Category Archives: Life

Late to the show

I have to admit that I have a contrary streak a mile wide. I’m not exactly the best at being told what to do. Ask me, and I’m fine. Tell/order me and take your chances. (I had to have a chat with the boss who entered my cubicle and said, “You! You need to do (whatever he wanted me to do).”) I’m also a resident of Georgia and don’t like the Georgia Bulldogs. I’m actually not a sports fan, but I don’t like the Bulldogs because they are everywhere, all the time – not just football season.

My contrariness has caused me to be reluctant to read certain books or watch certain television shows. (Still haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey and don’t plan to.) I’ll write a separate post about my reluctance to watch Criminal Minds.

I had never seen an episode of Friends until 2024. When the show first aired in 1994, I was married with two young children and a full-time job; I had nothing in common a bunch of single, late twenty-somethings living their best lives in the big city. Everyone telling me how great it was didn’t make me want to watch either. However, sometime last year, I realized that Kenn kept the television in his workshop on Friends. I was shocked. He said he just used it as background noise. (Big Bang Theory is one of my “background” shows.) At some point, I caught a couple of episodes and decided that – wait for it it – I like Friends. It has now become one of my background shows as well.

Kenn went to a blood drive in early December 2024. When he came home, he tossed something at me and said “Here, you can have these.” It turns out that the Red Cross had given him two pairs of holiday socks. Kenn is strictly a black socks kind of guy while I like bright and colorful, so the socks were perfect for me. The one thing I wasn’t expecting was that the socks were a Red Cross/Friends collaboration – a combination that I would never have guessed existed. I guess it was in honor of Friends thirtieth anniversary.🤷‍♀️

The pair not shown has a turkey wearing sunglasses and a fez.

When it comes the the characters, Joey and Phoebe are my favorites. (Ross is my least favorite.) I recently caught an episode I hadn’t seen before featuring Joey’s “moo point.” Not only was it hysterical, but I also love cows so I had to get a shirt. I guess this officially makes me a fan.

Do you like Friends? Who are your favorite/least favorite characters? Are you contrary?

Oh. You’re a redhead.

Being a redhead comes with its share of quirks, such as:

  • We require more anesthesia than non-redheads. (I can vouch for this. I’ve never had a dentist be able to fully numb my mouth, which has a lot to do with my dental work phobia.)
  • We produce our own vitamin D. This one makes sense since our lack of melanin means we can’t get as much vitamin D from sunlight.
  • Redheads don’t go gray; we go blonde and then go white. I’m well into the blonde spectrum now. I’ve heard it said that redheads don’t go salt and pepper, we go cinnamon and sugar. I love this!
Just call me quirky!

I’ve stumbled across a few other traits over the years:

  • When I gave birth to our oldest son, another redhead had given birth a couple of hours earlier, The other redhead had hemorrhaged and the nurses watched me like a hawk because apparently we bleed more than non-redheads.
  • When I had my wisdom teeth removed, the oral surgeon said that redheads bleed worse and swell worse than non-redheads. I did fine. When my oldest son (also a redhead) had his wisdom teeth removed, the poor guy had so much swelling, he couldn’t eat solid food for a week.
  • I had an endoscopy a couple of years ago and was given Robinul to dry up the secretions in the mouth and throat before the procedure. The nurse warned me that it would cause my heart to race for a few minutes but it shouldn’t last more than five or ten minutes. Hahahahaha! An hour later I was still experiencing periods of a racing heart. It was like have an hour-long anxiety attack; I was not having fun. The nurses finally called the anesthesiologist who came in, looked at me and said “Oh. You’re a redhead.” Lucky me! On that note, it will be a cold day in hell before I let anyone give me Robinul again.
  • The most recent instance came up last November. I had a bone density scan which showed osteoporosis in my spine and osteopenia (precursor to osteoporosis) in my hips. During my appointment with my general practitioner to discuss treatment I told him that I have been taking calcium supplements for thirty years; my now-retired gynecologist had me start taking calcium because he said that my being a “tall, slim, Caucasian female” made me the textbook description of someone who would develop osteoporosis. My GP nodded and said, “Also, your red hair.” Wait, what? I said “Seriously? That’s another one of the weird redhead traits?” He nodded. “Yes. Red hair/Norse ancestry make you more likely to develop osteoporosis.” Whoo hoo! He also said that without my calcium regimen, I probably would have developed serious problems five to ten years ago. So now, I have added once-a-month Boniva to my medication regimen and will have follow-up bone density scan in a year.

Are there any “quirky” traits associated with being blond or brunette?

❄️❄️❄️❄️‼️

Y’all, we got snow! *twirls like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music* There was a chance of snow a few weeks ago, but it didn’t make it this far south. Now, many of you may live in areas where snow is a fact of life, but around here, it’s as rare as hen’s teeth. (The last time we had snow at our house was 2018.) When the forecast hints that we may get snow and/or frozen precipitation, I become a big kid. While I may be calm on the outside, on the inside, I’m all pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. So, when snow was predicted for January 21st, all of my fingers and toes were crossed. It started snowing shortly after lunch and continued through the next morning. We ended with a respectable four inches, and, for once, we didn’t get a layer of sleet to top it off.

Yes, that four inches shut everything down for a couple of days, which makes northerners snort and roll their eyes. However, we have reasons for our caution. Here in the South, we don’t have snow tires or equipment to clear the roads. Okay, Atlanta has sixty snow plows, but the rest of us just have to wait for everything to melt. However, the biggest reason for us to stay off the roads is because we don’t know how to drive in the snow; it’s best for everyone if we just stay home.

In true southern weather fashion, last Wednesday, we had snow on the ground, and this Wednesday, the temperature is expected to be seventy degrees (Fahrenheit).🙄 I know we’ll have a few more cold snaps before spring, but I doubt we’ll have more snow. So, I’ll leave you with a few photos.

The snow was too powdery for a snowman, so I made a snow angel instead.
Already the top contender for our 2025 Christmas card.

Smackdown!

I look back at 2024 and I’m not sure what we spent the year doing.🤷‍♀️ We didn’t get to take a big trip, but we did take a few short ones. At least we didn’t spend the year making a lot of expensive home repairs; we only had one appliance die on us in 2024: our range. Now, I’m side-eyeing our refrigerator because it’s the only appliance we haven’t replaced since we moved in.

I’m not really a resolution maker, but I have set myself a few goals:

  • Exercise more
  • Keep going through the items that I’ve allowed to pile up because I either a) don’t know what to do with them, or b) just haven’t wanted to deal with them.
  • This one is more of a wish than a goal: selling our old house. Our youngest son and his girlfriend rent from us and had expressed an interest in buying the house. Unfortunately, J (the girlfriend) lost her job and it took a few months for her to find a new one. However, she now has a new job she loves so it looks like we may be back on track to sell this year. I really hope it works out; Kenn and I are both tired of being landlords.

As for the title of my post, my word of the year was chosen by Merriam-Webster. Participants just had to take a screenshot of their GIF that was scrolling through a series of words, and I got “smackdown.” I showed it to Kenn and he said “Oh, crap.”😂 So… *crack knuckles* let’s do this?

Do you make resolutions?

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em

The day last week’s post went live, I woke up to this.

Someone, presumably Roxie, managed to knock the whole tree over while leaving the bungee cord securing it to the table intact. It was at this point that my enthusiasm for a tree began to wane. Don’t get me wrong. I love having a tree, I just don’t enjoy it becoming an ongoing hassle.

In a moment of desperation, I did an internet search and placed an order for a new tree. While waiting on the new tree to arrive, Roxie’s depredations continued. By Saturday, there were only three ornaments left on the tree. All but two have been recovered for use again at some point in the future.

The new tree arrived today. Kenn and I had it unboxed  and assembled in less than ten minutes.

Bear has climbed the tree a couple of times and sharpened his claws on the base. Nyx lounged under the tree for a few minutes. And Roxie? Well, she has pulled a couple of the “ornaments” off only to pay them no attention when I put them back. So, yeah. The great destructor of trees is completely ignoring the one designed for her. Jerk.

How many Christmas trees do you have? None? One? Multiple?

Meowy Catmas?

Y’all know I’m a cat lady and that we have several cats. I’m an old pro at introducing cats to Christmas trees and dealing with the occasional ornament on the floor. All of our ornaments are shatter-proof so, no big deal. Then, Roxie joined our clowder.

The reason we can’t have nice things.

Roxie may look like a Calico, but she’s actually a kleptomaniac. Nothing is safe since she joined the family. I have yet to find half of my fridge magnets. Among the things I have caught her carrying around: a 9mm shell casing, a screwdriver, and a roll of film. I didn’t even know we had any undeveloped film rolls!

Last year, I almost didn’t put up a tree because I didn’t want my ornaments getting lost and/or destroyed. I finally put the tree up a week before Christmas but didn’t put any ornaments on it. That worked okay, but I didn’t want to go that basic again this year.

This year, I decided to start introducing Roxie to the concept of ornaments. To keep from stressing, I’m only using “filler” ornaments – the ones that I won’t be upset about if something happens to them.

So far, things are going about as I expected. Roxie has spent a lot of time in the tree and on the floor swatting at ornaments. At least three ornaments are no longer on the tree, and I have no idea where they are.🤣 As a matter of fact, our tree looks a lot like the ones when our sons were young – most of the ornaments are on the upper half of the tree.

This is my life now.

Those of you with cats – or other pets – do they interact with your tree?

The end of an era.

It’s the middle of November which usually means I am in the middle of participating in NaNoWriMo. I made the decision not to participate this year a few months ago; several days out-of-town during the month and Thanksgiving made the event a no-go before it even started. I also decided I can no longer support an organization that has become such a dumpster fire. Organizations come and go, but it’s rare to have the opportunity to watch one die a slow, painful death at the hands of the ones who should be trying to save it.

Image from depositphotos.com

The problems began with complaints that one of the forum mods was grooming children – a big problem which took far too long for the board to resolve. The latest in a long line of bad decisions is a statement from the interim director basically saying that disabled writers need AI in order to write, followed by a statement calling anyone who disagreed with that statement (including all of the disable writers who complained) ableist and classist. After a year of one fox up after another, the entire board resigned. The last I heard, there are now only three people on staff at NaNo: the interim director, an intern, and a part-time IT person. There’s a whole Google doc detailing all that has gone wrong. If you decide to read it, I suggest you don your comfy clothes and grab some popcorn; it’s long.

NaNoWriMo meant a lot to me. I have always been a bit of a misfit. However, the first time I got together with the local NaNo group, I knew I had met my people; these people got me. It’s great when you meet a group of people whose weird compliments your own. The camraderie of the NaNo experience is a part of what made the experience fun. The loss of what the experience once was makes me sad. I have uploaded my NaNo stats to TrackBear and will use that site for any future projects unless NaNo can pull out a miracle. (IMO, the best thing they can do at this point would be to replace the interim director; her inflexibility and unwillingness to listen to any voices other than her own are a good part of why the organzation is where it is now.)

I guess as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. For me, the only thing left at this point is to mourn and move on. Any other Wrimos out there? How do you feel about the state of the organization?