Just Share Something Good

March 7, 2019 6:23 AM

It's been a difficult week. Let's talk about something that isn't related to the news or a source of the never ending stream of nightmare fuel we encounter on the rest of the web. Just share something good with the MetaFilter community. We all could do with a story that brings a smile, or a laugh. Maybe share a photo of a cute pet or baby, or tell us about that slice of pie you enjoyed, whatever it is, just share something good. As always, be kind to yourself and to others. We're all on this rock together.
posted by Fizz to MetaFilter-Related at 6:23 AM (120 comments total)

I've been listening to music to soothe my soul this morning, been jamming to Injury Reserve - Jawbreaker. The lyrics are smart and fierce. Making me smile and nod my head. Definitely worth checking out if you're wanting some rap to kickstart your day. Cheers.
posted by Fizz at 6:36 AM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I farted in bed really loudly last night (spouse was taking a bath, so it was just me and the cat, who shot me a withering look). A minute later, my 2 year old child (who I thought was asleep) shouted from the next room: PAPA! SAY 'EXCUSE ME!'
posted by duffell at 6:43 AM on March 7, 2019 [48 favorites]

So, difficulty abounds, but after a tough day on Tuesday the universe sent me this deliciousness, which I had never seen before (the carton looked different, but hey, Canada). That and my cat and texts (ice cream envy texts, lol) from a friend made for a much better evening.
posted by wellred at 6:48 AM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Spring has sprung down here in Florida, and I couldn't be more pumped. We're covered in flowers and rapidly ripening fruits. Here's a small selection of the coming bounty.
posted by saladin at 6:53 AM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

My boss told me the other day that I was one of about twenty people who applied for this job, and he thinks he made absolutely the right decision hiring me. It was nice.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:00 AM on March 7, 2019 [28 favorites]

My sister is having a tiny 9 person wedding in 3 weeks, and wasn't planning on having bridesmaids, which was fine, but she asked me (and my other sister) to be bridesmaids last weekend! We'd already bought our outfits and we can wear those, and will carry beautiful flowers! She also checked with the venue that it was accessible with seating everywhere for my mobility problems. She is my favourite person in the world.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:05 AM on March 7, 2019 [25 favorites]

@saladin Hiya, neighbor! I have tiny peaches too! But I haven’t gotten my nasturtiums in yet; yours look beautiful (and delicious). Time to soak some seeds.

I took my first egg tempera class yesterday. I kind of sucked at it, but found myself ok with that. Which is HUGE for me. Releasing perfectionism has made me a bolder, happier person. Hooray for learning new things! And one of my books is in a new feminist lit bundle which includes a Jemison story, so I’m stoked! Also, additional pet mice may be arriving soon!
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 7:19 AM on March 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

After losing my beloved old lady cat right before the holidays, I wasn't sure when we'd get another cat. We have two adult male cats right now, four and five years old, but one of them is very much my wife's and the other one is my wife's cat's. (He's not precisely feral, but he's so massively cat-socialized that it took him months to decide petting wasn't gross.) We thought about fostering a pregnant cat so we could socialize the kittens properly, and signed up for a class to qualify to do so, but it wasn't til May.

Last week I was feeling particularly catless, and my wife took me to a couple of local shelters to cheer me up. The first one didn't have anyone that caught my eye, but the second had a feisty little seven-month-old who, while still pretty nervous around people, was also very interested. And when we told the shelter worker that we were willing to take a pair to keep each other amused, she gleefully introduced us to her personal crusade, another seven-month-old with a wonky eye (from a kittenhood herpes infection) and three times as much dignity as would fit into her tiny little tuxedo.

And so here are Wimsey and Harriet. Wimsey, with the white blaze, is a true feral - she was only rescued in January and is not handleable, although I have hopes that she'll warm up. She adores our older cats, though, and seems to be settling in. Harriet, with the white chin, took 36 hours to decide that petting was awesome and I was her monkey, and she helps me type, pee, get into bed, eat food, etc. She's a Helper.

I still miss Dottie, and always will, but it's nice to be owned by a cat again.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:23 AM on March 7, 2019 [58 favorites]

I am not certain this counts as good, exactly, but:

I have a cold. It is annoying, and the most annoying part of it is my poor, dry, chapped nose. I am at work, where soothing creams or vaseline are not available, so in an act of desperation, I just applied lip gloss to my nose.

Vanilla-scented lip gloss.

With glitter.

So now my nose is sparkly and smells like Christmas.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:33 AM on March 7, 2019 [38 favorites]

CVS was selling Valentine's Day candy at between 75 and 90% off. I now have 8 bags of mini Kit Kats ready to go! (I started with 9 bags.)
posted by AugustWest at 7:45 AM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

saladin: Spring has sprung down here in Florida, and I couldn't be more pumped. We're covered in flowers and rapidly ripening fruits.

In north/central New Mexico, we had a little snow-like flurry on Monday, but today we'll get up to the high 50s! But we might get another snow flurry on Monday? At the same time, it's warm enough, somewhere, that pollen is starting to blow around in the wind, so there's that, too.

But I picked up another regional gardening book from the library, which a librarian noticed and said "that's the best book! I refer to it all the time!" so I will dive into it this weekend and plan our yard, finally.

Music of the moment -- Not So Cold: A Warm Wave Compilation - Complete Collection (35 tracks on Amazon; 12 tracks on Bandcamp, for streaming audio associated with the sold out cassette version).


CVS was selling Valentine's Day candy at between 75 and 90% off. I now have 8 bags of mini Kit Kats ready to go! (I started with 9 bags.)

Post-holiday candy sales are the best :) I have a drawer at work full of old candy for quick pick-me-ups (and a toothbrush, to follow up).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:48 AM on March 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

I just want to direct anyone who hasn't seen it to this delightful FPP about warty comb jellies. Come for the scientific factoids, stay for the song parodies about transient anuses.
posted by ActionPopulated at 7:53 AM on March 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

My wife and I are throwing a fancy dinner party on Saturday night. We did one about this same time last year and had a great time doing it, so when I suggested doing another, my wife was enthusiastically on-board. We've spent the past month or so buying a whole kit of dinnerware and decorations so that we can use them for this and any future parties, and I have been testing and tweaking recipes every weekend. I'm cooking Italian this time: a roasted fennel, potato and grape antipasto salad, risotto alla milanese with seared scallops and a pea puree, and baked fish with citrus and fennel. The guests this time are all old friends, some of whom we haven't seen in years. I've had a rough past year, so the fun of doing the planning and the pleasure of cooking a big dinner for good friends has really been a lifeline.
posted by briank at 7:57 AM on March 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

After controlling her diet and giving her two shots a day for two months our diabetic cat went into remission and is now diabetes free! So now we can, you know, actually leave the house because we're not tied down to giving our cat two shots a day. Also, I know how to give a shot now.

But...

As soon as the one cat was cured our other cat stopped eating and pooping for some reason. We took her to the kitty ER and to our regular vet and they didn't find anything wrong with her. I had her scheduled for an ultrasound the next day ($$$) but that night she ate two cans of Fancy Feast. They told me to hold off on the ultrasound but she still wasn't pooping. Well... that night she made the Mother of All Poops. I took one for the team and put gloves on to inspect and sure enough half of it was matted hair and really hard. So I think maybe she had a blockage in her poop hole. After a couple more days of finicky eating she seems to be back on track.

So both cats are well in time for our trip out West. We're going on a train and seeing Burbank, Portland, and Seattle. I am excited.
posted by bondcliff at 8:10 AM on March 7, 2019 [28 favorites]

Some close friends of mine just had a baby yesterday. On my birthday. Just like I asked them to! Woo birthday buddies!
posted by Grither at 8:23 AM on March 7, 2019 [18 favorites]

This was one of the best costumes I saw at Mardi Gras. Thanks to MetaFilter, I now know that she's recreating René Magritte's La magie noire.
posted by ColdChef at 8:26 AM on March 7, 2019 [19 favorites]

My beloved sweet kitten Dent's pica problem was intensifying really badly--he's chewed on and eaten things he shouldn't since he was a baby, but after the emergency surgery to clear his horrible little stomach of hairbands and elastics last fall, we really cracked down on leaving things around that he shouldn't eat. So he developed an obsessive fixation with electrical cords, especially USB cords, and gnawed through five of them in a week, including at least one which was in active use. We'd been trying to enrich his environment with a ripple rug and a pit of ping-pong balls to rummage through and all manner of cat-friendly houseplants and ferret chew sticks for him to bite, but the problem just kept intensifying. He got my thumb in his mouth last month in a bid for the phone cord in my hands and actually bit hard enough to crack my thumbnail. It's healing fine, but... that sucked. He's my sweet boy and he was eating my house and he was going to get himself killed and that was this constant low-grade fear in the back of my head.

Anyway, we took him to the vet for a trial of gabapentin last week because it was increasingly clear that this was not something we could fix with environmental enrichment and attention alone, and there's some evidence that it helps with anxiety and stress that can exacerbate pica. And... glory be, it seems to be working. He slept all night on my head without thoughtfully licking me for the past two nights, and he just doesn't give a shit about obsessively staring at my nightstand drawers where the cords live, but he's playing and he's yelling at me for love and he's just a little bit less hyperactive but also not killing himself.

And the gabapentin is really cheap and easy enough to give him; it's just powder to put on his food. Which he happily eats.

Something went right. He's gonna be okay. That's.... important, right now.
posted by sciatrix at 8:29 AM on March 7, 2019 [34 favorites]

I don't think I've mentioned it on here yet, but at the end of last year, I quit my awful day job of the last eight years. My wife got a job where she was making nearly three times as much as me, but it is also pretty hard on her, as it's an hour and a half of commute my light rail daily, and she has some mental illness and physical debility issues. And my day job with a bad healthcare company was making me increasingly ethically uneasy, as well as overly stressed out, which was not helping either of our health. I'd been sleeping so bad I was completely out of sick leave (I was in fact past out of sick leave because they fucked up how much they gave me when they switched from one PTO pool) from calling in, because I could not bring myself, ethically speaking, to work on real humans' real medical records where I updated the medications they take to maintain their lives and health on two or three hours of sleep, so I was going to get fired soon for calling in too much anyway.

So since the new year started I've effectively been living as a homemaker, working on organizing the ten pounds of shit we've stuffed into this five pound condo, learning to cook (mostly with an Insta-pot) as I'm now in charge of (almost) all food making, and otherwise keeping the place up. I've also been able to put a lot of work into my writing project, working on world and system building for the roleplaying game / campaign setting half of the project, along with character development work for secondary characters in the story. I'm close to done with an alpha draft of the combat rules for the game, which'll mean I can finally move on to other things that'll be more helpful from a worldbuilding perspective. I'm excited for that to happen. Then, once I have more of the world built I think I'll have an easier time writing the story at an acceptable rate.

I still don't know how to sleep but at least no one's life is endangered by it, as long as I don't drive when I'm sleep deprived.
posted by Caduceus at 8:30 AM on March 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

Tuesday was Town Meeting Day which is always something I enjoy since I am a huge civics nerd. I spoke (briefly) at Town Meeting about the recreational opportunities in the Town Forests (which I help manage as part of my job on the Conservation Commission) and I made a little handout about them because i am good with computers. Then over to Town Hall where I helped people ease their ballots into the Scantron machines for five hours straight. It was sort of fun because it was a technological challenge (Where does this go? How? Why did it spit it out at me?) where ultimately everyone will be successful. Yay for that I just finished uploading my little set of photos. I got pretty sick after Valentine's Day and this is basically the first day I've been entirely dressed and vertical for an entire day since then. Rah!
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 8:36 AM on March 7, 2019 [19 favorites]

witchen, how could you tell us that and not have brought us video?!
posted by jacquilynne at 8:42 AM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

At my advanced age, I'm finally buying an apartment (kaynahora -- we haven't closed yet). It's in a great location, just a couple of blocks away from where we live now, and the place itself is nice and light and airy. And it will shave a whole ten minutes (total) off my commute! Man, what I'll be able to do with that extra ten minutes. Seriously, though, I'm really excited about it.
posted by holborne at 8:43 AM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

We adopted our foster bunnies! They had their vet checkup yesterday, and although they were Very Upset about the carrier and the car ride, they have recovered, as you can see from their picture.

They are both adorable, and we are all settling in together.

We're also going to NYC next month for a long weekend, and I am very excited, although we still have some planning to do.
posted by needlegrrl at 8:43 AM on March 7, 2019 [15 favorites]

Last week my kids (who are 3.5yo and 2yo) invented what they call the hug game. My wife sits at one end of our long hallway and I sit at the other end and the two of them run back and forth between us and leap into our arms for a hug at each end. Sometimes my daugher, who is older and taller and runs faster, will arrive right after her brother and I'll have each of them in a hug at the same time.

It is a small thing, but with how awful the world is these days I feel profoundly grateful that I am alive and my wife and children are alive and that we can hold each other.
posted by gauche at 9:09 AM on March 7, 2019 [48 favorites]

I have had my ridiculous cats for just over a week now and I don’t know how they haven’t always been in my life. Jess is snoozing on my lap as I type ( I may never get anything done again) and Pepper is a black hole of cat on the sofa seat. They were very good about going to the vet yesterday and they’re in good health. They don’t seem to care about the vacuum cleaner or the electrician drilling. (I have a shower again! Hallelujah!)

They are tiny, furry bundles of ridiculousness and I loooooove them.
posted by halcyonday at 9:15 AM on March 7, 2019 [18 favorites]

I read Calvin and Hobbes nightly with my nine-year-old and seven-year-old. We just got to this strip last night and they laughed harder than they've ever laughed before in their lives. It was delightful.

(Now they fuss about which one of them gets my C&H collection when I'm dead. There's so much Calvin in both of them.)
posted by Pater Aletheias at 9:56 AM on March 7, 2019 [14 favorites]

Today is my second-to-last Wednesday at my shitty, formerly wonderful, job. I'm ridiculously excited about starting my new job, mostly because I'll get away from my very horrible no good newish boss and the co-worker from hell. I absolutely know that no job is perfect but the new place seems much more functional and my new boss knows my current very horrible no good boss and holds the same views about the boss that I do, so there's something good.

Also, I got tickets for Opening Day!! It's practically a holiday here in Cincinnati and if you don't line up at the stadium the day tickets go on sale, or if you aren't a season ticket holder, getting Opening Day tickets is really hard. But they held a lottery for the chance to get tickets this year and I was selected! And I got tickets! And it's almost baseball season!
posted by cooker girl at 10:02 AM on March 7, 2019 [14 favorites]

From pjern's happy callout, in 2009, after he got the spider bite:

We get one schmoopy day on MetaTalk per year and this one's the one. I'm so happy you're on the mend!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:07 PM on August 5, 2009 [3 favorites +] [!] Other [1/2]: ·≡»

So glad we get more schmoopy days now!
posted by Melismata at 10:18 AM on March 7, 2019 [6 favorites]

My dog, who is not the most affectionate of creatures, reached up to give me a kiss on his own volition when he saw me first thing this morning. And I'm like 90% sure I didn't have food on my face at the time!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 10:32 AM on March 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

Another something good:

I've been having a rough week. My birthday was Sunday, and it was a nice day, but I've been sick since then. And my Dad's in the hospital and my Mom's stressed out about it, and there's nothing I can do from so far away. And last night I came home from work quite late because I had some tough luck with missing bus connections. And when I got home, all laid out on the banister were a half dozen cards from the Mefi Card Club.

I didn't even know my birthday would stay in the Card Club list and that I would get cards this year. I haven't been feeling up to sending them for a few months, so I didn't feel right signing up to request them, but apparently it carried over from last year. I got one late last week and one on Monday, so I knew I was still on the list before yesterday, but coming home to six all at once was a real joy.

Every one of them is beautiful and they all had such nice messages and funny stories in them.

Mefi Card Club is a gift this community gives itself, and I'm so glad I was included in the circle again this year. I hope to get back to cardmaking soon so I can share the joy.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:38 AM on March 7, 2019 [18 favorites]

This is totally double-dipping from another Metatalk thread (see here for original comment) but it's v late in that thread so I'm reposting : Here is an interview I gave (short Twitter video) at the trade show I was at. Stay til the end to see me awkwardly grasping for an answer for an unexpected underhand soft toss of a question. I'm putting it here because I think it's hilarious, and others have called it various forms of "cute", fwiw.

A short stay in Florida was amaaaazing, the sun felt wonderful and invigorating. And my dogs and cat were so happy to see me when I got home. And, almost as good, I was genuinely happy to be home. I haven't really loved my house since we moved in, and it's growing on me now.

The amount that people in this community genuinely care for each other never fails to make me smile and have warm fuzzy feelings.
posted by Fig at 10:43 AM on March 7, 2019 [24 favorites]

I work in a god-forsaken office park by the edge of a highway and, out of total desperation, have taken to wandering around the scraps of scrub woods and vacant lots in my downtime in an effort to get some sun and air during the workday.

Yesterday, while sitting under a huge and obviously quite old oak just downhill from some dumpsters behind an empty warehouse, a beautiful red-shouldered hawk flew overhead, and I heard a pair of jays calling somewhere. There's wild life even in some pretty unlikely places.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:57 AM on March 7, 2019 [19 favorites]

Some months ago I mentioned in a Metatalktail thread that I had finally decided to tackle learning the piano. I'm still very much a beginner and progress is slow because I suck at keeping a disciplined practice schedule...but I am seeing definite progress and that's heartening enough to keep me plonking away at it at some non-zero level of effort.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:57 AM on March 7, 2019 [16 favorites]

Yesterday I passed a very large excavator that had the bucket on backwards. I can only assume they had a very specific reason why that was a good idea, but I can't imagine what that could be. It sure was startling and lightened the end of an otherwise dreary day.
posted by eotvos at 11:05 AM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

the bucket on backwards

That sounded so odd to me that I tried Googling a picture of it. Apparently that's a legit thing. #TIL
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:11 AM on March 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

I don't want to say too much, but a couple months ago my alma mater's library contacted me to let me know they're making an exhibit about my undergrad research. It's a huge honor, and I'm really excited about it. I've been having fun selecting documents to send to them. It's a great way to revisit my research, and I've been thinking a lot about how to select the materials that best capture the spirit of my work. Mostly, it just completely blows my mind that this stuff will be on display, even if I'm sure very few people will spend much time looking at it.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:11 AM on March 7, 2019 [30 favorites]

I sing in a community chorus, and it's been equal parts fun and challenging - I sing tenor despite not really having the range (there's serious shortage of male singers), I don't really have a ton of music theory knowledge, reading music is difficult, etc. For the couple of years I've been doing it, I've generally been feeling like I've been hanging in there but it takes some work.

Anyway, when I showed up to rehearsal this week one of the older tenors (been with the group since its founding) was chatting with a new member and he kind of glanced over in my direction as I came in. The new person sat down next to me and told me, "I hear you're a good person to sit next to!" At the end of the rehearsal, they suggested I audition for one of the solo pieces on the program. So that was a nice little ego boost.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:12 AM on March 7, 2019 [16 favorites]

I handmade gyoza a couple of nights ago and they were sooper tasty
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:40 AM on March 7, 2019 [8 favorites]

My husband texted me this afternoon to say that apparently, our kid can recognize the written form of three words:

STOP

GO

IKEA
posted by joyceanmachine at 11:41 AM on March 7, 2019 [21 favorites]

OMG IT ISN'T WEDNESDAY IT IS THURSDAY

Today is my last Thursday at my shitty job!!!!!!
posted by cooker girl at 11:41 AM on March 7, 2019 [28 favorites]

My impatiens seedlings are coming along -- at least one of them is starting on its second pair of leaves. I have some little pots with saucers arriving soon, and will get some potting soil this weekend, so I can transplant them next week or so. The seeds are very tiny, so it was hard to plant them far apart, but I am happy with what I've got, because I'd read that they are hard to get started.

Impatiens are something my Dad always had around the house, and he taught me to root them in water, thus getting even more of them. I've got a mixed variety of orange, red, and white -- last year, they didn't carry them at the garden center, so now I'll have some. They also grow well in shade, which we've got a lot of around here.

I also have some mint that's rooting in water, that will go into one of the pots. This was some mint that I'd bought at the grocery store (spearmint). I keep a little pot of herbs in the bed next to the front door in summer, so I can go out and clip fresh herbs for cooking.

Thinking about the flower bed on the side of the house. It got cleared out last year, and I was told I can plant whatever I want there. That side gets some sun in the afternoon, and it's on a slope, so I am thinking about what I'd like to put there. Foxglove, hollyhocks, lupine, something that will fit into the woodland atmosphere.

It was minus 5 this morning, but I'm seeing temps in the mid-forties by next weekend, let the melting begin!
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 11:53 AM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

I'm going to the ballet this evening - an Erin Evening, all by myself, with ample red lipstick and fancy earrings - and I'm so excited. I've been clicking around ballet videos on youtube and re-found my favorite Michaela DePrince piece and also Justin Peck + the National.
posted by ChuraChura at 12:12 PM on March 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

I finally took two big bags of recycling in to the recycling center! They'd been sitting in the laundry room next to the side door for months (everything's clean and rinsed so it's fiiiiine) and every time I took the dog out, I'd have to move the bags and they would make this veryloud unearthlyunsettlingunseemly rattleclankrattleclankclank every time I moved them. Or I'd knock them over every time I did laundry and I'd have to pick up scattered bottles.

And now they're gone! Gone!

It's heavenly.
posted by mochapickle at 12:17 PM on March 7, 2019 [12 favorites]

I'm reading The Murderbot Diaries and they are just what I needed this week.
posted by beandip at 1:12 PM on March 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

Let's see... had a really good check-in meeting with my research sponsor today. When the meeting starts off with a riff on "how many meals do Hobbits eat" and the table of sponsor reps gets a giggle out of it, you're off to a good start.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 1:16 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I just read proof on two articles this week, which makes three articles coming out in May. (Unfortunately, I think there is proof looming for a fourth article currently due out in July, which will no doubt appear at the least convenient moment.) And I submitted a book proposal for Book 3 1/2.

Thanks to my mother, who had been looking for a good place to live at least part time in my neck of the woods, I may be co-purchasing a house...most of which was built in 1850. This is simultaneously exciting (it has all the original mouldings! and doors! and the decorative plaster ceilings! and even most of the doorknobs!) and terrifying (it's gigantic and, um, see under "built in 1850"). So I'm now looking at House: The Trilogy.
posted by thomas j wise at 1:21 PM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

Last week, I had to go through an emergency move, on account of a water line to my washer in my apartment apparently spontaneously busting loose while I was out of town.

This actually does turn out to fit in this thread! Because after a few days of phone tag stress (property management, talking with the head of maintenance, insurance adjustor to get a claims case started, all that jazz) while I did need to vacate (water damage is no bueno for flooring, and the unit needed to be cleared),

1) there was another unit just vacated (much less dramatically!) on the same floor, so I didn't need to have an emergency move in dead of winter
2) the movers I got a referral to gave me a great rate
3) My actual personal property loss was, for all practical purposes, zero.

As I've been putting it: as emergency moves from flooding go, I won the lottery.
posted by Drastic at 1:21 PM on March 7, 2019 [9 favorites]

I went on a fabulous date with an absurdly beautiful & intelligent woman and we were kissing goodnight, and as she stepped into the elevator to head down to the parking garage she called out "oh! I can taste your lip balm!" and my little lesbian knees went weak.
posted by missmary6 at 1:24 PM on March 7, 2019 [38 favorites]

The sunflower seedlings are in the greenhouse now, along with the little romanesco seedlings and the zucchini. I've started the Joi Choi seeds indoors as well. In good news the seeds I sowed direct into the back bed are starting to come up- looks like a few pea seeds survived the deluge along with a few radishes. Today and tomorrow are clear, then rain, then a long stretch of clear so I am scrambling to mow the areas for the new beds and set them up. Then I'll have to tarp them and next week fill them with soil. It's gonna be hard work but rewarding.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:24 PM on March 7, 2019 [6 favorites]

I've had a depressed guinea pig for several months after the loss of her associate, waiting for her number to come up with the local rescue for guinea pig bonding. The bonding finally happened a couple of weeks ago and now a tiny ball of squeaks and enthusiasm has moved in. Every time I go into their room and open the curtains in the morning I'm greeted by the sound of tiny paws thundering around the cage as she ricochets off the walls and shouts about how great everything is, especially sunny mornings. My older pig has got a skip in her step again and is developing a good line in matronly grumbling, in between washing tiny pig's ears. It's all pretty heartwarming.
posted by Otto the Magnificent at 1:39 PM on March 7, 2019 [35 favorites]

... oh my god, Otto the Magnificent, I'm gonna need to see pictures of these guinea pigs. Matron grumble pig! Tiny excited pig!
posted by joyceanmachine at 1:47 PM on March 7, 2019 [10 favorites]

The grandbaby learned to walk last month and grows more adorable by the hour. Here's a video of him with one of his favorite toys.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:47 PM on March 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

Been listening to a lot of trance, electronic, dance, rave and ambient music over the winter, which am definitely continuing over the next few personally interesting months here. Yes, I have turned into one of those 50+ people who gets down with the dancefloor beats. Pray for me, brothers and sisters.

It helped a lot in getting some decent headphones for Christmas and I've just, as have been meaning to do for years, finally gone through all of Chicane's album tracks. Amongst many, am particularly liking:

* Overture
* Saltwater
* Early (distinctly Blade Runneresque?)
* Offshore
* Red Skies
* Titles (I may sneak into the cathedral and put this on the music system one day, as it needs the big space)
posted by Wordshore at 2:10 PM on March 7, 2019 [6 favorites]

1. Tiny Pig prepares an ambush; 2. dinnertime. (Hopefully this works, Instagram confuses me.)
posted by Otto the Magnificent at 2:12 PM on March 7, 2019 [13 favorites]

I checked out a book from the library last year and it was really, really great and totally sucked me in but alas, it was long and I couldn't finish before it was due back. I did that dumb thing where I said "I'll remember the title and author!" and then promptly forgot it completely and was really bummed.

But! Then! Someone posted about it on Twitter and I remembered it was the one and I bought a copy so I can properly read the whole thing! It's "The Warmth Of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson.

I'm making a real effort to read physical books this year (so far, so good - I have a corner of my bedroom that's a huge beanbag chair and reading lamp and comfy blanket) and am so pleased that I re-found this gem.
posted by Twicketface at 2:40 PM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

My Kickstarter was funded at 491%!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:46 PM on March 7, 2019 [23 favorites]

My wife made a movie [trailer] and we're leaving in a few hours to go to SXSW!
posted by Uncle at 2:55 PM on March 7, 2019 [15 favorites]

Here is my cute dog!

Also, my son finished his documentary for National History Day. Go check it out, it is on the Vietnamese Refugees, and their triumph and tragedy in American Society
posted by alathia at 2:55 PM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

I’m a 4th year medical student, and it’s Match Day next week. I’ve also got one of my licensing exams next Wednesday. I am, as expected, super nervous. (I’ve had a really shitty year and a half, and so my brain is primed to think that this will end poorly—just one more thing on the shitpile.)

The happy thing is that I have many, many people who are recognizing how stressed out I am, and who are cheering me on and supporting me, including many mefites. Yesterday, I had six cards in my mailbox including one from Homo Neanderthalensis and one from danabanana, along with many Internet greetings on Instagram and Facebook.

I’ve been sent flowers from one aunt, a coffee gift card from another, and have been getting GIFs texted to me by cousins and friends alike. It feels like nearly every time I turn around, someone is doing something to let me know that I am loved, supported, and appreciated.

I can’t describe how much this means to me. The event that set off the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year was one that made me feel utterly worthless. It cut deep canyons through my heart, but this deluge of love is making some headway toward filling them in.
posted by ocherdraco at 3:29 PM on March 7, 2019 [38 favorites]

The alley behind my building finally got plowed, after weeks of navigating ruts in the snow.
posted by ZeusHumms at 3:47 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Earlier today, I fulfilled my dream of owning a Max Mara teddy bear coat (MRSP $3690) thanks to Poshmark and $700. I am ridiculously excited. It is a shallow and materialistic excitement, but I do not give a single fuck. This is my splurge from a recent windfall (the mister's annual trip to Vegas was very successful!), the rest of which is going to boring responsible things like paying off debt.
posted by Ruki at 3:50 PM on March 7, 2019 [9 favorites]

My mom is with my 98 old grandmother who is in the process of dying (bear with me). She woke up today and was lucid and listening (tho can’t speak). She held hands with my mom and looked at her and smiled at her. My mom says she understands what’s happening. We think the smiling is her saying “I love you and I am at peace.”
posted by CMcG at 3:56 PM on March 7, 2019 [16 favorites]

I am eagerly awaiting a custom made carousel for my stupid corner cabinet that I have put up with for 15 years. I find myself having all sorts of cupboard organizing fantasies :)
posted by Calzephyr at 3:57 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

I was pretty sick the past two weeks, and my older kids fed me tea, toast and porridge and fussed over me while watching a lot of rubbish tv with me. I got well enough just in time for a much needed dental appointment yesterday and my grumpy teenager muttered and went out and bought me a pint of Ben and Jerry's so I could actually eat something. The youngest asked to sleep in her own room last night and fell asleep talking about Phryne Fisher and Mulan as role models.

The youngest and I leave for a pilgrimage holiday in Istanbul in a week, another boy is going to Korea with his friends for a long trip and one is starting his first internship with his friends and another is coming back for a long stay and they are all so lovely and I like being around them. Everything else with school and work is often very hard but right now my children are such nice people.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:19 PM on March 7, 2019 [7 favorites]

In the middle of February I was wondering what to do with my 4 days of annual leave left (before the end of March), and I did the numbers and realised that there were 10 EU countries I'd not visited yet while I was still an EU citizen.

So last Wednesday after work, I got on the bus to Bristol airport and then on a plane to Malta, then got a night bus into Valletta, by which time it was 1:30am, and the town was deserted. And I'd not really had a real idea of what Valletta's like, because surely a real inhabited city can't be golden shiny limestone streets between tall limestone buildings with ornate balconies and everything. But no, it is, and I got to walk through the city gawping at everything and telling myself how remarkable it was. And I got to my hotel room after looking out into the harbour and I was kind of remembering I'd booked myself a spare-bedroom style AirBnB-type thing, but no, I had a 3 room suite with an arched bare limestone ceiling and there I was in all that amazing beautiful environment, and with no real clue in advance.

In the morning I wandered round Valletta, then went back to the airport to fly to Porto, which is also gobsmackingly beautiful. And the following day I flew on to Luxembourg, which is also lovely. Then the train overnight to Vienna, and then on to Bratislava and Prague before home.

So that was a huge success and I got 5 of my 10 unvisited countries ticked off (Malta, Portugal, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Czechia). Only hope is that I can repeat this in a week's time with a trip to Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. I've got 3 days left on my InterRail pass.

I've not been pleased with many decisions I've made lately, but this one was good.
posted by ambrosen at 4:29 PM on March 7, 2019 [28 favorites]

Well, since you asked...after a far too long without (November, 2017) I am once again endoggened. This is Paisley! She was found in the Metro East (Illinois side of StL) in December with a litter of ten, all of whom survived and are doing well. Got moved to a foster in early January after her pups were weaned, and then came to live with me ~2 weeks ago. She's pretty great (although needs some lessons on behaving in public. We signed up for group training classes tonight).
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:09 PM on March 7, 2019 [9 favorites]

We’ll be babysitting our one-year-old granddaughter tomorrow night. It will be her first attempt at staying overnight somewhere other than her own crib. Fingers crossed 🤞

Also...Did MeFi just roll out a new style sheet tonight? Suddenly, the fonts look a bit different. I like it 👍
posted by Thorzdad at 5:32 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I made an almond cake tonight with toasted sugar and it's a really tasty thing. Dr Bored for Science and I just had some. Mostly, it'll solve the Breakfast Problem for the next week-ish.

It's also a great way to use up some not-fine-enough for macarons almond flour I bought by mistake.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 6:53 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

I made custard for chocolate ice cream, and chocolate chip cookie dough. Now I’m waiting for the custard to chill enough to churn.
posted by Autumnheart at 7:10 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

Som-thing goooooood

Apparently it turns out I've had a sinus infection for.. a pretty long time? But getting a CT tomorrow and probably targeted antibiotics after that, so maybe I'll stop having sinus pressure + awful snoring in the next few months.

Also I'm getting a new backpack and tent in a couple of weeks for some serious hiking & backpacking this year and I'm pretty excited about that.
posted by curious nu at 7:11 PM on March 7, 2019 [3 favorites]

My supervisor pulled me aside today to say she's recommending me for a raise. She says that I've earned it with the way I've been working so hard through tax season. The raise wouldn't be for a lot more money, but it makes me feel really good to know that my bosses are happy with my work.
posted by rue72 at 7:15 PM on March 7, 2019 [14 favorites]

Two good things:

First, I'm going on a big trip to go give two talks in Europe. This is very good.

Second, in Mid April I'll be having my tonsils out. This is extremely good. Last year I had throat infections five times and in most years before that at least 2 a year and usually more. I'm scared because the recovery is long and hard and I really really love food and I get texture fatigue/satiety easily from smooth foods. But since I had C Diff last summer I have to be very careful with antibiotic use and getting fewer throat infections will help with that.
posted by bilabial at 7:16 PM on March 7, 2019 [12 favorites]

The check engine light popped up on my car last weekend, then yesterday it turned off again, and after having missed two appointments at the dealership this week. Crisis averted...for now.
posted by rhizome at 8:08 PM on March 7, 2019 [2 favorites]

I love each of my kids and all, but: one of them was presented with a damn medal last week. He was only a runner up (so no $1000 or trip to D.C.) but I loved seeing a humble kid get some attention for doing what he loves while helping others.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:13 PM on March 7, 2019 [19 favorites]

I just found out that two MeFites I really like are getting married! Congrats, you crazy kids!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:13 PM on March 7, 2019 [5 favorites]

Look at these majestic yahoos.
posted by drlith at 9:01 PM on March 7, 2019 [10 favorites]

Those are some fine equine zoomies.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:03 PM on March 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

Two documentaries going to Tribeca.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:13 PM on March 7, 2019 [9 favorites]

My 7-year-old is convinced she‘s found a way to put a spell on her little sister, Harry-Potter-style. She‘ll wave her wand and say a made-up word and ‚pull down your diapers!‘ or some such nonsense and sister will do it.

Of course she would also do every silly thing her big sister asks her to do without the ‚magic‘ but apparently this way it‘s twice the fun.
posted by The Toad at 9:21 PM on March 7, 2019 [9 favorites]

Feel free to check out www.zombo.com - I think it will be relevant to your interests.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:38 PM on March 7, 2019

I was able to transfer my GI Bill to my little guy - regs had closed it to careerists that could not reenlist for 4 more years; but they opened the process up to the stay until HYT crowd (stay in until you age out so to speak) until JUL 2019 or so. So yeah. Huge load of future concerns can now go to other purposes.
posted by Afghan Stan at 10:45 PM on March 7, 2019 [4 favorites]

I just got married in the snowy desert to a cute boy with a fancy mohawk 🎊
posted by Snacks at 10:49 PM on March 7, 2019 [46 favorites]

1) It's friday, praise be. I will shortly be eating pizza, and quite a lot of it.

2) I was playing "hide the peg" with my youngest in the back yard this afternoon. On finding the peg, she cries out, "Good job myself!"

Sometimes it's the little things.
posted by smoke at 11:59 PM on March 7, 2019 [17 favorites]

Yesterday I travelled across the country to make a small mural, consisting of two lines from a poem. Except, oops: the lasercut stencil I brought was much too small, due to a miscommunication.

What to do? Well, lasercut stencils are all very nice, but for the first 27 years since I've been a signwriter, I have always used carbon paper to get letters and images from paper to wall (and other surfaces). So if I could get the text printed at the right size, which wasn't a problem, I'd be halfway to a solution.

But then, where to get carbon paper? It's a thing of the past, and my own stock was all the way across the country. It's hard to find an office supplies store that sells it nowadays.

But wait, there were art supplies at hand! When we went to check for carbon paper and found none, we did find a small box of charcoal. Surely it would be possible to apply that to the back of the paper, and then print the letters on the wall by tracing them with a pen?

Reader, it was. The charcoal worked beautifully. And so I managed to finish the mural after all, using the classic, old school methods that signwriters before me used for centuries, and which I had never used before.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:26 AM on March 8, 2019 [17 favorites]

Background: the sun is scary here (especially for pale people like me) so we have a hat as part of the uniform at my school. It's been a battle getting students to accept that they have to wear a hat (because adolescents are invincible, or think they are). Today was a casual dress day for International Women's Day,(and a fundraiser for student welfare) and the majority of students wore their uniform hats, with still more wearing other hats. It was so good to see them take responsibility like that!
posted by freethefeet at 2:09 AM on March 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

I was a little over-confident about the state of my vehicle after driving it into a ditch last week - not because of the ditch-driving itself, but when I got it checked over by a mechanic it turned out to need ~£2.5k of repairs (including the most likely suspects for why I lost control coming around the corner shortly before landing in the ditch, imminent clutch flywheel AND gearbox failure) on a car that's worth £2.4k max in perfect condition (which it categorically isn't, especially with the door mirror torn off from the ditch).

So I'm picking up a new (-to-me) car today! It's not a huge upgrade but it's a few years newer, it has around 30k fewer miles on the clock, it's in much better condition (when I test drove it last weekend I was like "woah this clutch and these brakes are responsive as heck"), and it's a slightly nicer spec than my previous car with a few additional pleasant lifestyle features (the little case in the roof of the car that flips down to put your sunglasses in, and heated seats in the front). I feel incredibly bonus lucky that I can absorb the financial hit on this with minimal discomfort.

Also this is the third car I've bought on my own and the first one where I actually felt comfortable researching, interacting with dealers and even negotiating! I think the dealer and I both feel like we got a good deal on the part exchange valuation, but he doesn't know about the gearbox so I still feel like I did pretty well out of it.

My twenties were largely a hot mess for a lot of reasons but now that I'm cruising towards 30 I finally feel like a real adult who can competently deal with the shit life has to fling at me. And I made this happen through doing a lot of hard work on myself in therapy and beyond. Feels so good.

Another good thing: the long-term-personal-development-aspiration stars have aligned with the drowing-at-work-for-the-last-year stars and I have my first ever direct report joining my team on Monday! At last I'll be able to say "my team" and not be talking about myself in the grandiose third person. I'm feeling equal parts nervous and "you know what, I'm ready and I think I can handle this". And my new person is an internal move so I don't have to teach her how the company works and I already know we get along. I remember how much fun I had working with my first boss as part of a small team and I hope I can recreate some of that atmosphere for her.
posted by terretu at 2:15 AM on March 8, 2019 [10 favorites]

On excavators: Here in Scandinavia a RotoTilt attachment is very common, and you can see operators do all sorts of crazy stuff with their bucket or other implement, not just running it backwards: video

And that concludes the sum total of my knowledge on excavators.
posted by Harald74 at 6:04 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]

We had a meeting with the main teacher of our oldest (14 yo) yesterday, and got a lot of excellent feedback as she's a bright and reflective young person and does very well at school. The best part was when the teacher described them doing a "topical conversation", which is a new-fangled thing they do in schools over here as a sort of test. Two and two students are put together and have to keep a conversation on the topic they have been studying. This is graded. They are expected to keep on for four or five minutes. My kid and her partner rambled on about the Russian Revolution for sixteen minutes!

(The best part for me was that after they were done she told the teacher that she would have to play the recording for dad.)
posted by Harald74 at 6:13 AM on March 8, 2019 [8 favorites]

I had a nice date where my date complained heartily about Jack from Twitter without my prompting, which meant that I didn't have to run the Elon Musk Test. I don't think they want a second date with me, but that's ok, because being reminded that I can connect with people on a first date was really good for me.
posted by sockermom at 6:55 AM on March 8, 2019 [13 favorites]

I've dabbled in yoga for many years but never really stuck with it frequently enough to get better. BUT I started doing daily yoga with adriene videos on December 1st and now.... I'm up to 98 STRAIGHT DAYS OF YOGA. That is insane. I've never been this good at sticking to something before! I can't see any difference but I can FEEL the difference. I can hold the poses longer, I can bend farther, and my arms and legs feel stronger. Also doing the videos at night before I go to bed helps me to calm down from anything sad or troubling that happened during the day. I mean, not completely of course. But it does help.

Also in two weeks I'm going on vacation with my family for the first time in NINETEEN YEARS! I'm really looking forward to wandering around Philly with my parents and sisters like we're all kids again.
posted by silverstatue at 7:07 AM on March 8, 2019 [17 favorites]

A while back, partly as an attempt to alleviate the feelings of utter despair and anger that Brexit kept inducing in me, I started a throwaway writing project. Basically, some absurdist political satire about the Brexit process on Twitter (I wrote a bit about it on Projects at the time) .

Well, it turned out I wasn't the only one desperate for something to laugh, rather than cry, about because lots of people started reading it, sharing it and messaging me frequently to say nice things about how much what I write is helping them too.

In January I was approached by a publisher (Unbound) whose approach to stuff I have always liked. Things escalated from there and last week - to their surprise I think as much as mine - my book became one of their fastest crowdfunded projects.

So a silly creative thing I pretty much wrote for an audience of one (myself) is now something that lots of people regularly tell me they love and are very excited about owning in print.

As a writer, I'm feeling pretty warm and fuzzy right now.

Oh, another one, I had to record a piece on the history of cheese for an American radio station last week (see this Metafilter post for context).

This included, at one point, being told to "read this bit like you want to caress the cheese in a sexy way." Which is the weirdest instruction I've ever had from a producer and is still making me giggle.
posted by garius at 7:35 AM on March 8, 2019 [25 favorites]

Spoiler alert: I am bionic.

1. I reopened my account.
2. After *years* of sciatica, piriformis issues and whatever nonsense different doctors called my hip pain, I pushed past my cognitive dissonance of "I'm too young to need this" and had my hip replaced on Tuesday, got to go home the same day, have been PTing and resting and eating the most amazingly delicious and nutritious meals prepared by Nurse Daughter #2, I'm off the walker AND the painkillers...

and for the first time in 11 years, my hip doesn't hurt.

(and sure, being bionic is great but also, I missed you friends.)
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 7:38 AM on March 8, 2019 [43 favorites]

It's so good to see you again, yes I said yes I will Yes!!!

Great news about being bionic!
posted by cooker girl at 8:08 AM on March 8, 2019 [8 favorites]

The new Masked Intruder album is amazing. My girlfriend loves it even more than I do and I'm the one who got her into the band. Just So You Know is my current favorite track.

Maybe we could find a place
And settle down together
We can live
Wherever you want
No matter what it costs
Baby you just pick the spot
And I'll pick the lock

In sadder news, Yellow either actually got arrested or is sick, but proceeds from the album will go to his medical/legal bills (he really hasn't been playing with the band for the last week or so) which is exactly the kind of heartwarming fallin' in love and doin' crimes thing I'd expect from these hoodlums.
posted by East14thTaco at 8:24 AM on March 8, 2019 [1 favorite]

I had a long Monday and a longer Tuesday at work. I live in Atlanta and have scores of friends in New Orleans celebrating Lundi/Mardi Gras. I was getting pretty sick (i.e., insanely jealous) of seeing videos of their costumed revelry, so I came home on Tuesday night, found a bunch of beads, and my partner and I drank sazeracs while we put beads on the dog, Fritz (my namesake). I'm not sure that Fritz was amused, but he was a good enough sport and we all just had a great night.
posted by Fritzle at 9:41 AM on March 8, 2019 [3 favorites]

Welcome back, yes I said yes I will Yes, you half-steel, demi-robot, super-thing!
posted by wenestvedt at 9:48 AM on March 8, 2019 [7 favorites]

So, Disclaimer: I'm a messy bum who didn't grow up with actual winters.

But I now finally understand spring cleaning not as an abstract concept but a... compelling sickness. A biological compulsion, like salmon spawning and swimming upstream.

We had a few very clear and sunny days recently, and I've been snowed in and effectively hibernating all month, and I went nuts and pulled almost everything out of the shed, swept it all out, did my laundry including the bi-annual washing of the down sleeping bag which takes ALL DAY to frickin' dry.

I deployed a couple of tarps and laid out all of my bedding and stuff in the sun. I hung up all the clothes.

And I'm re-arranging the shed for a more efficient, smaller kitchen and much larger music workstation.

Over the last year and a half or so through hand-me-downs and loans and gifts I've managed to cobble together a functional studio, including a small mixer, a very nice rackmount synth, three MIDI keyboard controllers, two MIDI mixer interfaces, two computers and a bunch of cables. I would like to add a better, newer field recorder and microphone, but I'm going to work with what I have, and I can borrow those if needed.

Which is to support the goal and idea I finally have a new ambient/experimental album in the works and planning stages. It's going to focus on the natural sounds and environment of the Olympic Peninsula and structured in four chapters or movements around the seasons and solar holidays. I've already begun principle field recording for nature sounds and have some great new material thanks to the snow. (Like a small stream happily burbling right along in a small, echoey tunnel of snow.)

Also, hummingbirds sound REALLY COOL when you record them in high definition and then slow down the playback by like 50-90%.

The aesthetic goals are to try to capture and recreate some of the peace, quiet and calm I find around here that I keep talking about, and see if I can't manage to bottle a little bit of it up to share with people.

While this is much lighter and less texturally dark than my previous albums, this will hopefully be some pretty powerful meditation music that isn't the usually light, fluffy panflute fare one might find playing in a massage or yoga studio.
posted by loquacious at 10:28 AM on March 8, 2019 [13 favorites]

Check out this amazing find that moonmilk was so kind to share -- made my day!
posted by Fig at 1:12 PM on March 8, 2019 [11 favorites]

We got engaged!

Possibly relatedly, I have been so weepy and happy lately, and this thread is making me alternately laugh and cry; you good people with all of your good news, and so many very good pets! I love you all and am so thankful for this community ♥
posted by stellaluna at 5:22 PM on March 8, 2019 [17 favorites]

Apropos of nothing: I’m reading Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” for the first time. (In “Prairie Fires,” the author suggests that Rose Wilder Lane was trying to imitate the Main Steeet style in her own books, and I’m a huge RWL buff.)

On page 219:

“She could not determine whether she was checked by fear of him, or by inertia—by dislike of the emotional labor of the “scenes” which would be involved in asserting independence.

Emotional labor. In 1920. I like it.
posted by Melismata at 6:38 PM on March 8, 2019 [6 favorites]

Tomorrow I will attend a toddlers plus parents neighborhood dumpling party. We have been promised all manner of dumplings and pocket foods including Chinese pork and veg dumplings, samosas, Cornish pasties, tamales, manti, apple strudel, lumpia, rugelach, boerek and pelmeni. I can’t wait! I’m bringing an Indian dumpling called modak, rice flour based with a coconut-jaggery-cardamom filling.
posted by peacheater at 7:42 PM on March 8, 2019 [9 favorites]

I had a really nice conversation with a colleague on the bus today, just about random non-science things. She mentioned she was thinking about taking aikido lessons and I got to rave about my kid’s studio. I’ve been feeling kind of alone and distracted recently, stuck in a bad headspace for reasons that aren’t anyone’s fault, and it was nice to just connect with someone about unfraught things.
posted by eirias at 7:45 PM on March 8, 2019 [5 favorites]

My kiddo wanted us to make creampuffs from a recipe in her kids’ cookbook. It seemed way too simple and I’ve never made them before, so of course I did the neurotic thing and looked up a creampuff recipe on Bon Apétit. Way more complicated. But it was important to the kiddo to use her own cookbook, so we made creampuffs the simple, kid-friendly way, and they were perfect and delicious.
posted by Knowyournuts at 8:23 PM on March 8, 2019 [10 favorites]

I keep inventing excuses to use this most delightful little handbag mr. lemon_icing got me for Christmas. I LOVE ROBOTS.
posted by lemon_icing at 2:45 AM on March 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

I’m sitting here on an early Saturday morning in my favorite big overstuffed chair with a VERY warm, sleepy cat on my lap and a book that I’m going to dive back into as soon as I finish posting this. I have no errands or chores that absolutely must be done today. I’m going to make homemade soup this afternoon. Right now things are good.
posted by bookmammal at 4:37 AM on March 9, 2019 [6 favorites]

I'm steadily losing weight. It's good. It's slow, but I'm not dying of hunger or frustration. I'm more comfortable; I sleep better; I look better. I'm also doing some deep personal work that is not what you would call fun, but it is a relief.
posted by Countess Elena at 9:24 AM on March 9, 2019 [8 favorites]

I got some very tasty doughnuts at Whole Foods when I got the miso for soup. I'm certain the chicken, carrot, potato, kale, cabbage, mushroom, onion, miso soup with homemade broth more than makes up for the health deficits of the doughnuts. The soup is delicious, except I forgot it was simmering and singed it. Stuff happens. I comforted myself with the last of the (small) doughnuts.
posted by theora55 at 10:10 AM on March 9, 2019 [4 favorites]

yesterday I realized how relieved I am that our neighbours who were racially offensive to my husband (unintentionally at first but still offensive and then overtly), moved last September. I realize how white Canadian racist* they were to us and how much it upset me as it dragged on. Now I don't run into them at the grocery store or have him alternating between ignoring or glaring at me and it is a gift.

*not overt racism more like extreme white privilege in believing that their values and actions were the goal, and acting like victims when told they were racially offensive. you know the whole notion that it is worse to be told you're being racially offensive that to be racially offensive.

I'm white (my husband is not) and I've been called out on things. I think it's a chance to learn and do better.
posted by biggreenplant at 10:27 AM on March 9, 2019 [3 favorites]

I walked today! It was beautiful, cooly crisp, and slightly warmed by the sun. I did the Adi Shakti chant through the whole thing. It did not keep all the nonesense at bay, but the meditation stayed underneath the distractions, coming right back. I kept reminding myself how much I love walking, and remembered while smiling in the sun. Going to the market now.🙋🌞🌴🌵🐈🐈🐾
posted by Oyéah at 10:45 AM on March 9, 2019 [2 favorites]

My very dear friends just had a baby after trying for almost a decade. She was convinced she was fully infertile, and they could not afford IVF or any other medical interventions to conceive. They are now the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl, and I couldn’t be happier for them.
posted by ananci at 2:14 PM on March 9, 2019 [15 favorites]

Cliff Mass says it's finally done snowing in Seattle for the winter. Today I walked around outdoors without a coat!! It wasn't comfortable necessarily but it was possible and BOY am I ready.
posted by potrzebie at 4:48 PM on March 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

I've been really happy with my art lately. That's it. I'm drawing my characters and they look cuter than ever before.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:37 PM on March 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

I went on a tinder date, and it went really well.
posted by Fig at 8:56 PM on March 10, 2019 [25 favorites]

So this was super random.

The mail on Saturday brought me a letter from Missouri Attorney General's office. It contained a short note and a check. Apparently, my adventure with Linuxgruven, in which I borrowed five grand from my mom (which she only barely had) to sign up for a training course that had a guaranteed well-paying tech job as the graduation present three weeks before the founders of the company took the money and ran off to the Caribbean one step ahead of a fraud investigation, is finally seeing some closure eighteen years later.

The money wasn't much - not a tenth what it cost mom - but it was immensely satisfying. Even better, mom also got a check for the same amount, although I'm not entirely sure why. And there might be more in the future! The note didn't specify what they intended to pay out, but it did categorize this as a "partial payment" and promised more as they collected more of what was due.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 12:28 PM on March 11, 2019 [9 favorites]

My resident hawk returned today from her winter vacation in South America. I was out checking on fence and she flew a couple slow circles about thirty feet above yelling at me a few times for good measure. She usually comes back the last week of February but must have been waiting out the weather. This will be her thirteenth year here. In that time she’s had three different mates and raised 32 chicks. Glad to see her back.
posted by Tenuki at 5:05 PM on March 11, 2019 [16 favorites]

I made panto crusted chicken livers tonight. No longer having an hour commute home has gotten me back into cooking.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:18 PM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]

I went to a client event on Monday, which was the grand opening of a riverfront park that we've been working on for about three years, and which has been promised to the (working-class, majority black) community for almost 20 years.

And now it's open! And it's lovely! And halfway through the opening ceremony, full of speeches from local dignitaries and the community, one of the conservation foundation guys pointed and yelled, "BALD EAGLE! BALD EAGLE!"

And then, to a person, even the folks from the four (4) local news stations that were there and the two dead tree newspapers who sent staffers, we all turned our heads and watched a giant-ass bird fly directly over us, so close you could hear the sound of its wings flapping and see the sunlight gleaming off its head.

It was really cool. The ducks in the river were V E R Y worried.
posted by joyceanmachine at 7:10 AM on March 12, 2019 [10 favorites]

Y'all. I asked the Card Club members for a favor (sending a card to someone who missed the March deadline) expecting a handful of replies, and I have a ton of people volunteering to do this, way more than I was anticipating. Getting to see the love and care this community has for each other in a behind-the-scenes way via running Card Club brings so much joy into my life.

(I should have probably waited to post this until I was caught up on replies -- I'll be sending them either at lunchtime today, or this evening)
posted by Fig at 9:14 AM on March 12, 2019 [7 favorites]

February was awful: car repairs, multiple snow emergencies, vet hospitals, and confirmation that my boss is a sexist prick and it's time to leave my job. I was in desperate need of good, clean tacky fun, something with cheese and glitter. Just in time, the 2019 Eurovision songs are on Spotify. (San Marino, I love you!)

Speaking of vet hospitals. You guys. Our cat with cancer is still alive, eating all the things, cuddling, pooping, sassing her brother, and leering at squirrels. Thanks to the miracle of steroids, we get to shower her with love for awhile longer.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:13 PM on March 12, 2019 [9 favorites]

There is a cat in the household, and it does play favorites, but maybe once a week when I come home from work, she will be waiting inside the door and gives me the "I want some attention" meow. So I head over to the recliner, put the footrest up, and she hops up into my lap and proceeds to head-butt me a few times and purr happily for a ten minute cuddle session. My wife says she is the perfect cat. I cannot disagree.
posted by coppertop at 6:06 PM on March 12, 2019 [8 favorites]

On Monday, I didn’t match into a residency. That was terrifying.

Then I entered the SOAP (the process that aims to fill the remaining open slots with unmatched applicants). This process, while better than the non-process that existed before it (the scramble), is still really really hard. And the odds are terrible. I was assuming the worst.

This year’s SOAP was pretty disastrous. The online system crashed multiple times and programs got applications more than 24 hours after they were submitted. I spent all of Tuesday in a nervous haze, attended to by very kind classmates who wanted to make sure I wasn’t alone.

But then on Wednesday I got one interview, and this morning, I got one offer, and that’s all I needed. I’ll be doing a transitional year program, and I’ll enter next year’s match again.

It’s an opportunity for a fresh start. I’m not excited about going through the Match again, but I am excited about the fact that I have a position, and that I finally actually get to be a doctor.
posted by ocherdraco at 1:13 PM on March 14, 2019 [22 favorites]