Connections: I was pretty sure that the blue answers would be purple.

Right? I really thought I was getting purple first. I did get both pangrams off the top and made it to QB during morning coffee. Wordle took 5 tries though.

While you people were talking about delicious boozy hot chocolate, I was making Swiss Miss in the office. Sad.

I'm in my office, listening to the Fezziwig party, drinking hot water.

Frustrating day today.

Tried to do the annual enrollment thing for health insurance and so on, but the network refused to recognize that I was logged on.

Student came to class wearing a mask. I asked if she was feeling OK, and she said, "Yeah, I tested positive for Covid on Monday, but I met all the requirements to come back to class." So, I put on my N95.

I had to send out exams for high school students taking my online calculus class. I email the exams to teachers at their schools, and those teachers print them out, supervise the students taking them, and then scan them and send them back to me. I can't just send the same exam file to each one, because we use a system where each exam had QR codes on it, so I needed to be careful to send the right exam to each person, and to make sure not to send the same file to two different people. It took me a while to get the individual emails put together and the files attached and to double-check that I'd matched up the names and the files correctly. And then one of the teachers emailed me to say that she couldn't open the attachment. I checked, and none of the files had downloaded to my computer correctly, which meant that none of the attachments were right, and I had to redo the entire thing, after downloading each individual file (I'd done it as a batch before, which apparently you can't do.)

Even one of those things is too shitty for a single day. Three is just rude.

Yeah, that is some unneccessary piling on

-t, if you want to give it a go, maybe nab one of those airline minis that liquor store often have? You’d just be out a dollar or so if you don’t like it.

Oh, that's a great idea! Thanks!

I got purple first, but I haven't started anything else yet (well, except Wordle, which is my first one every day) + I have to go back to yesterday in Spelling Bee -- I think I only guessed, like, two words. The world is very invasive on my puzzle time these last couple of days. Rude.

Dang, Hil, that's frustrating.

Seconding the mini-bottle solution to Tequila. They have a spinner rack near the checkout at BevMo and you can get almost anything you want in a tiny size.

Welp, the only thing standing between me and a painful and premature death, is the literal game of Whack-a-Mole my dermatologist plays with me.

Had my skin cancer screening last week and of the three biopsied sites, two were bad. A basal carcinoma on my hairline which will require a Moh's procedure (my second), and a tiny "melanoma in situ" on my arm, first layer of skin only.

But melanoma is still alarming and also resets my screening schedule back to every three months. It's only the size of a freckle, so nowhere near as bad as the melanoma on my shoulder that required surgery that left a six inch scar. Still, it requires immediate attention.

The Moh's procedure isn't painful but it's an unpleasant way to spend an afternoon. It's just a very meticulous excision and microstitches designed to avoid scarring on the face.

Anyway, thanks Dr. Watkins and her eagle-eyes.

ION, I have ordered my turkey for pickup next Tuesday because that's how quickly Thanksgiving is coming.