RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING. AGAIN.

2020. Day one-thousand and twelve. Yikes, doesn't it feel like this year has been a thousand days long?

1) We had to have the rest of the trees cut down last week and I'm sad about it!

The big ass tree that fell a couple of weeks ago (a hackberry rather than a persimmon as I reported earlier) actually cracked the trunk of the other big hackberry tree that stood next to it when it fell, so we knew it would have to be cut down as well before it fell.  Steve hired someone to come and cut it down, but because of where it was leaning, he had to cut down the three trees next to it. Our yard looks weird  and way too bright now.

I feel guilty, somehow. I know it's dumb, but I feel like God gave us these amazing trees for all these years, and we must have done something wrong for them to fall/break/have to be cut down. The worst thing I can think of was having a brief, smug thought that I bet a lot of people didn't have such nice trees in their yard, but I was glad we did. I'd like to think that God isn't that vengeful, but pride and destruction and all of that, so who knows?  Anyways, I really do miss our beautiful trees.

2) Heehee, I know I don't have to admit this, but in light of full disclosure, I will. The guy that came to cut down our trees was one of those guys that is tall, fit, and looks like the kind of person who climbs rocks without safety harnesses, rides a bike everywhere and drinks craft beer and may be a vegetarian. Hipstery, if you'll allow me to use the term. Cute and beardy.

Anyways, I was home when he and his coworker knocked off for the day and I looked outside to see if they were gone yet and saw the tree guy had taken off his shirt before getting into his truck. He had a lot of tattoos on his arms and chest, and I was originally looking at them before I noticed he was kind of buff. I caught myself staring and realized that I was acting like a desperate housewife looking at the pool boy!  Steve was home by then and saw me looking out the window, and I said "I'm sorry I'm looking at the handsome, shirtless man in the backyard!" He said "That's ok. If a topless woman was in our backyard, I'd be looking at her!" Touche, Steve. Touche.

3) Friday night Steve, Anthony and I drove down to Jasper to attend a trivia game! We have really missed our Monday trivia nights, and have been playing online trivia hosted by one of the guys who appears on the "It's a Southern Thing" videos. He talked about a live trivia event he was hosting in Jasper at a brewery, now that a lot of the restrictions have been lifted, so we decided to go on a little adventure so we could attend it.

Now, I'm sure you've heard about the COVID-19 numbers in Alabama and that they aren't exactly going down right now. We might not have gone, but the event was basically called "Social Distance Trivia" and was going to be held outside, with tables spread far apart, no contact payments and the trivia was played on our phones instead of on paper. We also had our masks for any inside stuff we needed to do. It was about as safe as going anywhere these days. Except for the fact that we got rained on, and had to play trivia in wet clothes, we had a lot of fun! It was a lot harder than we anticipated, and Steve is a slow typist, so we didn't do so great at first.  However, once we got to the second round, and I started typing, things got better. The hardest part was when he played two songs over one another, the words from one song and the music from another, and we had to tell him the artists (not the song) that were singing/playing. Luckily, Anthony knows every song ever recorded, almost Rainman style. In the end we came in second, and we won a Nerf gun and a Harry Potter coffee mug! Whee!

It was so late when we left, and we still had a long way to drive. We also hadn't eaten dinner, so we had to find a place in Back Forty, Alabama late at night that was still serving food, which wasn't easy. By the time we got home, we were so tired. I had some stuff I wanted to do, but I fell asleep before I could. Being old sucks.

4) We were supposed to be on our trip to Germany, Austria, Prague, and London this week. I'm a little sad, but not nearly as bummed as I thought I might be. I mean, the band is going to attempt to go next year, so there's that. Oddly, this trip never really felt "real" to me anyway, so maybe that's why I wasn't more upset it got cancelled. Who knows? I wouldn't mind a real trip somewhere, though. I know it won't be possible for some time yet, but I would love a nice change of scenery!

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) So...yeah.

Is anyone else just exhausted with the monotony of things these days?  I don't mean to complain, because I have it better than a hell of a lot of other people, but geez. I feel like I'm stuck in a time loop. Groundhog week instead of Groundhog Day.  The fact that we had a 3 day weekend seemed exciting, but it was just three days that were exactly like any other three days.

I don't know why this bothers me at all, really, because it's not bad. I'm not in distress. I have enough food (too much, if you look at me) I've got shelter, I still have a job (or three,) and I have the creature comforts that I'm used to. I think it's the lack of variety of...living. Does that sounds stupid?

SIGH. It feels stupid and supremely ungrateful. I don't know how to feel about it. I'm sure someone would think I am way too privileged and have no right to feel the way I do, because how dare me when other people have it worse, right? That's just how people are these days.

I'd almost start wishing for a little variety in life again, but the way things are going, we'd end up in the middle of an intergalactic trade war or something.

I might be willing to risk it! :)

2) Over the past two weeks we have been wading through The Hobbit trilogy and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended edition, of course.) I say wading through, because we would watch a little bit of each movie, turn it off and do something else, and then watch a little more and so on a so forth.

I'm not the biggest fan of that particular series, but it's been a pretty good diversion. I had forgotten how it was such a big, stinking deal when it came out. It has aged surprisingly well, even if some of the actors have not (HEY-O!) Heehee.

I like to read trivia and information about movies when I'm watching them at home, and one of the little bits I ran across was that the Lord of the Rings was a surprisingly accurate depiction (set in a fantasy setting, of course) of what going to and coming back from war is really like. I don't think I'd ever thought of it like that before, but it's totally true. You've got your young man being basically drafted into action due to his elders mistakes, he sets off with other young men and friends to right the wrongs, and has to fight, getting injured and losing people along the way. Watching the movies with that mind set really made me look at it differently and it actually made the whole thing much more interesting to me this time around.  The most telling part was the end, when the 4 hobbits made it back to the shire. You've got these four friends coming back from war, and they have SEEN some shit. Two of them (Merrie and Pippin) kind of go back to their lives the way they were, one (Sam) takes his experience and betters himself and his situation, and one (Frodo) is too damaged and too fragile to keep on going one the way things used to be. The article I was reading said it was a fairly good depiction of a soldier coming home with PTSD.

We finished watching the Return of the King last night, and looking at it in a new light, it was an oddly poignant movie to watch on Memorial Day. I don't like realistic war movies, because they're too scary, but watching one that uses allegory was surprisingly touching.

However, and I will die on this hill, Frodo was a bitch that needed saving every twelve feet. Sam is the real hero of that movie! TEAM GAMGEE FOR LIFE!

3) The most interesting thing that has happened to us lately is that a huge tree in our backyard fell down! When I say huge, I mean huge. It takes up 3/4 the width of the back yard. Somehow, and I think it has to be providence, it fell perfectly on our property. Some limbs hit the house, some limbs hit Steve's old beater truck he parks in the backyard, it smashed the section of chain link we had on the west side of the house, but it didn't touch anything that wasn't on or near our property! Well, it did knock down some limbs off of our neighbor's cedar tree, but they were hanging over our yard.

It was raining really hard Friday morning, and we were watching TV when we heard something go SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHTHHHHHHHHHHH. My first thought was "Oh, no, the tree fell!" It had always had a lean to it and we had worried for years it would tip over, although we didn't actually think it would. My second thought was "OH, NO IT HIT THE NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE!" because of the direction of the lean. Thankfully, though, it missed everything except our fence. We can't tell for sure, but the roof doesn't seem damaged, and Steve's truck is fine. Now we just have to figure out how to get the danged thing off of our property. My sister and brother in law have a lawn business, and they are coming to look at it and see what they can do, but the tree is so huge that they might only be able to remove some of the branches. We'll have to call an arborist to get the rest. It's going to be so expensive!!!!  Ugh. To add insult to injury, it also cracked the trunk of the tree it was next to, and now that one is only hanging in there because it's supported by another tree. If it falls, it will fall in the center of our yard.

I wish we could afford to have the wood processed so I could keep it and have something made of it, because underneath the bark is is beautiful! It's persimmon wood, so it's difficult to dry, but it's white wood with a dark heart, and I've seen cut pieces and it really is pretty when it's used to make stuff. I am going to try and keep a few chunks to carve something out of, at least. It was, after all, our favorite tree.

STILL ALIVE

Yep. Still here.

If you thought you could get rid of me that easily, you were wrong! HAHAHA! SUCK IT!

Hehehe, sorry. That is just my way of saying that as of this writing, I'm still here! Yay! If you're reading this, it means your still here too! I'm so glad!!!

Today I'm waiting for a meeting I'm having with my not-church boss to discuss not-church business. It's very exciting.

Currently, I can hear Steve doing one of his Very Important Meetings (the kind he'd usually go out of town for, but is doing remotely) through the wall. His business voice is very soporific. If I fall asleep and miss my own meeting, it will be his fault for not having vocal inflections.

So, what else is going on...

OH!  Ok, the last time I wrote I told you about the lawn man weed eating my potato plants! Turns out, they are ok! He cut off the big part of the plant, but it started sprouting again, so it's all good! I'm honestly surprised, but maybe the potato gods took pity on me or something!  Last week I posted a video about it on IG (and accidentally cross posted it to Facebook) and as it turns out, people thought I was crying in that video. I wasn't crying, I was mad! I went back and listened, and it did sound like I was crying. That's embarrassing. No wonder no one ever takes me seriously when I'm angry! This is why I throw things. Heehee!

I've gained an impressive amount of weight in just one month, which is fun. I blame emotional eating. That's pretty much how I deal with stress, which is not good, but I seem to have no control over it. Don't roll your eyes at me. If that's not how you deal, that sounds stupid, but it's how my brain is wired. Eating and sleeping to deal with stress is how my brain works. It's like being addicted to something. I hate it. If I had my druthers, I'd be one of those people who think "Hey, I'm going to go run 10 miles, or bike 50 miles, or lift 400 pounds! That sounds like fun!" but I'm not that person. One day I'll figure out how my body works so I can fix it, I hope. You know, that awful diet we did a couple of years ago was supposed to train me out of that kind of thing, but I genuinely think it only made things worse. It's easy to lose weight when you're systematically starving yourself (and let's be frank, that's what we were doing, albeit with medical supervision) but all it did was make my emotional food dependance worse once I was off of it. What a fucking waste of money and time. I'll just have to deal with the self loathing until I figure something out. Oh well, at least no one who might care has to look at me.

Tangentially related, we have been going on hikes about once a week since all of this started. I think I mentioned that before. I've really enjoyed it, except for last weeks trail. It was muddy and incredibly rocky, like we were walking down a dry riverbed. Halfway, my ankles were screaming at me. It was also mostly downhill, which sounds nice, but when you're trying not to fall on a bunch of smallish, but pointy, rocks, gravity is not your friend. It was easier walking back up that trail, if you can believe it. I like climbing on rocks, but not for an entire 4 or 5 miles.  We did get to see a big well that had been drilled in the mountain back in the day when people lived out there, so that was neat. We threw rocks in it! We plan on going to a much better maintained trail next time. It wasn't all bad, though! It was a beautiful walk. The trees were gorgeous and the wildflowers were blooming. There were streams and big, rocky bluffs. It's easy to forget out beautiful Alabama can be (even though a reminder is literally our state motto!) when you take it for granted, but I'm trying not to do that these days. With the development going on around here, you never know when the pretty stuff will get paved over!

Geez, this post sounds depressing and full of complaints! I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. I'm fine, really. I hope you are too!

HELLO OUT THERE

Hello, fellow Hunkerdowners!

(I stole that greeting from @thelesliejordan because he is a delight and a beacon in the darkness these days. Also, it's apt.)

Hope you're doing well and staying far away from strangers who might breathe viruses on you!

How are we, you ask? Uh, everything's perfectly alright now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

Yeah, we're doing fine. Watching a lot of TV, listening to the inexplicable booming noises that our town is known for that RS Arsenal swears isn't them, and eating way more than is necessary. Probably much like everyone else, except those people who have a handle on nutrition and exercise. I wish I was one of those people. My disordered eating always skews towards the too much, uncontrollable weight gain side, which is currently the case. But you already know that!

Anyways!

No, really, we're good. Nothing exciting going on at all. This is just a rather banal proof life check-in more than anything!

I had to make a mask so I could go into the grocery store the other day. As I mentioned before, I can't sew very well and I realized I needed the mask last minute, so I made it with hot glue and fabric, and unless you want to smell melted glue for an hour, I don't recommend that at all! I can tell you this: I do NOT like wearing the mask. It is made from two layers of tightly woven fabric, so not very breathing friendly. I spent the whole trip shopping trying not to rip it off my face, because I'm claustrophobic to a point where if my breathing is in any way impeded, I will panic. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but I literally had to keep myself from running outside just so I could take it off and breathe. Thankfully I managed to get the things I needed and get out in record time. Hehe, maybe I should always wear one in public to keep myself from impulse shopping!  If I can't breathe, I can't spend money, am I right?

Work has been work. I'm still going into church. It's not so bad, really, but some of the members are driving me mad. They don't mean to, I know, but I had one guy get obsessive about a tithe check that didn't clear. It was a mistake, obviously, but he wouldn't leave me alone about it. I was kind of a jerk to him, which I'm not proud of, but he was getting in touch with me at home, when I couldn't reasonably do anything about it. I kept telling him I'd check on it, but that wasn't good enough. I had to go to church outside of my working hours and find it for him. It had gotten misplaced is all. It wasn't stolen, it wasn't thrown away, it was just misplaced. Thank God I found it. I might have broken quarantine to drive to that's guys house and bitten him!

I did have one come apart, which I thankfully directed to Twitter instead of in person, which probably saved me some grief. Y'all know I hate when people don't answer my questions or avoid a topic of conversation by just not replying. It is, in my opinion, one of the most rude things a person can do. I get that sometimes, especially if a topic is sensitive or personal or whatever, it might be tempting to shut down, but even then, acknowledge that you would rather not answer if nothing else. Don't just stop communicating. Tell me to fuck off if nothing else, that's at least something, but don't leave me hanging, ya know?  I'm great at nonverbal cues, but when I can't look a person in the face, I need to be told stuff. To do that about something that isn't personal or sensitive makes it ten times worse, especially if we are having to rely on alternate forms of communicating where I'm literally waiting on a reply to move forward with something. Are we planning some kind of project together? I need you to tell me stuff. Do you not want to continue with said project? I need to know that. Do you want me to fuck off and leave you alone because you're tired of thinking about it?  Again, tell me to fuck off. I just want to know how to proceed.  This is compounded when it comes from someone you know isn't good at taking verbal hints, so you've learned to be very straightforward  and expect the same from them. If nothing else during this social distancing thing, I'm going to yank my hair out waiting for people to respond to me since I can't be in the same room with them. I found a quote that fits nicely here:

"When we avoid difficult conversations, we trade short term discomfort for long term dysfunction." ~some random person on the Internet

Bleh.

I've started actually working from home for my other job. Well, kind of. I can't really do much of use, so I've been tasked with researching social media strategies so we can revamp our image once things get back to normal. My boss also keeps asking me what I want to focus on while working for her so we can move my job in the direction that I want to go in. I really appreciate that she has my best interests at heart! I mean, I still don't know what I want to do, but I like that she wants me to find joy in the job. That's kind of rare.

Otherwise I'm still painting. Still taking care of my potato plant. Still hanging out with the cat.

Oooh! I also have discovered that I have a million cans of garbanzo beans and I have no idea why! I apparently buy them without thinking about it, and now we have a backlog. Does anyone have any good hummus recipes? I've got to thin the herd! Hehe.

Sorry if I spent most of this entry complaining. Literally, so little is going on that stuff like that feels like a big deal right now. I'm really hoping we get visited by aliens or something so I'll have something interesting to talk about!

So, be good to yourself! Get out when you can, and keep your mind in good shape! Check on your friends and loved ones. They probably need some human contact now and again. :)  Have a great day!