The Way I Feel is Like a Robin

 I guess I'll just say a bunch of random stuff because I keep sitting down trying to write a post about.... something....anything..... and failing.

It's been decided that in the fall Eve is going to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, about four and a half hours away. She was accepted into the Arts and Science Program, which is really cool - limited-enrollment, interdisciplinary, emphasis on social awareness and developing transferable skills. Matt and I both went to McMaster, and we had friends in the program, and Matt's brother later went into it. Matt encouraged Eve to apply while I was sort of hoping she would go to McGill in Montreal, two hours away in a cool city with her friend Davis. Davis's mom and I (HI JODY) have become really good friends and I had visions of excellent Montreal adventures with and without our daughters. Plus if she was homesick or anything bad happened I would only be two hours away.

Well, things didn't so much go my way on this. McGill has been taking it's sweet goddamned time accepting my perfect jewel of a daughter (not that I'm bitter) - not just her, to be fair, it's become increasingly clear that they don't really operate on the timeline all the other universities we applied to do. 

Matt's brother who's a cardiologist is on the faculty at McMaster as - I don't know, some kind of doctor teacher. A couple of weeks after Eve was accepted to the program, his lovely wife also got a job there. I yelled upstairs to Eve "Hey, Laura just got a job at Mac too - isn't that AWESOME?" in a very sarcastic, the-universe-is-markedly-not-bending-to-my-will tone of voice. 

It's good. It was a good school when we went, and it seems to have only become better, based on the marks that you now need to be assured a spot in residence (I still would have been a shoo-in, Matt not so much, tee-hee). My sister is only an hour away, Matt's brother and his wife less than that, plus many friends that we don't see enough of. And now that I'm settling down to it, her going to the same university we did is really kind of cool. Jody and I are joking about being Co-dependent Empty-Nester Alcoholics (I think it is a funny joke and yet I am slightly uncomfortable joking about alcoholism so know that I am conflicted posting this. Also I am a laughable lightweight at this point, so it's more Co-dependent Empty-Nester drink-one-glass-of-wine and cry a little bit in an extremely stereotypical how-are-all-my-chicks-flown manner, but then we can't call it CENA, so, poetic license).

Speaking of chicks and nests, remember the Grackle-Crow Rumble that Matt and I witnessed on our walk? Well, we realized that there was a chickadee nest in the cedar bush in our back yard. And then Matt saw a baby chickadee out front looking confused, and then there was a mother chickadee going frigging bananas in our back yard all day. We were all walking around checking the bushes for the loudly peeping baby and Lucy was running around not knowing what the hell was going on but wanting to be involved (we were hoping "being involved" wouldn't include "eating the baby chickadee"). There's no resolution to this, but at least there was no visible dead baby bird this time, and the chickadees hopping around the back yard from the fence to the tip of the push broom to the garden gargoyle is entertaining and makes me feel vaguely Snow-Whitish.

Well that was a smoother segue than I was hoping for. I don't have anything else nest-related, I don't think. Except I'm annoyed again at myself for being a giant cliché, sad about my kids leaving home, even though the only thing more annoying than a cliché is someone who tries so hard not to be a cliché that they end up being one of those obnoxious parents whose kids only listen to Bob Dylan and never get to eat a hot dog. I mean, have you seen the Backyardigans? That is some good shit that you're going to miss if you're trying not to do parenthood traditionally. 

I mean, it's good that I miss them when they're gone, right? That means they're not assholes (not all the time, anyway, which is all I ask of anyone, including myself). We're supposed to raise them to want to leave. Growth. Potential. Opportunity. It's the natural fucking order. 

Bleah. 

Whine and Cheese

 I cannot promise greatness today. Or goodness. Or general coherence. I have been going through my blog posts from the first one in January 2009 and noticing how much I talk about coughing and lack of sleep. Since I was diagnosed with sleep apnea which they think started in my adolescence but wasn't diagnosed until I was in my forties, I'm happy to observe and report and remind myself to feel grateful about the fact that I cough less. Something about my airways being chronically inflamed because of all the gasping desperately for oxygen, I presume.

It would be really awesome if I could report that the sleep apnea treatment had solved all my problems with, you know, SLEEP, but not so much. To be fair, going up against the perimenopause and Covid anxiety twofer is a tall order. But even before, I was never one of the poster children for a CPAP being a lifechanging miracle. That's okay, I don't require a lifechanging miracle. The CPAP was helping, until I hit perimenopause. 

My nighttime routine is pretty much unchanging and appalling right now. Whether or not I force myself to go to bed earlyish (before midnight) or when I actually feel it (well after midnight), at some point I will feel pleasantly drowsy, put on my mask and lie down and drift off. For about ten minutes. Then I'm wide awake, with electrical currents running through my legs that make it impossible not to thrash, and I don't fall deeply asleep until near dawn. Then I either force myself to get up at a semi-reasonable time (before eleven) or I sleep until I'm more rested (after noon). I feel like I'm in the sunken place. I'm embarrassed that the people live with know I'm sleeping late most days (which is dumb because they don't care). I'm frustrated because anything I've tried (walking a lot, walking less, stretching, cool shower, over-the-counter sleep meds, marijuana edibles) either doesn't work or works for two nights and then stops working. It sucks. But that's how it is for now, so I'm putting it here and moving on with my weird, fucked-up-sleep-routine life.

So in my sleep-lacking, perimenopausal, covid-anxious brain fog, I wandered into Eve's room the other day and saw this:

I started to compliment her on her really well-laid out French presentation on Mesopotamia. Then I stopped. Because she's in Grade twelve and she's not taking French or anything to do with Mesopotamia. I thought she had taken complete leave of her senses and concocted an entire useless presentation in her sleep or something. 

She looked at my face, looked at the board and said "I'm just reusing the back of the bristol board for my English artefact for The Great Gatsby.

Whew.


Could be worse. I could have this guy's last name.


I was about to make fun of the people who labelled this cheese, like yeah, who wants to enjoy a big block of cheese the same night they buy it. But I just made mac and cheese in the instant pot and used, if not the equivalent of this block of cheese, very close to it, so maybe I'll stfu about that.


I was filling in in the school office almost constantly the last few weeks before we locked down because the Office Administrator was on stress leave (no effing kidding). We were giving out water bottles in the school office for kids that forget theirs at home, and then we switched to giving out paper cups to fill at the water fountain.  This seemed sort of petty and mean to me and I was skeptical of the cost savings and general environmental impact, but I don't make the rules and I wasn't up to protesting. So we were out of the paper cups and Heather, who usually buys stuff like that, wasn't there. Carla gave me the school credit card and instructions to buy... paper cups. This was a little stressful since I didn't really know what ones to buy or what a reasonable price was, but I'm of an age where I don't obsess about this stuff QUITE AS MUCH as I used to. I went to Metro. They had compostable cups like the ones we had just run out of at school, but only with lids, and they were quite a bit more expensive for something we didn't actually need. 

So I bought these, and said "sorry if it makes it look like I'm sending the students to a kegger" and the vice president got a good laugh out of it, which we all really needed.


Angus is doing quite a bit better, judging both from his texts and from the forensic accounting we're able to do with the credit card bills: 1.67 at 7-11 (Gatorade); 4.58 at Dunkin' Donuts (breakfast); 10.44 at Stoney Ridge Winery; 12.35 at Barnstormer Winery; 9.87 at Lakewood Vineyards; etc. This does my heart, if not his liver, some good. 

Now I'm going to go read and then probably have a crappy night's sleep. Although it occurs to me that I haven't yet tried drinking a bottle of wine out of a Red Solo cup, as a sleep aid or just for general recreational purposes. 

So Something Really Cool Happened

 So in this post, this woman named Shawna followed a link to my blog from Swistle's (everyone knows Swistle, right? If not, absolutely just ditch my blog right now and go to Swistle's if you haven't, she's awesome, big, big fan). And then was surprised and amused to find out that we live in the same Ottawa suburb. That was cool.

So on Tuesday I went to the chiropractor and then got groceries. I was grumpy. I was wearing a cloth mask after weeks of wearing nothing but medical ones because my chiropractor is fully vaccinated and I wasn't going to be close to anyone else and I like the smell of the dish soap I boil the cloth masks in and I hate the smell of the medical masks, but everything still smelled bad and I hadn't slept well and we're in lockdown and all I want to do is sleep but I do it badly, and you know the drill. Anyway, I got my groceries and I was loading them into my car, probably wearing a textbook example of Resting Bitch Face, and from the car parked RIGHT NEXT TO ME, I heard a woman's voice say "hey, do you write a blog?" 

IT WAS SHAWNA, YOU GUYS, parked RIGHT THE FUCK NEXT TO ME AT LOBLAWS. I said we should go buy a lottery ticket, and we took off our masks and had a conversation from two car widths apart which was awesome because the conversations I've had with people I'm not directly related too are few and far between right now. She's a really good photographer which I know because I Facebook-stalked her, which is okay because that's how she recognized me. Nothing like a cosmic coincidence to torpedo a massive grump-fest.

So up until Covid, I was the one who walked Lucy the majority of the time, other than my mom who walked her whenever they dog-sat while I was working (not really necessary at all given the hours I work, but both my parents and the dog enjoy it, and it gives me an excuse for frequent quick visits). Eve would walk her once a week-end or after school if I expressly asked her to, and Matt almost never. This made sense - I'm the one who's here the most, I'm usually the least busy, and I'd usually walked her before Eve got home from school. When we went into lockdown the first time last March, Eve quickly made walking Lucy a part of her daily routine most days, because even when they started online learning it ended early in the afternoon, so she would have lunch, go for a walk and then do homework. Matt would take her once in a while if I told him he should, mostly to get him out of the house because he was in the basement sometimes from seven to seven and it seemed unhealthy.

This worked out for the most part, but the new wrinkle became that if I came downstairs in anything resembling walking clothes, Lucy started refusing to go with Eve. This is both hilarious and infuriating - she loves walks, but she apparently she loves me slightly more. Eve would drag her for a few metres and then come back enraged and I would have to go for a short walk with them before going on the treadmill or doing errands or whatever I was planning. 

Today I was actually going to walk her, but I was doing some kitchen stuff first, and Matt decided he was going to. I said fine, I would drive somewhere and get in a good trail walk (I take Lucy on these sometimes, sometimes I go along because she's annoying and my shoulder gets sore from the leash). Then I said "oh shit, she's seen me, she might not go with you." He said confidently that she would go with him. I thought maybe she would. I'm totally the alpha bitch, Matt is an authority figure, and Eve is just like her other-dog sister or something. 

I went in the bathroom to brush my teeth. I heard them come back in. Matt said "she won't go with me.

I had to walk my husband AND my dog.

On our walk, we passed a tree with a bunch of loud birds in it. Matt noticed that a bunch of grackles seemed to be harassing a crow. The grackles were vocalizing loudly and following the crow around. We walked a little further and found a dead baby bird in the street and realized the crow had found the nest and the grackles were congregating to drive the crow away. The crow came back for the dead bird and the grackles started dive-bombing it. We were transfixed - it was heartbreaking and fascinating all at once. I said "well, it's only one crow. What's a group of grackles called?" I looked it up when we got home. It's a plague. Bit on the nose, if you ask me.

So things still kind of suck, we have no idea when lockdown will end, I still can't fall asleep before four which means getting up before noon is torture, my one work project is over and now I'm not sure what to do because librarianing at home is just kind of pathetic. But I met a new friend and went for a walk and had ringside seats to a nature documentary. And we just got home and it just started raining. Taking the little wins where I can find them. 

Backsliding

I know I said I was done with the wallowing. I gave my head a shake! I got some perspective! I was ready to move forward! 

I am not ready to move forward. Well, I am in theory, but I am just lacking the bodily resources to make it happen. Last night I slept like I had been drugged or cursed by a poisoned wagon wheel. Wait, that's not right. Spinning wheel. Eve said she feels the same, so maybe it's just the weather. Pam and I went for a great walk last Thursday and declared that we would do the same at least once a week. The following Wednesday I looked at the weather and said "oh great, it's supposed to rain for the next six...seven...NINE DAYS?"

Saturday and Sunday were sunny and cold and then warmer. I hate when people on social media tell me to go outside because it's beautiful, but I did, in fact, force myself to go outside and do the stupid little walk for my stupid mental health. Saturday I got Eve to go with me, and Sunday Matt and I walked over to my mom and dad's because they needed help figuring out the bill for the mobility devices we rented and bought when my dad fell back in September. I asked Matt why they didn't just pay it rather than making him go through every line with them (it wasn't that high, they could easily afford it) and he said "your mom just wants to make sure she isn't getting ripped off" and Eve said "just say 'oh look, in this Young Person Font that only I can see it says 'you're not getting ripped off''". After they dealt with that Matt put Angus's game on his phone so we could listen to it (because we should be in fucking Elmira New York watching fucking baseball) and they pulled off a surprise win (the team has been struggling pretty hard) and I sent this picture to Angus, which he liked.

I keep saying I want to take a week to just read (other than my stupid little walk) so maybe I'll just do that. I finally got my reading mojo back after a week or so of focus issues and inability to decide on what to read next. The opening lines of the last two books I read were "So Shanna got a new job at the movie theatre, we thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead and I'm really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all" and "How much is it to fix a broken goose?", so things are looking up. Plus I just finished this book (in actual paper form) and just LOOK at this cover:

Also, I had my first tweet to do any real numbers. Was it an uplifting inspirational verse? Was it a penetrating social justice analysis? It was not. Somebody posted this:

And I responded with this:

234 likes and counting. So proud. (It's actually killing me that I didn't format it better. Penis flytrap. It should have been Penis flytrap.)

Also, I got my Covid vaccine. 

Yes, I dressed fancy (underwire bra, even!) I didn't post a vaccine selfie on social media because I was conflicted and I sort of agreed with Tudor (HI TUDOR) that it was all kinds of messed up that the government was saying 'EVERYBODY GET YOUR SHOT' while not vaccinating essential workers. They lowered the age for Astra Zeneca at pharmacies to 40 and up, then lowered the age for the provincial portal, but they're STILL NOT FUCKING VACCINATING ESSENTIAL WORKERS. I also don't blame anyone who posted a vaccine selfie, because the messaging is so jacked that how is anyone supposed to know what to do? Get your shot! But some of you can't! But if you can you should! The more people vaccinated the better! But this one might kill you! But get it anyway! All the while la la la la, what's that about essential workers? Can't hear you! 

I was very sick about twelve hours post-vax. Matt slept downstairs so I could thrash around. Apparently I fever-texted quite a few people in the middle of the night. Here's what I sent Eve:

I needed a straw because I couldn't lift up my glass of water to drink. Everyone told me to drink lots of water but then I kept having to get up to pee and I had a 103 degree fever and convulsive chills and taking the blankets off to get up to pee was AGONIZING. I knew I would probably get mad side effects because immune responses tend to be where I shine - if there is a side effect to be had, I will have it. I consoled myself with the fact that I was clearly mounting the robustest of defenses, and this cemented my conviction that actual Covid would probably kill me. I felt weird for days. 

Okay. I have made dentist appointments for the family and a doctor's appointment for myself (TWO PHONE CALLS) and written a blog post. I'm going back to my sulking chair. I mean my reading chair. 

Oh, Eve just came down and laid on the kitchen floor to complain about Calculus. Nothing but positive attitudes and stiff upper lips over here.