Fasten Your Seatbelts . . .

To slightly misquote the late, great Ms. Bette Davis, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I’m trying to juggle lawyers, banks and doctors, clear the decks, and strip for action. I was originally going to start chemo tomorrow. Now I’m having labs and a bone marrow biopsy done and starting chemo the 11th.

I saw the sinus doctor Tuesday and he didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Afterward, I got a manicure (I’m inept with the nail scissors and weak using the nail clipper with my left hand) while waiting for it to be my turn to get my hair cut. I took home a Pizza Hut personal pizza, which, personally, was a big hit. I was on a roll yesterday, and if the Goodwill truck had been in the Market Street parking lot as it usually is, I would have accomplished everything on my to do list for the day. I met with the bank guy, closed out mom’s accounts at her bank and moved the funds to the account I opened for that purpose at my bank, and got the rent draft transferred to the new account. Then I did a paper goods run to Walmart — tissues for both ends, paper towels, two boxes of Ensure High Protein and a few groceries. I finally took the stuff of mom’s that I wanted our good friend CK to have to her house and had a nice little visit with them.

Monday, I reconfigured my computer and desk, and finally set up the new printer. I disassembled the world and had monitors in the kitchen and on the table (I had to take their pedestals off).

The monitor mount is like a wall mount for a TV except the arms are pole mounted instead of wall mounted. It has two options — a clamp mount or mounting through a hole drilled in the surface of whatever you’re mounting it on. The way my desk is constructed, drilling a hole in the desktop and using that option was the most stable option. Then I discovered it required a 3/8th inch hole in my desktop and I only had a 1/4 inch drill bit (yes, I am a Toolbelt Diva), so I had to “enlarge the hole” using the drill bit to rasp the sides of the hole larger. Got quite a little pile of particle board dust on the floor, but I achieved success. I screwed the little mounts on the backs of the monitors, mounted them to the arms, then reassembled the computer. I have a whole lot more desk space now, and everything works better. I did have to pull the desk back out and switch the monitor connecting cables so my goofy computer would call the righthand monitor “monitor 1.” (%*&$#@!)

The new printer was ridiculously easy to set up. Took me all of 10 minutes and was completely painless. It prints purty!

The people are coming for the dinette set and sideboard Monday. In the meantime, I ordered a TV table , the pieces of which are now unpacked and lying on the floor (some assembly required, of course). I currently have my TV on the sideboard, which is 38 inches high; my chair is too close to the TV and at that angle, watching TV is a pain in the neck. The TV table is 30 inches high. One of the reasons for ditching the dinette set is so I can get more distance between the TV and my chair. I can flip the rug back, pull the sideboard out (it’s on casters), slide the TV table in behind it and transfer the VCR and black box, etc., to it, but it’s going to take two people to move the TV, not because it’s all that heavy, but because it’s a 55-inch diagonal.

#3 Orchid is MAGENTA! It has two blooms open now. Mr. Balls is next up to bloom. I already know his flowers are white as this will be the second time he’s bloomed since I got him. Don’t know what color #4 Orchid is, though. (Oh, the suspense!)

I’ve just started on book #2 of the 19-book Sebastian St. Cyr series re-read– murder mysteries set in Regency England. C. S. Harris is a pseudonym for Candace Proctor and her husband Steven Harris. Harris is a former intelligence officer. Proctor has a Ph.D. in European history and specializes in this time period. Her settings are not the romanticized, sanitized, “movie” version. She shows you Regency England, warts and all. I find it fascinating the way she fits her plots into the context of what was going on in the world at the time, not just in Europe, but in America as well, and that some of her “characters” were real historical figures (e.g., Benjamin Franklin’s oldest son) doing things they actually did. If you like Regency romances and murder mysteries, these books are the best of both worlds. Each book is stand-alone, but I’d start with the first book and read them in sequence as they occur in chronological order.

Now, if I can just catch the Goodwill truck and unload the stuff in the trunk and back seat of my car, I will be a happy camper.

The Suspense is Killing Me!

Christmas was quiet. On major holidays like Christmas, the dining facilities usually serve only lunch, and it is served cafeteria style. If I opt to eat, I usually go down and bring it back to my lair. This was my Christmas feast. Major nums!

I never eat in the dining room unless I’m taking a guest to lunch, and on holidays, the place is usually heaving with people and their visiting families. To begin with, I do not like crowds and, because manners, I always end up bolting down my food so as to make room for somebody else to eat, or for the servers to clean up so they can go home, and then I’m miserable for the rest of the afternoon from having gobbled down my meal so quickly. . . .

I treated myself to a bit of Christmas fancy. (Nothing like a little retail therapy to chase away the blahs.) In light of what else was on offer, I consider this tastefully festive. Santa also brought me a pair of noise cancelling headphones and some new (on sale!) 100% cotton sheets made in the USA from West Texas cotton. Solidarity and all that. (The last set of el cheapo Amazon sheets developed a spontaneous tear after less than a year.)(!) Last night was my first night using them and they are luscious.

I got Windows 11 to do desktop gadgets (again) and got my Werewolf Monitor back. Windows 11 considers desktop gadgets “a vulnerability” and stopped having them. We’ll see how long I can keep it. I had it going before and Windows 11 got all paternalistic and snitty and quit running the program. I’m running NordVPN now, and maybe that will satisfy Windows 11 that my backside is amply covered. Sigh.

My Christmas cactus is going nuts. I found this little plant stand that is almost exactly the same height as the console table I’m using for my plants and lets me utilize that last 11 inches of window space that was going fallow before. It came yesterday (assembly required)(piece of cake) and I covered it with more of that plastic shelf liner stuff to protect the “wood” top. 

A little more room to breathe now. 

I’ve still got that gianormous peace lily on my kitchen counter, but I am seriously considering selling my dinette set in favor of another desk like my computer desk. I invariably eat at my computer (like I’m doing now)(the habits of 20+ years are hard to break . . .) and the desk would take up way less space and be more functional. The peace lily would sit on the end of the desk near the windows. First, I have to get rid of the old Windows 7 machine, though. Sigh.

I had a safe, sane New Year’s Eve. They had some kind of function downstairs, but those, again, are usually heaving with people, alcohol is served, there’s an electronically amplified “musician(s),” and for people with normal hearing, it’s like having a metal pail over your head that somebody is beating with a large ladle. Instead, responsible adult that I am, I did two loads of laundry. (I have a “load size” laundry basket I keep on the floor of my closet that is my dirty clothes hamper. When it gets full, I have one load of wash. It was heaping full.)

When my dad passed, it was (metaphorically) like having a tooth pulled. The place where it had been hurts and is tender at first, then it heals and is no longer painful; but life has a way of reminding you in a hundred subtle ways that the tooth is gone. There was something there, and now there isn’t. Eventually, you get used to not having it, but it’s still gone. I’ve lost another (metaphorical) tooth. 

Time Passages

Today’s earworm is courtesy of Al Stewart, the song “Time Passages.” I woke up to a text message from my cousin EJ letting me know that another cousin MW had passed. 

MW was one of those people who never meet a stranger. She liked dancing and going out with friends for fun, food and good times. Unfortunately, she didn’t watch her diet and she didn’t like the way some very necessary medications made her feel so she wouldn’t take them. Her girls hadn’t heard from her for a day or two, couldn’t get her to answer the phone, went by and found her lying on the floor. She’d had a stroke and had been lying there for at least 24 hours, and probably longer. This all happened in late summer. She spent her last months in a nursing home with no quality of life. The angels took her home either yesterday or early this morning. 

MW was a member of that set of cousins that were mom’s sisters’ children. (JP born in 1936, MW in 1939, EJ in 1941, WM in 1943, CY in 1946.) The older ones were born while my mom was still living at home. (My mom was 15 when MW was born.) The older ones remember mom getting married and remember me being born. We moved “upstate” when I was 19 months old, so I only saw them when we went to Houston on vacation, either in the summer or over Christmas. But for a while, “Aunt Fluffy” was more of a big sister than aunt to many of them. EW’s sister is WM of the cows.

The amaryllis is in bud. It may open on or around Xmas, or later. Orchid #2 is starting to form buds on its flower spike. My windows face dead center between north and east on the compass. With the tree gone, the light is fairly bright but not hot, and the sun goes behind part of the building in late afternoon, early evening.

The Christmas cactus is going nuts. I counted 12 flower buds. I almost bought a Norfolk Island Pine yesterday. I had one, Phred, for well over 20 years. I would have bought one yesterday if I’d had a place to put it, but I don’t have room for the plants I have. I need to wipe the hard drive on my old computer and take it to Best Buy to recycle. Then I’d have room on the end of my dining room table for the peace lily that’s been sitting on the end of my kitchen counter since I brought it back from mom’s. It needs to be repotted too. I have the pot. Think I have enough potting soil left.

I’ve done all the things I need to do about mom’s stuff except taxes, and I won’t have to worry about that for two months yet.

Today is the winter solstice for those of us north of the equator. We are far enough south that the maximum solar declination at the winter solstice is 31 degrees, and on the solstice, we have nearly 10 hours of daylight (from 7:48 a.m. to 5:43 p.m.), whether we want it or not.

My Christmas will be quiet, with no family obligations. I have dressing and turkey and cranberry sauce, and I may make a beet salad. Being alone has never been a problem for me. I find it restful. 

Carols and Whatnot

Blame Shoreacres for this one. The gang chez Pogo attempted to penetrate the impenetrability of the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” more than once during that strip’s run. This is not the one where Churchy makes a strong point about the three French hens (the constant gabble-gabble of chickens in general, and can you imagine all that in French?). The conclusion that time was that there was thievery involved and that the “true love” referenced in the song was a fence. 

Walt Kelly was one of the first newspaper comic strip authors to gather each year’s worth of his daily strips and publish them as a book. This offering is from Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo (a birthday gift from my ever-loving brown-eyed father back in the day), which was a kind of “greatest hits” compilation from the first ten years of the strip.  Pogo is the furry guy in the striped shirt, the turtle is Churchy La Femme, and the alligator is Albert, a smoker of seegars. The carol the ensemble cast usually ends up belting out with fervor and abandon is “Deck Us All With Boston Charley,” which is about as impenetrable as they come.

©Estate of Walt Kelly under Fair Use

A Roller Coaster Ride

Mom’s interment and memorial service was Wednesday, November 15. Hard to believe that’s only been six days ago. We got to the cemetery at 9:45, and CK and her husband and daughter pulled up. Then all these other cars started pulling up.

Mom’s nephew JP came but his wife had to stay and make sure the animals got fed and taken care of (2 horses and an unknown roster of dogs and cats). He was able to come the day before and I put him up in our third floor guest room. (I can personally attest that it’s nice and comfortable as I lived there for a week before my apartment was ready. It’s also very reasonably priced.) He and I went in my car. It helped keep me together. Mom’s niece EJ and her daughter and SIL came, but her other niece CY couldn’t come as she’d had leg surgery and had to stay off it. My brother came. That was a relief. The last time he saw mom (or me) was when she was in the hospital in July of 2021, which was what precipitated the whole move to Carillon thing.

Both dad’s nieces, CK (and her husband M), and EG came. I knew E planned to come to the memorial service, but was pleasantly surprised when C and her husband showed up, too. I knew JTW, the daughter of long-time family friends whom I had grown up with (her older sister’s was the first wedding in the new sanctuary — it was a stand-up affair because the new pews were delayed getting there!) Unfortunately, her older sister is in an Alzheimer’s care facility, but one of the sister’s sons came with JTW. Her sister’s ex-husband, who is now a judge, did come to the service.

The memorial service was held in the church mom had attended since 1955, in the sanctuary that was finished the year I graduated high school. The sanctuary has a beautiful pipe organ, which was how I found out about the composer Jehan Alain. Mom sang in the chancel choir for 63 years. When she had to stop singing in the choir, they retired her stole. The choir director had a lovely shadowbox display made of it, which I gave back to be displayed as a memorial in the choir room.

“Holy, Holy, Holy” was mom’s favorite hymn, but she also liked “Be Thou My Vision,” which is a hard hymn for me to hear. It was my dad’s favorite hymn and was played at his memorial service also. This version by the inimitable Maire Brennan is my favorite. The service was very well done, I thought.

I managed to keep it together pretty well through the service, but it was touch and go during the last hymn. We had a receiving line and mom’s boss at the law firm came, as well as the lady who had been a secretary but put herself through law school and became a lawyer with the firm. She’s the one handling Mom’s will.

The minister who officiated is the son of one of the previous ministers. That minister had married a widow with two young children who was also an ordained minister. I was still attending during some of the time he was their minister but I had a hard time getting with a pastor who looked like Gene Simmons of KISS. The son had gotten to know a local girl while they were here and after he was ordained, he came back and married her. He had several other churches before our church called him. He was glad to come back to his wife’s home town and he is the current minister. He seems to be well liked and has drawn people into the church. Mom liked him a lot better than some of his predecessors.

The “bereavement committee” at the church provided a lovely luncheon for the family after the service. All the women who set out the buffet and decorated the parlor were long-time friends of Mom, and I so much appreciated their efforts. The buffet table was beautiful. (They had this bright bronze damask cloth on the buffet table and an autumnal flower arrangement.) Mom was never more in her element than when she was putting on a meal for her friends. She was the best kind of party animal. She would have loved it.

The funeral home got the copies of the death certificate Tuesday. I had to get a new inspection sticker for my car, get groceries, and meet my cousin at Carillon at 3:30. We went out to dinner and then both made an early night of it. I confess that part of him riding with me instead of the other way around was that he needed to leave before 2 p.m. so he could get home before dark, and I could have some calm-down and get-it-back-together time. Fortunately, others had planes to catch so we didn’t linger.

Now that I had the death certificates, I could sort out the bank accounts and Mom’s Merrill Lynch accounts. Thankfully — and foresightfully — because it was a joint account, I still had access to the funds I needed to settle Mom’s final expenses. Like I said, ducks in a row.

For most of last week, I had been feeling kind of draggy and unrested when I woke up in the morning, even though I was getting plenty of sleep, which I just put down to stress. I had my usual beta-blocker hacking cough but it had worsened over Friday. Just cotton ginning, I thought. Saturday, though, I woke up with a terrible sore throat and a stopped up head. I took my temp and it was only 99.1 F/37.2 C, so no high fever, but I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. I was able to get up to onload (and offload!) hydration, and to eat a little bit. I was supposed to have an MRI Monday, but that clearly wasn’t happening, nor was my chiropractic treatment on Tuesday. I rescheduled that, discovering in the process that I had a bad case of laryngitis. I sounded like Froggy.

Long about Tuesday, I was beginning to turn the corner, and I realized that housekeeping was due to come this coming Monday, so I called down to the front desk about getting a COVID test just in case. Two of the nurse/aides from the Assisted Living staff came and tested me. Yup. I had COVID. (Or, to put it more realistically, it had me!) I’m under quarantine until Tuesday. Fortunately, when one is under quarantine, one can have meals delivered at no extra charge. (Otherwise, there is a delivery fee.) They put the sack on the floor in front of your door and plong your doorbell.

Because of the holiday, I had planned to spend this week taking a breather before tackling Mom’s Medicare supplement providers. I had gotten a container of good ol’ Prater’s cornbread dressing and some chicken and cranberry sauce, for a quiet celebration, but so far, I haven’t had the oomph to fix it. I’ve also got a sink full of dishes I haven’t got the oomph to deal with either. However, there is a piece of good ol’ punkin’ pie which I didn’t have at lunch (and which is probably sweet potato — most canned pumpkin is) calling my name.

The one bright spot in this week is this:

My Christmas cactus is gearing up to bloom. And, not to put too fine a point on it, another of my orchids has a flower spike on it.

Teetering On The Brink of Christmas

It got down to 3 F/-16 C last night, for crying out loud!

We have this thing where if the front desk needs to get the word out about something, they text us. We got a text yesterday afternoon to dribble our faucets all night to keep the pipes from freezing. The one bedroom apartments here are set up with European style en suites which has the sink in the bedroom proper, and the toilet and shower in a separate “water closet.” So I got to listen to my sink dribble all night.

We are mercifully free of snow. (We got a flake or two yesterday for flinching.) I guess after dumping so much snow everywhere else, this storm must have run out before it got to us. As much as I hate what it’s doing to the rest of the country, I can’t help breathing a sigh of relief that we didn’t get any snow out of it. Our high today is 36 F/2.2 C. Officially colder than a wedge.

I spent the morning in bed knitting and watching videos until I heard a cheese sandwich calling my name. Sharp cheddar on toast with BACON! zotted in the microwave long enough to melt the cheese. And a big pot of Twining’s Christmas Tea served piping hot with vanilla almond milk in. Yes, Ma’m!

It’s hitting the spot as I type. The perfect combination of goo and crunch.

Thought I’d get a little meta.

They’ll serve Xmas dinner starting at 11: 00 tomorrow. I’ll get mine to go and take it over to Carillon House and eat with mom. She’ll open her Xmas present. (She’s getting me new glasses this year, which I need.) We’ll be quietly jolly, and then I’ll come back home. It’s not as sad as it sounds, at least on my part. I’ve never been a big fan of the hustle, bustle and jollity anyway, and even Mom’s getting kinda party pooped, which is not surprising. She has reached the point where doing anything requires so much time, energy and equipment that it’s exhausting.

Several people have called and texted me that they called her to wish her Merry Christmas and that she really had difficulty hearing them on her phone. Her hearing has been gradually deteriorating for a long time now, and she can’t get her phone loud enough anymore for her to hear it, especially the higher pitched women’s voices. But she adamantly refuses to get a new phone because she doesn’t want to have to learn how to operate it. Her phone has Bluetooth capability, but she refuses to spend the money for new hearing aids that have Bluetooth capability. She got some new hearing aids a couple of years ago that were very expensive, but she was unhappy with all the futzing and trips to the hearing aid place to get them adjusted, and she went back to wearing her old ones because she said they worked better for her. Change is hard (and confusing). She has a land line in her room, but then if she used that, she’d have to look up phone numbers on her cell phone and dial them . . . In the meantime, she’s becoming more and more isolated from her friends and relations, and I don’t know what the answer is.

That loud slurping noise you heard just now was me putting lotion on my hands. Again. It’s been so dry here, and the heating just makes it worse. Since that last bendamustine treatment I had such a bad reaction to this last round of chemo, I’ve had trouble with dry cracked skin on the outside edges of my index fingers and the tips of my thumbs. Knitting doesn’t help. I also have assorted dry patches on my forehead and cheeks. I have a tendency to dry skin anyway, and the bendamustine really did a number on my skin.

Friday, when I went out, I wore my red knitted hat with the selburoses on it to keep my ears and head warm. The humidity was 21% and when I got home, I pulled off my hat to predictable results — the Dandelion Clock Do. It’s one of the hats with the rolled brim, the inside of which is ribbed.

I want to make another one in black and white with the Death Flake motif — Boomer Goth — but living where I do, I wonder if it would be considered in poor taste . . . .

In the knitting news, I’ve been working on these two projects mostly. The one on the left is the Malabrigo Sock version of the Savannah Squares scarf/shawl. I haven’t put the pattern for the right one up yet, but it’s dead simple. One row repeat. (It’s also the visual equivalent of this.) Both are ideal for TV knitting.

I really need to start working on the Scots bonnet that you knit and then felt. I have two different types of 100% wool yarn. I may use the black Savage Hart Farm yarn first. I want an historic 17th century pattern, though. I’ll have to swatch and felt the swatch to gauge the shrinkage. I may also get some Plötulopi yarn (Icelandic unspun yarn) and try one out of that as it felts really well. I have a feeling I’ll end up writing a pattern for it. Stay tuned.

The North Wind Doth Blow

But we won’t get snow. Thank goodness. It’s blowing a hoolie, though, and the wind is almost straight out of the north at 21 mph/33.7 kph. It’s 18 F/-7.7 C with a wind chill of 2 F/-16.6 C. Mom called yesterday and wanted me to get her some tooth paste (she also wanted some $ for some little tokens of appreciation to her care givers), which I naïvely thought I was going to do today, but nope. Not with that kind of wind and that kind of wind chill. Mañana. It’ll still be as cold, but the front will have blown through by then and the wind will have died down. That wind is brutal. Like the man says, “Ain’t but one fence between us and Canada, and it’s down . . . “

They’ll be serving a nice Xmas dinner on Sunday here, with turkey and all the fixin’s. I’ll get mine “to go” and take it over to Carillon House and eat with mom.

The other day, I figured out how to get from here to there without having to go outside. It’s a pretty straight shot.

I’ll take her Xmas present with me. She’s getting me some new glasses this year.

Proper glasses with some light-weight lenses (I’m only 20/40 in my left eye, but I’m 20/400 in my right eye and my right lens is so thick my glasses tend to sit cattywompus on my nose), and some new, lighter frames. They won’t be here until the 30th, though.

I’ve got one of those throat tickling “drainage” coughs where you get into a coughing fit that’s so prolonged you almost pass out from not being able to breathe for coughing. I’ve been taking guaifenesin (a mucus thinner) and pseudoephidrine (a decongestant) for it. It’s allergies, not a bug. As I noted, it’s not cotton ginning related, but whatever it is that’s setting me off makes my eyes burn as well. I’ve managed to stay well so far (touch wood!). With my sinuses already in an uproar and this wind kicking up the dust, yet another reason not to get out in it.

Now that the weather has gotten colder, my feet have been so cold at night that I’ve started putting the heating pad in the bed to warm them up. I’ve got one with a timer on it that turns the heating pad off when time’s up. No, I don’t need an electric blanket. I’ve already got a microfleece blanket on. Once I get my feet warmed back up, I’m good.

T’is the Season, Y’all

I got all gussied up for the party: A (velvet) plaid “lumberjack” shirt (!) over black tee and black velvet slacks (Xmas spirit. I haz it) embellished with this glass bead necklace I bought years and years ago at a “vintage” shop. (Loved everything about it but the length, so I popped it and restrung it to choker length, and had enough beads left over to make ear dangles.) (Notice the stoppers on the ear wires!) I wore my little magnetic Carillon name tag. (Yee-Ho-Ho-Ho!)

The place was packed. I sat with friends. The food was episodic, single serving, but good — little plastic cups of dip and dip-able veggies, dinner roll sandwiches (mine was ham), shrimps and a dollop of cocktail sauce, and an collection of little cakes for dessert, each on its little plastic plate. I had a small plastic cup of white wine. There were raffles for door prizes (e.g. an hour in a chauffeured limousine for 10), and we each got a stocking from the corporate sponsors with a pair of socks, a packet of tissues, various “single serving” size candies, and business cards.

The music was provided by “Cadillac Jack Band.” (Guess what kind of music they played.) I had no trouble hearing it. (I will be vibrating for days.) The party was from 4:00 to 6:00. I made it to 5:00 before I bailed.

(If I hear “Joy to the World” on pedal steel guitar one more time . . . )

Here, have a shot of the good stuff. On the house. And one for the road.

It Ain’t The Gin

Because of our ongoing drought conditions, cotton production here in the flatlands is way down — like from an average of between 28,000-35,000 bales to between 3,000 to 5,000 bales (A bale is 480 lbs/218 kg of ginned raw cotton, and contains enough cotton to make 200 pairs of Jeans, 250 single bed sheets or 1200 T shirts). So, what’s ripping my sinuses a new one can’t be the cotton stripping and ginning (which throws all kinds of herbicide and defoliant laced organic matter and soil into the atmosphere).

Odds are it’s juniper. We have a lot of Ashe Juniper (Juniperus ashei) here and southeast of us, as well as some Oneseed juniper (Juniperus monosperma) and Pinchot’s juniper or red berry cedar (Juniperus pinchotii). Winter/spring is not a good time of year because of a thing called “cedar fever” — which is like “hay fever” except caused by cedar and juniper pollen. We’ve recently had some rain, and that’s evidently set off another round of it, and it has been reading my sinuses the Riot Act.

It also gives me what I call “sniper sneezes” — Like you’re innocently and unsuspectingly going about your daily life, unaware that a sneeze sniper has you in the crosshairs. Then BANG! you’re hit with this massive sneeze without warning. Usually, with a sneeze, you get that inhale bit at the start, which is like cocking the thing and dropping a round into the chamber, so you have something to sneeze with (which is the whole point of the exercise). Not with a sniper sneeze. Your sneezer goes off whether there’s a round in the chamber or not, you gasp reflexively and that immediately sets off a second sneeze. I have actually banged my head on stuff . . . .

So, Walkers Shortbread makes Christmas shapes! — which go down just as easily and deliciously as their regular ones, especially with a pot of Twinings’ Christmas Tea, which is a nice black tea with cinnamon and clove spices. No, I did not eat the whole box of cookies at one sitting. I only ate half the box. I am exercising self discipline. Sorta. But actually, I’m not really into cookies in general (except shortbread and soft sugar cookies with icing), or cake (unless it’s got buttercream icing and squirty icing shapes), or pies (except mincemeat, cherry or pumpkin). Cheese cake, though. And ice cream. Those are my Achilles heels. (One on each foot. Fair is fair.)

I have to confess I’m not all that into chocolate, either. (Yes, I am a heretic and have betrayed my sex. Deal with it.) Rolos and Ghirardelli’s dark chocolate raspberry squares are the only chocolate I eat consistently, but I can take it or leave it.

I ran across this the other day and it’s brilliant. This is what the autism spectrum actually looks like. We all have all the traits, just in different amounts. I have a lot of a couple traits but don’t have much of most of the other traits, which means I can “pass” for neurotypical.

Speaking of which, the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year holiday season is an exhausting time of year for me. Parties, family get-togethers, dinners. I’m expected to mingle in crowds of people, do lots of group stuff and socialize. Crowds make me very claustrophobic; the babble noise of a bunch of people in a room is overwhelming; I don’t like to be touched, let alone get unsolicited hugs; and I am schmooze-impaired. For those of us on the spectrum, socializing is a “fake it till you make it situation,” except we can never make it. We’re the cat among the cows. All the cows instinctively understand how to be cows. We cats have to play it by ear. All the time. We never get to see the sheet music. Ever.

There’s going to be a party tomorrow from 4:oo-6:00 p.m. I’ll attend. There will be food involved. Since I’m not on chemo anymore, a glass of wine to make the spirit bright might be in order.

I saw a Twitter quote the other day that made me guffaw: “What do I want for Christmas? I want what every girl wants for Christmas: Death to the patriarchy and pockets in all my clothes.” Amen! Me, too.

I have a pair of fleece-lined snuggly house shoes but I can’t put them on without having to bend down and straighten out the back of the heel. I found myself opting to walk on cold floors in bare feet rather than take the time to do that. So I got me some house shoes I can just step into on those occasions when I can’t sleep through the night without a potty break. Eliminating life’s little annoyances one at a time.

In the knitting news, I have one bootie finished, one bootie that just needs the little green edging, and about 17 rows and sleeve edging left on the dress skirt. Gauge is 10 rows to the inch. Skirt is 9 inches long + 9 rows of seed stitch. Going to try to get it finished, blocked and in the mail by Monday. Good thing the relative humidity is 38% and it’s merino wool sock yarn.

C. S. Harris has a new Sebastian St. Cyr novel coming out in April, 2023. Oh, joy! Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have a new Liaden novel coming out in July, 2023.

Have you seen that Kraft mayo commercial that says there’s no such thing as too much mayo? I agree in principle, but not in brand. (Hellmann‘s mayo. Please.)

No such thing as too much tomato either. I make Christmas BLT’s — no L. (Think about it. It’ll come to you.) Just a slice of toast, mayo, tomato slices, four or five slices of bacon, tomato slices, mayo and a slice of toast. You will notice paper towel diapers on both sandwiches. Necessary. After one sandwich, the paper towel is too soggy to use again. Serious, if soggy, nums.

Woke up from a dream the other morning with the sad knowledge that Honduras is closed to me now. Sigh.

Giving Thanks

Friends brought us food for Thanksgiving. It was a loving gesture, and we embrace them for it. They’re dear friends and have been for a long, long time. And he is an excellent cook.

They wanted to have us over to their house for Thanksgiving, but that plan was defeated by the logistics of getting my mom there and back again. We could get her into my car, but it would take a chain hoist to get her out of it. (I have trouble getting up out of it). Not to mention that her wheelchair won’t fit in my trunk. These friends have a place down near the Gulf Coast (where it’s warmer), they took both cars, and the vehicle they came back up here in is his gigunga diesel four-door pickup. The cabs on those things are so high up off the ground that it would take a fork lift to get me into and out of one, never mind a 98-year-old woman with a bum back who needs a walker and/or a wheelchair to get around. So they brought the food to us. Right about the time it started sleeting. But it was good (as I say, he’s a great cook) and we loved it and them.

Mom and I have so much to be thankful for, and this Thanksgiving is a case in point. When you find friends like these dear people, you hold onto them and cherish them. Sorry, no pictures. We were too busy being in the moment.