daemonluna

Hi friends, I've got some bad health news to share. I was having some stomach problems in June, and it turns out it's actually ovarian cancer. (Sort of. It's a bit complicated.) A month of tests and follow ups and I am likely going to start chemo this upcoming week. I am incredibly grateful for all the support we've received so far from local friends and family and coworkers, and will take any and all good wishes, thoughts, and prayers of any denomination, at any distance.

The morning glories are blooming. It's just past the Labour Day long weekend, and they started a few days ago. I got them planted late again this year, well into June. I'm hoping for a slow, gentle fall so they all get a chance to flower.

Last year, right around this time, zulu was dying. We knew, over the long weekend, when the group chat went quiet, that it wasn't a good sign. I'd kept up a a steady stream of pet pictures and other small bits of news. As the summer went on, we had fewer responses from her, and were more likely to just get an emoji back. Morning glory flowers only bloom for a day. I started sending a picture of that morning's flowers to the group chat each day. (And cat pictures. Of course.) I don't know if anyone but me really cared about the morning glories, but it felt like something tangible to hold onto.

We knew things weren't good when bell mailed to set up a time for a video chat. A few days after the long weekend, we talked to them face to face, to get the news that they were moving zulu into hospice care the next day. It would be the last time we'd hear her voice. We knew it was coming, it just all went so much more quickly than expected. She died less than three weeks later.

And now the morning glories are blooming again, and even though they're my favourite flower and not hers, I'm still going to think of her every year.

Most Sundays, I'll rummage through the fridge and freezer and throw together a pot of soup for weekday lunches. I'll mention whatever I'm making in the fanbinding discord server sometimes, and someone inevitably asks for the recipe, so I've started occasionally writing things down. Here's this week's soup, and a few from the past month or so, mostly for easy linking reference later.

Liminal Zone Chicken Vegetable Soup

Half an onion
2-3 carrots
3-4 stalks of celery
1/3 cup of lentils
1/2 cup of corn
1-2 chicken breasts or equivalent
4-5 cups of chicken stock
A bay leaf
1 tsp dried parsley
Black pepper
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

If your chicken isn't cooked, cut it into bite-sized pieces and brown it first. Take it out of the pot. Put a little bit of olive oil or butter in the pot on medium heat. Dice the onion and carrot and celery into whatever bite-sized pieces you prefer. Add the onion, let it brown for a minute or two, add the carrot, give it another couple minutes, add the celery. (I add them as I chop them, in that order. Toss in a bay leaf if you want. Add the lentils, corn, chicken stock, dried parsley, and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils are done. Add some black pepper (3-4 twists of the pepper grinder, I didn't measure) and a splash of apple cider vinegar at the end after turning off the heat but before serving.

To live up to the name, sub three stalks of wilting green onion from the bottom of the crisper drawer for the half onion, whatever is salvageable from the browning celery you bought a week before Christmas for the finite quantity of 3-4 stalks, and eat at 3:30 pm after sleeping in past ten and only grazing on nuts, chocolate, and potato chips earlier in the day, accompanied by toast with cream cheese and leftover cranberry sauce, before emerging blinking into the last half hour of daylight to go for a walk with a winter jacket thrown over top of your pajamas.

( Thai Panang Curry Soup )

(  Italian sausage, kale and potato soup )

( Cheddar-Potato-Chive Soup )

Barb: Do... you want to go to Spirit of Halloween?

Me: Any reason in particular?

Barb: Well, I don't think we've ever been to one....

Me: So, like a field trip, since we were going to run other errands? Just to observe?

Barb: Yes! ... and also maybe to buy chains.

Me: Okay, but why chains? Are you going to cosplay as Wen Ning?

Barb: Just... to have! You know, put out on the ground. For spooky for the trick or treaters! Perhaps to suggest that things could still go badly.

Me: Okay, what time did you want to go?

What do you say after losing a friend whose life's orbit has been entwined with yours for more than twenty years? To say zulu was smart, and funny, and down to earth and kind is a vast understatement. She was a writer and a storyteller with a huge love and talent for the written word (so much she got a PhD in creative writing). She had the best, dorkiest sense of humour, and a wicked sense of comedic and dramatic timing. She loved her wife and son, her whole family, and the outdoors immensely.

We met because Barb joined the speculative fiction writing group that Zulu and her mom both belonged to, and crossed into each others' lives at just the right time. She threw a coming-out party within the first six months we knew each other. "Guys," she said, "this isn't just a regular party, I invited you all over to tell you... I'm gay." "Yes," we said. "We know, and this is why we got you this card, and we all signed it." (Except for one friend, our token straight guy, who said helplessly, "I didn't know!") Zulu was not subtle. She gave a sex ed crash course to everyone at the back of the bus on a band trip in junior high by doing a dramatic reading from the Clan of the Cave Bear books, or so we were told. I have no trouble believing it. She had a shy streak too though. We went to Pride together, stood in the pouring rain to watch the parade, and the first year when Barb said, "Hey, that girl's checking you out!" Zulu immediately decided that the sidewalk was the most interesting thing she'd seen all day. She tagged her introspective Livejournal feelings posts "blueberry pie filling" for the soft gooey bits underneath.

We went to multiple cons together in our twenties, and Zulu could meander through a room party and emerge with enough snacks stashed about her person for breakfast AND lunch the next day. I wish I had recordings of her singing our friend's filk, especially "I'm Sorry, Larry Niven," inspired by the time she announced in the con suite, "And then, naked swimming!" not knowing that the Guest of Honour, venerable SF author Larry Niven, was RIGHT behind her. She once camped out in our living room for almost a week in an extended two-degree-of-SGA-actor-separation movie marathon and her mom called us to see if we'd heard from her lately, an hour after we finally dropped her off at home. ("I told her to email me if I wasn't answering the phone!" Zulu said aggrievedly.) She concoted elaborate dramas when we cooked together. At a dumpling making party, she started out depicting the woes of a poor, beleagured dumpling-making servant girl. By the time we finished folding the bowl of chopped shrimp into the wrappers, she'd overthrown the government and was controlling a whole nation.

We helped each other move. She was responsible for petting our small but vocal cat Minnow in her carrier the whole way from OldCity to NewCity, since every time she stopped, Minnow got louder and louder. She invented a whole series of sound effects for Betrayal at House on the Hill, a favourite board game, and I don't know how we can play it without her. (The event cards make the X-Files theme, the item cards make an eerie whistling sound, and the omen cards make a dramatic duuuh-duh-DUH! and I wish I could remember how the Star Trek fight music factored into things.) She drank from straws always out of the side of her mouth. She loved mango and shrimp and guacamole, and once called us to say "So, I'm having supper with my parents, and said no, I want my steak the way Barb cooks it, so my mom said I should cook it myself... how DO you cook it?" (The answer was, rare. Three and a half minutes per side, flip it twice per side.)

She decided to do a Master's in science fiction, went to the UK for a year, and met a girl. An online friend, not from the UK, who came to visit her. That was bell . Their wedding was less than fifteen people, their cake has emojis made with Skittles on it, and Barb and I were so happy to be with them, and share their joy. They got married in the wedding commissioner's living room, and then we all went out for Thai food, and it was beautiful. By which I also mean I have photos of the two of them wearing tiaras flipped down like Geordi's visor on ST:TNG, and of Zulu fake-restraining Bell as she stabbed the wedding cake with the cake knife.

Zulu always wanted to be a parent. When she and Bell told us they were planning to have a baby, I made an out of character high-pitched squeaking noise that risked alarming the cats. I knit them two mama bear and one baby bear hats for Christmas. A sleep-deprived new parent Zulu did say, "Guys... I realize that when I said I wanted a baby, I was actually picturing a preschooler I could take to the park and zoo. But he'll grow into it." Obviously, L did. They discovered at the height of the COVID shut downs (including the libraries) that he was ready for reading chapter books, and I was able to surprise them with some books because one of the local book stores was doing door-to-door deliveries.

She wrote prolifically and beautifully. (She wrote so much fanfic on our living room couch over the years. So much smut. Occasionally went into a research deep dive. Fandom means having your friend looking up sex toys for escalating purposes from your couch is a normal platonic situation.) She went through a phase early in her original fiction where she just wasn't sure how to end things, and Barb teased her that every story finished with the protagonist going insane, dying, or both. (She got over it.) Her PhD thesis was a multi-path branching novel using the text-based game software Twine about a poly society where children were genderless, and you picked your gender based on familial ties and obligations when you came of age. And then she pared it down to one story line, and got it published as a novel.

She wrote fanfic, so much fanfic. She modded the House big bang, and set out to comment on every story submitted to challenges, and embraced writing tiny crossovers, and drabbles and prompts and novel-length series. She let me throw prompts for obscure Canadian TV at her for about two years, and half of the fanfic for This is Wonderland exists because of things she wrote for me. I wish I could find the vid she made me, and I got a crossover fic from her for Christmas that year. She fell back into fandom hard with A League of Their Own, we marathoned the whole series with her one weekend when she and Bell came to visit (to be clear, I think this was her fourth viewing at least at that point?) I'm so glad she had a fandom community again. I felt it in my heart when she said this summer that one of her goals was to finish all her WIPS. She started a new social media AU (dammit Zulu, how do I typeset this?) posting from her hospice bed, writing up until a week before she died.

When I started fanbinding, I made her a pamphlet of her crackfic for Christmas. It was right around the time we found out she first had cancer. Surgery, chemo, and then we had another two years with her. I made her an anthology of her ALOTO fic--all that she'd written at the time, at least. ("Would... you make a book of my fic?" she said when she saw my first casebound books. I never want to forget the way she said my name when she was asking me for something that was a foregone conclusion. "That was already the plan for Christmas," I told her.) I bound her rarepair House mpreg crackfic this past year. I didn't finish it until the spring--and then we found out the cancer was back. She asked me for a favour over the summer. Anything, I said. She wanted a pamphlet of one of her ALOTO fic. I did three fic, and put them into her hands with her belated Christmas present. I wanted to do more, but was feeling overwhelmed and didn't know where to start. I wanted to bind more of her fic than I could possibly accomplish, and that if I tried to make this the only project I had, I would probably collapse under my own sadness. (I don't know if you all know this... but she has 350+ fic on AO3.) So I asked for help, and the Renegade fanbinding community responded in a way I should have expected--with immense enthusiasm and zero restraint. I've got some plans around sharing the results collectively at some point. Timelines got bumped up by a month. There was a rush for mailing. Sadly, only some of the books made it to her before her death. The group shipment box in particular showed up too late on the day that she died. Bell took it with her to supper with friends and family to open as a special treat. I think there will be thirty-some books of all sizes all told, and I have about four more in progress, though I'll never get to put them in her hands and see her grin and say "Aww, you GUYS..."

She was so clever, so curious about the world, and so damn funny. Being around her felt like family in the best, uncomplicated way. Small things that stick--the last time she and Bell came to visit this past winter, as they unloaded things from the car, she announced, "If by 'did I bring the snacks,' you mean, 'did I empty the snack shelf of all the partially-eaten bags of all the flavours of potato chips, put them in a box, and bring them here, then the answer is yes, yes I did." We watched Jupiter Ascending, hung out, and went out for ice cream in January. Two weeks later, we got the news that she needed to start chemo again. (Zulu, relaying this incident after the fact: "So, L really wanted me to go to a parent event at school, so I dragged myself out in a baseball cap and sweats, with my pump. The other moms were like... (fake polite pained smiles) 'and how are... you?' and I was like 'Baaaad. I am not good, and you should feel bad for me.'")  Then in Jun, news that it hadn't worked. We thought we'd have a year if we were lucky. We saw her in August, a month before she died. They'd just adjusted her pain meds, she was having a good day, and was up and about, and there was a group hug when we left. She went downhill fast, and we did a short video chat the night before she moved into hospice three weeks later. We were supposed to go visit her this weekend, and instead we'll be going to a celebration of her life.

I was at work when I got the news from Bell, and grateful to the universe that it came in a quiet moment early on a busy day. When I got home at lunch, Barb pointed at the front door where I was standing, dissolved into tears, and said, "I can't stop thinking about how many times we hugged her hello and goodbye RIGHT THERE." She gave such good hugs. I can't think of anyone else I know whose reaction to their imminent death would essentially be "well, I had a good run!"

In a move that will surprise no-one who knew her, she wrote her own obituary. In the email about Zulu's death, and how to support the family, Bell goes on to say "Do not send us flowers. If you send me flowers, my cats will eat and convert them into barf. Please do not give me cat barf! I already have enough! :D" and followed that up with two charities to donate to instead (a local organization supporting trans folks, and an indigenous-led water protection organization). Trans rights! Water rights! But no cat barf.

And what else is there to say? Zulu, I love you and I miss you. That's all.

Okay, so. I just finished I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons, by Peter S. Beagle. (Yes, The Last Unicorn author Peter S. Beagle.)

The premise, in someone else's hands, could have turned into something light-hearted and twee. A dragon exterminator who wants to be a prince's valet! A beautiful princess who wants the only prince who isn't madly in love with her! A well-intentioned but naive prince whose father wants him to prove himself!

But, this is Peter Beagle. He takes these characters and gives them immense humanity and turns it into a story about expectations and circumventing them, and something a little bit darker than I expected. The last part of the book felt a little bit oblique to me, and the ending was emotionally satisfying, but not as neat and tidy as some people might like. (I kind of wanted a liiiitle bit more denouement?) And I'm supremely glad to see it published, seeing as the author was in a legal battle with his former manager, who was charged with both fraud and elder abuse)

My favourite Peter Beagle book is still Tamsin, a ghost story set in the contemporary English countryside, and this one was firmly a "liked a lot but didn't fall in love with," but I still rec it.

I have gotten out of the habit of posting again! I need to stop writing posts in my head and actually put them here.

Anyhow. A small thing. I went to an annual seed swap event, and came home with seeds for some annual flowers, Chinese yardlong beans, and an ancient squash. It will get bright orange squash, up to two feet long. I'm not even that huge of a squash fan, and Barb doesn't like it at all, but it just looks COOL. So we'll see how it grows!

Making a couple of books for an exchange. Knitting at least one thing for Christmas. Almost through setting up a large floor loom in the basement! (There were a few missing pieces, and a trip to the aptly-named Bolt Supply House, but I am almost there!)

Ahhh, there is a third (and final) season of Hilda! It's a lovely little animated series about an adventurous eleven year old girl, in a world like ours but with a hefty dose of Nordic-inspired folklore and magic, and is just heartfelt and satisfying. Based on a kids' graphic novel series, but I enjoyed it a lot as a fantasy-watching grown-up for a gentle pick-me-up. Also a good pick for any kids in your life who like Owl House and Gravity Falls, or are a little bit too young for either of them.  Netflix has the movie in between s2-3 as a separate entry, just FYI, but it picks up right where the s2 cliffhanger left off. We have yet to start S3. Maybe tomorrow!

I've got some good intentions of finishing off the aforementioned knitting project tonight, and cutting down at least some of the last batch of book cloth I bought. (Group orders "save" money...) Tomorrow, soup, and working on another project at the weavers' guild. I think this week's soup will be tortilla, based on the tomatoes and peppers in the freezer. We shall see.