Norabelle414's Trilogy in One Part

Rory says please let him sit in your lap.

Hello and welcome! I'm Nora. I live in Washington DC. This is my fourteenth year of having my own thread in the 75ers group! Aside from books, I also love:

animals/biology/zoology - I am once again starting to volunteer at Smithsonian's National Zoo
TV - scripted only, mostly science fiction and fantasy, especially anything based on a book
theater - I have season tickets to Arena Stage but I go to shows elsewhere as well
podcasts - especially about books
knitting, and now also cross stitch and embroidery
progressive politics (particularly urbanism)

You can find me on Twitter @ norabelle414

I know trying to read more books is a futile goal, so my goals for 2023 are:
1) Be more present here, including actually posting on everyone else's thread instead of just lurking
2) Write reviews promptly after finishing a book

A selection of books I have finished recently:

8 Little Planets by Chris Ferrie and Lizzy Doyle - 4.5/5 stars
Dracula by Bram Stoker - 3.5/5 stars
Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb - 4.5/5 stars
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, translated by Danusia Stok - 4.5/5 stars
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot - 3/5 stars

For a full list of books I have read this year, click here: https://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=norabelle414&collection=769953...

2022 Statistics

In 2022, I read 25 books.
3,104 pages, plus 11 hours and 48 minutes of audiobooks.
I averaged 31 days per book, 9 pages per day, 3 books per month.
Average book length was 124 pages (obviously skewed by baby books).

The longest paper book was Dracula at 496 pages; the longest audiobook was The Tiger's Wife at 11 hours and 22 minutes. The shortest paper book was Horns to Toes and in Between at 16 pages; the shortest audiobook was The Wasteland at 26 minutes.

I acquired 28 books (many of these were individual issues of comics).
I bought 18 books (same as above).
I deaccessioned 4 books.

12 (48%) of the books I read had female authors/artists.
10 (40%) were marketed for adults, 0 for young adults, and 15 (60%) for children.
1 (4%) had authors/artists of color, and 1 (4%) had a main character of color.*
0 had LGBTQ authors/artists, and 0 had an LGBTQ main character.*
2 (8%) were translated from another language (Polish, Icelandic).

(*These are to the best of my knowledge. It is very hard to find biographic information about a lot of baby book authors!)

6 books (24%) were purchased by me. 4 (16%) were checked out from the library. 0 were free. 15 were my niece's books, 0 were gifts, and 0 were early review copies.
23 books (92%) were physical books, 0 were digital, and 2 (8%) were audiobooks.

24 (96%) were prose books. 0 were plays. 0 were comics. 1 (4%) was poetry.*
16 books (64%) were fiction, and 9 (36%) were non-fiction.

(*Where is the line between poetry and a baby book? Once someone comes up with a coherent definition of poetry, I can figure that out.)

6 books (24%) were rereads. 0 books were published in 2022. 25 books (100%) were published before 2022, and 15 of those (60%) were published before 2012. The oldest book I read was Dracula, written in 1897.

My best reading month was December, in which I finished 10 books. My worst reading months were February, June, and August, in which I finished 0 books.

My most-read genre was general fiction, of which I read 10 books (40%). 5 books (20%) were speculative fiction/science fiction/fantasy/horror. 4 books (16%) were science nonfiction. 3 books (12%) were biography/memoir. 2 books (8%) were general nonfiction. 1 book (4%) was historical fiction & fantasy.

My Top Five Books of 2022 in no particular order:
Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

Dishonorable Mention:
Elephants Can't Fly by Charlotte Christie
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

2021 Statistics

In 2021, a bad year, I read 15 books.
2,414 pages, plus 3 days, 5 hours, and 58 minutes of audiobooks.
I averaged 30 days per book, 7 pages per day, 2 books per month.
Average book length was 161 pages.

The longest paper book was The Overstory at 502 pages; the longest audiobook was The Night Circus at 13 hours and 40 minutes. The shortest paper book was Poems to See By at 159 pages; the shortest audiobook was The Only Good Indians at 8 hours and 38 minutes.

I acquired 21 books.
I bought 8 books.
I deaccessioned 13 books.

8 (53%) of the books I read had female authors/artists. 2 (13%) were by nonbinary authors/artists.
13 (87%) were marketed for adults, 2 (13%) for young adults, and 0 for children.
4 (27%%) had authors/artists of color, and 5 (33%) had a main character of color.
2 (13%) had LGBTQ authors/artists, and 2 (13%) had an LGBTQ main character.
None were translated from another language.

5 books (33%) were purchased by me. 8 (53%) were checked out from the library. 0 were free. 0 books were borrowed from another person, 0 were gifts, and 2 (13%) were early review copies.
8 books (53%) were physical books, 0 were digital, and 7 (47%) were audiobooks.

13 (87%) were prose books. 0 were plays. 1 (7%) was comics. 1 (7%) was poetry.
11 books (73%) were fiction, and 4 (27%) were non-fiction.

1 book (7%) was a reread. 1 book (7%) was published in 2021. 14 books (93%) were published before 2021, and 1 of those (7%) was published before 2011. The oldest book I read was Grimspace, written in 2008.

My best reading month was January, in which I finished 4 books. My worst reading months were February, April, and December, in which I finished 0 books.

My most-read genre was romance, of which I read 4 books (27%), 3 books each (20%) were general fiction, speculative fiction/science fiction/fantasy/horror, and science nonfiction. 1 book each (7%) were historical fiction & fantasy and history nonfiction.

My Top Five Books of 2021 in no particular order:
American Zoo: A Sociological Safari by David Grazian
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Erin Faith Hicks
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Dishonorable Mention:
Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a comfortable reading year in 2023, Nora.

I like that you are anticipating plenty of statistics! xx

>6 _Zoe_: Thanks Zoe!

>7 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul! I didn't do any statistics last year so I'm going to put both 2021 and 2022 here.

Welcome back for another one, Nora!

Happy new thread for the new year Nora!

Thanks Jim and Kro! I'm hoping to finish one more book today and then I'll move over here.

Happy New Year, Nora! Maybe I’ll get to finally see you again this year. We’ll see what happens when the spring comes.

Found you! ;)

Looking forward to seeing what you craft up for the year, too. Good luck!

Hope you have a great year of reading!

Happy new year, Nora! Rory is certainly allowed to sit in my lap haha.

Happy reading in 2023!

Hey Nora, I have you starred.

>12 SqueakyChu: Happy New Year, Madeline! I hope so too!

>13 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi Angela! Just a pair of socks going at the moment.

>14 thornton37814: Thanks Lori! Happy New Year!

>15 bell7: Don't think I don't let him sit in my lap! I just don't let him sit in my lap 24 hours a day, which would be his preference.

>16 libraryperilous: Thanks Diana! Happy reading to you too!

>17 kgodey: Thanks Kriti! I hope your head is feeling better this year

>18 norabelle414: oh I didn't take it that way at all! I figured he was asking us all for permission 😂

Happy new thread, Nora! Happy to see you back this year. Give Rory some scritches from me.

>20 MickyFine:, >21 Berly: Thanks Micky and Kim!

>5 norabelle414: Braiding Sweetgrass
I just started this over the weekend.

Happy New Year!

>23 qebo: Ooh, you're going to love it!

>24 norabelle414: Already it has made me happy about the wild strawberries I planted in what used to be my front lawn.

Happy Tuesday!

I got my 3rd and final HPV vaccine dose last week, bringing my grand total of vaccine doses for 2022 to SIX (3 HPV, 2 COVID, 1 Flu). Last year I got 4 (2 COVID, 1 Flu, 1 Tdap).

Did not do anything for New Year's Eve or Day, as usual. Just spent some time setting up this new thread, etc. In 2020 I switched from using a Jan-Dec planner to a Jul-Jun planner, and its so much better. All the holiday and new year events are so much work themselves, I don't need to add setting up a new planner to that.

I had yesterday off of work and I was planning to fill my grocery cart with glass and take it to the glass recycling bin, conveniently located behind the library, drop off an overdue library book, then take the empty grocery cart to the grocery store. However, when I got to the (closed) library there was a big box of baby books on a bench next to the door (the library does not usually take donations and so people just dump their boxes of books outside while the building is closed). I picked up several for my niece including The Runaway Bunny, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, an Amelia Bedelia collection, and a copy of Chicken Soup with Rice which perfectly matches my copy of Alligators all Around which I passed down to her last month.

Tomorrow is the January meeting of the book club that I run, the first time we're meeting on a Wednesday. Currently there are 6 people signed up to attend on Wednesday and zero on Saturday so we might be switching to Wednesdays-only in the future. We're discussing Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach.

My mom should be arriving for "Christmas" sometime on Friday, but I never count on it until she's actually here. I'm planning to take Monday and Tuesday off of work and maybe we will go to a museum or something.

Currently crafting:
Knitting a pair of socks I started for my mom in the summer. I'm doing them two-at-a-time and I'm done with the heels so I should be able to finish quickly.

Currently reading:
In a bit of limbo at the moment but I might start Cress Watercress by Gregory Maguire. I don't want to start the next book club book until after the meetings. A podcast I listen to is going to be reading Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix later in the month so I might start that as well. As much as I appreciate commitment to a bit, the Ikea catalog shape of Horrorstor is hard to hold and doesn't fit in my purse.

Currently playing:
A little bit of Cozy Grove for the winter event. Not much else. I will probably get back into Pokemon Violet after my mom leaves.

Currently watching:
Not much here either? What have I been doing for the last week?
I watched a few episodes of Emily in Paris season 3 (still as stupid as ever), Barbarians season 2, Kindred (a decent adaptation so far but there's been zero promotion and the all-at-once release is a real hindrance) , and The Witcher: Blood Origin (a 4-episode miniseries. Pretty good and looks beautiful but the elves are not my favorite Witcher characters). Finished Fleishman is in Trouble, Slow Horses season 2, His Dark Materials series finale (as good as an adaptation could be, recommended), and South Side season 3.

Hello, Nora, and Happy New Year! I'm dropping a star. What a nice collection of books you snagged for your niece.

I also have Horrorstor in the stacks - well, on my Kindle. What is the name of that podcast that you are listening to, if you don't mind sharing?

I am still on season one of Slow Horses, but I am liking it - the books are so fun, especially on audio.

Happy new year and new thread!

>27 Crazymamie: Happy New Year, Mamie!
The podcast that is going to cover Horrorstor is called Overdue! One of the hosts reads a book every week and tells the other host about it, with a focus on classics and older books. I keep a list of all the books they've covered here: https://www.librarything.com/list/10623/Overdue-Podcast
Hmmm... audiobook, you say.... Mysteries are not usually the kind of thing I like to read in paper but they are the kind of thing I like to listen to in audio so maybe I will check it out.

>28 foggidawn: Thanks foggi!

I hope your visit with your Mom a) happens and b) is a good one!

A belated Happy New Year, Nora!

>29 norabelle414: Oh, Thanks for that!

Gerard Doyle does the narration for the audiobooks, and they are full of fabulous.

>31 MickyFine: Thanks, me too :-)

>32 alcottacre: Happy New Year, Stasia!

>33 Crazymamie: Ooh, a good narrator is so important!

Happy new year, Nora! I have you starred.

I have yet to start season 3 of Emily in Paris but "still as stupid as ever" made me snort from its accuracy. So stupid yet so watchable.

>26 norabelle414: I loved Cress! It's a sweet and quick read.

Last review of last year! We had our book club meeting this morning.



25. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

Mary Roach investigates human-animal interactions of all kinds, from bears breaking into houses in Aspen, Colorado to Macaques stealing food in Delhi to gulls destroying the Pope’s flowers to the attempted eradication of invasive species in New Zealand.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a Mary Roach book. Her writing is just as funny as ever, and her footnotes just as long. I love the way she leaves no question unanswered, even if it’s completely irrelevant to what she was just investigating. She’s a much more human-focused writer than many authors who write about animals, so she brought a bit of a new perspective, but also might leave a little to be desired for readers who are really into animals. I enjoyed how she pushes back against the usual western ideas that we should control all of nature (for example, many people believe that farmers should keep birds away from their plants because the birds will eat all of the crops, but investigations have shown that birds eat so many insects and rodents that they actually save more crops than they eat). I would say it’s a quick enjoyable read (boy does she know how to lead from one chapter to another) but not groundbreaking.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

>35 curioussquared: Thanks Natalie! You'll be pleased to know that Emily has not gotten any smarter.

>36 libraryperilous: Oh good! I'm excited to finally get to it.

Happy 2023, Nora!
>1 norabelle414: I also have a goal of being more present in LT this year, on my own thread and as many threads as I can keep up with. Good luck!

>39 ChelleBearss: Thanks Chelle!

Happy Tuesday! Not a real update today because I'm not actually at work; I took yesterday and today off because my mom and her husband are visiting. They arrived on Friday and we had goulash for dinner. Saturday was "fake Christmas" so we had raclette for dinner and exchanged gifts. I gave Strega Nona to my niece, Haven by Emma Donoghue to my mom, Babel, Or, The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution to my mom's husband, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts to my sister-in-law (the main character works in non-profit fundraising and so does my sister-in-law) and Neptune's Brood to my brother (the main character is an accountant and so is my brother). My mom gave me a bunch of plain napkins and pattern transfers to embroider (she said she thought it was a lame gift but honestly I could not have asked for anything better), and my mom's husband gave me Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist.

Sunday morning we watched football and had brunch then took my niece on her first ever trip to the library! Then we watched more football, then we went out to get sushi for dinner at our favorite place, then we watched more football. Monday my mom and I went to Ikea and I got a small desk so I can try to make a small office-like space in my bedroom. I have been resisting because I like having my bedroom feel like a sanctuary with no computers and no TVs but my current work-from-home set up is just not working.

My sister-in-law had asked for some advice on books she might like; she reads YA mostly because the adult books that her book club reads are too depressing for her taste but feels that she should be reading adult books. I reassured her that there's absolutely nothing wrong with reading whatever books she wants to, wrote down a few authors I thought she would like (Rebecca Wells, Ann Patchett, Liane Moriarty) and checked a few books out of the library for her. (She doesn't have a library card for our county but will hopefully get one now.) I think she's still chasing the high of reading Crazy Rich Asians which, honestly, who isn't?

I had my book club meetings on Wednesday and Saturday; we had a good 6 people on Wednesday but Saturday was just me and one other person. We still had good conversations though. The book for March is Bird Brother: A Falconer's Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife by Rodney Stotts and Kate Pipkin, about a man from DC who went to prison for drug dealing and after his release as part of his recovery became a Master Falconer.

Currently crafting:
I mended my brother's old stuffed toy monkey, which my great-aunt made for him when he was a baby. The inside part of the ear had frayed past the stitches holding it to the rest of the ear, but I did a whip stitch (?) in a contrasting thread and it looks okay and will hopefully stay attached for awhile. I did the other ear to match, and hopefully avoid the same issue. There was a hole in the neck which I tried to ladder-stitch closed. I'm not sure I did it right because it still looks like a hole but it is closed on the inside. The monkey had also lost a felt nostril so I satin-stitched a new one. It doesn't match but looks ok. The whole monkey is made of felt and over-stuffed and it was a real bitch to sew but I did it. I also mended my sister-in-law's old baby pillowcase, which had a lot of frills and layers, but at least it was flat!
Still working on knitting the socks for my mom but it's looking increasingly like I won't finish before she leaves.

Currently reading:
Nothing

Currently playing:
Nothing

Currently watching:
Not much due to family time. I did manage to watch the season premiere of All Creatures Great and Small after I extracted myself from all the football.

>41 norabelle414: Love all the books you chose as gifts! I got Babel for Christmas but haven't started yet. Agreed -- I think everyone wants to read Crazy Rich Asians for the first time again.

Ooh, new All Creatures Great and Small! My best friend and I watch it together and she's on an extended trip home for a few more weeks and then I leave on vacation for two weeks soon after, so I probably won't get to watch it until mid-February, but I guess that means there will be more episodes to binge when we get to it :)

Sounds like it's been a lovely visit with your family so far. Exciting that your niece had her first library trip. Did she get a card? (Babies getting library cards bring me so much joy, lol)

>41 norabelle414: Sounds like a pleasant visit, Nora, and hope that continues. I caught an ad for All Creatures Great and Small and thought it looked like something worth checking out. And glad to see Fuzz was enjoyable - it's already on the list.

>42 curioussquared: You're such a good friend! My friend who I watch All Creatures Great and Small with is out of the country right now so I watched it without him.

>43 MickyFine: She has to be 2 years old before she can get her own library card, and her parents will have to get one first! Part of my plan in taking them all to the library was to show my brother and sister-in-law how easy and nice it is so they can get in the habit of going to the library too.

>44 bell7: All Creatures Great and Small is so nice, Mary! You should check it out.

Happy reading in 2023, Nora!

I loved to see your year stats for the last two years.

>46 FAMeulstee: Thanks Anita! Happy New Year!

>45 norabelle414: It's more that I'm really bad at getting through TV on my own! Most of the shows I get through quickly I either watch with Tim or said friend :)

It's a rare non-Tuesday update!

The baby was diagnosed with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease last week. Nothing serious but she was not allowed to go to daycare so my mom and her husband ended up staying longer so they could take care of her and my brother and sister-in-law could work.

I had Tuesday off of work so my mom's husband and I went to Eastern Market and stopped by Capitol Hill Books where I bought The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Labyrinth Games & Puzzles where I got a game called Cat Lady which is kind of like Sushi Go except you collect cats instead of sushi, and East City Books, where I got I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom and I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong, plus Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld for my sister-in-law. Then we picked up some food from Eastern Market. My mom's husband had never been any of these places before so we had a great time. Tuesday night my mom and her husband and I had pizza and beer and did bar trivia (their favorite hobby) at the pizza place across the street from me. We got 4th place out of 16 teams.

Wednesday I was working again, and then my mom, her husband, my brother, and I went to an Irish restaurant near his house for dinner and did more bar trivia. We came in 2nd out of 10-ish teams. Thursday we had some fancy ravioli that I got at Eastern Market and played Settlers of Catan. I almost won but then everyone ganged up on me and my brother ended up winning, which serves them right! My brother loves to gloat when he wins and I am actually a very nice winner because I find winning very embarrassing. Friday my brother and sister-in-law went out for dinner and my mom and her husband babysat, had delivery Korean fried chicken for dinner, and watched s3e1 of All Creatures Great and Small and s1e1 of Abbott Elementary (both rewatches for me). They left for home this morning.

Nothing going on today. Tomorrow I'm back at the zoo and Monday I have off of work. I'm doing a little online secret santa party with my friends which has been very hard to schedule because some of them live in Seattle and some live in London. Nothing else going on for the foreseeable future. My dad is in Costa Rica until Feb 3 so my brother and I are going to get together sometime before that to talk about what we're going to do about his situation.

Currently crafting:
I did manage to finish my mom's socks in time, including washing and blocking, so she took them home with her. Now I'm working on a pair of socks for the baby that match the socks I made for my mom's husband over the summer.

Currently reading:
Nothing

Currently playing:
I might catch up on some Cozy Grove today.

Currently watching:
Nothing so far, but the plan for today is to catch up on all my current shows. I watched the first episode of Will Trent and didn't care for it.

Sounds like a lot of fun — gaming and book shopping and good food, yay!

Sounds like a very busy but lovely week. Glad to hear you got so much family quality time.

Enjoy your long weekend!

Sounds like it was a fun visit!

Thanks foggi, Micky, and Natalie! It was a nice time.

I might experiment with posting daily to see how I like it.

Yesterday's shift at the zoo was hard. I felt really unprepared and adrift. When I did my training walkthrough of the elephant house in October the light was out in the volunteer closet (where we store our personal items and sign in for our shift), and it's still out now. It's a literal closet so when the door closes behind you the darkness is total and feels symbolic. Visitors asked me a lot of questions I should have known the answer to but didn't, and I got several of the elephants confused and was telling visitors the wrong information. One of the very frequent visitors corrected me and it was demoralizing. But after my shift I wandered through another part of the zoo and ran into a keeper I knew from the Before Times and we had a long chat and she took me behind the scenes to see my favorite ostrich who was not on exhibit for Ostrich Reasons (she doesn't like to go through doorways when it's cold). So that was nice and I felt better.

Today I'm off of work. Monday is grocery store day so I'll be heading out in a few minutes (I may or may not be procrastinating by writing this). I have secret santa celebrations today at 3pm, then just vegging. Tomorrow I'm going into the office. The cafeteria has re-opened but I haven't really figured out what my work lunch default is going to be. The past few weeks I've been bringing a lunch and then buying something from the cafeteria and taking my own lunch home and eating it for dinner, which is the worst of all possible options. I'm only in the office one day a week so buying lunch every time is perfectly fine but I always feel like I need to have a backup in case the cafeteria is closed. It's not like my old office which was above a Target - it's basically impossible to get off campus on my own.

Currently crafting:
Working on a pair of toddler socks, trying to adapt the two-at-a-time, toe-up, magic-loop pattern that I love, but I think they're way too small. I'll finish them since I've already done the heel and hang onto them for a future baby I guess. Or maybe I can stretch them out while blocking.
My mom really wants to make some triangle-shaped corner bookmarks that she's seen online so I might order some felt for those.

Currently reading:
Nothing

Currently playing:
Caught up on some Cozy Grove Saturday. I started playing the game right when it came out in April 2021 and then fell off around November, then picked it up again when the expansion came out in April 2022, so I've never actually played in December-March before and am missing all of the collectibles for those months.
I also started playing Cult of the Lamb which I've had for awhile. It's kind of a rogue-like game, which I don't usually care for, but there's also a farming/crafting/city management part between levels which I do love. I'm enjoying it for now but it's early game so we'll see how I feel when the levels get longer and I start dying.

Currently watching:
Caught up on all my stuff. Finished Welcome to Chippendales (good production but lackluster ending), The Witcher: Blood Origins (good production but lackluster ending - we could have had an incredibly cool black woman pacifist first Witcher but instead we got a first Witcher nearly identical to Geralt, just so the cool woman could be pregnant, ugh *eyeroll*), Willow (good production but lackluster ending - hmm I'm sensing a theme), and Mythic Quest (lackluster entire season). Up-to-date on Abbott Elementary, Big Sky, All Creatures Great and Small, Miss Scarlett and the Duke, Welcome to Flatch, Young Rock, and Vienna Blood. Still working on Barbarians, Kindred, and Emily in Paris. Next on my list are Velma and The Last of Us. I also watched the Golden Globes, which was fine. Jerrod Carmichael was good.

>53 norabelle414: Good luck at the grocery store!

However often you want to update here, I'll read it. :)

Just put a hold on season 3 of Miss Scarlet and the Duke at the library (release date is February 28) so I have a bit of a wait yet on that one.

Not sure if I shared this pic at the time but these are the socks I knit for my mom's husband last year


And here are the ones I just finished for my mom:

Here's a better picture of the yarn for those:

Beautiful work, Nora!

>53 norabelle414: I always have some cans of soup and stuff at work Just In Case, so I recognize the struggle of work lunch options.

>55 norabelle414: Those look handsome and cozy!

Yeah, we weren't impressed with Willow at all - disappointing really, as it could have been great!

>56 MickyFine: Thank you! This pattern really clicks for me and I am finally having fun knitting socks (mostly...I did stop the blue ones in the middle for a few months and it was hard to pick back up).

>57 foggidawn: Yeah there's a big freezer near my cubicle that has a lot of room in it so I might stick some frozen meals in there to keep as back up.

>58 drneutron: I enjoyed Willow mostly but I felt there was a disconnect between the urgency of the overall plot and the fun of the adventures they had along the way. Then I also thought the ending was too rushed and I don't really understand it. Basically the same problems that I have with all of the Marvel shows, so I suppose it's on-brand.

Change of plans as I hurt my toe yesterday and so did not go into the office today. I hurt my pinky toes all the time (probably break them) and this one doesn't feel too bad. It'll probably be fine tomorrow but my commute to the office involves a lot of walking so I figured I'd better not.

Yesterday was secret santa. I got some socks (which I had asked for), a novelty octopus hat, and a very nice purple vegan leather notebook with a hippopotamus on it. I was worried about the gifts I had bought because my santee was one of the most particular people in our group but she seemed to really like them. The rest of the day I did, I guess nothing? I'm not really sure. I ordered some things (more socks) from Target and a sweater from Land's End. Considered ordering some craft supplies but didn't. I had intended to spend the day watching TV and knitting but I didn't get around to that until 9ish. I had an avocado that needed to be used immediately so I had chips and guac (just avocado and pickled onions) for dinner then a couple slices of frozen pizza, intending to take the rest to work for lunch today.

Today I need to pick up some things from Target and also go back to the grocery store and buy milk, which I forgot to buy yesterday despite it being the first item on the list I was holding in my hand, and also being the only thing I buy consistently every single week (and also the only thing I can't just go a few days without). Both are right across the street so minimal walking.

Crafting:
A few more rows on the too-small socks. Almost finished.

Watching:
As mentioned I managed to focus enough to watch tv around 9 and started The Last of Us. It was good but over 1hr20min (not including a break I needed to take in the middle) so I stayed up later than I intended.

Oof, hope the toe feels better soon! I haven't decided yet if I'm interested in The Last of Us. I'm definitely interested in Pedro Pascal, so that alone might get me watching :) And Bella Ramsey was so good in GOT and Catherine Called Birdy.

>61 curioussquared: So far I would definitely recommend it to anyone with any kind of tolerance for post-apocalypse/zombies. It's well done and looks very expensive. The only negative I could find at this point is that you can tell which scenes are from the video game without ever having played because the camera noticeably makes a meal out of them. I don't really care except that it probably contributed to the long run-time.

My toe feels perfectly fine but it looks awful. Very purple. But it doesn't hurt even when I touch it so I assume it's fine? If it falls off I have 9 others so I'm not too worried.

Yesterday I fussed around on the internet a lot, updating my TV spreadsheet (yes I have a TV spreadsheet) and joining yet another local community activism organization (this one specifically advocating for housing by opposing the current law that bans duplexes/quadplexes). I did not go to the store yesterday, mostly due to laziness but I'll say it was the rain. It's bright and sunny today, though, so no excuse. I'd also like to clean out my Roomba so I can run him again, and I need to repair a tabletop fan that has a loose gasket (I took it apart to clean it last week and didn't put it back together tight enough, it's not the fan's fault). Also also I need to deal with my health insurance company who denied my HPV vaccine claim and are now trying to make me pay $300 for a vaccine that prevents cancer. Cool.

As far as work stuff goes I was working diligently on my quarterly report when I found out I couldn't complete a task because someone else hasn't completed their part yet. It's nice when the thing that goes wrong is not my fault but annoying that I have to wait for them to correct it before I can continue.

Here's a pic of my new set-up, a work desk in my bedroom, a separate room from my personal desk, computer, tv, notebook, food, etc,etc.:

So far I'm not sure if it's going to work out. It's nice for a couple hours to really buckle down on something or if I'm on a phone call, but sometimes I want to be able to check LT for a few minutes or boil some water on the stove while keeping an eye on my work email. Maybe I'll come up with a schedule where I'm 2 hours here, 2 hours there, etc. Except I'm really bad at sticking to schedules.

Currently crafting:
Finished the little socks for my niece. I'm currently trying to stretch them out by wet-blocking them on tubes of deodorant (a Lady Speed Stick is roughly the width of a toddler foot, right?). Without even trying I ended up with less than 3 yards of yarn left out of the whole 437 yard skein - perfect.
Next I'm going to make bigger toddler socks using the leftover yarn from my mom's socks (>55 norabelle414:)

Currently watching:
Sometimes whether or not I watch any TV in a day is dependent on how close the remote control is to me at the point in time when I can't concentrate on work anymore. Yesterday it was close so I finished all of Kindred (well done and consistent but would have benefited from a weekly release instead of being dumped all at once. It also ended in a very weird place. I hope it gets renewed to continue the story but considering the release schedule and lack of promotion I won't hold my breath) and half of Cobra Kai season 5 (still a ridiculous and funny show to have on in the background. I don't care about the teens but these two dumb middle-aged men who think its still 1989 trying to karate chop the current of their inevitable friendship is hilarious.)
Miracle Workers season 4 was supposed to start on Monday night but it just .... didn't? HBO/WB/Discovery is such a mess.

Currently playing:
I did not play any games worth noting but I did see an article that a free update to The Witcher 3 has been released for PC/PS5/etc. and is coming to Switch "soon" so I'm excited for that.

>62 norabelle414: So much of that filmed in Alberta and NOT ONCE did I meet Pedro Pascal. The travesty of it all. :P

>64 MickyFine: More reason to hope for season 2

Ouch, sorry about the toe. Hopefully it doesn't fall off!

>64 MickyFine: 😂 That just doesn't seem fair!

I'm not caught up with Miracle Workers so didn't notice the HBO error but lol. That app is such a disaster both in terms of function and content. I was glad to see that Minx season 2 has found a home elsewhere, though I don't have Starz so will need to figure that out. We use a Chromecast and with every episode of White Lotus, the HBO Max app would try to end the episode early and go to the next one at least a minute or two before the episode was supposed to end. It was my job to seize my phone and stop the autoplay before it happened, but the HBO Max app also seems unable to stay connected to the Chromecast even though the content keeps playing so I only succeeded some of the time. So dumb.

>66 ChelleBearss: Thanks Chelle! I think my toe is fine but maybe suspiciously so.

>67 curioussquared: I think it's actually a TBS error (or rather, TBS annoying business strategy)? It was supposed to air on TBS (TBS being owned by Warner Brothers along with HBO and TNT) which I know is moving away from new scripted shows but I assumed since they announced an air date for Miracle Works s4 in December that they were going to go through with it. And then the really annoying thing is that instead of dumping it on HBO Max like they should, they get more money if they never show it and write it off as a loss, "The Producers"-style. They've also postponed s4 of Snowpiercer but that didn't have an air date yet so less shocking.

Hi Nora! What streaming service is Kindred on again? I should watch it.

Another rainy one here.

Yesterday I did go to the stores after work and rewarded myself with takeout dinner from a pork bun place. I fixed my fan but did not clean my Roomba. I fussed a lot over my stupid health insurance issues but ended up just paying everything because the claims were all from last year and I was thousands of dollars under my deductible so in the end the $300 was going to come from my pocket anyway. Not sure why I even have health insurance.

This morning I had my annual performance evaluation, it went fine. Still working on my quarterly report but there's no rush because my boss is out this week and next week so she won't see it until the 31st anyway.

There's a BBQ food truck at the building next door but I'm too lazy to go out so I'll probably have leftover pasta for dinner.

Tomorrow after work a friend and I are going to get dinner and try some limited-time Lunar New Year flavors at an ice cream place. Nothing going on this weekend, then next week I'm feeding my friend's cat Monday-Friday.

Currently crafting:
The little socks for my niece came out great!


I started the next pair of toddler socks but I think one of the toes is wonky and I'll have to start over.

Currently watching:
Bounced around between a few new things last night to see if anything struck my fancy. I watched the first episode of the new Night Court (I'll give it a few more episodes but it's probably not for me), the first episode of Toast of London (meh. Does it get better?), the first episode of The Cleaner (meh, though it seems like it might be very episodic and that's promising), and a couple more episodes of Barbarians and Cobra Kai. The plan for tonight is Abbott Elementary, Big Sky, and a small taste of the new That 90s Show (I'm very excited but trying not to binge watch it)

>69 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel! Kindred is on Hulu.

>70 norabelle414: I love how the striping turned out for the socks! There's a company based out of Calgary called Friday Sock Club that does coordinated but mismatched socks, and these remind me of their socks.

>72 MickyFine: I'm absolutely in love with this yarn, it's Static from Knit Picks: https://www.knitpicks.com/yarn/static/c/5420382. All the colorways are limited quantity so they don't have this green anymore (I think it's called "terrarium") but I really like the ones they have now. I'm not allowed to buy any more until I use what I have, though!

>73 norabelle414: I'm not allowed to buy any more until I use what I have, though

This sounds so familiar...

>73 norabelle414: Ahhhh the scourge of every crafter.
Best of luck; those socks are so stinkin' cute.

>74 MickyFine:, >75 Ravenwoodwitch: To be clear ...........I am allowed to buy more yarn just not more of that specific yarn :-P

Books! Have you heard of these things? They're pretty great.

Today my coworkers had a lot of questions and I had a lot of answers, which is always nice. My friend and I went to get dinner at Oh K-Dog, a chain of korean-style corn dogs (?). My dog was half mozzarella, half hot dog, battered and covered in diced potato and deep fried. It was like a giant tater tot filled with meat and cheese, delicious. I also got an avocado egg sandwich that I did not love. Asian scrambled egg is often a little sweet which is not my favorite. Then we got ice cream, a flight of special Lunar New Year flavors:

The one that's kind of higher than the others is pear plum wine sorbet, then clockwise from there is red bean almond cookie, miso caramel peanut butter cookie, roasted barley tea, and dan tat (egg custard tart) brulee. Roasted barley tea was my favorite.

The whole reason my friend and I went out to eat was so that he could give me his spare keys so I can feed his cat while he's gone next week. But, he forgot his keys. So he's going to bring them by tomorrow....hopefully. The burger place across the street from my apartment sells bagels on Saturday mornings so I get half a dozen once every other week and tomorrow is that day. That's the full extent of my plans this weekend.

Currently reading:
I read some pages! 60 pages of Cress Watercress and 35 pages of Horrorstor. I'm a little annoyed that the latter name-drops Ikea on the first page...I liked imagining that it's just about Ikea but in this world there are two identical brands like Ikea? With the exact same aesthetic? I wonder if he was told he had to make it clear that the book is NOT about Ikea.

Currently crafting:
Only a couple rows on the toes of the toddler socks. I think I fixed the wonky-ness with a knit-through-the-back-loop, so they should be good to go.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Abbott Elementary (great episode!), Big Sky (great season!), the midseason premiere of Grown-ish, an episode each of Cobra Kai and Barbarians.

The ice cream flight sounds amazing!

Agreed -- I want to try all those flavors! We have a Korean corn dog place or two around here, too. I haven't tried it yet but the idea is intriguing!

Sounds very yummy overall :) I'd try just about all of that minus the sorbet (but that's a me-problem for not liking wine).

I'm always amused when people in my friend circle remember books are a thing and start asking me for recomendations.

A little more eventful than I expected today.

I got my biweekly bagels and my friend dropped off his keys so I can feed his cat this coming week. I decided to get started on an extensive online training I need to complete by February 6. My brother asked me to babysit because he had some last-minute urgent errands to run and my sister-in-law is out of town, so I did that for a couple hours.

No particular plans for tomorrow. Might make a frozen pizza for dinner (I was going to have one tonight but I wanted to use up some leftover pasta.)

Currently reading:
More Horrorstor!

>81 norabelle414: Grady Hendrix, right? That author's a horror nerd like myself so I hope this one is the fun kind of spooky for you :)
I had bagels today myself. Yummy.

The meal sounds interesting and the ice cream flight fantastic. Will have to remember that next time I go down as a place to try.

I read Horrorstor a couple years ago and remember enjoying it pretty well. The catalog details at the beginning of each chapter amused me.

A quiet day. Bagel for breakfast, frozen pizza for dinner. I fixed the shelf in my shower which had fallen down (the suction cups are very sturdy but do still come loose every year or two) but mostly just vegged.

Should be a quiet week, except for feeding my friend's cat every day. Usually I like to get fast casual for dinner downtown when I'm feeding this cat but part of the Metro is closed and I have to get off at a different stop that only has one restaurant near it (Five Guys). Boo. I won't get Five Guys all 5 days but I might get it Monday and Friday.

Tomorrow is grocery store day, in the morning, then a staff meeting. Thursday night a podcast I listen to is doing a livestream discussing Horrorstor ... I'd like to finish it by then but I'm sure I won't.

Currently crafting:
Finished with the toes of the toddler socks and moved on to the feet. I'm doing a garter stitch pattern on the insole which looks nice.

Currently reading:
Only a few pages of Horrorstor. Going to try to cram it into my purse for this week's Metro rides.

Currently playing:
Played a lot of Cult of the Lamb today. I don't love it but it scratches an itch.

Currently watching:
Finished Cobra Kai season 5. I'm glad that Robby and Miguel are friends now because their constant fighting was getting boring. Finished Barbarians season 2. I thought it was fine but not as good as the first season. There is a cliffhanger but I doubt it's going to get renewed. I watched two episodes each of the new Night Court and Velma and decided neither one is for me. Caught up on Young Rock and last night's Saturday Night Live with Aubrey Plaza, which was a good one. I finished Pistol, which I had started many months ago. It was fine but a little confusing. Just finished watching this week's episodes of All Creatures Great and Small (I never love the horse storylines, I think because they almost always involve rich people), Miss Scarlet and the Duke (weird to have an episode without the Duke, I don't think I liked it), and Vienna Blood. The first show in the queue for whenever I have time to watch is The Last of Us, because I'm likely to get spoiled.

>82 Ravenwoodwitch: Yes, I am really enjoying the writing. I've wanted to read something of his for a long time.

>83 bell7: These were seasonal flavors, unfortunately, so they'll be gone at the end of the month. But they always have other good flavors! It's called Ice Cream Jubilee, and there are 3 of them in the DC area so you should have a chance to try them out. Zoe and Mark and I went there the last time they were here, too.

In the office today.

Yesterday was quiet. I am still really struggling with my schedule. I stay up too late, I get up somewhat on time, I eat breakfast late, I shower late, I go to the grocery store late, I start whatever I want to do in the evening (video games, tv, knitting, reading) late. I'm not doing anything in particular that's distracting, the time just slips away without me noticing. I've tried setting a schedule with exact times to do everything but there's no motivation so it doesn't seem to help. I might try setting some alarms for different tasks instead of calendar notifications and see if that helps.

I tried out taking a bus and then the metro to and from feeding my friend's cat instead of the Metro the long way around, to see how long/complicated it would be, so I got Cava for dinner (a local chain of Mediterranean grain/salad bowls).

Today I'll go straight from work to feed my friend's cat, and pick up Five Guys on the way home.

Currently crafting:
Still working slowly on the toddler socks but I've got my eye on my next pair of socks, a black and a gray version of the self-striping yarn from >55 norabelle414: which has a little shock of orange in it. (Gotta use it up so I can buy more per my own rules). I put some squiggles of puff paint on the soles of the previous toddler socks in >70 norabelle414: to try to make them non-slip...we'll see how that goes when I actually give them to her.

Currently reading:
More than halfway through Horrorstor! I can definitely finish it before the podcast livestream!

Currently playing:
Nothing

Currently watching:
I watched episode 2 of The Last of Us last night but not before getting spoiled, as predicted. Today is the season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Father (a very fun hangout sitcom. I didn't like the first iteration but really enjoy this one.) Looking forward to Hulu's The 1619 Project documentary which starts on Thursday.

>86 norabelle414: Hope you can figure out your schedule! I can get myself up when I KNOW I have to walk the dogs before work, or when I have an early meeting, but definitely struggle otherwise. I love bed.

Oh, you made me sort of interested in How I Met Your Father. I watched the first one while it was airing but I think it aged really poorly and had a "this is unnecessary and why are they making it?" reaction when HIMYF was announced. But maybe I'll give it a try!

>87 curioussquared: It's possible that How I Met Your Father will end up being mostly the same as its predecessor but I really love adult Hillary Duff and Chris Lowell is very hot (*fans self*) so I'm enjoying it.

>86 norabelle414: Oh I'm happy to hear you like HIMYF. I've been considering trying it.

Dreary out today.

Yesterday I thought I would be able to get downtown fairly quickly from my office (a shuttle to the bus depot then a metro-replacement shuttle downtown) so I left ~20 minutes later than I normally do but that meant the traffic was worse so it took longer. Ah, well. The Five Guys was good. I didn't read anything on the trip because my book was at the bottom of my backpack and it was too hard to get in and out.

Finally got my quarterly project finished this morning. Not looking forward to going out to feed the cat today in the cold sleety rain. There was a slight chance of flurries today, but no. Slightly too warm and way too wet. I'm definitely going to take the long Metro route today, since it involves the least walking outside. I'll grab something close to home for dinner, maybe Hawaiian poke.

Currently crafting:
I got too excited about my next project and started winding the hank into two balls instead of working on my current project....bad crafter!

Currently reading:
The "what spooky thing is happening??" part of Horrorstor was great but now I'm in the 3rd quarter action-y part and it's a bit boring. Still plenty of time to finish, though.

Currently playing:
Nothing

Currently watching:
Season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Father - fine, just fallout from the previous season finale. I might go back and rewatch the first season as background tv.
Premiere episode of That 90s Show - also fine. The original was very formative for me but I can't watch it anymore due to the actor who plays Hyde. It's nice to have something to watch that gives me similar feelings without giving him any money. Red and Kitty are exactly the same. The new young actors are good. The previous actors are (so far) just brief cameos, which is for the best. It's hard to come back to portray someone who should have changed a lot over the intervening years!
Not sure what I'll watch tonight.

>90 norabelle414: Yumm, poke. Hope the trip to feed the cat isn't too miserable.

1. What’s Wrong, Little Pookie? {board book} written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton

Little Pookie feels upset but can’t articulate why, so his mom prompts him with increasingly silly reasons he might be upset until he forgets that he’s upset at all.

I’ve read a few Sandra Boynton books so far and they were fine, but this is the first one that has made me think, “Oh, I get it now. This is why she’s so good.” It’s so simple, but so relatable to how kids feel, and it feels nice to read.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)



2. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

Amy works retail at Orsk, a Nordic-inspired budget furniture store. Her coworkers are too perky and she doesn’t love it but it pays the bills. When strange things start to happen around the store, her boss asks her to stay after hours and investigate. Normally she wouldn’t care, but the giant bonus is too big to turn down. What could go wrong?

This is my first Grady Hendrix. The idea is fantastic, of course, and I found the execution fine. The plot was a bit uneven - instead of easing into the spookiness, the first eerie thing that happens is that the main character and another character fully go into another dimension, but then they kind of forget about it. I found the peak spooky parts a little less interesting. I also thought the theme of the book didn’t quite work - the penitents went mad because they were in a panopticon, but also because they had to go into a maze just like Orsk and do labor/be tortured. But a maze is kind of the opposite of a panopticon? It would have made more sense if they had left out all of the panopticon parts. Mostly those are just quibbles, however, and I liked the book overall (especially the epilogue) and look forward to reading more by the author.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

>91 curioussquared: Thanks Natalie! I complain, but actually it's just nice to have a reason to leave the house.

The sun was out today!

Yesterday was uneventful. I decided it was too dreary for Hawaiian poke for dinner and so I got Chipotle.

Thursdays for work I have a check-in meeting with my supervisor and then a cameras-on team meeting with my coworkers. I also have a bagel for breakfast on Thursdays. After work I went to feed the cat and picked up poke for dinner. Responded to a few work emails that came in late and now I'm goofing around waiting for the podcast livestream at 8:15.

Currently crafting:
Turning the heels on these toddler socks! The guide I used says that 15-18mo have feet that are 5.1-5.3 inches long, but that feels so long! Is that right?? I haven't measured her feet (she definitely will not sit still for that) but they seem more like 3.5 inches to me (She's 13mo but big for her age)

Currently reading:
See above! I'm also more than halfway through Cress Watercress. After that I'm not sure what's next.

Currently playing:
Solitaire on my phone

Currently watching:
Watched another episode of That 90s Show, better than the first though they really shoehorn Fez in there. I also watched the first episode of season 3 of Ramy. I had been putting it off because I didn't really like season 2 and I don't like Ramy's character much but the first two seasons had at least one episode each that were gold (because they weren't from Ramy's point of view...) and I'm guessing this one does too.

Me and the girls love Sandra Boynton books! We were gifted a few and ended up buying a bunch more.

>92 norabelle414: I love Sandra Boynton and often gift her board books to the little people in my life. I like the silly bedtime books best. I also had a wall calendar of her work a few years ago and it brought me a lot of joy.

>92 norabelle414: my cousin loves Sandra Boynton and recommended Your Personal Penguin to me, which I still have not read.

>95 ChelleBearss: So far I've gotten all of these from the $1 book sale shelf at the library, which is nice.

>96 MickyFine: It's very cute! The Horns to Toes and in Between art was not my favorite but I love this one

>97 bell7: Hmmm... my niece does like hippos AND penguins.....

Quiet day.

Yesterday was the podcast livestream about Horrorstor and it was very fun. More people in the chat had read the book than usual for these events, so we had a great time joking around about it. It feels so good to read a book and talk to people about it!

I did not end up needing to feed my friend's cat today so not much to do. I had a bagel for breakfast and nachos with refried beans for dinner, and watched a movie.

Tomorrow I'm volunteering at the zoo in the morning and then nothing for the rest of the weekend.

Currently crafting:
Done with the toddler heels and working on the legs.

Currently reading:
Nothing today. I might read The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co, book 1) next, and then watch the new Netflix show which started today.

Currently watching:
I'm not really a movie person but tonight I watched The Menu, and it was great. Exactly my kind of thing.
Also I listen to a podcast that is covering old episodes of the TGIF tv lineup from 1989, one episode per week, and today the episode was about s5e8 of Perfect Strangers, so I watched that.

Currently listening to:
I started a new podcast called Unreformed, a short-form podcast about an abusive prison camp for black children in Alabama that called itself a school. To balance that out I've caught up on Witch, Please and listened to If Books Could Kill's latest episode about Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

>99 norabelle414: I didn't do that much yesterday either, Nora.

Looks like today's biggest issue will be deciding where to eat with the girls and to try and finish a couple of books.

Have a great weekend.

The nice thing about posting daily instead of weekly is if I miss a day it's not a big deal!

Yesterday I volunteered at the zoo. The bakery I used to get a coffee and a BEC from on my way to the zoo closed during the pandemic, so I've been trying a few other places in the area. Last time I went to a smaller bakery and got a pastry, this time I went to a breakfast place and got a big BEC on a roll with some kind of special sauce. Very good. Two of my favorite other volunteers were on shift as well so it was a nice time. All the animals were out and there were lots of visitors.

I was very tired on my way home and ended up taking the wrong train for a few stops. This Metro shutdown is really killing me, and it's still got 5 months to go (assuming they finish on time, which they never do). When I got home I hung out for a little while and then pickled some onions, which I have been enjoying doing (and eating) during the pandemic. I learned that sometimes when you add a clove of garlic to a mild acid it will turn BRIGHT BLUE. This is more likely to happen when the garlic has been stored cold, i.e. in winter. It's harmless but looks extremely strange.

I had ramen with spinach and corn and eggs for dinner and knit and watched tv.

Bagel for breakfast today and now doing nothing.

Currently crafting:
Hoping to finish these toddler socks today

Currently reading:
Nothing. I was too tired after the zoo to read anything on the Metro.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Grown-ish and Welcome to Flatch. I watched the first two episodes each of Shrinking, which I'm not too sure about, and Poker Face, which I absolutely loved. Definitely going to watch more of that today.

>100 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul! I hope you had a good weekend too.

>101 norabelle414: We’ve seen the first two of Poker Face, and agree with you—it’s great, with stellar writing. Haven’t watched Shrinking, but I’m reading good reviews.

Karen O

>103 klobrien2: Hi Karen! The first two episodes of Shrinking were okay but the show seems to have a very narrow idea of what psychotherapy is. I'm hoping as it goes along it will stop focusing so much on the therapy and I'll mind less. Good acting all around though.

Back to work today.

Yesterday I did pretty much nothing. Today I went to the grocery store and had my bi-weekly big staff meeting. After work I was messing around with my TV spreadsheets and I decide to rearrange them. Previously I had one sheet for each streaming service and one for on-air TV shows, but now that I don't have paid TV service anymore that doesn't really make sense. So I'm experimenting with one sheet for shows that I'm watching weekly and another sheet for full seasons. Thrilling, I know.

Tomorrow I'm going into the office, and I have my monthly meeting with the director to update her on my projects. No other plans this week, except that I really need to do some online zoo training which is due on Monday.

Currently crafting:
Finished the toddler socks! I haven't woven in the ends yet (bad knitter!) but I have started on the toes of my next pair of socks. It's a striped yarn with mostly blue and black but a little bit of orange. I think I'll give them to my brother.

Currently reading:
Nothing

Currently watching:
I watched the first episode of The 1619 Project, which is about democracy. It was a little shaggy (I think there's too much content in this topic for one episode) but good enough to keep going. Caught up on Saturday Night Live, Miss Scarlet and the Duke (another episode without Duke??? There better be some fireworks soon), All Creatures Great and Small, and The Last of Us (great episode!). I watched another episode of That 90s Show (fine), and I started Extraordinary, a British comedy about a young woman who does not have a superpower, but everyone else in the world does. It was great! Highly recommended (for adults...the humor is pretty sexual)

Currently listening to:
Today's episode of the podcast Overdue was about The Three-Body Problem, and it was very enjoyable. I'm pleased that I remembered most of the plot of the book from when I read it in 2015.

In the office today.

Missed my preferred bus by half a minute and had to wait 20 minutes for the next one, but there are benches and shelter at the bus depot so I didn't mind much. Had my monthly meeting with the director and it went very long. I got a gyro from the on-site deli for lunch, and had leftover mac & cheese with peas for dinner.

Tomorrow I have a few meetings but they're audio-only so I can get some knitting done.

Currently crafting:
This new yarn looks so good! Finished the toes and working on the feet.

Currently reading:
Listened to a couple chapters of Slow Horses on audio. I brought The Screaming Staircase with me to work but didn't read any of it.

Currently watching:
Caught up on s3e4 of Vienna Blood (or the second half of episode 2 for anyone not in the US) and How I Met Your Father. Watched an episode each of National Treasure: Edge of History and Cunk on Earth, neither of which are for me. Watched another episode each of Extraordinary and Poker Face, both of which continue to be fantastic.

I'm looking forward to getting to 'Poker Face' soonish. I've only heard good things.

>107 katiekrug: I think you'll really like it!

>106 norabelle414: Ugh. Just missing the bus is the worst. My sympathies.

Envious of your audio only meetings. Unless a meeting is very large, all our online meetings are cameras on here.

>109 MickyFine: It's less bad than it used to be, since the bus comes every 20 minutes and there's no one on my team at the office to care if I come in on time or not, but still annoying to only miss it by half a second. My first thought is usually "If I was going to miss the bus anyway I could have stayed in bed for 10 more minutes"

A lot of my meetings were inter-agency phone conferences before COVID, they just haven't changed at all.

Yesterday I did...nothing. A few rows of knitting during meetings but other than that I'm not sure where the time went. I ordered Indian food for dinner but my order was mysteriously cancelled without any details so then I ordered Thai. I was planning to eat it while doing my zoo training but then I did not do my zoo training.

On Wednesdays I get a delivery of household goods from a company called The Rounds. They specialize in sustainable items, with reusable containers that they pick up when empty, and they are literally the only thing I can get delivered directly to my front door in a high-rise apartment building. Mostly its toilet paper, hand soap, cat litter, laundry detergent, etc. They also have some good snacks like sriracha peanuts and local items like bread from a nearby bakery. Starting this week they also deliver an assortment of produce and I very excitedly ordered some and then it was delivered yesterday and I remembered I hate cooking..... at least it's not too much, and winter produce keeps pretty well. However I'm not used to having so much produce and so I had to rearrange everything in my fridge. I threw away some old stuff and moved some other old stuff to the front so I remember it exists, and put a plastic bin in to hold all my cheese, which I had been keeping in the second produce drawer. Ok maybe I did do something yesterday.

Today I have some video-on meetings, then nothing this evening. Tomorrow I'm babysitting and get to give my niece her two new pairs of socks.

Currently crafting:
Wove-in the ends of the blue toddler socks and washed them. Now drying flat on the toilet lid (have I mentioned my apartment is small?)

Currently listening:
I haven't started yet but there's a new official BBC Eurovision podcast which I am planning to check out, called Eurovisioncast.

I'm sad about the cancelled Indian food order. If I'm craving Indian food, nothing else quite holds up.

Sorting out the fridge can be such a challenge, especially if you have a small apartment-sized fridge. I find it a nuisance and we have a full-sized fridge plus a mini fridge in the basement (mostly for beverages but occasionally other things end up there if there isn't space in the big fridge).

I hope the meetings today went smoothly!

Do you remember us talking during one of our meet-ups about the zoo at my high school? Well, apparently it's in an episode of 'Poker Face'! This week, I think (are they dropped weekly?). Now I really have to watch it...

My fridge is and always will be a mess. I don't know why, but I suspect it has something to do with someone who lives with me who likes to buy random sauces and condiments and try them and then never touch them again but refuse to get rid of them... Anyway, sympathies on the fridge issue!

>112 MickyFine: There used to be three Indian restaurants that delivered to my apartment but two have them are closed and now I only have one. So sad.

>113 katiekrug: This is the greatest gossip you have ever told me. Will there be red pandas???? That's so exciting!
They released 4 episodes last Thursday, and one more each Thursday after that. A little annoying at the moment because it took people a few days to get the message and they rushed to watch all 4 but it's going to be torture to wait a week for the next one! But I think overall week-to-week is the best release schedule for good shows.

>112 MickyFine:, >113 katiekrug: Re: Fridges, I don't remember if I mentioned it but my fridge died about a month into the pandemic in 2020. Very thankful I rent my apartment and so it was management's job to replace it and not mine! The "new" (2 years old now) fridge is okay except the shelves are wire racks so anything put on them is slightly unstable, and there's no cheese drawer!

My two struggles with the fridge are 1) I forget everything is in there unless I see it, so I've rearranged everything so the things I won't forget or it doesn't matter if I forget (milk, canned drinks, tall things) go in the back and things I need to be reminded exist (half-eaten cheese, open condiments, etc.) go in the front and 2) I am one person who hates cooking and so it can take me a loooong time to get through things. It looks much nicer now though!

>114 norabelle414: - Unsure about the red pandas. I did see a still shot with an oranguatan (sp?), and that is definitely not one of the zoo's regular inhabitants.

Turns out they also used the school's chapel for a scene, but that is probably of less interest to you!

>115 katiekrug: It was yesterday's episode and alas, no red pandas. It was actually kind of annoying because 1) they kept calling it a "chimp show" and then showed a (fake) orangutan and 2) orangutans are incredibly powerful and dangerous animals, it's ridiculous that anyone would ever consider having one out of its enclosure like that. I'm surprised they filmed it at a real zoo! The only real animal they showed was an emu. If you hadn't told me it was Trevor Zoo I would have assumed they filmed it at a regular park and put zoo signage up like Abbott Elementary did.

The chapel scene was nice!

Currently babysitting!

Yesterday I knit some and watched a little tv but not much. Leftover Thai food for dinner.

This morning was a bagel breakfast day, then the deputy director of my department called to ask about a new project I'm working on and we ended up meeting for a few hours and piecing out everything that will need to get done and who we can get to help us with it. Super helpful and I'm feeling much better about this project that I really have no experience with. Now I'm babysitting my niece, not very exciting since she was just going to bed when I got here. Bedtime stories were Chicka Chicka Boom boom, Llama Llama Nighty-Night, half of The Day the Crayons Quit, 8 Little Planets, and Brown bear, Brown bear, What Do You See?.

Tomorrow I have a zoo-related video meeting at 9am, and I need to buy bagels. Also hoping to finish my zoo training which is due on Monday and cook some vegetables.

Currently reading:
The first 50 pages of The Screaming Staircase.

Currently crafting:
I'm almost done with the foot of the new (adult-size) socks. I gave my niece the two pairs I knit for her and they fit great. There are pics of all 3 pairs of socks on my Ravelry account, I'll post them here when I am on a real computer instead of my phone.

Currently watching:
Poker Face episode 5 (not as good as the previous episodes but not bad) and s3e5 of Emily in Paris (still very stupid but at least they've acknowledged that work visas exist, finally, and also that lesbians exist)

Currently listening:
I listen to an Emily in Paris recap podcast called Nina, Hannah, and Emily in Paris, from the producer of Witch Please, which was on hiatus for awhile but is now back, thus why I started watching again.

Yay for toddler socks fitting!

Is the Emily in Paris podcast also academic perspectives like Witch, Please?

>118 MickyFine: Definitely not, and Emily in Paris absolutely would not stand up to that level of scrutiny. This is a show where the whole premise is that a woman gets pregnant and thus can't move to Paris for work (so Emily has to go in her place), and then instead goes to Paris when she's 8 months pregnant. However, the hosts are from Chicago, as Emily claims to be, which is very entertaining when the show does something like claim that the fanciest restaurant Emily went to before moving to Paris was Outback Steakhouse.

>119 norabelle414: Snort. I was in Chicago for 36 hours and I went somewhere fancier than that.

Good morning! (it is technically still morning)

Babysitting last night was uneventful. I cuddled the dog, knit, watched TV, and sampled a bit of my brother's very extensive bourbon collection.

Bright and sunny and cold today, my favorite weather. This morning's zoo volunteer meeting was bitter, as we're deciding what to do with our volunteer organization that is no longer supported by the zoo (as in, the zoo wants us to disband, not that they ever gave us any money or resources). I'm hoping I can continue my book club as a personal project.

A friend is coming over later today to drop off some things for me and pick up a jar of pickled onions. I need to work on my zoo training.

Currently watching:
The 1619 Project episode 2, "Race". I liked it much better than the first episode but I again found my attention wandering in the second half. Also caught up on Grown-ish, but I am getting a bit behind on TV so hoping to catch up this weekend.

Quiet Sunday.

Did some knitting and caught up on tv yesterday. I washed, peeled, seeded, and diced a butternut squash but it took me all day and my arms hurt so I saved the cooking for today. (hopefully)

Currently crafting:
My sister-in-law asked about some way to keep my niece's hands warm outside that will also allow her to suck on her middle and ring fingers. I found a pattern for convertible mittens (fingerless mittens with a flap that you can flip over the fingers to make it into a regular mitten) that has a kids size. Unfortunately it's in French but I think I have gotten it mostly translated. Knitting things in small sizes is hard though! There's one section that is supposed to be 1cm long but it's knit in a repeating pattern that is 2cm long and has to end on a particular row. The proportions are all weird. But I'm just making one as a prototype to see how it fits and then I can knit two better ones.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Shrinking (Jessica Williams is the best part), Welcome to Flatch (a good season finale, I hope it gets renewed), and Young Rock (I'm sorry to see the littlest Rock actor leave because he was by far the best, but it's so cool to go even further back in time. Do I care about wrestling? No. Do I want to watch a period show about Andre the Giant as a young man? Absolutely). I started new shows The Watchful Eye (rich family mystery in a New York apartment building), The Ark (Canadian spaceship drama), and Dear Edward (tearjerky we're-all-connected drama), all of which were fine.

Crafting pics:

Second pair of toddler socks


Stripey socks


The back of the convertible mitten, before I knit the flap or the thumb on.

Ooh really digging the colours of your stripey sock!

>124 MickyFine: Yes, same here!

Happy (?) Monday!

Yesterday I did, in fact, cook. I made butternut squash and collard greens risotto, using up the two most difficult items from my vegetable delivery, plus an onion. It's not fantastic, because my stove is too hot for risotto, but it's good enough. Now I just have potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, and onions, all of which I'm more confident with (and will keep longer). Cooking always makes me lose my appetite, though, so I only ate a few bites. Hopefully its good reheated.

I almost forgot to do my zoo training, which is due today, but remembered last night and zipped through it.

Today is grocery store day. Then my usual 1pm staff meeting has been moved to 11 and the afternoon should be quiet.

I'm cutting out caffeine for a few days to see if I can fix my sleep schedule. The last time I cut out caffeine, early in the pandemic, it had basically no effect but today I have a brutal headache so I guess its working.

Tomorrow is an in-office day and I have a lot of running around between various departments to do so I will be drinking coffee.

Thursday night I'm going to see Ride the Cyclone at my local theater.

Currently reading:
Listened to another hour or so of Slow Horses while cooking yesterday.

Currently crafting:
Finished the one convertible mitten so I'm back to the stripey socks until I get a chance to try it on my niece.

Currently playing:
I downloaded Stardew Valley on my phone yesterday; I knew I shouldn't have but here we are.

Currently watching:
This week's Saturday Night Live with Pedro Pascal, quite good. Watched another episode of Extraordinary. Last night's episodes of Miss Scarlet and the Duke (I'm guessing they're not going to get together by the end of this season but hopefully Duke and Arabella break up?? She sucks.), All Creatures Great and Small (There's been too much focus on the characters' personal history lately and not enough shenanigans), and The Last of Us.

>124 MickyFine:, >125 foggidawn: Thanks!!

>126 norabelle414: Do you like the flavour of tea, Nora? Switching coffee for black or green tea would get you lower levels of caffeine on average without going cold turkey (I say as someone who can't have caffeine at all).

>128 MickyFine: I do, but I find caffeinated tea affects me just as much as coffee does. I'm not looking to make a long-term change, just trying to reset myself into better sleep habits.

>129 norabelle414: Fair enough. Wishing you all the best with resetting your sleep clock!

Here we go, catch-up time!

>114 norabelle414: I'm actually the exact same with the fridge; out of sight out of mind, and I've lost so many veggies that way. If this strategy pays off let me know!
>122 norabelle414: I feel you; the only baby hat I've created didn't end up fitting the person in question, lol. I also made an attempt with a squash (acorn) and con confirm cutting them is like sawing through a log.
>123 norabelle414: Those things are so stinking cute *sparkly eyes* And I LOVE the colors on the stripy socks! It's very 90s.
>126 norabelle414: It's okay, I bought Stardew Valley on my computer and the switch. ConcernedApe deserves the money anyway. Any thoughts on the upcoming Haunted Chocolate game?
And sorry to hear about the cooking thing. I know someone like that in my personal sphere and, while it's hard for me to relate (I'm the opposite) I can still imagine how stressful that must be. Hopefully it'll make a great meal prep the rest of the week?
And good luck on the caffeine. I find using matcha and black Tea helps to sorta ween away from it if you need any advice.

>131 Ravenwoodwitch: Putting the less-forgettable items in the back definitely works, but it takes a lot of maintenance! I also took the little piece of paper that says what produce I got and taped it to the drawer so I won't forget what's inside.
I've been doing okay with baby hats because they're pretty easy to scale up and down, and my niece has a huge head. I just made a bunch in a bunch of sizes and maybe half of them fit.
ConcernedApe definitely deserves my $5 (plus however much I paid for PC and Switch) but me having games on my phone is not a good idea. I have not heard about any new games, I will check it out!

In the office day.

Yesterday was pretty bad. I was very cranky, had a headache all day, started a bunch of arguments on the internet. The grocery store was out of half-gallons of milk so I had to get two quarts which is more expensive. They were also out of the bulk pack of Rory's wet food, which happens fairly often, but it looks like they have rearranged the section so it's possible they won't ever have them in stock again and I might need to switch brands. I was so exhausted that I almost fell asleep in my desk chair several times, until about 7pm and then I was wide awake. Had butternut and collard greens risotto for dinner. Finally got to bed around 11 which was better than my usual ~1am but more than an hour after I was hoping to get to bed.

Today I'm back on caffeine because I had a lot of work stuff to do and I'm in the office and so need to be nice to people. I've got too much going on this week to give up coffee again, but maybe next week. More butternut and collard greens risotto for lunch. I'm sick of it. Not sure what I'm doing for dinner aside from NOT risotto. Maybe pasta or a frozen pizza.

Tomorrow I'm back in the office for more running around so... I might leave my computer at the office tonight? An incredible thought. I haven't slept more than one room away from my work computer in more than a year. It's just occurred to me that if I'm going into the office two days in a row I probably need to wear a different dress? So I guess I'm doing laundry tonight.

Currently reading:
I was lucky enough this morning to get the one shuttle driver that does not listen to talk radio, so I got a chunk of The Screaming Staircase read.

Currently crafting:
Just a couple more rows to go on the stripey socks before starting the heel

Currently watching:
Three more episodes of Extraordinary (only the finale left), one Emily in Paris (the product placement in this show is so wild, it's basically just 10 long commercials), episode 3 part 1 of Vienna Blood (Are Max and Clara going to get back together? Seems odd...)

In the office again! Two days in a row!

Yesterday was fine, though I was so tired when I got home from the office (I'm always SO tired in the afternoon). It was nice to leave my laptop at work! Though I didn't really feel any freer. Found a clean outfit to wear today so I did not have to do laundry. Made pasta for dinner. Went to bed too late and then also couldn't sleep (a rarity for me, usually once I manage to get into bed and turn out the light I fall asleep quickly) due to construction noise.

Currently reading:
I got the non-radio shuttle driver on the way home yesterday but I was too tired to read. But then I got him again this morning! And read some of The Screaming Staircase.

Currently crafting:
Did not work on the socks any but I do have a dishcloth project that I keep at work for when I'm on long phone meetings or online training and I got a few rows done on that.

Currently watching:
Finished Extraordinary which has already been renewed for season 2. I don't really like Jen and Jizzlord together, and I'm a little annoyed we didn't find out what Jen's power is (I'm guessing maybe she can remove other people's powers, based on her interaction with Luke?) but I'm so glad that Carrie and Kash broke up because he is the absolute worst. The latest episodes of The Watchful Eye (perfect levels of slightly trashy intrigue) and How I Met Your Father (perfect level of friend shenanigans).

Yay for no distracting noises on your shuttle commute!

Sorry to hear about the construction noises keeping you awake. I don't miss that part of living downtown when I was single. However, I still sleep with earplugs in the 'burbs because at certain points in the night things like the furnace turning on or my husband snoring (although his snoring is more mild than mine based on all reports) will wake me up.

I read the Lockwood books back when they were first being published, so was excited when the show came out.

>135 MickyFine: Thanks for the sympathy!

>136 The_Hibernator: Have you watched the show, Rachel? Did you like it? I've heard mixed reviews.

Even though everyone else posts in the morning I'm switching to posting in the evening, because usually by the morning I've forgotten everything that happened the day before...

Yesterday in the office was nice, all of my coworkers had to come in to get our ID cards renewed and it was nice to see everyone. We all ate lunch together in the cafeteria, I had a taco salad. I felt less tired than usual when I got home, maybe from the stimulation of actually getting to talk to real live humans. For dinner I had pasta even though I still have the last of the butternut squash and collard greens risotto to finish.

This morning was a bagel day but I lost one to the toaster gods, may it rest in burnt peace. I had a few camera-on meetings, tried to solve some Excel problems for my boss but then she had some other things to work on so we're going to try again tomorrow. After work I took a disco-nap and went to dinner with my dad (at a French restaurant - I had a French 75 and fluke en papillote) and then to the theater to see Ride the Cyclone. I loved it! It's been very popular so they've extended it an extra two weeks and I might see it again. Usually my dad drives me home from the theater when we go but my brother and I are trying to ease him away from driving so I told him I would take the Metro home. I took a shortcut through the technically-open-but-the-shops-are-closed mall and slipped and fell all the way down on the freshly-washed floor. It was fairly graceful, on my butt with my legs to the side, but my wrist does ache a bit.

Tomorrow should be quiet! Hoping to get some knitting done. Saturday I have in-person zoo training at the new bird house, which will be opening to the public on March 13.

Currently reading:
Not sure why The Screaming Staircase is taking so long! I am actually reading it. I also need to get to reading the book club book for March, since our meeting is on the 1st.

Currently crafting:
Almost done with the heel flaps on the stripey socks.

Currently watching:
Nothing today since I just got back from the theater but yesterday I watched episode 3 of The 1619 Project, about music (better than the previous two episodes, I think because the focus is narrower, but the over-an-hour run-time still dragged), two episodes of That 90s Show (I'm getting really into it), and an episode of Ramy (this episode (s3e3) was supposed to be the best of the season but I found it incredibly frustrating so I think I'm done with this show. It seems to have a lot of sympathy for characters experiencing the consequences of their own ego-driven actions and little interest in the other, helpless victims of those choices.)

Oh dang for the slip and fall. I slipped on the stairs in our house back in December and had a wicked bruise on my *ahem* backside for over a week. Hope you're not feeling too worse for the wear today.

I'm also in suspense about what you have Saturday. :)

>139 MickyFine: Whoopsies! Fixed :-)

Wrist is pretty much fine today! I slip and fall a LOT and am always fine but as I keep getting older I do wonder if the next fall could be the one that does some damage.

Birds largely freak me out but I hope you have fun at your training at the zoo.

>140 norabelle414: I also fall down at least once or twice a year (thanks, winter!) and have the same concern. My mom took a tumble last spring while walking and fractured the head of one of her forearm bones, which according to the doctors is the best kind of break to have. However, she ended up with frozen shoulder afterwards and that had a much longer recovery.

Short update tonight because I dumped a whole glass of seltzer on my computer!

Work was not quiet today, lots of questions and lots of emailing a bunch of people and they don't get back to me and then they all get back to me at once at 4pm. Then the aforementioned seltzer incident. It spilled across the keyboard on the non-power-cord side, and I currently have it propped up on a towel in front of a fan, so I think it's going to be okay.

Tomorrow is in-person zoo training, then lunch with a fellow volunteer, then nothing for the rest of the weekend.

Currently reading:
Switching my purse book to Bird Brother, since that one has a deadline.

Currently crafting:
Turned a heel and picked up the side on one sock, about to do the other. If I could get both heels fully on the needles by the end of this weekend that would be perfect. The repeating-pattern-yarn gods have really smiled on me with this pair, they look much more similar than the last pair.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Poker Face and Grown-ish and watched an episode of That 90s Show. I watched the first episode of a new comedy called Not Dead Yet, based on Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up and starring Gina Rodriguez from Jane the Virgin and Hannah Simone from New Girl, about a woman who is a mess and gets a job writing obituaries and starts seeing the ghosts of her subjects. I didn't love it but it's good enough to keep going. I also started the new season of You. I found last season pretty disappointing but this one at least seems better. And I watched s6e1 of The Vampire Diaries, because the recap podcast I listen to is back from hiatus.

I hope your computer is recovering well! Looking forward to hearing about zoo training.

Oh no! I hope your computer is OK.

My computer seems fine? It's running okay and nothing is too sticky.

This morning I had bird house training. There were 33 of us and we split into 3 groups and had a short training on common visitor questions, then a tour of the new bird house, then more training on bird-specific messaging and how to talk to visitors who have FOB (Fear Of Birds). I can't share any pictures or many details yet but I'll post some links when the media starts reporting on the upcoming opening. Then I had lunch with a few other volunteers at a British restaurant (I had chicken tikka, which was fine but I don't think I'll get it there again). Then it's just been knitting and TV.

Nothing going on tomorrow, I'll probably have a bagel for breakfast because I didn't have time to have one this morning, and then probably a frozen pizza for dinner. I do have a lot of laundry to do but I learned the hard way a few years ago that EVERYONE in my building thinks it's a great idea to do laundry during the super bowl.

Currently reading:
I talked about Bird Brother today with a lot of other volunteers, but I haven't started it. One of the other book club members told me that she started it and it's an easy read so I'm looking forward to it.

Currently crafting:
I have about 5 more stitches to pick up on the second sock heel and then its just decreasing and the feet left! But the yarn is very dark and I can't see it very well so I think I need to wait until the morning.

Currently watching:
I missed some bits from last week's episode of The Last of Us, so I rewatched that and then watched this week's which was released Friday instead of Sunday because of the super bowl. No zombies for several episodes and then that.....wow!. Caught up on Abbott Elementary, Kung Fu, and the season 9 premiere of The Flash (I enjoyed this episode and I hope they can keep it up for the rest of this final season!). Watched an episode each of You, That 90s Show, and episode 4 of The 1619 Project, Capitalism. (The best episode so far, I think, with a clear throughline from slavery, to Nikole's own family, to Amazon workers.)

I woke up this morning feeling unsettled for some reason, but it's been an uneventful day.

I went out in the rain to get a bagel this morning. Wrote out a grocery shopping list for tomorrow. I went to make leftover pasta for dinner last night and realized I was completely out of pasta sauce so I'm very annoyed with myself.

Tomorrow it's back to work (virtually). Tuesday my dad could be having cataract surgery? He doesn't know if its going to be on the 14th or the 21st. If it's the 14th I'll be picking him up from the clinic, but if it's the 21st I have a meeting I can't miss.

Currently crafting:
Got quite a lot done on the stripey socks! The gusset decrease is always my favorite part because I know it's only going to get easier. I'm thinking about what my next socks will be....maybe some yellow and blue gradient yarn and a nice instep pattern for my sister-in-law. (Her birthday is in May so that should be good timing).

Currently watching:
Got through a lot today, caught up on Shrinking, Dear Edward, The Ark (not sure how I feel about it yet), and Young Rock. Watched one episode each of You, That 90s Show, and The 1619 Project (episode 5, Fear, was definitely the most moving so far). Then tonight's episodes of Miss Scarlet and the Duke (the season finale! A cliffhanger! Ahhh!), All Creatures Great and Small (I liked the TB-testing plotline this season but not the flashbacks to characters' pasts nor the "should I go to war??" drama), and Vienna Blood (Poor Oskar! But I didn't really understand this episode ... was the American framed for her murder by the government? or no?)

Hey Nora :)

I actually saw that episode of The Last Of Us with some friends. lots of changes from the game on that one, but ultimately handled with grace and care I think. And I hope your dad's surgery goes okay. My mom had the same thing done with both her eyes and it was a pretty nerve-wracking time, but her vision is so much better now. Hopefully your dad has the same improvement :)

>145 norabelle414: Having seen multiple photos of Canada geese attacks, my FOB is totally logical. ;)

>147 Ravenwoodwitch: This is my dad's second eye cataract surgery, and unfortunately the one on his first eye a couple years ago didn't go well. Brave of him to get the other one done!

>148 MickyFine: We have three open aviaries, and while I think all the birds in there are tiny and cute, it would be good for neither people nor birds for anyone to be uncomfortable! So we have a couple places where people can see the birds from behind glass and plenty of places where they can learn about birds without seeing any live ones.

>149 norabelle414: Oh nice! One day I'll make it to DC, I hope.

Woke up fine this morning, then realized I didn't really have any clean clothes.
Prepped for a staff meeting, went to the grocery store. They didn't have half-gallons of milk again (I bought two quarts) and they didn't have bulk packs of Rory's food again. Maybe I should try going on a different day of the week? I also forgot to get pasta sauce again even though it was on my list. My grocery store has GREAT fresh-made sushi so I always have that for lunch on Mondays. Had my staff meeting, answered some emails, took a COVID test, which I do every week before I go into the office. I did three loads of laundry but for one of them the dryer door was broken and so it only got half-dried. I was too cheap and lazy to move it to a different dryer and pay another $2.50 so the damp items are just spread out across my apartment.

Tomorrow I'm in the office. Going to take advantage of the printer and print out tickets to an event next week and maybe a knitting pattern. Taking Bird Brother in my purse and maybe also The Screaming Staircase

Currently listening:
A lot of my favorite podcasts come out on Mondays so I had a good time today listening to Overdue talk about Of Mice and Men and The Worst Bestsellers is back from hiatus and discussing Nora Roberts and The Next Always (they genuinely loved it, though). And then talking about the episodes in their respective Discord servers.

Currently crafting:
I was knitting away during my staff meeting but accidentally decreased too much and had to backtrack! But I got a lot done anyway. I would also like to note that the two center-pull balls I made by hand out of this one 100g hank are SO GOOD; they're still about the same size and I haven't gotten a single tangle this whole time I've been knitting two-at-a-time from both ends.

Currently playing:
Played a few cheeky days of Stardew Valley on my phone this afternoon.

Currently watching:
Just one lonely episode of You today. I'm almost done with the half-season, which is good because I've almost been spoiled several times by articles about Penn Badgley being weird.

Not feeling great this evening, I can't tell if it's lack of sleep or what.

Went into the office today but it was kind of a let-down after last week when all my coworkers were in too. Had a gyro from the cafeteria for lunch. I was really hungry when I got home so I ate a bunch of snacks and then I wasn't really hungry for dinner. I got a ticket to see Ride the Cyclone again next week.

Tomorrow is my household goods delivery day. Nothing going on this week until Friday, when I'm babysitting.

Currently reading:
Read about 30 pages of Bird Brother on the bus. The other volunteer was right, it is a very quick read.

Currently crafting:
Didn't knit any today but I did print out a couple patterns. One for quick little drawstring bags with a bulky yarn, and another that I'll use for my next pair of socks.

Currently watching:
Caught up on The Watchful Eye, Not Dead Yet, and the first half of You (not really feeling season, even though I love Charlotte Ritchie. But we'll see how the second half goes.)

Slept in a bit this morning. An hour was all I could manage but at least it was something. My cell phone operating system updated last week and the new one has some features that I really like, including the return of a sleep mode which I had on a previous phone and really missed. It turns on automatically at a time set by me and sets my phone to do-not-disturb, restricts my access to a lot of apps like games and social media, and sets the screen to grayscale (which I find to be a helpful reminder that I'm not supposed to be on my phone.) BUT it won't do that without setting an alarm for the time the sleep mode turns off. I already have many alarms! I don't want another one! So every single day I have to wait until after sleep mode turns on, and then go to my alarms and turn off the one that was automatically set. It will turn off for the next day but then turns on again when sleep mode turns on again. So frustrating!!! I only remember to turn it off about half the time.

Today I had a few meetings and answered some emails in addition to working on my projects. I also did some research on options for the future of the zoo volunteer board and sent some inquiry emails to the zoo education department. There was a lot of interest in the book club at training over the weekend so I want to make sure everyone knows how to join. My weekly household goods delivery arrived, and there was a sample can of local coldbrew coffee as a Valentine's Day bonus. I'm not usually a cold-coffee person so I think I'll save it for an emergency. It's been so warm lately that I've been wearing my "vegan leather" (back in my day we called it "pleather") moto jacket almost every time I go out, instead of my winter coat, and it's looking pretty ratty so I ordered a new one.

Tomorrow I have two camera-on meetings, and babysitting on Friday.

Currently crafting:
I got a LOT done on the stripey socks and they're looking great:


I also started a side-project of a little drawstring bag pattern I found, to use up a ton of half-skeins of worsted-weight acrylic that I have left over from the baby blanket in 2021.

Currently listening:
I listened to last week's episode of the Eurovisioncast podcast and I could only understand half of what they were saying because of the Liverpool accents but it got me very pumped and I watched a ton of YouTube videos from 2022 and 2021's contests.

Currently watching:
Caught up on How I Met Your Father, watched the Valentine's Day special of Harley Quinn (fine, very dirty), the last two episodes of That 90s Show (good! I'm happy there will be more), and the final episode of The 1619 Project, "Justice". I thought it was a good closing note. Overall there was a lot of good stuff here but I wish the episodes had been a bit shorter (42 minutes instead of 62) and there were more of them.

I would love to be watching the second half of the first season of The Nevers, which was canned by HBO/Discovery and subsequently picked up by Tubi, but I can't for the life of me figure out how Tubi works.

>153 norabelle414: Your socks are looking great! I should put another sock project on the needles soon, but I've been enjoying the shawl I've been working on so much that I haven't started any alternate projects in a bit.

>154 bell7: Thanks! It took me a long time to find a pattern that really clicked for me but now that I have all I want to do is knit socks.

Ooh, love the colour for your socks, Nora!

My Samsung phone recently added the sleep mode feature too. I can turn the feature on but turn off the alarm portion though. Fingers crossed for an update to allow for that for you!

>156 MickyFine: Hmm, can you set the sleep mode to turn on automatically without turning the alarm on automatically as well? That's the part I can't do. If I turn on the sleep mode manually the alarm does not turn on, but I need it to be automatic to work with my brain.

>157 norabelle414: Right now I have it set for the same timeframe, 7 days a week and then I just turn off the alarm once. If I adjust the time for sleep mode, sometimes the alarm goes back on and I have to fudge with that but I haven't experimented with it a ton yet.

Hmm I could have sworn I posted something yesterday but I guess not?

It's been a long, hard week for people who care about trans people, between deaths, video games, and articles in one of the biggest newspapers in the world. I'm going to try to take care of myself this weekend and stay a little more offline than usual.

Work today was mostly quiet, except for a few small things I was tasked with that I had already done but my email had been ignored (annoying!) and an impromptu meeting about the future of our telework. Our cubicles are going to be moved around again in the next month and starting in April everyone will be expected to be in the office one day a week. I'm already doing that so I honestly would rather have not been in the meeting, since I'm the only person who doesn't love teleworking and I stick out like a sore thumb.

Tonight I babysat, which was not very fun because my niece is teething and was crying so hard I thought she might vom. But she calmed down as soon as we started reading books, as usual.

Tomorrow I need to buy bagels. Sunday night my brother and I are starting a new monthly dinner out with our dad, just the three of us. We are hoping to make sure everything in his life is going smoothly and also ease him off of driving, but he is insisting on driving to dinner anyway.

Currently reading:
A little over halfway done with Bird Brother. The time is switching back and forth between 2017 and a vague early-90s which can be a little hard to follow. The writer (not really a ghostwriter since her name is on the cover) did a good job making the story neat while keeping a stream-of-consciousness

Currently crafting:
Finished half of yesterday's drawstring bag, and almost ready to knit the cuff of the stripey socks. I was hoping I could try the convertible mitten from >123 norabelle414: on my niece while I was babysitting but she was too fussy.

Currently watching:
Yesterday I caught up on Poker Face, Not Dead Yet, The Flash, and Kung Fu. Today I just watched one little episode of Full House

A quiet one today.

I slept quite late this morning, and went out to get bagels. Vegged out for the rest of the day, and made pasta for dinner. Folded some laundry (but not all of it....)

Currently playing:
Picked up Two Point Hospital for the first time in awhile. I've beat all of the goals a few times before, but why not do it again?

Currently watching:
Caught up on The Ark, Grown-ish, Dear Edward, Shrinking, Whose Line Is It Anyway, and Young Rock. Watched the first episode of season 2 of The Originals. I started some new shows: Hello Tomorrow! (traveling salesmen in the retro-futuristic 1960s sell timeshares on the moon....maybe), Copenhagen Cowboy (not for me), and The Empress (About Princess Sisi of Austria...I had been putting this one off for awhile and my expectations were super high and it did not disappoint!)

It was cold yesterday so I slept really well last night.

Did nothing today until dinner, when I went out to eat with just my dad and my brother. It was probably the first time we have gotten together just the three of us in 5 years or more. My brother and I are hoping that if we can set a good precedent then we can all feel more comfortable getting together to have difficult conversations in the future, about our dad's girlfriend or his driving. (My brother and I had specifically picked a metro-accessible restaurant for dinner but dad insisted on driving anyway.) We had Lebanese food.

Tomorrow I'm seeing them both again because we're taking my niece on her very first trip to the zoo! I'm very excited but trying not to get my hopes up too much because of course you have to play things by ear with a baby.

Currently playing:
Played more Stardew Valley on my phone than I should have today.

Currently watching:
I'm mostly caught up on other things so today I watched all of season 1 of I Hate Suzie, a British dark comedy about an actress who has compromising photos leaked and has a bad time of it. I meant to watch it when it first came out in 2020 but never got around to it, but now there's a second season. I didn't love the first season but the second season is only 3 episodes (British shows, amiright?) so I'll probably just watch it. Tonight I also watched the All Creatures Great and Small Christmas special (I liked having an evacuee in the house but "Hanukkah is Jewish Christmas" is a big miss. And Tristan and James drooling over getting to be soldiers is so boring.) and episode 6 of The Last of Us.

No such thing as more Stardew Valley than you should have; but I also know what you mean as someone who can accidentally get lost scrolling through youtube shorts for hours if I'm not careful.
Best of luck taking the baby to the zoo! (To be honest, I always find the animals have funnier reactions to babies than the babies do to them.)

>162 Ravenwoodwitch: Certainly not Stardew Valley in particular, but definitely more video games than I should have :-)

Did not post yesterday because once again I was up too late playing video games.

Yesterday morning my brother picked me up and then we picked up our dad and we all went to the zoo! The baby was more interested in all of the people than the animals, but we did look at some snakehead fish, giant pandas, American bison, orangutans, and Asian elephants. We went to the brand new bird house, not yet open to the public, for a special event for volunteers and their guests. The baby *loved* the ducks and she had a whole conversation with a turkey in some mystical baby-turkey language. On the way back to the car we looked at North American river otters and California sea lions. The zoo was very crowded; I don't love going on Presidents Day.

The rest of the day I did nothing but play a video game and listen to podcasts. It did keep me offline, I suppose, but it's not how I would have liked to spend my time. I made a frozen pizza for dinner but mostly forgot to eat it.

Today I'm in the office. It's relatively quiet. Bought a BLT for lunch, the tomatoes were surprisingly good for this time of year. Nothing to do tonight except eat leftover pizza, but maybe I will get back to knitting or reading....

Tomorrow should be a quiet day at home. I need to go to the grocery store since I did not go Monday. Maybe they'll have half-gallons of milk and/or Rory's cat food? If so I might move grocery day to Wednesdays permanently.

Currently playing:
Too much Two Point Hospital.

>164 norabelle414: A good winter tomato is always a lovely surprise.

I hope your evening is full of quiet good things. :)

The zoo sounds lovely despite crowds!

>165 MickyFine: Isn't it? If I had thought about it for a minute longer I probably would have gotten a sandwich without tomatoes instead, but I'm glad I didn't.

>166 curioussquared: It was pretty great. The bird house event had timed tickets so that, at least, was not crowded. I'm not sure what it is about Presidents Day that is always so busy at the zoo.... maybe everyone thinks it won't be busy because it's winter so they all show up?

Yesterday did end up quiet (as far as I can remember..... I'm now terrible at remembering anything that happens). I was supposed to have a monthly meeting with my boss but she did not show up and I have not heard from her about rescheduling. The tournament bracket was released for March Mammal Madness, a sports-like event in which scientists pit animals against each other (fictionally) and describe their matchups on Twitter. I love it and I always learn a lot! I haven't filled out my bracket yet, the first battle isn't until the 13th, but I'll share it here when I do.

Today was quite a lot of chaos. My first meeting of the day was at 11 and I was planning to go to the grocery store before that but didn't. The meeting itself was supposed to be informational about where our cubicles will be moving sometime in the future, but we were instructed that all 9 of us in my department, and 4 people in an adjacent department, need to be completely moved by the end of the day on Friday. A ridiculous thing to ask. None of us are prepared to go into the office tomorrow or Friday, and the director of our department is on a work trip until the end of next week. I told our contact in facilities that I could get 6 of 9 moved on Tuesday (each person is actually only moving about 30 feet so it's not that much work once someone is available to do it) and she said no, everyone needs to be moved by Friday. Okay? That's not going to happen, I don't know what she expects.

I did go to the grocery store, though later than I wanted. They had half-gallons of milk again but not Rory's cat food. I picked up a few other brands to try out in case we have to switch permanently. It seems like so many types of wet cat food are "in gravy" now, and the vet says that he should only eat the pate kind because the gravy is just salt and fat and isn't good for him. Not a lot of options. I might have to go into the office on Monday next week so Wednesday grocery shopping might be permanent.

Tomorrow I might try to get started on my taxes. After work I'm going to dinner and then to see Ride the Cyclone again. Friday I have conflicting livestreams to watch - Aubrey Gordon talking about her new book "You Just Need to Lose Weight' and 19 Other Myths About Fat People or the podcast Overdue talking about the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book Ghost Train.

Currently reading:
I did read a chunk of Bird Brother on the way home yesterday. It goes by pretty quickly when I actually manage to pick it up (unlike The Screaming Staircase).

Currently crafting:
Did get a few more rows of the stripey socks done and am estimating when I should start the ribbed cuff. I was hoping my brother would text me a picture of my niece wearing the sample convertible mitten I made her so that I can see how much smaller I need to make them, but he hasn't gotten around to it yet.

Currently watching:
Caught up on a bunch: Last Week Tonight, How I Met Your Father, The Watchful Eye, and last week's episode of Abbott Elementary. I watched the first episode of the new show The Company You Keep, about a romantic pairing who have great chemistry and keep running into each other because he's secretly doing heists and she's secretly a CIA agent. It was decent! Romance is good, heists are good, Milo Ventimiglia is handsome and good at acting.

Leonard will only eat seafood-flavored wet food, and only pate-style, and our grocery store does not reliably have it. We order the Fancy Feast variety pack from Chewy. I think you've mentioned having issues getting things delivered to your apartment, though, so that might not be an option?

Ooh, Milo and heists?! You have my attention.

>137 norabelle414: I am enjoying Lockwood and Co on Netflix, yes. I'm only about half-way through though. Admittedly, it doesn't follow the books well. Have you watched it yet?

>169 katiekrug: I can only get things delivered to the mail room, which I don't usually do because its only slightly closer than just going to the grocery store, but it is an option if needed.

>170 MickyFine: I don't want to get my hopes up too much because it is a network tv show but I was very charmed.

>171 The_Hibernator: Oh good! I do want to finish the first book before I watch the show but it's been slow going.

Slightly less chaotic day today.

Work was still dealing with logistics of getting everyone moved by Friday. Then I took a nap, then I got a cheesesteak for dinner, then I went to see Ride the Cyclone again! It was still great. I had a center seat this time which was a much better view of the incredible crane work for Jane Doe. Now I'm doing what I always do after seeing a musical - listening to the cast recording and finding more musicals to see. Sweeney Todd in May? Yes. Hadestown again in June? Thank you!

Tomorrow I have the aforementioned (>168 norabelle414:) 2 livestream options. It's also my mom's birthday - I wasn't sure if she would be home from vacation yet so I sent her some artificial flowers instead of real ones.

Currently crafting:
If I could manage to sit down and knit for half an hour I would have finished these socks long ago, but alas.
My sister-in-law says she thinks that the convertible mitten in >123 norabelle414: fits fine so I'll knit another identical one.

Currently reading:
I downloaded some audiobooks which made me realize I should listen to the audiobooks I already have checked out, so I listened to Slow Horses for a bit.

We did end up getting almost all my coworkers moved today. I'll be going into the office on Monday to double-check. We were also told that we will all need to go into the office two days a week starting in mid-April. Not a big change for me but I don't look forward to hearing all my coworkers complain about it.

I called my mom for her birthday and made sure she got the artificial flowers I sent, which she did and she loved them. I did manage to watch both livestreams - Aubrey Gordon was very moving and the Overdue Podcast discussion of Ghost Train went way off the rails (pun intended).

Tomorrow I'm just catching up on TV, then Sunday I'm going to my friend's house for her birthday. We're having an early dinner but she lives way in the suburbs on the other side of the city so it'll be basically an all-day thing.

Currently crafting:
Halfway through the cuffs on the stripey socks. The self-striping repeat has turned out beautifully, just by chance.

Currently watching:
s1e12 of Family Matters, a show I never watched when it was on. This episode is the "official" introduction of Urkel, which is awkward since he's been in most of the cold opens. Last episode he was bathing in Mama Winslow's bathtub, this episode no one has heard of him before.
s6e2 of The Vampire Diaries - seasons 4 and 5 were rough but I'm glad I stuck it out because this one is good.

Our work finally announced that a hybrid WFH model has been approved on a permanent basis (we've technically been "piloting" for a year and a half). No details yet though on what the program will look like in its permanent state. Crossing my fingers your coworkers are mostly chill about your upcoming change.

Have an excellent quiet day at home!

>175 MickyFine: You seem to have a good schedule for tasks that are done best working from home vs. done best in the office, so hope your new hybrid model works out for you!

I was trying not to get my hopes up but we did get a bit of snow today! Pretty, big, fat flakes for a couple hours. Didn't stick to anything, of course, because it was 78F out a day and a half ago.

Just caught up on TV today. I was going to try to bake a ton of sweet potato fries today but of course my smoke detector went off just from pre-heating the oven. I baked about a third of them in the toaster oven in two batches, then put the rest in the fridge for later. They're not as good in the toaster oven because it doesn't get hot enough, but still not bad.

It's probably going to be a late night tonight because my neighbor is having a very loud party, but I might try knitting and listening to audiobooks in bed until 1:30 instead of my usual fussing around on the internet.

Tomorrow I'm getting lunch with my friend for her birthday.

Currently watching:
Caught up on everything: The Ark, The Flash, Animal Control, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Abbott Elementary, Grown-ish, Kung Fu, Not Dead Yet, Young Rock, Dear Edward, Shrinking, and Hello Tomorrow. I watched all of season 2 of I Love Suzie, which was fine but still didn't really speak to me.

>176 norabelle414: I'm really happy it'll be permanent as an option. Mostly curious to see how many mandated in office days will be required as right now it's 50%, which means 2 days one week and 3 days the other.

I feel you on the smoke detector pain. Our upstairs detector will go off if you open the oven door and the temperature is above 375°F. On the bright side, it means we don't have to worry about regular testing. 😆

Have a great time with your friend today!

>178 MickyFine: Cooking already makes me SO ANXIOUS, why not add a blaring alarm that I know all of my neighbors can hear to the mix?

Sometimes if I know I'm going to set off the alarm I'll put a plastic shower cap over the smoke detector (and then of course promptly remove it as soon as I'm done)

>179 norabelle414: Tim's steak cooking routine involves searing it and then baking it at a temperature that invariably causes the smoke alarm to go off so his routine has now expanded to include disabling the smoke alarm while he's cooking, lol.

Yesterday my friends and I went out to get dumplings to celebrate one friend's birthday, and then to her house to play some games. I had a lovely long train ride there, with lots of reading time, and then got a ride home.

Today I'm at the office to make sure all of our moves are finished. They're not - several of the offices/cubicles we're supposed to move into still have other people's stuff in them. A coworker friend and I went out to get bahn mi for lunch, and it was excellent. I got the Wordle in 2 today. I'm very stubborn about using the same starter word every single day and once in awhile it pays off.

Nothing going on tonight but catching up on TV, and hopefully filling out part of my March Mammal Madness bracket.

Tomorrow I'll be back in the office, so I'm going to *gasp* leave my computer here overnight. Since I didn't go to the grocery store this morning I will be going on Wednesday morning. Wednesday night is book club, then Thursday or Friday I might do my taxes.

Currently playing:
At my friend's house we played a new card game I got for Christmas, Cat Lady, which is kind of like Sushi Go but instead of collecting sushi you are collecting and feeding stray cats. We also played the card game Machi Koro, a favorite of mine, and a round of Mario Party, which I had never played before.

Currently reading:
I finished Bird Brother on the bus this morning (the bulk of it was read on the Metro on Sunday). It was very enjoyable! Next I'm going to try to finish The Screaming Staircase.

Currently crafting:
Finally finished those stripey socks and they are currently blocking. Cast on the next pair of socks, a gradient yarn that goes from yellow to blue. I might do an instep pattern but I'm only on the toes for now.

Currently watching:
Caught up on The Last of Us (this was a flashback so of course Riley was going to die, but the lesbian-kiss-and-immediate-death trope still stings) and Poker Face.

>181 norabelle414: Man, that move sounds like a pain in the keister; I'm so sorry.
I see you make a lot of socks with your knitting. Is it a favorite pattern to follow? I'm partial to scarves.

>182 Ravenwoodwitch: It's especially annoying to move when no one is actually going into the office. I overheard someone who moved out of a cubicle that one of my teammates moved into complaining that she (who comes into the office every day) had to drop everything and move her stuff to accommodate someone who has never come in once, and I can't say I blame her.

Two-at-once, toe-up style patterns work best for me (I'm very bad at counting rows, measuring, and all the other skills required to make two identical things) and I really like this free pattern from KnitPicks: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/two-at-once-toe-up-magic-loop-socks

>181 norabelle414: Mmm, I haven't had banh mi for a few months. Must rectify that soon.

Looking forward to pictures of the newest socks. :)

I always haul home my computer every night, even when I'm in office multiple days in a row because I'm so paranoid that I'll come down with an illness overnight and don't want to have to figure out getting my computer for WFH days when I'm better enough to work. Do I have to? Probably not. But still do it every day. :P

>181 norabelle414: I'm the same way about my Wordle starting words. The day I got it in one with my old starting word TRAIN was so exciting and I wouldn't be able to bear it if I switched up words and then missed getting it in one.

Yumm, banh mi. I tried to convince Tim and my friend to get them for dinner when we were hanging out Sunday night but they overruled me and we got pizza instead.

>184 MickyFine: I miss having to take time off because I don't have my computer, honestly. I feel like I have to be working all the time, because I technically can.

>185 curioussquared: My starter word hasn't been the answer yet and I have no idea what I will do when it does! I think my mom still uses her old starter word even though its been the answer before, just because she likes it.

Quiet day in the office today.

The vibes felt really off this morning - on the bus on the way to work I saw SIX different cars that had been pulled over in several different jurisdictions, when I don't think I've ever seen any on my morning commute before. Then, about 1/3 of the way down the road to my office (the whole bus ride is basically one road) there was a really really long line of cars exiting at some random exit. I expected there was an accident or road closure ahead, but nothing. The road was just empty the whole way to work. Ominous. Everything turned out fine, though. I even had good tomatoes on my BLT again.

Since I left my computer at work yesterday I used the extra space in my backpack today to take some snacks to work. Ordered Thai delivery for dinner. This evening I organized my schedule for the next couple weeks and signed up for some zoo volunteer shifts.

Currently crafting:
Here's some pics of the finished socks, one with good bathroom lighting and one with bad bedroom lighting


Currently watching:
Caught up on yesterdays The Watchful Eye (not sure why Elena is continuing with this plot now that she knows who her boyfriend is? Obviously he's not going to share the loot with you, girl) and today's How I Met Your Father (can't wait for the future when President Ariana Grande socializes US healthcare) and rewatched the first two episodes of Ted Lasso.

>187 norabelle414: As always, the socks look snuggly and warm.
You know, I sometimes think there's days where enough people are "off" their usual rhythm that it disrupts the general flow. But that whole experience sounds weird and I hope things go smoothly for you the rest of the day at least.

Another quiet one! One of my bosses was supposed to be in the office today for the first time since her desk moved so I was expecting to get a lot of questions from her about where everything is, but no.

Went to the grocery store, they did have half-gallons of milk again, and a multi-pack of the food Rory likes (though not as big as the one I used to get). Unfortunately I was a bit hungry when I went so I also bought half a cake? oops. It was also household goods delivery day, and I got a bunch of snacks to keep at the office.

This evening was the first of two book club meetings about Bird Brother: A Falconer's Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife. Everyone loved it. The second book club meeting will be Saturday morning.

Currently crafting:
Started the instep pattern on the new pair of socks. It's hard to see in the photo but there's a little cable running up the center.


Currently reading:
The next book for book club will be Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms by Eugenia Bone, but I won't start it until Saturday.

Currently listening to:
Back-to-back really thoughtful episodes of If Books Could Kill podcast about the unsubstantiated panic that trans kids are transitioning too easily, and Maintenance Phase about pediatric recommendations of diet pills and bariatric surgery for children. Difficult to listen to but I appreciate being more informed.

Currently watching:
I kind of ? figured out how Tubi works and was able to rewatch episode 1, 2, and 4 of The Nevers. No idea when I'll be able to watch the previously unaired episodes. Also watched one more episode of The Empress. Wednesdays feel weird to me now because a ton of shows I watch are on live TV but I can't watch live TV anymore so I have to wait until tomorrow.

The finished socks are beautiful and I look forward to seeing how the instep pattern turns out on the newly started pair.

Huzzah for the grocery store finally having the things you need!

>189 norabelle414: I'm not really a podcast person but that Maintenance Phase episode sounds interesting. I just read that viral Ozempic article from The Cut and pediatric prescriptions were mentioned.

>189 norabelle414: It's really difficult not to be dispirited right now: a major "liberal" newspaper lying about trans kids and the GOP actively trying to harm them; the Biden administration moving to effectively end asylum; and, today's pandering by the Democratic party to Republicans' fearmongering over DC's autonomy. Just endless Republican talking points in both the media and the Democratic party right now! I can't even rant on my own thread because I'm in the Green Dragon, lol.

By the way, I just participated in HIAS' webinar on fighting back against the asylum ban. If anyone would like more info on ways to help, let me know in a PM.

(Apologies for taking over your thread for a post, Nora.)

Yay for Rory's food!

The finished socks look great! I've never tried toe-up socks and am intrigued by two-at-a-time but never figured it out. I may ask you to show me sometime lol. And I'm looking forward to seeing how the new socks turn out.

>190 MickyFine: Thanks Micky!

>191 curioussquared: I think if you're going to go with one podcast, Maintenance Phase is a great one to start with for anyone who has had issues with diet culture or fatphobia. The hosts are professional writers and journalists who do a ton of research, interview experts (on background - it's not an interview podcast) and never make assumptions. I'm pretty picky about podcasts and it is top-tier.

>192 libraryperilous: Feel free to rant here, Diana! It's been very discouraging to see the political party of the President change, and then very little else. It felt like Democrats were fighting tooth and nail from 2016-2020 and since then have been taking a nap. The denial of DC autonomy hits particularly close to home, as I daydream about being able to afford to live in the city instead of across the river but know that would mean giving up my right to democratically elected representation.

I am trying to get more involved with with activism but it's difficult because of my job. I'm a government contractor which means I face the same level of scrutiny as a government employee but without the freedom-of-speech job protections. Currently I'm trying to focus on my local neighborhood, where there is rabid opposition from homeowners against legalizing any housing besides single-family homes (for which the average price is $1.3mil).

>193 bell7: I would be so happy to show you! If you've never used the magic loop technique before, you can also knit two-at-a-time using two circular needles. It can look pretty tangly, especially if you're knitting one sock from each end of the same skein, but it all works out in the end.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be gone for so long! My Talk page got pretty overwhelming with all the bug report cleanup and then I fell in a (metaphorical) hole.

You didn't miss anything here. The second book club meeting was on Saturday but both people who had signed up did not attend (one had COVID and the other had other plans) so I sat on Zoom by myself for 15 minutes and then called it a day. Yesterday I went to the grocery store quite late in the work day (almost 5pm) and it was very busy which I did not love. I had a coupon for a free item at Nando's that was expiring so I had Nando's takeout for dinner.

Today I'm at the office. I'm leaving a bit early to walk my brother's dog because it's his (my brother's, not the dog's) first day of a new job today and he won't be home until late and my sister-in-law is out of town. Having sushi for dinner because I bought it at the grocery store yesterday out of habit (my grocery store has great fresh-made sushi) before I remembered that I had the Nando's coupon to use. I also really need to work on my March Mammal Madness bracket...it felt like I had forever to do it but that was two weeks ago now.

Currently playing:
Still really addicted to playing Stardew Valley on my phone. I think I like it better than on Switch or PC because I don't have to remember which buttons do what. Thank goodness for the new bedtime function on my phone which will hard quit in the middle of the game if I play too late.

Currently crafting:
I have only made a little bit of progress on the socks but I did finish the little drawstring bag I was working on. I washed it but it's taking *forever* to dry because its worsted weight. I need to put a picture on Ravelry, and then I'll post it here too. I really need to knit the second convertible mitten for my niece before it's too warm to wear them.

Currently watching:
Caught up on ~everything~, I won't list a whole week's worth here! I'm 6 episodes into my Ted Lasso rewatch, and I did manage to figure out how to watch the rest of the second half of The Nevers, but it wasn't anywhere close to as good as the first half so not a lot to say.

>161 norabelle414: Christmas special
Yeah, that bothered me too.

I'm enjoying your knitting posts, hadn't thought about the problem of keeping a pair in sync. (I don't know how to knit. I learned how to crochet as a kid but haven't done it in ages.)

>196 qebo: It doesn't seem to be something that bothers other knitters, but I would definitely notice if one of my socks was 2 rows shorter than the other, so I worry about it a lot!

Nothing to see here. Didn't do anything today. Had leftovers for lunch and a bag salad with canned salmon for dinner. My household delivery came but I didn't order anything interesting this week.

Tomorrow I have a (free) ticket to see Alison Bechdel at the main branch of my local library, but I might just watch the livestream instead.

Currently playing:
More Stardew Valley.

Currently watching:
Caught up on How I Met Your Father and The Watchful Eye. Watched the first two episodes of the new History of the World, Part II, which is fine, and the first episode of Rain Dogs, starring Daisy May Cooper, who I loved on Taskmaster, which is also fine. I'm up to s2e2 on my rewatch of Ted Lasso, and also started rewatching season 1 of Shadow & Bone in preparation for season 2 coming out next week. I'm excited for the season finales of The Last of Us and Poker Face this week, which are both great shows.

A loooong day of work today. Lots of meetings. I didn't get done with meetings until 4:45 and still had stuff get done and Alison Bechdel was at 6:30 so I just watched the livestream and did not go in person. A good local barbeque food truck was next door so I got that for dinner. They make something called a "pearl" which is a container filled with a layer of mac & cheese, a layer of baked beans, a layer of pulled pork or chicken, a layer of bbq sauce, and a layer of coleslaw. I got two and put the other in the fridge for tomorrow.

Alison Bechdel was great - the talk was part of a speaker series and not a book promotion tour so she just chatted generally about her experiences writing and drawing her books and there were a wide variety of nice questions. The link to watch the recording is here if anyone is interested: https://youtube.com/live/wTqTdaxYxvA?si=EnSIkaIECMiOmarE

Currently crafting:
Here are pictures of the finished drawstring bag, seltzer can for scale

The pattern is for three different sizes; this is the largest. I'll definitely make more of them because I have SO MUCH of this worsted acrylic yarn to use up.

Currently playing:
I listen to a Pokemon podcast called EXP. Share that is playing through all of the games in order and they are finally about to start Let's Go Eevee/Pikachu so I'm debating making a new profile on my Switch so I can play along.

Currently watching:
In between meetings today I was decompressing by watching music videos for this year's Eurovision contestants. Of the ones I've seen so far my favorite by far is Austria's song "Who the Hell Is Edgar?" which is about being a good writer because you're possessed by the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMmLeV47Au4
I also watched a 30-minute documentary on one of last year's songs, "Give That Wolf a Banana", the artists of which were mostly a secret until last month. It's a very funny song and it was a good documentary!
On tv I watched the season finales of Kung Fu (I think this show has not technically been canceled yet but the creators saw the writing on the wall and made a very nice ending) and Poker Face (a great season finale but I like the more episodic episodes better. Can't wait for next season!)

The bag is so cute! It feels like something out of a fantasy novel or a DnD campaign.

>199 norabelle414: Isn’t “Poker Face” great?! Great writing and scting!

Karen O

>200 curioussquared: Thanks! I do think they would make nice gift bags.

>201 klobrien2: It is! I love everyone involved.

I'm still here...

Did nothing on Friday. Saturday I had my first real volunteer shift at the new bird house and it was great! The building is on timed-entry passes so that the birds don't get too overwhelmed and an added bonus is that I also don't get too overwhelmed. On the 25th I'll be volunteering at the elephant house; I'm trying to rotate around so I can get used to every exhibit.

I got a new coat (just in time for mid-March) but it's for zoo volunteer purposes only. Not sure what I'm going to do with my old zoo coat, which is a little too small and has the name of a defunct organization embroidered on it. I might try to pick the embroidery out, or if it seems too hard I'll just donate as-is.

I still haven't finished filling out my March Mammal Madness bracket (I've had three weeks!) so I'm doing that now because the first match is tonight! It's the wild card - American shrew mole vs. bumblebee bat. I have the mole winning.

Tonight I'm having dinner with my brother and dad. Tomorrow my dad is having eye surgery and I need to pick him up. He didn't know what time his surgery was going to be so I went ahead and took the whole day off of work. Turns out his surgery is at 7:30am so I'll probably be home by 9:30, but oh well. I can go to the grocery store and then just goof off for the rest of the day I guess.

My mom is visiting this week to help take care of my niece while my sister-in-law is out of town, but I have a lot going on so I'm not sure how much I'll see her.

Currently crafting:
I haven't been knitting for a while but I did get a few more rows done on the new socks. The yarn is a gradient and I haven't hit any kind of color change yet, and I'm concerned it's going to change in the middle of the heel which is going to look awkwardly abrupt on the instep. Fingers crossed!
I gave the blue striped socks to my brother and he loves them.

Currently playing:
Created a new profile on my Switch and started a new game of Let's Go Eevee. This game seems so annoying compared to more recent Pokemon games! It's basically a combination of a regular Pokemon game and Pokemon Go, where instead of battling Pokemon you just catch a lot of them. I had totally forgotten that from when I first played it in 2018.

Currently watching:
Caught up on everything, including the season finale of The Last of Us, which was good. I watched the first two episodes of Unprisoned (based on Multiple Listings by Tracy McMillan), a comedy about a single mother whose father gets out of prison and lives with her. I really like Delroy Lindo as the father but the main character I think is a therapist on TikTok? Or an influencer that talks about therapy? Unclear and I find her grating.

Up to s2e5 on my Ted Lasso rewatch. I know some people were annoyed that there was a Christmas special but I think it's lovely.

>204 norabelle414: Whoops, I wrote all of that out several hours ago and then forgot to hit post! A new low for me. Thankful that everything I typed was still sitting in the message box.

I went to dinner with my brother and dad and it was nice but long. The American shrew mole lost its battle against bumblebee bat; that's what I get for not filling out my bracket on time. I have to get up super early tomorrow because I have to be all the way on the other side of the city around the time I would normally be getting on the bus, but at least I don't have to be prepared for work.

Enjoy your day off, Nora!

>203 norabelle414: Hope you enjoy your time off; it sounds like a lot of stuff is going on for you. As a resident introvert, I wish you some beautiful, recharging time to yourself :)

I played Eevee too and you hit the nail on why it annoys me sometimes. I love the animations for the pokemon, I like the interaction mechanic with eevee, and I was delighted to go through Kanto again. But I cannot stand the lack of battling with wild Pokémon. It leaves my entire team severely under leveled and reliant on potions and grates on my nerves.

>205 bell7: Thanks Mary!

>206 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! I'm not really sure if I'm an introvert or an extrovert but I do know I enjoy my me-time more when I have some social-time to compare it with.

I'm not much for using items in a Pokemon game and so I don't usually try to get much money, but I think this go-round I'll go out of my way to get more money to buy Pokeballs and see if that helps.

It's funny to go back to this game after 5 years and have the exact same complaint that I have had more recently with Pokemon Go and Pokemon Legends: Arceus.... if there aren't wild encounter battles then I'm not any good at trainer battles because I don't have enough practice!!

I had to look up what an American Shrew Mole looks like and now I am also sad that it lost its battle, lol. Hope your dad's surgery is easy and quick and you can enjoy the rest of the day off!

>208 curioussquared: Did you look up bumblebee bat? Extremely cute. Too bad it's up against sea otter next

>209 norabelle414: I did, but the American Shrew Mole stole my heart first. Oof, sea otter is a tough match.

In the office today since I took yesterday off. Started off the day on a sour note by leaving my coffee, in my favorite mug, in my hand-knitted coffee mug sleeve, on the bus.

My dad's eye surgery went fine. The Lyft back to his house took a loooong time (I have no tolerance for sitting in cars) so I didn't get home until after 11. Bought myself a bubble tea on the way home at the place that is always swamped during non-work hours. Then I went to the grocery store and worked on my March Mammal Madness bracket. I finished picking all of round 1, which is the hardest round obviously, and it shouldn't take me too long to finish the rest tonight or tomorrow morning. The tournament starts for real tomorrow night.

I'm having dinner tonight with my brother and my mom, who is visiting while my sister-in-law is out of town.

Tomorrow will be a lot more meetings and then I'm going to see a play called The High Ground about the Tulsa Massacre.

Currently playing:
More Stardew Valley

Currently watching:
I finished all of History of the World, Part II, which was okay but not great. Also watched the first episode of the second half of season 4 of You. I'm only on s2e8 of my Ted Lasso rewatch but I will probably watch the new episode today anyway, with my mom.

I agree that the Ted Lasso Christmas special is lovely. I re-watched it last night.

Without looking at the rest of the bracket, I am rooting for the sea otter to win, because I love them :)

Well, I got my days mixed up and the first round of March Mammal Madness battles was tonight! Not tomorrow! I was busy with my mom and brother and did not finish my bracket in time but I stayed off Twitter until I was able to finish:

It's hard to see but my final four are okapi (mighty stripes division), sea otter (itty bitty comeback city division), golden eagle (animal engineers division), and wolverine (dad bods division), with okapi as my pick for champion. Tonight was round one of the dad bods division. 5 out of 8 of my picks made it through, and none of the ones that lost were ones I picked for next round, so not a bad night.

>213 norabelle414: That's so fun! I'm rooting for the sea otter to go all the way!

What flavour did you get for your bubble tea?

I'm with Katie and Foggi and rooting for the sea otter for the bracket. :)

>215 MickyFine: I went with the classic milk tea, which I don't usually get because I don't like having caffeine after noon, so it was an extra treat

It's been a week!

On Thursday I went with my dad to see a play called The High Ground. It was much more avant garde than we usually see and I'm not sure I liked it but it is nice to see something different. I missed the live March Mammal Madness battles but 5/8 of my picks won again so not bad.

Friday my sister-in-law was back from her work trip so my mom and I baby-sat while my brother and sister-in-law went out. We ordered tacos and I finally got her to watch some Taskmaster (I told her to tell me what she wanted to watch and she said "anything British" so....)

Saturday my brother was busy and my mom and I watched my niece while my sister-in-law ran errands, then we all went out and got Korean barbeque for dinner.

Sunday at about 4am I woke up with horrible, awful food poisoning. Definitely the worst I've had in my life. Off-and-on vomiting for almost 24 hours. I was able to keep a bit of water down but no food at all. I slept all day, when not vomiting. I was supposed to have breakfast with my mom before she left but obviously had to cancel. She was sick as well but made it home okay.

Monday I was still feeling terrible so I took the day off of work. I ate some toast and oatmeal. I did manage to go out and get groceries (though I got a lot of extremely bland fat-free foods that I now have to eat, ugh), and I also had to do the tasks I had planned to do Sunday, which were all related to cleaning my apartment in preparation for seasonal maintenance (changing the air filters and checking the smoke detector). I got to watch the March Mammal Madness battles in real-time and 6 out of my 8 picks for the animal engineers division won! Including the 10-seed New Caledonian Crow which I have bet will go pretty far. Don't underestimate corvids!

Today went pretty much as smoothly as it could. I got my apartment tidied, took out a ton of trash and recycling, vacuumed, and moved the furniture away from the vents before I started work. The air filters got changed around 11am, I moved the furniture back, did 3 loads of laundry in between work meetings. A meeting I missed yesterday got rescheduled for today, a meeting I was supposed to have today got rescheduled for tomorrow, and I had my monthly update meeting with my director which went very well. I risked some plain chicken ramen for dinner.

I was planning to go into the office tomorrow in lieu of today but I'm just going to telework again. I think my remaining issues are just dehydration and caffeine withdrawal but I'd rather not risk it.

Currently reading:
I haven't read anything in quite awhile and I need to fix that.

Currently crafting:
I tried knitting while I was sick but was too out of it.

Currently watching:
While I was sick I was too out of it to watch anything new but it was a great time to finish my rewatches of Ted Lassos1-2 and Shadow and Bone s1. Once I was feeling better I started catching up on what I had missed while I was so busy last week: Saturday Night Live hosted by Jenna Ortega (good), The Ark, Grown-ish, Superman & Lois, How I Met Your Father, The Watchful Eye, Rain Dogs, The Flash, Not Dead Yet, and Abbott Elementary. I also watched the first episode of the new CW show Gotham Knights, a non-Arrowverse show (allegedly) in which Bruce Wayne's adopted son, Joker's daughter, and a bunch of other teens are framed for Batman/Bruce Wayne's murder. It was fine but basically the same as Titans.

I'm sorry you got food poisoning. That's the pits.

Why is a crow in a mammal bracket?

>218 katiekrug: They mostly ran out of mammals a few years ago! Now it's a mix, but still heavily weighted toward mammals. I think last year they even had a bacteria.

>219 norabelle414: - Hmph. They should rename the contest... ;-)

>220 katiekrug: There's an invisible asterisk after "Mammal"

>221 norabelle414: - Well, okay then.

>217 norabelle414: Oh dear, I am so sorry. Food poisoning is is the absolute worst. Lots of fluids, plenty of rest.

And being the resident nerd, and Batman fan, I thought I'd weigh in! ╰(⊡-⊡)و✎⮹ Spoiler Tags coming for those who don't care.

- The adoptive son is a character they came up with for the show; no comic equivalent. Though Bruce in comics does have a biological son named Damian Wayne. He's the result of a less than pleasant/consensual night with Talia Al'Ghul, and is generally regarded as an . . . we'll keep it clean and say a male donkey.
- Duela, Joker's daughter, is a real comic character. Her actual origin, much like her alleged father, is a bit multiple choice. She has claimed to be the offspring of no less than five different villain's from Batman's rogue gallery. Her full name, currently, is Duela Dent
- Carrie Kelly - the Robin for this show - was originally from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and it's sequels. While she's been in and out of various comics, this is her live-action debut. She's also not the first female robin, and the Robin mantel has actually been given to multiple people. Before her was Stephanie Brown, who is also in the show, and she fluctuates between being Robin, being Batgirl, and being axed out of existence by DC comics because they're a bunch of self-righteous jerks.
- Harper Row is also a character from the comics but her superhero stuff may be in the distance of the show so we'll keep that quiet.
- And everyone should know who Harvey Dent is; Gotham's DA, old friend of Bruce Wayne, eventually he becomes Two-Face

Now, if you excuse me, I shall cease being a walking, talking Wiki for DC comics and wish you a happy day!

Sorry to hear about the food poisoning bout, Nora. That's awful.

I hope you're starting to feel much more like yourself now.

>223 Ravenwoodwitch: Yeah I picked up on where most of the characters were from and they are (slightly) different than the characters on Titans, but the overall vibe is very much the same. In the Arrowverse's heyday I wouldn't have batted an eye but there are barely any DC shows anymore and this is what they're premiering?

>224 MickyFine: Thanks! I am feeling a bit better and managed to eat some real food today without feeling nauseated.

I felt very energized by cleaning my apartment this week so I've gotten some more cleaning done, yay.

Wednesday was the last division of round 1 of March Mammal Madness. I got 5/8 again and my bracket is looking very nice! Yesterday was the first half of round 2. 7 out of my 8 picks got through but #4 siamang lost to #5 Pacific spiny lumpsucker (gross) and I did predict siamang to win next round as well. Boo! Next matchups are on Monday, hopefully #10 New Caledonian crow will win again.

It was hot and humid last night, then hot and rainy, and now cold and rainy. I prefer that to the formers since my air conditioning won't turn on until early May. I had lots of frustrating meetings until well after 5 (I usually work 8-4:30) so now I'm going to relax and catch up on TV. I had a frozen pizza for dinner.

Currently crafting:
Have not worked on anything but KnitPicks.com is having a 20% off site-wide sale so I will probably buy some stuff. Maybe sock patterns?

Currently watching:
Caught up on some things but still quite behind! I'm only caught up on How I Met Your Father (extremely funny episode this week), Ted Lasso (last week's episode was fine but mostly set-up, this one is great!), Last Week Tonight, The Company You Keep (continues to be incredibly charming), Abbott Elementary, Not Dead Yet, The Flash, and Shrinking. I watched the first episode of s2 of Shadow & Bone but will probably try to catch up on everything else before continuing.

Very bad news, last night #1 sea otter lost its match against #9 grasshopper mouse! A devastating upset. Other than that my bracket did okay. I got 26 out of a possible 32 points, but losses by #1 sea otter and #10 New Caledonian crow are going to have repercussions. The Elite Trait matches are on Wednesday.

Saturday morning I volunteered at the zoo in the absolute pouring rain. I had wanted to volunteer at the bird house but when I was signing up for shifts someone else was signed up for bird house so I signed up for elephants instead. Then when I went to check in for my shift I noticed there was no one signed up for the bird house anymore. Sigh. I had a nice time with the elephants, though, and there were lots of visitors inside to talk to since it was so rainy.

Sunday I just goofed off and tried to catch up on TV. Yesterday was back to work, which is stressful at the moment because I have a lot of big projects on.

Today I'm in the office, for the first time in a couple weeks. Nothing going on outside of work this week, though I do really need to do my taxes.

Currently reading:
Really need to get started on the book club book for May, Mycophilia

Currently playing:
Playing Let's Go Eevee one gym per week along with the podcast EXP. Share. It's still an annoying game. I've also been playing a lot of Two Point Hospital, at this point re-playing for the 5th or 6th time. I installed a dumb phone game to play while I was sick and couldn't concentrate on anything, but now it's becoming a problem so it's going to have to go.

Currently watching:
Not quite caught up on everything yet but I am caught up on Dear Edward (overall I was kind of meh on this show. It wasn't bad but I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone), The Company You Keep, Sanditon, Call the Midwife, Grand Crew, Gotham Knights, Superman & Lois, The Ark, Good Trouble (unpopular opinion but I'm annoyed that Callie is back. Let the show move on! She was only gone for like 3 months diegetically. Also Jaime sucks and I don't care about their relationship.), Alaska Daily, Hello Tomorrow, and Shrinking. I watched the first episode of Marie Antoinette, a Canadian (I think?) biopic which is airing on PBS here. It's fine, the main actress is good. I also watched the first episode of Extrapolations, a Black Mirror-style anthology about what climate change will look like in the next few decades. It really missed the mark - horrible things are happening right now due to climate change, why do you need to make up some fake ones? The first episode takes place in 2037 and the only real person mentioned in it is Kanye.... no thanks! I might watch more eventually (maybe some of the episodes will be better than others?) but for now I had to cleanse my palate with something that takes itself less seriously - two more episodes of You. Huge twist here - it was the same show it's always been all along! (I don't get the whole split personality thing though. It would make more sense if he had just been imagining/talking to Rhys, but he hit his head and became Rhys? I don't get it.)

The mammal bracket is dead to me, since the sea otter lost.

Good luck with the work projects!

Poor sea otter.

Hanging out with the elephants sounds fun. Do you have African or Asian elephants?

>228 katiekrug: Thanks....my boss has decided that she wants to host a conference and I, a person who has never planned anything more complicated than a 2-person vacation, have been instructed to plan it. Super easy!

>229 MickyFine: We have Asian elephants! 6 females and a huge male named Spike. Two young females just got here from another zoo and we're hoping that we can have some babies in the next few years.

>230 norabelle414: - I used to plan meetings, so if you need any advice... :)

>230 norabelle414: That's a sizeable herd! I hope there are adorable baby elephants in your future. :)

Also oof to the conference planning project. Best of luck on that front!

>231 katiekrug: The advice I need most is "Where can I hide where no one can contact me until after the conference is over?"

>232 MickyFine: Oh I almost forgot, most of the elephants are from your neck of the woods! Three of the females, Kamala, Swarna, and Maharani, moved here from the Calgary Zoo in 2014 and Spike moved from Calgary to Tampa in 2014 and then here in 2018. A very long road trip!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/spike-rani-calgary-elephants-fling-washin...

>233 norabelle414: - I suggest a nest under your desk for fetal position crying. Always worked for me!

>233 norabelle414: Aww, that's delightful!

A long week of doing mostly nothing.

I ended up with 3 out of 4 of my picks in the Final Roar for March Mammal Madness (RIP sea otter) and then in last night's semi-final I got 2 out of 2! Probably my best bracket ever. I like okapi's chances in the final on Wednesday against the very ferocious golden eagle even though its only advantage is "large".

Saturday morning I volunteered at the zoo again and it poured rain again. I wasn't even stationed indoors this time since I was on Asia Trail instead of in the elephant house. I could have gone inside the panda house, and I did for awhile, but it gets stuffy in there.

Sunday I caught up on tv and also cleaned my oven (after repeatedly setting off the fire alarm just by pre-heating)

Starting April 17 everyone in my office will need to work on-site at least 2 days per week. Everyone will be in on Mondays and one other day of their choosing. I started coming in two days this week so I can get used to it before it's actually required. Yesterday went fine, today I dropped my breakfast sandwich while walking to the bus stop so I'm in a cranky mood.

Tuesday through Thursday this week I'm feeding my friend's cat. Thursday I'm going to see Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches at my usual theater. It's gotten good reviews from theater reviewers but bad reviews from people I know. I'm vaguely familiar with the story but I've never read it or seen it before.

Currently reading:
Still haven't started the book club book for May.

Currently playing:
Still playing Let's Go Eevee one gym per week. Still re-playing a lot of Two Point Hospital, I would rather not be but that is where my brain is right now.

Currently watching:
I finally got caught up on all my TV! Then I had to go to bed early and go into the office so I am a day behind now. But I did it! I finished all of season 4 of You (meh...next season is the last season and hopefully that means something new will happen, because seasons 2-4 have just been more of the same), all of season 2 of Shadow & Bone (fantastic!!!! I loved it!!!), the season finale of The Watchful Eye (not really a finale at all, no plots were wrapped up, very disappointing), and the season finale of Alaska Daily (an uneven show but it has a lot of promise). I started new shows Up Here, a romantic musical set in the 90s and starring Mae Whitman and Carlos Valdes (Cisco from The Flash) which is extremely my jam, Great Expectations (looks expensive), The Big Door Prize (speculative/sci-fi about a fortune-telling machine that appears in a small town) , and a new season of Taskmaster!!!!!! Mae Martin is my favorite to win but Kiell Smith-Bynoe is also very good.