Month: June 2025

Hot Unsettled Summer

Karen

Compared with “maximalism” or “bro summer” of the last couple years, this summer’s word is shaping up to be “unsettled.” What’s unsettling me? A list:

  • Bedbugs (although I haven’t gotten a bite in two weeks!)
  • My job security (not a great time to depend on public health funding)
  • Thinking of moving and spending money, because job security
  • Toby aging
  • Thinking of moving and upsetting Toby’s routine, because aging kitty
  • Millcreek Canyon being under construction
  • Living under increasing fascism

Other than re-spraying insecticide every 21 days and calling off the house search, I really can’t control any of these things. I can’t even go touch grass/wade in the stream in my preferred canyon spot. Even MORE unsettling!

So I’m trying to just sit with it (ugh) and get myself out of the house when it feels TOO bad. Even a neighborhood walk has delights:

Friday Links

Karen

1. The Onion (yes the satire site) took out a full page ad in the New York Times last week to run this editorial mocking Congress’ cowardice. It is AMAZING:

Now is not the time for bravery or valor! This is the time for protecting your own hide and lining your pocket. Now is not the time for listening to your idiotic constituents drone on about what’s happening to their precious democracy. This is the time for getting down on all fours and groveling. Now is not the time to say, “Enough is enough,” and have the tough conversations about resisting the ongoing assaults on American liberty. This is the time to let the wave of apathy and indifference roll over you as you think about getting a really nice renovation to your house in Kalorama.

2. This was really fun to scroll around in: the Historical Tech Tree, “an interactive visualization of technology from 3 million years ago to today.” With links to Wikipedia and related technologies! (Just getting this link ready to post today, I clicked around and discovered Egyptian blue, the first synthetic pigment!)

 

3. This is the best train ad I’ve ever seen:

 

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A post shared by Amtrak (@amtrak)

House Adventure 2.0

Karen

I think I mentioned we’re starting to look for another house–one where we could maybe live without stairs if we got too decrepit, and one where we could definitely live without an HOA. We haven’t looked at a lot in person but it all made me go back to a home inspector’s account on TikTok and watch pretty much all of his videos.

Is this encouraging? No, not really. But is it cathartic in a sort of terrible way? Yeah.

@everyones.junk.drawer PART 1 2.5 Milly! what a steal! upkeep? maintenance? never heard of her! #thatoldhouse #expensive #fail #homeinspection #inspection #mansion #troubling #disrepair #rough #shape #notgreat #woodrot #rot #everywhere #uhoh ♬ original sound – 🇵🇸 Inspector Guy

 

@everyones.junk.drawer come with me on a tour of a house Zillow bought and renovated 3 months ago for 330k and is trying to sell for half a million dollars. #fail #flippedhouse #flip #flips #inspection #zillow #corporate #slumlords #flippers #craftsmanshit #lazy #dangerous #greedy #bastards #thishastostop #unsustainable #latestagecapitalism #thatoldhouse #bummer #homeinspection #nightmares ♬ original sound – 🇵🇸 Inspector Guy

@everyones.junk.drawer hell yeah flipping #flip #design #fail #songwriter #justinspectorthings #craftsmans #quality #custom #opendoor #realty #corporate #realestate #thatoldhouse #unfortunate #details #yourewelcome ♬ Chill out BGM (simple) – Hollywood Labo

 

New builds aren’t available in our price range and/or without an HOA in the areas we’re looking, so that’s off the table…. but I’m not that upset:

@everyones.junk.drawer another day, another new house that had a new set of problems. #newconstruction #house #inspection #singinginspector #thatnewhouse #construction #quality #craftsmanship #attention #to #details #well #thought #out #movingalong #downwardspiral #joy #live #laugh #love ♬ original sound – 🇵🇸 Inspector Guy

Someday These Will Be Jeans

Karen

I’ve had a pair of the lightest blue summer jeans cut out since May, then I tabled them to make a couple of pairs of gym pants that didn’t fit. I finally started them right before B-Day (the day of the discovery of bedbugs) and now I want to abandon them again to make a waterproof beach tote.

I know I will love them and wear them a lot, but I guess the jeans sewjo just isn’t there yet. Oh well! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Weekend Of Extremes

Karen

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was 100 degrees and then it was 65 degrees, it was a time of exultation (so clean, yay chemicals) and of despair (saw another bedbug and it was ALIVE)…

It’s a good thing I had four days off because that’s about how long it took to tear the house apart, look for bedbugs, and put it back together. Every single fabric thing in the bedroom and linen closet got bagged and put in the hot car for a day, all the closets and dressers got emptied out and vacuumed and sprayed, every baseboard got vacuumed and dusted… I guess if I was worried about the amount of work involved in moving, this was a good trial run. (It’s SO much work. I was right to be concerned.)

We did go to the lake for our solstice sunset but that was right when a front was coming through and the 40mph winds were dropping the temp to the 50s. It felt kind of fitting, though–stormy times!

Moods & Links

Karen

I have tomorrow off for Juneteenth and took Friday off as well for a long weekend. When I was thinking about this week, I wanted to go to the pool in the afternoon and get some sewing in and organize a little bit in the basement and generally just chill.

Well, WE ARE NOT CHILL over here this week (but I haven’t gotten any new bed bug bites after two nights on the air mattress, hooray!) and I’m going to be pulling everything out of every closet and letting it bake in the car and vacuuming every baseboard and laser-focusing on any speck that MIGHT be a bug and generally Cleaning Through It.

Which is all a long way of saying, here are some links for the weekend!

1. This is the sound and face I make when I think about BUGS crawling over my FACE and feeding on my FLESH in the NIGHT:

 

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2. Yep.

 

3. There is a band on TikTok that is doing covers of songs but changing the lyrics to be about discount crab legs. I’ve had “You bought crab legs! Cheap crustaceans!” in my head for days now.

@crabsmackband “Smells Like Steamed Crablegs” Live from the WhiteHart Cafe #smellsliketeenspirit #nirvana #livemusic ♬ original sound – CrabSmack

Even More Desperate Times

Karen

That fresh bite on my shoulder yesterday? It turned into a cluster of three bites and itched like hell all day. I realized I have seen ONE mosquito all month. On a whim, I googled, “Mosquito bite vs. bed bug bite,” and reader: OH FUCK.

Bed bugs bite in a line or cluster (all of my bites) and itch and swell for even longer than mosquito bites (all of my bites) and can leave a dark mark after they finally stop being active (all of my bites). So I tore the bed apart yesterday afternoon into evening and OOOH FUUUUCK:

My brother is on his way over right now with commercial spray and all of my clothes and every piece of fabric that can’t get boiled are going to bake in my car in the sun all day (120 degrees for 30 minutes kills bed bugs and eggs. Learning!).

BUT OH MY GOD. I would be more eloquent about it all but I spent the night on an air mattress having a low-grade panic attack, so I am not at my best.

Good lord. So much nope.

Desperate Times

Karen

When you keep getting bitten by Mystery Mosquitoes on your face and neck every night for a month, you break down and order something from Amazon:

Is this ridiculous? Maybe. But does it work? YES. I still got a bite on my shoulder at some point last night when I got up with Toby so I need to remember to cover up when I get out of bed  (and also find where these little fuckers are living, omg I am going crazy).

But I have slept under my head tent for two nights and I have NO new face bites!  Now I just need the 4 on my forehead to stop itching and get the 2 on my eyelids to fade and hope the 6 on my neck don’t leave too much of a mark, either…

Friday Links

Karen

1. Poe should have written a horror story about mosquitos in a house where you can’t see them and don’t know where they’re coming from yet you keep getting fresh bites regardless of whether the house is closed up or not and every bite itches for at least a week and it slowly drives you mad…

2. Ahem. I’m pretty sure I have a mosquito bite allergy, but the name of said allergy enrages me almost as much as the mystery and the itching: skeeter syndrome.

3. Mysteries I can get behind: List of unexplained sounds.