Predictably, the weather reverted back to freezing and rainy, almost as if on cue from my last conversation with Y about frost-free dates for transplanting.  The most I could do outside was take a few photos of plants opening up.  Loucious was like, get me back inside now!

On the topic of kids learning the hard way by doing, it seems Y has decided to rehome the rats.  Much as we all became fond of them, he realized the work of maintaining them was a little too much for him, with all the other responsibilities.  So that turned out to be an educational experience.  He took it all on himself and gave it his best shot.  Those were some happy rats.

Avdi and I did go out for our rescheduled date, but kept it short and inexpensive.  We “discovered” Stacked Burger Bar, a very casual, no frills friendly dive in the very surreal town of Carondelet.  We had huge burgers and fries with local beers.  My Four Hands draft stout was very satisfying on a cold evening.  I couldn’t even finish my food, it was so much.

I just want to say, I hope history will accurately and completely reflect the full hideous horror of the brutal arbitrary destruction that demented trump and supporters wreaked upon not only the US but the world.  I hope all of them will be held fully accountable and justice be done.  It seems a lot to expect, with all the crimes against the constitution and people they get away with, and it may require an actual world war to wake people up, but whatever it takes.  I’m staying alive to witness retributive justice.

A simple thing like multiple shopping lists, apps, stores, and pickup/delivery methods really threw me off at first.  I blame my dog injury!  (It really is still distracting me.)  I had to switch my brain over to another, more convoluted system, but I think I finally approximated the correct results, with some remaining tweaks.

It was really uncannily warm and windy out, but I didn’t have time to work on anything, nor the energy (again, dog bite!), so L and I just strolled around looking and sniffing, while on a break.  So many daffodils!  And the bluebells are about to go crazy!

K decided once again to aim high and take on one of the more ambitious, time-consuming recipes, bouillabaisse!  It’s called hands-on learning the hard way!  I hung out to “consult”, though I’ve never attempted the recipe myself.  Once she figured out that all the mussels and clams were now dead (?!) and unusable (some very happy raccoons probably didn’t discriminate!), she simplified down to the shrimp and fish, and it came out really well.  She served it with a baguette.  I have to hand it to her.  Bourdain would be proud.

Meanwhile I sorted out the fridge a little, to reduce things going bad by neglect.  It’s another concept the kids haven’t mastered yet, having nice things and keeping them that way!

Avdi took E shopping for his HS Euro-trip (Greece and Rome, so much envy!).  Avdi is in such a perpetual state of fatigue and related symptoms, it’s hard for him to function, but he can’t let up.  That’s why I’m trying my best to take on more challenging jobs to help out.  I’m getting educated!

Y keeps asking, is it time to plant his flowers yet?!  Patience is not one of his virtues.  But I feel the frustration, it being like summer out.  It’s just as well I’m tied up with other inside business to keep me from untimely critter genocide!

I’m so otherwise occupied, I keep missing holidays–they just go right on past me.  I’m not sure if Pesach will even happen, at this rate.

And now, back into the fray.

I got some antibiotics for the dog bite.  This injury is really taking it out of me.  It’s hypersensitive and sapping my energy.  It doesn’t help that my immunity is already compromised by CLL.  I alternate sleeping too much, and not being able to because of the extreme discomfort (like right now).  One more challenge that I will overcome.

I finally made it to Avdi’s yesterday, where Loucious and I just took in all the spring action.  Magnolia trees are in bloom, though we don’t have one ourselves.  I didn’t have energy to do much, but our neighbor Angela and I got to catch up through the fence, and L got all excited to meet another person.

I’ve been trying to learn and implement Avdi’s household shopping system and lists.  It’s not easy, but I’ll get there.  It’s just one more task that he has little time for that must get done.  He’s been feeling sick, probably involving allergies, so I stayed up late to work on it at home.

It’s very different when you have many mouths to feed on a limited budget, each kid requiring specific foods to address eating disorders and other needs.  Many different store runs/pickups are needed weekly, primarily Costco for affordable bulk staples.  It’s very time-consuming.

I seem to be whining, but I don’t mean to be.  My small concerns are nothing compared to Avdi’s.  He’s been having to work later to try to keep up, and if we catch a fleeting glimpse of him, it’s dashing between endless tasks, and once in a while, collapsing in bed for a moment.  It’s hard for the kids to understand all the responsibilities he undertakes for their benefit, but to their credit, they’ve been taking on more chores themselves, on top of their heavy school work loads.

Speaking of beds, I need to get back in mine.

That was a first.  Loucious bit me!  I found out the hard way he has a trigger spot on his head, so when I kissed him goodnight, his instincts kicked in, and he took a big bite out of my neck.  Not a gentle love nip, either; more like a vampire puncturing deep, drawing blood.  I was startled and dazed; then in pain.  There was torn skin and a swollen bruise.  I did what first aid I could, and barely slept.

In the morning, I looked like “the other guy”, as in, “you should see the other guy!”  Of course Loucious probably had no idea, and greeted me profusely as usual.  It wasn’t his fault.  I just learned that dogs, like people, have unconscious triggers to be aware of.  Even your best friend.

It was gorgeous and warm out, after the deluge.  L and I went outside and looked/sniffed around.  Then L, who turns out to be a “diggy doggy”, helped me hand-cultivate and rake the veg garden some more.  The leaf cover is now lovely homegrown “leafgro”.  A bit more turning over and hoeing, and it should be good for seeding, plus adding to other beds.

Feeling a little injured and weak, I left once Avdi got home.  After a shower, I slept for hours.  Then I started writing, not even noticing that blood was pouring out of me!  At least it didn’t get on my laptop!  This will probably leave a scar, earned in the line of dog duty.  I thought about posting a photo, but it’s too gross and gory.

Crocuses have begun!  Daffodils are about to explode!  I needed to trim Y’s leggy flowers (to put energy back into the plants), so here are bachelor’s buttons.  The fireworks begin!  This is my time!  Even a were-dog can’t stop me.

It was around 80º yesterday, so Loucious and I took advantage of it in the garden, frisbee in tow.  The constant rain has really greened up the place.

First I lightly hand-cultivated and raked the veg garden, redistributing the leaf mulch more evenly.  I’ll continue to do that until it’s time to direct-sow.

Then I hoed an edge around the shed beds, farther into the lawn, and put up a low wire border to keep L from sitting on the plants.  He enjoyed helping me dig, or more accurately, seeing if he could dig his way under the border!  Good to know.

I don’t like to disrupt the dormant beneficial critters this early on, so I try to be as non-destructive as possible, just doing tasks that are more time-sensitive.

I did all this in between Shabbat preps.  As it turned out, Avdi had to work late and miss dinner, and E was at a rehearsal, so it was just K and Y and me.  But we still had a good time at the table for a while.

Avdi eventually arrived, in a sad state of exhaustion and overload, not talking.  I feel really bad for him.  I’m trying to pick up as many extra household tasks as I can to somewhat lighten the load, but it’s just a drop in the bucket.  It would really take a team of reliable people (in addition to what he already has) to handle this much serious business, so he could just focus on work to support it all.  Never mind time to rest and regroup.

Assuming of course trump doesn’t start WWIII and nuke us all to hell.  Hard to live when you’re dead!

After all the rain, and mild temps, you can feel the spring tension in the air, as green fingers shoot up through the leafy mulch everywhere.  In fact, I saw the first crocus bloom yesterday!  Everything is on the verge of exploding into colors.  The native ephemerals aren’t even up yet.

This is my very favorite time of the year, the cusp of spring.  It’s like a great drumroll of anticipation.  Every tiny new bud is a revelation.  I’m not exaggerating.  I don’t want to miss a moment that may never come again.  You blink and you miss it.

Loucious has a different opinion of the wet, muddy yard.  He looks uneasy and put out at the inconvenience of getting his feet wet.  If it’s too cold, he dashes for the indoors.  Of course, if you add a frisbee to the mix, he suddenly forgets all that and goes skidding through the mud and puddles in ecstasy.

Y’s downstairs flowers are bursting into sprays of blue and white.  He keeps asking me if it’s time to plant them yet, and I have to tell him not quite, we have to be patient.  Patience isn’t in an impulsive kid’s vocabulary.  Or in mine, this time of year.

Elsewhere, our criminally insane overlords are dropping bombs on innocent people to distract us from the real business they are too incompetent or selfish to accomplish.  We’re teetering on another cusp, this one hanging on the whims of one demented psychopath.  I read books that came out when I was little that describe the world after a nuclear apocalypse, regressing back to the dark ages, and it sounds like the direction of current events.

You see why I obsess over the earth’s yearly rebirth.  There’s no guarantee we’ll live to see another one.  There, is that cheery and reassuringly routine enough?  I wouldn’t want to scare anyone off!

I wasn’t going to write at all, but I just noticed the forecast for tomorrow–80°!?!  This is not natural, even for MO, I think?!  You (my 2.5 readership still with me) will be relieved to get back to “normal” garden and doggy photos, I’m sure.  Stay tuned for all the excitement.

So y’all don’t like it when I get personal, eh?  Can’t take it, heh?  Too cringe?  OK, good to know.  So I can say anything I want, uncensored, and no one will notice?  Works for me.  It’s kinda private, after all.

It’s been pouring, lightening and thundering, on and off for days.  The yard is a pond.  Loucious is like, forget that!  Might get his paws wet, the horror!  Whereas I’m in waterworld heaven, watching things come up.  There, y’all feel safer now?

Unspeakable, the multiplying genocides and atrocities being unleashed upon the world, upon children, by deranged demented pervs who should be put before a firing squad or worse.  Would you like to hear one of my rants?  Don’t panic, I’m too disgusted to bother.

I hope all the vile christian racist pigs go to their hell and fry.  Too much?  Too bad.

JK, it’s cool.

This will be an experimental post, delving into a very personal area I rarely share.  It’s been suggested I keep a dream journal, just for my own private purposes, but I’m going to go out on a precarious limb and see where it takes me.  Follow along if you dare!  Don’t worry, I’ve censored out any graphic material, and I won’t do this very often.

I have two realities.  A waking one and a sleeping one.  The latter is becoming more real than the former.  In it, my ghosts and demons are duking it out to reconcile my sordid past.

Here’s the weird thing: I can prompt my subconscious mind to focus on a specific unresolved issue from my past, and my dreams will process that theme all night.  If I wake up and go back to sleep, it transitions into a next episode or version.  It’s surreal and lucid at the same time.  It’s with me for days.

It’s not just a fantasy playing out; the “archetypes” (as I call them) that keep showing up represent significant, troubling people in my life who refuse to recede into the past, and my lack of closure.  Some of these people are dead in real life, some are still alive, but they all continue to obsess or oppress or haunt me.

The backdrops typically depict my childhood home and conflicts with my family.  There are complex labyrinths and often unmanageable chaos, a feeling of lostness or unsettledness.  In most dreams, I know I’m secretly older, but I appear younger, like an imposter, like I actually feel.  My interactions are with mostly young peers, and are all over the spectrum.  The attachments formed are very intense yet ephemeral.

But certain authentic archetypes constantly reappear in confusing, fluctuating roles with me.  I’m always torn between resigning myself to a false security, or putting the past behind me.  In a new twist last night, I found the courage to stand my ground and resist submission to an old nemesis.  In this version, I was even able to take the young son archetype and other innocents with me.  We were all scared, but they trusted me.  My longtime adversary was revealed for what he was and outmaneuvered once and for all.

I’m still haunted in and outside of my dreams by one friend who died without my knowing, because I had distanced myself from that old life.  There’s nothing different I could or would have done, but every so often it hits me again, how final it is.  I rarely cry, but whenever this one unlikely ghost comes around, I find myself unexpectedly brokenhearted.  I dream obsessively about somehow reconnecting and making things right, an impossibility.  It turns out, most of that family died, one after another, until maybe one sibling is left that I know of.  It makes me so sad, to think of people I knew just disappearing forever, with no real legacy.

Some days I feel like I’m fading into this other parallel world, and wonder if anyone will notice I’m gone.

If any of this resonates with you, then I have company in my labyrinthian wasteland.  If it’s too weird, then we’ll get back to doggy, gardeny stuff shortly, I assure you.

Well, here goes.

While I slept, E took over the world!  Let me rephrase.

For some reason, I required sleep from yesterday afternoon through late morning today, so I missed the family meeting, in which it looks like E assumed responsibility for not only taking charge of the meeting and business items, but also many of the essential ongoing tasks.  It’s not surprising, but it’s very impressive.  If he doesn’t overload, which he has a tendency to do, he has real motivation and leadership skills.

I’m a little envious, because I never had those drives or confidence.  But E is growing up in a very different world and situation, where everyone has to pitch in to keep the family afloat.  It’s not easy to be a kid in this generation, but it compels them to learn necessary adulting skills to contribute to the survival of the group.  There’s nothing like reality to bring out the resourcefulness in gifted kids.  It also induces me to try harder to hold up my part of the bargain.

Before I left yesterday, E had already reaffixed and lashed down the pool cover, better than it was.  I need to add, if E didn’t take on all this, we would still love him just the same.  It’s not transactional.  He doesn’t have to prove himself to be loved and respected.  Just so that’s clear.

It’s been cold and raining, which is good for the garden.  The hellebores are finally blooming, and I forced this one daffodil to open up.  Other bulb flowers will be going crazy this year, possibly due to some of my improvements.  I know, not native, but pretty!!  I’m going to have to fence in some of the beds to keep Loucious from sitting down and squashing them.  To him it’s all one big paradise for him.  Can’t blame him.  Look at that innocent face!