Serene of the Oakland Serenes

Hi, my lovelies,

If you're up for it, could you post your favorite non-chocolate easy cake recipe? The kid has started baking cakes, and she hates both chocolate and hard recipes. Halp? Thx!

( An email from the friend y'all helped me help today. Grab a Kleenex first. )

Thank you to everyone who helped. You sent almost exactly $200 ($199.36, to be exact), in amounts from $1 to $30, so nobody better ever dare tell me that little bits of help don't count. I'm very happy with my friends. I do ask for help in helping people every now and then, and I hope I never become a burden in doing so. My feelings will certainly NEVER be hurt if you don't want to help, or can't, or whatever. But you'll forgive me for being all schmoopy about how awesome it is that people all over the world reached out to a total stranger to help her keep her head above water. And that I call each and every one of those people my friends. I am really truly the luckiest person in the world.

So I was talking to an old friend (years; I don't know how many -- maybe ten?) who never complains. I mean, I've never seen her complain, and she always says everything happens for a reason. One of those cheerful sorts. Recently she's been super-supportive of me, and she seemed down, so I asked her what was up. Turns out she's completely destitute, has an out-of-work partner, is struggling to find vegetarian foods in their food-pantry haul, and is about to lose her home. !!!

I, wanting of course to help, but not knowing how I could possibly put a dent in a mortgage payment, asked how much to pay the mortgage for one month to give her a chance to breathe.

$300.

I forgot that not everyone has multiple-thousand-dollar mortgages where they live. Holy crap, *I* have $300. I mean, not to spare, exactly, but if I had to, I could pay all my bills this month and pay her mortgage, and buy her some food, and that would just about tap me out, but I'm in no danger of losing my house or anything. So I sent her $400, and I'm posting a paypal button in case anyone has some goodwill money available and would be able/willing/happy to help out. No obligation, no pressure, etc. Things are tough all over and I know that.

Recently, in a locked post that I've since been denied access to via delisting (what do you guys call "defriending" now that the access list isn't called "friends"?), a friend posted some kink-culture-related humor, aimed at kinky folks. It wasn't especially complimentary toward vanilla folks, and I got my back up at this. I disliked being mocked, even indirectly, and when I objected, I was delisted.

In the interim, another friend made the good point that I was at least partly speaking from a place of privilege in space that the original friend may have thought was made up entirely of kinky folk. If the original friend is reading, I offer my apology for not clearing that up or asking to be filtered off the post. But I've been thinking a lot about what would make someone assume that a post aimed at BDSMers is something that I would be the proper audience for.

( That last part is what I want to talk about. )

So glad I took today off from everything, because I would've had to cancel if I had had obligations. Spent last night up and down with painful/scary side-effect stuff, then awoke with my joints on fire and my skin tender to the touch. There was literally no position I could find where stuff didn't hurt*. But seriously, not to minimize how much that sucked, it would have sucked SO much more if I'd had to go to go to work, or run errands, or, well, anything.

I did cook dinner (easy vegan lasagna thing from the Kickstart) and do a few dishes when I could stand to touch things, but otherwise, I've spent the entire day propped up in my recliner with someotherguy's eeePC in my lap. The day really could have been worse.

While I was lounging around, I started reading some books on Gutenberg (their top 2 downloads at the time were "The Yellow Wallpaper" and a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I'd read the former and many of the latter, but I went ahead and read them. I enjoyed the Gilman, as I always do, and am enjoying the Conan Doyle, as well. Oh, and I revisited the idea of doing Distributed Proofreading for them -- it may be volunteer work I can handle, because it doesn't involve pushing through pain and fatigue and getting out of the house.



*So glad to be scheduled to see this new doc who specializes in rheumatology and might -- just might -- be able to figure out a useful diagnosis/treatment for me. At the very least, maybe he can point me in the right direction. Very very tired of the unpredictability and the pain of this mysterious condition.

1) I'm taking this weekend off. I'm unplugging the phone, metaphorically speaking, and if it's not an emergency, I'm not interested. I need to do my taxes, and I need to rest, and that's what I'm gonna do.

2) A friend's dad is living alone for the first time in forever, and he has an adorable cooking blog where he lets us watch while he teaches himself to cook comfort food. I know lots of you would have great input for him, and it's fun to encourage a beginner cook: Today, he makes chicken pie-lets.

3) Still loving my job; still hating cancer; still not King.

4) ( Two-sentence, non-spoilery reviews, though because my definition of spoiler may be different from yours, they're all under the cut: Carnivale, Robin Hood, Lars and the Real Girl )

5) My mommy's coming to town in a couple of weeks!

Hey, Bay Area folks: I rarely shill anything here, but I'm gonna do it today. I'm really loving Farm Fresh To You -- the quality is the best I've seen (I've tried three other services) and it's delivered. If you want to try them out, you can get $5 off and I can get a free delivery. Just use promo code 6164 and put "serene@serenepages.org" in the text field.

Take one week. Add driving rain and hail. Stir in the first week of college, a mom in the hospital, chest pains, lack of sleep, a death in my community at work, tragedies in Haiti, and a street closed off because of a shootout, and you get a really stressed Serene.

However.

Mix in the love and support of a big family, the Best Job Ever, and the potential for a substantial tax refund, and things don't look quite as gloomy.

( That's the short-and-sweet version; this is the detailed version, which you're forgiven if you don't feel like reading. The important parts first: Mom is fine. I am fine. The kid likes school. )

This week, I have been more social than usual, and it has not depleted me. I don't know what to attribute this to, except perhaps to the extreme mellowness and companionable natures of the people I've spent social time with. Thank you all. I might be ready to do that again in a month or two. ;-)