Drunken Owls and Other Delights

It's still chilly here in the Bay Area, probably the longest its been this cold (mid-40s overnight and reaching only the mid-50s during the daytime, often with a sea breeze making it feel colder) in a long time. Our winters do get chilly, but never for this long, and not without several days of nonstop rain. Not that I'm complaining, just that this kind of weather tends to turn me into a sloth these days! 

On the plus side, I've been getting a lot done both at work and at home lately, which is a nice change from the Q4 EVERYTHINGATONCE stress I usually get. On my Friday-Saturday shifts I managed to get to and finish a lot of the "I'll get to it later" report paperwork I usually never have time for, and now the bookkeeping office finally looks a lot less messy. And over the last few days, I've been catching up on not just house errands, daily words, blogging and book revision, but even a bit of frivolous music library nonsense, all without feeling stressed out about it! I'm certainly going to make use of this time while I have it!

We're close to finishing the Christmas shopping for the most part, we just need to gather the last packages coming in, wrap up a few things, and mail them on their way. The post office is a bit more of a walk than normal from our new place, but thankfully there's a cheap parking lot the next block over that never gets completely full during the day. All told, it's been a rather laid back season this year, and that's fine by me. Even though our numbers are up in a good way at the store, it's not as chaotic as it normally is. Although I'm sure the next few weeks are going to see an uptick enough to change that...

Hope everyone's having a good week!

WHEW. I may have only worked four days this past week (and regular eight hour shifts at that), but by Saturday it felt like I'd been there for twice that. The day before Thanksgiving is always an insanely busy day for grocery stores, and this was no different -- in fact, I saw our numbers and we made over TWICE our usual sales, and I think it's also a new record for us. On Wednesday I worked noon to 8.30pm, which is pretty much peak sales time anyway, but it was constant with no let-up until that last hour. Just one customer after another after another after another, and most of them were spending upwards of $150 - $200 for big holiday spreads.

Suffice it to say, after I clocked out and got home, I climbed right into bed and fell asleep probably an hour later. That day was exhausting.

The remaining three days weren't nearly as chaotic, but they did have their moments. I spent a frazzled last hour of yesterday's shift trying to juggle multiple orders and finishing up the bookkeeping and only made it under the wire with the help of a coworker and manager jumping in to help. Still, I'm glad it's the weekend and I can sleep in!

I'm back down to only three working days this coming week, but I've decided I'm going to use that to my advantage instead of asking for more hours. A took the week off, so we both decided we're going to use our mutual days off to enjoy ourselves with little day trips around town. 


Of course, tomorrow is the first of December, which means it's time for my usual Year End Mixtape and Contemplation Blog Posts. We'll see where this takes me!

It's actually not too chilly here, but it's cool enough to warrant wearing my indoor shoes and for the kitties to snuggle up on the just-cleaned duvet cover that I just took out of the dryer. There was a storm front that blew through the city early this morning, but it was either weak or our new windows are much improved on the ones at our old place, because I did not hear it at all. [They are indeed an improvement, as the old bedroom windows were rattly, slightly warped, and any time there was a heavy wind the skylights would make a lot of noise.] This is the time of year when SF hovers between weirdly warm and sunny weather, and the gloom of a cold and wet winter. 

Speaking of winter, it's now officially Q4 and I'm starting to see Christmas stuff sprinkled around the store at the Day Job. Not a huge amount as yet, and they haven't changed the music playlists, but it's only a matter of time. As I've said before, I don't mind working the holiday season as it's fun to talk with all our regular clientele and wish them well. It's actually the lack of additional coworkers that's always dampened the spirits. I've been told we have new hires coming in soon, so hopefully that'll help.

Other than that, it's been kind of a busy-yet-not-stressful week so far, so I'm going to take that as a win. Especially considering the recent news about Mayor-Elect Mamdani and several other Dems winning seats last night! 

As I'd said to one of my coworkers today (and also on Discord), I still appreciate the fact that I can have a super busy shift like I did today and feel exhausted by the end of it...but NOT stressed out. Every now and again I'm still reminded of how toxic the bank job was, and surprised that I lasted as long as I did.

But yeah, it was a super busy day today as expected, and I'm expecting tomorrow to be the same though probably not as chaotic. Then I'm doing two bookkeeper opens on Friday and Saturday. Those can be a toss-up sometimes, especially when we have our drive-up orders to process, and those have expanded significantly over the last couple of months. Some days I'm fine and I get all the bookkeeping done and perhaps a bit of ringing up to balance it out, but there have been days when I've done five to seven of these orders, sometimes one right after the other, and those are definitely exhausting. [Especially since upper management for some reason has decided to hyperfocus on how quickly we turn those around.]

Do we have anything planned for the holiday season? Not too much, really...on the 8th we're doing our annual visit to the opera house to see the Nutcracker ballet, and on the following Sunday we'll be meeting up with A's parents for lunch, but other than that we're once again just chilling out and relaxing. No complaints!

I was a bit annoyed that I had to work this past Sunday considering A and I had made vague plans to do a bit of Christmas shopping before the whole rush started but alas, it was not to be. I'm hoping I'll have next Sunday off so we can make up for it! On the other hand, I can't really complain because two good things came out of it: I'm not working on Thanksgiving (we close early at 6pm on that day anyway) and all my shifts are morning shifts. Yay no middays!

(Which reminds me, I still need to let the boss know to keep Sunday 12/17 open as that's when A and I are going to the Nutcracker this year.)

Mind you, our Christmas shopping these days isn't so much about bulk buying all sorts of huge gifts but to pick up fun things for either our own enjoyment or to send to friends as care packages: snacks, silly cards and toys, things like that. And we've pretty much given up on the tree this year considering that A Certain Cat (yes, it's Cali) thinks it's hers and thus climbable. One can only wonder what chaos would ensue if we'd had a real six-footer tree set up on the floor...

And speaking of Christmas, I am very curious as to what the first holiday song I hear will be. I can't really count the pumped-in music at work considering I hear it all day long and thus playing Whamageddon would put me out of the running within hours. Amusingly I thought I'd heard a Christmas song at the cafe across the street from the store the other day, only to belatedly realize that it wasn't "What Child Is This" but merely Ralph Vaughan Williams' 'Fantasia on Greensleeves', heh.

And lastly, I got my Covid and flu shots yesterday and thankfully I am feeling just fine, other than waking up multiple times pre-dawn due to having one hell of a migraine for some reason. So I'm just going to enjoy the day by doing laundry, listening to music and doing some writing.


Hope everyone has a good week!

It's been hovering around the 40s and low 50s here in San Francisco the last several days, so we've broken out the long sleeves, turned on the heaters, thrown on the sweaters and hunkered down in an attempt to stay warm. As I've said to A, this is the good thing about still wearing masks: our faces stay warm too! Our electricity bill is of course going up in response, but that happens every year, tbh, so we're used to it. Right now we're both sweatered up and drinking Irish coffees while we do our weekend chores, and we went for a short walk up to Fancy Grocery Store so we don't feel too guilty about hiding inside for the rest of the day. Heh.

So, how have we been handling Pandemic IV: Omicron Blues or whatever number it is now? As well as we can, really. Thankfully we live in a neighborhood where most of its inhabitants are like "yeah, we're wearing masks, it is what it is, I got my booster last Thursday, how's your auntie doing". And thankfully we have family and friends and neighbors who are vaxxed and boostered and sticking it out through the next unneeded sequel. Our plan to go see the new Matrix movie next Saturday has been cancelled due to the both of us not really trusting being in unmonitored crowds. We'll live, and I'm sure it'll be sticking around over the holiday and playing more locally somewhere at some point. But yeah, it is what it is. I personally don't find being homebound as frustrating as others might find it, but then again I'm someone who's equally happy kicking it at home as I am out in public, and so is A. We have our books and music and streaming platforms to keep us entertained and neighborhood shops to keep us fed. I know we're lucky in that respect.

So what else...? Anything else to yammer on about for the next-to-last Sunday of the year? Not that I can think of. I'm keeping busy with my writing. Feeling a bit stuck on both projects, but I'm powering through regardless. I'm making my end-of-year mixtape and thinking about my best-of-year lists. Got a few personal things I've been thinking a lot about, but other than that, it's been a quiet and uneventful end of year.


Here's to hoping 2022 is a bit more uplifting and forward-moving, yeah?

We did ALL THE WALKING this weekend! Okay, we didn't do a marathon, but we did a good couple of miles each day! Yesterday we walked up to 8th Ave to one of our favorite coffee shops (Rise & Grind, which is right across the street from the 8th Street gate of Golden Gate Park) and then all the way to Arguello and back, stopping for lunch burgers on the way back home. And then today we took the bus up to 6th Ave so we could have brunch at a recent find (Tastebuds, on the corner of 5th and Balboa). And OOOH YESS that was a fine choice of bruncheries! I got a chorizo-chili and scrambled egg plate called the Hangover Helper and it was sooooo tasty! We made our way back via walking on California (and resisted temptation to have yet more coffee), and I've been up and down ever since doing some housecleaning and laundry. I'm also writing multiple blog entries for the week as it's going to be a busy holiday weekend. It's mid-afternoon and it feels like I've done ALL THE THINGS.

Not much else to report...still writing, still revising, still rereading!

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday!

It's the end of the weekend, errands have been completed (for the most part) and A has started her final vacation week of the year. Do we have anything planned? Well, considering that our lovely state and city is currently under the Covid lockdown starting Monday, we weren't about to go on any trips. If anything, we'll be doing the usual: walking around the neighborhood, visiting the parks, sleeping in, and shopping local when needed. Which reminds me...we'll be doing our grocery shopping tomorrow, and we're banking on a) Monday morning not being all that busy, just like always, and b) the recent hoarders haven't bought up every little scrap whether they need it or not. Our shopping list isn't too long, but hopefully TJ's will have kept things under control.

As for Christmas shopping? I still need to do more. I feel like I haven't bought all that much for anyone at all, least of all A, so within the next day or so I'll be doing some final purchases and quick visits to local shops. We shall see.

Healthwise, we're doing just fine other than the occasional sniffliness from allergies or headaches from high humidity. We're avid fans of masks and social distancing, so we're good there.

Hopefully I should be able to sneak some words in this week! We shall see... 

It's been kind of an odd week so far.  Monday we woke up to having absolutely no hot water for most of the morning (our landlord emailed us late last night and got it fixed ASAP, so yay!), and then at around 9am our internet went out and stayed out until around 4pm.  So basically: I couldn't shower until midmorning, and couldn't get online or do Day Job work at all.

So what did I do most of that day?  Revision for In My Blue World, of course!  I spent a good four hours or so on it, taking my time and shaping it into something that worked.  It felt good to spend that long on it, since my openings are almost always the section that needs the most work!  I'm still a bit nervous about getting this done in time for Worldcon, but I'm determined to get as far as I can with it.  The fact that I'm working on that, AND writing the last few scenes for it, AND finding time to create the cover and postcards for it, AND writing scenes for the Apartment Complex story, AND dealing with the Day Job (and and fookin and :p ) is daunting of course, but again -- I'm determined.  As long as I'm moving forward, that's all that matters.

[Oh -- and I made another mixtape that day too.  Those are always fun to make, even after all these years!  It takes exponentially less time to do nowadays, considering that I'm just taking a bunch of mp3 copies and shuffling them into an order I'm happy with and then retagging them, but it's still fun!]

We have today off, of course.  No big plans, though I do have some blog work and writing work to do later on.


Hope everyone has a nice July 4th! :)

Record Store Day is coming!! :)

I will of course be heading over to Amoeba Music over in the Haight on that day, as always. (And, as usual, will most likely be wearing a music-themed tee shirt from either Diesel Sweeties or Questionable Content. ;) )

Don't forget!! :D