A Valentine’s Weekend Recap from the Den
Content Notes:
Chronic illness, migraine, seizures, medical procedures (EEG), brief discussion of discrimination, financial hardship, food insecurity.
Welcome Back to the Den 🖤
The lights are low.
The red twinkle lights are doing their haunted-living-room thing.
Nobody here expects you to perform romance like it’s an Olympic sport.
This is The Crippled Cryptid.
A soft-lit corner of the internet where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and everyday survival exist without apology… even on Valentine’s Day.
And yes, this is going up on Monday instead of Tuesday.
Because Tuesday belongs to Lunar New Year prep in this house. There are dumplings to fold, fillings to debate, and a full dim sum spread to stage. We don’t stack celebrations on top of each other here. We let them breathe.
Tuesday marks the beginning of Chinese New Year, and that deserves its own spotlight.
If you’re new here, hi. I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Occasional disability advocate and content creator.
Because apparently introducing yourself as “a professional cripple” makes people tense up at dinner parties. Tough crowd.
I’m medically interesting enough to make half my providers sigh when they open my chart. I sigh too. Then I ask for snacks. Preferably dark chocolate. Bonus points if it’s dark chocolate and coffee.
I live in a haunted meat suit with a deeply suspicious warranty. I spend a lot of time in Bed Jail™ fighting my own nervous system. And I am almost never alone thanks to my medical alert service dog, Luna. 🐕🦺
Part guardian.
Part shadow.
Part, “Mama. Sit down. Immediately.”
Followed closely by, “We are absolutely not arguing with your poor decision-making skills today. Sit.”
Yes. I trained her to be a sassy little spirit guide. When your body throws red flags like check engine lights in a thunderstorm, you need that energy.
Then there’s M&M.
My constant. My Player 2.
The one who gives 90% when I only have 10.
Garden gremlin. Best friend. The girl we get chocolates for. And flowers. Especially on Valentine’s Day.
Today’s post is special. We’re giving you a look into what Valentine’s Day weekend looked like at the Den.
It started with Friday the 13th. In this house, unlucky just means themed. Some superstitions we cater to, some we ignore.
Your ghouls aren’t perfect. No one is.
Friday the 13th: Romance, But Make It Spooky 🔪
We started early.
Spooky date night.
Meatball sandwiches.
Candy.
Alien movies under red twinkle lights like we were summoning extraterrestrials instead of just watching them.
The red lights made everything look cinematic. The candy caught the glow just right. Even the popcorn bowl looked dramatic. If you squinted, it could have passed for aesthetic. But we weren’t staging anything. We were just living in it.
M&M made her world-famous meatballs. And if they aren’t famous yet, they should be. One of my biggest dreams is to see her open a restaurant someday. She can cook like she was born with cast iron in her veins.
I was on sauce duty. The browned butter hit the pan and filled the kitchen with that nutty, golden smell that feels like safety. I fetched spices. Measured breadcrumbs. Stayed upright long enough to matter.
The Yard Yeti handled tater tots. Tot Whisperer status remains undefeated.
And Luna?
Luna had her own Valentine’s spread. Salmon skins. Puffed yak cheese chews, dog soup. She stationed herself squarely between the couch and the popcorn bowl like a powder-blue-collared bouncer. One blue eye on me. One brown eye on the snacks.
No alerts that night.
Just breathing.
Just normal.
She snoozed through the second alien movie and snored loud enough to qualify as surround sound.
Three movies.
Candy for everyone.
Peanut butter wings from a Citizen Soldier gift basket.
Prickly pear candy from my brother Matthew.
If you want the full cinematic spiral, the Bed Jail Broadcast is linked separately. I had thoughts. Some unresolved. Which feels on brand for life.
Saturday: The Migraine Pivot 🧠
Saturday had other ideas.
We woke up early and made it to the food bank for the first time since before Christmas. A friend drove us. Seeing everyone again meant more to us than I can explain.
Some of them were relieved to see us. They didn’t know about the seizures. They just knew we were gone and they were worried.
Community support is not shameful. It is survival. And survival is sacred.
There was also an incident during a previous Uber ride involving a discriminatory comment about my name and assumed religion. I reported it. Accountability matters. I wrote about it a couple of months back and will link it here for anyone who wants the full context.
Discrimination does not belong to one race, religion, or background. Harmful behavior can come from anyone. We choose better here.
Our friends at the food bank have treated us with dignity for over a year. That’s what community looks like.
They let us choose flowers. 🌹
M&M picked roses. She told me she’s never had flowers on Valentine’s Day before.
That changes now.
Then the pressure dropped like it had somewhere urgent to be.
And the migraine came in swinging.
By the time we got home, the world felt tilted. I’m still finding EEG adhesive in my hair from the 23 leads earlier in the week. My scalp is tender in places I didn’t know could ache. My nervous system is tired.
So, we pivoted.
Thankfully, I already had a grocery delivery order on the way with some things that we couldn’t get from the food bank. So we had a plan B already on the way.
Stouffer’s Grandma’s Chicken & Rice Bake.
Chocolates.
Movies in bed.
Luna did what she does best when the pain spikes. She nudged my leg once. Then again. Then planted herself against my side like a weighted blanket with opinions. No dramatic alerts. Just proximity. Just quiet monitoring.
It wasn’t glamorous.
It wasn’t Pinterest.
It was us.
There was a time when a migraine like that would have felt like failure. Like we ruined something. Now it just feels like weather. We adjust. We change dinner plans. We dim the lights. We don’t measure love by how well our nervous system behaves.
After weeks of appointments, bruises, and uncertainty, we needed quiet.
We don’t know what’s coming next medically.
But we are going to make it to spring.
We watched Finch on Apple TV+, which I didn’t expect to hit as hard as it did. It will absolutely get its own Bed Jail Broadcast. The same goes for Eternity, an interesting little rom-com that arrived right on time.
Sunday: Bananas & Devotion 🍌
When the food bank offers you three giant bunches of “too ripe” bananas, you preheat the oven.
Banana bread.
The kitchen filled with brown sugar and vanilla. Steam curled up when we sliced into the first loaf. The Yard Yeti appeared instantly, summoned by cinnamon.
There is something deeply defiant about making banana bread when your week has been held together by medical tape and migraines.
Some loaves for us.
Some for our friend who drove us.
Some for gratitude.
Walnuts in some. Chocolate chips in others. Possibly one coffin-shaped. Because we contain multitudes.
Sunday was 57 degrees. Luna chased her ball like she personally negotiated with the weather. Pork chops on the grill. Banana bread cooling on the counter.
High pain.
High pressure.
Low spoons.
Still a win.
Not Everyone’s Love Looks the Same
Valentine’s Day does not require pink aesthetic compliance.
The calendar does not get to dictate the tone of our nervous systems.
We still celebrate. We just do it our way.
Love is not always roses and reservations.
Sometimes it’s:
• Red lights and alien conspiracies
• Frozen dinners and migraine pivots
• Checking medication times
• Fetching spices because that’s what you can manage
• A service dog pressing into your side
• Saying, “This is what we’ve got. Let’s make it ours.”
We didn’t shapeshift for Valentine’s Day.
And we won’t shapeshift for anyone else either.
Returning cryptids, welcome home.
New cryptids, pull up a chair.
The Lunatic Café is serving comfort food and quiet devotion.
The Den is big enough for all of us.
There’s a spot on the couch saved for you. Luna might inspect you first.
Love you. Now say it back. 🖤
-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
(Dog fur, always.)
🔗 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 mobile:
💜 https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-skys-journey-to-health-and-mobility
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