Childless cat ladies unite!

I'm not the empress of the childless cat ladies, nor even a minor local aristocat. However,  I am the official childless cat lady of my subdivision, and I am issuing an order to all my minions. I, Dowager Vicatess Old Biddy of Southwoods, aka the Eldridge Witch, hereby proclaim that our first order of business with regards to "childless cat lady"-gate, is to embrace the title and not spend one iota of time trying to change anyone's minds with how you're not one of those childless cat ladies because you are infertile/met the right person too late/a man/ a dog-owner/allergic to cats/too young/etc. I know you have good intentions and are trying to change some minds, but it's just playing into their hands. Don't feed the narrative. Embrace the title, laugh in their faces, fight for change in big ways and small, and vote. 

We already made the same mistake with the narrative on abortion and birth control. Lots of people coming forward with stories of medically necessary abortions, rape, fertility treatments etc, and lots of handwaving from the anti-abortion crowd that no, they're not going to stop that, just the run of the (abortion) mill abortions for slutty sluts. And of course, as expected, they lied. What we need to do is to live our lives proudly and tell our stories all the time, not just when Republicans are trying to take our rights away from us or scapegoat us. We are all Lady Spartacat.

Now for the TL/DR. It's fun to go on a rant about it. I get that, I really do. I spend a lot of time on Substack now that mElon mHusk bought Twitter and turned it into a cesspool and my Facebook feed is primarily cats, Gen X humor and FB marketplace ads for shoes and furniture. Much of the feed and posts are from people writing about their own personal experiences, so in response to CCL-gate there have been posts from women who are struggling with infertility or not finding a partner when they were still able to have biological kids. I get it, I really do, and Substack is the right place for it but please don't let it drown out the real story, which is about the election and trying to keep the MAGA Republicans from gaining any more power. The single cat lady trope preceded the childless cat lady one by at least 30 years and I know it well. I'll joke about it with friends, but it's not going to change any minds if I tell people that it's different because I was married/am a widow/met Joe too late to have kids.

For what it's worth, of all my close friends and colleagues, I think that I am actually the only single childless Democratic cat lady. I know lots of married Democratic or Republican cat people, a lot of single or married Democratic or Republican dog people, lots of temporarily petless people and some single Libertarian/Independent childless dog and cat people.

Travel snacks

To Joe

I have eaten
the travel snacks
that were in
the basement

and which
you probably bought
at the dollar store

to give me

so many gifts

from the other side 

 

 

The one where Old Biddy and Old Fogey got Covid

 Joe and I finally got Covid this month. If you're reading this and have somehow avoided catching it, or have waning immunity from an older case, I'll put the TL/DR right up front.

1. It's still out there and anecdotally a lot of fully vaccinated Covid virgins caught it over the last few months. Mask up and be careful, and pay no attention to covid case rates because a lot of people are just getting home tests and not reporting it.

2. Get Paxlovid if you can. It makes a huge difference.  Due to the weekend, I started it a bit late (two days after first testing positive) so I got to experience both the before and after and it helped perk me up a lot. It also helps with reducing the amount of viral shedding.  Joe first tested positive 12 days before I did, but continued to test positive for practically three weeks. We both got our first negative test the same day. If you're on the fence, please get it if you live with other people who haven't had Covid recently (see below).

3. Be more careful than the current CDC guidelines, which suggest that you're not contagious once your active symptoms have stopped and you're at least five days past your first positive test.  Joe and I were pretty careful, but it's exhausting after a while. My birthday was 10 days after he first tested positive. We celebrated by eating take out in the same room, although we did not linger maskless after that.  I suspect that was when my poor overworked immune system finally hit the breaking point.

Joe and I both had mild cases per the CDC definition - fever, sore throat, coughing, fatigue. We were also laid up for about a week each.  This is unusual for us to be knocked on our butts like that.  Mild covid is still pretty bad by the usual cold/flu standards. In the before times, I was laid up for a day or two every few years. I haven't taken that many back to back sick days since I have chickenpox in 1999. I am glad I didn't experience it without vaccines and Paxlovid.

I take a lot of comfort in having gotten it now rather than en route to CA.  In a way, it's reassuring that I got it after prolonged exposure to someone who had it in my household rather than randomly getting it from someone I don't know while going about my daily activities.

Mask up, be safe and have a wonderful winter holiday!

WTF is up with the old folks these days!?!?

I don't know what was in the water or air in the late 1930's/early 40's, but my parents and my friends' parents and in-laws are being a collective pain in the butt when it comes to aging in place. It seems like any time I get together with friends, and the subject of our aging parents comes up, they all are going through something similar, right down to dealing with the same weirdly irrational stuff.  

Don't like your primary care physician and it's too far away? Insist upon going to urgent care rather than change to someone closer/more suited to your needs, and then procrastinate on going to urgent care for another month or more.

Make a big deal about healthy eating but then eat ice cream for dinner unironically because you can't/won't cook any more.

Gripe about your Gen X children spending too much money on cheap steak for you and ignore the hidden costs incurred by said kids on travel/time off work/etc when they visit to help you out.

Same but applied to the abstract concept of spending money on taxis/Uber/Lyft/cleaning services/yard work to keep your kids from having to do it all or injuring yourself doing things that have become dangerous.

Same but applied to the abstract concept of rent/mortgage on a senior apartment when you've got a pricy paid off home and annual property tax that costs less than a plane ticket for your kid to come help you.

Telling me about how the senior lunch program two blocks away is so popular because people like to socialize but never actually considering that you're the target audience and might like it too. (OK, this one is just my mom)

I could go on, but you get the idea. Mind you, this isn't even about going into assisted living, just about being realistic that you need some help now and making some changes or letting your kids make some changes on your behalf.

For the most part, people of my parents' generation did not go through this as much with their own parents, who were born around the turn of the century.  Medical interventions and preventative care weren't as advanced so people didn't need care for as many years, more people stayed in the communities where they grew up, and elderly folks moved in with their kids when it was time rather than expecting their kids to uproot and come to them.  

I used to think I'd want to spend my retirement puttering in the yard, but now I'm 100% sold on downsizing to something manageable early on and then shifting to some sort of senior apartment.

TL;DR my parents are driving me up a wall. 

Tiny Houses

 I'm a tiny bit obsessed with tiny houses right now. If you're not familiar with the term, go look it up on Instagram. A Tiny House [TM] is not just a small house.  Nope  It's an impeccably crafted mini-house, usually in a obscenely beautiful location. It's usually a two story A-frame house but is a weird juxtaposition of inefficient and super efficient use of space.  There are few interior walls but at least half the upper level is just a high ceiling instead of actual rooms.  There are so many luxurious details and locations and yet so little space. You could entertain ten people on the outdoor deck but no more than two people, preferably one, could live in a tiny house.  You couldn't do laundry or cook much more than heat up leftovers or make sandwiches, and the stairs are usually an OSHA violation. Good luck if one partner wants to sleep in and the other one wants to get up, and don't even think about snoring or taking a stinky dump in the bathroom.

After the last few years, I just want to decamp to a mythical tiny house in the woods with my cats and not come out until I'm fully menopausal. It will be a vision of minimalistic luxury. Joe can visit all he wants but will need to have his own Dude Cabin [TM] next door, because there will be no TV or clutter piles in the Tiny House. The mythical Tiny House of my dreams needs to have a beautiful location, hot tub, fast internet, access to food and cat food, and places to hike and swim. My Tiny House fantasy is kind of like a modern day version of Thoreau at Walden Pond, except instead of my mom bringing me lunch, I'll get meal prep kits and occasionally takeout. After several months of this, maybe even a year, I will emerge healthy, fit, and refreshed.