Category Archives: The A-Word

7 Quick Takes: May Showers Edition

Posted on by

7 Quick Takes

It’s raining here in western Washington (we’re in the middle of a drought (believe it or not), and I’m fighting a migraine. Woo.

— 1 —

Flu. Daniel got Influenza A at the end of January, and it went through the house. Three of the four of us in our household ended up in either Urgent Care or the ER because of complications (it was both places for Daniel), and this was the first time I’ve had the flu in 23 years. (Mine turned into bronchitis.) I was reading something on the flu shot a few months ago, and apparently, it was only 30% effective due to all the shake-ups at the CDC and scientists not being able to meet and discuss it. *bites thumb at RFK Jr.*

— 2 —

No Kings 3. Daniel and I took part in the 3rd “No Kings” protest on March 28th. We were spread out over 1.5 miles for the protest in Mount Vernon, so it was nice from an introvert perspective, but it was a very different energy than the last one, and people talked about missing that.

Of course, we had the usual MAGAts on NextDoor making nasty comments about how it didn’t accomplish anything, how we’re all just a bunch of delinquents, and how it was a George Soros conspiracy. (The George Soros thing has been around for more than a decade at this point, and I’m not sure if people know how utterly stupid they sound when they mention it in seriousness.

(Yes, my kid is tall. His daddy is 5’10”. I’m 5’1″ on a good day.)

— 3 —

Pretty. This was the choral prelude last Sunday.

— 4 —

FAFO. For some odd reason, my FYP page on TikTok has been full of people commenting on posts from MAGA women about how they voted for Trump and favored the abortion bans… but (allegedly) didn’t vote for those bans preventing them from receiving lifesaving care for their pregnancy complications. I’m sitting here eating white cheddar puffcorn as various TikTokers explain to them that yes, they did indeed vote for themselves to be denied healthcare in supporting those abortion bans. I mean, none of them were passed in any state where a board-certified physician was actually consulted on the subject. If they had bothered to do that, they would have discovered that there are some legit medical reasons why people are claiming that abortion is healthcare. You can’t just move an ectopic pregnancy to a different place as Florida Republican legislator Kat Cammock discovered when she had one and had to fight tooth and nail for her lifesaving medical procedure. (She blames the Democrats despite us telling her that this was going to happen.) You know that child with birth defects that are incompatible with life? Those also tend to put moms into sepsis.

There’s a reason that the US has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. It’s at third world levels for women of color because they get ignored 2-3 times more often as white women.

— 5 —

Wow. This is impressive.

— 6 —

Why I’ve been “quiet” lately. My blog readers who have known me for long enough know that I’ve been talkative enough on Facebook and Threads, but I have just had a really hard time weighing in on things on the blog because I’m very much affected by the things the present administration has wrought on this country. I’m a member of the LGBTQIA+ community (I’m the “B” in that acronym), ICE raids are a serious threat to the livelihood of my area, I know the tariff system well as I used to work for an import brokerage on the Canadian border, I have a kid with special needs whose educational protections are threatened, I have friends/fellow parishioners/former students who are terrified for their families because ICE doesn’t actually follow any laws and violates Constitutional rights, and seeing the incredibly racist underbelly of this country has just disgusted me. I’m watching courts having to rule on unconscionably cruel things like deporting people to 3rd world countries where they have literally no economic or cultural ties and seeing the administration flip off the courts and refuse.

This isn’t a matter of having a mere political disagreement with the administration like I did during the George W. Bush years. This is a matter of watching the administration blatantly spit on people’s basic rights and claim to be following the teachings of Christianity while doing it. This is a matter of an actual moral disagreement with people who claim to believe in the same God as I do but who are worshipping a false idol instead. This country is bombing elementary schools to distract from Donald Trump’s name in the Epstein files. People re-elected a convicted rapist and pedophile, and they are claiming to care about family values.

It is just stunning me how revolting and vile people are in this country, and trying to put this revulsion into words is leaving me needing my anxiety meds.

— 7 —

Loss of faith. Some of the Catholic bloggers I used to read and who are now on Substack have started blogging about losing their faith and how the Church has failed them. This has led to other friends from Catholic social media commenting and sharing their own stories of leaving the faith, stories that they are finally sharing openly. These are people who were very visibly raising their kids in the Church and it was like they suddenly fell off the radar.

It breaks my heart to read about their pain, but that’s because I can empathize. I remember driving to church in 2010 and wanting to be anywhere else but there because the ELCA and Lutheranism had failed me so badly. The only reason I was able to stay Christian through it was that my faith was in Jesus and not specifically tied to a Christian tradition. Reverting to the Episcopal Church saved me in so many ways.

7 Quick Takes: Let’s Get Jen Posting Again

Posted on by

Let’s do an old-fashioned 7 Quick Takes post to see if I can pull together the ability to post again.

Uno

Don’t take medical advice from a disgraced attorney and a conman. I was going to dedicate a post to the idiocy that was the announcement of the alleged link between autism and Tylenol by Donald Trump and RFK Jr. The problem: I don’t have the spoons to go into why those two losers are the last people who should be giving medical advice. I mean… Donald Trump can’t even pronounce “acetaminophen”.

You can find videos from people with credentials on the subject here, here, here, here, and here. Studies are here and here.

Dos

Cancel culture and my local health system. The day after Dumb and Dumber held their autism press conference, I was at my local Urgent Care getting my right hand examined because I had irritated it while crocheting. (I stress-crochet.) There isn’t a good way to brace it with commercially-available braces, so the doctor had the nurse MacGuyver something for me with an ACE bandage. I also got a lab slip for them to run a bunch of rheumatology tests in case this has a connection there. (They did x-ray it, and my hand is not broken.)

While I was waiting for someone to take my blood, I heard one of the lab techs talking loudly about the Charlie Kirk memorial, the autism press conference, and a bunch of fallacies about how “it *MUST* be Tylenol because we didn’t have autism in the 60’s and 70’s until we got Tylenol.” (Yeah, no. Autism has been a known condition since 1911, Aspberger was doing experiments on autistic kids in the 1930’s, and Tylenol wasn’t marketed to the public until the 50’s.) I corrected her when I got in the room, told her how damaging her spread of misinformation was for autistic people like me and Daniel, and told her sternly to get her politics out of her job. She glared at me, and I reported her to Patient Safety because there is the risk of a patient hearing her and doing something ill-advised like taking ibuprofen during pregnancy. My health system doesn’t screw around, and I received word that she was repremanded. Still, she shouldn’t be even giving patients medical advice.

Seriously...

Tres

Charlie Kirk. Let me be be abundantly clear on this…

NOBODY. DESERVES. TO. BE. KILLED. FOR. THEIR. POLITICAL. BELIEFS. NO. MATTER, HOW. ABHORENT. THEY. ARE.

Kirk was a horrible human being on many levels, and his words did lots of damage to this country. That does not excuse his assassination.

Quatro

This is incredibly inappropriate. This raid on a Chicago apartment building is over-the-top in terms of how egregious it was. They dragged children out, some without clothing, and shoved them into U-Haul trucks, they poured out people’s food and medication (which could cost thousands to replace), and they detained people indiscriminately. This was a black neighborhood, and it was absolutely meant to trigger fear.

I cannot even understand how people are justifying this behavior. Seriously. This is Nazi Germany level atrocity

Cinco

Funeral with a pr0n troll. No, I am not making this up. The patriarch of a local farm family died, and he was a member of my parish. We had a full sanctuary with extra seats in the back, and there were an extra 100 chairs in the parish hall with a rented big-screen TV. I was trying to troubleshoot a sound issue in the parish hall when a video of someone performing a sex act popped up on Zoom. Everyone watching from home on Zoom saw it, and it appeared on the big-screen TV. Cue me and my partner on the sound board doing everything imaginable to kick them out. Another funeral guest finally came upstairs, and helped us adjust some settings to keep them out. I was already fighting severe depression and hadn’t slept the night before, so this hit me and my perfectionism really hard. The priest doing the funeral brought me pie the next day as an apology, and my partner got prayed over on Sunday, which I missed because I was home with a puking kid. I needed that laying on of hands badly, so they did it for me the following Sunday. I also got to spend 8 hours going through Zoom’s knowledge base with a fine-toothed comb to lock down the public Zoom meetings we use for worship and Bible study.

Seis

Purple Revolution. There’s apparently a bunch of MAGA folks who are feeling the consequences of voting for Donald Trump, and they’re trying to call for everyone to come together in a “purple revolution” to fix this. They are hitting a wall when it comes to Democrats because WE. FREAKING. TOLD. YOU. ALL. OF. THIS. WOULD. HAPPEN. AND. YOU. VOTED. FOR. THE. JERK. ANYWAY. Apparently, we’re supposed to trust them now? You idiots laughed about “owning the libs” and you’re complaining about your families refusing to talk to you, losing your health care, and tariffs screwing you over? Not our problem.

Siete

Prayers needed. Please pray for Lane Claudia, the oldest daughter of Jen Fulwiler, the creator of the 7 Quick Takes. Lane just had serious brain surgery on Monday, is facing a long recovery, and they’re still waiting for pathology reports on the lime-sized tumor they removed. Jen is asking for the intercession of Our Lady of Champion as well as any Blesseds that need some work to do.

Catching Up: New Year’s Eve 2024 Edition

Posted on by

Hello to everyone except the IDIOTS to re-elect Donald Trump and the 20 million people who decided not to vote.

Yes… I just said that.

I’m astonished at the stupidity of our country in electing someone who cannot speak in complete sentences, who claimed that people were eating dogs and cats in Springfield even after THE FREAKING MAYOR OF SPRINGFIELD AND GOVERNOR OF OHIO TOLD HIM TO CUT THAT ISH OUT AND THE PROUD BOYS SHOWED UP, who claims that he’ll raise money for things by imposing tariffs on China… despite the fact that THE IMPORTER IS THE THE ONE PAYING THE TARIFF AND PASSING IT ONTO THE CONSUMER INSTEAD OF THE COUNTRY IN QUESTION (was I the only one paying attention in Economics in high school???), who is imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico despite us getting a lot of our imports of food and other things from them, who doesn’t know the origin of the word “grocery” (Google is free, y’all!), who is claiming that there will be mass deportations even though he doesn’t actually have any clue of how to do that or how much he is going to hamstring agriculture or building in this country by doing that (because migrant workers are the ones who actually *DO* those jobs), who incited an insurrection which killed several people, and who, along with his derpy followers, has no idea how basic things in the economy work. His Cabinet choices are the dumbest people imaginable for each position (like they were in his first administration) to the point that even his followers are objecting to them. (Seriously? Matt Gaetz for Attorney General? Well, he is a pedophile like Trump…)

I’m positively dreading the next four years as a member of a church with members who could possibly deported because our immigration system is effed up in so many ways, I’m a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, someone who is neurodivergent with chronic conditions, and someone who had a pregnancy condition. I’m struggling to keep my head up already, and the Orange Idiot taking offices means that I’m going to have to fight twice as hard to keep things working for me and Daniel when I barely have the mental and emotionally energy to get out of bed.

And yes, you can absolutely unfollow me if you’re offended by anything that I’ve just said. I’ve never forced anyone to read this blog.

I guess I should go look on BestBuy.Com for a new laptop before the Mango Mussolini hostilely takes over the Oval Office again and prices jump 25% because he is incapable of understanding the purpose of tariffs…

Oh yeah, my saint for 2025 is St. Gianna and the word of the year is “hello”.

I’ll be putting my new bullet journal together if you need me…

Catching Up: April 11, 2024 Edition

Posted on by

So…

[+] I’ve been struggling with severe depression and COVID-related fatigue for the last 2 1/2 months. I didn’t know what was going on with the depression until I was supposed to have coffee with my former workwife Kim, and I was lying in bed trying to drag myself out. I didn’t know how seriously I needed that coffee date until she hugged me and I realized how much I missed seeing her and working with her. She and I get each other, and we bonded over our kids six years ago. I’m grateful that she had the time off from work and grad school for coffee.

[+] I just finished a prayer shawl on March 30th of which I’m really proud.

The whole shawl.

Segment 1.

Segment 2.

Segment 3.

I made it for Jay Bowen, a local artist and elder with the Upper Skagit Tribe, with whom my church has a relationship. He happened to be there the next morning on Easter when we blessed it, and I had the privilege of draping it across his shoulders. The idea was that each panel was an individual piece of stained glass.

[+] Daniel just turned 15 this past Sunday. Here’s a picture taken on Easter Sunday.

Daniel and me on Easter Sunday.

Why yes, he is quite a bit taller than I am. He passed me height-wise more than two years ago.

[+] I watch a lot of court cases on YouTube while I crochet, and a particularly maddening one was that of Rita Pangalangan who was convicted of murder along with her boyfriend of murder in the death of her daughter Cristina. Her boyfriend put Cristina in a hot car, where she sat for more than hours while he and Rita got high on meth. As the mom of a disabled child, I kinda want to slap her face repeatedly. I mean, how could she do something so selfish and stupid?!?!?!? I have a severely disabled kid, and my rear passenger doors have the child locks engaged so that Daniel can’t open them in traffic (which he hasn’t tried to do for years, but I have no trust). You better darn well believe that I know where Daniel is at all times, and I don’t leave him in the car, especially in the summer. Getting high on meth just adds a layer of horror to the situation. I can’t fathom putting myself knowingly in a position like that where I would lose the ability to care for myself, let alone my child, without another competent adult taking care of Daniel. As a single mom with sole custody, everything relating to Daniel falls on me.

Catching Up: Two and a Half Months Edition

Posted on by

Wow… two-and-a-half months of silence.

[+] Work. My contract with the college ended on June 30th. I knew it was coming, and I spent last quarter working on my LinkedIn profile as well as creating ones on Glassdoor and Indeed. I’ve got a couple of stop-gap temporary measures in place until I can find a a more permanent remote job, but I’m still living pretty modestly and I am getting a little frustrated with the amount of scammers out there posting positions. There are some days when I honestly feel like I’m playing “Scam or No Scam”, and I have other friends in similar situations.

[+] Health. My appointment with gastroenterology is next week, and it cannot come soon enough. My stomach is angry and eating is unpleasant. I’m willing to deal with an endoscopy and colonoscopy at this point if they can figure out what is happening.

[+] Daniel. Kiddo is at least five inches taller than me, and he is in the middle of puberty. The mood swings are epic. School starts again in a little more than a month, and I think both Daniel and I will be excited for that to happen.

Catching Up: December 9, 2022 Edition

Posted on by

Where do I begin…

[+] The depression fairy. I’ve been dealing with depression since menopause hit, and I’m at the point where pushing through is getting harder. I really want to just curl up in bed with the covers over my head, but there is so much that nobody is going to do if I don’t do it. Single motherhood, even living with family, is hard.

[+] Imposter Syndrome. I’m not going to lie. I suffer from this quite often. I graduated with TWO degrees and almost a 4.0 GPA in my late 30’s, and I still have a hard time believing that I’m good enough to be hired in my field. I need to start thinking about interviewing in six months, and I’m having to psych myself up to do it.

[+] End of the quarter. Finals are done, and I am exhausted. There are some boundary conversations I need to have with a student, and those are being left for next week.

Catching Up: July 29, 2022 Edition

Posted on by

TGIF…

[+] This week, I discovered Steel Magnificat, the blog of Mary Pezzulo. I had seen friends link up stories from her blog before, but I wish I had taken the time to read her blog before now. She is an amazing writer and an even more incredible person.

[+] We’re having a church picnic at a member’s farm on the 7th, and I spent this week arranging to *NOT* have to figure out how to put worship online that Sunday. I’ve been out there before and the part of the farm we’ll be at is kinda primitive. I would probably have to record worship and upload it later… and I don’t have the space on my phone to record a 90-minute service. Broadcasting it off of my laptop would require really dedicated Internet access, and I really don’t think they have it in that part of the property. Also… I haven’t had a service off from running things and doing Zoom (we’re talking Sundays, Holy Week, and funerals) since April 25, 2021. I think I (and everyone else on the committee who switches around from Sunday to Sunday) can use a Sunday off.

[+] Daniel had an ADHD appointment scheduled for Wednesday morning at 8. My alarm didn’t go off and Daniel woke me up at 8:22. I called them apologetically and rescheduled it. They were cold to me on the phone, and I don’t blame them one bit because I know how much of a headache it is from working in a clinic when people are no-shows.

[+] One of my new guilty pleasures is Code Blue Cam. It is videos from police body cams, and it’s interesting to see the job from that perspective. I am not an ACAB person by any stretch (as I have relatives in law enforcement), and I am absolutely in favor of police having body cams that are not allowed to be turned off. (A lot of jurisdictions have civil and criminal penalties for officers who do so.) The department that seems to have the majority of videos right now is the La Crosse Police Department, and one fo the things that surprised me is that they have to put their guns in a lockbox when they head into the station.