Tomorrow night I'm headed off to spend a week in Myrtle Beach with my aunt and uncle! I haven't had a "vacation" (if you don't count being unemployed) in... well, quite a while.

Thanks for listening to the vent and the support. I did get a lot done last night and I put the cats in the non- carpeted kitchen/ living room this morning. I think a fairly large contributing factor to the funk is feeling like McPhee hates working for me. It has become so much house and therefore dealing with the pet mess. Maybe I can shift back to having her run more of the errands that focus on Mac stuff and that would help. It just piles on the mind space of not bring liked. Stupid brain.

Quick poll: What's worse, stepping in a WARM hairball in bare feet, or a COLD one?

I'm going with warm.

Hmmm. That's a tough one.

...

I have now spent way too much time thinking about stepping in hairballs. But I'm leaning towards cold.

One year while we were on vacation, our housesitter learned the hard way -- in the middle of the night -- about wearing footwear in the house at all times, thanks to hairballs. (He's not a cat owner himself, so he had never experienced a hairball, making the moment his bare foot contacted the hairball his very first introduction to them. We had neglected to mention that possibility. Ooops.)

Just got off the phone with a friend who has been having a rough, rough 2014. Her biological mom passed away in January which put her into a deep depression of grief and major anxiety issues. She has become agoraphobic and even the thought of being in a group puts her into a panic attack.

I've been keeping touch and trying to encourage her. She is slowly trying trips outside her house and we had talked about going for a walk Thursday morning. Today, after her son left for school, she called me sobbing about being so alone. My heart breaks and I wish I knew how to better help her. She is just now finding a grief counselor and she has another therapist who prescribes anti-anxiety meds and works with her on various coping techniques.

She is such a vibrant person, very creative and outgoing so to see/hear her go through this - this isn't the person I know. She is so scared of this being the new her.

Where is my fricking magic wand. I just want to make it all better for her.

Oh, msbelle. In my mind, no one has moved from NY, and if that were true, you get an extra back-cracking hug from me.

She is so scared of this being the new her.

I thought I knew that fear. I do not know this fear, not compared to your friend. That's heartbreaking to hear.

Real World: Avengers Tower. Uh, who's the one armed sex hobo? I seem to be canon deficient.

The song's voyeuristic lyrics mostly revolve around a woman's observation of an attractive black man making love to another woman, culminating in the oddly light-hearted but sexual chorus: "Gigantic, gigantic, gigantic / A big, big love".

ita, it's Bucky.

That has to be terrifying for her, Suzi. I'm so sorry she's going through that, but I'm glad she has you.

D'er, Dana. Of course. I wasn't even thinking post Winter's Soldier. My Avengers brain is not up to date.

Talking about my older home nurse's big fannishness about GoT reminded me of the most surprising (okay, second--I changed my father's number on sexism--that's top ten EVER) conversation we had during Christmas--about Cheers. Turns out that my father was a massive fan, and my mother a pretty big one, and we spent forever discussing it, the spinoff, the careers of the actors--all prompted by a pretty long convo of Paul Walker.

My family talks a lot, but we so rarely intersect on TV or movies. I was definitely the one who knew the least, but I was the one whose phone responded vocally to voice questions, so I could keep up.

I had had every intention of donating my last phone to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, but am way behind donating everything (my closet is a Goodwill altar. Now my sister needs a phone, so I think I'm updating her to Android. I could stand a project, so I'll wipe it and install some stuff. I will also be getting her Android up to speed over the trip, and I'm in the process of training my father in simple Android so my family can have a communal tablet.

I know Apple would be easier, especially since I couldn't be tech support, but the bee is in my bonnet and there's no letting go.

about Cheers. Turns out that my father was a massive fan, and my mother a pretty big one, and we spent forever discussing it, the spinoff, the careers of the actors--all prompted by a pretty long convo of Paul Walker.

How did you get from Paul Walker to Cheers?