The Cantina Staring Back At You From The Abyss

[Brightdreamer]

Boo for zero energy and ongoing canine health issues!

And it's Thursday evening. Work is even further behind, and thus further into the "who the heck cares, at least I got audiobooks to kill time" zone. Dinner was turkey taco. (Was going to be another roast, but I'm roasted out... tomorrow, probably. Tomorrow will be a roast day.)

Dad seems to have it into his head that he can still try to do something for that quarterly 'zine group. (Three months ago, he tried but just could not get the dementia to cooperate to actually write anything up, so Mom and I sent in a little one-page explainer; they're basically a legacy group of old-time fans withering with age attrition, so this is not the first time this has happened in their membership.) Still waiting to see if there is tangible progress on this front, or if it's just wishful thinking in the face of the ugly reality. Deadline would be this weekend if he plans to mail anything in. Let's just say I'm not holdin' my breath on this one.

 

[MaeZe]

It's hard to lose one's abilities. It's why someone has to take the keys away from some elderly folks. The natural reaction when you lose yours skills gradually is denial when you cross the line of 'that's it'.

My grandparents drove me home from college one year—Oregon to Southern California. I don't think anyone knew Grandpa had crossed that line. Driving from their house to the store, familiar roads, was one thing. But when he came to a complete stop in the middle of the freeway to read the sign it was scary. And of course one's adult granddaughter offering to drive was turned down. I did help him read the signs from then on and we did make it home safely. I suggested my mom take the keys away but it was decided if he only drove to the store and back they would give him more time.

I'm in a stand off with my dog. I am not going to feed her until she gets the rest of the med down. The med is thoroughly mixed into some bread crumbs, smashed flat on the plate where I keep putting things she has to lick. Grated cheese got a few of the crumbs down.

My plan is to give her the nausea med she likes; then let her lick the little tub the spinach dip was in. She absolutely loves to lick containers. And it will be very hard for her to lick around anything else in the tub. And this time I'm going to fix it up when she isn't looking. She's a fast learner and I think she knows what I'm doing when she sees me getting pills ready.

Hopefully I'll have this down for the next two pills.

 

[MaeZe]

It worked! She got hungry enough to lick all the rest of the bits off the plate. Not sure how it is if one takes an antibiotic in tiny bits over a day, but it all got down and we'll see if I can't get the next day's dose with more efficiency.

I gave her the nausea med and put her regular food out. It was obvious she was agitated, moving around, wanting to go outside only to want right back in. Sure enough that is listed as the top adverse reaction to the med. Tomorrow I won't give her that so late at night.

I do think we can call this the last chapter. Anything more and it will be in the epilogue. Thanks for letting me vent in this space.

 

[MaeZe]

Dog tales was so popular it is back for another season.

I made the mistake of mixing today's pill with too much food: one small hard boiled egg. So we are on another standoff, she has to eat what's in the bowl. She is clearly getting hungry so we'll see.

I did try the 'lick the dip container' first but that was a bust before I even put the med in it.

I looked into how much drug resistance e-coli in a dog's UTI there was to cephalosporins. It's not real high, less tnan 10%. But the studies were old and most of them done in other countries.

We're in gambling mode now, gambling that this organism won't be resistant to the long acting injectable antibiotic they gave her. I don't imagine the three day course of this oral antibiotic is going to be all that effective even if she eventually does get the three pills down. The first two doses have now been slowly doled out over hours and hours. My clinical self is telling me that's not the same as getting one pill all at once.

 

[Brightdreamer]

Pets never make anything easy, unfortunately...

Friday evening, and looking forward to a nice, indulgent snooze-in tomorrow. Hopefully I get that story thrown out into the wild, too, but I sorta dropped the ball on revising after work as I'd planned to (because work is always stupidly tiring, even though it's only a part time job)... mergh. Might also start sketching out ornament final designs; I have enough materials to get started, but I want to be sure of my plans before I get going. (Not that they don't always end up changing on me in the execution...)

 

[Friendly Frog]

Pets and meds... *shakes head* The stories, dude...

and the exhaustion...

Best of luck, Maeze, may the dice come up lucky for you and your dog.

 

[MaeZe]

So weird, after getting who knows how much of the first two pills, today she licked the crushed pill mixed in maple syrup without a problem. I didn't let her see me getting it ready and I put it on the plate she likes to lick after I've eaten breakfast.

I don't know whether to ask the vet for two more doses. I could try the same thing tomorrow and she could turn her nose up at it. Or maybe she could get all three doses if I use the same trick.

 

[Brightdreamer]

Pet logic only makes sense to pets.

(Unlike human logic, which is completely rational and consistent, of course... )

Sunday morning, finishing off a latish breakfast of leftover omelet, after which I hope to get some new software installed on Dad's computer that should help him use his mouse better with his variable tremor issues. (It's supposed to enlarge the "target area", plus is has greater double-click-speed adjustment than Windows supposedly, so he should have an easier time launching programs and doing things. We shall see...)

After that, back to story revisions and throwing a dart at a market to see where it goes first. It's a bravery test, as Bob Ross would say...

(ETA: SteadyMouse link, if anyone's curious. About 40ish bucks for a one-computer license.)

 

[zanzjan]

*crawls out from under rock*

Hey, all! Sorry I haven't been around much; it's been a rough stretch. But I'm trying to pull things back together and should be around more.

 

[CMBright]

Well, I could have done without the tornado sirens going off. Turns out the weather action was on the other side of town and the next town over.

I don't regret acting as if there was a touchdown a few feet away until we got word otherwise. I holed up in the interior bathroom with the 10yo.

The sirens turned off, so that's nice.

 

[E.F.B.]

Better safe than sorry, CMBright. Glad it wasn't actually near you.

Feeling semi-stressed this morning. Uncle's pace maker surgery is today, but we probably won't know until aunt calls us how it went, and she's homebound and won't know until the hospital calls OR other uncle is able to get to the hospital and ask because communicating is far too much effort for that hospital. And of course because dad's twin brother is going through this, dad's anxiety is spiking which is just... *sigh*

Anyway. In non-stressful news, Etsy is rolling out an alt-text option for seller's listing images. We can now type up alt-text for all our images, describing our photos in detail for people who have screen readers due to having visual impairments. I think it's great that they've done that and I've been prioritizing typing up these descriptions for each of my photos (slowly, because I have 98 listings with 5-10 photos each!) but I also kind of wish there was someone to tell you if your alt-text descriptions are actually helpful. It would also be nice to know if screen readers can read images with text on them or if I have to describe those too. (I am describing them just to be safe.) Etsy did provide some example photos, but of course it was generally simple-to-describe things like earrings, whereas with stuff like crochet I feel responsible to describe not just the look of the item but whether the fabric is solid, lacy, smooth, textured, etc. And you only get 250 characters per image to describe the thing. Well, all I know is to keep doing my best and hope it helps someone.

 

[Brightdreamer]

Hooray for getting past rough stretches (hopefully)!

Boo for tornado warnings! (But hooray for tornado warnings without actual tornados!)

Boo for surgical stress!

Hooray for accessibility!

And it's Monday morning, Indigenous Persons Day. Finished that revision pass the other day, so today's throw-a-dart-at-a-market day (via be-sure-to-format-it-correctly-for-said-market-because-I'm-trying-not-to-get-an-auto-bounce... I want my story to fail on its own merits...). Also need to get out to the workshed. Should probably start gluing up bases for ornaments this week. And I should probably consider picking another story for polishing...

--

And later the same Monday. Did not end up subbing today because I realized I needed to tweak the formatting before doing so, which is taking longer than I anticipated as I catch little bits and glitches. Mergh... And tomorrow morning I'm driving Mom to her PT appointment, so I won't get back until afternoon.

On the plus side, I got some shed time in, and remembered to exercise. And I'm that much closer to subbing. Pretty sure I know where I'll try throwing it first.

--

Tuesday evening, and the day was entirely eaten by relatives. The PT run became an extended shopping run became a quick run out to organize the workshed/prep for ornament production became time to start dinner became having to watch stuff after dinner (the sibling can get meltdowny if people don't sit and watch things when she decides they need watching)... Didn't even get to manuscript formatting until now. And work tomorrow is going to suck because we were already behind and now we're going to be drowned by the holiday storm surge from the Monday holiday... gah...

(And I just finished the manuscript formatting pass... hopefully I can get the thing out tomorrow after work.)

 

[Brightdreamer]

*pokes forum*

*pokes thread*

Friday afternoon, and the forum appears to have returned (for now.)

For the record: I did finish manuscript formatting. I have not yet had a chance to pull the proverbial trigger and sub the thing; hopefully tonight.

Weekend plans currently involve starting ornament construction (I believe I have everything I need at this point, and might as well get started, especially if I decide to bite the bullet and jump back into the NaNo pool this November), a little site work, and digging around in my old backups for some old site stuff I told someone I'd look for but have procrastinated on.

 

[Friendly Frog]

Another week, another leak.

Another flooded basement and fortunately 67 buckets later dad can be pursuaded to consider getting another pump.

Also, the rescue turtle aquarium has started leaking in a really bad way and it's above my bedroom so we need to deal with that as in right now if I don't want to a shower when I'm sleeping.

Honestly, I like water but it sure likes making things difficult for me.

 

[greendragon]

I worked 90 hours between Saturday morning and Friday night. I'm exhausted. And yes, I'm salary, so I don't get paid twice for twice the work.

Just now getting back into editing I've put off because exhaustion.

 

[Brightdreamer]

Boo for leaks and unpaid overtime!

Mergh... Saturday afternoon, and Mom has lost some meds she picked up this week and is thus in a stompy, grumbly mood, which sorta spills over to the rest of the house. (And, no, I can't help look for them because she's in that frustrated stage where anything anyone else touches or thinks of touching or asks whether it's been touched is "getting in the way"... best just to stand back at this point.) I think I'll escape to the workshed for a bit, maybe get those ornament bases glued up. Might be able to crack open the Apoxie by Monday if I get them glued up and setting today... and if nothing else I'll be out of earshot of the stompy grumbly spillover, at least for a while...

 

[Friendly Frog]

Boo for missing meds and ensuing frustration!

Bullied dad to get started on the turtle aquarium. Aquarium now mostly emptied and raised. One leak found, looks repairable. Some water damage to the table and carpet but at least not water in my bed! Took a shower because smelling like aquarium is not my thing.

 

[Brightdreamer]

Hooray for repairable aquariums!

And it's Saturday night. Not the most productive day - didn't even get ornament bases glued, but I got prep work done on that end, so hopefully gluing happens tomorrow. And I hope to get that danged manuscript flung out the window tonight... Also need to decide if I'm doing NaNo this year, and if so, what I'm doing for it.

(And story bomb away... I think... not sure if it went through or not, but I tried.)

 

[Albedo]

Hey there gang. It's been a crappy time, so I'm glad I made the decision to drop out of the sequel Sisyphus fairly early on. I suppose I want to talk about why now, cos you guys are the most supportive bunch of GOOD Art Friends, and are the best really. You might not be aware that the Sydney region had been in a COVID lockdown since mid June, only coming out of it last week. Just in the past few weeks, first my grandmother and then my cousin passed away. It had been impossible to visit either of them due to the lockdown of course.

My grandmother had been living with dementia for a couple of years and was in a nursing home, and due to the lockdown had no visitors at all in the last three months of her life. We got a ten person funeral, but my brother from out of town had to Zoom in. My cousin had a chronic illness that tragically usually limits those with it to 30-40 years. He wasn't in Sydney and so there was no chance of seeing him either as his health deteriorated over the past few months. His parents and siblings thankfully got exemptions to travel to be with him and with his wife in the last days, and he was able to become godparent to his very youngest niece. The funeral's going to be over Zoom. Weird times.

So yeah, it hasn't been a good time for writing or anything. But in the way of these things, now something good: as of today I am now officially AN UNCLE. Or A NUNCLE as Shakespeare put it. I've never wanted kids, but it's always been a secret desire to be someone's weird uncle, so life goal acheived?

 

[Brightdreamer]

Boo for sucky times!

Hooray for weird uncles!

Sunday morning, gray outside, and looking at another day of Not Much Worth Noting. I have a book review to write up, and at some point I need to get ornament bases gluing, then there's some site stuff I should probably catch up on, a show or two I need to get around to rewatching to keep on my personal rewatch schedule (I need to sit down and calculate that out if I'm going to wrap S5 of Expanse by December 10th, and I still want to go back for round to of S6 on Lucifer, plus at some point after Dec 1 I want to see how they wrap Lost in Space on Netflix), plus I'm sure family will be interfering at some point, passively or actively... also blew off transcription last night because everything on offer had very low pay rates for the time investment (not that it's a bonanza anyway, but still) so I need to try again tonight and make myself be less picky... mergh.

And I'm pretty sure my attempt to submit a story the other day was eaten by the internet because I never got the auto-confirm I was supposed to get, but I'm not sure enough to attempt submitting again just yet. Guess I'll pick another story to polish and consider this one effectively in limbo.

Double mergh.

 

[Friendly Frog]

So yeah, it hasn't been a good time for writing or anything. But in the way of these things, now something good: as of today I am now officially AN UNCLE. Or A NUNCLE as Shakespeare put it. I've never wanted kids, but it's always been a secret desire to be someone's weird uncle, so life goal acheived?

Sorry for your loss, Albedo.

But also congratulations on being on route to become a weird uncle. As a weird auntie myself, I can definitely say it's worthy cause.

 

[Albedo]

I gotta select the type of weird uncle still. Teach her her first swear words and buy her a motorbike for her 1st birthday? Nothing but dinosaur toys? Introduce her to revolutionary Marxism?

 

[Unimportant]

Give her a drum set and a pony.

 

[CMBright]

Give her a drum set and a pony.

NO! Not the drum set! As long as Uncle provides stabling, I'd be good with someone getting my kid a pony. Or getting me a horse.

My weird uncle vote is to get the kid into reading. Listening can start as an infant to spark the interest early.

 

[Unimportant]

NO! Not the drum set! As long as Uncle provides stabling, I'd be good with someone getting my kid a pony. Or getting me a horse.

My weird uncle vote is to get the kid into reading. Listening can start as an infant to spark the interest early.

Drum set and no stabling. Uncles and aunts get to please the kiddies while annoying the eff out of the kids' parents.

But yep, agree on getting the kid books, magazines, fiction podcasts, and anything else that will instill a love of reading.