Hope they get your cat straightened out Volans.

Good news about your aunt, Matt!

Kitty~ma, Volans.

There will absolutely be a next time because Nilly's daughter is adamant that we do one when she isn't in bed and can participate. So say we all!

We should do a buffista kids zoom!

Adding to the thanks to Shir. It was great to see/hear people. Oh, and the thing Mr. S was yelling about that I exited the chat for? He wanted me to give him the chips that were maybe 5 feet away. Sigh...all too typical of him.

Mr. S will have to join the Buffista Sprog zoom!

Oh, and the thing Mr. S was yelling about that I exited the chat for? He wanted me to give him the chips that were maybe 5 feet away. Sigh...all too typical of him.

ltc woke me up 6 times while I tried to nap this afternoon. She knew where TCG was every time, and she also knew the answers to all the questions she was asking.

My friend Maria always laughs about how teaching second graders and college students is SO similar. I used to have a big sign in the costume shop “Ask Three Before Me”, which was basically did you ask your brain, did you ask google, did you ask a coworker? But I still miss my students...

Also, thanks so much Shir!

Thank you so, so, so much, Shir and Nilly! It was beyond good to see and hear everyone. We should, must and shall do it again, and I think Matilda will be very much up to tackling a makeup tutorial or three.

(She just came in from pottering around on Haight Street, and she has scored an absolutely gorgeous Spike-like leather jacket. My little thrifter! I'm almost as proud of that as of her reading lexile.)

And thanks to everyone from the previous thread for being so nice about my kvetching and bellyaching about my exhausting coworker. One of the loveliest things about mostly working from home is that 37 out of 40 working hours a week I get to just buckle down and do my own job and solve my own problems without having to manage anyone else's helplessness. Okay, the surgeons are often helpless, but at least (a) they're usually in the OR and the amount of time they can flail at me is strictly limited, (b) unlike the helpless coworkers, they are literally the bosses of me and my entire job is to do piddly shit for them, and (c) as my manager often points out, they're really really good at fixing tiny babies' hearts, which if you're only going to be really really good at one professional task is a pretty amazing one to be good at.

Thanksgiving will be Hec, Matilda, Emmett, me, and a whole bunch of family via Zoom (except my aunt, who was warned that we would definitely be discussing politics, correctly interpreted that as "gloating over the imminent expulsion of the Mad King," and has chosen to absent herself). But it's gnawing at me more and more that last Thanksgiving was the last. Last with my dad and extended family under one roof, last under that roof, deeply last in that my dad, the roof, the room, the kitchen and all have utterly vanished from this world. Not really something anyone can rationally deal with, so I'm very much not.

JZ, I'm sorry. That hurts and it sucks.

It's been 17.5+ years, I still have a hard time from Thanksgiving, to Christmas, and through the February anniversary of my dad's death, and our March birthdays. For me, the first year's worth of special days were the hardest to mark. After each one, I made a point to tell myself, "I did it."

That didn't mean I did it without grief, or with much (any?) rational dealing, just that I got through the day. In other words, no "did it" points are deducted for tears, sorrow, or even irritation, resentment, and anger. They're also not deducted for the moments you enjoy.

Much love to you and your family.