Annual questionnaire 2019

I'll update this post if anything goes critically wrong in the next 3 days.


1. What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before? I ate a yule log. 

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions? My theme was "put down the feel-bad machine", and it went pretty well. Read lots of books instead of looking at my phone. Some of those books were terrible, but it was a good decision anyway.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Someone finally got someone else pregnant (not me, on either count), and I am knitting lots of tiny hats with ears for "Meaty" the baby.

4. Did anyone close to you die? A family friend (Mr. Tomassi) and a great-aunt-in-law (I am a terrible person because I can't remember which one). My mother did not die, but she was smashed like an accordion between two trucks and concussed pretty badly. 

5. What places did you visit? I went to a new location of the same restaurant I like. And to a roller rink. Also a scary warehouse filled with trampolines where you have to sign a death waiver for your kids. 

6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019? Beefy muscles. My heart did some bad stuff this year, so I laid off jogging. I didn't gain weight exactly, but I softened like warm butter. Now I have giant rubber bands that will get me back in fighting shape for sure. 

 The asparagus workout

7. What moments from 2019 will remain etched upon your memory? The cat turned into a blood fountain for Thanksgiving. 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Hey, another book publication, and paid freelance work! I did art for money, and that's the dream, as it has been explained to me. I kind of think the bigger achievement is that I painted a whole lot of paintings for no reason at all except that I liked doing it. Being a maker of things is important, whether you're building furniture, whittling soap, braiding bread, or telling stories.

9. What was your biggest failure? Guess who still does not have a passport or a gold star on their license? 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I suffered from stupidly inhaling varnish for 5 hours without realizing what the weird smell was (I was focusing and thought I was using oil medium), and then my heart developed a murmur and I fell over while jogging. It seems quieter now. Also I broke my toe trying to catch a plate of toast with my foot. I totally saved the plate, though. 

11. What was the best thing you bought? A new-ish Volkswagen with a moon roof and lots of warranty protection so I could let my teenager drive.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Gavin made a heroic kitten rescue, Zenny started reading her way through all the Calvin and Hobbes books, and Leif became the voice of his school's morning announcement system because he makes the best fart jokes. 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled? The lady who throws coffee and rotting garbage into the library book drop came back. And a sweaty shirtless guy yelled at me for closing the library at closing time.

14. What did you get excited about?  If "excitement" means "blind terror", I was pretty excited when a shark chased me while I was swimming with my kid. Also three old friends came to visit, and Sarah summoned a fireball across the sky.

15. What song will always remind you of 2019? Some time around May I found out about a shitty thing, and I couldn't react to it for days because I was busy at work or with the kids. When I finally had a long nighttime drive by myself, the feeling just sat in my chest like a weight, I couldn't do anything with it. Just then, Bridge Over Troubled Water came on the radio, and it fucking broke me. I cried about the thing, cried because I didn't have someone to comfort me, cried because I was crying to this particular song (back in the '80s, a friend was laid up in the same hospital as Art Garfunkel and said he was constantly walking up and down the halls, singing the harmony to Bridge Over Troubled Water so people would know who he was. We have been joking about it ever since, shuffling up the hall and singing whenever one of us feels like we're not getting the recognition we deserve). I cried so hard I turned on the windshield wipers, like that would do anything. Felt a bit better afterwards.

And When the Night is Over became my car-singing song. If I ever find myself shoved onstage for karaoke, I'll have something to sing besides panicking and belting out Bohemian Rhapsody. 

 

16. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?  I had accurate expectations.
b) thinner or fatter? The same size, but smooshier. Corporeal forms are hard.
c) richer or poorer? A little bit richer, even with the exploding cat. I have a cabin-in-the-woods savings account now, for when I'm an old lady with a rusty truck and a dog with nice ears. And I got a signed certificate from the governor congratulating me on 10 years of service, so I'm halfway to earning that sweet pension.

17. What do you wish you’d done more of? PAINTING. One day a week is like one meal a day, your hours revolve around it. 

18. What do you wish you’d done less of? Teaching people how to use the new print system at the library. All day. Every day. Next to a sign (that I made) listing each step in all-caps. "Did you send your print job to the print station? Did you wait for the confirmation to pop up? Go back to your computer and click the confirmation popup. Ok now log into the print station by clicking BEGIN. Sorry, no, with the mouse, it's not a touch-screen. Right, now log in, using the same login info you used for the computer. No, your library card login, not your email. Now click PRINT. No, not RESERVATIONS, cancel that. Click PRINT. Ok, now click on your print job. The name of your document right there, click on it. Right on the words, CLICK ON IT. Good, now click CONTINUE. There's your summary, click CONTINUE again. That's it! Easy, right? " 

I am going to push it off the desk one of these days. 

19. Your aunt wants to know, after shit-talking you to your mother, "So! How's your love life?"

Oh, I'm still frigid and withholding, thanks.

(In previous years, this question was, "What is the general state of your heart?", and in years before that it was "Did you fall in love?" This question and I are not friends.)

20. What was your favorite TV program? The Dark Crystal. Also Wellington Paranormal, and What We Do in the Shadows. Stranger Things is fun. Recently we've been into the Mandalorian. 

21. What was the best book you read? The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, and Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (this is an imaginary fan fiction novel of an imaginary Harry Potter-type series featured in her book, FanGirl, but it holds its own without any back story, and there's a great sequel after that, Wayward Son) 

I read a bunch of gritty science fiction, westerns, and thrillers, too, but these were the ones that kept me nailed to the couch with a book in my lap. 

22. What did you want and get? a painting of a pork chop.

23. What did you want and NOT get? a painting of a dead raccoon. 

24. What was your favorite film of this year? Jojo Rabbit. 

25. Did you make some new friends this year? Absolutely not. The better question is, did you make any enemies? Maybe a lifelong nemesis? Also no. But I have hope.

26. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? It would be nice if yanking your glove off and slapping people was still socially acceptable. 

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019? "What do I have that's clean?" It was supposed to be "Bohemian Cowboy", but I didn't feel like buying new clothes. This year I'm going with "I'm an ADULT" and buying proper librarian clothes from a department store whether I like it or not.

28. What kept you sane? books, painting, and a Costco bottle of melatonin.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?  I liked the priest from Fleabag because he said he was a 'big reader with no friends' and got weird about foxes. 

Also I liked Sam Rockwell's battle outfit scene in Jojo Rabbit.

30. What political/news issue stirred you the most? I found out that one of my library patrons helped murder two people in the '90s, hid their bodies in his garage, buried their bodies with a backhoe, dug up their bodies a month later, and then chucked their bodies into the ocean weighted with concrete slabs. 

Also, this summer a plane crashed at the airfield near my library and killed a few sky divers we knew. The whole town was very upset.

31. Who did you miss? This week I was listening to an audio book in the car, and it said, "You can't change the sound of an echo." They meant it in a "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" kind of way, but that line stuck with me. You can't change the sound of an echo. You can shout over it, though.

32. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019. "STUDENT DRIVER, PLEASE BE PATIENT" magnets on your car make good drivers better, and bad drivers so much worse. 

Christmas 2019

Wild winds, rain blowing in through all the windows, branches flying. The chicken coop was flooded and I looked under the house, where it was dry, to find 23 sets of chicken eyeballs staring back at me. We have 2 chickens. I put some food under there and didn't ask them any questions.

This is as close to a snow storm as we get, so it was a good atmosphere for roast beef and flaming puddings.

Christmas went off without a hitch, if you don't count chasing sneaky-footed children back into bed all night as a hitch. By 9am the floor was glittering with Legos like a scene from Die Hard. I would have stayed on the couch where it was safe, but I had a new electric milk frother and needed to make elaborate latte art. Picked my way through the mess like a goat, dumped a big pile of hot milk foam into my coffee. Felt very proud.

Back at work now, exhausted, still sick, dropping tissues out of my pockets and cuddling a bottle of hand sanitizer. Thinking about the painting I've been waiting to work on; a slightly-wilty carnation from Thanksgiving.

It is fully dead now, but I took a picture for touch-ups before throwing it away. I'm eyeballing the Christmas floral arrangement my aunt picked up, and planning to steal some of their bodies once they've died a bit. Not-so-fresh flowers are more interesting.

You know what I did NOT get for Christmas? A neck ruff. Now, I did not actually tell anyone in my family I wanted a neck ruff, and I was too embarrassed to put one on my wish list, so this should be a surprise to no one. But still.

Maybe next year.

Christmas Eve

Helped an old man print a Nazi porno screenplay.

Helped an author find funny middle-grade books for inspiration because the book she's writing is "a bit grim", and she's decided to make it a comedy. She's writing a children's book about the Donner Party.

And then I was FREE for the weekend.

Went home and discovered there was another cat. My mother is as big a sucker for kittens as Gavin is. Someone shoved a box of kittens at her and she picked out the skinniest, smelliest one, because he needed her. He has a big shiny muffler burn across one ear which curls the tip up. He looks like a wall-eyed, bow-legged bat, and he smells like skunky weed. He's perfect. We kitty-sat him for a couple days while she finished shopping.

you can't see because he's a dark ball of darkness, but he's washing his face and it is very adorable

I finally lost the fight with seasonal illness and switched from booze to Robitussin. This was good timing, because Mike decided to make an old bottle of Drambuie into something drinkable, and he mixed up something called a "Rusty Nail", then stepped on an actual rusty nail as he was serving it. I yelled, "NAILED IT!" as he went down, and he did not think this was helpful.

The Drambuie was still not drinkable.

I am a fan of bandwagons, so we made baby yoda cookies out of an angel cookie cutter. And there is a gorgeous goddamn homemade yule log in the fridge, complete with meringue mushrooms, which is a sign that I must look like I'm on death's door, because my family knows that "yule log" is on the top of my bucket list. It is a safe item that I never planned to actually check off, so that I could never actually die. That is how bucket lists work, I believe. Thanks for the attempted murder, family.

The roast is roasting, the yorkshire pudding will be a foot high, and I am waiting for my cold medicine to wear off so I can drink a bottle of moscato. Merry Christmas, folks!

This guy

My tiny baby turned 17. When asked what he would like to do with his life, he says, “Something that would allow me to foster rescue kittens.” When asked if he sees himself having a relationship or children, he says, “... just cats, probably.”  He is into metalwork, armor, comedy, and rpgs. Next year he thinks he’ll apply for college in the Pacific Northwest, maybe Seattle, because he loved the squirrels and cherry trees in Point Roberts when he visited his great-grandpa. He’s a solidly good person, I love him with my whole entire heart (the same whole heart I love the other two with, but that is how hearts work).

Happy birthday, Gavin!

tidings of great joy

For a year, I have been explaining the new library print system to patrons. All day. Every day. It's a multi-step system, in three different parts of the library, and not at all simple or intuitive or convenient, so people find it very aggravating. Over the days and weeks and months I worked out the perfect combination of encouragement, sympathetic noises, comedy pantomime, and surprised dismay to keep people from getting angry at me instead of the stupid goddamn print system. Every reference phone call is, "Does the library have a printer I can use?" and every answer is a chipper, "Yes, we sure do!" Weariness set in. This is my life now. I am the print doula, guiding boarding passes from email to paper with the least amount of crying. Maybe I needed a vacation. Maybe I needed to change careers. Something more interesting and meaningful, like a coroner’s assistant, or a pet groomer.

And then this week the printer died. It just dropped stone dead, right in the middle of a print job, and I couldn't get it working again. It took all day for I.T. to install a new printer, and it worked just long enough for them to drive back to Honolulu before it also died. I.T. can't get back out here until next week. After an initial pileup of panicking, angry people, everything went quiet. I haven't had to help anyone print in three days. I can relax and have better conversations with book-seeking patrons, instead of being interrupted every two minutes by someone flapping their phone or flash drive at me. I remember why I like my job.

It's a HOLIDAY MIRACLE.

Everyone please buy your relatives printers for Christmas, save a librarian.


In other news, Plucky is molting and Tiny has become a teen mom.

In the cup: hot cocoa with tequila. On the screen: Watchmen. Festive.

powers of observation

(I updated the last post with background information about the exploding tail incident, sorry rss feeders)

In unrelated but very important news, today I was this far into a hat when I realized I had knitted the colors backwards (skulls were supposed to be light on a dark background):

pattern: We Call Them Pirates, free on Ravelry

That's fine.

a sad tail

Edited to add backstory: a few months ago the cat's tail developed a bump. The x-ray techs said it looked like she broke it bad enough that an entire vertebrae was practically missing, but the vet didn't want to do anything because it wasn't infected. If anything else happened, they'd recommend amputation, which they don't do. We asked a second vet to look at the scans, and they said they didn't do amputations either, so just ‘wait and see, maybe’. We asked a THIRD vet, and they said it seemed fine to let it heal ("scar over"), and amputate if needed. 

Well, it did not heal, it got infected, and we didn't notice because she is lazy and sleeps on a lawn chair all day, then eats when we're all in bed because she hates the other cats. The abscess burst on Thanksgiving. She had to take antibiotics for a few days so that the swelling could go down enough for a good x-ray, and the vet finally decided that the tail was no good. One of my library patrons is a retired vet, and she thinks it's a common congenital tail defect that got infected, while the pet hospital guys are getting excited about tests for rare, aggressive bone cancers. I'm siding with the simpler explanation for now - her tail has always been a bit droopy, maybe it wasn't broken at all, maybe she's been missing most of a vertebrae all along and it finally became a problem. 

- -

So.

The vet charged half a year's savings and only returned most of the cat. It seems like it should be cheaper to chop off a cat's tail.

Edited for modesty - it looks like a grey nose with stitches

Even so, I am very glad she's alive and no longer in horrible pain, and also that I was not the one who had to cut the tail off. Moura is our best face-scratching girl, and she deserves an entire salmon in her stocking, even though she had to choose the worst pay period of the year to suffer a critical containment breach. 

In other news, the freelance work is finally done. Suddenly got my lunch breaks and evenings back, so I knitted some tiny sweater ornaments for the cats (because the teenager told me to) and painted a pretentious portrait of my daughter.

I'll have to chop one of the arms off Moura's sweater

For the portrait, I ordered an oval piece of wood for extra old-timeyness. It was really nice to work on, and there's a keyhole drilled in the back so you can just slap it on the wall immediately.

I told her to make "fancy face"

(ok, I know that rose plant in the foreground is totally dead, but the weeds in it are doing so well I haven't stopped watering it)

She wants me to tone down the chin because it looks "round and stupid", but that is how she looks. Clients are the worst.

So, folks, "cheaper than a cat's tail" is your new rationale for buying whatever it is you want until Christmas. That nice cut of beef costs more than you'd normally like to spend? It's cheaper than a cat's tail. It's a few bucks more for the better bottle of scotch? Cheaper than a cat's tail!

You're welcome.

Thanksgiving 2019: there will be blood

Our town put up the annual holiday decoration, folks. It's officially Christmastime now.

city council must have increased the budget

The meal was a success. My hostessing was... maybe not. One of our guests was a retired professor who has been showing too much interest in my mother, and I had to keep putting myself in time-out because my polite smiles turned into hisses and growls whenever he made eye contact. 

WOULD YOU LIKE ANOTHER BACON WRAPPED DATE?

On the plus side, pretending to check the turkey for three hours resulted in the most tender and aggressively-basted bird our table has ever seen. It was pretty great.

The other food winner was the Cat Foot Pie - named by Gavin because Po walked across the pie three holidays in a row. She didn't put her foot in this pie, and we discussed washing her paw and pressing it into the meringue, but we were vetoed by unfestive people who don't care about tradition. Gavin has a presentation pointer shaped like a cat paw, we'll jab that in next time.

My cousin, after our double-middle-fingered showdown at Easter over his use of a full-face chemical respirator to protest the cats, showed up for dinner wearing a surgical mask. He took it off after I burned holes through it with my eyeballs. Some of those laser-stares were actually directed at the retired professor behind him (ffs, self), but without the mask he was able to eat more cockroach clusters (bacon wrapped dates) and I didn't have to drop the open wine bottles I was holding to flip him off, so it all worked out.

As bad as I felt I was behaving, I think I pulled it off without anyone noticing. Just a lot of wild eyeballs and kitchen drinking.

 Mike took the carving knife away from me, though.

We didn't have enough chairs for 11 people, so my mother brought over a couple of nice sturdy upholstered fold-out chairs. She decided to leave them at our house for the holidays.

"They'll be safe here," she said.
"I'll take good care of them," I said. And silently apologized to the chairs.

Woke up at 5am to find a trail of blood through the kitchen. And I followed it, without even checking the security cameras for a home-invading ax murderer first, because my coffee pot was on the other side of it.

The blood was leading from the cat (eating kibble, not dead) to - where else? - the nice sturdy upholstered fold-out chair, where she had decided to sit comfortably and lick open an infected abscess she had been hiding from us.

Now the cat is in a neck cone with a prescription for antibiotics, and I'm working on getting flagged by the FBI for all these "how to get blood out of upholstery" internet searches. My backup career as a crime scene cleanup person is not looking so good.

I'm going to have to hide the other chair so Christmas doesn't get any ideas.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks!

40

I was never worried about turning 40. I was a little worried about not turning 40, so in year 37 I started painting with devotion and making impulsive travel decisions. In year 38 I decided to crack my heart open and see if anything was still burning in there. There was, and it's been hard getting the edges to fit back together during year 39.

So here I am, not dead (as of 6:04am). Maybe the things that didn't come to pass still can. There’s a long list of people I still want to paint.

40 seems good. My neck is still clinging on to the bottom of my face, if a bit more nervously, and all my original parts are still accounted for (although my knees are held on with athletic tape). Early in the year, I had a mishap with some varnish and my heart tried to stop working, but in the last few months the little heart rate monitor on my watch has gone from scary erratic spikes to a nice steady ribbon. I wear a chemical mask and keep my varnish/linseed bottles sorted properly now.

I want to say this is going to be my year, my decade, but saying things like that is an invitation to be smited. I am not looking to have a rock dropped on me from space. But I have hope, and love, and thats a lot to work with.

book signing

Sad about some stuff and having a hard time talking to people.

Where I am

Under deadline, 4 days to go. Been reading Rainbow Rowell between illustrations; the Simon Snow books were very fun, Landline kicked my guts out. Varnished some paintings. Accidentally dripped solvent onto the onion painting. Watched JoJo Rabbit with the boys and loved it a lot. Been listening to Radio Rental podcasts in the car, hosted by Dwight from the Office.

This weekend I had a book signing at Barnes and Noble for the new children's book, which I didn't tell anyone I was working on because I am terrible. Ate a kim chee pork burrito in the food court and my author didn't push me out of my chair for ignoring her suggestion to draw eyelashes on the bird, so it was a successful event.

Smiled for two solid hours with a mouth full of miniature candy canes so I wouldn't have to make conversation or breathe spicy cabbage on anyone

My oldest friend came to visit a couple weekends ago. He stood patiently while I hugged him for way too long, patting my shoulder, because he's weird about hugs but he knows that I know he'll allow it. We talked for 4 hours, and he was gone again.

It was like plugging in your dying phone and getting a 3% charge before having to unplug it. Enough to get on with, barely.