The singer and piano player I heard last night were just great!
One thing last night that was not great was the entire electronic card payment system on Bart screwed up so nobody could put more money on those cards, and for those of you reading this who are not from the bay area, all the buses and stuff use those cards, not just Bart. I called their office this morning and the people I talked to weren't even aware there was a problem, so who knows when this is gonna get fixed, in the meantime I only have 2 dollars left on my card which isn't even enough to get on the damn bus.

On Thursdays, I play volleyball, pick up and deliver the Timber Ridge Times and give myself a shot. All before 9. But today there is no Timber Ridge Times so my schedule is already fubared. But, now I'm caught up.

Yesterday I spent the day inside my apartment seeing no one after we got home from the vet's. Probably today I will do the same. I did get the sleeves on my new jacket shortened and I started a new yarn project which I may or may not continue. And I started a new book by a favorite author which is so far a disappointment.

The cats' water fountain quit fountaining. I'm ready for a new/different one anyway so it works out fine.

I got offered a job. Legit pay job. The company that makes the financial software I use, wants to hire me. Part time for kind of customer service. I appreciate the offer but I just can't squeeze it into my schedule. My finances are now so dirt simple, I really only use their software to collect the data which, honestly, I could do manually nearly as easily.

I just cut off all my fingernails. It always makes me feel like I should donate them to some forensic endeavor. Probably I'm just watching too much crime TV or reading too many crime books.

Somehow my kitchen has gotten itself into a mess. So first I'm going to get dressed and then I'm going to clean it up. And then I'm going to ... ahhhh the joy of retirement.

I woke up hungry at 6:00 this morning, and came out and ate my Cheerios, but didn't have coffee. Then I went back to bed and slept til 10:30. I got up and had coffee and checked to see if my Funko Pop had appeared. Spoiler alert... it hasn't.

I puttered on the computer for a few hours, checking for the Pop every hour, and finally went into the bedroom. I played solitaire for awhile, then started reading a Ngaio Marsh mystery that I had on my TBR pile.

I read that til 6:00 and then started trying to get the Teams up and running to Team the FWiB. Spoiler alert... I couldn't. We ended up using my phone.

At 8:00 I went to my D&D game. I started out having to use Discord on my phone but as the battery drained I restarted the computer and got Discord up, an surprisingly it worked quite well.

The game was fun, we battled lizard-men, bug bears, grey ooze, and an owl-bear.

I self rec'd my 9/11 story on the Starsky and Hutch Facebook group. For anyone interested, it's here on AO3:

The Only Thing I Can Be Sure Of

After the game I had dinner an fed the pets. Now it's time for bed.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. The Discord mostly worked.

3. Ebay gives refunds.

4. My D&D group.

5. Good books.

6. My story got a really nice comment.

Having some orange blossom tea and looking forward to several things, listening to somebody play piano tonight, seeing some friends over the weekend and another friend's awesome birthday party on the 22nd.

Yes. It's true. By the time I got Biggie into the carrier - he would NOT go into the smaller one and I had to chase him around the room for 5 minutes before he would go into the smaller one and he was so pissed. I knew then, that it was The Last Trip. But, the tests all came back fine! No bladder rocks. No chrystals. No nuthin!

She even gave him his vaccines early so we don't have to go back until March 2027.

On the down side, it means no more cry kibble and no more treats ever. Just prescription canned food. Chewy will be Happy. And she doubled up the size of the one medicine so now instead of 4 tablets a day, he only gets 2.

So... pretty much a Vet Victory. I did forget to have them trim his nails - I mean as long as he was pissed off anyway, but oh well.

i'm a few days late on this, but better late than never...

websites

i got nothing done last month, lol. i hate february. worst month by far.

march goal: make new contact page for redcrown.net, poke some more at wip layouts. keeping this simple so i actually do it...

writing

still no progress on endwalker fic, alas. however, i did manage to make progress on a new original story idea.

march goal: continue working on new original idea (worldbuilding, mostly, but i'm also ironing out plot and characters, etc).

video games

hey i actually achieved something here! i finished trails in the sky the 3rd, which i enjoyed a lot. i didn't really end up liveblogging it as i hoped but the tl;dr is that it was an excellent wrap-up for the previous two games and offered a lot of interesting bits of worldbuilding that have made me very excited for the rest of the series.

and on that note, i've started trails from zero! i'm not that far in, just finished the prologue last night, but i'm REALLY enjoying it so far. i'm short on time this week but i'm hoping to play more of it when i'm able.

the march goal therefore is to finish trails from zero, which i think i can manage if i genuinely set time aside for it. so far so good, but we'll see how the rest of the month shakes out.

in reading news, i'm once again stalled and either need to dnf or commit to the book i'm reading. unsure right now which one it will be...

Biggie takes 3 pills every morning and 2 at night. He's pretty good about it. But, on vet days, he takes two additional ones and, turns out, 5 pills in one morning is 2 pills too many. And now he's under the bed in a drugged sleep. In an hour and a half, I have to get him out from under the bed and into the carrier which he will not like. And then to the vet which he will like less.

While I was swimming this morning, I decided that unless there has been massive forward progress, this is the last trip for a while. He has crystals in his urine and a high pH and bladder stones. But, he's had all of those things now for months. He's happy. He's eating well. He's pooping and peeing like every cat should. So torturing him every month is beginning to feel just mean. We're on to a quality of life issue here - his and mine. It's a risk but one I'm ready to take.

Nothing else going on today. I got a new jacket/sweater/hoodie on Amazon that I really like but the sleeves are too long. The internet says that hand sewing really needs "steel needles made for fabric" so Amazon is bringing me some today. Now I wonder what all the needles that I have now are made from and for. I'm willing to try new for $5.

I probably should do a load of laundry today, too. My hamper is full.

But first the vet's and probably I should get dressed.

Years ago, I made a towel holder, and it was time to replace it. I had also used a hair elastic to hold the towel, which worked, but it would sometimes twist and tangle and become a nuisance. I told myself I'd get a cheap bangle bracelet to replace the elastic and kept forgetting until a recent craft store trip, where I found a metal ring. The downside to this is it's somewhat heavy; I had to reinforce my stitching to hold the ring securely.




This is 100% cotton yarn with no pattern. I winged it: With a foundation chain that looked long enough, I worked a row of single crochet up and down the chain, as though making an oval. Then I switched colors and made half-double crochets, followed by another color change and reverse crab stitches.

☝️Remember to leave a button hole, because I did not and had to cheat it by manipulating the foundation chain and finding a smaller button.

Having gotten to bed last night at 4:30 am, I tried to sleep late but kept waking up.

Finally I woke up at 11:30, and couldn't get back to sleep at all, so fonally at 12:30 I got up and had breakfast and coffee.

I changed the turtle tank water again, this time I got almost all of it out and it looks much much better. I love that little pump.

That was about the only good thing about the day though. At 7:00 I tried to team the FWiB. It did not work. I finally had to use my phone while trying to get the Teams to load on the computer. We gave up finally and just used the phone til 8:00.

Then I tried to get Zoom going for my meeting. It was a nightmare. Everything went wrong. At 9:00 I gave up as a useless attempt. So no meeting for M tonight which I feel very badly about.

I checked my phone for email and discovered that the replacement Funko Pop Stephen Colbert that I ordered from Ebay had been delivered. So I went to collect it. Not there. I am hoping like the Thriftbook package on Sunday, it'll turn up tomorrow, but I'm not sanguine about it.

I called the Kid, she didn't answer so I texted her. We'll see if she calls. We have to make plans for getting together with RK, he's going to bring some boxes over to the storage unit from my apartment for the Kid.

Then I called mashfanficchick and we talked for awhile which made me feel better. So that's good.

Then it was pet feeding time, and I fed the pets and have been fighting with the computer.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. Clean turtle tank.

3. My meetings even when I can't get to them.

4. RK said he could help with the boxes.

5. mashfanficchick

6. Fudge pops.

Ha. So — so far at 3/4 for rejections (for jobs and writing submissions) over the last, er, month. Jobs — one I just did not hear from (the posting was removed and then relisted), and the other was a mismatch between what their ad said and what they actually wanted (they were nice about it, but it wasn't a fit). The writing thing I figured I would be rejected for, too, since right after I submitted, they shared on their social media, "we're especially interested in stories about [SOMETHING I DID NOT WRITE], as we've been inundated with stories about [WHAT I DID WRITE]", which...oops.

It's...I dunno. As I said to Ed in therapy yesterday, I know that if you don't submit stuff, you can't, like, expect to have any chance of getting stuff published, and if you don't apply to jobs, you won't get hired, but both processes suck a lot and I am not a fan.

I have one more piece currently out for publication. It was an even longer shot than the first one, so, er. I'm preemptively going, "yeah, I'm going to guess I didn't get in for this one, either" and shrugging. At least I tried?

Right, anyway.

The upshot to this is that while I was very much In My Feelings yesterday re: rejections and just feeling low, I got a very nice comment on one of the things I have on AO3 that I'm most proud of (The Road Through the Mountains, because...yeah, anyway). Like, nice enough that it made me teary, because it came in very shortly after the extremely impersonal writing rejection (like, they misspelled my name, that's how impersonal we're talking, ha), and it was very clear from what they'd written that they loved the piece, which was a great feeling. ♥

And, er, well.

The auctions for Fandom Trumps Hate opened for bidding today — they'll be open through Friday — so imagine my complete and total shock when I opened the bidding sheet for the writing I'm offering and saw that there is, in fact, a bid — one placed pretty early, even, for 5x what my minimum bid listing is, from someone I don't know.

I had sort of half-expected that I was going to need to send someone $5 to bid on me, so this is a very pleasant surprise. ♥ Almost offsets the "ugh, applying for stuff is the WORST" feelings. :)

If you're wanting to bid, then, looks like you have to donate more than $25.

If you want tabletop (bespoke tabletop!!), that one is open and doesn't have any bids yet — you can find it here.

Air tag is set up and attached to Avalanche's collar. Hopefully this means she'll never escape again lol. She's not thrilled. I will keep an eye on her and make sure she's tolerating it okay, it's a bit clunky.

We'll keep her inside during our trip, it'll be okay, it'll be rainy and she likes being mostly inside in bad weather anyway.

My phone will alert me if she ever leaves the house. Super cool.

The CPA's office called to say my return was ready. She could mail it to me or I could pick it up. She called just before the house cleaner got here so I went to pick it up. Signed 2 things, paid the bill and brought home a gynormous envelope o' tax shit. This year, I only had paper tax documents for maybe 2 things. The rest were all digital. I scanned those 2 and uploaded everything. The CPA then printed out every single bit and it was a LOT. I think I'll just toss out all the backup shit, since I have copies

The cleaner was still cleaning so I sat in the elbow and read every page of the return. I am very ashamed at how little actually registered in my brain. I am fairly sure I could understand it all if I really tried and cared but I don't care and didn't try. What I do know is that the CPA earned every freakin' penny. And the numbers I was given last week were a bit off.

The CPA's bill is $950. Which I saw before I went over the return and kind of choked at. But, seeing the return, I know it's totally fair. BUT also... My refund is $8K. $5k is going to pay next year's estimated taxes - all four payments taken care of - NICE. Very nice. So the cash coming into my bank account is $3K which will totally cover the CPA bill and Biggie's vet and my fat drugs!

Because of the profit from the condo sale, I intentionally overpaid the estimated taxes last year. Ordinarily, I'd disapprove of that but today, I'm quite happy with myself.

Next year will be as simple as this year was complicated.

Also next year I have a note to myself to wait until all docs are in - so mid-Feb - before I upload anything. It feels like this year's taxes took forever to do when actually it was me that caused the delay. They only had everything for two weeks which is wildly reasonable.

Next up, I have to find where I put the tax returns. I have so little paper that I keep but I do keep the returns. They were on a shelf in the closet. They are likely in the storage area but first glance couldn't find them. Oh well.

A bit of a weird Purim. I showed up very late after all the initial chatting was done, since I was with Laila after her surgery, but fortunately when I arrived there was still some food left. I sat down while the Purimspiel was going on, watching most of it from the other room while I ate black bean burgers and fries and hummus with vegetables. It was entitled "The Tonight Spiel" and all television themed, including a "Niggun or Noggun" quiz show (a niggun is a wordless vocal melody), a dubbed-over version of the Princess Bride wedding scene, a Chicago version of Subway Takes called El Takes, and a Would I Lie to You?" section with the rabbis.

Unlike my complaints about last year, they did change the Megillah reading quite a bit this year. It was all television themed--chapter one of Esther had commentary based on the Real Housewives, chapter three had was based on Survivor, etc--but this was my favorite section:


yoni-labow-5693413a and whoolia45 were both there. I hadn't seen yoni-labow-5693413a in a while, so we caught up, chatted about our kids, I talked to whoolia45 about Laila, and we drank our respective drinks--as was traditional, I had found a drink ticket on the floor and so got an extra drink.

After listening to the Megillah, I saw kevin.hogan.353 and dana.kroop waiting near the door and went over to talk to them. I hadn't spoken to them in quite a while, so dana.kroop caught me up on what's been going on in their lives--kevin.hogan.353 had had quite a few drinks and was more prone to going on tangents--I and told them about Laila. We also mused a bit about the changes we've seen in Mishkan after going for years. dana.kroop said it's a different crowd and that's really true--I keep thinking when I go to a Mishkan event that I really don't know most of the people there, and sure, it's not helped by how I don't get to go very often anymore, but it's true. I look across the crowd and think, "What happened?"

You cannot stop in the same river twice. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Just before I was going to leave, hannah.bloom.75 ran up to me and ask me how the procedure went, so I chatted with her for a bit about how everything went well and Laila was peacefully sleeping when I left. Like she said, Purim was a very appropriate holiday after hearing such good news.

+ Very much had a plan to tidy my bedroom 100%, but then my dryer was like, "nah I'm not going to function" and I derailed completely. There's a couple more things I want to try to see if I can get it sorted, but if not I'll have to call for a repairperson ugh.

...so today I'm focused on cleaning the visible parts of my apartment instead lol.

+ Actually had lunch with a few of my friends today. It's been a while. Like, I didn't manage to meet a single one of them properly before Christmas even. How they all put up with a shut in like myself all these years, I just couldn't tell you. We tried a new noodle place, the food was excellent, I tried a marinated egg for the first time, and we were all laughing and enjoying ourselves.

One of my friends had helped clear out an apartment a couple of days ago, and when she saw the official and un-official guides for The X-Files in the donations box, she decided to grab them for me instead. Very sweet of her, and funny considering she did not know I'd just started watching s1 again.

+ Since AO3 seems to be fairly unstable atm I got some requests to do a new round of ao3_isdown, so come on over.

+ I've been fiddling with the idea for fannishtarot and running a Make Your Own Fandom Tarot event for a good long while now, gathering some quotes and such here and there. I think it would be such a rewarding way to deep dive into the tarot and also your own fandom(s) and fannish inclinations. Like, who or what would The Fool be to you in your chosen fandom? I think it'd be an excellent way to internalize a bunch of significators, etc. But I am not getting that started until I have a bunch more prep under my belt lol. I'd basically have to amass six months of posts beforehand, to make room for work schedules, travel, the occasional downtime/brain crash.

But it would be SO cool. I just hope some people will join in.

+ My Dune tarot will be arriving tomorrow, and I'd love to play with it a bunch. Let me know in the comments if you want me to do one of the book's spreads for you.

Gunna be here a lot while I detox from instagram.

Just finished another a/c quote, this one was much easier than the last two. I almost feel like, I would pay extra just to work with this place because it just feels better being in this person's presence. I don't know if that's a legit reason to pay more but we'll see what the quotes look like. Now that I've had some exposure to what we're looking for and the details involved, it's not as overwhelming and I can contribute to the conversation a little bit. I know what a load count is and we know about different kinds of energy efficiency, we know where the concrete pad needs to go for the unit and how far from the house it has to sit, etc. I will get one more quote, I think 4 is best in this instance.

adulting, bleargh.

Avalanche came out and snuggled with me on the deck this morning during my morning light therapy time, she was much snugglier than usual, extra affectionate, head-bumping me repeatedly, but she is staying inside otherwise. I wonder if she got more spooked than I realized, last night, on her little adventure. Or if it's just the incoming clouds and rain and drop in barometric pressure she feels. It's not forecasted to rain until tonight but it suddenly looks very dark and dreary outside, I think I will pull the deck chair back under cover now.

Josh admitted that he could have just forgotten to close the gate last night. That's totally possible, but I still want to get a lockable gate latch. We can put it on the inside, where there is no latch currently. Double up, why not.

Must try to make myself get changed and go do silks. I am so tired and achey and sad and unmotivated and just want to do absolutely nothing. Curl back up into bed and listen to self-care meditations. "I don't have to do anything to be worthy of love." I think silks will help. I can finish getting ready for the trip and setting up cat-sitting and all that when I get back. After another cup of coffee, ha.

Tummy hurts at the prospect of movement. Head is starting to hurt.

But movement is the only thing that will make me feel better. I know this from experience.

Waiting for the bug guy.

Taking a break from instagram. Did not realize how attached to it I have become, lately. It's such an ugly place. It didn't used to be. I don't know if my feed changed or my friends there changed, I can't tell. My account got reported for posts about feeling sad. Super angry about it. If I actually pay attention to the content of that place, despite how hard I try to keep it to pretty photos and animals and outdoors, it's so much depressing horrible (mostly political) stuff. How can you not expect people who absorb that to get depressed? Hypocrites. I gotta get out of there. I have justified its use for work, but I don't really get much business from that site. It's 99% word of mouth, and 1% facebook.

Will have to find more books while I'm away from there. Maybe I'll just stick to Avalanche posts and nothing else, from now on, I dunno. I think it's time to go.

...

I did get outside at 2:30am and clouds had rolled in, but I waited patiently for a gap and got to see one second of an eerie crescent. I love the black parts of lunar eclipses, the reddish/brown part is not my favorite actually. The different-shaped crescents touch something in my heart.

I still feel terrible. Disrupted sleep isn't helpful. But it's okay. I will be in Vegas tomorrow night, and hopefully in real sunshine all day Thursday, Friday, and much of Saturday.

I will not share photos of red rock canyon to instagram.

I just don't see eye to eye with the people here. We don't share the same hymn book we are not on the same wavelength. And it's me that is pretty much the one off. Big things and little. I've learned to just shut the fuck up most of the time. And I do enjoy spending time in my apartment with me. So it's not a disaster. I'm not wrong but I am on the side of the fence that has plenty of room.

Thankgod I don't run this place or have any decision making powers over any of it.

There is a woman here who does 3D plastic canvas needlepoint. Her stuff is on display this month and the legend near the display says she has done (and has) 50 of them - nearly every one in the Mary Maxim catalog. Holy fuck how and where does she keep them all? I can see doing one or two but 50? It's like me and the miniature kits or Lego kits. When they are done, then what?

I did hear back from the CPA who said he would follow up with admin today. I think my return is just stuck in a pipeline. But, it is done. I just want it done, done.

No plans for today. I will have to crack out of here this afternoon for the house cleaner. I'm fine with that sacrifice. There's a puzzle in the elbow that needs attention.

Just got a rush of adrenaline - I went to bed super early after a day that kind of wrecked me (or maybe I was already wrecked from the depressive episode I'm in and had a normal day, hard to tell sometimes) so crashed super early when I got home. I had left the cat door open like usual, when Josh went to bed he told me Avalanche had gone outside, this was maybe close to 11pm.

I woke up at 1am with no Avalanche, which is not normal - she sleeps with me all night, even when the cat door is open. I got up and combed the house from her, then back outside where I discovered that our back gate on the side yard was standing wide open.

Josh uses this gate to pull the trash bins out and it's trash night, so I don't know if he accidentally didn't latch it properly - he just installed a new latch on it, but one that doesn't lock - or if someone came through and opened it - occasionally we have people come looking through the bins for cans/bottles and maybe they saw the no-lock latch and helped themselves? There is a lightbulb laying in our neighbor's driveway randomly, so it looks like maybe someone was having an episode? (There is a halfway house across Hall blvd a few blocks away, apparently they wander around and sometimes aren't doing so great while in recovery.) Anyway, no sign of Avalanche.

It's a beeeaaauuuutiful night, so I came in and told Josh what happened and turned on the torch on my phone and started searching around each house around ours, first all of our bushes, then the neighbor's, then the next neighbor's, and so on.

I called the whole time. But cats in general will just stay hidden when they're scared or in unfamiliar territory, so I didn't count on her to come to me, and kept calling and looking and looking and calling.

Walked down Hall, the busy blvd one street over, calling into the blackberry bushes, listening, calling. Trying not to completely panic, trying to fight back thoughts of living without Avalanche for the rest of my life.

Turned a corner and went into the open property where the deer cross through, did not care about trespassing, was focused on finding my cat.

Found her! Waaaaay back in some bushes but I saw her little eyes and a little white cloud in the bushes and knew right away because this cute fuzzy vulnerable animal did not run from me.

She just kept doing what she was doing, sniffing and enjoying herself. She seemed a little scared but not too bad. Like, oh, mom found me, thought I heard her, I am probably not supposed to be here, I might have not figured out how to get home, but it's nice here, and mom's here now, I think I'll keep sniffing. She should have heard me easily and could have come toward my voice and slipped back through the hole in the open fence she most likely used to get where she was, and could have come to me when I first started calling, but no, she stayed and waited for me to reach her physically. I crept closer while calling and kneeling and eventually she started picking her way toward me gingerly through the wet leaves (the long grass was very dewy) and I scooped her up no problem.

There is a board missing between this property and our neighbor's, you can see our house through it, but I couldn't fit through. When I took Avi to that gap, she struggled to get out of my arms to go home as she could see it from there. I set her down for a sec and held onto her and tried to call Josh. Alas, we both have our phones on silence at night, and while Apple has a setting that will ring audibly on a second immediate call, Androids do not have this feature, so no amount of calls were getting to him.

So I had to carry Avi the long way down Hall blvd and back to our street around all the neighbor's houses.

She blessedly stayed calm in my arms this whole time, and was very curious to see everything on this street she had never seen before and took it all in eagerly. Part of me is glad she saw this, so if she ever ends up anywhere around there (hopefully this never happens again, but just in case!), she'll hopefully recognize it and be able to navigate home.

She usually never lets me carry her for any distance, so I think part of her knew this was important.

Such a good girl.

Once we were in clear view of the house she started squirming but not so much I couldn't hold on. I should have brought a leash in retrospect. But anyway, we got in the house no problem. Then I still couldn't find Josh anywhere, until he finally came back from wherever he had gone. He is a very unhappy camper. I was super angry he didn't answer his phone when I found her, super angry that he got a latch that didn't lock, super angry that maybe he accidentally left the gate open, but all of this was vastly overpowered by my relief at finding my cat. I did not express any of this anger. He also tried to call me and I realized my phone was also silenced so I was just as guilty as him for this oversight - totally understandable at 1am - so when I finally found him, I just explained what happened and where I found her and how, and that we a) need to turn on our phones when something happens in the middle of the night and b) need to get a locking latch for the gate. Josh asked why I hadn't put an air tag on Avi's collar yet, also a valid question. I have never used one and the one I was gifted is several years old, sitting unopened in a box, so have been intimidated by the process of trying to figure out how to use it, and adding it to her collar is another thing, would the extra weight bother her? Would the holder I got actually work? So I hadn't done so yet. My bad. That would have been really helpful tonight! Fortunately, I grew up with cats and know where they tend to go when they escape and don't want to come back in. Usually some nearby bush on someone's property, within a couple hundred feet. Just use a flashlight and look for the little glowy eyes. Easy to miss so you might have to look twice.

The eclipse is starting! I'm so wired from the event that I might just stay up for the whole thing. It will be fully eclipsed at 3-something am, another hour from now.

It was downright warm today and is a warm balmy night, the first we've had. It was actually really pleasant walking home with her. Not a single car went by on the usually busy boulevard. So peaceful. With a fuzzy-sided full moon overhead, lighting our way. Once we were inside, Avi wanted to go back outside immediately, she was having a great time, but now she's snuggled on my bed like nothing happened.

Oh the joys of having a spoiled little princess cat. Oof.