You know you’re tired when reading the subtitles on an anime episode is exhausting.
For F’s baptismal birthday, I used to get her religious icons or books.
This year? I got her D&D dice that look like wedges of cheese.
Please don’t tell my parish priest.
This is Charlie (also known as Charles Edgar Cheeserton III, or Dipper). He appears to be a beagle/basset mix. Brought him home from the shelter yesterday.
This is as close to a 20th wedding anniversary gift as we’ve given ourselves this week. And Winter the Anxiety Dog has never been happier.
Little Edie Beale may be my newest patron saint.
“I think they’re highly underrated in terms of the zeitgeist,” Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails said in a phone interview. “Devo challenged the idea of what a rock band could be. It felt like rock was mutating. It made me realize, ‘Oh, there aren’t any rules. You know, you can do anything.’”
“It’s a good evening to experiment,” we said.
F said the resulting roasted Peep (left over from her Easter basket from months ago) looked like “it has yellow fever.” But she ate it and decided it met more than enough of her sugar quota for her to forgo a s’more.
It’s autumn in the Midwest.
“Don’t be more serious than God. God invented dog farts. God designed your body’s plumbing system. God designed an ostrich. If He didn’t do it, He permitted a drunken angel to do it. Empirical facts can add significantly to the meaning of ‘being godlike’." (Peter Kreeft [via Tsh Oxenreider])
How does one deal with raging impostor syndrome? I’ve got it on two fronts, and it’s seriously kicking my ass.
Book and strategy recommendations — and memes — welcome.
“Was not expecting to see the headline ‘ham everywhere’ today,” the husband texted.
“… the residents and employees of Rosalita’s are women from New Jersey named Wendy, Mary, Sherry, Sandy, Kitty, Candy, or, of course, Rosalita, who is our founder and CEO.”
Happy trails to the Charo of semiferal cats
Helena, who unlike some of our other animals went by a singular name – much like Charo, Adele, and Eminem – passed away peacefully Monday afternoon after what amounted to 5 years in “kitty retirement” with us. As she was a semiferal cat when we took her in around Thanksgiving 2018, we’re unclear on her exact age, though we suspect she was at least 10 or 12 years old.
(And actually, I lied. We gave her a zillion silly nicknames: Lady Lardbottom, Lady Sparklebutt, Cottonbutt, Señorita Slushbottom, Sister Mary Elephant. Yes, there’s a theme. I guess fatshaming is okay if it’s a cat.)
We got her 5 years ago when Chris saw a social media post from a lady a few blocks away who wanted to find a cat a good home. She said it belonged to her next door neighbor, an older woman who had died; the cat ended up living in some adjacent woods, and the social media poster was feeding the cat but couldn’t bring it in the house with her other cats. It was November, so the lady was worried about the cat, which she named Helena – a variant of her late neighbor’s name, Helen.
So, we adopted Helena, who ended up hiding in our basement for a few months, surfacing only for food and water. It wasn’t until the following spring that she eventually showed up and decided to join the rest of the family; thus began the rest of her years napping on the recliner, napping on the sofa, napping on whatever lap or cushion she could find – and being carried up and down stairs by a little girl who is forever smitten with cats.
Helena also put up gracefully with occasional costuming humiliations at the hands of that now-teenager.
When cats decline, they seem to do so quickly. We took her to the vet only a few weeks ago for respiratory issues, and she went downhill fast from there.
Helena was at once elegant, cranky, and ridiculous. (Like most cats, I suppose.) We loved her. Thanks for sharing your retirement with us, old girl.
I usually have music or streaming video, like the Cornell bird lab’s feeder cam, on the iPad while I work.
Clearly the birds at Sapsucker Woods have transmogrified since we visited there years ago.
New Year’s Eve is as good a time as any to introduce the teenager, a budding D&D dungeon master, to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
Back to work. Up late tweaking the Home Office Empire, now with the laptop docking station relocated to allow for a three-screen setup. (C and F pointed out four screens, counting the iPad, but that’s for streaming video Yule logs and old ballgames from MLB.tv archives.)
Note to self: Get a screen protector for the new iPad.
Once I decided to postpone my annual holiday shipments of fudge and candied nuts until after Christmas (and bring batches to colleagues on the East Coast when I join them on a work retreat in February), my stress levels subsided considerably. Maybe I’ll do this every year.
Several hours after ingesting a peppermint mocha, I’m actually ready to call it a night and dream of impending blizzards. So much for working late.
TIL that Mastodon is not immune to mansplaining. 😬
Finally made it to H Mart. Guess you could say I like this stuff.
Flurries and gray skies require new manga and spicy udon ramen with extra pork.
Aaron Judge stays in pinstripes. As a Padres fan, I’m relieved that San Francisco didn’t sign him. But as much as I generally dislike the Yankees, he seems meant to be one, in the best sense.
Just found this ad in my Insta feed. I don’t think I want to buy a candle that smells like stale Old Style and tear-stained Bryzzo T-shirts.
What would a scented candle from your favorite ballpark smell like? ⚾
Maybe it’s just me, but Alexi Lalas is what I imagine a younger, more lucid Bill Walton would be. ⚽
NYT Spelling Bee enthusiasts: Should people post their “Queen Bee” status if they make it clear that they used a cheat resource for it? I’m seeing a few folks doing that on Mastodon, and it’s kinda bugging me (and not because our household has yet to achieve that level).