Suziecreamcheese Sings the Blues

Because I like to knit and read or knit and watch TV, I usually have something totally mindless on the needles. I also like to shop the clearance aisle at Hobby Lobby, and they often have the “faux fur” type yarn on sale. It’s mindlessly fun to make scarves from that stuff. However. It is also incredibly difficult to see the stitches.

Last night I discovered that in my exhaustion from the previous night, I somehow left an extremely long tail of yarn in the middle of a row about 10 back from where I was. It wasn’t where I joined another ball, it was just this long tail of yarn, hanging there for no apparent reason.

Fine, I said, I can frog this baby back to that. The knitting goddess laughed. Long and heartily.

So I guess tonight I’m starting another scarf from that ball of yarn I wound up last night

I’m tired and I want to go to bed. In my bed. With my Bear. And my blankets. And my puppy stealing my huggin bear.

One more sleep and I’m home. Today I drove for another 2.5 hours to spend the day with a friend I’ve known forever and just met a few years ago. We met online on a soap opera message board (don’t judge). Bear was working 3-11, I didn’t know anyone and was a bit scared of the neighbors, so after dark fell, I would close the curtains and lock the doors and get online. We would discuss Brooke Logan and Nikki Newman and all the other characters and just have a good time. After a few years, we wandered to our own little message board and there we’ve been ever since. When Covid hit, I decided it was time we met, since it would be just a short detour on my trip to NY. Three years ago we met the first time and now it’s a tradition.

We went to a craft fair and bought a few things. Then she asked if I liked carousels. OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!! I LOVE carousels. So off we went. Endicott, NY is apparently famous for carousels. I thought they would just be something you could see, take pictures, walk around. But NOOOOOOOOo, you can RIDE on them!!!!!!!!!!!! They work!!!!!!!!!!!

I was like a 4 year old kid again. I laughed so much, my heart felt so full of joy, it was just wonderful! Each one was better than the last. We went to a nursery and I bought a few plants, to the bookstore and I bought a couple of books, had some good food, and back to the motel for the night.

I’m exhausted. It was a long week, a lot of driving, I’d be willing to pay someone to drive me home tomorrow so I could just sleep the whole way, but it’s only 4 hours, I hope to be home by noon, but 1 is more realistic. A shower, some good coffee, lunch, and a nap are in my future. I have physical therapy at 4 and will probably be beaten up because I’ve done little all week. Bear will pick up Maverick and the reunion will be epic. And I’ll be home, in my bed, snoring my head off, by midnight.

I can’t wait.

If I were rich, I’d have a lady’s maid (stop laughing, I can be a lady when the need arises) to do my packing and a chauffer to drive me to NY. I hate packing. I’m not all that thrilled with the driving anymore,either. People are just stupid behind the wheel! Seriously, when you’re going 80 mph, it’s not a good idea to cut someone off who is going equally as fast as you!

Anyway. It’s time for the annual visit to the relatives. Yesterday was quite a lovely day, barely a cloud in the sky, about 78 degrees – roll the windows down and enjoy the breeze weather. There was also very little traffic, which my husband says was because it was Saturday but I’m wondering if it’s more likely gas prices. If this trip hadn’t been planned for ages, I would have been rethinking it – my car only runs on premium so I’ve been paying over $5 a gallon for some time now, and I expect here in NY that it will be worse. (Aside – how the heck did we get here? More important – how the heck do we get out of here?????)

Normally, I get here and check in and unload the car and then get back in the car and go to a relative. Then I end up totally exhausted and crash at about 10 pm. This year I decided I’m really not all that excited about wearing myself out so I checked in, unloaded the car, called the Bear to check in – he worries – and just relaxed for an hour. Checked email, checked the unsocial media sites, called a friend and then went and got dinner – take out from a local restaurant – got some groceries (milk for my coffee) and came back to the motel.

After a chat with the Bear, I had my supper, got a shower, got in my jammies and started putting bracelets together. I brought the wrong elastic, so there’s a trip to JoAnn’s in my near future. But a great niece also makes bracelets so I’ll be giving her this elastic and getting myself the stuff I need later. I read awhile, watched a stupid movie, thought about crocheting and decided I was not quite functional enough to follow a pattern at that point, had an adult beverage and hit the sack, And it felt good.

Today I’m off to visit my oldest sister, who has been my best friend since the day I was born. Since it’s Sunday, some of her kids are stopping by, and I haven’t seen some of them in ages so that will be nice. Then later, I may see one of my oldest friends. If he’s busy, I’ll head to JoAnn’s!

I’m determined to make this trip be as stress free as possible. The last time I was here was for a funeral. The annual trip last summer ended in tears – a fight with my other sister, who still isn’t speaking to me – and while there were some bright spots, there was more sadness than joy. I didn’t drive 5 1/2 hours to not enjoy this time, so I’m not going to let anyone dim my sparkle for the next 9 days. Got it? Good.

Meanwhile, Maverick is apparently adjusting well to my absence. I leaned over to give him a kiss yesterday morning, he raised his head, quickly, and slammed it into my lower lip. I was expecting a bruise but it didn’t happen, so thank the Goddess for that! He’ll be fine, and the reunion will be epic, as always.

But I only brought one book and I’m pretty sure I’m going to finish it! Oh, dear, I guess I’ll have to hit the bookstore!

Ignore the mistakes!

I read this essay tonight:

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/friendship-politics?s=r

This semester has been a bit on the crazy side. (Sorry, Kristi) I normally teach 2 or 3 classes each semester so it’s not that it’s too much work, but I’ve become accustomed to teaching purely virtual with maybe one remote session thrown in. This time I had three remote, which means I have to actually be on the computer and act like it’s a real classroom. (It’s not, it’s my dining room, my students are in their homes in whatever state of dress is convenient and no one really knows if they’re even actually there because we can’t ask them to turn on their cameras.) M/W was two classes, one at 11 and one at 2 and for some reason that made perfect sense to me at the time, I scheduled office hour at 1.

Teaching people face to face is exhausting. I know, I’m not out there in the heat laying bricks, but sometimes I think it would be less tiring to do that!

Also, I was offered a summer class that I haven’t taught in years. The book for this class, for all the accounting classes actually, is horrible. I have yet to have a student tell me they’ve been able to get any knowledge from these texts. So instead of just reading the text and writing lecture notes, I’m spending hours online searching for better explanations and examples of concepts that are complicated enough without making the students pull their hair out (and give up). The slides provided by the dept chair are no help. I teach using the PowerPoint as my backup, jumping off points, outline of the course sort of. I put a lot of information into the slides and the students seem to appreciate it. I just finished redoing his slides for the first chapter, the content went from 7 slides to 28. (He likes to be minimal, he told me. I like to be loquacious.)

Meanwhile, it feels like the world is continuing to go to Hell in handbasket, very quickly. Apparently there was a huge dump of documents from Pfizer the other day, but we were all distracted by someone leaking a document from the Supreme Court. My thoughts on abortion are pretty well set – I’m old enough to remember when the only method of birth control available was the rhythm method (we called people who used that “parents.”) I find it really hard to believe that anyone has to resort to abortion instead of taking precautions to avoid getting pregnant in the first place. ((I know there are exceptions, but as Bill Clinton (and I never thought I’d agree with him on anything) said, abortion should be legal, safe and RARE.))

My favorite meme of the day said “if you could wear a mask for two years, you can wear a condom when having sex.” If you don’t want to get pregnant, do something about it before it happens. Abortion should not be a form of birth control.

And, whoever broke the trust of the Court, and broke their promise to not reveal any documents, etc, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This, to me, is far more serious than January 6th, which was basically a bunch of jackasses taking selfies. Except for Ashli Babbit, and we’re not supposed to talk about her.

And how do you all feel about the Ministry of Truth? That woman looks like the woman in Hunger Games, and that’s all I can see. I’m way too outspoken for this nonsense, so if you suddenly don’t hear from me, I’m probably in a re-education camp somewhere. SEND YARN!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other news, I picked up the Wonderful Wallaby and got back into it. I had gotten to the “fuse the pouch” section and froze, then got busy, and finally got that part done the other night. I think my gauge is messed up, though, because I’m very quickly adding the sleeves to the body. We shall see, this is an experiment and it’s not expensive yarn so I consider it a learning experience.

Maverick turned 4 last week. There was a pawtee at daycare and he got a president from his best buddy Oscar. I suspect he’ll be blogging about that at some point, when he isn’t so busy with digging holes and trying to get into the woods. Meanwhile, Mommah has been reading and buying more dog books. We’ve started playing a bit with scent work, I ask him to touch the pouch with his nose and he gets a treat. After about 5 touches, he looks at me like, “are you seriously that stupid that you can’t figure out that’s the pouch?” and walks away. He’s a lot of fun to train, that one.

Maverick is blogging again

He’s fine, really

He’s such a drama queen.

Anyway. He really is fine.

But if you use a collar, and your dog pulls, be aware of neck injuries.

PSA for today. 🙂

I haven’t blogged in a while, because as others have said, I just don’t know where to start anymore. The world has gone barking mad. Abso-fuckin-lutely barking mad.

Here in my little kingdom, Covid has been over for a very long time. It’s rare to see more than a few people in a week wearing masks. The only thing we really hear about it are those whiny ass commercials ‘Don’t you worry now!” (Fuck you, I’ll worry if I want to)

We don’t hear much about Ukraine, just enough to go “Hunh?”

Apparently the laptop has been real all along but will the contents mean anything? How can 50 so called experts swear it’s a myth when they know full well it’s not?

Classes have started. “Submit all homework in Excel” was explained the first day, as well as how to obtain a free copy of Microsoft Office 365 – it’s not actually free, it’s part of their tuition, but do we expect them to know that? (I actually tell them that and they’re pretty astonished. Hey, all that shit you think the college is giving you? Remember that fee you pay? Yup, you’re paying for that shit whether you use it or not.) Fast forward to first homework assignment due – “I did this on paper, can I just take a picture with my phone and submit it that way?” How about no. “But……..” How about “NO?” Sigh

Maverick has chosen to forget everything he ever knew. Every. Bloody Thing.
Dear Maverick. The price of booze has gone as high as gas. Mommah can’t afford to drink as much as you’re making me do lately. Please get your shit together again.

I have enrolled in an online training course. It’s either that or strangle him and I love him so that’s not really an option. Pray for me.

Then there’s the slap. I kinda don’t care except everyone else seems to. My thoughts, and only mine – If I rolled my eyes at a joke aimed at me, my husband would laugh even harder. If my husband stood up and stalked towards the joker, I would have been yelling, “What are you doing?” If my husband had slapped said joker, I would have not been in my seat when he returned, I would have been leaving the building. If he felt I needed protection from words, he would have left that up to me. If he felt I needed protection from bodily harm, get out of his way.

I don’t think children need to learn about sex and gender in kindergarten. I think if you’re teaching that to children, you need to look in the mirror and ask yourself what the fuck is wrong with you? Can we please let kids be kids again? It’s not bad enough we shoved them into masks and told them if they acted like normal kids they were gonna kill grandma for two years. Do what you want but leave the kids alone.

I should be grading homework but I seriously need a TA. I hate grading homework. I suppose I could just not assign it? Nah, the powers that be wouldn’t be impressed. Sigh

Back to work

I had a gift card, I was left alone, and I was in a hurry. So yes, I spent more than the gift card, but that’s a given, isn’t it? One of my dearest friends gave gift cards to Books A Million this year for Christmas. We went to the local store to use them, I picked out 3 books which were definitely going to cost more than the card, but, as I already stated, that’s a given. The clerk rang them up, I handed over my credit card, then realized, as the transaction was completed, I forgot to hand over the gift card.

Sigh

Another trip was necessary. We needed to go to Hobby Lobby – that’s also a given at least once a week, I think they pump something into the air at the store that slowly causes you to go into withdrawal if you’re away from it for more than a week – and to Petsmart and there’s another BAM in that area, so off we went last night. I had a meeting with a student at 7:30, so after picking up the Maverick at 5:30, off we went, dashed into the bookstore, found 3 titles on the sale rack and one that just looked interesting inside – and their cash register is right next to the rack of Tarot decks so I will be going back there soon because one can never have enough decks – and then to the other stores, and made it home, in the wind and rain, in time to meet with the student, who only wanted to tell me he won’t be taking the next level course. Thanks for letting me know.

Then we settled down to some reading and news avoidance. Watching the “news” is an exercise in futility these days. I have no idea what’s really going on. I think there are maybe 10 people in the world who actually do and they don’t think the rest of us need to know why bombs are being dropped and why gas prices are sky high and why people in the greatest country in the world are deciding if they have enough money to buy gas and groceries – if they can find groceries – for the week.

We’re lucky. We have enough. My hoarding genes are working in our favor these days. We won’t run out of anything for a long time. Maybe by the time we do, I’ll have figured out why the hell the world went to shit in such a short amount of time.

Meanwhile, let’s go Brandon

What a month was February. I feel like it just started yesterday and now it’s almost over. February is my most hated month, followed closely by January. (Yes, I know that January comes before February, but not on my most hated list.) We normally get slammed with snow in February. We get through January, think we’re almost done with Winter and February says, “hold my beer.” We got back to back blizzards here in 2010, and then a few years later we got about 3 feet of snow in one storm, also in February.

This year we had next to no snow – so far. I do not trust March. But fingers are crossed that the pattern continues. My mother always said that the first storm of the year sets the pattern and I don’t believe she’s often been wrong.

Not much is going on in my little kingdom. Maverick is going to daycare most days. He was home on Friday because there was meant to be ice, which didn’t really happen, but he would have been there alone so he stayed home. Consequently his weekend has been all akilter. He doesn’t do well with schedule changes.

The world is a hot mess. I have no idea how much, if any, of the “news” is real but it does strike me that a whole lot of “conspiracy theories” are being proven true. How about those useless masks? I realized the other day, after hearing the term “new normal” for the first time in a while, that was my first red flag. When I heard, a few days into the first (and only here) lockdown, that we had to get used to the “new normal,” my hackles went up and all my witchy senses went on high alert. You don’t call something “normal” unless it’s gonna be around forever and “15 days to flatten the curve” is a far cry from forever. (Or so we thought, longest 15 days of my life)

There’s something that’s making my witchy senses tingle about Ukraine. I’m not sure what it is, and probably will never know, but something smells funny. Am I the only one who thinks so?

Meanwhile, I have a class to prep for tomorrow. Because in spite of all the world going spinning off into who knows what new catastrophe, we must teach accounts recievable and uncollectible accounts, and ratios – because if the nuclear button is hit, those things will be very useful to know. And I have a tower of TP so I’m not going to worry!