Just came across an ad online for so-called manscaping tools like a “groin trimmer.”

Happy Father’s Day weekend, everybody.

Me: I guess a cup costs an extra 10 bucks.

Frannie: What’s a cup?

Looks like work will continue through much of the summer at a miserably relentless pace. It’s going to be a challenge avoiding nights with 3 hours of sleep like last night; based on my foul mood for most of the day, though, I can’t afford to skimp on rest.

😬

Helena chills after a mouthful of the ‘nip.

Forgot again yesterday. Streak back at 1. 😐

Wordle 360 3/6

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Big-time mood.

Blondies, based on a recipe that came with the new stand mixer.

I have really tried to love Kids in the Hall over the years, but “Doomsday DJ” is the first KITH sketch that has really clicked with me.

Only the second time I’ve done this in two.

Wordle 349 2/6

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Excellent girls’ day out with F: splurged on new manga and a new D&D book; had breakfast and lunch out with lots of good talks; and binge-watched a lot of anime. Grateful.

Hope this bodes well for a summer of recalibrating after a rough end to middle school.

My kid is learning the hard way how much teenage girls can really suck toward one another.

Starting to experience PTSD all over again from my junior high and high school years. My goal is to make sure my kid has more support through these years than I ever did.

I just saw a Uvalde shooting victim’s First Communion photo, and I am officially broken. Retiring from news and social media for a while.

F’s cooking class made alfajores, a shortbread-like sandwich cookie filled with dulce de leche and popular in South America, but a field trip for another class kept her from sampling them. So, we made them at home.

I thought I’d be bored by today’s morning ballgame on Peacock. But Jason Benetti and his rapport with the local baseball analysts du jour make the game eminently watchable. ⚾️

Can’t think of a better way to end the week than listening to the Atlanta Braves organist play “Always Look on the Bright SIde of Life” while the home team is down 11-6 to the Padres.

After a minor vent session this week with a manager at work, I took her up on her offer to cover for me today. I put in an hour this morning and called it a day.

As challenging as things have been lately, I’m grateful for the generosity of colleagues when things get tough.

“There is dignity in Dementia if we say there is. There is wisdom and humor and radiance if only we can see it. I make the effort because my mother does and because it is what she deserves after a long life well lived, harming no one.”

Found on our front yard this morning.

Can’t decide whether my sense of taste is off because of COVID or because of plain old sinus congestion. Either way, I’m not used to nacho cheese Doritos tasting like corn flakes.

Whether you like baseball or not, here's the kind of viral stuff we all need

I really needed a good kind of viral moment lately, and two baseball fans in Toronto gave me that.

And it led to this moment earlier today.

The Toronto Star spoke with the guy who caught the ball, who seems to be as cool as you hope he’d be. Also a great back story about the kid, who emigrated to Canada from Venezuela with his family and was named after Derek Jeter.

I just really hate that a Yankee made me cry in a good way.

(Also, the Blue Jays' George Springer gave the ball guy two signed jerseys for his kindness. Lots to love about this whole thing.)

Not at 100 percent. But I’m okay enough to be useful, and the office workload is exploding, so I’m back working from home.

If I had my druthers, I’d be offline sucking down hot tea and watching “Aggretsuko.” Never has a workaholic, metal-loving red panda meant so much to me.

Are vents bad for this disease?

Now that the kid is recovering nicely and I’m much less worried about her, my thoughts are drifting to the fact that HOLY CRAP I ENDED UP WITH THIS STUPID COVID THING.

Sick of this illness already, especially when I probably was too optimistic yesterday about being on the upswing. It’s more like being at a standstill—a phlegmmy standstill that exhausts me ands burns deep into my sinuses.

I hoped to be back tomorrow to work (from home, as I have the past 2 years now), but now I don’t really see that happening.

Been so tired and hangry all afternoon, and running on barely 3 hours of restless sleep from last night. Probably not a good idea when you’re dealing with a disease with a zillion different outcomes.

Oh well. Vent over. Kinda needed to unleash, I guess. And I just blew the carb count on chili dogs and a chocolate cake shake. Time for Advil and bed.

Ask not for whom COVID-19 tolls

So, the Evil Virus finally showed up for us over the past week. And it’s all the fun it’s been cracked up to be.

In our case, it’s actually been less, compared with what others have experienced. At least F and I are still alive, for one thing. (I had two cousins die from COVID over the past year or so.) Our experience has been more like The Worst Flu Ever, with persistent fever, body aches and headaches, and a sore throat that feels like needles in the voicebox. I’ve never seen F quite this sick, and I haven’t been this ill in a long time.

But as I’ve mentioned to friends and colleagues – and on this here website – I highly suspect that things would be a lot worse if we weren’t vaxxed.

(C was smart enough to get a fresh booster shot a week or two ago, and I’m convinced that that is what kept the virus from taking him down with us.)

And even though I’m still overweight, I’m nearly 70 pounds lighter than I was a year ago; as obesity is a comorbidity of COVID-19, I’m even more grateful now for the weight loss.

Our illness has been relatively mild enough to be treated with Advil, hot tea with honey (plus lemon for me) and other fluids, and binge-watching anime on Netflix. (I will gush at another time over our discovery of “Aggretsuko.") So, at least we’re fully hydrated and entertained.

Fortunately, F is very much on the upswing after the onset of her symptoms last Wednesday; given her school’s COVID protocols, she may be okay to go back in the next day or so. For now, I can report – with perhaps more optimism than merited, since I tested positive yesterday – that I may not be far behind: My fever has subsided so far, though the body aches linger, and my biggest issue is a scratchy, phlegmmy throat.

F and I let our guard down with the masking over the past month or two (although she still continued to mask at school, even when most kids did not). I regret that now, even though the past few weeks of freedom reminded me of how much I hate wearing masks.

(C said when he called the school nurse’s attendance line this morning to notify the school that F would be absent, the voicemail box was full. F’s friends have confirmed that an awful lot of kids at school have been out sick. So, we can confirm that no, the pandemic isn’t over.)

Grateful that this whole experience has been survivable. Hope this is a cautionary tale for people who hate masking as much as I do. And I pray for those who are dealing with this, especially in far worse manifestations than ours.

I guess the virus hasn’t hurt my Wordle capabilities.

Wordle 317 3/6

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