bloodteethandflame

A life in threes

How.

How do you handle fear and self-doubt?

Badly.

But I’m working on it.

There’s a fox under the bed.

Lately, I’ve been feeling sad and a bit overwhelmed.

And maybe my brain knows it, as I’ve been having this particularly vivid and repetitive dream that a large red fox has somehow gotten inside my home.

And I’ve been having this dream several nights in a row now.

Though I cannot think of what this fox being loose in my house could represent – but since I know that the subconscious mind operates in metaphors – I’ve been examining its behavior in the dream these last two nights, looking for clues.

The first night that I had the dream, when the fox got in, it ran around the house – wild, unpredictable – knocking over things, and chasing and loudly challenging our three cats and two dogs.

And no matter how much I tried to capture it – with makeshift traps or nets – it could not be contained. 

I tried to lure it back outside with food or toys, trying to catch its interest with something, anything…but I could not get it to leave the house.

Then, the next two times, I think that I’d started to acquiesce to its presence in my house, no matter how much I was still annoyed with it, because it had taken up residence in my bedroom, lying just underneath my side of the bed, alternately growling and yipping whenever I tried to engage with it. My dogs and cats seemed curious about it, but I felt like I had to keep them out of the bedroom for their own safety, because a fox is still a wild animal — as my calls to Animal Control went unanswered.

And then, I started to wonder if the fox was a problem that wanted to attach itself to me, and not in a good way, since it made noise all through night and day, no matter how much I tried to appease it with food or water or blankets or pet toys….because it didn’t seem to want to leave, but it also seemed loudly opposed to being in my house as well.

And Animal Control still wouldn’t return my calls.

But, in the last two nights’ dreams, oddly enough, the fox would sometimes crawl out from under the bed to watch me as I read a book or watch TV, or to lick and nibble at my hands sometimes in the middle of the night, waking me up from sleep, as if it now wanted my attention…

But it doesn’t seem to want to leave! 

___

A fox under my bed.

Who doesn’t belong

But will not leave.

I don’t know what it means.

But I’ve had these dreams of a fox in my house for five, six nights now.

*sigh*

Poem: Listen

Love love love this poem.

It seems a necessary medicine as I navigate my latest bouts with despair and anxiety.

Today’s the day…

For chaos!

Artwork by Haus of Decline

It’s

positively

bananas 🍌 

out

here!

Someone else’s words…

“Though I’ve always loved Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things,” I often lament (at the same time as I understand) its movement away from the human, and one night after reading it I heard these words:

Poem by Joseph Fasano

I try to keep hoping.

I keep telling myself that something can be done, something must be done, and it rings and rings in my head when I cannot sleep at night…

Things can be done.

Things must be done.

It’s not going to be easy…

But we must believe that we can do these things.

And then

We must do these things.

New Year Wish

In-between

This is where we’re at -in that liminal time between Yule and New Year’s…

Because it ain’t over yet!

And here are some ideas from Patheos’ Lisa Wagoner on making the most of these liminal days between Yule and New Year’s

Enjoy!

27 November 2025

Whatever your situation, where-ever you are – I’m sending YOU  lots of love today ❤️

Zero at the bone

This morning

At 5 AM.

I was lying in bed,

inwardly debating if I should get up to go to the toilet

( as it so often happens roughly around this time each day)

or if I should just go back to sleep for another half hour

( because it didn’t feel like I had to go that badly.)

The house was dark and quiet, with no one else awake

( but me, and only partially so )

When suddenly

Alexa*

Blurts out:

Oh, hello! So glad to have you here!

At volume 8.

Entirely unprompted.

.

.

.

You’d best believe that I was lying there, chest pounding, and * fully awake*  wondering what in the hell could have brought THAT on

Only to see the green glow of the device lighting up AGAIN

Hello! So glad to have you here!

And I seriously thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest.

Damned creepy technology…

*shudder*

~~~

I have read so many horror stories of voice assistant tech going off unprompted at the strangest times – and yet, this is the first time that it has happened to me.

😱

*catches breath*

*unplugs all smart devices*

_______

*(that ubiquitous voice assistant technology that I begrudgingly refer to as ‘the faceless woman’ )

Here’s the 4(0)11

Here’s a little humor for your Monday…

Artwork by Nathan Pyle

20 years ago, I worked in a supermarket, and worked in the produce dept for close to a year, and I’m not gonna lie — of all the PLU (Price Look Up) codes I typed in daily/endlessly – that 4011 PLU for bananas is the only one I’ve never forgotten 😆