Congratulations, Brenda!

And I'm so sorry, msbelle.

OMG that was a lot of catch up on. Random Meara ahead, in no particular order and surely leaving things out:

msbelle, I’m so sorry.

Congrats to meara and Brenda!

Hi megan!

Yes, I went to a party with meara two or three years before we met here - sadly we did not meet there nor is she in my pics from that night, because I checked.

Yes, I know a friend of brenda’s IRL through my NOLA volunteer work.

Yes, I did play sports with Jesse’s cousin.

A guy I went to hs with once messaged me to ask if this [vw bug] was good people, because she was dating his coworker. I replied in the extreme affirmative, of course.

Calli, thank you for sharing your story about reading to amyth. Glad you could spend time with her.

Shir, I have told T that if anything is needed, for amyth or for them, that I will light up the Buff signal, so to speak. Either there’s nothing they need or they are too exhausted to articulate it; I hope it’s the former.

This isn’t a b.org connection, but a friend I made on lj (and have met IRL) has a sister who’s a colleague in my industry and we are fb friends. Haven’t met yet, but if we ever get to have in person conferences again and I keep doing what I am doing, we probably will. She doesn’t know how I know her sister. Came in handy, because Lj friend doesn’t use fb much anymore so I just asked her sister for her phone number to tell her about amyth.

Hi, megan! I can't remember how I figured out who I thought you were -- did we ever talk about it? (ETA: It looks like we didn't from your post.) In any case, hello again!

So interesting reading about all the other connections people have. Smonster, I think you have the most I've seen. I wouldn't have believed the world so small. Amazing!

Y’all need to promise me that in 30+ years (knock wood) when I die, y’all will get on the FB equivalent and post about it and post stories and pictures and generally acknowledge that shit.

Nothing posted on my friends page yet. I know of one zoom gathering organized and NOTHING POSTED. I have shared with two people. My post mentioning grief last not led to a lot of texts so I think I am posting today, but on my wall only.

I know people process and grieve differently and none of his family is on to take the lead, but .... ugh.

And why is it so important to me?

I’m sad mad. Smad.

OK, so promised.

{{{msbelle}}}

Brenda! You absolute BEAST!

So promised, indeed, msbelle.

Congratulations, Brenda!

I'm so sorry, msbelle. It's been a shitty last-15-months.

I am trying to get used to being the boss but my predecessor left no guidance so I'm kind of flailing. I end every day exhausted. And of course I'm still doing my old job. Trying not to get too stressed out about it all, but it is stressful! And the division overall is struggling: we did pretty well in the first part of the pandemic, but we've lost a bunch of staff to retirements and other departures, and replacing them has been difficult. As a result we have many bottlenecks in our project workflow and we're not going to meet our targets this FY for the first time since I've been here. So all the managers are upset.

Got my 2nd shot yesterday and took today off in case I get knocked out; at the moment I'm just kind of tired. My arm doesn't even ache.

That sounds stressful, 'Suela. Hope it eases up. Yay 2nd shot!

I think the situation is wearing on everyone, eroding work practices. We have a staff Zoom call every two weeks and the last one was focused on how people were working - reminders of our core hours (citing staff not responding to requests/messages until 11:00 at night), wearing respectable clothing for calls with members, what was in the background during such calls and so on. There's an "official" background for calls that uses our color and logo (on my one attempt, I had a wall of books, which I think is respectable enough). We've lost people - one job eliminated, two people fired ... for cause, I think. I find it easier to stay on track coming in to the office and want to keep doing so. (Excitingly, I've had FOUR co-workers in the office this week - three on Monday, one yesterday!)

In my news, my vaccine injection site is very painful ... I rolled over on it during the night and came awake from the pain. I was warned that the side effects might be worse after the second shot.