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Musings on Life and Everything

First off, this post is about NO ONE in particular. It is about me, and Nick as well, where indicated. But mostly me. The things I bring up are things that have been bumping around in my head for a day or maybe 10 years. SO, do not assume anything – OR if you must, then assume this is about the fucking socials – which are CHOCK FULL of Teh Stoopid™. I’m trying to get back into blogging with actual content – not only recipes or the book list. This is the first really personal thing I’ve written in a very long time. This is a muscle that will need to be stretched…

First up: I am tired.

I am mentally tired of many, many things – and physically tired, too. I’m old, I’ve been there and done that. My patience for DUMB is pretty much NIL. Let’s address the things I’m tired of first – in a nice list, in no particular order.

I am tired of:
– people who cannot or will not adult and then whine about it and/or expect everyone else to accommodate their bullshit
– people who make bad decisions but refuse to change the way they do things
– people who are fucking EVIL and think that no one knows. Uh, we KNOW, darlin’. WE KNOW.
– gender discussions (sorry, y’all, but I am)
– working for a pittance (this is mostly Nick, since I cannot do SHIT)
– having my hands be too weak to ever work in a pro kitchen again (pay sucked, but I liked it)
– not being able to get above breaking even
– pulling money from the goddam TINY investment account to keep us afloat (we’ll end up with NO investments, eventually)
– just the relentless GRIND with nothing to show for it

Money is, as always, the issue. I’m tired of this, too, but we have to live, so it’s always front and center. If we just had an infusion of, say, even $100k, that would significantly get us going. I wonder if my mother re-wrote the will to leave it all to my brother? I’m betting YES, since I am noncompliant and he is her servant. If she didn’t, it is to be split between us, which means that fucking place is getting SOLD. It’s about 10-12 acres of land in an area that’s growing like crazy. The house is a big ole ill-kept monstrosity and the out buildings (garage and barn) are shit, too. No one will want that crap, but the land is perfect for expanding the subdivision. Zillow says $570k, but the description is 100% wrong – wrong house, only 1 acre lot. I think it’ll be close to a million with all that land. It would be great if I could count on that, but chances are slim June would leave anything to me. Sigh. I’ll have to make do with the vintage vinyl records, some tchochkis and an Asian secretary (desk, not an actual Asian assistant) that I have always loved. I don’t look forward to having to deal with my brother in any case – but if it’s selling that fucking place, I’m betting lawyers will be necessary.

As for physical, aside from my hands that are toast, we’ve stopped drinking during the week and that seems to be helping with sleeping, a little. I bought some herbal tinctures from Apothekary which are supposed to help you not want a glass of wine. We’ll see. It’s pricey AF, so I doubt we’ll use these constantly, but I thought it was worth a shot to get us off the wine.

We have decided to try to make more connections this year. We are on the path of establishing some good connections with old and new friends and that has us excited. I am particularly excited to be able to GO to someone else’s house rather than be the constant host. Being the constant host is exhausting and kind of expensive, too.

I love my reading list and I’m happy to have kept it up for so long! Looks like 2017 is the first full fledged list, with a gap in there for 2019/2020. Lots of books read, with short reviews. Here is the category.

I’m poking around for a p/t WFH job. There are a million listings and most are CRAP. Sigh. We need more money and I need to find something to fucking DO. Fuck.

We’re not coming into this year with a lot of enthusiasm. With the election looming, it’s more trepidation and anxiety than anything else. That fucking orange shitgibbon will run. YOU WATCH. And if he wins, we are FUCKED – ALL OF US. Not the rich as much, but still.

If we could flee, we would, but we cannot. We have no fat stax in the bank and we’re too old. Many countries have age and income requirements and we don’t meet them. We could go illegally, but then what? We don’t have money to live on for several years while we get established in a foreign country. So we are trapped here, with Gilead coming in hot. Hey, at least I can be a Martha since I can cook.

So yeah. Not a chipper post, by any means, but I guess it could be worse. We are mostly healthy and the cars mostly run. I think that’s about as good as it’ll be for us for the foreseeable future. We’re trying to get our shit straight and be more present. And pray the cars don’t die. Happy fucking new year! LOL

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Autumn Arrives!

And with it, the impending birthday! It’s not as fun as it used to be, for sure, but still nice to keep having them, I guess.

Fall is usually a semi-depressive time for me in general and this one is no different. So, let’s get caught up, shall we?

– Last week of September, MRC laid me off, citing ‘labour cost is too high, gotta make cuts’. Hmm. Ok.

– It was fine, tho, because I had a big catering gig at the condos! Great Gatsby party for 75+ ppl! It was a huge success and I was very pleased overall, as were my clients. Shout out to Nick for helping me set up at the party and keep things filled.

– The layoff continued and I decided to poke around for another prep job. Got a callback from a well known BBQ place here in ATL. I’ve got an interview today and I might stage tomorrow. The only drawback is a 7am start time. OUCH. But I think their pay will be better than MRC and I know I’ll do more than be a human veg-o-matic.

– I also contacted MRC to see if they’d be recalling me, because the schedule is perfect and I can do the job with my eyes closed. They said ‘SURE! You can come back and work the line!’. Um. I HATE working the line. I feel like I was demoted. Not happy with that. I’ll work one shift this week, but I hope the BBQ joint is cool and I can take that. It’ll be worth the hellish start time if I can actually cook and learn about BBQ.

– I am also pursuing a retail job at a local well known liquor store. They’ve been incommunicado, so I doubt anything will come of it.

– Just this morning, I got an Indeed lead for a food research company looking for contractors. The pay is bleh ($15), but it’s actual research, so that interests me.

That’s pretty much all that’s going on. The headcold that has plagued me for 2 wks is on the way out. Trying to get back to exercising 3x/wk. I consider working in a kitchen exercise, but I want to try to keep doing weights at least. We’ll see. And with that, I’m off to do said exercise and get ready for my interview. Kinda hope I like the BBQ place despite the hours. I really like being in the kitchen. :)

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Whittling Away the Socials

This is a crosspost from SubStack. I usually post from here to there, I wanted to try something different.

The other day, I logged out of Twitter (“X”), probably for good. I was seeing the exact same posts with different users and slightly different titles – the work of bots, no doubt. It’s bad enough I can’t see anything from anyone I follow, but adding bot posts to a feed that’s already logjammed with ads is egregious. NOPE.

A couple of days ago, I get a mystery warning from FB about a post that “violates cybersecurity rules” and had been removed. Um? What? Of course the post in question was not given. I could not find anything missing from the last month, so one can assume the post is old. Hell, it could be FIVE YEARS OLD for all I know. Whatever, FB, WHATEVER.

THEN, this morning, I pop over to IG (in Chrome) and there’s ANOTHER warning about a comment “violating community rules”, but the popup advising me of this is in a reload loop that cannot be stopped. I tried everything, disabled my ad blockers, etc., to no avail. I could read what it was about in between reloads (of about 1-2 seconds) and the comment they were bitching about was me telling an IG semi-celebrity how much I loved his posts and how helpful his videos are! LOL Yeah, buddy, that is some horrible shit right there! How AWFUL of me! So I closed the tab and tried the app. While not in a reload loop, the app is also disabled with the challenge message and will not refresh. So, just for shits, I tried Safari and IG worked fine. It did not give me the popup at all, so again: WHATEVER. FB has ruined IG just as I said it would.

If the IG app continues to misbehave, I guess I’ll stop using IG as well. It’s a shame, I like to post my food on there. There goes TWO socials in a week. :(

Which brings me to Substack.

I normally post to my blog, then repost here (to Substack), but today, I decided to post here first. Just to see the results. I’ll likely repost this to the blog since it’s turned into a longer essay than I anticipated.

I’m still reading books at a pretty good clip. I’ve read 23 this year with 2 in progress now. I average about 30 books a year – a number I’m proud of. Reading has always been one of my loves. It’s why I have a huge vocabulary and a wide knowledge base. [Edited out the reference to this blog, if you’re here, you know about the Reading List post, right?]

I have a catering gig at the end of the month. It’s the biggest one I’ve done: 75 people! I have done the recipes before, the biggest issue is storage of the prep and finished food pre-party. I’ll figure it out. I’ve got 2 fridges, which helps, and I have several items I can prep early in the week and hold until the gig. I hope IG gets straightened out, I’d like to post this catering gig there. Sigh.

If you like this newsletter, feel free to share it. :)

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FOMO and Current Events

I expect to suffer MUCH FOMO this coming weekend due to DragonCon happening. We are not going this year for the first time in…? Forever? I’ve been OK with it so far, but this weekend will be tough. Going to try to stay away from media as much as I can. (HA! RIGHT. I’ll be all over it and whining the whole time! LOL)

While I’ve not had much to write about of late, as you know from lack of posts, we feel that things are turning a corner, however, for us and our close friends. One friend got a new job, another finally found a house to rent and yet another is buying the house he’s rented for a decade.

The friend buying the house is particularly relevant to us, because he is using some sort of Fannie Mae plan that offers a GRANT to pay the down payment. This could be OUR ticket to buying this place and getting the full on security we want. Renting is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but when renting from an individual, there’s always the chance of the house being sold – which is what happened to my friend who ended up buying. Anyway, this Fannie Mae product is very interesting to me and I’m going to enquire about seeing if we qualify. The business bankruptcy might cockblock us, but even so, by consulting with our friend the mortgage lender, we can at least get a plan to work towards the mortgage, even if we don’t outright qualify now.

Let me tell you: having something to work TOWARDS will make all the difference, I think.

We have been sort of floating since the pub failure. Now that we’re on firmer ground – with Nick’s new job and my p/t job bringing in more money, we’re getting better all round. We are ready for The Next Thing. And I think that Thing will be securing our domicile.

I also just got an enquiry about catering a large (75-100ppl) party in September. I’m not certain I can handle it – it really depends on what they want to do and if they’ll pay. Prepping, cooking and holding that much food is pretty tricksy in my small home kitchen. We’ll see. Shout out to Lauren for hooking me up with the condos in Buckhead. They loved my food and these people are the ones who contact me for catering. So, THANK YOU LAUREN! XO

I guess we’re in good shape for the shape we’re in. I’ll take it! Oh, keep an eye on the reading list, I’ve been updating it quite a bit. I’ve finished some books and I’m adding more! We were in two Goodwills this week, and you know I canNOT stay out of the books! Ciao ciao and have a great week!

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Change is Coming

Last night we were up late. We did a microdose of shrooms and had a very long discussion about how we feel about the games and where we want to go from here.

We made the decision to not do any cons this year.

Yep, you read that right.

We have been feeling obligated to do them – especially Momo, because we know they keep inviting us as a courtesy. They certainly don’t need our small selection of games, but we’ve been with them for a long time and we REALLY appreciate their continued support of us.

We ADORE FWA, and we hate to bail after only one year, but we must.

We may not do cons again, ever. We are old (no joke) and it’s just too physically exhausting to shlep a dozen games back and forth – even with help.

So, Nick will do SFGE, most likely, and that’s it.

We are going to sell off all games that Nick does not want to keep for his personal collection. If you are looking for a game, please to be following POAS on FB.

And the money we get from this sell off will go towards…something. A project that we BOTH can get into and enjoy. We’d love to get a classic car to futz with, but we don’t have a garage. We might get a classic motorcycle. We might start doing autocross with Romeo. We might get back to doing comics. Nick wants to do some gardening. We’ll probably start yoga again. We will DEFINITELY take a real vacation, godsdammit.

We are tired of being OBLIGATED to the games. They have become an anchor and certainly NOT FUN. We’ll keep our main client (MPB) and rotate games in and out of there so they get played. We are wrapping up the last few private clients and cutting them loose, too. Basically we’re shutting down POAS, but not ending it, since we’ll still have a couple of clients. We’ll keep the site up and field enquiries. I’ve got referrals for repairs and monitors.

We are changing our focus and energy. It needs to happen, desperately. We’ve spent almost 10 years on the games and that is enough. Time to move on. We are grateful for all the support we’ve gotten from everyone over the years. THANK YOU.