elainegrey

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Things i've done with my vacation:

"Mowed" with Mary Jane, our wheeled string trimmer aka weed whacker. I've mowed the past week with the same line. I've never had it last so long. I guess i haven't gotten it tangled up in branches and grapevines and shrubs. I've done some of the meadow and some of the future shed site, a so-so job around the outside perimeter and a good bit of the mossy glade, as well as the remaining bit of my "the best grass ever" (Dichanthelium laxiflorum) lawn.

I also mowed a tiny bit of the "orchard" this morning with our new electric mower, up until the rain started. This mower is dedicated to doing tame areas. Our old mower, with its notched and worn blade (that i sharpen, but there are no replacement blades available) i'll keep using for less tame areas. Unfortunately i hit something metal hidden in the high grass with the new mower. I hope it wasn't too damaging.

Picked berries. Shared lots of blueberries with my sister's family. Got the tall ladder set up at the mulberry tree and ruined a pair of shorts with berry juice from a mesh bag i was wearing to collect picked berries while i was up the ladder. Dehydrated a couple trays of mulberries, and have two trays of mulberries waiting to dehydrate. They are ripening up a little more, plus we're in Chantal's rain bands today. Seems reasonable to wait a day to run the dehydrator. I've got a bag of frozen mulberries, and i am slowly collecting blueberries in the freezer.

The figs are beginning to come in and i am so pleased with my pruning job. The tree makes a room, with a clear area underneath, but the branches droop down like an umbrella. And the tallest still can be reached from the shorter ladder.

Egg rolls! I made a batch of filling with carrots and mung beans i sprouted, and then have fried up a couple batches in the air fryer. Very satisfying. I also rolled up some figs with shaved Parmesan cheese. Yums!

Quick rolls - i used a Pillsbury crescent roll sheet and dabbed with cream cheese pats, blueberries, and pecans. Rolled up and cut into "twirls" and baked. Also very yum.

There was also laundry. It's almost all caught up.

I went out with my sister on Wednesday night to a high tech restaurant (order on your phone, pull your own beer (and cider) from a wall of taps paying with a special bracelet. Karaoke was happening and was mildly entertaining. Also went to her house to hang out on the evening of the 4th of July.

I've been playing a little Balatro, a game Christine's been playing for ... a year? ... mostly to delight her. Exponentile remains very diverting, like a fidget toy, although i am not playing nearly as well as my initial games. Admittedly i am listening to novels as i play. Finished a relisten of yet another of the Mary Russell novels, Locked Rooms. Next is The Language of Bees, which leads into The God of the Hive. I listened to The God of the Hiveearlier this year, randomly picking from the list, and that prompted me to begin the relistening from the beginning. I also bought a Ilona Andrews book to finish a trilogy since the public library no longer has it, and added the list of all the Ilona Andrews books i have binged on in the past months to Zotero. And yesterday i started the Retrieval Artist series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch at OpenLibrary, as that looks like enough to keep me busy while i am in this escapist mental place.

This morning i was pondering how i could set time aside to grieve and emotionally connect with the distress of the past months. (Really, starting with Jan 20.) I think i will try to do sun salutations in the evening, using adaptions at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcJvBMYxQl0&t=294s.

We arrived in NC May 27th 2016, so have entered the tenth year here. And maybe chapter 4? The first two and a half years we were here were about clearing the overgrown property, getting a fenced area for the pets and the "orchard." Let's call that Chapter 1. Mom had her stroke in Dec of 2018. We still had some trees to plant in the orchard, but between Dec of 2018 and Mom's death June 1 of 2022, Mom's health and Grandmámá's health and care were constant concerns. I had a trip to Europe in there, and COVID certainly affected all those concerns for health fragile persons. I'm thinking of that as Chapter 2.

With Mom's passing i became focused on my health: i had just discovered the ADHD diagnoses of family members and realized it applied to me. A year later I had had my nose reshaped so i could breath through it, envisioning more energy from better breathing. I had a hard time recovering energy after the surgery. I finally pulled myself out of what i supposed to be depression, and then i was covered with spots. And so very tired. If this were fiction, the lethargy after surgery would be foreshadowing for the ITP diagnosis, and i can't imagine why ITP isn't the explanation for that low energy sense i had that year. Perhaps this third chapter ends with loosing two of our companions for the cross country move. It ends with Christine's sister becoming a widow, promising some change in her relationship with Christine. Part of Christine's desire to move here had to do with her relationship with D--: i wonder how it will change. I hope it's a positive change.

I realize how different our experience of the political world was when we left California. NC's anti-trans "bathroom bill" was proposed or passed on the same day we closed on the house. Trump's position as presumptive nominee occurred as we were driving across country. I read the Doonesbury comics that are re-running George W era strips and feel horror at my nostalgic feelings for Rumsfeld.

My work world has changed in the third chapter: colleagues i was working with before we moved have left, including leadership changes that are beginning to reshape my work life. I hope i have the privilege of keeping my job until i want to leave. Were the world to continue as it has during my working life, i would retire in six years.

I am not optimistic. I think of the huge weight that sat on me in ... 1990? 1989? ... when i watched computer and climate scientists present their models of how climate would be in fifty years and the dreary and dim prospects they presented. Every presentation essentially ended with a list of aspects they didn't have included or that we didn't know that might make the impact less drastic. I walked away realizing i'd be in my early 70s. I did consider switching fields. I talked to someone doing acid rain research whose advice was that if you wanted to save the environment we needed advocacy and public opinion changed, not more research. He had apparently "gotten into trouble" by trying to advocate for change politically. His advocacy was used to turn against his research, implying it wasn't impartial. He was depressed and probably not a good person for me to turn to, but there it is.

I did not foresee the disaster of politics or the possibility of a tech change like generative and agentic AI. (OK the promise of "Agentic AI", something that could be a personal assistant has been promised by speculative fiction for ages.)

It seems like a new chapter. I dunno. One foot in front of the other.

September 2025

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Chapter 4