A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I have spent most of my time since the snowpocalypse dealing with the fallout of the snowpocalypse, and have made minimal progress other than getting running water restored to my house. Every single repair and insurance issue involves extremely time-consuming errands which inevitably conclude in being told that I need one more thing involving another extremely time-consuming errand which concludes in being told I need to do another extremely time-consuming errand...

On the plus side, only two of my saplings (the pear and a cherry) were destroyed. One was severely damaged (the plum) but will probably survive. The others were all damaged to more minor degrees and I think will be fine. The bulbs I planted pre-snowpocalypse are starting to come up.

My phone is still broken. I spent ages being sent around trying to prove my warranty, but when I finally did that, I was informed that the warranty does not cover damage to the physical structure of the phone. So now I need to take it to a regular repair shop.

I got three different diagnoses on my non-destroyed car by three different mechanics, which does not inspire confidence. (This is for the engine issue, not the cracked windshield (etc) which is also still not repaired.) I finally took it to the dealership in the hope that the warranty would cover it. After the inevitable ages spent dealing with that, I was told that they warranty did not cover it as there is nothing wrong with the catalytic converter itself. Apparently (God I hope this is correct) the actual problem is that some of the essential hardware around the catalytic converter is missing. Their theory is that someone tried to steal the catalytic converter, but was interrupted!

Needless to say, attempted theft is not covered by the warranty. But at least it's an easier and comparatively cheaper repair than replacing the catalytic converter itself.

But! On the plus side, while all that was going on, I FINALLY finished Defender Chimera!

An interview I did several months ago for a podcast is now up. The podcast is IndoctriNation by Rachel Bernstein, a therapist who specializes in cult survivors. It's about my childhood and how that affected my work as a therapist and life coach.

It's on Spotify, Apple, and other places where podcasts are found.

Content Notes: At about the 50 mark, I say, "Let me tell you about the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me." If you don't want to hear a fairly graphic account of child abuse and a suicide attempt, skip to 1:01.

I am SO GLAD I Marie Kondo'd my place last year. I am losing my mind trying to pack up an apartment I've lived in for twelve years with wall-to-wall bookcases and 47 years' worth of random stuff DURING A RAGING PANDEMIC, and that is a year AFTER I sorted through a large portion of it and gave away what I didn't want. Also, in case you missed it, yesterday someone set my welcome mat on fire and comment consensus is that said someone was trying to curse me. Or possibly exorcise me. Hard to say.

It's normal that this is taking forever, right?

At least my cats are happy. Boxes, boxes everywhere!

Pro: Thank you to everyone who suggested exercises for my hip/side/low back thing. They worked! It's basically gone!

Con: This morning I managed to strain a completely different area. It's my upper left back, around the shoulder blade. This is a weak area from an old injury and I know what to do about it in the long term. (It's from when I cracked my T8 vertebra in a high-speed, rollover car crash in 2004.)

However, it's been... wow... sixteen years since I had an acute back injury rather than a chronic one. It hurts to take a deep breath. It hurts to bend over or lean forward. Etc.

I'm sure it's some form of muscle strain, not a disc injury or anything along those lines. That is, I do not think this is anything which requires a doctor's care.

Advice solicited. I have ice/hot packs and diazepam which I can press into service as a muscle relaxant. Also acetaminophen/paracetemol and various NSAIDs.

(I don't know exactly what I did, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it was gardening-related. I do know the proper way to lift but I've been doing a lot of heavy lifting, watering, bending, squatting, etc, and all it takes is one wrong move.)

Speaking of which... HELP. MY GARDEN. We're currently having a record heat wave (99 degrees for at least the next week), I have a bazillion plants scattered all over the place, and I have multiple projects in process that would be hard to explain to others.

I think I can offload some of the heavy watering on neighbors, but would it be disastrous if I did a little watering/other light work? What if I just eliminated all heavy lifting and did tasks very slowly and carefully? Like if I used a tiny can so I'm doing more trips back and forth to the watering can, but I'm never carrying anything heavy?

Advice that I am NOT soliciting: suggesting that I consult a doctor or PT. I already made an emergency doctor's visit this week for a completely unrelated matter (ear infection, it's fine now) and no fucking way am I exposing myself to the plague again. The receptionist didn't wear a mask and I got charged $500 for a ten-minute visit, then I got prescribed the wrong medication, then the pharmacist gave me a completely different but also excitingly wrong medication, then I had to literally grab the correct medication and run after the pharmacist nearly snatched it back because the doctor hadn't told me how long I was supposed to take it.

So fuck American doctors. I'd love to see a PT but not at risk of my life.

I am back in LA, tanned and happy and in possession of several dozen farm-fresh eggs, some of which I have already distributed to friends and neighbors. I then spent two hours madly watering and pruning.

Some garden shots. The lavender flowers are from a potato. Some of my potatoes died in a heat wave, alas. I am hoping to salvage the cucumbers, which were badly affected. When I pulled up a dead potato plant, though, I found two baby potatoes! A harvest!

Harvest. The "crystal melon" is also known as a lemon cucumber. I ate the cucumber and carrot raw, sautéed the potatoes and chard (sequentially in the same pan), and ate them with a fried double-yolked egg from the chooks.

This is everything I wanted.

It feels strange and insensitive to say that I'm happy, considering everything going on. But I am, in between periods of panic and rage and stir-craziness and numbness and so forth. I'm in such a better place than my three years of absolute personal hell. Even if I do end up dying of covid-19 (I'm high-risk), I feel that I'd be much more OK with that than I would if I'd died then, which would have essentially been because I couldn't get doctors to believe that I was actually sick.

At this point, I have the world's best cats, a beautiful garden that's already starting to feed me and others, an eager audience for my writing, and a business that's providing financial stability to me and others... self-publishing my id-tastic romance novels about traumatized shapeshifters and their pet flying kittens.

And those flying kittens bring me enough money that I can do some good with it, from donating to organizations like OutRight to helping out some individuals. Other people helped me so much, in so many ways, from paying for my medication to letting me live with them for months to finding a treatment to simply believing in me, when I was in no shape to give anything to anyone else, literally or emotionally. It feels really good to be in a place where I can give some of that back.

A garden symbolizes hope. It symbolizes the possibility of new life. It symbolizes persistence. But it's not just a symbol. It's a real thing. Put a seed in dirt, water it and tend it, and a sprout may grow. If it doesn't, try again, or somewhere else. When you get a sprout, keep watering (but not too much) and pick off the bugs, but don't be surprised if one morning you wake up and bugs ate the entire thing, or someone pulled it up. Try again, maybe in a different place. Use some bug spray, or maybe try a different plant. If you don't give up, eventually you'll learn how to tend your seeds, and one day you'll have a harvest that will feed you and others.

Walking with armpit crutches is exhausting. Though on the plus side, my worry that my overall level of fitness would go to hell due to lack of exercises was hilariously wrongheaded - if anything, I am liable to get much stronger by the time this is done (and/or some added overuse injuries.

I went to see Captain Marvel yesterday with hederahelix at Mann's Chinese, which involved plowing through a gigantic crowd of oblivious tourists, people attending a street fair I hadn't known was happening, hucksters in costumes or with an albino boa, and aggressive Jesus freaks holding HELL IS HOT and YOU WILL BURN signs and carrying crosses (easily carried ones, not actually crucifixion size or weight - missing the point, Jesus freaks!). I kept having to stop and rest, and by the time I got to tickets I was literally dripping with sweat.

That was when I discovered that Captain Marvel was no longer in the IMAX theatre I'd gone all the way to Hollywood and braved the skeevy madness of the Walk of Fame for, but was in 3D. I can't visually process 3D and it makes all scenes using it visually incomprehensible to me. So I had to go all the way back, through the oblivious tourists and the hucksters and the super lightweight cross-bearers, and then to another theatre. On the way a huckster dressed as Pennywise startled a group of tourists, one of whom collided with me and nearly knocked me down.

This was all additionally complicated by the fact that hederahelix was driving us in her car (in retrospect she should have just driven mine as I realized this exact second, oh well) which had two broken door locks so both driver and passenger doors cannot be opened from the inside.

(The movie was no Black Panther, but it was very fun. Loved the Carol & Fury & Goose show.)

Then I got home and found that my homemade bread had gone moldy. I consoled myself by getting the cats high and getting hederahelix to photograph my foot so I could cadge some sympathy.

This morning I went to the farmers market, but was so exhausted by the time I got there (and also concerned about shoulder/wrist overuse injuries) that I bought some berries, carrots, and oranges and called it a day. Then I realized that I had to walk all the way back, but now with a weight. I was debating asking some random shopper for a ride to my car when a helpful homeless guy who I'd earlier given some money spotted me and carried my backpack to my car for me.

I got there and back by taking off my boot, driving with my left foot, then putting the boot back on. Unfortunately, when I tried to get over a curb, I tripped, went sprawling, and landed directly on my broken foot. So I may have some additional degrees of dislocation now. ARRRRGH!

Also some of the berries got squashed. I decided I had better eat those immediately, before they went bad, and polish off most of the raspberries as well in case they had hidden crush injuries. However, I bought three boxes, so I have plenty left.

Cats are very put out that I am no longer walking around the house cradling them in my arms like a baby (Erin) or letting them leap on to my shoulders from a standing position (Alex). They are consoling themselves by taking up permanent residence in my lap.

But here's the most interesting thing I've learned. Having a very visible and presumed-temporary disability, at least for me and so far, makes people be extra-nice. Strangers are helpful or offer stories about their own broken bones. If I decline help with thanks, they don't have a problem with that. Not a single one of the MANY people to whom I have now told the story of how I broke my foot has blamed me, even though insofar as there is any blame to be placed, this was 100% my fault.

Having an invisible disability, again at least for me, mostly made people be absolute assholes, openly disbelieve me, and tell me to my face that it's all my fault. If I declined help with thanks, they often got angry with me and then blamed me some more.

Having a visible disability of the sort I currently have is no picnic (fucking curbs, I hate them), and I'm sure the fact that mine signals "temporary" makes a big difference. All the same, all else being equal, if I had to pick a permanent one, I'd take visible over invisible every time.

I am bringing Farmers Market Month to a premature "to be continued" as yesterday I broke three bones in my foot in a bouldering accident.



I'm now in a boot and on crutches, I can't put any weight on my foot, and both shopping and cooking (along with everything else) has become 100% more difficult. I'll rerun it later on when it's possible to walk and hold stuff in my hands at the same time.

It was an awesome experiment, up there with KonMari in terms of how much fun I had with it and how it changed things about my life in positive ways. Though I have to say that the best bit of it had nothing to do with literal farmers markets, but was learning to bake bread. I love baking bread! Last night I repurposed my rolling office chair as a wheelchair, scooted around the kitchen, and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich with my very own bread that I'd baked the day before. It was very comforting.

Tips on dealing with crutches, baking bread, exercising with one foot, and/or totally random comments welcome!

Sherwood and I at my parents' place in Mariposa (near Yosemite) for an impromptu writing retreat prompted by Dad sending me snow photos. Snow has been incredibly rare in my life, so I grabbed Sherwood and rushed up in the hope that we'd get more. And sure enough, it snowed again! Snow is falling outside my window even as I write!

Sherwood is staying at the main house with my folks. I'm at the cabin with my cats, which is a 5-minute walk down a hill and heated by a woodturning stove. So to get to the main house, I must hike uphill and in the snow! (You can't drive up the driveway when it's snowy, as it's icy and treacherous.)

It looks like Narnia outside all windows, and is wonderfully silent when I'm in the cabin or can convince Dad to turn off the TV.

I have been busy making winter treats, such as hot cider and apple turnovers, and non-winter-specific ones, such as frozen Thin Mints dipped in whipped cream and lavender-blueberry cocktails. (Lemonade infused with blueberries, lavender vodka.) We are just eating what we have in the house, as we can't drive anywhere due to ice, but as you can see this is not exactly a hardship.





Before it snowed, the koi pond overflowed and went over the dock and the lawn chairs. Then, snow. Those are floating snow-covered lounge chairs!

The views outside the cabin window:







Alex materializes on my shoulder via dimensional portal:



Alex was very excited by the snow, which he's seeing for the first time. He darted through my legs when I opened the door to fetch wood and began leaping and prancing about in the snow, leaving a trail of little kitty paw prints. I retrieved him with some difficulty. Guess me and my cat are two of a kind.

Also I got four wonderful stories for Chocolate Box! I will do a rec post later today, hopefully. Meanwhile, go enjoy the archive.

This has really been a breakthrough for me. I have previously never in my life been able to do any sustained organizing that did not involve some favorite hobby. Marie Kondo's show, at least, is basically about being a therapist for people's relationship with their possessions and their living space; once I realized that and started considering mine in those terms, all of a sudden tidying became my own personal therapy and thus an enjoyable and doable task, rather than something I inevitably got bored or frustrated with, wandered off having accomplished not very much, and then procrastinated on trying again for weeks/months/years.

Also, she has some good practical tips. My big discovery is that putting stuff in transparent boxes makes it a million times easier to find things - I'm very "out of sight, out of mind" for a lot of stuff, so it will essentially not exist for me unless I can literally see it. I have been hitting the Daiso (Japanese dollar store) for boxes. I realize that this is one of those things that's easy and tempting to shame people with: "How did you get this old before learning something any normal person figures out at age five?" But in fact I did not figure it out until age 45, due to watching that show.

I am currently working on the kitchen. Alas, I AGAIN forgot to take proper "before" photos. You can extrapolate what it probably looked like by the fact that yesterday I unearthed a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese that expired in 2011, which is probably also the last time I ate it.

( Click for KatMari photos! )

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