my mid-range reminders

 I am not in any position tight now to consider retiring early, and that bums me out.  So I have to keep my eye on short-term prizes.

1.  Ten more months and I can petition for my student loan to go away.  I anticipate it could take several months to have that all processed, so I need to stay where I am in my job until that is all finalized.  So, a year and a half, to be safe. 

2.  In 20 months (June of 2023), I can sell my current house without tax penalties.  I cannot even consider selling it before then.  

3.  I could finish my PhD this academic year but I doubt that I will because I've fallen so far behind.  But  could be finished in 14 months.  I may take off next semester and just lowkey gather data since I have to be enrolled the term I graduate.  

4.  I've started the rumblings that my job needs to be reclassified.  If I were to go up a paygrade, it would be a significant increase.  My workplace is pretty dysfunctional so there's no correct mechanism to do this, and I'm trying to figure it out but not pushing full-court yet because I've only been there a month. 

5.  I definitely need to make significantly more money.  The problem is my absolute refusal to return to a 60 hour workweek without days or time off (working weekends and being on 24/7 call was so bad for me).  Part of that is having my dog - she requires a lot of me.  And my house projects (these yard projects need to GET DONE, and this weekend's cooler weather helps).  Maybe in a couple of years I move in with my BFF in Oregon which would free up a lot of my bandwidth (not my house; shared dog responsibilities).  

6. I'm tied up on things until I can get this house done.  The estimater from yesterday said work could be scheduled for like 10 weeks out.  Uuuugh. Because I can't so interior until roof is done, and I can't put up gutters and all that goodness.  I may need to get a roommate especially if I don't get a raise, and I can't do that with my house in this condition.  But I also can't fully move in.  I can't get rugs and furniture and everything that will help make this house a home.  I mean, I can, but then I have to move everything to space I don't have and it's likely to get damaged or dirty and ... I just want to move into my house.  I've been scrubbing it clean since I got here from my dirty DIRTY tenant, and I want to be here now but I have to keep waiting.  Also, I really dread being without kitchen while those repairs are made.  This is not going to be fun.  

7.  I do like my work's health insurance.  I just ordered new glasses which will be a huge life improvement (my three years old glasses have been well worn and the coating is coming off and they're scratched and bent and ... yeah, it's time).  I like all the lab tests run to show that from western superficial perspective I'm fine.  

8.  I just don't know how long I will stay here in hurricane zone.  There are natural disasters everywhere, but ... the coastal land loss and climate change is fucking terrifying.  Add to that a low-paying job and the drastic increase in homeowners insurance coming my way, and ... it's not feeling as tenable.  I also miss having a BFF here. I have a lot of friends, but no one person in a particularly close position.  And that is just me being me, but sometimes I realize it's problematic.  

And again, off to work.  Dreaming of a different day.

FEMA money

 FEMA just agreed to send me $800 for a solar generator that I purchased during my extended power outage (11 days!) after Hurricane Ida.  I wasn't sure they would because their offer was more for the fossil fuels generators, and I took a leap of faith because my return window closed.

 It's a nice little unit, solid.  It can provide quite a lot of juice though not a whole house generator or anything like that.  No AC, no full-size refrigerator.  But I'll be able to charge my phone and run a fan, and that's really what I need.  

Because these hurricanes are going to keep coming and I'm going to need this thing again and again and again.  I can charge it all the way up with AC or DC power and then just keep it charged, and when in use and without power, I can use the solar panels.  I'm pretty stoked about this because of how I endured after Ida in a hot house with no airflow.  This is kind of a gamechanger potentially.  

And I beefed up all my supplies - I got a camp stove and fuel, better flashlights and battery-operated units.  I'm better prepared now.

And a lot of that is thanks to FEMA.  They sent me a $500 check off the bat when I filed, and that provided me with help in storm aftermath and bought all my supplies to be better prepared.  And now they are sending another $800 which pays for half the solar generator, which really helps.  Breath of relief because I was going to have to cut other corners if they didn't.  

And here is why I feel no guilt at taking this money: I pay my taxes merrily.  And also, I mitigated damages.  Tremendously.  And expenses.  I didn't evacuate so not asking for those expenses and I'm not asking for reimbursement to cover housing when my house gets fixed. It's going to be a big mess and really stressful ,but I'm styaing home.  If it weren't for the dog, I'd stay at a friend's house to avoid the mess, but I'm not taking my dog away from her beloved backyard.  

I could have cost FEMA and my insurance a whooooole lot more if I hadn't so actively mitigated.  So I take these checks and deposit them and make repairs and gear up for the next storm.  Feeling very fortunate.  

And it builds, the luck.  It's luck upon luck upon luck.  I was lucky to have a friend with internet during the outage whose house I could go to in order to make the order and submit the claim to FEMA.  I was lucky that the person at FEMA who answered my call was super helpful and funny.  I was lucky that I had the means to pay the whole $1579 for the damn generator and hold my breath hoping for help.  I was lucky that my neighbor was here to help me out during and after the storm.  And so on.  

But I'm just really relieved this little piece got resolved, and my checks from insurance have been deposited, and hopefully I'll be getting a new roof in the next few weeks, and then internal repairs, and then housepainting and gutters and all the other little things inside.  And then I can get rugs and furniture and actually move into my house and things will be ok.

But I'm still having Ida-induced insomnia.  Don't know how long it will take for that to subside.

healthy as someone's horse

 Most of my lab tests have already come back and I'm overall in very good health. According to western medicine.  I know that doctor and other people look at me and think: "Wow, she's fat.  Clearly she's pre-diabetic and has high cholesterol and all that."

Well, suck it.  My A1C is exactly the same as 7 years and it's always been fine.  My cholesterol is  good.  Almost everything else.  There are things here and there but nothing very alarming, just a few things just outside the normal range, like indication of slight inflammation.

I never really expect western medicine to know what is wrong with me.  Acupuncture can help, which makes me think there's stagnant chi issues and I can face that with doing tai chi and such.  I don't have the financial resources to pursue alternative medicines again; we were visiting friends awhile back and they have a very expensive alkaline water attachment to their faucet in response to her having very acidic blood.  Another friend told me how very expensive it was and I was like "Sure, I've spent thousands trying to feel better."  People who haven't been through things like chronic pain have no idea.  It definitely makes me sympathetic to people who get addicted to pain relievers.  And my friend was like "What's wrong with you?" which made me realize people have no idea because it's not visible, and now I try to tell people more.

That should also be cushioned with I feel good right now.  I had a very bad day a week ago but it passed and I've been good for a week which is kind of a new record.  It makes facing post-Ida issues more manageable because it's overwhelming AF.  And I absolutely must dig into my dissertation proposal and do exams.  

The less stressful job helps.  It helps a lot.  I was trying to set up a meeting with people outside my organization and they suggested 8 am or 4 pm and I declined.  While I would of course work longer hours in an urgent matter, I'm sticking to 8:30-4 work hours whenever possible.  No bringing work home or any of that, not even my work cell phone because it gets so many spam calls.  I have to make this job the opposite of my last in terms of actually having off time, and so far it's working quite well.  But today needs to be a productive workday, as the past were distracted with medical appointments. 

The only test results I don't see yet are for HIV and other STDs.  I think I"m at quite low risk now but I'd like to see the results.  

The dog is in a weird mood, probably tired of being stuck in the house.  I'll try to take her for walks this weekend, when I have time to drive elsewhere.  Other exciting features of the weekend include dropping off heaps of recycling, getting some more native plants, hopefully getting all those beautiful plants in the ground (I'm still dealing with a mulch issue), making yogurt, canning burrito filling for convenience, house and yard cleaning (I'm almost cleared in front and it makes me quite sad because the pollinators and hummingbirds really loved those weeds, but now I'm to yanking out the gingers which will be fun and getting to the trash back there like a broken mirror and shingles), perhaps continuing  on the massive fencing project, and dissertation.  I absolutely must focus on that.  I'm so far behind it's not good.  And if I have to pay for another term, that's like $1500 that I don't want to pay.  I had everything all tight and then Ida fucked me up.  And cook some more fish.  That's the only thing I can think of being different with me feeling better is that I ate fish that a friend had given me.  I have two more pieces from him and then I have the cans of salmon and eating fish at least once a week is a good idea for me.  This I know.  

OK time to shower and head to work.  This is going to be a good day. 

soft landings, also not all men suck

 I had two good experiences with men today, which isn't the case every day.  Some of my best friends are men, and one called me today to ask for some specific advice about his daughter who was just raped, but men in general can be a group of wankers.  

I went to a new doctor.  I had to get in very quickly to see someone for a wellness check to get a discount on my insurance, and he was the only one available.  He seems young and he talks very fast and I am assuming he is a new doctor, and I liked him.  I felt like we were partners in my care.  I've had so many very bad doctors, both men and women, and a few women doctors I've really liked, and some men doctors I tried to like, but today's was good.  That's a huge relief.  The whole thing wasn't very stressful, which is pretty unusual for me.  My pulse was 68, my blood pressure like 117/74, pulse ox 98 - "award-winning vitals" as he said.  And we ordered SO MANY TESTS.  A fatigue panel and other things, it's like 40+ things they're testing my blood for tomorrow.  Fortunately there's a new facility near my house and it opens at 7, so this will not be too painful to fast.  

And he said things like: "I start to have conversations about BMI when organs are showing any issues, so if there is any liver issue or thing like that we will talk."  Not "You are morbidly obese and must reduce immediately."  I do plan to join a Noom like program soon but I don't need him to tell me it's affecting my health when there's no indication it is.

I think everything will be fine in the tests but it's just good to know that everything is fine.  And if something isn't, we go deeper as necessary.  

A relief of an appointment, in part because I didn't have time to be filled with dread because it all happened quite quickly (appointment made mid-week last week). 

And the other was to talk to the man who is really ultimately my big boss.  It was a good, long conversation in which he assigned me a lot of things and kept asking about what I'm interested in.  I had to keep looping him back to: "I'm mostly interested in being an expert in this field.  To the point that when a question arises I know the answer or where to find the answer off the top of my head."  I think he's the first boss I've had who actually asked repeatedly about what my interests are, as though my job is to do things that I want to do.  This isn't an unpaid internship, this is a job giving me fancy health insurance and covering my mortgage.  I want to objectively be excellent.

Because the subjective part is harder for me.  I don't work to make everyone happy, that's just not my thing.  And some people struggle with that.  But honestly, it's mostly white people who struggle with that.  I'm working almost exclusively with black people now and we're off to what seems a very good start.  The janitor came bursting into my office recently with a question of which I have expertise.  I told her my personal experience and opinion, and now she's very friendly to me, and people follow her lead.  It's an interesting set-up to have the janitor bossing everyone around, and I have no problem with that.  She's a little intimidating.  And when I mentioned to my immediate supervisor that I need a little longer lunch break for a doctor's appointment, she said, "Take your time, baby." That is sort of our motto.  And while me in usual drive would struggle with that because I'm sort of a workhorse superhero, storm-damaged me appreciates this quite a lot.  

So this seems like a pretty soft landing for me to be back to New Orleans.  Connected to a job where they begged me to come and treat me nicely, and a doctor who actually listens to me (and knows what chikungunya is).  

And also, I can't stop watching the birds out my window at work.  If they move me out of that office I'll be sad because it is peaceful AF to look out that window.  I don't even care that everybody there hates me because my office is so much nicer than theirs.  

So days like today are a good salve to last night's nightmare. What if I could just stay and work here for twelve years and retire then?  A lot of my coworkers have been there a long damn time, and my predecessor was there for seven years.  

Ha.  Who am I kidding? I'm a rolling stone, no moss here.  It doesn't even matter how good something is, I'll leave it.  But at least there will be pleasant memories.

another nightmare

 Last night was a very detailed dream of the crash of civilization. I was in a motel with someone, owners, surviving, and trying to stay that way.  A lot of focus on the gate and keeping people out. I woke up realizing I do need to get a gun - people tell me that all the time, and I needed one in my dream.  Or an arsenal, like my former lover now deceased had (decades in law enforcement includign SWAT).  

11 days without power after Ida was the very lightest glimpse of this.  People here are not prepared.  I used to be much better prepared, with an inflatable raft and hatchet in the attic, with chickens and rain barrels and extensive gardens.  I could have lived a long time with that setup, even if a bit uncomfortable without power.  Now I have a little solar generator which can power rechargeables and such, making it more comfortable.  

I'm in no physical condition for the collapse of civilization.  I can't do what needs to be done on my own.  Once my truck is out of gas, I'm not walking to Oregon.  Those mountains are tall and I've become a flat land gal.  

It's just a reminder of how tenuous all of this is.  And I should know that from my time in a country with no electrical grid because the hydro dam was destroyed in civil war.  That was a brutal, violent war, with reminders to the survivors everywhere.  

The one thing we have going for us here is water - unlike many places without water that could easily lead to resource righting, it's easy.  It rains a lot.  90" this year already i just read.  While my rainbarrels no longer are attached to my gutters because the gutters were removed, normally I can capture a lot of water and I have a Berkey filter to make it safer for consumption (since it rolled off asphalt shingle roof).  I used to have the chickens with their eggs and such great gardens with sweet potatoes and okra and all that - a perfect system that could have kept me and others fed indefinitely, so long as nobody was short-sighted and ate the chickens.  

I guess it was really a wakeup call about our lack of resilience - on individual and social level.  Most people here are one bad day away from starving, but aren't we all?  Long conversation with a coworker yesterday (killing time because no internet) and he's still working and owns nothing because almost 40 years ago a heavy box fell on him and he was unable to work and lost everything.  "You think you have a lot of money saved but then you realize it's gone in a flash."  All my retirement prognostications include that (a) I'm in relatively good health/that insurance covers issues, and (b) the stock market doesn't fall apart.  Both of those things are stupid.  But also I can't earn the kind of money I want to, to feel more secure about retirement, because i'm already not in great health.  (I have a doctor's appointment today for wellness check to get better health insurance rate, and I'm going to ask about testing for parasites from living abroad when I got so sick in two different places, which really should have been done years ago.)  

So I'm thinking acutely now about and trying to plan for two different tracks: 

1.  Expect social security to help carry me through, relying on systems and savings and pension and everything to continue functioning as it does now, and 

2.  The end of the world as we know it.  Because that seems more likely every day in this scary new world of climate change and hoarding exploitative right-wingers and pandemics that mean my workplace can't even buy enough paper. 

Makes it a little hard to make a plan.  So I just keep plugging along.  11 more months and I can apply for my student loans to be done.  By the time that's completed, I'll be nearing the two year mark to not have to pay taxes on gains for the sale of this house.  

I love New Orleans.  No place has the soul of this city.  But climate change has scared the fuck out of me.  Stronger and more frequent hurricanes mean drastically increased insurance premiums in addition to all the stress of damaged homes and nonfunctioning city.  Though of course the nonfunctioning here goes far beyond that - none of our utilities functions properly but instead is gouging and lying.  It's insane what they are getting away with.  If I'm retired on a fixed income, I cannot take a $32,000 water bill and destroyed yard in stride.  Seven months of fucked up front yard from them, and it was so many hours and expenses to fight the excessive water bill.  Having lived away for three years has made me spoiled with things like garbage pickup actually happening.  And the high fatality rate of elderly from Ida here due to power grid failure and nursing home operator abuse has been a huge wake-up call that this is not a place I can age in.  That I have to move when the moving is still good.  So I keep an eye on the transitions and real estate market that make that so.  

And I think that the citrus trees I planted have rust.  So the five years of waiting for them to produce well may be a fantasy.  I need to figure out what's going on there. Maybe the homestead here isn't such a great idea.  

But for now, I have a job with health insurance and I need to get to it. 

digging in the dirt

 Well it's Saturday again and I did a heap of work in the yard.  Finally feeling like it's getting under control.  Wasn't so possible to feel that way in the heat of summer (things grow so fast here then) but now I see more possibility.  Picked up a dozen native plants to put in, have sheets of cardboard and newspaper and some mulch.  Yanked out huge heaps of weeds (mostly bidens alba and ipomea coccinea, but plenty of other things).  Ripped out all the jasmine.  I don't hate jasmine but my neighbors have it on an arch that spills beside my house, so no need for me to also have it. I was getting ready to take down the river birch which is already taller than my house before it gets impossible for me to do myself, but then my favorite little good news hummingbird came to perch on the birch and peer in at me and preen for longer than I've ever seen a hummer hang.  I think she feels safe in that spot and I couldn't bear to take it down because she is really such a delight. (She's the one who told me my electricity was coming back after Ida.  Yes, I'm superstitious and animals communicate with me.)

The plants include some common ones like beautyberry (such a fun shade of purple) and a Texas star hibiscus (except somebody took it from my pile so I'll have to go back).  Frogfruit will go in and gaura and also milkweed will go in the pond I'm converting to bog garden and the salvia coccinea and turk's cap I got from people for free will be very nice.  Because I quite like red there will also be a flame acanthus and a firebush, but also so many lavender flowers with ironweed and blue-eyed grass and penstemon and blue cardinal flowers and more.  This will all be an experiment and things will get repositioned and such as time goes on, but I'm excited about it.  There is a native plant society that certifies native habitats and I want to get that with the sign in the front yard.  I have SO MANY bees and butterflies  because of the weeds, and I just want it a bit less weedy.  I'm probably going to pull out the gingers because they havent' given any flowers and they do not weather storms or cold well and so really what's the point.  I'm amazed with myself for having so effectively eliminated the bamboo and arundo donax and banana, things most humans say isn't possible, but I as a middle-aged woman in ill health with a shovel and a mission did it.  There are still bits of elephant ear that pop up but I knew that would happen because of how I dug it out with root bits left behind.  Oh, and I have my lovely Louisiana irises which I will transplant to more of a position of honor.  I will also keep the lovely agapanthus and Texas sage that my tenant left, and I guess I'm keeping the roses though I really don't like thorns or pink but they're kind of growing on me.  I like a colorful cacophony and screw people who think I shouldn't put all colors in together.  Because I'll also likely be growing other flowers that aren't native, annuals from seed for color and medicine.  And next year I plan to use wide swaths of the front for okra and sweet potatoes, my favorite foods which I have so been missing.  Yes, I can buy them but ... it's so not the same.  I have garden beds now in both front and back, and I've got some mizuna already coming up.  I need to plant the other beds and put in another.  I have to figure out where to put the rosemary, lemongrass, aloe, and ... I forget the fourth, but things that like heat and don't need a lot of moisture.  Thought I had a place but I'm rethinking, perhaps around the Texas sage.  

Of course I'm still dealing with all her trash and all the plastic she installed (ugh), but I'm starting to see what her vision was.  OF course most the plants died because the frost was hard last year and she planted non-natives, so they didn't just die back, they died completely.  I'm digging up a lot of things that are just dead so no idea what they are.  

I have some mulch that I got for free but I'll probably need to get a bunch more.  Getting cardboard from Costco and newspapers from friends to smother weeds with heaps of mulch on top.  I'll want to get things planted in the next few weeks to start getting established before winter.  And oh those vegetable seeds so need to go in.  I have four different types of cabbage because it's my favorite winter vegetable. Plus: sauerkraut.  Oh, I miss my massive sauerkrauting days.  Oh, and I have a couple of papayas to put in.

What's clear is that I live for not working.  I hate the intrusion into my life that work is.  And I don't even hate my job yet, I just hate being away from home 35 hours a week.  I am also annoyed that we don't get all the holidays I was led to believe, but that I have to show up as a serf.  I have to shift that because it's not going to help me.  I need to appreciate that it's only 35 hours a week with minor commute and focus on all the other hours.  I don't know why I'm having such a hard time sleeping as I'm filled with dread about work - it's not that bad.  Yet.  It could get bad.  It's that kind of place.  And there are things to appreciate - like health insurance.  I have an appointment to get glasses soon which will be very very good.  It has a weight loss program similar to Noom also, which I think I'll try.  My eating is really bad now as I just cannot get myself to cook.  Having kitchen formerly and futurely in disarray really doesn't help with that.  

I have another roof estimate scheduled soon and hopefully I'll get the information back because I need to roll with things.  First: new roof.  Second: interior and windows and fascia and new stairs and all that.  Third:  paint house.  Fourth:  gutters.  And then my house is going to be awesome.  Really nice.  And all those native plants growing in the front yard ... I'm really excited for how things are going to look next year with everything done.  It's just a lot.  

And then I can turn to the backyard, with some fun plants along the fence, making it more of an escape.  There I'm not so rigid about the natives - I have a blue java banana tree flanked by turmeric and they are doing great.  Some papayas back there would be fun.  Maybe some plantain tree from friend with the papaya.  Put in some nicely designed garden beds including overhead hanging to up my game without taking over all my space.  People always ask why i do vegetable gardening in the front yard instead of the back, and it's been twofold - first, I like to have conversations with people about growing food, and second, the whole backyard was for the dog.  Well, she still gets to run around the backyard and I will keep paths in for her, but she's more understanding about other things back there, too.  And it's fun to work in the back with her.

What I won't make space for is chickens or ducks.  I've been so sorely tempted, but I just should not make that commitment.  Maybe I'll be here for the five years it will take for my citrus to fruit well and the native garden front yard to be really top notch, or maybe I skip out in a year or two because climate change is no fucking joke and my best friend isn't going to live forever. 

I wish I could figure out a way to live on a large compound. Have my own space but share animals and chores and food and everything.  I don't want 100% responsibility alone for a lot of things anymore, but I would be happy to share.  I was at a friend's house last weekend gathering bunny manure, and I had such a grand time chatting up the chickens and ducks and bunnies and all.  

Anyway, digging in the dirt was good.  I still have so much more to do.

it may have been too soon

 I may not have been ready to go back to full-time work.  Especially not with the hurricane making it hard to live in my house.  I'm distracted, insomniac, error-prone, irritable.  

They say I'm doing well but that can change in a split second.  I look at someone the wrong way or say something wrong, and they may turn on me.  I've seen it before.  

I'm worn out, overwhelmed, have too much to do and too little energy.

But ... I also need to be paid  

I just wasn't ready.