I am taking care of bureaucratic tasks that turn out to be not that onerous. I now have a parking pass on its way to me, a street performer permit in my bag, and good results on my cholesterol test this morning. So there. Edit: AND my A1C is OK. Not amazing, but OK.

While waiting for various other shoes to drop later this week at work, I finally found the gumption to assemble my new lawnmower today (not that it required too much assembly, which was a happy discovery). Now all I need is to buy some safety goggles and charge up the battery on a sunny day once the grass has grown long enough to mow.

When is it time to stop with #ShePersisted?Because I've been slogging hard sending out short stories and haven't been published for two years(and that was on a friendly market) I've dusted myself off a bunch, taken craft classes(But probably will never be in a position to be an MFA candidate...if I wanted to go forward, I'm not even really sure what that is.)

I hope therapy is helpful for Matilda. I had a crafting day with Crafty Friend and it was great . I'm off next Tues so we are doing it again... we haven't been able to get together since October.

Scrappy the cat has been missing. Or bad been. He was injured prior to going missing and he finally showed up in the outside laundry room tonight. Or maybe he's been hiding in there ? I don't know. What I do know was that he was bleeding and it looked so bad. M was sure he'd been shot. We bundled him up and drove to the Vet ER.

He has a really bad abscess. Needs stitches probably. And it is near his butt so it looked like he may be been rectally bleeding. (He wasn't but we couldn't tell). I honestly thought we would get to the vet and he would have bled to death . Or near to it

I will say as stressful as living with M's Mom is it means I don't have to spend a lot of money day to day so a surprise $700 ish vet bill makes a dent but it's not going to make me broke. I don't know if they need all the money right now we are still waiting for him to be done.

I also got the low down from Crafty Friend on how the Creative resource center is doing and her job. Their donations and sales have tripled so that is good. But there is a lot of disorganization on how things are being run because of the huge growth. It also sounds like they are trying to give all the employees a voice in how things are run . And I was listening to her and just kept being baffled at how the whole system isn't falling apart. I don't think the people who are in cha ge have retail management experience and they need someone preferable who has worked on thrift but of not at least someone who has run a store.

Oooof, Buffistas. I'm so sorry it's so difficult for many of you, your loved ones and your pets. Much ~ma to all.

Here I'm starting to realize that the current level of executive function is pretty much what I have to work with and its not going to return to normal (pre war level). War (and resisting it) takes a lot of energy. The dark humor that's going around is that if everyone is air dropping emergency supplies on Gaza, maybe they can also air drop a new government here while they're at it.

The dark humor that's going around is that if everyone is air dropping emergency supplies on Gaza, maybe they can also air drop a new government here while they're at it.

I...have to assume you don't want the US's help with that? Given our track record?

My hope remains that either there will be a general strike (less likely now) or that Gantz and Eisenkot will resign and allow the opposition to get enough votes to vote against the government (the parliament will be out on a leave from April 7th, so this will have to happen soon or wait until May 19th when the parliament is back on work). Anshel says late May, the earliest [link] and for me it feels like way too many days for the war to keep going on and for the hostages to remain in Gaza. If there's a ceasefire and a hostage deal, sure. The waiting will be easier. I'll breathe easier. Right now, watching this nothingness government continues to destroy the place I call home is also not an easy experience. So dark humor it is.

Definitely get it. Also, sometimes wish we could have a new government flown in too.(not quite in the same way, but...)

Yikes, Shir.

I’ve been staying at my sisters and visiting my dad. He keeps the tv on Fox News all day long. They keep it on MSNBC all day long. It’s a bit trippy to go back and forth.

I have been away for nearly a week!! We took off for New Orleans at 6 AM on Friday and didn’t get back until midnight on Monday, and I didn’t even bring a laptop! I posted some pictures via FB from time to time from my phone, but doing much of anything on my phone makes my eyes very unhappy. It did make me realize that a few tech free days from time to time is a good plan. Didn’t really watch any tv or catch any news either. Nice! Of course I have been crazed since we got back.

New Orleans was a delight. I checked off everything on my short list. First smonster hugs, also on the list was shrimp & grits because you can’t trust it here, then some pimento cheese which is available here, but I associate it with New Orleans. The weather was good, but the walking kinda treacherous for my tricky hip. I did manage to walk over 3 miles a day, so more steps than I have done recently. I did my PT every day, but between the walking and all the PT my hip was super mad at me by the time I got home.

Went to the doctor yesterday and he gave me another pain killer to try. He thinks I should be able to tolerate this one. Let’s hope. I don’t like the notion of taking them daily for the foreseeable future, but the pain has to go.

This morning we had to take Skinner to the vet. We picked him up from our friend Tuesday morning. He had been fine while he was there, but only at a couple bites of breakfast and wasn’t interested in more. Since then big digestive issues. We were afraid he had a blockage, because he will eat anything. Did the tests and brought the vet a sample of stuff. Vet bets he ate something like iguana poop and got ecoli. Lab will tell more, but treating him with that assumption. X-ray showed no block, so at least he didn’t eat a tennis ball. Dogs!

And now the meara since I was about 100 posts behind…

And the raise does pretty much cover my water bill, so that's something sort of tangible.

One who exceeds expectations should drink for free.

I expect Isabella will feel blindsided and betrayed by the news.

No doubt, but her grief over the impending loss of her mother will likely overwhelm that response in the short term. Her response could be brutal, but I hope she can find some understanding of her mother's state of denial.

I had my doctor's appointment and I my blood pressure was high.

Yes, you need to take it seriously. I found that active stress reduction techniques help. I even listed to binaural beats in the background. Watchful diet. Sleep! All that stuff we are supposed to do.

Lasagna is a perfect example of that kind of meal. You can make a pot of chili, or stew.

Mmmm, lasagna! My only means of success is planning out my week of menus over the weekend, ordering pickup of groceries, then following the plan. I love to cook, but the part of deciding what to eat tonight is torture for me so having a calendar to look at that tells me zucchini pizza or whatever tonight takes that part out of the equation.

Matilda texted me from school with a picture of herself with tears streaming down her face.

There is no date that you can predict it will stop. Even many years later something can sneak up and bring on the tears. I was much older than Matilda when I lost my parents. It is surely another level of grief when you are at an age of such high emotional response. My heart hurts for all of you. (I lost my mom 8 years ago when I was 62, and yesterday when I was driving home from the doctor my brain sent me a message that I needed to call mom and update her. Brains be weird.)

Here I'm starting to realize that the current level of executive function is pretty much what I have to work with and its not going to return to normal (pre war level). War (and resisting it) takes a lot of energy.

Functioning at anything approaching normal level has to be nearly impossible in the midst of war. Thinking of you and sending ~ma every day for sanity to emerge.

Hi all!