Time to read: 8 minutes
In this week’s newsletter:
The Timbit Times
Kate Film Club, 2 of 52: “Christopher Strong”
Book of the Week: “Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-cambrioleur”
French—and surprise, Music!—Study
My Year of Ne’er-do-well-ism
This week for me was mostly dominated by a rougher week of symptoms. I had increasing abdominal pain on/off for most of the week, and then Saturday morning I woke up with some aggravated neuro and cardiovascular symptoms that for me are the telltale signs of an acute MCAS reaction about to spiral out of control. I texted a few friends to see if anyone could supervise me over Zoom for a while that day, while I stuffed myself full of my usual rescue drugs and hoped I wouldn’t end up in the ER.
As with any mast cell flare, I began furiously trying to figure out the root cause, to no avail at first. But sometime mid-day I pieced it together and was able to being remedying the issue. I’m glad I figured it out, but am pretty exhausted at the moment.
I’m starting a new medication this upcoming week, which will hopefully start to actually treat and remove some of these infections I have, rather than just manage them and sort of prevent them from getting worse. On the other hand, I can have unexpected reactions to new medications. It’s always a crapshoot. But I’m going to keep plodding along, to keep trying.
The Timbit Times
Timbit had quite the week! Temperatures dipped below freezing on Friday, and we’ve been in the teens and lower twenties since. It’s only supposed to warm up on Wednesday. This unusually cold weather for Portland Oregon presented the first big challenge of tiny home living for me: avoiding frozen pipes.
Luckily in my home, most of the pipes are on the inside of the insulation, and none of them run through the floor. I knew I’d probably want to drip water from the fixture farthest from the house’s connection anyway, and I was able to confirm which fixture that was thanks to construction progress photos the builders sent each week when Timbit was being put together. I also checked before going to bed that the heated water hookup (a straight metal pipe above ground) and my heated hose connecting the hookup to my home were both plugged in to the electrical box. I thought I was prepared.
But Saturday morning (yep that same morning I woke up with mast cell symptoms so bad I worried I might end up in the ER that day), the faucet was no longer dripping. Fuck. I called up a friend who was able to come over quickly before the worst of the storm that day was about to start. Her partner discovered the outlet on the box that my heated water connections were plugged into was actually a GFCI outlet—and it was off. It wasn’t color-coded, and the status light was juuust out of sight at my height, below a ledge. It had probably been off since installation! They heat gunned the water hookup pipe (which therefore hadn’t been heated either), we got my spare heated water hose from the garage since the first one was mostly frozen solid, replaced that, and I was thankfully good to go! Somehow all the inside pipes had made it ok through the night.
Moral of the story: community is important. I had a second hose on hand already thanks to the advice of an experienced tiny home dweller I met online when deciding to go tiny. The day of the freeze, I texted her to ask if my overnight faucet “dripping” had been sufficient, and she sent me back a video that was more of a tiny stream. Now I know! And now my exterior connection is properly heated. And I haven’t had any problems since.
Tiny home living achievement unlocked!
Kate Film Club, 2 of 52:
“Christopher Strong” (1933)
This week’s movie I had to get on DVD. (This will be the case with a few of them!) Between fighting the winter weather outside, being curled up under blankets inside, and watching a movie on a DVD, it definitely felt like a weekend cabin getaway chez Timbit.
This week’s movie was only made a year later than last week’s, but we now have music!, and exterior shots!, and even driving scenes! It was directed by the only major female director at the time, Dorothy Arzner. I really enjoyed some of the choices in this film—including the “bracelet scene” I’d heard tell of when researching Hepburn’s filmography—so I’m going to have to look up some of Arzner’s other movies too, I think.
You could say this is simply a story about forbidden love, but to me this film explores the tension between passion for love and passion for achieving great things. I loved the narrative and thought it was well-acted all around. My only complaint is I wish there had been more of a sense of why the two main characters fell in love with each other—we just have to sort of take it at face value that they’ve found some sort of special connection. As for Katharine Hepburn: it’s her first starring role and she’s already obviously very much herself. It’s great.
Rating: 4/5 – I genuinely enjoyed this. What would have taken it to 5 stars is more of an understanding of why the main characters were drawn to each other. A couple of deep conversations maybe.
Where to watch: I had to order it on DVD, but perhaps it’s available at your local library!
Quote: “Courage can conquer even love.”
Book of the Week:
“Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-cambrioleur”
Thanks to the persistent abdominal pain this week, I didn’t have much brain power to dedicate to reading a book in a language for which I’m still trekking my way towards fluency. Since I’ve decided this book is my entire January reading goal, this week’s slow-down is just fine. But I did get a bit further and am almost finished with story number 3 in the book, “L’évasion d’Arsène Lupin” (“The Escape of Arsène Lupin”).
Even with the challenges this week, I’ve now read further in this book than any book I’ve previously tried to read in French! (My brain is conjuring up an image of Sam Gamgee saying if he takes another step it will be the farthest he’s ever gone.) There are a couple of reasons reading a book in French has escaped me until now, despite the fact I’m currently studying at the B2 (CEFR) level.
The first is that there is a past tense that is only used in literary writing, and so it’s not really taught to adult learners until quite later on. And it makes sense: you could move to France, work a job, make friends, watch tv, read a newspaper, get medical care, etc, all without knowing passé simple. But you wouldn’t be able to read a book—it’s even used in children’s books! So for the adult learner of French, it’s really difficult to begin to work on your passé simple comprehension, when all you want to do is just enjoy yourself reading a nice book. Also, while other French verb tenses build off each other in tidy ways, passé simple is kind of its own different thing: there are entirely new conjugation endings to learn and sometimes even the roots aren’t obvious. But I’ve decided I really want to stick with it this time, thanks to my love of the tv show “Lupin”, so here I trudge.
The other reason I think I’ve managed to read farther in a French book than before is because I’ve been calibrating how often I look up words I don’t know, versus just accepting that I’m going to drop some sentences on the floor here and there but will still generally understand what’s going on. I’m finding I’m actually enjoying the reading a lot more, when I accept that say 15% of sentences are going to be lost on me and I should just keep moving.
French—and surprise, Music!—study
My French conversation class that I’d been looking forward to started up this past week! I’m with a teacher I’ve had before, who is lovely, and one other student I’ve taken class with before. They were very excited to hear I’ve since moved into my tiny home. It was nice to also meet some new faces. I had to skip Thursday’s class sadly due to the abdominal issues.
Also, a Berklee online course in music production started this week too! I’d been taking it last summer but had to defer to a later term due to illness, and I’d almost forgotten that that later term is now starting. I’m on the fence as to whether I’m well enough to attempt it again, especially considering that I’d also like to try some part-time consulting again soon and I probably don’t have energy for both yet. Decisions, decisions.
My Year of Ne’er-do-well-ism
ne’er-do-well
noun
1. an idle, worthless person; a person who is ineffectual, unsuccessful, or completely lacking in merit; good-for-nothing.
adjective
2. worthless; ineffectual; good-for-nothing.
When you have an illness of the sort I do, the world kinda leaves you for dead. You are, in that sense, worthless. (To some people, and systems, and parts of society.) I want to lean into that “worthlessness” in a reclamation sort of way, and do something entirely without broader purpose each week. However, my illness was too pronounced for me to do anything serendipitous or for the hell of it this time around. Hopefully next week will be better.
Kate Violette 