anagram of brat

Lets see, what did I miss, a month and a half roughly? The past six weeks have been pretty much loaded with varying amounts of depression, health ick, stress, Minecraft (oh god, minecraft) with a smattering of noteable. I won't really get into the depression much except to note what ended up being major contributing factors (and not this entry). Or the Minecraft, because y'all really don't want to hear about the week I spent painstakingly building a glass, wood and water "hourglass" or the other one I spent digging out subway tunnels or maybe you want to hear about the scavenger hunt one I made last fortnight for the kids or the maze this week but yeah. Thankfully I AM finally starting to burn out on it some, so maybe I have a prayer of getting other things done this summer? I don't know. I feel like for completion sake I should try playing Starcraft, just to see if I get as crazy addicted to that as I did to apparently War- and Mine-. Not that any of these games are related by more than suffix.

Anyway! Starting at the beginning, I went home the weekend of May 19 to attend a mini-reunion of sorts hosted by Ruthy, for the Browne cousins. Basically, all the kids raised by Dad's generation. There are rather a lot of us.



This isn't even everyone, either. You know that bit in The King and I when you've just got done meeting the King's children (and there are like, 12 or 13 of them and they're all cute and woefully not at all Asian, let alone remotely Thai, but that's beside the point) and he's all "Someday I'll allow you to meet my others" and Anna's like "More?!" and he's all nonchalantly like "67, I think?" That's kinda the situation with my cousins on Dad's side. There were eight siblings to start with, after all.

Anyway. That party was rather off the chain, which is only to be expected when you pack a group of West Indians in an apartment with a bitching stereo system and Ruthy's Dark & Stormys. Also, look at the size of that party, and let me then tell you that the party was potluck and you might get some idea of the sheer volume of food.

I kinda wish I'd managed to write about it at the time, honestly, because there are some things I'm definitely glossing over in my haste to catch up - the whole series of text messages involving one particular trolly cousin and whether the ribs another cousin was bringing were pork or beef and how that conversation panned out (don't troll a troll being the moral of the story - and those ribs were some delicious pork sticks). There's the fact that since all of these cousins are of an age and grew up with the Valkyries and Stanley rather than me, I don't know them nearly as well as I'd like or I should (some of which being my Mom's fault, but that's another post) so a lot of them I only know from family reunions, weddings, funerals, sibling stories, and of late, Facebook. Which sucks kinda - they're all interesting, amazing complicated people. I feel like now that the elder generation is completely gone now what with the last three passing within 2 months (it was a baaaaaaad winter, y'all) maybe I should make the effort, though that would require me being less of an antisocial butt.

Oh yeah, this happened too.



The coat is Judi K's. (The one cousin from Mom's side that got invited to dinner as a special guest, lol.) There's a story about how the coat came into existence that I don't remember all the details on, but it was bizarre to the point of stretching credibility. I'll just say the coat was not originally hers and it is NOT fake and leave it there. The bag is also Judi's by way of Amanda, but thankfully that IS fake. (it was bought to match the coat.) And Ruthy quite literally has glass vases full of every single style of plastic black or tortoiseshell sunglasses you can imagine laying around her house, so I just grabbed a pair, because yes.

(There was an amusing exchange over Twitter with cell23 that resulted when I instagrammed this picture, but I forgot to favorite it and I do NOT want to page all the way back through to find it. Boo.)

Also Amanda finally got her silent santa present plus the Blue Rose bracelet, because why not.



She absolutely loves them and has been wearing both of them pretty much constantly since. I think I did good.

Aside from the Dinner, that was a fairly low key trip back to New York, and a really nice one for all I had been dreading it. Even being back at The House for the first time since the funeral wasn't super bad or even lonely, really, especially since Judi K was there and she has a bad habit similar to Dad's of leaving the TV downstairs blaring whether she's watching it or not. It was annoying as hell when Dad was around, but now the noise is comforting and does much to fill up the empty. Obligatory wanders through the neighborhood and trips to Sibyls were had (and for once they WEREN'T sold out of butterflaps!), as well as a moment of New York happy with a cheap slice of regular pizza DONE CORRECTLY a cup of bug juice and to finish a glorious cherry Gino's italian ice. I also managed to see the Jaicat before escaping town, whom I haven't seen since my wedding so THAT was a nice thing. (and she fed me port wine and mead, so that was Another Nice thing.) And before Dinner there was a couple of hours where it was just me and The Siblings at Ruthy's chilling and pre-gaming a bit before the party, discussing Serious Family Shit in the wake of Dad's passing, the upcoming Vineyard trip, etc. It seems like the long term game plan aside from keeping/fixing The House is for all of us to try to reduce the sprawl a bit and drift back towards the City - if not in the city itself, closer to than we have been. More of a concern for those of us further out, and it's a brainweasel for me seeing as I always had this nebulous game plan of eventually ending up back in the city. I don't even think Drew would mind coming with me once the kids are more or less grown, which'll only be about a decade from now. 10 years is not very much time at all.

But... neither here nor there at this point. Just... nebulous musing about The! Possible! Future!

Anyway. Have a pre-party Browne selfie:



Insert obligatory comments about how everyone in this picture, myself excepted, is hovering around AARP qualification age. Get used to my face, I will be wearing it, virtually unchanged from the present, for at least the next 20 years, barring spectacular intestinal 'splode or runaway buses.

Next: Part II - Old Familiar Places and Faces. I'll link it when I actually post it.

I dragged out the breadmaker last night and cranked out three loaves of bread - one for us, two to take with us to NY. And I'm not done - some whole wheat and pumpkin are also planned. There might have been cackling and repeated exclamations of BAKE ALL THE BREADS while I did so.

Drew and I are heading down to NY with esotericscribe tomorrow. Prayer circle for us, lol.

Can't see the forest for the trees. And the glare. Taking pictures of this thing is a right bitch.

Seeing as November ends on Sunday and this weekend is bound to be nuts I'm revising my goal count down a bit - from half done to 45%. I probably could bang out 18 more rows by Sunday, but I'd have time to do nothing else. 10 seems a bit more reasonable, though what will probably happen is I'll land somewhere in the middle. I'd be ok with that. Regardless, its still going MUCH faster than the Tetris one did - I didn't hit 39% on that until February. I mean I started it a couple weeks later in the year than this, but still I'm kinda boggled that I've managed to do in a wee bit under a month what took me twice as long last year. What a difference determination and a few improvements in technique make.

Anyway, time to fill my house with the smell of baking holiday stuff.

This is so weird to me. I've never in my life had a paid vacation week. Like ever. I have severe problems wrapping my head around the whole idea of "so I'm going to be about 182 miles away from work, my computer won't be on so I can't remote in... and I'm still getting paid? What is this sorcery?"

Things have been happening, like crushing, soul destroying heat not only here but pretty much the northeast US from about Michigan eastward and Virginia? northward. five days of 95+ weather, ha ha yeah no thanks. Texas come get your wack ass weather please, we don't want it. Thankfully it broke tonight; it is by comparison deliciously cool outside, and the Vineyard is not slated to get above 80F all week. Yessssss.

Today has been nuts as well, what with the Squire yard sale this morning (during which Lil'Beast tried his best to sell his sister), followed immediately by Lil'Beast's birthday party. HOW IS HE SIX. I seriously can't with how fast these kids have grown up; earlier this week I looked at one of my first albums of pictures of them from about four years ago and I mayyyyy have had a The BEHBEHZ THEY GROW UP SO FAST AAAAAGH STOP IT moment complete with tears. I blame period hormones for that one - this month's was terrible. They've been getting progressively worse; I'm wondering if this is just what I have to look forward to until this monthly stuff finally stops. But anyway. The day was hectic, but survived; we're mostly packed, and tomorrow Team Tatro West will drive out to the cape, board a huge ass ferry, and end up in Martha's Vineyard for a week at Chateau Browne, Oak Bluffs edition. I'm a bit stressed about it, but whatever, we'll be fine.

I leave y'all with a picture of Himself trying to shovel his usual square of blue frosted cake into his face all at once. Some things don't change.

Oh man, I hate visitng Dad when the interballs is broken. Hence the no posting - while I had Squeee with me, there isn't any point in using him with no connectivity and it's annoying enough keeping up with FB and Twitter on Dad's iThings. I hate borrowing other people's computer type devices.

But yeah, it was a Thanksgiving weekend. Had it's ups, had its downs, had its surprises and moments of pure rage.

Thursday:

• Rode down with esotericscribe early in the morning, and took the train down from his neighborhood in Queens to The House (had about $25 worth of metrocards with me that had been sitting on my desk all year - glad I remembered them!). Dad didn't bother saying hello upon my arrival, but began fussing at me for breakfast and wedding pictures. Sigh. I made him breakfast after scolding him for being chauvinistic and lazy. I also managed to catch the last half hour of the parade so I didn't have to go into full on twitch mode, but I may well torrent it tonight and watch the whole thing tomorrow morning. Traditions must be kept however they can.
  
  
• Dinner with the family was small (half of us were missing) and by contrast quiet and civilized. It was good though. And the FOOD. Dad's housekeeper did 90% of the cooking for us, and wow. That woman can seriously make some collard greens. And turkey. And Ham. And them heathens ate an entire loaf of the pumpkin bread BEFORE we said grace.
  
  
• We set the table really pretty too:
  

Friday:

• Spent an hour on the phone with Verizon about the internet. Hopefully they send a new router this week, because that situation in there is untenable. To me anyway. Dad has cellular service on his iPad and an iPhone so honey badger don't have to care. Bah.
  
  
• Ruthy and I had to run some financy type errands for Dad in downtown Brooklyn. In the process I got to briefly reacquant myself with Mom's actual jewelry collection (I have a fair amount of her vintage costume jewelry). Damn Mom. That lady loved herself some jewelry. Ruthy offered to let me pick out one or two things, but honestly, I have no place to really wear any of that stuff, though if I had to pick she did have some rather gorgeous Iranian filigree pieces. Or her charm bracelet - I have pretty strong memories of playing with that as a small child.
  
  
• Ruthy also hooked me up with this holiday deliciousness:
  
  Sweet delicious pepparkakor nom nom nom.
  
  
• After dealing with that pain in the ass, we went to BAM to see Lincoln. I did enjoy the movie, but I have Opinions about it. They may have to wait until a long overdue Media Consumption Post.
  
  
• In the spirit of AAAAGH QUIT BORROWING MY PHONE Dad straight up offered to frog march me to AT&T to buy me an iPhone5. After being utterly floored by this offer, I asked him to delay it until January when I have a regular paycheck and can support a data plan. So that's gonna be my Christmas present, which means soon The Precious can finally go quietly into her retirement. I may wipe and jailbreak it and give it to Kidzilla as a music/game player. Also, I CAN GET ME ONE OF THESE SEXY SEXY CASES. Because my wallet is my ipod case and that very badly needs to be retired as well.
  
  
• Went to sleep aggressively snuggled by Dad's cat.
  

Saturday:

• Got up early, went to the store, and got eggs and potatoes for Dad's breakfast. There was one spoiled West Indian afterward.
  
  
• Was considering going up to AMNH to visit Alejandra's spider exhibit, but couldn't get a hold of either her nor her mother in time, so instead I went up to the Garment District.
  
  So glad Tohoshoji is still there!Amanda (who got me into beading) and I used to go up here and get bulk bead stuff all the time. They still have decent prices too - not as much markup for a 20g box of delicas either. So now I have all five of my main colors plus a few others in good supply for now.
  
  
• Watched Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) on Spike. It had been long enough since I'd seen it that watching it again was actually fun. Kinda striking how different Mark Hamill looked between Star Wars and Empire, but car accidents'll jack your face up, alas.
  
  
• More kitty sleeps. She snores. And kicks.

Sunday:

• I'm usually tired of being back home after two days, let alone three, so you can imagine I was rearing to get back to MA. Except that didn't happen - I showed up at Port Authority two hours before my bus was to leave expecting some holiday craziness, but not the magnitude of crazy that greeted me there yesterday wherein no tickets were being sold or printed "until further notice" police were trying to control fourteen lines of very annoyed people and apparently none of the buses were leaving on time. I later found out that all carriers had massively oversold almost all of the departures out of new york. I waited for about four or five hours, gave up and went back to brooklyn in a state of massively thwarted anxiety. Note to self - always buy my tickets ahead of time from now on. Seriously I've travelled through Port Authority for many a Thanksgiving weekend for almost 20 years now, I had never seen or experienced anything like the zoo that was yesterday.
  
  
• Least dad and the cat were glad to have me around for an extra evening.
  
  
• Did laundry and watched horrifyingly bad TV while doing so, including three minutes of Liz and Dick than made me run screaming like I'd seen a moldy sandwich.

Monday:

• Took NO chances and bought a Megabus ticket this morning. Mostly becuase they only require a confirmation number to board and you can wave an iDevice at them with it showing on the screen even. Wasn't risking having to buy OR print a ticket at Port Authority. Fuck all that noise.
  
  
• Spoiled Dad with breakfast. Again.
  
  
• Rather more successful in making it home this time, and while Manbeast was quite effusively glad to see me, the cats are still being hard to get little fiends. They'll forgive me eventually. I was, after all, cavorting with GASP another cat all weekend without their permission.
  
  
• Left my iPad charger in Brooklyn. Dang it.

In beading news:
No internet in the house == I BEAD LIKE A FIEND. It's also an excellent thing to do while waiting in line for a bus ticket line that's never going to move, but hey.



It's starting to actually look like something now. And you can almost read the badge on the right.

Still got a loooooong ass way to go though. And there was a copious amount of swearing this morning when I dropped a container of beads on the dining room floor this morning. Le sigh.



And that's my weekend.

Yesterday was at times awesome, sad, uncomfortable, exciting and amusing. Overall, it was busy. Lots of running around to be done.

Anyway, gyn appointment was uneventful, and hopefully will remain so after the vaginapocalypse of 2010. (Okay it wasn't that bad. But colposcopies are a bitch and I do not want another one.) Other than the fact that he has to do uncomfortable things to my ladybits every so often I really like Dr. Patton. Also man, I tell you. You mention that your marital status has changed recently and you get entire offices of people in scrubs fawning all over your ass, if yesterday's and the day before's shenanigans were any indication. Wellp.

Aside though - I wonder what inspires a man to become a ladybits doctor this day and age? I'm not trying to be sexist here, though I'm aware there's a bit of bias coming through. I suppose there are lady urologists who get the same question. Really anyone, honestly - I just sorta want to walk up to folks and be all like "so, what was the moment you decided YES I WANT MY LIFE TO BE LOOKING AT PEOPLE'S JUNK ALL DAY EVERY DAY?"

For the record, I could never be a urologist. Don't get me wrong, I love your outdoor plumbing and what it does for me gentlemen (and a few ladies) but on the grand scale of all the beauty in the natural world, the male genitalia is maybe a notch or two above the duck billed platypus.

Also picked up my meds on my way home for the first time in... wow, almost a year now? Oh, medical insurance, you are wonderful. Hurray for being back in the land of $15 for a scrip instead of ten times that, and that's for a generic. We won't talk about my brand name gut pills.

Since I was super excited about getting my test beads yesterday I found a little change purse to slip the vials, needles and thread into and actually started/made a surprising amoount of progress on my test pattern while jumping various buses to and from the doctor. Between snatching beading time on the while, a bit during the opening acts at the concert (more on that later) and a little bit before bed, I got about four rows done.



I've gotten one more done since this morning and so far seeing the colors "in action" so to speak, I'm super in-love and excited.This is going to be an amazing project. It's also going to be a mind blowingly LONG project. At the rate I'm going, the fastest I can get a bead in is 50 seconds. Even if I get my pace up, once I get up to the full sized patterns, that's going to be 2.5 hours-ish per row. Yikes. Here's hoping my usual problems with attention don't kick in once I get started on the big project.

I haven't forgotten The Witch either. Been making myself work on casting her off this week during TV/movie watching tiem. It's slow, but it's happening. There will be pictures once I get one side off.

In supply news, I heard from Northampton Beadery yesterday. The Beadery prices are about in the neighborhood I'd expect after last week's online comparison shopping. A little on the high side, even, but you have to factor in a) no shipping b) local indie business. And I like them, so I'm okay with tossing them the occasional bead order instead of popping online to do it. (I'll keep delibeads bookmarked for emergencies - I was very impressed with their order turnaround.) However I apparently won't need to be placing any bulk orders for a bit because harinezumi went to the fucking Miyuki FACTORY yesterday. O_o Yeah, you know what, I have awesome friends.

Midway through the day I got a text from my sister, apparently sent to all of us, reminding us all to celebrate and cherish Mom's memory. She passed away eight years ago yesterday. I had a rough few moments, but mostly of the "wow... it really has been that long" variety and not of the "I miss my Mommy" sort. I mostly shook it off and went on with my day, but it did drop my sails a little bit.

After bells, I went down to Northampton with cell23 to see Electric Six at the Iron Horse with omgwtfaninja and his Manzypants. I like Electric Six well enough - not enough to call myself a super fan or anything, but I've got ten or so of their songs on semi-heavy rotation on my iPod and most of the other stuff I've heard of theirs I like. Well. While the boys say it wasn't their best live show, I enjoyed them immensely and after experiencing Dick Valentine shenanigans in person, I can kinda see what is is on which omgwtfaninja and cell23 base their "stage personas." (Example, lol.) I was kind of expecting to not recognize most of their set seeing as I don't think I've heard any of their more recent stuff, but they decided they were going to play straight through their first album and meader around in Greatest Hits territory, so it turns out that they did seven out of ten of the songs I have of theirs and all of the ones I really like. Win. Bonus to getting to watch cell23 and omgwtfaninja (who really do have the most adorable bromance I've ever seen) rock out for the entire set (cell23 has been complaining on twitter about how he isn't 20 anymore and Dick Valentine broke him) and getting to hang with the adorable Manzypants for a while. (oh, head58, not that you read LJ anymore, but Neal says hi.) And as always I left the Iron Horse with the self-admonition that I really need to get out and see more concerts. Not only do I love that particular venue, but they have a knack for booking people I actually like. Alas, I never manage to go, for whatever reason - $$ and lazy mostly. Need to fix that. Not now, obv, but down the line. Kinda like I'm always saying I need to go to the movies more too.

Still a mindfuck to me being introduced to people as cell23's wife. An enjoyable one, no mistake (public recognition, y'all know I love that shit), but I do wonder when and if that "Wait, what?? OH YEAH" reaction goes away.

Bah, why is it almost 1pm already? I HAVE THINGS TO DO and I haven't started any of them. >_< BAH. Oh, well, I don't need to sleep, right? :/

RoyRoy's birthday is today. I'm still all WTF because I took this picture of him almost exactly 20 years ago:



This is him now:



...yeah, I'ma be over here in my rocking chair with my Geritol and my Dentugrip.

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For not having gotten my license until age 30, a significant portion of my childhood was spent in the car with Mom, from back when i was a wee bit stapped into the torture devices that passed as the first five-point car seats to a little kid passed out in the massive backseat of her land barge of a 1983 Cadillac, to finally moving up to the front seat and serving as her copilot on trips until i went off to college.

To say that Mom loved to drive is an understatement and an oversimplification. Looking back, most of my memories of her being relaxed, calm and even happy are when she was behind the wheel, letting the hum of highway under tires soothe the anxieties that constantly plagued her. It was only later when i got licensed myself (later in life and in fact, at the same age she did) that i understood her constant, well, drive to be in the car, and the near zen-like state of mind she entered after about half an hour on the road. Years later, it's become one of my more effective self-soothing behaviors, especially over long distances. I also seemed to have learned more of my pervasive driving habits from her by osmosis, seeing as while i didn't get my license until well after her death, i still catch myself copying them. Good in the defensive driving sense, bad in the family lead foot and sudden explosions of dockworker profanity at other drivers' jackassoirie senses. I swear, all my Mom's pretenses of being a perfect lady died when the key slid into the ignition, which is probably why while i knew better than to repeat any of it in her earshot, i was swearing competently and creatively by the fourth grade.

As to where we went, at the risk of sounding like a car commercial, the destinations never mattered as much as the journeys, or that unique sense of both consternation and relief that occurs after you're back home putting the car in park and preparing to return to real life. But it could have been a run as short as from Brooklyn to Manhattan to get me to school, to NJ to visit my aunt and later my sister, and when i was younger, stretches all the way to Ohio, Virginia, Michigan and Illinois. I seriously remember more of the trips there and back rather than actually being there.

Its funny... She and i certainly had our share of mother/daughter differences to the point where even on days like today i actually feel somewhat guilty for not missing her nearly as much as i feel I should. (Lets me frank, if she were still around she would be micromanaging my wedding to the point of driving me to tears.) On the road, though, is one of the few places where i do. I used to have her picture dangling from my rearview mirror, actually, with the inscription "Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly" on the back. Figure I've been her primary passenger for so many years... she'd return the favor if she could. (Backseat driving the entire way.)

Happy Mothers' Day, those of you who observe it.

One of the few dates where it don't matter which side of the pond you're on, it's still right, lol. Anyone who makes wishes at 11:11 in general should make a couple of big ones today, I think.

I'd like to say something big and important about Veterans' Day, but elf_fu not only beat me to it, she said it far more eloquently than my caffeine deprived brain is capable of doing so I'ma just link over with a resounding Hell Yeah and a reminder to self that I need to call Dad. I need to check whether he's finished those Carnagie Deli sandwiches yet anyway.

I do not have the day off, which I'm okay with. The buses, however, are on No School Schedule, which I'm somewhat less fine with seeing as getting back across the river on Fridays is challenging enough with traffic. Tonight is the Boston run; we shall return with two short stacks to entertain for the weekend (and hopefully one Hess Truck). The only thing really on my agenda is reading to Kidzilla - during the blackout I started reading her The Graveyard Book and I'd like to at least finish that, not to mention make some progress reading Eragon as well. Also I want to find her a copy of So You Want to Be A Wizard - it's an older kid book, but if she can handle Graveyard, she should be fine with evil man-eating taxicabs prowling the streets of New York. Which they pretty much do anyway.

The Secret Sqwrrl project is getting a bit big to contain within my head at this point. I may need to go through my stacks of blank notebooks and three ring binders for one to dedicate to the project. Either than or take the excuse to make a trip to Staples - I have Things to Find Out there anyway.

Other than kiddos, I'm gonna do my best to Get Things Done this weekend - between blackouts, trips to New York, lingering sick and constant tired/lazy I've kinda fallen behind on Life and Everything. Course, playing catch up when Lil'Beast is chasing the cat trying to get her to eat handfuls of kitty treats never works out well, but I'm gonna take a shot at it nonetheless. :)

Today is definitely shaping up to be one of THOSE days. Not necessarily bad things are happening, just, I don't know today has that certain je ne sais quoi that comes of oversleeping by an hour* and finding out amidst predictable new/returning student insanity that the still-handsome, elderly Guyanese gentleman I call Dad has joined facebook.

Oh, and I now work with a girl that counts among her summer activities swimming across the English Channel. Whut.

Yeah, I'll be over here being all "wait, what?" and seriously rethinking that whole giving up morning caffeine idea.

In yay news, Dunks is selling cider again. FALL IS COMING! In dubious lean-away-from-the-screen news, Dunks is selling cider again. That's got to be some nasty apple gel + hot water shit right there. I'll just take this as an indication to swing by Atkins Farms for some of the real stuff later. Not to mention fucking cider donuts. Mmmmmm Atkins cider donuts...


* I still made it in on time. Thank heavens for PVTA drivers willing to radio your connection and tell him to wait for your dumb late ass for a couple minutes. Oh and for being the driver cheerfully willing to idle a couple of minutes so you can get to work on time. Sheesh. Be glad when regular schedule starts up next week!

Had an interesting twist on the old dream where you show up to a final exam to a class you never went to, in that I was preparing for a trip overseas that was happening in a few days and only just realized I never got my passport. The part where it got weird is as I tearing about The House frantic about this my mother (who often shows up in these dreams alive and well) calmly told me to stop freaking out and go look in the freezer with the rest of the Important Papers. Right, okay. Not sure what all my subconscious was trying to impart to me there, but felt it was just off the wall weird enough to note for posterity.

I've never had a passport, incidentally. I should fix this. I'd like to GTFO of the US for a while someday. Still unsure as to where I'd go, but it'd be nice to go somewhere.


I have solved the mystery of why I fell out of the habit of getting up at the ass crack of dawn, seeing as I have started doing it again. Hungry cats. Lily has figured out that the quickest way to wake up her humans is to kick my glasses off my nightstand, the sound of them falling to the floor instantly rouses me. Dick. Also the soporific effects of warm glomphy bedtime companion do nothing for my early rising abilities, especially as he routinely fails to get out of bed until fifteen minutes before he has to be at work. But yeah, apparently kitty needing foodins is a far more effective alarm clock than anything else I've tried. We'll go with that.

I started watching Community with the boy last night finally. Two eps in and it is cute, snarky fun, not to mention another opportunity to ogle Joel McHale. I can't get over how old Chevy Chase is. My mental picture of him is from Christmas Vacation, what the hell happened? Oh, yeah, 20 years, right. I'm still a little O_o about that, honestly, that it's been almost two decades since a whole lot of random pop culture and music I remember loving/watching/listening to. And then I remember I was a kid 20 years ago. And then the whole "20 years ago" thing hits me and my brain just kinda melts a little around the edges. I'm not sure how/when I got old enough to say "20 years ago" and have that refer to an actual period of sentience in my life. What. Just bring me the Geritol and Dentugrip now.


Today is Stan's birthday. Also today is when Dad gets out of rehab and goes home with Ruth thereby to terrorize her for a couple months while we all finish tending to The House. Looks like phone calls will make up a significant portion of my day.

I've been all thinky this week. Some good. A lot bad, honestly. Mostly neutral. And deeply thankful for the handful of things in my life that are going very very right and keep me going through the rest of it. One of which is STILL ignoring his alarm clock and snoring behind me, lol. I should go kiss him before he lumbers out of bed.