Oh, Katie Leung is on this season of Bridgerton as the evil stepmother

Mmm, bowling alley nachos

My brother and his girlfriend came down for a few days to visit my folks and apparently tell us they are engaged. I guess my brother planned on telling us all after the Superbowl, but sometime in the first half gf was checking her phone and says "oh, I forgot to tell my sister we're engaged" so my brother just calls out (from the kitchen where he is washing dishes) "oh, yeah, we're engaged" and the rest of us hardly reacted because, are we supposed to know know or not? Is this a real thing that is happening? Unclear. But official statement was, in fact, made later. I hope my brother is actually divorced from his first wife, he is quite the foot dragger when it comes to paper work (long term readers may remember that was a very messy situation when that marriage ended in a real if not legal sense so I don't blame him too much for taking a long time to clean it up, but I do hope he did). They are actually planning a wedding with a ceremony and reception and everything approximately a week after he turns 60. His first marriage he just went to the courthouse and told us afterwards by email. Anyway, they are pretty cute together, I hope they are happy. And she has adult children, so I may get some nephews out of the deal.

Ok now I want the brother lore because I feel like you talk about your parents regularly but I did not even remember you had a brother???

Ha! Yeah, we’re only in sporadic contact mostly because he has two jobs and plays in several bands so our text conversations are always asynchronous and spread thin over time. Anyway, he and his first wife were living with her parents in Texas: brother working on getting sober, wife very much not. She was stepping out on him and actually killed the guy she was seeing by hitting him with a car. I am pretty sure I trauma dumped about it here, but that was years ago, now. So brother moved out but stayed friendly with her parents and didn’t want to file for divorce while she was on trial and all that. At this point asking what the legal situation is seems awkward. He eventually moved up to Portland and stayed with my sister for a while getting his feet back under himself. And now engaged.

A couple of days ago one of the most prolific and talented musicians we had here passed away (Matti Caspi). I thought it was a good opportunity to introduce you to the one of the best clips of musical performance in a challenging setting I know of: playing in kibbutz' dairy farm, where one of the good folks there thought it'll be funny to smear something on the back of your custom so that the cows will find you interesting (I think it was honey but I'm not sure if I remember correctly). [link]

Thank you for sharing, Shir. Distraction from all the bad stuff is always appreciated!

Indulging in some crispy duck and chow fun for lunch. Yum. Too much food b ut the leftovers will be breakfast tomorrow - planning on taking myself out for dinner before book club tonight (hopefully will be able to finish 1984 while I eat - I know how it ends (or what I remember of the ending, anyway) so I have been dragging my feet a little on getting there, I think)

I just finished doing my taxes and filed my returns this afternoon. E-file is so much easier than the old way!

Weirdly I'm getting slightly more back than last year in federal—I guess my income must fall just above the GOP's "Make the Poors pay for the Elite's tax cuts!" dividing line—but slightly less in state so it pretty much evens out. Fingers crossed whatever tax code calculations were involved snatched a bonus out of some ICE agent's wallet.

I did my taxes and I owe just under $200, which is awfully close to getting my withholding right in an objective sense but it irritates me to have to pay the current incarnation of the government anything so I was going to delay actually filing as long as possible, but it turns out I am getting a refund from California, so I suppose I might as well get it over with and get that...

I should be asleep now, but I just got home from being social with strangers and I would like my introvert making an effort merit badge, please.

It was fun, 1984 discussion at the bookstore near work I’ve been trying to get to since I moved to that office (last time I tried was on a Saturday and there was some sort of festival and parking was too impossible so I just went home, got a spot right out front tonight) with a nice bunch of people. It really like the owner now that I’ve met her so I will probably try a little harder to get there in person. Only bought one book (my bookshop e-book purchases are assigned to this store, so I’ve been supporting them).

Dinner beforehand was also pleasant, although the guy two tables down who seemed vaguely creepy dined-and-dashed, so feel bad for his servers and the restaurant for that. But the people directly next to me only got chatty when they curious about how my dessert order turned out, and it was quite good so I couldn’t blame them for that.

I should be asleep now, but I just got home from being social with strangers and I would like my introvert making an effort merit badge, please.

Well done you social thing!