Network

(no subject)

Developed a terrible case of nausea late yesterday afternoon, so my only goal for the evening was to take it easy and do very little. Thankfully, M had a frozen pizza on hand, so he had dinner available whenever he wanted it. Baby went down at a decent hour, so I tried as hard as I could to take it easy on the couch and not irritate my guts.

We had a power flicker for no damned reason in the mid-afternoon. We haven't even reached our hottest temperatures of the year yet. It seems like every day there's another signal from this apartment that it's time to get out. Just seven more months!

Been poking at the cassock project, and was all geared up to start sketching out the embroidery, when I read on someone's blog (Sibella's maybe?) that it was described in detail in 17th Century Women's Clothing Vol.2. I had looked only at volume 1 when I'd been doing pattern research, so I dug out vol.2 and there it was, with the entire embroidery laid out on the pattern pieces! That makes my job a thousand times easier. There's also a similar, non-embroidered version in the same book, and I like its lines slightly better, so I'm contemplating combining the pattern from that one with the embroidery of the first one. They wouldn't be very different, it's just the non-embroidered one has a collar and cuffs, and a two-part sleeve instead of a one-part. It would push the date slightly into the 17th century instead of being more plausibly late-16thC, but the dates are wiggly enough that I think it'd still be SCA-okay.

Anyway, the plan is to do a wearable mockup of the pattern so I have something to wear to Baronial College in September if the embroidery isn't finished (which it likely won't be) and aim to have the embroidered one done in time for my "lying in" period at the end of my pregnancy, when no doubt I will end up stuck in the hospital again for a couple of weeks because my body is dumb. That would give me five months to do the embroidery, which seems pretty reasonable if I chip away at it a little bit each night.

M finally got the email from HR setting up his third interview for the job he's going after. His friend told him to keep his eyes out for a second email sometime between now and the interview, but didn't elaborate on what it could be. M suspects that his potential boss wants to have an informal in-person meeting, but I think he's getting a bit ahead of things. We'll see what unfolds.

M's birthday is Monday, and he's taken Mon-Tues off for it. I asked him if there's anything he wants to do, but he waffled and said he didn't want to spend a bunch of money. I suggested a few not terribly expensive things he could do, like going to the range for the day or catch a band he likes, or even just going out for a steak, but he was non-committal. I'm sure he'll think of something he wants to do as the day comes around.

(no subject)

Almost forgot to post about it since the amnio took up so much of my brain space recently, but Maintenance finally came and looked at our air conditioner! And, it's completely borked. We told them that when the last few guys had recharged the AC, it had cooled for about 4 hours or so before blowing warm air again. They sent some leak detector stuff through the system and didn't see any leaks outside, which means that the leak is somewhere within the walls. M speculated that the complex would put us up in a hotel while they tore up the walls to fix it (to which I had to stifle the hearty laugh that was trapped in my chest.) Instead, they just marked the service ticket as "resolved" and went on their merry way. So, I think we are without AC for the rest of our time in this apartment. Which, thankfully, will only be until next spring. We've survived so far with our window units, we can keep going the same way until winter.

(no subject)

Amnio went about as expected. We waited an hour once we arrived for a room to open up. They took my vitals when we first got there, and then sent us back out to the waiting room for a small eternity. Once in the room we waited some more. Then it was lots of ultrasounds to take measurements of all her anatomy, and I got to see her tiny little walnut brain and her crazy alien skull with all its open plates. Very freaky and very cool.

The procedure went quickly. With Kate they had to poke me twice because she squirmed so much, but this one was more cooperative, even though she was doing backflips on every scan, so I only had to be impaled once. They can't numb you for the procedure, so you just have to endure being stabbed, and man does that suck so, so much. I felt very sore afterward, so we went home and M got us some burgers for lunch, and we all ate together on the couch.

I am very glad that Chance was able to watch Katie while we were at the appointment! M expected us only to be gone for an hour (lol) and not the three we were actually out. Kate would have been a mess if she'd been with us.

The baby napped after lunch, and so did M. Once M was awake again, he headed out for the evening since Chance was taking him to the movies to see The Thing as a birthday gift. The baby ran around and was in an overall good mood for the rest of the evening. Quick dinner of sausages and cheese, and then she went to bed without fighting me, thank goodness.

I crawled into bed not long after and watched some TV in the cool bedroom, ate some chocolates, and enjoyed my rest.

LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 3 - Ecco

That shattering glass, not a windshield but a doorway of shock and awe, into another place. As though she had left a place for the sole reason of arriving at another place. No wandering in between. She had never been good at telling a story, not like Daddy could be around a fire, but if she had survived then perhaps, she would have been able to say out loud those moments in a way that would capture the sheer impossibility of a human body in flight. Not falling but flying, the propulsion of her skeleton, all bone projectile, into the headlight lit darkness. The impact of her head with the windscreen was the killing blow, of course it was, yet she traveled onward still alive, through the glass, over the crumpled hood and into the forever night. Leaving both sneakers behind as she went. Did she see the stars in their firmament? In this strange leave-taking she lingered on a while, the air above and surround her insubstantial, the pavement solid beneath her, the summer scorched heat of it a small comfort to her cooling body, the bloody halo of her long blonde hair creating a vision of such suffering, such loss, hers a miraculous martyred death. Our Teenaged Lady of the Automobile Collision. The shattered shoulder bones, the leaking skull. The impossible sense of soaring passing through her nerve endings, dissipating through her pores. Simultaneous departure and arrival and departure. The touch and go of her short life.

The afternoon of the day had grown hot. Morning spent working in Daddy’s garden. It was time for the leafy branches to be snipped off close to the stem to allow the lengthening buds all the sunlight. He didn’t pay her out, they had nothing extra for allowances, but after the harvest late in the fall, just before winter, he could be generous with the crumpled bills that began to stuff his pockets. She’d walk her brothers to the store, cold winds blowing through them, and buy the boys candy bars and herself a fashion magazine.

Daddy had two other daughters before she was born. One lived up in Alaska with her own momma and the other one of them lived in an old camp trailer on Daddy’s property with her baby. She was her momma’s oldest, after her came four more, all boys and of course Daddy was partial to them on account that they were boys, but he was good to all his children and just the day before this day Momma said she was expecting another one come springtime. She whisper prayed that it would be a girl, a sister, another sister.

Now the day was bending open the bars that held her prisoner, soon she would be freed. It was just gone noon. She had made sandwiches for her brothers, cleaned the kitchen and Momma told her she was allowed to walk down the road to the swimming hole. She longed to go on her own and Momma said that was fine, too, but only on account that two of her brothers seemed to be suffering from the heat and Momma wanted to keep a closer eye on them. It was hot and had been hot for going on a week. They’d taken to sleeping out of doors on the wood slatted porch, but the night before a bear had woken them up pawing through garbage and the compost and Daddy said they had to be back inside the house until he either could get a decent shot off or someone else on the hill got him first. Dressed bear in the chest freezer would be a treat.

She was fourteen years old that summer day. Highschool in the fall and she couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Tried and failed. Thought she might be more than what she was, if such a thing was possible and even then, couldn’t tell you accurately what that more looked like. Knew that somewhere out there more was waiting to be had, one just needed to get to where it was at. Arrive with eyes wide opened and announce themselves with attention.

Cut off shorts and a bikini top, knock off Converse low tops, and her waist-length hair swinging over her shoulders, near white it was so light colored, and she swung it back and forth with a practiced toss of her head. Girl we known it was you from way down the road, he said to her when he pulled over. Driving his uncle’s truck leaning out the window at her diesel exhaust smelling so dangerously sweet and another boy she didn’t know jumped out and opened the passenger side door for her like they’d been expecting her and no one but her, and she climbed up into the cab and knew her daddy wouldn’t be at all happy because he said Levi’s family was one to steer clear of whenever mannerly possible. But Levi had his hair shorn short dagger sideburns delineating his jaw line and a swagger in his long-legged stride. On the bus, he sat way at the back while she had to sit in the front with her younger brothers, sometimes holding Caden’s hand to keep him from crying, which he was prone to doing because the only thing he wanted in the wide world was to be home in the kitchen with Momma. The high schoolers got off the bus first stop and when it came springtime, Levi started tapping her on the shoulder as he walked past and then that last week of school he sat himself down right behind her on the way home every day and caught the ends of her hair in his loose-fisted palms. Sometimes his fingers, dirty and sticky with cannabis oil would tap tap the knobs of her spine. You’re real skinny, he would tell her in a voice so quiet and low it could only be meant as a secret of some kind. And the nerves would explode across her shoulders and at night in her bed she would think about the heat of his fingers and roll over onto her stomach believing that wings could be coaxed out of the two thin blades in her back. Those shoulder bones were a storehouse inside her body for all that tingling sensation caused by his fingers on her flesh.

Now she was sitting on the bench seat right up next to him. Don’t be shy girl he laughed. Bet you ain’t brave enough to jump off that high rock. The other boy had his window rolled down open too and he craned his body out of it and whooped loud. Levi gunned the big truck and black exhaust rolled out of the dual pipes and he fishtailed a bit and she gasped but the boys laughed. And soon she was laughing too.

They raced one another down to the swimming hole but the boys veered up the narrow path to the high rock. She kept on down to the rocky beach, looking up. Can you see me from there? He called down to her and she nodded. What? He yelled. I can, I can see you! She visored both hands over her eyes and watched him watching her as he leaped off the rock.

There was no way not to be alive that afternoon.

She felt no pain outside the hurt of leaving. She couldn’t close her eyes as though to sleep; her soul was exiting through her vision itself. What’s the time, she asked. Her world spinning now, the dizziness of the calling fade. No more thought everything a retinal remembering.

That day in the rain when I was almost turned sixteen telling him I had missed that month and he began to speed down and down the winding dirt roads? Or later while we raised up three young’uns and he had a bad spell with liquor and somehow it all came to a screaming head that afternoon in the truck? Or was it only the two of us again, that morning of such sadness, driving in the snow back from the hospital? Or before all that, the first sweltered day of summer when he drove us down to the swimming hole, before ditching his friend because he said he had something he wanted to show me, just him and me, and I knew without knowing how that this was my arriving.

(no subject)

Yesterday afternoon was death by a thousand cuts, I tell you what. Everything went just slightly wrong, enough that it built up to a burst of frustration. The sausages from dinner might be spoiled (thankfully they weren't), there are no clean pots, the cat is getting sick while things on the stove need to be watched, the baby is running toward the vomiting cat!, the internet keeps going in and out, I'm on a call with customer service while I need to clean a pot and while the sausages are cooking and the baby is screaming. AUGH.

Anyway, dinner got made, the internet people are sending a tech out today, and everyone ended up fed and entertained until bedtime. Yeesh.

Baby fought bedtime, so we had an extra hour cuddle session and then she went down. M went to bed, and I struggled to watch the latest episode of The Gilded Age while the internet cut in an out every 15 minutes. I finally gave up and watched the last 10 minutes on my phone, which I hate doing but I wanted to finish it.

M was still up when I went to bed, so we used his phone as a hotspot to watch a bit of TV before falling asleep.

Baby was up at the crack of dawn, before my alarm even went off, so I got her up, changed her, we brushed our teeth together, and I made her breakfast. I had to wake M to take over when it was time for me to leave, and he was cranky about it because he had only managed to fall asleep at around 5AM.

Internet tech is coming at 11 today, so I'll likely have a long lunch hour. Hopefully I can get the baby down for a good nap and M can get one, too.

Amniocentesis is tomorrow morning. Chance is coming over to watch the baby so she doesn't have to see mommy get jabbed with a giant needle. I'll probably take the opportunity to get my bloodwork done afterward since my OB requested it again, and maybe I can get M to spring for going out to lunch together, since we hardly get the chance to do that anymore.

Entry tags:

work adventures

today on "why would you do that"

We hit five (5) separate instances of this during one (1) workday and thus, in the spirit of Five Things Make a Post, it gets a post:

--circulation canceled a patron's scan request in a uniquely incorrect way that did not in fact cancel it, only sent it to another library under a different transaction ID number (this makes it harder to find and cancel properly)

--shipping service failed to notify substitute driver that our mail comes to the back door, several floors and a one-way street away from the front door, where he came instead

--someone transferred a parent calling about their student's tuition bill to me, an ILL staff

--patron requested not one not two but THREE wildly incorrect citations in a way that makes me suspect genAI

--German thing that is "Collected Works volume 26, part 2 [in 2 volumes]" of what was [presumably] originally "Section 4, volume 3, second part, first half." All of this is abbreviated, in blackletter, on the title pages. Probably the right volume. Who knows

(not included: standard Monday ambient levels of Lightly Cursed)

(no subject)

Started off the long weekend nicely, with the Captain bringing in barbecue for lunch for everybody. Unfortunately, admin decided that because everyone expects to be let out early the day before a holiday, they were going to teach us a lesson and keep us at work for the full day. -_- Petty bastards.

The long weekend was pretty nice. We didn't celebrate the 4th because what's to celebrate. I made chicken tikka masala for dinner, and we had a quiet day with rain on and off.

Saturday was also pretty quiet. Baby had a nice long nap just as M was getting up, so he and I lounged on the couch together for a while before I got up to heat up lunch and then take a shower. I had a burst of sewing mojo while in the shower, and wanted to simultaneously make a ballgown bodice for the ruffle monster, and Elizabethan shift, and OH! I could totally make that embroidered cassock at the V&A! Of course, once I got out of the shower, the baby woke up and any ability to sew flew out the window.

M went to bed early, so I actually had some quiet time to myself, which is a rare luxury these days. I pulled out some costume books and started looking for a cassock pattern. I figure I can actually use the pattern I drafted out for the loose gown and just shorten it, but it was nice to see that the basic shapes for the extants is pretty much the same. Went to bed around midnight.

Woke up Sunday to a very nice storm. It rained hard for about two hours, and then was overcast and dreary the rest of the day, which is a novelty in July! Unfortunately, my mood deteriorated throughout the day until I was fairly depressed by early afternoon. It didn't help that the baby absolutely refused to nap, so I had no time to myself at all. M brought me a burger for dinner, which was very nice, and I shared my fries with the baby, who had her first taste of ketchup. She kept sucking the ketchup off the fry and then redipping it to get more ketchup, silly girl.

She went down early for bed, but woke up a couple of hours later after having a nightmare. We cuddled on the couch for a while and she had some cheese and milk, and then went back to bed.

Slept poorly and am dragging today, which I blame on my sleep schedule getting out of whack during the long weekend. Got up early enough this morning to iron a dress for work and make breakfast for the baby, but I feel dead and just want to rest. Don't foresee that happening, though.

Current Music: one of the kpop demon hunter songs, which I wish to stress I don't actually know

Entry tags:

stupid injury diaries

the stupid injury diaries: the one with the candles

Someone posted on our Buy Nothing group that they were getting rid of some candles.

(how is this a Stupid Injury, I hear you ask? I'm getting there, but not in the way you expect)

( minor, non-graphic injury )

(no subject)

Busy day yesterday. Had the end of month reports to do at work, which is always a hassle, then left early to go to my monthly OB appointment. Got home early enough to give the baby a snack and change her clothes before heading out, then the appointment was a pretty quick in and out since it was just a "yup, you're still pregnant!" checkup. Took a hot minute to find the heartbeat on the portable scanner thingy, so we switched to the ultrasound and found that she was hiding out under my ribs, which is why he couldn't find it. Everything looked normal.

Kate had a terrible time because Doctor's Office, but she got a lollipop at checkout and all was well. It had rained very briefly, which had cooled things down quite a bit, so we decided to take her to the park so she'd feel better about the outing. We found a new to us park just up the street from the hospital, and she ran around in the field and played on the swingset a bit before tuckering out.

Came home, downed much water, then M went to pick up the grocery order from yesterday. I guess running around at the park did a number on my softened ligaments, because my lower half was SCREAMING in pain. I took a handful of meds and tried some yoga poses to try and get some relief while he was out, but nothing really helped.

He got back with the groceries and we put everything away. The baby wanted to be helpful, and kept bringing me things like the giant tub of parmesan, which was very cute! She was very proud. Then she spotted the container of grapes and was SO EXCITED and forgot about being helpful. XP Though I did look into the living room and see her standing in the middle of the room and gently cradling the bag of Babybel cheeses (her favorites.)

She ate a monumental amount of grapes and then went happily to bed. I laid on the couch for a while to try and help my legs, then gave up and took a shower hoping the hot water would help, which thankfully it did. M and I went to bed, but he kept me up chatting for waaay too long, so I'm very tired today. But, he had heard from his friend that the interviewer considered M to be candidate #1 so far, so he had Many Thoughts about the future he wanted to discuss. Fingers crossed.

(no subject)

I guess the past few weeks have been wearing on me more than I realized, because a coworker this morning told me I "look even more tired than usual". -_-

Evening wasn't terribly busy. I made Serbian pork (Mukalika) for dinner using a Betty Crocker recipe. XP Tweaked it considerably because there's no way 1 tsp of paprika is enough for a pound of pork. Added an entire tablespoon and it just got it to where it had some flavor. Needs more spice, needed fattier pork (I used loin, should have used shoulder.) M wasn't able to get to the store in time to pick up our grocery order, which meant I didn't have have enough fresh tomato, so used half a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes, which worked well. Also didn't have fresh peppers, so I used some jarred fire roasted bell peppers, also a good substitution.

This time the recipe came out much better than the first time I tried it. This used to be a childhood favorite of mine, but straight from the book it's rather bland. Will continue to tweak it until it's where I like.

Baby went to bed overtired because dinner took too long to make (I kept waiting for M to pick up the groceries so I could start cooking, so didn't actually start until it became clear that he wouldn't make it) and she had a right meltdown for about 3 minutes until she laid down and realized that oh yeah, sleep is actually pretty alright.

After she was down, M and I did a quick cleanup of the house and took out the trash, then he went up the street to the store to pick up beverages and some sandwich stuff to get him and the baby through the day until he could get the grocery order after work. I crawled into bed and passed out before he got home.

All the paperwork was delivered to the audit team this morning, so I can officially wash my hands of the jail inspection business for this year. Good riddance! One more day until the long weekend.

(no subject)

Thanks to baby shenanigans in the middle of the night, I hit the snooze button too many times and got up a bit late yesterday morning. No time to really get anything done, and the house is barren of food right now, so the baby got a pretty anemic breakfast plate of cheese cubes, cheerios, and raisins. While digging through the fridge for anything I could feed her, I ended up clearing out the vegetable drawers of a lot of very furry vegetables, so we have even less food on hand than I originally thought. Time for a Big Shop, it seems.

Work was stupid busy, I don't think I stopped moving except for a very short 20 minute lunchbreak (I'm allotted an hour.) It will probably be more of the same today, since all our paperwork is due to the auditors tomorrow. At least then my part of it will be done, and things will go back to being normal for a while.

Two upcoming OB appointments, one tomorrow for a regular checkup, the other next week for the actual amnio. I've asked M if Chance can come and watch the baby while we're at the appointment. She already gets so distressed just seeing me lay down on the table, I can't imagine how horrible it would be for her to see a giant needle go into my belly (it is almost comically enormous).

Completely forgot that we have a three-day weekend coming up. Hooray! No plans for the 4th. Not only is Katie too young for a fireworks show, but I don't really feel like celebrating this country this year.

(no subject)

A new, oh so fun, pregnancy symptom has reared its ugly head - excruciating joint pain. -_- I did not have this with my last pregnancy, and I am not a fan, I tell you what. It started Friday afternoon, and happened again Sunday evening. The interwebs says this is normal because there's a hormone with the deceptive name "relaxin" surging through my body and making my joints more pliable so my pelvis will flex during birth, but it also means all my other joints are also weaker, so HOORAY. >( Sunday was so bad that the only relief I had was to get on all fours on the floor and wait for the ibuprofen to kick in. Took its sweet time, let me tell you.

Other than that, the weekend was very quiet. I didn't get much done that I had hoped to accomplish, no chores and no sewing anything, but the baby was in a pretty good mood both days, and she slept in each morning, which meant I got to, as well, which was extremely nice. I even had to go in and wake her up on Sunday morning because she was still asleep by 10:30, and I wasn't about to let her throw off her bedtime that drastically.

M spent the majority of the weekend out of the house doing car repairs, so it was mostly me and Kate on our own. We just got a Hulu/Disney/Max bundle so we could have access to all the shows the baby likes, so I actually had a chance to catch up on a few things I'd fallen behind on. Watched the entire final season of Handmaid's Tale, which felt like it had a lot of filler and repeated conversations, but was fairly satisfying overall. Got to watch the new episode of The Gilded Age as it aired, which was a nice change.

Had various strange dreams on Friday night that resulted in me waking up craving French toast, so I made a big batch of it for breakfast, which was a nice treat. It heated up the house something awful, though, which is going to be something we're going to be fighting for the next several months if the new complex management doesn't get off their ass and fix our AC.

LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 2 - If It's Any Consolation

If it’s any …

It isn’t.

I just thought …

Don’t. Your thoughts are. Hesitation. Rudimentary. But sincere. I recognize that.

Well. For most …

Stop. Please. I’m not most.

Silence, broken then with.

There is no comfort, no consolation, you see? There is only a letting go. My releasing. Mine. It is a great sluicing of water from off the skin when surfacing out of the depths. A leprosy in which the body sheds its recognizable humanity. Akin to fire, flooding, all the great equalizers of the human spirit is loss.

No pain can be endless.

Time lessens, nothing heals. Perhaps the final loss, the dissolution of self. There is that momentary pause in which the soul tells the self rest rest rest now. With those strange urgent shushings the mind exhales and closes an interior eye and the soul sighs and the body relaxes.

Always with the most extreme of analogies.

It’s how I process. How I’m formed. The shape of me in this incarnation is allegorical. I admit it. Is it unbearable of me to explain a poetic inclination?

Of course not.

Catch me in one of those expirations then. That numbing prelude to a sleep brought on by the physical and existential exhaustion of the quivering small beast caught in the snare incapable of the final severing of the trapped limb. Perhaps, between respirations I will show gratitude for whatever platitude you long to utter. With such kindness in the dulcet tones of your compassion.

So insulting. But I forgive you.

It is no kindness to me. I’m admitting this to you now so that there can be no misunderstanding between us afterwards. In the quiet of acceptance, in the weaking of the bleeding out. You offered me not a ligature, not even a bandage, only the word bandage. Followed by an expectation of a deed done well. Yet, I will nod and listen insomuch as I am able before the next suck breath moment in which I am once again filled with not a gain but a loss. Filled with loss, if you can imagine such a thing. You who have been unlucky to suffer not. Yes, I say unlucky, yes, I call you cursed for your wholeness, your innocence of these mortal woundings, of the soul’s agonies.

And you, I suppose, are blessed by this devastation?

Confounded and cast out by the privilege of cataclysmic injury yet I finger the beads and whisper the prayers and allow my eyes to roll back in their sockets from the sheer unknowingness of meaning, the definition of absolutes. Our mother, our father. All these soulful beings arting in their heavens. There is a consecration in catastrophe.

I disagree. You are martyring yourself to this.

Martyr? Laughing. This laying on of hands while the blade is hidden in the sleeve, dropped into the palm, the knife snicking out plunging into the heart between the ribs through the lungs a great sucking sound when its pulled back out. Taking life itself with it. The body heartbeating to death through the collapsing arteries.

All this because I wanted nothing more than to offer succor.

Are you familiar with the consolation prize, my friend?

Certainly, narrowly failing to win.

No, finishing last.

Yet recognized!

I don’t want to be recognized for my wounding. Your sympathy is of no value to me. Only to you. So, in an earnest effort to be brotherlike, to recognize that you too will one day bleed, I bite my tongue at refusing your solace. Give it here. In great bucketloads. Pour it out and over me. I’ll hold my breath to keep from drowning in your mollification. It offers some respite, admittedly, to others.

It’s that you can’t bear to be likened to others.