🎬📽🍿Watched “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” last night. This is the second straight week of seeing a movie with a nerd girl protagonist (with an extra layer of weird-dysfunctional-but-loving-family issues). I am nothing if not an enabler of my daughter’s creative geek inclinations.

And incidentally, the movie was fantastic. We all loved it. I might venture to say that I liked this film’s approach to technology more than that of “Belle” (even though I loved that movie, too).

As of this writing, the Mariners lead the Padres 3-1 at the top of the 6th inning in San Diego’s first Spring Training game of the year.

I don’t even care if my team is losing. It’s only the first Spring Training game. Don and Mud are on the call in this MLB.TV stream, and it’s baseball, and I am here for it.

Wordle 272 5/6

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Quite excited about both of these books arriving today. Adding John XXIII to my saint squad for Lent.

Today I learned that my alma mater, Cal State Fullerton, is playing Duke tomorrow during March Madness. (I’d have learned sooner if I was hanging around Facebook – where most of my college friends hang out online – this week.)

Funny to have the Titans playing a powerhouse like Duke, which I actually followed for a few years because I was in a relationship with a guy who was obsessed with the team. I honestly don’t care much about the game, but it would be quite fun to see Fullerton take down the Blue Devils.

Wordle 271 4/6

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Not my finest hour.

Wordle 270 6/6

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Today’s game. At least I remembered to post. Plus I was up cleaning up a dog accident in the kitchen and way more wide awake this time of the morning.

Wordle 269 4/6

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Yesterday’s game. Good thing I text this stuff to the husband daily.

Wordle 268 4/6

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🎬📽🍿 Friday means movie night here, and we caught “Turning Red” that night.

Having been a dorky, overachieving 13-year-old daughter of Asian immigrants, the movie especially worked for me.

Watched a few episodes of “The Cuphead Show” this weekend. This fun take on the old Fleischer cartoon style of the 1930s prompted me to show Frannie a couple of vintage clips that, honestly, struck me as downright odd and surreal.

Surprisingly sharp for being up late with 3.5 hours of sleep the night before.

Wordle 267 3/6

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It is generally best to avoid reading the comments on any given news site or social media venue. But this piece about the surprising online joy of 1980s postpunk and new wave fans – my generation – makes me want to poke through the ruminations under Joy Division and Modern English clips on YouTube.

Now eating queso-flavored pork rinds to get my mind off Korean fried chicken.

Was listening to a podcast about how it’s okay not to be passionate about your job while I was working on server maintenance for work today. On a Saturday. After roughly 3.5 hours of sleep. After pulling more or less an all-nighter working on it.

I’m not really passionate about my work. I like my job, and I’m a hard worker – but for the sake of my health and sanity, I’ve tamped down my workaholic tendencies somewhat in the past year or two. Still, this is stuff that needs to be done, and I was scheduled to work today for a few hours on this server work. It’s just more time-consuming than I had anticipated.

And now I’m listening to another podcast on how to deal with burnout.

Up late—or early—with work, so why not take a break and Wordle now?

Wordle 266 3/6

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Faith blogging for Lent

Catching up this weekend with my more-or-less-dormant Catholic commonplace blog, Rosa Mystica. I’ve even added a link to it in the navigation here.

Now that I’ve gotten over my performative mode about it (that is, posting self-consciously for whatever reason), I’m using it as a means of organizing the zillions of quotes and resources I tend to collect. I’m kind of excited about using it as a vehicle for Lenten devotional practice.

Blogging as a Lenten devotional practice. That’s new.

A very close call.

Wordle 265 6/6

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Wordle 264 4/6

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Moya Lothian-McLean in the Guardian:

On social media, to be silent is to be found wanting. Despite the different registers of specific platforms (Instagram, for example, is all earnest “awareness”, whereas TikTok is laced with a frenetic, theatre-kid energy), all of them depend on compelling users to actively produce and engage with content. In times of crisis, this demand – baked into code in order to ensure profit for tech bosses – has found itself expressed as a moral obligation. In the case of Ukraine, to visibly engage and express solidarity is viewed as akin to enacting it through practical, tangible action. We are not looking away. We are analysing, boosting and amplifying. We are posting through it.

Wordle 263 4/6

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The other great part about my birthday: the annual Frannie card. I am a lucky mom.

Best. Birthday. In. Years.

Birthday No. 56 is in the books. And it may well be a template for however many birthdays I have left.

On the surface, it wasn’t that rollicking: morning Mass and rosary with a dear friend from my old (Episcopal) parish who is now in the Roman fold, a leisurely breakfast afterward with said friend, and then a few delightful hours with the Blessed Sacrament at Marytown. Short of an overnight retreat, the day alone was a gift.

On the way home, I found a new (to me) Korean fried chicken place and brought home a batch of chicken with pickled radish and rice for dinner. Then, after dinner, F and I made a batch of brownies.

More than 50 grams over my carb limit later, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to celebrate the gift of another year, thanks be to God.

Happy birthday to me.

Wordle 262 4/6

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