Flat tires, funnel cakes, roadside panic, and the strange realization that life still has room for new people.

Case File Tags: identity shift, inherited history, quiet revelations, storm season, found family (adjacent)
Content Note: chronic illness, fatigue, grief-adjacent reflection, family/parentage discussion, roadside anxiety, identity shifts, medical/disability discussion

Welcome to The Crippled Cryptid

Disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and survival without the performance.

If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Occasional chronic illness and disability advocate.

Medically complex enough to make my chart a jump scare. I cope with sarcasm, snacks, and narrating my life like it’s a field report. Sometimes there’s coffee. Those are the best days.

Today, there are electrolytes. Lots of them.

Because your ghoul is rocking sore muscles, and xtra sour peach Powerade has become my whole personality.

Most days are lived in a haunted meat suit with a questionable warranty and a long-standing feud with my nervous system.

And on Tuesdays…

We document it.

The appointments.
The adventures.
The spirals.
The “we left the house and now we have a story” moments.

Sometimes that story is just me in a waiting room mentally drafting a rant while staring at outdated magazines.

Sometimes it’s “we found a place after and the food was life-changing.”

Sometimes it’s both.

I spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™, but when I do venture out into the wild, I’m rarely alone.

Luna is there.

Medical alert service dog. Guardian. Enforcer. Service Dingo™.

Public access professional. Emergency “we need to sit down right now” decision-maker.

There’s also M&M.

My Player 2. My soft place to land. Snack provider. Voice of reason when I have none. Which is often. I’m a very stubborn cryptid.

And, in spirit (and usually at home), the Yard Yeti.

Keeper of the home base. Guardian of the Wi-Fi. Champion of “I support you from this chair.”

This space is for chronic illness without inspiration porn.
Disability without apologies.
Life as it actually happens… including the messy, the mundane, and the unexpectedly good.

If you’ve been here before, welcome back.

If you’re new, you’ll find your footing.

Welcome to the Cryptid Dispatch.

Field notes from the chaos.

Cryptid Dispatch Incoming…

Today’s report includes life updates, quiet revelations, and something that changed my life in a way I didn’t expect.

This isn’t a rant.

Just a “we left the house” post.

Something that still feels a little wild.

A little bit of adventure.

The Great Pumpkin™ Era

If you haven’t been keeping up with the blog, I’ll say it again:

Your resident Cryptid is mobile again.

Thankfully, after seven months, we were finally able to get a vehicle.

She is a 2019 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk.

And yes, I’ve already named her.

She is The Great Pumpkin™.

Though if M&M keeps adding puppy paws and cute dog things to her, I may have to start calling her the Pupkin’ Spice Latte. (Get it? Dogs + Coffee?)

I’m not saying the Jeep is becoming emotionally support-coded.

But I am saying there are paw prints involved.

Wednesday, while we were filling up water at Jewel, we got a text from my stepmom.

(New words for new roles in my life still feel strange after losing my mom and living in the orphan mentality for six years. But honestly? I like her. She’s really cool.)

She asked if we wanted to go to The Pec Thing on Saturday.

Which told me everything I needed to know.

Flea market?
Antiques?
Questionable little trinkets and emotionally dangerous cookware?

I was in immediately.

The Pec Thing Chronicles

Was it hot?
Yes.

Was it sunny?
Aggressively.

But that’s okay because I brought sunscreen like the chronically ill cryptid equivalent of a suburban dad preparing for war.

M&M got her first-ever funnel cake, which I still think should legally count as a hate crime. How can someone be almost 33 years old and have never had a funnel cake before?

Thankfully, she loved it.

I got a lemonade because county fair lemonade is scientifically the best kind of lemonade. Fight me.

Obviously, we shared both.

We came home with treats for Luna, some hand-stitched Pokémon magnets for the fridge, stickers, and a Mothman pin for my backpack.

I also fell deeply in love with a handmade snowglobe-style cold cup that said True Crime Junkie on it. Inside was floating knife glitter and red liquid that looked suspiciously like blood.

Unfortunately, it was leaking from sitting in the sun.

And honestly? If a little sunlight is enough to break something like that, it just wasn’t built for my life.

I like sitting outside to write.
At the back table.
On the deck near the garden beds.
Watching birds while my joints negotiate with gravity.

I would’ve been heartbroken if the thing started leaking fake crime scene fluid everywhere just because of a tiny bit of sunlight. Let’s face it, I’m the only thing that’s allowed to fail like a dramatic Victorian widow because the sun is simply too much around here.

So, it stayed behind.

Some things, I’m learning, unfortunately aren’t meant for us even if we do love them.

I also found some Spice of Life cookware that I grew up with, but the booth owner wasn’t there. By the time I circled back around, they still hadn’t returned.

Which somehow felt weirdly symbolic too.

Next time.

Besides, they weren’t in nearly nice enough condition for the price they were asking for them.

Peanut Chicken & Emotional Character Development

We all went to dinner afterward at a Chinese buffet, and I got to try peanut chicken for the first time.

Life-changing.

Normally, buffets are all about egg rolls, crab rangoon, and shrimp for me.

But peanut chicken?

Immediate top-tier ranking.

Not to say that their coconut shrimp was bad. Because, that too was amazing.

Then we went back to their place, and I got to meet their dogs.

Their bigger dog especially, completely stole my heart.

That’s not a dog.

That’s a person with ears and a tail.

The way she snuggled up against his wife melted me instantly.

M&M keeps saying she wants Luna to become that cuddly.

Personally, I think I would get trampled.

But I also think I would love every second of it.

I don’t think people talk enough about how strange it feels when your life changes shape after you already mourned the version you thought you were stuck with.

I had gotten used to certain absences.

Built around them.

Named them home.

So having invitations show up in my phone now still catches me off guard in the best possible way.

I’m still getting used to some of the new words in my life.

Dad.
Stepmom.
Stepbrothers.

But maybe healing is learning you’re allowed to grow around joy too.

Even if it arrives late.

He said it first, “life’s too short.”

He was right.

A Brief Side Quest Featuring AAA

The ride home came with a few complications.

By “complications,” I mean we hit a nail somewhere on Route 173 because apparently a truck had dropped an entire box of them onto the road.

Which shredded our tire.

The Great Pumpkin™ sat glowing neon orange on the roadside between dark cornfields like some kind of cryptid distress beacon while semis blasted past us at terrifying speeds.

I was not having a good time.

Thankfully, AAA came through for us.

Eventually.

It took about thirty minutes to even locate someone who could get to us, which honestly feels understandable considering it was late Saturday night and we were basically stranded somewhere between “corn” and “absolutely nowhere.”

Part of me was halfway ready to make a joke about Malachi and “He Who Walks Behind the Rows” but, there wasn’t enough corn for that.

The AAA guy fought those tire bolts like they had personally insulted his family.

Standing on the wrench.
Using a mallet.
Putting his entire soul into it.

Whoever installed those bolts last tightened them with the fury of a thousand unresolved issues.

But he got them off.

Thankfully.

Because sitting on the side of the road in the dark with anxiety screaming through my nervous system while giant vehicles thundered past us was… not ideal.

And honestly?

I’m glad Luna stayed home for this one.

She would’ve hated every second of it.

Especially because those LED headlights on the Renegade are so bright that the first night we drove it, all three of us (me, M&M, and the Yard Yeti) genuinely thought I had accidentally left the brights on.

Nope.

That’s just apparently how this car exists naturally.

Like a flashlight possessed by a suburban pumpkin spirit.

We finally got home around 1AM completely exhausted.

Luna was thrilled to see us.

She got one of her new peanut butter cookies immediately.

As payment for emotional damages, obviously.

🐾 Luna’s Notes:
Mama cried a little. Laughed a lot. Came home exhausted.
I think that means the humans did something important.
I made sure everyone got safely tucked into bed afterward.

-Luna Bean, Bedtime Patrol Division™

The next morning, I absolutely regretted falling asleep without washing off the tiny bit of eyeliner and mascara I’d worn the night before.

Everything felt sticky and vaguely cursed.

Which became even more chaotic when Luna woke me up barking because someone was in the house.

Turns out my friend had sent his kids over to help clear the garden beds and forgot to warn me.

So, there I was:

• Half asleep
• Wearing Cheshire Cat pajama pants
• Hair completely unhinged
• Last night’s makeup still smeared on my face
• Walking upstairs to find people standing in my kitchen

I felt like a cryptid caught on a trail camera.

But honestly?

The garden beds are almost ready now.

And garden season is finally starting.

Recovery Day™

The rest of Sunday was quieter.

Recovery Day.

The kind where your legs ache before your eyes are even fully open and your body reminds you that yes, technically, wandering around flea markets in the sun does count as an extreme sport when your joints are held together by vibes and medical paperwork.

So, we took it slow.

Polish sausages on the grill.
Sour peach Powerade.
A new episode of FROM on MGM+ from bed.

Mostly relaxing while the garden beds got closer and closer to being ready for planting season.

And honestly?

I think that’s part of healing too.

Not dramatic healing.
Not movie montage healing.

Just:

resting afterward.
letting yourself keep the good day.
accepting the soreness as proof you got to live a little.

Luna spent most of the day rotating between backyard patrol duty, playing ball with the boys, and supervising everyone from the bed like a tiny exhausted manager.

I think she was just happy we all made it home safe.

🐾 Luna Rating Scale™

Category	Rating
Snack Quality	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Emotional Stability of Humans	⭐⭐☆☆☆
Roadside Safety	⭐☆☆☆☆
Couch Recovery Efficiency	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Chance of Mom Overdoing It Again	Unfortunately High
Peanut Butter Cookie Compensation	Acceptable

-Luna Bean, Service Dingo™

From One Cryptid to Another

If you’re low on spoons, grab a couple from the snack table.

I keep extras there.

Drink some water.

Take your meds if it’s time.

Eat something, even if it’s only a few bites.

If your life feels like a string of strange side quests… you’re not alone.

Some days feel like DnD with a character you didn’t build.

Some days feel like Jumanji and someone else already disappeared into the jungle.

Some days are big.

Some days are just:

we survived the appointment.
we survived the body.
we survived Bed Jail™.

All of it counts.

Thanks for coming along with me.

-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid

Disability. Honesty. A little chaos.
(Occasionally field-tested.)

🔗 https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa

There’s never pressure to donate. Reading, sharing, or simply staying is more than enough.

If you’d like to support the long, slow work of staying alive, stable, and still wandering when I can:

💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility