1. Managed to put together a tray table that I bought from Amazon for eating and possibly drawing and painting on. I may use it for the laptop as well. Haven't decided yet.




It's not perfect, but it does get the job done. Only quibble is it is really hard to adjust the angle of the top into different positions. Also took forever to adjust the legs.

2. Went grocery shopping - and appeared to be accident prone - or I left disaster in my wake, one or the other. The first accident? I knocked over a canister of mango and bite sized mango pieces spread across the grocery store floor in the fruit and vegetable department. I couldn't very well pick them up without injuring myself or making it worse. So I quickly moved on. I don't know how I knocked it over. I grabbed the canister with the berries and wonk there they went.

Second embarrassing mishap happened when I picked up the plastic encased canister of rotisserie chicken, under the heat lamps. It had been cooked at 2pm - I got there at 2:30 pm. It looked good. And wham - it slipped out of its encasement and ended up in the heated metal enclosure that they place them in. I stared at it and tried to pick it up and put it back in the plastic enclosure, and gave up. Just chose another one instead.

After that, I kind of tip-toed around the store, afraid of causing another mishap.

I wish I could say I felt something one way or the other - but I didn't.
It's as if I'm walking around in a fog lately.

Did manage to pick up healthy things and avoid sweets and ice cream for the most part. Got peaches instead. Buying peaches and nectarines is always problematic. The chances you'll get an overripe mealy one or unripe hard one are high.

3. My Church is doing a "go off plastic" challenge via the sustainability group, that I've no clue how people manage it. One woman stated that she'd picked up bar shampoo and bar soap. Considering I can't stand bar soap, that's not happening. I really can't avoid plastic - it's every where. It's akin to trying to avoid sugar (another discussion). I bought a glass bottle of natural spring water today - in my attempt to get away from plastic, after reading that plastic bottles are bad for you. Although they do have ones that are BPA proof now. Whatever that means.

4. At work yesterday, Gabe informed me that she needed to taste her medication in order to remember that she took it. And took powdered tynenol. It had sugar in it - but that helped her remember and soothed her. I thanked her for explaining that too me - because I'd always wondered why they added sugar to so many medications. Now I know.

5. I don't know about anyone else? But I'm finding the information age to be exhausting. I feel like people are thrusting information at 24/7, and I really don't want to know about 98% of it. Yesterday Wales texted me that there was apparently a Malaria pandemic in Florida and Texas (due to the mosquitos and flooding). My poor extended family members, I hope they stay safe.

Also there's all these articles thrown at me via my browser (Microsoft Edge throws them at you, as does Firefox, Google not so much) about foods that are bad for me (apparently pickles are, I already knew hot dogs could be (but really it depends on the hot dog - they aren't all created equal, same with the pickles for that matter) ), food that is good for me, etc.

6. I am still in a reading slump. Cat Sebastian's book "The Crimes of Marian Hayes" isn't grabbing me. I don't know why.

I am enjoying Geena Davis' audiobook - Dying Politely. Apparently she spent some time in NYC pretending to be a mannequin in shop windows. She was trying to get into modeling, but at six foot, she was considered too big.
The clothing samples they provided for catalogue and runway models were sized at 5'10, if that. But Geena was determined. As a side gig to working in a retail store, she pretended to be a mannequin in several shop windows. She even found a wire to make it look like she was plugged in. The challenge was to fool people into thinking she was a mannequin. I don't know how she did that - I'd have given up after ten minutes.

I'm thinking of trying another book by T Kingfisher - who to date has written the only book that I could finish that wasn't an audio book, and also that I remembered and haunted me. Plus no romantic love interest.
I may be burned out on romances? I should stop buying them. And switch to horror and dark fantasy for a bit.

I seem to want books that have a spot of magic in them? I don't know.

Wales jumped from a Jennifer Weiner beach read, which annoyed her, to a Patricia Highsmith novel. She also tried to read Elena Ferrati's My Brilliant Friend, made it through most of the first novel, before getting fed up and throwing it against the wall. She didn't like anyone in it, and didn't care what happened to any of them. And was bored. Didn't understand how the writer got published or why people loved her. I can relate - I couldn't get past the first fifty pages. I got bored. That sort of fiction no longer works for me. I'm sure it's lovely, it just doesn't work for me right now.

7. Yesterday discussed nails with Mel.

Me: I love your nail polish. Especially the white nail polish on your toes. I'm hiding my toes today - they don't have nail polish. Babs does silver.
Mel: Thanks.
Me: Were you raised to do it that way or -
Mel: No, I was raised to do it. My mother and my grandmother would go once a week to the salon to get their nails done. It was a special treat. I've been doing it since I was about nine or ten.
Me: Oh, my mother and grandmother never did it - they considered it expensive. I didn't do it until I left home and girlfriends introduced me to it.
Mel: We did it all the time. It was important to have your nails look nice. To look professional and put together. That's what I was taught.
Me: I had a friend who was the same way - she used to drag me to the salon all the time. Do you do it with a girlfriend now?
Mel: no, she's a Tom boy, so I just do it on my own - it's my personal time, away from my husband and on my own.

It's fascinating to me how different we all are, and how our different upbringings inform who we become.

8. Trying to get spoilers on a comic book character that I'm concerned about. But the spoiler sources aren't reliable - mainly because they don't like the character, and have troll logic.

Fanboy Comic Nerd Journalist: Cyclops villain status has been confirmed by his change in costumes.
Me: Really? You're determining he's becoming a villain because of the costume he's wearing at the formal Hellfire Gala.
Fanboy Comic Nerd Journalist: It's the same costume he wore when he was previously a villain.
Me: He wasn't a villain. He was ambiguous - and a bit of an anti-hero, but no villainous than Wolverine, Tony Stark, or Captain America for that matter. I mean honestly they all go through their dark periods.
Fanboy Comic Nerd: So, obviously he's becoming a villain.
Fanboy Comic Nerd 2: And since he proposed genocide for the parasitic insectoid Brood...he's obviously going down a dark path.
Me: Actually Bishop proposed it, and Cyclops thought it was also a good idea, as do I. The Brood are parasitic creatures that eat their hosts alive. It's kind of like saying - oooh, you are evil for wanting to do away with COVID or Brown Recluse Spiders. I mean give me a break.
Fanboy Comic Nerd: There's a sizable rift between Scott and Jean now..
Me: What rift? They are still with each other. She kissed him in the last book. And they had a philosophical disagreement - it happens. She thinks he should celebrate the fact that she terrafarmed Mars and visit it, and he's wary because it gives the humans another reason to hate them and exile them. That's a perfectly valid point.
Fanboy Comic nerd: And Cyclops has always been arrogant and full of himself and selfrighteous. He needed to be taken down a peg by that guy in the Treehouse who fights him and throws him off of it.
Me: How exactly? I'd say Jean was in that argument. He has concussive blasts basically the equivalent of bullets coming out of his eyes. And is a strategic fighter and genius. Who has lead a fighting team since he was fifteen. Of course he'd think he could harm a human. He held back. If he went full force with his blasts, the man would be dead. How is this arrogant? How is wanting to do away with a parasitic race that has done nothing but cause your own and everyone else's harm, arrogant or evil? Have we not watched zombie movies? How is questioning a bunch of mutant's playing god on Mars, arrogant? You fanboys are exhausting.
Fanboy Geek: They clearly broke up on the eve of the Gala.
Me: How? She kissed him. Told him she was leaving the X-men, if he wanted to stay with them that was fine, if not, to come find her. That's not breaking up. Breaking up - is I'm leaving, by now.

I didn't say any of that of course. I just vented here to people who don't follow the comics, nor care. Nor understand why I do.


Ugh. I know they aren't going in that direction.

9. Night Agent - saw the first episode. It's good. Basically an FBI agent after stopping a bomb from taking out a group of folks on a metro train that he was on, is assigned to the counterintelligence Night Desk, as the Night Agent. The phone never rings. Until one night it does. Rose, who has just declared bankruptcy and lost everything, discovers her parents are spies and in trouble. They tell her to run next door and call the Night Agent, and give her the codes. She does - and well, it goes from there.

Long past my bed time - heading there now.