This has been yet another week in our lives, but for Lou, Sunday marked the anniversary of another trip around the sun. I got for her Eggs Benedict from Shari’s for breakfast and then she took off to protest Roe v. Wade’s repeal, on the 50th anniversary of the original decision: Bigger Than Roe. It was quite the event and it turns out, shockingly, people still seem believe women don’t deserve bodily rights.
For their birthday dinner Lou wanted falafel so we tried out the local gyro place. It was delicious though I was a little miffed by the restaurants poor estimation skills when reporting their cook times to Door Dash. Also delicious was the chocolate cheese cake we had for dessert. It was a tasty day of food, as we tend to make birthdays.
Monday we had our family celebration of Lou’s birth anniversary. Tris came over on the ferry and brought delicious buttercream frosted cupcakes. We had amazing Indian food for dinner and a wonderful time visiting together.
Now we get a little break before the next phase of Birthmaspalooza; this season is almost over.
Winter is still happening. Despite how mild the winter weather is here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s still less pleasant outside than most of the rest of the year. We’re trying not to let the weather stop us by continuing to get out for our daily walks and enjoying the general out-of-doors, but it’s still the type of weather that is made more pleasant with a warm bowl of soup.
With said, I was really pleased to get out this week for what I’m dubbing “Thursday Hikes” (very original, indeed), the plan being that I’ll be getting out for hikes every Thursday for at least 5 miles. In this case it was ~6 miles and exhausting due mostly, I think, to it being the longest and most strenuous hike I’ve taken since November. Despite being a stretch for me physically, it was absolutely cathartic. I spent the time reflecting, doing some hiking meditation, and it was absolutely beautiful. If only someone had warned me about how hard it is to finish a hike when there are so many cute mushrooms in need of photographed.
A recent report suggests that the Earth’s core has stopped spinning. There is a suggestion in articles that this last happened in the 1970’s and that this happens in a cyclic sort of way. I think it would be interesting to see how that might be tracked backwards through time. What’s the frequency? What events line up with these oscillations? What is the real impact of a giant metal ball in the center of our planet swinging back and forth on everything?!?
This week I picked up the Early Access title Tiny Rogues as it has been on my wishlist for some reason. I’ve put about an hour into it so far and enjoy it. It’s called:
a challenging fantasy rogue-lite bullet-hell dungeon crawler with rpg elements
by the developer and I think that jives. I’m eager to keep playing and see its progression until release. It’s been my Steam-Deck-pick-up-and-play game this week instead of Dead Cells, which I’d gone back to working through relatively recently.
Meanwhile, we’ve begun watching the new The Last of Us. The production quality is absolutely stunning. These perfectly framed recreations of moments from the source material happen over and over- and yet there’s enough variation and addition from the original game to feel fresh.
We continue to catch up on MasterChef, only a decade late, having finished season 6 and moving on now to season 7. That show really deserves to be recut for streaming. We’ve also continued watching Velma with S1E3, and this is a show that I don’t know that I can keep watching except it feels like a train wreck from which you cannot look away. To be clear, though, it’s awful. Mindy Kaling is kind of the worst. We also began watching Shrinking because I can’t not watch a show that features Han Solo / Indiana Jones as the therapist to star Marshal from How I Met Your Mother- so far it’s been rather compelling. We also started Daniel Levy’s The Big Brunch on HBO Max which is fun but feels a little lackluster while simultaneously a net good for the world.
This week we also spoke with a breeder about the possibility of adopting an American Hairless Terrier. The whole process is in the early stages, but we’re really excited about the possibilities. I don’t want to jinx things, so I won’t say much, but I’m really hopeful this all works out. We’re going to do an allergen test with Oz.
Meanwhile, I was informed my by father’s caretaker that his colon cancer has returned. He’d had surgery last year that had reportedly gone well. He’ll be undergoing chemotherapy now and hopefully he’ll be strong enough to come through it. Apparently he doesn’t recall that he has cancer most of the time. He’s not remembered me the last few times that I’ve spoken with him.
In other terrible news, they released the footage of the murder of Tyre Nichols and it’s terribly difficult to watch. It’s terrifying to imagine people abusing their position of power. I have no words to express my dismay, nor my anger over my lack of surprise that it happened. Because I can’t possibly give it any more of me right now, I’ll leave it there and end this post.
There’s much more to “log” and certainly more to follow <3