Year in Review - 2022 Edition

I know, I know, super late, right? I wish I could say it is because I finally have a life and no time to write but nope, still boring and bored!

But 2022 was pretty quiet, even by my standards. No large purchases, no lockdown, no major work drama (although I do get a new boss next week - my fifth in seven years).

The first half was spent obsessing over the last episode of This Is Us, breaking a promise I made to myself after the last ep of Revenge (newbies can check that out here). It did disappoint, as it was bound to because I had built it up in my head so much, but it wasn't as bad as the last Lost ep (yep, still bitter - and confused - 12 years later).

I was also kept busy trying to stick to a new year's resolution I made – “I will not eat chocolate in 2022.” A birthday care package from my parents, full of English treats, threatened to put the kibosh on that, until one of my alter egos saved the day. I don't think I have told you about Lucy Loophole, have I? She is the natural-born lawyer in me who can find a loophole in anything. With the chocolate resolution, it was to simply change it to “I will eat, but not buy, chocolate in 2022”. That was good until Easter when those Cadbury Mini Eggs were on sale. I love those things but they are only available seasonally. So, once again, me and Lucy drafted a new resolution - “I will eat, but not buy, chocolate in 2022 unless it is only available for a limited time.” That one lasted two weeks until I went to the store shortly after Easter, where there was a 75% off sale on the aforementioned mini treat. Back to the drawing board it was. And so, the final resolution was “I will eat, but not buy, chocolate in 2022 unless it is only available for a limited time and/or on sale for at least 75% off”. That one I did keep, even though I still ate chocolate pretty much every day. There was a spell from mid-September until after Halloween when my supplies dried up and I had to result to eating gummy worms or banana flavored Laffy Taffy, but those aren't chocolate, so I was breaking no version of my resolution!

Oh, how about this creepy once-in-a-million occurrence: my old car, the one that crapped out on me a few years ago, showed up in the parking lot where I live. Shut the front door, right? I mean, what are the odds? I texted the Triple A guy, to whom I sold it, and he said he had fixed it up and sold it, and obviously to someone who lives in the same place I do. First time I saw it, I drove past it and thought, “Wow, that car has the same torn front bumper my old car did”. Then a couple days later, I walked past it and noticed a dent in the passenger side door and thought, “Wow, that car has a dent in exactly the same place as my old car”. Then a few days after that, I drove past it and it was parked in reverse and I saw scratches on the rear bumper. I was halfway through the thought - “Wow, how weird that that car has scratches on it like my old car…” - when I realized that I had not seen three separate cars that had three similar mishaps as my old car, but that this was, in fact, my old car! I confirmed this when I took a closer look at the rear bumper and saw two spots where stickers had obviously been removed. Spots that were the same size and shape as the Steelers and “GB” stickers I used to have on my car. But, seriously, what are the odds that it would be purchased by someone who lives where I do? But whoever purchased it was not a Steelers fan or from the UK, obvs.

What else? Oh! Facebook just remined me that I met Clarence Gilyard. Not only is Die Hard my favorite non-traditional Christmas movie (it's a tie between Love, Actually and Elf for my favorite traditional-traditional Christmas movie) but also it is in my Top Ten Favorite Movies of All Time (well, definitely top 20, if not top 10). So, to meet someone from that movie was so cool. Although I do think one time I was on the same tube as Alan Rickman. This was when I was still in journalism school and I had just seen him in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Barbican (wait, sorry, I have to pause here - could those two previous sentences have been any more pretentious?) But that was way before Alan Rickman was in Die Hard so it probably doesn’t count, because we didn’t meet, and it might not have been him. Although, once, in my hometown, I was on a bus with an actor I'd seen previously in A Chorus Line, and I asked him how they did that costume change at the end so quickly.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, so I met Clarence. He taught a class where I work, and I'd been hoping to meet him for a long time (I think I might have been stood behind him in line at the Student Union’s Panda Express once, but I was in a shy mood), and I finally did this past summer. Good thing too, because he died in November.

Facebook also remined me that someone famous or famous-adjacent liked a comment I made on some random post. It was from the ELLEN.DEGENERES page and whilst I am not naive enough to think it actually was Ellen DeGeneres and not a lackey or even someone who has no connection to her whatsoever and is running the account in her name, I do still think it was cool and even if it wasn’t her, my comment might still have been pointed out to her, and, if she still had a show, she might have offered me a job on it.

Anyway, this post is already too long so I am going to omit the usual stats (mileage, Target, weight, etc. (but if you want those stats, slide into my DMs)) but I did want to mention one of which I am quite proud: I actually saw a movie at the movie theater! (Death on the Nile - I am a huge Agatha Christie fan, although, if I wasn’t before seeing this movie, it certainly wouldn’t have turned me into one, it was pretty bad (the 1978 version is way better)).

And so, I am going to end this post on what was easily the highlight of my year: finally meeting my dear friend C.'s daughter, JMM (that first M is the same name as my only M!). It was a long time coming, 12 years to the day, in fact (it was her birthday). We celebrated with fish and chips at a Strip restaurant and saw the Bellagio fountains and took tons of pics, none of which I am going to publish here, because I'm in all of them and I don't want to subject anyone to having to look at me!

Sammy’s 11th Annual Holiday Message

 

Look at him. I know I am biased, but he cannot take a bad photo. Not sure what he was looking at, but he was sat behind me on the sofa, and I just happened to have my phone with me and he stayed that way long enough to get the shot.

Oh, and I know I am two days later in posting this, but for some reason I thought I posted it on the 19th, instead of the 17th. I know it is one of those because the 18th is not a good day for me (too painful to discuss, but you’re not really missing anything, just one of my little drama queen tics).

Happy times whatever it is you celebrate!

Feast of the Virgin Year X

I remembered this year!

AND… I celebrated on time!

AND… I took a pic and didn’t accidently erase it and so did not have to re-stage another pic with what I had on hand and so, no, it wasn’t what I actually ate and drank for that particular year’s celebration!

BUT… Well, it’s late September so, yeah, been a bit lazy.

Also unmotivated. I mean, I have had the time to write up and publish this post, but I just couldn’t be arsed to do so.

And that goes for some other posts too. I have been meaning to do one on the run-up to the last season of This Is Us, because I broke my Lost/Revenge vow and did in fact again get so addicted to a TV show that I was once again praying to a god I do not believe in to keep me alive long enough to see that last ep.

And this year that wish had more than a hint of desperation behind it because I am the exact age two of my cousins were when they died of heart attacks. And I think I have mentioned before that I do believe if I am not taken out by quicksand, rabies, or an escaped tiger, that a heart attack is the way I am going to go.

But because I am the most boring and bored person in the world and do nothing and go nowhere, I have a ton of PTO to use up and so I am going to try to get my life in order (first mammogram and my car’s annual oil change and Sammy’s $700 kidney tests are top of my list), so watch this space!

 

I Guess I Should Do A Post About This Season's American Idol

 Meh.

Year in Review – 2021 Edition

So, my 2021 started on a high point - both literally and figuratively: for my birthday, I dined at Top of the World, the revolving restaurant at the Strat. I’ve wanted to do it for ages and a generous birthday gift in the form of one of those gift credit card thingies facilitated it. I timed it perfectly – just as the sun was setting. I was alone, of course, and even with the gift card I couldn’t afford to eat or drink too much (two cocktails, an appetizer and a side came to $90 with tip), but it was a great start to an… average year.

I “worked” from home for the first six months of the year. The first thing I did upon our return on July 1 was customize my outgoing email signature to include the following quotation, from George Bernard Shaw:

"The only person who behaved sensibly was my tailor - he took my measure anew every time he saw me; the rest went on with their old measurements.”

Less than 24 hours after returning, more than one co-worker was treating me like shit. Oh well.

What else? Oh, yeah: I am still playing Words With Friends, but the bloom is certainly off compared to last year. I have taken to cheating quite a lot but not with real friends and not with people whose profile pics do not annoy me. What I mean is, when playing the chick with the MAGA frame on her pic, I pull out my cheat sheets – “Two-letter words”, “All 47 Q words without U”, “Words that start with X,” etc., etc. Or go on to a website named “Words With Friends Cheat”, and, well, cheat. This applies also to anyone whose pic features dogs or cats. Actually, pretty much any animal - I once scored 69 points with “quinsy” (noun; acute inflammation of the tonsils and the surrounding tissue) against a guy whose profile pic featured an iguana (I love animals so much I want hundreds of them). I also cheat against any female player whose pic features a hot person of the contradictory gender (“picot”; 57 points; noun; a small embroidered loop). And pretty, skinny chicks too (“aerobe”; 71 points; noun; an organism, such as a bacterium, requiring free oxygen to live) because I am sure they have gotten the colonoscopy their doctor wants them to get because they have someone to drive them to, and pick them up from, the appointment.

I got the two vaccines and the booster. Had no side effects from the first shot; a slight headache occurred after the second; the injection site for the booster still had a rash and a bruise three months later (it’s gone now).

I placed a bet on a horse running in the Kentucky Derby and won $16. The horse’s name did not come to me in a dream like previously, but rather from a tip from a client at work who shares the same name as the horse (Charlie, if I am remembering correctly).

Got three pedicures. A low number because my local Payless closed down so I didn’t have any new cute toe-baring sandals to wear this summer.

Another zero-movie year.

And this post about C-TGs certainly hit the mark: I received not a single one for either Xmas or my birthday. On the downside, however, one of my British friends who was one of the worst offenders in the C-TG giving department did not send me any gifts. Guess I must have really upset him with that post.

Or he could be dead. I don’t mean to be facetious, but after what happened with Kim, and add Covid and my advanced age to the mix, one never knows these days. But death also hit a dear friend of mine, PLL. Her husband Vic passed away in the summer. I tend to hold quite a cynical attitude towards death in the sense that when someone dies I still remember their faults. It seems that most people’s memories falter upon the death of someone. Not me. But Vic is the one rare exception to that rule – every tear shed for him, every heartfelt message left for this man, every tribute, was thoroughly deserved. He was one of the nicest, kindest people I have ever met. He was moral and intelligent and funny; he loved animals and he was an extremely talented photographer; but it was in his relationship with PLL that he excelled. Oh, how he adored her and never let her forget it. I could fill up pages detailing the sweet gestures he made to her. But here for once I don’t mind saying that I am a little angry with him. Because, on those rare occasions when I do want a partner and not a chauffeur, I think of Vic and how he treated PLL and it makes me angry because wow, did he ever set the bar so flipping high. I do not know if any man could ever compare. And I do compare them to him. I miss you, Postman Vic, but thanks for those amazing ISS sightings! You can read more about Vic on PLL’s blog: thewidowspeek.blogspot.com

I spent $166.64 at Target; $188.46 at the Post Office; and $352.24 at the dollar store. That latter number is significantly higher than normal for two reasons: my two nearest branches both closed down and so I did a lot of stocking up; and it is where I buy my banana-flavored Laffy Taffy. I am obsessed with it. Who knew ambrosia existed on earth and came in yellow-wrapped packets of pure joy.

Put 985 miles on my car.

Lost 11.8 pounds. Have not checked, but I suspect I may have gained a significant amount of that back over the Xmas/New Year/Birthday celebrations, because I hit it pretty hard.

And I hope you all get a chance to hit it hard too.  Just be careful.

Happy new year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sammy’s 10th Annual Holiday Message

 

Someone who has already seen the above pic mentioned he looked a little disgruntled in it. And whilst I do agree it is not one of his best shots, you need to know that I chose it shortly after the picture below was taken. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?!!!

Kim

I met Kim in the spring of 1998. But first I thought she was Monica Lewinsky. Seriously. She was the image of her and this was at the height of MonicaGate. I am not exaggerating the likeness; she was once chased through an airport in Germany by the paparazzi who too thought it was Monica. My co-worker, M., had gone to high school with her (Kim, not Monica Lewinsky) and she introduced us.

She lived in Denver and travelled a lot for business and at the time I was still living in Boulder, but our friendship developed fast and fierce, especially over the telephone. She would often call me from her hotel room, bored and lonely. (It goes without saying I was as equally bored and lonely but at least she had the excuse of being in a hotel room hundreds of miles away from her friends. I didn’t.) Those phone conversations sometimes lasted hours and they nourished my soul like nothing else could.

But we did get together in person occasionally – she had a house party once to which I brought along my friend ?, who ended up giving a blow job to this superhot guy up against a tree a block or so away from Kim’s house. After, every time we drove past that tree, we shared a lascivious smile and, Universe forbid anyone else was in the car with one or both of us, for they got a blow-by-blow (see what I did there?) account of why that tree was named “?’s Blow Job Tree”. We spent New Year’s Eve 1999 together on a rooftop in Five Points (aka Denver’s “ghetto”). When I moved to Denver in the summer of 2000, our friendship got stronger - we went to the circus, where I discovered she was afraid of clowns; the following weekend, we went to The Butterfly Pavilion, where I discovered she was not afraid of tarantulas (I stood several feet away whilst she happily petted one). I got to go to a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre because of her (a 1980s trifecta of The Psychedelic Furs, The Go-Go’s and The B-52’s). I took her to see Billy Elliot less than 24 hours after I had seen it for the first time because I knew she would love it as much as I did (she did). Over the telephone we both watched the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics and made bitchy comments about the athletes and their attire and had so much fun that we vowed to always watch the ceremony together (spoiler alert: we never did again). On 9/11, she was the first person I called; she was sat on her hotel balcony in New Jersey watching the towers burn. We saw Rent at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; we both loved Supermarket Sweep so much we considered dressing up as a pair of contestants for Halloween (her plans changed so we didn’t); she put together my IKEA TV unit for me (the day before she’d attended Lilith Fair – she called it her Lesbian-in-Training Weekend). We spent a Christmas Day eating Chinese food and singing and dancing along to the soundtrack from A Chorus Line that my parents had gifted her when I told them how much she enjoyed mine. We were pretty much inseparable.

Then she met a boy.

She’d met other boys during our friendship of course (there was one with us on that NYE rooftop) but this one was different. It wasn’t that she started doing things with him that she had previously done with me – that was only to be expected and I would have done the exact same thing had hell frozen over and I’d been the one to get a boyfriend. (He was the cause of our Supermarket Sweep Halloween plans changing.) No, it was when, as the relationship developed, she started doing stuff with his sister.  That was when it began to hurt. Then she started doing stuff with his sister-in-law. That really hurt. Then they got engaged.

My friend D., whom Kim had met on several occasions, got to see the ring first because she happened to live in the same apartment complex as Kim’s future mother-in-law. Now, I am not that petty – it wasn’t the fact that D. got to see the ring first, it was the fact that Kim had known where D. lived for months and told her on several occasions that she would stop in sometime. But she never did. Then she got a rock and she did. I think I knew then that our friendship was doomed.

That was confirmed a few months later when, deep in planning the wedding, she blew off my birthday celebrations. Because of myriad issues I have surrounding my birthday (the timing of it being the primary one) I am ultra-sensitive to being dissed on my birthday. But when over a week later, I had still not heard from her, I decided to be the bigger person and give her a call. When I had had enough of hearing her woe-is-me tale of being so overwhelmed by the wedding planning that she had taken to her bed for a week (one of the issues she was grappling with was whether or not to have a koi pond at the reception venue (oy)) I told her I needed to go and I hung up. That was about 20 years ago and the last time I talked to her.

Last month I found out she died three years ago.

I had reached out to her a few times in the intervening years, some with positive intentions, other times, not so much. Like, at the next Olympics after our break-up, I drunkenly called her during the opening ceremony and left a message reminding her of the fun we had had together and asked her if he was worth it. Then I developed an obsession with wanting to know what she looked like on her wedding day and on more than one occasion sent her emails asking if she would send me a picture. I never heard back. But then, maybe about five or so years ago, I did hear back. Our communication did touch briefly on our break-up and even though most of the exchange was cordial, it was obvious that too much hurt still existed on both our ends and the friendship was irreparably damaged.

Every six months or so I would check out her Facebook page but there was no activity on it. But, for some reason, a drunken Friday night a few weeks ago, I decided to Google her using her married name. That was when the obit popped up.

I reached out to M. for more details. They too had drifted apart, and so M. is not exactly sure of the cause of death but thinks it might have been the result of a head injury sustained in a fall during an alcohol-induced seizure. She’d been to rehab at least three times and after the divorce (no comment) she relocated to a small Colorado mountain town and led a rather isolated existence.

I think whatever the cause of death was I would have been devastated by this news but the fact that alcohol was involved has hit me really hard. We drank together, obvs, because everyone I hang out with drinks, but I never saw any signs of alcoholism. But that might be because anyone who hangs around me automatically does not have a drinking problem when compared to me.

I am not so full of myself to think that had we remained friends her drinking might not have been so destructive, but I cannot help but wonder what would have happened to both of us if we’d continued those late-night hours-long phone conversations.

RIP, Kimbers.

The Gift That Keeps On… Being Given to Me

 

For Christmas 2018 a co-worker gave me the magnet pictured above.  A few months later she betrayed me/stabbed me in the back/threw me under a bus/threatened to report me to HR because I have a DNR order/took someone else out to lunch, etc., etc. I can’t remember exactly what it was (there have been a lot of issues with this particular co-worker), just that it was something. And I do not forgive easily and I never forget. And because I am petty I hold grudges forever. So on my next visit to Goodwill that magnet went with me. Because whenever I looked at it, it reminded me of her and whatever it was she did to upset me.

Cut to summer of 2020. During my once-a-week visit to the office during lockdown another co-worker happened to be there too. She approaches me and in her hands she has an object I could not see that she is cleaning with a disinfectant wipe (remember this was at the height of the pandemic and this person was a germaphobe before COVID, so, yeah, her wiping down something was not unusual). Then she starts to tell me that she has had this for a long time but had not gotten around to giving it to me before we went into lockdown. Now, here is when I have one of my famous clairvoyant moments (click here for an example) because I immediately and thoroughly and utterly knew that what she had in her hands was the very same magnet. And, Whoomp! (There It Is), indeed it was. What are the odds? Well, actually, let’s consider that: these two co-workers are of similar age and socioeconomic backgrounds so it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they shop in similar places (an aside: doesn’t that look like something they’d sell in Michaels or Stein Mart?).

Anyway, I decided to keep this one because, well, I don’t know, when she gave it to me it reminded me of that cheesy saying “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” This certainly came back to me! And I do actually like it: its color scheme fits in perfectly with my kitchen and, well, I *am* the world’s best cat mom. But it is one of the very few cat-themed gifts (hereinafter referred to as C-TGs) that I have kept and, holy hell, there have been a lot of them.

So, because it is around my half-birthday (even my half-birthday is near a major holiday - #FML) I am going to have a bitch session about this issue. Because this madness has to stop. Because I am utterly sick of it.

However, before we go on, I should address two issues: not all C-TGs are useless – a calendar is a handy item whatever is emblazoned upon it. But those are few and far in between. Most of these items would not be given to me (or anyone for that matter, that is how rank some of them have been) unless it had a fucking picture of a cat upon it and that is what pisses me off the most: I don’t think many people realize that I don’t actually like cats all that much. Only Sammy. (And there are times when I am not that overly fond of him.)

And, secondly, I have been guilty of giving C-TGs on occasion: the first birthday my fellow fur mama L. celebrated after Sammy and me rescued each other I did bestow a C-TG upon her. But that was because I was so giddy about being a new cat mom. And when E.D. adopted two cats (hello, George and Graci!) I welcomed her to the fur mama club with a C-TG. But those were one-offs.

And the reason for this post now is because Christmas 2020 was particularly bad.  I can say that easily 75% of my Xmas and birthday presents (and I lump those two together because of the proximity of the dates) were C-TGs. One of them didn’t even make it into my apartment – I went to my mailbox on my way out, opened the parcel in my car and then because I just happened to be driving by it anyway, dropped one of them off at Goodwill! (Goodwill has made a killing off my family and friends’ lazy and thoughtless gift choices.) Interesting aside: the remaining 25% was pretty evenly split between alcohol-themed gifts (A-TGs?) or chocolate – and you will never hear me complain about those two types of prezzies! But not combined – I love liquor and I love chocolate but not together. Yuck.

I know some of you reading this might be hurt and for that I do apologize. I value your friendship beyond measure, it’s just that I want you to stop wasting your money on crappy C-TGs for me. When considered a gift for me (that is if you still want to give me prezzies after reading this!) ask yourself these two questions: what did you get me before Sammy existed? And what will you get me after Sammy dies?

Feast of the Virgin Year IX

 

I think it might be time to accept the fact that I can be described as the “A” in LGBTQIA!

Idol, I guess…

Meh. I think I am getting too old for this show. Or it is getting old. I did not get behind any one performer at all this season. But, as usual, there was a popular one who did nothing for me: Willie Spence. I don’t know why I did not like him because I am neither racist nor homophobic, and I am most certainly not sizeist.

And do you remember last year I wondered how much further some contestants might have advanced if they had gotten the chance to perform under normal circumstances, with access to wardrobe and make-up and a live band, instead of their mum doing their hair before they sang in the garage? Well, I guess the producers thought that too when they brought back some contestants from last year. I don’t have an issue with them doing that, I just think they should have brought them back earlier, say during Hollywood Week, to make it all a little more equitable with this year’s batch.

And Paula Abdul’s stint made it glaringly obvious that there needs to be at least one train wreck of a judge to make it interesting. Those three are so bland and nice and… sober.

And I still hate Bobby Bones.

And I predicted Chayce’s win months ago. Yes, I know some of you might think I am just staying that but for once, I have proof. I sent myself an email and I had planned to place some sort of pic of it here but I can’t get it to look right, it is tiny, so you will just have to take my word for it.

And I miss Brian Dunkleman.