what about just "working so hard."

That is what I went with!

I wish I had left 10 minutes ago, given that I'll be working on my day "off" tomorrow. Now I have to wait 20 more minutes for the stupid bus.

GIFT WRAP. That's what I'm forgetting.

Ugh, somehow my sending an email to my dad (who asked what I wanted for Christmas), saying that I'd prefer a donation in my name instead of a gift, has now turned into my mom (who LOVES giving gifts) getting her feelings hurt and me having to backtrack and apologize and probably call her to smooth things over. I swear the gift part of the holidays is the most stressful thing to me as an adult.

And in other news, someone opened the door to the lactation room (a former supply closet, so I can understand why) just after I took off my pumping "bustier" and just before I put on anything else. So that was fun.

Cereal sounds complicated.

Staying the course? Seeing it through? Plugging away?

Hm.

ETA "working so hard" might just be the best, really.

The gift part of the holidays is totally stressful! I have mostly opted out of all that and it's a great relief.

Oy, Kate, that's a very sit-com-esque event.

I think that having a small infant should mean I don't have to deal with gift giving this year. I wish there was a nice way to only buy for the kids in my life and tell all the adults they're out of luck.

Oy, Kate, that's a very sit-com-esque event.

It was! My back was turned, so I didn't see who it was and I don't think they saw too much, but still. Awkward.

And now I write an email to our Operations folks asking for a lock on that door.

I think that having a small infant should mean I don't have to deal with gift giving this year.

Yeah, me too.

I've heard that people do that within families sometimes. I like to buy presents, but then I don't have in=law drama, workplace Yankee swap and all the rest of that slowing my roll.

Last year my FiL got me a spice sampler collection from Oaktown Spice (in Oakland, natch).

At the time, I thought: "Oh, a spice rack with a local angle."

But over the past year I really started using these complex spice blends and they really added a lot to my cooking. Like, I just used the Persian Lime Curry Rub: [link]

...on my portabello mushrooms today and it was insanely tasty.

Which is just a longwinded way to say, sometimes those pro forma gifts pan out.

Also: More spices in 2016! (I know Amych will back me on this.)

And: Mushroom Fest In the Fall. I'm totally converted to the Italian/French obsession with autumnal mushrooms.

Actual Kit I received last year: [link]

Their Poivre La Mode variation on lemon pepper was SO good. I just used that in all my soups and stir fries and sautees and omelets.

But I DIDN'T realize that one guy surged ahead and took power three years ago and now it's all under his rule. President, Head of the CP, controls the army. Did you all know that?

I knew that! That's not actually unusual. Both Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin before him held all three posts. (Not Deng Xiaoping, though, which is noteworthy, as I'd argue he was more dominant than either Jiang or Hu in his day.)

However, both Jiang and Hu consolidated power gradually; for instance, Hu was President for two years before Jiang stepped down from heading the military. Xi Jinping has moved extremely quickly. The article is bang on when it notes the effect of Xi's anti-corruption campaign and the significance of Bo Xilai's fall. (Also note that over half of all academic grants from the National Social Sciences last year were for the study of Xi Jinping Thought. At one level, not unusual. Jiang Zemin had his policy principles written into the Constitution. But within the context of that article, well.)

That reminds me: the EdX courses I did on China have just started up again, if anyone's interested in taking them up. They've split it into two parts - the first is on China to the Ming Dynasty: [link] The second is on modern China, starting with the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and continuing to today: [link] They're each split into five parts, which can be done individually and in any order.

I thought these courses were fantastic. They're very well taught, (I liked the stuff on pre-modern China better, possibly because it was less obvious that there was a lot they couldn't cover.)