thinking of ways to make it better
Sep. 26th, 2025 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
musesfoolSlow Horses: Bad Dates: We are so back, baby! ( spoilers ) Very interested in seeing where this is going.
I am less on the bandwagon and more cautious and disbelieving about the Mets' playoff chances. They control their own destiny for now, but having to play the Marlins to cement their wild card spot is giving me very unhappy flashbacks to past collapses. Also, if Tyrone Taylor is not in CF the rest of the way now that he's back from the IL, then I don't even know what we're doing here.
Lastly, I will be pet-sitting overnight at my brother's tomorrow, so hopefully the new-ish dogs are okay with that. We'll see how it goes!
*
I am less on the bandwagon and more cautious and disbelieving about the Mets' playoff chances. They control their own destiny for now, but having to play the Marlins to cement their wild card spot is giving me very unhappy flashbacks to past collapses. Also, if Tyrone Taylor is not in CF the rest of the way now that he's back from the IL, then I don't even know what we're doing here.
Lastly, I will be pet-sitting overnight at my brother's tomorrow, so hopefully the new-ish dogs are okay with that. We'll see how it goes!
*
I've started clicker training Sipuli
Sep. 26th, 2025 05:33 pmcimoreneSipuli has had three days of short sessions, 5-10 minutes, of clicker training, and it's adorable. She's possibly the cleverest cat we've ever met, and she's very food-motivated.
Our rewards are the little cubes of freeze dried chicken, which are much more expensive than most cat treats but also healthier because, unlike most cat treats, they don't contain anything but meat; and they were the only kind Snookums could have because he was diabetic, and as a result Tristana is used to getting them at bedtime and after Procedures like claw trimming and ear cleaning.
Sipuli has not fully mastered "touch the target", but she's so engaged, and you can see her thinking.
The idea behind this suggestion from the cat behaviorist was, I think, being able to ultimately train them simultaneously in parallel, and maybe get them to act differently at the gate. This seems possible, but we haven't started training Tristana or introduced Wax making the requests yet, so it's early.
On the minus side, yesterday Sipuli got out and chased Tristana across the room for about thirty seconds. You'd have thought they were both dying, but actually it seems like they did not in fact touch each other at all - Tristana was screaming under the chair while Sipuli was yelling back. That's good, that nobody was hurt and they didn't physically fight. But obviously still a setback. Tristana had to go hide in the turtle bed on the heated upstairs bathroom floor for a few hours.
Our rewards are the little cubes of freeze dried chicken, which are much more expensive than most cat treats but also healthier because, unlike most cat treats, they don't contain anything but meat; and they were the only kind Snookums could have because he was diabetic, and as a result Tristana is used to getting them at bedtime and after Procedures like claw trimming and ear cleaning.
Sipuli has not fully mastered "touch the target", but she's so engaged, and you can see her thinking.
The idea behind this suggestion from the cat behaviorist was, I think, being able to ultimately train them simultaneously in parallel, and maybe get them to act differently at the gate. This seems possible, but we haven't started training Tristana or introduced Wax making the requests yet, so it's early.
On the minus side, yesterday Sipuli got out and chased Tristana across the room for about thirty seconds. You'd have thought they were both dying, but actually it seems like they did not in fact touch each other at all - Tristana was screaming under the chair while Sipuli was yelling back. That's good, that nobody was hurt and they didn't physically fight. But obviously still a setback. Tristana had to go hide in the turtle bed on the heated upstairs bathroom floor for a few hours.
The good news is all I have to do is calm down
Sep. 24th, 2025 09:06 pmcimoreneI failed the driving test in apparently one of the most common ways to do it: no major errors except that the engine died at an intersection and I got flustered and failed to restart it so many times that the test administrator had to gently coach me through even though we both knew I knew what to do. I was fully aware that I was releasing the clutch too fast, but I just could not slow down no matter how I tried. Until she gently and calmly told me when in her coaching voice, of course, and that worked right away.
We sat there three light cycles. It was like something out of a sitcom. The test administrator was very nice about it; and apart from the embarrassment, I don't feel that bad about it, and I think I'll be okay when I retake it in three weeks.
ยงยงยง
However.
It's very frustrating to be told that you just need to calm down or relax, as a person with anxiety disorders. I don't mean it's insensitive or anything, just that it's frustrating because I already knew that and have been trying very hard to, but it's not working very well, because there's nothing that does work very reliably that I can do.
I can't take a tranquilizer. I can't magically make myself extremely familiar with the entire context/place/situation/people. I can't exercise vigorously right before because it takes longer to travel to Turku than it does for endorphins to fade (and I'd have to have time to go home and shower and dress even before the hour commute). I can tell myself everything's going well and it's not an emergency and I should chill; I can tense up all my muscles and then release and do those breath patterns that help lower your heartbeat; and I can listen to music that I find comforting. That's really it. It's got limited effectiveness.
But importantly, the bus ride is already stressful enough for me to need to do those things much of the time because I have a severe perfume allergy and am hypersensitive to perfumes, and typically there is at least one (physically) irritating perfume experience in over 90% of bus rides that I take. It's not often possible to come out of one centered and relaxed and refreshed, even if I logically know that the risk of anaphylaxis was low!
Probably it would still be hard to relax without the bus trip, though.
We sat there three light cycles. It was like something out of a sitcom. The test administrator was very nice about it; and apart from the embarrassment, I don't feel that bad about it, and I think I'll be okay when I retake it in three weeks.
ยงยงยง
However.
It's very frustrating to be told that you just need to calm down or relax, as a person with anxiety disorders. I don't mean it's insensitive or anything, just that it's frustrating because I already knew that and have been trying very hard to, but it's not working very well, because there's nothing that does work very reliably that I can do.
I can't take a tranquilizer. I can't magically make myself extremely familiar with the entire context/place/situation/people. I can't exercise vigorously right before because it takes longer to travel to Turku than it does for endorphins to fade (and I'd have to have time to go home and shower and dress even before the hour commute). I can tell myself everything's going well and it's not an emergency and I should chill; I can tense up all my muscles and then release and do those breath patterns that help lower your heartbeat; and I can listen to music that I find comforting. That's really it. It's got limited effectiveness.
But importantly, the bus ride is already stressful enough for me to need to do those things much of the time because I have a severe perfume allergy and am hypersensitive to perfumes, and typically there is at least one (physically) irritating perfume experience in over 90% of bus rides that I take. It's not often possible to come out of one centered and relaxed and refreshed, even if I logically know that the risk of anaphylaxis was low!
Probably it would still be hard to relax without the bus trip, though.
if i could, i would let it go
Sep. 23rd, 2025 07:15 pmmusesfoolBaby Miss L is super into Halloween and has two Hello Kitty dolls dressed like skeletons that dance! She might be a skeleton herself this year! Her costume has not been finalized, but there is time.
As I've mentioned, I was never big into Halloween - it was my mom's birthday, so a lot of the time I was home celebrating with her - but it's fun to see the baby into it.
Today is the 12th anniversary of my mother's death. That is a whole seventh grader! It makes me sad that my parents will never know Baby Miss L.
*
As I've mentioned, I was never big into Halloween - it was my mom's birthday, so a lot of the time I was home celebrating with her - but it's fun to see the baby into it.
Today is the 12th anniversary of my mother's death. That is a whole seventh grader! It makes me sad that my parents will never know Baby Miss L.
*
ADHD roadblocks
Sep. 22nd, 2025 04:01 pmcimoreneI have been thinking about the ADHD struggle, and I decided I should buy the Barkley book on adult ADHD and also a copy of How To Keep House While Drowning; I added them to my cart at the online bookstore, then didn't order them because I didn't have the executive function to do that yet. I found some potential replacements for the charger of my laptop that just broke as well, but didn't manage to finish comparing them and decide.
Other stuff I need to do and have been unable to start includes:( Read more... )
I think a lot of what's blocking me from several of these things in the last month, anyway, is that they feel like projects that require planning and stamina, but so much of my bandwidth has been going to anxiety about the driving test (two days from now) that there wasn't space. This is extremely normal for me and obviously a fallacy, but I guess I've been feeling like the time until the test was mostly short enough that I should just try to minimize anxiety and worry about all the other stuff after. And I didn't want to take my adhd meds in between.
Other stuff I need to do and have been unable to start includes:( Read more... )
I think a lot of what's blocking me from several of these things in the last month, anyway, is that they feel like projects that require planning and stamina, but so much of my bandwidth has been going to anxiety about the driving test (two days from now) that there wasn't space. This is extremely normal for me and obviously a fallacy, but I guess I've been feeling like the time until the test was mostly short enough that I should just try to minimize anxiety and worry about all the other stuff after. And I didn't want to take my adhd meds in between.
tips and overthrows - gotta have it
Sep. 21st, 2025 06:15 pmmusesfoolYesterday evening, I made a lovely pan-seared steak for dinner, and today I roasted a chicken. It was more expensive, but I bought one that came already spatchcocked, which meant it cooked in about 40 minutes. I used this recipe and the white meat was quite juicy and good. It's annoying to have to flip the whole chicken in the frying pan though, so I don't know if I will do it this way again, especially since I don't really care about crispy skin since I don't eat the skin. [obligatory quote: "any demons with high cholesterol?... You're gonna think about that later, mister, and you're gonna laugh."]
I also did the first part of this chocolate chip cookie recipe and now they're in the fridge chilling. Tomorrow I will bake 2 off and then do the same thing for the next 3 days too, since it only makes 8 extremely large cookies and they are supposedly best when freshly baked. I will report back on how they taste!
Tomorrow, I plan to make a nice herb and cheese frittata for dinner and lunch for a couple of days too, and of course, there will be leftover roast chicken to eat too.
*
I also did the first part of this chocolate chip cookie recipe and now they're in the fridge chilling. Tomorrow I will bake 2 off and then do the same thing for the next 3 days too, since it only makes 8 extremely large cookies and they are supposedly best when freshly baked. I will report back on how they taste!
Tomorrow, I plan to make a nice herb and cheese frittata for dinner and lunch for a couple of days too, and of course, there will be leftover roast chicken to eat too.
*
and that might have impact in the ninth
Sep. 20th, 2025 06:36 pmmusesfoolIf you are interested in checking out Dungeon Crawler Carl but don't want to buy the first book (or the wait list at your library is very long), there's a webtoon version you can check out for free to see if it's up your alley. It's making me want to start a reread of the series even though I just read it last month. *hands*
*
*
The long sewage nightmare is over
Sep. 19th, 2025 03:48 pmcimoreneThe plumber and the digger have left after tamping the dirt back down and pouring some new gravel where the car parks! The septic tanks have been removed and the separate rainwater drainage is in place!
The sewers from the tenant side do not empty into the tank under the garage anymore (that's still there though, but it shouldn't be able to give us any trouble unless we get like a month of flooding rains and a leak)!
It's all brown dirt and gray gravel again now, but here's a few pictures Wax took of the excavation earlier.
We have lost a few bushes and possibly some hostas, as well as a little flat cement pad that we didn't want, to the piles of dirt and digging. We will need to buy a few baby bushes (rhododendron maybe?) and a bunch of clover seed which hopefully might manage to outcompete the grass. And set the cement paver path back in place. All that has to be done during the autumn, before the frost, so... here's hoping. Also a city tree on the corner of the lot had a lot of its roots cut off and unfortunately a lot more on the other side last winter when the city dug up the street to fix the pipes. It's probably not gonna survive that, I guess.
I have been feeling full of anxiety and suspense when actually a lot of things are going well. This stupid open septic tank issue has been oppressing and terrifying us for a year. Monday and Tuesday are my last driving lessons and then I take the test (tons of anxiety) but my teacher and I agreed I've been doing pretty well. Wax and I have managed to cook together a bit more often, even.
The sewers from the tenant side do not empty into the tank under the garage anymore (that's still there though, but it shouldn't be able to give us any trouble unless we get like a month of flooding rains and a leak)!
It's all brown dirt and gray gravel again now, but here's a few pictures Wax took of the excavation earlier.
We have lost a few bushes and possibly some hostas, as well as a little flat cement pad that we didn't want, to the piles of dirt and digging. We will need to buy a few baby bushes (rhododendron maybe?) and a bunch of clover seed which hopefully might manage to outcompete the grass. And set the cement paver path back in place. All that has to be done during the autumn, before the frost, so... here's hoping. Also a city tree on the corner of the lot had a lot of its roots cut off and unfortunately a lot more on the other side last winter when the city dug up the street to fix the pipes. It's probably not gonna survive that, I guess.
I have been feeling full of anxiety and suspense when actually a lot of things are going well. This stupid open septic tank issue has been oppressing and terrifying us for a year. Monday and Tuesday are my last driving lessons and then I take the test (tons of anxiety) but my teacher and I agreed I've been doing pretty well. Wax and I have managed to cook together a bit more often, even.