elainegrey

Good news: No emergency medical visit for 7 days! Carrie's been to the vet twice after coming home. Healing well.  We're getting better at bandaging the open wounds. Carrie is off fentanyl, so she's gotten better this weekend at getting out of the muzzle and pulling the pads out of the bandage. So, i need to up my skills at wrapping.  I do wonder how long we need to keep bandaging. Two open wounds are each about a square inch, another is about four square inches. I think it will take a while.

 Sister in law D thinks she will be a widow in a week. Saturday morning i sent B a close up of an  elderflower cyme, all snowy petals wet from the rain with prominent creamy stamens. Later, checking the rain gauge, i saw that the white cala lily had bloomed and the flowers lay on the ground. I picked the two, dislodging the tiniest of snails, and then added a few lizard tail (Saururus cernuus) and an orange hummingbird mint (Agastache Poquito Orange) to make this morning's bouquet.  Elderberries are just beginning to ripen.

Other good news: i'd bought a bottle to deliver very targeted drops of herbicide to noxious plants (wild briers that have multiplied around the fig tree and on the other berm, honeysuckle twining on fences and out of control, trees on the septic field, poison ivy) and could not find it. I finally ordered a replacement, months after it should have been in use. And then i found it. And i was able to cancel the order in time. Yay.

Sequentially:

I left work early on Friday. ADHD rejection sensitivity probably is amplifying feelings about a meeting. I was just too emotional and so very very tired.  After an afternoon of reading, a visit with my Dad, and more reading, we watched the documentary about Ocean's Gate, the Titan submarine ... hubris, and the guy who ran Ocean's Gate sounds just like the exec director who is involved in my distressed feelings.

I did get a good bit done in the yard on Saturday, flame weeding while it was wet. Moved woodchips a short way to mulch an area at the end of the sidewalk that has been annoying to mow. Then i planted some annuals (coleus and lantana), some Trimezia gracilis ... babies? propagules? , and transplanted a chrysanthemum that survived the winter and has started blooming.   The lemongrass is in real soil for the first time in years, and i hope it multiplies. Finally, the native plants i bought are all in the new heavily mulched bed around the front yard apple tree.

Christine's been telling her siblings that "Carrie is avenged." I found a coiled copperhead in the woodchip pile when working yesterday, and killed it. I don't feel good about it but i would do it again.  There are brush piles in the woods and that's for them. But this was a little too close.

I then went on to have an ocular migraine and then a bad headache. Today has been less outside. I picked sochan and mint, spending time thinking about where i was putting my hands. I've got several Talenti gelato containers full of blanched sochan in the freezer, mint and bee balm on the dehydrator, and elderberry flowers hanging by the water heater. I imagine gifts of mint-elderflower tea.

I also made whipped cream cheese with the lavender syrup and pulverized dehydrated mulberries from last year. Very purple, not over sweet, and only mildly flavored.

I haven't seen the hawk this past week, and wonder if the smelly snake repellents have repelled the hawk. Instead, i've seen a rabbit almost every morning.

  I am avoiding feelings and reading and reading and reading. It;s been a fight not to go to the book and finish this.

I'd declared email bankruptcy at the beginning of January. The past week i've started backlogging again.

This weekend i spent much time experimenting with ChatGPT, the Airtable AI, and a little bit with Gemini nee Bard because our org's Dear Leader is all in with AI and wants us to explore. Also, i think some closer management is all <3 AI. So, i should have some clue as professional defense. Anyhow, learned some useful things including that the new thinking models are better.  Spent much of my time trying to figure out how to use the models efficiently: when to do my own research, etc.

An example is Gemini asked to compare the free models of Gemini and ChatGPT. The usual model was very hedged speculation (interesting training there), the "reasoning model with apps" has access to current search and actually did searches to get current details.

I did ask ChatGPT to help me figure out how early payments on the mortgage would affect the end date. I can't tell if the counter intuitive results are because i made a mistake or if it did. I know talking to Christine about similar topics can be ... well, let me say i might not be the most clear in expressing my mental model of financial math.

Yard work happened, with massive pruning of fig tree and before/after photos that i should record where i took them from -- the nearest corner of the elderberry bed, the neared corner of the HVAC, the south end of the top step -- and then the photo from the south looking north at the tree doesn't have a good landmark.

Time blindness and infinite project optimism continues to frustrate. At least i have words for part of what is so frustrating.

Best thing Sunday morning: breakfast of fuyu-ish persimmon, yogurt, and pecans. Heaven. Saturday morning was a cubed, slightly stale Portuguese roll, some of the candied pumpkin, eggs beaten with cream, and baked - variation on French toast and a bread pudding (i guess?)

Christine's been watching  Oliver Stone's JFK, and Saturday night it wound up, with a number of long monologues about conspiracies and what America ought to be. That was 1991. Before the Waco & Ruby Ridge, the Oklahoma City bombing, hanging chads in 2000, and everything else. It felt a little surreal to try and wrest my mind back to the age before.

I had finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's 2004 Alien Clay, which has the Mandate as the brutal authoritarian state the main characters were resisting. During the election returns earlier this month i read Lyda Morehouse's 2001 Archangel Protocol, and as Christine watched JFK, i read the sequel Fallen Host.  The AngeLink Universe has a network of religio-authoritarian governance.

Exhale.  The reading and the current politics swirl together in a emotional reaction soup that i am not dealing with. It's a big pile of too much, too unknown, and i can't believe H.R. 9495 passed, please let the nonsense die in reconciliation.

--== ∞ ==--

I am dealing with work and trying to take care of myself. This weekend and today went more or less well. I didn't deal with various regular physical care for myself, but i got some weeding and raking done this weekend and feel very good about it.

Today i did all the during work self care: a morning ten minute walk, standing for 60 minutes, lunchtime coffee, afternoon kukicha (green tea high in L-Theanine). I worked in the yard by twilight and then with a head lamp on. I'm not feeling quite as overwhelmed, although [don't think about it, focus on the feeling of  okayness]. Well. Anyhow. I am feeling OK.

I am dealing with a certain amount of shame at my enthusiastic engagement during a meeting today. (Probably ADHD rejection sensitivity at the root here; the other person with whom i was being enthusiastic and energetic also has ADHD and we ran over every one. Ugh. And i had invited my manager. Die under desk. Ooof.)

But generally, yay, doing good.

Morning writing tag because this was originally Sunday morning's journaling.

Hope. Prayer. May the citizens of the United States of America find that collectively, with enough state by state majorities, they must vote for the competent choice of Kamala Harris.

My eyes fall on the red dogwood leaves against a back drop of misty gray tree trunks. The overcast light  lets the colors pop in a way i have not seen them before.  The scene offers rest.

I have a stack of work i've procrastinated on since Friday i must get through. I said no to a request for expertise yesterday, which is a win, as i am over committed at work.

This is a post by mail from Thunderbird. I've been using Postbox since 2011 and was finally motivated to move to a new app. Despite crashes for years and lackluster support, it was the sale of the company and the notice that the app was no longer supported that finally moved me to Thunderbird. I am moderately put out by the log road of reestablishing filters and so on. Good news was postbox was built on Thunderbird so there's not a painful learning curve. Muscle memory for keyboard short cuts is useless and i need to reestablish those too. Hope this templated post works.

I continue with something i log as "Executive function distress." Distress is generally too strong a word, but --

Just this moment, my attention was called from my  computer by a crows. One landed on the snag pine at the west edge of the meadow. Did the top of the pine sway when they landed? They called out as a peach colored cloud slipped away to the south east against the blue sky. It's a second mild morning in a row. Unfortunately the temperatures are back on a rise, but this morning i sit out with a blanket again. As i reflected that i could set up my SLR with a telephoto and observe that tree and perhaps get some photos i might find well composed -- and get back in those skills -- a humming bird visited the coral colored Agastache.

Everything is so much happier after the 2.15" of rain we got Sunday into Monday.

Yesterday i harvested mulberries for breakfast, then after work the last blackberries, some strawberries, plenty of blueberries -- and the very first four or five harvested figs. High in the tree were some the wasps had already found. One fig was too ripe and joined some ripened but slightly desiccated strawberries in a jar to start the season's vinegar. I wondered if the Aunt Rachel apples were ripe yet but forgot they turned red. This is the first year there's a "harvest" and i've already knocked two out of the tree (one because it had a bad spot and i hoped to stop it from crowding the other i knocked out. I've eaten those -- one baked with cinnamon sugar and butter, the other with peanut butter, so the sharp greenness was a nice counter.

-- back from the reverie -- distress is too strong a word, but the question of care for the yarden points to a bit where the distress can come up. There is so much i want to do. I can feel so tired. I know i work an intense job and a great deal of my executive function is tied up in that work. I try to trust my body (when it says it's tired and needs rest), but BLEEP it's getting BLEEP old. And it shouldn't yet. I wish i knew if i quit work would i rebound? Note to self, Dad (83), who has been looking decidedly fragile and tired, is 27 years older. (So stop telling yourself "20 plus years older" which you round to twenty and then ).... and WOW did i let my mind wander and go off for far too long.

Luigi is off to a vet for an ultrasound. He's got both kidney and hyperthyroid issues. Such a sweetheart.....

Happy solstice! I plan to take Friday next week off to observe the change in season and get my hair done (roots touch up, probably, although maybe some fun color?)

The early June family visits are over; next big family thing is my mom's internment in Arlington National Cemetery in early August.

Christine's brother in law B has been in and out of hospital since last mentioned. Christine brought them dinner at home on Tuesday night. Wednesday at 2 am they were back in the hospital. Their state is a worry.

I've been in that procrastinate and make self miserable until last minute when then one works late just before the deadline mode. More of that today, i guess. Having a label (ADHD) helps just a little. I know there's also insecurity wound in there too. Joy.

Squirrels do a remarkable amount of crashing in the treetops to get to the mulberry tree and feast. I cannot imagine that they are harvesting the low branches i can reach unaided. I presume the reduction in harvest is that they shake the tree and the berries fall. Black berries are coming to the end and the blue berries are getting started, but plenty of pale unripe mulberries hang where i inspect and test one or two for ripeness. The mulberry tree also has webworms, which i trust will become targets for birds with many mouths to feed.

The meadow camera caught a doe with fawn last night - hurrah!  I've been fiddling with the other cam in a new location on the driveway trying for a balance that would get a vehicle pulling far enough that we could pick up a vehicle pulling in far enough to throw a many pierced squashed Natural Light beer can in the woods or take the rainbow or gubernatorial "yard" sign, but not get every single car. I need to tweak something - it got Christine coming and going to the grocery but not my amble down and back. The beer can is JUST WEIRD. Our verge receives a fairly steady  Natural Light can toss. Not quite every day but a can or two a week. There's plenty of litter that happens: i assume when we put the "Black lives matter" sign nu it was more that we gave a target for tossing the litter than anything else. When the "Black lives matter" sign crumbled from the weather, we replaced it with a gubernatorial candidate sign and a text-too-small-to-read-with-rainbow-trim sign. That sign was gone within a week. Two weeks? It was quick. It's been replaced by a bold rainbow flag sign and we have a back up in the house.

Christine was agitated about protecting the sign, i had more of a shrug attitude about it. But early this week i found a beer can in the woods where i cannot imagine it arriving via the usual toss out the window of moving vehicle. And it had LOTS OF HOLES. I've gotten different opinions on BBs, birdshot, or just someone poking holes in it. Subsequent investigation seems to indicate the holes all are bent in -- no exit wounds. If it was meant to be a message, it's really a poorly constructed one  (sign stolen, shot, and returned is a message, this -- isn't that). It is littering, and it could simply be someone pulling off the road into a driveway with a dark house in the distance at night, drinking a beer, and then taking out aggression on the can while, i dunno, making a phone call? And then chunking the open but empty container because NC has an open container law that would make the empty can in the vehicle an offense.

I've always figured we were one beer can's distance from some job site, and the sign just makes a nice target for tossing the can out of the vehicle.

I suppose delivery drivers and guests would appreciate a little more light on the driveway but i like dark skies.