Sunday Coffee – Random Tidbits

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Thistle

It’s April, and my brain is all over the place, so here are a few of the random thoughts and weird happenings going on right now.

I got an ad from a lingerie company the other day that said I should treat my mom for Mother’s Day from their company. Do folks really buy lingerie for their mothers? Because that seems wildly bizarre to me. I mean, more power to anyone who has this kind of relationship with their mother, but no thank you.

***
Not a month after Atticus underwent dental surgery, Jojo needs dental surgery too. I won’t include a photo of what they found inside his mouth, because it is really gross. I noticed he had a giant lump that felt like a swollen lymph node on the side of his neck, so we took him in. Jojo is of course one of our spiciest cat-kids, so he had to be sedated to even get a look inside his mouth. A giant mass had grown up and around his back molars. They gave him antibiotics and steroids, and after those have enough time to fight off any potential infection, he goes back in to have a bunch of teeth pulled and the mass biopsied to make sure it’s benign. As he’s only five years old, they don’t think it’s cancer, but best to be sure. If anyone wants to know what it looks like, do an image search for cats with FORL. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

***
They always say people get diagnosed with ADHD too easily, but this is absolutely not the case. Jason has ADHD. He was diagnosed with it as an adolescent, his father has it, and at least one of his siblings has it. Additionally, at least two of our children have it, though so far neither of them can get a doctor to treat them for it. Apparently the current state of ADHD diagnosis is to try treating with antidepressants first, which seems utterly ridiculous to me. Anyway, Jason has been trying to get diagnosed and properly medicated for this for about 18 months now. He’s been to multiple psychiatrists, and they all refuse to treat him with anything other than antidepressants. They also keep shunting him off sideways to new doctors. Like for instance, his most recent psychiatrist saw him three times. For both the second and third visits, he waited in the lobby for two hours past his appointment time and saw the doctor for short visits, but she claims he waits so long because she spends that entire waiting time scouring his charts, and then charges over $300 for the visit. Total scam. This last time, she made him wait two hours, told him she was looking over his charts, then told him she didn’t think she was a good fit and suggested he see someone else. W. T. F.

***
I have a new rain shower head. Jason installed it yesterday afternoon, so I haven’t used it yet, but I’m looking forward to it. I’ve wanted a rain shower for a very long time, so I hope it lives up to everything I’ve been hoping for!

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The Longest Race, by Kara Goucher and Mary Pilon (audio)

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Thistle

Subtitled: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team

From the subtitle of this book, I expected it to be part memoir, part exposé about the Nike Oregon Project. While it is that, the balance between these two parts is uneven, with memoir being about 80%. Goucher was mostly kept isolated from the other athletes at the NIP, so she was a bit oblivious to what was happening for a good number of years. There was also a culture of don’t-ask-questions, do-what-you’re-told, and she obeyed that. Terrible things were done to the athletes, including Goucher, sometimes with the athletes’ willingness and sometimes not. But this book was mostly about how Goucher dealt with her own part of things, how she existed within the culture, rather than about the culture itself. After having read and loved Lauren Fleshman’s book that was part memoir, part exposé on running culture around women, this follow-up was disappointing. I’m not saying it was badly done or anything – I’m just not a memoir person generally so this wasn’t the book for me.

Performance: This book was read by the author (while the introduction was read by Mary Pilon, the co-author). In general, books read by the author tend to be poorly performed unless the author has some experience in acting/performance. In this instance, Goucher read the book much as you would typically hear from a student reading a passage aloud for a classroom. Every sentence ended with the same cadence, and there were weird halting moments between words mid-sentence, in places where no pauses should have been. As a read-aloud, it was fine, but it was not an audio performance. I honestly recommend reading the print version if you’re interested in this one.

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Fosters: From Veggies to Sassafras

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Thistle

Five weeks ago, the animal shelter called to ask me if I could take over care for a litter of four bottle babies. They were about 4-5 weeks old and only a week out from weaning, so I agreed. This is just about the only way I can take on bottle babies, given my sleep disorder and Jason’s work schedule. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to take another bottle baby unless they landed on my doorstep in an emergency situation like Shai and Hulud did. It was quite sweet to suddenly have four littles scrambling for their bottle again.

(Clockwise from top left: Sprout, Broccoli, Bean, Okra)

Our Veggie Tails were quite a lot of work. Unlike most cats, it took them weeks to figure out how to use the litterbox properly. They also had diarrhea issues that required four different meds to clear up. Because of their early life traumas (which led them to being orphaned at about a week old), they were extremely malnourished and had a lot of catching up to do in the weight department – especially Okra, the runt of the litter. He weighed only 350 grams when he arrived at our house, almost 200 grams smaller than he should have been for that age, and about 100 grams smaller than his siblings.

Despite all the issues, the Veggies ended up thriving. By their last night with us, all four siblings ended up over 1000 grams, well past the two-pound mark they needed to make for surgery. Our five weeks with them gave us a really good idea of their personalities, too. Sprout was the leader and protector, less cuddly and more independent, so it felt like you were chosen every time she asked to be snuggled and actually started purring. Bean was a lover and preferred to cuddle than to play, and he and Sprout were extremely attached to each other (hopefully they get adopted together!). Broccoli was an explorer and an adrenaline junkie, who frequently stood on her hind legs and waved her arms around to “scare” whatever toy she was attacking. Okra was a total goofball with no spacial awareness – he’d easily roll off a lap or run into a table leg – and a healthy dose of Drama King, the kind of cat who would begin screaming in “pain” during wrestle sessions before he was even touched. All four were as sweet as can be, and we will miss them.

(Clockwise from top left: Broccoli, Sprout, Okra, Bean)

Which brings me to…Sassafras.

The Veggies were the last big litter we could take for the spring, because Elle (Laurence) will be returning home next week for the summer and we’ll no longer have our big foster room. We can foster a singleton or duo in Jason’s room, but it’s a small room so no full litters, and we need a little more time between litters to clean things. (My room, sadly, can’t be used to foster except very short term with healthy kittens because it’s carpeted.) In addition to the change in house circumstances, Jason and I have our upcoming Planniversary vacation, and we can’t take in fosters that will need to be here longer than the intervening time. We also know that sometimes a batch of kittens will need “only a week” of foster, and that week will snowball into a month or more, like with Petunia.

On Monday, a singleton who needed fostering for only a week showed up on the daily email. Her name was Sassafras, and I volunteered to bring her home, even though the timing would overlap with our Veggie Tails by a couple days. When I picked her up, they told me that 1) she’d only come in to the shelter a few hours before, so they knew nothing about her history; 2) she weighed 1.9 lbs so she just needed to gain a little weight, though I also needed to monitor her for any potential illnesses/parasites/etc; and 3) she was extremely shy and a little hissy, but not mean. This last bit ended up being exactly right. Sassafras was terrified of humans and would hiss a little, but not attack. Which meant that our main goal over the week we’re supposed to have her is to get her socialized.

A week is not a lot of time and honestly, I kinda wish we could opt for two weeks. We’ve had to put her in a large playpen because otherwise she’ll hide under furniture and never come out. She’s gotten used to Jason because the room smells like him, so at night she’ll sit beside him a little. She’s also gotten to the point where she’ll purr if we touch her, but she’ll also hiss before we touch her, so she’s just very confused about what’s going on right now. She needs time. However, I have no control over the timing of this. The thing I worry about most is that someone will snatch her up because she’s a beautiful siamese kitten, not knowing that it’s going to take some work to help her feel comfortable and safe. So wish us luck with her, that she’ll either socialize quickly or the shelter will give us more time. One way or another, hopefully Miss SassyPants will be a sweet happy little Sassafras before she hits the adoption floor!

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April Self Portrait: PTSD

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Thistle

I’m not sure how to start this post. Y’all. April’s self-portrait went wildly off the rails. Fully transparent here – not every photoshoot works, not every setting works out, things happen, things fail. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do exactly for April’s shoot. I knew what I wanted to wear. I’d found an old prom dress at a thrift store a few months back, and I bought a crop shirt with puffy sleeves and a vest to go over the top of it. What I would have loved was a dark academia type setting, outdoors along a stone wall, a corridor of some sort. However, the only places in town that I know like that wouldn’t be ideal for self-portraits, where I have to be both behind and in front of the camera. I thought about the side yard of my house, paved with bricks and rocks, with an old wooden fence on one side, and I said, hmm, why not? It wasn’t right, but it was something.

Jason was at the thrift store for unrelated reasons, and I asked him if there were any interesting chairs there that I might be able to use for a shoot. He actually found a really cute one! I still had the books out from the recent bookworm princess photoshoot. I’d straightened my hair, put on my outfit, and in a weird mood that I didn’t yet recognize, I made up my face to look sickly and deadish. Everything was cobbled together with only a vague plan, and to make things worse, the timing was completely off. I planned to go out late enough that the side yard would no longer have golden light, but would still have light enough for photos. I had two light sticks that I was going to use to color in with extra directional color, one white, one blue, but they were only meant to add to the effect, not become the sole light sources of the shoot. Through a series of unfortunate coincidences, though, Jason and I got everything set up half an hour later than expected, and I lost light quickly. I also chose the wrong lens for the confines of the space. The majority of the photos came out terribly, and I felt so angry by the end of the shoot. Angry, and worthless as a photographer, and hideous in my body, and ashamed of the entire evening. (Note: The above collage is a sampling of the bad photos – I chose to edit them the same way as the good photos, to show that while you can do a lot with editing, you can’t save a bad photo.)

Usually, I come out of these self-portrait shoots feeling really good. Some of the shots can be really frustrating, because I’m not a model and it’s difficult to be both in front of and behind the camera simultaneously, but generally I find some good balance by the end of a shoot. Not so this time. I went to bed angry and upset, had restless dreams all night long, and decided that I couldn’t live with the results. I was going to need a redo.

My hair was still relatively straight. The morning light would be a similar softness as evening for a short while, so I put on my makeup – less ghoulish this second time – and got things set up again. I grabbed a different lens, and didn’t bother with the light sticks since it was daylight and they would’ve just gotten in the way. Somehow overnight, things had finally solidified in my mind, and I realized that far from the original idea I had of dark academia – since I didn’t have an appropriate setting for that – I was trying to personify the way I feel in April and May. Long time friends and readers will know that this is the time of year that I suffer from intense depression, agoraphobia, and PTSD. The unconscious way I’d put together my makeup, to look dead and bruised and sickly, married up with how I’ve been feeling for weeks. And with that better idea of the vibe I was going for, combined with better light and a different lens, the secondary self-portrait shoot went well.

These aren’t pretty pictures. They aren’t meant to be. They’re highly stylized to complement the feeling I wanted to get across, and they feel heavy, drained, lethargic. I didn’t originally set out to take photos of depression and PTSD, but honestly it was pretty cathartic to create them.

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Sunday Coffee – Wednesday

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Thistle

Back in November, I meant to watch Wednesday when it first came out. Jason and I were going to watch it together, because it was coming out during Thanksgiving week when he was going to be off work. Except then we both came down with covid, and once he went back to work, there was just never time over the weekends with Christmas approaching and our youngest coming home for a month. Then we began to see negative reviews of the show, and Jason decided he wasn’t really interested anymore. I was more preoccupied with other shows, and have been feeling mostly in a mood for rewatches rather than new stuff for months now. But I decided that it really had been too long, and it was time to watch the show, or cross it off my list.

Y’all. This show was like if Tim Burton and Disney Kids had a baby. It was so CGI-heavy (not for the monsters or paranormal stuff, but just the general colors and skin-shaping and everything) that it could almost have been entirely computer generated. The Addams’ family was always going to be over the top, but I was put off by how the weird stereotypes that everyone portrayed in addition to the Addams stereotypes. I know a lot of people complained about the shift from the traditional version of the story where it’s the one family different from the rest of the world, but I didn’t mind exploring new territory. What threw me off was the exaggerative nature of every aspect as the show began – like watching a modern-day version of the Black Hole Sun music video.

Obviously, I didn’t start by enjoying the show, and I wasn’t sure I was going to continue because it actually made me really uncomfortable, the stereotypes were so strong. Then I met Xavier, the one kid on campus who wasn’t exaggerated, and who basically played the straight man to bounce everyone else’s larger-than-life characters off of. That was a relief, but in itself wouldn’t have been enough to keep me watching. One straight man in a sea of caricatures can only do so much to balance things. But this particular character looked familiar, and so I looked him up on IMDB.

As it turns out, Xavier is played by Percy Hynes White, who in 2014/15 played a kid named Simon Brooks in eight episodes of Murdoch Mysteries. I’m not going to go into a ton of detail on who Simon is, only to say that he’s important to one of the major characters of the show in a near-family type of way. As watchers, we get to know him and grow fond of him, and it’s sad when he moves away and is no longer on the show. Simon is roughly pre-teen aged in Murdoch, but obviously is far more grown up now a decade later, playing a high-school-aged Xavier. Some people change a lot between those ages, but this kid looks just like himself, and so immediately I felt a kinship to him.

As I said above, I’ve been far more into rewatching shows, and this tends to be my nature 75% of the time. Murdoch is one of my comfort series, familiar and friendly. And as stupid as it is, that little drop of comforting familiarity in Simon-now-Xavier made all the difference to me with Wednesday. The characters thankfully grew slightly less caricatured over time, and the storyline settled into an interesting mystery. While it won’t be a favorite show that I rewatch often, I’m glad I didn’t give up on it.

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The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook, by Brandon Sanderson (audio)

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Thistle

Full title: The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

Our narrator wakes up in a field, not knowing who or where he is. Very quickly, he discovers that he’s from another dimension and has traveled to some version of medieval England. Beyond that, he has to gather scraps of information, mostly from a burned and scattered handbook that seems to be largely made up of promotional material. In trying to gather up the pages of said handbook, our unnamed protagonist ends up on a quest to find not just his identity, but the core of his true self.

The Frugal Wizard is Sanderson’s second Secret Project release of 2023. It’s the only non-Cosmere book of the four Secret Projects, and it was WAY out of my comfort zone. I’ll be honest – a lot of Sanderson fans have rated this one poorly, or abandoned after only a short amount of time. It’s very different, and reminiscent of his early YA/middle grade writing. There’s a lot of overly-jocular humor, repetitive jokes attached to characters, and general silliness, especially in the early parts of the novel. Things grow more balanced over time as the narrator learns more about his personal history and the world he’s currently inhabiting.

This is not the kind of book I would normally read, and if it weren’t for Sanderson being the author, I would not have read it. That said, I ended up enjoying the book by the end, not as much as most Cosmere books, but honestly more than the Western era of the Mistborn books. It surprises me a little how dismissive a lot of Sanderfans are about the tone of the book, which as I said comes across as jocular and silly, given that they all seem to love the last Secret Project, Tress of the Emerald Sea, which is narrated by Wit (a jocular and silly narrator!). To me, the two stories are pretty much on par, with the only real advantage in Tress being that it gives us more scope regarding the Cosmere.

Of the four Secret Projects, the first two were the two I least looked forward to. Both the third and especially the fourth are more traditional in tone, and had more interesting storylines, magic systems, and writing styles in the previews that were released in 2022. I expect that I’ll really love both of those books, so I’m happy to have the two I was least likely to enjoy come first. And I’m happy to have enjoyed them both, even if I didn’t love them. Especially this one, because I wasn’t sure, after the preview, that I would even read through the full book! I’m glad I didn’t quit. I think some Sanderfans gave up too soon.

Performance: Surprisingly, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading read this book. They’re generally the narrators for many of the Cosmere series, but I didn’t expect them to also read this non-Cosmere book. But hey, I’ll never complain about the duo. They do a fantastic job!

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Bookworm Princess Photoshoot

Posted on April 12, 2023 by Thistle

I’ve been procrastinating on making my photography website, mostly because I feel extremely intimidated whenever I think about it. Imposter syndrome sucks. So last weekend, I decided to put out a call for models for a series of ethereal portraits, as a way to help build my portfolio. I don’t know that this’ll help me to feel less intimidated, but even putting out the call made me feel fraudulent, so it’s one thing that I managed to do in spite of the feeling. Anyway, I have about a half-dozen different folks who volunteered, and I got to do the first portfolio-building shoot on Sunday evening.

Ashley is a friend’s daughter who has recently gotten into cosplay, so she already had corset, blouse, and skirt on hand. It was perfect for a bookworm-princess vibe, a nod to Belle without copying the character directly. We went out to a nearby park, where I brought flowers, old books, white smoke, and a tiara for Ashley to wear, and we got some really incredible shots.

I enjoy taking and editing photos like this so much. I love how happy it makes the folks I’m shooting, and how much they end up smiling by the end of our session. I love building up that confidence and letting people see themselves in this magical light. Right now, I don’t really have a “business.” I’ve had a handful of clients, and I don’t really know how to market myself or grow a client list. The money aspect makes me uncomfortable. Maybe one day that’ll change? Maybe one day, I’ll stop feeling all that imposter syndrome? Who knows. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy that I get to do this at all.

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Two Can Keep a Secret, by Karen McManus

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Thistle

After their mother is court-ordered into rehab, twins Ellery and Ezra have moved in with their grandmother in the small town of Echo Ridge, Vermont. It’s a place they’ve never been, as their mother ran from it after her twin sister disappeared 25 years ago. But Echo Ridge holds more than one secret, and the disappearance from so long ago was only the first. More teenage girls have gone missing or are found dead, and there’s a new series of threats aimed at the current sweethearts of the small town school. Ellery and Ezra find themselves wrapped up in the mystery when suddenly Ellery becomes a target as well.

In some mystery novels, particularly ones that follow 90s/00s tropes, the narrator or investigator have a handful of suspects, and each is presented with equal potential to be the culprit. In some, the reader knows the culprit, and reading along as the narrator figures it out. Then there are the mysteries where there are so few hints that the reveal comes seemingly out of the blue. This book is one of this latter type. Now, these mysteries can come across disappointing, if the solution is too sudden or farfetched, but when played right, the surprise hits you perfectly. This was one of those perfectly-done mysteries.

I really enjoyed this story. I don’t read a ton of YA these days, but I thought McManus did a good job balancing the high-drama world of small town high school with the more serious aspects of the book. Neither of the two narrators – Ellery and a town local named Malcolm – were perfect characters. Ellery is deeply into true crime, but has all the wrong instincts. Malcolm makes a lot of really stupid choices, ones he knows are stupid yet can’t help but act on the instinct. There are secrets and mysteries beyond the murders and disappearances, which provide excellent distraction for both reader and characters. The adults in the book aren’t absent or incompetent. All of that made for a good balance and a compelling story.

One really interesting thing: I found the writing to be highly cinematic. A few times, I had to put the book down in order to do other things. Between reads, I’d find myself thinking back to the storyline as if it was a TV show I was watching, rather than a book I was reading. I kept wanting to get back to my show, rather than my book. Maybe it’s because I tend to watch a lot of mysteries in the form of serial shows, I don’t know. But I thought this one would make a really excellent multi-part serial. Then I discovered that 1) another of McManus’ books has already been made into a show, and 2) IMDB has an “in development” entry for this book, though I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a show or a movie. Apparently I’m not the only one who sees this cinematic quality and potential, though!

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The Neighbor Favor, by Kristina Forest

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Thistle

Lily is an editor’s assistant, dreaming of moving into a different part of the publishing world and struggling to live up to her family’s successes. Nick is a journalist who once published an obscure novel while running from his past. Neither has had much luck in love, and that doesn’t get any better when they begin an email correspondence, only for Nick to ghost Lily after months of letters. Angry at herself for falling for what she believes is a catfishing scheme, Lily determines to take charge of her love life to get her sisters off her back. She enlists the help of her new neighbor, who (unbeknownst to her) just happens to be the man who broke her heart the previous year.

I don’t have much to say about this book. It’s a very tried-and-true romance plot, with our protagonists this time both being introverted bookworms. It’s cute, mildly spicy in places, and pairs the romance with a late-20s coming of age story. I enjoyed the book very much, a comfort read that I really needed right now. Also, it has the greenest of green flags, when Nick – who had a chaotic and dysfunctional upbringing – makes the following decision: “He decided right then that he’d find a therapist as soon as he got back to New York.” We need more male characters like this!!

Again, I don’t have anything deep to say here – it’s a fun book, well-written, and I heartily recommend it.

PS – Apparently there will be spin-off romances to follow this book, involving Lily’s sisters. This makes me quite happy!

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The Art Wall

Posted on April 4, 2023 by Thistle

In January, Jason and I repainted and rearranged my bedroom. The top half of the window wall was painted a dark blue accent color meant to be reflected back by the drop mirrors opposite it. Since then, a few things have changed: the drop mirrors are up; there’s a new rainbow string waterfall behind the bed; my grandmother’s scarves and old costume jewelry hangs in the empty spaces from the photos in that post. I went with a very vertical theme and just ran with it. Then plan was always to turn the accent wall into an art wall – to curate a collection of paintings, photographs, drawings, antiques, and hanging sculpture, closely set, to fill the whole space. That will take time, because finding and buying the right art takes time. However, the first few pieces went up this weekend!

Of the seven items currently hanging on the wall, two were gifts, four were pieces I bought myself, and one was an accidental mixup by a shop owner who, when notified, immediately sent the correct piece while also insisting that I keep the first as well. Since it had been my second choice already, I’m happy to have both, and I’m definitely going to tag the shop (as well as the others, when known) below.

Over the weekend, Jason and I scoured thrift stores for frames. Frames can be very expensive, so if I could find fun ones that matched well enough secondhand, I was happy to go that route first. My favorite find was the 8×8 square frame, which matched in color and design as well as being the right size! I did have to find the larger square frames at Michael’s, but at least most I got secondhand.

I have a long list of art on my Gift List page that I send out to family around birthdays and holidays, and I’m on constant lookout for artists whose work I admire. I’m also on the lookout for items like an antique hand mirror, skeleton keys, and other dangling 3D works that I’d enjoy adding to the collection. Right now, the wall looks a little sparse and silly, with the items closely set as the rest of the wall is blank, but to me, this is exactly where I want it to be as it grows.

*****
Art featured:

  • RebelDecorDesign: the two square vintage collage art pieces (A+++ for customer service!)
  • Anne-Julie Aubrey at TheNebulousKingdom: the girl walking under the moonlight
  • Lea Yunk at episodicDrawing: the large nighttime flower-moon-moth art
  • treetalker: black, white, and orange forest with ghostly figure
  • illustremayon: two women touching foreheads (and quite possibly my favorite piece!)
  • Emma Tabachnick Pottery: I am not 100% sure that this is the store where the air-plant holders came from. It looks like the store I originally put on my wish list, but after my in-laws gifted it to me, I removed it from the list. There are a lot of stores on Etsy that sell similar items, but I’m about 85% sure this is the store I found before, and the one they would have ordered from.
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