can't wait to see your follow through

Jan. 20th, 2026 11:04 pm
the_siobhan: (flying monkeys)
[personal profile] the_siobhan
Achievement unlock!

Storage room was emptied with the help of a friend on the weekend - perfect timing because today was the billing date for the rental. (Everybody should have at least one Ukrainian friend. Every Ukrainian import I've ever met, if you ask them if they have time for a favour, they're immediately, "I can be there in 20 minutes.") This is the last of the big stash to be cleared out and organized. My house is once again full of crap but I've got most of it already sorted into piles to keep, give away, throw away, or incorporate into The Stuff.

Keep: One of the things I inherited from my mother was a tall skinny china cabinet. I cleaned all the dust off and polished the glass and it's now set up on my ground floor - a little dinged up from being dragged around but a touch of paint should fix it right up. She filled it with crystal glasses and clocks shaped like shamrocks. I'll probably fill it with skulls and gargoyles. Maybe dioramas from Hieronymus Bosch. Haven't decided yet.

Give Away: A couple of big bags of sweaters and blankets to go to the drop-in centre, so good timing on that as well. A big bag of shoes that will go to the drop-in next summer because they have no storage space. Neighbours have already called dibs on a few things I posted to the local group. There is also a big box of photos, so I will pull those out for my family to go through as they are conveniently all in my house next weekend.

The Stuff: This is what I call the things where I go, "That is future me's problem" and stick it in a corner. Furniture that will either go into the (some day) finished basement or will be re-homed if it's not needed, boxes of art that's going to get re-hung after I've patched/repainted the damaged walls, boxes of planters and exterior decorations I want to go through for setting up the new deck in the spring, boxes of material and sewing supplies I'm going to dig into mmn, maybe next winter if I'm being completely honest.

The Stuff is... I'm not going to lie, The Stuff takes up a lot of room and my sister likes to pull one thing out of the pile and hold it up and go, "WHAT ARE YOU KEEPING THIS FOR" and she's not wrong entirely, but... also I have been dealing with my own hoarding tendencies for a long time and this I absolutely know, I will throw it away when I am good and fucking ready and not one minute before.

(Also, if somebody stands up and says "EXPLAIN YOURSELF" my immediate instinctual reaction is No, Fuck You. So that doesn't help her get the response she's looking for.)

***

Achievement unlock #2, no hot water this morning. Of course the corridor to get back to the tank was filled with storage room stuff, so I moved that, and then sat on the floor to read the instructions on the sticker that was conveniently located 6 inches from the very bottom of the tank. Last time I had to light a pilot I was much bendier, but also I had to unscrew a side panel and then stick a match into the space under the tank. This just required pressing a bunch of buttons in a very specific order. The technology is much improved, IMHO.

Then I realized I had an appointment in 40 minutes and there was a mad scramble to get out of the house in time and I forgot every single other thing I was going to do today.

(Side Note: And holy crap it was cold outside today! My fingers went numb after about 30 seconds.)

***

I think the cat is losing weight again. I've noticed his appetite has dropped off in the last couple of weeks. I checked the label on his prescription and it expired in December, so I'm hoping that he just needs a fresh batch. He has a date with the vet tomorrow and I'll be picking up a new bottle, but I'm going to bring it up with them.

Other than that, his energy level is fine and he's still playful. And he will still roll me for his treats. So hopefully this is a temporary setback.

***

I don't talk about the news much on here. It's a lot. I've been watching the news and the on-the-ground videos and following my friends and... yeah. I don't talk about it much because I don't have much to say, but I'm still paying attention.

I yell at politicians. My MP can't even be arsed to acknowledge my messages and I'm sure her staff are getting tired of me. I think one day when I have the spoons I'll go to her office, it's not far from here. Then when she calls me a peon and dismisses my opinions, she'll at least have to do it to my face.

(I mostly hate her because she originally got her seat by claiming to be an environmentalist, but she has spent her term defending every decision to to buy a pipeline and subsidize oil sand development. Because her job is more important than her principles.)

***

I've been talking to the gf a lot about retirement. She's pretty much done with her job, and ready to call it a day. Honestly I could say the same. I mean I don't actually mind the job but I think about all the things that I could be doing with my time instead. Taking classes, learning skills, getting involved in community stuff, making things. Working is such a waste of time, never more so than when one can see how much is left.

But first I have to get this house bullshit finished with. Then I can sit down and figure out when I can afford to quit working. Maybe talk to HR, even going part-time for a bit might work out financially.

***

Media stuff:
GF and I finished watching The Morning Show. I love this show so much, mostly because there are SO MANY messy, complicated, multi-layered women. Jennifer Aniston plays a character who is often completely unlikable and yet there are so many times in the story when the viewer is dragged 100% into her corner.

Last week we watched the first two episodes of Pluribus. My take was; I wouldn't want that for myself, but it would make for a much better world to live in for everybody else. I'd probably finally take the opportunity to travel a lot - it's not like any of my family or friends would miss me.

Just started reading This Is How You Lose The Time War. I'm just a couple of chapters in. What a weird and fabulous book.

I've also started reading Wheel Of Time since the series was cancelled. I'm about a quarter of the way through Book 2. Honestly I probably wouldn't have stuck with the series on the strength of Book 1 alone, but already I think I like Book 2 better.

This would get my strung up by the bookcloaks but I can really see why the series changed so much. There is a lot of material in the book that is interesting to read, but it would get in the way of telling the story in a visual format. (And also the series would be 400 seasons long and feature lots of riding through countryside while feeling creepy. So. Yeah.)



I speak machine

Jan. 10th, 2026 10:51 pm
the_siobhan: (Sweetums)
[personal profile] the_siobhan
Still not King.

Did birthday dinner with the gf. I realized at some point like... maybe a month ago? That I spent the entire past year telling people I was the age I actually am this year. How am I SO BAD at dates that I get my own age wrong for an entire year? I can't even blame senility, I have always been like this.

***

Finally heard back from the permit wrangler. He spoke to the engineer and the answer is no, he will not sign off on the work. This doesn't shock me. He told me the fucking contractor didn't even follow the blueprints that were used to get the permits, so he has no confidence that the foundations were actually built to spec.

So permit wrangler says he's going to go back to the city and try once again to get in touch with the original contractor. I really appreciate his commitment to trying to find a better solution, but at this point I'm kinda resigned that I'm just have to tear up the floor. I just want to get it over with.

***

So in the meantime I'm still here just cleaning and de-cluttering the rest of the house. Got a wild hair up my ass to pull apart the corner of my office where my weight bench sits and was able to vanquish much dust and dried cat-puke.

I still have too much fucking stuff. This would be simpler if I didn't have such a huge aversion to just tossing stuff into landfill. This is partially the environmentalist side of me, and partially because there was a time in my life when a third-hand hotplate might have actually saved my life. So I have trouble throwing out a perfectly functional hotplate when somebody out there might be in the same position I was in 30+ years ago. But you know, figuring how to get rid of this stuff takes time and so... Things leave, but in much smaller boxes than if I just hired a bloody dumpster.

***

The plus side of not being able to do house construction work is that I have have been spending a lot more time on my b-list, which is 1) plants and 2) family tree. The kitchen island is so huge that I have been able to devote an entire half of it to a bunch of pots that I have seeded with herbs. I installed grow lights in the chandelier[1], so it's going to be an experiment.

[1]Hauled my wobbly ass up a ladder. Did not fall off. Victory achieved.

I had the brilliant idea that if I started tossing birdseed on the deck outside my office, I would give Lord Brock something to look at that would distract him from screaming at me for attention while I'm working. This has backfired spectacularly, because now he climbs onto the window-ledge and screams at me to make the birds happen.

***

On the plus side, digging through my family tree has led me to discovering the other out queer person in my family which is pretty cool. (Statistically I figured it was unlikely I was the only one, especially given just how big Irish Catholic families tend to be.)

A question I hadn't anticipated; I keep coming across generations where there are multiple people with the same name but different birth-dates. I'm trying to figure out if they are cases where one source I'm drawing from has the wrong birth year, or if there were families where they re-used names when babies died. Like there is a French branch were they seem to have named half the boys after the father but with different middle names. Was that real? Was that just Anglos fucking up non-English names? (That happened so often with the Irish names, I don't have any problem believing they also did it to the French.) Or am I finding birth records, but not their death records in families where infant mortality was really high?

Also, I have no explanation for how researching my family name led me to an Irish vampire movie, but now I really want to see this film.

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