Soooo…hey! Hi.

It’s been a minute.

You know how you mean to do something and then you don’t and then so much time passes that you think you shouldn’t because at this point it is just ridiculous and absurd. But then you start to feel sad because you really wanted to do the thing and you miss it. But then other things come up and a whole bunch more time passes. Right? You know how that goes.

We are all good. Mostly. Alfie the kitty isn’t well. He got sick around Thanksgiving. He started tilting to one side and walking in circles. He got pretty bad, pretty fast. His vet thought it was an ear infection and treated him with antibiotics and steroids. He got a lot better. For weeks. But as soon as he went off the steroids, all the symptoms returned and he started having seizures. Randy, Joey and I made the decision to let him go. I left that morning to go to work in tears. Randy and Joey were both home with their own tears.

You know how the universe plays super funny jokes sometimes?

I got in my car that morning in December and heard half a song on the eighties station I had it tuned to when the disc jockey came on. Wait, are they disc jockeys still? There aren’t any discs. 

Anyway, the guy is on the radio and starts telling a story about his daughter’s cat named Harry Potter. And I’m there with my cheeks still wet thinking, fucking really? A cat story? He proceeds to say that sadly, Harry Potter got sick and died.

OMFG are you kidding? 

Then he says that when they were burying Harry Potter, he had music playing. He said “I am not kidding you. This song started playing while we were  burying my daughter’s cat.”

Then he played Pet Cemetary by The Ramones.

We named our kid after Joey Ramone. The whole thing was so on the nose. I did laugh a bit, because that was well played.

Anyway, Randy gave Alfie a steroid that morning. And around lunch he called and said Alfie was almost back to normal.

When I called the vet, my only conversation was going to be to make arrangements for Alfie, but when I told her how the steroids seems to cause a rebound, she suggested upping his dose and seeing what happened. She said that cats tolerate steroids very well and he could be on them for a very long time without worry.

Well, that did the trick. It’s been months and while he isn’t exactly the same, he was almost his normal asshole self.

Until about a week ago. We’re seeing his head tilt. Just a little. So, whatever this is, the steroids are starting to become less effective. He’s still fine right now. His tail is up, he’s eating and grooming and doesn’t seem to be in distress at all. But we are seeing the head tilt. Not every day. But it’s happening more often. It could be a brain tumor. It’s definitely neurological.

We’re just glad we’re getting the days we’re getting. But I suspect that fucking shitty decision will have to be made again sooner rather than later.

The rest of us are fine. Normal life bullshit, but good.

I guess I just wanted to stop in and say hi. See how you all are.

I have a problem, y’all.

I can’t stop buying bras from the internet. I can’t. I think I may have even written about this before, but I don’t remember for sure and I am way too lazy to check.

They all suck. Out of the 17 trillion bras I bought from the internet, I like one of them. I’m wearing it now. It’s actually awesome. There is no tag. I don’t remember where I got it. The details of 17 trillion online bra orders tend to get a little fuzzy so it isn’t like I’m ever going to find it again. I had to go through so many to get this one. But you know the old saying “You have to buy a lot of shitty bras before you kiss a toad and it turns into the perfect bra.” or something like that.

It’s not like I don’t understand about reviews. I do! I actually have a solid grasp on the concept that before you purchase anything on the internet, you can avail yourself of customer reviews. But when I’m faced with an ad for best bra ever, I cease to have an understanding of how one operates in 2023. I become focused. I have blinders. I can only see that one thing.

I just want the Holy Grail of bras. That’s all.

I don’t know if you all have seen the ads on social media for the bra created by a 70 year old grandmother or not, but let me help you out.

Don’t buy the fucking bra. Granny didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. It is a terrible bra. Abysmal. And sadly, I have bought at least two other versions of this same fucking bra, just under different names.

Because I have a problem.

The bra material is wispy and almost not there. In other versions of the granny bra, there were no closures or anything, you just pulled it over your head. In the grandma version, there are three “buttons” in the front. The cups have a pad, like a round maxi pad, shoved in a little pocket thingy. The pads aren’t lined up or anything. So your boobs end up looking in different directions. There is no support. Nothing. It’s like having an ineffective ace bandage around your chest with feminine hygiene products over the nipples. With straps.

The granny version, with the front “buttons”? Yeah, they are not buttons. They are snaps. They have the strength of something held together with Elmer’s glue. Maybe. I might have just denigrated Elmer’s glue.

I wouldn’t give these away. I guess I could use them as gag gifts or something? Oh, and I did say “them”. Because when I bought the granny bra, as I was checking out, I was offered a second one! At half price! So of course I got the second one. I couldn’t afford not to.

Because I have a problem.

I believed this time, too. I did. A 70 year old grandmother? Invented this? A 70 year old grandmother would never lie to me.

I mean, I’m a 60 year old grandmother and sometimes I lie. But I’m not 70 yet, so who knows? Maybe that will change. Who wants to live in world where 70 year old grandmothers walk around lying all the time? Especially about something as important as inventing the unicorn of bras.

That wouldn’t work though, would it? You can’t be a grandmother and not lie. You are always going to say, “Yes, sweetheart, I do want to hear you sing the latest Disney song for the 12th time.”

If you don’t lie, then you’d be saying things like “For all that is holy, no. I do not. I do not want to hear you screech sing about undersea life or ice or circles of life.”

To anyone reading who is the parent of our grandchildren. Of course I am not talking about your kids. This is just a joke.

I guess there was that one time when Let It Go was sung many times, but it wasn’t close to 12 times. And there wasn’t any shrieking. Also, to be fair, I encouraged it. 

But no, granny lied.

I am Charlie Brown and internet bra scammers are Lucy Van Pelt. I have missed that football so many times.

But this is it. I mean it this time. I will never buy another internet bra. Even if Dolly Parton hand sews it herself. I have no idea why Dolly Parton would be hand sewing bras. She seems to have a very successful career doing other things. I’m just saying, if she did, I would not buy it.

You know, I am beginning to suspect there was no 70 year old grandmother at all.

Also, who am I kidding? I would totally buy a bra hand sewn by Dolly Parton.

First, I want to express my gratitude in that I have a wonderful family. We sail through holidays with hardly a blip.

I’m not going to say there has never once been drama in decades, but it’s never been high drama and it was few and far between. I know how lucky I am.

That being said.

I know that for many people, large holiday gatherings can be stressful.

If you want to see the perfect example, watch the fishes episode of The Bear. Holy shit. That was some family drama. Jamie Lee Curtis is amazing. 

Anyway, I know holidays can be stressful, so I have suggestions on how to make it less stressful.

SUGGESTION ONE

Get the norovirus the Sunday before Thanksgiving and tell 17 people that they’re on their own for the holiday.

That really does cut down on the “is my house clean enough?” and the “I hope this new dressing recipe turns out” stress. Because you won’t care about how clean your house is and, for all that is holy, don’t even fucking talk about food.

I will spare you the details of my personal experience with norovirus. I will just say the Sunday before Thanksgiving was the sickest I have ever been in my life. If not the sickest, at least top 3. And easily the most disgusting.

By Sunday evening, we cancelled all the out of town guests, which took the number of people in my house from 20 to 9.

By Monday afternoon, we finally admitted that no one should set foot anywhere near our house, much less eat food that I prepared. My parents are elderly. I didn’t want to kill them with turkey.

Super funny side note. That wouldn’t have happened anyway! More on that in a moment. 

You all, I was so bummed. I looked forward to seeing all the kids and grandkids. Our youngest, Mae, has turned out to be a Young Frankenstein fan and all I wanted to do on Thanksgiving evening was to curl up with her and watch it.

Shit happens. haha. Plans change. I can be flexible. The situation was disappointing, but not the end of the world.

I didn’t feel great, but I was able retain a can or two of ginger ale, so you know, I was ready to prepare food meant for 20 people for 3 people. I had all the stuff. Why let it go to waste? Besides, I was on no one’s time table. I’d be done when I was done. I would get Randy and Joey to do some of the heavy lifting.

Maybe, I wouldn’t get to see 75% of our kids, but I could still make dinner. I make a good Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted nothing more than feel better enough to eat at least some solid foods by Thursday.

This brings me to:

SUGGESTION TWO

Save time and energy by not cooking. You don’t have to worry about dry turkey if you just don’t cook the turkey! And not worrying is always good!

I mean, sure, you don’t get the delicious end result, but think of the time savings!

I admit, my goal was to actually cook dinner. In fact, I spent the whole day before putting things together so that onThursday, I would need to bake a few things and cook the turkey. Easy peasy.

I baked an apple pie, prepped the turkey, and into the oven the turkey went.

It doesn’t seem like a lot of work, but just putting on my bathrobe got me winded and dizzy. I was pretty worn out. I decided on a long bath and afterwards, I’d start basting the bird.

My bath time went on a little longer than expected. I might have even dozed off for a few minutes. Which is weird. I don’t ever take naps. I can’t fall asleep sitting up. I am certainly not one to fall asleep in water.

I got dressed and told Randy that I was still worn out and that I’d probably need his help with everything else. I was just going to baste the turkey and then lay down for a while.

The first thing I noticed was that the foil I had used as a tent wasn’t really hot at all.

Odd. 

And the disposable roasting pan? Also not hot.

My brain was jumping to the only logical conclusion and trust me when I tell you, I was not prepared for that to be the conclusion.

I put my fingers on the wire rack. It was slightly warm. Perhaps a bit above lukewarm.

My reaction was not reasonable.

I had a lip sticking out, foot stomping baby fit.

My fucking oven fucking died.

What I wanted to do, was take a nap. What I ended up doing, is laying on the floor with a flashlight in one hand and a lighter in the other while Randy watched a how-to video on his phone.

We have a gas stove. Randy and I are not handy people and I was really worried about blowing up our house. Our range is probably 40 years old, so I felt iffy on the old school safety features they had back then.

I had one of those long ended lighters where you have to depress a button before lighting it which was difficult because of my arthritis recently coming in. Getting old is so much fucking fun. Yay. 

I gingerly lit the lighter in the general direction that sort of looked like the thingy on Randy’s phone. I didn’t know for sure because, you know, I just don’t see that well anymore.

After 20 minutes of trying, I was literally jabbing that flame in any crevice I could. There? How about there? Is it there? Do you smell smoke or gas? No? Well, how about there? 

We had to admit that the oven was dead. The stove top still works, but the oven is dead.

Currently, we are currently ovenless folk. Persons without an oven. Which, you know, is fine.

I tried making the dressing and sweet potato casserole in the air fryer. The green bean casserole got pitched. The gravy was too thin, but really, by the time Randy got the turkey on the grill outside, it was going to be way past dinner time. We weren’t eating that on Thanksgiving day anyway.

My plan was to cobble together a sort of “do-over” on Friday.

We ordered Chinese food for our Thanksgiving dinner.

The “do-over” wasn’t great. Turns out that new dressing recipe I tried out?

Sucked.

Randy promises me that sooner or later I will find  my sense of humor about last week.

I mean, I guess he might be right. Seems pretty far down the road right now.

I know the obvious silver lining is, at least, my oven didn’t crap out with 20 people in  my house waiting for food. That would have been worse. So at least that didn’t happen. And I have been wanting a new range since we moved in this house over 5 years ago. Randy has been looking into new ranges all morning.

Also, he just called. Turns out we can’t just buy a new stove and replace the old one. We have some electrical issues. He’s currently looking for an electrician. We’re in our sixties and we’ve never hired an electrician.

It sounds expensive.

Here’s to Christmas!

Try to never get the norovirus. 0/10.