The Marci Rating System

I was thinking about the Murderbot tv show (as one does), and I thought 'I wonder why Mensah decided to tell SecUnit all about her kids?'

And I was like... humanize the hostages? (Like, if you just found out that the dangerous killing machine absolutely could start killing you if it wanted to, you'd want to give it reasons not to? Like putting baby pictures in your wallet, I guess?)

But that didn't seem super likely. Neither did 'setting up a REALLY funny joke for a future season,' even if SecUnit remembering all that stuff when it met the kids later would, indeed, be REALLY funny. To me, personally.

And I thought maybe Mensah was too nervous to be willing to sit in silence, and figured talking about her kids would keep herself from panicking and also not distract SecUnit from anything important it was doing, which kind of made sense, until I realized...

SecUnit ASKED ARADA ABOUT HER KIDS. The first time they all saw it interact with one of them unprompted, it asked about children. It makes perfect sense to think that it would be willing to hear about them. Mensah galaxy-brained a topic of conversation she genuinely had reason to believe would be acceptable. SECUNIT, YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF.

After my adventures with the coffee advent calendar last year, I decided to try the same company's 'spring and summer' options. (They offer a set of 'single-pot' bags with the various flavors. Since I'm making one cup at a time, and mixing the flavored coffee with regular coffee, they last a WHILE.)

So far I've tried:

*Blackberry Crumble: unexpectedly delicious, wow! I was wary of all the fruit flavors, but this one was great.

*S'Mores: YUM

*Blueberry Cobbler: ...I'm not sure

See, the thing is, MANY years ago, I took a bunch of powdered blueberry-flavored Crystal Light on a trip I didn't really want to go on, and the blueberry smell of the ground coffee is EXACTLY the same. (Okay, I have no idea if it's exactly the same. It reminds me of how that smelled. So the mental association is there.)

BUT once the coffee is brewed, the blueberry smell is much less, and the taste isn't bad. As long as the ratio is Very Little Blueberry Coffee : Much More Regular Coffee, I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I'm not sure I'm enjoying it enough to KEEP enjoying it through the entire packet, let alone the SECOND one, though. (Why two blueberry, and not two delicious, delicious blackberry???)

Oh Monday, we're really in it now!

Last year at some point, I picked up a small set of shelves from the side of the road. (As one does, in this town -- people just put stuff out for free, usually with a sign that says 'free' and sometimes not, which, yes, does occasionally lead to issues.)

ANYWAY the point is that I put this lil' unit in a corner where I didn't see the whole thing at once -- it was next to the bed and also a storage bench, and I could usually only see the top half. Never noticed anything odd about it. Very sturdy. Excellent shelves. Can hold the weight of the cat easily, which was pretty much the reason I picked them up.

And this weekend I did the bi-annual 'let's move the furniture around' party, which 1) entertains me; and 2) gives me a chance to move the bed either under the windows (summer) or against the wall away from the windows (winter). Mostly the entertainment, honestly. The lil' shelves moved to a different wall.

This morning I woke up, looked across the room at the shelves, and immediately thought 'oh, they're crooked.' They've got a pretty serious lean going on! As far as I can tell (lol with my 10,000% lack of structural engineering abilities) they are indeed very sturdy, just kind of, uh, angled.

Since I'm pretty sure I can figure out how to access the level app on my phone, I'm going to check if the shelves are level. They LOOK level to me. Anyway, love the things that suddenly seem SO obvious in the morning light!

You know something has gone awry when I'm sitting around REALLY HOPING that I get to go to the dentist today. That something is that last Friday I lost a filling, which I 1000% do not recommend. I called the dentist's office and they were like 'ooh, too bad, we'll talk to your dentist on Monday and see if we might be able to squeeze you in.'

(And I know that they hear similar calls all the time, so it probably doesn't feel like a big deal to them, but it is a BIG DEAL to me! I am experiencing FOUR of my least favorite things: I'm in pain, I can't eat things I want to eat, I feel like I've messed up and am in trouble, AND I'm waiting in line. Sort of waiting in line. Like a virtual queue for an emergency slot that may or may not exist or be taken already. Ugh.)

ANYWAY that's MONDAY!

My workplace is doing some stuff because March is Nutrition Month (I guess?), including asking people to submit recipes that celebrate their cultural heritage. And then -- and this is truly the wildest part to me -- they're going to have a 'panel of experts' analyze all the recipes for cultural significance, nutritional value, and simplicity. And then award prizes, I guess???

IDK, the whole thing seems needlessly complicated to me, but in the spirit of workplace participation, I did consider whether I should send in a recipe. Because avocado toast must count as being culturally significant for millennials, right? It's what we got instead of job security and affordable housing! It's the 'joking but also completely serious' food of a generation!

And yes, submitting such a recipe would be A LITTLE BIT to poke gentle fun at how seriously this 'competition' (why???) is being presented by the powers that be. I like my food to be easy and fun, and I don't think making dinner has to be a big deal.

But it would also be COMPLETELY SERIOUS because I do think avocado toast has a place in the cultural record, plus it's delicious.

Also COMPLETELY SERIOUSLY I think it would be valuable to include some very simple, very customizable recipes in any collection. I think it would make any collection of recipes more widely accessible and interesting!

(And it might make people laugh, because it's also A LITTLE BIT a joke, and I think that has value too.)

(I am definitely not submitting anything. But I did think about it!)

[ETA: I re-read the announcement and realized I forgot to mention that recipes will also be judged on flavor! Gotta be delicious, nutritious, easy, and culturally relevant to win the mystery prizes!]

What begins? Not really sure, just thought it was a fitting subject line for a Monday morning.

BIG PLANS FOR THIS WEEK:

*STOP DREAMING ABOUT BEING STRESSED OUT AT PREVIOUS JOBS

Seriously, brain, let's work on this.

I was yesterday years old when my brain suddenly made the connection between 'Apple' as a computer company and 'Macintosh' (aka McIntosh) as a variety of apple. (well documented on wikipedia, as well as pretty much everywhere else online, lol)

My reactions were thus:

*Although I was several (many) decades late to the party, that's a great name! Very funny! I like it!

*If only they'd stuck to the 'name apple products after types of apple' thing

*I COULD HAVE HAD AN iGALA

The BIG STEP CHALLENGE begins at work today... I cannot even imagine what this will be like.

[BACKSTORY: the company I work for was purchased by another company years ago, with promises of 'completely separate' (haha), and has slowly been getting integrated ever since. This year we've been granted the (dubious?) privilege of access to the same benefits the other employees get. Including being part of their fitness challenges.]

APPARENTLY the step challenge is a BIG DEAL. We received a presentation about the new benefits that included several VERY SERIOUS references to the step challenges. As in, someone asked if they have to sync their step tracker to the app every day, and the presenter was all, 'no, no, except OF COURSE if it was during a step challenge, and then once a day would be the minimum, because you'd want to make sure you weren't letting down your team.' (That's literally NICER than the presenter was about it.)

The maximum number of steps PER DAY that count towards the challenge is 40,000 STEPS PER PERSON. That is a WILDLY high number of steps. I don't know if I've EVER gotten that many steps in a day. (Maybe when we were walking around at Disney??? LOL I was younger then; that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

WHAT WILL THE NEXT (okay I don't actually know how long the challenge is -- a month, maybe?) SOME AMOUNT OF TIME BRING INTO MY UNIVERSE OF EXPERIENCES??? HOPEFULLY SOME FUNNY STORIES TO SHARE!!!

Last week one of our neighbors was talking about how another neighbor had asked them for a favor, and they felt guilty about saying no, and I told them it was good to know their boundaries. And I told them, "It's okay to ask, and it's okay to say no." And all the while I was thinking 'oh yeah, I'm definitely getting a good grade in being a neighbor, something that is reasonable to want and possible to achieve.'

FAST FORWARD to last night, when the same neighbor asked ME for a favor, and I felt SO GUILTY about saying no, and I was over here repeating 'it's okay to ask, and it's okay to say no' to myself like a mantra. And -- it kind of helped? Shocking, but somehow true.

So, yeah, in case that's useful out there in the universe. It's okay to ask, and it's okay to say no.