Kicking your can all over the place

I promised my family that in the first quarter of 2018 I would get my medical shit under control, by which I mean I actually would go to a doctor. I don't go to the doctor very often because -- and I am totally going to jinx it by saying this, I just know it -- I don't get sick very often. And also I look like death in a paper gown, man. And I don't like sitting in rooms full of sick people unless I'm doing it specifically to support a sick person who isn't me. So yeah.

Thanks to my newfound medical vigilance, however, I now know things about myself that I'd rather not know. Like the fact that I have the beginnings of glaucoma in my left eye, and my corneal dystrophy is getting worse in my right eye, and my diastolic is above 80 now, and my LDL is above 100 now, and all the calcium in my bones is migrating into my boobs, like HOW IS THAT EVEN A THING.

In 2017 I stopped wearing normal bras and started wearing sports bras everywhere, and I bought a pair of cute red single-vision glasses and a million pairs of cute multicolored reading glasses, and I removed color from my wardrobe and started wearing only shades of black and white and grey because ... I have no idea why I did that actually, and I bought a cheap refurbished Kindle Fire tablet when my phone screen suddenly became too small for Neflix, and I started eating a lot of gluten-free cookies which seemed like a good idea at the time but what was I thinking, honestly?

So far in 2018 I've bought TWO bras that hoist my calcified boobages back up where they belong, and I've gotten Progressives in severe black frames and surprised myself by LOVING THEM SO MUCH, and I've knitted a bunch of socks and a bunch of colorful cowls and shawls and I don't even know what, and I've ditched almost all of my print subscriptions in favor of digital publications, and I'm still eating a lot of cookies but now they're paleo instead of just gluten-free so that's better, maybe?

And today I chopped off all my hair. Well, not all of it. And I HAD it chopped off, I didn't do it myself (this time). The new 'do detracts slightly from my increasing resemblance to Fred Gwynne, so I like it. I've doubled down on the yoga this week, and I've been eating a lot of beets, and I've got three knitting projects and two crochet projects on the go, and this is the most boring midlife crisis ever, you guys.

Still to come: cardio workup! Cervical cancer screening! Colon cancer screening! More sock knitting! Binge-watching the second season of Jessica Jones! Tattoos! Dusseldorf! Daylight saving! Maybe some retinol or something! This is fifty (+1.5)!

We are all of us in the gutter

Hello, friends. Apart from my UK travelogue we haven't really talked about life and stuff and things since July, have we? Well, plenty of life and stuff and things have been happening since then, boy howdy!

Amazon had 23andMe kits half-off on Prime Day over the summer, so P and I bought a couple and mailed our spit off to the lab, and my results came in the day before we left for the UK. I already knew about my British Isles and German and Southern European ancestry, so those were no surprise. But I did NOT know about my Japanese, Ashkenazi and Sub-Saharan African ancestry, and those were the most bizarre and delightful surprises ever. I am still processing what this all might mean, but I'm pretty sure it means I'm at least 5% cooler and more interesting than I already thought I was, har har.

I turned 51 in September and now it's October and that means that I'm exactly the same age my mother was when my daughter was born (one month past her 51st birthday) and my daughter is exactly the same age that my mother was when I was born (one month shy of her 20th birthday). That's a pretty nifty little bit of matrilineal mathematics, eh? I've been thinking a lot about that, too. I cannot imagine my H having been married for two years and giving birth to her first child right now. And I cannot imagine being the mother of a 31-year-old and a grandmother of two right now. Holy cannoli. Quit trying to freak me out, Time.

C got his driver's license in September which was a HUGE deal. As most of you know, my boy C has some challenges. He took and passed driver's ed when he was 15 like most kids in the US do, but he found driving so stressful that he opted out of getting a driver's license. For a few years he made do with a bicycle, then an electric bike, for getting around town without parental involvement. But we live way out in the 'burbs with no real public transportation, so that wasn't a great solution. Last year he had progressed to the point that he felt comfortable taking a motorcycle safety course, and he was able to get his Class M license. We bought him a scooter that looked a LOT more like a motorcycle than I was expecting, and he was able to get a bit further from home under his own power, but scooters and motorcycles definitely aren't weatherproof, you guys. Even though he was still super nervous about it, he indicated earlier this year that he might maybe perhaps someday be interested in possibly getting a license to drive a car, and P seized on that and basically did all the legwork to make it happen. He bought C a used convertible (because C was worried he'd feel claustrophobic in a car) and got a learner's permit added to his Class M license and practiced practiced practiced with C every week until C was feeling confident enough and comfortable enough to test for his Class C license. And he did and he got it! So now he can drive a car, something that I honestly never thought would happen given his anxiety around it. We are SO SO PROUD of him!

I've read some more good books since last we spoke. Really enjoyed William R. Anderson's The Ice Diaries, even though his descriptions of piloting a nuclear submarine between massive chunks of polar ice and the ocean floor freaked me RIGHT OUT. Loved Emma Donoghue's The Wonder. Had complicated feelings about Hillbilly Elegy but it's absolutely worth reading. LOVED Grady Hendrix's Horrorstör. I liked Ben Aaronovitch's first Peter Grant book, Midnight Riot, very much but I felt it wanted some editing and it took me forever to finish, by which point I was glad to be done with it. Thumbs up on Louise Penny's Glass Houses, the most recent Chief Inspector Gamache. Loved Hannah Kent's The Good People. I was delighted to discover Karen MacInerney's Dewberry Farm series of cozy mysteries earlier this fall when my brain just couldn't focus on books for whatever reason. Fluffy but well-written and with a local-to-me setting. Right now I'm re-reading the whole His Dark Materials series because I totally forgot I'd pre-ordered Philip Pullman's latest, The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage until it showed up on my Kindle.

P and I have been dithering back and forth on cutting the cable TV cord this fall. We have and love Netflix and Amazon Prime Video but we need a good option for live TV. Hulu has too many commercials, YouTube TV doesn't have TBS, we're still looking at Playstation Vue and Sling TV. Oof. Anyone have a streaming service they love that isn't Apple? Requirements: commercial-free option (we're happy to pay extra for it), cloud DVR, must have TBS, must work with both Roku and Android. Go!

I've actually weaned myself off TV quite a bit, to the point that Game of Thrones really is my only must-see, and that's only because it's moved beyond the books (like WAY beyond). But I've been enjoying some other stuff on the tee-vee, y'all! If you didn't see the first season of Claws, find a way to do that. The cast is fantastic and the writing is bananas and I found it completely unpredictable and awesome. Episodes is over now and Broadchurch is over now and Orphan Black is over now and I loved all of them. There's not nearly enough Thandie Newton in my life right now so I can't wait for Westworld to come back. The new Doctor Who is a woman and I am SO EXCITED! People of Earth is so great, The Detour is so great, Wrecked is SO GREAT, and that right there is why any streaming service we use has to have TBS. (Also: The Guestbook. Because Garrett Dillahunt.) I love The Good Place and I like Ghosted and I have warm feelings toward The Orville. And that's pretty much all I'm watching these days. I gave up on American Horror Story and The Walking Dead and The Strain ages ago. I feel like life already is horrifying enough these days without watching horror on TV, but maybe that's just me. I'm pretty sure it's just me.

Other stuff going on: I've been knitting ALL THE THINGS. Well okay, socks and scarves and cowls, mostly. But I've been doing so much knitting that I invested in a cheap swift and winder and sure, they tangle the center-pull strands all to hell, but they make awfully attractive yarn cakes, and pulling from the outside works just fine. So yay for that. I've started volunteering every week at a local food pantry and I am here to tell you that the very best antidote to feeling helpless that I've found is to help someone else. And if you're looking for a great way to put your own shit into perspective, maybe try helping a resident of a domestic violence shelter sort through shelves of donated food trying to find something that she can keep down when the chemo makes her nauseated. I'm just saying. It's hard to have bad days anymore since I've been doing this, you know? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO COMPLAIN ABOUT NOW?!

Anyway. Hi. Sorry this was so long. How are you doing? I've missed you.

Now get in the pit and try to love someone

My Grandpa R would have been 97 years old today, and four years ago today I returned home from attending his funeral. I'm pretty sure that was the last time I saw all my cousins and aunts and uncles and snow, and maybe also my sister-in-law if you don't count Skype, and that was the first AND last time I ate for-real-honest-to-God Cincinnati chili IN CINCINNATI because we're from Canton, yo.

I don't know what else to say about today except that for most of the world it's St. Valentine's Day, but for me and mine today is, was and always will be Grandpa's Birthday.

Speaking of saints, did y'all watch The Young Pope and if so, did you like it? Because I did. I watched it and I liked it. Yep. I've enjoyed most of Jude Law's work (whatever with those Sherlock movies) since I saw him years ago in a weird little vampire flick called The Wisdom of Crocodiles and I don't care what anyone says, he killed it in this. So there.

Also liking, on the tee-vee: Victoria. Turns out I DON'T hate Jenna Coleman, I just hate Clara Oswald! So ... glad we got that worked out. I very much hope they're eventually going to cover all the attempts made on Queen Victoria's life because I have a whole book about that which I haven't yet read.

I'm still re-reading the Harry Potter books for pure escapism, and reading other stuff for the opposite of that. Like Jane Meyer's Dark Money (terrifying/infuriating), Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now (look, I was trying something, okay?), Christiane Northrup's The Wisdom of Menopause (stop making that face) and Mychal Denzel Smith's Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching (so far fantastic). Next up: Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy. And the rest of The Order of the Phoenix.

After taking half a year off of health coaching, trying to come up with a way to do that and get the work/life balance I originally wanted, giving up and considering myself retired, a deregulation-inspired light bulb finally went off and I have now shifted my focus from direct coaching back to advocacy/activism/education around food. Pretty excited about it. Still in the process of rolling it out via social media and whatnot.

So yeah. Life goes on. We endure. Resistance and persistence, y'all. Resistance and persistence. Now go hug your grandpa, if you've still got one. And your grandma, too.

Triangle man hates particle man

I am doing this thing now where I wake up at like 3 or 4 in the morning to pee and then I can't back to sleep and it is not fun, let me tell you. My head is full of words at that time of day and I compose lengthy, eloquent blog posts for you all, but they evaporate right out of my head -- poof -- in the conversion from horizontal to vertical. So lucky for you, I don't have a lot to say today except to tell you about some things I am super duper loving right now.

1. Knitting! I still get it! I don't know why this foreign language suddenly started making sense to me at the ripe old age of 49, but it did and I am glad. I'm still working on the parallelogram wrap and also I made the Selkie Hat from issue #17 of Taproot Magazine (pictured up there just after I started decreasing and just before I had to rip out said decreasing because I lost a stitch somewhere along the way)(hey, I said I understood it, I didn't say I was good at it)(I did finish the hat, though)(and if it ever stops being in the 90s, I may even get to wear it). If you're on Ravelry and got a friend request from saltycrunchy, that's me! Hello! Please be my friend. Don't make me beg.

2. Those pants up there are the Barcelona Pants from Earthbound Trading and I have three pairs in three different colors and I love them so so much, the end.

3. Claire Robertson of Loobylu fame has a new email newsletter, the Small Batch List, and it's one of the highlights of my week.

4. Alice Bradley of finslippy fame ALSO has a new email newsletter and it's one of the OTHER highlights of my week. (Seriously, I have been unsubbing newsletters willy-nilly the past couple of months but these two are keepers. You will love them.)

5. Yesterday C and I were talking about how we both need math refreshers (calculus for him, um ... long division for me, shut up) and long story short, we re-discovered Khan Academy and holy cats is free education ever super cool. (I know that for some of you revisiting high school -- or elementary school, in my case -- math is your idea of hell and I get that but they have LOADS of other stuff, too. Art history! Computer animation! Macroeconomics AND microeconomics! Astronomy! This is good shit!)

6. I haven't managed to read many books since last we talked, but I did like the new Tana French and I'm currently reading and biting my fingernails through The Forgetting Time which is so so good. Just today I bought the Kindle version of The Good Girls Revolt because I tried watching the show but it gave me an anxiety attack and I had to turn it off halfway through the first episode just like with Mad Men, argh. (Have we talked about how I used to be a journalist and how my actual degree is in advertising and what the job market was like in Texas in the late '80s and early '90s and about Good Old Boy culture? Well, let's not. I've expended rather a lot of effort in the direction of drinking away those memories.)

7. Mostly because of the knitting I've been listening to audiobooks and other audio-type media products. Amazon has some kind of deal going now with Audible (because the former owns the latter, from my understanding) such that Prime members have access to Audible Channels and I can't figure out how to link to it for the life of me but Nick Offerman has this Bedtime Stories for Cynics channel and it's so great. Just don't play it with your kids in the room. Unless they're already jaded adults like mine are.

8. My state has early voting and it's pretty much the best thing ever. Enough said.

Okey-doke. Off to take a nap. Happy Friday, everyone!

I'm worth a million in prizes

Look at me, I don't blog at you for ages and then I only pop in to tell you about my trip to Ireland, like an asshole. Well, Ireland only took up a week, you guys. Plenty of other stuff has been going on!

You may remember that we had to pull H out of school just before the end of her senior year for reasons that are too complicated to go into, but I am happy to tell you that she worked her ass off and completed all of her graduation requirements over the summer, and one evening last month we got to see her cross the stage in her cap and gown to receive her high school diploma. Proud doesn't even begin to cover it, y'all. She's taking a semester off from school to work full-time and will be starting college in January if all goes according to plan.

C decided that getting around town via an electric bike and whatever crappy excuse for public transportation exists out here in the 'burbs wasn't really cutting it anymore, but he still felt that driving an actual car would be way too anxiety-inducing, so long story short, he's now the proud owner of a Class M driving license and a new street-legal scooter.

When he and P first discussed doing this, I was picturing, you know, a little moped scooter. Like this:

But what he actually got was one of these:

I know, right? Did you know that a scooter is just a motorcycle with automatic transmission? Because I did not know that. But I do now.

I finally found some books I like! When did we last talk about books? Holy shit, I think it was in December? When I did my yearly wrap-up? That's just wrong. Here are the books I've loved so far in 2016:

• Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - LOVED LOVED these books. Thomas Cromwell, who knew?
• The Snow Child and To The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey - not series/sequel type books; they are unrelated apart from both taking place in Alaska and having the same author, but they are so, so good. Gorgeous storytelling.
• Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling - the third Cormoran Strike book. My husband doesn't love these as much as I do, but I do, oh I do.
• In the Sounds and Seas by Marnie Galloway - incandescently beautiful graphic novel that explores the nature of myth and humanity and community and creativity and all sorts of big topics but in such a beautiful and approachable way.
• The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - it's like a grown-up Harry Potter, y'all! So great. He writes female characters so well, it's nuts.

Right now I'm re-reading all of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad books because (a) I've actually been to Dublin now! It's not at all how I pictured it. And (b) there's a new one coming out in October.

After trying to knit in fits and starts for approximately the past decade and a half, I had some weird cosmic knitting breakthrough a few months ago and yeah, I knit now. I am a knitter type person. Really what I am is a pedantic pattern-follower, and when the patterns actually work out it gives me an inflated sense of my own competency, but whatever, it counts. I spent late winter and early spring of this year knitting a layette for my cousin's new baby girl and it was BANANAS; at one point I was holding stitches for this teensy little cardigan on two different sets/sizes of circular needles while knitting another bit on straight needles and I had NO idea how it was all going to come together, but it did and I felt like a superhero. So yeah. Knitting!

While knitting that layette I managed to watch 10 seasons of Bones on Netflix, heh. Now I'm knitting another thing, this weird parallelogram wrap with double moss stitch and chevron stitches and stairsteps and all kinds of weirdness, and I had thought I might watch all the seasons of Gilmore Girls (which I never saw when it was on TV) while knitting it but about halfway through the first season I decided I REALLY  hated Lorelei and toward the end of the second season I started hating Rory too, so I had to stop. And I've still got like a million pattern repeats left on the wrap. What should I watch, you guys? I've already seen Stranger Things and didn't love it as much as the rest of you did, so ... yeah.

In other news, my most recent pedicure (pictured up there somewhere) left me with a nasty case of onycholysis in both big toes, so now my knitting will smell like tea tree oil (antibacterial) and coconut oil (antifungal) because I knit with my feet. (Not really. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)