elainegrey

Yule week is pretty fuzzy in my mind. Exec functioning evacuated for a few days and i rested. Or "rested" as i am sure i was thinking about gottados. I did eventually write a Yule letter to send and on Tuesday, Christmas Eve, took packages to the post office. No line! (Eye roll).

Brother N's clan arrived on Monday evening from Singapore (and for Z, from Tampa) by way of visiting grandparents in California.

Christmas Eve we gathered at my sister's with Dad, N's clan, and her husband's sister A-- and her kids and husband. Christine ghosted through and left. I stayed for dinner and an ornament exchange. After A's family left we started a gift exchange -- i'd hoped Christine would make it in time to join, but she ran late and the exchange raced ahead. Christine was back in time to give hugs to N's clan and Dad, then hung out with NYU student W-- and his classmate T-- and talked music. She was in heaven.

The next morning i abstained from going over to sister L's: we'd been there late. Christine had been sad that my family has calm quiet times early in the morning when she's no where near caffeinated enough.

Eventually Christine was up and we did a gift exchange. Instead of ordering the single color Prismacolor premier pencils i asked for, i now have the 132 colors. SO many colors! We now also have a software defined radio ... receiver? "dongle." Essentially, you plug this into your computer, plug an antenna into it, and you can hear and see radio waves. Thanks to miracles for inattentive beings, it covers the frequency band i am most concerned about: the signals for my weather sensors.

I can go on and on about this: i have now bought a gadget that shifts frequency so we can get AM and Ham frequencies (for amusement, like finding numbers stations), a linux mini computer for the weather station monitoring, and a "nano" dongle for the weather station monitor server.

Christine appreciated her gifts: some necklaces and the Apple Pencil Pro. She suggested i had more colors in my box of prismacolors than she had, but i think not. She then made party mix as part of her gift to her sister and her husband, and then we went to visit them for a few hours. On return, i immediately started roasting sweetpotatoes with red onion and seasoned with amchoor (spice gift to myself) and cumin. They turned out wonderfully. Meanwhile, i got a call from my sister about the filthy conditions of the bathrooms my dad had "cleaned." Concerns were raised.

I then headed over to my Dad's place where my brother's family was hosting a gathering of all the same folks as on Christmas Eve. I was early, dinner was late, and i left before desert and the Santa Lucia parade.

Thursday morning my brother's wife M and their son D who is heading to college next year headed to Canada to see Canadian colleges in the cold. Both Thursday and Friday I and my sister went over to my Dad's where with much pushing from me and my sister we got some stuff packed up -- took things for ourselves and made a concrete plan to have an estate sale before Dad moves. And my brother made it clear (enough) to Dad that Dad should not keep the house in hopes my brother will move into it. This with the bathroom filth debacle, has us hoping Dad will move sooner.

Also, on Thursday, after soaking my wild beans for over 24 hours and pouring out the water twice, i slow cooked them for over six hours with the peel heavy bits of the sweet potatoes. This turned out wonderfully. The beans that never plumped up in the soaking, eventually did with the slow cooking. The beans could have gone longer.  Very excited to find them edible. I did forget to add kombu.

Yesterday Christine went to see her sister in Mount Airy, and i stayed home to care for Carrie.  After Christine asked for a birthday card for her sister, i was pulled into a surprise project of going through a bunch of stationary and stationary-adjecent drawers. I think it qualified as "decluttering." I haven't quite finished, but made major progress.

Not sure what today brings. It's ridiculously warm and a downpour is called for this afternoon.

Home! Glasses made it.

I am a little on the blue side, which i assume is weariness, not being present in my body and my heart while at the conference. I was there with my colleague V, whom i'd only just been getting to know. She's ...aggressive? assertive? in her need to know things - an urgency, maybe anxiety. I sense an edge of uncertainty, lack of confidence? I suspect she is very capable. She shared her appreciation of how i spent time with her, mentoring and not "ditching" her.

Sunday i got outside to plant all the bulbs i'd received just before Thanksgiving, forgetting to soak the anenome corms (Anemone blanda, Balkan windflower) and other things that went through my head about how i was screwing up the planting. I'm glad i got them in, and part of me believes strongly that getting the bulbs in (and out of the surprisingly dry house) is better for the bulbs than putting things off and having the holiday engagements postpone that work even more.

I rescued some areas from stilt grass, lessons in just how much it shades other plants. On one hand, yay, it's trapping moisture, but it's smothering plants. I've got so much space i need to rescue from the cursed stuff.

I would love to buy and get more native wildflowers out -- the native relatives of Anemone blanda would be lovely to get established. But not until i can trust that they have a place to survive.

On the 32nd floor in Boston, facing the south east, reveling in the tangerine and salmon sunrise against the lightening sky. The bay shimmers it's reflection. Standing at the window last night, i held up my computer so Christine could watch the chain of bright lights coming in to land at Logan. I was aligned with the runway, and there was little sense of depth, so the slow descent washard to perceive.

I forgot the CPAP power cord. Hopefully Amazon delivery to the hotel on Tuesday works out: talk is Wednesday.

I bought way too much food, partly as an economy -- an Italian loaf was just a little more than a roll at the grocery. I suppose i can find some birds to feed.

More sense of "what do i need to do" interspersed with "escape" which means "read something else" as my emotional palette. Remember, self, clear the spring, (but maybe not before breakfast with colleague V).

Oh good grief. I was going to try and read "The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone" at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/opinion/men-fiction-novels.html , which reiterated somewhat familiar statistics and anecdata then got to

In recent decades, young men have regressed educationally, emotionally and culturally. ..... This disparity surely translates to a drop-off in the number of novels young men read, as they descend deeper into video games and pornography.

Descend deeper into video games?

I dunno. This sneer and the focus on "literary" leads me to wonder if the author is missing significant issues like the huge economic disparity out there. How about a different hypothesis than "men regressing" to

• college education's cost now challenges its value;
• due to inequities in cultural pressures, men pursue paths that are more clearly going to allow them to be providers;
• due to inequities in the work place, women need the validation of a degree more than men to enter.

Therefore, the value of a college education is higher for women than it is for men. This can explain women completing college at a higher rate than men without implying regression of men.

I don't know if that's right at all, but i remember just how amazing MOOs were to literary friends in the early 90s, and i've been impressed by the narrative engagement of current games. Maybe a good question is why the New York Times doesn't also have a games best seller list. To diss men as regressing because they are playing (and writing, and designing, and producing) video games and not writing literary novels is a little myopic.

--== ∞ ==--

And i should be focusing on prepping for this conference.

It's also frigid. If the weather continues like this it will be a severe or extreme winter, per https://mrcc.purdue.edu/research/awssi , and -- regardless-- with the cold setting into the ground and water, the usual cold air masses in January will have a bigger effect than they would if the place hadn't chilled down so much.  I suppose i should be thankful it's a good bit warmer in Boston than it is here, and that i don't need to worry about home because it's warming up while i'm gone. And rain! That should help the drought.

--== ∞ ==--

Where does one go to find Comfortable Courtesan fan fiction?

Refresh https://the-comfortable-courtesan.dreamwidth.org/ refresh refresh refresh

Written morning of Saturday 16 November

Work: I think i got the urgent things in time this week. Next week: slides for a talk due before American Thanksgiving.  (Talk is after.)

Went out last night to see my nibling E in a performance of Pride and Prejudice. I think that was the first digital book i read in... 1998ish? The audio was not ideal for some performers who were too shrieky-dramatic (mother and Lydia Bennett). Elizabeth was coping, and my E as Jane was clear. Nibling is really blossoming as a performer.

Dinner after at a locavore-ish place where my Dad embarrassed my sister for asking for Budweiser. The berry salad (Local greens, beets, blue berries, almonds, feta, pickled onions, cocoa vinaigrette  -- where the vinaigrette had something smoked in it?!) was divine with shrimp. I had not read the ingredients carefully and so was surprised by the cocoa vinaigrette. I asked E if she minded being type cast as beautiful but ill characters, as she had also played Annabel Lee in the recent Poe play. No,  she doesn't mind. I was interested to hear how difficulties with one actor were framed, not honoring consent agreements (apparently by a jerky assertion that they wouldn't honor it than actually violating the agreement), and by not learning lines etc.

( RFK,Jr comments )

Brisk but lovely morning on the back deck in the moonlight and the dawn sky.

Cooking joys yesterday -- enjoying the pest i'd made earlier in the week on eggs and a caprese sandwich. Making a green pepper paste with tiny peppers, onions, cilantro, basil, and parsley from the garden. Roasting and peeling the poblanos. Using poblano peel and ginger peel in making a soup broth for the week's lunches. Also, onion, carrots, seaweed, and a final add of a can of corn. For dinner i baked the bulb of a butternut squash with ricotta filling.

Gardening yesterday included taking rootstock  sprouts from an apple tree and some low hanging elderberry branches and shoving them into the compost pile that's being retired for this winter.

--== ∞ ==--

Significant realization yesterday. I have been wrestling with procrastination all my life. Lately, i sense i am working harder than ever at work (with a worry that i am exhausted because i am getting older but ... really 56 is older enough to be noticing that?) .

Earlier last week sister L had bemoaned nothing had gotten done that day, then with prompting, she's spent hours sorting out a health insurance mess. Well, that's clearly both an important and urgent thing to be working on. I cheered her from the sidelines.

Saturday i went out the door planning to weed, but saw the rescued moss and stones, and the bare earth where i had prepped for the trenching, so i built better stone steps than were there before (more stones and good fill dirt available), and transplanted most of the moss.

But later i had a crash -- no spoons to go weed or rake after that, and the negative self talk spiraled. I ran away to a book.

Yesterday i was explaining to Christine, and she asked if this depression and spiraling was ADHD. Not directly, no, but ADHD related. The ADHD part is all the years of training to have lists, prioritize lists, do the things on the list and the signal that if you weren't doing the things on the list you were being flaky, distracted, bad.

But i can recognize that just because things aren't on the list, they are important. I'm not procrastinating or being distracted.

I think, with this realization, (which i knew, see cheerleading my sister), i can start pushing back against my brain by pointing out it's acting like a manage to metrics monkey that's not paying attention to the real landscape.

Dad wanted to talk this morning, driving home from his sweetie's, where they watched the returns all night with disbelief. I'd not followed the reporting, just peeking at the NY Times decision arrow (holding the striking tech workers in my heart) and the electoral-vote.com site. Christine came home from watching with her sister, feeling despondent, and i could at least say Mark Robinson hadn't won, and Jeff Jackson is  NC's next AG. Those are little candles glimmering in the distance for me.

Dad said he was going home to focus on what he needed to do, "Fix what he could fix," and i held that - yes: fix what we can fix. On the family thread i wrote, "Like Dad and i were discussing on the phone: fix what you can fix and be the best person you can be. You can still make a better -- more beautiful, more just, more diverse -- world. And don't give into fear: find the bright spark of Light inside you, nurture it, feed it, and be inspired to do what is right" as i thought of my niblings. Then i asked them what they think we should do.

One thing my dad advised was keeping your head down, but i don't think i can do that. I don't think giving into fear will help anything, so the rainbow yard sign will stay up with the solar lights on it - -and ill clear the meadow grasses from in front of it soon.

The flooding and deaths in Missouri and the spinning up of ... checks the National Hurricane Center ... yes, it's Hurricane Rafael now underscore a reality that has been denied. Shift the pack on my back and try to put down burdens that aren't mine so i can carry what i can carry forward.

I have had a brief thought about retirement and whether we should live with less so i have capacity to do more. I will admit to giving into fear with those thoughts -- not sure how markets will handle the coming years, more due to climate uncertainties than completely mismanaged economy, and also not sure the roaring stock market is the just way to be funding a retirement anyhow -- but maybe i need to spend more time listening to see if that is a leading.

The dehydrator is humming behind me, competing in volume for the cricket and other insect serenade. While the sun has come up over the horizon, the  clearing is still in a shady twilight. The moon illuminated the deck as i set up this morning, and if i stood in just the right place, i could see Orion in an Orion shaped gap in the trees. I'm not sure where i am used to seeing Orion: the three stars of the belt were a sharp surprise for me.

Yesterday i took some very old "baby" carrots and chopped them up with my food processor, then blanched them for three minutes, preparing to dehydrate them. I also had a bowl of ripe Matt's wild cherry tomatoes (which self seeds), so i poured the boiling water off the carrots over the tomatoes (and caught it for broth). The carrots dehydrated so very quickly and were packed up within hours. The cherry tomatoes are taking their good time. I really wonder if its worth it, but the flavor in these tiny tomatoes is so intense already - i look forward to the punch this winter.

I made a yummy soup yesterday: the Maine kombu, some of the carrot, some of the carrot water, white miso, rice noodles. There's some shiso beside the orchard (which is an invasive plant that grows up and down the road to the creek). I need to collect at least the plants near the orchard and wonder whether it's worth trying to preserve. I spent some time reading about various ferments; some of the ferments sound barely fermented. Roughly: leave the leaves whole, salt and season between each leaf, roll up, and refrigerate? I'm leaning towards weighing the leaves, calculating the 2.5% ratio of salt, chiffonading the leaves and leaving that to ferment. I am thinking about doing that to basil, too.

I looked at fermenting the cherry tomatoes, but the ripe ones apparently go to alcohol very quickly. While the reference to tomato wine seemed uninteresting (as intended), tomato vinegar sounds interesting. I'm just not sure how much home produced vinegar i will use up. I haven't gotten in the habit of using it yet, and as it is of uncertain acidity, leaving it out on the counter doesn't seem wise.

Now to encourage myself to snack on the fresh bag of baby carrots instead of other sweets.

Also got new glasses lenses yesterday. Where it was hard before to use the progressives for distance, now they seem hard to use while sitting with my laptop. Fie. Maybe i will go back to straight bifocals.

As i tuck my legs under my nightgown's skirt, to hide from the mosquitoes and -- glorious! -- the 61°F temp*, i see whole snapper and imagine trying my hand at fish head stews. Later, in the fall. A sheet pan of tiny baked perch fillets will do nicely in the freezer as lunch time taco filling.

Marlowe is attacking Luigi more now. He's clearly less stable on his legs and has moved into some new stage of aging. Is she attacking because she senses something else wrong? We will so miss this sweet old man of a cat when he passes. He's so delighted to be between us on the couch at lunch and during the evening. He used to sleep with us at night, but i think adjusting to tossing humans is hard on him now.

Well, i've made little progress on morning to-dos, there are too many -- but i want to bag some figs before the wasps are out. I'm hoping the cooler morning has held them back.

• Dew point 60°F: it's dripping wet and there's a light fog between me and the clear sky and the sun lit pine tops.

Weekend with weather that supported getting yard work done. Back to wet.

Dad's sweetie in in the hospital with an active case of ... tuberculosis. Reading how that bacterial infection behaves -- it can be latent for decades -- activating when your immune system finally can't hold it off any more -- makes me so thankful for modern medicine, so angry at the  forces that  have rebelled against caring for the community of all of us because "i don wanna". There are lots of things modern medicine cannot do, and there are Issues, but still.

Anyhow, i am clear that if the state health system doesn't, i'll nag dad to get a TB test in eight to ten weeks. I am intellectually aware that it will be fine to be in a car and hotel room with him next week to go to DC and "inurn" Mom in Arlington National Cemetery. (Other things, like his persistent procrastination and his desire to bail from seeing the family who are gathering for the event, make me irritated, but i also assume it's both grief and  the edge of recognizing his own mortality.)