Can't Trust That Day

So far the weather report isn't looking good for Wednesday, but I'm hoping maybe the storm passes us by after all and we can go to my company's holiday party. Of course, we're homebodies anyway so staying in, particularly in the winter, isn't all that much of a hardship. And I've been keeping plenty busy on the job so I don't have time to think about too much else. Except sleep. I always think about sleep.

A Winter Shearing

A day of much accomplishment, as we picked up Robin's meds at the pharmacy in Yonkers, then did our grocery shopping, doubled back for a tasty repast at our favorite conveyor belt sushi place (a day late to celebrate Robin's birthday), then a quick haircut for me on the way back. I didn't realize how much I needed this shearing! But now I'm going to look much better for the holiday party. Alas, the card shop where I usually buy my half-price holiday cards didn't have any cards without the C word (as a Jew-raised atheist I might love the holiday season trappings but I can't bring myself to actually buy cards that say "Christmas" on them when there are plenty more generic cards out there), but Robin suggested I try Bezos' Emporium. A missed opportunity for shopping locally but I can't purchase what they don't have! So my preferred cards are on their way, now I just have to compose what I've decided for myriad reasons will be our final Riggs Residence Roundup. And the temperature is below freezing but hasn't dipped nearly as much at sundown as it has in the past week, so I'm looking forward to a few days of normal wintery weather.

The European Robin at 63

I miss the days when I could just embed a photo here. Ah well, picture an English Robin, won't you? Now picture an amazing husband who helps me with IT problems, household issues, emotional stability, genuine warmth and humor, and all the intangibles I can possibly think of. That's pretty much my English Robin, who turns 63 today. And we've actually had an interesting day for the most part! We got a lot of deliveries this morning, so Robin's attire for next Wednesday's office holiday party is all set, and he used his photography-related holiday gift to get some amazing ultra-widescreen shots, although the substantial murder of crows dive-bombing our driveway this afternoon was captured via iPhone. Mostly we just tried, and are still trying, to remain warm in this cold spell, which is supposed to finally break tomorrow evening. At the moment I'm way too tired to care about anything other than my lovely Robin.

As More Things Change

I cleaned out my file cabinet at the office today, but not to worry. All cabinets are being decommissioned as part of our office move, and the person in charge of the cabinets gave me the keys to the rolling file drawer and desk drawer of my workstation, so it's actually far more convenient to get everything out of those places since the cabinet wasn't as close. In the frenzy I misplaced my commuter card, and naturally didn't realize that until I was about a block away from the office. Fortunately it turned out to have just dropped on the carpet underneath my desk, but the adrenaline rush of those ten minutes is not something I'd care to relive. Oh, and it's been decided that all professionals will be issued firm-specific phones next year and we will no longer be able to use firm apps on our current phones, and I have no idea if, as an EA, I'm included in that mix. More and more I feel like I'm in a constant holding pattern, which is exhausting enough but add to that this freezing weather and it just wipes me out. I'll be happy to see the coming weekend!

Blustery

We're definitely in a cold snap in NYC. Could be worse, at least we don't have any precipitation. And it was warm enough in the office in Manhattan that I wasn't affected by the cold (in fact, I ran my small desktop fan on low for most of the workday). It was just that five minutes or so to and from the bus, and at lunchtime, that it really bit me. Mostly I was kept busy enough, and actually running around for a change, that I didn't have time to think about it. And busy is good, after all. But now I just want to sleep...

Cold Old Bones

White Rabbits, and welcome to our month of celebrations! Looks like the cold will prevent us from leaving the house for most of them, aside from my company's holiday party a week from Wednesday, so we'll be spending our birthdays and anniversary indoors and cozy. Today I put up the holiday card wreath and tabletop tree, surrounded by the usual decorations including the sugar-free fruitcake, and rested up more as I'm back on the job for my birthday tomorrow.

A Few Abs More Than the Allotted Six Pack

Good grief, I know athletes are built, and most English Premiere League footballers approach the physical ideal, but even I gasped when Mohammed Salah stripped off his shirt after Liverpool's third goal, and I'm not even into muscly guys. After a very sleepless night and, when I finally got back to bed after sunrise, a nasty nightmare (morning-mare?) featuring my car being stolen, I needed that Liverpool game. We ventured out in the wind to do the rest of the week's grocery shopping and got pretty much everything I wanted (it's not going to be a huge Thanksgiving food-wise), except I couldn't find the ready-to-eat chestnuts so I'll be attempting to roast my own on Wednesday, right before cutting the sourdough into cubes and drying that out in the oven to serve as the dressing base, into which will go the chestnuts as well as Granny Smith apples, mushrooms, onions and celery. Dressing and cran sauce (which I'm also making from scratch as I have the last couple of years) are my favorite bits anyway, so we have those, thyme and shallot gravy which I'm prepping from scratch too, pre-sliced meats and a ready-made sweet potato mash. Oh, and Robin found low-sugar apple pie, so we're totally set. Now if only the landlord fixed the heat so it actually warms the apartment! Ah well, I remember how to layer, so we'll be fine.

Elemental

This morning the weather turned cold and dank and, thank goodness, rainy. I hope this puts out all the wildfires in the area. My commute wasn't that bad, I have a plastic sleeve for my laptop that keeps away moisture and I got to wear my nifty corporate rain jacket, so no real complaints there. No real grumbles about the rain from my fellow commuters either, just a seemingly vast sigh of relief. I'm also relieved I get to work from home tomorrow, as the temps have started dropping. As inefficient as this house is, I see space heaters in my near future.

Creeping Into the Bones

The older I get, the colder I get. Except when I have stress sweats, or have just eaten, or have too many blankets on, or... Anyway, I'm not quite ready for the nippiness in the air today, and wore my thickest jacket and long sleeves into Manhattan, as it didn't warm up very much throughout the day. The commute home seemed super-long, and I felt like I needed it to be shorter considering how ragged I was run at the office, particularly by folks I don't usually support. But that's how I show my value, I suppose, and that's why leadership wants us to keep coming in. At least next week will be quiet, what with a big out of town partner meeting going on, so I can catch up on writing the rest of my goals. And maybe it'll rain again soon, these fires a hella scary.

Silly Site o' the Day

The drive to and from Mom's rehab place was fairly uneventful. We got confirmation from the social worker that she's definitely being moved into the long-term care center on Thursday afternoon, which news I duly relayed to my brothers in the lands of ice and fire. The move will be supervised by my CA bro flying in tomorrow, while I go back into Manhattan for the next couple of days. Even though the drive was a bit over an hour each way, the rehab room has only one chair and is pretty uncomfortable so both Robin and I are in a lot of pain now, and I can hardly walk on my right leg, which of course took the brunt of the driving. Meanwhlie, because it's still That Time of Year (and yes, the foliage is spectacular in the NJ mountains!), here's some creative pumpkin work:

Via Laughing Squid.

Silly Site o' the Day

As you might imagine, I got very little sleep last night after being awakened by the news about Mom. Fortunately things have now settled back to whatever the new normal is, she's back at the rehab center, and my brother made his flight after all to the land of northern lights. I let my folks know I'd be out tomorrow as originally planned, and made it through the workday with about an hour or so of dozing in the recliner in between tasks. All is about as in readiness as it can be for tomorrow's journey. And I really am looking forward to driving in the beautiful foliage, if nothing else. But other than that I'm ill prepared for Hallowe'en; I don't even have my jet pack costume ready yet! Also, I don't think the weather got the memo, as it reached near 80 degrees today and is slated to be even warmer tomorrow...

Silly Site o' the Day

Thank goodness the weather took an upturn today, although my stress-related gastorintestinal issues persist and aren't helping my body temperature. I did a foolish thing this evening whilst watching the Mets game (hoorah, they won and it looks like the Yankees will win as well!), I turned the space heater up to "high" and thought I'd blown a fuse; turns out it tripped the surge protector, which is good as that's what it's there for. Fortunately I found when Robin fixed everything that I was so worked up I no longer needed the space heater. Not sure what I need now, besides to stop burping every time I eat. Maybe another Yankees win tomorrow. Maybe a butt planter...

Silly Site o' the Day

The frigid-for-autumn weather should break tomorrow, but first I had to get through today. Once I was on the express bus things were a bit better, and of course the office isn't as cold as the apartment. But I slept lousy after yesterday's convo, so I've been awake since around 3:30 AM or so, and at 4:30 PM I decided to leave as I just couldn't concentrate any more. Now the laundered clothing has finally been put away after the bag sat for two days, and the space heater is working beautifully in the bedroom, so I don't even care that much that the Yankees lost and the Mets are losing. After all, who would with chicken daddies to look at?

Silly Site o' the Day

The sibling conference call was a difficult conversation, but we do have a plan moving forward, and maybe in a week or so my stomach will settle. The weather continues its frigid pace, and I needed space heaters most of the day as I worked from home. If you don't mind, I'd rather not see a gallery of crocheted pants...

Silly Site o' the Day

Early winter weather has us in its grip now, naturally since I had to go to Manhattan. Fortunately I was busy enough not to have to think about Mom's situation, about which I'm more pessimistic than I've been. My brothers and I have a major conference call tomorrow about it, but in the meantime the stress is affecting us all in different ways, and for me it translates into gastrointestinal distress, lots and lots of burping from nowhere. Ah well, it could be worse. Oh, it is, we're in the middle of election season. Here's a silly site about that:

Via Mark Evanier.

Silly Site o' the Day

With a busy weekend looming, we decided to do our grocery shopping during my lunch break today, which worked out pretty well considering I didn't feel right all day. Not sure if it's the dropping temps (our landlord isn't back from the west coast and we can't have our heat turned on until his return) or nervousness about all the driving (although the car does seem fine) or the exhaustion from work, but I've definitely been under the weather all day. Nonetheless, I pushed through, made more progress than I thought I would, even cleared most of my personal email and printed out a bunch of financial stuff before giving up to watch some west coast baseball (looks like the Mets will be facing the Dodgers in the NLCS). Maybe tomorrow I won't feel as overwhelmed. I just don't feel ready for the later months in the year, let alone the 2025 Catzilla calendar...

Silly Site o' the Day

On the one hand, Hurricane Milton made landfall just south of where my Tampa friends are, so I hope everyone's in their safe place. On the other, the Mets are actually in the National League Championship Series! What a wonderful game to watch. And I made a killer stir fry, with enough ingredients that I'll be eating leftovers for at least two more meals. My legs and feet aren't as bad as yesterday so I'm hoping not to move around a lot in Manhattan tomorrow; at least I'm prepared for the trip now. I just need to stay out of the way of Google Street View or someone might make a street ghost painting of me. (Kodai Senga: "It not real ghost!" /Senga)

Silly Site o' the Day

A fairly good work-from-home day, after being told the coming hurricane approaching Florida, the second in three weeks, had canceled all my partners' plans to travel to Orlando later this week. Fortunately it only took ten minutes to cancel all the flights. Hoping my friends in Tampa weather the storm okay. This is not a time for sandal socks, get your patooties out of there while you can!

Silly Site o' the Day

And I thought Tuesday's commute was hellish! Because there were protests called for around 6 PM in the vicinity of Grand Central, I decided to leave the office at 4:30, but it didn't help much because the protesters were marching and blocking the intersection two blocks south of my bus stop. Between the 45-minute wait until the first bus finally arrived (there were five behind it that wound up breaking the logjam a half hour later, I was told by Robin who was keeping track on BusTime) and that bus being SRO so we all had seat company AND my seat company staying next to me as the bus grew emptier and emptier and getting off at the last stop as I did... well, everything hurts now. At least the Yankees finally won their division. The Mets/Atlanta games have been postponed due to the horrific oncoming Hurricane Helene, so heaven only knows when the regular baseball season will actually end. Have I mentioned everything hurting? I'm removing my squiggle eyebrows and lips and going to bed.

Silly Site o' the Day

My recently-read comics are out of the house! Robin took them down this morning before the weather got too oppressive, and I drove them down to my south Riverdale neighbor (whose son adores them) at the height of the heat around 4 PM. Couldn't be helped, that's when she was home. And it's so worth it, particularly when I discovered that, after they look through them, they pass the comics and graphic novels on to women and children at local homeless shelters. Everyone pays it forward, and comics get passed around like they should be! Does my heart tons of good. Of course, I needed to seriously hydrate after getting home, and sitting in the living room (even with the blinds down and curtains drawn) for far too long watching the Paralympics opening ceremony (a resounding "meh") probably didn't do me much good either. I also ate something of a light lunch, unlike Donald Duck:

Via just about everywhere, but I finally got the link via Mark Evanier.