Spontaneous Musings

1. Saw Sheep Detectives on Sunday. It was a cute cozy mystery? Reminded me a little of the film "Babe" except as cozy mystery (Babe was much better). It did have a few laugh out loud moments, and I didn't figure out the twist - they fooled me. I was admittedly distracted while watching it though.
( Read more... )

2. The Vestibular Migraine appears to be gone for the time being. How long it will stay gone depends on whether the heat wave triggers my allergies and another migraine. Right now, I'm managing to fend it off with medication (aleve, tynenol, phrenphrinline, and antihistimines). Also staying out of the heat.

3. The heat wave that plagued Europe and the Midwestern US is about to descend on the Eastern US (ie. South Carolina, up through and including Maine, and possibly into Canada) - they are calling a heat dome on the news and weather channels.

In NYC, temperatures are expected to reach the triple digits by Wednesday and Thursday. Or the heat index is expected to. Thursday is slated to be 106 degrees in NYC. If you are headed here on holiday? Try to find indoor venues Thursday through Monday? There are quite a few indoor museums in the city and they aren't that expensive. The MET is always worth a look, since that's suggested donation, as is the American Museum of Natural History (that's fun to go to - just to stare at Dinosaur bones). They are a bit of subway ride, and a walk for the Met, so there is that.

Although it may not be quite as bad near the water. Thunderstorms are slated for the 4th, which may or may not cool things down a bit.
( Read more... )

4. I finished the audiobook version of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me - it was good. I highly recommend the audiobook version. The narrator was quite accomplished. Listening to audiobooks and Critical Role campaigns, and watch Vox Machina, has given me a whole new appreciation for professional voice actors. Vox Machina is a play on words - it means voice machine, which is basically all the voice actors involved. One of them does about fifty different voices. The same deal with This Kingdom - the narrator does about twenty different voices and five different accents. I know how hard that is - have I mentioned that I've tremendous respect for things I can't do? I cannot do accents or multiple voices. (Actually people who can sing - usually can - it's all about tonal flucuations, just as folks who can sing - probably will do very well with Mandarin or Asian languages, which are very tonal. I'm tone death - so not happening. I accept my limitations.)

Currently listening to Elizabeth Peter's Street of the Five Moons - it's a Vicky Bliss mystery. These are kind of - gothic cozy mystery comedies featuring an intelligent/savvy but somewhat inept twenty-something Assistant Art Museum Curator in Germany, who travels about on the Museum's dime solving mysteries. The romance is with an Art Thief, who she keeps bumping into, and in each of the cases, originally suspects and ends up trusting in spite of herself (it's a slow burn romance running across a series of four-five books). So there's the gothic. It's more adventurous than a cozy in some respects, but has an underlying tongue firmly in cheek dry wit - the book does not take itself seriously and appears to be poking fun at the genre. This one is read by "Barbara Rosenblat" - who is remarkably good. As Vicky - she manages a breathy impression of Kathleen Turner, and as the art thief, a rather decent take on Peter O'Toole meets Lord Peter Whimsy. Also manages a German and an Italian accent. I wasn't expecting much - it's a rather old school audio book, so I'm rather impressed.

Slogging my way through Withered Hill which I'm determined to finish this year. It's British Folk Horror with an allegedly unreliable narrator. So I'm curious. The thing takes place in a village in Cornwall, and in South London. And has a jagged narrative style. We jump between the period of time Sophie is outside Withered Hill and moving towards it, and the period of time she is stuck inside Withered Hill and attempting to escape (initially at least, she eventually gives up). But the pacing is slow, and there is way too much navel gazing and "woe, poor me" (regarding Sophie) for my taste. I don't really care about anybody in the book - the writing style is such - that I find it difficult to invest emotionally in the characters at all? I'm only sticking with it - out of curiosity, but it is a slog.

And moving slowly through the reading of the hard back version of "This Kingdom will Not Kill Me" - which seems to be more detailed than the audio version? Either that or I just pick up more details reading it. I'm enjoying it enough to do both. I wouldn't do this with other books, such as Withered Hill.

5. Finished S4 of Vox Machina, and promptly began to rewatch it from the beginning, also joined one of the fandoms for it on FB. I want to read people's takes on it and get news about it. Plus it pushes the political threads off the page. I've been filling FB and Instagram with movie, television series, and book sites in an attempt to get rid of all of the political posts (it is working) and the health posts (also working).

I was explaining RPG or Dungeons and Dragons to my mother (who vaguely remember my brother attempting to play it and failing miserably). ( Read more... )

I'm fascinated by it. Watching professional theater and improvisational voice actors do this? Is wild. They come up with amazing things. The creativity and character and world building is just - wonderful and twisted in all the right ways. And they are genuinely kind people.

I'm also impressed by how they handled a problematic collaborator who didn't handle the transfer from private home plays and home streaming to public zoom streaming well. Or the shift of platforms. ( Read more... )

In short, I've become enamored by Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina, and want more.

5. Question a Day Mememage

27. Do you have a favourite pasta dish?

I feel like I answered this? Maybe not? And no, not really? As a kid it was Lasagna. Now? I'd say gluten free spinach and cheese ravioli with pesto and broccoli. Or pea flour pasta with pesto and parmensene cheese and broccoli.

I can't eat mushrooms any longer, beef meatballs are out, as are turkey meatballs. So I do it with veggies.

28. Do you have a favourite morning beverage when you wake up?

Water. I might do tea.

29. If you could restart your life aged 16, would you do anything differently?

Probably not? ( Read more... )

30. Do you shout at bad drivers when you are in the car?

I did when I was driving - way back in my 20s. Although I wouldn't call it shouting? ( Read more... )

Bought myself flowers. Reddish purple carnations with baby's breath - a small bouquet that fits perfectly in a small green ceramic vase in the my living window. The Saturn night light is lighting it up nicely. ( explanation of the night light )

I'm also on a total news blockage. Yes, I'm ignoring what is happening outside of my section of the world at the moment.

And, I bought myself birthday cake. Because birthdays must have cake. (I think I have birthday candles somewhere? Although they aren't necessary. I'm kind of beyond the point of candles.) It's the only time I eat cake all year long - mainly because I'm diabetic and gluten intolerant, so finding a gluten free cake that's not going to put me into a diabetic coma is ...not easy. I ended up buying three small slices of cake by "By the Way Bakery" - which sells its products (made in NYC) via Whole Foods. I bought a slice of cloud coconut cake, raspberry cake, and chocolate cake. Also, was deliciously surpised by a Gluten-Free Desert Special at Met Fresh - which is about four blocks or five minute walk from my home. This was for a Dark and White Chocolate Cake, Gluten Free with White Chocolate Mouse and dark chocolate ganache layers and icing. It's a layer cake. It's delicious by the way - I cut myself a small slice tonight - garnished with whipped cream and raspberries. It will probably last a week.

The birthday itself lands on Monday, which I'm taking off for two reasons, a) it's my birthday, b) it's now the day after Daylight Savings Time begins in the US. (Whomever came up with that idea is paying for it somehow. Maybe they'll get hit by a cranky sleep deprived bus driver?)

Mother kindly bought me gifts via Amazon (which is relying too heavily on tech and making life more difficult for its customers as a result).
( the ordeal of getting gifts from people via Amazon, when you have an Amazon Locker in your building for security purposes )
I go down and get the package, which entails point the phone at the locker in my mail room, pushing a button for blue tooth, then pushing pick up and the locker with the package opens.

I open the package, which Mother told me had two wrapped presents inside. ( sigh, Amazon has gone downhill in the wrapping presents department - and considering they are using a gift bag - this is saying a lot )

It's been gloomy all week long. That lyric from an old Sarah McLachlan song comes to mindThe winter here is cold and bitter, It’s chilled us to the bone
I havent seen the sun for weeks...

Which is a bit melodramatic, I know. It's been more like days. Although the winter has been cold and bitter here - no 80s or 70s like elsewhere. We still have the heat on. It's been in the 30s/40s F this week. Which granted is much better than the single digits, teens, or 20s like most of the winter, or 20s/low 30s like the previous week.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be warmer, which dare we hope, sunshine. And Monday sunny and in the 50s, and possibly get up into the upper 60s next week. If it does that - I may walk up the pier to the cherry blossom exhibit during lunch time sometime next week. (Nice thing about Breaking Bad and new work location is they don't seem to notice if I'm gone for about an hour and half at lunch.)

**

On the reading front? I'm still in a reading slump. But I've almost made my way through the 285 page paperback book - The Botanist's Assistant by Peggy Townsend, which I got for Christmas. It's only been three months since I started reading it.( Read more... )

Having more success listening to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files via audible.
I finished Twelve Months - narrated by James Marsters. It was good.
Better than Battleground, mainly because more character development and less fighting. ( Read more... )

I'd say more...and have more to ramble on about - but I've got to go to bed. Or I'll screw up my sleep schedule more than daylight savings time is going to do. At least the clocks will automatically change themselves, except for the oven and microwave oven clocks.

[ETA: Fixed the year, because I can't quite get used to the fact that it is 2026 yet...]

Good news? The storm has more or less ended and with it - my vertigo or so it appears. (I'm not tried to lie down flat as of yet, so hopefully it won't flare up when I go to bed.) So I will probably manage to navigate the mounds of snow to make it into work tomorrow. I don't really have an excuse - since I've got snow boots, and I take the subway, and it's located in the Financial District. Now, if I still worked in Jamaica and had to take the Long Island Rail Road into work that would be a different story - at last report, it was still suspended.

I'll probably make it in and not have a lot to do - because half my work place will be snowbound out on Long Island, including my boss. Although per Outlook - I think they all worked remotely. I couldn't. Vertigo was too bad. It's better now. I'm hoping it continues to improve. God, I hate vertigo.

Below is a "privileged education meme" that vaguely reminds me of a game I once played at church. If you were given certain opportunities - you advanced, if not you took two steps backwards. Myself and my friend at the time MD (who is a Black woman) were both ahead, as were a few young Black women and young men, while the old white British guy, his white Jewish wife, and the old white guys born in the 1940s were at the back. It seemed to divide itself more along class and generational lines then race?

( Privileged Education Meme )


Off to find something for dinner.

Crazy Org is prepping for the snow armageddon or snow-hurricane that is set to hit us around midnight tonight. My sinuses and head can feel it coming - I've been struggling with a sick sinus headache all day long, along with vertigo - the only thing keeping it at bay are medications. (antihistimine for vertigo, decongestant (that you can take if you have high blood pressure), and migraine meds.). So far it's kind of working. I did fall asleep while watching All Creatures Great and Small on PBS Passport around 2pm. ( I decided to donate to PBS - and got access to the app again, at least for the year. If you donate more than $60, you can use the PBS Passport app.)

The Mayor issued a "travel ban" effective at 9pm today (Sunday) and the Long Island Rail Road suspended service, and Crazy Org (major public transportation agency) has advised its non-essential office workers - that you can tele-work from home if you are set up for it or in the program. (I'm not in the program (union) nor am I certain I have the set up any longer - since they've changed the security protocols again - but I've already chosen to take a personal day or vacation day - since the vertigo is hovering in the background and will be an issue. I have enough left that it won't be an issue.)
( Read more... )


I've been binge-watching All Creatures Great and Small - S6, napping, and fending off a vertigo headache for most of the day. I did go to the grocery store around 1 pm (before the storm really hit - and it was just drizzling) to pick up olive oil, coconut oil, honey, Mrs Dash seasoning, toilet paper, chocolate, and recycling bags and trash bags.
Also spoke to mother. Apparently it's raining in Ohau, Hawaii, and almost spring in Montana (according to my niece) , which has received hardly any snow, the plants are springing to life, and the temperatures are in the fifties and sixties. It's also in the 60s in Hilton Head, SC. Sounds lovely. I want to be there. It's 31 F here and rapidly dropping, and snowing.

Now, have decided to try cubicle mate rec'd "Start-Up". [ETA: tried, gave up (I found the guy tied to the chair with barbed wire a bit much) and the woman wanting to do a crypto start up annoying - plus I am not an Adam Brody fan). Went back to watch Angel S5.]

Finding myself redefining patience of late. I've managed to sink into a routine of not thinking, and just ambling through to the tune of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb.

Right now, half watching the pilot episode of The Rockford Files - Backlash of the Hunter (it's available on Amazon Prime, Roku and Friendly TV), which aired on March 24, 1974, and co-starred a very young Lindsey Wagner - before Bionic Woman. James Garner has an effortless charm, chiseled good looks, and is the best thing in it. It was created by Stephen J Cannel, who did a lot of these sort of action/mystery series. It's kind of a Sam Spade/Raymond Chandler light PI series. My father loved it.( Read more... ) This was one of the better 1970s television series, but it has bland dialogue, which Garner does his best with - better than the supporting actors. (The series gets better ones as it goes). But alas, I've been watching Angel which has better dialogue and is a lot more compelling - this is kind of boring and I don't really care? It reminds me a lot of the writing/direction and acting in Poker Face actually. I remember watching a lot of these shows in the 20th Century and early 21st. It doesn't date well in regards to sexual orientation - uses words like queer in a derogatory manner. (Welcome to 1970s network television!) Also not very diverse in its casting, although more so than other shows on at the time.

Cold is getting better, I think? But I cancelled the second PT appointment - Friday's. Mainly because I don't want to hurt anyone who may be sensitive to germs - and they frown on you coming to their offices with a cough or runny nose. Work isn't an issue - I'm not near anybody at the moment, and only have to mask in public areas (break room, halls, lobby, restroom, and the trains/platforms). And I'm not coughing enough for it to be an actual problem. Although I think this is probably just allergies or a cold. Since switching off the bedroom radiator helped tremendously. I'm taking plenty of Mucinex, cough drops, antihistamines, etc. Runny nose, eyes, and a persistent cough. Also, a sense of being out of breath, tired, and lack of appetite. But other than that, fine. Doesn't prevent me from eating chocolate, unfortunately.

Bee aka cubical mate was discussing a new television show that she'd binged over the weekend and couldn't stop watching - with someone. I kept trying to figure out what it was? She mentioned people starting a company, the FBI hunting them down, insane things happening, and it being kind of twisted in places, and fast paced. Also way off her radar.

I sat there for fifteen minutes trying to figure it out. Gave up. Tried to convince myself not to ask. Gave up. Curiosity killed the cat and all that?

Me: What's the television show that you are discussing?
Bee: I'm about to go on another call, but, it's Start-up.

Start Up??? I look it up. Or rather google "Start Up Television Show". (Weirdly Bing or my work browser has it only on Apple TV and Prime, while Google and Firefox show it is on Netflix. Work browser is not accurate and often brings up different things than home browser. I work on a PC, and at home on a Mac. I'm computer versatile.)

When she gets off the phone - I ask her if it's the one with Martin Freeman playing the FBI agent Rask, and about crypto. She pauses to think and says yes. And she's watching it on Netflix.

I tell her - that I'll try it - but does it require a lot of focus? She says yup. So, I may have to wait - I'm watching old television shows for a reason? Also, my ability to focus on a television series right now is about at the level of Bridgerton. I need characters I love, good dialogue, and plots that aren't too convoluted.

Has anyone else seen "Start Up"? Is it any good? It's an older series - 2016-2018.

I am having the same issues with reading at the moment. I'll read a page and have to re-read it more than once sometimes. So, I'm listening to "Twelve Months" the latest in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, narrated by James Marsters. And still reading The Botanist's Assistant on the train, and various digital comic books.

All I want to do is stare into space and think about nothing. I think it's a combination of the cold, NYC in February, the weather, work, and my knees. And not having much to look forward to at the moment? The knees are slowly getting better or stronger. The exercises appear to be working - and I am doing them every day. At least once a day. So there's that.

Off to do something else.

Mother told me all about what my niece is up to. Apparently she has a new boyfriend - a California Forest Ranger, who she met last year. (She's also living with a guy, but he's not her boyfriend, and he's apparently writing a book for his thesis - it's not clear if it is fiction or non-fiction. I'm guessing non-fiction?) And she's come up with an idea for an investigative journalism piece on the political corruption surround fire retardation use and how forest fires are put out or not as the case may be. Her advisor is excited about it - he wants her to pursue journalism and writing. (She's an excellent writer). Statistics is causing her difficulty though - apparently no one in our immediate family has the math gene? She finds calculus and statistics boring, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. (I can relate.)

Feeling rather bored and apathetic with my own life at the moment, not helped by the bad knee, which refuses to get better and makes it difficult to do much of anything but get to and from work, and the occasional errand (including physical therapy). It still hurts. Although my physical therapist, Vishanti, appears to think it is getting stronger and better, so there's that at least. Also, it's warming up - a little outside?
It reached a rather balmy 41 degrees F today, and a low of 29 F.

After some negotiation - I finally managed to convince the Super to turn off the sparkling brand new radiator that they installed in my kitchen. It's black. It takes up more space than I'd like? But I think I can fit a small cabinet in front of it. And since it's turned off - I cancelled my purchase of the window fan. Also it's not quite as warm in the apartment at the moment as it was last night, which made it difficult to sleep. Although the radiators are blasting now - so that could always change?

Every day on my commute, I run across old homeless folks. Today, it was an old white woman, who looked a bit like a gnome. ( Read more... )

Sometimes I think - if I can just help one person in this world. Then maybe the rest won't matter? See? George Bailey moment. [If you don't get it? Look it up. We have the internet - it's easy. Hint: it's a cultural reference from a 1940s Christmas Movie starring Jimmy Stewart. ;-)].

***

Question a Day Meme

8. How often do you read fiction?

95% of the time. I also write it. And tell it in my head. And listen to it on audio-book, and read graphic novels or comics that are fictional.

I read non-fiction for work. Fiction for pleasure.

9. This year is the 40th anniversary of the release of the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – have you ever seen it? Bueller…. Bueller…. Bueller…..

Yes. I saw it in the movie theater when it first came out - admittedly with the wrong person (my mother - which ahem, not a movie to see with one's mother). And numerous times on television.

40 years? Damn. I feel old. It was, I think, a 1980s John Hughes film. John Hughes was the King of teen flicks in the 1980s, he, Francis Ford Coppola and a few others - kind of redefined teen cinema.

It grated though - because I identified a bit too much with Ferris' sister.
That said? Required back to back viewing is Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Election - where Broderick is the stumbling adult, to Reese Witherspoon's ambitious and annoying teen.

10. Have you ever owned a Tamagotchi?

I had to look it up - because I had no clue what it was. So clearly no.

Tamagotchi can be found here. Hint? It kind of reminds me of the electronic version of what they were trying to give out in the Buffy Episode Bad Eggs. If it had been electronic - Bad Eggs would have gone VERY differently.

11. Would you consider yourself superstitious?

Not really. I might flirt with it - but I am a born skeptic. I question everything. So no, not superstitious.

Hibernating in my apartment (because it is -16 degrees F outside with windchill, that translates to - 26 C (correction - it's now dropped to 6 degrees and is between -12 and -14, so I guess the wind is leveling off at least?), it's 68 degrees inside with radiators). I'm wearing a turtle neck, sweats, and fluffy socks. So I'm warm. Had hot coco earlier.

( Read more... )

I did finish "Buffy S7: Storyteller" - and the ending isn't bad? ( Read more... )

Then watched two episodes of The Pitt S2 - which were excellent. I love this series. (It's a hyper-realistic medical procedural that focuses on one 16 hour shift in an American inner city ER. It's less personal than This is Gonna Hurt or ER, in that we don't see the home lives of any of the characters. The only set is the ER and the immediate area into and out of it. We see Dr. Robi riding his motorcycle to the ER to start his last night shift before leaving on sabbatical, but after that? It's indoors. Medical health care workers - have stated that when people ask them to describe what they do? They point to the Pitt.)

I can relate - I have troubles explaining my profession too - although it's not that, and no one in their right mind would do a television show off of it. The viewers would go to sleep, god knows, I do.

Mother called after the figure skating (partly to apologize for the American's short program being a disappointment - it isn't usually) and to tell me about a comedy sketch she's working on for her retirement center's variety program. The center's self-appointed theater director has grown weary of writing sketches and has asked people to write or develop their own acts to be edited together into one program. They just have to write it about the center and issues involving it. Mother's decided to do a "Who's on First, What's on Second" sketch - except using maintenance workers.
( Mother's skit - well so far )
I wished her luck with it. She's presenting it to her friend (the self-appointed theater director) tomorrow. (Mother is 83 turning 84 this year, and her friend is about four-five years older, I think.)

**

The self-appointed Buddhist expert on FB posted a list of things to do to change your life and become...I don't know? Calmer? More empathetic? A better person? One never knows with self-appointed internet Buddhist experts.

Their list?
( 6 month plan to become unrecognizable.. )

Anywho - the first three aren't bad: Get sun regularly, practice gratitude, practice detachment (unless of course it means becoming a sociopath - in which case? Bad Buddhist, and I do not think that's what Buddhism is about). But the fourth one kind of lost me and I fluttered away after that, arguing with the person who posted in my head (assuming of course it is an actual person? It could be Generative AI or a Digitial auto pilot account, one never knows these days. (And also not very Buddhist. Techie, yes, Buddhist, no.)
( Read more... )
**

Against my better judgement, I caved and made brownies. ( Read more... )

**

I've managed to do my knee exercises or most of them - the important ones at any rate. Not necessarily three times today, but the knee was hurting still from yesterday. I'd stood on it too long - so it wanted to rest. It finally stopped hurting sometime around noon.

***

Memage

4. How old is the oldest book you own?

God knows. It appears to be On the Road with Jack Keroack - 1955. I was going to say my copy of the Hobbit or the Last Hurrah, but On the Road wins. (I don't tend to keep old books - since I'm allergic to the dust and book mold - and I don't have the space, and I can barely read the small print any longer.)

5. It’s the 60th anniversary of the game ‘Twister’ – have you ever played it?

Yes. Although not since the 1980s. I vaguely remember enjoying it a lot in the 1970s as a kid.

6. In 1869, Harper's Weekly published the first picture of Uncle Sam with chin whiskers. Do you know anyone with a beard or a moustache?

Most of my neighbors and male co-workers. My boss has a beard and moustache, his boss does. Most of the young men in the neighborhood do. Most of my male neighbors - next door, across the hall, downstairs, the guy in the basement. It's incredibly trendy at the moment?

7. Is there a subject at school which you disliked, but you would consider learning now?

No. The ones I disliked, I ended up learning in spite of myself, and unfortunately doing for a living and figuring out on my own. So I don't think it matters? There's no avoiding math. It's a fact of life. As is business law, contracts, and property law. Whether you go to law school or not. Same with computers. Can't avoid it.

Science? No. I hated biology then, I hate it now. Dissection really wasn't my thing. And chemistry - too many annoying formulas and you kind of need to know calculus.

Brrr...umph. It's cold. And getting colder. Today it was 8 degrees. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 10 below zero. NYC wasn't designed for anything below 20 degrees. It's a pedestrian city - we all walk places, wait outside for buses, and in some cases - on outside platforms for trains. But you can't wait outside for 20-30 minutes in temperatures below 20 degrees - you can get frost bite. Most you can safely do is 15 minutes tops. (People blow my mind - a lot of people are walking around in sneakers without socks.)

It was okay for a little bit (the cold temperatures - not the people wandering about sockless), but I'm tired of it now and want it to warm up already. (You know that it has been cold, when 18 degrees with no wind feels okay.) Also tired of navigating around snow, ice and slush. My area was a mixed bag when it came to shoveling. Some folks did it well, some tried and gave up, while others barely bothered at all. (Note Super's at apartment complex's are experts at shoveling. Everyone else sucks at it.)

Told Breaking Bad that my brother is off to Hawaii for the entire month of February, he leaves Sunday.

Breaking Bad: ask him - if he can take me with him? If there's enough space in one of his suitcases? I can curl up in it.
ME: Yeah, I'd like to go too. But alas, can't. (also Bro won't take me. He hates traveling with me. Can't think why...actually I don't like traveling with him either. So even if crazy workplace let me go - I couldn't. We'd kill each other in the space of four hours, maybe three - and that's a long flight.)
Breaking Bad: Hope he makes it out okay, god bless him.
Me: yeah me too...(well I do...for the most part...)

I also hope this weekend's winter storm skips over NY and Long Island and heads out to sea. We do not need more snow.

They are already wandering about with snow melting machines. (Basically hot tubs on the backs of trucks, which they use to melt the snow.) I'm blaming my incessant brain fog on the cold weather. I'm forgetting things and having troubles focusing. Also I keep dozing off at work. It's either the cold, anxiety (gee, wonder why?) or senility is settling in at the ripe old age of 58.

Oh, a bit of good news? The Senate rejected the Bill (that will fund ICE among other things) 55-45. It required 60 to pass. 8 Republicans voted with the Democrats specifically against the ICE measure. So if anyone called to stop it? Kudos. People keep calling for a General Strike - but I'm not sure they understand what that means? I mean if you shut down public transportation, hospitals, fire departments, doctors, nurses, EMT, sanitation, taxis, etc - what happens if someone needs an operation, a heart transplant, injures themselves, or has a heart attack? Also you have a lot of paycheck to paycheck folks? If they go on strike - there goes this month's rent. I endorse protests that do not injure innocent people unnecessarily or animals for that matter.

Although, I am vaguely amused by the statement: No one thought the Revolution would start in Minneapolis except for Prince. (Which is actually true - he even called his band "The Revolution" and kept writing songs about how the world ends.)

27. Up-Helly-Aa is a vibrant fire festival celebrated in the UK Shetland Islands tonight. Thousands gather to witness the breathtaking sight of a longship ablaze, illuminating the night sky. Do you have any similar local winter or summer celebrations?

The US is weird? We have so many blended cultures - that it depends on which state and community you live in? But yes, there are Winter Festivals.
I think NY's is the Chinese New Year - we have a huge celebration for it in Chinatown and various areas in NY.

28. Have you ever played a kazoo?

In case you don't know - This is a Kazoo

And not that I recall?

29. It's Tom Sellek's birthday - have you ever seen him in anything you've enjoyed?

Ponders. I guess a handful of Magnum PI episodes? He's not a favorite of mine. I'm kind of ambivalent. Also I was more into "Fame" which was opposite it at the time. Yeah, Sellek never did anything for me. He was kind of boring? A little bit like James Garner and Harrison Ford (or what would happen if they got together and had a kid), but both are much better and more charismatic actors than Sellek. Also Magnum PI couldn't hold a candle to the Rockford Files.

I've been hibernating this weekend - nesting and watching television. It's either snowing or sleeting at the moment, per my phone sleeting. Did make brownies - probably shouldn't have made brownies (gluten-free obviously), and Skinny Popcorn. Which caused my blood sugar to sky rocket. Lovely. It does appear to have stablized and is coming down. So there's that.

Didn't sleep well at all last night. Due mainly to stomach/digestive issue, and muscle cramping. I'm thinking of taking a hot shower before bed tonight, in the hopes that it will calm down the muscles.

It got cold in my bedroom last night - around 65. So I took out the window fan and put another cover on the window A/C and put window coverings on both. Now, it's about 70 in there, and 74 degrees in the living room, so not as cold as last night - no wind. It's always the wind. This week is going to be brutal though - with record low temperatures and bad wind chills. I prefer the snow, personally, to the bitter cold.

Been side-eyeing the news via social media all weekend. Minnesota for folks who don't live in North America and Canada - is about the same distance from New York City as Spain is from London. ( Read more... )

The Nation lists corporations that you can boycott - to defund ICE (Some are easier than others?)

How US Citzens Can Protect the Immigrant Community from the Deportation Force

***

Buffy S7 and Angel S4 Rewatch.

I feel a little sorry for Angel? ( Read more... )

The Lilah/Wes romance has some of the same dialogue as the Spike/Buffy romance, which is interesting. ( Read more... )

Over on Buffy, it's becoming abundantly clear to me that Buffy fell for Spike at the end of S5, but didn't want to. And didn't want him to love her. Nor did she want to be loved in S6. Her difficulty was she couldn't completely trust him or for that matter, herself at that point. She was overwhelmed with guilt. ( Read more... )

The writers do make it confusing though.

It was bitterly cold today. In the teens (F) with windchills factoring in the single digits (F) this morning, and got up to the twenties by midday.
Tomorrow it may make it to 30 F degrees - which as I told Breaking Bad this morning is relatively balmy. If we make to the 40s, so New Yorkers may start wearing shorts.

My living room overhead (ceiling) light has gone out. So I'm using the lights in my window (the tree and the snowflake lights), along with the little planet light (my niece gave me for Xmas one year), and two small desk lamps. The Super's wife popped by just as I was departing the shower to attempt to change the light bulb in the living room - but alas she needs tools - so her husband (whose not feeling well or under the weather) may have to do it after all.

Knees hurt today - it's the commute. The steps, and the walking through the bitter cold. And work was a mixed bag. I ran into folks from Jamaica (aka the head honchos behind all my project managers) and the negative energy emanating from them - made me physically ill. It took me two hours to recover. Thank god, I'm in Manhattan now and not in Jamaica, Queens, and far away from them. The folks I'm sitting near including Breaking Bad don't have that type of energy.

***

I'm following the news but out of the corner of my eye? I'm kind of giving it the side-eye? Or through my fingers, like I'm watching a horror film? Told mother that I wanted to be in galaxy far far away, albeit not the Star Wars galaxy. I might be willing to tough it out in the Star Trek verse, but not the Star Wars one. Nor would I want to be in BSG, Farscape, or Doctor Who's verses. Definitely not Tolkien's. No, I think the only one I could survive in would be Star Trek's. (Which is ironic, considering I was afraid of Star Trek at the age of 9.)

Also conversations on Lord of the Rings popped up.

Would I go on an adventure with Gandalf? No way in hell. I would run in the opposite direction if I saw Gandalf coming my way, and possibly try to hide (assuming one can hide from a Wizard). Gandalf has a tendency to send you off on a journey, abandon you to your own devices half way through, and forget about you.

***

Buffy and Angel Rewatch.

I'm enjoying Buffy S7 at the moment more than Angel S4, although Angel S4 is a mixed bag? Everyone works but Cordelia and Connor - who clearly are miserable. Writing those two characters out at the end of S4, and replacing them with Spike was a stroke of genius. I know folks liked them? But I'm finding both to be annoying. (And apparently the actors weren't overly thrilled portraying them at that point either.)

Buffy S7 - I'm really enjoying. It's spending more time on the supporting characters. Also "Selfless" (Episode 5) - the Anya centric episode is fantastic and among the best of the series. ( Read more... )
God, I love this show. It is by far my favorite television series.