Mash Ups in Space

 Because we need to be able to roll with the unexpected…

(or so I keep telling myself, anyhow)

Home For The Holiday

It’s a nasty, wet day outside so the sensible yet festive Thanksgiving has been postponed for 24 hours - until the sun comes out and we can all sit outside. I’m just thankful that the weather is otherwise cooperative enough that we can do that. It’s not always as mild in late November as it is this year.

Additionally, I’m hugely thankful that this long weekend, spent mainly by myself at home, can take place in a house with water. It was not looking good there for a while but I’d been fortunate enough to have gotten a recommendation for a small family business with old-fashioned business mores, who just kept going until the problems were made right - even tho’ for a few days, I was spending more time with one of the guys than his wife did! 

I’m also grateful that I’m able to maintain said home. This miserable, stinking year has been so difficult for so many - I’m profoundly aware of my good fortune in having a job that still provides me with a regular paycheck. 

My family is well, my friends are well.

Truly, the rest of it is just details.

So the holidays this year won’t be traditional... but that’s okay. 

One of the few good things to come from this annus horribilis is that a lot of people have paused to think about what is truly important to them... and have reframed their lives accordingly. Traditions do not matter simply because they exist, they matter because of what they represent. Having to put them on pause for this year is simply a reminder of why they’re important and may help us focus on the truth beneath the habit.

Which, today, is thankfulness.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

*end introspective monologue*

          *launch usual frivolous tone*

Grab Me One While You're At It?

Behind The Eight Ball

I probably shouldn’t be surprised that a week that began with my first-ever earthquake just ran away with me, but that’s what happened. (I do realize that those of you who live in California and such-like parts are yawning at me, but around here, noticeable shudderings of the very soil on which you stand are rare.) It was an odd, unsettling experience that segued right into a string of other odd, unsettling experiences.

My brand-spanky-new water pump decided to celebrate it’s one-week anniversary by dying - which it did overnight so as to really catch me by off-guard. (Because 5:00 a.m. isn’t hard enough to deal with without crises…)

Then I got a phone call from the contact-tracer at work: “X didn’t think her time with you had amounted to 15 minutes but I want to be sure that you agree with that…” Fortunately, I did. We’d been in the same room for longer, but had performed the close-contact dance, so all was well. I won’t try to kid you that my heart didn’t spend some time in my throat, however…

Happily, all this stress coincided with my annual deep-cleaning frenzy, so I’ve vented my frustrations by manhandling much within my home. I’ve scrubbed walls, floors, and ceilings, ripped up ancient carpets and padding, set fire to my credit card with a flurry of replacement purchases, shifted heavy furniture hither and yon, vacuumed heating ducts, - and in my spare time, braided a throw rug, because I couldn’t find what I wanted for one room. (Braiding done, still sewing…)

I’m not quite done with the cleaning yet, nor is the water situation completely resolved, but things are starting to settle down… and look up. I had a lovely Face Time movie viewing with a favorite niece, I found a chicken pot pie recipe to die for (well, actually, I hacked two together but boy howdy, was it good!), I now have sensible-but-festive Thanksgiving plans, my new dragon is on its way, and Best of All, I got to talk to SP last night! As he and I are rarely on the same continent anymore, that was a lovely and unexpected treat, so I happily braved sleep deprivation All For Him. He may not be the one I call my beau any longer, but he is still dearer to me than ‘most anyone else on the planet and I always feel much better after time spent in contact with him. Beautifully timed, my love - thank you.

So in celebration of the turning tide (AND the close contact dance!), let’s see in the weekend on a celebratory note. (Of a better sort than the one my pump chose.)

Let’s get out there and have just as much fun as these two are! 

Not Gonna Lie

It’s a fact that I’m a happier, more hopeful person today than I was at this time yesterday, before the election results became clear. 

I am not overly-political in general. There are pros and cons to every platform and while I may know what I believe, it’s not my job to convert the world. What I think isn’t right for everybody and that’s ok - the point is to learn to get along despite disagreeing… which is where we’ve been falling down a lot lately. We seem to have lost the capacity to listen, understand, and compromise.

Pre-pandemic, a family member mused about 45 that she didn’t understand why people couldn’t distinguish between the man and his policies. Cautiously side-stepping any policy debate, my reply was, “Because he’s toxic.”

A leader whose personal dictionary defines “compromise” as “My way” is not best suited to these tumultuous days. 

It’s not like he made the trains run on time, after all...

I had this ready, just in case.

I’m just glad I only need to use it to say I’m glad I don’t need to use it!

DST PSA and RIP

 Spock has liberty this weekend, so this kind gentleman offered to step in...

Which I'd find much more amusing, were I not in mouring for my true (if unmet) love...

*sigh*

Maybe in our next lifetimes...