Forgive me, Darling Ones,

I’m about to whine. A lot. This has been a bummer summer and I am counting down the hours until it is over. Summer officially ends, according to the Jodiann calendar, the day after Labor Day.

How will I be celebrating? With injections in my both my eyes. Staving off complete blindness is fun! At least it means I get to go somewhere.

Oh, Darling Ones, I’m depressed as hell and I can’t seem to climb out of my foul mood.

It started last week when I couldn’t go to the State Fair as planned. I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to it until it all slipped right through the fingers of my Floppy Scoop.

Thanks to being an actual giant and the rentable mobility scooters being for normal-sized people I couldn’t go. Sister #2 scoured the internet for information on the scooters. I was all, I checked the weight limit and they’ll carry me. But alas, I was much too tall. I always forget that my height is a thing. Weird, isn’t it? My waist to knee measurement is 11 inches longer than the scooter would accommodate. Fucking rude.

As my family trundled off to the Fair sans their favorite burden (me), I tried to console myself with the delivery of my “Hooray, you did the thing!” gift. Times is tight, but I wanted to celebrate the victory of submitting something to the creative arts competition. So I allowed myself $20 to blow on something pretty.

I decided to blow my money at Succulents Depot. Big mistake. Huge.

When you only have four figures worth of dollars to your name and no money coming in on the horizon, $20 is a lot!

If you look above you can see the sickly Tradescantia Zebrina & Tradescantia Nanouk they sent me. All I wanted was a tiny, pretty thing to gaze upon and find joy, but NNNNNnnnoooooOOOOOO.

So to my State Fair sadness I have added all the other bummers from this summer:

• Janky, not very helpful wheelchair
• Climate change limiting my time at Sister #4’s Blue Ox Oasis (70 degree highs in August? So much smoke in July? Wah!
• Social Security Disability rejection #3
• Procrastination and hubris-related State Fair blanket failure (they didn’t even display it!)
• And my garage door broke a few days ago meaning I’ve got a $500-$800 repair in my near future

And this is how I’ve worked myself right into a thick, depressed funk.

That’s how I’ve spent my summer, Darling Ones, how about you?

Feeling better now that I wrote about it,
Jodi, Queen of the Bummers

The post Cruel Summer appeared first on I Will Dare.

Oh darling ones,

It has been a week, and it’s only Wednesday. I packed so many thing into Monday that I had to spend all day yesterday recuperating.

Monday was the deadline to submit my afghan to the State Fair Creative Arts competition. It did not go well. At the very last minute, literally hours before the 7 p.m. deadline, I ruined my submission. In my sleep-deprived, procrastinatory panic I decided I could just paint names on the blanket freehand style.

I could not.

Apparently in that moment I forgot about my Floppy Scoop and distorted vision. So I did what any logical person would do. I texted the Sister Club, cried, and rage barfed.

Sister #2 encouraged me to submit if only for feedback/learning purposes and Sister #4 came over to help me fix it.

With all my anxiety focused on fixing the blanket, I jumped in my janky ass wheelchair and Sister #4 hauled me to Michaels.

YES! I went out “in the community” in my wheelchair for the very first time. I’m pretty sure this was the first time I was in a store since COVID, for sure it was the first time since my stroke. Thanks, Michaels, for taking my shopping in a store in a wheelchair virginity. It’d be really nice if you made your stores a little more wheelchair friendly. I got stuck in a bunch of portfolios and my sister had to rescue me.

With some mineral spirits and some gold paint we raced back to Supergenuis H.Q. to perform some sort of artistic first aid.

Sadly, it did not work, but I submitted my fucked up afghan anyway and holy buckets am I proud of myself for doing thing I said I was gonna do. I expect nothing but feedback, but I’m already winner. I learned so much from this process.

1. It’s almost impossible to elegantly turn crocheted pentagons into squares
2. Trial & Error involves a lot of error. And time.
3. My hubris knows no bounds.
4. Procrastination will bite me in the ass.

The post Pride & Imperfection appeared first on I Will Dare.

Hola Darling Ones,

How are you? Today I’m a little bored and frustrated. While there are 88 things I could probably be doing that might ease my boredom, I’m choosing to type and bellyache about it.

Plus, I just paid $1148 for my first-half property taxes. It’s why I busted out the laptop in the first place. Since I had her out I thought, hey, I should update my much-neglected blog.

While you probably could not care less, the writing will be sparse for the next few months.

Reason #1: The Blue Ox Oasis
Sister #4’s pool is has a new name. I lobbied hard for the “Dan Patch Chunk & Dunk,” but lost that battle. Regardless, the Oasis is open and I plan on spending as much time in there are possible. My latest, favoritest magical thinking fairytale involves working super hard in the pool all summer and miraculously all my strokiness goes away.

*POOF* No more balance problems. Or wooshiness in my head. Or heavy right side. Or tremor. Or distorted vision.

Every medical professional I’ve seen has told me those things will not be getting better. They have facts and science on their side, but I have unearned confidence and a weird faith in omen, signs, and the power of my own desire. So. . . we’ll see who’s a big crybaby in the fall.

Also, related to this: my mom bought me a fancy walker I have dubbed “the little red Corvette.” I’m hopeful this will make the journey across Sister #4’s yard to the pool easier.

Reason #2: The State Fair Blanket
This week registration for the Minnesota State Fair creative activities competition opened. I’m gonna enter my A+ idea this year. I meant to do it last year but I wasn’t ready — emotionally, physically, or blanketly. This year I am emotionally ready.

What does that mean? It means I’ve accepted I cannot walk the fairgrounds, but I can ride one of those scooters. I think. We’ll see. It’s a lot.

Now I got to get that blanket done and it is not going well. My idea is aces. The execution of that idea is a giant pain in the ass. Whoever decided trial & error is the way to do things must have had zero friends.

In another act of stunningly deluded magical thinking, arrogance, and over confidence I thought this would be a one & done situation. I’d figure out how to turn my idea into a crocheted blanket and *POOF* I’d be on my way to blue ribbon town.

Only my first solution is not going as planned. I did not realize this until Wednesday after wasting many months making 801 little crocheted pieces I intended to join into one prize-worthy whole. Fuck me.

Now I’m going through the trial & error process trying to find another way to bring my idea to life with yarn. Hence, the aforementioned frustration.

Also, related to this: I got a yarn winder from my wishlist and it is the 2nd best thing to happen to me in a fortnight (See P.S. for #1). I cannot adequately explain how relaxing and satisfying winding yarn is. I could tell you why having delicate yarn cakes is superior to balls, but my eyes are done focusing now.

So, that’s how I’ll be spending the next few months. Swimming and crocheting and magically thinking.

Fun!

Bibbitty, boobbitty, boo,
Jodi

P.S.Thanks to a tall handsome man from my past who popped up with a well-timed and unexpected monetary gift the taxes only drained half of my account instead of all of it. Phew!

The post Who Needs Science When I Have Magical Thinking? appeared first on I Will Dare.

Six-year-old Cade’s absolute favorite thing about the Minnesota State Fair is KSTP-TV‘s Tornado Alley display. Whenever anyone brings up the Fair he talks incessantly about it. Since he found out we were going to the Fair he has asked, nearly every time I’ve seen him, if I will take him to the Tornado.

After ID-braceletting all five kidlings, we made our way into the Fair heading in the direction of Juanita’s Fajitas so Stink could get his traditional breakfast burrito and making a pit stop so Sister #4 could get her traditional breakfast Pronto Pup.

Once these stops were made, we meandered towards our favorite grassy knoll located between the Grandstand and KSTP. All the while Cade was asking everyone if they remembered that one time Max fell in the Tornado and broke his butt. If they remembered that one time he was afraid of the Tornado. If they remembered how that one time the Tornado was not so scary at all. How the Tornado was really cool. How the Tornado wasn’t a real tornado but a pretend one. How the Tornado was kind of like the one in the Wizard of Oz, but it didn’t suck up your house.

As soon as the grown-ups were settled, I gathered up the Kidlings for what was going to be the first of many trips to the Tornado. As we rounded the corner and I spied a big open area in the KSTP building I knew we were in for a disappointment. Cade ran into the building, looked up at the flat-screen TVs suspended from the ceiling that were showing news reports of Hurricane Gustav, and shouted “This is NOT the Tornado I remember.”

I tried to explain that it wasn’t the Tornado at all and that they got rid of it.

“Why?” He shook his head at me.
“I don’t know.” I said.
“But it was the best!”
“I know,” I said. “Channel Five sucks.”

It was at that point that Nolan ran up with a deflated beach ball in his hand. “They gave me this for NO MONEY!”
“Right on,” I said.
“It’s not as a good as the Tornado,” Cade said.

And it wasn’t. Cade spent the rest of the Fair intermittently conning everyone in our family to go on a mourning pilgrimage to see where the Tornado used to be. It was so sad.

It was kind of a dud Fair year for us. Sister #2 was on call and had to deal with, well, whatever it is she deals with as a social worker at Abbott. It was 90 degrees and windy as hell too. Which wouldn’t have been too bad, but since we went to the Fair on the last day all the grass was gone leaving instead just dusty patches of where grass used to be. So whenever the wind gusted up it blew tons of dusts and dead grass and all that stuff clung to our sweaty bodies. It was a real treat!

The post How KSTP ruined the fair & other tales from The Great Minnesota Get Together appeared first on I Will Dare.

My dad has not spoken to or seen Sister #2 and her family since October of 2007. I was going to explain why, but it’s long and complicated, and really it doesn’t matter. What matters is what kind of man could go ten months without seeing his own grandchildren? Grandchildren who live less than 10-minutes away from him.

The whole situation angers me so much that I cannot talk about it at all, even when I try. It makes me so mad that whenever it is mentioned all I do is burst into hot, steamy tears and say fucking, fuck, ridiculous, and fuck.

He didn’t come to Thanksgiving or Christmas, and now he’s trying to ruin our State Fair. When we chose our day for the fair we made it clear to our mom that dad was not to be included. Today I found out that not only was dad going to the fair on our day, but now Sister #2 and fam were not.

I feel a little guilty for losing my cool on Sister #4, who broke the news to me, but I am so angry I don’t know what to do. We had planned weeks ago to attend the fair the day before Labor Day. Everyone agreed that day would work best and then all the kids would have a day of rest before school starts. Now he’s gone and fucked it all up. FUCK. He cannot choose which one of us he loves and get away with it. Though it might be wrong, I will choose Sister #2 over him every time. She did nothing to deserve this kind of exile. He is the one who chose to banish her from his life and I’ll be god-damned if he gets to choose which parts of my family I see. The way I see it, this is his choice. He has chosen his anger and resentment and petty grudge over his daughters.

So now we’re scrambling to find another day that works for everyone, and Sister #3 is going twice though she can’t afford it because she doesn’t want to take sides. And, me, I don’t even want to go at all because that’s how I deal with family-stress, by withdrawing.

And I’m still so angry, even after the crying, and the writing, that I don’t even know what to do with the anger.

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