Dear Sparkleprincess Unicorn Slambook,

HI HOW ARE YOU? This is that post where I am saying I should be doing something else right now, specifically editing recipes. That’s going well. What a difference a day makes, as they say, or maybe that’s more like eight months. Sometimes you have to dump things for a while and have a good cry to find your passion for them again. In other news, I hate posts like this, because it’s sort of like when someone is making a grocery list in their head while they’re having sex with you.

“Eggs!”

“Yeah, EGGS, baby!”

“No, we are OUT of eggs.”

My boner!

Longcat is long, so you know it’s warm.

New contract is going well. It’s in one of Seattle’s “fun” neighborhoods and the commute if very reasonable. I am making zucchini bread. The recipe calls for “three medium zucchinis” but if your zucchini is the size of a baby, then the recipe should call for “half a baby,” eh?

I thought my Victorian recipes were pretty complete other than that pesky “conversion to British” thing, but it’s taking a bit. Cups are going over to grams, liquid measures are going over to ml. A British pint in not a US pint, but you are so smart and probably knew that already.

Goethe gerroff my zucchini batter.

That’s better.

I do still have my other two cats, of course, it’s just that Gertie Pie is the one who comes around.

I am listening to the Song of Ice and Fire series via audiobook. I think at this point it’s almost a habit more than anything. I hate it when I get into this loop where I can’t decide if I’m enjoying myself or not, yet I continue. This seems like a very human thing to do, eh? Deer are more “there is not try, only do,” I think. Sometimes I wake up while listening to them and I’m on some weird chapter and someone is getting stabbed and I’m all WTF is happening, you fell asleep again, dummy. But most of the time I am upright and listening properly.

Lemon cucumbers for days! I eat them like apples. Yum!

En dotry nouvelles

Franny called yesterday, from her father’s house. I’ve been so scattered with new job and the abrupt end of old job that I realized I’ve been blurting on Twitter but have not written properly about things. Franny called to say she misses me and cannot wait to come home on the first, and that she was delighted to receive a letter from her sister yesterday. It sounds like she’s having fun visiting as well, though. I told her that just an hour before I had walked to the local plastics store and bought two sheets of plastic to construct a guinea pig habitat–she’s getting guinea pigs for her eleventh birthday in October. It’s going to be her jam, with heavy supervision from me to make sure the enclosure stays clean and whatnot. So now I’m reading up on them on a few sites. Really enjoying this one–it’s chockablock with guinea pig “activists” among the actual decent information, so occasionally you can watch them run someone off for not doing everything exactly right. OH INTERNET.

Two things have happened. I received a letter from the prosecuting attorney’s office saying that all the 4,000 pieces of personal and financial information they had requested from me had been received; were adequate; were processed, and now I have a COURT CASE and that I would hear from them regarding court date etc. “soon.” I may hear from them soon, but I reckon that I won’t have an actual court date until sometime around Q2 of next year. That’s OKAY. I am a tortoise.

For my mediation appointment with SeaFed we were required by the mediator to submit a statement saying why we wanted to mediate. I’m grateful to her for this since it clarified everything for me like bang. I would not allow myself to reply “I don’t want to mediate” so I made myself put “to appear cooperative,” which is a pretty shitty reason to do anything you’ll spend a lot of money on and get nothing out of (forced parenting class during my divorce comes to mind as well). He replied, well past the courtesy deadline the mediator asked for, naturally: “My purpose in mediating is to nullify the temporary living arrangement we’ve been adhering to and return to the original parenting plan.”

Well, that tore it. What a colossal waste of time this expensive discussion would be. I was also lulzing at the fact that when SeaFed is put into some kind of grown-up communication situation, he never uses one word when three officious ones would do, much like I imagine a twelfth-grade honors English essay reads. With a great sense of relief, I cancelled the appointment, saying that I didn’t think it was the right venue in which to make a change like this…because…it’s NOT.

The plan for now is to carry on until things change somehow, meaning he gets mad enough about child support to sue me to move to 50/50 time and I lose. I know he will object to child support once he officially gets a chance to do so (it’s worth noting that he STILL has not mentioned that I’ve filed for child support in any of our communications). I’m relieved that child support and the state of the parenting plan are two separate issues, requiring separate efforts, paperworks being filed, attorney fees. I got an email from his father the other day that led me to believe he has no idea that his son is being sued for child support, which makes me think SeaFed hasn’t hit his dad up for attorney fees yet.

Since my brain is back with a vengeance and steel trappin up and down and all over town, I’m going to create a schedule for this next school year, holidays included, using last year’s calendar for reference to see whose turn it is to have Thanksgiving and whatnot. This is partly prompted by sadness and irritation at his lack of ability to get his shit together to figure out what time he’d like to pick his daughter up at the appointed location before the day of this summer. I don’t have time to fuck with this shit now that I am back to a desk job for now. It’s the same old shit as always, but I’d like to take a break from confused, last-minute emails for the school year, thank you. The last time I made a schedule for SeaFed to follow ended with him drunkenly screaming at me from a party. But that will not happen again, because we are older and wiser now, yes? (Ha.)

So, I have been validated by the County of King: I have a COURT CASE. Soon I will have a COURT DATE. I have cancelled mediation. I have lost my hobbles and this has become such a small part of my life and concerns…why my 2004 self would hardly recognize my 2011 self. Looking forward to having a last hurrah out of town before school starts.