Dandelyon's Worlds

I had a great time at GAFilk, but not so great a time driving home, as the winter storm blew in long before we got home. That made the driving both longer and a lot more stressful. We pushed through, and arrived home safe, but exhausted. And the stupid Long Covid waves of exhaustion have intensified. Emotionally, I'm so very over this crap, but obviously physically is another story.

I did manage to pay bills this week, and make stew, but hardly anything more. Minimal music practice. Nothing done toward organizing the house this week, not even getting the pages of lyrics I'd alphabetized before the con into the three ring binders waiting for them. Bleah. And the ongoing winter weather has not helped anything.

Well, on further consideration, today I have managed to do some laundry, and I took the shop vac down into the laundry room to vacuum out the inside of the dryer from the back, which has increased the efficiency of said appliance. And I made stew, so there's leftovers for a couple of days. But I wanted to be doing a lot more practice, and some recording. Maybe tomorrow. Even having napped, I don't have a lot of focus.

It's not none, at least--I'm here, after all.

After far too long (life has been uncooperative), my singing partner came over today so we could practice. I'd been at work for a half-day and came back to tend seedlings briefly then try to set up the living room for music. I ended up picking up some cat mess and then went to open windows for cross-ventilation and to make it less likely that my ever-present allergies would affect my voice.

That was more challenging than it should have been, since our "halfway" (the storage area between the first floor and the basement) is still in the process of being painted, so tools, nails, sand paper, etc. etc. etc. are in the living room, scattered across the tables I normally use for selling stuff at festivals, blocking off access to one wall. But I managed to wiggle the tables enough to squeeze past and open the window.

Then I ran into a totally unexpected problem--the chair that my friend always sits in was missing.  It's true that we have more than one chair, but most of them have arms or are otherwise unsuitable for him to use for music practice.

I searched the first floor and second floor several times before heading down into the basement. Climbing dusty stairs is not the best thing for my lungs or my knees. I could not find the chair that had been in the living room, nor the other one like it. Finally the homeless guy living at my house overheard enough to volunteer that he'd taken the chair and put it in his room. When I protested that he had not asked about moving the chair, he gave me a pointed look and said, "but no one was using it."

I told him that wasn't the point.

He repeated, louder and slower, "Deirdre, no one was using it!"

As if that justified him taking something that wasn't his without so much as informing me he was using it, and hiding it away in the area we have been treating as his private space.

I told him that the point was it wasn't his and he didn't ask. I admitted that if he had asked, I would doubtless have said yes, but he should have asked. He left the house soon thereafter.

I really would like this to work--My Angel and I both have chronic illnesses, and having someone else around to do some of the chores and just be another adult around in case Angel falls again is welcome.

But I didn't offer him a free room, I observed that he'd been saying he was desperate to find a place to move to and I had a big house that had space and that needed work, and we might be able to work something out that would benefit both of us.  So far, he has done some chores, but not a lot.  Certainly not enough to make up for not paying rent or utilities.

More and more I am feeling deliberately disrespected.  This chair thing isn't the first time I've felt a lack of respect for me personally or as the owner of the property.  It's mostly little things, for instance, when we're talking about things that need doing, he's very unwilling to risk disturbing my stuff--but if he wants to cook, he'll ask things like,  "Do we have such-and-such a spice?"   Not that I object to sharing my spices, but they are my spices (or my-and-Angel's spices).  He didn't buy or grow any of them.

I don't think I'm out of line in believing he should be respectful of our things, and not just use them as if he's entitled to them because he doesn't think we're using them.  I also don't think it's out of line to think that he should act like he appreciates the gift of a warm safe place to stay.

I know I haven't been perfect in this situation--with the asthma, allergies, and sleep apnea, to say nothing of a very challenging day job, it is far too often all I can do to worry about my family; dealing with this situation is often well beyond the number of spoons I have had left by the time I got off work and find out that My Angel isn't up to even cooking dinner, much less going shopping, taking out trash, or anything else useful.  I have too often been grumpy and uncommunicative.  I have to do better, one way or the other.

But the goal was to let me have fewer worries and more time, if not eventually money to use on house repairs or something else useful to me.  And I've not gotten that.

Instead, here I am, using time I might use for writing or music or art and instead am thinking over whether it's worth the effort to try to fix this situation or whether I'd do better to do things like find someone in the neighborhood to hire for snow shoveling. Not that I know who in this neighborhood I can trust. The neighborhood seemed to be moving in a good direction when and  right after we moved in, but the "great" economy squashed all progress.

*sigh*

At least the music practice was good, once I put aside being distracted by the matter of the missing chair.

Here, have another lilac picture:

I went to get my new phone over the weekend, and didn't have time to do much with it. Today, coming home from work, I decided to try taking some pictures. No luck. Oh, the "camera" ap came up, it made a nice shutter noise, but the pictures didn't save anywhere. I finally resorted to calling for technical assistance, wondering what totally obvious simple thing I was missing.

I wasn't. Apparently, the old phone's manufacturer and the new phones manufacturer aren't on speaking terms, so the old memory card is worse than useless in the new phone.

But at least the problem wasn't in my brain cells!

So, you don't to see our first rose, or the chive blossom buds, or the dandelions, or the wild violets, or even the test photos of the cat food from when I was on the phone with the nice man, because all of those photos were mirages.

However, if you want pretty pictures, you can check out my new Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/wylddandelyon/

Now I'm going to switch from napping on the couch to sleeping in bed!

I paid the bills.  Then I kept sitting down and starting to write, and kept finding stuff to research or getting interrupted.

The worst is that my kid's cat turned his nose up at the canned cat food for the second time this week.  Today, after sniffing the plate, he went to hide in the basement after sniffing it. And the day in between, he licked the gravy off the bits and abandoned the rest. Now, every once in a while he fills up with kibble right before the canned food hits the floor, but never three days in a row. And it is NOT normal for him to go hide in the basement. Unless he's been disemboweling paper towel rolls or furniture, and a human is determinedly stalking him. Even then, he hides for maybe five minutes before sneaking out to find something fun to do.

So I guess I get to take him to a vet tomorrow. In a snowstorm.  And the cat carriers are stored in the attic. The very, very cold attic.

Today's image is a gift icon for my very first donor to the Fireborn project.  M, you know who you are.  I hope you like it!  I could redo the words easily enough, if you want something different.

Now I'll return you to your regularly scheduled Friends' Page, and try again to get some writing done.