And I don’t know about you, but it whipped by here, and as quick as it did go, I am ready for the weekend.
Big plans here are starting a itty bitty Christmas ornament cross-stitch that may be done in a day! And the itty bitty frame for it is on order with Amazon, and the recipient will probably have it before Thanksgiving if not Halloween. This is one I don’t want to trust to the vagaries of the Christmas mail system.
And tonight as you deservedly pat yourself on the back for getting through, raise a glass to those who didn’t make it. I’ll be having one for my coworker Elaine this evening.
Mid morning, got an email that one of my teammates in the Phillipines had passed away. No specific cause given, but it sounds like it was Covid or Covid adjacent from a comment from one of my coworkers there.
Of course my first thought was, “But, she just emailed me like, last week” – as though the act of sending an email had rendered her immortal.
She was a lovely person to work with, and I am incredibly sad and will miss her. I’m gutted for her family and her team in the PI – they’re an incredibly close knit group and I know this is devastating for them. And in a time when they so need to be together to support each other and grieve – they can’t.
Whatever it was, it was also terribly fast – she was out on the17th and her OOO message was that she’d be back on the 20th – and she just never came back.
Life is short as it is, Covid has just made it worse. Get vaccinated if you can. Mask up.
Hug your family and pets. (Lily has gotten a lot of squeezing.) Tell people you care. Take a pass on that uncomped overtime. Take up that hobby you’ve been wanting to try but you think you’ll suck at it. Get takeout from that *fancy* restaurant. Put that streak of purple in your hair.
And it is legit dark out there. Ride to Starbucks was lights on the whole time. And the automatic lights on the car do in fact, work! (I don’t really drive at night/in the dark these days, cause I’m old and there is nowhere to go.)
And bless all those runners and walkers out there this morning, in the freakin’ DARK, getting their exercise, AND wearing all sorts of light up gear so I could see them and not run over them. Thank you!
And in second childhood nonsense, I have a goddamn ear infection. Of course, I spent half of last week thinking “oh, it’s the change in the weather” before it dawned on me, this is not barometric induced ear congestion and pain. Yay for telemedicine, tho – prescription for the infection and Mucinex for decongestion help. (And the Mucinex a) helps a lot and b) doesn’t make me feel like “I can feel my hair grow” which is helpful.) And I’ve added in Afrin for good measure – we’re gonna dry this shit out from every angle.
And props to the telemedicine doctor who realized a 49 year old woman probably knows when she has an ear infection and didn’t feel the need to second guess me or act like I was drug seeking. (Yes, looking for that sweet, sweet antibiotic “my ear doesn’t hurt and I can hear again” high.)
Time to go start my day with ALL THE MEETINGS, YAY.
And of course, I didn’t sleep for shit last night. In bed by like, 10:30, lights out by 11:30 – awake until after 1AM, and the LilyMonster had to let me know her head was wet at 3:45AM. (She drinks from the faucet and is not neat about it.)
Thankfully, at 6:30 AM, I thought “that sounds like my brother’s car running outside” – and it was. And there was a coffee run. YAY. I need every drop of it this morning.
Fun thing for after work – the Christmas wreath cross stitch should get finished today! I was so close yesterday, but was also hitting the point where I knew I’d make (more) mistakes on it, so it got put away for the night.
So close!
I didn’t check my email a single time all last week, which was good for vacation time, but it’s gonna suck having to wade through it this morning. But, if anything was “end of the world” critical – they could have texted me, so it should just be a lot of deleting. So. Much. Deleting.
But – even a week of QC email will be less than a day of support email, so I’ve got that going for me.
And in such Monday fashion, after being in 1st place in fantasy baseball for the bulk of the season, I have been knocked out of the championship bracket and now the best I can do is 3rd place. My team pulled a Padres and fell the fuck apart. Ah well.
Well, time to go delete a fuckton of emails – you have a good Monday – or at least not a terrible one!
ETA: I just looked down at Lily and asked, “Are you ready to go do the thing?” And I just got a look of, “WTF, I thought we were retired?!” It is unclear if I will have a work buddy today, LOL.
OK, though staycationing is a bit of a bust for me, I also don’t want to go to work tomorrow, LOL. If nothing else, sleeping in for a week has been very nice. COME ON, POWERBALL!
Been reading multiple articles that Delta may have finally peaked – though “Further drop in the number of new Covid cases will be stubbornly slow” – argh. The county does seem to be on a downturn – we’ve had a week of declining cases, so, maybe that will continue. (Though we had 9 days of decline at the start of the month, followed by 8 days of increases, so who knows.)
I just want to be done with the pandemic – and lord knows, I’ve had an easy go of it all – if I’m totally over it, I can only imagine how things are for folks who have to be out in the shit day after day. 562 days of this* – and it’s been a fight at every damn turn to protect people and we failed over and over again.
Truly makes me want to just exit society and live on the side of a mountain or something.
And my Padres season is essentially over, as they’re out of playoff contention, and the season has ended on an especially tragic note as two people died at the ballpark yesterday before the game. Just sadness on top of sadness on top of sadness.
I think I’ll spend the rest of the day stitching to try to take my mind off things.
Had a few beers last night and Victory’s Golden Monkey does pack a punch. Was not paying attention to the ABV at all, cause well, just drinking and watching Marvel movies at home – 9 point freaking 5 percent and it goes down far too smoothly. Ouch.
Compounding it is the fact that I’m not particularly well hydrated – when I’m working, I have a reminder on my Outlook calendar that pings every hour to remind me to sit up straight/stretch/drink water. Who hasn’t had their Outlook calendar open for 9 days? THIS IDIOT! Who has a “drink your damn water” app and has ignored it all week? ALSO THIS IDIOT!
And to think I actively contemplate retirement. Gonna make it two weeks before there is a detective standing over my body going, “Looks like the idiot forgot to eat and drink.”
It is so downright embarrassing how bad I am with unstructured time.
As my staycation comes to a close, I have come to the conclusion that I do not like staycationing and going forward, I will be sticking with long weekends more often vs. a big chunk of time off to get my R&R in when I’m not “doing something.” Someone doesn’t do terribly well with unstructured time, and every day feeling oddly like a Sunday is weird and vaguely unsettling.
As much as I desperately want to retire, I am going to have to figure out how to structure my days a bit, or I am going to be even more of a hot mess than I am now.
I have gotten a lot of stitching done, though! Look at it! And since this particular pattern has no backstitching, when it’s done, it’s DONE! (Well, except for washing/blocking/turning into pillow ornament, but still!)
Well, I’m going to do my best to enjoy what’s left of my time off – you have a great day!
Thunderstorms on and off all night – thunder, rain, sleep, thunder, rain, sleep – repeat until around 5:30 when the loudest damn thunderclap I’ve ever heard went off right over the damn house. Jumped out of my damn skin and spent a good 5 minutes just trying to get my heart rate back down. It’s the big topic on NextDoor this morning. (Our ND is blissfully boring.)
Car is still at the dealership – they’re trying to trigger the “audio system unavailable” and having no success. (Guess there are not error logs in the onboard computer.) When I dropped it off, they said that sometimes it happens when there is a system update, which kinda makes sense, but also, how is my car contacting the mothership for an update?
If they can’t come up with anything, I’ll take the “system update” explanation, even if I don’t quite understand the mechanics of it, and the user manual offers no solid explanation as to how these updates take place.
On the Covid front, I am super selfishly pissed off about the booster situation – I’m not eligible. JFC, let folks take the extra step to protect themselves and others against the fuckers who won’t get vaccinated. County is 65% fully vaccinated. Transmission levels are still high, our vaccination rates are totally flat, and I just have to hope my immunity doesn’t wane? Honestly, when the 6 month mark rolls around, if we’re not looking at vaccine shortages, I will be sorely tempted to just lie about my status and get a booster.
If you’re even *marginally* eligible – I’d say go get that 3rd shot. You gotta protect yourself against those who won’t be responsible. And I hate that we’re at “it’s us against them” instead of “us against a pandemic” – but, if you can keep yourself out of the hospital, that’s a win.
And now, I’m going to go drown my anger in a shower, because I can’t think of a better way to have the car dealership call and let me know my car is ready.
And today’s exciting staycation activity is…taking the car to the dealership, LOL. And I’ve just gotten a text from them letting me know I can do contactless check in. But, there are no instructions on how to get them the keys, so yes, I’ll be checking in with a service advisor when I get there.
And they’re gonna loooooove the assignment, because unless the onboard computer has log files they can download to possibly see why the car decided the audio system should shut off – they’re going to have to go in and manually check every speaker connection in the car, and that is gonna be a hella pain in the ass. At least my brother is following my up there and I’m just leaving the car so I don’t have to sit around and try to entertain myself while they work on it.
And today it’s in the 70s, threatening rain, and humid as fuck. The indoor temp is right in that spot of “too warm for the heat, too cool for the AC” so I woke up to an icky, sticky house. I’ve cranked down the AC because though the temp may be fine, the humidity has to be dealt with. (Yes, I know it’s a dumb not-really-a-problem problem.)
Ooh, other fun thing, it’s Outback day! If I can’t eat my way through Williamsburg this year, at least I can pick up a nice steak and baked potato tonight.
Well, time to go navigate the gargantuan parking lot of a car dealership I’ve never been to before. Fun times!
Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female. 