New move, new changes

 I have been so very, terribly inconsistent about writing here.

That last post, about my dog? I mentioned I took a trip out of town? I was with a guy, and meeting his kids for the first time. Yeah, we got married. I probably should mention that. (He actually bought a ring to propose with right before that trip, unbeknownst to me.) We eloped on Mount Rainier in August, and now we're moving across the country! It's exciting and terrifying and stressful all at once. Apparently I just need to uproot my life and drag myself kicking and screaming away every few years because...that's the pattern I got, apparently.

My dog, by the way, is actually doing a lot better since his surgery. We think he was fighting a low-key eye infection for about a year before he gouged his own eye out. He was treated with eye drops for a scrape on his eye, but he started collapsing when walking and having some behavioral issues. But since his eye was taken out, these have mostly resolved! He still has arthritis, and that's going to be something he's going to have to live with, so we still take it easy, but he's able to do a lot more now. 

I've been trying to write more, just not here. You can read my published short stories by clicking here. I have an author page on Facebook here as well, and a Linktree, too.

I'll try to update here more as I become more consistent with writing. NaNoWriMo is going to take up a lot of my life this month (and also, the move), but I'm still alive and still poking here from bit to bit. 

The Sad Saga of Gimpy McOne-Eye

So on a recent trip out of town, I woke up to a series of frantic text messages and missed calls from my roommates. My dog had woken them up at two in the morning, screaming in pain and leaking bloody discharge from his eye.

They kept him comfortable until I got home. I was driving across the country. I didn't make it home for three more days, and had just wrapped 21 consecutive hours on the road when I came home, scooped up my dog, and ran to the vet.

Somehow, this dog punctured his eye and the bloody discharge my roommates described was actually the insides of his eyeball leaking out.

A year prior, he had done something similar nowhere he had cut his eye in almost the same spot, but without fully puncturing it. I really wish I knew how he managed it, so I could prevent it from happening in the future.

After waiting what seemed like an eternity to get into the vet, it was decided the eyeball needed to come out. 

My poor dog must have thought he had the most raw deal. First I left him for a week, whereupon he promptly gouged his eye and had to live in pain. Then I came home just long enough to leave him with some strangers who knocked him out. Then in the morning after waking up with one eye, since I had to work, he was picked up by my boyfriend. The dog doesn't hate my boyfriend per se, but he isn't super thrilled with him. Yeah, my dog was not a very happy camper.

Going potty was an immediate challenge. From my room to the back door where I let him out, there is a right turn. Right is his newly blind side. So Ozzy kept coasting past it and getting lost in the kitchen. Because the cone messes with his directional hearing, he can't figure out where I am when I call him. On more than one occasion, he got too lost and couldn't hold it and peed on the floor instead.

It also doesn't help that he now behaves like a Roomba: whenever his cone knocks into an obstacle (which is often), he will turn around and head the opposite direction. Venturing under table and chair legs is reminiscent of the old school pinball machine bumpers. He just bounces off one to collide with another, and cannot find his way out!

About a week and a half later I had to leave town again, and this brat knew. A few days before I left, he realized he wanted to scratch his incision but could not because of the cone. So instead he mashed his incision into the cone until it bled. It was a big swollen crusty-looking thing. I had to take off work to get him into the vet to make sure he didn't pull a stitch or get it infected. Fortunately the vet wasn't too worried, just sent him home with a preventative antibiotic.

He didn't stab out any more eyes while I was gone, and when I got home the swelling had gone down dramatically.

When he blinks, you can see the muscles moving now where his eye used to be, and it adds to his facial expression. He gets a follow up in a couple days to hopefully remove the sutures and the cone.

He's getting old an expensive, but he hangs in there. He is slowly adapting to life with only half a field of vision. We just take it a day at a time.

What's in my notes?

So I am a very studious notetaker. If I don't write something down, I know I will forget it. However, I simultaneously also suck at actually remembering to go and read my notes. And by the time I get around to it, the context is lost and so I don't know why I wrote what I wrote.

Here are some selections from the notes app in my phone, presented with no context, as the context has been lost to time:

"Carnage, in darkness"

"Peppermint stick"

"Car breakdown" (Which one?)

"Blog post drug addicts" (I don't know where I was going with this; I used to work at a cheap downtown motel so there are multiple stories here I might have had in mind.)

"Meanest burgers in town" (I think this was a math joke punchline but I don't remember the set up.)

"Screaming through the air in a hollow metal tube at 37,000 feet. Is it flying, or falling with style?' (I swear I have never done hard drugs!)

"The passed out drunk story" (I honestly have no clue what story this refers to.)

"Increase persuasive powers" (okay I remember this one; it came from a medical chart and the phrasing amused me, so I noted it. I maybe have stolen it for some of my own charting...)

"Questionable decisions"

"It's okay to be different; sometimes it's refreshing"

"Necornmancer" (no, not necromancer....neCORNmancer.)

"Dream with weird personal trainer"

Yeah, I really think I should start writing down contexts for these things....

My Covid-19 Experience

I had always had these romantic notions that when I got Covid, I would live-blog it. I did some Facebook posts, but the reality was I didn't have the energy during or immediately after. It's no joke. Covid was the second-sickest I have ever been, and the sickest I ever have been without going to the hospital.

The sickest I have ever been was when I was three, when an infected abrasion escalated into a systemic infection that landed me in the hospital for a month. My mom couldn't visit me because my baby brother had been born mere weeks prior, and they couldn't risk any exposure to him. They moved a recliner into my room and my dad left my mom and infant brother to quarantine with me so I wouldn't be completely alone in the hospital for the last couple of weeks. I think maybe there was a window where they could wave at each other but direct contact was a no-go until I was completely recovered. I don't remember much about it.

The third sickest I have ever been was when I was in my mid 20's and got norovirus. For 24 hours my digestive system slammed into reverse so hard, stuff was coming out my mouth that looked like it should have been coming out another end. Sorry, is that too gross? It was so gross. I had no appetite for two weeks, but mercifully the worst of it only lasted a day.

I would take that norovirus again over Covid any day.

At the skilled nursing facility where I work, we had a Covid outbreak in May, if my memory serves. For a good portion of the summer we had a cordoned-off Covid wing. I spent hours sweating in personal protective equipment (PPE) working in close-contact with patients who had the virus. No eye-roll was ever hard enough as my friends and family on Facebook whinged how they could breathe in cloth masks, while I had an N95 donned for ten-hour days and my sweat made the plastic gowns adhere to my skin. In all that time, I never got it. As summer waned, our facility was able to clear out our cases, and I thought I was safe. 

Then, in December, a case snuck in. I found out over a weekend a patient I had been seeing tested positive. I wasn't super worried; we still wore full PPE with patients in our observation unit, where new admissions were quarantined. I am not sure how it snuck past my PPE; I am guessing I reached up to absentmindedly adjust my glasses at just the wrong time and it got in through my eyes, but that's only a guess. Through my anecdotal experience, it seems like prevention is 50% proper PPE and 50% sheer luck.

On my weekday off, about three days after I had last seen that patient, I woke up with a cough. That wasn't a big deal on its own; since moving to Eastern Washington I have always gotten bronchitis every winter. I checked my temp to be safe: 98.1 degrees. Well within normal limits. I went out to an appointment, and then headed to the laundromat to do my weekly laundry.

It was at the laundromat when I first realized something was wrong. First, the always enticing taco truck wasn't appealing to me. The laundromat was fairly busy, so I was waiting outside in my car and staring at the truck. It was lunchtime, but it wasn't appealing. Second, as I went in to switch machines, I just felt...off. There wasn't a specific symptom, but it was that sort of generic rundown feeling. By the time my dryer was done, I could feel my chest congestion worsening, and I felt like an absolute trainwreck. The exhaustion was real. My boyfriend had come up to meet me at the laundromat, and I just looked at him and said "I think I need to go home, like right now. I think something's really wrong." He was disappointed that I refused to kiss him.

My laundry takes about an hour to wash and dry. That's how quickly I went from feeling fine to knowing something was definitely wrong.

I went home and I slept. And I slept. And I slept. And when I finally woke up, I felt freezing.

I turned to my boyfriend. "Is it cold in here?"

"Not to me."

"Fuck!"

"What is it?"

"I got a fever. The medicine cabinet behind the mirror has a thermometer...can you grab it please?"

I had a fever of 99.9. Not high, but definitely higher than what I took in the morning.

That was 5pm. At 6pm, that temperature climbed to 101. At 7pm, it was 102. My boyfriend started to panic. I told him I wanted to wait and if it hit 103, I would take a Tylenol (I was trying to let my immune system do its thing without intervening) and if it hit 104 we would go to the ER. Around 8pm, my fever peaked at 102.8 degrees. It came with a headache every time I coughed that felt like a hatchet was splitting my skull in half.

I texted my boss and my workplace's director of nursing to find out how quickly our weekly Covid swab results would come back. We got tested every week, but typically didn't hear about the results. No news was good news. I had been swabbed on Sunday, and today was Tuesday. I was told to come into work the next day for a rapid test.

The next morning my temperature was down to 96.9 degrees, and I looked up what the actual hypothermic limit was (below 95, if you were wondering).  Just sitting upright felt absolutely exhausting, and standing was dizzying. My boyfriend drove me to work; despite my attempts to send him home he had stayed with me. One of the staff met me outside with the rapid test. We hadn't even made it home when I got the call confirming my fears; I had tested positive for Covid-19. 

The next couple days my temperature danced between 97 and 102. The fatigue was the most crippling. If I wanted to brush my teeth, use the bathroom, and take a shower, I couldn't do it all in one go. I would have to lay down between each task and rest for five minutes or so. The coughing also progressively worsened; it was a deep chest cough that came with that splitting headache each time. My back also hurt like hell.

The boyfriend and I debated on how best to handle his exposure. Should he stay with me and ride it out, or go home and isolate but potentially expose his family in the process? After three days he went home, which I didn't agree with. He ended up testing negative a few days after, so it worked out for him. Remember how I said it's 40% luck? I can't say I'm not a bit envious of him.

On Friday, I started coughing up frothy blood in the shower. I called the ER, but they said I would just have to go in since they couldn't give advice over the phone. I knew our local hospital was close to capacity and I didn't think I could sit upright long enough to drive there anyway, so I downloaded some apps to figure out how to the our telehealth benefit I had. A couple hours later, a doctor on the phone said as long as I wasn't feeling short of breath, it was probably a small tear from coughing hard and wasn't a major concern. I sat and thought real hard about if I was actually short of breath or just anxious and decided to stay home.

"Have you lost your sense of smell yet?" The doctor asked.

"No, thankfully not yet."

"You're lucky."

I was not lucky. That doctor jinxed me, I swear!

That night, I had the weirdest dreams. I have not done hard drugs, but that night is what I imagine a bad trip would be like. If at any point I went hypoxic, that was the night. (I am disappointed my pulse oximeter was at work, because it would have been interesting to find out.) The best way I can describe it was that it felt like my brain was folding in on itself. At one point I considered I might have been stroking out and thought about calling for help, but I couldn't find my body to tell it to reach for my phone. It was bizarre. I don't know if it was Covid or not, but it was odd enough I figured it deserved a mention.

The next morning I couldn't smell my blankets. You probably don't think of blankets as having a smell. It's not something I noticed until I suddenly couldn't notice it. Rushing to the bathroom, I grabbed perfumes and essential oils. The small few I could smell seemed like the smell was very distant and far away.

That's when I cried. I had friends who had Covid who couldn't smell for weeks or months, and it was such a disheartening thought. I remember going to let my dog out and when I got outside taking off the mask I wore to protect my roommates, and feeling absolutely despondent that I couldn't smell the fresh air. This wasn't a clogged sinus and stuffy nose blocking my sense of smell; this was an entire sense missing. With my smell gone, all food tasted like cardboard.

Fortunately, despite my fears, it only lasted a couple days.

Monday, six days after my symptoms started, my sense of smell returned about 60%, as I noticed I could smell my body wash again. I was still coughing like no one's business, but my fever had been gone for a whole day and I finally felt just a little bit stronger. I sat up in a chair and lasted about five minutes before dizziness sent me back to bed. Then I tried six minutes of sitting. Slowly, I built up to two hours sitting in the chair, smelling all the essential oils I could and trying to will my strength and senses back.

Working in physical therapy in a skilled nursing facility, I tell my patients all the time to get out of bed and just sit in order to build up their endurance. After Covid, I have a whole new appreciation as to how challenging just sitting can be!

Over the rest of the week my cough persisted but the fatigue slowly lessened and the sense of smell slowly strengthened. Friday I was officially free, per CDC guidelines, and I went for a very short, flat hike that winded me. I was able to return to work the day after.

The cough lingered for a couple weeks, but lessened each day, and I managed with cough syrup and cough drops. (My doctor suggested Robitussin over Dayquil, as the former is an expectorant.) Oh, and remember that swab I got the Sunday before my symptoms started? Yeah, the county health department called me to let me know I was positive two weeks later, after my quarantine period had ended and I was already back at work. (Per CDC guidelines, you are clear 10 days after your symptoms began, assuming you are fever-free for at least 24 hours on the tenth day.) No wonder our healthcare capacity was so impacted with the labs running that far behind on notifying cases! I was so thankful I had access to the rapid testing through my work to verify my diagnosis instead of waiting on the county labs.

Today, when hiking or doing any exercise, I still get short of breath quicker than I should. According to my Fitbit, my resting HR increased while I was sick and then quickly went back to normal, but after a week of recovery gradually crept up into the upper 70's when it should be in the low 60's. Three months later, and it seems like this week it has started to decrease a little bit, but we'll have to wait and see if that trend continues to return it to normal. It makes me wonder what the underlying damage is.

Bonus: My Covid Vaccine Experience

A few weeks after I recovered and returned to work, we were offered the vaccine as frontline healthcare workers. I asked if I should get it since it was so soon after recovery; my director of nursing shrugged and said the CDC didn't say anything against it, so I figured I better stay with my "phase" and get it since it might be logistically more difficult later. We got the Pfizer shot.

I have never had an arm so sore after a shot. The ache lasted about five days, though the day after was the worst. The first shot I got in my non-dominant arm and the second shot in my dominant arm; I hoped that since I moved that arm.more the second shot might hurt less. They both hurt the same.

Both shots gave me a slightly elevated temp, and both made me exhausted the day after. I slept most of the day after (fortunately my normal day off) and felt back to normal by evening.

Despite having side effects from both shots, the vaccine reaction was not nearly as bad as the actual Covid. As much as people seem to be afraid of those reactions, getting the actual disease can be so much worse. 

I stayed out of the hospital, but I was still pretty damn sick. I have had friends end up in the ICU with scarier symptoms than I had. I had friends who stayed out of the ICU but became "long haulers" who didn't really recover from fatigue and pain and shortness of breath, who have resorted to literally crawling around their homes because they lack the capacity to walk. One of those felt so debilitated and despondent that she took her own life over it. 

The disease is so much scarier than the vaccine reactions. If I were you and had to choose between one of the two, I'd choose the vaccine in (an elevated) heartbeat.

On Communication

2020 has been a wild year and I haven't written much about it, thanks to burnout and depression. There are a lot of things I have wanted to talk about. Things like my experience with Covid, and then the vaccine. Things I have been learning in therapy. Later when I summon the energy I can talk about those. But right now, I want to share how I am dating a guy and I think he might be the One, and all because I told him I was mad at my insurance company.

My company switched health insurances. After a bunch of "don't worry you can keep your doctor" talk, it turns out like 80% of the providers in this town won't work with this insurance so I suddenly need to find all new providers. And because this is "network-free" insurance they don't have a list of providers for me to pick from...I have to basically find someone who is taking new patients and then go through a bunch of hoops to find out if they take this weird insurance. It's frustrating as hell. 

Anyways, I was making phone calls and getting trapped in robo-phone-trees while doing my laundry when my boyfriend called me. He could tell by my tone of voice that I was upset, so he asked "is something wrong?"

In the past, I would have stuffed it. In the past, I would have said "It's nothing; I just don't want to talk about it." Even now, my knee-jerk reaction was to push away and isolate. It wasn't his business, and it wasn't anything he could do anything about.

But I decided to try this new thing called talking to people. So instead I said, "Actually I'm really frustrated because I'm dealing with stupid insurance stuff and the insurance is stupid and the doctors are stupid and the pharmacies are stupid and everyone in this town is stupid and it's pissing me off, so now I'm in a real shitty mood."

In the past, I would have been told how I was overreacting, how it wasn't that bad, how I just needed to "suck it up and deal with it." I would have been told this by parents, supposed friends, and romantic partners. At some point, I just stopped opening up. Opening up always lead to invalidation, so why bother?

This time was different though. Because, as I regularly seem to need to remind myself, my boyfriend is not those other people.

This time, I was met with, "That sucks. I don't know if I can help, but let me know if I can."

Maybe that seems like such a small thing, but when you spend decades of your life being told your experiences are invalid and you're overreacting, that small gesture of acceptance and tolerance becomes a really big thing.

I am relearning how to open up and be vulnerable, because I was met with so much antagonism in the past. Slowly, bit by bit, conversation by conversation, I have been getting there.

Don't invalidate your loved ones. Because when you do, you make them shut down, and opening back up becomes a long and hard process, even if it doesn't seem that way from the surface.

The Haunted Library

We don’t tell our guests about the library.

Here at Chateau de Livres, we have a wide array of amenities. An Olympic-size lap pool, a world-class spa, a Michellin star restaurant, and of course luxurious guest rooms. Despite our name, though, the library in the basement is strictly off-limits to all but a few select staff.

Unfortunately, the breaker boxes are in the basement, and the spirits there like to play tricks so sometimes we have to go down there.

The breaker boxes are along the wall. Sometimes it’s a one-minute walk to them, sometimes twenty. It depends on how the library is feeling that day. Whatever you do, stick to the wall. No matter how long your walk, as long as you stay on the perimeter you will eventually make it out. If you venture off into the stacks, it’s a death sentence. You’ll be lost forever.

The apparitions are best ignored. If you ignore them, they’ll ignore you. They wander about, but as long as you don’t interact with them you’ll be okay. Don’t give them more than a smile and nod. If you try to talk to them, stare at them, or run from them, they’ll drag you off into the stacks. 

Don’t follow any sounds you hear in the library. The sounds will try to lure you off into the stacks. Whatever sounds you hear, ignore them.

Just last week, I took a trainee down there. Joe. He did a fair job ignoring the apparitions. It took us five minutes to reach the breaker box. Once we reset everything, we started our walk back. About twelve minutes into our return trip, we heard a loud thud, and then a girl crying. Joe started to look for the sound. I tried to pull him back, but he shooed me away. “I’m just going to peek around the corner,” he whispered. He stepped maybe five feet into the stacks, around the corner, and was gone.

I felt bad for Joe. I almost followed him to try and call him back, but the stares of the apparitions told me what didn’t need to be said. Don’t go into the stacks. I smiled, nodded, and continued on my long walk back to the stairs. The apparitions returned to their usual business of walking about and ignoring me. I dreaded having to tell my boss that we lost yet another employee to the library.

We don’t tell people about our library.

Anxious Reflections

I know I have been very, very absent on the blogging front lately. I have been burned out for about a year which has resulted in one of the longest bouts of writer's block I've had. But something else has also come up.

I feel like the first few months of this pandemic, I was doing okay. I was actually losing weight and walking around the neighborhood a lot. But as time wore on, my energy and focus suddenly dropped. It was hard to stay focused at work, and things that once gave me joy like hiking (and writing) became dreadful, energy-sucking chores. I've also started experiencing what my doctor thinks are panic attacks, and I've had them in the most benign and random settings like when I'm folding laundry.

Talking to colleagues, I am not alone. Everyone's anxiety has been sky-high. Several of my colleagues have been seeking out either counselling or medication to help cope, which I believe is a good thing because it means they're taking the steps they need to take to care for themselves.

My first meeting with my new therapist when we were talking about my anxiety and where it began, I explained how it's been worse over the past year, but to be honest it's something I have struggled with for a long time. I told her how my normal outlets have been cut-off with the pandemic.

"I think what's happened with you is that you've been able to run away from what's bothering you and have been able to sort of stay ahead of it for a long time," she told me. "You've been staying busy and have been able to push it aside and cope with it that way. But now that you're basically stuck in one spot, you're being forced to actually confront it."

Damn. That struck me. I feel like she hit the nail on the head.

With subsequent sessions, she also seems to think I probably have PTSD, though we're still figuring out from what. People who know me immediately assume my ex-husband, who was abusive, but my anxiety runs back to before I ever met him, so we got a whole lot of digging to do.

So here we go. I wanted to share the start of my therapy journey because in these trying times, I think it's fine to ask for a little help on the mental health front. We shouldn't stigmatize it. Hopefully when I come out the other side, I'll be a bit happier and a bit more focused. Maybe I'll return to updating this regularly, who knows?

Hang in there, be healthy, and take care!

Pandemic Thoughts

I haven't been writing much. I have been very, very burned out and have been neglecting a lot of hobbies. I feel like I should say something about the coronavirus pandemic. Most of what I have to say has already been said so I won't lecture you too much.

I work in skilled nursing and we had a wave of it go through out building. Fortunately, most of our staff and residents had mild cases. We did have a small number of fatalities among residents and a few hospitalizations and one staff member in the ICU, but for the most part we got through it with minimal complications. Not every facility was that lucky, so I consider ourselves lucky. We cleared the cases in our building and were Covid-free, testing our staff and residents on a weekly basis, and we were finally accepting new admissions. 

Then, the spouse of a staff member tested positive. They were an essential worker in another industry; I'm not sure if it was retail or agriculture or what, but they were exposed. Our staff member stayed home as soon as this was realized, however it was too late. Last I heard we had three new confirmed positive residents and one suspected case who had symptoms.

I've heard some say "just isolate the vulnerable and reopen for everyone else." What that fails to take into consideration is that the vulnerable population can't be totally isolated. Our residents have been locked down in their rooms since March. But their caregivers still need to to get food, get medications, go to the doctor, and be out in the community. They may live with others who are essential workers who face the public.

We get tested weekly at my workplace. Which means in less than a week, this staff member who had been negative was exposed and spreading it before we could catch it. It's no fault of the staff member or their spouse. It just demonstrates how incredibly contagious this disease is and also how quickly after exposure you can start spreading it without knowing it.

So for the love of your community and your vulnerable neighbors, the absolute BEST things you can do are wear a mask and follow social distancing. Because this thing is so contagious, even when not showing symptoms, there's no simply "isolating the vulnerable". It takes everyone to pitch in to control the spread of this thing. You could be sharing it and not even know. Please, I am pleading with you, mask up!

Most Annoying Recipe: Easy Peanut Noodles

So I'm going pretty much straight between work and home during the pandemic these days, and figured I'd try my hand at writing a recipe. You know those annoying blog recipes where they tell their entire life's story before you get to the recipe? Don't worry, I'm not going to do that to you!

Instead, I'm going to make this so, so much worse...

Ingredients

• 1 package of whatever noodles are still available on grocery store shelves (I usually use rice noodles, but during the pandemic work with what you can find)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• Sriracha to taste
• A couple cups of cut up veggies; I usually use broccoli and carrots but go nuts with whatever you want
• Some protein for this sucker: either a couple chicken breasts cooked and diced; a cube of tofu cooked, diced, and faux-fried; or a cup of edamame are good options
• About a pound of existential dread

Start by boiling water for your noodles in a large pot and cutting up your veggies (and if your protein needs to cook, now's a good time to do that). Some people salt their water for pasta. Growing up, we never did this (that's right, I'm throwing this shit right in the middle of the recipe. You were warned by the title) because we were on a low-sodium diet, so Mom NEVER added salt to anything. It was a sad and tasteless existence. When I finally moved out on my own and discovered salt, it was a godsend! See, sodium ions can help block bitter tastes from our taste buds, enhancing the more pleasant tastes in a dish. I missed out on all that goodness growing up. So I say go ahead and salt the water. You only live once.

Once you get your water to a rolling boil, go ahead and reduce heat and add your noodles. Rice noodles will cook quickly whereas spaghetti and linguine noodles will take longer. I don't know how long noodles take to cook; you cook them until they're tender. Did you really reach adulthood without knowing how to cook noodles? Just take a noodle out every once in a while and nosh down on it...if the texture seems right then they're done. There's also a trick where you're supposed to be able to throw a noodle on your cabinet doors and if they stick it's done or something...that always seemed like too much of a mess for me. I'm trusting you to figure out how to cook your noodles. 

While your noodles are cooking it's time to make your peanut sauce. In a medium bowl, combine your peanut butter, soy sauce, and about 1 tbsp of your sriracha sauce (more is fine...in fact I usually use more, but sometimes I cook for pansy-asses who require less). Now you gotta mix them together. This part sucks because you're going to quickly discover that peanut butter and soy sauce don't like each other. In science class, we learned about different types of mixtures as solutions, suspensions, and colloids. Solutions are clear with homogeneous particle distribution. Suspensions are cloudy with particles that will settle and separate out when still. Colloids are sort of in-between; cloudy but stable and homogeneous.

We're making an emulsion here, which is a subclass of colloid. Milk is an example of an emulsion. In our case, we have oily peanut butter and watery soy sauce. It's going to take more mixing than you think to make them mix together. It's going to look like some sort of horror at first as you have this lump of peanut butter just sort of rolling around in a pool of soy sauce. You're going to think I'm full of shit, telling you to mix these together. But then suddenly it's as if the ingredients just sort of surrender, and they magically start to mix. You have to keep it up though. Don't let them win. 

In the last few minutes of your noodles cooking, add your veggies and let them cook with the noodles. I usually use broccoli and carrots, but you can substitute out virtually whatever vegetables you like. I like the broccoli and my dog likes the carrots. He'll beg for them and sit there and gnaw at them while I finish cooking. Sometimes he'll eat the broccoli too, but he doesn't like it as much. He eats it more out of stubbornness than actual enjoyment of the vegetable.

When the veggies and noodles are done, all that's left is to strain them, mix in your sauce and protein, and then top with more sriracha as desired!

I hope that recipe was thoroughly annoying. Stay home and have a safe quarantine y'all!

Reflections on a decade

All over Facebook people were like "where were you a decade ago?" and posting their pictures from 2009/2010 in comparison to now. I thought it would be fun so I looked up my photos from 2009. There weren't many, and I was dismayed at what I found, as they were all pictures from my wedding. I was making the mistake of a lifetime, and suddenly all the memories came rushing back.

The last decade for me has been a transformative one. It's also been a gut-wrenchingly painful one. I entered 2010 freshly married and for the first six years of the decade continued existing in a progressively deteriorating abusive relationship. Then came what I dub the "year of hell" when the marriage finally imploded and I suddenly had to juggle two jobs, school, internships, divorce, therapy, graduation, board exams, and ultimately moving across the state to a strange city all alone to start everything over. It was an essential shift and I definitely needed out of that relationship, but it hurt like hell going through it. Ever since then, I've been slowly rebuilding. There have been ups and downs along the way. I lost my Grandpa. I rescued a lovely little furbaby guinea pig who saw me through most of the decade before she passed. Overall, however, I'm definitely coming out of the decade in a better place than I was going in.

So no, I won't be sharing pictures from a decade ago on social media. I wish I could reach through the photo albums to slap myself of a decade ago across the face. I wish I had never gone through with that marriage. I wish I had the strength to leave it when I felt I needed to instead of waiting it out for so long. I wish I had done a lot of things differently this last decade.

Of course, if I hadn't gone through all that, I would have never felt the drive to improve my situation, to go back to school, to stumble into a career that I love. So it's a bit of a catch-22. I regret a lot of things, but I also wouldn't be where I am without it those things. Go figure.

Here's hoping the next decade doesn't hurt as bad. *knocks on wood*

On traveling solo and finding your tribe

Since I am single with weird workdays off, I do a lot of solo traveling. This seems to freak people out. "That's not safe!" "You shouldn't do that!" "You're going to get murdered!" I've heard it all. People are so caught up in stranger danger that they think everyone is out to get everyone else.

Well, it's either solo travel or curl up in my bed and become a human burrito, so fuck it, I'm travelling solo.

I choose to believe that people are generally good. Yeah, there's weirdos out there, but they're the exception. Whenever I've found myself in need, strangers have come to help, whether it's a car wreck or whatever sort of emergency situation people want to help. I think people are generally good, so I keep an open mind when I travel, and that's how I find my tribe. Even as shy and introverted as I tend to be, I still manage to meet good people while I'm out and about.

On a trip to a tulip festival, I was at a brewery and made friends with the gal next to me. She was also travelling solo. We made fun of the sportscast show that was on the TV and discussed our favorite haunts along the I-5 corridor. Our time together was brief and we'll likely never meet again, but for those two hours we found solidarity and kinship.

Recently I went on my first solo camping trip. Next to me was a chapter of the Oregon League of Women. They saw I was alone and invited me over, and we spent the evening at their campfire sharing stories of our adventures. They were a tribe and they welcomed me in for a night, and I found with them a circle of warmth, safety, and camaraderie.

"How can you travel alone?" The secret is I don't travel alone. I travel by myself, but seldom do I find myself alone.

Try it sometime. Put down the phone and chat up the person next to you, wherever you're at. Actually speak with your Uber driver. Sign up for an event by yourself and talk to the people there. Embrace the adventure and the unknown. Talk to strangers. When you do, you'll find your tribe in places you least expect.

Started from the bottom now we're...here, I guess?

I know it's been a while since I've written. I got a lot of partial drafts of things saved but haven't had energy to write in months. But I've come to a crossroads and need to sort out my head.

I'm losing my job. Sort of. My company lost their contract with the facility I work at. I've been offered a new position with the new company stepping in to take over. This means I lose all my seniority and benefits with my old company and have to start over from scratch. I really love my current company and being forced to leave sucks. It's very frustrating and there's been a lot of crying and freaking out about it.

It makes me feel like a failure. Last year after my rent kept increasing, I had to downgrade between renting my own home to renting a room in a house with roommates, and losing the independent feeling I had living on my own. I've been single for months, choosing to focus on my career instead. Now, that's going down the drain, and I'm left trying to grasp for something meaningful in my life and coming up empty. It feels like everything is falling apart around me and no matter what I do, I just slip backwards.

But I've been here before. Facebook kindly reminded me recently that three years ago, I was recently divorced, pseudo-homeless living out of a motel on North First Street in a city where I was alone and knew no one, starting a career in a completely new field I had no prior experience in. I had no money as I'd drained my savings to make the move work, and my car had broken down on the drive over the mountain pass and was off in the shop for weeks. I was starting over with almost nothing, alone, and admittedly terrified.

Things aren't quite as dire, and I keep trying to keep that perspective. I have a functioning car and a semi-permanent residence. There isn't as much money as I would like in my savings, but I'm not flat broke riding on credit either. I've gotten three good years of experience in my new career, and I have a second income with the same type of work to back me up. I have good friends both in work and outside of work.

So, I can do this. It feels like I'm starting over, but I need to keep reminding myself I've been through worse. I might be hitting a reset button on the job, but I've still made progress in other areas of my life. This is just another chapter in a very long book, and I can get through it.

In the meantime, I am currently accepting all positive thoughts and vibes as I wade through this transition.

On chicken purses and financial responsibility

On Friday, which for me is like Monday, I started up my car and noticed a soft grinding noise whenever I turned the wheel to the right. It was still there at the coffee shop and I thought, "That's concerning. I should get that looked at Monday."

Two miles later as I pulled into work, the grinding had escalated to an awful metallic screeeeeeeeeech that was constant regardless of wheel position. "That....sounds awful and I need to get it looked at right fucking now!" I thought.

I had roadside assistance to cover my tow, but I knew I'd have to foot the repair bill for whatever was wrong. Was it the brakes? Did I shatter a bearing? Did the CV joint go out?

All day I worried. I had just got back from a mini vacation, where I spent a lot of money on frivolous crap, and here I was looking at probably at least a $300 repair, possibly more, possibly much more, and I had just blown money on crap like a chicken purse. A chicken purse!

It's a purse, shaped like a chicken.

If I had psychic foresight, I would have never blown money on something as frivolous as a chicken purse! 

I mentally prepared a list of plan B's in case the repair came out to over $1k. I have credit cards hiding somewhere in a storage unit I could go fish out. I could cancel an upcoming business trip which would break my coworkers' hearts as it's an excuse for us to go party. But the car repair was most important. I had to find a way to pay for it while kicking myself for wasting so much money.

Finally at 3PM I got the phone call: it was a rock in my rotor. They didn't even charge me for the repair! (Thanks, Chris at Bill Harris! You always treat me good!)  The only expense I ended up incurring was an Uber ride from my work to the shop.

So did I learn anything from this experience? Did I learn about what's important in life, and about being financially prepared? Do I still regret my frivolous recklessness with money?

Um, have you SEEN the chicken purse???

Chicken. Purse.

WHY WOULD I EVER REGRET A CHICKEN PURSE THIS THING IS AMAZING!!!!

PS: I love all my coworkers who freaked out when the tow truck arrived and were all, "KATT! Your car is getting towed! Need us to go beat them up?" I mean, they were willing to go jump a random stranger they thought was taking my ride, no questions asked! That's family right there. I love them!

My dog the anti-emotional support animal

I was recently reading a thread where someone was struggling to find pet friendly housing. Whenever I am in the same situation, someone inevitably suggests "just register your pet as a service/emotional support animal!" This is wrong on multiple levels, makes it difficult for people who legitimately need service animals, and is illegal. You should not fake a service dog or an ESA, people! 

But even for those reasons, there's another reason: my dog is the exact opposite of an emotional support animal.

The face of a shithead

Recently, I ended a year-long relationship and while it was a choice I had thought long and hard about and was the right choice to make, I still needed to have myself a good cry. My dog does not like it when I have a good cry. He gives me a side-eye, gets up...

...and the little shit leaves the room. He left for the bathroom, the room where dreaded baths are given, because he would rather sit there than deal with my drama. This is not unique to this past week's falling out; he was this way during previous breakups, during my divorce, during any time I needed a good ugly cry session.

He's a fuckhead who literally would be the worst emotional support animal.

Giving zero fucks about my feels

Oh, but if he's feeling anxious? You'd better drop whatever you're doing and comfort him!

This morning at 3 AM my fire alarm decided it had a low battery and randomly went off. My dog cannot stand fire alarms. It took him over half an hour of whining and shivering against me after I had thrown the chirping fire alarm outside (because 3 AM is too early to deal with that shit and I didn't have a battery replacement). 

If anyone is getting registered as anything, I should be registered as his emotional support human.

In fact, I designed a shirt designating me as such, because at this point might as well. You can click on links and order one yourself if you want:

Emotional Support Human T-Shirt
by bhskittykatt

Someone said that I should have put "Please Pet" instead since I'm officially single again, but I'm also introverted and don't want people randomly touching me. So is my dog. So this seemed most appropriate.

I wrote a sad venting poem

Sometimes I think I've moved on and everything is behind me, and sometimes I write poems in the shower. Usually I forget them shortly, but this one really wanted to come out, and I promised myself I would write more, so who am to deny it?

So here's a sad venting poem I wrote in the shower tonight.

Poison

It was perfect blue skies on the island,
Making out in the meadow, up to something good,
And the fighter jets on their training runs
Took a low pass overhead for a closer look.
But even then it was falling apart,
And we couldn't hide it from our counselor.
Every night all the shouting would break out.
Even then you were talking to her.
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison,
And we drank it with our wine every night,
And we looked no worse for wear on the surface,
But we were slowly dying away inside
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison.
The deadliest poison;
We weren't alright.

On the surface, everything seemed sweet.
We were made for each other that's what everyone said.
We did everything together all the time,
But when we got home that's when I would dread.
Because words don't leave visible scars.
Because throwing dishes is only breaking things.
Because being locked in a room doesn't leave marks.
Because punching the wall by my head only emotionally stings.
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison,
And we drank it with our wine every night,
And we looked no worse for wear on the surface,
But we were slowly dying away inside
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison.
The deadliest poison;
We weren't alright.

Now you're gone; I'm older, and I'm wiser,
And I know what my own worth is,
And I thank you for the lessons,
Because I'll never forget the days when
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison,
And we drank it with our wine every night,
And we looked no worse for wear on the surface,
But we were slowly dying away inside.
We were toxic, colorless, tasteless poison.

Here's a real "Own Your Morning" post

I love Women's Health Magazine, I really do. After many years of new subscriptions and subsequent subscription purges, it's the one magazine I always keep receiving. But in recent months, they've had these really pretentious "Own Your Morning" articles where women who apparently don't have to actually work and have an abundance of free time share their morning routines, and I find it obnoxious. No average woman I know has that time in their day! These women do workouts and have brunches and read books and stuff, all before their workday? Puh-leeze!

If I wrote one of these "Own Your Morning" articles, it would look like this:

GREET THE MORNING At 4:00 a.m., the donkey brays. The witching hour has ended, and the donkey lets us know. We have survived another night, and the donkey wakes us up to make sure we know. SCRAMBLE THE DRESSING My alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. and it's immediately off to work. I feed the guinea pig and let the dog out while throwing on scrubs and running a brush through my hair. If I am fast enough, I'll swipe some eye shadow and mascara on, but often I go sans make-up. There's no time for it. The day is calling. ORDER THE BREAKFAST As I warm up the car at 5:40 a.m., I open up my Starbucks app and order a coffee and an oatmeal. I like that I can customize all the options in the app so I can limit the sugar and fat in my beverage. I hate their coffee regardless, but my breakfast will be ready for me and I don't have to wait in line. HUNT THE FIRST PATIENT At 6:15 a.m. I am at worked and clocked in. I scarf breakfast while skimming charts of my patient list for the day. Then it's off to lurk about the floor to see who is awake. Whoever I find first becomes the lucky victim who gets their physical therapy before the facility serves breakfast. That's the price you pay for being an early bird. MORNING CAFFEINE BREAK The coffee wears off around 9:00 a.m., so it's off to Tom Tom Espresso next door for my next caffeine fix, either another coffee or a flavored RedBull. Sometimes I'll even get a sugar cookie because at that point I don't care about healthy, I'm just trying to stay awake through all my treatments. CHART FRANTICALLY My morning ends at 11:45 a.m. when the facility serves lunch. I either microwave a Lean Cuisine or order Uber Eats and consume my food hunched over my computer, charting on all my morning patients between bites. If I'm working in multiple facilities, I'll scramble to my car and make a mad dash across town to the next building, pausing only for another coffee. When you're on the go, you can never have enough coffee!

Which came first, the phone or the phone call?

I had a better idea for this blog but it's on my phone and my phone is DEAD. I was watching Netflix, reached over to check my Facebook on my phone (which had 40% battery before I plugged it into the charger half an hour prior) and it was a paperweight. I couldn't even do a factory reset on it. Something failed inside the phone and it failed dramatically.

So I went online to figure out how to file a claim with Google Fi as the phone is less than a year old. Guys, you have to call them. The entire point is the phone doesn't work, but they want you to call. What cruelty is this? MY PHONE IS BROKEN; WHY DO I HAVE TO CALL TO FIX IT?!?!

Okay, well it's Google Fi so it works with Hangouts which I can use on my laptop. Except the phone number is 1-844-Talk2Fi. In every help forum I could find, that was the number. Which is great if you have a phone with a keypad that has the letters. But if your phone is broken and you have a laptop and you are calling with Hangouts, you have this:

There's no keypad with letters; you need the actual numbers to type in. So I went on Facebook and messaged the first friend that said they were online, and I was like "This sounds weird and pathetic, but can I send you this phone number and can you look at your keypad and convert it to an actual NUMBER for me?" After she figured out I was serious I finally got the number. (Yes, in hindsight, I probably could have done an image search for a keypad, but I was in an emotional state!)

To rub salt in the wound, after you start a call on Hangouts, this happens:

Those shifty mutherfuckers.

So I call and the call is fine except they have my old address. I moved like a month and a half ago and I could swear I updated the address, but whatever. The rep updates my address and reads it back to me and it's all good. My shipping labels to send back my old phone are mailed to me and the new phone should be en route.

Except they shipped the phone to my old address.

I got on a web chat with support to see if there was any way they could possibly stop it in transit. I am so glad it was a web chat because I wanted to scream. First they asked if I could go get it from the old address. Um, I can't take time off work to camp out in front of my old address where strangers live and then take the package off their porch when it arrives....that's creepy. Then they tried to see if they could have FedEx call when they were ready to deliver the package and have me update my address with them at that point. How would they call if I didn't have a phone?!?!

I ended up with a vague "We'll contact FedEx and figure it out," which wasn't very comforting, especially since today the email says they delivered it. So now I've left a message with my old landlord to see if they can get in touch with the tenants to see if they have the package, though without a phone I am not sure how I'm going to coordinate a pickup if they do have it.

I'm up to over 48 hours now without a phone and I might shank something. Pray for me.


And the cherry on top of this entire cake? The night my phone died was the same night someone hacked my Facebook account and tried to send themselves almost $2000 through Messenger. Fortunately I don't have any payment accounts hooked up to Messenger (and if I did, none of them have that much in them, hah! *sobbing*), and Facebook was on it and locked my account almost instantly. So I had to change all my passwords in the morning.

I can't file a fraud claim, however, because Facebook wants a copy of my ID to do so, and I don't have a phone to take a picture of my ID with! I tried to fill out a claim without my ID because I don't care if they keep the Messenger payment account locked; I just want to be like "yeah that wasn't me that was fraudulent", but you can't submit the form without attaching a copy of your ID. Guess I just have to wait until I someday get my replacement phone, if it ever even happens.

TLDR Google Fi and Facebook support both make me want to cry (and may have made me literally cry...no I definitely literally cried).

EDIT: I went trick-or-treating at my old address and got my phone?

And when I opened it and opened the Fi app, do you think my address was updated? Do you? TAKE A WILD GUESS?!?!?!

Holy fuck, how many times do I need to update my address before they GET it?!?! Get it together, Google! PEOPLE MOVE!

Why I'm leaving the church

As a Roman Catholic, it's hard to watch the recent news coming out of Pennsylvania and other places. It's been an ongoing issue for years, but the recent news shows just how high up the chain of command the corruption goes. It's upsetting, it's infuriating, and it's disgusting.

As someone who has been sexually assaulted and abused by an ex husband, I have a special sympathy for the victims. The more I reflect on it, and how long it's been plaguing the church, the more I've come to a central conclusion.

You see, I simply cannot support an organization that supports child molesters and suppresses the voices of victims. I can't give money to an organization knowing that some of that money could be used to shuffle corrupt priests within the organization to hide their sins. My local diocese is currently under a lawsuit for sexual abuse. Even if it wasn't, I don't even want to peripherally support any of the corruption in the church.

I'm not turning my back on God, just the church. God is divine; the church is an organization built and managed by fallible humans. To conflate the two is an error.

It's an inconvenient truth, and saying "not my church" or "but the church still does other good things" is not good enough. The issue is widespread. The sexual abuse of innocent children is horrific itself; the relocation of priests and intentional hiding of this abuse by leaders in the organization is downright criminal and unacceptable. Beating around the bush isn't going to solve it. It's time to hold the bishops, cardinals, and the Pope himself responsible directly. It's time to stand up for the victims. This cannot be tolerated. It's wrong, it's unholy, and it needs to come to a stop immediately.

If the church ever manages to fix things, then I will consider going back. But for now, I'm out. I'm not sure how fixing things will look, considering how widespread the issue is. Serious reform and reparations are required.

To those who have been victimized, I am sorry. I"m sorry you went through what you did. I'm sorry you had to hide for so long. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to leave the organization that abused you. But I hear you. I recognize you. I believe you. And I promise, I will not support your abusers. I am listening.

I'm living on a farm!

So the move is done. I've turned in my keys to my old place. We won't discuss unpacking. I have boxes in my storage unit that weren't unpacked from the last move.

Anyway, I live on farm. I don't have to work on the farm; I just live here.

There's Avocado Toast, which is what I named my roommate's donkey. Her name is actually Petunia but I'm trying to train her to respond to Avocado Toast. Toasty, for short. Unfortunately, she learned to associate me with food so if I ever extend my hand sans carrot I get bit now.

I've also developed some sort of rapport with their goat who I call Shitbag. I don't know his name but my roommates agree that Shitbag is an appropriate nickname because he likes to escape his pen. He doesn't wander far and eventually goes back in on his own, or he'll go back when Roommate's service dog chases him back in. We got into a headbutting match one morning, so there's something.

They have lots of other animals out in their pasture, but I haven't gotten acquainted with them all yet.

But yeah. It's a farm. Classic red barn and all.

Never thought I'd end up on a farm, but here I am.

Uber Eats does not deliver out here. Pizza can be delivered, but if you use the apps for the local chains it says we're out of their delivery area; you have to call in and actually verbally interact with another human and then they'll bring pizza. So far, this has been the biggest downside.

I'll write something deeper later. Right now, after all the chaos, I'm trying to settle back down into something resembling a routine. It's a work in progress.

Reflecting on two years

I don't know what happened to summer. Yesterday it was June and wonderful and today it's August and a cough-y smokey haze outside, and I'm hauling boxes of stuff through it to a storage unit because I'm moving.

Two years ago, I was divorced, just graduated, broke, and used the last tiny shred of my savings to move across the state to a new job and a new life. That move turned into an expensive and complicated clusterfuck and I try not to think about it too much. It was a move of desperation. It was a make-it-or-break-it-moment.

This move is more voluntary. While I've liked having my own place for two years, I haven't liked my landlord. I'm not going to go into too much detail as I prepare to battle for my deposit back. My rage against them is the battery that's powering me to sort through my shit and box it up. I could afford to extend my lease; I am merely choosing not to. Instead, I am downgrading my possessions, simplifying my life to make it more affordable, and I'm moving to a farm. You know, with horses and goats and chickens and stuff. That...will surely be an interesting adventure as I am a total and self-admitted city-slicker. More details to come.

For now, though, I just want to take a breather from repainting that one wall I accidentally fucked up and reflect back on the last two years. Eastern Washington is drastically different from Western Washington. The west side is lush and green and metropolitan and has IMAX theatres. The east side....is the opposite of all of that. While I've come to appreciate some things, there are certain things that, having grown up on the west side, I don't think I will ever really be able to fully adjust to.

Things I cannot adjust to in Yakima

1) The lack of recycling

The fact that I cannot recycle glass is hard to cope with. It causes me physical pain every time I throw away an empty wine bottle. It cuts me deep to my core.

Also, they don't sort recyclables over here. It all goes in one bin. On a recent visit to a Seattle food court, I was standing at the bins, trying to figure out how to properly sort and dispose of the components of my meal, and I had to really think about it. I've lost my natural sorting instinct, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

2) Traffic lights don't know what they want to be

Are they vertical or horizontal? Do left turns yield on a solid green, or on a yellow flashing arrow? The city doesn't know, and in a few cases an intersection can't make up its mind within itself. It's completely inconsistent across town.

Not that any of it matters, however. Drivers here treat traffic-control devices more as suggestions rather than regulatory signs. When the light goes green, remember to wait for at least two cars in the cross traffic to finish running the red light before you actually start to go.

3) Private foundations run the parks (what few parks there are)

There is a significant lack of greenspace here. The Yakima Greenway and Cowiche Canyon are two of the best places to get outdoors, and combined they could probably both fit inside one of Bellingham's larger parks. They're also privately owned, run by foundations that feed off of private donations rather than from a public tax-based budget.

This leads to some nice amenities. For instance, in the summer if you're walking the Greenway you might be offered water by one of the courtesy carts that run up and down the trail. Ultimately, however, it means that the city doesn't appear to give two craps about funding greenspaces, and that unfortunately shows.

Fortunately, Yakima is surrounded by a bunch of nothing so if you get out of town you can find places to hike and wander.

4) Cash-only movie theatres

Personally, I suspect a money-laundering operation. The two main movie theatres, owned by the same people, are cash-only. I understand car washes and laundry places being cash-only (but how awesome are the ones that take plastic?) but a movie theatre?!? Hell, my old Girl Scout troop is capable of accepting credit cards when they sell cookies outside of grocery stores. If they can take plastic, then these theatres need to get with the times! Who carries cash anymore???

5) Not a town for tee-totallers

All the fun stuff like concerts, art shows, etc, are at the wineries and breweries. There are a lot of vineyards, and the valley is the premier hops-producing region in the world, so there are lots of these places. If you don't like wine or beer, you're not going to enjoy this town because 90%* of the stuff to do is at a winery or brewery. (*This is my un-scientific estimation based on personal experience.) Yoga, guided hikes, paint nights, dance classes, live music...whatever you like to do, you'll find a winery, brewery, or bar hosting it. Be prepared to channel your inner alcoholic.

6) The bad parts of town are legit scary

I didn't live in the best part of Bellingham, but the worst thing that happened was the DEA raided my building that one time. Okay, that sounds bad, but that's not the normal.

Here is some video from my old neighborhood, a few blocks from were I used to live, that recently went viral that shows more of the usual stuff you had to deal with, where a naked dude got pepperballed by police:

It's an annoyance to live next to, but unless you're the dude who's tweaking while nude and getting pepperballed, it doesn't really affect your life.

Here, however, there are random shootings and actual gang violence that do make me a bit nervous if I have to take a shortcut down 5th to get somewhere. The scary neighborhoods in Yakima are more legit scary, whereas the scary neighborhoods in Bellingham are more stupid shit from your annoying neighbors.

Overall, I'm not complaining

Bellingham is beautiful, but I don't think I'll ever move back. I looked up the rent at my old place. In two years, it's gone up almost 100%. Bellingham is getting crazy-expensive and the traffic is getting worse. So I'll enjoy the more rural desert life for a few more years, methinks.