scrubjayspeaks

Parfait died sometime in the wee hours of Thursday. She had been continuing in a kind of stasis--not improving, but not noticeably worsening either--and we had an appointment for Friday to return to the vet for more diagnostics. We still don’t know what was actually wrong, beyond having ruled out something contagious that could infect the others.

So that sucks.

Meanwhile, I had a long talk with my supervisor about the nature and extent of the bullshit I’m dealing with at work. She’s going to work on some options on her end. I’m instructed to enforce barriers with the other departments and remind them I am not actually at their beck and call. The robot situation is stalled, because it turns out the mold design is probably borked. While a lot of my work was still going to be necessary, there is a certain element of spinning my wheels.

I had opted to take Friday off because of basically all of the above situations. A four-day weekend is about the only thing that can do me any good right now.

In happier news, I successfully built a new set of porch stairs. The old ones, which my dad built, had reached the point of total disintegration due to time and weather. I had to reverse engineer his design, which was hampered by the fact that the whole thing was falling apart. Also, it turned out that there was a whole extra layer of boards in there that had since become buried in the surrounding ground. I didn’t find that out until I ripped out the old ones this morning. Fortunately, leveling the ground a bit made it possible to still use my set.

Mum painted them to match the rest of the trim, and I’ve now shoved them into place under the edge of the porch. I am no carpenter (*hideous braying laughter*), but they are functional and look halfway decent. Hell, apart from one small splinter, I didn’t even hurt myself at all, which is more than I usually manage at work! :D

...well, apart from the nightmare sunburn I got yesterday. Look, it was overcast when I went out to start working. In a tank top. For the first time of the summer. What was I expected to do, break my hyperfocus while building just because the sun came out and started broiling me? Pfft.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 34 hours, with a day off to extend the holiday weekend and somehow no overtime???

Cooking: artichoke and lemon cream pasta with chickpeas

Crafting: finished another cotton washcloth, built new porch stairs

Gardening: pruned some problem children in the garden

Reading: Rules For Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall (eh, I like the Blair Witch style documentary format, but I found the ending rushed, given how many loose ends and outright lies needed to be sorted out)

Watching: Stranger Things season 3 episodes 3-4

Listening: Arms of the Sea by Alexander James Adams (some of his older, pre-transition work, lovely mix of familiar and new folk songs)

Clock Mouse: still taking a break

Other: blood draw

When a magical crystal eventually wore out and no amount of moonlight or ocean water could recharge it, recycling it offered a better solution than consigning it to be a mere rock for the rest of its days. Though most services deactivated them before processing, some creative studios with a high tolerance for minor explosions and unplanned magical interactions ground them to fine shards as-is, leaving traces of power in the dust. The result was stained glass panels and dishes that sparked and glowed with the last whispers of remembered magic, now turned to nothing more demanding than a pleasing sight.

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LL#1398

And now we’re going to throw a veterinary situation into the mix! Because why not? We had a scheduled appointment for the dog (routine, she’s fine) that then turned into a double appointment because one of the ducks, Parfait, is sick. That turned into a second appointment as well for further injections.

Still not clear what’s wrong--we’ve eliminated some possibilities, but we’re still in the wide chasm between “could be a minor infection” and “could be ovarian cancer.” Her appetite still hasn’t come back, but she’s also not getting any worse and her energy is a bit better.

And now another duck, Eclair, has a slight limp. No visible injuries, so she might have just strained something or slept on it wrong. They’re all eight years old, very much senior animals, so this is probably going to become the new normal for however long it lasts.

A person I don’t technically work for visited and wanted a demonstration of the robot I don’t have functional yet (because his location’s team didn’t build it right), on a press no one has time to run. This was kind of a tedious waste of my time, but that’s nothing new.

But! BUT~~~ I think I finally got the modifications where I need them to be. I got a 90% success on the last attempt on Friday. (During which I was a) running the machine, b) troubleshooting the robotics, and c) scuttling off to mill down the parts I’m modifying. Efficient? No. Effective? Eh.)

Given the everything, I surrendered to the need to cut things. Dialed back everything I could afford to. The flare is subsiding, but the fatigue remains.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 34.75 hours, with a day off for the first set of vet appointments

Gardening: planted the new corn and winter squash patch, garden club post, succulent club meeting

Reading: The King’s Men by Nora Sakavic (finally worked up the courage to dive back in, we finally got to the smooching bits, also I did not see any of that ending coming, holy shit)

Watching: Stranger Things season 3 episode 2

Listening: assorted singles from The Narcissist Cookbook--“Lorelai: A Ghost Story” (actually an audio short story), “Shut Up And Drive” (oh, it’s a fandom theme song!), “Y’All Ship Me With A Gremlin Boy,” and “Good Love”

Clock Mouse: none minutes and none words ;_;

They called it princess hair when she was growing up, the thick ropes of gold that spilled over her shoulders, and told her it would save her one day, from towers or from mad kings or from spinsterhood. With clippers, she buzzed it off the first chance she stole, and she burned what she cut just to make sure no one with a spinning wheel got any clever ideas. Some blessings aren't worth having; some tools aren't worth learning to wield.

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LL#1395

Work was particularly A Lot. I ended up having to go in after hours to do repairs to a tool. This is because I somehow have ended up being the on-call person for the tool room despite notably not working in the tool room. That’s in addition to staying late repeatedly for assorted reasons. I was also covering for one of the mechanical engineers on vacation, despite, again, not being on the mechanical engineer team and not being warned in advance that I would need to pick up his projects. And I still had to do the robot work for the automation team I’m also not on.

After a week of work stress, lost sleep, and feeling guilty for not being able to help out at home like I normally would, I finally ended up triggering a lupus flare. Major body pain and fatigue and swelling.

So I had to start dropping things. Too much pain to work out. Too tired to write, even if there had been waking hours to do it. Basically everything that was even remotely optional. And I still got less sleep than I needed.

Feel like I need to apologize for being a downer. The garden club post is up now. Peace offering?

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written, May posts queued

Day job: 48.75 hours, holy fuck...

Cooking: falafel and tahini sauce to make wraps

Cleaning: fixed the damaged sprinkler head

Gardening: planted three salvias, planted pumpkin patch

Reading: Escape from Incel Island by Margaret Killjoy (pfft, funny and silly and weird)

Watching: the 1996 Kenneth Branagh production of Hamlet, which I felt an unexpected compulsion to watch again for the first time since I saw it in high school, Stranger Things season 3 episode 1 (finally into never-watched-yet territory)

Listening: ABBA Gold Greatest Hits (I was planning to spread this almost 4-hour album out across a few weeks, but I had a very weird and unpleasant day at work in which I just locked in and repaired machines while listening to the whole thing in one shot, a strange experience)

Clock Mouse: 29 minutes of planning work, plus 474 words written, probably will be taking some time off

From dreams spoken into being on couches in parents' basements, to opening acts for other nearly-made-it bands at basement gigs, their music was underground in every way. It only made sense to record their first music video, shaky and lo-fi as it was, in one of the local caves to continue the theme. Little did they know at the time that it was also their biggest concert yet, as crowds of creatures, eyes glowing just beyond the reach of the lighting rigs, listened in rapt attention.

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LL#1393

As we head into convention season and the subject of costumes and consent comes up again, we would like to remind everyone that large groups of costumed people usually contain at least one genuine article. We have found this holds true for witches on Halloween, werewolves at furry conventions, and superheroes at comics shows, among many other possibilities. While respecting others’ boundaries and bodily autonomy should be motivation enough, the possibility that the tail you are tugging comes attached to real fangs and claws may help encourage good behavior.

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LL#1391

She watched the waves pound against the shoreline, seeming to smash themselves to pieces yet ebbing away again as a single continent-spanning body. For her, there was no magic in the tides, calculable as they were, inexorable as they remained, and that was a comfort. No one had ever truly succeeded in stopping them, all human efforts merely diversions and deals made with devils who came calling over the seawalls eventually, and she had decided to take that as inspiration.

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LL#1390

Pulled by harnessed flocks of sea birds, a cloud caravan has drifted into the skies above Lewisia and stopped for trade and socializing. The aerial village is too small to be part of the sister city system, but we consider them kin all the same and encourage anyone who has not seen one of their previous rare visits to take the time to say hello. A landing platform is being constructed (we knew we should have held onto the old one, but stratospheric structures are so difficult to maintain) to ease accessibility for any Lewisians feeling uncertain about hitching a ride in a pelican shuttle.

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LL#1388

The little basilisk hissed, its beak gaping wide below huge, frightened eyes, and lashed its tail against the leaves and grass in an attempted mimicry of a rattlesnake. Newly hatched along with the spring tadpoles and toadlets, it had not yet developed poisonous breath, or stone gaze, or even a proper cockscomb. The hikers, who gently nudged it off the trail with a walking stick, would have nothing worse than a couple of slightly singed spots in their leg hair, where shorts had not protected them from the outraged glare of the tiny terror-to-be.

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LL#1387