I found the census data jackpot!!

Also I chatted nicely with my mother at lunch and THEN she texts me from the ER where my stepfather is apparently having a TIA. After she said to me on the phone at lunch, "I think he's probably going to just drop dead one day." NOT TODAY PLEASE UNIVERSE!

As I said about my father (false alarm), If he dies this month, I'll kill him!

My 2:30 ortho appointment that I thought would be a whole song and dance was just a quick check in! So I did a little shopping and now am watching TV, since I already took half a sick day. Here's hoping relaxing now makes it easier to work on Sunday.

Tommy, you don't have to involve your insurance but can if you want to. If the other guy admitted fault and his insurance is going to handle it, you may not need yours. If it's your fault or disputed then yeah, go through yours.

Thanks, meara.

There's no need for me to talk to the other driver's insurance company, is there?

When I just went through this with Bobby I was told by our insurance company that we could talk to the other guy's insurance company if we wanted to give them our version, but it wasn't required.

Our holiday party is tonight. I registered for it, thinking that maybe Future Me would be up for it even though Past Me hasn't been a fan. Fast forward to Present Me, who is feeling super grumpy and has a giant To Do list because she's leaving the country for two weeks.

I'm ditching the party in favor my To Do list, because I'm desperately trying to get as much Christmas shopping done as I can before I leave. I don't have anything for my nieces yet and Gymboree is having a big sale.

If I can get that done, I will go home to drink all the wine and eat mousse cake.

I am working at Starbucks this afternoon, something I used to do frequently. Unfortunately I don't have my headphone, which I apparently need to knock the specific voices down to just the coffee house buzz.

If anything makes me realize I have some levels of ADD, it is this. I hear every single conversation. Every. Single. One. My brain feels like it is going in 20 different directions at once.

Where did the secret stairs go? Or is it a secret?

hee hee. Secret is sort of a misnomer as clearly everyone in the neighborhood knows they are there, but they aren't well known to other Angelenos and so won't be impacted by dozens of people using them for exercise. There are some well known stairs, like in the Santa Monica Palisades, that tend to be super crowded on the weekends.

The secret stairs led to a very nice neighborhood full of big houses that I didn't know about right by my very middle class neighborhood full of old 1940s tract homes. So that was kind of a surprise.

Neat!

Oy, Flea. I hope your stepfather is ok--for your sake as much as his.

In totally unrelated news, I have a fabulous landlord. My old dishwasher was leaking so he installed a new one. And since the stove/oven was pretty old and grungy, he replaced those, too. And he figured an almond hood would look silly over a new stove, so he also replaced that. In two days I got half a new kitchen. Woot!