What Will I Do?

I think I've mentioned here that E started a new job this month, one that will require traveling about 25% of the time. She and others keep inquiring what on earth I will possibly do while she is gone. I have a few ideas to keep myself out of trouble:

• Work, sleep, eat. That is, keep myself alive and productive as normal. In the eating arena, I will probably have to cook less while she is away, because leftovers will go twice as far. I'm going to try to freeze some stuff so that I have easy meals ready to go.
• Play the piano. I honestly can't remember the last time I did this regularly. In addition to being short on time, I am bizarrely self-conscious about other people hearing me practice. When she is away, I will be able to plunk around with no fear, at least until open-window season.
• Watch movies. Probably half or more of our Netflix queue includes esoteric movies not to E's taste, from Bollywood to documentaries to obscure indie flicks. I'm sure I can manage to knock a few off the list.
• See friends. I'm not the greatest about making plans to hang out with friends one-on-one. Even though I know I could do so anytime, I never seem to think of it until E is going out of town. Dinner or coffee with a friend complements the alone time nicely.
• Get away. One of the facts of life about me working in the public sector and E working in the private sector is that I have more vacation time than she does, by far. I usually feel guilty about taking time off when she is working, but if she is out of town, I might as well use the time to visit family or take a break. I'm already daydreaming about a wintertime North Shore getaway, in which I will sit by a fireplace and stare at Lake Superior for a few days. 

Things I'm Not Writing About

I really have no idea how I used to keep up a near-daily online journal (ahem... blog). I've honestly been struggling this month to find topics to write about. In the old days, I used to share a lot about amusing work anecdotes and also talk about friendships and family relationships. These days, my work is much more engrossing, but I certainly don't want to rehash it at the end of the day, and not much of it would be appropriate (never mind interesting) to share. This blog is not nearly as well-hidden as my earlier venues and my boundaries are much better developed than they used to be, so family & friends are mostly out as subjects, too.

The Holidailies prompt from yesterday asked: Today is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day. What's the very best chocolate-covered thing you've ever had (or alternatively, what's the worst)? Now, this is a topic I can work with!

This year I participated in a friend's candy and cookie making party. Each year, she gets about half a dozen people together to make an assortment of holiday goodies; everyone chips in and everyone brings a batch home. The candy that amazed me the most was sponge candy. I had tasted some from a previous year and marveled at the light, crunchy texture and sweet/salty taste. Amazingly, the only ingredients are sugar and corn syrup, with the sponge effect accomplished through a timely addition of vinegar and baking soda. Once the candy has hardened and been broken up, the big pieces are dredged in melted chocolate and allowed to cool. The rich chocolate offsets the slight bitterness from the baking soda. And lo, sponge candy is therefore the best chocolate-covered thing I've ever had, at least in recent memory.

Catching up

This week has gone by in a blur-- things at work are going fast and furious, and when I get home, I just put on my "lounging clothes" (who are we kidding, they're pajamas), eat a little dinner, and watch some Portlandia on Netflix.

Last night was the annual holiday party for my professional organization, which works to advance women in my industry. I had bought my ticket a month ago, and very much needed a glass of wine by then, so I went and had a great time. I used to be very active in the group and served on the board for several years, but I haven't had as much time to be involved lately. It was lovely to catch up with old friends and marvel over how the organization has grown and strengthened over time. I don't think of myself as an outspoken recruiter, but I realized on my way home that at least 3 current and past board members, all former interns at my office, are involved (at least in part) due to my encouragement.

Tonight, I've had some delightful quiet time to recharge. E is out with friends, and left me home with the dog and half a pint of ice cream, among other goodies. Having watched two strange movies (The One I Love and Happy Christmas), my plan now is to read in bed a bit (I picked up the holiday issue of Lucky Peach) and get a good night's sleep.

Music Advent, Day 12 (1992)
It's hard to believe I didn't have a Walkman until 1992, but it must be true. This marvelous electronic device came into my life for my birthday that year, and the cassette I received along with it was En Vogue's Funky Divas. Three of the singles from that album made it onto the Billboard Top 100: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)", "Giving Him Something He Can Feel", and "Free Your Mind".

Christmassy

After dragging through last week feeling sick, over the weekend I finally mustered some energy for the holiday spirit! We got a Christmas tree on Sunday and decorated it tonight, and that makes such a difference. We always get a live one, so the smell wafts through the house. There's something I just love about a dark room (since we're mainly home in the early morning and evening) with tree lights twinkling off to one side. A silver lining to no longer having any cats is that we will be able to wrap gifts and put them under the tree without fear that all the ribbons will be chewed and later vomited up.

On Sunday we also made good progress on our gift shopping, accomplished through a mix of online purchases and local stops. For once I actually feel we are in pretty solid shape when it comes to our shopping progress, although I still haven't bought a single stocking stuffer. In my family, everyone buys small stocking stuffers for everyone else. Inevitably, I leave it to the last minute and wind up (unimaginatively) buying fancy chocolate bars for everyone. Not that those go uneaten, but I feel I ought to be a bit more creative. With luck and about a month to go-- we are doing our holiday gathering after New Year's Day-- I hope to do a little better this year.

Music Advent, Day 8 (1988)
There's a clear choice today: Kokomo by the Beach Boys. Between 1984 and 1987, my family lived in an actual town called Kokomo, Indiana. Far from the tropical paradise depicted in the song, it is basically a dreary factory town. Not too long after we moved to Wisconsin, this song came out and seemed so odd. Eight-year-old me: Here's a song that's sort of about a town I feel a little wistful about! And yet the town is decidedly unlike the song! Will my new friends think I'm cool because I'm from the town in the song? Etc.

A Leisurely Saturday

I was really looking forward to today after a hectic few weeks of finishing performance reviews, traveling for Thanksgiving, and doing it all while not feeling super great. The day is turning out to be just what I needed:

6:40 am: Wake up. Cough (ugh). Feed dog. Make coffee and get comfy on the couch, catching up on social media and reading a book.

8:30 am: Make and eat some scrambled eggs. More couch time. Clean out the fridge of past-good food. Say a sad goodbye to the leftover gluten-free stuffing and pie that I didn't get around to eating. More reading.

12 noon: Eat some leftover chili. Hatch a plan to do some errands and grocery shopping; make a meal plan and grocery list.

12:30 pm: REI, fancy coffee stop, grocery store, and another stop for a Christmas gift.

3:00 pm: Slow stroll with the dog. More couch time (!!!) to do some online Christmas shopping.

Next up will be wine and nibbles time, which will also take place on the couch. Later on, probably dinner while watching a movie. On the couch. Are you sensing a theme here? This is pretty much my dream Saturday.

Note that it does not involve other people, aside from my spouse. These days my job requires me to engage with people for probably 75% of my day, whereas the proportion was the inverse of that less than 2 years ago. Having to use so much social energy at work means I basically want to hibernate on the weekends. Poor E, she is an extrovert and would like to see people on weekends. We have social plans tomorrow and then every Friday and Saturday night until the new year, so I put the kibosh on any get-togethers tonight. She will have to make do with me and the dog.

Nope

Well, I sure blew it yesterday in the "posting every day" department, huh? I got home from work and had a major case of the Nopes. Nope, don't wanna make dinner (hooray for leftovers). Nope, don't wanna make something for my work potluck (well, I made some pumpkin bread). And nope, don't want to write a blog post.

What I did instead was drink a few glasses of wine and watch The Taste, one of my guilty pleasure tv shows. Last night was the season premiere, in which all the contestants vie for a spot on the show via a blind taste test. If selected for more than one of the judge's teams, roles are reversed, and the judges must make the case for the contestant to choose their team. Poor Nigella Lawson, no one ever wants to be on her team.

Today was a festive day at work, with a lunch potluck for our floor and the company-wide holiday party after work. Since I'm in the public sector, this essentially  means that everyone shows up at the same bar at the same time and buys their own drinks. Somehow there is a small budget for dollar-store door prizes. It's always a good time, but after a few hours I developed yet another case of the Nopes. I didn't want to spend 15 minutes saying good bye to everyone, so I just grabbed my coat and left. I'm happy to be back at home, ensconced on the couch in my pajamas.

Music Advent, day 5 (1985)
I remember owning a single-- on vinyl, no less-- of We Built This City by Starship. For some reason it emerged as my favorite song when I was 7 or 8. Little did I know how prescient that was, since the song was also jokey anthem of my graduate program in urban planning.

Reading Lately

I can tell I am finally getting over being sick because I accidentally rode through my stop on the train on the way home today. You might say the lack of attention suggests I am still very much in the realm of illness, but the fact that I was able to make the walk home (1/4 mi farther than usual) without wanting to keel over, and in fact, feeling slightly invigorated, is an excellent sign!

My attention was diverted by the book I was reading, Separated @ Birth. I'm a little obsessed twins-separated-at-birth memoirs lately, having also recently finished Identical Strangers. It's fascinating to think about what it would be like to discover as an adult that you are a twin. Very much of my identity is based on the idea that I am a unique individual. Not in the "special snowflake" sense often attributed to millennials (I'm more of a Gen-Xer, myself), but just the simple fact that there is no one else in the world with my particular dna, personality, upbringing, aptitudes, appearance, and so on. It must be very jarring to discover a stranger who shakes that foundation. Identical Strangers was full of stories of twins who met as adults and found that they have similar mannerisms, drive the same cars, had kids at the same time, smoke the same cigarettes, work in the same fields, and so on. I think these days popular opinion has swung more towards "nurture" in the nature vs. nurture debate, but the experiences of reunited twins has certainly challenged my assumptions.

I've actually been galloping through my reading list over the past few days; being home sick Monday definitely helped. I've read HHhH (a novel about Heydrich's assassination), Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming, and Yes Please by Amy Poehler. Of the three, I enjoyed Cumming's memoir the most. He had an interesting and bounded story to tell, and shared it with warmth and humor.

Music Advent, day 3 (1983)
Another excellent year for pop music! I was going to share Prince's 1999 in honor of my now-home state of Minnesota, but it turns out that was released in 1982 and still going strong on the charts in 1983. As a runner up, I will instead pick Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by the Eurythmics. It's so deliciously 80s.

Music Advent

Some of my twitter and Holidailies pals are doing a #musicadvent meme. I haven't found an official-looking set of rules, but I gather I was supposed to post a song from the year of my birth yesterday, from the next year today, and so on. I got a late start, so today you get a twofer.

I scrolled down the Billboard top 100 songs of the year list for 1980, looking for favorites or at least old familiars. Luckily for me (and you), Blondie's Call Me is at the top of the list. Not too shabby, really!

I could have continued with Blondie in 1981, as they seem to have been on quite a roll then. In fact, 1981 had some pretty good songs in general. I'm going to hearken back to my choir nerd roots with a selection from Manhattan Transfer: The Boy from New York City. Manhattan Transfer was THE group to look up to when I joined jazz choir in high school, and frankly I'm surprised that a vocal jazz group cracked the (top half of the) top 100 list.

It's a good thing I had music advent in my back pocket for this post, because not much else really happened today. Work was tiring, since I'm still sick (though on the mend). It's good to be back home in my pj's with a pot of chili simmering on the stove.

Speaking of being sick, are sinuses connected to attention span? Because I keep wandering away from this entry before finishing it. I had better quit while I'm ahead. Until next time!

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This is the time of year I rejoin (or attempt to rejoin) the ranks of daily bloggers. Why? To join a little community known as Holidailies, and to add a note of contemplation to this lively time of year.

I'm currently on day 12 of some malady that started as a cold and now seems decidedly worse, so please forgive me if I don't have something terribly witty to offer today. At the very least, I can offer an introduction and some updates since last year.

• I'm a life-long upper-Midwesterner, now living in the Twin Cities with my wife
• Yup, that would make me a lesbian. I am fortunate that this is not really a Big Deal in my everyday life and social circles
• We have an old house (built in 1914) and an old dog (approximately 101 in dog years)
• We used to have two cats, and indeed I have written about them many times. The evil one died about 13 month ago, and I confess I don't miss her too much. The awesome sweet one died this past summer, and I still think about her all the time
• I got a promotion this fall when my boss retired, which means I am working more than ever. Fortunately, I happen to love what I do
• The wife just started a new job (literally, today) which will involve lots of travel, domestic and international!
• Though I am an atheist, I love the Christmas season. I think it's because I grew up as a choir nerd, which made this time of year busy, thrilling, and magical.

With that, I'll sign off for tonight. Looking forward to the virtual exchange of ideas this month!