Jesse got it! That's it. Man, my memory is Swiss cheese lately.

27 shoes! You people crack me up. As IF, Sara would let me give away shoes she could play dress-up in.

Understandable because the food is going to other kids. But I also don't put ingredients/information on my kids' bagged lunches. Perhaps schools, like the one in Chicago, will begin banning those too?

Thanks for the invite and the ride offer, Kat. But I'm not company worthy, I don't think. I'm going to hide and try and just come down off the peculiar fake high stress has driven me to.

I called home to speak to my mother tonight and it was too late (I didn't end up leaving work until 6--see what I'm driving myself to?) because my mother was already asleep. My sister answered the phone and she was just exhausted. She's run herself ragged. I think my mother is doing better than my sister is, to be honest.

I'm having asparagus for dinner. Muffin for breakfast, doughnut for (late) lunch, and grilled (broiled, whatever, fuck you) asparagus for dinner. I'm completely working myself up again. It's pretty stupid.

We can hide together, 500 miles apart, ita!

ita !, I wish there was something we could do to help. Much ~ma to your sister as well as your mother.

Yes, we can be simultaneously invisible, Perkins.

Does anyone here do Black Friday shopping? Is it a real thing? Are the bargains worth lining up overnight for? Not that I ever would, because I tend to work the Friday anyway, and the idea of sleeping on the sidewalk...aieee. I just wonder if it's more hype than anything else.

eta: Thanks, Maria. I'm currently a victim of myself, I think. I gotta get myself down off this.

It is against my religion to leave my house any earlier than about noon on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

However, the internet is at my fingertips.

I went last year, because I was awake early and needed stuff at Target.

This year I'm not allowed to buy anything new, so I probably won't.

I find the differences and similarities between the French and Brazilian cheesy bread balls--not to be confused with salty chocolate balls--very interesting. Is this another of those culinary items that is common to many cultures? Like the bread-stuffed-with-meat thing?

I try not to even go near a centre of commerce on Black Friday unless absolutely necessary.

This is the first year I have to work though, which makes it even easier to avoid the hordes. I will instead be spending my day running the retrieval of vehicles from the Cuban Interests Section. I am the only one able to communicate with them. Tell me, why does a country send diplomats to a location where they are not fluent in the lingua franca? It makes no sense to me.