Promiseland

[Fetian]

Just went out to water my plants in the middle of the night and discovered another line of ants coming from the neighbour's house and going across the yard to my cherry tree. I went along it with the insecticide, so hopefully they don't turn up in my room.

[Fetian]

I went to bed last night with The Worst headache, my god, felt like someone had sandpapered my frontal lobe. I was this close to trying to make arrangements to go to urgent care

Woke up without it, though, so that's nice. This heat, man.

[Fetian]

Thank Fucking God

[Fetian]

The article that's referencing says a lot of "may" and "might", though.

[Fetian]

Today Lee and I finally finished Netflix's Series of Unfortunate Events. I watched it through when it came out, but didn't remember very much of the third season, which makes sense since the third season is kind of underwhelming. It's okay, as is much of the rest of the series -- but I also felt that way about the books. They're just not for me, given that they're for children. I am glad that by the third season they let Violet actually emote, and on the whole the acting and set design are all very good. The story -- and the conclusion of that story -- are just kind of meh.

I did start reading the first of the All the Wrong Questions books, and consequentially I got one (1) extra joke in the A Series of Unfortunate Events finale. That, too, I'm finding a little bit meh, and it's also longer than I expected it to be so I may just not finish it.

After we finished ASoUE, we watched a couple episodes of the Animorphs TV series -- we have finally met Ax! Lee compared it to watching someone's roleplaying game and it does have a The Gamers vibe.

It's finally cool enough that we're able to open the house up before bed, which is nice. I'm going to eat more dinner and relax for a couple hours. Lee's having car trouble so I may or may not be getting a ride to dad's house this weekend, but on Sunday I want to swing by the local Unitarian Universalist society and check them out, whether or not I'm able to get a ride to/from that.

[Fetian]

Once again I needed to be awake at a specific time this morning which meant I fell asleep very late after hours of laying in bed not-sleeping. My brain is a nightmare!

Anyway, I did get up and out of bed on time, and was only out the door a little bit late because the cat had, at some point, peed on the clothes I'd set out to wear today. But that was alright because I'd scheduled things for me to arrive fairly early and also given us extra driving time Just In Case of traffic, so I still arrived with time to spare.

So I went to the UU church and attended a sermon.

Today was both the Activity Fair (I'll get to that) and the first day of the church year, so it was pretty busy. I got there early enough that the welcome desk hadn't been set up, but someone nearby helped me get signed in and checked my vaccination card (!!), and directed me to the patio where people were setting up their tables for the fair. I hung out with a couple of women and chatted for a while. This was their first Activity Fair since 2019, and in fact a lot of groups stopped meeting during COVID and were just starting back up again, so everyone was really excited. I mentioned that I appreciated their COVID policy -- masks and full vaccination are both mandatory to attend in-person services and most-or-all of the group information I've seen have also said that full vaccination is required to participate. Throughout, I did see everyone inside wearing masks, though speakers tended to remove theirs while speaking. But yeah, the community there seems to still be taking COVID seriously.

After a while, I got asked if I wanted a nametag and on my affirmative got redirected back to the welcome desk, where I got a nametag, filled out a contact form, and grabbed some pamphlets, then I went back out to the patio until they opened the doors to let people in.

I have mixed feelings about the religious aspects of Unitarian Universalism -- I feel like its attempts to be able to be everything for everyone makes it bland and wishy-washy, and its history as an offshoot of Christianity (and its continued existence in a culturally christian society) make it less welcoming to people whose religious/spiritual needs aren't 'Christian church but without Jesus'. But as a community center, and volunteer organisation, it's doing well.

There was a ritual done near the end that involved saying what you bring to the church and what you hope to receive from it, and a large number of people said they needed "community" or "connection".

Anyway, service was an hour and then the Activity Fair -- this is a bunch of tables set up for groups to advertise themselves and get people interested in joining them. They were all set up close-together on the patio, so there wasn't a lot of room to walk between them with other people all trying to walk around at the same time, and all of the people talking made it Loud and very hard to hear what the people at the tables were saying. I have interest in a lot of them, but tried to limit myself to a small handful because I don't want to overcommit myself. But I got information from and left my information with: the choir, a theatre group, a trash pickup group, and the pagan group.

I'd told Lee to figure on picking me up about an hour after service, to give myself plenty of time to look around, but after about half an hour I'd hit my limit and excused myself to the front of the property to wait for Lee to come get me. In theory I will start getting scheduling information from the groups I left my contact info with, and then next week hopefully things are a little less chaotic. A lot of people usually attend the meetings over zoom, but attended in person this week for the fair and the beginning-year stuff.

It had been planned for me to swing by dad's after, but he apparently needed to do something today so when I offered to put it off a few days, he agreed that would work best. So on wednesday I'll head over there and get a ride home with Lee after he gets off work. Plan is to see what's gone from the computer room and then grab stuff from the living room to bring home. We should be down to mostly books to bring back.

Now I'm going to go empty the dishwasher and then lie down for a little bit.

[Fetian]

But! Nails:

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0911221609_HDR~2.jpg

[Fetian]

Funny how the people who say 'tenants have more rights than landlords' never just, become renters, isn't it

[Fetian]

Today I learned there was a new COVID booster available, so I looked up places to get it and scheduled an appointment for that and the flu shot at the Rite Aid down the street. I needed to pick up some essentials from the store while it's cool enough to go outside anyway, so I swung by the store first and then popped into Rite Aid

Unfortunately I couldn't get the flu shot because my insurance won't cover it through Rite Aid (: so I just got the COVID shot. But that is done at least, and it was incredibly fast and painless.

While there, a family showed up to get the flu shot, none of them in masks, and I find this fascinating. An incredibly wholesome family, the dad listened to his 9-year-old son explain the history of vaccines to him and filled in gaps in his son's information. So I really just wonder, like, do they have the COVID vaccine and just don't care about masks? Do they have something against COVID prevention in specific? Are they just here for the flu shot because it's required by the kid's school? But the whole family?

Anyway, on the way home I took a detour and got thoroughly lost. Our neighbourhood is really hard to navigate once you deviate from the main roads, and I need to get out and walk it enough that I can orient myself while I'm wandering here. I normally have an incredibly good sense of direction but something about these roads gets me turned around really easily.

But I am home, and I'm going to eat lunch and hang out and possibly take a nap if I get sleepy. I have so far not had any particularly notable reactions to the shots, but this is my first Moderna so I may react differently to it, plus it's I think the first one with Omicron bits in it, so that might also affect things.

But yes. Food, rest.

[Fetian]

Do feel very bad this evening, so probably a good thing I didn't end up getting the flu shot. Flu shots I do usually react to

Hopefully I'm better tomorrow, but also probably a good thing I scheduled dad visit for wednesday