1. Hey my dog is at the vet right now for her annual! She's with The Husband, and I'm getting update phone calls as questions arise.

2. Need just a few things for the various Thanksgiving obligations. I'm going to buy soda and cheese and whatnot at Target, to avoid a grocery, even though I'll pay a little more, it is worth it.

3. I booked a student film! Very excited - I very very very rarely get camera work. Money will be nice and will make my secondary income taxes look more legit, but mostly I hope to learn lots and get some experience. It's hard to learn the script because there are movements to memorize plus the words. I get beat down, screamed at, have an affair, and get murdered and everything! I am playing the fat wife/mom. This leads to eating holiday angst, because I don't want to appear any fatter than my natural, not quite fat but curvy self.

1. Went out this morning to pick up extras for Thanksgiving dinner, which came to $50. argh. Money goes nowhere.

2. Kid has a bad cold and every night for the past week or so has followed the same pattern. She goes to sleep and then semi-wakes up between 10.30 and 10.45 with coughing, coughing, coughing. And screaming. We have the drill down now - there's no soothing her back to sleep, we have to fully wake her up to calm her down. Then a book or two. Listen to her insist that she's going to play, then some warm milk and back to bed and she's snoring in a minute. Her teeth will just have to suffer the warm milk until we get over this hump.

3. As usual, completely stuck on a Christmas present for my father in law. As the official World's Easiest Person to Buy For (i.e. everyone should be like me!), this frustrates me.

3a - anyone have any recommendations for recent sci-fi books?

1. Working with half the office gone. Looks like Dick Perry won't be letting us off early.

2. Sinus headachy

3. Not much else. Ready for chicken soup tomorrow. It's supposed to be bitter cold. I hope it does snow. That'd be fun playing with the kids.

3a. I've been reading a lot of fantasy, myself. The Belisarius Saga, Eric Flint's Children of the Aldenta, and one that was an interesting counterpoint to the Harry Potter books: The Magicians.

1. It's funny how lying to just about everyone in my life has become the path of least resistance. (My boss today asked me if I had plans for the holiday and instead of going into detail about just how much I'm not looking forward to being trapped in the same room with my so-called 'family', I just smiled and said I was going to Virginia to see some extended family members. Whenever my 'family' calls and asks me what I'm doing, the answer remains 'schoolwork', even if I'm really just coloring in my coloring book.)

2. I'm almost done with this term at school. I have to do the final exam for Collection Development and submit my final index, paper, and presentation for Indexing and Abstracting (but I'm still waiting on hearing back from the professor about a question and they should be faster on the turnaround time than they have been all semester because this project is due on the 30th and it is fucking ridiculous to have to wait 5+ days for a simple yes/no answer.)

3. I've so given up caring about things. I went to a NAMI meeting because my pdoc thought it might be good for me to try and build some sort of support network because I basically don't have one and all I could do was cry and barely get out a few words. I'm not even well enough to go to a fucking support group meeting even though I'm so far managing to hold down a job and keep my house in presentable order. My bloodwork showed that I have a vitamin D deficiency and so I'm supplementing that but it hasn't helped yet. Maybe I'm just one of those 'treatment-resistant' people. Just fucked from birth, yay.

1. 4 hours sleep. Got daughter at the train station (she took the bus) went out for mexican then went to the late showing of Harry Potter (throughout the books, daughter was always the same age as the characters, so this has been fun). Liked it. But then got up at 5 for volleyball. Played like shit.

2. Working half day, in prep for US Tgiving. Feeling very disorganized. Lots of trips to the store because I can't get my mind around the coming meals.

3. Got busy at work so this third one has been sitting uncomposed for about 45 min. I guess I don't have a third one except that work got busy.

1. Driving to the great garden state this afternoon to spend the holiday with my family.

2. This is probably going to be my mom's last Thanksgiving, she's not responding well to the chemo and we're looking into hospice alternatives.

3. My son's being a selfish prick wanting to stay with his girlfriend instead of visiting his dying grandmother.

1. Knocked off work at 12.30. Feels good. Too tired to do anything except read Harry Potter.

2. It's cold in here even though the heating's on. Suspect the system needs flushing.

3. Bath shortly, then cocktail hour.

1. I broke my headphones last night and couldn't make it to the store before they closed, so the BF gave me a pair of extra iPhone headphones he had laying around. How does anyone wear these? They hurt my ears and do nothing to cancel outside noise. I will be buying new ones after work.

2. We get to leave work at 1pm today. Yay! Today is also the first day of Chicago's Christkindlmarket and the city tree lighting ceremony. That's where I'm headed after buying headphones. It's glühwein time!

3. We still have no idea what we're doing for Thanksgiving. Both sets of the BF's grandparents are having lunch/dinner and we're invited, but I almost want to stay home and make dinner for just us two. Shakey fist at my dad for going to Alabama instead of hosting this year. This also means that if I want pumpkin pie, I have to make it myself.

1. House is clean, food is purchased -- and was almost all on sale -- with the exception of the turkey and a few random items that I'm picking up today, everything feels cozy and under control.

2. My job occasionally sucks for my emotional state. I'm reading a supervisor-recommended book on trauma stewardship, on how to take care of yourself while taking care of others in crisis, and I just need to figure out how to add some of that balance, I guess. I'm a little tired of nightmares and insomnia from other people's trauma; it doesn't seem fair or particularly helpful to anyone.

3. My 9am client canceled this morning so I've had a nice long tea-drinking, cat-cuddling, internet-reading morning in our clean cozy house. I like that, and I'm thankful for all the things that have come together in my life to make a quiet, peaceful morning like this possible.

1. Feeling troubled rather than thankful. I just can't seem to get into a holiday mood.

2. Hoping to get out of work early, so I can finish the house cleaning.

3. Listing to Robin Young on BUR, a nice Thanksgiving themed show.

1. Cleaning. Yuck. Not motivated so doing things like washing the plants, which needs to be done - they're, like, all covered with grotty dust and shit, ewwww, why do plants get dirty, can't they just absorb the dirt or something and make, like, air or more dirt? This environment thing, we need to do something about it. /innervalleygirl - but still, there are More Important Things that need doing. Like the kitchen floor.

2. Have to go shopping. Did not order a turkey beforehand so getting one might be quite the adventure. Don't even want to think about what this annual shindig costs. Best not. Oh well. It's worth it. If you're in Asheville or nearish you're invited, by the way, to my annual dinner for waifs, orphans and strays. I've been doing it for about 25 years now. Smallest was like 7 people, largest probably 40. This year I'm thinking around 11 or 12, so smaller.

3. Son is puppysitting for a friend. Puppy was supposed to be here for 24 hours. We are now verging on 48. Puppy is a friendly little thing, although hideous, but I am getting angry. We have 3 dogs already. Three. Three is too many. No more dogs. Puppy must go home. Grar. on scale of issues with son, though, this is actually rather relievingly small and peaceful, so there's that.

occhiblu what's the title of the book? It sounds like something that might be good for my daughter, who tends to bring her work home with her as well.

1. I'm eating salty foods right now. I am very happy.

2. The holiday season is a very, very good time to work on my oversensitivity issues.

3. Argh, I have to do some cleaning for Friday when some friends are dropping by for just a few minutes. Oh well. Keeps me honest.

mygothlaundry, it is titled, appropriately enough, Trauma Stewardship, and it's by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky, which is fun enough to say that it seems to dispel some secondary trauma all on its own. Looks like there's also a website. The book is really good so far, and she does a nice job of covering a lot of bases (social work and human rights work, environmental and animal care research and activism, activism in general, health care, etc.), so it's pretty inclusive. Definitely recommended.

1) Office is, as suspected, dead quiet. I pulled the headphones out of the jack so I could have ambient sound instead of feeling more sequestered.

2) There seems to be some confusion about whether or not we have pub quiz tonight, but the consensus says we should split up and see if the low turnout lets us win first, second AND third place ;)

3) Haven't made any preparations at. all. for the holiday, and LOVING IT. We're going to Iowa to be with some friends who host "Soup Sunday" every week anyways, so it'll be very low-key. We have been tasked with bringing... wait for it... whipped cream. I think we can handle it. (Also, this means that the boy gets his beloved Dr. Pepper ham, which I couldn't cook if I tried. Everybody wins.)

Sometimes (well, all the time) I wish there were nested comments like LJ so I could respond to people individually. (I am taking up lots of internet real estate today. See #1.)

Gaspode: ooh, I LOVE hunting for things for people! Seriously, it's like my favorite thing ever. MeMail me! I can help!

Sperose: I'm so sorry that you're in a tough place right now. It sucks that the path of least resistance often includes just going along with a crappy experience. I wish you strength to get through this and to persevere each day.

Octothorpe: Same to you. We had one of those a while back, and it was tough but worth it. I hope your mom is able to be more comfortable.

Altolinguistic: that sounds like heeeeaven. I did that a bit last night. Mmm, self-snuggling.

MGL: grr, unthinking puppy parents are so maddening.

Man, you guys! Stop having sad things happen to you! =(

Sorry about your mom, octothorpe. I hope you can really cherish the time you have left with her.

1. Going to Boston tonight. Riding the Megabus. Hope it's not tooooo crazy. I know it will be crowded and loading and unloading will be chaos and there will be traffic but I know I'll live through it. nam ye ho renge kyo

2. Spending this weekend packing. I *am* having T-giving dinner with friends, so I won't be totally alone. This is the last chance I will have to get things ready before I move the following weekend (OMG ALREADY? SO MUCH STRESSSSSS!)

3. I spent a night in my new apartment the other day (on an air mattress). I have no idea how I'm going to afford living in NYC (especially with all the stuff I want to DO!), but I am cautiously optimistic.

1. IUI #3 failed to work.

2. Really looking forward to tonight and the next few days - dinner with girlfriends tonight, Thanksgiving with a bunch of friends tomorrow, going out Friday night with my closest friends from high school, who are NEVER all in the same place at the same time (miracle!), and Saturday we're having a baby shower for one of them.

3. My landlord is being a total asshole. The washing machine stopped working, and he finally got someone here to fix it an entire week later. The service guy found some change and pieces of underwire in a pump or something in the washer, and my landlord tried to blame me and make me pay the $290 repair bill. When I told him I wash my bras in the bathroom sink and put my spare change in my purse, he pretty much flat out accused me of lying and couldn't conceive of the possibility that the wires and change were just incidental findings and have been sitting some part of the washer since before I lived there (it's a 10 year old washing machine) and that it just broke from normal wear and tear. So I refused to pay the bill, then went back to my apartment to use the "fixed" washer and lo and behold the "repairman" had left it sitting still full of water! I ran it and it's STILL not draining (which was the original problem). So now he has to come back out on Friday and I still can't wash any laundry. OH, and if the underwires were the problem then WHY IS IT STILL BROKEN??

/end venting

octothorpe, I'm so sorry. I hope your Thanksgiving is joyful despite the sorrow.Every year, my sister and I recite to each other the blessing that our father wrote the Thanksgiving he was in hospice care. Atheist though I am, it really touches me, and I hope you don't mind if I share it with you:

‎Fill our hearts with thankfulness;
fill our souls with grace.
Smile on our celebrations,
and then bless us on our way.

I'm sure you're taking good care of your mother and your family, octothorpe. Don't forget to take good care of yourself.

sperose, you too. It sounds like maybe you feel bad about "lying", but I hope I'm wrong about that. (Especially since this specific instance really sounds to me like a social fiction, not a flat-out lie.) Don't berate yourself for doing the reasonable things it takes to get through a rough time.

The holidays put so much pressure on people to be happy, to look happy, to conform to some imaginary standard. It can be truly joyous, but it can also be confining or high-pressure. That's part of the reason we decided to spend Thanksgiving at home this year: as much as I love my family and his, this year we both want to be at our greatest possible ease. So:

1. I took my niece out for breakfast to say hello-goodbye; she's home on Thanksgiving break, but this was my last chance to see her before she leaves for a trimester in Mexico . We had a lovely meal, then walked around talking for --- oh wow! --- three hours!

2. I'm about to start cooking and cleaning for our two-person dinner tomorrow! I intended to do most of it in advance, but small (not bad) family crises kept popping up, so I put off 'most everything 'til today.

3. Though we usually have a vegetarian holiday, I decided to treat myself to a small roasted chicken, mostly for the GRAVY. I'm going to lightly dry-brine it Zuni Cafe style, which I've never tried before. (Apparently I should have started it yesterday or Monday for a proper brining, but that's fine --- I don't want my GRAVY to get too salty.)

1. Sent staff home early. 1 remembered to say Thank You.

2. Genuinely clueless caller, at 5 mins to closing, needed lots of help and hand-holding, mumbled, and and gave me inaccurate info, making it all take much, much longer to help him with his problem.

3. Nephew and some friends coming over tomorrow. I think I'll serve turkey. Looking forward to 4 days off. 4 days. in a row. yippee!!

I think I'll serve turkey.

This got me to snort out my nose. Unfortunately, I was drinking Coke when I did it.

1. Still dealing with light sensitive eyes from the shingles. Good thing I am disabled because I couldn't work with this.

2. After imprisoning Sookie in my bedroom, Sunny has started using litter spread on a cookie sheet. Definitely an improvement but still needs a lot of work.

3. Got an appt to replace my ICD on 12/13. I got 6 1/2 years out of the first one, which is pretty good.

1. Checking in on all of you from our comfy hotel room on the Oregon coast. Easy drive here followed by lovely walk on the beach.

2. All meals over the next few days will be in restaurants -- rather blissful prospect.

3. Our dog is in heaven. I can't remember the last time we ran him so much he actually got tired. Kitties are at home having all wants met by our loving pet sitter.

Sorry, didn't mean to bring everyone down and thanks for the nice thoughts. Mom's being well taken care of, mostly by my sisters and the Sunrise staff, I live too far away to do much but offer moral support. Fortunately she managed her life well enough that there's been enough money to keep her in a really nice managed care facility for the last few years and she's got a very good health insurance policy that's covered everything that medicare doesn't. Oh and the boy is promising that he'll show up to see his grandmother so he's temporarily off my shit list.

didn't mean to bring everyone down

Don't ever worry about that. I'm really glad to hear that your mom's situation is as good as it is.

Ditto to what BP said, octo. Glad things are going as well as they could, considering the situation.