Naw, I ain't any more upset with Eric or Delta Rae than I've been since I got so much more deeply hurt by him back in August 2019. That was the only time that the hurt/upset ever got deeper, ever got worse, than right from the first in October 2018 when I recognized the consequences of the choices made given the way people and things fit into his life. That first hit was brutally hard to come to terms with, because it hit me as a bolt from the blue, but August 2019 was more brutal and more painful still. Summer 2019 was when I genuinely believe in good faith that under their own management they might face and fix this to clear out the poisons that had been put into their band's ethics once they had the power to do so. The truth is it DID hurt more to give them that trust and faith in their goodness once they were in control of their own collective ethics without outside influences and to have that trust broken.  The more you break someone's faith in you, the harder it is to rebuild and the worse it hurts. And also, I'm human -- the deeper you care about a person, the greater they can hurt you even if they behave in the exact same ways as someone you don't care about much at all. I'm far more poisoned/damaged by the choices made in August 2019 and since then than by the initial acts that created the poisons that keep spreading.

I'd be lying if I were to try to claim things weren't poisoned and I wasn't hurt by my broken faith and expectations of their ethics. But I'm not more upset than I've been -- like I said I've been doing my best to work myself toward apathy since I came to the conclusion that nobody among them was going to do a damn thing to clean up the poisons no matter how much I spent pointing out the fact that they exist and are spreading because they're not getting cleaned up or given an antidote. 

My truth is that if I allow me to see him, no matter how thoroughly the poisons have filtered into everything related to the band at this point, I will feel the strength of the mutual desire for reunion stronger than I'll give a damn about the poisons that are killing all the good things that could grow. I know that about me. It's damn hard enough already to ignore that pull and keep myself from just rushing toward him like the tide pulling a boat out to sea or bringing something back to shore. In person, the desire is stronger than me caring about the poisons destroying all seeds before they can grow. I wouldn't fucking care.  I could have complete apathy to everything related to the band or anyone in it involved with this mess -- but I can't be apathetic or indifferent toward him. I'm going to light up with joy that he exists and he's here and we've found each other this life and the hall of mirrors effect of our emotions down that bond mean that the mirrored light and joy in the both of us would dazzle me so it was all I saw.

And how much fucking more would it hurt if it were our own faults and our own refusal to take accountability to clean up the messes our past choices made that poisoned and destroyed everything good that could be? It hurts bad enough when it's karma and timing and self-martyring and outside forces -- but when it's us? When it's things we know are poisonous and are there but that we weren't brave enough to face and cleanse and heal? 

It's better for both of us if it's going to be his choice to ignore those poisons, so they won't be cleaned up and faced and dealt with, that I don't let me also ignore the existence of those poisons and try to go forward as if they aren't there. Because if we can't have it be a healthy thing, if it's going to be toxic and poisoned from the start, I'd rather wait however many lifetimes until the next chance of reunion so that we can plant our seeds in ground that isn't full of poisons. Once the poisons are introduced into an environment, your choices if you don't want to be poisoning the good things before they can even grow are to clean it up apply the antidote or to walk away to plant your seeds somewhere unpoisoned so they can thrive..

If his choices are not to face this and clean it up, then there's nothing related to Delta Rae that isn't poisoned for me by this ethics issue of enforced inequality that was introduced into the collective. And that poison destroys everything it touches for me, it just does.  All injustice and systems of inequality and cruelty affect me as an ethical poison and leaving it there asking me to have anything to do with the places/things poisoned will just destroy everything good you try to grow.... If they won't take accountability and fix the wrongs they have done and continue to do in the band's name, then everything to do with the band is poisoned to me by the ethics issue of it.  

And I'll choose to deny myself the joy of reunion with him rather than trying to grow that joy in poisoned ground. Because planting good things where it will only sicken and die and be destroyed hurts far worse than never trying to grow them at this time/place.

I've not been kidding and it's not hyperbole when I have said this ethical issue affects my view of every aspect of who they claim to be as a collective. It's not an ultimatum. It's just me acknowledging an ethical poison makes me sick and I should not consume it if I have a choice in the matter.  I understand it's his family and his best friends and his passion project and his career -- and I don't ask him to choose or sacrifice those things. I know their importance to him and I've learned the hard way that he doesn't find it poisoned for him and he's not willing to acknowledge and face and clean up the poisons to make it good again. But for me it IS poisoned. And leaving it poisoned poisons everything to do with the band for me. For me, there's nothing there, nothing that brings joy to me so long as the band's esse itself is poisoned by bad ethics and defensive lack of accountability. I don't ask him to leave what has been made poisonous to me and not acknowledged or faced to cleanse it -- I just am making the choices that I must go so as to not poison myself. 

It hurts to deny myself what I want and to not even try to grow the good things that could be. It hurts a fucking lot. But if he's going to ignore rather than take accountability for cleaning up the mess of these poisons, then I don't get the luxury to also ignore it and have us try to grow food on poisoned ground because being together anywhere brings so much light and joy to us both. 

And I don't trust me to see him in person and not say, "Fuck it. I don't care how poisoned it is, I just want to be wherever he is" but I know that we can't both choose to ignore the poisons without it then being our fault not the fault of external forces for whatever tragedies grow in that ground. And external factors are outside my control, but damnit I won't let us both ignoring things within our power to fix and make better be what writes the tragic course. I just won't. 

I'll choose to leave and not see him and try to hide myself away from him and deny myself what i desire most rather than let us try to grow good things in poisoned soil. I've gotten really good these last 5 centuries at denying myself what i want for the sake of something more important.  And not having it be the fault of our own choices to ignore what's toxic and we could easily clean and heal if we'd just acknowledge it exists and to do something about it is far more important than giving in to desire and temptation in the moment. 

But not if I let me see him.I can't let me see him without cleaning up the poisons destroying the goodness that was/is/could be. 

So my first choice would be to clean up the damn mess and the poisons.  But I can't do that entirely on my own in this case, I can't remove the source of the poison on my own except by disconnecting from everything the source of the poisons touches. It needs to be dealt with at the source. So if mt first choice to clean up the mess is removed from the table (and their choices DID remove it from my options on the table) then my second choice is to not grow things in the poisoned soil nor to allow the poisons to sicken me by letting me keep taking them in. My choice if I can't heal what was made toxic is to walk away from the toxicity to go somewhere healthy. 

*shrugs* It's not what I desire, but it's my best choice I have given their choices when presented with these truths about how they have chosen to let themselves be as collective. It hurts but it doesn't upset me more than it did at any point since August 2019. If I saw him face to face without having taken care of the poisons destroying the roots of everything, it would be the same temporary forgetting and flowering as at the Chicago show in November 2019 once I let me look at him. And then I also know myself well enough to know that the moment that he was gone and I was not standing in that hall of mirrors of reflected ever brightening joy and love, I'd remember the poisons and see how they were destroying everything from the inside, right from the start and I'd start over exactly where I did shutting down and working to let him go and to avoid chances I might choose to ignore the poisons same as he has chosen to do. We don't get to both ignore the poison act as if it's not there-- that would be deadly tragic to both of us.

But I'm no more upset today when the temptation was him being right here in my city at the same time as me than when he's hundreds or thousands of miles physically distant from me. He's still not right in front of me, that mirroring isn't tempting me to also ignore the poisons let them spread instead of insisting on cleaning it up. I can make me be stoic do what I have to do (for both of our sakes) -- but not if I let me get close enough to the temptation to see him, close enough that I'd just rush right in give in to the power of what I desire even with the poisons still there spreading under the surface. 

But I'd give just about anything to be able to wrap my arms around him and just give in to that force of love and let its flow take me wherever the fuck its tides are going. Just about anything. I'll not sell our souls to have it. I'll not sell out our consciences nor burden us with the guilt of it being our own damn fault for the tragedy because we both lacked the moral courage to clean up what we know to be toxic. Neither of us deserve to carry that karma.

Mais, o mon bon dieu! How I wish I could have at least gotten to see him. Even if I didn't let me get any closer and didn't let him see me or even know I was there, I'd have loved so much just to see him and have that light of joy that he's alive and healthy and happy and we found each other against all the fucking odds. But if I let me see him and had that joy, he'd find me no matter how well hidden I thought myself -- it's the energy pull between us that is how he finds me. And I can't hide in a crowd with a bond like that -- especially if I light up with incandescent joy. Which I would letting me see him like that. I know I would, I can't help it except by keeping myself far enough away to not see him, not get that light of joy enkindled in me at sight of him. 

And. Most importantly. Whatever paths we choose to walk for what remains to each of us in this lifetime, I want so deeply for him to have whatever happiness he is seeking for himself this life and that when he finds it he have the courage to claim it for himself this life. He deserves that wish and desire and intention for him. It's the mantra I repeat inside me every time I work on my emotions to make me let him go, as much as he will allow me to let him go, so he can find out what that happiness is for him in this life.

My parents went to my grandma's old condo with a work vehicle to help take away some more big bins of stuff to try to get the condo ready for pictures to list and sell.  Which was good, I needed some introvert recharge "no humans" time after the day I'd had. They also left their dog Sophie with me and Audrey until they return with the work car and to unload the things. 

So I put all the George Winston I own (pretty much his entire catalogue) on randomize and put the electric kettle on to steep a cuppa Comfort and Joy tea. (It's one of the Republic of Tea seasonal teas and it's one of my absolute favorite bagged teas!!! I just ordered more over the weekend, in bulk, while I could get it! I also really love their Tea of Good Tidings, Red Hot Holiday, and Countdown to Christmas Cardamom Cinnamon. All four of them are exceptionally delightful and can only bought be bought in November and December.) Then I started a gif conversation of cute hippos on a post I made about dinos with one of my besties and fed the dogs and let them out.  And then my tea was ready and they wanted to play, so I brought my tea out to sit on the counter and I sat down on the floor with all my Christmas lights and electric menorah but the main lights turned off on the sales floor and played fetch with two happy dogs, doing yoga stretches in between throws, while listening to George Winston and taking occasional sips of Comfort and Joy tea.

Best hygge I could do under the circumstances to simulate the oxytocin release of a really nice long hug. Not that I don't still desire that sort of hug, but when you can't get a hug in the moment then your next best choice is to hygge yourself. But Christmas lights and some of my forever favorite piano music and playing fetch with happy doggos til they collapse and yoga stretches and a hot cuppa Comfort & Joy tea is pretty damn good -- no matter what else the day was or wasn't, that's a very soothing happy set of moments and a lovely tranquil memory of a time of peaceful joie de vivre to have stored away. 

I'm going to have some pumpkin pie and Italian brandy in a little bit, then get back to work now the dogs have both had a drink and are tired out for some snoozles.  But I'll probably leave the George Winston on until I'm done with it -- it's soothing to have for my soundtrack tonight. And by tired of it, I mean I'll probably begrudgingly turn it off to head home and then put George Winston on randomize back on when I get home again. (Which will please the cat VERY much! George Winston is Spock's absolute favorite music ever and George Winston told me that's the highest compliment he's ever received when i told him that after a concert. Ever since, when I have stopped by after shows he remembers me as "the girl whose cat has the best taste in music" lol.) 

P.S. All the astro & tarot weekly overview accounts that I follow all said Monday would be a 10 of swords day (Mercury moving into Sag and its positions relative to Saturn, Chiron, and Mars today) but they also said Tuesday would be a 10 of cups day (moon moving into Libra bringing peace/balance and all those awkward angles between communication, karma, wounded healer, and active/fight/power dynamics energies will be smoothed out). Which is much needed and I already feel gratitude for that energetic shift.

 Today is the Mondayest Monday to ever fucking Monday. And I'm really fucking tired of being everyone's whipping boy.... I could use a hug from someone who cares and means it. At least Sarah and my mama decided to ask and then add me to the lunch order so I'm now having my brisket and cheddar sub from Firehouse subs (as soon as it finishes in the toaster oven) at 4pm -- first I've had a chance to eat all day -- AND my da intentionally made a second pot of coffee knowing I would drink the remaining half pot whenever I got back -- first coffee I've had today. So at least I have food and coffee now. 

So I've had a low grade predrome migraine that I've been taking Tylenol for the last couple days due to my neighbors down next door AND my neighbors downstairs using synthetic perfume products that give me instant headaches with auras. I've talked to them both about it and they were very nice apologized profusely and switched products -- to another with synthetic perfumes that give me headaches...And I mean, most scented things use synthetic perfumes so I know it's a losing battle and I just live with it until I move somewhere without shared walls/hallways. My neighbor downstairs, as long as I'm not home when she's showering and getting ready in the morning dissipates and I can handle it but the neighbor down the hall intentionally plugs in the glad plug ins synthetic scents IN the hallway because of other neighbors who complain of the hallway when it smells like food (including their own they cooked.) 

Anyway. On top of that, the same neighbors with the synthetic perfume plugins in the hall did get a dog.  Now I genuinely adore Tom and Viola as people and Wookie (their dog) is very sweet when I run into them outside HOWEVER Wookie is a 6 month old dachshund-chihuahua mix who they are puppy training without either of them ever having HAD to train a young puppy (he had dogs growing up, but always already trained and his mom's dog he sometimes watches is a very yappy poodle.)  Whenever they're not home, the dog barks and puppy cries and whines as loudly as it can -- the ENTIRE TIME they're gone.  Which except on days one of them works from home is every fucking day but the weekends. They know, they've apologized about it but they have done nothing training wise to deal with it. So it continues. For over a month now. All day long. The owner of the corgi (who also barked a lot when she first adopted him, but she worked with him) lives directly below them and she was deservedly upset trying to work from home and how it was upsetting her dog. So she came upstairs to yell about it.  They weren't home so she knocked on my door (which DID make Audrey bark but she politely stopped when I told her to) and then proceeded to yell at me about it for 15mins despite me telling her it was clearly not my dog (as she could see and hear) who has lived here for 13.5 years and never had barking complaints and was in fact laying next to me not barking even with her yelling and the dog next door constantly barking and since we were in teh hall because I refused to put up with that energy in my own apartment we could both hear her corgi downstairs audibly responding to its owner's absence with the loud yapping from Wookie. (My dog and the blind man's seeing eye dog were in fact the only dogs in the building NOT yapping yet still she felt compelled to yell at me over the neighbor's dog interrupting a very important zoom meeting she had been on.) And then I reminded her that the neighbors weren't home, I don't have a key, and there's nothing I can do to make their dog stop barking all day when they're gone and she really needs to talk to them about it.

 Finally she finished venting and ended with the non-apology, "I know you can't do anything about it, thanks for nothing." then stormed away down the stairs. And that 15mins of trying to deal with her is why I had time to put the kettle on for tea but not to steep coffee.  And it made me later than I wanted to be to drop off my dog and to get to my grandma's to take her to her appointment. Especially with Sarah constantly texting me about food. And then just as I had got my dog and me ready unlocked the door to leave, the cat yacked up a hairball for me to either clean up or leave to get gross.... 

So that was fun. 

Then I got to my grandma's and she was in her robe and slippers and had "lost" her walker (left it by her washer/dryer) and at first she couldn't hear me knocking on the door between the washer and her TV (Ancient Aliens of all things, no joke -- about Imhenotep the vizir (which means wizard) potentially being an alien-human mix.)  So she made me wait in the hall for 5.5mins shouting, "Just a minute" interspersed with "is anyone there?" while she attempted to get to the door without her walker.  And then she was just an awful bitch with me about how nobody had called or told her about his appointment (my parents had on Thursday, yesterday and before she went down to the dining room for lunch -- everyone at work heard my mom talking to her) and then she was stubborn and recalcitrant and saying today was a bad day for her for it but wouldn't let us call to cancel then yelling at me for "rushing her" when she needed to get an Izze from the fridge to drink and then when I reminded her about changing from her slippers into her shoes (which I had found and put by her chair for her) she got so angry at me "rushing her" and "telling her what to do" that she defiantly said "I'll do it when I'm ready" and insisted on unwrappng and eating a Tootsie Roll rather than getting ready.  I FINALLY got her ready and out her door to the elevators 3mins before her appointment was supposed to start. So I had texted to ask my mom to call to let them know she would be late and ask about rescheduling.... A txt they never saw until after I'd got there.

Then after numerous near accidents (including a minivan coming from behind a semi into the lane they need to merge into then neither speeding up or slowing down but staying right by the corner of the semi trying to merge and not moving) when I got there, it was busier than I'd ever seen it before. All the handicapped stalls were full and the only empty stalls I found were by curbs on grandma's side (which neither she nor her walker can navigate) so I circled the lot got one right in front as someone as leaving. Then, we got in at exactly 2:14 (the very tail end of the 15mins grace period for being late to appointments) but due to the queue to check in (with only 1 receptionist working and then a second coming back for lunch) it was 2:24 by the time we actually were checked in. While waiting, my grandma admitted that her knee was hurting her extra bad today and that was the real reason she had been so slow and didn't want to go out in the cold. Which was too ate to get her upstairs to see her pt before the pt's 3pm next appointment.... So I got yelled at by the receptionist who was stressed and overworked about it and she marked grandma as a "no show" in the system even though we were late and then tried to reschedule her.  First to the 17th (when grandma has eye appointment) then to the 6th (when grandma has her memory care appointment and while I'm gone so my dad will actually be taking her) THEN on the 10th (when Lin scheduled grandma for her shingles vax and said she would take her to it after my mum let her know I'd be out of town the 10th.  So then she was exasperated asked, "Well when can you do?" and I said, "Those are her only appointments I know of, but can you check for after the 14th when I'm back from Seattle so I don't have to check if anyone else can take her?" So the woman says, "If you can't do the 17th, all I have after the 14th is the 15th at 11am." Which I took because she was already angry wiht us, the queue to checkin was stacking up and I was clearly frustrating her that none of the days the pt was available worked for us. But the thing is that my flight home from SeaTac, assuming no delays, gets in at 9:20am on the 15th plus baggage claim plus getting me back home to my car to then get grandma and get her to an appointment by 11.  And when I told my mom that she said she couldn't do that that early at that time, especially because Sophie has her vet visit that afternoon, and I told her to go ahead and change it but I was getting nothing but yelled at trying to do it in person and she kept suggesting the same sets of dates when grandma had other appointments.

Anyway. I got my grandma back to Cardinal View with no incidents.  Then nearly got hit in a Kwik Trip lot trying to get gas then the only spot I could get to with the side of my fuel tank was the spot partially blocked by a pallet of salt that someone had hit and knocked across the lane. Luckily, there were only a few bags left on it (and the one torn open along with the broken clipped far corner of the wood pallet) so I COULD move it by myself. But one of the Kwik Trip employees came out yelling at me not to moe it in case I hurt myself and THEN halfway through filling came BACK out to yell at me for using one of the handicap/pregnant assist spot without needing it since then nobody who might need it could. Mind you it's not ONLY for handicap/pregnant people, it's just one equipped with a call button for them to press to get someone to come help them from inside. But it's just a normal pump anyone can use. I stared him down asked with deadly calm, "And how could a handicap or pregnant woman have used it at all with the salt pallet knocked across the stall the way it was when I got here? The salt pallet you already yelled at me for moving out of the way back to where it belonged to make this stall accessible." He turned beet red when I put it that way, just stared t me gape mouthed as the pump clicked it was done and I calmly turned back to it, and he stomped back inside.  Just another person in a bad mood spoiling for a fight because they have the petty tyrant power they need to assert in the only ways they can.  My day was too full of that today for me to play any nicer than calmly get him tangled up in questions that put him at fault no matter how he examined them. I ask more questions than Socrates -- it's a common way I deal with confrontations if I'm honest.

Then, on the way back, nearly to work, I was driving through a residential area up by the soccer fields behind my old high school and a woman walking her dog, her dog slipped the leash and ran right in front of me. I was able to safely stop without hitting the dog -- though the car behind me was following too close nearly hit me.  Then I pulled off to the curb and parked and helped the scared woman get her running around happily barking dog back on leash -- it's what I'd want to be do if my dog slipped leash near a road and then ran in front of a moving car.  She was so rattled and I calmed her down after I caught him and had a talk with her dog about why his behavior could have gotten him killed. I don't blame anyone for it, dogs that age change size growing fast she's just adjusted it and ones with thick coats are hard to get their collars tight enough they can't slip them but won't choke them and a younger than a year old huskie mix dog is going to get free and want to play once it's off leash -- I'm just grateful I was able to stop and didn't hit the dog that slipped its leash ran in front of me because I'd be a bawling wreck right now if I'd hit someone's dog.... 

Then after I finished my brisket cheddar sub, Crissy, Sarah, and my mom have all asked me about the Delta Rae show tonight after all seeing ads/reminders today. Which I would appreciate they knew and remembered how much I had loved the band and gone to see them at every "driveably close" or "fly to visit family or friends" concert possible this they were asking about me heading to the show tonight IF I were planning to go. IF things weren't so fucked up regarding all things Delta Rae.... But I'm not because it is this way now and nobody but me shows any interest in even addressing those facts. And so I'm tired of trying with them.

But even if my past experiences made me think there was a chance me showing up could improve things, the day I've had makes any niggling desire to even head downtown consider going to see Delta Rae (even just so I could see Eric) tonight completely nonexistent without them having acknowledged and fixed the ethics issue they created around their Instagram page and then have defensively gaslit and allowed their diehards to victim blame about whenever I've attempted to bring it up.  I really don't have the fucking energy or patience to deal with any further defensiveness, any cattiness, any blame game, any "it's your fault because", any "I'm sorry but you shouldn't have", any weirdness of mixed emotions, or any form of defensive negativity whatsoever. I just lack the patience and energy to deal with it today after the  morning/afternoon I had. 

After how today has been, anything short of a genuine hug, an apology, and them fixing what they broke is off the table with me today. I ain't got time for any head games or defensiveness or trying to find a way to victim blame me for the ethics and consequences of their choices and what was done on their official instagram account in their name and perpetuated/gaslit by every attempt made to talk about it (publicly, privately, to individuals, or collectively) since October 2018. Without choosing the path of taking accountability for actions past and present done in the band's name, there is a 0% chance of me ever again attending any Delta Rae show or me being able to even enjoy their music (past, present, or future) no matter how deeply I loved it and how much it meant to me before the events of October 2018 and the fallout from Eric's August 2019 choices (and his choices for the year and a half following that) about going live on the band Instagram account "to celebrate with all our fans and Kickstarter backers" even after being directly told that fans has been blocked on that account after being honest about the country music making it so they couldn't attend shows while that was any part of it. There is no joy for me in anything they have created or could ever create as an artistic collective at this point without them fixing this ethics issue of their making and their perpetuating. The best they can hope for without choosing to face the ugliness of their past choices and fixing things is for it to scar over into indifference toward them and anything they do.  

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."~Ellie Wiesel

I aspire to apathy and indifference toward them should they continue to refuse to take accountability and do the right thing. It's the only place opposite of love and the joy I once found in their art and the faith I once held that they were actually the sort of good people they claimed to be with worthwhile ethics. Their defensiveness, cruelty, and attempts to bury the truth rather than face the ugliness of their past actions perpetuated into the present require that I find the opposite of all those things I once held toward Delta Rae. So I aspire to apathy toward them. Despite my brief flareup of renewed hope adn second chances given once they no loner had any management concerns outside their own choices, I've been more or less striving to try to reach apathy since October 2018. Sometimes with more success than other times, but still it's what I am aspiring towards regarding them. . The now 16 year old who used to idolize them as her favorite band from the time she was 6 and couldn't even fall asleep without their songs is my role model who I strive to emulate -- her indifference is a Taurus' stubborn monolith.  It's an apathy I'm trying to achieve. I haven't succeeded, but it's what I have been working towards. I shall put no further effort into anything related to the band or anything they create or do other than for me to try to achieve true indifference. 

So I'm going to have a drink with my parents and Sarah and Karissa at 5. Then I'm going to punch in and hang out with my dog, listening to George Winston, drinking tea and eating pumpkin pie, and getting hours in at work to make later this week less stressful. Until whenever I head home tonight/tomorrow.  Probably late night bar o'clock or maybe I'll work til sunrise.... On verra.  I have no set plan have tos or ought tos scheduled for tomorrow day or tomorrow night.

And I certainly won't do anything potentially difficult on a day that all my astro and tarot readers who do weekly/daily warned to avoid confrontations and no win situations on Monday as they would all turn into 10 of swords battles that can't be won and words that can't be unsaid and insisting on being "right" rather than making peace would lead to further explosiveness.... I was warned about today. Still it was a lot of unexpected being people's whipping boy for things that had nothing to do with me....

So anyway. That was my day. And why I desire a hug more than anything else -- a long real hug from someone who genuinely cares. Dogs are wonderful for snuggles and kisses and cheering you up, but they can't hug you and hold you until you get the oxytocin release to feel better. 

P.S. 5pm addendum: It's Rosé O'Clock here. Thank God.

 So for Thanksgiving, my maman decided she'd do the basics (turkey, mashed potatoes, home-made gravy, roasted sweet potatoes, rolls, two types of pie (pumpkin and cherry) with Redi-Whip, and she asked me to take care of wine and I suggested the cranberry wine from Minhas because we had no cranberry dish and the wine is tasty chilled) and then the three of us would bring it to grandma's new place to have Thanksgiving dinner with her. Which in and of itself wouldn't require a post. (As a sidenote, my Uncle Steve did call to make sure she had plans and was otherwise going to pick her up to join them now that Sondra's sisters moved their big family celebration to the weekend after. And it seems like Aunt Sondra's insistence that nobody should be alone on Thanksgiving if she asked him what his mom was doing for the holiday, but I'm grateful he was ready to do that. And my Aunt Linda did just her nuclear family but grandma was sad we didn't bring any apple pie so mom had him text his sister to see if she had any homemade apple pie left to bring her mom while running errands today. She said of course she could bring her some and was happy to hear from us wished us a Happy Thanksgiving back. And then I went to check on Henry, a lonely cat, for a friend out of town to her mother's in Iowa for Thanksgiving. 

All of which was probably predictable. 

Now I had offered to make some pumpkin pies because I had 2 cans of pumpkin I bought earlier this fall AND two cans of evaporated milk I bought last year for pies and the best by date on the evaporated milk was 11/30/21. But while at CostCo, they had a very large pumpkin pie she bought and so told me not to worry. Well, when we opened it last night, right under where the label was, there were white spot mold spores which I pointed out to my mama before she started cutting into it to serve. She was so deflated and sad (and annoyed to have to deal with CostCo on Black Friday to get her refund. Luckily, my da does not like pumpkin pie and cherry pie is his favorite so we'd bought him one and we still had pie to eat (though it fell apart trying to serve it was more like a crumble) and so we were all on Team Cherry with Redi-Whip.  

That said, my maman was so dejected and fixated on the pumpkin pie having gone bad that I told her not to worry, I'd just bake one from scratch when I got home or early in the morning before coming to work to play George Winston Christmas music and put up all my indoor holiday decorations at work. (I just need to be there by lunch time as they decided to order in pizza and almost everyone there loves pepperoni/sausage best but I can't eat that. Turns out Sam dislikes sausage and pepperoni (thus why we often do plain cheese for me and Mikaela since she also has a pork allergy albeit not as severe as mine) and he was up for mushroom, onion, black olives, and chicken. So it's not just for me since Sam also wants it and won't eat sausage or pepperoni, but also it kinda is just for me since I gave the final decisions on toppings after finding out what he does/doesn't like. ) 

I went to bed early, pretty much as soon as I got home, so then woke up six hours later (my normal 2 REM sleep cycle if I don't get woken up and I'm not sick/healing) which was like 3am. So I made myself some tea and put together my plant stand (they didn't drill holes into the main slats for attaching the cross bars for the wheel or for screwing on the wheel plates. And when I looked at the quality of pine they used, I realized trying to do it by hand without drilled holes would not only be a bitch of a job probably strip the screws, but the wood quality was such I'd likely split it and then I'd have to wood glue and clamp and these are weight bearing parts and that was not worth the risk. So I asked my dad if I could borrow his handheld electric drill and drill bits or bring that first step to attach the wheels with the parts lacking drilled holes. (Yes I know, I'm old enough I ought to have bought a drill and have a proper toolkit by now - but I need things so rarely other than some epoxy/wood glue/super glue as needed, a basic screwdriver with flat head and Phillips, a hammer, and nails, a tape measure, that anything more I just borrow from work or my father and then return. Some day I'll get myself a proper tool chest with a drill and drill bits, but I have access to borrow them whenever I do need them and so I haven't bothered to make that investment.) We decided it would be easier for me to bring it over and we'd take care of it together on Thanksgiving while mom was cooking. (The turkey and gravy flavors were particularly good this year since I gave her to use some of the fresh tricolor sage and golden thyme I'd grown in my raised boxes at work and culled the last of on Weds before winterizing and putting the boxes away til Spring.) So we drilled the holes got the wheels attached to the base (even with drilling the necessary holes with the smallest bit, the wood on a couple of the cross beams did crack while attaching the wheels - but it's on the underside and didn't split all the way through to need glue and vise, but audibly cracked despite our excess of delicacy for fear of splitting them, which made us both wince. 

So anyway. Got up at 3am. Made tea and put together the rest of the plant stand by myself. (It was designed intelligently to be put together without even really needing a screwdriver since it was all pre drilled all the bolts had washers and nuts to secure them -- the only exception being to attach the wheels in step 1, lol.) Then made the pie crust - only when I double checked ratios because I haven't made a pie crust in a while I didn't read my recipe close enough because I was just verifying the butter to flour to water ratios not the steps of it and I pre coffee remembered "it's not exactly 1 stick of butter to 1 cup flour then ice cold water by the tablespoon til the consistency is right - damnit I'd best check." So I did  And my pre coffee brain definitely thought, "curious, I only remember using one stick of butter for a crust" but went ahead and made it and only afterward realized I had made enough dough for bottom and top crust and should have halved it (1 stick frozen as possible butter : 1.25 cup flour a per crust.) Which was just a stupid not thinking pre coffee oops - and my solution to that oops was "Welp. I do have two cans of almost to beat by date evaporated milk to use up. And I have two cans of pumpkin. And rolling it out to freeze it for another time never produces a pie crust I'm happy with. Guess I'm just gonna have to make two pumpkin pies the." So I did two crusts in two separate pie plates and then put them back in the freezer. (The tricks to flaky crusts is to use the minimum amount of water, don't over mix, and most importantly work everything as cold as possible and keep as chilled as possible. I do move the crust from the freezer to the fridge for the last 15-30mins of prepping the filling (be it fruit pie or quiche) because I don't think from a chemistry or physics perspective that going from freezer directly into a preheated over is good for pyrex or metal structural integrity. Too extreme a change too quick, liable to crack or break the pie plate wherever there is a minor flaw in the chemical bond structure.)  

So anyway. Woke up at 3am, put together a plant stand, made two pie crust from scratch. Then I showered both me and my dog and her jersey (the pup needed it and she's a house guest in a week and so my parents deserve to have her come over at least somewhat clean.). Then I made coffee and breakfast and watched the sunrise. And then I finished making the pies (I decided to put Jameson in one of them, à la the bourbon pumpkin pie variation on the Libby's pumpkin can) and got them in the oven before 9am so they could have time to cook and then cool for 2hrs on the wire rack and I could still get to work in time for lunch. 

Took the pies out of the oven and they passed the toothpick test at 9:41. So now I'm going to finish the last of my pot of coffee and call Wrench auto to schedule for an oil change and tire rotation then get dressed and ready so that I can quickly pack up the pies once cooled enough to bring to work and have free pizza before getting paid to listen to George Winston/Vince Guaraldi Christmas music while I get paid to put up lights and decorations inside. Then home near to close (I have plenty of hours in after all) and tomorrow I will do laundry and make things festive while listening to holiday music and tidy up the small disorders I have found here from moving things around and make leftovers for lunch/dinner.

Also, yesterday morning I woke up to light snow and then afternoon flurries on my way to my parents house. And supposedly tomorrow could be up to half an inch of snow. And damnit but I'm so hungry for some snow that even flurries and half inch gets me excited and happy!

 So I officially have tickets to go visit my sister's family. Dec 4-14 (though the flight home is a red eye so I'll get home morning of the 15th and I told my sister they can drop me off at the airport whenever is convenient early. She also offered that they would pay the $50 non-surge Lyft fee from their house to the airport if they don't feel like going to SeaTac)  It's a good friend who when you ask them if they can pick you up at the airport for a flight that gets in at 9:20am on a Weds because your parents will find that timing tricky as far as payroll and you know she has flexible work from home versus in office as well as say in scheduling meetings respods, "Madison or Milwaukee? Though either should be fine."  My mom actually asked if she could check Delta for me as she has a ridiculous amount of SkyMiles to use up and then my flights were SkyMiles cheap (25,000 each way -- and on the way out there it was 25,00 sky miles for Comfort Plus but 67,000 for their basic/economy. Which was curious, but I'll take extra leg room and free wine/beer/cocktail for less money. Who am I to complain about that?)  We used up less than 10% of her sky miles she's afraid of losing and then it was like $11 for the taxes you have to pay for yourself. It'll cost me more to check my bags 9since the free checked bag is only for the cardholder) than my actual flight. Which I appreciate. 

Also, as of right now, the extended forecast says it will be snow across the second weekend of my visit (hopefully getting me to SeaTac won't be too much of an ordeal since just a little snow/slush shuts down the whole area -- which is comical to me growing up in Wisconsin) and then the day after I get back it's supposed to snow here! These are still long range forecasts, so liable to change, but my mom laughed at me bringing my snow goblins with me wherever I go. 

Also, buying tickets a week and a half before going (especially during Sag season) isn't outside the norm for me -- one of the times I went to London the deal was so insanely good for a nonstop out of Chicago that I bought my ticket to London 36 hours before leaving. And last time i visited NYC, my friend Fred had moved out to a really nice place right in the center of Manhattan (he was working with HBO at the time, helped develop HBOGo before it became HBOMax) and he was saying how much I needed to come visit and on a lark I looked at prices and said, "O if I come visit you next week, my flights will cost less than a Broadway show!) So I did. And ended up buying so many books from The Strand and the Met and National History Museum and random hole in the wall book stores that we had to buy me a second suitcase to bring home just for all my books. (I was flying southwest so the second bag wasn't a problem.) It would be a lie if I told you that was the only time I've ever needed to acquire extra luggage to check for books I buy while traveling, lol. So anyway, last minute decisions for a cheap fare to visit friends/family are not uncommon with me. And right between Thanksgiving and Christmas is often a cheap time to fly. 

My nephew and niece think it's all their guilt tripping. And my nephew sent me a video saying how excited he is and that he wants to have a reading challenge with me while I'm there based on how many books we can read. Given he's 6 and he's super into mangas (which are long, but not a lot to read) this seems a rather one sided metric to me. 

My sister asked me to bring them lots of cheese because their hoard is low and they've been reduced to slumming it with grocery store cheddar. And when I asked how much, she said "enough to last us through 4 days of snow/slush shutting down the entire city area for 10 days." And then she also asked for "any cool Packers things" they might like and if they're pricey but cool to ask because they might want to buy them have me bring them something even if it's outside gifting price parameters.  So she requested I bring cheese and Packers gear for them from Wisconsin -- definitely can't tell she grew up a Sconnie or anything. My nephew Jack asked me to bring him snow --  in all fairness I do have a tendency to show up in the winter and have snowfall occur in Seattle area. He says he loves it and keeps telling his parents he wants to visit WI in winter. My sister keeps laughing telling him he doesn't know what he's asking for. My niece Monroe wants me to bring her lots and lots of snuggle time.

But anyway. It's done and my Seattle trip is booked for Dec 4-14 (and home on the 15, lol.)   My dog knows -- haven't told the cat yet. He is NOT going to be pleased....

 So in discussing options for me showing up on a flight that gets in at 12:14am (the ridiculously cheap ones) I told my sister that waking up a 4 and 6 year old and meeting a dog I'd never met at 2am seemed less than ideal for everyone involved. So then I was discussing my option of staying with Nancy (who lives in Tacoma and may not even be home and we don't know if she's vaxxed) or taking a lyft/airport shuttle would be equally risky for Monroe who is too young to get vaxxed. So my sister suggested we do rapid test and I got super confused asked her, "How would that help? It would only tell us if I'd contracted it before leaving Madison but with 3 day incubation period I couldn't have measurable titres until I'd already been at your house 3 days" and she was just like "For Nancy. Rapid test for Nancy before you show up."  Yep. Sometimes, for someone so smart I can be so sincerely dumb about the most random things....

United prices (and times) make more sense and fall within the cheap but stupid arrival time flight + lyft + hotel range. I should just book it right now, but there are several departure days/times with the $264 option that get there during the daytime -- still looking at 12/3 or so to fly to Seattle area. and I'm tired and indecisive. And frankly, my decision making capacity right now is definitely hampered by a mounting inner frustration over how fucked up and off course everything feels regarding Eric and like it's on a trajectory that definitely doesn't get me any damn thing I want...because the one damn thing I want is him and everything else is just stupid third party choices and defensiveness of other people who can't admit when they did something wrong and so keep doubling down on bad past choices that have made a mess of what should have been the easiest thing on the face of the planet and are now in the fucking way. Which doesn't surprise me that I'm feeling that way right now, but it does frustrate and annoy me.  And makes it hard for me to be decisive with my sister gone to bed.

GAH! It's so stupid and so frustrating and I don't think I can have what I want so now I'm doing the stupid thing where I try to rationalize to myself why me not getting what I want allows him to have the happiness he's chosen/choosing for himself which is more important than my selfishness and that doesn't do any damn thing to make me have less heartache over not getting what I so desperately (and selfishly) want and my soul insists IS the right life path for me and for him regardless how my brain tries to rationalize me accepting why it's for his best interests if it doesn't work out this life because that's what he wants based on his choices so far.  It's a mess frankly. The inside of my head and the inside of my heart is just a fucking mess over it. So I'm going Home and straight to bed. Or at least I'm gonna try to sleep. Tomorrow I'll make choices for my Seattle visit and tell my sister then hang outdoor lights and get some last outdoor tasks done in the garden areas at work. Thursday my parents and I are going to  my grandma's to bring her a Thanksgiving meal and have it with her in her apartment and I'll bring my dad the part of my plant stand they didn't drill holes and we can get the base put together with his electric drill and drill bits. (I should own one, but I need it so rarely I have never yet invested in one for myself -- I just borrow his or bring those projects to their house for his help.) And then Friday I plan to come into work and put up all the holiday decorations indoors. And Saturday I'll stay home and maybe put up my holiday tree if I haven't yet done it before then. And Sunday I'll be at work for the Packers game and getting some inputting and filing and watering all my plants until however late before I head home. And those are my plans to try to distract me not think about things I can't see any way for me to change and make better.

P. S. I took the dog out before bed and had a great horned owl swoop from on top of a light across the street directly across my path to rest on a branch directly in front of me, not more than an arms length away from me and stare at me for a long while!!! It wasn't aggressive or defensive, merely curious wanting me to acknowledge and greet it before continuing onward!  It was super cool! And so huge!! Only the second time ever meeting a wild owl so close this way (the other was a barred owl doing almost the exact same thing on a gray dismal afternoon hike in the woods with Mikaela and the dogs) and never before this close to a wild great horned owl!! In both cases, I merely waited and acknowledged it and  we watched it other until we seemed to have reached mutual understanding/acceptance and the owl flew away. Owls are so well camouflaged and so silent in flight that unless they call loudly or you see them line of sight like this, they're easy to miss. We have several that live nearby and I've seen them close but never THIS close!!! It was really spiritual feeling, meeting a great horned owl like that coming across my path to greet me staring into each other's eyes during the witching hours of 1:30am!! Last night/this morning I had a doe cross my path again as I was driving home. (In the city. But I see and meet deer and wild turkeys and foxes and coyotes all the time on the routes between my home and work. I also see hawks and eagles and cranes and herons and even muskrats in addition to ubiquitous crow friends and songbirds, pretty much every time I take my dog for our morning walks. The foxes and  wild turkey broods have even come foraging right outside where I live on my circle.) Does and owls crossing my witching hour path staring at me with messages in their eyes. Will need to look up the symbolism and spirit animal meanings of both 

It doesn't solve any of what has me so overthinking and upset and unsettled and mostly intensely frustrated - but it felt like a sign or a guide or an answer. And earlier in the evening, I did post an image of an owl with a quote about animals as bearing messages from the Divine if we'd listen. And that's what that meeting with the great horned owl tonight felt like!

 Sunrise this morning was particularly pretty this morning! Especially with the waning gibbous moon! Audrey said she needed to go outside and with how late sunrise is here in Madison at this time of year (7:01am) I'll take her out on a morning walk in the predawn once it starts to get light and the skies colorful but before the sun has actually created the horizon - elementary schools start at 7:30 so there are usually quite a lot of  people up already. Very chilly and brisk, we were back in under 40mins, but a beautiful morning walk! I also had a short chat with Darnell, the blind man downstairs who was taking his guide dog out at the time. 

Sunset was also gorgeous, but not quite as pretty as this morning's sunrise. (I rarely miss either of them, I can't sleep across the gloaming when the veil is thinnest. I can sleep at any time of day or night, but never across the times day and night switch places. And in my current flat, all my windows and balcony door face east so no matter the

Also. I sometimes forget how much I love a good duffer newsboy cap until I put one on again. They don't do much to keep my ears warm, but I still like them on me! They remind me of my Grandpa Ted, I used to steal his to wear when I was little. 

 I was looking for a hat yesterday other than one of my Packers hats and grabbed this newsboy cap. Once it gets cold enough though, I'll need to switch to one that covers my ears, lol. This is cute, but rather useless in a place where frostbite is legit a concern.

 Also also. It's really wonderful to be able to breathe in the cold air again!!!! I got super sick with what I jokingly called The Death Plague back in 2012 (in hindsight likely MERS based on timing and me having a couple friends who were graduate exchange students from Saudi Arabia who I'd meet up with at cafes to catch up.) I wasn't super sick, but I had a low grade fever for a long time and some exhaustion issues following it but the worst was that the following fall (6 months later) I got cold induced asthma for the first time in my life. Which was quite scary as I'd never experienced any form of asthma before. Bronchial inhalers only helped a little, about the only thing that helped was warming up the air in my lungs or keeping it warm to begin with. So I started having to wear multiple scarves (3+ scarves: one over my chest/lower neck, one wound tightly over my neck and mouth/nose, and a fluffy woolen one over that so all the air I breathed in was always warm. When it got really cold out, I'd need an extra around my throat.) Thus mask wearing is really not that bad to me unless I stupidly decide to wear my glasses and a mask without a bendy nose thing. Fall of 2019 was when my lungs FINALLY healed up and I discovered I could breathe in cold air again instead of having to keep the air warm behind multiple layers of scarves. It was an amazing feeling!! Also, another reason to presume MERS, besides timing and how sick I got and the damage that did to my lungs, is that I have never had any covid symptoms at any point this last year and a half. And there's no way I haven't been exposed. So it means I spent 7 years getting myself accustomed to breathing through cotton before masks became a necessary evil, but also I really love the feeling of breathing in nice crisp air!!

AND!!! I talked to Sarah about it tonight and since she doesn't know how long her SUV will last, she might be interested in buying my 2010 silver Scion off me so I can buy the 2012 black Prius from work. (I was going to do it in late 2019/early 2020 for the better mileage but covid made it so that I wasn't driving all over the place for concerts and I had nobody lined up for the Scion so I decided to hold off on it.  The Scion gets good mileage, but not as good as a Prius.)  I was upfront with her about the issue of the AC compressor being busted and it being a pricey fix and that since I knew them I wouldn't feel comfortable selling at blue book without adjusting for the $1.2k ac compressor fix issue -- and Sarah suggested that if Mikaela's auto shop teacher can help then it would be fair to take off the cost of the part (still pricey, but not nearly as pricey) and let her do the labor herself.  IF Mikaela is interested and they can swing three cars on their monthly insurance.  Which is such a relief to me as I've never sold a used car before or transferred titles or anything of the sort.  But I'd really like to be in the Prius before long concert/festival roadtrips again and it's better for the business to do the sale before end of year.  I'll talk to my mom and to Sarah some more about it but that would be delightful if I can work that out so well! And Mikaela already knows and likes the Scion.

Also, my sister keeps sending me adorable video clips of my nephew and niece trying to guilt trip me to come visit Seattle area. And there are some cheap flights between Thanksgiving and Christmas so I may go visit them in the not too distant future. Flight prices dependent. I found a stupidly cheap flight for $168 roundtrip Madison to Seattle BUT it had an 8hr layover in Vegas on the way there and an 11hr layover in Denver on the way back. Which just sounds awful.... I'd rather spend a bit more and not have such lengthy layovers... Delta supposedly has around $200 fares from Madison to Seattle around that same time after all.

On a completely unrelated note: I saw an ad during a Packers game on CBS (like the only one this season) for a brand new CBS show called Ghosts about a New York couple inheriting an old mansion that's hella haunted with the most motley mix of ghosts possible on the east coast and deciding to renno it into a B&B -- then after a near death experience falling down the stairs she can see and interact with the ghosts. While I don't typically watch currently running shows, this one sounded super fucking hilarious and delightful as a mix of an hgtv show where people don't know wtf they're doing and a motley mix of historical era ghosts (especially seemed brilliant to me as a medium who has seen and interacted with ghosts her entire life.)  I'm only just finishing the pilot but omg it's so good so far!!!!!  I haven't laughed this hard at a new to me show in ages!!! I'm so excited this show was created and exists! Hopefully it doesn't fizzle and stays hilarious! Highly recommend. HIGHLY recommend! 

It's so funny!!

So anyway, that's what I'm doing tonight -- hanging out with my dog at work, drinking tea, binge watching Ghosts, and going through the outdoor icicle lights to untangle them to check each light so that Ian and I can put them up tomorrow while it's actually going to be a high in the low 50s. (I already checked with Ian and he doesn't have any onsite calls or major online calls to deal with tomorrow. Technically, any of the techs taller than me could help -- I can reach the hooks barely on the short step ladder but it's easier if I have someone taller than me to help. Ian has just helped me with the lights up and down for like 5or 7 years now. It's a thing we do together and we catch up on fantasy/scifi books and shows discussion.)

 So. It's been bothering me now. Enough I can't sleep. And it's a stupid reason to not be able to sleep, but still it's bothering me. A lot. Maybe writing will help. 

So. Pomegranate seeds. I adore them, I have in literally every life I've lived somewhere I can have them. It's not a chthonic cult thing with the 6 pomegranate seeds of mythology, I just think they're miraculous and delicious. I have gotten excited and happy every time I find pomegranates or pomegranate seeds, especially when it's not their season and they surprise me.. They're these beautiful little jewels of deliciousness to me. And pomegranate juice isn't at all the same, much as I like it it might as well be the juice of some other fruit entirely as far as my tongue is concerned. I want the little tiny perfect bursts of flavor and pith together.  

But. That's me. The ones I have right now are because my mom was at Aldi and whenever she sees pomegranates she thinks of me and how I light up with joy over them so she bought me 2. I know most people like them well enough but don't really love them - and some people like my dad don't even like them (though he likes pomegranate juice.) And I get that, it's true about all foods, everyone has different tastes. 

But what's bothering me is.... I have no idea Eric's opinions on pomegranates this life -- no idea if he'd look at that bowl of glowing seeds with delight and want to steal them while I was peeling it or if he'd feel the same sort of visceral disgust that I feel about raisins (though I like all other dried fruits) or if he would shrug and not get it and maybe at best say, "I'm happy they make you so happy." And it doesn't actually matter to me where on the spectrum of reactions to pomegranate seeds his tastes are, it matters to me that I don't know. I have no fucking idea. And it's the fact that I don't know basic like and dislikes and tastes in food and drinks and anything else that is bothering me tonight. 

It's why I say that the shape of my love is to Be happiest in wishing him whatever happiness it is he seeks and chooses for himself this life rather than demanding a selfish reciprocation - not because I don't want my love and affection and desires reciprocated but because I don't know a damn things about his tastes and what he most truly wants for himself this life. I feel like I should know his tastes and his desires, but I don't this life. So best I can do is hope he is able to have whatever best pleases his tastes and desires, whatever brings the greatest joy to his heart in the having it and in the anticipation of wanting it. It would be different if I knew for certain any damn thing about his desires and his likes and his dislikes this life -- but I don't. Not even simple things like food preferences.

Like I said, it's stupid that it bothers me I don't know, but it bothers me enough to keep me from sleeping right now. And it bothers me just as much even when I tell me I'm being stupid. 

Because I am being stupid. And I know it. It's a fucking ridiculous thing to lose sleep over. But still it bothers me, that I don't know if he likes or dislikes or mehs pomegranate seeds. That I don't know his tastes or desires about anything this life... And it bothers me that I know I don't know and I have no way to start filling in the unknowns with definite answers ...

For the record, the only thing I like about the post apple harvest post spooky season, "all the leaves have fallen and we still have no snow" dull November days is the fact that I have pomegranates once more in my life!!!!! (Tonight I peeled the first one I've had this holiday season.) Granted I'd be even happier if I could have pomegranates AND glittery sparkle fluff fresh snow!

I REALLY REALLY love pomegranates!!! I'm perfectly happy to peel pomegranates while I watch TV/movies/sports - having something to do with my hand keeps the ADHD from distracting me down rabbit holes if the plot isn't the sort interesting enough for me to hyperfocus on. It's why I used to always sketch while taking notes in all my lectures.  I actually find it very relaxing to sit and peel pomegranates until I'm red-handed. I just can't do it while reading books or writing in one of my many unfinished novel manuscripts. Also, once it's peeled, then I get to eat the seeds! 

I have another pomegranate in the fridge, but this was my first pomegranate of THIS harvest/winter season!

P. S. Neither the cat nor the dog understand my obsession with pomegranates. Most things I eat, the dog will at least enjoy. But not pomegranates. (Or parsley or lettuce or salad greens of any sort ) Which is why I shared my joy in pomegranate season here -- nobody else in my household gets it or cares, lol.

Pupdate on Audrey: 

To circle back in case anyone was worried, Audrey seems absolutely fine now. (She's currently rolling around on her back in her bed kicking the air and snorting happily after she finished licking my breakfast plate - she does this every time after a meal of kibble or some scraps/scrounging she particularly enjoyed. If not in her bed, she hops up on a couch to do it though that's more often at work than home.) She's been eating the new food quite regularly and given that she got underweight while sick and she's old I give her a half cup to cup of it any time she asks -- and she'll stop eating leave some in the bowl when she gets full. She's never yet had more than 2.5 cups in a day so her self regulating her hunger/eating/overeating is a non-issue.  Spock, the cat, continues to think the new food some sort of heretofore unknown treat and tries to steal the kibble any chance he gets. 

We went on a brisk walk for an hour this morning before I showered and made breakfast - and everything was healthy/regular consistency and color and size. She's no longer producing excessive bile and she's eating regularly enough to use up all the bile she produces like she's supposed to. 

She's been having all her treats again (including occasional feline greenies in very small quantities) with no adverse effects noticed at this time. She has refused to touch either of her foods she got sick on (both of them are duck formulas, I suppose she could have a hard time digesting duck) even when left constantly out - and there's a non-zero possibility she may never again like duck in her food/treats. 

But honestly, she's doing really well and quite healthy again and nobody ever guesses her age right because she often has the energy of a young pup and if she wants something she'll run her tricks like bunny (sitting on only her hind legs - from bunny she can do high five) and then standing up on her hind legs and doing dance (spin in a circle on hind legs), walk, walk backwards, and kangaroo (a series of traveling hops on her hind legs.) Even the vet office finds it hard to believe she's as old as she is.  I've owned her since she was 12 weeks old, she really is 13.5 years old already. 

The major consequence coming out of her being sick is that because the first thing she held down was rice and chickpeas that I had boiled for a curry dish and separated some out for her while I continued my cooking, she now thinks that rice and beans is the magic that makes the nausea-vomiting-bile cycle stop and thus any time I make any sort of rice and beans she thinks it's healthy and will make/keep her healthy and she should get a share as well as me. Which is fine even though it's a fairly frequent thing for me to cook, dried beans and dried rice are cheap and easy and I always have both in the pantry for the times I desperately need to grocery shop and put it off way too long. Dogs can have any cooked beans except fava beans (which I don't really like so never buy) because favas cause vomiting and diarrhea in dogs. Mostly what I always have on hand are black beans, chickpeas, and lentils because those are my personal favorites - though I'm also fond of red beans when i find them dried and then moving into chili season I also stock up on red beans, white beans, kidney beans, etc. Dried not canned because they take up less space and I don't like the metallic taste of canned beans.

The other night I cooked up some red beans and rice (I LOVE both Japanese style Sekihan red beans with rice and New Orleans style red beans and rice, it's up there with cornbread as my favorite southern food with Cajun style catfish a distant third, but like split pea soup it's traditionally cooked with ham bone for flavor and is thus rarely vegetarian and should never should be considered kosher/halal/pork allergy friendly unless you ask a lot of super specific questions or make it from scratch so you know there was no pork involved anywhere in the process of your red beans and rice; this batch I didn't have celery or onion on hand so this is more like Japanese Sekihan) thus yesterday and today (and probably tomorrow to use up the last of the red beans and rice) I had cheesy red beans and rice with fried eggs on top and lots of cholula for breakfasts. And so Audrey had a small plate of red beans and rice that she wolfed down while my plate was reheating and my eggs were cooking AND she got to lick the scraps of my plate with melty cheese and egg yolk and beans/rice sauce. (I don't add salt when boiling either beans or rice as I can always add salt later - also if boiled without salt it's safe to share with my animals. Not that the cat has ever eaten either rice or beans - he gives me the most disgusted looks that say clearly, "you have complete control of the fridge and pantry yet you're eating THIS?!?!" then he walks away with as much dignity as he can muster while the dog happily trots over to eat the remaining rice and bean he refused to touch. I do not allow thieving of scraps given to the other animal, it results in instant timeout in my bedroom, but if the other doesn't want what they were offered and leave then it's free to whoever grabs it, lol.)

Now. More coffee and reading some more of Octavia Butler's Earthseed duology. Very much enjoying so far! I've read many other titles by her, but never these two. Rather sad that she died before finishing her projected third book on the series - but super happy to have these two! Just started Parable of the Sower last night and if I hadn't needed to take the dog out, shower, and make/eat breakfast would have kept reading without breaks except to make tea and to pee untilil it was finished. I currently don't expect I'll finish it before the Packers kickoff and then I'll be at work for the rest of the afternoon/evening til I head home - but definitely recommend this book so far. It's violent and a bit too close to home how things could go on current trajectories, but it's very well written and good! 

 So one of the reasons I had decided to re-read Aristotle's Politics was because I knew the Rottenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery trials were approaching. (As a side-note: I don't care how juvenile or more accurately Juvenal it is, but Kyle and his family shall never be referred to by me as anything except Rottenhouse. Assume it a typo if you like but Rottenhouse they are, in the most Shakespearean "something is rotten in the state of this house" sense I can mean that, so Rottenhouse they shall ever more be to me.)  I hadn't re-read this particular Aristotle since I was like 23 or 24 and decided to re-read all the Aristotle I own for fun. Legitimately for fun. Including selections from his "scientific" works and like, there's much that remains wise in Aristotle across all these centuries but regarding Aristotle's grasp of the scientific method Diogenes wasn't wrong about running into Aristotle's lecture with a plucked chicken yelling, "Behold a man!" Which reminds me not to get into the fact that we only know Aristotle's "philosophy" from lecture notes from one of his students and Socrates' "philosophy" from the fictional caricature version in Plato's dialogues and we only know Plato's "philosophy" from reading the dialogues he wrote of celebrities of his time at made up parties that never existed -- we don't actually know a damn thing about true Aristotilean, Socratic, or Platonic philosophies themselves, only lecture notes and fictional dialogues of caricaturized celebrities of the day. so calling those as emblematic of the beliefs/philosophies of those philosophers is misleading..

Anyway, Aristotle is NOT my favorite historical political philosopher -- Machiavelli is and if you haven't actually read The Prince you should. (Machiavelli is actually where Jefferson got the idea that after 260 years every type of government falls into something corrupt and/or a revolution must happen -- Americans think it was Jefferson's own idea but if you read jefferson's papers where he talks about it, he cites Machiavelli directly. And Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy was one of Jefferson's favorite books. Problematic as much of Jeffersonian double standards were/are, most of his ideals came directly from Renaissance and Enlightenment authors/philosophers. Machiavelli goes into very specific detail as to how and why each type of government falls apart over time and the forces at play. I can't recall off the top of my head which book in The Prince, but I remember it's there.)  Aristotle also discusses the idea of governments falling into corrupt tyrannical forms, but it's not as cogent an analysis as Macchiavelli.But that wasn't the reason for my re-read.

My re-read was prompted by Aristotle spending several books on what he sees as the greatest divide causing political strife -- oligarchical rich versus democratic poor (and his solution is to expand and keep happy the middle class as the balance point mean between the two.)   And one of the things that stuck in my brain about Politics is that he talks about how policies in oligarchies are based on a rule of unequals and democracies are based on a rule of equals. The distinction is that in all forms of oligarchy, the people with wealth see themselves as above the law while seeing those in lower social strata as below them. Aristotle doesn't get into racial politics because those didn't exist in the ancient world in the way it does in the modern world -- the closest is rights/responsibilities of citizens versus non-citizen resident aliens which was based on birth genealogy within the city-state itself  (and at certain times in history only one parent had to be a citizen for the child to have full citizenry, and after wars depleted the citizenry there were times that even illegitimate children were made into citizens) and Xenophon was negative about all foreign customs by the non-Greek speaking barabaros, thus he gave us the term xenophobic. But in the ancient world distinctions about personal worth or beauty or customs or moral value as a thinking/feeling human being was never about racialized physical traits such as skintone. (That was created by the Catholic church following the Crusades where race and religion made skin tone a measure of the saved versus damned -- the racial issues of the modern world can literally all be laid at the doorstep of post-Roman Christianity and the Crusades.) But while Aristotle doesn't get into the racialized concepts of equality versus different rules for those in power/wealth and those without because it didn't exist that way in the ancient world, his analysis of how oligarchs view laws for themselves versus different laws for everyone "beneath them" is specifically applicable to issues of racial inequalities in America. 

I would also say that Aristotle's analyses of how oligarchies fall into tyrannies and lead to revolutions is also really insightful -- especially when he talks about the times that the "oligarchs" start eating their own. (Such as acquitting Rottenhouse for murdering innocent unarmed white men who happened to be at a BLM protest.)  And we are definitely reaching the point that white supremacy is eating its own (like all oligarchies) to try to preserve the inequalities of law/justice that they believe are "appropriate" and "right" since they are "above" the law applied to those "beneath" them. Which the signs of hat's coming can be read without going back to re-reading Aristotle, but his analyses are still sound about the mentality of people in power who think themselves "above" the laws applied to others.

So it was something I wished to re-read with the knife edge that America's soul and political moral code is currently at. People who haven't lived through descents into tyrannies/fascism/demagoguery in this life or past lives aren't worrying enough about this tinderbox we're all in. Those who can remember it (or who can at least learn from studying history) are rightly concerned and have been giving warning signs for years. Or in my case, I've been watching the volatility of things moving toward tyranny/fascism along racialized divides since the time when I was 17 and wanted to write a book on "The Rise and Fall of the American Empire" based on a point by point analysis of the close parallels of Gibbons and subsequent analyses of what led to the fall of the Roman Empire -- but it was after 9/11 and after I laid out all the parallels to my AP Macro Econ teacher and he turned pale as a ghost, sat down heavily, and said, "You're not wrong but you can't write that book and you can't even talk about it! You don't have the degrees to be taken seriously so your book would be ridiculed as a failure AND you'd spend the rest of your life on investigative lists from governmental agencies that it could ruin your entire future based on the laws that are moving forward right now. Promise me you will never write or publish that book -- nobody will listen to your warnings in time to stop what's unfolding."

Aristotle also has some important/interesting analysis on the importance of good constitutions/legal codes and the importance of updating old constitutions/codes to deal with current issues and also warning  how undermining legal codes by enforcing them unequally and/or making exceptions ALWAYS leads toward tyrannies. He's not wrong.

(My copies of Aristotle are all at home and I'm currently at work taking care of my thirsty plants. So i can't give proper citations/quotations but definitely check out books IV and V in Politics for the class notes we have on Aristotle's lectures regarding these subjects.)

 O that's not a death sentence or a final "nothing's going to ever happen this life" as regards reunion with Eric and me. Things could still be healed and fixed (and honestly I wish they would be) but I don't see a way for me to have any place in his life without figuring a way around or through the problems created by his sisters actions/choices and his inactions/choices the following year when he was directly informed of what had happened and why it was ethically wrong for him to go live on the band's instagram page in order to "celebrate with all their fans" while they had fans blocked on the Instagram account for having been honest about the country music keeping them from attending future shows -- and then he chose to ignore that warning and do it anyway. *shrugs* Is it fixable? Sure. But not if you just leave evreything how it is at this point in time or expect it to resolve itself without taking action to acknowledge and make right the issue of principle at the center. And if I can't do anything about it from among my own options/choices, what logic is there in me believing it WILL change without anything being actively done to create the change? It's not impossible, but I do think it's improbable because without anyone changing things, nothing about these conclusions will change...And the choices that could be made to change things aren't my choices to make....

I'm no longer as broken over accepting that was the best/kindest thing I could do about him as I was (I was deeply hurt for a long time trying to accept this, but it's been over three years now since I started accepting this, it still hurts but it's now a hurt that you live with as opposed to something new) -- if I were I'd not be willing to talk or write about it. certainly not on my own.  As I said, I don't usually start talking about things that have me upset or hurt or seriously anxious until I've got a handle on things. The way around it is to ask me directly what's eating at me or has me so sad and to keep asking until I answer and not to let yourself be distracted if I misdirect to shift the conversation. I won't ever lie directly after all -- so if you ask and don't let me deflect, you'll always get your answer. It's just, I don't like hurting other people or weighing them down by having them help me carry my hurts.  So I don't like to shift my burdens onto other people while they're the heaviest or while I lack solutions to making them better.  But also, if you make it clear to me that knowing I'm upset/hurt/sad and you don't know why or can't help make it better ACTUALLY hurts you more than me sharing it with you does work. You just have to make sure I know that about you.  Just trust me, that always works with me, even if I'm trying to carry it myself.

I'm not opposed to solving things and healing them and finding a better way -- I just don't see how anything I can do at this point can achieve that.  And so, I don't see anything for me to do but accept what the choices made on his behalf and by him have made clear as to the boundaries of what is important in his life and what isn't and his willingness to understand matters of principle/ethics as opposed to placating someone else's defensiveness over cruelties they committed in the past.

I told you, I don't have to LIKE truths for them to be true. I just must accept truths presented to me. Present me new or better truths and I'll have to accept them and replace the outdated information with the new. If you don't like the consequences of past choices then make different choices to change your options, change your consequences.

But you need to know about me that I believe lying is the greatest cruelty that you can do to yourself or anyone else as it is to fundamentally undermine their sense of reality and fact versus fiction. All lies are inherently a form of gaslighting, and therefore all lies are a form of the ultimate cruelty. Similarly all truths are a form of kindness, even when the truth is painful -- still it's a kindness since it isn't a form of ultimate cruelty.  You needn't be cruel in what you say or how you say it. but you should be honest with it and not tell even white lies that undermine a person's sense of reality. So I won't lie to myself or anyone else (unless lying is the only way to save a life) though I will tell literal truths that I know others will misinterpret or that deflects from the answer they desire. But like the fairfolk, I will never knowingly lie.  And the more respect I have for you, the more honest and direct my truth telling will be in response to you. But you should always remember about me that I won't lie about any truths presented to me: past, present, or future.

P.S. I'm super excited for the lunar eclipse during the witching hours tomorrow night/Friday morning!!!!  Wherever you are, if the skies are clear, go watch it!  It's visible across the entire US, clouds allowing. It's also the longest duration lunar eclipse since 1440! 1440!

 Also. Truth doesn't ask you to like it, it asks you to accept it -- lying to yourself or anyone else about it don't change a damn thing. Changing things starts by accepting the truth, even when it's a hard truth or a potentially hard truth. Especially those truths.

Which is why no amount of subconscious reminders and no amount of my own longing or the pain that accepting the facts and fallout of the choices/actions made by Britt in 2018 and Eric in late 2019 has shifted me from a course of accepting the patterns of consequences that there's no place for me in Eric's life and accepting what I cannot change about their freewill, ethics, and principles of the versions of themselves they choose to be and what they'll stand for as individuals and as members of a collective they define.

It doesn't matter how much I hurt over accepting such truths -- it doesn't change any damn thing about the reality of their choices and the consequences of the actions/inactions those choices dictate.

Which is the nexus of the philosophical and intellectual place I arrive at about accepting their moral choices as evidenced by their actions -- and it's where I always circle back to no matter what my heart or soul tells me about why those life paths aren't the ones we should be walking.

What do you expect me to do? Lie to myself? Lie to others? How would that help me arrive at truths? And how can I hope to change anything if I don't understand the reality that I am currently dealing with? And how can I best understand that reality if I deny truth, no matter how difficult or unpalatable a truth it is? Truth doesn't ask me to like it. My opinions about the truth don't change the facts of the past and present..... So what's the point in feeding myself or anyone else on lies that provide comfort now but will only cause more hurt later when you're forced to face the truth and the consequences of the truths you denied and ignored?

And I don't like it. I hate it and it hurts and I'd give just about anything to find a way through to a better path. But I won't lie to myself or anyone else about it. Lying won't get me anything I want -- I won't get anything real or meaningful in this life if I try to build it on lies. And you can't choose your fate unless you're honest and truthful about the paths opened to you due to the past/present that got you to these crossroads.

What does it matter if it's the matter of principle of a man deciding to spend every week doubling down to support a system of injustice created and sustained in his own name or my dog deciding she won't eat because she feels nauseous because she's creating excess bile due to not eating? I can't figure out how to deal with either if I lie to myself about the past choices/decisions that got us to the present clusterfuck. And I can't find a best way out of the perils of the worst case outcomes of the clusterfuck unless I'm honest about how we got here and the worst possible outcomes if you ignore the root causes from the past so you perpetuate them into the present/future.

Being reminded why the truth isn't something I like doesn't help to untangle the mess created by other people's choices nor does it help me to stoic through the pain of accepting those choices and the consequences thereof because I can't make choices for them and only their choices can heal what their choices poisoned. I can try to tempt you with a different type of food you haven't thrown up -- but at the end of the day I can't force you to eat so you stop throwing up nor can I save you forever from the starvation and malnutrition that happens if you don't address the root cause of what's made you sick..... It applies to the freewill choice matters of principle as much as it does to convalescing a sick dog...

As an addendum: 

I am actually pretty sure my dog really is fine and her refusal to eat the foods she associated with throwing up are what got her into this state.  That doesn't mean that as a 13.5 year old dog she will never have an intestinal blockage, or cancer, or diabetes, or dysfunctions of liver, kidney, pancreas,etc etc. and it doesn't mean that I should stop keeping an eye out when things like this happen -- it just means that I don't think that's what this is right now.   If I thought a damn thing else, I'd have taken her in on Friday or Saturday even if I had to drive my grandma with me to the dog's appointment - there's not much my grandma can do except kvetch bitterly and go along for the ride once she and her walker are loaded into the car in my keeping. And if I were upset enough to insist on it (I get deadly calm in a crisis but immoveable about deviating from best triage course of action -- I may be an emotional wreck before or afterward, but in a crisis I get calm and hyper focused on getting/finding the best knowledge to get the best outcomes as soon as possible.  So if I were implacable and serious about needing to take my dog in, my grandma wouldn't fight or be difficult about not wanting to go - she'd get all atwitter nervous overthinking anxious, wanting to learn about everything that's known and don and could be done and all the potential side effects of any medication course then wouldn't be able to even think about anything but the dog until she had news because that's how she handles stress - and then she'd likely get fierce about insisting I let her pay the vet bills for her own peace of mind as the only way she could think of in the moment to help me. Because that's how my grandma is in situations like that. Would have ruined her birthday though - so since my dog seemed as stable as possible and not in serious danger, I didn't even mention it to grandma though I did go check on the dogs first opportunity to hand off my grandma to others to help her settle in feel like she had some agency/control in setting up her new apartment.) 

But if I'd felt even the slightest intuition or doubt that my delaying could imperil my dog, I'd have taken her in even if there was only 24 he emergency vet open. She never got that bad, but I spent much of Thursday through Monday monitoring her closely, learning about what it could be and the various procedures/tests to determine, and following recommended actions unless specific factors showed up or worsened. She still may need blood work to rule out worst case scenarios, but for now getting her back regular on kibble is priority. But if I'd had any real fears she needed medical intervention, I'd have taken my pup in. I am pretty fierce about insisting other people I love take care of themselves even if I am the absolute worst about going in for myself, I've stoic-ed through fractured toes and ribs because I knew it wasn't displaced and precisely what they could/couldn't do other than x-ray confirmation and I definitely stood up and got back on my bike after the accident with the fire hydrant when I was 12 which missed my femoral artery by half a centimeter (a cut of the femoral artery will cause death by bleeding out in under 2 minutes) and massive hole in my right thigh big enough to put a softball or grapefruit in my leg that took 26 stitches only 15 external but damnit if I didn't get back on that bike feeling like I was good to bike back and I had my foot on the pedals ready to go when my camp counselor screamed at me to get off the bike and an EMT who lived across the street saw the whole thing came running over with tourniquet supplies after telling their spouse to call 911. So I mean, I'm stupid and stoic about my own pain and suffering and the best way to get me to take care of myself is to remind me I cause people who love me anxiety/pain if they worry I'm not taking care of myself - but for those I love I'm very fierce about getting them the best care possible that they need. If my dog got so dehydrated or malnourished or showed signs of a gi obstruction, she'd have been at the emergency vet with an IV for fluid replacement and scoped for any obstructions and then we'd start in on a blood panel to figure out if there was any imbalances or signs of cancer or organs failing. And if I couldn't swing it monetarily, I'd ask/let my parents help me out until I could repay them. That wasn't necessary, but it was always mentally among my triage options if she ever seemed like she needed it. 

Right now, she's stretched out taking a nap in her bed right next to me, using my left foot as her pillow and puppy dream twitching. She hasn't vomited since Sunday and she went out and had a more solid poop this afternoon (solid enough to pick up, unlike Sunday/Monday morning) and after we came in she was hungry so I gave her another half cup of the Royal Canin Digestive Care food. My cat has decided her new food smells so good that he thinks it's a treat and I see no problems with that. Cheaper than treats and potentially safer than the feline greenies if that's what has them sick -- if Spock wants me to give him individual pieces of the dog's kibble as a treat, alright. 

So I've been concerned about the dog monitoring her, but not actively worried yet. And the fact I got her to eat and not throw up some soft food, rice, and chickpeas yesterday was a huge relief. By last night my concerns had decreased enough to not be dominant in my mind unless she started vomiting again. And other than residual need to know if something I've fed her is making things worse, my concerns almost completely allayed after I learned this morning that there's a dog stomach bug going around the city. 

O yeah, in addition to me having a potentially toxic trait of me trying to stoic through any and all pain (not just mental distress or emotional heartache) there's something else about me you should notice from this story -- I didn't bring it up  until after my dog was doing better and I'd discussed it over with people at the vet office. I didn't mention even a word of it to anyone (except my parents who helped watch the dog during the time and knew she was having vomiting/diarrhea issues) while going through it.  I have a rather toxic trait of trying to endure and domy best while in the midst of things but I don't talk about it or me being upset by it until I'm starting to get a handle on it and things are settling out into the new pattern and I've done the hardest part of the work to accept the pattern that things have taken. Not just about what Britt did in the name of the entire band and how it thus affected my views of the moral compass of the band for not correcting the system of injustice created in their name and my acceptance that it meant me giving up something I have cherished and sought across lifetimes as being unavailable/unachievable in this lifetime since I see no way for me to have any place in his life given the central importance of his sister and his band in his life and to his self-identity. But I just wrestled it and kept on wrestling it until I'd accepted the inescapable logic of the consequences of her unacknowledged acts/choices and then afterward accepted that Eric didn't give a fuck about the wrongs he personally committed whenever he went live on the band's official instagram account that had a system of inequality now built into it, not even when you told him directly.

But anyway, stoic through it and not talk about it and crisis management to triage the best end results and avoid the worse is how I deal with things. I'm consciously trying to be better about sharing when things upset and hurt me and to ask for help/support (and also to talk about things before they settle into their patterns of consequences) but ingrained patterns of behavior are the hardest to break. 

But, all that said, at least my dog is on the mend and hasn't thrown up in 48 hours now and she's eating a new kind of kibble so whether it's the dog stomach virus going around or something I've been feeding her that was making her sick now she's older and her gi is sensitive. So I'm not as distracted by those concerns as I was.  If she gets worse again, then we'll do the blood draw panels to see if we can rule out the worst things or find a definitive answer of what it is.