Shot down

I haven't shared a Little P. story in a while, so I wanted to tell you about talking to his mom yesterday. Since we both work in the same school district, I can reach her office by dialing her extension even though we're in different schools. Anyway, I was thinking about her and P. yesterday morning and how we hadn't talked in a while, so during a slow time I rang her up to say hello. *

Anyway, we chatted for a couple of minutes, caught up, etc. When I asked her how P. was doing, she told me about something that happened to him recently. His middle school (!) is having a Valentine's Day dance this Friday evening. There was a girl he liked, so he summoned his courage and asked her to go with him. So cute! Right? 

Except...you want to know how that little sh*t of a girl responded? 

Turned him down, which is perfectly fine, but then she told her circle of little catty mean-girl friends that he had asked her, and they all laughed at him.

Laughed at our little P.!

I was so mad.

Judon handled it like a pro, as usual. She didn't get too excited about it all, merely telling him, "Forget that girl. Go by yourself or with two or three of your best guy friends." She encouraged him to look on Amazon to find something he might want to wear, and he picked out a red suit jacket (!) so she ordered it for him. Then they shopped together for a shirt and pants to wear with it. I'm so glad he's going to go and I hope he has a blast! I told Judon to send me pictures of him all dressed up.

And I hope that girl gets a lesson from karma one day. 

Growing up is tough. I'm glad I don't have to do it again. I wouldn't go back to my middle school years for anything!

*I knew that she'd see who was calling, and if she was busy at the moment she wouldn't pick up. That's why I wasn't worried about disturbing her at work.

A new skill

For the first time ever, I made bread by hand today. It was a revelation. 

Not only was it far easier to do than I expected, it turned out great. Nice crust, nice light crumb, truly almost perfect. It's also delicious! After it cooled enough to slice we had it spread with softened butter and raspberry jam. It was the best thing I've eaten in ages.

A poem for Friday

 

Rant

Three months ago, on Election Day, I swore I wasn't going to let the second Trump term cause me the daily anxiety and stress that the first did. 

Yeah. That's not working out. At all. 

I've never been so frightened in my life over politics and the direction of our country. Every day it's just more and more horror. The rule of law, precedents, norms, civilized behavior..............none of it means jack shit anymore. 

I find myself resenting Trump voters even more than I used to, and that's saying a lot. I'll have zero, ZERO, sympathy when the lowlife losers and racists who voted us into this mess lose their Social Security, disability payments, workplace protections, FEMA disaster relief, Medicaid, and on and on and on. Fuck every single one of them. We tried and tried to tell people what a disaster this was going to be, and "owning the libs" meant more to them than anything good and worthwhile that America has stood for for the past 250 years. They can all go to hell and rot. 

The only thing I regret is that the decent people in this country are going to suffer right along with them. Over the weekend I actually found myself googling "safest blue states for women and minorities" and making a plan for selling the house and moving before things get too bad and we're trapped here. States that border Canada are my first choice.

I can't even believe I just wrote such a thing here on the blog. Never in a million years did I think things would come to this.  I love my house, my state, my life, but I won't sit around while our version of the Taliban comes into power and live under the control of such people. We have literal (neo) NAZIS running the show. NAZIS. And a way-too-large portion of our population are ALL FOR IT. It's sickening. Scary. Almost unbearable.

How are you coping? Do you think I'm crazy? Alarmist? If not, are you making plans? I'm afraid this is all going to get much, much worse before it gets better. If you have any words of comfort that might make me think otherwise or feel better, please share them. 

And thanks for letting me get this off my chest. As you can probably tell, it's been a bad day.

Game changer

I took today off from work. I had a mid-morning appointment with my allergist, Dr. Stone, and I have loads of paid time off I can use. My appointment was just a follow up to check on my progress with the Dupixent injections. I was so excited to show him how great my skin looks! These shots have been a total game changer for my severe eczema. The skin on my ankles and feet hasn't been this clear (and itch free) in over 20 years!

There's still quite a bit of discoloration on the skin, which Dr. Stone thinks will gradually fade over the next 6 months or so. You can really see it in certain lights, like in this next photo:

I don't care about the lingering redness one bit, though. The skin is smooth, cool, and soft. It's not broken and bleeding from scratching anymore, and the terrible itching has stopped pretty much completely. I can't begin to tell you how much this has improved my quality of life!

 Bless the doctor for being persistent in getting my insurance to cover the cost for this medicine. I'm beyond grateful.

Miscellany

Is it just me, or did January seem like the longest month ever? It seems like New Year's Day was months ago rather than mere weeks. 

Gregg finished his five rounds of radiation early in the month. It was much easier than he was afraid it would be and the few side effects he's had have been relatively minor. We won't know how successful it was until March, when he's scheduled for a CT scan and follow up appointments. I hope that will be the end of this situation. It's been a constant nagging worry for months now. 

Plenty of other things were hard to deal with in January, of course the biggest was the return of the Trump to the White House. It's less than two weeks into his term and it's been utter chaos and flagrant cruelty in a non-stop barrage of evil (and mostly illegal) executive orders. It's been really hard to try to put all that aside and carry on with normal life, but for the sake of my mental health I've had to try. I know most of you understand.

It's going to be a long four years, friends. 

But enough about that. It's a new month in a still new year, and today the sun is shining and I'm at home. George and Poppy are always thrilled when they realize it's a weekend morning and I'm not leaving for work. They wrestled and played on the rug in front of me while I had my morning coffee earlier. Marco was on one of his big perches nearby, squawking and flapping his wings and obviously wanting to jump into the middle of the dogs' play fighting and participate. We have to keep a close eye on him to prevent that, because he doesn't have enough common sense to realize how badly that could go! The dogs wouldn't intentionally hurt him, but they play really rough with each other and get really wound up and fierce. Any normal bird wouldn't want any part of two "fighting" dogs, but Marco thinks it looks like fun! 

Speaking of life with Marco...this morning, while taking a shower, Gregg noticed a section of paint chewed off a corner at one end of the shower curtain rod. That's classic Marco business right there. Sometimes he likes to perch on the curtain rod while I shower so that I can give him a quick shower, too.  This isn't the first time he's chewed paint off that spot. We just (re)painted the bathroom last summer and tried to be diligent in keeping him away from that particular corner. I have no idea when or how he got away with it this time, and Gregg is PISSED. We have some extra leftover paint, and can touch up the area without too much trouble, but he's still pretty mad about it. Since he retired last spring, he's at home a lot more and gets pretty tired of dealing with Marco's bad behaviors day in and day out. 

In the linen closet the other day, refusing to come out. Incidentally, one of the outer corners of this closet is where he chewed off the paint. He's a real asshole sometimes.

In other exciting news, I started some tomato seeds last week and they've begun to sprout! Plans for the 2025 garden are well underway. This afternoon I want to start pepper seeds (I should have done this already) and I need to place a seed order soon. I plan to make a second, smaller raised bed this year so I can grow some extra vegetables. I'm afraid that produce prices are going to skyrocket this summer, and the more I can grow for us, the better. I'd also like to plant a lot more zinnia varieties this year, both for the pollinators and for the simple joy of bouquets in the house. I love cut flowers, and zinnias are so easy and cheerful!

Do you have any gardening plans this year?

Are you as glad as me that January is finally over? 

What are you up to this first weekend in February?

Answers on a postcard, please.

A coincidence, and a blast from the past

Last night I dreamed I was back in high school, and I was hanging out with my friend Trey. We were at the grocery store, picking out snacks because he was coming over to spend the night at my house. We were making plans to stay up late and watch scary movies. 

As soon as I woke up and took a shower, I sat down in front of my computer with a cup of coffee and opened up Facebook. And would you believe it? Trey had sent me a private message with a picture of the two of us in high school that he found recently! CRAZY.

Baby Trey and Baby Jennifer, circa 1989. We were freshmen in high school. 

We're still good friends all these years later. We met in kindergarten and now we're both on the verge of 50 years old. 

Snowy day

 

Overnight we got about 2-3 inches of snow. It's so pretty! Since our high temperature today is going to hover around the freezing mark, and tonight is supposed to be 13 degrees, I imagine it's going to stick around for a while.