Holy cats! There’s been a gap in my blog posting! The reason is… well, let me use a little MATH:

Variable One: I have moved my husband and I from our apartment to our house (I packed all our things, labeled all the boxes, booked the movers, was there for the movers and helped the movers, then unpacked our things and put the things where they should go and also put Christmas shit up) and I just got done Swiffering the dust from the minor demo we did on our first full day in this house.

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Variable Two: At work, we are moving a client in Chicago out of their giant house so I’m spending my workdays packing glassware and kitchenware and books for someone else while simultaneously doing exactly that for myself.

+

Variable Three: This particular job at work is on a very tight insane deadline – worked right in and around the holidays – so everyone is pretty crabby and tired and feeling overworked PLUS the small little company I work for still has the regular jobs coming in…

+

Variable Four: There have been a couple funerals/memorials/significant losses + (a genuinely family-shattering happening I can’t/won’t go into)

=

I HAVE NOT HAD A FREE SECOND TO WRITE A BLOG POST.

Apologies to the three of you who perhaps noticed. Also, thank you for noticing.

But now I have my music/writing room all set up (still no WiFi but who needs WiFi??… and also still no postal-delivered mail because…who needs mail??? (the USPS says the mail has been delivered but it hasn’t been delivered so… there are kinks remaining in this transition) but… I HAVE A MUSIC/WRITING ROOM:

here is a happy shot of my PC unable to connect to my phone’s hot spot which also stars my Great Uncle Peter’s writing desk 🥰 ie my favorite piece of furniture next to my Great Uncle Peter’s chair which is also pictured

my childhood piano which really needs a tuning

Oh fuck… sure… while I’m being all exhibitionist-y… I’ll also show you “Christmas room”:

There aren’t really any Christmas lights on our block so I made sure our house represented.

I hear the hood is very into Halloween so I have some pretty big plans for that… but Halloween is months away and with the world going the way it’s going… let’s see if we make it.

In the meantime, we still have two residences but are very close to getting back to having just one.

Now Let’s Talk About Sheep

Right. Sheep. I have a story about these little creatures and then I’ll talk about the sheep we are adopting.

The Story

When I was a little kid, my aunt and uncle lived on a farm (as did other members of my mother’s side of the family), and I – a kid who did not live on a farm – was always super excited to find all the farm animals.

I had in fact read Animal Farm and soon realized how close to literal reality that metaphorical story is/was.

One day my parents and I visited my aunt and uncle, and my mom and I went looking for the sheep as we learned my aunt and uncle had some. We were told they were grazing out in the sprawling pasture.

So we trudged up to the area titled “pasture” and… didn’t see any sheep.

It was kind of weird. The way my aunt had made it sound, we expected to see sheep all over the fucking place.

But there was not a single sheep to be found.

So we delved further into the pasture to find the sheep. In fact, we decided to walk north.

No sheep.

We decided to walk west.

After a few minutes, it was clear that the sheep were also not in the western area of the pasture.

We looked back to where we had entered the pasture and the sheep had not double-backed and occupied the space when we weren’t looking.

The only direction left to walk was east.

So my mom and I started to walk east. After a couple minutes, we could see a grove of trees and bushes on the horizon. Since we had never heard of sheep grazing in the woods, we stopped in our tracks.

We had started to believe that the sheep had disappeared and we needed to tell our relatives when, suddenly, in the near distance, we saw a single sheep step forward from the wooded area.

The solitary sheep stood there for a second or two and then it raised their head and let out a loud, “BAAAAAAH.”

This caught my mom and I by surprise. It was very apparent that this sheep was talking to us. Behind and around us there was nothing but open pasture.

Uncertain, we both took a step back.

And right then, as if in response to the single sheep’s battle cry, roughly a million sheep stepped out of the woods behind the sheep

who was clearly the warrior sheep regime’s leader.

And this warrior sheep regime leader’s battalion let out – in unison –

“BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!“

My mom and I turned and ran as fast as we could back to the house.

The sheep had clearly been radicalized.

Since that time, I have felt ambivalent about sheep. They’re either dumb or out to kill you.

Not a creature I’m interested in.

But, recently, as my husband and I haven’t yet been able to adopt a dog due to our work schedule and the fact that there is essentially a drop-off ledge in our kitchen,

and also because we still haven’t adopted a child and PROBABLY NEVER WILL…

a friend, in response to my mourning about being childless, reached out and softly said, “Hill. You can always have one of my sheep.”

This friend recently got a bunch of feral Scottish sheep as he recently bought many acres of woods and is trying to save all the native trees and get rid of all the non-indigenous weeds which cover the forest floor.

First he had his interns helping him “weed the forest floor” but now he’s stepped up and bought himself a herd of feral dwarf sheep.

They are adorable. They’re very little and the females have horns like the men.

My kind of women.

So… if a dog doesn’t pan out, we may be adopting a feral Scottish dwarf sheep.

I’m not sure about the rules for having a sheep in the city but we live in Riverwest and this neighborhood is kind of its own anarchist civilization. But I’m not sure if a domesticated feral sheep would be a great house comrade.

But having one as a pet may perhaps finally get me over my trauma involving sheep.

Happy holidays to everyone who sees this. No matter how shitty things may be going for you, or how many awful things are happening all around us in the world, Christmas is still on its way and doesn’t care.

Hope you spend the holiday warm and safe… sending love out to all those who need a little internet hug.

xx

And, if you’re feeling bummed out, and if you also have WiFi, watch a little Shaun the Sheep. There is very little else that cheers me like stop motion and non-verbal language and maybe it will have the same effect on you.

🖤

SHAUN THE SHEEP