Category — Uncategorized

I didn’t make a resolution this year, even though I am mostly keeping up with #15Best, though I now do a mix of word games, reading, and (at least) ten minutes of meditation. I guess this is the fourth year of that, and I do like that by next December, I will once again be able to say that I spent 6,786 minutes of the pandemic feeling good.

Anyway.

I read this and liked it as much as #15Best — the idea of setting more or less intentions. As in, “I want to do more of X,” or “I want to do less of Y.” I want to read more. I want to worry less. I want to call friends and family more. I want to mindlessly scroll through Facebook less. I like that this one is drawn, too.

I do not get haircuts often. As in, I feel like I’m really on top of things if I get one haircut per year. But when the cases started to tick up from omicron, the ChickieNob and I made a rash decision to grab two back-to-back appointments with our hairdresser and chop. it. off.

Okay, not all of it. But a lot of it.

We pulled masks tight over our face and told her that we were good with anything. “Three inches?” she asked. “Four inches?” Anything. Just be quick.

She trimmed a little over three inches off of both of our heads in under 15 minutes. We overtipped knowing we wouldn’t see her again for a while and ran home with the thought “What have I done?” echoing in my head.

But for the first time ever, I had a happy haircut. I showered and restyled my hair when I got home. It felt short — at my shoulders instead of down my back — but also lighter and less trouble. I didn’t realize how much my hair was weighing me down until it was gone.

Pictures coming soon when I have a day where I’m wearing it down vs. twisted in a knot.

On January 1st, we decided to watch the Harry Potter special on HBO as a family. Harry Potter is kind of our thing — not just the books but the movies, too. Josh and I went to the first movie the day before our wedding, and every other movie on opening night. We visited the set outside London for almost 8 hours. I have Ravenclaw robes hanging in my closet.

It should have been a simple decision. We like Harry Potter + we like the movies = watch the special. But, of course, the words of JK Rowling hover over everything, which means that it went from being a simple pleasure to being a complicated pleasure. One that requires discussion before enjoying. Or not enjoying.

The reality is that before the advent of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, probably every artist I liked — and, if we’re being honest, probably every non-artist friend or family member — has had views I’ve disagreed with. I just didn’t know about most of them. I mean, I knew when they shared their views or supported a candidate I didn’t like or gave donations to organizations that do work that negate my existence. But unless their action or words bubbled to the top of the newspaper or a magazine article, I usually didn’t know. But now we know everything. About everyone. Or, at least, we think we do.

So we had a spirited discussion about whether her hurtful, dangerous words on one topic canceled out all of the helpful, supportive thoughts on other topics. Whether Harry Potter was larger than the creator at this point. Should Quidditch change its name. Big questions for what amounts to something that is entertainment for some and life changing for others.

Maybe that was the tipping point. Life changing. We’ve built multiple vacations around these books; taken the kids through London to look for the Ministry of Magic and rode the Hogwarts Express over the aqueduct in Scotland. I read all seven books aloud, my arms wrapped around them during hard scenes. I take to heart Daniel Radcliffe’s words on his Trevor Project letter: “I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you.”

As a Jewish woman, I had to make peace with a complicated reality to read Agatha Christie or teach Knut Hamsun. Life has a way of forcing us to make those decisions over and over again. Some things or people or places make the cut. Others do not. And it’s often personal and inexplicable, even if it makes sense in your own heart.

The twins thought they heard Beorn give a pain wheek a few weeks ago, so I called the vet and asked if we could have an appointment to check for kidney stones. I may be a little neurotic after Linus.

The vet couldn’t in good faith give me an emergency appointment for one pain wheek, especially when Beorn was popcorning around during the phone call and begging for food, but he did fit him in for a normal appointment three weeks later.

Beorn’s first vet visit.

It was also my first time back to the vet since we went to pick up Linus’s paw prints. I was fine until we pulled into a parking spot and waited for the vet to come out and retrieve Beorn. It would be his first time with a stranger; the first time with another person out of my sight because I had to wait outside.

Waiting stoically to go into the vet’s office

I cried. He did fine. Nothing was wrong. He gave me side eye when he returned to the car.

“You really dragged me out here because of one wheek?”

All is well that ends well.

But it should have been Linus’s birthday this week.

It may or may not be International Blog Delurking Week. The first full week of January (January 2 – 8, 2022) is when we’re supposed to slither out of the reading closet and check in with an “I’m here” comment. I’m not sure if anyone does this anymore. Back in the olden days, people would pop up out of the woodwork. Nowadays, not so much.

So let’s see what happens.

So welcome to International Blog Delurking Week. I make a badge every year to mark the occasion, and I give you full permission to right click and grab it for your very own.

My reward for remembering to do this (when I could have just as easily forgotten) is that you have to delurk for this worldwide holiday, which is super serious and important. Right?

It is fairly easy. Leave a comment in the comment section below admitting that you’re here. You can simply raise your hand and meekly admit that you’re here with a simple, one-word “here” comment; or you can proudly raise your hand and tell us all a bit about yourself (my preferred method); or you can tell me the last good book you read (see, I’m trying to make it easy for you by even providing a comment prompt). The point is that I want to know about the people who read me, since there is a huge discrepancy between the number of readers in actuality and the number of readers I actually know are reading. Or a tongue-twister like that.

And that’s all you have to do to celebrate.

So (clears throat to nudge you along), who is here?