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:
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.
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.
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 MORNINGAt 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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
