Still don't know where I'm moving to, but major progress was made yesterday. My friend Allen and I took my box springs and mattress to the dump along with a big bag of junk and a dead chair. Now I have room to actually put packed boxes. The down side of this is that I have to fight the cat about my sleeping on the couch..... There's a much better box springs and mattress in the storage unit, but not moving them in here, going to wait until I find a place, hopefully soon. Not like George doesn't have other places to sleep, I have the comforter from the bed down on the bedroom floor. He has his little bed in the closet. He has the armchair. But NO! We have to sleep right by mommy on the couch or dance on mommy's head or feet. Or use mommy as a spring board to get up on the back of the couch in the dead of night for no known reason. I feel bad for George, all of this moving stuff around and

"Just chill, think happy thoughts, breathe" uh huh. Not directed at you guys, you're much cooler than that. What some folks don't seem to understand is that when someone with anxiety/depression is anxious about something, it truly does NO freaking good to say the above stuff, even if well meant. Trust me, if I could, I would. Things that cause anxiety in well balanced people might benefit from above advise, but what i go through is probably 10x worse than what they feel. Yes, I'm on meds for it. Yes, I try and meditate and think happy thoughts and stuff. No, it's really not working. When someone is going through not only a family member being on hospice AND having to move after over 30 years in the same place, most normal people would freak. I freak too, but it's to the point where I literally become unable to even start the smallest stuff. I never made a choice to be like this, I am not a weak person. I am not happy about the fact that right now the smallest thing added to the above is likely to cause me to have a bad reaction to whatever. What DOES help is that reminding me that even a "normal" person would react to this, so it's not just me. That it's not just me, that it is a very icky thing and I'm justified in my feelings. Sounds weird, but validation is a wonderful thing, especially if it comes from someone who is "normal" Telling me that somehow it WILL sort itself out is also sort of a good thing. Offering hugs is a VERY good thing.

The number of possessions I have that is. This weekend I've taken out 2 30 gallon trash bags of stuff to the dumpster. Several things of recycle. Boxed summer clothes up. Consolidated a bunch of stuff. I've started a second 30 gallon bag of Goodwill stuff. I dump stuff, I come back in and look around and you can't even tell anything's gone. Maybe if Allen and I hopefully do a dump run next weekend it'll make me feel better. I have a lot of large objects that need to go away.
On the up side, I went to the Yule Fest at the Nordic Heritage museum this weekend and scored on some baked goods. The ginger cookies with the sliced almonds are to die for!
For the third time in a row when I've gone up to see Dad he hasn't wanted to wake up to visit. Today's visit consisted of:
Hey Dad, wake up
WHAT?
I came up to visit and bring you your candy bars
Good! (The one eye that was part way open closed agin)
I love you Dad
OK (snores)
I've gotta figure out what freaking time of the day the hospice workers go see him when he's alert and talking to them.......

Over 30 freaking years of MY stuff, not to mention a whole bunch of my parent's stuff.
Today I have emptied several boxes of stuff and either put it in the 30 gallon trash bag full of stuff to go to Goodwill which is almost full, an additional 30 gallon garbage bag most with old old large floppy discs, and a whole lot of stuff that didn't pass the "do I want to pack and unpack this?" stuff but isn't donatable. The cat is grouchy and jumpy and keeps giving me this slitty, evil eye look as seen in the user icon space. I am giving myself the same glare.
Gonna seriously start looking for a place, I'm figuring that ads will be coming out for things that will be available Dec. 1st. SO hoping I can find a place I can afford that isn't teeny tiny.

My attitude about just about everything sucks, hammering man and red hot icepick man have been taking turns on my toe joint and I seem to have way too much stress neck going on. And all they can do is shove more pills at me. On blood pressure stuff now, Zoloft dose is upped and still on the freaking steroids.
Talked to the hospice social worker a few days ago, they're taking care of the fact that the visiting nurse service was quitting, amazingly enough right after I reamed one of them out for making Dad suffer due to a decrease in meds. I might add at this point that both she and the RN that visits him once a week from the hospice people were totally horrified and said that it NEVER should've been that way. Social worker says not to worry they'll take care of it and I can go back to being the daughter. Really???? Seriously???? Like I don't have to fuss about his money etc? Like I don't have to worry about when I can fill out Medicaid applications for him???? As if I haven't had to put off my own health stuff because I've been dealing with Dad stuff which pretty much took up most of my vacation hours at work??? So yeah, no.
And I'm really tired of being so negative all the time. I'm tired of having to rely on friends just to stay halfway sane when so many of you guys have your own BS that you're dealing with.

At least on the Dad front that is. Still have to look for a place to move to, still have packing and decluttering to do... all of which is still giving me panic attacks, but at least there's only one source of panic and not two right now.
Oddly enough, the slack plane has somewhat slanted in my direction, at least as far as small things go. It's been VERY rainy here, typical for October, but it seems like it manages to stop when it's time for me to go to work so I'm still able to have my nice morning walk rather than taking the bus. Had a slightly better review at work than I expected, so halfway decent raise coming up. And I have discovered that there are a lot of people at work that really look up to me, which is nothing I ever expected, especially since I have refused all attempts of management to get me to be a lead or a supe. After my years in candle land, the last thing I want is to have to come home with my job on my mind, I love that I can put down my headset at the end of my shift, and unless there's an amusing story to make out of the troubles, work is gone. And I'm totally loving my purple jacket that my friend Allen bought me at the Columbia Crest outlet the last time he was in Portland. In the first place, it's purple, in the second place, it's got the most wonderful hood that sticks out well in front of my head and my glasses don't get all wet in the rain.

The under eye twitch is back. Gee, stress anyone? Yeah.
Sooooo on the one hand, now that Dad's pain meds have been raised, he's feeling somewhat better and is again answering the phone in the evening when I call him, and looked better when I visited, not so much like a wax doll. He visited with me for about 5 minutes, was very lucid, knew what I was talking about and then dropped off back to sleep, which is fine. He has gone down for a couple of his meals. Still waiting for the hospice/pain management team to see him.
On the other hand, I got a notice that they're raising my rent by a ridiculous amount as of Dec 1st, as in if I stayed here I'd have to live on like $150 a month which ain't happening. They're doing this because they want to have the whole building renovated soon, most of the apartments are done except for a few of the old guard that have been here many many years. In my case, over 30 years. I am SO fucked. I won't find a place this big that I can afford in this neighborhood, where I have Dad in the assisted living place. Most neighborhoods where I might find something are either too far away from Dad and work or are not a safe area especially for a woman coming home after dark on the bus. So yeah. Beginning to go through years of possessions trying to decide what to keep. One half way saving factory is due to my inability to cope with stuff I hadn't closed out my Dad's 2nd storage locker which only has a mattress and box springs in it. So I'm going to start packing up boxes of stuff I don't need right now but want to keep (hello mondo books) and will go from there.
A silver lining.... my wonderful friend Allen who is one of my main props in life has been listening to me freak out and when he came over, he said that he'd been talking to Mom (his mom but I call her that too) and not only is he going to rent a large truck to move to the new place when I find it in one swell foop (he has a commercial driver's license so no dinking around here) AND he's not loaning, but freaking GIVING me $1000 to help pay for first, last and damage deposit. I had been thinking I'd need to cash out all my profit sharing at work probably and cash in a smallish life insurance policy that my folks got for me when I was a kid. And he was annoyed when I burst into tears and he wouldn't let me hug him either. He's like, you're family, you have filled in a hole that was left when my other sister passed away. He did this for his niece he's helped his other sister out, and now me. And Mom fully approved, which made me feel totally wonderful, she's rather critical of people sometimes.
Doc appointment tomorrow, she's gonna yell at me a little bit, but not too much, she's very kind when I'm upset. I'm figuring I'll have to go on blood pressure meds now.

Seems like a lot of times when I post stuff on here or on FB I get the most comments from things that don't really matter.
I can talk about too loud music from outside, I'll get 20-30 comments over on FB, but at the same time no comments if I say something about being upset about the Dad situation or something like that.
Maybe it's because people can relate to the insubstantial stuff and not to the heavier stuff? Maybe they just don't know what to say. maybe they just can't relate because it's something they have not experienced???
Seriously folks, even if you can't really relate or don't know what to say, a simple "hang in there" or "*hugs*" can mean an awful lot.
I know that I tend to get rather verbose about stuff sometimes, and a lot of the time, even if it's serious, I do try and make it funny, all the better to deal with it my dears. And I know that I notice stuff that others don't always notice, partly because I walk a lot and take public transportation which means that I'm exposed to the general population more than some folks are. And when I notice those things, I like to share my giggling or shuddering. And you seem to like it.
I'm so vain, I probably think this post is about me..... well yeah, duh

There are a lot of things that I miss.
Sitting on the stoop or strolling down the sidewalk in the late summer evenings and talking to the other folks that are strolling or sitting on their stoops
Obviously what's left of my family back there, who thank goodness I am now back in touch with
But mostly, it's the food. Bagels, as in real bagels that don't look like donuts and are so hard and stale by the next day that you can seriously hurt a cousin by beaning him with one, or by being beaned by one by same cousin.
Italian bread. They don't have "real" Italian bread in Seattle. Or bagels for that matter. I can remember walking up to the corner bakery with either Mom or Grandma (once in a while Grandpa if I'd had a dream the night before that gave him wonderful numbers to bet on) and buying a nice loaf of still warm, wonderful smelling Italian bread. It's a bit similar to French bread except a more dense crumb and usually a softer crust. SO good with butter.
Sausage rolls. Italian sausage (either sweet or hot, take your pick) sauteed onions and peppers wrapped up in pizza dough and baked to order. No freaking sauce. Sauce does NOT belong in a proper sausage roll and neither does cheese.
The original "dirty" ice cream which was Byers. Back then unavailable any way except hand packed or in a cone. Had flecks of vanilla bean in it. The commercial stuff they have now that are available everywhere just aren't as good.
The real NY Pizza that you fold up to eat
The hot pretzels that you get in the subway station and on the Staten Island ferry.
Nathan's hotdogs
Oh man....... I wanna go eat!