Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

Hooboy. And the news has been a firehose again. Israel/Hamas continues to be a fucking nightmare. We have a right wing Christofascist as Speaker of the House (that may have been week before last, it’s all running together.) Covid is still out there, despite all attempts to pretend it’s left. (Just ask my dental assistant.) Oh and Tommy Fucking Tuberville saying that being a Marine general was just like being a football coach.

Work is stressing me out a bit. Workload is fine, but we have a new SVP who is REALLY excited about AI and automation. (Easy when you’re making upwards of a half mil a year and no one is suggesting *your* job should be AI’d out of existence.) He’s said he wants more QC stuff to be automated to “free us up for other things” – what other things? Finding a job that isn’t in conflict with my non-compete agreement? We’re having a meeting about it next week, so hopefully that will clarify things a bit. I’m trying to be optimistic that it is more “automate what we can to make things easier” vs. “automate everything, even when it doesn’t make sense.” We already do regular automated testing in my team – and the stuff I deal with, 99% of the time it wasn’t caught by automation. Again, though, TRYING TO BE OPTIMISTIC.

But, despite all this, my head is at least kinda-sorta on straight and I’m trying to focus on the good stuff.

Halloween was great, we had at least 100 kids come around. I did the grab bags again and one little Spiderman was VERY confused. “But, where is the candy?” I explained it was in the little bags and he could pick any bag he wanted. He took one, ran down the driveway to the adult with the pumpkin tote, and next thing I know, he’s racing back to give me the empty bag, LOL. The last little ones of the night, I asked if there were any allergies, and the little girl said no, and then SO solemnly, “That’s good that you asked that. Everyone should do that.” Warmed my heart.

All told, we had maybe 6 kids with nut allergies, two with pollen allergies, and one that was allergic to “medicine”. Kiddo, you’re in luck, cause no one is giving free drugs to kids. But it was good to be able to give them a big bag o’ sugar that wouldn’t require an epi-pen.

Briefly considered skipping the farmers market this morning, cause it was 34 degrees, we already had dinner sorted, and we are definitely out of tomato season. But it is a very sunny day here, so the smart part of my brain said “You need to get your ass out of the house and into the sun, go buy some bread and cookies, dammit.” And now I have STUFFING BREAD. It is GOOD.

The cold weather has Lily doing her best impression of a Dickensian waif, and she is spending a LOT of time either next to the heat registers (of course, she has kitty mats in front of them) or between my feet in front of the little space heater. And she has been super snuggly at night.

And it’s cold enough for CHILI!!! And that is dinner for tonight…and tomorrow. And possibly Monday.

So, while it’s not all good, it’s not all bad either.

Hang in there.

And what a firehose of a week it’s been yet again. If you’re overwhelmed by all the news, you are definitely not alone. I’ve been saying it to the point of sounding like a broken record, but our brains are just NOT wired for the 24/7 news cycle, especially when there are so many terrible things going on.

And while you’re trying hard to keep up and care about all of it, the world still spins on its axis, the bins still have to go out, work doesn’t care about the news, the bills still have to be paid – it can make you feel bad for living your life while all this is going on. Help in the ways you can, but take care of yourself – can’t pour from an empty glass and all that.

So, drink your water, eat your veggies, take your meds, get out for a walk if you can, spend some time on that hobby you’ve been neglecting, and turn off the news for a while. It’s OK to do that. Anything critical news-wise will find its way to you.

Outside of the world basically falling apart at the seams, pretty decent week around these parts. Work was pretty calm outside a client emergency at 10:30 yesterday morning – and I jumped all over it cause I didn’t want it to be a 3:45 on a Friday problem – then didn’t get the data back until after 2 freakin’ PM. All while pinging the VP going, “I know you have a meeting with client at 4, I am on the case! I will try to have answers by 4!” And bless him, he was “You’re good – I saw the email thread. I know you asked for info at 10:30 and no one moved on it until 1:30.” I think someone is gonna get a talking to over that.

And by some miracle, by 3:55 PM, I had diagnosed the problem, figured out why it hadn’t been reported before, had a fix for the client, and a solid explanation for my VP for his meeting, AND GOT OFF WORK ON TIME.

And today I got my weekly dopamine hit at the farmers market, yay! It’s starting to thin out a bit as the season starts to wind down, but I got some good stuff. One of the bakers makes what she calls “kitchen sink cookies” – chocolate chips, toffee chips, pretzels, and potato chips – and OMG, they are AMAZING. Got some empanadas for snacks, and a platter of jerk pork and we’re gonna make tacos from that!

And today I get to go “downtown” where the party store is, cause I realized I don’t have any glow stick bracelets for the kiddos Halloween bags – and there just happens to be a Potbelly shop there, and yeah, there are gonna be some sandwiches coming home with me. Perfect Ham & Swiss FTW.

Good lord, a lot of my life revolves around food, LOL. And then I wonder why I can’t seem to drop these extra 10 pounds. WEIRD HOW THAT WORKS.

You have a good day and take care of yourself.

And around here, it’s a sunny, crisp fall day and just gorgeous and you’d not know the entire world is going to shit.

The news coming out of Israel/Gaza is still terrible, but the news outlets have at least tried to stop breathlessly filling the 24 hour news cycle with anything and everything, correct or not. I am no expert, but right now, this needs a ceasefire and some fucking calm, neither of which seems to be around.

There is a quote I saw recently – attributed to CS Lewis.

I sat with my anger long enough until she told me her real name was grief.

That one is hitting hard these days.

And given everything yet again – well done. If you need to turn off the news – DO IT. The important things will find their way to you.

And it’s OK to be doing other things beside being glued to the news. I’ve been doing exactly that, and yes, it does feel weird at times, but also – my doing nothing but doomscrolling helps no one and is really fucking bad for my mental health. (Also, being on Mastodon vs. Twitter these days is a hella difference.

You can care deeply about world events and still take care of yourself and do things that make you happy.

My brother’s birthday was last weekend, we hit the Renaissance Fair and had a great time. I got a bitchin’ hat (which I still need to take a decent picture of.) Yesterday I finally checked out a local quilt shop I’d heard about ages ago and got some beautiful sari silk yarn and a great fat quarter bundle. Today I’m hitting up another fall festival.

If I let myself get flung into a depressive episode every time something terrible happened in the world – well, I’d be in a permanent depressive episode.

You don’t have to stay glued to the news to stay current. Eat something. Drink your water. Get out of the house. Take care of yourself.

I’ve had to step away from the news – it’s too much in general, too much trying to fill a 24/7 news cycle, and too much trying to justify war crimes in response to war crimes. It’s all absolutely awful and I hate that both Israeli & Palestinian people are getting completely fucked over by their respective leadership. My brother and I were talking about it last night and it was 85% just “What the fuck?”

I hate living in a world where saying “The response to war crimes should not be more war crimes” is fucking controversial.

So disappointing. Got the Moderna shot Thursday, so that’s off the to-do list. I don’t know what’s up with distribution, but there were no Pfizer shots within like 50 miles of me, so Moderna it was. At least I didn’t feel like crap afterwards, which I was kinda worried about since I really couldn’t afford to be a zombie at work yesterday.

But all in all, not bad. Sore arm, and kinda tired and achy around the 24 hour mark – advil and a nap took care of that, and I slept like a rock last night and this morning, all good.

Post vacation workweek was actually pretty darn calm, which was VERY nice.

Finally got back to the farmers market today, YAY! Lettuce! Tomatoes! Peppers! Sweets! Probably Too Many Sweets!

And I’m thinking about the things I need to get done today and because nothing is CRITICAL, I have a feeling very little will get done today. And that’s OK.

You have a great day!

Occoquan festival got canceled – on Friday – and despite my brother searching for updates yesterday, we did not know about this until we tried to go today, LOL.

I’ll admit, I’m bummed, even though canceling it was a smart move. It’s always a good time and we’re hurtling into the Cold and Dark months when there isn’t as much outdoor stuff and patio seating for lunch isn’t necessarily pleasant.

But, there are worse ways to finish off a week of PTO than cozying up on the couch with the kitty, watching murder mysteries, and eating myself silly. I’ve already polished off the leftover combination fried rice, and I’m on the hunt for the next snack.

I hope you have a restful Sunday!

And you’re gonna miss that therapy appointment.

I did not have “contend with tropical storm that wasn’t even on the radar this time last week” on my PTO fun stuff to-do list for sure. Definitely putting a dent in the weekend plans of the fall festival down in Occoquan, but it does look like it’s moving through fairly quickly and tracking farther east so maybe tomorrow? The rain is actually pretty light right now. which is good, but the wind is making it definitely unpleasant. I’m usually “have hat/jacket/umbrella, will travel” but not with wind…

But on the whole, it has been a pretty successful staycation. Started with getting off work ON TIME and outdoor margaritas on Friday. Mount Vernon market fair was fun and I always love going through the gardens there. NMAAHC was spectacular. Got Outback for dinner! Finally painted my nails! Unintentionally Barbie Pink! Had a fantastic dinner at Trattoria Villagio in their lovely new-ish outdoor courtyard. And I met a capybara named Tater!!!

And all with an eye to Covid – either doing things masked up or outside and regularly testing and this morning we have another negative in the books. Am I salty that after three and a half years I still have to actively think about this? Yes, yes I am. Am I gonna throw in the towel? Hell, no.

If you’re in the thick of Ophelia – stay dry! If the weather is decent where you are – get out and do something fun for me.

If you’re in DC and have the time – do it! Time off work and ticket availability converged and I finally got to the NMAAHC, and it did not disappoint.

The content is fantastic, and there are really great design choices. Three levels dedicated to history and three levels dedicated to culture. You start on the bottom floor and there is background on European & African relations and then moves into the Atlantic slave trade right off the bat – and yeah, it’s a pretty bleak part of our history. But as you move upward through the exhibit, things shift and it’s more, IDK, hopeful? So many victories and progress, but absolutely not glossing over all the hardships placed on the Black American community by white supremacy.

Then when you get to the culture exhibits, it’s downright celebratory. Just awesome exhibits. There is also a special exhibit on Afrofuturism which is terrific – it’s open until August of next year.

There are parts of the museum that will absolutely make you sad, angry, uncomfortable, and embarrassed about the history of our country – as they should. But there are also SO many good things – they got the balance just right.

They’ve also done a great job with accessibility too. Ramps, elevators that aren’t hidden away, escalators, sensory maps, closed captioning on video exhibits, apps for visual interpretations – they really put a lot of thought into it. Also, lots of benches to stop and have a rest.

And 3 years ago, the Smithsonian kicked off it’s Open Access project and images of the items on exhibit are digitized and available for download and use under a Creative Commons license.

If you go, wear comfortable shoes – we were there about 2 1/2 hours and I definitely got all my steps in for the day.