• Last week after two years I finally got to return to doing my job and only my job. Since December 2020 I have been doing at least two people’s, sometimes as many as four people’s, jobs at the same time. We finally have the other three positions filled, so now the only responsibilities I have on my plate are the ones I should have.
• If you follow me on social media you already saw me share this, but this article from the Washington Post, “Your Gift Guide to the General Services Administration Auction Website” has brought me much delight in the past week. It’s really just chef’s kiss from top to bottom. It was one of those things where my husband pretty much had to listen to me read the whole thing to him because I kept finding things so amusing that I wanted to share them.
• There’s a block in my neighborhood that does a big Christmas lights display every year. I very much appreciate that it makes my neighborhood Baltimore’s Christmas central, especially since we added a parking pad and I don’t have to search for street parking during December. I was out for a walk after work the other night and crossed that block on my route and there were lots of families with young kids walking to see the lights, and I loved seeing the little kids eyes light up as they got to the block and spied the lights for the first time. It was actually featured on the Today Show last week. The segment itself is not that exciting because it was filmed in the morning so you can’t even really see the lights. They were looking for people to be in the shot though and asked you to be there an hour ahead of when the segment was supposed to be on air. I thought about it, but then it was raining and I didn’t want to stand outside in the rain that long.
• I thought I was going to tag along to New York City last Friday while my husband went up for work, but then his work plans got squashed by higher ups so he didn’t go and thus I did not go because hotels are insane in New York in December. It was a much better plan when his work was going to pay for that part of the trip. Anyway, I had already taken the vacation day when I found out we weren’t going anywhere, but I decided to go ahead and keep it. It was a nice break from work. I baked lots of cookies, and it really helped my weekend feel nice and long. I did just want to drive right into Christmas break though and not go back to work this week.
• Since we won’t be home for Christmas, my sister-in-law came up from Virginia for the day with her puppy. I was a little worried about how my old lady cat would react to a crazy puppy. The answer was they amusingly barely even noticed each other. The puppy was much less crazy than when we last saw him February. The cat had been lying on the couch when they came in and disappeared at some point, so we assumed she went down to the basement to avoid the visitors, but when I went looking for her a couple hours later to give her food I could not find her. My husband and I were completely flummoxed as to where she could have gone. My husband finally found her sleeping in the cardboard box she adopted as her bed that literally sits on the floor next to the love seat we had been sitting in the whole time. Eventually she got out of the box and tried to go back to her spot on the couch. She has little stairs up to the couch because she can’t jump anymore. She got to the top of them and spotted the dog who was sitting in her spot. I wish I had a video of her seeing him and then turning around and giving us a look like what in the world is this. Then she just turned around and went back to her box and that was pretty much their entire interaction.
• My friend and I went to see the movie Spoiler Alert on Sunday afternoon. We got a private showing because even though the seat map showed that two other seats had been purchased no one else ever came. The movie is a true story based on Michael Ausiello’s memoir about his love story with his husband Kit and Kit’s eventual death from cancer. Michael Ausiello is a tv critic who my friend and I have both been following since his spoilers column at TVGuide, then on to Entertainment Weekly, and finally the website TVLine that he started. I said somethng about us following him for over a decade and she said more like two. That hurt because it doesn’t seem possible it could be that long, but she was right. It was a great movie. The perfect combination of love story, comedy, and tear jerker. As my friend said it’s too bad there are so many people who will miss out on a great movie and story because it’s about a gay couple.
• What is one of my favorite podcast episodes every year dropped last week, the Holiday Draft episode of the Poscast. The amusing part is that it’s from a podcast I literally only listen to for their holiday draft episode every year. Normally it’s a sports podcast and we have already established I am not into sportsy things, so it’s definitely not a podcast I listen to on a regular basis. However, every December they do a holiday draft episode that is just completely delightful. They have long time guests who have done it every year like TV critic Alan Sepinwall and Linda Holmes from NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, which is how I found it the first year they did it. They seem to add in new people every year. Nick Offerman has been a delightful addition. This year’s episode theme was holiday song lyrics and it was just as wonderful and hilarious as ever. If you were in Baltimore this weekend and saw me walking around cackling this is why. It’s totally worth two hours of your time. In fact, if you haven’t listened to previous year’s draft episodes I recommend going back and starting at the beginning because there are always call backs to previous years that add tothe fun.

And now for your musical delights

As I mentioned in last week’s delights post, WXPN was doing a 90’s A-Z countdown. I heard lots of songs during that countdown that brought back memories or that I just really like and hadn’t heard in a long time, but there were two that stood out that I’m going to share.

• The first is the “Theme from Jurassic Park”. First of all kudos to them for even including it in the countdown. I don’t like the movie Jurassic Park. I was so mad about everything they changed from the book, most of all how they made Sam Neill’s character hate kids when in the book he adored them because of their love of dinosaurs. However, I always loved the soundtrack. During my sophomore years of high school my biology teacher would put on music when we were working on things like labs or other assignments where she wasn’t lecturing. the Jurassic Park and Last of the Mohicans soundtracks were in heavy rotation. I love both of them and they always take me back to that class.

• And now that I’m writing this both of my musical choices are centered on my sophomore year of high school because my second song is “These Are Days” by the 10,000 Maniacs, which is a perfect song to be connected to that time of life. It actually starts a little earlier because that song came out during my Freshman year and my birthday present that June was to go see them in concert with a friend. But I attach it to my sophomore year because we had a video yearbook thing that year that featured that song and because of my weirdo high school in Texas gaming the system to have a better pool for varsity football you went to one school for freshman and sophomore years and then two of those schools fed into a school for juniors and seniors. So you sort of graduated from a school after your sophomore year too. This is how I wound up going to three high schools even though we only moved once during that time.