It's been too long since we celebrated something together! Take me in your (virtual) arms (no mask required):
I had another post partially written, but I’ve just deleted it. What can I say that thousands of people aren’t saying already about the past year? Yet here I am typing on my phone because I left my laptop at home. I’m in Olympia looking after my elderly father, who’s had some medical issues (not COVID-19 related)in the last few days. As I’ve mentioned before I work in a grocery store and you’ve probably heard about all the stuff that goes with precautions in in that realm. I’m just worn out talking about it.
I was feeling a little blocked but listening to this helped a lot:
Ok, that’s all I got for now! Thanks for checking in.
I started this post while I was on my mini-vacation last week. I don't know if it's a symptom of the Covid era but I was really hard on myself about getting all kinds of things done. I had arranged the time off because I was getting burned out at work! I was kind of tired out after I came back to work. So, I'm having a do-over weekend right now.
On the upside, my bathroom is a lot cleaner than it has been in a long time.
Ok, I took this photo and didn't really look at it until now, so it's a pretty depressing image. I got this brush for free when my neighbor moved and I promise that it was in almost new condition at the time. Product review: the rubber grip was easy on my palms and the handle was flexible enough to take the curves and corners as well as absorb the force of cleaning. With some bleach and Bon Ami it took off the worst of the scum. Good job me, picking up other people's leavings.
I've picked up watching Mindhunter again on Netflix. I took a long break because it's really dark and some of the drama is based on real crimes. Charlize Theron and David Fincher executive produced it so you know it's good, and it feels like a Fincher movie. If you liked Zodiac you'll like this series. Vintage procedural style at its best.
I attempted to watch Behind Her Eyes, a psychological thriller that is largely formulaic and shallow. I went ahead and read spoilers because I didn't think there was going to be a payoff, and I'm glad I did because it got too zany. The cast wasn't bad, but I kept sensing that they weren't connecting with the script as they had in other roles. B minus.
Ok, well, let's have another Harry Styles moment. Carpool Karaoke makes me really happy and excited, and can I add that I LOVE his SHIRT?!? Thanks for reading!
In case you haven't heard, this week has been a pile of loony shite! Last week ended quite nicely with the snowfall. I took some pleasant walks around the neighborhood. The ice and widespread power outages changed everything. Mine went out for about 24 hours, but there were a lot of Portland folks who were without for days longer. The electricity died at my job so the stock was heavily affected, and once we opened again we were slammed. Trees are down all over town, and because it's Portland the trees are huge so even if it's a fallen branch it's a big fat one.
I haven't a whole lot else to say except that I don't understand how I live alone and use an entire dinner service worth of crockery to feed myself over a couple of days.
I've been browsing Buzzfeed for just about everything: news, gossip, how-to's, etc. They have tons of "articles" that are really lists of products titled something like "30 Items You Didn't Know Would Make You Feel Like a Baller LOL" and a lot of these are for storage/sorting containers. I'm seriously anti-spending when it comes to organizing but I like glancing over the lists. Maybe it makes me feel superior? But I found this funny thing when I searched "organizing".
I've been reading Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. The length is intimidating (over 1100 pages) but I'm already over 400 pages in and while it's not an easy read it balances intensity with nonchalance, no wasted details. There's a particular passage that I just read where the spare language subtly deepens the weirdness. This novel, like everything else I've read by Murakami, defies any classification. A fucking plus.
Thursdays are my Fridays, so if you're reading this I've been moving between the sofa and the kitchen since I got home. I have an open container of salsa on my right and my sketchbook and phone to my left. I work in the grocery industry so I was on my feet all day today and most of yesterday. I talk about the weather at this job more than I ever thought I would, especially today because of the imminent snow storms. I have to repeat everything I say at least once because of the masks we all wear and the background noise in the store where I work. I like my job, but when my week is done I am so tired and haven't even realized it until I'm home. I just want to eat and scribble and watch TV.
I'm in the middle of watching The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix. It's a limited series that is a creative retelling of Henry James' classic 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw. The original work leaves a lot to the imagination, which is partly why it is such a great psychological thriller. The Netflix adaptation in particular gives more background to the characters. Mike Flanagan created this show as well as The Haunting of Hill House so it's going to be dark, dark, dark, and brilliant. He invited Henry Thomas back for another role in this program, which makes it extra special!
OK, so my latest exploit has been a lucky encounter on the Buy Nothing group page that I belong to on Facebook. Someone offered to collect used up batteries and light bulbs to donate to Ridwell for recycling, and as it happened I was collecting many, many of these for a future recycle plan that never happened.
My understanding of how the Ridwell program works is that you subscribe to a monthly collection and they give you a box in which to place your items. I just had to bring my crap to the porch of the person I met via Facebook. No fees necessary!!!
I just wish I had taken before-and-after photos of the kitchen drawer where I kept the batteries for years. It was filled with all kinds of strange items. I cleared it out and organized it, but I wouldn't have if I hadn't had the opportunity to donate!
I'll leave you with a random thought I had this morning after I showed up for work: deep fried shrimp are the corndogs of the ocean. I had that thought as I walked down the frozen foods aisle. You're welcome.
I now have a number of small containers that cost me nothing, which I use to hold a lot of the smaller things in the cupboards and fridge. Mostly they are berry baskets, either paper or plastic:
tea bags
supplements
sauce packets (sorry about the crumbs)
I'll have you know that styrofoam is the devil, but I found a few round little pieces at work that no one wanted and I'm using them to prop up my plants! You can't see them in this pic because they are underneath everything, making up for the uneven surface of the plant stand:
I put one inside the yellow planter but beneath the plant pot to give it a little boost, because the leaves were touching the edges too much. Styrofoam is gross to the touch and nearly impossible to recycle but it worked really well in this case.
OK, speaking of the devil, I'm done with The Queen's Gambit and I'm trying to stretch out my enjoyment of Dorohedoro as long as possible, so I started watching Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened. Billy McFarland is the styrofoam of human beings and I almost stopped watching because he and his buddies are so toxic and crude that I want to stomp them She-Hulk style. It's shameful that such a massive rip-off happened, but it would have been gross even if they had been able to pull it off. This is a great documentary about a bunch of deplorable pieces of shit. The tone is set when they make a toast to "f*cking like porn stars".* I rate this film four groin punches.
*"Like porn stars"? Why would you? They f*ck like they're sprinting to the finish line.
Today gave us the perfect sunny window for a photo shoot with the new plant stand:
I started watching The Queen's Gambit on Netflix, after putting it off because it seemed to be mentioned everywhere. It's good! The word is that a lot of fans started getting chess sets to learn to play during the pandemic and that's fine. I played chess as a child quite a lot with my sister. The games would be about 10 minutes long on average because we were doing it all wrong. The set once belonged to my cousin and had these really cool stone pieces. The hinge was broken on the box and I replaced it with one that was too small but I was proud because I was nine and fixed something myself.
If you've known me for some time, then you know I have a lot of sweet hookups for getting free stuff for my house. This is a blog segment I'll call The Free Box even though things aren't always in a box when I find them. Like this great plant stand:
I was walking with a friend on the way back from SE Division and someone had left a few items, mostly wicker furniture, just off the curb behind a pickup. A guy came out of the house nearby and told us we could take what we wanted!
People are really generous about giving things away on the sidewalks in front of their homes here in Portland. This past year I've come across a wire basket for my garden tools, a bucket with a spout complete with a newish scrub brush, books from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (that I happened to want to read very much just then), a bottle of high-end maple syrup, and a milk-glass IKEA table lamp. I almost forgot: a black and chartreuse Adidas backpack, clean and in excellent shape except for a small zipper that didn't work. I once found a vintage metal dollhouse in Laurelhurst but it wouldn't fit in my bike basket so I had to leave it behind. I try to only take things that are going to be really useful.
It's no secret that people got wild cleaning out their hovels during quarantine and I was no exception!
I forgot to mention in my last post that I've been making my bed every day this year so far. This is a boring detail, but I got the idea from a YouTube workout video. The person doing all the exercise had to make her bed each day as part of the routine to help change her mindset. It's not a bad concept!
Ok, enough practical jibber jabber for now. I've been watching some K-dramas and one of them is It's Okay to Not Be Okay:
It's great, but I'll be honest: I'm not rooting for their relationship yet. I think their chemistry is getting better and I like all of the characters as individuals, but I enjoy the parts with the main guy and his brother and best friend most. The slow burn in K-dramas is more intense and drawn-out than I'm used to, so I have hope for this entanglement. Plus, the episodes are LOOONNNG and there are 16 episodes, so there's a long way to go.
