(no subject)

1. Mother keeps telling me COVID stories. Apparently the person she'd gotten COVID from way back in October or thereabouts, still has issues with it. The woman is a mezzo soprano, with an excellent singing voice - but ever since she contracted COVID - she's not been able to sing. It's damaged her vocal chords. So she's working with a vocal therapist and doctors to get her voice back. She lost her voice.

I don't think she had the vaccine or took the anti-viral, which my mother did.

Mother is also threatening to go off to Seattle next year to visit her cousin. I suggested I could come along and help - but Mother retorted that I'm having issues getting off work. (I don't think I'll have that much trouble in the Winter or Spring, it's Christmas that's apparently a headache. She figures if her cousin can't travel to see her - she can go visit her. Her cousin can't leave her husband, who has serious health issues. Mother and her cousin are around the same age, and very close - they talk weekly.

Mother also got tired of waiting for me to come down and help put up her tree.

Mother: I got my tree up.
Me: Okay, how did you get it up??
Mother: I called maintenance and they put it up for me! They said they'd been doing this for people all week. Took them ten minutes to do it. Faster than when we do it.
Me (relieved): Oh good. Guess you were chomping at the bit to get it up.
Mother: Well I saw no reason why it shouldn't be up...

Apparently my brother can't afford to go to Hawaii with his family this year. So instead they cut down a tree and have "really" gotten into the Christmas spirit. They are planning on taking their daughter up to Montreal for a few days instead. Since she's never been to Canada. My brother and his wife went to undergrad at NSCAD - or Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, via an exchange program with San Francisco Art Institute. My brother's best friend from high school is the Dean of Animation Studies at Kansas City Art Institute. In my family - people are either artists or engineers. In other words, they can either draw and write or succeed in engineering. They were photography and film majors for most of their undergrad, then transferred to graphic design in graduate school. Also did conceptual art in the process.

I'm more like my niece - I went the liberal arts, human rights, and writing route. It was harder than drawing - I always picked the hard stuff for some reason or other. My brother was the opposite. He seems happier - so there's something to be said for going the easy route. Apparently I like to bang my head against doors.

**

2. Speaking of banging one's head..

Spent most of the day trying to get projects done, while having more thrown at me. I'm feeling sorry for BYT. I saw her today and she looked haggard and overwhelmed. Everyone is sick. Chidi is sick. AM is out sick. AA is recovering from the flu. I have this lingering chest congestion. I don't think it's COVID for everyone. AA had the flu. Chidi may have gotten that respiratory virus that's kicking folks asses - he said what he had knocked him for a loop - FM talked him into going home. Meanwhile the work is being piled on and seems endless. Also BYT kind of shot herself in the foot - when she lost her temper and went after me on the camera thing.

So I'm doing my best to help get things done. And trying not to worry about the things I've no control over.

Speaking of the camera thing - Moscow Co-worker got confused when I told him I had put in for reasonable accommodation. Understandably so. You really can't make this one up, well you could but no one would believe you. ( Read more... )

Legal is making things difficult. Honestly, I think lawyers feel the need to overthink and complicate things merely to show everyone how smart they are. News flash? They aren't. Intellectuals they aren't. My job entails pushing a boulder up a hill while the lawyers throw rocks at the boulder.

Every time I deal with lawyers - I regret going to law school and wish I'd gone to Art School instead - it would have been more fun. Maybe I'll go to Art School when I retire - have a second career as an artist? I like Fine Arts, I'm not crafty. Sewing, quilting, crocheting, cross stitch, all those domestic crafts - aren't my thing. I like to draw, paint, play with clay (except I'm allergic to all dust - clay dust, chalk dust, powder, doesn't matter what the source is). I've considered restoration or mural painting. Maybe I'll take a class on mural painting?

3. The Best of ...Lists are coming out.

And it's a bit of a game to see if anything I've read or watched makes them. So far? They haven't. Which means there's a lot of content out there. And my tastes and the professional critics tastes aren't in sync.

I haven't heard of most of the movies on AO Scott's list for the NY Times regarding best films of the year.

The only one that I heard of was Jordan Peel's Nope, and all my co-workers, including Boss and Chidi, hated it.

Nor have I heard of or watched all of the best television shows cited... by various critics. The one's further down the list, I have seen most of. A lot I tried and gave up on - I'm moody.

What I've seen and actually watched all of?

The Bear and Andor is on most of the lists, and I've watched those two and agree for the most part. But a lot I either haven't watched or couldn't get through.

But the book lists? I've not read or heard of any of them. I feel like I haven't read any books this year - which isn't true. I have. Quite a few actually. They just aren't on the lists.

4. Speaking of books..

* Mathew Perry's Cautionary Tale about Addiction - has climbed the best seller lists.

I've come to the conclusion that he's two bits on Keanu Reeves were meant as sardonic jokes. Mainly because he makes a similar joke about Robert Duvall - and it actually landed (for me - I'm not literal minded.) He says that he lost the Emmy and SAG award to that hack Robert Duvall. LOL! (It's a joke.)

It is a cautionary tale. He talks about how he lost opportunities, and isolated himself because of his addiction. How close he came to death repeatedly. And it is harrowing. Also his addiction spread into other areas. He got addicted to sex. He lied constantly to support it. Even fame or the hunger for it - came from the addiction. This need to escape himself or solve his problems with some external fix.

I recommend it - because it is a harrowing tale of fame and addiction. And how that business feeds addicts.

*The Princess and the Rogue - is making it crystal clear why a marriage between Leia and Han Solo can't work. They don't want the same things, their lives take them in separate directions, even their continued fight for the Rebel Alliance does. Two people who should never have kids? Those two. They are both married to their chosen vocations. No time for much else.