I used to volunteer at a nursing home when I was a teenager, and one of the residents was this spicy old demented lady named Florence. Florence had a real mouth on her, and I would try to charm her, and get nowhere. Once she looked at me and said “you look like you got a mouthful of hot shit”. I got over my intimidation and began to speak more freely, and once when she was trying to hit people with a flyswatter she found, I was trying to talk her into giving it to me, and I said “Florence, don’t you love me anymore?”. And she said “Well I love you, but from a distance”, and whacked me a good one.

I’m getting there with my coworker although I wouldn’t quite call her conservative; she voted for the NDP in Canada where we live as we are both union members and that’s who we vote for, but she loves Trump, but in this crumbling hellscape of the last few months and the tariffs he’s hollering on about on Canada, she doesn’t like that because she can’t cross border shop. She says he’s gone rather loony although she still likes him.

However, she isn’t stupid, and she watches all sorts of news from all over and doesn’t just blindly believe in the cult. The last few days I have explained dark money to her, and how it fuels elections in the US for both parties and how basically the Koch brothers and all the Tanton network groups fund Trump. I gave her some articles to read, and she’s starting to get it. I didn’t put it from the perspective of hating trump, just that she should know how these things are funded for everyone (the Democrats are no stranger to dark money either and just because the groups they funnel it in under sound sunnier and less racist doesn’t make them any less sketchy), and how the political landscape is manipulated that way. I am finding she’s listening to this, and coming away with a better perspective, rather than trying to explain why he’s totally wrong. Dark money is a topic I recommend to everyone to learn about, because these elections in the US are being bought by dark money.

I went vegan and bitch is skinnnay now, although it’s not why I did it. Also low fat high carb, NOT keto, but just paying attention to your carb intake, and having a diet high in healthy fats will keep you full. Keto is for specific genetic epilepsy syndromes and not good for anything else no matter what people tell you.

I just switched to Deezer because I’m Canadian and I’m abolishing all American products that I can. I was a YouTube Music person for years though, and I absolutely loved Google Play Music, but YTM is trash. I will not use Spotify because of Joe Rogan, and I tried Apple Music and it’s not what I want because their classical music selection is different from all other platforms and it is missing stuff I want. I like Deezer so far.

Aww I didn’t know you included me until now. Bones of the Moon is the title of a book about a magical kid named Pepsi actually, but space skeleton is cool.

The Facebook groups. They’re so batshit. I’m going to PM you a screenshot I took because I can’t share photos on this community for some reason.

My parents ostensibly chose each other, but it’s really more like my mother preyed upon my father. He’s a bit younger than her, not as educated, was shy and not overly ambitious, and perfect for her campaign of modeling someone into what she wanted. My aunt says he used to have a great group of buddies back in the 60s when they met, and one by one she weeded them out of his life and replaced them with people she thinks had higher social status. This tape has recycled itself routinely throughout their lives as she discards someone and finds someone new to glom onto for a while and try and be them. She has him totally under her thumb, and she’s a vicious monster who regards other humans like furniture she rearranges.

People didn’t know much about borderline personality disorder in the 60s when they met, and he’s too shy and unable to defend himself, and while they do squabble, she always wins. He has very little insight into how toxic she is, and goes along with all her psychotic shit, like how nobody can use a bathmat and you can just slip and slide on the wet floor, or how you can’t keep the toaster or kettle on the counter and have to put it immediately back in the cupboard burning hot, because her narcissism means everything has to look like a museum.

He dated some woman before her, just a girl really, who was chubby I guess, and my mother spent one dinner with extended family joyfully insulting this woman, who he last laid eyes upon probably 40 years prior, and asking him repeatedly with vicious gleeful delight if he remembered “the ball”, meaning this chubby girl. My spouse wanted to clock her in the teeth. We were all just kind of numb to her behavior then and tried to ignore it, but not long after I awoke to who she really was and haven’t seen them since. It’s sad, but she regards me as a piece of lost property really, and I don’t think there’s a good enough therapist in the world to wake him up to how dangerous she is.

This weird box that apparently once held candy that I think came from my grandmother but am not sure, and it’s full of buttons. It says Blue Bird Confectionery on the bottom, and it’s full of an assortment of buttons that I have no idea of the origin of. It’s just sat on my shelf for decades.

Bluesky, usually I’m having very pleasant conversation over there so it’s usually nice.

Surprisingly my city has a community here. Not very active but it is here!

Nobody should feel bad for using Reddit to deshittify Google searches. That’s just what has happened.

I do look at r/opera sometimes because there’s no community here, but only once in a great while, and I do look at the monthly list that the ban pit bulls subreddit keeps of pitbull attacks/deaths, because it’s absolutely frightening every month how long if is.

I use this one: https://www.thespruceeats.com/homemade-sourdough-starter-recipe-1446595

Also get the interceptor cups for the legs of your bed and couch. They cannot travel into the furniture when they’re in place.

And run everything clothing and bedding wise you own through the dryer over and over. Before you leave for work or anything, run your clothes through the dryer so you don’t have any on you.

Potage au bonne femme.

Vienna. The opera season this year couldn’t be better, I’d stay the year and go every night.

I once made borscht. That is a labour of love I’ll never go through again. I also made a hot chocolate layer cake, including making the marshmallows, and that was a lot of work.

It’s honestly not hard at all.

I want to outlive this shitty marriage I’m stuck in, sort out my finances, and take back my own life. I’m sick of being called a fucking cunt or accused of hiding money or all the shit he’s saying to me, none of which is true. He’s a malignant narcissist and I’m so tired of living like this.

The funny grumble my dog makes when he wants me to pet him, and the majestic song of his people my pug can make. Video: https://i.imgur.com/Xh01sK9.mp4

It was so prevalent Facebook actually made a tool to identify it in 2017.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/22/facebook-tool-russia-troll-army-internet-research-agency