hanging 'round downtown by myself

[the_siobhan]

OK, let's get friggin' April done at least. I am so bad at this game.

April Questions
16 – Garden Month: Do you have a garden, or access to a community garden? Is your garden all flowers, or do you grow herbs, vegetables, berries, etc.? If you live in an apartment, do you have a balcony garden?
17 – International Bat Appreciation Day: Have you ever seen a bat in the flesh?  Real bat or Batman, which is better?
18 – Pinata Day: Has whacking a paper mache model for reward featured much in your life?
19 – Banana Day: are you a fan of bananas?  In your opinion, what is the best way to eat bananas?
20 – Volunteer Recognition Day: Do you do any volunteer work? Do you belong to any organizations or use any services that are very dependent on volunteers, even if you don't do any volunteering yourself? In some places, students are required to do some volunteer work for school credits. Do you think this is a good idea?
21 – Coin Week: Have you ever, or do you still, collect coins? With the move to cashless payments, do you handle coins much these days? Do you have a jar full of useless coins stashed away somewhere?
22 – Earth Day: this is the 53rd Earth Day.  What one thing do you think every citizen of Earth should pledge to do to save our planet?
23 – World Book Night: World Book Night aims to change the way adults view reading by encouraging them to take the time to read during the night, when they have more time. Do you do most of your reading during the day or at night? Do you wish you had more time to read during the day? What are the main pros and cons of doing most of your reading at night?
24 – Firefly Day: Not the insect but the short lived TV programme!  Were you a fan of Firefly or did it pass you by? If you have no interest in it have you ever seen a real Firefly?
25 – World Penguin Day: How would you celebrate world penguin day?
26 – International Chernobyl Remembrance Day: Are you old enough to remember the disaster happening on this day in 1986? If you are what do you remember and if you aren’t what do you know about it?
27 – Morse Code Day: spell out your username in morse code
28 – Global Pay It Forward Day: Paying it forward is what happens when something wonderful happens to you on the part of a stranger, and all they ask for in return is for you to pay it forward, to do something for someone when they need it in the future. Has that ever happened to you?
29 – International Astronomy Day: Have you ever looked through a telescope or gone to a planetarium?  Do you have a favourite celestial body?
30 – International Jazz Day: Jazz, love it or hate it?

16. My yard is currently full of cement and piles of rubble, so I settle for growing pots on my office window. 17. I have seen lots of bats, and since mosquitoes love me I am always happy to see them. 18. I have never hit a pinata but it looks like a hoot. 19. I eat bananas for the potassium, usually mixed with yogourt or in a smoothie. 20. I don't have much time for volunteering, but I do stuff at work for the disability-focused employee network. 21. I have a jar of coins in my room, which I roll up and put in the bank when the jar gets full. Given that we have $1 and $2 coins that usually means quite a bit of money when I finally do. 22. Overthrow capitalism. 23. I do occasionally read at night, but I'm frequently so tired by the end of the day that I have trouble focusing. 24.I used to love Firefly, but the more I learn about Joss Whedon the more think it was just as well that it ended when it did. 25. I have absolutely zero opinions about penguins. 26. I remember Chernobyl happening and read a book about it about a decade ago. 27.I don't know Morse code. 28. I have done the pay it forward thing on occasion, which as far as I can tell mostly just means being nice to people when you can. 29. Toronto used to have a really cool planetarium but it was defunded years ago. 30. I have no opinion on jazz.

***

The box now has doors and windows. The contractor took down that slab of chipboard that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house and replaced it with a zippered plastic so we can now walk out the back of the house. He also brought the electrician to talk about where we want things, so that will be the next stage of work.

And we ordered a fucking crate full of masks and are going to start handing them out at the door, because of course they don't bring their own.

 


***

Things I got accomplished this weekend:

• The walk-through with the electrician.
• Found a problem with The Old Man's insurance and spent the majority of a day going through piles of receipts and getting that sorted out - I have to call his pharmacy tomorrow, but otherwise it's sorted. (This kind of thing is why I always say I need a second person - it was totally my oversight and I should have caught it ages ago, but you know. Didn't.)
• Got my blood work dealt with. Still have to find a place to get my bones scanned.
• It was really nice on Friday so I took the Old Man out to hang out in the sun for a few hours and got SUNBURN on my FACE because I am an idiot who hasn't left the house in three years and I forgot the sun hates me.
• I went to the 519 for a non-binary group meetup that I've been screwing up my courage to visit for... oh, a year now. (If you don't live in Toronto, the 519 is the community centre in the queer neighbourhood and they provide space for support groups, do community outreach, fundraising - all kinds of stuff.) It was great, people were nice, conversation was fantastic, I even learned things... but holy fuck, they were all so young.

Things I did not accomplish

• Dealing with the drains

Kinda putting that off, not going to lie.

Comments

[dissectionist]

We nonbinary elders are definitely starting to exist in greater numbers, but yeah, I suspect a lot of us aren’t likely to have the comfort to show up at a gathering. (I would in a second if it wasn’t for the panini.)

[the_siobhan]

The way I put it was, I've always known, I just didn't always have the language to talk about it.

I have pretty much resigned myself to always being the only person in a mask everywhere I go. I did order a box of the nasal spray you recommended, so hopefully that will help.

[houseof9cats]

^^^ Same for two of us here re: having the language to talk about it. Thanks, Gen Z.

[kest]

Tell me about this nasal spray? (I had a big conversation with my biotech uncle about nasal sprays a few months ago, the upshot was there wasn't enough money to run an actual study on stuff that wasn't patentable, basically, and I was like...have you met the 'wellness' market, though?)

[the_siobhan]

This stuff: https://buyenov.com/

[jo]

Re: the bone scan -- for bone density measurements? Anyway, I've been going to the Toronto Centre for Medical Imaging at York and Adelaide for pretty much everything (mammograms, bone scans, etc.) for years now. It's always been very quick to get an appointment (sometimes they have same day openings), and they're efficient. All covered by OHIP.

https://tcfmi.com/

[the_siobhan]

That's the one. I have a family history of pretty severe osteoporosis on both sides, so probably a good thing to keep an eye on. But being fat lowers my risk.

[greylock]

And we ordered a fucking crate full of masks and are going to start handing them out at the door, because of course they don't bring their own.

Which they won't do?

I went to the 519 for a non-binary group meetup that I've been screwing up my courage to visit for... oh, a year now.

I have a hard time picturing this. I thought they only thing you feared was gravity.

[the_siobhan]

They will wear them or they will not come in my house.

Courage is probably the wrong word. I get... not so much social anxiety as social exhaustion. Add that to a full-body nope reaction whenever I'm around large groups of unmasked people. (Because of course nobody was wearing a mask, in spite of the fact that we have a certain percentage of HIV+ people in the community.)

[greylock]

It's been so long since I considered the 'social exhaustion' aspect, I quite forgot that aspect of it.

(Because of course nobody was wearing a mask, in spite of the fact that we have a certain percentage of HIV+ people in the community.)

PReP solves everything?
I mean, if you'd think there was one group of people who'd be in the concerned column...

[the_siobhan]

They were all very young. I'm sure the AIDS crisis is ancient history to them.

[greylock]

It feels a bit like ancient history to me! But I think the age gap between you and me marks the transition between 'WTF is this?" and "Oh, that's what that is".

[houseof9cats]

The name 'the 519' always messes me up because of course I live there, but in a different one.

Doors and windows look good!

[kest]

I grew up in SoCal, where pinatas are a regular thing, so I experienced my first one at a shopping center 'sidewalk sale' at around 3 or 4. I did not hit the thing, I don't think, but was there when it burst and was already skeptical about being encouraged to go pick up free things off the ground?? Because that's not how capitalism works. Also there were a bunch of bigger kids. But I finally did and got a very tiny scotty dog figure, which I probably shouldn't have been allowed at age because it was definitely a choking hazard. I may still have it somewhere. Now I feel like we should have a gettogether with a pinata sometime.