I’m a size 12 in my heart, apparently?

The exciting news I can share with you from the Land Of Older is that you'll stop worrying quite so much about your body weight/shape and your new obsession will be "What's Wrong With My Skin?!" (aka, the thin envelope that encompasses my body).

I did multiple tasks today which were not truly Onerous but which I didn't want to deal with for Executive Function/Dysfunction reasons. But bills were paid, checks were cashed, dishes washed and credit cards activated.

As you would imagine, I've been having little phantom limb pangs of wanting to talk to JZ about this or that or just missing her. But recently Matilda has reconnected with her friend Nora and that has dredged up a lot of feelings that only JZ would understand.

In brief, for those of you keeping score at home, Nora and her mother Hannah were incredibly close to us all during Matilda's childhood. Then at the dawn of the pandemic there was a horrible friendship break where Matilda lost Nora, another friend (Davi) and one of her closest friends (Isabella) at the same time her grandfather died and schools shut down for 18 months.

Matilda became very depressed during this period (while I watched Hannah post social media pictures of Nora and Davi happily together summering at a lake during lockdown times.)

But this is not simply a Heroes and Villains scenario. During JZ's hospice care, Hannah was one of the inner circle people who dropped everything (work and family) to tend to Jacqueline's last days.

And I don't know who to talk about who understands the weightiness of Matilda reconnecting with one of her closest friends who did such tremendous harm to her (unmaliciously).

Oh, Karl, so many easy-passing~ma for Joy and comfort~ma for Lisa and all good vibes for you.

I've been having little phantom limb pangs of wanting to talk to JZ about this or that or just missing her.

Oh, JZ would definitely have been the perfect person to understand the complexity of the situation, and have compassion and wise words spoken with passion and heart for every single person in that situation.

Laura, I hope your travels continue as well and smoothly as possible.

Today is my Sister-in_Law's (Hebrew-date) birthday, and in honor of that, we had a family gathering on shabbat (Saturday, yesterday). Not everybody attended: one of her siblings is enlisted now (he had a less-than-a-day's vacation last week, to see his family for the first time since he left on October 7th), so only his wife and kids were present. Also, another - um, how can I phrase it? Nephew-in-law? He's the son the DH's brother - is also enlisted, and his mom and sister were stuck abroad on October 7th and didn't manage to catch a flight back until now (they may return today, hopefully), so all of them were missing, too (He had a weekend off, on the former shabbat, during which he almost entirely only slept, he was so exhausted).

But on the bright side, it was the first shabbat since the war started that there were no alarms where my sister in law and her family live, for the whole time we were there, and the drive back home, so that was a nice surprise.

A good time was had by all those who could attend, so we were glad we did it, even though beforehand we debated among ourselves wether to postpone until more quiet times.

And timelies, y'all.

Karl, gallons of ~ma to you and your family. I'm sorry.

Nilly, that's a very good update! And yes, being together right now for any reason is very good.

I made the mistake of reading the news again today, and it was painful with extra stupid on top so my brain melted with anger, so adieu to work I thought I'll complete today and hello pizza and something stupid to watch on Netflix.

You guys, I seriously need to talk to management about 2023.

Yes, it's getting a fucking awful Yelp score...

Yay no alarms and seeing family, Nilly!!

I've been having little phantom limb pangs of wanting to talk to JZ about this or that or just missing her.

Awww yeah. I hear that.

you'll stop worrying quite so much about your body weight/shape and your new obsession will be "What's Wrong With My Skin?!"

Hahah yes I am definitely finding with weight loss I’m suddenly understanding the “feel bad about my neck” thing more. Hoping I don’t have to go through some of the more painful onerous skin cancer bits you have though, speaking of skin! But I should make a derm appointment, it’s been a few years.

And I feel for Matilda. Friendship breakups are so damn hard. I have a couple people who used to be bestest friends and for a variety of reasons they’ve really been pulling away and it sucks a lot. Plus another ex good friend who married the girlfriend I hated (after they broke up! But then they got back together) and now we don’t talk and it makes me sad.

Tim is insisting on calling the repair guy, but I think it's optimistic. That dryer is potentially 30 years old. I'm happy getting a new one.

An old dryer, sadly, is more likely to be fixable than a new one. We were able to keep our old dryer going until the motor finally gave out, at which point, it would have cost more to repair than replace. Though I liked the old one better.

(Sadly, the washing machine that I hate was yet again fixable at home with a $20 part, so my expensive dream of replacing it was once more thwarted. We'd even ordered the replacement this time before P looked up possible causes and went, "AHA! I can actually fix this." So we cancelled the replacement, and I'm stuck with my nemesis.)

Tim is insisting on calling the repair guy, but I think it's optimistic. That dryer is potentially 30 years old. I'm happy getting a new one.

An old dryer, sadly, is more likely to be fixable than a new one. We were able to keep our old dryer going until the motor finally gave out, at which point, it would have cost more to repair than replace.

We had a repair guy out yesterday, and it *is* the motor, but putting in a new motor is still cheaper than buying a new dryer (although not by much once you add in labor), and Tim is really committed to repairing rather than buying new, so I'm just along for the ride.

(I'm slightly ready to stab him because we decided we were going to a park to hike [walk on a flat paved trail] today, and then he insisted he HAD to shower before we go, and his showers take like 45 minutes, and it's almost 3 pm here and with the time change it is seriously going to get dark by the time we start hiking. And I did in fact say that out loud to him, but he was like, nah, it won't take that long. We are going to by god go fucking hiking [walking on a flat paved trail] today even if we have to do it in the pitch fucking dark. At this point I'm going to do it out of spite even if I don't have a good time.)

He is STILL in the bathroom. I keep hearing the sink taps turn on briefly and off again, over and over. What in the actual fuck is happening. Like, if he doesn't want to go hiking [walking on a flat paved trail] he can just say so and I will go by myself because the weather is too nice to waste.

(It's *possible* that I'm cranky and stabby because I both got my period today and am fighting a migraine, but I was still planning on hiking despite those things because I hate to waste a sunny 61-degree day when it's November and we probably aren't going to get many more -- if any -- of these.)

Oh my god, we’re actually about to leave.

Friendship breakups are so damn hard. I have a couple people who used to be bestest friends and for a variety of reasons they’ve really been pulling away and it sucks a lot.

It truly does.

Plus another ex good friend who married the girlfriend I hated (after they broke up! But then they got back together) and now we don’t talk and it makes me sad.

See that one kinda feels like a betrayal. Your job after a break up is to validate your friend's negative feelings about their ex. So unfair of them to reunite and you get pushed aside!