* I got all my clothes packed last night: two knit dresses, two pairs of tights, an appropriate slip, enough underthings for a week, two pairs of slacks, five shirts, and enough socks. I still have to put in dress shoes and tennis shoes (will likely workout tomorrow morning, so the tennis shoes will be a last thing). And all the Christmas presents. At one point it looked like it was not going to fit but it did.
* I still have to pack my carry on, which gets my pajamas and slippers and the makeup and other toiletries and my medications and the books I want to take (thinking now: "Braiding Sweetgrass" which is a brand new nonfiction about scientific and folk knowledge and how they interact, and The Chilbury Ladies' Choir, which is a novel about British women coping with the various things of WWII. Probably need to find one or two more books as well. (I am not counting on, though I would very much like, a run out to Barnes and Noble while I am up there. And anyway, I have enough books already, I just have to pick). And knitting. I'm going to take the socks I'm working on for my mom but for "public" knitting I wound off the yarn for my own version of the Bankhead hat, and found two skeins of a green worsted-weight (from a small dyer - not even sure if she's still in business but she used to come to the Blackland Prairie Fiber Fests back when those were going on). It's nice to have a stash like that you can just grab out of, and nice to take a long-ago "I bought this because I liked it but had no plans for it" and find a pattern for it. (I'm going to do a simple ribbed cowl that will work with a variety of yarn weights and lengths, and comes in different sizes. I think I'm going to do the next-to-tightest size: it will be big enough to easily go over the head but not so loose that it lets the wind in.)
I MIGHT also dig out the hat I started back on the LAST trip, at the end of July, and contemplate working on it more. I do think I'll donate this one, whether to Hats for Sailors or some other group, I don't know. (It's 100% wool superwash, but is sockweight so isn't very heavy and I know HfS prefers worsted weight for warmth).
And comfort animals. Probably Slothilda and Fluttershy, maybe another one? I don't know.
I have a list to check off tonight so I'm sure not to miss anything.
* Not going to lie, am 100% not looking forward to this trip. It will be too many people, too many things I'd rather not do, too much being looked at by people with pity in their eyes (because of my dead dad, but on one person's part it may be because I continue to have failed to marry), and just generally too much. But also too little: too little quiet, too little time to myself, too little chance to do what I want to do. Maybe too little sleep, depending.
(I would also really like to go to Michael's but I am suspecting that will not be possible. Not that there's anything I really need but getting out to some kind of craft store is soothing for me)
I'm telling myself Wednesday will just be me and my mom (we will be doing Thanksgiving prep but we work well together so it will be fun baking pies and making some of the side dishes) and possibly Saturday right after I get up it will just be us (in which case I might get that trip to Michael's but I am not planning on it)
* I admit I'm REALLY not feeling it today. I have classes to teach and I'm prepared but....gonna have to dig down deep for this one. I also find I have much, much less tolerance for the sort of Very Online Anger that you tend to see. (What I mean by Very Online Anger is either the person haranguing people to care (and act on) their own particular niche cause, while that person ignores the fact that other people may have larger and more urgent things going on in their own lives - Care About My Issue! they say, while the people they are haranguing to care might be busy trying to earn enough to put food on the table or worrying about a sick relative or trying to keep their small business from going under. Or the sort of "peeing races*" where each person races to explain how the previous one is Not Considering Something and therefore that person is Less Conscious of What Is Really Going On or is alternatively less woke than the person pointing out the flaws, and it all makes me so profoundly tired because how did we get from all the stuff I learned as a kid in Youth Group from the letters of Paul and Timothy and others (about forgiving, and lovingly correcting people when they're wrong, and showing grace) to a place where we all have to race to show how much Better we are than everyone else?
(*H/t Linda Belcher)
ETA: I figured out something that explains exactly how I feel about all the Important News Stories I am being told I should feel a great deal about. It contains one very "blue" word (repeated many times and also in its gerund and adjectival form) so I am going to merely link it (youtube video) but some of you may know without clicking what I am talking about. it is actually a very nice little patter song, sung by a well-dressed gent with a ukulele.
Yup. That's it. That's exactly it. Except I do have some of....those....to give, but they are all taken up by personal-life things at the moment.
* One thing I will say about the late summer and fall of this year is that they have REALLY forced me to sit with the uncomfortable questions of life - how do you deal with losing someone you care about? What are we put here for? What does working even mean, if after you're gone it just boils down to a mess of paper your heirs need to recycle? How do you find the courage to walk into a room and teach like you always have when your mind is somewhere else and your heart is broken? How do you continue to smile and be gracious to the people who come to you with the psychic equivalent of a broken fingernail and they are acting like it's a sucking chest wound, when you, yourself, are dealing with the psychic equivalent of a sucking chest wound? How do you not resent people for heading off to new, higher paying jobs, and leaving you holding the bag of duties they used to do when you're in no state to do them? How do you reconcile the fact that you've always been "good at" stuff with being so messed up in the head for a while that you're not good at anything, and brace for the inevitable bad review at work? How do you still manage to wring some joy out of life when you've come to realize not only that everyone you've ever loved is going to die and leave you, but you will also die some day?
And dangit, I had mainly managed to push those out of my head in favor of the more day-to-day concerns like "Do I have enough milk in the fridge to make it through the week?" or "Am I going to finish this hat I'm knitting as a gift in time?" but thinking about the memorial service has brought them roaring back.
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