mistressofmuses

Mostly I just feel really behind. The whole *gestures* everything with the election makes it hard to want to do or say much of anything, but I'm trying to get back to doing... something. Catching up here. Writing something.

My break from work was sort of a nothing span of time. We did almost nothing in terms of "going out to do things" and I did almost nothing in terms of "productive personal projects that would have been worthwhile uses of the time."

I spent a couple nights hanging out with Taylor, Sunday (Oct 27th) through Tuesday (Oct 29th). That was fun.

Unfortunately, that Sunday night, Cy started really having a hard time walking. Just about as bad as the first time we'd taken him to the emergency vet. I wasn't home, but Alex was extremely worried. He did start to slowly improve after that, though! Alex was concerned that maybe he'd had a stroke, because his balance was so bad, and he only wanted to turn to the left. I'm more inclined to think it was still just pain, and that moving right was more painful. He wasn't *incapable* of turning the other direction; just reluctant to. He's been continuing to get better, and was back to wanting to run and play by the end of the week, but it was a bad couple of days.

That same Sunday night into Monday, the first katydid, Greenbean, died. :( I knew that late-October - mid-November was about the longest I could expect to have them, but it was still sad to have him go. It's about a month longer than he likely would have lived in the wild, and he overcame that terrible probable-poisoning, and seemed to have a happy month with us, judging by his enthusiastic clicking and eating of green beans.

I miss the clicking. :(

That Tuesday (the 29th), we did our one "go out and do things," which was going to a haunted house. It was fun, though I feel like Alex always goes through them faster than I want to! But there were a lot of cool sets and fun costume pieces. There were two houses: one was nautical-themed and one was more traditional haunted house. Both were neat, but the second one felt a bit more engaging, like it was just better established, maybe. It was a good time, and I'm glad we went.

Halloween itself was kind of a bummer, just in terms of how little we did, but it wasn't *bad.*

Friday (Nov 1st) we did a big grocery trip, but Alex started feeling sick partway through, so I wound up doing most of it solo.

Saturday (Nov 2nd) was a model show. We'd spent much of the week leading up to it doing prep for that, as this one was focused on collectibility (so emphasis on things like age/rarity/condition) rather than the shows we usually go to, where the focus is more on realism. The show... did not go terribly well for us, haha. Not a lot of winners, though the show itself was good. Two of the few winning horses we had were my two from the last couple years of "NaMoPaiMo" - my wisteria stained-glass styled horse (who got second in her class) and my art-deco peacock horse (who got first in his!) I was quite happy about that.
My mom kindly watched the dogs, even though it meant barricading part of her house off so that the cat wouldn't have to see the dogs at all.

Sadly also on Saturday, the second katydid, Moodring, passed away. We suspected it was coming, as she was suddenly eating far less, and then on Friday night she didn't want to move when I got into her cage to swap out her food. :(

RIP, my katydids. I'm glad we had you for a little while, and I hope it was a decent life of green beans and no predators. I miss the clicking.

We are left with somewhere around 30 or more katydid eggs, as Moodring just kept laying them. I don't know how many of them are viable (if any), as the two weren't housed together for very long. There are a few obvious "duds" - ones that are small and dark, obviously different than the bigger, smoother tan ones... but whether they're *actually* fertilized or not, I don't know. We'll keep an eye on them and figure out what to do if we DO wind up with a bunch of katydid nymphs.

Time change has not been terribly kind to me. I am definitely feeling the impact from having it get dark so early.

The election happened on Tuesday and was a bit of a dismal, miserable shock. I still don't have anything better or more meaningful to say about it. I am still afraid of what will be coming.

The return to work was mostly fine, except that now it's dark by the time I leave, which is tough. One of my work friends (our lead instructor) had to go on surprise leave to take care of his father.

We had a major winter storm come through starting on Thursday. It snarled local roads a lot less significantly than expected (Friday night and Saturday morning were supposed to be basically impossible to navigate, but thankfully we did not actually have any trouble.) The storm total by the airport came in at 20", so it was a pretty significant storm! I was super concerned about the potential for broken branches; with the unseasonably warm weather we've had, lots of trees are still leafed out, and I was afraid the snow would break many of them. Also surprisingly less of a problem than I'd expected!

We had a weird power outage on Friday night. Our bathroom light, bedroom light/fan, microwave, and dishwasher stayed on. Everything else, from outlets to stove to other lights, all went out. We messed with the breakers for a good five or ten minutes before we realized that the lights in the apartment hallways were on their emergency power, so it wasn't just us. The parking lot lights were also out. The street lamps were on, but the traffic signals were out. I've never had something like that happen - as far as I knew, all our power to the building came from the same source, and in the past a power outage has knocked everything out, not left a handful of lights and appliances somehow working.

I haven't wanted to write anything much since the election news, though that'll be its own post, probably.

About the only good thing has been reading. I finished Acceptance and have started Absolution.

This "weekend" I decided to get my covid and flu vax out of the way, while we're still allowed to. The pharmacist who did them for me was great - whichever he did first I almost didn't feel at all, and the second only stung a bit. They haven't knocked me down quite as badly as all the previous covid shots have, but I've still felt under the weather yesterday and today. I'm hopeful I feel a bit better tomorrow when I'm back at work, but shouldn't be so sick I can't tough it out.

Unless of course, I'm just also getting sick. I've felt crappy for much of the week, with intermittent sore throat, but mostly just tiredness. That's worse today, but I'm hoping its just my usual side-effects. I've been falling asleep by 8:00 on some nights, but am still exhausted when I get up the next day. Is it getting sick, or just the depression? I can't quite tell.

Today did not include as much catching up on everything as I had hoped, but it wasn't nothing, either.

The vast majority of the day was devoted to doing laundry, which means going to the laundromat. (There is a laundry room in our building, but the machines don't work well, half of them are usually out of order, people steal things, you have to use a proprietary card that you pay for through their website... it's just not worth it.)

We actually did... ALL the laundry this time. There's been a bag of sheets and towels that have been put off for months and months at this point, and they're finally washed!

Even more impressively, I put all my damn laundry away immediately when we got home!

We also got some stuff sorted for the show we're going to on Friday, and I played cheer section for Alex getting a couple of painting projects close to complete.

We also got both Cy's and Bella's nails trimmed. They tend to be quite good about it, but it's still a process that they don't love.

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Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment, and then am going in for half a day at work. I have Friday-Sunday off, because we have a model show on Friday, and I took Sat-Sun off both for a recovery day, and because the horse expo is happening all weekend and we may want to go back.

Dreading the dentist appointment, because I feel like I'm stuck still dealing with the long stretch of bad (nonexistent) dental care that I had. I think there's some wear at the edge of an old filling, and almost every time I seem to have some new thing that needs addressing.

Even more, I'm dreading our impending weather. We are supposed to get a snow storm that is likely to be measured in FEET coming in tomorrow and lasting through Thursday. That is NOT great for getting to and from work on Thurs, which is my only full work day this week. It is also not great for having to get around early on Friday morning, which is when the model show starts. This is one of those "destination" shows, so there are people from all over the US flying in, and a lot of them are worried about flights being cancelled and such. We live near enough, but if the roads are bad, that's still going to be a struggle.

I'm really hoping we get less snow than is being threatened, but every time a new forecast comes out it's with higher totals!

(And I can very much feel it moving in. All my joints hurt!)

We survived!

We got up early on Friday to drop the dogs at my mom's, then come back to pack the car and get on the road. Unfortunately, we didn't get out as early as hoped - Alex struggled to get up and get moving, which is honestly pretty standard, lol. It's not a terribly long drive (only a bit over six hours), so there was no reason we HAD to be out super early or anything, so that was fine.

The drive up was fine. We did unfortunately miss one turn, which led to a detour that added maybe 45 minutes to an hour, but it was a pretty nice section of the trip. It went through some national forest areas, which were SO much more interesting than the fairly empty grasslands the previous hours had been.

We saw maybe 40 or so pronghorns, split into 5 smaller groups. I love them! A few deer in the forest. No other terribly exciting wildlife (other than roadkilled porcupines and badgers.)

So then we got to Rapid City.

( The hotel (was really bad): )

( The show (went quite well): )

( unrelated sadface about a sim game: )

Sunday morning, again, my hope was to be out fairly early, though not crack of dawn. And again, that wasn't really how it worked out, and we made it out only about three minutes before checkout. Bleh.

On the drive back we made great time, probably in part because we *didn't* miss a major turn, ha. Though honestly, next time (if there is a next time), I think we'll plan on taking that longer detour anyway. The rest of the drive is just so... empty.

No issues on the drive up, but on the way back Alex got dozy a couple times. We stopped for a few leg-stretches, but it was rough.

We finished reading Kindred, finally. It had been our road-trip book, but then we stopped having any long drives, so it didn't get much progress! Still a deserved classic.

Switching gears almost entirely, we started reading The Infernal City, which is an Elder Scrolls tie-in novel. I bought it and the sequel for Alex in the hopes he'd like them.

We picked up the dogs from my mom's house. She said they were both very good while they were there, which was a relief! Cy loves staying over there and he's always good, but it was the first time we've had Bella stay anywhere overnight, so I was hoping she'd behave and not be a terror. Sounds like she did great!

I didn't think the trip was THAT exhausting - we've certainly had much longer drives and days! - but I was wiped out. Fell asleep early last night, woke up late today, took another nap anyway... And I'm still tired, even! I'm extremely glad I didn't have work today and don't have work tomorrow.

I definitely have some catching up to do, but it might take me a couple more days.

Time for the pre-show panic, all over again!

(It's pretty rare to have two shows happen this close to each other, but that's how it shook out this year.)

Tomorrow's is much farther away, but at least it doesn't require an overnight stay anywhere. Although the year we did choose to stay in a (deeply, deeply sketchy) motel did make it a much less stressful day.

Fortunately, my mom agreed to watch Cy and Bella for tomorrow. Cy we *could* leave on his own, but it'll be a good 16+ hours, and that's a very long time to ask him to hold it. And having to leave Bella kenneled for that long would be awful and pretty unfair to her. Still... that means we have to drop them off at like... 5:45 and I already want to die.

Fingers crossed the show goes well... Alex got pretty burned out on prepping for it, so I've had a couple late nights trying to get things sorted out. :P

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Alex hasn't been feeling great for the last few days. He had a REALLY bad bought of probable dehydration leading to heat exhaustion on Tuesday, and then has had dizzy spells and general lousy feeling since. Still going to the show tomorrow, but hoping it doesn't wind up being a problem.

Our air quality certainly isn't helping. We're apparently getting a lot of smoke from fires in Canada, and there's so much haze that it's obvious even just looking across the street. It looks like Silent Hill fog except it's smoke.

Ah, the pre-show panic. (Creating documentation, making sure things are properly tagged...)

Alex was SURE it would go super quickly and only take an hour or so, and we'd be in bed by 10 at the latest!

It's about midnight and I still have to shower.

Aaaaand, gotta get up around 5:30 or so, so that we can get the car loaded, then get to my mom's, drop Bella off, and then make it down to the show hall by the time doors open at 8:30.

I'm glad we got as much done as we did earlier in the week, but I'm mildly annoyed there was still so much tonight! Lol

So no chance to get caught up on DW, and we'll see how tomorrow goes.

Time to go shower so I can try and get what little sleep I can!

Another good day! Went back to the horse expo and watched a few demonstrations of varying quality, ha. Also attended a swap meet and spent more money than we'd planned on, but getting better deals than anticipated, ha. Always the way.

And I only got four panicked texts/calls from work. *eyeroll* Apparently it was not a great day, and I suspect I will be walking in to disaster in the morning, so I am dreading that, heh. I do hope that most of the emergencies were sorted out... I just couldn't be the one to sort them, and frustratingly the people whose job that is (the on-call manager!) didn't appear to be at all responsive. At least for as miserable as I expect tomorrow will be, I just have to survive 8ish hours. I can do that.

Tonight, I definitely want to go to bed. The early night last night was much appreciated... I didn't sleep super deeply, because rolling over was ow, but I did get a decent amount eventually. But I am still extremely tired, so... to bed. I will try to catch up on DW tomorrow!

I'm trying to ignore my feelings of creeping disaster. :P

My manager had already approved my requested PTO for both today and tomorrow about a month ago. (Not Sunday, solely because I didn't want to burn quite that much PTO this early in the year.)

Alex and I will be going to "BreyerWest" which is, hmmm, basically a small, regional 3-day convention for people who are into model horses. There are a lot of big-name sculptors and artists that will be attending, some of whom will be running workshops, as well as some vendors.
It's not a HUGE event, but it does have people who travel from all over the country to attend. (It's a small but dedicated fan community!) It syncs up with and takes place in the Rocky Mountain Horse Expo in Denver, which is primarily focused on real horses - various kinds of competition, lots of clinics on different kinds of riding and training, etc.

Tomorrow will be our busier day: the BreyerWest model show.
Highly competitive - limited entries (sold out in about 10 minutes this year; Alex was lucky to get a spot), and as mentioned, attracting people from all over the country.
It'll be an all-day event, and I *am* dreading how my back will react to it. It was bad today.

Saturday I also took off so that we can actually attend the expo this year! Often we don't wind up with a chance to, even when there are some trainers who do demos or clinics, or there are interesting competitions that we'd like to see! (I think one of our friends is doing a sidesaddle demo on Saturday, so we'd like to see him if we can.)

But as for why it matters regarding my PTO: My manager's nieces and nephews are coming to visit for a four day weekend, tomorrow through Monday, so he's also taking tomorrow off. Typically, we aren't supposed to ever take overlapping time off, so I'm "lucky" he approved my time before he knew about his. Now, he probably still would have let me, but even so!

So he managed to find people to cover our office tomorrow/Saturday/Monday (and I'll go in on Sunday), but... I am absolutely expecting disaster, ha. Maybe that's not fair! The people who are covering are great, and I am so, so grateful! But I still expect that someone will be shocked and upset that I'm not in on Saturday, and will send me nasty emails for not doing what I was supposed to. At least it will be very minimally my problem, actually.

I was very set to do my "writing goals" post for the month... but then the day got long, and I am very, very tired.

Sounds like Alex's show in South Dakota went well. I think our texts quit going through at some point, but Alex got at least two section champs and one section reserve, and one of those champs went on to be reserve best in show!

The show *itself* sounds like it was a minor nightmare, lol. Only 13 entrants, but the show host failed to get enough tables for the entrants. They eventually got more tables, but that seems to have set the tone for the day.

Still, glad it seems like it went well. (Though then I eventually got a text about how Alex got lost going back to the motel, and then his key didn't work, and then the desk claimed he'd only paid for a single night... sounds like it sucked, heh.)

Cy has been a minor nuisance, mainly trying to get into Raven's food. He's previously been quite good about not getting into it, but because of his stomach crud, we've been trying to control his food intake pretty strictly... so of course he's hungry, and then starts taking every opportunity to sneak over and wolf as much of her food as he can. Which restarted him being sick all over again this afternoon (after yesterday and this morning seeming promising for him finally being over it.)

"New" coworker did call out today, though tonight she texted me that she's hoping that she feels better and she's trying to keep calm, and hopes to be in tomorrow. We'll see. Tomorrow is a much worse day to try and train as opposed to today, just judging by what's happening in-center, but we'll try our best.

This weekend is going to be absolutely batshit busy, at least by my standards.

Today I took a half day, figuring that would be enough for us to get the car loaded, drop Cy at my mom's, grab lunch, drive to Wyoming, check in to our hotel, and get to the evening model swap meet we were aiming to get to.
Well... it was barely enough time, and we skipped lunch. I'd been thinking of the drive under ordinary circumstances, as opposed to a Friday afternoon with multiple accidents on the highway.
The motel is... real sketch, haha. It's fine, it was very cheap so we knew that it was likely, and it's just one night. But yikes. It's pretty sketchy, even by our low, low standards, haha.
The swap meet was okay. It was nice to see people, but we didn't sell even a fraction of what we'd hoped to. Bought more than we'd planned, heh.
We'd had to skip lunch, and still wound up just having to dump stuff at the motel and head to the swap meet, so we were fucking starving by the time we left at 9:45 or so. We bought a carryout pizza and absolutely devoured the damn thing.
We are Extremely Fucking Tired.

Tomorrow is the model show, which will make for a very long day. But delightfully, we don't have to get up at 5:00 or any shit to drive up here, since the show hall is only fifteen minutes away. Small favors. Still have to drive home after, so I expect we'll be picking Cy up late-ish tomorrow, and turning around to fall into bed at home.

Sunday, I'll go over to my mom and Taylor's house and spend the night, since...

Monday is Taylor's birthday! They aren't too cool to spend their birthday with their older sibling, so we'll hang out and do whatever.

Tuesday night we'll probably be going to a small concert. (Tiny kinda mediocre bar venue, but a band I've only seen as an opener, but really liked, so I definitely want to see them now that they're touring as the headliner.)

Tonight is indeed a right-to-bed night.

But we made it to Wyoming and back to Colorado! The show was... mixed - fun, but not terribly successful in terms of competition.

The drive wasn't too bad - it was still snowing this morning at the apartment, but it had still barely stuck to the road. The roads were only even slightly slick on overpasses. We left the apartment a bit after 6:00, which was slightly later than intended (as we were aiming to be at our destination by 8:00.) Didn't quite make that - wound up there closer to 8:30, but it worked out okay. Once we got to the northern part of CO, the snow completely stopped and the roads were dry, lol.

We saw pronghorns and bison, which is about the best I hope for when having to go to Wyoming, haha.

We did have a power outage overnight, which had been warned of with the heavy snow on branches and such. I don't think it was off for long, but did go out at some point before 3:00. And I know the time because... I woke up around 2:50ish and the power was on, but the TV had gone off and the microwave/stove clocks had reset.

And then I never went back to sleep.

So I am ready for bed right now, ha.

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I'm absolutely terrified at what I'll walk in to dealing with tomorrow. Coworker who was covering the office today did text me at one point that she was overwhelmed. I had tried very hard to leave her with very little she needed to do, but that was before we had the driver no-show, and then presumably resign. I don't know if any of that fell on coworker, or if something else went badly.

(She is new, and her usual office is my manager's other office, which is a small office in a smaller town, as opposed to my usual office which is one of the moderately busy ones, so this outside of what she ordinarily has to deal with, even though we have the same job description.)

I feel like tomorrow may be an exercise in repeatedly reminding myself that I just have to survive for 9ish hours... I just have to survive for 9ish hours...