Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

Dominion Voting Systems settled their lawsuit against Fox News.

When all you have to do is write a check and you make as much money as they do – that’s not a consequence, that’s a nuisance. Hell, it’s probably covered by insurance.

I’m not saying this isn’t big for Dominion – it’s literally 45 years of revenue for them.

But people really, really needed to see what Fox was doing, and the trial was going to do that. I know Dominion had something along the lines of 7,000 exhibits – I don’t know if that is part of the public record now or not – I don’t know the legal mechanics of it all, if they had to be entered before the trial started or what.

But I’m not going to sit here and pretend this hurts Fox News, because it doesn’t, and since they can just buy their way out of it – they’ll do it again.

Damn that came around too quick this week. My weekend was the perfect mix of very relaxing and getting things done and just not quite long enough – but it never is…

But, it’s a half day Friday week in which I (possibly foolishly) scheduled both a dentist appointment and a hair appointment on the same day. Granted, they’re very far apart and it really shouldn’t be a problem, but also, what the fuck was I thinking? Oh, I think I know – “No, I cannot work late because I have not one, but two appointments.”

Hopefully it won’t be an issue at all and it will be calm this week. Though I did just look at Teams and I’m getting “why did you put this bug in this spot” and that’s because that’s is what the farking instructions said to do? If it needs to be fixed by X release it goes in X spot? Did that get chucked out the window already?

Ah well, minor annoyance at best.

I hope you have a very calm day.

Another pretty day here today, and I’ve already got things off to a decent start with another very good night of sleep (9 hours yesterday and today!!) a big ol’ cold brew, and a quick trip to the market done.

And damn, I am VERY damn susceptible to marketing. We needed dishwasher pods. Usually get Cascade Platinum. But now they have Cascade Platinum PLUS! WELL, YES, OF COURSE I NEED THAT ONE.

Got a few things done around the house yesterday, but not really enough – so today we’re gonna plow through that list. Already brought my headphones downstairs, cause I know that works and I really shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t matter and I don’t need them. BECAUSE I NEED THEM.

Iggy is sweeping the kitchen right now, and once he’s done I’ll get going since I want to start in the kitchen and don’t want us tripping over each other. Am I using the robot vacuum as a procrastination method? Maybe? But he does need to run before I try and mop.

Task initiation is such a bitch and a half. And it’s so frustrating, because for most of my life I’ve just thought I was lazy. But I’m not lazy. I’m tired, easily overwhelmed, and I have a hard time getting started. But damn, I am NOT lazy.

And on that note, Iggy is done, the steam mop is heating up and it’s time for some tunes and housecleaning.

You have a fantastic day and don’t let anyone tell you you’re lazy.

So, the factory reset did the trick for image capture for obstacles.

Now, when a job is done, I can go through the pictures and tell it if this is a “no go” area so it will just avoid it permanently, or if it just temporary and something I forgot to get out of the way. And the neat bit – when you mark things as temporary, and get whatever it was out of the way, you can tell it to do a “tidy up” run where it just goes back to those spots and takes care of them.

So neat!

Here it is warm and sunny and Spring is definitely here! And boy are all the plants having sexy time – my bright blue car is currently green with all the pollen, and I washed it last week and you wouldn’t even know. It was even warm enough to wear shorts for the coffee run this morning, YAY!!

Big exciting weekend plans are finishing off my taxes, housework, and some free food! Our new internal recognition thing at work gives points you can cash in for stuff, and I cashed mine in for Outback gift cards. Glad they switched to this system, cause a good job note is nice, but a steak is better.

On the housework front, work being such a bitch the past month has made it hard to do anything more than just the bare minimum, but I’ve at least done that, and Iggy the Roomba has been AWESOME. I love this little helper robot so much. The weekly cleanout of it’s little rollers shows me how much it’s picking up and it’s impressive.

The only hitch has been that it isn’t capturing obstacle pictures – the internets said that a hard reset should do the trick, so I did that this morning. But even though it said it would save the maps to the cloud when I reset, they are gone, LOL. So, Iggy is on a mapping adventure again today.

I don’t *need* the obstacle pictures, but I really want to see when Iggy and Lily meet up, LOL. My brother told me they got into a standoff the other day and I would have LOVED to see that shot! I’m so proud of Lily for not being scared of it. I keep telling her she can ride it if she wants to – we know from the internets that it can be done.

And yes, I do talk to Iggy all the damn time. He’s helping me! It would be rude not to! I say hi when he comes through the room, reassure him when he gets stuck, and tell him he’s doing a great job when he finishes up. And I am still utterly fascinated by it in general. Just the fact that it knows where it’s little base station is – I know it’s electronics and sensors, but it’s still so cool to me. And now that I think about it, that little vacuum probably has more computing power than my first computer did.

I hope your day is easy and has fun things like watching a cool little robot vacuum.

I want to take a minute to promote a good cause, Hayden’s House of Healing. They work with grieving families who have lost a child. They bought a home to operate out of, did everything right, then last year Someone decided it was all Too Sad and complained, and they were told they had to get a special variance to continue operating. They applied and were denied, so they’re selling the house and finding another community to continue their work. As part of this, they’re doing a capital campaign – if you have a little cash you could send their way, that would be great.

I think we can all agree that helping folks get through the loss of a child is a good thing.

Working 45 hours in 4 days kinda of undoes the benefits of a long weekend.

Tuesday: “hey that thing that was originally due in two weeks, that we know you haven’t even been able to start yet – can you get it done by tomorrow?”

That at least got extended to today thanks to various and sundry system outages beyond our control, and I ended up actually finishing it yesterday which was…greaaaaaaaat, cause it gave us time to smash in one more fix yesterday. Time zones can be a bitch, but it was nice to get the testing started on that and be able to hand it off to my peeps in the PI to finish it off, and no one had to work til midnight local time.

Today was thankfully very quiet, and I got out of work on time, and Lily & I had the BEST, EPIC NAP after work. We’re both still a little tired cause on top of work stuff yesterday, we had to zip up to the vet for her rabies shot and a monitoring blood draw at lunchtime. And even though she was in and out in less than 15 minutes – anyone with a cat knows that’s a bit of an ordeal.

And excellent news today – no significant changes in her bloodwork since January! And unless she shows any outward changes, we don’t have to have it looked at again until October! She probably didn’t have to have the bloodwork this time, but since we were gonna be there anyway and she was gonna be drunk on her gabapentin – might as well, as it’s good to know what’s up.

Not just from “need the time away from work” aspect, but also, a post holiday day off is just nice.

It’s been a hard core self care weekend of eating, sleeping, reading, watching baseball, and not thinking about work. Granted, sometimes self care is also getting shit done around the house, so I may get a few things done around here today, but if I don’t – not gonna beat myself up over it, cause the last 3 weeks took A LOT out of me.

Of course, I wake to news of yet another mass shooting – this time in Louisville, Kentucky. 5 souls gone, more hurt.

I will never understand how to GOP can just not care about people getting killed left and right by gun violence. I know they’re bought and paid for by the gun lobby, but my lord, to just…not care to the extent that they truly do not care, I just don’t get it.

I mean, it’s the same party that is basically legalizing the murder of protestors in Texas, so I’m not surprised. They’re just such hateful people.

Self care today may be turning off the news, because I just can’t today.

You take care of yourself.

ME! The pandemic really screwed with my ability to focus and read for waaaay too long.

It had been getting a little easier, and last week I replaced my dying Kindle and well, guess having a shiny new reader made some part of my subconscious go, “YOU BETTER USE IT!”

Since it arrived on Tuesday, I have finished:

Emily Edwards, Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man

John Hall, Queen Elizabeth II and her Church: Royal Service at Westminster Abbey

Started AND finished:

Lucy Worsley, Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman

Margaret Atwood, My Evil Mother (short story)

And now I am 12% into Ruth Finnegan’s Oral Literature in Africa. (Free on Kindle!)

I feel a twinge of guilt when I settle down and read, cause “oh not productive” but fuck that, my brain being able to process multiple paragraphs again is awesome and definitely a form of self care.

And Easter! And Passover! And Ramadan! Something for so many folks today!

It’s a super secular Easter around these parts – a nice opportunity for brunch and candy. (Yep, we have baskets, because I am a sucker for chocolates in pastel foils. Mmm, tiny Snickers bars!)

To those doing egg hunts – may you not find yourself saying, “We put out 12 eggs, and only found 11…” Especially if the weather isn’t cooperating and you had to hide them indoors. And if you’re going to services, may the kids not get bored and antsy.

Had a toss & turn sleep last night, so I’ve got my very large coffee and I’m trying to get all my brain cells organized before I attempt to do anything in the kitchen. Very grateful both casseroles are very easy dishes and low prep dishes.

Have yourself a lovely Sunday, whether you’re celebrating or just enjoying the day.

And it’s not Easter without an Easter Lily.