sh1njuk1

 Well, the cards predicted a rough day, and it was a bit of a rough day. 

Me: Yes, I faced a tough opponent today... my own father. My favorite parent, once upon a time. We had the conversation at a bench next to the farmer's market where we both shop on Saturday. I had prepared a financial report of sorts for my dad, and also made sure to emphasize that we weren't making this choice (to move out) out of anger, but that given the situation, this was the best choice for our family. 

It went... about as well as I could have hoped for, I guess. He admitted that the finances were sound, and that this was possible for us. But he very quickly recognized that he looked rather bad in this scenario, and so spent most of the conversation after the initial part lecturing me on how I hadn't solved the "actual" problem (how to keep myself perfectly protected from Delta, I guess) and that clearly my brain was too addled from pregnancy to think straight, and why didn't I just go to the local pregnancy center (the anti-abortion one) and ask THEM what vaccine to take, if finding an obstetrician to talk to was going to take longer than a weekend?? Yeah... I can't imagine why that possibly might not solve my problem. 

Because I wanted there to be some hope of family reconciliation in the future, I just nodded along and kept insisting that I was just too tired to handle anything else right now, things came at me too fast this week, and that I needed to think about the medium and long term as well as the short one. That COVID would eventually go away but the rent payments were unlikely to. He insisted loudly that he wasn't evicting me, that we could always come and move back in at any time for any reason, and I thanked him sincerely for that. I will hold him to it, should it be needed. Really what was going on there though was that he didn't want to be wrong, so, I let him be not-wrong. He ranted a bit about how if I didn't make it through the short term, no other term mattered! At this point I raised my voice slightly and informed him I am an adult and I will make my own choices. He backed down with a few parting shots I did not respond to, and we went to take a look at some recent art installations nearby. The conversation was finished. I believe our relationship is unchanged, that we both still love each other, and the vast majority of my thoughts on the matter will go forever unsaid. Victory - with mud all over my face. But, no clean wins were ever really possible. 

He is right in one way, though - one way which he will never actually know about. I've waited too long to source ivermectin. Really... I've been reading about it for months... I should have known better. I need to order that ASAP, and have it delivered--to our new apartment I guess. The site I found will take about 3 to 4 weeks to deliver. Fingers crossed it arrives before anyone I know is in danger. 

Anyway I was a bit down the rest of the day, with a lot of quiet ranting to myself, saying all the words I held back in the moment so that they didn't curdle inside too much. I also unburdened myself deeply to my husband at one point about matters I've written about here before. That would be the Situation card. 

Outcome: I think the main quotation from yesterday was entirely correct - I did lose something big and painful. I recognized after the conversation that I don't really want to leave this house, and its garden, and my dad's fix-it side I had hoped to learn so much more from... but there's no other choice now. Our new apartment is beautiful, the location is ideal and I know that the moment I actually move in there I will weep with joy and relief. But the dream of multi-generational housing that was working pretty OK... that's gone. And it hurts to lose it. I wanted us to be stronger together - for us all to pull together against the crazy age, and to fight all dangers at each other's side. But my dad is too afraid. 

Being separate, though, will allow me and my family to reach out - finally - to a wider community, without having to tip-toe around these fears and restrictions. It will allow me to purchase a generator and extra fridge ASAP without trying to explain endlessly to my dad why these things are really good to have right now. It will allow me to pile every last shelf high with non-perishable food, without asking any permission. It will allow me to eliminate sugary crap and creepy chemicals from ever being in our presence. So... I can still keep moving forward.

So tired... time to divinate. 

Me: King of Clubs (The Magician)

Situation: 9 of Clubs (The Sun)

Outcome: 6 of Spades REVERSED

Too tired to speculate, will look this up tomorrow, good night. 

 Thank goodness... after a day of copious rest, things seems to be back to normal. 

Me: I was not specifically ill (a usual meaning of this card) but I did hover in the balance, as twinges in my thyroid indicated. I do feel like early in the day I was somewhat spiritually/etherically ill, but giving myself permission to take it easy (and cooking a big, delicious dinner mostly from the garden!) eventually brought me back to my usual cheer :) 

Situation: I tried to sear radicchio in butter and wow, that did NOT work! Lesson learned! Then I asked my husband to go and gather some tarragon from the herb garden, as I'd not yet tried it, and chop and sprinkle it on the potatoes. So... tarragon actually smells like licorice, a flavor neither of us likes. The more you know! We put it in the compost and sprinkled rosemary on the potatoes instead. I ended up with one less side dish, but as I also had made rice, seared Canadian bacon and had created a stir-fry from potatoes, onions and peppers, we had plenty of delicious food to eat anyway. Crisis averted! :)

Outcome card: With my tummy full of good food which I finally managed to get off my duff and cook (it's been not possible the last several days) things are definitely more comfortable than they were before. Also, I got the email telling me what to expect on the first day of my new job next week... so that's the final indicator that it IS happening. I have been in agony over this job for a month, and finally, FINALLY... the process seems to have settled down into a groove of activity that I can predict and understand. 

At last, the cards are indicating (mostly) small things! This is definitely the life I want to lead! 

Divination ahoy:

Me: 8 of Spades REVERSED - "read this card as liberation"

Situation: 4 of Clubs REVERSED - "some great happiness in in store, but there will be some strings attached or lingering questions"

Outcome: 2 of Diamonds (The High Priestess) REVERSED - "the questioner will find out some secret information that will explain something she found perplexing, or some currently hidden info will affect the outcome" 

This reading also seems not too bad! I can work with all these things, despite all cards being reversed. Thank goodness... things seem (seem) to be going a little bit easier for right now!

 Another accurate divination. I should probably only write an introduction here when the divination is NOT accurate, really...

I woke up at 2 AM without a sense of smell, and panicked thinking that I might actually have COVID and thereby had cut a swathe through the entire North Oregon Ecosophian contingent, who are on average rather older than I am. A few hours later my sinuses cleared and my sense of smell promptly returned. I mean, that doesn't mean it WASN'T The Disease, but it's far less likely. 

I have no intention of getting tested for COVID, no matter what my symptoms are. There's no benefit to me for any outside entity having that information. 

Of course, still being in recovery - and weakened emotionally from that roller coaster - I did not get much done today. It was a day of lying around limply, even when talking to the last Ecosophian who needed to kill a few hours before her train. So that's the Me card. 

As for the Situation card... yeah, today felt like the exact opposite of a party. I either lay in bed or wore a mask most of the day. I felt awful for being sick, for not being the MC like I really should have been, wondering over and over whether I really should have just cancelled yesterday, and... well. I think I'd been holding expectations for the event that weren't entirely reasonable.

I'd been thinking that this was a group I could relax around, who would be "my people" And - it isn't that they weren't! They were about as close as I am ever going to get. I feel like everything that was raised as a topic, I would have jumped on in 2020 like a dog with a bone. But all the vaccine politics that were happening - yes, even in this group - hearing the political discussions that went down reiterated back to my by my husband, and our visitor (and of course my father inviting himself to rant on and on about Trump, ugh, when will his TDS go AWAY) mostly just made me... very tired.

I'm not entirely the same person as I was last year. And one of the biggest ways I have changed, is that I no longer believe there's any chance I can have any meaningful effect whatsoever on the national politics of the United States, and every minute I even spend thinking about them is a minute that isn't helping save my family's lives from the actual crises barreling towards us. 

(Continued the following day.)

I think the real thing that made it the exact opposite of a party, was that I finally realized that for the next indefinite period... I can't have community. Not both community and my next child, anyway. It's time to tuck away, keep out of the public eye, cut back even more on the Internet, and strictly limit my social contacts. (And does this increase our risk of bad outcomes when the shit REALLY hits the fan? Why yes, yes it does. As I've known for MONTHS. But there are no more options left, unless I want to join exactly the communities that my father, who graciously hosts us rent-free, would like to genocide. This was the last one - other than the Druid home church. And I probably even passed on this damn cold to the poor priest who graciously showed up last Saturday, too! Talk about nuking your options...) 

Anyway - enough whining. I need less stress in my life, and it is my extreme privilege to have this option. So I'll be wrapping up the meeting with a cheerful email with some pictures later today, making another backyard meeting a few months out (I don't want to be the one to kill the group, though once meetings need to be indoors, that's probably the end of it). My work will provide just enough community to live. And we can save money hand over fist. And perhaps more importantly... continue our efforts, diligently, to live with less on a day-by-day basis. 

My cold isn't quite over - though it's healing up at a rapid pace, without all this dirge going on in my head I'd be pretty happy about it - but what did happen was that I think for the first time, my husband saw how miserable I was. He says that it's OK if I don't see his mother for the rest of the pregnancy, if I feel I need that (!). I never thought I would get such a concession... but last night, when he tried to comfort me, for the first time in a long time... I actually felt comforted. So that would be the Outcome card. 

Let's get a divination for today, for me and the kiddo who has a terrible-sounding leftover cough, so cannot go anywhere. 

Me: Queen of Spades - more pain

Situation: 10 of Hearts (The Wheel of Fortune) - Plans set in motion "As one part of your life improves, another falters." 

Outcome: 7 of Diamonds (The Star) - Hope, Healing "When The Star shows up in the outcome position, I often find that the questioner has been agonizing over the matter at hand, which may have appeared hopeless. This card is a strong reassurance that she refuses to give up hope, be battered down by depression, the negativity of others, or despair." 

Given the circumstances of this divination - kid running about screaming where was I, loud music playing - this may be the least accurate divination ever. Nevertheless, let's go with it. This is a very kind divination, which feels like the cards took some pity on me. I'll take it :) And... back to childcare!

 It's been one heck of a day so this one oughta be brief... for what passes as brief on my blog, lol.

First, the Me card - I was able to be optimistic-ish in conversations with a friend or two, which ended up taking up about half my day. The little one in arms turned out to be rather literal, as the daycare returned my son to us as he developed the sniffles. And on that note...

Hoo BOY was the situation card accurate! Not in that I somehow didn't get the job - through great perseverance I was, in the end, permitted to piss in a cup - but I had NO COMFORT today. Going to the urgent care as a walk-in was stressful in a way I find hard to define. Everyone there was miserable, but in a silent and resigned way, both staff and patients alike. For one thing, they asked my COVID vaccination status on their paperwork. I gritted my teeth and figured this was, very technically, between me and a doctor but... still. I am pretty sure at this moment that unless I am spurting blood or the equivalent--or as long as this frankly evil trend in our culture of requiring drug tests for people whom drug use would not hamper in the performance of their job, continues--I will never visit an Urgent Care again. Ever. 

They had some vapid TV show on, like nails on a chalkboard, which I being the only person without a smartphone/earplugs was forced to listen to (literally everyone else had their face buried in a phone), and I begged them to turn it off... which they refused, claiming that otherwise conversations might be able to be overheard in the offices. Really? Their construction budget was that fucking cheap?? Thankfully they let me sit in my car after that to continue the hour-long wait. But what if I hadn't had a car? I am stunned on a daily basis by how cruel this country is to the poor, and how utterly wretched the public sphere has become. It was so striking today, that I actually gave money to the people at the stoplight with a sign - usually I give food or nothing. But perhaps I should force myself to more regularly have food, by forcing myself to pay money (which I dislike doing) if I don't. Adopting that rule might genuinely compel me to offer up more direct charity than I have been. And it's a good time to be charitable, don't you think? 

Anyway, after that, and with my kid around, I could NOT relax. It sure as hell was the opposite of "comfort"! I begged my husband to buy me comfort food, all of which I devoured, and it isn't currently doing anything good for my health as it works through my system, either. I desperately distracted myself with long online conversations while my son watched train videos on Youtube, entranced (not my peak parenting moment or anything, but hey... he could be watching Blippi instead). It wasn't until I went outside, after my husband's work was finally over, and did a ritual that I started to gain myself back a bit. 

And as for the outcome card, I think in this case it meant "You suck at multitasking." I didn't get done even half the things I wanted to! :( Fortunately this shouldn't overly affect the event I'm hosting tomorrow - so long as I don't come down with my kid's cold, that is. We'll just SEE about that...

And I think we've come to the divination, so we will see. 

Me: 3 of Spades - Moving beyond Sorrow, Understanding one's own Feelings - the other source suggests an unpleasant medical connection with this card

Situation: King of Diamonds - Generosity, Happiness found in Nature or Spirituality

Outcome: 4 of Clubs REVERSED - NOT solid foundations, celebration, stability - "this card is still promising great happiness - some ironic little twist diminishes a potentially joyful resolution." 

LOL, this one seems pretty clear...I'll have a full-blown cold tomorrow, because of course. I will disclose to all attendees and wear a mask if they request, and keep us all outside and spaced far apart in any case. We will bond over nature and spirituality - seems right in line :) And though there will be a bittersweet tinge to it, the outcome overall will be happy. I'll take it! This feels like a very realistic take, lol. And on that note... time to get enough sleep to prepare for tomorrow!

 Let's see if I can get this quickly...

I think all in all I was a pretty decent model of Temperance today - I never raised my voice at Grayson, and we had a very nice day together. There was a moment when he dropped the tickets, and another moment when he didn't want to ride the carousel horse, but we dealt with both of those pretty well I think :) I'd say that Skill was operative too - the situation required it - but I managed to bring enough supplies that we didn't have to buy anything at the zoo except parking. Hooray! 

The Hermit card (self-sacrifice) seems to have been referring to us paying, for the THIRD time, off our final government debt from 2019. I delivered the paper check to the bank myself. The process is ridiculous and I feel the sacrifice of the money in our bank account. But I just want it DONE. I sure hope this does the trick. 

Onto the divination:

Me: 3 of Spades REVERSED - NOT moving beyond sorrow, understanding one's own feelings

Situation: 7 of Hearts - Secrets, Imagination, New Feelings

Outcome: 8 of Clubs REVERSED - no repetitive motion to build up stability

Hmm... gonna be a hectic day tomorrow. Not gonna concretely understand what I feel, gonna encounter something that stimulates my imagination (probably?), not going to build up stability. Not going to get the job I'm interviewing for at 8:30, LOL!! But... so long as Grayson gets to ride some trains and be happy all will be well in the end :)