the girly who shall end all girls

C and I are taking a long weekend on Whidbey Island for our anniversary (observed).* we're in a ridiculously well-appointed cottage on a farmette with goats and chickens, surrounded by lush NW woods. i think the only thing missing from the kitchen was a meat thermometer. (like, there's an espresso machine and an immersion blender and a waffle maker and some kind of milk foaming machine in addition to the usual pots and pans.) the hosts are ridiculously friendly and have already given us fresh eggs and a chunk of the smoked cheddar that they make on top of the local mead that was waiting for us in the fridge when we arrived.

yesterday started out like it should: we went out for breakfast in a nearly empty restaurant near home, packed our things at a reasonable pace, and had an easy time getting a ferry and finding the place. when we moved our things inside, the dog wasn't exploring the space, she was staying right by the door.

well, it turns out she was hanging out by the door because there's a runner there. she did come upstairs early on when i called her to come with me, and then she went right back by the door. she takes time to get used to new spaces, so i didn't think much of it until i was ready for bed and called her to come with me. she scrabbled a bit coming over, then skidded on the stairs and rushed back to the runner by the door and cowered there, shaking.

the flooring everywhere in the place is very smooth wood laminate.

she won't put a paw on the floor, the floor is lava. last night was rough; she was refusing her favorite treats and not touching her food, which is her signal of extreme agitation and distress. we finally got something in her by spreading wet food on a plastic lid and holding it for her to lick since she wouldn't touch it if we put it on the floor in front of her. and i realized: our kitchen has flooring like the flooring here.** i never observed her having any traction issues in our kitchen, but now i'm positive that we were making her do the equivalent of negotiating a sheet of ice every time she wanted to eat or drink, for years. so i had a meltdown. i was so damn tired and so very guilty, and i felt like a total fuckup.

we pulled out the sofabed so that we could be near her instead of going to a location she couldn't get to at all, since she was so miserable. the sofabed, unlike the lovely bed upstairs, has a shit mattress where you can feel all the support bars. i slept hard once i fell asleep, but i've been wrecked all day today. it's not just the mattress, the feeling reminds me of the kind of shaky post-adrenaline feel i get after falling down and picking myself up again.

we collected every throw and area rug in the place, plus the yoga mats,*** and have patched together a dog-safe area on the main floor that covers most of the living area where we hang out. i did some research and learned that we had also done her a disservice by not having her nails short enough - they dig in with them like cleats when they need traction, and if they're too long on slippy surfaces the dog ends up lifting their paw pads off the floor when they try to grip and it makes things worse. fortunately the local pet store does walk-in nail trims, so that's done (she hated it). she's still mostly hanging out in her safe place, but i've coaxed her in by the couch a few times today. so maybe she'll feel up to exploring the carpet archipelago before we go home.

i think tonight we're going to try sleeping upstairs because the sofabed isn't sustainable. i considered trying to take her back home for boarding, but they want a vaccination for canine influenza that we haven't gotten yet, so that's just another way that we're failures at taking care of the dog. maybe in time we'll laugh about this.




*it's actually the Ides of March but having an event/travel on a Tuesday is just weird. on the actual evening we went out to dinner at the same place we went in 2020. besides being a gluten-free kitchen, they're still asking for vax cards, bless them

**we had trouble when her food was in the kitchen - she wouldn't go in if anyone else was there, and howled when any visitor got near the kitchen doorway. we thought she was unhappy about the confined space - it's narrow and has one entrance. we moved her food station during the pandemic and all skittishness around food ended. she doesn't even care if we step over her while she eats. and while she looks in, she never puts all four paws in the kitchen.

***did i mention this place is ridiculously well-appointed? there's even one of those laptop rests with fans innit.

oh lawd it's hot, we're sitting in the dark as still as possible. (no air conditioning, it's 98F right now and it will be hotter tomorrow and Monday. the last time it got this hot here was in 2009.) the dog is at daycare in the ac until later in the evening - they're not doing any afternoon walks today because they're worried about burning pupper feet on the hot sidewalk. i got a haircut this afternoon, and impulse-bought gelato for C and me on the way home. it was a race against time - with a cup of gelato in each hand, both melting and dripping like mad, me licking up what drips i could while walking home as fast as i could and trying not to get chocolate on my clothes.

fortunately there was someone in the elevator to punch buttons and C had the door propped open to the hall so it wasn't TOO hard to get home and shove the cups into the freezer before i washed my hands. i suspect there's gelato all over my keys and in my purse, but it was worth it. C had Theo chocolate and Hawaiian macadamia hazelnut, and i had lemon meringue pie and bourbon vanilla.

***
i haven't written for a while because i didn't want to write about my dead parent feelings. i was able to talk about a nice memory of Dad without getting upset while i was getting my hair cut today, so that was good and getting better, i think. (C tells me that he got surprise grief every so often for a few years, so i will just need to roll with that.) the memory was that before i was in school full time i used to go along with Dad when he got his hair cut - old school barbershop where you walk in and then hang out and shoot the shit until a chair is open for you. they always had comic books, and those are my first memories of reading comics.* all this spurred by my stylist's Barbicide jar which appears to be completely unchanged in the intervening years.
* * *

i spun a self-striping true three-ply yarn from two space dyed braids of BFL wool, which i was not really skilled enough to do and will probably not attempt again for a long time. it involves a lot of weighing and being extremely consistent...and ultimately being willing to break the plies and edit when things just aren't lining up. but it's done now and in the ball it is very much what i hoped, the kind of gradual transition between the color bands that you get in Noro but a three-ply. i probably should feature it in a sweater since it will wear hard, but i'm looking at some sideways shawls that i'm more likely to wear.




*and the ubiquitous Hostess ads which apparently dates me pretty exactly

1) How is your year going so far?
If my year started on the 20th (i feel like it did) then it's been mostly good, very busy at work, shadowed by having my dog get hurt this week. But she's on the mend and it's nice to have insurance for her and just say "yes" to the vet.

2) Have you gotten vaccinated yet? If not, when do you think it's likely to happen?
No. I'm at the bottom of the list: hoping for June/July if Washington keeps up the target pace, but if we're looking at national pace then, well, I guess maybe for Christmas.

3) Are you bored or are you busy these days?
Busy. Work has really picked up and even though I'm done with school I am soon to be in four RPGs so I'm likely to end up with five regular social things a week, which in the before times would be unacceptable. We'll see how this goes.

4) Is this pandemic good or bad for your finances?
Good? I still have my job. We order takeout regularly because we're sadto support the locals, I have fits of online shopping, but the truth is that there's no small item impulse shopping or lunches out or transportation or live entertainment or movies or conventions or travel. My yoga teacher got a desk job and the pool is closed. For example, there were so few in-person soccer games in 2020 that almost our entire season ticket buy rolled over to this year (and of course we weren't buying concessions).* Our rent went down when we renewed the lease. We've given more to charity than ever and our savings are growing.

5) What are you missing most these days?

it changes from day to day. today, it was being in my office - there's a Slack channel called #slobs-at-the-eyrie where we used to post pictures of messes found in the office. it has, of course, been dead for more than nine months and today someone posted about how neat and responsible we've become. it was funny and horrible at the same time. we're getting ready for our annual team "offsite" and fuck it's just going to be a two-day video call.





* I would lay money that we'll have a similar situation this year, with no in-person games until near the playoffs

i've made a lot of random and not-so-random purchases the last few months of being at home.

• mumble-mumble TeeTurtle t-shirts (mostly preorders, mostly for C)


• tea from the place i would normally walk to from the office


• road id for C's fitbit and the dog's collar. (it's been a struggle to get a medical alert for his penicillin allergy to last, hope this is a good solution.)


• Turkish towels. which, it turns out, are coming from actual Turkey. (i chose the vendor because they were direct trade, was not expecting it to be _that_ direct.)


• a lickimat.


• various hair products - i'm trying to make a commitment to buy from black-owned businesses for my curly hair needs. (the sampler from EcoSlay was nice but not ideal for my hair, the Miss Jessie's Honey Curls is a real holy grail - works great, smells better.)


• i got a cute dress at Target in the before times. i love it and they still had some so i ordered a few more of the same in other colors


• fiber from a dyer i like who had to move across the country.


plus there have been a lot of actual essential things, and hair dye, and yarn for a blanket.

what random things have you bought since March?

what Hogwarts house does your dog belong to?

Leela is a Gryffindor.

1. How did you name your pets?
There was some research done on dog names that suggested that they best understand two syllables with a vowel sound at the end. So we start there. Then no duplication with friends, family, or their pets. Must be spelled such that a vet office or stranger reading the collar tag can pronounce it.
after that, it's what is pleasant to say and/or meaningful to us. I've written a longer bit about naming our current dog previously, I'll try to link it. Leela (Sevateem, not Turanga) is just right.

2. Poirot or Miss Marpel?
Brother Cadfael.

3. Do you have a FB account too?
yeah. Facebook is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. I don’t browse it anymore. My friends have instructions to earburn me if they want me to see a thing.

4. Books - hardcover or paperback
books! Paperback or ebook; hardcovers are inappropriate for my lifestyle. I like hardcover for reference and game books.

5. Mobile(cell phone): Windows/Android or Apple?
The question is poorly formatted, Windows Phone and Android are separate operating systems. /pedant
Android. I had an iPhone but then they got too big to fit in my pocket.

Questions from thefridayfive

on Thursday, i had ice cream for dinner.

***
i had a draft post about how well my routine has been working, that Leela super-loves daycare, that i miss C but everything is suprisingly okay.

this is all still true.

but.

Wednesday night buhrger and butterflydrming met Leela for the first time. and she would not calm the fuck down. she just stood under the table and made her siren noise: roorooroorooroo. i took turns with mimerki sitting on the floor with her. she does react to new people entering the house, but it has always subsided quickly. not this night. she stopped being noisy eventually, but it was easy to set her off again and i had no idea why (other than the basic "you people aren't C, get out and send C in").*

that night she woke me up repeatedly with these horrible gagging noises. and i'd swim up enough to think that i needed to get her to the emergency vet, and then she would curl up and fall fast asleep, breathing normally. so we stumbled along until the regular vet opened in the morning, and they did a phone consult and assured me that nothing life-threatening was going on and they could see her Friday. having slept for shit, i called off and kept her home, where she eventually started to hawk up phlegm. so yeah, the vet saw her and confirmed that she has kennel cough (basically a doggie cold) and she'll get over it on her own. but she's very contagious, so she really shouldn't interact with other dogs for 10 days.

no daycare. no playing with her neighborhood friends. oof.

since she's so skittish with people, i can't have a dog walker come in. i need to figure out this weekend how to plan my work schedule. the next couple weeks are also the viaduct closure (traffic doom in downtown Seattle) so traveling between home and the office will have additional challenges. i think i'll probably just do shorter office days and log on from home in the evenings.
***

D starts weekly radiation soon, on top of the chemo. i told C about the dog drama (because in his position i would have wanted to know) and the dumbass told his mom. therefore D, who is retired but will never stop being a cop, has figured out that not everything is okay here and is fretting about disrupting our lives and making noises about how C doesn't have to stay.

i want to yell at him for that.

but i understand. i want people in my life to understand that stuff is happening, but that i also need to be treated mostly like i am a normal person on a normal day and not some fragile glass thing. i got a haircut this week, and my stylist V who i love for NOT being an incessant small-talker and cutting my hair in a businesslike fashion while i sit quietly and enjoy having her hands on my head, asked how i was doing...and i told her. she then talked about cancer stuff the entire time. which was really very sweet. but what i want when i see people is to NOT talk about cancer or how living without C feels like a rehearsal for life after he dies.

it's like wearing a backpack. the weight is distributed pretty well and my conditioning gets better all the time. some days it feels heavier than other days. this week i had to rebalance the load. i'd say that eventually i will get to take it off, but the truth is that it's only the weight and how well it's fitted that changes. everyone is carrying their stuff all day every day.

it's a beautiful day. i'm going to go see the sounders probably lose. My hair is cute, Leela's coughing less and less, The Blue Sword came out as an ebook, and last night pirate A brought me Twizzlers. i am, in spite of everything else, reasonably happy.




*i wish it worked that way. if yelling at everyone who enters the apartment would magically produce C, i would do it too.

• i'm in love with The Great British Bake Off. (that's "The Great British Baking Show" to PBS viewers. no links, wikipedia and pretty much everything else online is full of spoilers.) if you loved the Japanese Iron Chef for its combination of food porn and a window into another culture, and you also enjoy the human interest segments during the Olympics, then you just might love this show. (they even have little segments where they visit food historians! food. historians.) yes, it's reality tv where there are challenges and people get eliminated. but it's a clean competition - no inducing of conflict, no creation of rivalries or villains, no nasty judges. the people competing actually cheer for each other and help each other along.* they hug the people who get eliminated at the end of the episode. one of the judges totally teared up talking about the awesomeness of the 2015 winner. it is sweet and soothing comfort tv. the 2014 season is on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

this gif of a penguin being tickled

this article about livestock protector dogs keeping fairy penguins safe from predation

C has been listening to Rivers of London books on audiobook, so i can finally burble at him about them! (he's only a couple in, so that one thing hasn't happened yet and it's killing me.) these might be books that the buhrger would like? for me they scratch the same itch as the Laundry.

today is Tuesday. for some reason, i was convinced that it was Thursday,and cubemate B believed that it was Friday. we have been making jokes about this all day. meanwhile, cubemate J is really excited about the computer he's building for himself, and is going to make an alicorn mod for the case. i am pretty thoroughly delighted that a guy who is older than me and really into sports is also unabashedly into Twilight Sparkle.

also, i have a dog. she is energetic and exasperating and ridiculously cute and affectionate. dog.

*i don't recommend any of the regional clones that i've tried. there's something very specific about Brit culture plus these judgesand these hosts. GBBO is where it's at.

I had a Very Seattle dog walk yesterday.

We were in a part of the neighborhood where most yards are behind a retaining wall a few feet above street level. Leela had sighted a squirrel on the wall, and i was letting her run back and forth at the end of the leash (it's very efficient exercise - i act as a fulcrum, the dog rapidly multiplies distance traveled). Somewhere in there i put a foot wrong and went sprawling, took the skin off of the heel of my left hand, and terrified the dog.

1. squirrel on retaining wall


2. heaved and broken sidewalk with secret patch of slick mud hidden by drifted leaves


3. capable team of passerby who lifted me up, produced water to wash my wounds, took control of the dog and soothed her, then busted out their large first aid kit and disinfected and bandaged my hand.

Seattle!

The rest of the walk passed without incident and when i got home to do a thorough clean and trim off dangly skin, i was sad that i had to take off bandages that were way nicer than the ones i had at home.