Matilda and her beau have come back up from their nap in the Garden Apartment.

I made them a lovely, rich, nourishing, soul-warming soup from the Thanksgiving stock and turkey pot roast leftovers.

Storm continues to roll in on tumultuous waves, so I've switched to hot cider with cognac and a few small Lavender/Lemon shortbread cookies.

Went to the gay bars here, which were hopping. Picked up a sweet older man who shared my love of Heated Rivalry and his husband, went to a different bar, was v amused by all the boys, came home and it’s not yet 8pm. Poor planning on my part—I’ve had a drink and now want to go to sleep.

First choice Chinese restaurant told us there would be a long wait for food, I think they had a private event monopolizing the kitchen, so we went to plan B - an Indian restaurant that had an offering on Too Good To Go so I was pretty sure it was open. Really good food, nice to add that to the pool of eateries near mom&dad.

If I don’t watch Heated Rivalry tonight I’ll be taunted by everyone’s reactions all day at work tomorrow. I don’t think I have to stay up that late to do it, though. Already looking forward to rewatching in binge mode

Dad reports ice packs and resting while watching football has been very therapeutic.

At stoopid work.

Our day after Christmas birthday Buffistas are Theodosia, Jesse, and Rayne. I hope they are all getting the birthday spoilage they deserve. May 2026 be all we hope for and more.

Happy Boxing Day and birthday happies!

Ostensibly working but that amounts to setting myself to "Active" on Slack and opening a tab for gmail for now. I have a giant cup of coffee to sip on while I figure out if there is something I actually should be doing...

Happy boxing birthday to Jesse and Connie and Rayne!

My lazy day off today involves sleeping until 10, weeding out/cleaning off my skincare shelf in the bathroom, mini spa day with stuff from the skincare shelf, a little laundry, washing some dishes, breaking down Amazon boxes for recycling and getting them out of the house, and cleaning the bathroom. So, really, less of a lazy day than I had intended.

Dinner tonight will be our December 26 tradition of Indian takeout. Maybe we'll get around to watching Wake Up Dead Man.

I had a good Christmas and Christmas eve. M went over to his sister's in the afternoon of Christmas Eve because that was when the grandkids were there.. He filmed them with the lion rocker and the oldest with the mermaid tail blanket he got her. She is so cute. She was trying to get into standing up and declares "mermaid ! I'm a mermaid!"

And both girls loved the lion rocker.

After work we went over to his brother's and instead of nearly 30 people there it was only around 10. So we got to pet and play with their cats and visit with them. Very low key.

Went to Moms on Christmas Day. We ate, I fought with her tv trying to get Discovery Plus up so we could watch some Tournament of Champions Christmas special. She has a very expensive Lg Smart TV and half the apps don't work on it like Hulu. She got a Fire stick trying to stream the cable company's cable options but that doesn't have the sports channels and she got YouTubeTV which she hates because she couldn't get Hulu to work on the fire stick. I got Hulu to work so I'm going to get her setback up with that but Discovery wouldn't load on the Fire stick.

Work was ok Christmas Eve. They had one of the assistant managers outside the door at 5:50 telling people we were closed. Someone got mad around 5:57 and was filming and yelling about false advertising.

When I left after 6 there were people pulling into the parking lot and realizing we were closed.

The only real drama was bitter coworker who works in the back was supposed to work her regular shift Christmas Eve but she left around 9 (she works 4-1) and didn't tell anyone . No one has any idea where she was. They called her and she claimed the HR person said it was ok . I don't know about that but to just leave and not say anything is wild. No one was happy with her .