1. We have a new family member - Annie the cat! We adopted her last Saturday, and she's a lovebug but easily spooked. Every day she seems to get a little more relaxed, and my kids (4 and 2) are surprisingly good with her.

2. My son is invited to a birthday party tomorrow for a friend of his from preschool. I have never met the mom, but she has texted me every day for the last three days to remind me about the party and it's weirding me out a little.

3. I am torn between wanting to stick my head in the sand about the continuing saga of American politics and feeling a responsibility to be informed.

1. Need to do laundry & pack this weekend so we can head down to my mom's Wed night for Thanksgiving weekend. Rather amazed it's already that time of the year. I put up the faux Christmas tree tonight so I have a day or so to play with branch placement before decorating it. Kidlet is watching The Snowman & the sequel and we're doing the annual Santa pic tomorrow.

2. Potluck Tuesday at work. I said I was bring macaroni salad because I wasn't interested in baking. Just need to work out the double bowl issue so I can attempt to keep it cool.

3. Starting to feel really pregnant and I still have 13-14 weeks go. Oy. Really need to get my baby's room together since I've procrastinated all month.

Senyar, I forgot to say: that tofu looks delish!

amro, let us know how the party goes! It will either be awesome or scary or both.

1. Dealing with election grief. This is gonna take awhile.

2. Lazy weekend here. Thinking of finally getting around to painting the baseboards.

3. Wishing we had more exciting plans for the holidays.

1. In a car accident (rear ended by speeding inattentive driver) about 2 weeks ago. Luckily I, unlike the driver who hit me, have insurance. Doc prescribed massage is very helpful for my apparent whiplash but today and yesterday I have muscle related headaches that are making me cranky.

2. Pretty devastated by the election and terrified of what is coming -- the appointments so far are nightmarish -- but determined to fight to protect others and see a change of power in 2018 and 2020.

3. I have a new car --see item 1 -- and I really like it. It is a hybrid and I'm loving the quiet operation and comfort and minimal gas consumption.

1. Posting from a hotel in Bermuda so that's a good thing. Wife's company had an off-site this week and I tagged along for the weekend. My first use of a passport; I went to Toronto once but that was before you needed a passport to get back in.

2. Getting transferred temporarily to a new job at a different location which is annoying. My hospital has spun off a for-profit startup and they're sending me to run software QA there for as long as it takes to recruit and train people to replace me. Hopefully this is measured in months.

3. Election, yeah. My brain still hasn't excepted this new configuration of the universe and each day brings a new horror. Sending money to the ACLU and SPLC but I should be doing more.

1. I'm learning a new js web framework. To ascertain whether I dare to start a new high velocity project with it.

2. I just watched this talk by John McCain. Reassuring to hear people with a moral core stand up.
As a random European guy I want to wish fortitude to you US people who feel so alienated from your soon to be president. I hope you'll find a way to keep expressing your opinion, influence the public debate, resist that this is the new normal.
I vow to do the same if our rightwing loony becomes part of government.

3. I watched the tv series The Crown. It's well made and well acted. And the story lines are quite interesting. Of course it's a bit beatific. But then it's not about my monarchy.
When our queen abdicated I noticed a strange sentimental feeling within myself. Rationally I'm very critical of having a family set above everybody else in great wealth. But there's something how their lives are intertwined with Dutch history and how I unwittingly witnessed a major part of the lives of Beatrix and the then crown prince that made me care in spite of myself.
So I can forgive the brits some whitewashing and sentimentality there.

3. this year my life has been a tremendous amount of work and not much else. And I guess I don't quite know how to change that.

4. do you guys/gals think I should join Facebook?
I'm asking because the way I see it FB has eaten most of metachat and web communities like it. I didn't join because I objected to a company owning my personal life. But I guess I should accept the inevitable now. Maybe it would be a way to stay in touch with those friends who are so swept up in their family lives that I don't hear from them anymore...


octothorpe: Bermuda for an offsite? My.

jouke, I held out against FB for a long time, but I enjoy the participation I have in it. I'm antsy about privacy, and so I don't put a lot out there about my private life and I have my settings locked down so that only friends can see my page. But as you say, it's a way of staying in touch, and I also like the 'real time' conversation style of it too, although usually most of what I'd like to join in with happens while I'm asleep.

Bermuda for an offsite? My.

Yeah, big tech company with lots of spare cash. I work for a hospital system so no off-sites for me. Ironically, I'm the one with two computer science degrees while she has a social science background. She's also smarter, more organized and more hard working than I am.

Heh, your better half as the saying goes. :-)

1. Very depressed about the election. I've been on a news moratorium ever since. I figure if anything good happens, somebody will tell me. But feeling like nothing will.

2. Ironically, my new job involves interacting with legislators. I am hoping that local politics will distract me from the national, but in this state with our governor? Hah.

3. One of my cats has decided she no longer likes wet food. What is it with cats?


Jouke -- personally, I hate facebook; it's not like MetaChat at all. In Real Life, I find I have several separate and distinct social groups -- work friends, family, close friends, online friends, old acquaintances, etc. On facebook, all that gets mixed together, and I dislike that. I don't really want, for example, somebody I went to high school with commenting on a conversation I'm having with my work friends. It's stupid. I am only a member because there are cute pictures of small children I am related to. I have all friends unfollowed and if you and I are friends on there I am sorry but I haven't looked at your page for months and months probably.

1. Election blergh! The three of us at my weekday job all voted against the demonic ball of pubic hair so gloom pervades. Unfortunately I cannot avoid news since the boss is hooked on the news and we listen to his choice. Course we also listen to scifi in the afternoons if all we're doing is production work. Odd workplace but good people.

2. Weekend retail job has launched into holiday suck. Be glad when that's over too. (I thought that about election too so maybe I should be careful of possible outcomes.)

3. Mom is needing more help with cognitive things so I'm stretched more thinly than before. And every thing she cannot figure out is a crisis to her and she has no patience. At least I've talked her out of trying to get an xmas gift for me. Don't think she can handle it this year although I know she feels bad about that. *no. I didn't put it that way to her.

4. Saw a message sign at a church that somehow made me heh heh:

Stressful week?
We're open Sundays.

5. Since it's turned cool, I have three fuzzy heaters in the bed with me. Sometimes I wake up melting. At least I've had a low power bill because I haven't needed to turn on the heat. I have catlap now, as I'm pecking away at the phone typing this.

I'll stop now except to say that facebook is difficult for me. I simply don't get the layout or terminology whenever I go to do anything so I rarely use it. I don't feel safe there either and try to be careful about what I say.

4. Back in Pittsburgh and it snowed a bit here while I was gone. Back to reality.

Tx for your input on FB Senyar.

JanetLand; I recognise wanting to comparimentalise connections. I'm surprised that's not possible on FB. Also I'm not terribly keen on being apprised of what people are eating and seeing their feet in the sun. But maybe I should give it a chance.
Can't be worse than Google+. :-)

Regarding FB, you can put people on different lists and only post statuses to particular lists. Most of the people from hs, college, my dad's MIL (who irritates me), and distant family members (who I wouldn't recognize if I ran into them at a store) are on my restricted list so they can see my page but not my posts. Other than 1 person I like, I'm not friends with people from work (mostly because the 2 I would friend aren't on there). And I mute everyone but those I care to hear about. So you can lock it down pretty tightly if you want.

Right, but it's a lot of work and fussing on my part to set things up just right -- the facebook default is noisy chaos.

Perhaps I will just write letters from now on. :)

I hate FB and avoid looking at it if at all possible. I hate all the lying people do about their lives, the meanness that is often in evidence, the lying fake news that permeates the site, the endless spying on users that Facebook does, and everything else about it. And it is a stupid place, filled with stupid people, while that the opposite is true is why I love MetaFilter and this place.

If I'm going to do social media, I check Twitter, which breaks real news faster than anyone, and where maintaining some privacy is feasible.

1. We moved this weekend! Just renting another house about 5 minutes away, but I feel like it is twice as big, and has more than one bathroom, which is maybe the very best part. (although the planned reading nook is also very appealing) Now, to unpack, but it's so nice to have more than one bathroom.

2. Looking forward to holiday card exchanges, although I have to find the holiday cards that I bought. I ordered a new address stamp!

3. very sad about the election - called my congresspeople for the first time last week. trying to find other ways to stay involved.

JanetLand: but then my hand written posts will hit your 'hide updates from jouke' IRL setting and end up in your fireplace unread.

Which is ok since they only contained silver gelatin prints of the 'beans with vinegar and sirup' dish I ate and a view of my wooden shod feet propped up against the backdrop of a sugar beet field.

Sorry, I got carried away by visions of how my fathers family lived when he was young.
Traditional dreary Dutch rural life.

Beans with vinegar and sirup? What kind of sirup?

1)High on prednisone accompanying dental implants.
2)Cats going insane because outdoor cat is inducing deflected rage between them.
3)Grading too many exams.

Re: F******k, I use it with a sock puppet. Privacy plus ability to selectively connect.