ND, I'm sorry about your friend's passing.

I am hosting a teeny local Thanksgiving (between 5 and 8 total depending on last-minute rsvps). Instead of turkey I am pan-roasting duck breasts over a bed of wild mushrooms.

That sounds delicious. I was tempted to push for duck this year but the veggie thing was less effort for everyone.

I did order an assortment of cheeses to be delivered to my folks’ which my mother will not appreciate, but there’s also apricot pepper jelly which she will

What are peeps doing for Thanksgiving this week?

Since we had the family gathering Sunday, it'll just be Mom and me for an early dinner Thursday. I'll bring either a turkey breast or rotisserie chicken depending on which looks better at the grocery store tomorrow, and bake the ginormous 4.5 lbs pan of stuffing currently overcrowding my freezer. Mom is in charge of vegetables.

Woo hoo! The Furnace fixer guy arrived exactly on time, installed a new thermostat, but that didn't turn the heat.

Checked the furnace and discovered (a) a dead mousie; and (b) I had a dead motor in the furnace and they would need a replacement part. But they are going to get it and come back tomorrow.

Fixing shit! Now if I can just hear from my window guy I might be able to weather proof and cozy up my house because it was brisk inside last night, and I was grateful for the electric blanket.

In weird dream news, my brain made up a press conference with John Chu (director of Wicked) where he spoke at length about Arianna Grande having to hit a high C in some climactic song and how difficult it was and it was very involved with lots of reiterating the same points and referring to shit that wasn't real. In short, my dream state was giving me misinformation like ChatGPT.

I dreamed last night that I bought two little baby sharks at the grocery store -- all wrapped up like packages of smoked salmon, except that they were whole entire sharks -- and then let a stranger drive me to a different grocery store, all the while stressing out about having left my sharks to start going off in my car that I had left in the parking lot of the first grocery store, and also how was I going to get home from the second grocery store?

Was pretty glad to wake up from that one.

Fingers crossed for fully functioning heat in your near future

I'm gonna take a wild guess that ChatGPT could not write a decent dream sequence if you asked it to.

I also had a weird enough dream as I was waking up tat I remember it now. I was floating down some waterway in a boat when right in front of me a hummingbird plunged into the water. " That's weird," I think to myself, "is it hunting? Is that a thing hummingbirds do, spear tiny fishes?" but it doesn't re-emerge and after I have drifted on (I must have been in a slightly faster current) I try to work out a way to paddle back and rescue it (I do not have an actual paddle, of course) and see a goose bearing down on it, neck outstretched and beak open clearly ready to snap it up. Fortunately, I woke up

Baby shark and hummingbird anxiety dreams!

No pilates this week, but I still have therapy today. Which will get me out of the house and into my car whence I can run some errands.

I spent yesterday having a fun hang (TM Amy Poehler) with my friend Rachael, and tomorrow I'm taking out my downstairs neighbor Jamille for some hot soup and pampering. She's a single mom and hardly ever has a day off but her son is with grandma this week, so I can treat her to some fun.

Aw. yay for fun hangs and hot soup!

I dreamed last night that I bought two little baby sharks at the grocery store -- all wrapped up like packages of smoked salmon, except that they were whole entire sharks -- and then let a stranger drive me to a different grocery store, all the while stressing out about having left my sharks to start going off in my car that I had left in the parking lot of the first grocery store, and also how was I going to get home from the second grocery store?

My anxiety dreams are just French tests and breaking my ankle!

Those are some anxiety dreams. Mine usually involve my teeth falling out.

My niece is bringing her family over from Wisconsin on Wednesday, so my sister will have her kids, their spouses and their kids, her husband and me all under her roof for extended periods of time. She’s so happy, and I’m looking forward to it, too. The Rancid Cheeto has driven even the most conservative members of my immediate family towards my way of thinking, so we can even talk politics and religion without tears now. My sister’s husbands’s cousin has a huge Thanksgiving gathering every year (20+ people, 2 turkeys and a ham), so I’ll be bringing squash puffs as an appetizer. And over the next week we’re expecting 8 inches of snow, so I'm hoping we can get the kids upside for snowball fights.