Future Me would like to see another post here before the year is out. I think Future Me has forgotten that this is the December when I came out of the other end of a kikki.k sale with a planner and a creative 365 diary and a dream-as-in-aspire journal. And the planner has stickers. (BYO washi tape.) But okay, FM. Anything for you. (Except diet and exercise.)
(Below is whatever I type whenever I remember to pop into this window over the next few days. Signed, Me of 4:38 a.m. on whatever we want to call the day after Boxing Day. "Breaking down the boxes and side-eyeing the recycling bin that won't be collected until next Wednesday, except that's New Year's, so probably Thursday, oh dear" Day?)
When your husband buys Toblerones for everyone in the office, but not everyone was there the last day of term, so that's me with my breakfast sorted right through the end of the month.
I think I'm too old to like Fleabag, even when it makes me laugh.
The rabbits have their big rug back. Nox was binkying. I'd never even seen a side-binky before; I thought she was about to launch into the Time Warp. (Later: "She's just a sweet. dwarf. rabbit..." ) I shall never leave them rugless in the living room again.
Somewhere between my 50th birthday three months ago and Christmas, I worked for three-ish weeks as a/an ______ ______. This omission of detail sounds provocative. Don't think I'm not enjoying that. I'm not supposed to identify myself as a/an ______ ______ during the time of employment, nor am I allowed to ever-ever profit from the experience (although the whole reason I did it was so I could profit intellectually from it), so I'm really just playing it safe. I'd love to tell the world that I was a/an ______ ______, especially since I don''t love my odds for squeezing into a place next year, but it's not worth the repercussions. (I'm so grateful that I did my oversharing online before there were so many repercussions. Not that I could expect to get elected or anything today. I stand by my Usenet history, though. Directly in front of it, at times, deflecting attention away from the cringe, but half of a lifetime later and no real regrets.)
Anyway, I spent some of the ______ ______ money on a Sizzix. So I'm that kind of person. A person who makes die cuts. Jesus. Pass the finger paints and pipe cleaners; I'm out of the closet now... and probably standing in the driveway waiting for the latest rumpled little grey bag from China. (Yeah, I'm not paying Spotlight prices for those dies.)
Speaking of Wish (we were, by the way), I have a lot of dice now. I've made go-bags - velvetish black pouches, actually, thanks - of polyhedral sets for the students of one of my small classes next year. Now I just need to think of an ongoing activity that a) necessitates said dice being carried in their pencil cases daily, and b) allows me to begin instruction with phrases like, "Take out your regular D10s - no, not the percentile die, little Johnny..." And no, I can't run a D&D campaign, not for this class. It's a Very, Very Serious class. One of those All Things Serve The Exam classes. The kind of class where stress runs high and some years you quietly take Godot off the syllabus. Not everyone finds Absurdism reassuring.
I have an Almost-As-Serious Class next year, too. I'm meant to be reading two novels this summer, ready with opinions on which this class should do when we're back in month. (HOLY WHAT NO WHERE IS THE TIME GOING ARGHMMMPH) I even championed one of the books, so delighted I was by the description of its structure and the settings and the little blurb I read at the start. But am I reading (damn, I just realised that one of my team mates might Google the title - sorry) either book? No. I've decided that it's time to finally try The Name of the Wind.
Who would've imagined that "plant-based" would be the magic compound adjective to get everyone on board with veganism? Even cans of beans are being re-branded as perfect for a plant-based diet. (I'm not complaining. Australia is a land whose restaurateurs would do well to recognise that the token V item under "Mains" need not contain pumpkin.) Marketing geniuses. I do hate losing ground in that some yummy meatless dishes are disappearing from menus. The beef stays, and the more ordinary (don't let me say "garden variety") vegetarian who loves dairy is back to ordering X without the Y (but for the full Z price, of course).
Mike's been playing M.U.L.E. on the re-released Commodore 64. Sometimes emulators aren't enough.
Tomorrow night, down at a winery, we're going to withstand warm air and general admission to see the Hoodoo Gurus. My friend from 10th grade, Eva Peck (Google-bait activated!), the new girl at school, who managed to keep a straight face as I began to explore punk rock via the unlikely gateway of Duran Duran, who had a boyfriend already out of school named Chris, who left home to live with the same (who never came back to school), she had a HG t-shirt. My whole experience with the Hoodoo Gurus was that shirt and "Like Wow, Wipeout" and anything else they may have played on MTV's "edgy" 120 Minutes that I've forgotten.
Mike, Australian of an age and place that he is, has known many more Hoodoo Gurus tunes for years. A few months ago we were on a trip to Perth for I-forget-what and he requested a shuffle of their songs (that are available on Apple Music - don't ask why I don't Spotify - the tale is dull). And that's how we both came to know my most recent favourite song: "Zanzibar".
Speaking of colonial references, I've learned to play the mighty Alexander Pfister's latest board game, Maracaibo, and it's on one end of the table, waiting to see if we can finish playing just about all of our 2019 games before time runs out. (On the other end of the table, Glen More II: Chronicles. Pacing in the wings: Sorcerer City, Paladins of the Western Kingdom, UBoot, and On the Underground. Uh oh.)
(A night or two passes. I change the look of the site because I'm all into the Procreate app now, but I was also doing it on the iPad and having a go at whacking away some old and seemingly superfluous CSS, so if anything looks wonky... it's likely to stay that way for awhile.)
Hoodoo Gurus were great, even without "Zanzibar" or "Dig It Up". The singer can really boast a clear timbre and strength to his voice that he controls well. A small so-called amphitheatre hacked into and/or tacked onto the side of a winery - depending on how charitable you feel - and its complete abandonment of its decision to offer "limited" picnic blanket space made for a sloppy and inequitable experience, but we eventually squeezed together into a little spot against the fence and under the moon and Venus. (Some very kind people even folded back their mostly unused blanket a little for us. This was a lovely contrast to the first place we stood, where a sloshed woman declared the entire vicinity to be her personal reserved dancing space, and she was drunk enough to fight over it. Ah, those leathery suburbanites of a certain vintage...)
Afterward, there was no energy for Maracaibo. (Only for two episodes of Lost in Space, which has been dully human in the Robot's absence.) Beforeward, there was plenty of energy for vegan bao and pork bao and a "unicorn" dog at Snatch in Dunsborough, who hopefully aren't going out of business despite being for sale. Where else can I have cold cherry vanilla Dr Pepper with my meal and enough veg options (plus fries "loaded" almost however I like) that if we return a third time, I'll have something different yet again?
Mike says more games are due to arrive today. Also on the to-do list for this Monday the 30th:
- donate a box of things (someone named Me opened the last of the four big boxes in the garage yesterday, and I must say that they were definitely packed by Old Me, who was frugal and plucky enough to bring over her American-wired lamps... from Walmart... sigh)
- reply to a Distant DNA Cousin who is going to send me individual messages about the potential of every Smith and Jones in my tree if I don't quickly get back to him with a better theory
- hide from the lawnmower man (no Stephen King reference intended - I'm just not up for small talk about our ongoing lack of borders in the flower beds to discourage grass runners)
- unload the dryer, maybe... see also unload the basket of the last load of drying, maybe
- talk Mike into a check-up like he was saying he would get for the last few days, but now he "feels better", so good luck to me with that
- (No, I don't like how I buried the above point in a literal laundry list, either.)
- eat soft pretzels
- take down the Christmas lights from the front room
- and put the other stray objets de noël away.
So, I'll just click on "Publish" and...