The Fluffbucket Diaries

Not proud of myself to resorting to whisper-shouting “Pipe down!” to some of my CCD kids during Mass this morning. Time to chuck the textbook next Sunday in favor of covering basic church etiquette. 😬

“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])

Social media sites where I hang out these days (in order of time spent and preference):

1. Threads
2. Instagram (lurking only)
3. Micro.blog (mostly blogging with occasional posts shared with the community)
4. Mastodon (mostly lurking)
5. Facebook (mostly lurking)
6. LinkedIn (mostly lurking)
7. X/Twitter/Elon Musk’s hellhole (lurking only)

(Credit: The Depression Chronicles on Threads) | More Meme Therapy

(Credit: @amandasimplywell on Instagram) | More Meme Therapy

I don’t really post on Instagram much anymore. And I’m not really a fan of “influencers” — unless they’re therapists, brain health experts, career counselors, or #actuallyautistic content producers sharing their perspectives on social media.

I’ve become an avid collector of the IG posts these folks create. Since I’ve yet to be able to book therapy for myself, the encouragement and insight I cull from these — and the kindness of friends — is the next best thing.

So, I’m using part of this space as a commonplace site for the memes I’ve found particularly helpful, or at least thought-provoking. If you find them useful, great, but I’m not necessarily throwing them here for your benefit. I like the idea of having these in one spot where I’ll find them (rather than an app I’ll forget, like Notion, or crowding my phone or “saved” sections of IG). I’ll make sure these memes have the originator or creator’s name on them (and if they’re not on them, I’ll add credit to the post).

You can find these in the Meme Therapy category page.

(Credit: @alvcoaching on Instagram)

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.

The past several weeks of what felt like nonstop work finally caught up with me. Took the afternoon off after catching whatever fluish-but-not-COVID bug kept F home from school.

This is in addition to the weeks of headaches, pain in my left eye and right wrist, 4 hours of sleep a night, abdominal cramps I thought were gone months ago, and a terrible case of imposter syndrome.

A few hours of a refreshing coma should do the trick. Maybe.

Trying to figure out why someone on social media thinks they’re qualified to give life advice just because they have incredible abs in their profile pic.

What I’m doing while listening to this afternoon’s Padres win in bed when I should be catching up on much-needed sleep.

“Was not expecting to see the headline ‘ham everywhere’ today,” the husband texted.

I’ve missed this bag. I’ve also missed summer trips to Maine.

“… 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.”

Bruce Springsteen turns 74 years old today.

This week’s goal: Go to bed before 1 a.m. It’s 1:40 now. Someday I will be caught up with my workday at a reasonable hour, but it’ll take a few days.

(It’s not making too much of a dent in my family time; I still step away around 6-ish for dinner and TV or gaming with the husband and kid. I just end up coming back to the home office around 10:30 p.m. to wrap stuff up. It’s not perfect, but I’m glad I can preserve that time.)

I appreciate the occasional reminder from the universe that some people I longed for over the years were always a terrible idea for me.

CCD student quote of the day from this first day of our Year 1 First Communion class: “What’s Mass?” 😐

Sigh.

I ate leftover Popeye’s mac and cheese on homemade nachos for lunch because it continues to be an excruciating work week and I can’t think straight.

It was oddly tasty, but I’m deeply regretting it now.

You know it’s a rough week at work when your biggest triumph is getting to go pee and then lie down.

Damn, I haven’t been here since January.

It’s been a long 3 months. Very up and down, and I’m currently in a down cycle. More to come when I have time to think about it.

Meanwhile, if you’re the praying sort, please pray for me and my extended family. It’s been a rough few days. Thanks.

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.

Holiday PTO: Movie theater for “Puss in Boots” with the fams, then recliner time with “Steven Universe: Future” when I was half-heartedly planning to declutter the office. 😐

Bracing for a long 4-day work week ahead.

In-N-Out Burger is expanding to Tennessee. I’m still not over El Pollo Loco pulling out of Illinois ages ago, and now this happens?

(Also, the fact that AOC badmouths In-N-Out publicly gives me more reason to dislike her.)

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.

Been fighting a bug since late last week, and finally headed to urgent care to figure it out. I hate it when I’m dealing with all manner of symptoms (burning sinuses, congestion that feels like it’s lodged into my upper chest, headache, fatigue) and the doctor and nurses say I test negative for everything and my lungs look great.

It’s just a virus, they said. Rest and drink plenty of fluids, they said.

At least I didn’t have to sleep in the recliner last night because it hurt to breathe when I would lie down.

Nothing starts the New Year right like playing Cards Against Humanity with the family and having the cat win.