Covid

Close-up photograph of coronavirus. 

So on Monday I learned that ANOTHER staff member has covid. Because this staff member worked with Love Bug, Love Bug is now on covid precautions. This means he can't leave his room even for showers, everyone has to wear PPE when they go in his room for any reason, and I can't visit him for two weeks. I'm not thrilled about this even though I appreciate that they are being cautious.

Also because of the situation, all of the staff at my workplace had to get tested for covid. This morning I went to the drive-through testing site in Lowell, MA to do my test. I tested negative. Phew!

What else is new? Love Bug had virtual appointments with his nutritionist and with the GI specialist. I decided to use the bank's lawyer because it's cheaper than getting my own lawyer. Annnnnnd I got a mortgage quote that was a stupidly low interest rate, which quite frankly might be the only positive thing to happen with covid. I think that's it.

Geek Hat

I've been saving a couple of my best hats for last. This hat makes me super happy. It's a black hat that says "GEEK" in white lettering and it has a floral brim. I wore it with jeans and a pink t-shirt. I also tried it with a chunky flower necklace. Not sure whether I liked it better with or without the necklace though. What do you think?

Selfie with the necklace.

Selfie without the necklace.

Today I had work and I got to see Love Bug. We spent most of our time together playing with some new toy airplanes. Some time was also spent trying to yank at my necklace, which is why I ultimately decided that the no-necklace look was the winner.

So. Tired.

Today I had work immediately after my overnight clinical. Does anyone else see a sad pattern here? So do I. That pattern is no sleep for me.

Squidward from the cartoon Sponge Bob Square Pants looking completely exhausted with bloodshot eyes and the text "I am not tired" superimposed on the picture.

Anyway, despite the lack of sleep I managed to make it through my scheduled 7-3 shift. I wore my black krav shirt and a black military-style cap with jeans and sneakers.

Me smiling despite the tiredness.

After work I took Love Bug to his classmate's Pokemon-themed birthday party. If I'd known the party was Pokemon-themed I would've worn something Pokemon-themed! Oh well. They had cake and pizza and happy kids so it was fun and Love Bug seemed to enjoy himself.

Day of Rest

This month has been bananas so far.

I left off on Tuesday of last week. On Wednesday I visited Love Bug and went to ASL class. In ASL class I learned about the Nelson Mandela Memorial debacle that happened back in 2013 that I had no awareness of at the time. President Obama was giving a speech when the ASL interpreter Thami Jantjie made a bunch of fake signs. Think: random gesticulations that meant exactly nothing in ASL. This would have been bad enough, but the problem wasn't addressed until the speech was over and Deaf folks thought that if Jantjie had been fake translating an oral language the problem would've been handled far more quickly. Yikes!

Meme of Thami Jantjie. The top shows him fake signing and it says "what we saw."
The bottom shows Mr. Bean making a ridiculous gesture and it says "What deaf people saw."

On Thursday I went to my church's Blue Christmas service. This was actually really helpful to me since I've been feeling kind of down about not having Mom around for Christmas (or her birthday which was December 2nd).

On Friday I had my pharmacology final. Yikes! I crammed like crazy and I think I passed but that final was hellish.

Princess Bride meme that says "The next time I see that pharmacology exam... I will say to it: Hello my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my GPA... Prepare to die."

Saturday was Love Bug's birthday. Yay! He turned fourteen. I had to work which in this case was lucky since it meant I was there all day and I was able to set up the party. His grandma, mom, little sister, aunt, and cousins all came and he was SO EXCITED to see them. I was happy for the chance to meet the family members I didn't know.

Photograph of a light blue tinted cake with fourteen candles on it.

The rest of the week was just more finals. So many finals. But now they're done and I've passed my first semester of nursing school!

Meme of Frodo that says "It's over: The first semester of nursing school is done."

I celebrated the end of finals week by visiting Love Bug again and then driving to look at other people's over-the-top Christmas light displays. Here is a terrible picture of the most ridiculous light display I could find:

Blurry photograph of a light display with various animated Christmas things such as toy soldiers and Santa Claus.

The last thing that happened this week which bears mentioning is that Wolfie got my Christmas present - a crèche. Here she is playing with it:

Wolfie moving the figurines around.

Today's big task was decorating my Christmas tree. Huzzah!

Esh decided to help me.

Mayim was unsure about this whole Christmas tree thing so she hid in the kitchen shelving.

The tree.

Closeup of the tree topper.

That's it. I will leave you with this photo of my cats:

Esh (left) and Mayim (right).

What's New?

Well the biggest news is that they finally finished processing my background check so I am officially Love Bug's visiting resource. Yay! We have our first visit scheduled and I'm excited about it.

What else happened?

I voted. I am happy to report that it worked since we upheld the trans antidiscrimination law. Huzzah!

Me with my "I Voted" sticker.

The other big thing that happened is that there were three giant explosions at around 10:15pm on Monday. There was no power for a large radius and the neighbors' kids wanted to light candles but we told them know because we were waiting for someone to tell us if there’s gas we should be worrying about. We did see a couple of firetrucks and cop cars but they just cruised slowly by without stopping. We decided we'd all chillax on my neighbor’s porch with blankets and beer and flashlights while the kids (who were all super excited about possibly not having school tomorrow) ran around in the street. I finally gave up and went back to bed around midnight. The rumor is that there was a large underground fire which caused exploding manhole covers, which is what made the exploding noises and blew out all the power.

I also had a text, a lab, and my maternity clinical. It's ridiculous to me how many tests we have in this program. Sheesh!

What A Week

Well, my weekend involved church, work, a movie date with friends, and an irksome school situation. Basically, our pharmacology professor emailed the class offering to push back our test by a week so we wouldn’t have two tests on the same day. The only catch is that we would all have to agree to this. Of course, one woman ruined it for everybody by saying she wants to take it as scheduled. I promise you I speak with 100% certainty when I say that my entire nursing class now hates this particular student.

Here we are, ready to watch a movie.

On Monday I spent the day attempting to study but my cats kept interrupting me with cuteness. I also talked to my dad and learned that because he was going to get drafted to Vietnam he signed up for the army and did aircraft maintenance/repair (helicopters were his specialty). He also learned to repair trucks and jeeps, and he’s trained to fire machine guns and whatnot from the air since the aircraft repair guys also doubled as shooters. He has never talked about this before so I had no idea. It was kind of weird to learn.

Me and my kitty Esh!

On Tuesday I took both tests - maternity and pharmacology. Then I had a work meeting and creole class. I was DONE by the end of all that so on Wednesday after my lab class I decided I needed to do something fun so I went to Salem with Joy and Mini T. Shenanigans ensued:

Me and mini T in front of the random gay doors.

Me, Mini T, and Joy waiting for our pizza.

Me and Mini T - we found fake eyebrows and a fake beard.

Mini T in the fake eyebrows and beard.

Joy drinks a beard in the fake eyebrows and beard.

On Thursday I had my maternity clinical, which was fairly uneventful this time. On Friday I studied, hung out with my cats, and visited Aquafabulous for dinner and gardening. Today I have work.

Now that things are in process I can finally mention it on here: my favorite patient recently became legally free for adoption and I have contacted his social worker to inquire about adopting him.

The big hurdles here are that:

1) This is not exactly an ideal time for me to adopt since I'm in school full time.
2) I'll need to move since he is a wheelchair user and there's no way to make my apartment accessible.

Ideally I would want to finish school, get a nursing job, buy an accessible house, and THEN adopt him. This may actually be feasible, since it's extremely unlikely that anyone else will apply to adopt him while I'm getting my act together. Most potential adoptive parents are looking for babies and young children, not disabled teens of color.

So in the meantime while I'm finishing school etc. his social worker suggested that I could become his visiting resource. Visiting resources undergo the same DCF background checks as foster and adoptive parents, and once they've been approved they can spend unsupervised time with the child and take them on outings to the playground or restaurants or museums or whatever. So now we've filled out the paperwork for that and are just waiting for the official approval to go through. Once it does, she'll let his family know that I'm becoming a visiting resource for him. They already know me because I've been at work when they've come to visit him so hopefully they'll be fine with it. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, since I'm likely to be blogging about him now I'm giving him a pseudonym: Love Bug.

Bombed Exam and Secrets

Well, that test did not go well. I actually sought out my advisor to talk to her about it and had this conversation:

Me: So I’m freaking out because I bombed my pathophysiology test. 
Advisor: Wait what? I got a gigantic list of everyone who is failing the class and you’re not on it. 
Me: … 
Her: Oh! You did bomb the test! You’re still passing the class because you had a perfect grade before. Well I can tell you that you’re doing much better than a lot of people. 

Somehow this does not make me feel any better...

Black and white meme of guy from the 1950s that says "Don't Worry: Everyone Else Failed The Test Too."

The other big thing that's going on is not something I can post about. Sigh.

It's January!

It’s January! I’ve been off here for quite a while because I was dealing with a lot of life stuff and a particularly nasty bout of depression. Thankfully, I’m on the other side of it now and I’m picking up the little things that fell to the wayside while I focused elsewhere.

A lot of changes have happened since my last blog update. The biggest change is that I’ve finally moved into my own apartment in Worcester MA. I’m still in the never-ending process of getting it set up, but I love it so far and I’m so so so happy to be living by myself again. The apartment is a lead-free two bedroom with a gigantic yard and amazingly friendly neighbors so (God willing) I won’t have to move from here unless I’m either buying a house or headed for Canada. Other big changes include totaling my old car and getting a new one, finishing the Red Cross CNA program and passing the state CNA test, getting another higher-paying job, and taking my nursing prerequisites at North Shore Community College. Here's a monthly breakdown of what I've been up to:

In July I visited Rockport with Feather, Dolphin, Wolfie, and Surrogate Mom. 

Me, Dolphin, and Feather find a unicorn!

Feather, me, and Wolfie at the beach.

Blanket fort.

I also went to a fourth of July party, took my former nannying kid to and Mini T the aquarium and the science museum, saw Surrogate Mom's choral concert, celebrated Alice's birthday, went kayaking with friends, and had a mini tea party:

Mini T and Joy's little brother with sparklers.

Fourth of July fire pit with Cupcake, Joy's brother, Mini T, Joy's mom, and Belle.

Former nannying kid and Mini T at the aquarium touch tank.

Me with the dinosaur bones at the science museum.

Former nannying kid at the science museum.

Surrogate mom's choral concert.

Alice and Plath at Alice's birthday party.

Kayaking with a friend.

Me drinking tea out of a tiny cup.

And, because I'm ridiculous, I dressed up as an anglerfish for a costuming event at Revere Beach:

I did the Red Cross CNA program and passed the state CNA test:

My CNA class.

Me, my professor, and the medical dummy.

When August started, Feather and Wolfie were still visiting the USA. While they were here, our friends in France finally had their super adorable baby (not pictured).

Wolfie and me on a nature walk.

Feather in the ocean.

Seagull on the beach.

Wolfie on a rock fence.

Wolfie and Feather headed to the airport.

I also went to a Labyrinth-themed ball at the old Higgins Armory museum, which is now an event venue.

Karma, Bones, Bruno's new husband, and Bruno are unintentionally coordinated in red, white, and black.

Karma and Bone in harlequin-esque outfits.

Bruno's husband, Bruno, and me in unintentionally matching outfits.

Here's Karma, me, and Bones again looking fierce.

Crowd shot.

Crowd shot.

The end of August was also the first leg of my move. Because my lease was up before I found a new place to live, my things went into storage and the cats and I moved in with friends:

One of the friends I was living with, Tinkerbell, teaches archery and knows how to make her own arrows.

The lake where I spent much of the end of August.

Prettier shot of the lake.

Esh and Mayim on top of me on the couch in our temporary house.

My September was mostly spent house searching and starting classes at North Shore Community College, where I'm doing my prerequisites for nursing school. Despite being super busy with house searching and school and work, I did have some fun. I discovered the wonders of Jordan's Furniture with my new client Waldo. I also went window shopping a bunch while I looked for things for the new apartment:

Waldo at Jordan's Furniture in front of some jelly bean sculptures.

Mini T and I try out all the makeup in Sephora.

Me with a unicorn head.

In October I moved into my new place. I'll make a house tour post here at some point. I also carved pumpkins, went on multiple nature walks, went to the Topsfield Fair twice (winning multiple goldfish that promptly died), and went to a charity event where we drank and catapulted pumpkins at an old car.

Mayim in her new favorite spot - the bathroom sink!

Joy, Belle, me, Mini T, and the fish we won.

The catapult.

For Halloween I dressed up with Waldo - I was Jaws, he was Quint, and his wheelchair was the boat. I also dressed up as Miss Hannigan, because why have one halloween costume when you could have two:

Waldo and I as Quint and Jaws.

Me as Miss Hannigan.

A fun project that Dolphin convinced me to do in November is Dinovember. The idea is that each day in November you one picture of plastic dinosaurs posed as though they came to life when you weren’t looking. Here are (in my opinion) the five best dino pics I took:

Dinos at the water cooler.

Velociraptors attacking the leftover Halloween candy.

Dinos doing dishes.

T-Rex gives a stump speech (while standing on a tree stump).

Dinos stealing croissants.

Other than Dinovember, I did two big things in November. One of them was Waldo's sister's wedding:

The happy couple dancing up a storm.

Waldo and I.

Me and Waldo's Nonna, aka my surrogate Nonna.

The other big thing I did in November was visiting Dolphin, Feather, Wolfie, and my other friends in France for Thanksgiving break - including my friends' new baby! It was so good to see all of them! We had goddaughter-godfather playtime at the park, a big group of us went to a fashion show and dance party, we had a godparent gathering of aperos, we hit up the local queer bar, we had a living room sing-a-long with friends, we went out for tea, we had dinner with the friends who have the new baby, we had a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner with a turkey as big as Wolfie, we went to the #metoo protests, and of course we went to church because what kind of godfather would I be if I didn't make sure Wolfie was getting a proper religious education? Random assorted pictures follow:

Wolfie on one of our walks.

Dolphin, Feather, me, and Wolfie making ridiculous faces.

How many adults does it take to put a temporary tattoo on Wolfie? Apparently three of them.

Feather and I getting the turkey.

Wolfie and Feather making cookies.

Wolfie and Tat.

Friend sing-along!

At the protest!

Apparently we looked very interview-able.

Crowd shot of the protest. It was HUGE.

Wolfie with our sign.

New baby visit!

In December I put up a tree, went hiking, saw the Christmas display at Faneuil hall, and learned to make Glögg which, frankly, tastes like cough medicine BUT you get to light it on fire!

Making Glögg .

I also hosted my annual cookie swap – I only took one photograph but I think it gets the point across:

Picture of my kitchen table filled with cookies.

For Christmas I went to Church, had housemate Christmas with Belle, Joy, and Mini T, and did queer family Christmas at Pacman and Purl's house.

Picture of the gingerbread house I made with Belle, Joy, and Mini T.

I also went to a friend's art opening at the Springdale Barrel Room:

The room.

Friends! Artist friend is on the left, Tinkerbell is on the right.

My January was slightly more sedate. Aside from a skating trip and a few manly spa days (which is now a thing I do with some of my guy friends), I mostly spent January setting up my house.

Pacman and I go skating.

Me in a spa mask.

Alice helps me put up my new painting.

Two days ago I went to a friend's birthday party. We're gonna call this friend The Rev (he is not a reverend):

Fire pit.

The Rev and his cake.

And yesterday I hosted a Soup Throwdown. I again didn't take pictures other than this one photo of the ballot box where people could vote on their favorite soups. The winner was Aquafabulous and her pumpkin soup. I was also excited to receive a scarf from Pacman to replace the one he made me before that met a sad death in the dryer of my former coop.

Soup throwdown ballot box, crown, and award (a can of tomato soup).

Me in my new scarf.

What else?

I’ve set up dating profiles and one of my goals for this year is to actually start going on dates. We’ll see how it goes, but now that my life is finally exactly where I want it to be, I feel like I'm ready to put in the time and emotional energy needed for a real relationship. 

Prince Charming and the male Snow White.

I’ve also recommitted to maintaining my physical health. I joined a gym that is dirt cheap and has locations five minutes from my house, five minutes from my work, and ten minutes from my school. They also let you bring a guest for free every time you go, which is great for me because it means I can bring my own workout buddy without them needing to be a member. In addition to that gym, I've joined the local kickboxing and krav maga studio that my friend Karaoqueen attends. Because I love kickboxing and I’ve always wanted to try krav maga.

Picture of two white men with tattoos fighting.

I’ve found some good local churches but haven't quite settled on any of them. I've got it narrowed down to three right now - an Episcopal church, a Baptist church, and a Congregational church. All of them seem to hits my church criteria: an ethnically and racially diverse congregation that is engaged with immigrants rights and racial justice, a close-knit community with lots of events outside of Sunday worship, child-friendly with a good Sunday school but also allowing kids into the “grown-up” services if they don’t want to leave their parents, accessible to people with disabilities, has a choir and adult Bible study that I can join, and emphasizes enacting your faith physically through community service both individually and with the rest of the church community.

Clipart image of a church.

I’ve also gotten serious about preparing to adopt. I intentionally picked this apartment because of how kid-friendly it is. I’m at the end of a dead-end street and many of the neighbors – including the folks upstairs in my building – have kids. Before it got so cold out I saw them playing outside together every day. I’m literally a five-minute walk from the local school. And of course the apartment itself is set up for a family between the second bedroom, large yard, and lead free certification (which my state requires for foster and adoption and which is surprisingly hard to find). All I need to make the apartment set for kids a set of bunkbeds (because the kid room is otherwise set up now) and some kid safety things like outlet covers and cabinet locks. And all I need to do aside from the apartment is to prepare a bit more financially, switch to a CNA job that has better hours (which will also fix the financial situation because being a CNA pays more than my current job), and figure out good affordable childcare (not easy!).

Male Rosie the Riveter holding a baby and a dust pan.