Away and Back Again

Time off
 Took two days off from work making for a 4 day weekend. It was not a vacation:

• no travel
• no meetup or hookup

but it was a vacation:

• no thinking about doing any work related activities
• actual refreshment happened. 

I remembered two dreams (imminent baby adoption; taking an essay test with the question "What is limited in fairy tales and how do those limitations function in the story?" to which I had like 4 examples in the dream that I wish I could remember). I took a nap one day. I did errandy and appointment things in the middle of the day. I cooked. 

Aw, fudge

Catherine Newman rules and so do her kids. Her Insta (I try to care about reading people there, but I don't) and almost defunct blog (nostalgic sighs). There's a penuche fudge recipe at the blog if you need one. 

Imposing order

My college fresher completed her online orientation and her job training week. She started classes this morning. Two days as a teller so far. I'm quite proud of her. It's a lot and I hope she can do it all. 

   

Wretch

Our world news is upsetting these days. I filter vigorously to be able to keep a fairly even keel. I am in favor of the exposure of ghastly deeds rather than their cover up but I can't be a witness every day. Infinite bless the journalists and stubborn truth tellers. I want to be further into the future now but one day at a time is the only option I've been given. 

Kindling

Puppet show
My UK based friend recommended The Windsors on nflx and I am sharing on this vital info. It is a super silly soap opera spun out of the current British royals. My favorites are Beatrice and Eugenie but they all make me laugh. It's very exaggerated and the drawling gets me every time. The way Charles says 'America'! (Closest I can get is Ah-merri-kay but you have to say it while also pulling your lips back from your teeth as though you were a Nick Park claymation character.) It's the same sort of thing as the SoCal drawl they did in The Californians soap sketches on SNL. That kills me too and yet it leaves my spouse unmoved so your mileage may vary.  

Someone tweeted recently that they keep a list of dumb things that make them laugh and I support this practice wholeheartedly. 

Stumpy!
Some time after we moved to this house (a year and 2 months ago - yay!) we noticed a squirrel with just one inch of tail. It was in the company of other young squirrels and we started calling it Stumpy as it was so visually distinct. I'm happy to report that Stumpy is still around, busy doing squirrel business. Long may they scamper.

Chickens, roosting
This week I am seeing many references to the fossil fuels industry promoting the (mostly) myth of plastics recycling. It was seen as a way to promote plastic use without needing to follow through. I'm reminded of many 70s era speculative fiction stories about humanity choking itself in trash and air pollution. There was some pull back from those (literally) dark days. We mostly got rid of CFCs and made some air and a bunch of waterways much cleaner. And it's time to do it again. I hope there's a will. The scorching of the entire left side of the country seems like it would be a motivator.  

Getting overwhelmed is easy these days. Compassion-fatigue, outrage-fatigue, even just attention-fatigue is wearing at us. Time to look for the next right thing, the next necessary thing.