on the verge.
Yours Truly looking shaggy in the days leading to a much-needed haircut. I trimmed my bangs and cut two inches off this mess.
Sacred scenery.
Every direction you turn looks different.
To wander is to live.
A perfect view. My perfect view, anyway.
One wants to wander forever.
And ever.
Boots tossed to the side. Feet buried in the sand after a meditation. Grounding.
Scenery along the way.
The magick is real.
Communing with nature always brings me back to center.
Friends, I hope this finds you feeling well under our gorgeous waxing gibbous moon. May your days be full with splendors.
I’ve found this well-paced, well-written short Sci-Fi horror that I thought I’d share for anyone who’s interested. It stars a couple of faces that may be familiar to some of you – Marisa Tomei and Minnie Driver – and the writing’s quite nice. Furthermore! In discovering this short film! I stumbled into a YouTube channel that specifically features short Sci-Fi films. You know I’m all in over there, and I will certainly bring some of my favorites to you.
On another note, I received a lovely comment from one of you yesterday. To your kind expression of appreciation, I say thank you, as well, and indeed I will keep writing. I’ve somewhat fallen out of a groove here in the last year, but grooves are designed to get back into (please forgive not only the cliché but also my ending that clause with a preposition), and I look forward to doing that.
All of that said, please enjoy Laboratory Conditions at your leisure:
So where was I when I left off two weeks ago when I wanted to post but needed to sleep so I didn’t and instead greeted you from a far-off half-awake place in my brain in a way that I hoped was somehow coherent but I have a feeling that I wasn’t and I’m too embarrassed to go back and look at what I wrote to confirm my suspicion but now I’m awake enough to return to the topic?
Ah, yes. Here we are.
As I was somewhat/somehow saying two weeks ago, I now have a mystery snail, and his name is Sherlock. Allow me to share details with any of you who may be interested! I’ll tell you up front that this newest addition to my little family is a riot. My kids are little, but they have big personalities. I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Sherlock was far from an exception.
Sherlock.
Sherlock was given to me a few weeks ago in a small plastic food container. I knew nothing about mystery snails, much less of proper living arrangements for them, so I asked Google, who told me in no uncertain terms that one mystery snail needs a five-gallon tank, minimum… but I ended up getting him a 3.7-gallon tank. I regret that decision now, of course. One mystery snail needs a minimum of five gallons of water! How difficult would it be to, I don’t know, set up Sherlock’s habitat in accordance with the experts’ wisdom? So now Sherlock is in a tank that’s too small for the maintenance of his optimal health, and I’m not sure what to do about it. (Is it too late to make an exchange? I’m pretty sure that the store won’t accept a return of a used tank, but I can ask. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I got this tank.) Maybe I’ll get a five-gallon tank for Sherlock at some point and just grow plants in the 3.7 gallon-tank.
(Gah.)
Between Sherlock and Geronimo, I have two kids who live in shells and who are vegan. Sherlock’s favorite thing to eat is green beans. It’s fascinating watching him chomp away at the green bean with his tiny alien mouth, but I’m even more in awe when I witness his UFC-caliber take-down technique when encountering a vertical green bean. It happens sometimes that the green bean will land on its end when I drop it into the water, and it’ll stay that way until Sherlock comes along – 0 to 60 when he sniffs out the green bean, which is immediately – to grapple with it. I never knew that grappling could be simultaneously ruthless and elegant until I saw this pretty little snail take down a green bean.
In addition to green beans, Sherlock enjoys climbing up and down the aquatic plants, and also diving down from the surface of the water. At first it was alarming to witness him plunging to the ground from the greatest height he could reach, but it soon became clear that this is his idea of a good time. He always lands on his one large foot. Sherlock is an MMA fighter and a diver. Big personality, I’m telling you.
I’m not sure how long Sherlock will be with me. Mystery snails live about a year; Sherlock was full-grown when he arrived, so he’s already well into his one-year lifespan. He’ll carry out his remaining months – or weeks, or days, whatever the case may be – eating green beans and gliding around his tank, free-falling and climbing the leafy stalks of his aquatic plants.
The Life Aquatic with Sherlock.Big foot.Sherlock and a cross-section of a green bean.This green bean will be 100% consumed in less than 12 hours!
Good morning, my friends. I got up with my super early alarm an hour ago to write in this space, but I had to get back into bed due to lack of adequate sleep, and while I’m sorry that I failed to post here, I’m glad that I got in the extra sleep mileage, especially since I ended up having a fascinating dream that I hope to remember. (I should try to jot it down.)
I wish you all a fabulous day or night, wherever you are and whatever the case. I’ll sign off with a pic of my new snail, who I’d planned for you to meet today! This is Sherlock the mystery snail, and he wishes you a good day or night, as well:
We’ve had a light and semi-steady rain these last three days… unusual in the desert. A double rainbow appeared in the sky yesterday morning, and yesterday evening the sunset was spectacular. It compelled me to take a photo (which I thought I’d share above). Thus summer winds down gloriously, and I’m looking forward to the new season.
Geronimo has his pre-hibernation appointment tomorrow, so I can see what’s what with the little guy. It’s an exciting time to be a desert tortoise!
On that short note, blessings to you all, my friends. May your days shine bright and your nights shine softly.
When you absentmindedly step off of a loading dock and your mistake hits you in an instant not unlike the one wherein a cartoon coyote realizes that the ground beneath him disappeared because he’d run off of a cliff and your immediate physical reflex is to pull up your feet so you can land on the soles of them and you do but then you also fall forward onto your knees because you didn’t have time to re-calibrate your center of gravity before landing and you couldn’t catch yourself with your hands because you were holding something in each one and then you spring up from your hard-impact Olympic-caliber foot/knee-landing combo feeling even more like an idiot than you did at the beginning of the day when you wore your new prescription sunglasses into work and forgot that you had them on and wondered why everything was dark and the whole thing strikes you as an elaborate metaphor but you can’t think of for what and this seems like a part of the problem plus the ramifications of an entirely different flavor of bad decision unfold into the evening and as you slip into the resulting episode of depression you feel that you’d jinxed yourself by writing a positive mental-health post the previous week and the only thing that came of the whole thing was this run-on sentence the length of a long paragraph. This is all I have to offer you today, my friends. I’m sorry.
Here’s hoping that today is better than yesterday (and the day before, for that matter). I’m taking my bruised knees into work along with a Starbucks triple-shot energy coffee drink because I’ve recently fallen into the habit of dumping chemicals into my body first thing in the morning and now I’m addicted, but that’s a topic for a whole different blog post, perhaps.
I hope this find you wrapping up a much better week than the one I’m about to finish. Take care out there, my friends.
Hello, friends. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a weird week over here on my end. For instance, I took my car, Dysis, to the car wash yesterday. It should have been just another visit to the car wash, the same one I’ve gone to for years, but all of a sudden, it wasn’t. It wasn’t the same. It was different.
Instead of standing at the window ledge in the large car wash store – which was gone, the store – to watch my car as she passed through the mechanical stages of the wash, I found myself sitting inside the car as she passed through those stages. They changed the entire operation. You now sit in your car to go through the wash, then pull up where they tell you so you can get out and wait while they vacuum and wipe down the inside and probably the outside, too.
I avoid drive-through car washes because of my high anxiety levels when I’m in them, closed inside of a vehicle with the sound of water and air hitting it and visibility reduced to practically nothing. Now I was there, in it, going through it, beset with alarming neon lights that turned the water into psychedelic rivulets, bright color shooting through the torrents of water. It was all so unexpected and bizarre that I almost expected Nicolas Cage to step out in front of me at the end. Have you ever seen Mandy?
Of course I took pics.
This is what I saw – all I could see – as I sat in my car going through the car wash. Nightmare trip fuel.A Nicolas Cage moment minus Nicolas Cage.
The disappearing car wash wasn’t the only weirdness of the week, but it was the only one that I could photograph. And nothing was weird in a really bad way. It’s just been a strange seven days.
Greetings from the night of this magickal new moon, my friends. This week’s gone quickly, I feel. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. It was one of those weeks where anything weird that may have gone down was inconsequential. For instance, I had a wardrobe malfunction at work yesterday, but no one noticed, so that was okay. I fixed it immediately and life went on.
One thing I like about wearing our company t-shirts is the uniformity of it. We’re all in jeans and black shirts. The only time that people pay attention to my clothing is when something obvious is going on with it, like my phone’s flashlight is on in my back pocket, which happens a lot.
My phone in my back pocket gets up to all kinds of shenanigans. In addition to turning on my flashlight ten or so times a day, it operates the calculator. It plays songs on Spotify. It turns on airplane mode. It turns on Do Not Disturb. It turns off Bluetooth. It informs me of the current moon phase. And it does call people. And there’ve been times it’s done all of these things at once! It’s aggravating, but I’m kind of proud of it. I mean, does your phone light up your ass like a Christmas tree? Does it perform and solve extended and intricate mathematical equations?
I mean, look at what my butt did with my calculator the other day. I took screenshots. My ass is a goddamn mathematical genius.
I could see it as amusing, but it’s mostly just a pain in the butt to have to undo things it does. If there was a more convenient way to carry it around, I’d consider it.
Like my minor wardrobe mishap the other day, though, my butt horsing around on my phone is pretty inconsequential.
I hope you all have a marvelous day or night, friends. Do something rejuvenating for yourselves as the moon is new.
It’s been too long since I’ve come at you with cat pics, I’ve realized, so tonight I’m here to remedy the situation. Another thing, my friends, is that my last few cat posts have been dedicated Salem posts. While Salem lived her beloved feral kitty experience outdoors, Nenette’s lived her own truth here in the house. Which is to say that she occupies her space in the loudest quiet way possible, her every soft step deafening in its decisiveness. Even if changing her direction mid-course. Even if startled by the drop of a gum wrapper. Nenette invented the “I meant to do that” save.
She still communicates with a shake of her collar jingling her two metal tags. She still drinks from her little water glass, and she still paws at the floor in front of it before dipping in.
And she still hates having her picture taken. She’s so good at avoiding it that I’d more or less given up on the endeavor. Last night, though, I could tell that she was too chilled out to want to make an escape. I took advantage, and here we are.
This is Nenette waiting for me to get into bed.
Trying to decide whether she should care that there’s a camera looming.She cares.A lot.Everything is fine.Maybe.But hey, dinnerz was tasty.And the bed is comfy.There’s no such thing as too comfortable though.
My favorite inexplicable thing about Nenette is that she smells like floral perfume. It’s one of the greatest spooky and fun mysteries of ever, and I wish I could share it with you, this fragrance. I’ve long since stopped trying to figure it out. It’s not any perfume that I wear, and she never comes into contact with anyone else, much less someone who wears fragrance. Nenette just smells like her sweet self, which, I guess, is flowers.
As if I could love her more.
I wish you a wonderful day today, or night tonight, as the case may be. Thank you for being here, friends. You are beautiful.
That Asian-Looking Chick 