The Marci Rating System

*We're in a drought, so any rain is currently cause for Big Excitement. Yay rain!

*The cat has woken me up at 4:59 the last two days, exactly one minute before my alarm. She's very good at clocks, apparently. (Somewhat to my dismay! But I'm very proud of her for being so smart!)

*It's grocery store day, and this morning the only thing I'd added to the list so far was paper towels. It seems unlikely that paper towels are all I need.

*So I added on the gold standard grocery list items: fruit, chocolate, frozen meals. (Hopefully it will be a quick trip because I've certainly waited longer than advisable to get going this morning!)

*Also I didn't feel like filling the bird feeder in the rain, so I'm still planning on doing that before I go. It's one of those things that really highlights the changing length of the day -- all of a sudden it's still mostly dark at 6 am, something I realize is not sudden at all, but somehow seemed to sneak up on me anyway!

Great things about going to the grocery store:

*It has air conditioning.

*It has food.

*I have never seen a single person who recognized me or wanted to stop and chat there. (Which is actually kind of weird, but I usually go early in the morning so there's not many people there anyway. And we live close enough to multiple grocery stores that it probably spreads out the local shoppers pretty effectively. Also I use masking as an excuse to also avoid all eye contact? So it's not that weird, now that I think about it.)

It must be summer now, because my brain has decided sandwiches are a fantastic food choice again. It's a weird seasonal marker, but it's been pretty consistent the last few years. Winter: bleh, no sandwiches. Summer: sandwiches are amazing, yay!

Haha it sure is great when your boss has a meeting ominously titled with the name of your team, and it's with their boss and the entire executive team, and then the team check-in that was scheduled for after that meeting gets canceled five minutes before it's supposed to start, and you don't hear anything about it for the rest of the day.

BUT! It's takeout Tuesday, so dinner is going to be delicious, AND we're going to watch the new Star Trek pilot episode tonight, so that's two things to look forward to right there!

Yesterday I was in a casual work zoom call and said that I had mixed hot chocolate into my coffee. And one of the other people on the call said, "I never thought of doing that."

And my brain was pretty much like:

*really?!?!?

*but it's like mocha!

And only afterwards did I realize:

*OMG THEY'RE ONE OF TODAY'S LUCKY TEN THOUSAND (xkcd and the lucky ten thousand)

To be fair, mixing hot chocolate with coffee is one of those things I always think I'll like more than I actually do, but it's still a nice combo. And in this case, a good way to use up some hot chocolate so I don't feel guilty about having it sit around for months until I finally throw it away!

(PS: The hot chocolate mix included little mini chocolate chips, and THOSE were 100% a delicious addition to the coffee. 10/10 would try again.)

*I feel bad that I *still* haven't done my last advent craft. It is still on my list! It's going to happen! At some point!

*Christmas was good -- as good as I hoped it would be, which is always nice, and also sometimes surprising.

*It's very cold. And snowy. I sense this will be a theme, and I'm still enjoying it more than the heat and humidity of summer, but it's definitely making it less appealing to go outside for a walk.

*At some point this week I will have to go back to work. (That point is Wednesday.) I'm not sure how I feel about that, so I've decided not to think about it. (Is retirement an option? Sadly no, financially speaking.)

*Very excited to put the 'weather dome' over the bird feeder today. (It's just a clear plastic dome. Still excited!) I love our little birds. And our big birds. (And our squirrels, but don't tell our neighbors.) Very happy that no one ever told our juncos that juncos don't eat from feeders.

*It must be time for some year in review posts, right? This seems like the moment.

*Next goal: second breakfast!

My plans for the day:

*Thanksgiving morning 5K -- it's not currently raining or below zero (both things which have been true in other years!), which automatically bumps this year's 5K out of the running for 'worst choice ever.' Thanks, nature!

*Sit with the cat -- Not a big Thanksgiving celebrator, she feels Quite Put Out anytime I shirk my 'sit in the desk chair and work on the computer' time (aka take time off from work). Looking forward to some quiet patting time mid-day instead.

*Family dinner -- aww yeah, family time AND maple roasted sweet potatoes! NICE.

*Writing????? -- I know, it seems unlikely to me too, and I have absolutely given myself permission to do no writing at all today. Which means everything I do write is a nice bonus!

*Be thankful -- so many things to be grateful for and about! It's the seasonally appropriate thing to do!

My workplace is doing this 'health month' thing for October, which mostly consists of a multitude of zoom presentations. So far all of them have been included some variation of 'you should eat nutritious food and get plenty of exercise and sleep.' (Reasonable advice, though they fall short of offering what I would consider helpful tips to actually do those things while still remaining employed.)

My reaction so far has mainly been to eat a lot of desserts and stay up late, and I am genuinely not sure if it's:

*one of those 'if I don't try I won't fail' things

*just general contrariness

*vague anger that my workplace is encroaching so significantly on my non-work choices, even though I generally agree with the advice and conceptually support the 'health month' vision

*specific anger that my workplace appears to have cancelled Halloween Bingo, which is unrelated to health month except for temporal proximity

*a seasonal change thing

WHO KNOWS??? My brain and body are both mysteries to me; I just live here.

(There is COOLER AIR outside! And inside! Truly, a most welcome reprieve.)

Also, I suppose at some point I should stop puttering around on the internet and actually get on with the day. Usually I 'decide' to take that momentous step when I get hungry and the combination of food and coffee tempts me out of the bedroom.

::ponders:: I mean, coffee DOES sound delicious. Sure, it can be that time now.

I was planning to write a post about mosquitoes (are there usually still this many mosquitoes in August??? I feel like no???). But it didn't seem that interesting, and I was enjoying eating my breakfast chocolate and drinking my breakfast bev, so I was putting it off by rambling around the internet.

Which was, as they say, A Mistake. Now I have seen the news and done my daily weeping, and I think it must be time to stop being on the internet and enact my plan for the day:

Step 1: get dressed / prepare for the day enough to go for a walk outside.

Step 2: come back, take a shower.

Step 3: lunch, coffee, turn on the AC and sit with the cat for a while. maybe nap?