Happy birthday, Kate!

Glad SF is being spared round-ups--guess it would be hard to try to spin "They're saying Boo-urns," about you all. So glad Tim is done with his chemo, too. ETA: Happy Kate Day! I'm not happy because I think either the thyroid med is too much now, or that I'm having side effects I don't like. Boo, digestive roulette. Technically, it was just a little slow, but still enough to send my drama-queen system into a complete freakout, which was slow enough about resolving and now, well, it's all just tiring. And it gets me, too, because I thought this would be a simple thing. A(sort of) Modern Medicine Saves The Day Moment. Like I'd take pills for six or eight weeks and be like "Hey, remember that summer my gut went on general strike? Weird, right? And my skin hardly dries out anymore and it glows so much people wink at me and think they're being dirty." It's so not like that, I almost feel a little ripped off about it, in addition to side effects in the small hours. I need one simple problem, you know what I mean?

All the neighborhoods around me have been absolutely under siege today. So many abductions. They’re at health clinics and businesses, snatching up Uber drivers as they’re making a drop off. On bikes on the 606 (an old elevated railroad track that’s been turned into a walking and biking path). It’s so fucking awful. We’re all carrying our whistles with us and sharing all the information we can about sightings and needs. There’s some alternate Halloween celebrations going on and a lot of neighborhood networks to deliver things to people who are not comfortable going outside or picking up their kids from school. Local tow trucks are offering to tow people‘s cars away from places where ice has been sighted.

Our own ChiKat had her car staked out by ICE last weekend during the marches. A lot of us who have privilege to use have been putting Mexican flag decals on our cars for exactly this reason - if we can at least waste their time or prevent someone else from being targeted, that’s something.

And with apologies for the whiplash - I am headed out at ass o’clock tomorrow morning for a quick b-day weekend in Temecula with some old family friends, followed by a work conference in Anaheim. After like five days of slightly cool weather, I am ready for the sunshine.

I hope you have a great trip, brenda, and good on you for looking out for your neighbors.

I suspect I should buy a bunch of whistles and put them in a basket on my fence. I know they say the surge isn't happening, but ICE is already here anyway, and my neighborhood is full of immigrants.

In other news, the last few weeks at work have been utterly draining. This week we got sent home for the last few days because of the protests, and that's been nice except I forgot my home desk chair needs lumbar support. I forgot the pillow, and ended up shutting down early because my back bothered me too much.

Spending the weekend dogsitting for my sister, so I'm on her cozy couch with the lorge golden retriever crashed out nearby and the Tornado in the yard. (Although she did just bark, might have to bring her in.). The golden likes her, but he doesn't want to play as long as she does, and he ends up hiding from her...

Timelies all!

Happy Birthday Kate!

Yay for Tim!

I am feeling blue. This weekend is the Ohio Valley Filk Fest. I had been intending to go, but since I am in mourning, I can't. Gary left on Tuesday for the latest round of code hearings, and won't be back until next Thursday. Work has been as busy as ever, despite the shut down. To top it off, Asshole Neighbor is at it again. Despite Gary's request to stop putting his evangelical junk mail in our box, he's still at it. He is also continuing to harass us about our lawn. This time he scrawled it on a piece of mail addressed to Gary that he claimed was placed in his mailbox by accident.(Even if it was, that does not give him the right to use it as a loophole around the "don't put notes on our door" statement.)

I will try to not eat my weight in dessert as a response.

My ballot has been counted, take that DOJ!

I have spent some of my cashed-in-PTO extra $ on subscriptions to support writers I like, trinkets to support artists I like, new glasses because a stem broke and my prescription expired, and a replacement car remote to make my life easier. Back to austerity for a while.

Sometimes I think back to James Spader’s speech about keys in sex, lies, and videotape and wonder if our whole society is embracing abdicating responsibility by getting rid of keys. I guess we still have the keys in the form of passwords. Which we store outside our brains whenever we can. Hm.