* I finally got the last sample done, I wound up having to do the last one with no stage-light on the microscope because it burned out (which feels like the most 2020 thing ever) but at least it wasn't a high-clay sample so the water wasn't murky. I started entering data and will continue Monday. Not sure if I'll do any analysis; I have decided I will work Monday and take the rest of the week off, and maybe the following Monday. But then it's back at it, I guess, to prep for next semester.
I mean, what else would I do? There's nowhere I can go, nothing much I can do.
* I tried running to CVS because I had bought a Garnier shampoo and conditioner that were supposedly moisturizing but they made my hair feel like straw and I can't use them (I know people claim that shampoos aren't that different from each other, but I sure notice a difference, and this one was not good for my hair). The shelves were *really* picked over in the store, which alarms me a little. I hope we're not hitting another wave of shortages but I could see it with shipping being snarled up and lots of companies/businesses having people out with COVID.
Or it could just be it's not a very good CVS. I tend to go to Walgreen's for stuff like that instead but I thought maybe CVS would have something different.
Also, they had only one person in the whole store (except, I guess, for the pharmacist) and there was a huge line to pay. And they didn't have a sign up about masking like Walgreen's does and *easily* 75% of the shoppers were unmasked...just....totally. Not even chinstrapping it or wearing it under their nose, no mask at all. So yeah, forget CVS, I am going to Walgreen's even though it's farther, in the future.
I really wish people here were more willing to mask.
* Grace, I've worn a mouthguard at night for *years* now. I think the teeth I broke (2 separate ones) between 2013 and 2015 were partly to tooth grinding from stress, so my dentist fitted me for one like back in 2016. I take care of it and thus far it's lasted well - I know that some insurances only pay for one for a person's whole life, which seems a little silly to me and if this one broke, I think I would just pay out of pocket for a new one, because I was showing some early symptoms of tmj and I don't have those any more, and the only thing I have really changed is using the mouthguard. (I am not sure I could sleep now with it not in there; I tend to get very set in my ways and kind of "princess and the pea" about things and if something isn't "right" I don't sleep)
* My sister-in-law's and niece's gifts are still in limbo. They left Tulsa on the 10th but the only thing they've reported so far at USPS is "in transit" and while I know it's a little thing, I REALLY want them to get there in time for Christmas. (Also, I paid $17 for Priority Mail, and it was supposed to be there *last* Friday. And yeah yeah, Act of God, I know, but maybe they stop charging priority mail rates if they know they can't fulfill it? Or just tell people to send things standard parcel post? Not that that's much cheaper). But yeah. It makes me sad, once again it seems everything is falling apart and breaking down and I admit I double counted my canned goods this evening.....just in case. (I could probably survive for a good while on just that, though I'd be mad about no fresh milk or fresh fruit/vegetables or meat).
I hope if I check tomorrow I'll see that they've moved somewhere closer to their destination.
* I'm currently reading "The Christmas Egg" - which is a Christmas mystery by Mary Kelly. It's an odd little book, a little bit police procedural, a little bit personality study, a little bit wacky. (Fundamentally: a Russian princess who fled the Revolution is found murdered and the treasures she had carried with her in the nearly 40 years since she left Russia are missing. And her grandson, sort of an unsavory character, seems to either be missing or dead....I'm only about halfway through now but I'm enjoying it, it's light enough and I like the characters of the main detectives (Nightingale and Beddoes, who were apparently jokingly referred to as "Night and Bed"). Again this is better written than many mysteries (I think Kelly was actually a more-literary writer) and it does evoke that sort of slightly-postwar Britain: still food rationing going on, but things are steadily getting better, though maybe not for the working-class folks who are the main informants in the story.
* One way I may get through this break - when I am not working, at least - is to just do a lot of reading. When I finish the current book, I've also got SPQR going, and another mystery, and some time I need to go back to "In a Dark Wood Wandering"
I'm also taking part in the CPAAG "Jolabokaflod" which is apparently an Icelandic tradition (the real name is Jólabókaflóð with the thorns and everything that Icelandic uses) where you exchange books and spend much of the holiday reading. I think my book came - I got an unexpected Amazon mailer on the day when the person running the swap said to expect it, and I am pretty sure my book arrived because the person I sent it to mentioned a package from Bookshop arriving, which is where I ordered their book from. And yeah, it's a bit of a gamble - you might wind up sending a book the person already owns, or one they turn out not to like (we were asked to give preferences and to link to wishlists if we had them; my person did not have a wishlist but based on her preference I picked out a slightly- older book in one of the areas she expressed interest in)
(I will not be staying up all night to read on the 24th, though. That's the tradition but I am cranky and headachy if I stay up very late)
I guess if anyone knows about coping with the isolation of a cold, dark winter time at the bottom of the year, it would be Scandinavians, though in normal years you'd have the comfort of other people.
* And yeah, I notice I really miss that, even talking for five or ten minutes from a distance with the FEW people in (the secretary and my department chair) helps my mood somewhat. It's just, not having much in the way of "third places" these days, I don't get that interaction. And the CVS thing today was unsettling with the one clerk and all the unmasked customers.
* Another Scandinavian thing? I broke down and ordered a Blahaj ("blue shark"). This is something that kind of became a cult item from IKEA - a meter-long plush shark toy. Why? It's weirdly cute and of late I have developed a real fondness for larger stuffed animals. I had to order it from Amazon, though, after going through all the hoops of registering with IKEA and putting it in my cart and all (this was a couple months ago) and then finding out, womp womp, that IKEA does not deliver/ship to home addresses - but I COULD drive to Frisco and pick it up. (I don't think so. Not in a pandemic, and not driving to Frisco). So I've been getting IKEA ads for a couple months for nothing. But a third party seller on Amazon listed them, for more money, and yea, I've been burned before by third-party sellers but I decided to chance it, at the worst, I have to demand my money back (like I did with some printer ink that wound up supposedly at a mailing center in California and then hasn't moved from there for two months)
It's not shipped yet though Amazon claims it will be here Tuesday ("Don't You Believe It!*"), but maybe it will get here eventually.
(*That HAS to come from an old commercial or show I never experienced; I only know it as a gag line from some of the old Tom and Jerry cartoons, and obviously it is a reference to something)
* I think tomorrow will be a day of at least partial housecleaning. My kitchen has gotten bad again, there's clutter in the dining room, and I really need to sweep the floors again and put some things away. I tell myself I will be happier in a clean house because I know I have been in the past but sometimes it's hard to overcome the inertia a little.
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