Snopocalypse 2019

Note: Lots of pics mean this post is better viewed off mobile.

Dear Diary:

It is Day... oh. 

Oh, I've lost track of the day. Well, in any case (she says bravely), it's the second week of this group of winter storms. We've had worse, but in Seattle-ish, these only happen every few years. We haven't the infrastructure in plows and sanders to help as they do in the Midwest. And our area has at least seventeen microclimates - we have two mountain ranges with an inland sea nestled between them and that gets messy. There are hills and winding country roads everywhere. I live - as you know, Dearest Diary - in a small pocket of drained swampland at the bottom of a hill out in the country.

A black cat is zigzagging across the snowy street. 

The squirrels are going to be angry about the lost tree limbs on The Big Tree out front.

There have been some good times, with board games and snowpeople and neighbors pulling together to help. Our local school district has had grab-n-go meals (and they'll bring it to you if you can't get out and they can). 

We have traded baked goods for child care, and someone with safer transportation picked up some groceries for us while they were out. We're staying warm and the kids and I are all getting some educational time in. Lizzy's reading the book Abby gave her for Christmas. 

As I write this, a few brave souls are out moving cars out from under trees and shoveling off their low-pitch roofs. I can hear chainsaws and snowblowers in the distance. The kids are getting some exercise and fresh air playing with the neighbors.

But it's still snowing.

Horrible things are happening.

Tree limbs are down. I'm afraid to check my apple trees, much less my grapevine.

Schools were canceled for the fifth day in the last seven (and the other two were partial days). Our Governor has declared a state of emergency.

I can't work my primary job (because the schools are closed) so I'm working my second job for the schools (which I do from home, thank Itztlacoliuhqui). It doesn't pay as much.

And this particular project is hard (but I love it).

A good friend who never does things like this snow-splained us all.

My pharmacist just texted me to let me know my prescription is in. Yeah, that's not happening today.

Knowing it's likely down to climate change pisses me off. Continuing to call it global warming (and smugly pointing out that it's not warm, so it can't be global warming) to avoid the reality that we are in an emergency is just stupid asshattery by way of circular logic.

Fresh fruit is running out, and we just opened our third loaf of bread. We're down to canned corn and frozen green beans. Thank Hestia that Abby likes to bake.

The power keeps going out as tree limbs fall on the lines; thirty seconds here, an hour there. I hope the power line people are as safe as possible. On that note, stay safe, everyone.

If you don't hear from us, we've succumbed to scurvy.

Stay safe.

The Roller Coaster

So, after my last post, which was all about how much of a PITA winter is to my psyche (for the umpteenth year in a row), you are probably all out of patience with my ramblings. I know I am. But that's Anxiety talking, and Anxiety can go take a flying leap.

This post is different; it's one of those rambly-but-funny ones of the ups and downs of a day in the life.

My mom nagged suggested I take the final step with HSBC to get my old car's** title (or the declaration that they have no claim to it) so I can get rid of it. I've been trying to find/obtain the title for three years, and the car hasn't run for two. This time, Mom went so far as to sent me the address of the nearest HSBC branch. Grand.

To do this, I need to make sure I have the proper documentation. The car's VIN, my current ID, the current(ish) registration, the name-change paperwork, and may as well throw in the death certificate for Laston for good measure; everyone else seems to need it. So I leave the house in South Snohomish County, go to the courthouse in Everett (in "freeway rain") to get a copy of my divorce decree and my 2nd marriage certificate (I probably have those somewhere anyway, but I may as well have them all in one place).

Hey, as long as I'm here, I should talk to the Treasurer for the county about getting the property taxes put in my name, since Laston never paid them and I tended to ignore or destroy the (mostly junk) mail addressed to him in the early months after his death. I had already had a stress-out when I saw that their website said that "installment plans" are one full year, and they haven't answered my inquiry email. So I talk to them, and "of course, we can help you set up a reasonable payment plan, Mrs. Kirkland; we'll send you a payment book next week." A few tears of relief, an offered tissue, and a smile from the person in charge. Good.

Now, down to Redmond (via Lynnwood, where Home Goods does not have my favorite olives in stock, dammit) to HSBC. Once I'm done there, I can pick up the groceries at Trader Joe's and the kids' requested dinner at Fred Meyer in Totem Lake on the way home.

Oh, look, HSBC and Trader Joe's and QFC (also a Kroger company these days, and therefore has the same chicken strips the kids like from Fred Meyer) are all in the same parking lot! Awesome!

But "I'm sorry, Mrs. Tincher? Oh... Mrs. Kirkland. So HSBC Auto Credit doesn't really exist anymore, my branch manager is in a meeting, and the other managers are both on vacation this week. Let me see..." He makes a couple phone calls and finds out the current customer service number for old HSBC Auto Credit customers. Yay! But it's in New York City. Boo, I'll have to call Monday.

Trader Joe's and QFC go well though, and now we have a fruit tray for Second Christmas tomorrow morning. Cool. I go home (via Woodinville, where Home Goods does not have my favorite olives in stock, dammit). And my FitBit tells me I've reached my goal for the day.

I get home. Abby puts away groceries while Lizzy and I go to Mom's to practice piano (on Lizzy's part) and regale Mom with this story (on mine). We get the mail on the way back, to find... that the social security overpayments they said they were taking out of February's payment will be taken out of January's instead. Awesome.

It'll work out somehow; it always does. But what a crappy end to an up-and-down day.

**2002 Mitsubishi Lancer ES sedan. This is the car that Abby's dad and I bought when I was three months pregnant with her, in May 2002. My first new(ish) car. I paid it off long after he and I were divorced, and I had been married to Lizzy's dad Laston for almost two years, in January 2009. I took the payoff information and my ex-husband to a Notary to put the title in my name, but no-one told me (or I don't remember) that we had to file that with the Department of Motor Vehicles, so there is no lost title to find through them. And we lost the copy we had during one of our moves, Laston and I. I have torn the house apart looking for it, been to any number of government agencies trying to get a copy, sent emails that received no reply, tried to wade through the worst IVR system I've ever heard, etc. 

Messy Mental Musings

Warning: this post will ramble.

It's been a Potato Chip Effect or Dropped Spoon kind of week and its only Tuesday. Actually, it started Saturday, when I told Facebook to eff off for a day. Some people thought this meant I was staying off entirely, and sent me little I-thought-you-were-off-Facebook texts when I was on later, which were not helpful. So I ignored them; better that than biting their heads off.

Physical health is generally measurable and treatable, and there are specific goals (reduce pain, close wound, clear infection). But mental health is a slippery beast, and while it may not hurt to know that mid-December is always a problem for me even before Laston's illness, it's isn't something that my fairly logical mind can really grok as a useful data point. Until I sit down and write it out, of course.

When you have even mild mental health issues (hello, Seasonal Affective Disorder, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion) on top of things that are still sometimes considered to be mental health issues but aren't (like ADHD or ASD), the tendency is to try to analyze, at least for me. How much of my emotional exhaustion (it's not really compassion fatigue because that implies I'm less able to feel compassion than I was) is due to winter? To financial stress? About things that are neither my monkeys nor my circus? To grief? To living with children? To being a single mom on a budget? To missing a deadline because I couldn't log in? To fretting about my friends who are also having hard times, in different ways? About my mom's recent knee surgery, even though she's fine? To feeling guilty because my friends have it worse so what am I complaining about? About the things my country is doing to people who are not straight white males? About the little things, like head colds and power outages and traffic snarls? To my therapist being out of town for the holidays?

It doesn't really matter how much of each issue is affecting me in what way. But try telling my busy little brain that in the moment. It's just as effective as telling Meltdown Lizzy that her art project can be fixed; you have to step back to a place of calm for it to even register.

I did that today in the car on the way to school. I said to Lizzy that we need a plan for when mom loses it, because otherwise I'm Shouty Mom (who nobody likes) or even Weepy Mom (which unnerves them somewhat). What can we plan for right now, when I'm not Shouty or Weepy? "Um..." Lizzy says reluctantly, "We could like do chores before you get Shouty."

Well, that's terrific, but I've been trying to get you to do that for years and it hasn't worked yet. "Maybe you could use one of the code phrases? Like "Potato Chip Effect?" So we know when you're about to be Shouty Mom?"

The child is a genius. Now to get my brain to notice the path and act accordingly before I start being Shouty. If I can expect Lizzy to do this, I can expect me to do this.

And now I'm going to sign out before our second windstorm in the past five days causes another power outage. Because if I typed all this and didn't save before Mother Nature gets Shouty, I'm going to Drop Spoons loudly and all over the floor.

Are You Kidding Me?

You see, today is Abby's SIXTEENTH birthday.

I Know. Sixteen. Shut up.

She's a good kid. In fact, she's pretty freaking awesome. She's a good sister, a steady B student (except in performing arts of any kind, when it's all As all the time), a person who is aware of her privilege and lifts others up, a helpful
classmate, an energetic performer, a natural comic, a decent artist,
fun to be around, an excellent storyteller, kind, funny, reliable, and sweet. That's how most of her fellow performers describe her - energetic and sweet - and one of the leads in her last show said she is "the best damn extra ever."

Oh, I know she's not perfect. Her room is stupid messy, she never sees things that need doing around the house, she picks at her sister and gets offended when sister gets tired of it, and avoids helping by playing with grandma's cat.

But she's SIXTEEN. That's normal.

And it's awesome.

Context Matters

<hauls out soapbox. Again.>

Content Warning - this episode of Jenn Does Not Grok contains adult language that Jenn - yes, that Sailor-Mouth Jenn - never actually uses. Statements are made from a point of cishet white privilege. Also sarcasm, grumpiness, and horrified incredulous laughter.

I had a person (a fair-skinned, blonde femme person who I think was female, but I don't want to assume) say something to me today - apparently in all seriousness without a trace of irony - that shocked me into you-have-taken-it-too-far mode. I am not generally that person, the one who thinks "all this political correctness has gone too far," but this one made me WTF all over the floor.

They said, "We shouldn't teach any of the old authors to our kids; even Shakespeare was a sexist, racist, transphobic cunt."

Leaving aside for the moment the dichotomy of (evidently a white woman) using that particular derogatory word for a woman in a speech about how sexist long-dead male authors were (and the speaker was not audibly British, Australian, Kiwi, or any of the other countries that use this slur as a crude term but not an actual swear), how can they actually say that with a straight face? I mean, of course, Shakespeare was racist and sexist by the standards of 2018. (I can only assume that "transphobic" was included in their list because of the crossdressing-for-disguise in plays such as Twelfth Night and As You Like It.)

But those plays were written four hundred-plus years ago. In a different time, a different country, and you really think we shouldn't teach them because they come across as racist and sexist now? My teenager - hell, my tween - know better than that. They can be indignant about the unfairness of things but understand that it's a different time and place and fiction.

I mean, I kind of get it for current folks who are still alive. I'm not an Orson Scott Card fan, for instance; although I can acknowledge that he is an excellent craftsman in his writing, I don't like his personal views. I have lots of friends who despise JK Rowling for racism (of the skin tone variety) at Hogwarts and for straying from her lane in the mythologies in Fantastic Beasts. The Bills (Clinton and Cosby), etc. (and I'm not including the likes of Trump or DeVos or McConnell or Kavanaugh here; as far as I can tell they haven't done anything at all for the good of anyone but themselves and others like them. Harvey Weinstein seems to me to be somewhere between these two categories).

I don't understand it as much for the Susan B. Anthonys of the world. She was racist, certainly, but we continue to get up in arms about her racism a hundred and ten years ago, when - I feel - we should be celebrating her work in women's rights. And that sort of racism was common at the time, even expected. To me, Susie B is about context and baby steps.

Do we just toss out all of someone's good works because, in retrospect, they were racist, or sexist, or whatever? And how far back do we go? Stan Lee just died, and there are allegations about him. Do we toss out the baby with the bathwater and never web sling again? How about Gene Roddenberry? He was a total horndog who had multiple affairs, but he brought us some of the most forward-looking social-justice-aware fiction of its time. Susan B Anthony? William Shakespeare?

I would be sad if these people had to be absolutely perfect by today's standards in order for us to enjoy all the good things they've done.

And don't start with me one the outliers. Yeah, yeah, Hitler loved his mom. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Not the same thing at all. I'm talking about people who have done a lot of good (how many kids did Lee or Cosby inspire, for instance?) but have done things that sucked. Really sucked. Who did horrible things to people, or were sexist asshats or whatever.

I believe that gender and sexuality and mental processes are on spectra. Do we have to be so binary in our judgment?

I hope not.

Titles

It's been an interesting fall, to say the least. And an autumn full of one-liners or quick little chats, as well. Several of these sounded like titles to me - books, TV shows, movies, songs - and so I have decided to collect them here to have them all in one place. I added a few as well, mostly based on conversations I've had recently. You may find them amusing, clever, or maybe even thought-provoking. Hopefully, you won't find them plain old provoking.

• Squeezy Not-Honey and Other Buffy-Speak Thingies

• Not my Circus Anymore, but Still my Monkey

• 45 Hashtags to Avoid Giving The Dark Lord Facebook Hits

• Mike Pence Nehemiah Scudder: Look It Up

• 101 Things Not to Say to Other People's Children

• Trickle-Down Economics Are Fake, but Trickle-Down Bigotry Is Real

• Trying to Walk the Walk: Ideas for Practicing What You Preach

• It's Just a Game, People: Stop Being Entitled Online

• The Social Justice Bard Needs Sleep, Badly

• Yes, It's Cold Today. It's Still Climate Change

• “Nazi Hunters,” “Love Trumps Hate,” and other ambiguities

• Well, Actually: The Asshat's Guide to -Splaining

• Not Everything is Aimed At You

• That Study Was False and Disproven Ages Ago by People WIth Actual Scientific Knowledge

• Sometimes You Feel Like a Jerk. Sometimes You Don't.

• I'm Stronger Than I Think, But Not as Strong as You Think

• These Are Not my Panties, And This Is Not my Special Cup: Adventures of a Bad Housekeeper

• Klingons Have No Chill and Ferengi Have No Shame: DS9 in 2018 American Politics

• 45 Ways to Describe the Buffoon-In-Chief Without Using -Isms

• It's Not About You and Other Stories of Staying In Your Lane

• Whose Bias Are We Confirming, Anyway?

Feel free to add your own and pass them on! If it can't be contained in a single line, it's too long for a title. I have no real objection if anyone wants to write a blurb under any of these, but be warned: this post IS my circus, so follow Wheaton's Law or I'll delete it.