Letting That Shit Go

 

This is my favorite coffee cup. (Followed closely by Bernie & his mittens). 

I’m trying. I’ve been studying Buddhism  (while I’m ranting, can I just take a moment to say how full of shit the fundamentalist Christian peeps of my youth were? They had me outright scared of something they probably knew nothing about.)  Anyway, the yoga, the meditation, the looking for some peace has always been me, so it seems natural that I’d study it  I recently added some books to my kindle & noticed that I had either already read or had marked to read many books on the history, practice, etc 

Anyway... I’ve gone to an (online) temple service a couple of times. I missed last week because I was in a different time zone & there were grand babies. But I’m looking forward to a series of study they are offering for the next few weeks  

All of this to say, I’m working on my stress and anxiety and depression. There have been some really bad & really dark days lately. Logic tells me that in addition to my shitty brain chemistry, it’s got a lot to do with COVID & the stress that it’s brought all of us who care about other people.  And for me specifically, because I tend to be a justice seeker, I get really upset when people are purposely awful.  I don’t mean the went to a restaurant, saw a friend, whatever people.  I mean the ones who refuse to wear masks, who harass others for doing so, who cough on people in stores, go to Mardi Gras, have 20 people over (I don’t even like 20 people enough to do that  😬). It’s frustrating to me that they don’t care about anyone else.  And I need to let that shit go because it’s not my battle. 

It’s the same for the q cult. I can feel the physical pain of frustration when I see some of the batshit crazy & easily disproven things being circulated. As an academic type, former teacher, & seeker of new knowledge, I just want to bang my head on the wall when I see people denying science or being more outraged over a fucking toy potato than half a million dead Americans.  Don’t even get me started on global numbers because it’s hard enough to get my fellow countrymen to give a rat’s ass about anyone but themselves, let alone someone from another country.  

I’ve been trying though.   I’m not engaging them.  Every now & then, I’ll slip.  But I’ve been trying to be at least nicer in my responses.  Instead of  “you wouldn’t know the meaning of that word if I smacked you in the head with an open dictionary” I’ve been trying to ask what they think it means, what policy or source they are referring to.  Most of the time, that’s the end of it  because they’re just looking for an argument. 

I’m trying not to put anymore negative into the world, while simultaneously not taking anyone’s crap. I’m not very good at it, but please know I’m trying. 

Senate Seats 2022

GOP seats won with a margin less than 10 points 

Rubio - Florida (it’s already rumored that Nepotism Barbie may run for his seat. I’m sure this is all potential indictments pending)  at this moment @AllenLEllison is running on the Democratic ticket. 

Young - Indiana 

Blunt - Missouri 

Burr - North Carolina  (retiring) 

Toomey-PA  (retiring) *

Johnson - Wisconsin (retiring. Probably to Moscow) *

Other GOP seats up

Shelby - Alabama 28 points 

Murkowski - Alaska 15 points 

Boozman - Arkansas 23 points 

Crapo- Idaho 38 points 

Grassley - Iowa 24 points (1981. It’s time for him to go) 

Moran- Kansas 30 points 

Paul - Kentucky 14 

Kennedy - Louisiana 21

Hooven - North Dakota 61 😳

Portman - Ohio 20

Lankford  - Oklahoma 43 

Scott-South Carolina - 23

Thune - South Dakota 43

Lee - Utah 43 (there’s a guy on Twitter, @AllenBGlines who has said he’s running against him) 

Dem seats up with less than 10 pt win 

Kelly - Arizona *

Padilla - California (Harris seat) *

Bennet - Colorado *

Warlock - Georgia *

Masto - Nevada *

Hassan - New Hampshire *

* indicates a state that voted blue in the presidential election

Source: https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_elections,_2022

The New House of Sloth

 Ok, technically, it’s the 2nd new house since the last house, but I’m nit  picking. 

Since my 3 years ago post about my mom, a lot has changed.  All but one of the Sloth children have grown. Cody & Sydney have both gotten married to wonderful partners. Cody & Emily have had babies. Grandsloths! (And Cody will be adding another in June). All but Cody’s family are now in Virginia- where I moved in 2018. Sydney is in the middle of a criminal justice degree. Cody is in the Army National Guard. Emily was in the middle of a CNA license & the week clinicals were to start, people in her school started getting COVID. Fia is finishing her last year of elementary. She’s really into cosplay & theater.  I worked at a horrible place on as a government contractor for about 4 months after moving to the DC area. I now work for a different agency with a different consulting company & I really enjoy my job. My government client is great to work with. So, things are going well. 

Ok, now that that is out of the way... the level of political awareness and involvement in my life has increased drastically over the last 5 years. And I am absolutely committed to continue to contribute in anyway I can (while following the Hatch Act, of course). 

So, this morning, after taking a whole day off, I decided I wanted to make a list of Senate seats up in 2022. And my nerdy self started categorizing & making notes. So, I decided a good place to keep these things (& share them) would be here. 

I guess that serves as your warning :) I won’t be offended if you stop unfollowing. But you don’t get to complain because you’ve been warned. 

I don’t know everything that I’ll put on here, but I can promise you this: everything will have a source. I tend to follow this chart: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart as a guideline  

Which reminds me, I made a tik tok about media bias.  You can find me there @crystalsloth7 - I’ve had a couple of videos from some protests go viral.  No  I will not be doing the dances. :) 

If it’s a rant that I’m posting, I’ll label it as that.  But I really foresee this as being a guide for 2022  

Crystal 

Mom

I’d said to my sister Kayla, “One of these times is going to be the last time.” What I didn’t realize when I said it was that it was going to be the last time.  I’d been through this before, more times that I could remember.  I’d gotten numb to the calls; I no longer panicked.  I’d distanced myself from it in order to protect my heart.  

Loving an addict is hard.  Watching someone powerless to the thing that is slowly killing them is excruciating.    It’s frustrating.  It’s maddening.  It’s devastating. 

My mom and I didn’t have the traditional mother-daughter relationship.  She was just a child of 14 years old when I was born and in many ways, she never grew up past that.  When I was a little girl, as with most children, my mom could do no wrong.  As I grew up, though, it was obvious that our roles were reversed.  I was the mother, she was my child.  There were times that she resented that role.  But despite that being the nature of our relationship, she always had a mother’s love for me.  I could do no wrong in her eyes either.  

There were a lot of things that happened to me as a child that I could have grown up using as a crutch to make excuses for myself.  My mother was young.  We moved.  A LOT.  There were many men in and out of her life.  Many were very abusive to her.  Some were to me as well.  At nine years old, I found myself being largely responsible for the care of my two year old sister.  Drinking and partying took precedence.  But, as I said before, my mother ALWAYS loved us.  She just didn’t have the skills to do the “mom thing.” I knew that.  I loved her just the same.  And growing up the way I did made me into the person that I am today – good things and bad. 

Mom let Kayla go to live with her grandmother when she was five.  She let me live with my Aunt Marilyn off and on for three years, and then move to Illinois to live with my dad when I was fifteen. To someone on the outside, it may appear that she just gave up.  But to me, especially now that I have my own children, I see that it was the most motherly thing she could have done.  I don’t know what her thought process was when she made these decisions, but I do know that Kayla and I were both well taken care of and cared for, likely in a way that she never would have been able to do.  I know it wasn’t easy on her. She often questioned letting Kayla go.  But ultimately, she did what was best for us.  That’s a mother’s love. 

I won’t sugar coat anything though.  Just because she’s gone now, doesn’t mean that the truth isn’t still the truth.  The last 20 years have been taxing.  I have made countless trips to both Indiana and Kentucky when she’s been sick, sometimes near death.  I’ve taken her to the ER.  I’ve sat with her in the ICU.  I’ve watched her go through detox.  I’ve sat and listened as she lied to doctors telling them, “I only drink a little.”  I’ve dumped bottles of vodka down her sink.  I’ve bought her groceries to encourage her to eat.  I’ve been supportive when she’d stop drinking and understanding when she started again.  I wasn’t fighting her battle, so it wasn’t my place to judge.  But it still made me angry.  Sometimes it made me cold.  Once, after she screamed at me in the Evansville hospital for “treating her like a child” I told her to walk back to Paducah and left her alone in her room for several hours. 

But it was always in the back of my mind, “One of these times is going to be the last time.” But, it doesn’t matter if you know it’scoming, you can never be prepared.  My mom was only 57.  You don’t expect to lose your parent so early when they are only 14 years older than you.  I will miss her terribly.  But I won’t miss the worry – is she eating, how much is she drinking, is someone hurting her? The last few times I’d gone to visit her, it was clear that things weren’t going well.  It was heartbreaking, but I’d gotten to the point that I’d stopped nagging her about it.  She was already trying to hide her drinking from me (at least the amount) and I didn’t want her to be ashamed of who she was.  She was an alcoholic.  But she was also my mother, my child, and my friend - and I hate that I can’t pick up the phone and call her anymore.  This time was the last time.

Kathleen “Katie” Vargocko Huffman
September 8, 1960-December 5, 2017

Torn & a Cat Story

I don't want to post on here for the sake of posting on here if I don't really have anything to say, but I don't really have anything to say.

I'm going to put up a post similar to last year's post about Emily doing the Step Out Walk for the American Diabetes Association again. I have some awesome friends - and she's already met her goal of $200 after only about a week of my incessant Facebook posting ;-) But, if you still want to donate, please do. She was at 300% of her goal last year. Would be awesome to do again.

Oh... I do have a story. A cat story.  Many of you know about the woman down the block who stole my baby Oreo - then was told that she had them and she won't give him back.  Well, a few weeks ago, Cody brought home a stray kitten. It was really skinny, but friendly. So, I left it on the deck and started feeding it. After about a week, I bought it a collar, as I figured it was here to stay. Last week, some kid had picked it up and was standing in front of the Oreo snatching woman's house with the kitten. Cody went down there and got him. Tonight, kitten comes inside (we let him in one in awhile) WEARING A DIFFERENT COLLAR!  What the hell, people?

Oh, Hey, I Remember You!

I guess it's a good thing this is a Sloth blog since I seem to be holding up that end of the deal - at least on the blogging end of my life.

So, my last entry was at the end of May.

Since then, well, the calendar says it's Summer, but it's really only felt like it for about a week. (Then again, I don't get outside much - which is the reason for the lack of blogging. All I do is work and drive to dance. ;-) )

We went to Fort Walton Beach for dance nationals/vacation. It was beautiful....even though it was like a scene from the Friends episode when they go to Barbados. It rained. A lot. The beach was closed 5 out of the 8 days we were there. There was flooding. But it was still better than Illinois.

The biggest news this Summer was that Andrew graduated from Basic in July. We are very proud of him!  He'll graduate AIT in a few weeks -and is looking forward to his time to pass so that he can go full time. He really enjoys the Army life.

The news we don't want to talk about is that Cody and Melissa are about to start their senior years. That's all I have to say. I don't want to talk about it.

Sydney, Emily, and Sophia have August off of dance. It's kind of weird. I don't think we had a full month off last year. It's kind of nice. I think we're all exhausted. But in September, they all start back up. All three girls are on the team now (Sophia will be on the "mini-team" - just one competition, but she's very excited.)

That's about it. Greg and I are boring. We don't have anything to report.

For a "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" report, this is pretty dry. You can see all of my apparently annoying palm tree pictures on Instagram though. ;-)

Sloth Family Newsletter

Updates:

Emmy:

She is doing fantastic with her pump. 90% of her sugars have been under 200 and I'd say that a good 75% are within target. As a result, I"m certain that my blood pressure has gone down.  She just finished 6th grade. She missed nearly 60 days of school. I'm glad to put that year behind us. 

She just had her first dance competition a few weeks ago. We got to put make up and eyelashes and dresses on her without complaint! Her team did a fantastic job and even scored a high gold on their jazz dance, which I thought was pretty darned impressive. They looked great!

Cody... is still 17. On those days that I want to just scream, I try to remember that we're in a way better place than we were a year ago. Now that the class of 2013 has graduated, I think that means he's a senior now. I'm not sure how I feel about that - but probably not for the reasons you think - the "baby growing up" stuff - I mean, yeah, there's that, but there's more. We'll just leave it at, I hope he grows up a lot in the next year. ;-)

Sydney just finished her freshman year. She'll start driver's ed in the fall. I think I may actually be looking forward to that though. With her dance schedule, she'll have her 50 hours of driving in by Christmas. She has one more competition this year (nationals), but has had a fantastic regional season. Her team is doing really well and her lyrical solo placed first in her division at 3 out of 4 of the competitions we've been to. She got a (partial) scholarship to Fuzion dance camp (ironically, from the competition where she did NOT place first lol). She also auditioned for the Rockette Summer Intensive and was accepted to that. 

Fia is all four year old. Ornery and full of drama. She got to go to a mock preschool this Spring at the high school, so now she's super excited to start preschool in the Fall. She (and Sydney & Emmy) have recital next week, so she's very excited about that. 

Melissa must be super busy, because I have no idea what she's been up to. ;-) I know she's taking vocal lessons at Millikin and was part of another Decatur Park District production this Spring.  I missed it b/c of a dance competition and Greg missed it because of Snowpocolypse 2013. She's also going to be a senior and Greg doesn't want to talk about it. ;-)

Andrew is at basic training right now. He joined the Army Reserves on April 30th. We're very proud of him - and Greg cannot wait until he can start hearing from him more often. (He did get a letter a week or so ago. Made his day.) 

Molly...well, she's always into the trash, but at least I don't have to spend 3 or 4 days a week chasing her down the street. ;-)