the mermaid cafe

It cooled off a little but now it's warmed up and gotten all sticky, plus I've got poor unhoused bees buzzing around my window, so I've put the AC on again this evening. Also, why do people think it's okay to teams me after 5 pm on a Friday about something that is in no way urgent and could wait until Monday since it's not relevant until 2027??? Plus, my groceries arrived without the eggs I ordered, which has made me cranky, because I now have to put in an Instacart order so I can do the baking I planned on this weekend! I only have 2 eggs in my fridge atm and I need at least 3 more! ALSO, last evening, I tried to order a muffin pan of the type I prefer (Trudeau Structure 20 cavity mini muffin pan, which they seem to have discontinued, unfortunately) from a website that turned out to be shady (I GUESS) because my bank refused the transaction and cancelled the credit card to prevent any further fraudulent charges, and now I have to wait for them to send me a replacement credit card with a whole new number. Just. Wtf??? I did find one on Poshmark, though, which I ordered successfully. And the bank did provide a list of vendors where I'll have to update the card number, but still, that was a surprise!

What I am trying to say is that I am sweaty and cranky and so glad it's Friday. Whew!

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So here is a thing that happened this week: I have a monthly set of subscription deliveries from Amazon - stuff like dish soap, razor cartridges, paper towels, etc. - and it usually gets delivered the last Tuesday of the month, which was this week. I also had another book I ordered for Baby Miss L since the party got postponed to this weekend. Over the weekend, I get an email that my stuff has shipped. And then on Tuesday, instead of my stuff arriving, I get several emails saying everything in the package was undeliverable and is being refunded. So I check and my credit card has indeed been refunded. Most of it wasn't super necessary, so it was annoying but fine, but I did want the book (How to Catch a Star, recommended by justwontbreak), so I reordered it. I got an email this morning that it had been delivered, and when I went down to the package room, there it was...along with another box from Amazon, containing all the items from my order which had been "undeliverable" and refunded. It wasn't banged up or in bad shape at all, so I don't even know what happened, but I got my stuff, and now I have 2 copies of the book for Baby Miss L (one can stay with the grandparents or be given away, I don't even care). *hands*

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Christmas was lovely! On Christmas Eve, it was just me, my sister, and my brother-in-law, so we ordered in and watched a godawful Hallmark Christmas movie with Teri Hatcher in it. Then they went to bed and I did a Die Hard rewatch - I hadn't seen it in some number of years and for all its flaws, it is still a good time.

Christmas morning, my niece and her husband came over so Baby Miss L could unwrap the first set of presents - she still gets bored with it and wants to play with whatever she's opened instead of opening the next gift, so it's a process - and she LOVED the 30 second dance party button, as I knew she would. I am SO HAPPY I saw it somewhere (Wirecutter, maybe?) and ordered it, and that it arrived in time for me to see her play with it. (The adults got a kick out of it too, but it was hilarious watching her run up and press it each time it ended.) She liked the dinosaur cape and the books (especially "The Little Book of Cheese," which is in the same series as "The Little Book of Pasta," which I got for her last year and which she LOVES - apparently she will just bust out with "FARFALLE!" at any given moment), but did not care about the wings at all. Also when Alyssa told her I would be there, she said, "books!" so she knows I am the books and clothes aunt. *g*

The while elephant swap was pretty hilarious too, and my niece Nicki ended up with the cat-shaped measuring cups and spoons that were my contribution. I got a waterproof bluetooth speaker I'm going to have to set up in the bathroom to have tunes in the shower.

The funfetti cupcakes were a big hit. (I made sure to put cream cheese frosting on the ones for my sister; she tried one with the American buttercream and made the same face I made when I tasted it - it's disgustingly sweet.) There's picture of this year's selection here.

As for gifts, I received a handful of gift cards, a KRYPTO squishmallow from Baby Miss L, a pair of earrings made from chips of vintage pyrex, a stand mixer tree ornament, a copy of Dorrie's Anytime Cakes, some candles, and a pair of super warm and fuzzy grippy socks. I also bought myself a new winter coat, a new 9 x 13" pyrex baking dish, a new vibrator, some new bras, and a new pair of black ankle boots, so I'm doing all right in the gift department. *g*

Yesterday, I got home early and vegged out for most of the day. And then it snowed, just like they said it would!

Today, I made a new batch of dough and tomorrow I'll finish baking off the fig cookies for this year. I also want to try those orange cranberry rolls now that I have room in the fridge to let them rise overnight. I still have so many eggs left over, though, so I see at least one frittata in my future, plus at least one batch of Nadiya's egg wraps, which are delicious and I recommend them highly!

Now I should look into having dinner and maybe watching the Rangers game.

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A few years ago - I feel like it was sometime in mid-2020 - I bought a pillow that was 1. supposed to be "cooling" and 2. supposed to be good for side-sleepers, and reader, I hated it. Also it fucked up my neck a couple of times, but it was not cheap, so I kept using it. Until earlier this year, when I began trying to make my whole sleep experience better. I couldn't find the pillows I'd had prior to purchasing the crimes against my neck pillow, which I'd liked but had worn out, so I ended up getting something similar, on sale from Quince, so I was able to get 2. Which would not have been my first stop, but they were highly rated, down-alternative pillows available in 3 different firmnesses (I went with medium). It turned out to be a good purchase, because I like them so much better than the old side-sleeper pillow, which I now use between my knees.

I also finally ended up buying not a big fluffy white comforter as I was looking for earlier this year, but a white "cooling blanket" from Rest. It was a NYT Wirecutter recommendation, and it was on sale, which made me feel slightly better about spending money on it. And I do like it. I like it enough that I bought a second one in navy blue to switch out while the white one is being washed. The one thing I dislike though, is that to get the full "cooling" effect (I put it in quotes, but the material is some kind of tencel thingy that cools off very quickly, so even when I feel too hot, I can kick it off and pull it back on after a few minutes and it is cool again), is that you can't use it with a top sheet. And I know some people never use a top sheet, but I was not one of those people until I bought this blanket. But the whole point is to have this fancy cool material against your skin. *hands*

It is lighter than a comforter and probably won't work if you need weight on you to sleep, but along with the pillows, and the percale sheets I've been using since the days of frequent hot flashes and night sweats (which have thankfully become much rarer these days), I've found my sleep has definitely improved. It also helps to keep the bedroom as cool as possible. Tbh, being hot is the #1 reason I can't sleep, and even now, after all these improvements, I do still sometimes have a bad night of sleep for whatever reasons, but I feel like it's a lot less often than it used to be.

In other news, I was off today for Election Day, but since I voted by mail, I didn't have to go anywhere. I ended up taking care of some chores around the apartment that needed doing since the cleaning ladies will be coming on Thursday. And now I'm watching the Rangers lose to Carolina. Sigh.

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Friday sundries:

= Wow, have I really not posted since Sunday? This week was pretty busy at work and I guess my Elementary rewatch, plus reading a very very long Batfamily time travel story (still in progress *sobs*), and also watching the Mets' downward spiral, left me uninspired.

= I didn't watch them blow a lead last night and lose, because it's so disheartening - there is like no sense that they can hold a lead or come back if they are losing. I'm only planning to watch tonight to see if they get no-hit by Jacob deGrom on his first return to Citi Field as a Texas Ranger. #the existential futility of being a mets fan <- my tag is too long for DW but it is accurate

= I did make it through week one of our family survivor football league - my niece decided on doing a survivor league this year since it is much less work for everyone than a fantasy league. In it, each week, everyone picks one team to win, and either you win and move on, or you lose and are out, though we are doing it with 2 strikes, so you can lose twice before you are out. And you can only pick each team once, so you can't, like, ride the Packers or whoever to victory every week. My strategy is basically to pick whoever is playing the New Orleans Saints, since they are predicted to be the worst team in the league this year. I made it through last week, anyway. *g*

= Usually I have my groceries delivered on Friday afternoon but somehow in my infinite wisdom last night while I was updating the order, I rescheduled it for Sunday afternoon. And then I was in a meeting from 8:30 am - 11 am this morning, so it was too late to move it back to today when I discovered what I'd done. So I left it where it was and will just order pizza for dinner tonight and then have it breakfast and lunch tomorrow as well!

= Anyway, the world is a vampire. Uh, trash fire. But there will be pizza and baseball and probably sleeping in tomorrow. Hopefully it is cool enough to leave the AC off tonight - it was for most of the week, but then last night was not. And since I had to be up an hour earlier than usual (see above re: 8:30 am meeting), I didn't want to spend precious time tossing and turning because I was too hot to sleep.

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I used decaf to make coffee granita last night, and I had it for dessert this evening along with a dollop of homemade whipped cream, and it seems to have worked out all right - no late evening side effects of caffeine that I can feel. And I think it's better later in the day as a treat than as my morning coffee, because I eat it so quickly and also it's sweet. I don't put any sugar in my regular coffee, but granita requires it so it doesn't freeze solid. I used vanilla sugar but can't really detect the vanilla (or, rather, differentiate it from the vanilla in the whipped cream).

Also, they were on sale, so I bought a pack of paper plates and they made cleanup after cooking so easy that I remembered why I used to use them regularly back before I had a dishwasher. My plan to replace my dead dishwasher is to try the 4th of July sales - Friend L is going to join me at the store to see if the model I want (Bosch) actually fits in the space I've got (and if it goes on sale - it did not for Memorial Day, that I saw, but maybe I don't need the more expensive/top-of-the-line model? It's just that it has something that will allegedly turn the machine off if it senses a leak, which seems like a good thing to have, especially when you live in an apartment above other people and are responsible if any leakage causes damages below you). Anyway, July is a three-paycheck month, which gives me some leeway for paying most of it off ASAP and not increasing my credit card debt any more than I have to.

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Thursday night, I woke up in the middle of the night with what felt like fever chills, and when I woke up yesterday morning, I still felt kind of meh, so I logged off at around 4 and took a nap, and then slept pretty hard last night, but I've still been kind of off and sleepy today. No more fever though, so that's good.

Yesterday, my grocery delivery was supposed to come between 12 pm and 1 pm. I got the text that it had arrived at 12:40, but no one ever rang my bell or delivered my stuff, but the order was marked "delivered" on the Stop and Shop website. So I went downstairs to make sure they didn't leave it in the vestibule and the porter was there and he said nobody had come to deliver anything in the 20 minutes he'd been there. So I called the customer service line, and while I was on hold, they called me, and the CSR was very apologetic about how my groceries had been delivered to the wrong address. *hands* They could either refund or redeliver, so I asked for the redelivery, and they showed up around 6:45 pm last evening. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's super annoying. and I still didn't get my frozen strawberries - the sliced frozen ones were out of stock but the original delivery had whole frozen ones as a replacement, but they were just refunded in the redelivery, so I have to order them again next time and hope they arrive, so I can make the strawberry cupcakes. Sigh.

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As I was preparing to go to bed last night, I got the news that the Mets signed Juan Soto to a record-breaking $765M/15 year contract (with a $75M signing bonus and none of it deferred blah blah blah) and I don't even know, y'all! I wasn't especially keen on signing him (the Mets need pitching first and most of all) but he is a spectacular hitter and so far *knock wood* quite durable. Of course, everyone is wondering how the Mets will Mets it up, but the most hilarious part is Yankees fans' responses. This article made me laugh (as did several of the comments - out loud even): A Guide To Yankees Fans’ Juan Soto Cope.

I suppose he could afford the nearly $1000 lamp I looked up last night - another symptom of my Elementary rewatch. That lamp on the mantlepiece in the brownstone is gorgeous, but I would be terrified of knocking over a $935 (+$50 surcharge and who knows what tax and shipping would be) lamp.

In other news, I stepped away from my desk at around 3:30 this afternoon and baked 92 mini cheesecakes. They are still cooling on racks right now - soon I will defrock them and then I will rearrange my fridge in order to fit them in. Tomorrow is the work party and I cannot wait for it to be done. I already told Assistant J he would be in charge of it next year and he laughed. *hands*

Only 6 more days of work in 2024!

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I've been enjoying my Elementary rewatch, though now that I'm in season 4, I guess it's more of just a watch, since I've never seen these episodes before! Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller are so good together. And now John Noble is around, which is so often a good time. *g* I covet Joan's wardrobe, which is no surprise, though I couldn't pull most of it off (and actually don't like the floppy bows on some of her blouses), but I've found myself really into her comforter - it looks so comfy-cozy. I looked it up online and was surprised to still find a viable site so many years after the fact, but the comforter is still available. Except it's a duvet cover, which means you have to buy the duvet separately, and it costs - just the cover - $348, which is rich even for my extravagant self. Possibly if it were a comforter in and of itself I might consider it, but not when I have to buy something else to put in it (for another $498 at that site)! It's not even really my style, but now I find myself remembering the Westin Heavenly Bed, which had really crisp white sheets and a puffy white comforter and a metric fuckton of pillows and it was so nice to fall into after a busy workday.

I won't pay $348 but if I can find a more affordable puffy white comforter (stuffed with a down alternative), I might get that for myself this Christmas.

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I finally made these chocolate orange cupcakes, but I guess the orange extract is expired, because they just take like fake orange flavored alcohol and are gross. I didn't even know extracts could expire! And I zested 6 oranges, so I'm a little annoyed. But they are easy enough to mix up - you don't need a mixer, just a fork and a spatula, since there's no butter to cream. I'm not even going to bother making the frosting, though it sounded interesting since there's a lot less powdered sugar than American buttercream usually has.

In other news, instead of watching any of the myriad new shows on my list to watch, I started rewatching Elementary and Joan is SO GREAT. I wish they weren't so closely tied to the NYPD and I wish they allowed there to not be a murder sometimes (I mostly don't care about the cases), but overall, everything about Joan and Sherlock's relationship is A++ good.

I only have a 2-day work week this week, and I have so much stuff to do because I was in so many meetings last week that I didn't get a chance to write up all the meetings I was in, and another weekly meeting just got added to my schedule (for Mondays at 9:15! ugh!), though I think it may not start until after Thanksgiving and should only go through March. I hope. But ugh.

Oh, so remember my Stop and Shop order that was unceremoniously cancelled without notice a couple of weeks ago? Well it turns out they were hacked, and mine wasn't the only one that was cancelled. They sent me a nice coupon finally, so I'm going to start buying stuff for Christmas baking.

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It looks like we might be doing a yankee swap game this Christmas, but with dice instead of people just demanding your gift? Idk, my niece is organizing it (of course she is). We're not to spend more than $15. I figured I'd go with something cute, but what? That is where you come in:



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Shirley Temple 7 Up is real! I need it!!!

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I had to go into the office today for a training that was in-person only for reasons that surpass understanding. It was interesting and I'd like to learn more - it will be useful for putting together materials for meetings - but there was no reason it couldn't have been on Zoom.

I am also supposed to go into the office tomorrow for in-person meetings, but my boss was like, "back-to-back days is hard, especially starting on Monday, so if you don't want to, you don't have to" and I was like, "I am no longer the hardy commuter I used to be, so I will wfh tomorrow." I even left the office after the training (~1:30) and finished the workday from my desk at home.

I think it would be more bearable if I could sleep the night before a day in the office, but so far that seems unattainable. I did sleep a full, uninterrupted 7 hours on Saturday night, which was lovely - usually I have to get up once or twice in the middle of the night, but not that night. I attributed it to returning to The Wedge, since I still hate my supposedly well-rated side-sleeper pillow, but it didn't seem to help last night. The anxiety is real! At least it's been nice and cool at night, though I still put both fans on so I can use the comforter to sleep.

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I absolutely did have something else I wanted to say, but now I can't remember what it was. Instead, imagine Baby Miss L enjoying the "spooky-scary" books I got for her to tie in with Halloween!

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An assortment of things, and also, stuff (it's kind of a lot):

+ Got up this morning my usual time (10 minutes before the alarm would have gone off even!) and made the dough for the double chocolate chip cookies. It's chilling in the fridge now, though I guess it's only going to get 23 hours of chilling time. I'm sure it will be fine.

+ Every time I think about buying some specialty item "required" to make pizza at home, I'm reminded that nothing bigger than a 9x13" pan will fit in my oven, and I save money. I would own so many very specific pans (and other equipment, e.g., a pizza peel, a baking stone) if I had a normal oven. Meanwhile, a regular quarter sheet pan works fine. *hands* I do wish I had my grandmother's pizza pan and also her pizza recipe, but alas, I have neither.

+ My plan to make a key lime pie for my birthday was temporarily nixed when Stop and Shop called me to ask which non-key-lime lime juice I would like substituted for the key lime juice I ordered that was not in stock. I was like, well, neither of those since I want to make a key lime pie? So they refunded it, and I ended up ordering it from Amazon, which isn't my favorite thing to do, but I've already got the graham cracker crust and the condensed milk, so I kind of was set on the key lime pie. We'll see if it arrives by Monday.

+ I am going to see Baby Miss L (and the rest of the fam) tomorrow! I am excite! Today, I got several videos and pictures of her in music class, which she loves. 🥰🥰🥰

+ I enjoyed both of these Defector blogs in different ways:

• There Are Three Essential Lawyer Movies by Albert Burneko, which makes me want to rewatch My Cousin Vinny (and watch Michael Clayton for the first time)
  
• ‘The Bear’ Misses What’s Truly Toxic About Fine Dining by Corey Atad, which I think is 1 part "this show isn't what I wanted it to be and so it's wrong" and 1 part accurate, because the season 3 finale has definitely got some self-indulgent nonsense happening in it. ( spoiler )

+ I enjoyed this week's episode of The Acolyte. ( spoilers ) It'll be interesting to see if they can wrap the whole thing up in another 30 minute episode, since I guess the next one is the finale.

+ I don't know much about James Gunn's Superman movie, but this article suggesting they recast Smallville actors in the DCU reboot did something to my BRAIN.

Like, sure, Tom Welling as Jor-El and Erica Durance as Hippolyta would be cool shoutouts, which many DC properties do, and of course I'd enjoy seeing Michael Rosenbaum as another iconic Superman villain as suggested.

But then, my friends, THEN the article goes on to suggest JENSEN ACKLES AS BATMAN and it was like MY BRAIN TURNED INSIDE OUT. 🤯🤯🤯

First of all, how is he old enough??? And yet, he's in his 40s now, I think, which is old enough to be Bruce Wayne as a dad, which is apparently the flavor of Bruce Wayne we are getting (which means ROBIN, and possibly even ROBINS PLURAL???), and supposedly he voiced Batman in one of the games? IDK IDK, but him voicing JASON in Under the Red Hood is what got me to watch that movie, which is what got me to actually watch all the DC animated shows and start reading DC comics after doing NONE OF THAT when I was in Smallville fandom (and actively vowing NOT to read any comics when I was in X-Men movieverse fandom), so having him as Bruce now (instead of, you know, Dean pretending he's Batman) would be like, full circle or something. I don't even know!!! I need help reacting to this!!!

+ I leave you with today's Song of the Day: Bruce Springsteen's Pink Cadillac.

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I decided to run the dishwasher this morning before the cleaning team showed up, and of course, the dishwasher leaked. It has done this sporadically over the last few years, but it's never been easily repeatable, and it can go for years between incidents. So I know I need a new dishwasher, but while it still works 95% of the time, it's kind of hard to spend the money. Otoh, when it requires its own stash of dish towels to sop up the leak, it's kind of hard not to. Sigh.

But the dishes are done, the apartment is clean, and my board materials got sent out today, on time! Woo! I'm still not thrilled we're doing the meeting in person, but I'm meeting L afterwards for dinner, so that's fun. Also fun: on Friday, I will be meeting up with chickletgirl, who I haven't seen since the Before Times. I'm looking forward to that as well.

The walk for GiGi's Playhouse is next weekend, so there's still time to donate if you want. Drop me a line and I'll send you the link! Thank you to everyone who has already donated! <333

In my recent shopping extravaganza for summer clothes for Baby Miss L, I discovered that Old Navy has toddler bathing suits that look like 1. pineapples, and 2. strawberries, so I had to get her one of each, since the pineapple squishmallow is one of her favorites, and she loves to eat strawberries. *hands* I don't make the rules. I also got her a dinosaur robe to wear after she goes in the water. She is gonna be the best-dressed baby at the pool all summer.

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There were 2 things I wanted to do today - take out the recycling, and unload/reload the dishwasher - and I did both, so I feel accomplished!

I had trouble sleeping last night, and had to take a benadryl around 3 am, and then I slept until 11! I think because I had coffee late in the day instead of switching to decaf after 3 pm, as I've been trying to do lately. Joke's on me, though, since when I tried to make this morning's cup of coffee, the Keurig did not respond well. I ordered a new one - on sale even - and it will be here in a week (cheaper that way, and also by next week hopefully I will be able to carry it to the elevator, since all our packages are still left in the lobby instead of returning to the pre-pandemic way of delivering to the doorstep), and I checked and it's almost exactly 2 years since I got this one, and it was about 18 months for the one before that. I guess the heavy daily use takes its toll because the first one lasted 3 years, but most of that was before the pandemic when I only made 1 or 2 cups on the weekend, not 2-3 every day.

I did ask the cardiologist about coffee intake and he was like as long as you're not slamming back 3 cups in a row like shots, 3-4 cups over the course of a day is fine. So I feel less bad about that ill-advised 3rd cup I sometimes have, at least from a health perspective, and it's worked better since I switched to decaf (no real trouble sleeping), though I have yet find a really good decaf coffee. The Peet's tastes burnt to me; the Green Moutain is kind of muddy (I bought some of it though because it's cheap); and the Chockful o'Nuts is probably the best of a bad lot. I haven't tried any others because they are hard to find, but if anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears.

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