Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

Yes, it’s time for the 9th Annual Bull City Foodraiser!!

There is a ton of food insecurity out there, and this is a chance to help out some kids who would otherwise be facing some lean times during the holiday break, since they won’t be able to get breakfast and lunch at school.

Once again, there are multiple folks doing matches – I’m doing $2 per donor myself, and there are 5 others doing a $5 per donor match, plus someone out there is doing another dollar for dollar match up to $75,000!!

So, this is where even a little bit can help. You can only spare a dollar? Well, that’s gonna become $29. (Maybe even $56? I’m not totally sure if the dollar for dollar is before or after the $2 & $5 matches.)

$10 becomes $47. $25 becomes $77. You get it – every little bit helps.

SO, GO SPEND MY MONEY AND LET’S FEED SOME KIDS!!

Now, my ridiculous cheese plate notwithstanding, our Thanksgiving is very low key. But as I sat on the sofa yesterday being intensely grateful for the day off work, it hit me how much mental energy goes into the holiday. And if you’re still feeling a bit knackered even today – IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE, YOU DID A LOT OF BRAINING THIS WEEK.

Here’s all the stuff I had to think about for Turkey Day. This isn’t an “oh poor me” – just pointing out all the thinking time there is – and this is just a meal for two people, and we eat in the living room off cute Thanksgiving themed paper platters.

Menu planning. Now, usually there are zero changes, but I have to have a quick conversation every year with my brother as to any add/drops and he has to remind me that cranberry sauce has to be on the list. (I never eat it, and always forget about it.)

Planning the shopping itself for the sides and whatnot. Early to get it out of the way? Late to try and hope for a sale and that everything is in stock? Small bits at a time to not have one huge grocery bill?

Finding the turkey. Before I started ordering the turkey from the butcher shop, I had to plan out the right day to go find it, and knowing I would likely have to hit multiple shops to find the right size – I’d also have to plot out the the best route from store to store so I wasn’t zig-zagging all over my zip code. (Dropping that has been fantastic – the last year before I started ordering it ahead of time, I went to SEVEN stores.)

Then there is the “week of” planning – what can be done Wednesdsay, what needs to be done Thursday morning, what do I need to do mid-day, what time do I have to get up?

Once I picked up the turkey on Wednesday and knew the weight, then it’s plotting out all the timing on Thursday. Now, because we accidentally ended up with a pre-seasoned turkey* I could at least cut out the “when to get up to get the ice and get the brine going” calculations. Then there is “if the turkey is 11 pounds and we want to eat around 7 and it needs to rest 20-30 minutes and carving takes about 5 minutes and a train leaves Chicago going 80 miles an hour at 9AM, the turkey needs to get started at 3PM” math. And don’t forget the oven pre-heat time. And then when the turkey is resting, gotta plot the order of operations of get the rolls in, get the water boiling on the stuffing and potatoes, get the gravy hot.

I had a fucking spreadsheet, people.

Then one everyone happily eats, don’t forget to keep track of the time to get the leftovers put away so they’re still safe to eat.

And thank goodness we don’t do anything special with the leftovers beyond just eating the turkey straight from the fridge (me) or making sandwiches (my brother.) I cannot fathom trying to figure out interesting things to do with the leftover turkey.

So yeah, if you’re sitting about this lovely Saturday still going, “Whew, what a week!” – it’s absolutely understandable – get that rest.

* Best mistake ever, it was fantastic, and I’m doing that again next year on purpose.

Alice’s Restaurant Massacree has been played at a very high volume with my terrible singing, so the day is off to a proper start. This is my favorite holiday – just food and family and I love it. This is as close as we can get to a holiday for everyone – and it sucks that indigenous folks may rightfully look at it and go, “Um, hard pass.” I would love to have a day that is legit for EVERYONE, but until I am in charge of the universe, this will have to do.

The butcher shop made a minor mistake and we ended up with a pre-seasoned turkey yesterday. Once I got over my initial internal screaming of “FUUUUUUUUUUUCK”* I realized this could be very good. No getting up early to get ice and start the brine! Straight from fridge to oven! You would not believe the amount of time it took my brain to get past that change in plan, though.

But I did sleep in this morning, and it was great! And I’ve finally** realized that the order of operations in the morning is 1) put in Starbucks order, 2) go into market first for the forgotten item (there is always something) then 3) pick up Starbucks. Because for whatever reason, Thanksgiving is bonkers at Starbucks, and today was no different. And thanks to that side trip to the market, my drinks were ready when I walked in!

And the forgotten item this year was Triscuits. We have an amazing variety of crackers for all the cheese, but when my brother heard that there were no Triscuits, well, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone so crestfallen, LOL. So, we have Triscuits. (And maybe a box of the Garlic Parmesan thins, for reasons.) I was going to be running in anyway, cause I decided I wanted some flowers, and they’re so pretty!

We have all our favorites on tap for today – cheese & charcuterie platter in the afternoon, then turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry stuff, and crescent rolls!! If you’re thinking, “but what about the vegetables?” – we don’t mess with those today. I’ll have a salad this weekend, I promise – but today is all protein and carbs. Oh, and tiny pies! It’s great when you realize you can just make up new rules and traditions.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

* I did not freak out at the butcher shop, I just said as brightly as I could, “Oh, that was a mistake, but this will make tomorrow easier!” while dying on the inside.
** Seriously, I am over 50 damn years old and only just this year clued into that.

I swear, it was just Halloween and now Thanksgiving is THIS FREAKIN’ WEEK. Yeah, it’s early this year, but still, it got here fast.

The news is still all awful and I find myself having SportsCenter on A LOT these days – anything critical news-wise still finds it’s way to me.

Work is doing it’s usual “Oh, you’re taking this Wednesday to Monday off? Let’s make sure everything goes pear shaped!” routine. Between losing most of last week to client issues, and Those Who Schedule Things completely forgetting to look at the calendar to see that there are two holidays and PTO for the US folks next week – Monday & Tuesday are gonna suuuuuuuck.

I have so much mental gymnastics going on right now between what needs to be done for Thanksgiving and what needs to be done at work – my brain is full, if not completely overloaded.

I have at least told my brother that if he would like some kind of fun heat & eat appetizer Thursday before the turkey goes in the oven, I am more than willing to do it – but he has to decide what it is and go pick it up from the store.

And I will be passing off things to the rest of the crew at work – they offered, and I am not working 12 hour days Monday and Tuesday.

Look at me setting boundaries and shit.

ETA: My dumb ass ended up logging on to work this afternoon for about an hour, but I swear, it will make Monday easier.

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.