Terra Caldwell

@journeymansalvager.bsky.social Happy birthday! Paul and I hope you're doing well!

Pay phone calls were 20 cents when I was using them, so we always carried dimes. Using a quarter was giving the phone company an extra 5 cents.

I am old.

Next trip: northern Washington for the King Arthur Baking French patisserie 3-day course! I'm so excited! I'm going to learn eclairs and macarons and many other things! Plus, dinner with Ben & Noah in Everett.

Freelancing is, in many ways, the polar opposite of teaching public school. It's been an adjustment! A good one, but I have a lot of systems I need to invent for myself. #ADHD

Back home in Portland, suffering Con Drop. That was the longest convention I've ever attended. I think I could sleep for a week!

@kyrafreestar.bsky.social Thank you so much for your advice at the editing panel at WorldCon today! You were very kind to this newbie editor.

At #WorldConSeattle, and I am beat. I do not know how the various authors, dealers, and panelists do this without falling over by 2 PM every day. No rest for the wicked, I suspect!

I did not fall off a cliff! I promise!

I do have a new scar, though. Cats, when scared out of their furry little minds, bite even the hands of the people who love them.

Spring is so much prettier in Oregon than in California, but CA smells so much better.

I spend most days by myself now. As a teacher, I saw about 200 ppl a day. Big change. Introvert batteries fully charged. Am desperate to game. Fading Suns can't start soon enough.

I don't miss teaching at all, but I really miss my students. Even the irritating ones.

Need to write that book.

I got a nasty 2D burn on my inner elbow while cleaning a quesadilla press, and then finished out the shift. Fast food workers aren't treated well at all--and I had a great manager at that store. Scar's gone, but 35 yrs later I still remember the pain.

A dear friend gave me a cookbook of Jewish recipes written down by Holocaust survivors. I am deeply touched. It's one of those gifts you don't know you want until you get it. It's exactly the kind of history we need to preserve.

Hotel room cleaner, fast food worker, telemarketer, ad "designer," library book shelver.

Our license plates finally came. Now we own a house in Oregon, have Oregon driver's licenses, and have Oregon plates. At some point I may start feeling like an Oregonian, but I still think of myself as a Californian. 49 years in one state kinda does that to a girl.

Glad to see the protests, but just looking at the crowds in the photos makes me anxious. Saw something about massive medical data sets being lost because of Kennedy and that made me profoundly sad. What a waste of all of the Covid, cancer, etc. deaths and the $$$$ of research, time, etc.

The Canada thing hurts more than I expected. Why Canada? Why piss them off? What is the point? We've been friendly since just after the War of 1812. I've spent my life thinking "at least we don't have to worry about war with the North," and now...but I like Canadians!

... right after Amazon refuses to let us download our books any more and specifies that we only have *licenses* to them. *sigh*

Portland is gorgeous today. Had a wonderful morning at the Japanese Gardens and then brunch with friends. I wish the world wasn't going to shit.

My next editing class starts next Monday.

Next Thursday I fly to Crete for 8-9 days.

I thank my lucky stars that the first week is always "introduce yourself" and nothing more strenuous, but I'm going to have to cram my first real assignment into the 3 days I'll be home between trip and due date.

Context: a man is dying of old age/sickness. "When a man couldn't preside competently over the lowliest throne in the land, what dignity was left in living?" #amreading

It would be nice to know how my friends are doing, but all I ever see on social media any more is a perpetual list of Trump and Musk doings.

I miss my friends.

Also, while I'm still in a cane-waving-at-clouds frame of mind, I am so sick of having to get a 6-digit code texted to me before I can log into anything. I mean, I get 2FA for banks, but my hair stylist doesn't need 2FA to permit me to schedule an appt. Can we just stop with the nonsense?

Just remember, friends: deregulation ==> stalled cars all over the freeway at rush hour. Grr.

In all my 50 years I have never been in a major metropolitan area with more stalled cars on the freeway on the daily than here in Portland, OR. You'd think their DMV would have laws passed that called for better cars, but apparently not. *Every time* I have to go somewhere, there's a stalled car.

Yeah, the Petition Act of 1836 removed people's right to petition the government to end slavery. Congress found the petitions annoying, and most of SCOTUS owned slaves at the time, so it was considered constitutional.

I am making a website. This is not a skill that I have. I'm pretty sure I'm going to make a huge mess at some point very soon now. Also, I don't have a logo and I need to have someone design one. Fortunately, there are many tattoo artists in Portland.

Gas is $2 cheaper a gallon in Portland. Wow.

I've just spent 9 hours in the car and my tailbone hurts like you wouldn't believe. >.<

I recall the clowns with the white flour who disrupted a Nazi march a few years ago.

Democrats misplaced their spines in the 1970s and have yet to find them. That said, keep up the good work.