Otter's Rock

So it turns out I'll be home for Thanksgiving for the first time in almost a decade after all!

I live half a continent away from my family, and I only get four weeks of vacation per year.  (More precisely, four SUNDAYS of vacation per year.)  It generally works out to one at Christmas, one in early spring, and two in late summer.  Between Thanksgiving being murder for flying, and how close it is to Christmas, I generally just stay at home.  And because going to someone else's family holiday dinner, particularly when you are their pastor, is hella awkward and cooking a holiday meal for one is just depressing, I generally don't have any kind of celebration that day.

Well!  This year, I have a new niece, who is SO PRECIOUS, FOLKS, and who had the good taste to be born on my birthday.  Given that her father (my brother) does shift work at a power plant, and my parents own their own business which has a very irregular schedule, and my own schedule is rather complicated, arranging dates for such an event is ... difficult.  So in late August/early September, we were discussing things, and there were not many Sundays that would work for everybody, and none at all until November.  Then it occurred to me that if it were scheduled for either the Sunday before or the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I could be home for Thanksgiving!  And said as much.  And Mom said she would check if the Sunday before would work, but that sounded good, and she would let me know, and if it couldn't be then, they should probably just see if they could schedule it for the Sunday after Christmas when I am normally home anyway.

I heard nothing.  For a month and a half.  I assumed that it hadn't worked for November, and would be after Christmas.

In a phone call today, my Mom asked me if I had my plane ticket home for Thanksgiving yet.

"Wait, what?"

"You know, for the baptism."

"We're doing it in November?"

"Of course we are!"

"Does ... does [brother] know?  Does [sister-in-law]?"

Apparently, after getting everybody's responses that yes, the day would work, she just assumed that everybody knew that it had been scheduled for that date, without telling everybody that yes, it worked for everybody.  I love my Mom, but she does this.  She will schedule things and not tell people.  She knows how everything fits together, and so she just assumes that everyone else knows too.  Even when you ask her directly, sometimes she'll leave out crucial information because she'll assume that either you don't need to know it or you already know it because it should be obvious.

My Dad loves Google Calendar.  It's the first time in their marriage that he's been able to figure out what's going on ahead of time, because Mom uses it religiously and now everything is in one place.  Instead of in five different places, one of which is inside her head.

This is definitely an emotional labor issue, but at the same time ... scheduling is not the exclusive province of my mother because Dad doesn't want to help and participate, okay?

Anyway, now I have a plane ticket home and the good news is that I will be home for Thanksgiving!

My parents are visiting.  And my house is, as usual, a bit of a mess.  I did clean up some things (scrub the tub and toilets, things like that) but not others, because, look.

My Dad and I are a lot alike.  Our idea of a nice, relaxing vacation is to sit around reading and chatting a bit, occasionally doing stuff.

My Mom HATES sitting still.  She is one of those people who always needs to be DOING something.  Or she either goes nuts or falls asleep.

We're going out to do stuff in the afternoon, but just spending a quiet morning in.  So far, while Dad and I have spent time chatting, reading, and the like, Mom has:

• Cooked breakfast (despite the general agreement being that we're on our own for all meals but dinner)
• cleaned the kitchen
• dusted all the knicknacks in the dining room

And yesterday she dusted all my bookshelves and the living room.  It's like having a house-elf.

I have been carefully curating my playlists since the early 2000s when I went off to college.  All music I owned was ripped to a series of laptops and put into playlists based on my own personal preferences, which were then loaded onto an mp3 player.  Some of these playlists are fairly short; some are thousands of songs long.  When I play them, I want a shuffle that is truly random, where I have the same chance of hearing everything on the playlist.  It wouldn't be ON the playlist, and I wouldn't be playing THAT playlist, if I didn't want to hear it!  I don't want the algorithm trying to figure out what I want, because it always goes "she's listened to these twenty songs in the last week, so obviously they are her favorites and she should hear them again."

When I listen to music on my phone, here's what happens.  Say I want to listen to my musical theater playlist.  The phone says, "aha! she listened to Hamilton yesterday, so when she puts on the Musical Theater playlist, she doesn't want to listen to all of it, she mostly wants to listen to Hamilton!" and cycles through the Hamilton songs with the occasional other show tune thrown in.  Which, no.  If I wanted to listen to ONLY Hamilton, I would be listening to the Hamilton playlist.  I would not be listening to the musical theater playlist!  So instead of putting the phone on shuffle and just driving down the road bopping along to my favorite show tunes, I have to worry about skipping through the stuff I just listened to yesterday.

Alas, I have not been able to find a music player app for android that doesn't do this.  And since my old MP3 player isn't really functional anymore, and I don't want to buy a new device for something my phone can do quite well, I'm frustrated.  I know that I am an old fuddy-duddy, and most people don't manually curate their own playlists anymore, just let the app do it for them, but I do--I've got twenty years of music exactly how I want it, and it's super simple to keep in order as I add music to it.  There has to be an app somewhere that will do what I want, where "shuffle"="random shuffle through the playlist" and not "let me try to read your mind and horribly fuck it up."

While I was in college, I ripped all my CDs to my computer and, using Windows Media Player, put them into playlists.  I like these playlists.  I have kept them curated and organized and constantly expanding for the last decade and a half.  Every music I have acquired since then has been added to these playlists.  Whatever devices I use to listen to music must be compatible with these playlists.  Up until now this was easy, because all I had to do was sync my mp3 player, and it worked.  (Yes, I still use my separate, dedicated mp3 player.  Yes, it's another device to carry.  But it has a very long battery life, so by using it I'm not draining my cellphone battery, which doesn't last as long.)  And when I finally got around to syncing my playlists to my phone, it just worked there too, in the default music app that was preloaded, unhelpfully called "Music," which I have not been able to find on the app store.

So I thought that syncing my playlists to my new tablet, it, too, would be no problem.  Ahahahaha.  No.  I have tried syncing multiple times.  I have tried many different apps.  I converted all my playlists from the default WMP format to the more-common m3u format.  I have tried both copying and pasting the files, and using Windows Media Player's sync feature.  But no matter what I try, the playlists either a) don't read the playlists, only the songs and albums, b) read the playlists, but can only seem to play one or two of them, or c) reads the playlists, can play one or two, and says it's playing the rest even when there is no sound coming out of the device.  I've checked forums, googled, nothing.

In the grand scheme of things this is not a huge deal, as I have both my mp3 player and my phone with all my music on them.  But it is FRUSTRATING.

For reference, in case it helps: the phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5, and the tablet is a Lenovo Tab A-10, and both are Android devices.  I have tried many players and can't remember them all, but I know I have tried both Google's Play Music and the other Music app that was preloaded on the device.

(By the way googling for apps with good playlist ability is useless, because what the reviewers gush about is the ability of the app to make playlists for you.  Which, okay, fine, if you trust the computer to make the right matches, no problem.  But there is no way the computer would be able to do anything half as good--for my personal tastes--as what I already have.  For example, one of my playlists is called "Folksy."  It contains some twangy country, some rockabilly old rock, some folk songs, some Gospel hymns, and a few other odds and ends including Rosemary Clooney's recording of This Ole House.  Now, a computer algorithm might get the rest of those ... but would it also pull in the Rosemary Clooney without also pulling in the rest of her songs which would be totally unsuitable for the "folksy" playlist?  I think not.)

So, normally my periods are pretty easy, compared to, like, any woman I know. Minimal pain, less blood flow (at least, averaging fewer pad/tampon changes per day), never starts in the middle of the night and soaks the bed in blood, you get the idea. (I mean, I do occasionally have diarhhea, and I usually have at least some problems with gas, but generally not terribly bad.) And sometimes I’ll have a bad month or two, but still, my “bad month” takes me to about what some women have as “normal”.

The last several months have been getting steadily worse.

( Cut for menstrual TMI )

My periods have been getting worse. I think it’s time to see a doctor about this. It’s not just one occasional bad month any more.

So, my family is all pretty sure (like 99% sure) that my aunt has been depressed for a couple of decades (there’s probably an unhealthy dose of anxiety in the mix, too).  She does not believe that, however.  I’ve suggested talking to her doctor about it, and she says that she’s fat and lazy and useless and no therapist can help with that, and doesn’t listen when I say yeah, but the therapist might be able to help you realize you aren’t lazy and useless, and feel better about the fact that you’re fat.

She has health problems that are very real, but at the very least the depression is making them more difficult to deal with.  (Being so mentally fried she can’t cook and goes out to eat instead does not help with the diabetes, for example.)  She was depressed but fairly stable for a long time, but Grandma was her main emotional and physical support through that time--they lived on the same piece of property, and Grandma would cook for the both of them and do yardwork and such while Aunt was at work, which allowed her to save up her spoons.  But Grandma died a year ago, and I’m not sure if Aunt’s getting worse or if it’s just that she’s overwhelmed by trying to do EVERYTHING.  I live half a continent away and I do what I can when I’m home, and talk to her regularly on the phone when I’m not.  My parents live in the next town over and visit at least once a week, doing odd jobs and whatnot to help her, but it’s not sustainable for them or her.

Anybody got any brilliant (or, even just vaguely competent, that would work too) ideas for what to say and do to help her at least ask her doctor about it and get an evaluation?  I’ve talked to her a couple of times over the years about it, and she’s never listened, but then again, she’s never been this bad before.  I sent her the pics about “what depression actually feels like” vs. “what people think depression feels like.”  I want her to be happy and to realize that most of the things she thinks are character flaws are symptoms of her illness.

Help!

Hey, I just came across an article about freelance jobs where the demand is currently growing (supposedly).  Since none of these jobs are ones I'd ever heard or thought of (so presumably others may not have heard of them, either), and because I know there are people on my flist who may be interested in a side gig to bring in some extra money (or even a main gig to get them out of crappy jobs, if it works out), and because many of these freelance gigs use something fen tend to be very good at (i.e. writing or other artistic expression such as drawing and voice acting), I thought I would link to them.

11 freelance niches that are growing at The Simple Dollar

Had you ever thought of writing product descriptions?  Neither had I, but as everything is sold online--and Google keeps changing their algorithms--many companies need new, enticing, accurate, google-bait descriptions of all their stuff, and need it changed with some regularity to keep up with Google.  Or voice acting!  Not for Hollywood movies, but for corporate cartoons and instructional vids.  Bet some podficcers out there would do an awesome job at that one.  Transcriptions?  Psh.  Fans do that all the time.  Doodle video creation (again for corporate cartoons and instructional vids), again, I know some fans who could knock it out of the park.

For those of you out there who need some cash, take a look!

... an LCMS pastor is the religious leader coordinating and sending out emails for a local Christian Unity gathering.  quinfirefrorefiddle will know why I snicker each time I see one.

The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod (aka LCMS or just "Missouri Synod") is much more conservative than the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Although they aren't the most conservative Lutheran church in America, they're the largest conservative Lutheran denomination.  And they have an institutional phobia about doing anything with people who don't hold and proclaim the "pure Gospel" like they do.  They couldn't possibly do anything that might imply that they endorse anything that isn't the ABSOLUTELY PURE LUTHERAN DOCTRINE (which they are the only arbiters of), and nobody can possibly be a true Lutheran without agreeing with them on every tiny point of doctrine (and some of them aren't too sure that people who disagree with them can even be called true Christians at all).  Most lay people in their church aren't bad about it, but some of their pastors can and do lead witch-hunts to root out impure doctrine and improper ecumenism.*   So when I see an LCMS pastor working on anything to do with Christian Unity, it's funny.  And I wonder what his superiors and fellow pastors think of him ...

*You may recall that after 9/11, an LCMS district president (their equivalent of a bishop) participated in a huge ecumenical prayer service in New York City.  (It might have been held at Yankee Stadium?  It was a really big deal, anyway, lots of religious leaders from lots of denominations.)  He had permission from the overall president of the LCMS to do it, but the ultra-conservative faction managed to get him brought up on charges anyway, hoping to use him to oust the president (who was, gasp, shock, horror, only a moderate conservative, not an ultra-conservative).  The District President resigned, instead.

For those of you interested in the history of it, ( internecine Lutheran strife, witch hunts, and propaganda )

tl;dr: the LCMS has been kinda screwed up since the late 1960s.

I had been looking forward to rarewomen (and signups are open so you should all go check it out and sign up).

Not happening this year.  My grandma has stage 4 cancer and the doctor is saying months (don't know how many) and if you're going to visit, sooner would be better than later.  And March and April are two of the three busiest months in my profession so taking time off in March or April would be not possible except for dire emergencies, so I'm looking to go home next week if I can make it work (and praying that it will).

Even if I she's miraculously cured in the next two weeks ... nope.  There's just no way I can write.

So, this summer, I am going to be visiting the awesome Cherie Renae Studios and getting a superhero picture done.  I will have wings! ... but I need a costume.  And a superhero name.

My color will be red.  (As you can tell from my icon, it's my favorite color.)  My two favorite superheros are probably Oracle and Wonder woman, though I have soft spots for Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown, Superman, and Captain America.  Smarts/detective skills/computer skills would be a cool secondary power to have besides the wings.

So!  What should my superhero name be?  Background?  Am I a mythical creature or an alien?  Do I use technology or magic?  Am I DC or Marvel?  (Despite my yuck factor with New 52 and my love of recent Marvel movies, I am at heart a DC girl ... but if the recent relative awesomeness of the two franchises keeps on as it has been recently, that may change.)

Costume!  I am a very good seamstress, so I can make anything I want.  (There will be no sex-kittening.)  With wings, a cape really doesn't work.  It could be anything from a simple red turtleneck and black cargo pants and black boots to something more elaborate and superhero-y.  (I already have knee-high black boots that I think I will wear because they are practical and look good and I think superheroines don't wear high heels.)  Should I go the traditional spandex-route?  Should I wear my underwear on the outside?  Should I wear a mask?  Should I make some kind of insignia to go on the front of the costume?  (Designing and creating the insignia would be the most difficult part, I think.)

Discuss!