Disney Is Self Care.

 February was a financially challenging and not at all fun month, as I saw my emergency savings severely dented by the death of the ancient HVAC system. Not surprising, but still, ugh.

Yesterday's Magic Kingdom day cured at least some of my ills. 

We got a late start to the park because the Kid had a judged solo flute performance, some county-wide school thing. It wasn't a competition but sort of was. If I understand it correctly (not sure I do) schools send students to be evaluated as an example of their music program? So the Kid was sent forth to be the sound of the flute at her middle school. 

And yeah, it's almost boring at this point, but she was excellent. The "judge" (in quotes because this wasn't quite a competition) was very complimentary about her command of her instrument, and asked about her future plans and whether she was getting private instruction, and The Kid responded with that the next step was mastering her bravado? As far as I can tell, it means playing the flute like a badass. Think Lizzo. 

The judge-person was very complimentary about her talent, and though she was reportedly nervous, her mom sent a video taken from the wings and she sure didn't look it. She looked cool as ice, poised, relaxed, tapping her toe to the beat. Maybe all those years of performing in dance weren't wasted, she's been prepped for performance since she was 3. 

So, anyway, this kid randomly picked the flute as her instrument when starting middle school last year, had never touched an instrument before, and has raced through the program, skipping some intermediary step into orchestra? (Grandma can't keep up.) And she's doing the same thing with volleyball, but without makeup and with half the girl drama of dance. She's still friends with girls from her Dance Era, and some of them have joined her in defecting to other sports, so we still get the Dance Drama stories, and I'm glad she's out of it. 

And then there's this kid, the Prince.  This is Himself in hour 6 of an afternoon at Magic Kingdom, after the morning with Big Sister's music thing, and after riding Buzz Lightyear, the People Mover, eating dinner, and having had a 20 minute Power Nap in daddy's arms while we rode the Haunted Mansion. We kept thinking he'd crash in his stroller at some point, the weather was lovely, low 70s, light cloud cover, and a breeze, comfy napping conditions, but he's all about the Disney experiences. We'd recline his stroller, thinking he looked sleepy and would pass out, and he'd struggle to sit up.  Here, we were discussing what we should do next.  (His next rides were the monorail out and then the ride to the parking lot, but at his age, it's all good.) I love this picture because though he's not at his most bubbly and really could use a nap, he's just like, "Yeah, it's been a long day but what's next?" He's a beast. He's usually all smiles and giggles, but I love this glimpse of his future thoughtful boy face.

His mom reported that he did sleep in the car on the way home, then got his third wind to continue the party. 

I've taken the day off tomorrow for New AC Day, because let's get real, none of my real work can be done. The air handler is in a closet right outside my home office, Eddie will be losing his mind wanting to participate in the work, Gidget will be terrified, and I'm going to be the ringmaster of the circus. Ellie will just be under the bed until it's quiet. I'm taking my laptop and some stuff to the bedroom where we will camp out and watch TV and I'll do whatever I can while the professionals give this condo a heart and lung transplant. I need to have a word with the condo management company again, they sent me a "friendly reminder" of unpaid dues for Feb, for which I have a bank statement showing when I paid them. I mean, yay that they've actually started giving monthly notices that their accounting department is behind instead of not saying anything for 3 months and then threatening collections? Progress?

I'm gonna go sit on the couch with the dogs and knit something. I'll check in post AC Day. Crossed fingers it goes smoothly. 

Digging deep to find something positive, though very small.

This refers to the wise advice I read online about coping: do what you can to keep your own life in order, pay attention, but take breaks, because we are in this for the long haul.

 I'm getting a new AC system on Monday, so yay?  The temporary fix the very nice tech rigged (while telling me it would work for now but not for long) failed on Wednesday afternoon. It stopped cooling, and then the compressor started making comical noises: first it rattled, then there was a pop, then there was a whistling sound like air from a very large balloon. It's really most sincerely dead. 

I was already getting prices and trying to decide whether I wanted to finance it short term or just write a check, and planned to replace it later this month, but yeah, the installers will be here bright and early Monday and I'm just writing a check, because fuck it.

So, the positive: if your AC has to die, it's lovely when it happens when it's not over 90 degrees. I'm using the ancient ceiling fans I rarely run to circulate the air. It would have been great if I'd had the money to replace the windows, because this is definitely open windows and ceiling fans season here, but, yeah, the AC jumped to the head of the line by being brought back from the dead a few weeks ago and then doing a really over the top dramatic death scene. 

So I'll have a lovely new much more efficient AC system, but still can't open these 40+ year old windows. (I can open the big sliding doors at the rear and that's most of the air flow, it's just two front facing windows that would offer circulation if they worked, but yeah, if I open them they very likely won't properly close again. They're older than my middle-aged kids.) And then they become a security issue. One of these non-functioning windows is in my home office. I will never take cross-ventilation for granted again. 

Also the positive: I have the cash on hand to take care of it, and I'm getting a bonus that will at least partially replenish the emergency fund taking the hit for this. Hoping my daughter and fam will be able to vacate the "investment property" by summer, because that would help a lot. I'm just hoping I can sell it for the current value before the housing market is affected by the shitshow.

See me being positive?? 

I'm getting out of my not miserably warm but slightly stuffy house tomorrow, because my daughter the Ninja Disney Scheduler has set us up for an afternoon at Magic Kingdom. She booked me for Space Mountain, and my knees growled threateningly. I will pass on that, thanks. It turns out that Baby Daddy has lived in FL for years and had been to Disney before, but has never been on Space Mountain!! I agreed that he must do it at least once, to confirm that it's just uncomfortable and dated. Sorry, sorry, it's a classic!! I dare not speak heresy! I've been on it somewhere between 20 and infinity times, and yeah, each time I tell myself it's the last. I will not be coaxed into it again.

I'll wait with the young Prince, and possibly the Kid. She's not crazy about Space Mountain either. Our alternative will be Auntie Gravity's for some ice cream while we wait for them. 

As far as the national shitshow goes, I do believe we now have confirmation that the Republicans sold us out to Russia, and I hope that everybody who voted for this, (or didn't vote because Kamala's position on Gaza or whatever the fuck) will eat shit and die. You created this international disgrace and your kids and grandchildren will have to live with your dumbfuckery, or possibly not live. 

Meanwhile, those of us who saw this coming from miles off will just have to figure out how to navigate this. I really didn't plan to spend my "golden years" fighting fascism, but here we are.  Right now it seems like a bunch of incompetent flailing, "Oh wait, did we fire the people who take care of the nukes, or (fill in the blank)? Our bad!! Air traffic controllers, please come back! 

They really don't give a shit about governing, or the American people, or whatever bullshit they used to say. it's all out in the open now. 

You voted for Trump, or couldn't vote for Harris for whatever bullshit reason you use to cover your racism and misogyny?  Fuck off and die. That's all I've got. Coincidentally, that's all your Orange Savior has for you too.

Update on February.

So, yeah, remember months back when I said I'd wanted to retire before the next hurricane season?

So, I'm still planning on retiring this year at some point, I swear, but I had my annual performance review today and it was so lovely I blushed, even on a call. I've known my boss for a decade now, but she hasn't been my official boss until the last year. I started with her as a contractor, not an employee, then I was a contractor in a different group, then finally became an employee in yet another group, with a boss I also loved (we'd worked together when I was a contractor) but I hated the job. 

Lots of reasons, nobody's fault really. I'll just say it's a bad idea to start a new position with a lot of unfamiliar technical moving parts and working with people you don't know in a work from home situation during a pandemic. It was never a good fit. 

Then my original supervisor when I was a contractor wanted me back in an employee role and she's now my boss, and I said HELL YEAH! Basically, she plucked me out of that awkward, ill-fitting position into the bosom of my former world where I know the players and know how to get stuff done, and I have been living mostly happily ever after, except for being old and still wanting to retire. And we laughed about that as part of my review. 

She was like, well, this is the part where we talk about your future career path in the company, and we both just started laughing. I'm there to do what I'm doing, and she wants me there to do it (it is not an easy role to fill). I said I'd give her a long lead time and keep her informed once I figure out how "retirement" is gonna work, and joked about parking cars at Disney, and we talked about her grown sons and she asked about my new grandson, and it was just so lovely. 

So yeah, I may hang around a while longer. They dangled enough money to make another six months worth it, and I'm working almost entirely with people I like. If something great appears at Disney I'll be all over it, but for now, it's all good.

Oh, and while I don't talk about where I work, I will say management just shrugged and said they're not changing their DEI policy, they don't plan their business on who's in the WH, so that was the icing on the cake for me. 

And my annual bonus will almost, but not quite, cover the actual price of the AC replacement, which came on about a 1/3 higher than my guesstimate. New AC for me next month without taking out a loan!! Not a cruise, but also not a fiscal disaster.

Another reminder that my catastrophic thinking wastes a lot of energy and is bullshit. 

This is also why I'm not writing about the insanity going on right now, it's all unsettled and getting swatted down by courts, and it's really too soon to tell how much of the shit being thrown against the walls will stick. I'm in "one foot in front of the other" mode and doing what I can to support the people filing the lawsuits. 

 

So, How's February Going So Far?

 Today's what, the 8th? 

The condo board sent a notice that we're getting hit with a $1500 special assessment for damage due to Hurricane Milton, oh, and if you could just write us that check by March 1, that'd be great! Thx. You bet your ass I have questions, and we'll be having a meeting about it this month.  

And then, my AC quit cooling. 

But Catherine, it's February, why are you running your AC? Because it's in the low 80s and humid AF, we wake up to pea soup fog every day at this time of year, and you gotta dry the air out or it's awful. So I called a repair company I trust, and the tech came out, had a love fest with Eddie, who adored him and watched him work from a  respectful distance, and he got it running and cooling again, for now, but it a temporary fix. 

Bottom line: over $4k of repairs on a 17 year old system, or a new system. That's kind of a no brainer, $4200 on repairs to a 17 year old system or probably around $6k for a shiny new one.

So we're 8 days into this fucking month and I'm looking at, best guess, $7500 of unexpected expenses. Remember last summer when I won that $10k lottery jackpot? The check after taxes was $7200. It's still in the bank, meant to be spent on something fun, like a cruise. 

And the Universe snickered.

Collecting Survival Tips and Such.

 So, I'm not going to write at length about our current disaster, other than WE FUCKING TOLD YOU SO YOU FUCKING MORONS. 

Survival tips:

Don't immerse yourself in the firehose of bullshit Executive Orders; they're not automatically law and most are straight up un-Constitutional and will go nowhere. Every Republican appointed judge is not in Shitler's pocket, and they're already going "Naah," to attempts to end birthright citizenship, etc. We do still have laws. This is a tactic to frighten and overwhelm people and get them to give up.

Don't abandon social media spaces you use for valuable connections with groups that are important to you. Right now there's a lot of hand-wringing about abandoning certain sites because the owners have orange lips. Block the assholes with wild, gleeful abandon and don't click the ads, but don't yield social media spaces you actually use to these fascist assholes, use it in ways that benefit you. 

DO take breaks when you need to and figure out what level of information you can consume without losing your mind. Get outside (weather permitting) do crafts, do hobbies, read books, watch movies, and don't check your phone more than a couple of times a day.

Be disgusted. Do not be afraid. They want fear; that's the whole point of this firehose of bullshit. They want fear and surrender in advance. 

One for instance: The oil and gas industry pushed the stock market up a bit because Shitler apparently claims we are suddenly, magically going to go back to oil and gas based everything. He can't make that happen. The world has already invested trillions in moving away from pollution based energy, and while we do still need oil for the time being, energy companies think decades out and they also know how much useful oil is in the ground. They're not going to throw out their own business plans and scream "Bless You Shitler, we're gonna trash the billions we've invested in the future and rebuild the coal and oil plants we've been tearing down to return to the diminishing and more expensive dead dinosaurs!" We are already selling more than we consume, oil leases are sitting around unused, this is also bullshit to con the rubes.

Even if it wasn't just an insane idea for the planet, it's not economically feasible. This transition began decades ago.  Was it urgent enough or aggressive enough? No, it was not. Lobbyists buy a lot of denial. But it's no longer "if" we will move to clean energy, it's happening. Not fast enough, not nearly fast enough but it's really not an option, and anyone who actually understands this shit knows it.

I'm not being Little Miss Sunshine here, we are in for a world of hurt in so many ways, ICE is already acting like the SS, enough bad shit is really happening. I'm just suggesting that when you hear a new outrage, wait 48 hours until actual experts weigh in and let us know if it's really a thing that could happen.

Well I guess I did sort of write about it, didn't I?  

Anyway, my job situation remains murky, like an old Magic 8 Ball. My boss assures me that she and HER boss both want to keep me for as long as I want to stay and are figuring out how to reconfigure things to give me work, but it's a weird situation. We had a face to face team meeting this week and discussed legal issues and I suddenly felt like I was back in the job and remembered that I really used to LIKE it. I like the people I work with, etc. but it did feel more like nostalgia. Without getting too specific there were references to "How we used to work" not only before covid but before various other changes that are now in the old days. It was comforting to realize that it's not just me; everybody's feeling the same thing. 

I've been focused on fixing things I can fix. Today I re-potted a dozen sad, neglected pot-bound plants that were temporarily camping inside when the nights were dipping into the 30s. "Florida Winter" appears to be over, the next 3 weeks will be considerably warmer, mid-70s days and 50s nights. I re-potted most of the Succulent Ranch today. It was one of those tasks I'd put off for months because it's just a pain, but it did feel so good to get it done.

Backstory: I think it was Christmas 2020 when my daughter gave me a set of adorable tiny owl planters for Christmas. I mean, tiny, like desk ornament sized. I went on eBay and bought teeny, tiny succulent clippings, none of them bigger than the first joint of my little finger. I bought 10, and didn't expect more than 2 or 3 to survive, I thought they'd be cute little accent plans.  8 of them did, and they grew and thrived and are now big grownup plants in real pots. They outgrew their first big kid pots, and are now taking over the balcony. I had no idea what had been unleashed. 

Hence, the Succulent Ranch.  I need to get some hangers for the string of pearls and string of dolphins and get the "son in law" who still needs a blog nickname to put up some hangers, because they really want to hang on the balcony. I still marvel that these plants started as clippings the size of a fingernail.

The slide scan project continues, and while I'm not blasting through it because it's still tedious, I can say I've made more progress on it this month than anyone did in the last 50 years. I'll get it done in the first quarter of this year.

Next weekend is Epcot Festival of the Arts. I did productive house things this weekend. Next weekend is for fun.