The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I know, all the vague-blogging makes people crazy but that’s pretty much all I have tonight.
Except for the breaking news that I was standing on the back steps with the dogs in a short sleeved night shirt and NO COAT and I wasn’t even cold. So there’s that.
From the Cybils shortlist, The Boy on the Wooden Box is the story of Leon Leyson, one of the Jews on Schindler’s List. It was an ok book — not great but if you’re a middle school kid or even a high schooler who doesn’t know anything about Schindler, this would be a good easy book to dive into. Though it was more about Lesyon and his family than Schindler, of course.
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It took just under a week but I beat that damn 2048 game… Yay!
But, it’s so annoying because NOBODY was awake to hear me scream.
Well, Lola was awake but she was less than impressed. She looked at me with disdain and went back to bed.
I BEAT IT!
Was not amazing.
Or it was amazing that it took me more than a week to read it?
The Valley of Amazement wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t amazing and it was not a quick read. I wasn’t a fan of the way it was laid out. I didn’t like the jump back to see what had been happening with Lulu Mimi while her daughter was growing up a courtesan. That felt jarring and it was too short. The jump back was equally jarring and short. I prefer we learn about all of the characters in the proper sequence without the jumping forward and backward and forward again.
Also, all the horrible things happened and happened and happened and happened.
I also didn’t love any of the main characters — I liked their sidekicks better. Magic Gourd, Golden Dove. Those were great women. There should be a book about them.
But, it was Amy Tan so it was well written and interesting.
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Wah. We’ve officially caught up with all of the Maisie Dobbs books. Leaving Everything Most Loved was TOUGH.
All of the leaving and moving on to new things. Billy and Sandra. Gah!
Yay for Frankie and Brenda.
Can’t decide whether I like James or hate him. Pretty sad when I start to think Maisie should hook up with Caldwell…
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I went back to wearing two jackets and two pairs of socks in my house. I haven’t been able to bring myself to put on a second pair of pants. I just can’t go that far.
I’m not really warm with the extra layers but at least I’m not shivering so badly that I’m double typing every other letter.
Stupid weather is stupid.
Stupid hot flashes are equally stupid.
They cause me to want to strip off the layers but when I do, I find myself freezing my ass off again five minutes later. It’s a constant — put on the jackets, take off the jackets, put on the jackets, take off the jackets sort of thing.
Even more frustrating because I often take my jackets off and walk away and then have to figure out where I left them when I’m cold again five minutes later.
Today is stupid.
Hot, Cold, Hot, Cold Read More »
Elly is always playing some new game on her iPhone and I usually just ignore her. Oh sure, when she was little I installed jelly car for her (I blame Teddy for that) and let her play that on my phone but once she got her own iPhone (and iPad) I just rolled my eyes at whichever game she was currently fixated on.
But on Sunday, I got sucked into 2048 — regular version because the doge version she was playing just looked weird. I installed it on my own phone because watching her play was making me twitchy. She kept moving the tiles into the wrong damn place and while I might have let her play games on my phone, there’s no way in hell she’s gonna let me play games on hers.
So yea, I downloaded it.
And I cannot stop playing. It might be worse than Candy Crush. If I don’t get the damn 2048 tiles matched up soon, I’m going to have to remove the bloody game from my phone. It shouldn’t be that hard — it’s probably rigged.
At some point during my little vacation, I saw my co-workers convo’ing about how quickly the day had gone. I chuckled because I often have days like that.
This is not one of those days.
I’ve been at my desk for almost six hours and am wondering why the day is dragging along so slowly. It’s not like I don’t have a ton of work to do — I definitely do, and I’m getting it all done in a timely manner. But good grief, when will this day end?
And the dogs have been royal pains in the ass. TW finally got two of them down for a nap (and yes, I know I sound like we’ve got toddlers or something) but Lola had to jump the gates so she could go into the other room and bark at squirrels which woke Buster Butt up and now I’m sure he’s gonna wonder around acting like a Butt again.
WHEN will THIS day END?
Remind me of this when I’m cursing about how quickly the time is flying later this week, ‘k?
Re-Entry Is Hard, Y’all Read More »
I had an exceptionally nice 4 day break — I worked maybe a total of an hour over four days. That’s… crazy. I worked more than that when JMP was born and I was on vacation in Hawaii. Hah. (Thank you, Sassymonkey.)
I got a lot of odds & ends done. TW and I had fun by ourselves, with the girls and with the puppies. I did some housework. I didn’t read very much and I realized yesterday that I never did put any time in my schedule to work on JMP’s stocking which really made me laugh because Sassymonkey pointed out out that my PTO to do list did not have any stocking time on it. I told her that’s an every day thing, not a PTO thing — and then it promptly fell off of my normal schedule, in favor of other things. So, I had to re-create today’s to do list and add that back in. Sheesh.
I’ve got two more PTO days coming up in a couple of weeks but I’ll be working more than an hour since Sassymonkey is traveling a bit over that weekend. I’m still very much looking forward to that break, though because it will be #readathon time!
I think April might be my favorite month, or it would be if we didn’t also pay $18K in taxes this month but let’s not think of that and ruin my nice vacation high, ok?
I took TW to Hollywood Palms for date night yesterday. It turned into date afternoon because there was lightning so we couldn’t take the dogs to the dog park as previously planned and it seemed like a better idea to head out early rather than wait and risk really bad weather.
So, we made it to Naperville (an hour darn drive) shortly before 1pm. We both ordered drinks — TW got some Kahlua mocha frappe thingy and I got a lime sorbet martini. We wandered around the lobby which was full of kids because they were having a couple of special kid events – a Rio 2 day so there were a bunch of birds there that the kids could look at and hold and they had the Easter Bunny in another corner of the lobby.
We took our drinks into the theater at around 1:15, looked at the food menu and ordered ALL OF THE FOOD, which was delivered throughout the movie. The best of all the food we ordered was the Grinch Dip. Yum.
Divergent was ok. But I kept wanting to yell, “Look! A person of color!”
We had a good time — the servers were excellent, the cocktails were good (and I NEVER drink, ever but definitely enjoyed the two martinis I had), the food was fine and I enjoyed the nice rolling computer desk chair (though I did slam my knee into a metal poll right after the movie star but that was my own fault and not the theater/chair’s fault.)
We’ll go again someday, though not often because it’s expensive, lol — and a really long drive just to have food/drinks delivered to you during a movie.
Dinner and a Movie Read More »