Laura

https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/145281.html

1. What’s harder to live without, chocolate or alcohol?

I was about to say chocolate, because I cannot stand the taste of alcohol. But honestly, while I love chocolate and would like to have it, rubbing alcohol is actually useful for its purpose, so I might have to go with that. (In the end, absent disinfection needs, both can be done without. As far as food, I vastly prefer chocolate. But.)

2. Does the colour yellow remind you of anything?

Daffodils, the sun, and not much else.

3. Who most annoyed you last week?

Me. Look, forgetting to do things and scrambling to catch up isn't fun.

4. Do you have a cutesy romantic nickname for your partner (or previous partners)?

That is between me and him. I do have cutesy (but not romantic, obvs) nicknames for the kids. And I will not share them either, because they would be rightfully annoyed.

Kala and Maria, however, are "kitchen kitten" or "chaos kitten" or "mighty huntress" (Kala only) or "sili-cat" / "silly cat", among many other things. (They are not kittens. They are still kittens. Chaos kittens go zooming through the halls and then launch, still at running speed, to the top of the cat stand.)

5. What is your favourite Stephen King movie?

This one's easy. I don't like horror in general, but I do like _Firestarter_ which...walks a line, a little bit, at least in movie form. Mostly I'm not a Stephen King fan, but that movie I do enjoy, on occasion.

Scott's jury duty didn't sort out as quickly as I hoped, it was a significant trial and they spent three days on jury selection. Which was a bit stressful because I wanted answers. In the end, he was not one of the selected jurors, so our schedule goes back to normal now. For which I am very grateful, the morning routine is easier with two adults on it!

Tomorrow is a day off for everyone. Not sure what we will do with it. Except I will be returning the cans because the drop bin for bags of cans is usually pretty empty in the mornings. Really I should have done it at the beginning of this week, except see the morning routine with only one of us home!

Also tomorrow I get my flu and covid shots. By Monday I should be back at my normal, but it's going to be another "I love vaccinations but I hate the after-effects" weekend, probably.

Worth it.

One of the cats made an odd noise this morning and I was worried they'd been hurt, but investigation just revealed they had found a spider. Poor spider. Generally I don't mind spiders, they are doing good in the world, but I'm not going to rescue them from a hunting cat in their own house either. Presumably it's been eaten by now, that is the usual fate.

Better than the things a friend's cat eats! He's needed surgery before to get bits of foam or plastic out. She's watching him to see if half a noseplug (swimming) comes out safely at the moment I believe...hope he retains his health, but not the noseplug. Yikes.

...though I surely don't post like it. October was lovely and I got a lot of things done around the house and taking care of family health. The numbers are working out for me to just stay home, not go job searching. This doesn't preclude my jumping all over a job if someone points it out and it sounds fun/fascinating/interesting/whatever, but the bar is definitely high there, for now. The work itself would have to be worth the time given up to it, not just acceptable in return for money.

Handy, since our youngest has been home sick from school since Halloween with a nasty cough and fever. Negative for flu, negative for covid, negative for patience. Two doctor's appointments this week (the first was 'probably viral, he should get over it, come back if it is not gone by Friday'; the second was Friday). He's on high-powered antibiotics for it now so we will see how that does.

So far either none of the rest of us have caught whatever it is, or we recovered from it easily. (I *think* I may have actually caught it last weekend? But if so, it didn't last a day for me. Maybe I was just having a bad day; who knows?)

I need to find my cute reusable advent calendars and prep them (I need to start finding them now because I am not sure where I last put them away!) - the boys expect one, and I've been buying pre-made ones the past several years, but that costs more and is less personalized, and this year I have time. So that'll be fun.

Maria (tuxedo cat) managed to get some kind of bacterial or fungal infection on her right front paw, so the vet removed all the fur between her paw-pad and toes on the underside and she's been getting an anti-almost-everything cream 2-3 times a day. About half the times I put it on it's uncomfortable for her, and she growls very seriously - the warning rumble of a cat who is about to shred you if you don't stop. For the entire time I'm putting it on. Without following through on the threat. She really is a fairly well behaved cat.

However, it may or may not do the trick - the ointment - because she's SUPPOSED to be in a cone to keep her from licking it off. It took her two hours to figure out how to remove the cone the first time. Second time she did it in under fifteen minutes and it took us until the next day to find it. So I bought one of those orange-shaped donut cone substitutes. Very cute, off in less than half an hour. So I gave up and I cuddle and pet her for a while after most doses (sometimes she leaves too rapidly) to distract her and hopefully keep it on long enough. Statistically I can get her to be petted for longer than the cone or cone-substitute would stay on.

If I call the vet and they want to see her again to check it, I'm gonna say "I told you so" to the cat. And then I may just order this, because it has me giggling a LOT and I don't think she could take it off:

https://www.amazon.com/EMUST-Recovery-Breathable-Adjustable-Alternative/dp/B0CQX832HN/

Sadly the one with the green body suit, which is more accurate and cuter IMO, does not come in a size other than large, and Maria is not large for a cat.

It's finally rainy. I know the state of the world isn't what I want it to be, including climate and weather systems, but it finally feels like a proper fall here all the same.

It has been a very busy week. But the parent-teacher conferences went fine, the appointment went fine, the benefits info for open enrollment this year at work was boring*, we had a team lunch and I was able to order something off the menu adjusted to be fine for me to eat (and it was tasty).

The road construction today was very much Not Wanted - I ended up parking at Graham Oaks and walking to the school (which is about a 5-minute walk) to pick the boys up from their school's-out program (which is at the school). On the other hand, they are doing the stretch in front of the schools today and tomorrow, when they are NOT open so it's just Club K attendees and some staff affected. It was originally going to be Tuesday and Wednesday next week, when it could have snarled up the afternoon school buses (among other things).

* Open enrollment info SHOULD be boring, in my opinion. It's very, very rare that any excitement around the open enrollment is good. I mean, if they want to do something exciting-but-good I won't complain, but I also won't ask for it unless it happens. But I do like to avoid exciting-because-it's-bad news. :)

That was a good idea AND a bad idea. Last night we went to the fireworks at the Oregon Garden. The garden itself is lovely, supposed to have a good fireworks show, and it was the only one in the area on the 3rd that I could find. I didn't want us all up late and exhausted before going to work/camp/preschool tomorrow. And hey, music from 6 pm while we wait, too.

I knew we'd pay for it in the food on site being marked up (which it was, and which we did), and with leaving at 10:30 and having to drive an hour home.

What actually happened: we joined others who parked at the remote lot and bused up. (We should have tried the main lot, it wasn't full yet. Oops.) Anyway, the evening was nice, the fireworks were glorious, and then at 10:30 we left. The music continued for another hour, but again, hour drive.

Shoulda stayed for the music. Because according to what the guy doing announcements said just before or after the fireworks (I forget which), there were 6000 people there. And a goodly number of them all left when we did.

And the buses had trouble getting through because of all the cars in the parking lot leaving. And a laaaaarge contingent of folks needing the bus left when we did.

We finally got to our car at 11:45. We would've gotten there about 5-10 minutes later if we'd stayed for all the music..... WHEE. (Well, maybe. We also might have missed the last bus, because I'm not sure how long walking down would have taken us.)

Scott ended up carrying Ian for the last 10 minutes of the line, and the entire bus ride, because Ian was too tired to stand up and walk when the line moved, and as you might expect from that description, as soon as Scott picked him up he fell asleep on Scott's shoulder.

They have an on-site hotel that you can check in to and enjoy and watch the fireworks from there, and some year we may do that. But we also may just take July 5th off next year and go to Canby's show. They have a lovely show, it's just on the actual 4th.

Last night was gorgeous, though. Very tired. But gorgeous.

(And nope, for once I did not take photos. I wanted to strictly watch the fireworks and I did.)

Hope is a verb - an action, not (just) a feeling. It can be a choice.

That doesn't mean it's easy, but it does mean it's possible.

(So is getting to bed on time, if I get back to what I'm supposed to be doing, so I think I'll post this and get back to the evening chores.)

So, the current forecast says we're probably getting freezing rain again tomorrow night after midnight (so Friday morning really).

At least it's supposed to thaw off Friday instead of hanging around forever, at least as far south as we are. And who knows? Some of the "storms" we were supposed to have had, barely materialized or not at all. Another was way worse than predicted. I guess we'll see what it looks like when we get there!

So, we were under a wind advisory as of last night. (Which I largely ignored, but with everything frozen it may not be good for trees/power lines; at the same time, most wind issues here are not a big deal for us personally.)

And starting Tuesday evening through Thursday, we're under a flood watch. (Because after dumping 8+ inches of snow on us, the temp is going to go rapidly up, the snow level rise to 7000 feet or more, and it's going to pour rain down, thus melting most or all of what we got.)

And then, some time last night or early this morning, they posted a winter storm watch for tomorrow, 4 am to 6 pm, because the rain is going to arrive before the freezing leaves.

Yes, we get one last bout of freezing freaking rain. If it materializes. Now, the warning time is for the whole region - where I am, it should rise above freezing at 6 am.

So we'll have water over ice if all this happens. GOODY.

Bets on school starting on time Tuesday? Because I'm thinking we'll be lucky if it's a two hour delay.

Today also brought a late-afternoon unexpected hailstorm that blanketed the roads, sidewalks, etc., in a carpet of snow-like white. Except when you got close it was little tiny hailstones. (About 4-5 needed to achieve a pea-size.) And then, apparently, it laid a thin layer of snow down on it while I wasn't paying attention.

I cleared the front walk, the driveway where Scott would need to access his car and get it out (the man is still on crutches; his purple cast is awesome, but he should not have to slip-slide to his car, and it's possible we won't go above freezing until Friday per some forecasts - but not others, at the moment), the sidewalk from where we set our trash cans to the community mailbox bank. I started with the mailbox bank once Scott could get to his car, actually, no one needs to get hurt getting their mail. But there's a whole stretch in front of the yard I haven't done yet. I was tired, and it was dusk when I started and flatly dark when I finished. (Well, as far as sun in the sky status. There's a perfectly fine street light just across the street, so I could see what I was doing.)

Since the temp was still above freezing then, it had a chance to melt somewhat. But no worries, it should be refreezing now....

Tomorrow is a holiday for our workplaces and the kids' schools, so hopefully given a day things will straighten themselves out a bit and we can resume work on Tuesday without too much winter-weather-drama.