Author Archives: Jen

About Jen

Jen isn't quite sure when she lost her mind, but it is probably documented here on Meditatio. She blogs because the world needs her snark at all hours of the night... and she probably can't sleep anyway.

Catching Up: June 24, 2022 Edition

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Let’s jump in.

Oh yes… comments are turned off because nothing I’m saying is up for debate or discussion. Disagree with me on your own blogs and Facebook walls.

[+] Things I should not have to say. A 7 year old girl choked in her sleep and died a week ago, and a local website put up a Facebook post to garner support for the family. Most people are responding and showing support, but some f-ing idiots have taken the opportunity to hijack it and start speculating about how it was due to the COVID vaccine.

…

WHAT THE F*** IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?!?!? YOU DON’T POST THAT S*** ON A POST THAT THIS GIRL’S GRIEVING FAMILY IS TAGGED IN AND CAN SEE!!!! YOU IDIOTS ARE NOT ENTITLED TO AN AUTOPSY REPORT OF WHAT HAPPENED!!! SHUT YOUR F****** MOUTHS AND GO THE F*** AWAY!!!!

[+] Thought on the Supreme Court verdict #1. Election Day is November 8, 2022. Show up if you want to vote out the idiots who confirmed Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. If you think the current Supreme Court is acceptable, feel free to skip this election.

[+] Thought on the Supreme Court verdict #2. Susan Collins is butthurt because Brett Kavanaugh allegedly misled her and had given her his word that he wouldn’t vote to overturn abortion. Honey, we told you he was a lying jerk and you didn’t listen. Instead, you voted to confirm him and screwed over the nation. And you’re surprised that he did what he told you he wouldn’t do?

[+] Thought on the Supreme Court verdict #3. If you are disappointed with the decision today, you live in a red state, and/or your senator is one that voted to confirm Gorsuch/Kavanaugh/Barrett, show up at their office and make your opinion known to them. Better yet, bring a few friends and peacefully assemble when they’re in town and not in DC ruining the country. Make sure they see you with their beady little eyes and hear *EXACTLY* what you have to say. Use interpretive dance and hand puppets if necessary.

Is your senator not running again and is the Republican candidate campaigning near you? Show up at the campaign stop and make your wishes known with a beautifully-designed sign. Make sure you spell all the words correctly because we need our movement to be understood and not used as an example of what not to say on a sign.

[+] Thought on the Supreme Court verdict #4. In 2006, I was on the drive from southern California to Montana when I started bleeding badly. This was weird because my period wasn’t supposed to be coming. It was serious enough that I was googling urgent care locations and emergency rooms in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City in case I needed to be seen, but I was terrified enough of the medical bill that would probably result, so I hemorrhaged blood and tissue for three days until I could get to the clinic in Montana. The chief of medicine was an a****** and told my nurse practitioner that I was a “hysterical pregnant woman having a miscarriage”, and all they offered me after an ultrasound (which showed nothing left in me) and three pregnancy tests was some progesterone. My next period showed up at the wrong time, and I opted to just bleed until my cycle normalized.

Ten years later, I was telling all of this to the resident seeing me here in Mount Vernon, and she informed me that I had very likely had a miscarriage and that they should have gone in and done a D&C to make sure that everything was indeed out. What was not done due to laziness on the part of the chief of medicine (who was eventually fired for abusive treatment of nurses) could now be illegal because Montana is one of those states with “trigger laws”.

[+] Thought on the Supreme Court verdict #5. For those who are saying that doctors aren’t going to refuse to perform D&C’s on miscarriages because of these laws, it’s already happening in Alabama. I’m scared that doctors will refuse to operate on women who are having ectopic pregnancies because they’re afraid of being charged under some of the more draconian abortion laws.

[+] Thought on the Supreme Court verdict #6. I have always said that I wouldn’t wish my pregnancy experience on my worst enemy.. but I’m rethinking that. I think that the senators who confirmed Gorsuch/Kavanaugh/Barrett would have a very different take on things if their threshold for calling in sick was throwing up three times on their way to work, they could only keep the glucose solution down for 30 seconds before violently throwing it up, they had to have an emergency c-section by themselves in the middle of the night after a 90-minute ambulance ride to the nearest hospital with an ICU, they had scar tissue adhesions so severe they couldn’t bend over for 7 months without almost passing out from the pain, they developed several autoimmune diseases as a result of their traumatic birth, and the scar tissue from their c-section was so bad that their surgeon discovered their reproductive organs twisted when they were opened up for a hysterectomy. I think they need to experience the terror of their period being late and the possibility of 9 months of bedrest, the threat of almost dying in childbirth AGAIN, the threat of gestational diabetes, the threat of financial ruin due to being unable to work, and the knowledge that their insurance company won’t pay for a hysterectomy because “it’s not an emergency” even though they’re done having kids.

[+] Thought on the Supreme Court verdict #7. Washington has reproductive freedom codified in law, and our governor Jay Inslee is working to get a constitutional amendment in the state protecting it. California and Oregon are joining Washington in making sure that women have a place to go if they need it.

Catching Up: June 10, 2022 Edition

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Last week, I was a little too scattered to post, so I guess we’ll resume tonight.

[+] I’m done with one-on-one tutoring until the summer unless one of my students needs to reschedule with me. I have two drop-in shifts next week, and then I will be done until July. As much as I love my students, I’m pretty burned out. I’ve been sick almost all quarter, and I’ve had some harder students.

[+] I’m really loving the Discworld series by Sir Terry Pratchett. I’m on Wyrd Sisters (the 6th one), and it is a Macbeth paraphrase. Reading them reminds me of a dear friend from college.

[+] I’m kind of seriously addicted to Snake Discovery videos on YouTube. I think my favorite video of theirs is when they fed rodents named after people’s exes to their reptiles.

Catching Up: May 26, 2022 Edition

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Yee hah!

[+] I randomly came upon this YouTube channel, and it looks like one that might be something for me to watch when I can’t sleep.

[+] We had the Veteran’s Club doing their Memorial Day barbecue on campus on Thursday, and those serving had never seen so many people on campus before. I had to explain that this was the first Memorial Day one in 3 years, and many of us had REALLY missed it the last two years. I mean, there was a Veteran’s Day one in 2019, but the Memorial Day one usually happens in the sunshine and it’s a lot more fun because people hang out and eat in the plaza. It was like we got a piece of “normal” back yesterday.

[+] I will have a massive dump of pictures from this week tomorrow, but here are a few important ones.

A fund to help those affected by the shooting.

(I verified it here.)

Well, duh!

Catching Up: May 20, 2022 Edition

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Let’s go!

[+] For those who want to know about life in Russia these days, Youtuber Eli from Russia has posted a bit. YouTube will give you other suggestions based on her.

[+] I finished Legends & Lattes on Monday and the book ended up growing on me. I started Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and I finished the first book as well on Monday. It should be interesting to see how the series shapes up.

[+] WIth the USA hitting the milestone of 1 million COVID death,s the New York Times asked for people to submit last texts from their loved ones who died. The results are here.

[+] The formula shortage is unnerving to those of us who couldn’t breastfeed. I was simply too sick. They were concerned about the toll the PTSD and PPD took on my recovery from the HELLP Syndrome, and the lack of sleep from having to wake up to pump was messing with me pretty badly. My kid survived on Neosure for 9 months and then Similac Advance. He went into failure to thrive when an idiot WIC nutritionist made me take him off of formula. He ended up on medical grade Pediasure when we moved up to northern California.

The other issue? Women that couldn’t breastfeed are catching fire from people who don’t quite get that there are legitimate reasons not to and that our bodies don’t just spontaneously start lactating on demand.

[+] My 42nd birthday was yesterday. My twin brother was up for some hangout time (and also 24 hours free of parenting and potty-training), so that was cool. The coughing spasm that night that caused me to lose my entire dinner on my bed was NOT cool. Thankfully, I do have spare sheets, so I got my bed remade after showering. (It took a few tries to get the smell of the puke out of my sheets today though)

Catching Up: May 13, 2022 Edition

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I’m usually triskaidekaphobic, but we’ll try this tonight…

[+] I met with DDA this week by Microsoft Teams. I hate this meeting every year because it’s incredibly draining, but it’s important so that Daniel can get services. All I have left is the home visit.

[+] I had to make the decision to sit out the rest of the spring from choir because of my asthma and my drippy throat. It’s not COVID (I have tested myself and I’m consistently negative), but my breathing is screwy. It’s a pain because I miss choir and singing, but I don’t want to have coughing fits the whole time.

[+] I had to give up on my bullet journal as life got away from me in March. I ordered another one, and I’m going to probably make it a June to December one as I will have enough pages to do it. I ordered a blank journal off of Amazon tonight, and I’ll be starting to put it together when I get it and trying to get all of the month’s pages done early so that I don’t have to worry about drawing/numbering a new page daily.

[+] I had to give up on Learning to Pray by James Martin, S.J. because my heart and brain just weren’t in it. I love Fr. Jim’s books, but I’m needing something lighter these days. I just started Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, and it’s not amazing but is keeping my attention. (I think it was a free Kindle book?)

[+] For those who enjoy Wordle and are map nerds, check out Globle.

[+] So, this happened on Monday morning. Thankfully, campus is still pretty quiet because many classes are still online and enrollment is down overall, but it was not fun having my phone explode with emergency notifications.

Catching Up: May 6, 2022 Edition

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So here we are again after less than a week. Woo.

[+] I’m still having coughing spasms and asthma issues. It worsened after I had to clean out the exhaust fan in my bathroom. Great of me to have a dust allergy. My lungs are hopefully done yelling with me over that one…

[+] Bed, Bath and Beyond is also low on items, and I’m hearing whispers of bankruptcy. It’s too bad because I could see myself going there for a lot of stuff if I ever have the opportunity to move out of my parents’ house. (What was supposed to be temporary has now stretched to 6 1/2 years.)

[+] Speaking of such things, the secret to making a multiple generation household work is treating the adults like adults and each one doing their share. My parents own the house, but my mom and I have the same brain, which makes running the household easier. I’m having a lot of G-I issues, so food is not fun for me, and I’m having to cook or deal with my own food. It means that I’m not eating the same thing as my parents (or eating at the same time these days), and I have the right to make that call. If we have company and I can’t eat whatever my parents are making, I’ve earned the right not to eat it at age 41… but my parents are also not making me something else. It’s not a huge deal because I plan for those meals with things I can eat.

[+] I saw something a few months ago on the subject of trans athletes. It was an article in which Lia Thomas and her current times were compared to her pre-transition times. She has gotten slower since transitioning, and it was interesting to see how she (yes, SHE) compared to the top times for each gender. The conclusion was that the reason she was at the top time-wise (good, but not Katie Ledecky good) is that she was a top swimmer pre-transition competing with the guys. It has been interesting to see that trans women athletes are not infinitely better post-transition across other sports (I’ve looked), which kinda defeats the argument that they transition in order to beat all the women when they compete.

[+} Also… PRONOUNS MATTER. There was a fire fight on my Facebook last year on the subject, and it was exhausting. Here’s the thing: using ‘they/them” is not a huge freaking deal if it means that my students or coworkers feel respected. There are a lot of gender-related chromosome things that don’t manifest in visible ways, and it’s none of my business to ask, so I just honor people’s requests regarding their pronouns. Mine are in my work email signature, and I can promise that I haven’t been hit by lightning yet. Calling people by their preferred pronouns sends the message that I see them and I care enough to listen.

[+] This video cracked me up…

Catching Up: April 30. 2022 Edition

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And it’s been six weeks since my last post. Go me.

[+] In my defense, I’ve been sick. I had a UTI over Spring Break that flattened me, my sleep schedule is completely knocked off kilter, my seasonal allergies have manifested as serious asthma so I spent Holy Week having serious asthma attacks, and I got hit with a respiratory infection the next week which spilled into this one. I’d like to be able to sleep without waking up coughing up a lung, and I’d like to not be taking Sudafed with a Robitussin DM chaser.

[+] We’re four weeks into the quarter, and I haven’t had a consistent schedule from week to week. Part of it has been having to cancel sessions due to asthma attacks and this stupid respiratory infection, but the other part of it is students being added and dropping tutoring or not showing up. I purposely scheduled my Fridays off this quarter to have a day where I could do doctor’s appointments or Daniel appointments, and I’ve also made it so that my students don’t send me work to look over on weekends. This is thanks to a student who completely burned me out during Summer Quarter and a student during Fall Quarter who made me ponder taking up rattlesnake cuddling. I can’t even begin to describe her shenanigans. Between the two of them, I could probably write an entire post of “tutoring don’ts” if it wouldn’t violate FERPA.

[+] Daniel turned 13 on April 7th. I’m still stunned that I now have a teenager.

[+] Doc is getting so much braver and friendlier. Mom is getting serious love time from him when she gives him his greenies. He’ll allow me to get closer to him, and I’m hoping I will eventually get to pet him. He is a very soft cat, and I would love to give him all the scritches that he could ever want.

[+] I spent a lot of time doing blogging/Facebook stuff for church during Holy Week. Five days of services was A LOT. The office of Tenebrae was a new one, and it was very dark. I’m kind of glad I was home doing church web stuff during that one because I wouldn’t have been doing a good job of focusing. By Easter Sunday, I couldn’t focus on anything, so I redid the header for Facebook and the church website. I still need to do the Facebook and church website posts for this weekend. I should probably get started on them…