The Fluffbucket Diaries

Watching “The Nightmare Before Christmas” for the first time. Feels like Oingo Boingo on Broadway for kids. (Not that that’s a bad thing.)

Recliner. Muumuu. Padres game on the TV. I needed all this today.

I don’t know who this Canadian broadcaster is, but I want her glasses and her earrings.

Showed F a package of mini naan from Whole Foods and she went “Awwww” like I showed her a litter of orange kittens.

This is Monday around 6:30 a.m. Central time at Chicago O’Hare. This may explain why our Delta flight from San Diego was canceled the day before and why we drove to Phoenix to catch a flight home (because there were none to be had from anywhere in Southern California).

Six months after setting this up, I am playing significant catch-up with my Hobonichi Weeks, complete with new Raygun stickers.

Another weekend, another Pokemon Go Community Day with the teenager. Here’s my friend code if you’re a fellow traveler.

F and I made Filipino-style leche flan for the first time. It’s moments like this when I miss not having Mom and my sister around to try it and tell us how to improve it.

The flan turned out great. Hoping Mom and Eleanor are proud on this Mother’s Day.

Just watched an episode of “Everybody’s in L.A.” There’s a great segment with Fred Armisen assembling a “focus group” of old L.A. punks, including Exene Cervenka of X, Mike Watt of the Minutemen, and Lee Ving of Fear. Between that and Steve Albini dying of a heart attack, I am feeling my age. 😐

Welp, we finally got out to do our “research” of Filipino dessert tastes: turon (fried banana in lumpia wrapper) and halo-halo, plus flan and ube ensaymada to go.

My kid being a particularly picky eater who isn’t terribly adventurous, she barely ate her halo-halo, and I resisted the urge to eat hers after I finished mine. At least she drank a good portion of her calamansi juice.

My kid persuaded her group in baking class to have a Philippines theme for their entry in the upcoming class Cupcake Wars project. We’ll be doing some “research” at a couple of Filipino bakery/restaurants this week.

Somewhere, I hope my mom and sister are smiling down on her.

Spoiled a perfectly fine Sunday afternoon by watching my team blow a lead/game/series. Going to try redeeming the day by playing with art supplies.

Thank you, Threads algorithm, for this juxtaposition on my timeline.

My kid is a teenager and we still hide eggs in the yard for her to hunt. This year, she brought our leashed cat to help. Happy Easter to all who celebrate.

Not a fan of the Giants. #Caturday #MLB

Good to see this fediverse thing catching on over at Threads. Find me there if you feel like it at @garciabuxton@threads.net … I tend to be chattier there these days.

It’s the North American pretzel cat. Impressed she could ball herself up like that.

Heard Nirvana’s cover of “The Man Who Sold the World” while driving this afternoon. Hearing it again on the coffeehouse’s stereo just now. Somewhere, Kurt Cobain (or David Bowie) is trying to tell me something.

Oh, look. Mommy’s first beta-blockers.

I will be watching Ryan Gosling’s performance from the Oscars telecast on a constant loop tomorrow. That is all.

Nothing like the fast food of my people to cheer up the soul.

Listening to the New Heights podcast, and Jason Kelce tossed off a line about Yoko Ono. “You mean the speed skater?” Travis Kelce asked. He didn’t appear to be kidding.

I like the Kelce brothers. I’m going to figure it’s a generational thing and move on with my life.

I hate not having a pen I like when I need it.

I’m a gel pen girl, and I usually have such a pen on my person at all times. Except now, right this minute, at the coffee shop when I like to journal. Very annoyed with myself, and settling for gratuitous blog posting instead.

Still somehow coexisting.

(Repurposing some of what I posted to a grief support group on Facebook—some of which in turn is repurposed from a Threads post—because I have very little of anything left in me.)

It’s been a tough year of losses: one of our cats in April, my college mentor and close friend in June, and my sister last month. I feel like I haven’t fully grieved my mom in 2021, and a work friend and one of our dogs passed not long after.

I haven’t had a breakdown or anything—just a few scattered tears and overwhelming, heavy sadness. I still have to press ahead for work and family. Waiting with dread for some kind of collapse.

Meanwhile, it’s Christmas Eve. Just put together dinner: arroz caldo, a Filipino chicken and rice porridge, which Mom always made late on Christmas Eve so we could eat just before opening our gifts at midnight.

I’ve made it for my family for years. Sometimes I’d text my sister a picture to prove to her that I could make it. She’d text back with heart or thumbs-up emoji, sometimes typing “Wish I was there!”

Now neither she nor Mom are around to tell. Pressing ahead, but my heart feels empty.

My sister and I were close, and she would have been 67 at the end of November. This is tough.

But there will be Christmas. And arroz caldo. A blessed holiday to you.