Assumptions Are Dangerous

thank you kindly.

qe2 — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 22:19:22 GMT

I'd intended an eloquent post here, but I ain't got no eloquence today, so I'll just let you know: with y'all's invaluable help, I've raised almost a thousand dollars for Alzheimer's research.*

I thank you. The sistergirl thanks you. La Mama thanks you. So does everyone else anyone has ever lost to this damn disease - and everyone who may yet lose a loved one thus.

Mille grazie.

(If you haven't donated and wish to, there's still plenty of time. Get thee hence and do so. Then email me at keeyoo at gmail dot com with your snailmail addy and I'll send you a purple sQarf.)

*(That amount includes the result of my selling twenty sqarves at the walk itself, which sum hasn't yet been credited to my account by the Walk organizers.)

memory, makings, and walking in love: a request

qe2 — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 03:45:23 GMT

Two weeks ago tomorrow, standing in a rural Virginia courthouse in blue pinstripes and the staid black pumps that pass for my court heels these days, I lost the thread of my argument in the thicket of a sudden thought: "My mother died five years ago today."

Five years ago that day. 10 October 2008. A Friday. I remember the come-home-now email I got that Tuesday from the sistergirl's friend K, who knew I never answered my cell phone. I remember the last client I talked to through silent tears the afternoon I left for FamilyTown, trying to help them keep their housing as my heart's shelter crumbled. I remember the ABIL, the sistergirl's then-just-a-year husband, bringing us Subway sandwiches as we stood in the doorway of Mom's bedroom and watched her barely breathe and then throwing a fit that night when he didn't get thanked profusely enough. I remember cropping PDF scans of fifty-, sixty-, seventy-year-old photos on my laptop propped on Mom's caretaker J's kitchen counter, evening up edges and preserving Kodak borders as though the project before me was an academic exercise instead of a history of love.

I remember the soft cream shawl I made those last three days of La Mama's life with us, crocheted of a pretty slubby yarn MMWD had sent me earlier that year, all scallops and swoop and just a little dainty feminine fringe. I spread it over the quilt covering her legs the Friday morning she died, and I sent it into the fire with what she left behind when she moved on.

I remember these things. They hurt like hell. But I'd rather have the pain and the memories than risk losing either to what killed my mother: to Alzheimer's disease.

So this Saturday, for the fourth year in a row, I'll be volunteering at and traipsing the route of the Walk to End Alzheimer's here in Workville. And in support of that endeavor, I hereby make the same promise tonight, in honor and memory of La Mama, that I made this past spring in a similar context:

Donate any amount to the Walk to End Alzheimer's via this link right here and I'll send you a fabulous purple sQarf (illustrative examples here).

Just click the link to donate, email me at keeyoo at gmail dot com with your snailmail address, and you'll be ensQarfed by Thanksgiving.

I'm walking solo this year, but I'll be carrying you with me in gratitude and love.

Mille grazie.

(Relatedly: If you donated to the MS Walk at my request earlier this year and are wondering about the whereabouts of the fabulous orange sqarf you should have received from me in return: it's sitting atop a pile of packing envelopes in my living room with its sistren and brethren, wondering rather irritably why it hasn't met you yet. If that applies to you, (1) my heartiest apologies; (2) please re-send me your snailmail address via the email address above and I'll get an orange sqarf out to you by Thanksgiving as well.)

experiment, day 2: five reasons my job is pissing me off right now

qe2 — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 01:28:57 GMT

1) I worked fifty hours more than required in August. FIFTY. Five. Zero. I took all or part of four days off without putting in for leave, and I still worked that much over. (I'm salaried.)

2) I put in 14 hours of work this past weekend, including all functional hours of Sunday ...

3) ... and then came in this morning to discover from my friend Z, our intake paralegal, that my boss had changed the way we evaluate family-law cases so that many, many more could conceivably come flooding through our door, because he doesn't feel we're helping enough people.

(But that's not because we're falling down on the job, or doing something wrong, or Just Not Frakking Well Working Hard Enough. That's because there are sixty-two million people in the US right now who are eligible for our services, meaning that their household income is at or under 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines for their household size, and there are a little less than four thousand federally funded legal-services attorneys in the country. There are also a fair number of legal-services attorneys in the country who aren't federally funded. A very generous count of those folks doubles the number of civil attorneys for poor people in the US. Call it 8,000 attorneys for 62 million potential clients. By my math, that's 7,750 people who need help for every one legal-aid attorney.

(... yeah, I got nothin'.)

For the record, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I am the attorney in the office who handles the bulk of the family-law cases we keep in-house. And yet, somehow I had no idea the floodgates were about to be opened until Z thoughtfully gave me an update.

... yeah, I (still) got nothin'.

4) I ran a report over the weekend against our client/time database comparing my case-closure rate with those of my two full-time colleagues. In my coming-up-on-seven years, I've closed two hundred and fifty more cases than my supervising attorney - who started three weeks before I did - and over three hundred more cases than my other full-time colleague. And that does not count the two hundred family-law cases that I don't get credit for closing because I filtered them to our pro bono network - as my boss desired - rather than handling them in-house.

I don't even know what to DO with that.

5) My damn right elbow hates where my work desk mousepad is. Also, our coffeemaker is broken. (What, you expected more boring attorney drama? Caffeine deprivation and tendonitis, people: these are the tragedies of our times.)

an experiment: a week of five things

qe2 — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 10:59:34 GMT

Five things about me this morning:

1) I woke up at 5:50 am. (This? Is not standard Q behavior.)

2) I'm drinking hot cider. (Thank you, Keurig.)

3) I'm psyched it seems no longer to be air-conditioning weather here in QBurg. (Open windows FTW. [Except for the bedroom one, the screen on which the USS Badger clawed a random escape hole in two years ago and which will not again get opened enough to permit him egress until I have repaired that damage.])

4) I have what I estimate to be six hours of work to do today and probably twice that many makes I'd far rather be working on. (I can't bring myself to characterize my crochet/kumihimo/etc as art, but for some reason "craft" strikes me as belittling - I think because it's the word that's traditionally been used for women's artistic endeavors to suggest they're somehow Less Than. Hence, "makes.") (Also: ask me some time about the reports I ran recently on my firm's client/time database and what they show about the hours I put in and the number of cases I close. Unless you're Spuffyduds, in which case, don't :-).)

5) I'm writing in my online journal/s again for the first time in months. (Hi. Good morning/afternoon/evening. I haven't talked to y'all in some time, but you've all been in my thoughts.)

PSA and plea (with prizes! promise!)

qe2 — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:28:04 GMT

Sorry about the gap in communication, y'all. Life rang my bell in the first round this week, and I had to hit my corner to regroup for a bit.

*ducks back under ropes and takes up fighting position in the center of the ring*

I promise an actual update on me at some point over the next couple of days - probably tomorrow, actually, since I will have been on my feet for a good long while at that point and will need the sit-down-and-rest-the-dogs time.

This, however, is not that update. This is (in my opinionated opinion) a much more important thing. This is a request for assistance - for donations - for help. Not for or to me. For a member of my found family, and for everyone else who struggles with what she has.

See, I have this truly marvelous friend named Nan. I met Nan and her husband a year ago and instantly felt as though I had known them all my life. Nan would take care of the entire world if her arms reached that far, in a way that would be neither patronizing nor martyred but simply, impossibly, kind and compassionate. Instead, she settles for being fabulous to as many people as she can get to over the course of a single lifetime and for taking care of as many of those as will stand still for a little love.

Nan is one of the good ones, you get me?

Nan is also one of the upwards of two million people on this crowded sphere who have multiple sclerosis. She's had it for years. She doesn't care for it much. And she wants it gone - if not for her, then for her kids and her friends and her many, many chosen-family folk.

And I want to help her make it go. Because the world doesn't have so many of the good ones in it that it can afford to lose them, y'know?

So it's like this, cats: donate to the MS Walk in my name, in honor of Nan (and of my feet, which will be walking with Nan and others this Saturday in Rockville, MD)? And I?

Will send you a scarf.

Not just any scarf. An ORANGE scarf. To be more precise, an orange sQarf. Orange for MS; Q for me; adornment for you; and the money for Nan and for everyone else who wrestles with this difficult disease.

I have paid for yarn (every skein of yarn involving orange within a twenty-mile radius, I am looking at YOU); my fingers are paying for labor; I will be shelling out for shipping. All you gotta do is throw any amount of money you can afford (and I do mean any) in the face of multiple sclerosis.

So. If you like and are so inclined, please do the following, for me and for Nan and for any other soldiers in this war that you may know:

Check out these photos for pics of the sQarves.

Donate what you can here, on my individual MS Walk page (which should remain up and functional after tomorrow's walk, so don't let the timing stop you!).

Comment here with your snailmail addy - or, if you don't care for orange (and I join you in that, unless we're talking juice), the snailmail addy of the person you'd like to get your sQarf.

Sit back and wait for orange yarny goodness to come your way!

And thank you all most kindly.

and now I go back to sleep. zzzzz

qe2 — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 17:17:00 GMT

Proof positive that when I can make myself actually leave my cave on weekends I'm in town, I am capable of getting a fair amount done: today thus far I have

attended my first yoqua class (yeah, I know, but I didn't make up the name) (and by the way, that makes four days in a row on which I've done a modicum of exercise - small goals, small goals);

gotten a much-needed oil change;

purchased an even more badly needed Bluetooth headset;

bought orange yarns of various hues and combinations at the two closest LYSs for a project I will be sharing later today (and probably again tomorrow/Monday, as it's time-sensitive);

had my rear tires replaced;

and picked up my mail, including the replacement filters for the only water-fountain-purifier-thingy I've yet found that my sheddy cats can't clog into oblivion and the Puffity-cat, whose issues include sight problems and who therefore apparently can't drink water unless it's actually moving because he made it move by dragging its container halfway across the bathroom floor, cannot topple.

My knees hurt a bit, ngl. My pocket book hurts rather more. But necessary stuff got done, and that's good, no?

qe2 — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 02:23:17 GMT

How this works: You comment, I give you an age (please tell me how old you currently are, to minimize the chances that answering will require time travel) and you fill out the meme questions as they applied to you then and apply to you now.

cinco gave me 19. EVEN LONGER AGO OMG.

Then: in a dorm room at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Great school, then and now; not perfect, but good for me in a lot of ways. I've never regretted choosing it, although I don't have the strong yen to go back (or to marry a classmate or a fellow alum) that many of my colleagues did and do.

Now: And the challenge of this meme makes itself known: if you do it more than once, you gotta find new "now" answers to the same questions. Okay. Hm. Now? I live in a one-bedroom apartment in yet another college town - my sixth or seventh thus far, depending on how you count it.

Then: nothing. I didn't get a car until my senior year in college, when my parents surprised me with a pinkish-beige Toyota Corolla my mother dubbed Champagne Charlie. Kenyon was a true walking campus, thank God.

Now: On trips where I need a car (or want one, spuffyduds, yes, yes), I usually rent the cheapest sub-compact Hertz will sell me. (The American Bar Association and USAA both have deals with Hertz, which means I get great rates and also Gold service. More shame: I really, really like not having to stand in line and wait for my car, y'all.)

That rather depends on how one defines "relationship," no? Assuming that by "relationship," the meme means "intimate romantic/sexual connection":
Then: no one. I was late to mature physically, and even later to mature sexually - the brain was way ahead of the body, yo. I'd only been asked out once, the previous fall, and hadn't recognized the invite for what it was. I didn't really fall in love for the first time until I was twenty, my senior year in college - and oh, what a tragicomic college-dramatic brouhaha THAT was, complete with competing published poems of sex and angst and a triangle missing a leg. Oy gevalt.

Now: My Js.

Then: ... I don't remember, honestly. Probably being alone all my life. That's been a constant fear since I can remember.

Now: Among other things? Failing my clients - which is, I promise you, inevitable given (1) my workload and (b) the way I have chosen to deal with it.

Then: Hm. I had a bunch of tiny jobs in college to pay my expenses, which weren't covered by my scholarship/savings/grandparental trust/parental contributions. I typed papers for other students (I had the only computer on my hall my freshman year - yes, child, truly! - and nearly the only personal computer in my dorm my senior year). I worked in the music library. I worked in the theatre box office. I don't think I'd started teaching ear-training yet.

Now: still an attorney. Also working at: exercising more; eating earlier; drinking less; sleeping hard.

Then: An actress. I went to Kenyon for its theatre program, which boasted Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward as grads. (Nontrivial trivia: Paul Newman died the Saturday before my mother did. I still have the issue of Entertainment Weekly with his gorgeous eighty-something face on the cover in one of my folders of scrapbook stuff that will probably never see the inside of a scrapbook. I still can't read it.)

Now: Happy. Peaceful. Able to appreciate the joys that life shows me. Able to get out of my warped, deluded, unhappy brain enough to become the sensual, sexual person I'd like to be. Able to find a way to REALLY help people, as opposed to triaging Bandaids the way I'm doing now.

This is a really interesting exercise, IMO.

qe2 — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:53:19 GMT

How this works: You comment, I give you an age (please tell me how old you currently are, to minimize the chances that answering will require time travel) and you fill out the meme questions as they applied to you then and apply to you now.

wordweaverlynn gave me 25. Lordy, but THAT was a while ago.

Then: I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with the late lamented Elder Stateskitty, my little white kittymew Tazmer, in a low-income apartment complex on the outskirts of town. A one-bedroom for $250/month was a steal even then.

Now: I live in a geographically enticing area in the Shallow South. Too bad it makes me nuts for unscenic reasons.

Then: ... hm. I think that was the era of the silver Nissan ... Sentra? Stanza? Stoltzfus?

Now: I drive a dark grey 2009 Ford Escape. Yes, I am the proud owner of a small SUV. *hangs head in shame*

That rather depends on how one defines "relationship," no? Assuming that by "relationship," the meme means "intimate romantic/sexual connection":
Then: nobody. I had a huge crush - huge crush, HUGE - on a good friend and fellow singer. It morphed into love on my part. I've never been sure what it was on his. I do know he maintained he was unable to have intimate relationships. After I left Ann Arbor in 1998, he entered into just such a partnership with one of my closest friends. They're still together, which I actually find kind of reassuring.

Now: My single-letter partners, JJ and J.

Then: that I would never succeed professionally; that I would never find love; that I would slip into obscurity, unremembered and unknown.

Now: that I will never succeed professionally; that I will lose my mind to Alzheimer's; that I will slip into obscurity, unremembered and unknown. (It bears pointing out that I no longer fear love will be permanently absent from my life. Improvement/progress ftw.)

Then: as one of the children's book clerks at the original Borders Books & Music. Back then it was a local micro-chain with only a few outposts, nearly all in Michigan. It had been founded in Ann Arbor in the 1970s as a used bookstore, and although by my time it sold exclusively new books, it still retained a significant DIY atmosphere and pleasantly maverick spirit. I miss it.

Now: as an attorney with a legal-aid firm, providing civil legal services free of cost to some of the poorest folks in the US.

Then: I didn't know. I'd been kicked out of my PhD program with a terminal masters. I was working for Borders because it was there and I loved books and they hired me. I had only a glimmer of a dream of singing professionally - and a very conscious intention never to become a lawyer. Shows what I knew, eh?

Now: I still don't know. I became a legal-aid attorney because I wanted to save the world and have fun doing it. My current job is a losing rear-guard action that doesn't come close to eradicating poverty, which works as well as my current definition of saving the world as anything, and although it's episodically fun it's coring me out emotionally. I don't think that's a long-term plan for survival in any meaningful sense. Problem is, most of the things I love to do are, shall we say, less than remunerative. As the King of Siam reportedly said, is a puzzlement.

Huh. That was ... interesting. Anyone want to give me another age?

if I had a bell, I'd be ringin' the hell out of it right about now

qe2 — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:14:47 GMT

Go, PP&M. My childhood musical heroes keep on keeping on (see: Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and so on).

Thanks to brooklinegirl for calling my attention to this.

boosting the Yuletide-pinchhit signal

qe2 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:16:30 GMT

spuffyduds brought this to my attention, and I now bring it to yours. If you are on the Yuletide-pinchhit list, you'll want to take a look at the following from the ever-valiant elynross:

"Pinch Hits Problem
Apparently Yahoogroups has changed some policy, and the wave of pinch hits sent out has DISABLED MY YAHOO ACCOUNT. I can't post to it to tell the pinch hitters why I'm not responding to claims. Of the 20+ groups I belong to or own, only 3 are displaying, presumably because the rest are on the email address that has been disabled. I... am not a happy camper.

At this point, I need to sleep, and there's very little I can do about this. If you want to claim a pinch hit, you'll need to *forward* or otherwise get the info to my personal email (elynross@gmail.com), and I'll work with that, and try and respond when I get up in a few hours.

Please boost the signal on this, to try and reach other people on the pinch hit list. I'm not sure how the second half of the pinch hits are going to go out, but we'll figure something out."

pits and bieces

qe2 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:58:07 GMT

I keep thinking of posts and then not making them, because I don't have the time to be eloquent and I don't have the creativity to be effectively precise and I feel like it's not worth it otherwise.

Tonight, as I was breaking up cauliflower for one of my favorite veggie dishes, Roast Cauliflower With Olive Oil, Sea Salt, Fresh-Ground Pepper, And Nothing Much Else, it occurred to me that that's silly.

So here. Have a few bullet-pointed plusses (and the odd minus) in lieu of eloquent and/or efficient content.

+ Ian, my next-door neighbors'/landlords' three-year-old son, who is beyond adorable, came running around their back-yard garden towards me tonight when I got out of my car after bell practice. Usually this is because he wants to give me a flower or tell me I'm getting home too late for dinner. Tonight, it was because he wanted to give me a hug. <3...! I have known this child since he was a literal babe in literal arms, and I tend generally to treat him as a valued and curious tiny semi-adult - and he still likes me. Go figure.

+ ...bell practice? Oh, right: I joined the bell choir at the Episcopal church I've been attending off and on for about a year. Never done the bell thing before, except very very occasionally when one or another of the choirs in which I sang needed a handbell accent. But I am - still - a musician, and also a percussionist and pianist, and as it turns out? I can do this. So after six years of silence, I'm making music at last.

+ One of the things I've been most dreading - digging and shoveling and researching and writing in order to read one of the boards I'm on the well-informed riot act about, inter alia, trust - is about three-quarters over.

+ I got a reasonably good start this weekend on all three of the major things I have to do in the next ten days: an IEP meeting with a client that promises to be more contentious than the time will hold; preparation for a five-day intensive training on trial advocacy; and the third issue this year of the one journal I still copyedit.

- The IEP client, whom I liked and respected, turns out to be a xenophobic, judgmental, right-wing, closeted racist who finds offensive the fact that someone decided to translate popcorn ads into Spanish (with English subtitles) during the AMLAs. This will have no effect on my ability to represent them - or, more accurately, their child - but it saddens me nonetheless.

+ Tomato season is not quite over.

+ And squash season has already started.

+ The catboys are still awesome. And silvery grey. And tabby. And softly purring.

+ There is really rather a lot of nifty television out there right now. (Even if most of the women in the shows in question ARE too fucking skinny for words.)

+ In the first episode of Mercy, a nurse gets a cop to take her home for hot sex and an orderly provides an experienced comic-relief Greek chorus for his friends' dramatic maneuverings. Oh - did I mention that (as far as this reasonably experienced watcher can tell) the nurse is African-American/Hispanic, the cop is Italian-American (aka, in some quarters, white), and the orderly is (1) Hispanic and (2) gay?

- Between 2 October and 6 November, I'm going to three professional conferences and two intense family events. I'm pre-emptively exhausted.

- I am also beyond overworked, to the point of spending every night and weekend day plowing through cases and trying like hell to get caught up.

- Needless to say, I'm a bit tired. (And also uncharacteristically silent.)

- The first of the family events - which comes, regrettably, immediately on the heels of the first of the conferences - is the first anniversary of La Mama's death.

+ I get to spend it with the sistergirl, who is prying herself away from the ABIL and coming to stay with me for the weekend.

+ I have an appointment with a sports orthopod this coming Friday to try to figure out

- why my right ankle is still not working properly.

+ Clyde the bionicized knee, however, is working just fine. And has this very sexy scar to boot.

- Still not king. Or even president.

And you? Give me a plus and minus for you, eh?

a letter to La Mama

qe2 — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:59:06 GMT

Dearest La Mama -

So it's been a while since we talked. You may have noticed this. I certainly have. And while what's getting in the way - namely, the fact that we're in kind of different places in our lives (so to speak) - represents, I think, an understandable impediment to communication, I figured I'd give you a bit of an update here anyway, just in case.

First things first. It's seven months to the day today since you died, ten days after your forty-second wedding anniversary and two days before your sixty-eighth birthday. It's also Mother's Day. And I have to tell you: I still miss you. Every day. So much it hurts. I'm told by people I trust that the initial period of intense grieving and remembering is one to cherish - that while the feelings don't vanish, they abate over time, and that eventually one misses the strength of the connection to the loved one who's died. And I believe that's true. But I gotta say, I'm not there yet. You were my best friend, Mom, and hands down the truest, kindest, most loving person I have ever known. And I find that at some very basic level, under the long hair and the big mouth and the talking of various reasonably good games, I'm not entirely sure what to do with myself without you. I didn't see that coming. Maybe I should have. Maybe it's just as well that I didn't. It'd've been like Arlo Guthrie and the Huntington's chorea thing: knowledge hanging over my head with no clear way to use it helpfully. Either way, it's a moot point now.

Anyway. The point I'm trying to make here is that I miss you so much my chest hurts.

Moving on.

Speaking of anniversaries: as of a month ago yesterday, I have a new knee. (As the kids you never quite met these days are prone to say, I can haz bionics!) I think you'd already stopped making new memories when my right knee hit the tipping point and began going irretrievably south. Turned out to be degenerative osteoarthritis, exacerbated by that old singing injury (remember that picture of me on crutches on the steps of Seva, my hair still sticky with grey stage silvering from playing yet another of Gilbert's Old, Non-Dancing, Plot-Explicating Dames?). Last spring, my orthopod (getting his law degree online at sixty-mumble - you'd have liked him) told me both knees needed replacing. (Or, as they say around here, needed replaced. I know. Don't ask.) I put it off to late summer because I didn't want to wrestle with my ignorance about the medical choices involved, and I postponed it again in August when you went into the hospital for what turned out to be the last time. In November, the week after we celebrated you with a truly astonishing number and variety of friends, family, and tribe, I made an appointment with a surgeon. He pissed me off (him you would not have liked), so I made an appointment with a second surgeon. That one went better, so we scheduled the surgery, and on 9 April I had a total joint replacement of my right knee. I've got a handsome thirty-staple scar running across eight inches of my leg with three good-sized chunks of metal and plastic underneath it, and I walk straighter and hurt less than I have for three years. It's quite miraculous, really. The sistergirl came up for ten days to take care of me, and - aside from one rather embarrassing breakdown on my part just after I got out of the hospital when I found myself abruptly overcome by a terribly strong feeling of wanting my mommy (literally) - we had a remarkably good time.

I think you'd be proud of the SG and me, actually: we work damn hard at being friends, doing our best to accommodate our significant and deep-rooted differences rather than using them to slash at one another, and by and large I think we've done pretty well. I do wish you'd been compos mentis by the time the Barely Tolerable Brother-in-law entered her life, so that you could have helped her figure out how not to rush into "yes" until she'd actually learned a bit more about who he was and how they might - or might not - work together. They don't, as it happens, and it's not a good scene; I'm actually kind of glad you're not around for it, for your sake. For the SG's, though...well. Send them some compassionate wisdom, Mom; you always had loads of that, loving and understanding and listening, and they need it.

Dad came up to visit me last week and stayed for three good days. We ate out and saw movies and spent a lot of time sitting in the local Barnes & Noble (I know, I know, but there isn't a Borders in Workville!), drinking expensive coffee and talking about history and law and family and what I want to do when I grow up and how that might differ from what I do now. It was a wonderful visit, honestly - much to my surprise and, I think, to his, though not, I suspect, to yours. He's not doing too well physically - one kidney's down for the count and he's been slow to follow up on that, he's got blood pressure problems, he gets dizzy when he stands up too fast, and his sleep cycle's completely inverted. He never was the caretaking one of the two of you, of course - not in the concrete, eat-now-sleep-now-don't-fret-child way - and I must say he hasn't gotten any better at taking care of himself since you stopped being able to do it for him. I don't imagine that surprises you much either. The SG and I take comfort in the fact that at least now it's only him that he's not taking care of. That sounds cold, I know, but it's truth.

There're various work things going on as well - as when are there not? But my back's gone a bit knotty and my cauliflower's almost caramelized (yes, Mom, I eat cauliflower now - will miracles never cease, eh?). And I think I've spent enough time living in this place of mourning today, writing this brief (!?) update and listening to the playlist the SG and I put together for your memorial gathering and looking through all those great pictures of you that we showed as slides at the memorial Mass beforehand. (One of these days I hope to be able to look at the pictures I took of you during the three days leading up to your death, which we did not include in the slideshow. Today is not that day.) So I'm going to end this here. I'll pick it back up at some point; I know you know that.

In the meantime, I might be telling some Mom stories here in the next few weeks and months. If you've nothing better to do, come on by; meet my friends; laugh and cry with us. I think you'll like a lot of the folks I've met, and they you. And to have your company just once again would be - you should pardon the hackneyed expression - a dream come true. Think about it, eh?

--love, your Q

To those in my circle who are mothers of any kind: the happiest of mothers' days. To those in my circle who have lost their mothers: you are in my thoughts and my heart. To all the rest of you: be well and be loved.

help me, Obi-Wan - you're my only hope

qe2 — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:50:45 GMT

1) Have now tried more than 5 times to install spiffy new HP Photosmart all-in-one printer for wireless access. Have uninstalled and reinstalled software for new printer dutifully each time. Have uninstalled software for old printer and then reinstalled software for new printer. Have downloaded newer version of software for new printer. Have tried several things gleaned from search of HP support forums (which are to HP "technical support" as the OED is to a page from Dick and Jane Fail Basic Language Skills). Have even defragged computer as a whole (generally useful, specifically ineffective). Notwithstanding all of this, the process fails at the same !&^(_@$^!@#$&*(@#$ point EACH TIME, giving me a Generic Win32 error. The installation software then pops up a cheerful message saying "Yays, u can haz new printer!" - a message promptly belied by the Printers/Faxes list, nowhere upon which does there appear the new printer in question.

As y'all might imagine, this is. hm. a little hard on what remains of my sanity. (*does newly patented gimpy dance of technorage*)

The printer works acceptably when connected to the computer via an Ethernet cable (although the scanning function has rickets even then). But I bought this thing specifically so that I could print wirelessly. I can't return it - it was a Circuit City castoff - and I'm okay with that. But I would really, REALLY like it to do what I am paying it for. If there is anyone out there who might be willing to help me troubleshoot this, I would be eternally grateful.

2) At her death, very much to our surprise, La Mama left the sistergirl and me some money. I want to use a bit of mine to obtain tools and training in some areas that have long intrigued me but for which I could not hitherto afford the capital outlay. One of these is the intertwined (...!) area of spinning and weaving. I've wanted to be able to do these things since I developed a fascination at ten with the antique spinning wheel my grandparents had at their farm, but I am at a bit of a loss as to where to start, as Aunt Google provides a rather large and definitively unsifted pile of wheaty chaff on the subject. Therefore, I turn - as per usual - to my knowledgeable circle. I believe aukestrel and twistedchick both know more than a little about these things; I would be grateful for guidance from you and from anyone else who has thoughts/pointers/links/opinions/etc.

3), a brief open letter to the weather gods:
Dear Thundering Herds -

Spring rocks - not least because it is my birthday season and that of an awful lot of other nifty people. Please quit fucking with it. Workville does not lie in monsoon latitudes. Nor is it Florida. Some brief period of cool bearable prettiness seems requisite before we plunge right straight into hot wet heat, no?

--irritably, Q

4) I've returned to work this week, working 15-20 hours max from home. My goal is to ramp up to 40 hours/week by the end of May, and to return to my firm's physical plant on 1 June, by which time I should hopefully have been cleared to drive again. I am ... ambivalent about this. Bears thinking about, no?

one small step for everybody, whether they're walking or not

qe2 — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:34:48 GMT

DC Council votes - unanimously - to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

I don't like hope. She's a tease, and a mean one. But right now, I'm falling in love with her.

music makes the fucking WORLD go 'round.

qe2 — Mon, 04 May 2009 02:28:09 GMT

Some days the world just amazes me. Check this out and tonight you might agree.

information, please.

qe2 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:39:36 GMT

As a fair number of y'all know, I'm scheduled for surgery very early in the morning this Thursday, 9 April, at which point I will be having my right knee joint totally replaced. Now, because I have led a ridiculously lucky life thus far in some significant ways, I have approximately NO prior experience with serious surgery. (Or even frivolous, happy-go-lucky surgery.) As a result, when it comes to practical tips and tricks on how best to get through the next few days, there is a real lacuna in my knowledge base.

So - as usual - I'm throwing myself on y'all's tender (and not so much) mercies. If you've either had major surgery (and I don't have a fixed definition for that, so opt in at will) or have been through it with someone who has, I am interested in your advice and feedback on what I can control (as opposed to what the hospital pretty much has under its sterile and well-draped thumb) that, properly handled, is most likely to make the process go as smoothly and comfortably as possible. I'm particularly interested in thoughts about what I should bring with me to the hospital and what I should just not bother with. I'm also open to ideas about what kinds of comfort-and-ease plans I might want to make (or have the SG make) for the initial time at home after I get out of the hospital. I'll have help from physical and occupational therapists both before and after I leave, so I don't need exercise suggestions (yet) per se - but if your surgery required OT and you found one of the gadgets provided in that context to be particularly useful or an unusually complete waste of Rube Goldberg's time, that's useful knowledge as well.

Hit me, y'all. And thank you kindly.

stories have power, chapter [n-1]

qe2 — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 00:38:10 GMT

This? Is fucking AWESOME.

Swear to God, I am thisclose to abandoning everything else I have to do tonight and going off to write my own Tale of Where.

Write yours. If you do, I will read them. (In case that's a draw at all.) And I'm betting I won't be the only one.

waves weakly

qe2 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:27:10 GMT

Am sick. Am irritable. Have lost all pronouns and most articles, both definite and in-. Please send chocolate and The Elements of Style, stat.

Am compelled by slightly sniffly gratitude to post the following thanks:

to spuffyduds, washa_way, and the Things for hosting me this past weekend and putting up with my warmed-over-deathlike self;

to j_s_cavalcante for deluxe box of YAAARN, which I only just picked up from the post office (thanks to it refusing to fit into any of their "pick up your package here, human" boxes and my therefore needing to try to hit the place when it was actually staffed, instead of late at night like usual) and cannot wait to explore;

to whoever gave me the awesome black-and-pink-heart-button anonymous gift to my LJ as a match for the black-and-lace Docs I'm on the verge of buying;

to all the people who voted in the black-and-lace-Docs panel, especially those who managed not to tell me how entirely confounding they find what there is of my sense of style;

to the SG, who sent me flowers (I love flowers; also they remind me of La Mama, which the SG knows);

and to the makers of Ricola lemon-mint throat drops and whoever thought of infusing Kleenex with aloe lotion. (This last thanks comes most particularly from the affected body parts.)

ETA: and also, ye gods, to the people who said lovely things about me on svmadelyn's Val's Day anonymous love meme. Y'all are far too kind. Like MMWD, I am bookmarking that page for later cheers and warmings of the heart.

In conclusion: thank God for federal holidays.

urgently needed: fashion advice

qe2 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:31:08 GMT

View Poll: Q'ses shoeses

getting in under the wire

qe2 — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:45:46 GMT

Thanks to nos4a2no9, who is irreplaceable and treasured and remembery, and to the kind soul who gave me a nifty wee polar bear, I have not QUITE missed More Joy Day, the excellent brainchild of sdwolfpup. I do not have much of a reserve stash of joy right now, nor am I currently equipped with the creativity to manufacture it as so many folks on my flist have done today. But I have more than enough wishes for joy - joy for myself and for all of you, for my chosen family and my blood family, for the new US administration and the world in which it is painfully embedded.

So. Joy to you. All of you. And may joy be, not a glancing blow across your bows, but a daily part of your lives.

qe2 — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:47:44 GMT

Can't offhand recall whether I've any flisters who live in or near Vancouver, BC, and if I stop to check I won't post, so: if you fit that description, or know someone who does, and either/both/all of you harbor any interest in weaving and art, this looks like a not-to-be-missed.

OMGWTFYULETIDE

qe2 — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:42:15 GMT

...no, that's really all I have to say.

(Well. Except that I am grouchy and lonely and irritable, and that Christmas this year is persisting in being kind of difficult. But we knew this would happen, no?)

*hugs you all and relishes reciprohugs*

dealing another hand

qe2 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:44:15 GMT

A brief CSA: anyone wanting a winter-hols card from Chez Q to you is invited to leave their snailmail addy in a comment on this post, along with the full name by which your friendly local postperson is most likely to know you.

Comments are screened, so unless you want me to share your contact info with the universe (in which case do please tell me so I can bill you - contacting the universe is EXPENSIVE, yo, even with the sub-aether radio in play), anything you leave here will be private.

Oh, and also: I've missed y'all. Just thought I'd mention that.

speech speech speech.

qe2 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:02:07 GMT

Watch. Listen. See what we have done.

(And by "we", I do not only mean citizens of the United States. I mean you, and me, and her, and them, across the boundaries of countries and the strictures of enfranchisement. I mean US.)

oh my fucking GOD.

qe2 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:10:59 GMT

Yes we fucking will.