Brain currently booting in Safe Mode

For my mom's birthday, we (that being me and mine, plus my sister and her spouse) went over to hers to DIG! as a gift. Mom has more stuff than she needs and yard work is much more valuable to her than a trinket.

We all met for lunch at a local Croatian schnitzel place that was hella tasty, then after, it was work. Can I just say that I am fucking sore? I don't move like that often enough and I'm paying for it now. The week prior, we had pulled down the majority of the Dutchman's pipe. Yesterday, we dug up the roots. Or most of the roots? The damn thing was trying to take over the garden and was in there DEEP. Some of the roots were as big around as my wrist.

Lesson learned? Don't plant Dutchman's pipe anywhere it can spread. Because it will take over if you give it a chance to.

We also started pruning out the dead vines from the grape arbour. Being as tall as I am, I can reach with the loppers to cut them free to be pulled down. On the one hand, great, no lugging around a ladder or step stool. On the other? My shoulders and arms and back are not fans of me raising my arms up right now.

Is the work done? Pardon me whilst I'm over here laughing myself sick. In mom's garden, the work is NEVER done. There's only "needs doing" and "good enough". We got some things to good enough and that's fine with me.

I have finally managed to book my kid in for his first COVID shot. Do you know what he did when I told him?

He got very excited that he was getting vaccinated.

I'm not sure how Christmas is going to play out this year. I mean, I know what's happening with my own family (and that they're all reasonable people who actually give a shit and believe little things like, you know, science), but not my in-laws.

Because Paul has a niece who is antivaxx, we didn't see them over Thanksgiving. Even with Declan having the first dose in his arm, I am still wary of being around fucking selfish assholes people who are unwilling to protect themselves and others whilst in the middle of a global health crisis. To that end, I have offered a compromise: we let Declan decide what he is comfortable with.

If he doesn't feel comfortable being around someone who is unvaccinated by their own volition, then I will not force him to do so. He's old enough now to make that kind of decision for himself and for me to respect it. I also can't teach him consent when I stomp all over his (very reasonable) boundaries.

I am trying to overcome my own inertia. I don't know if it's depression-related apathy or the dreary weather or what. I have managed to get two loads of laundry mostly done. Now I need to fold it and put it away. AND I have done the majority of my physiNO. I keep adding to the work I have to do because I want my knee sorted, not because I've been tasked with doing it. I don't have another appointment for three weeks (it's how things shook out) and that's fine with me.

Declan has been insisting that he give me plants instead of cut flowers. A couple of weeks ago, it was daffodils. For Mother's Day, it's hydrangeas, which are lovely and blue. I must remember to call my own mom tomorrow before I leave for game and wish her a Happy Mother's Day. I don't bother asking what she wants anymore, because the answer is always nothing. Which is great for my wallet, but kind of hell on the guilt. :P

Now that the daffodils have finished, I need to figure out what to do with the bulbs. Maybe I will give my mom the daffodil bulbs so that she can plant them in her garden to come up next year. I don't want to throw them out, and I don't have a place to put them, so it seems like a logical solution.

Thanksgiving weekend involved way too much food. But at no point did I eat so much that I felt nauseous. See? Even I can learn.

I'm tired this morning. I'm all socialled out and need a few days of not going anywhere or seeing anybody to recentre myself. I am, though, back to looking for work. Holy jumping does it ever suck. I've applied to a few jobs this morning, including a couple that I had applied to previously, but I can't take months to look for something this time. Our finances will not hold (and for some reason, I can't win the lottery).

I did get a very nice surprise yesterday. Whilst at my mom's, she asked if I wanted my birthday/Christmas present. With my birthday being six weeks away from Christmas, I have never gotten a combined gift, but this year it happened. Not that I'm complaining. It's not everyday you get a brand new sewing machine with a 25 year parts warranty. When I find some time today, I'm going to sit and figure out how it goes. Then maybe I can start working on my costume and get that sorted before next week. It also means I should get my mom's old machine back to her as soon as I can. I just don't have the room to store it here.

I'm just waiting for my mom to stop by and then I'm getting out of the house for while so I can go to the bank (ooo, exciting...:P). I have money (okay, it's an insurance cheque and some cash, but hey, it's money) to deposit. That's good. It means I can afford my Hallowe'en costume (ie. it comes out of my pocket instead of fuzzpsych's). And to put off going back to the Hell that Goes Up for another week.

It's not much, but it's something. I'll take it.

The cash, incidentally, is coming from a couple that my mom sews scope covers for. They own a local crossbow company and I think I've met them all of about half a dozen times. Still, it means another week without having to go back. I feel a lot better today.

It was strange sleeping in my own bed last night. It wasn't very comfortable. Which means that I'm getting used to sleeping on an air mattress. Yippee.

But it was good to get out and LARP last night. Even though it was fast time, I needed to be someone else for a few hours. Very good for the psyche, especially after the beating it's taken over the past few weeks.

My kitties are happy that we're home. I wish we could stay, but we have a bigger obligation laying drugged out in a hospital crib at Sick Kids, so it's back to Toronto today.

Hopefully we'll be home soon to stay. I'm getting tired of having to make special arrangements to be in my apartment and it's becoming quite apparent that while my sister will never say anything, it's time for us to go.

Two weeks. Maybe three. It all depends, now, on how well Shannon can be weaned off the ventilator. After that, it's all gravy.

The lump of dread is sitting in my throat now. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, it will be done and over with only the wait for recovery.

(If there's one more set back I will fucking scream. I can't do this waiting thing anymore. My sister and her boy have been great, but it would be just too fucking much.)

I'm doing some laundry and I noticed that the furnace was on AGAIN! WTF? It's not that cold, even in the basement apartment. And if you are cold, put on a sweater or something, but for the love of Pete, don't turn on the fucking heat until October.

With the last of the money from fuzzpsych's grandmother, I went to Zellers and bought a Jolly Jumper. Shannon's not quite sure what to make of it, but she doesn't scream when she's put into it, so I'm going to take that as a positive sign. She should figure it out soon enough, and then she will scream, but only when we're taking her out! :)

The surgery date is looming ahead. We're both under constant stress and unease. The next two weeks are going to be maddening...not all anticipation is good. Adding to this is another layer of stress coming from my mom. When we told both sets of parental units about the surgery and about our wish to not have them come down to the hospital and wait with us, my in-laws agreed to that without argument and will only come down when it's a good time for Shannon to have visitors, but my mom is being argumentative.

Let me set the stage for Shannon's first heart surgery (PDA Stent and Bilateral Pulmonary Banding...also called the Hybrid Procedure) on 2004 Dec 07: the grandparents (my in-laws and mom) want to be there. I would rather that they didn't, but fuzzpsych wanted them to be there for support, so I relented. I don't play well with others at the best of times, and being under so much stress, I couldn't handle anyone, so I went into the CCU waiting lounge across the hall alone. fuzzpsych felt like he was being pulled in two directions and he also felt that he had to entertain the grandparents while at the hospital. I felt pressured and high strung for most of the day until my sister stopped by in the late afternoon. I started to calm down. While my sister was there, the grandparents left to go home (thank the gods) and after seeing Shannon one more time, we went back to my sister's place with her on the subway, had a bite to eat, then met up with clawfoot and epi_lj for the Spongebob Squarepants Movie.

All in all, not a very pleasant experience. We both had enough on our plates with the Hybrid procedure without fuzzpsych having to deal with family and me trying to avoid them. It clearly didn't work very well. This time, we decided to do this one alone, calling with the result as soon as we knew what was going on.

But that's not good enough for my mom.

When we told her the surgery date, she argued against our explicit wish to not come to Sick Kids. She's even using strong arm tactics to guilt/pressure my in-laws (who are being incredibly supportive about this) into changing their minds so that she can be there. I understand that she's terrified. But she has no right to make this all about her. She made the case that if something happens, she wants to be there to say goodbye. But this is open heart surgery with a heart-lung machine and the whole works. If something happens (touch wood that it doesn't), it will happen fast. There won't be time for the kind of goodbyes where Shannon can hear them. It will be too late for that.

I know it's morbid and negative to think like this, but this is why they have survival rates for surgeries.

I want her to understand that we're not doing this as a punishment or to marginalize her importance in Shannon's life, but that as her parents we have to be as focused as possible and we can only do that without distraction from the parental units. fuzzpsych is going to talk to my mom about this sometime this week. If I went with him, it would become a heated argument and it wouldn't get anyone anywhere.

I'm just don't want this to turn into a grudge. My mom and her brother no longer speak to each other because when he needed her to be there for him, she was too busy with something else (this was 7 years ago!). It's stupid, but that's all it takes, and I'm worried that this whole surgery thing is going to cut me off from my mom and poison the it's-now-finally-a-good relationship I have with my sister (which is very bad, since we'll be staying with my sister and her boyfriend while in Toronto).

Now my tummy is urpy. :P That's enough or I will get an ulcer.

Just got home from seeing Negativland and Diamanda Galas. This was also the first time that we left Shannon at my mom's so we could go out (we had clawfoot come over to babysit the last time we went out). Shannon took to it okay. There was some crying, and even projectile vomit, but she didn't sleep, so we have a very tired baby right now.

Anyway, on to the shows...

Diamanda Galas was first at one of the churches downtown. She was like a spectre of a forgotten fury still screaming for justice. I can't describe it. It was. I did enjoy it which is what really matters. Though it will give me something to chew on for a while.

Negativland at City Hall. In the Council Chambers no less. Very cool. Again, enjoyable. It's going to be used for a webstreaming radio broadcast, so if you can catch it that way, do so. They even managed to tie one of their pieces to the Diamanda Galas perfomance in theme, which was most likely serendipity, but still very cool.

Very tired. Going to have tea and then go to bed. So sleepy.

These were taken Saturday night as we were leaving Toronto at my sister's and her boyfriend's condo. The dog (5 month old German Shepherd) is named Kitty and she can be a handful when no one pays attention to her. My apologies about the size of the pics, I didn't post them.

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