(no subject)

We're having some depression feed-back loops between Christine and I. She's worried about my depression, but she's not quite up to me leaning hard on her. Especially since my biggest issue is mostly around imposter syndrome-like issues at work, and employment issues are one of her triggers for darkness.

Christine transitioned during a down turn in the job market and she's not been able to get back since. I've grown confident that part of the issue is around gender and that her expectation that the will be treated with respect is not the usual female-socialized "willingness" to be the adaptive person in a relationship.

Anyhow, work issues are fraught. So mine trigger hers, and my depression right now is pretty significant. I can't easily insulate her, and so we get into feedback loops.

I have spent a little time connecting with individuals, a phone call and a long email exchange with friends. I think that's helping. And i did get some work done earlier this week that helped me connect with some of the work/thinking i did earlier in the summer. That helped me feel like i might be getting work done after all.

The next few days should be sunny and that should be good for me. The gloom and grey yesterday didn't help the blues.

(no subject)

Thursday, the temperatures were almost sultry outside. There were occasional gaps in the cloud cover for a little sunlight, but mainly it was steamy.

I'm sitting on the front steps right now, listening to the night song of crickets and frogs, the low rumble of thunder and the growing wind. The lightning is keeping the sky bright, the tall pines silhouetted against the lightened sky.Cars rush by, their headlamps brightening the line of the road and dimly lining the edges of the bottoms of the trees with gold.

Finally a gust that dances through the front porch and tickles the wind chimes. The cloud tops, the storm trackers show, are 31,500 ft high.

--== ∞ ==--

It turns out the storm line had a gap, and the storm line passed on either side. We only got a brief downpour. As much as i enjoy a good storm, we have a new roof and don't need any hail or violent winds. At 6:20 this morning the Duke power outage map shows a considerable number of scattered outages.

When i went out this morning, Orion glittered through the tulip poplar branches. They and the black cherries lose their leaves early and may stand bare with last night's winds. I'd noticed a carpet of fresh pine needles had fallen in the orchard yesterday, and find myself amused by the near purity of the carpet. First tulip poplar leaves (which look black and depressing), now golden pine needles.

It's crisp out there and maybe one or two crickets sang. There's a freeze warning tonight -- we haven't had a frost yet. I'm not going to get in a dither about it. The green tomatoes are all on ground-sprawling vines: they'll be kept warm by the canopy of leaves and the warm ground (it was 80° yesterday, for crying out loud). The roselle -- the hibiscus one makes that bright red tea from - i think it, too will make it's own climate (especially since the plants are kind of on their sides). I may loose a few calyxes - the parts of the flower that the tea is made from -- but i'm not worried about having too little tea yet. Maybe in a few years i'll have a tea blend that i'll want to be able to share, but right now it's all experimental. The holy basil, as well, is a plant i hope to harvest regularly in the future for an herbal tea, but haven't. I won't rush about now.

Maybe i'll dig up some holy basil and lemon grass tonight and get them in the garage. I had imagined trying to over winter some, this winter in the house. Last winter i tried in the green house, but learned quickly that it does not keep things warm over night. I was expecting the first freeze to be in the wee hours of the coming Monday morning and i planned to cover the shorter okra, but the plants aren't producing fast or heavily enough for the loss to be much more than a meal or two.

I'll have rose hips to harvest after the frost!

--== ∞ ==--

Carrie was barking and growling around 4:30 am this morning. I managed to get back to sleep. I really ought to get the trail cam set up. The finicky camera card and the way it chews through batteries has caused my sputtery use, and then i put it somewhere it was hard to get to over the summer.

--== ∞ ==--

I managed to hold back from becoming as blue as i was earlier in the week: part of that could be that i was in meetings almost all day. No time to beat myself up. Today i go to Mom and Dad's. Dad's been worrying about discord in his homeowner's association over an easement to public lands. There's been some people taking in appropriate advantage of the easement, but the property owner's reaction has not been appropriate either. The property owner, who is clearly not someone who gets along with others well from other stories, has had a neighbor arrested for trespassing. Dad seems to be the neighborhood's wise old owl to whom many of the concerned parties come speak.

I'd rather he was worrying about that than worrying about Trump, but he's also worried about that, and worried about Mom's progress in physical recovery. Waking up at 1 am with worries isn't going to help anyone. So, he says when i come over today he will take care of himself.

Today is my sister's first day "retired" or voluntarily unemployed. I had hoped to have lunch with her yesterday, after she had turned in her computer, but she had a jumble of commitments that spilled over from work and still needed to help with Halloween costumes -- being present for her kids is part of why she has left employment, so i get it. I'm taking the chickpea pumpkin curry i made for our Thursday sister lunch to Mom and Dad's for lunch today. Hopefully she can join me over there.