Grocery-store Caviar.

Eating standing up in the kitchen over the island with a teaspoon of what turned out to be super decent caviar (sturgeon, don't eat the salmon) on double-toasted grain bread triangles with a bare swipe of sour cream, one drop of lemon juice and a single ring of green onion. I will eat five or eight of these before Caleb cuts me off, if for nothing than simple manners and not being a little pig about an expensive dish. It's akin to sitting down at a seafood place and eating all of the oysters that come out instead of sharing them with the whole table and only having two or three. I don't like oysters though so that's easy. 

What would you like for dessert tonight? His eyes twinkle. The blue is black today. Fall is coming. The monsters come out at Halloween and boy, don't I know it. 

An espresso martini or three. I laugh. I'm not going to get any of those. Dry champagne it is. Maybe a scoop of sherbet in one of the good ice cream bowls. I've broken so many over the years so maybe in a plastic bowl though we don't have any. We got rid of most of the plastic we used ages ago. Now it's glass, wood or ceramic. So breakable. 

Like me, I think as I drop a triangle face-down on the counter. 

 Oops. I scoop it up and use the side of my finger to collect all the tiny little eggs without crushing them to return them to the bread. The sour cream is gone. The onion ring persists and Caleb rolls his eyes as he turns to get the bottle to refill our flutes before I start cutting myself off. Sometimes you need a silly champagne night. We tend to be a little hedonistic this week as the nights get sooner, cooler and longer and Burning Man rages south of the border, which again we did not go to and I'm glad. 

So why not accept a dinner date from the devil even if I think I'm never going to be invited to sit down this evening unless I break protocol and just do it without waiting. 

I haul the stool over close to the plate and climb up onto it. He laughs. 

Feral girl summer. 

You betcha. I wink and answer quietly. When was she not feral? How wild did they want to pretend I wasn't? Does that even make sense gramatically or am I delusional still? She'll ALWAYS be that dirty little princess running down the path to the ballfield in her costume gown, caviar or not. Some apples don't fall far from the tree, even if they're grown on fumes and expensive treats alike. 

The sunset is at eight thirty. A swim and a bonfire tonight?

Swim yes, fire no. Maybe a sauna and then swim in the ocean? 

Nightswimming with the sea lions seems like a real rager of a plan, Neamhchiontach. 

So does inviting your ex-girlfriend to have dinner under the nose of her husband. 

So you're salty enough that we can skip the rest of this. He holds up the black tin. A laugh escapes him but it's softened to a ghost chuckle. Just happy to be here, as always. We're not fighting. We're not physically fighting. We're not lobbing threats or promises today, we're just enjoying an early dinner for two on a random cloudy Thursday evening by the sea. 

What about after the swim? Would you like to watch a film?

Can I bring my friends? 

Sure. He knows he stepped just a little too far and was just a little too nice and we had a little too good of a day date to push his luck but Caleb will always tell you the only way to get what you want is to ask for it (or take it) if need be.

 On Saturday then we'll see if we can find some of those martinis you're so fond of. 

Oh, I can't on Saturday. The party, remember? (Ruth and Lochlan have a joint birthday party every year). 

Ah yes. Save it for another time then. And he shoves the last triangle into his mouth without offering it to me first, probably in order for me not to eat everything before he gets anything at all, while I pour the remainder of the champagne into my glass for it to act as anaesthetic against life itself. 

One Monday left after today.

It's always been a countdown to empty beaches in the fall, even long after I sort of have my own beach these days though it's Pacific, and as I've always said, not even remotely the same. Lochlan will tell you I'm never happy. Caleb will tell me anything I want to hear, like he'll buy me any beach I want, as if that's a thing that can be done, and Ben will just tell me to breathe. 

A fighter, a yes man and a puppy dog. What more could a girl ask for then that? 

 I'm so freaking tired. Two nights of no sleep but I got to see Mammoth live before the rest of the country and most of the world, technically. Got all of the t-shirts and a cool pilot hoodie. Got to rock my face off for his super short set and then Ben asked me if I was excited to see Tremonti live because we went to Creed's tour on the weekend and I forgot he was back in the band. Ditto Scott Philips so now I have also seen exactly half of Alter Bridge which is a bucket list but frankly I'll take Mammoth any day over most other bands because every single song one on every single album is good. So good. 

I also drank house wine until it was coming out my eyes at the stadium and I don't call it a mistake, just an expensive choice but sometimes you have to just go with it. It was packed and it was a good witnessing crowd, if you know what I mean. We counted religious tatttoos for a while and had a big public debate on whether or not my angel wing tattoos were religious or just cool. I vote cool but also religious. Jacob would have really loved this show, though it was my sixth time seeing Big Wreck and something was off about the whole set. I think Ian Thornley does better in a much smaller venue. I am ashamed that the crowd didn't really know That Song. It's a classic. His sound was a bad mix too but he's so talented does it matter? Another show in the books. Next up is the Who. Why am I going? Why not.

It's cold today and about to rain and I love it. I love the cold breezy nights. I love the fact that all of the loud kids around town are going to be locked in their classrooms in two weeks flat and I love love the end of summer, did I mention that already?

The airshows are done, the fairs are dwindling out and the farmer's markets are packed with root vegetables and end of growing season potatoes. Our tomatoes are an endless gift here in the yard and I've been working diligently at overhauling the perennials that stopped growing or don't work where they are and finding or propagating replacements. I rooted a whole bunch of hydrangea, since the boys seem to love them and I ripped out all of the columbine and the ummmm potentilla? Fuschia? Whatever failed to grow the past two years but had a prime location right on the main path. 

 We have nothing planned for this weekend. I think I'll spend it in the kayak. 

Four Mondays 'til September.

 The perpetual popsicle box is still the most popular thing in the freezer and today I learned that I can still knead pizza dough (looking forwards towards dinnertime) with the big Kitchenaid mixer after cutting my finger quite badly trying to use a recently sharpened paring knife to separate frozen slices of Russian pumpernickel bread for my breakfast, with apple jelly, butter and a new takeout coffee because it's Friday and someone went into town and got us all some. 

I would never volunteer. I can't manage three trays of hot coffees but that's just me and I have more coffeeshop experience than all of them combined. 

Anyway, so pizzas for dinner. I'm a purist and I like to wear myself to smithereens but now finger so no. I need to change the bandaids because to my surprise and delight the fat brown squirrel that showed up to help himself to everything in my garden, from the suet feeders to the end of the cherry harvest to all of my bean plants left me a gift. 

An acorn that has become an oak tree. A Bur Oak. Do you know how hard it is to grow a tree from an acorn? I do and I only found this because he tucked it in between the hydrangeas that I propogated earlier this summer and I was weeding and tried to pull it out. It now has it's own little pot on the step and in a few years I will find a permanent spot for it but only once it's big enough to survive. 

I watered everything (again by hand, not machine. Forest fires and water restrictions keep me doing as little as possible, just to keep my perennials alive but like I said there are ten days left in the dog days of summer and so everything looks yellow and crispy and then everything will bulk up again and become lush in the fall.

We're watching Andor (the new season) and I started The Last Showgirl last night with Dunk but we turned it off a half-hour in due to the time. I don't sleep so I'm always low-energy. I want to sleep all day in the breeze but I can't and then at four I crash and then at midnight I'm wide awake and prowling the house again. Is it ever going to change?  I doubt it. 

I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass. I'm eating avocados and zucchini and strawberries until I fear I might become a plant, only to be dropped into the earth in someone's yard to grow into a mighty tree to stand through strife and drought and natural and political disasters until someone woefully decides I need to go in favour of a glass and steel highrise. 

I think I'd rather be a seedling in a pot never to grow or advance from the place I'm in right this very minute. It seems safer this way. 

 

The dog days of summer.

She's a woman so fine, I may never try to find her
For the good memories of what we had before
They should never be changed, for they're all that I'll take with me
Now I've gambled and lost my summer wages

This is not my favourite part of summer. This is my coffee, tea, shaved ice and popsicle part of summer. The part of headaches and sunscreen rashes and short one-sentence responses. The waiting-it-out, sticky-thighed, want to shave my head part of summer. The part where I try to get anything done involving movement before ten in the morning. The part where my hair and skin dry out so much from the endless floating in the pool trying to sleep. 

 I sit on the porch most of the time simply because the north side of the house is shady and cool. The trees are my best friend and the ocean fades from attention until fall. When I have had enough I jump into the sea but it's not as cold as the Atlantic nor is there ever sufficient wind for me. I grew up on an unforgiving coast, an unforgiving girl and summers hold so much emotional weight you don't even know the half of it. 

Every dirt road, every faded curtain flapping against a broken sunroom window, every greasy knuckle on a midway ride. Every loaded glance from a stranger, every sugary strand of cotton candy, every lost-earring, torn-wallet, sweaty-jeaned, worn flannel moment of summer is to be endured and not forgotten. 

Every strum on a warped and ancient acoustic guitar (the Martin). Every sigh as the fan breeze touches flesh, every kiss deferring anything more as it's just too warm. Every wish becomes polar, every sunbeam cursed in favour of one from the moon. 

I lift the hem of my dress up over my knees and attention shifts. I run my hand over the back of my neck and everything's different and yet everything is the same. 

The cats languish just out of the light that plays on the floor, little wisps of fluff and whiskers rising up in a cloud as they settle for their long litha naps. 

I had some work done on my Jeep last week. Henry's birthday is coming. It looks like it will fall on the hottest day of the year but I have had twenty-three summers already to figure out how to make a big chocolate cake that won't melt and how to host his entire universe for his favourite dinner without perishing in the punishing heat and by the end of next week my youngest child will be twenty-four years old and just about the same age I was when I started thinking about becoming a mom. Maybe. Some day. And I'm here on the other side of it now and Henry and Ruth are my absolute pride and joy and the heat doesn't matter. Time passing is a marvel. Another summer and everyone is good. The bills are paid. There is food in the fridge and I still ration the air conditioning like someone who has been meaningfully, sustainingly poor, and maybe the boys laugh while I cry but I doubt those things about me will ever change and I don't think they should. 

I tied a peach-coloured ribbon on the grill of the big fan in the front porch. There's a ceiling fan there but it makes noise that drives me crazy so I brought out a big copper table fan and set it on the floor. The ribbon blows out straight and makes me think of The Great Brain and Catcher in the Rye. Or maybe On the Banks of Plum Creek and anything and everything by Kurt Vonnegut, which would take me the better part of thirty more years to enjoy, if honesty is what you like. 

Seven more Mondays until September. I wonder if I'll make it or if I'll melt instead. I wonder if this headache will ever leave me, like the people leave the beaches when fall routine calls them all away and it's all mine again. 

I wonder if anyone else ever read and still reads all over vastly different age demographics. Sometimes I pick up Matthew and the Midnight Tow Truck and sit and read it. It's not a long read but it was Henry's favourite back when he depended on me for everything. I always tried to make their lives magical and I hope they feel like I succeeded but I don't dare ask. I'm still making up for the parts that decidedly were not magical and that's the curse and the blessing of being a mom, I suppose. 

 Lochlan is asleep in a chair across from me. Feet flat on the floor, sleeves rolled up, head thrown back, red hair cascading in curls off his shoulders, he doesn't seem to mind the heat or the cold. He is level and strong and doesn't find wealth any different from poverty, truth be told. He doesn't mark the passage of time and he's never had a problem with the way Kurt Vonnegut writes and he doesn't care if there's other people at the beach or fan noise or a melted birthday cake or a weird look from a stranger and that's why he will never truly understand my relationship with summer and I suppose I will never understand his either. We've had forty-seven entire summers together give or take and it still feels new. 

Heralding the arrival of a stranger.

Neamchiontach. 

I hear his voice and look over to see Caleb standing in the screen door. I've been out here on the porch for hours listening to the sparrows sing their morning song from the safety of the trees and I've been watching a fat brown squirrel absolutely decimate the suet cake I hung up for the tiny birds. I decided to make one chockful of big seeds to help them have lots of energy and sustenance in the heat but all that did was bring the larger birds and the fat rodents. I know they're here, I know the boys want crow friends so badly but I only want the tiny little birds. The chickadees. The goldfinches and sparrows. The thrushes and the juncos. 

My coffee is barely warm now but the birds are so loud I don't want to go inside so perfect timing.

He holds up the coffee pot. We went back to a regular coffee maker a while ago and it's what works. I nod and he comes out. He waited for permission. Another first in a long line of firsts with my Diabhal, because he is not accustomed to not being in charge for this incredible length of time. 

It's been forever. 

It remains a constant.

I really like this. 

Please, I nod and he comes out on the porch. Bare feet. Linen pants and a waffle shirt. Unshaven but rested. Permanently on vacation. Liquidated save for a few things. We're out of the real estate business. We're out of the Gods and Monsters business. We're out of the drama. We are exhausted. We are old. I don't even know what we are, I just know that if I go to his suite he no longer locks me in and no longer makes me cry. 

He takes my cup and turns away to pour. Safety first. Ha. What a stark difference from probably my entire life. He turns back and places the cup gently on the table. 

Thank you. 

Would you like breakfast?

No, thank you. I'm fine for now. 

He takes that as hope, as when I skip breakfast we have a snacky brunch consisting of bread, cheese, olives and more coffee. It's lovely. 

I'll leave you to your book then. 

I laugh. I don't have a book. I'm communing with nature. 

Always communing with something. And with a laugh he disappears back inside. A chickadee comes and lands on the railing and he laughs too but in birdsong. I wish I could laugh in birdsong. That would be neat.

 I found a baby bird in the roses this morning, stiff and cold and I buried him in the woods. I cried for just a minute but frankly this is life. There were no injuries that I could see, and if some tiny soul has to die on my watch then in my garden would be the absolute best place for it. Everything is in bloom, it is cool and quiet, lush and green and no one is allowed to disturb the peace that exists there. The whole front of the property is a neutral zone. No arguments allowed, no raised voices. No construction and no bad energy. It's a need, not a want but no one disrespects that edict and for that I am forever grateful and contented there. 

I was picking up pieces from the windchime. It was a twenty-five year old set of mini chimes that I bought in the prairies and it never made any noise but all of the strings were rotten and many of the chimes had fallen in the wind last night. That's the only reason I was in the roses, otherwise I never would have known. 

In any case, the bird is free now for real, his little feathered soul protected by some words I said and I wiped my face on my hand and went back inside for toast and coffee. I have marmalade and fresh grounds and good rustic homemade bread and so it was lovely to spend an hour enjoying my food. I am left to my own devices to savour the second half of my coffee after spending the first half with the boys. They drink their coffees in one go, or at least in less than the time it takes me. They don't like lukewarm coffee. I can easily finish a cup I forgot about when I find it hours later and so I take my time now. 

It's the calm before the storm. No air conditioning yet but we are ready. I hope there are no heat domes and no bullshit and just a cool relaxing summer. No deaths would be nice too.

A crown of thorns.

Crone. 

It's a weird word, a single harsh sound with some sort of baggage attached. You think wizened old witch, bitter shrew who lives in the trees and doesn't want to be bothered and-

Wait, that actually sounds perfect. 

It's the triple goddess, the final life boss, the aspiration of a women who has cheated death and lives to tell the tale. 

Maiden, Mother, Crone. 

Before menses, then the fertility years and then the end of those years, counted off in three hundred and sixty five days without bleeding. 

And here we are, May 22, 2025. I began bleeding at the age of nine, and so we have a perfect forty-five year circle here and we're done. No more babies (there were not going to be any more babies anyway, I've written that story to death), no more expectations of those sorts, no more stupid hormones, no more surprise mood swings or accidents, in which someone would helpfully wrap their flannel around me and hang out in a t-shirt until we could leave and I always looked as if I loved grunge fashion and I was always overheated, flush and tripping on long trailing cuffs. From the first midway night when I thought I was dying and Lochlan explained what was happening, using a Judy Blume book that he read out loud every night for a week when we were together until a week or so ago when my doctor unhelpfully suggested I try synthetic hormones. The first domestic chore I ever learned was how to get blood out of a Levi's button down. I'm still really good at getting blood out of clothes. It's a useful talent, okay?

No, thank you to the hormones. I much prefer to ride out the swings, the hot flashes and freeze outs, the inability to sleep at all anymore, past three or four hours, tops. Rides are better than watching from the sidelines, as always. I prefer to figure out the food cravings and the anxiety and the sheer anger. I prefer to slow down and heal instead of pushing through the leg pain and phantom cramps and wild headaches. 

And the freeing, delicious, extravagant lack of care about anything that doesn't interest me. 

Pffft. 

Especially when it comes to being weird, as I said already. I spent an awful lot of years trying to fit in, trying to be who Cole wanted me to be, trying to blend into the woodwork in the best way possible and be supermom and a fashion icon and a smart cookie. Who isn't trying to be every woman all the time? 

Exactly. Now? The uniform is patchwork overalls or a mended dress and a homeknit sweater. Sometimes also handmade socks and clogs. My hair hasn't been cut in months but it's growing into the cutest mini shag/bob thing. Makeup? I don't know what that is. Nail Polish? I threw it all away though we keep a dark blue for Benjamin because he looks better with his nails done than I ever did. 

More dresses, less pants. Big bags because I like to have all my stuff handy. Painting a mural on the fence because it's MY FUCKING HOUSE. Cake for breakfast? Of course, but then again I always did that. Champagne on a Thursday at four in the afternoon because it's a party and I had to google rituals to celebrate this very solemn, very important milestone in my life. No one talks about this. I live in a house full of men and I think that was part of the issue, the person who taught me to be a lady was a boy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a routine-based girl. I still brush my teeth before bed, pay all the bills on time and have a calendar entry to reload the toilet paper on the shelf in each bathroom because no one else can ever remember. I still make sure all the beds and towels get changed weekly and I keep on top of everything to make sure everything is up to date and all our work is done. But it's whimsical and magical and a little bit off somehow. The way I always wanted it to be but I no longer have to fight for it because I have arrived.

Am I smart? No. I'm logical. I'm practical and I'm empathetic to a fault. I'm weird. And I've hit the third level so now I AM the final boss. Congratulations to me. I did it. I survived. 

Five hundred and twenty-four periods. Ish. That's almost thirty-six hundred days of bleeding and she still walks and talks and breathes and hasn't killed anyone (on purpose). 

Go me. 

Cheers.

(And a huge thank you to my boys for never making it seem like it was a defect or a weakness, even when I yelled at them to go get chocolate and stop breathing so loud, but especially to Lochlan for being a really good big sister about all of it when Bailey had already flown the coop).

Happy Mother's Day

My beautiful children both greeted me with hugs and celebratory exclamations and cards and more hugs and extra hugs from newer honorary children in the form of their significant others and then we made casual dinner plans for later and they took off to spend the meantime on their Sundays as always because it's sunny and everyone is free so please, go and enjoy the day. Dinner will be fun. 

(It was, and now it's very late and I think it's been close to eighteen or twenty years since I've opened a tab at night to write. I actually sat down to work on PJ's sweater (he requested a knit! FINALLY!) and watch La Dolce Villa on Netflix because the Oklahoma Bombing documentary was too harsh for me today and I need a good horror or a Christmas hallmark and it started and I was like is that Scott Foley? You know, from Felicity that was actually on television last time I wrote at nighttime, around twenty years ago and I'm thinking he's old now, playing the dad of a grown daughter who is in Italy and about to buy a villa and then I was like oh, right. 

He's my age. 

Did I mention three days ago I went to Shopper's Drug Mart to pick up some things that never seem to be at the grocery store and the clerk helpfully gave me the discount. You know, the 10% off senior's discount?)

Um. 

CHRIST.

Jacob is laughing somewhere right now, up in the clouds, while I lament the continued unstoppable trainwreck of time itself and Scott Foley should be frozen in time somewhere and my children should not be adults showing up to tell me of their travel plans and their First Home Savings accounts and their pets  that they raise and care for and their cars and their opinions on politics and why is Caleb so FUCKING difficult, though I must point out here that Ruth is a bull in a china shop when it comes to Caleb, able to put him in his place with an eyebrow raise. She is a barracuda and he is her prey and she is out to protect her mother at all costs and luckily she will never know the real prices that have been paid because I've always protected her from that.

And Henry doesn't want to deal at all. Henry just keeps Caleb at arms length or beyond, instead leaning in towards Lochlan as his anchor father and he is professionally polite but warm and logical and also can be as cold as ice sometimes. I'm sure Jake sees this too and is proud of Henry. Henry is as tall as Jake now and has the beard and the long hair and the doesn't-give-a-fuck outward attitude that makes me warm and fuzzy inside. 

Dinner was big, in any case and afterward, maybe after at least several glasses of wine, Caleb practically knocks me over with an aggressive forehead kiss and a proclamation that my children are incredible humans because of me, and that I did a wonderful job in spite of the challenges, in spite of everything, in spite of him. 

I know. I say it softly. I am two very large glasses of wine into the night and oddly feel as if I want to cry. Which is a daily thing, and not a big deal anymore but I also don't want to give him that window into how fragile I feel suddenly again after not feeling anything at all for so long when it comes to him.

Why didn't you go? I ask him and suddenly realize I wasn't clear. 

But he knew exactly what I meant. 

I couldn't, not when everyone else already had. I didn't want you to be alone. I didn't want to be alone. But we could be alone together. 

Yep. I don't know what else to say. It's possibly the saddest conversation we've ever had somehow but we put it away and finished our wine and went to bid the kids goodnight as they took off, with more plans still for the evening ahead. 

I say Woah.

Our dancing, James Bondesque Prime Minister won this week and I'm breathing a slight sigh of relief. Still pissed off because 1/3 of the country seemingly couldn't be arsed to get out and vote, even though they had from Easter to the 28th of April to get it done and there are no excuses but it was an amazing and thankful boomerang from the stress surrounding politics and the seeping stress we're absorbing from our neighbors to the south. I feel as if I live far too close to a border now. I used to be a ten hour drive, and then a four hour drive and now it's really easy to just whip down to a southern facing highway and BOOM, signs for the United States pop up everywhere. Trader Joes, oh so expensive, oh so close but nope, Pomme will suffice. Same stuff mostly, it seems though not Trader Joes branded. I don't know. I don't care. I feel somewhat safe again so let's let the politics die back in favour of spring. 

Happy Beltane. 

To celebrate, I smudged myself and then walked the property tucking sunflower seeds under the soil every foot or so. I spread some grass seed on the few bare patches that didn't bounce back after winter. I made Dalton tackle the spiders and sort out cleaning the sauna and the pool shed and we drug everything out and pressure washed it. Well, he did and then Sam came out to help. By then I had retreated inside because the sun feels so strongly now and it almost hurts. The year my newest acquisition is a UV jacket to pop on when I'm gardening or spending a lot of time outside. I don't want faded tattoos because I'm not redoing any more of them. It's starting to hurt, finally. I think I've had my fill, though everyone else says I'm down to do the scary painful parts, having run out of room everywhere else so these parts just hurt. I don't know about that, but I could be done? The list keeps shrinking, the available area grows smaller every year and so the UV jacket is a must. I may order a second one for walks. Something with pockets. 

Things seem more normal, anyway. I'm trying hard to sleep and rest and organize. This morning I had a huge iced coffee from take out (someone always goes in the morning so why make it? No, we don't do gig services for food delivery, we are the food delivery but it's a regular thing that someone heads down to get something), I cleaned all of the windows and watered all of the plants, and then I did the budget (this is a twice a week thing) and organized some drawers and finished with the outside and now I'm going to knit and continue playing catchup with my shows and movies. 

And Demon Hunter has a! New! Song! And I love it! And the sun is shining but the rain will move in this evening and so maybe a swim late tonight and an ice cream sandwich and maybe a sauna first? Maybe a five hour hot tub stint. Maybe I'll just go to bed at four pm. Maybe I'll finish my book (Reading the Curve of Time right now. Local and vintage!). This weekend the big home show and psychic fair is out in the valley and I am definitely going. There's amusements and food trucks and it'll be bad weather which works fine for me, thanks. Otherwise at this rate I'll have to graduate from a UV jacket to a whole portable UV bubble and I'll end up on a British science show. "The Girl who was allergic to the outside" because it's mostly true at this point.

Irritated but caffeinated!

Just a quick side note here as I spend the next fourteen hours manifesting a Big Daddy Carney win for my country tonight. We need the grownups back in charge, in Canada and in the world at large, because according to the newspaper the president of the United States thinks he runs the world, and um, sir? YOU DON'T.  You're actually somewhat of a joke to the rest of the world and don't minimize that thought. The rest of us are out here trying to make the world a better place, trying to fix what's so horribly broken and you, well, go off into the dark never to return. I'm still amazed when bad people soldier on and good people disappear. This is a whole big allegory for Jacob and Caleb but whatever. Today is about politics. 

I'll talk to you about that on the other side though, because this is hardly a soapbox, this little dim, dusty corner of the internet where no one reads because I don't have the patience any more to do anything productive, it seems. I clean and garden and keep fresh batteries in every random shelf clock and game controller and the bills are paid on time and there's a spare of anything you might need tucked away. Your towels are fresh, the green onion roots are trimmed short, the planting pots are ready for seeds and the tops of the ceiling fan blades are dust-free but can I think? 

Sadly no. 

I am going to head out in a couple of hours with PJ and do an apocalypse run. That's when we stock up on things like his favourite pop and toilet paper, medications and MREs. Then we come home and evaluate our stocks and go bags and plans. It's a spring tradition now. He loves to prep and I sleep better at night somehow. Or maybe it's just me letting go of the extreme need to Look After Everyone. Henry will be twenty FOUR this summer. Ruth twenty-six in the fall. The dogs are all gone. The cats are all new and weirdly independent and the boys have all settled into a seemingly content early retirement, something I never expected as it seemed like I would fight through every last moment looking after my Collective all the while they were looking after me too and the only way to manage so many years of extreme stress was to write it out. 

The stress now? It comes and goes, like my writing, sadly. I've spent all of the years since the pandemic trying to organize my anxiety into something manageable. I've got a dozen letters for labels and I'd rather be nameless and unknown. I've got time and money and no need for the complications of either anymore. 

I've got big plans and they involve running away, as ever. Usually that signifies an extreme case of cabin fever, but it's not, it's something else and I don't know what, exactly. 

I'll figure it out and let you know. In the meantime, vote for the good guys. We need THEM to run the world.