Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

Employers, you should let everyone go home a few hours early today. Even people that don’t have kids, cause they give out candy, too.

Very happy to see that enough people in Brazil decided that fascism is shit and they don’t want it. Worried about violence down there, but still glad to see they’re showing Bolsinaro the door.

Meanwhile, the BBC is interviewing PA voters and JFC, the US electorate is so goddamn ignorant. No, the President didn’t cause worldwide inflation. No, he didn’t abandon Americans for Ukraine. No, you will NOT have access to abortion if R’s win.

Yes, inflation truly fucking sucks and there is a lot wrong with this country – but the Republicans are certainly not going to even TRY to fix it, and I wish folks would stop kidding themselves about that.

Welp, time to go get a jump on the day so I can give out candy. You have a good day.

Mostly because I overdid it yesterday, and slept for shit and as such, I am too tired to care about work, LOL.

The most critical Halloween task is done and that is getting alllll the little grab bags together. It started in 2020 as an easy way to get the kids the candy safely. But the, “Wait, you mean I get A WHOLE BAG?” reactions – I will do this forever. All the bags have FIVE pieces of candy – and we’ve got gluten/nut-free bags to boot.

I did forget glow sticks this year, booooo. But I think the kids will walk away happy.

I don’t take Halloween particularly seriously for myself (and I will always find it a bit weird how adults go batshit this time of year) – but I will damn well make sure the kids have good candy and more than they need, LOL.

The second most critical Halloween item will be done today – and that is the soup. It’s not Halloween without a pot of veggie-beef soup. And that is easier to make today than tomorrow.

And now I have to try and pry myself off the couch and get things done…

You have an excellent Sunday!

Wasted a good two hours today looking for a particular grocery item – admittedly it has been hit or miss finding it lately, but I was feeling stupidly optimistic. Could not find it, yet Amazon Fresh can get it to me in 2 hours. SO IT’S SOMEWHERE LOCAL.

But, I got all my steps in, hit a bunch of pokestops, and got everything else I needed, but damn, that was a lot of humanity to navigate today.

And somehow, when I got home, I managed to get off my ass and get everything done around the house that was on the list. And I am unreasonably proud of that. Headphones and boppy music FTW.

And now I am going to enjoy doing jack shit for the rest of the day.

You enjoy what’s left of your Saturday!

So, I’m switching dentists – my old one is out of network and just keeps getting more expensive, so time to go to someone in network.

I haven’t been consciously dragging my feet on it, I just tend to think about it at 10PM at night and that is not the time to be able to get on someone’s calendar.

This past weekend, my hand to god, I swore this week, no matter what, I would get into a new practice. Even thought about it this morning before work – promised myself I would make the call at lunch today at 2PM.

I swear.

1PM the universe decides that it will NOT LET ME SOMEHOW FLAKE ON THIS and a crown fell out. Like, post and all, LMAO.

The good(?) news is that I am not in any pain. I also have an appointment Friday morning at 9AM for a cleaning and consult. (I am at my six month point, so, right on time for that at least!) The downside, they only have 1 nitrous setup and it will already be in use with another patient at that time. So, headphones and VERY LOUD MUSIC IT WILL BE!

And honestly, this particular tooth – I’m totally OK with digging out whatever may be left there and stitching it up and maybe we think about an implant down the road.

But hey, I have a new in-network dentist!

IT: We are migrating old internal file page to new internal file page, but don’t worry, we’ll be locking the old page!

Me: Takes note of this, waits for announcement that migration is done.

IT on Monday: New pages live, old pages locked, update your bookmarks!

Me: Dutifully updates bookmarks, starts using new pages, where all the files have been successfully migrated.

Team on other side of world: Continues to use and update old pages, everything is out of sync because IT did not in fact lock down all the old pages, and team on other side of world did not update the bookmarks.

Me: Sends slightly seething messages to IT to lock the damn pages down and other side of world team to STOP USING THE OLD PAGES.

It’s going to be one of those days.

Though, given that the alarm is set for 6 every day and not just Wednesdays anymore, I suppose it’s just Wednesday. But, the meetings do go on and they’re too early, and I am so happy I don’t have to actually speak during them, LOL.

Last week I remembered that my insurance covers Covid test kits. Submitted my claims. It says they’ve been processed, and “Plan Paid $XX”. Great! But it doesn’t say *how* the plan paid. Did they issue a check? Is it coming via direct deposit? Is this somehow going to go against my deductible instead? Literally, a one line note on the claims page of “and this is how you’re getting your money” would be helpful.

And I put in my claims for my acupuncture to my FSA plan, they kicked it back saying “we think this is covered by insurance” (I don’t think it is) – and now they’re pending with insurance – and all have 10/25 as the visit date on the claims page, which is the submitted date – and I *know* I put in the actual visit dates…

UNIVERSAL HEALTH, VISION, AND DENTAL, PLEASE. I need a admin assistant for all this.

You have a great Wednesday, and don’t let your insurer make you bonkers.

I did go to the Benefits presentation for our upcoming Open Enrollment period and I swear, that right there was the case for UHC.

We have 4 plans and I am still worried I’ll somehow pick the “bad” one. 2 have FSA’s, 2 have HSA’s. Currently I have one of the FSA plans, and I think I’m gonna switch to the HSA – higher deductible and out of pocket, but more money that I can set aside pre-tax for dental (cause we still have the same shitty dental plan) and that money isn’t use or lose, and it’s mine forever.

But this weekend, I am gonna have to sit down and do a spreadsheet for all this and figure it out.

The good news is that I am very good with spreadsheets, so I should be able to figure out which direction to go, but I really shouldn’t have to that.

JUST GIVE EVERYONE HEALTH CARE, DENTAL, AND VISION FOR FREE, FFS. IT WOULD BE FUCKING FANTASTIC FOR PEOPLE AND THE ECONOMY!

Despite a hella good night’s sleep last night, I am just not really feeling it today at work.

But the good thing is, even with the team leads current micromanagement, I have a ton of flexibility in what I work on most days and today is no exception.

So, security training done! Prioritization and Avoiding Burnout training playing now! DEI presentation at 10! Open Enrollment presentation at 11!

And basically taking this morning “off” isn’t going to ruin anything and I’ll be better off for it.

But the Padres had a hell of a season and other than that one disaster of a game Saturday – they played competitively in the postseason, and I can’t be mad about that. And my buddy Matt who is a huge Phillies fan – he got to be at the game yesterday, and honestly – I’m so happy he got to see that. I hope the Phillies just destroy the Astros.

And as my brother pointed out – we are the reason the Dodgers watched from home, and I love that for us.

I think Clevenger and Nola don’t come back next year. Manea – I’d like to keep him and make him a middle reliever. He’d be good at it, it’s just that I don’t think the postseason was the time to try that for the first time.

And that 2:30 game was great in that I had a couple beers towards the end and I was in bed at 8:15 PM and slept for many, many hours and woke up before my alarm this morning, LOL. Those night games are hell on an old east coast fan of a west coast team.

And outside of baseball, yesterday was great cause I got all my shit done around the house AND made two batches of roasted potatoes, so between that and the chili I made Saturday – guess who doesn’t have to cook for a couple days?!

And I got up so freakishly early that I’ve still got another half hour before I have to log on and try to remember what my job is – that is a sign of a successful weekend with no Sunday Scaries.

So, time to go refill the coffee and get all my brain cells facing the same direction. You have a great week!

Last night was…ugly. Just, oof. I’d say my Padres looked like the Bad News Bears out there, but honestly, they made the BNB look like a well oiled machine at times.

Not to say the Phillies did’t have their issues – they gave up 4 runs in the first inning. But we couldn’t capitalize on that. It’s painful watching our pitching get better and better over the course of the season – to the point where it is quite good – and then just have a collapse like that, well, it hurts.

The Phillies are a great team this season, and we just can’t afford to have games like that. Let’s all cross our fingers and toes that they get it together today.

No matter what happens today – we’ve gotten farther in the season than we have in 24 years. Bob Melvin should have a job next year for sure. It’s been a really fun season – it’s great when your team wins! The Phillies are a hell of a good team and this has been a hard fought series. (Fuck, is there anything Castellanos *can’t* catch?!)

Even with yesterday’s admittedly terrible game, I think we have had a damn good season, especially when you consider the godawful seasons we’ve had in the past.

And it’s not over yet! Let’s crush the Phillies today, tomorrow, and Tuesday and go on to destroy the Astros. It could happen! That’s the great thing about baseball – it *could* happen!

Have a great day!