fflo | Entries tagged with btt

It's BTT now, or Bowtues Tieday, as one BTT colleague put it:

I'm imagining not joining the fun via email chain for a while, though, now. It's probably good to dial back from the extras of work periodically anyway, right? We are not our jobs. I'll start by not sharing the pic I sent them today, before the punch of alienation.

Glad now that I didn't push myself to go in this morning, when I'd just be having Zooms most of the time before heading out to have an afternoon appointment. I was soooo beat after chorus last night, which was on the heels of the long day of jumping in new folks.

The next two weeks of new-folks-things should be easier now. And maybe I won't go in Friday, which I had a question mark on.

Spring is taking its time, as per usual. A teaser day here or there, but lots of mud. Mud all over the place. I slogged out to the street in my mismatched slip-on Tretorn rubber boots to get yesterday's mail & bring the trash cans. That's maybe gonna be it for me today on going outside, though. Much as I could use a trip to the grocery store, it's a night for rest.

Sometimes I wonder whether people will think that I wear this tie to support or affiliate myself with the local university.

That's never it. But today I am wearing it for the support its colors might indicate.

For the coworker tie crew today, I superimposed myself on the postcard of Kyiv I posted the other day. See that, plus me against my handily adjacent blue & yellow walls, ( back here. )

Big stress time at work, with logistics of new hires, and people going back to the office. I did put in paperwork for more flexibility on going in to the office. Hope they approve it.

Such dread for what's happening in Ukraine. Remember Aleppo? How long ago was that? Time is so fuzzy any more.

I replaced my rear windshield wiper and went to the mall, to walk around and fake drive at the California Cruisin' game in the tiny "fun" store. Getting out was good. Tomorrow's going to be a long sprint, and I'll be surprised if I don't flat-out pass out as soon as I get home.

Here 'tis, BTT already.

It's a Monday on a Tuesday at my work, and my it was jumping in big-time. Lots still to do tonight.

( Me in tie & summer-anticipating library shirt. )

I just ate the rest of my pot roast. Have a bandaid on a palm from a shower door cut---so many skin breaches in the pandemic for me, weirdly---and (cuzza bandaid/cut) don't feel like (the involved) washing (of) the soaking pot, wherein I'll be backing a mac-and-homemade-veggie-chili hot dish I made all the ingredients for yesterday (and ate a quickie version of, just stirring the chili into some macaroni noodles). Otherwise I'd have saved the roast beef & had a brief time of leftovers of two big pots of homemade multi-ingredient nosh.

Tired now. Could go right to sleep. Think I can get away with just one more major work thing tonight. Well, two, really. But one's almost done, I think.

Contemplating seeking formal accommodation to (have the option to?) keep working from home when we're all supposed to go back at the beginning of March. The expectation for me is 3 days a week in the office, so that I'd be setting a good example for the people in my department, who have to come in 2 days a week. And then stay as far apart from each other as possible. But not with everyone with masks on, at our desks.

I want to let myself feel good about taking care of myself, and that's a constant challenge for me. It's exhausting to be continuously re-tuning the caution dial in this virus thing. I'm the one who needs to decide for me, and that's good, but of course it involves what other people are and aren't doing & are and aren't requiring & are and aren't considering necessary, all while the next variant of concern is out there. B2's the one you read about now, if you're feeling like reading (a.k.a. are masochistic). We're all beyond tired of this, but there's no correlation between that and the threat level, other than the way people's being tired of it makes them/us decided Fuck it and take chances more freely. That's understandable, but it's not a good reason for loosening up. Neither is the much-referenced (wishful thinking) "We can't go on like this forever"/"We can't wear masks forever."

Part of my stress is a lack of faith that my employer's decisions about requirements are primarily and resoundingly based in protecting workers. Yeah, I know--- join the club.

Squirrels are back in my house.

They're in a couple of places, at least, and making the cats a tad crazy, with all the scratching and chattering and scrambly racing about.

I got the critter folks on the phone, and it's still pre-season for them: they'll be out tomorrow, walking around the house, while it's a warm day again, and I'm stuck inside in meetings most of the day, before it gets rainy then cold and snowing then very cold, over the next 24 hours after that.

Oh, here's today's tie:

Thing is, it's not that much longer we have the treacherous ice and unplesant chilling air out there. I can take it. Winter doesn't seem so much like it takes forever, now that the virus is out there doing a much better impression of endless-seeming, endless-feeling.

( Me in the tie. )

So....

Those damn squirrels are makin' me a little crazy. They're in the walls, they're in the ceiling--- are they in the closet in the nursery? Are they back in the basement? Is that their weird chirp that sounds like a wind-up plastic toy ratcheting down, too?

I had a meeting with a retirement financials guy today.

And that was so excited that I walked away from the draft of this post there, and just remembered to finish it up before bed. I wanted to go to bed at 8:30, which is weird, but I put on clean sheets (having to go with an eclectic mix, as not as many options were clean as I thought), and that's going to be nice in a moment, even if the fitted sheet is one I sewed up a while ago, by hand, so it has a strange ridge in it.

Maybe I should declare the Ides of every month the day to change sheets. Except I think February isn't one of the months where they fall on the 15th. The Kalends would be easier to manage....

Tonight for supper I went up the street to the bao truck. Hadn't thought of it since fall, and didn't know whether they were operating, but sure nuff, I could order online & go grab 'em. I decided not to be as vegetarian as I've been being, just cuz the very best one is quite nonvegetarian. Mmm. But it's the texture of the bao that's really the thing.

Good BTT night to you.

Here's today's, quickly tied in a meeting. It's already been untied, but it had its moment.

I also have a screen shot of me in it in a meeting, plus a view of the crumply-art version of my Addams Family T-shirt: ( see here. )

So. What's goin on. Went to the/a doc yesterday. Maybe I'm turning the corner on the COVID. There was other good stuff in that appt. Came out of it feeling good about trying to push myself a bit more.

Sunday I took a walk in the (unfortunately partially snow-packed) woods, and didn't collapse after that. Had chorus yesterday, after a flurry of work and that doc's appointment. Only today did I seem to get some backlash from the combo, along with a round of 5 hours of sneezing today. Sure wasn't in the mood for multiple work meetings. But at least things were getting done in all of them. A working meeting is a good meeting.

Finally got my new phone going this weekend. That's another good thing to have taken care of. And I've cleared enough snow from the spate of snow to get to & from the street and in & out of the car and up & down the steps and back & forth across the stoop.

Really want a nap now. Maybe give in and go for it. Naps are good. Naps are listening to the body. And this comfy-big Addams Family T-shirt is soft, and it's quiet in here, apart from the ringing in my ear, the low rumble of what I think is the fridge, the ticking of the Telechron wall clock, and the tapping of my fingers on the keys.

I took off the tie before getting a good shot of it, but here's a pixely artsy version:

( Behind here, me in it, during a meeting. )

'Sbeen a busy week. We have a snowstorm going on, too. Not as deep a snowfall as they'd said. Wet. I dunno. I do sorta miss snow days, but now that I have to have no power or internet to have one, I guess I'd rather not have a snow day.

Thought I'd maybe stopped having lingering COVIDy symptoms, and said so Tuesday afternoon, only to start sneezing Tuesday night, with the sudden super-snot and nasal tingles. Those pretty much went away by the middle of the next day, but now I'm having the digestive biz. Seems like they're not as bad, these spells? Less hard & further between, maybe?

A big change at work a-comin', for our group, in one of our little duties. That's a surprise thing to have to work out this week. I'm going to have earned this coming weekend, that's fer darn sure.

I didn't adjust the color on this shot, but somehow it's weirdly poppin':

You can see the T-shirt, and me enjoying one of many Zoom meetings this week, ( back here. )

Today I feel pretty good. Maybe a little sniffley, and it's cold in here, and I ain't counting any chickens, that's fer ding-dang sure.

Do I go to the store later today? In my duck mask, from the chorus shows?

Oh, that's right. We had the chorus shows this weekend. I had a strong impulse to skip the second one, but I'm glad I went. Even with the limitations and covered faces, it was a bit of a bonding experience. Felt like I chatted with more folks during the wait to go on and the intermissions than I was doing during no-snacks breaks at rehearsals. Which of course I didn't attend a lot of in person.

So this couple of days has been the first time in a long time when my sense of not having been around people abnormally or excessively much has faded away for a while.

The big thing at the moment seems to be deciding whether/when to push my luck and do more, vs. doing more putting up of my feet and resting. It's so hard for it to feel okay to be resting.

Yes, it's Wednesday. Pix from yesterday.

I'm thinking of thinning my tie collection, and this one's up for grabs. Want it? Let me know, and I'll send it to you. It's a smooth one, and easy to tie, for beginners.

( Here's me in it yesterday. )

It was a sneezy day yesterday. During the middle of chorus practice, my nose started running. This was not great, behind a mask. Then at night I was sneezing, and the next morning too. Today it's back to a tingly sinus face/nose thing.

If anything, my long-ish COVID pattern seems to be 2 or 3 days feeling good (except easy to tire); a day or two of digestive problems (sometimes extending to 3 days); 2 or 3 days feeling good (except easy to tire); 1 to 2 days (sometimes extending into a 3rd) of sneezing and runny nose, sudden onset and pretty quick departure; then start the cycle again.

On this schedule I might be having inopportune timing for chorus events this weekend. But I'm glad to be at least aiming to do them.

The band was there for practice Monday. Something about that drummer always perks me right up. I just want to watch her play the drums and enjoy my appreciation for my impression of her. She's pretty quiet, as far as I can tell, and I really know little about her (though one thing I do know is that she's in a long-term partnership). This time she waved at me with a big smile, and that was pretty great.

I like being teased about having a crush on her--- and I'm not big into being teased, per se. But this year there may be a significant added somethin-somethin from the famiilarity of her appearance, for a few days toward the end of each concert cycle. And she's, like, my age, or close to it. Maybe even older than I? I dunno. I wouldn't put it past her to be holding up nicely. :D Also she's a drummer, and I was a drummer, and the drummer within me is a fond thing for me.

Sometimes when I think about what I might've done differently in life, if I'd known earlier what I know now, I think how I'd have more sex more often, and have found ways to be outside more, and more often, and just now I'm hitting on how having music-making with other people more, and more often, would be most worthy. Also going somewhere with filmmaking. And maybe that typography and graphic design thing. That said, I'm grateful to have gotten to where I've gotten with as much of an ability to take care of myself as I've gleaned. And gleaning is what it took. I was in no position earlier on to pursue what I now see could've been gratifying for me, and the whole line of thought is strung through multiplicitously with fantasy. It's sort of bizarre to realize that I've done pretty damned well, in some rudimentary and not-so-rudimentary ways.

Speaking of drumming. Rudiments. Reverse paradiddle. Flam.

We interrupt (extended) Alphabet Week to bring you an installment of Bow Tie Tuesday:

Tied it during this morning's Production Meeting. Then we gave interview tests to somebody a little later.

( Here I am in it for the workmates. )

It's been an active little stretch. Digestive problems continue, for a longer stretch than usual this time, but they didn't stop me from going ahead to chorus practice last night. Had a sloggy decision-making process about that, but have some fresh-ish observations about my thinking, and what was probably skewing it to the stressful.

Stopped working a smidge before dark today (dark IS starting to come a little later!) and drove over to return a cookbook I decided I didn't like after all and ended up stopping at the nearby pet stuff place and buying a little cluster of cat food varieties to try with my cats, here in the more variable cat food availability times.

Made a Mike Brown potato for dinner. That's a baked potato with sauteed veggies and a little cheese. Properly I'd have cut little thin slabs of Monterey Jack, but I settled for some pre-shred mixed cheeses. Now I'm thinking I might hit up a Zoom version of a meeting I used to go to regularly on Tuesday nights, cuz I caught wind they're meeting virtually for this omicron-ly timebeing. Just maybe see what they're up to in the current environment. Odds aren't too bad I'll know at least one person there.

Then I reckon I'll put up my feet and do nuthin'.

That potato is sure giving my stomach something to work on. I hereby hope its continuing progress is smooth and calm and fill-in-a-euphemism.

Hey, look, I put on a bow tie again.

I told the work folks, when I sent around ( a picture of me in it ), that I wanted to show that you could still wear a bow tie after COVID, but that I didn't know yet whether I could play the violin. (Old joke reference.)

After a bit of a dip on Sunday and Monday, I'm feeling better again today. Not gonna make the overdoing it mistake, though.

Yesterday I did do something different. Hung a few little lights on the bush & hedge out front. My occasional old practice of lining windows inside is perhaps not wise, with the chewy cat combo I have right now. Anyway I found these lights in the closet, still new in their post-Christmas-discount boxes, and it seemed like Kismet.

So this evening I'm going to go for some little drive just to get the experience of coming back home to see the lights from the street.

It's a little thing, but the inner child likes lights. My brother's first grammatically complete sentence, we were told, was "See the lights on the trees." (Don't know what mine was.)

The mean man down the block and around the corner is gone. That house sold last year, and I've seen the new guy playing on his hands and knees in the yard with two little kids. And now they've got some pretty lights on the house.

Perhaps I'll go back to having decorative lights around inside the place too. They make some fun ones now that look pretty convenient to deal with.

Yep. I wore the same tie I wore the day before, for the holiday.

I have tomorrow off work but will actually be working. Writing evaluations. Knockin' 'em out.

Was going to do a few tonight, but it's cold, and a warm cat climbed up to join me in the chair when I finished eating the Tuptim it took forever to get (to go), after my blood donation fell through, this time not cuz of anemia but cuz that drive was called off & I missed the email cancelling my appointment, and so I went for a nice long walk instead. I dozed off with the kitty and now it's late. And I still have to send out some work to folks..

This doesn't mean anything to y'all, I know. Just me yammerin' on.

Well, I forgot to take a proper picture of the bowtie before I took it off. So here's a pixely blow-up of the meeting screenshot I sent the coworkers (still the guys, tho now I'm not the only woman).

( Here's the full screenshot. )

So the big crazy thing here is that I just splurged big-time and bought a painting. It's a painting I made an offer on a long time ago, and since then have been settling for a print of, but hadn't forgotten, and recently saw was still available. It feels all daring, having just splurged on the stove, but then this is a wholly different sort of thing, and when I saw Saturday evening on my phone that they'd taken my offer this time, I was so happy.

Supposedly Gertrude Stein said something like you can have clothes or you can have art. I think about that often, though not usually about art, per se, but just about how one has one's resources, money-wise-speaking, and their finiteness can only do so much, but one can ---and, like, should--- decide based on what one wants, values, is delighted by, is enriched with.

Now I dunno if the light on wet pavement cracks in the actual paintings is as magic as it feels in her pictures of her stuff online, but soon I'm going to have the actual oil version of the centerpiece print on the wall next to me. And this time there's none of that knee-jerk self-recrimination. If I see it and it really isn't all that, I can get out of it. But I don't think I'm going to want to. Now I *do* keep feeling some obligation to ask myself if some self-recrimination isn't called for, but that's way different from being flooded by the raw ugliness, and having to fight out from underneath it. And it sure seems like the difference is that this time it's art.

The shovel in the garage is a shovel, but the shovel in the museum is art because of how we're looking at it. We're looking at it, perhaps most importantly, not for its utility. It's the non-utilitarian thing. For its own sake. So the way I so absolutely don't need the painting to serve some function and can't use it for anything practical is part of the glory of going for it.

I feel like I used to know that thing very well, and then I lost track of it, for quite a while.

The actor who beat Matt Amodio on Jeopardy! and then won a bunch of games himself was just felled by a retired person from Oregon I like, so far. I hope people are hanging in there with our new host, whom I also like.

Back in the office again tomorrow. Work stuff is, what's the good word for it--- absorbing. Yet I'm setting it aside better when I'm not at it. I could work all day and all night, now that I can work at home; a long time ago this person called Devra, who was working remotely, talked about the stress of that aspect of that work. She also had a few other chestnuts/nuggets that stuck with me. Funny, I didn't particularly think of her at the time as wise.

Enough! Happy BTT.

Hey, it's Bow Tie Tuesday.

I'm all busy and everything, but at the moment I'm on hold with the store I've been getting vaccinated with. They prompted me to come in for a booster, but there are apparently duplicate "me"s in their system, and to get scheduled I have to talk to a human to get my doppleganger removed. So while I'm waiting, I give you today's tie.

I'm all about a booster, baby. Bring it on. So much less masking around here, and it's about to get cold. I had an idea I might shell out to join the rec center at WCC, with its nice new machines and warm salt water pool, but the way the numbers look around here, with all those bare faces, inside is feeling scarier. I mean, I'm going to chorus, and everyone being vaccinated & wearing masks there can only do so much, yet there is something about how vaccinated people are perhaps on the whole more cautious, or precaution-taking when required to be, anyhow. When we do sectionals in a smaller room, I've been opening windows.

Gotta get some food in me and get back to work now, and then tonight do more to be ready for the handyperson who used to be in chorus, who's going to finish the cabinet-cutting job it turned out I couldn't handle, as there was more complicated cabinet structure to be gotten rid of than I'd initially realized. But I got a Dremel tool in the process of looking into it (and he may use that to do the precise cut through the laminate)---there are lots of uses for those little rotary wonders.

Then the long-awaited and longer-planned-for-and-saved-for stove comes Thursday afternoon. Just in time for the colder weather. I am SO going to bake bread, baby! Will find excuses to use the oven a lot, early on, I imagine. It will also "air fry". Maybe for tater tots? I do like tater tots. They feel like decadent little treats. At Sonic drive-ins, you can get them with American cheese slighty melted on them. They're not too hot when they hand 'em to you, either, so you can just start poppin' in to your mouth right away.

Yeah, I'm hungry.

( Here's the shot I sent the BTT workmates. )

I did tie one on yesterday, ( during a meeting. ) But then I had a cat sitting on me before I took this shot of the tie, and that's why it's a little hairy:

(Maybe you have to look close to see the hair.)

Today's been a long day, including another long "leadership development" Zoom. I'm too fried to think any more, and am thus not going to take advantage of the (even more than usual) quiet at the office to work late here.

My therapist had to reschedule this week, and I'm debating whether to take her up on fitting a session in tomorrow. I kinda like the fact that right now I don't have any meetings or trainings or anything like that scheduled. And there's certainly a lot on my to-do list.

Having a lot of work to get absorbed in is probably good for me. Nonetheless, I'm quite looking forward to a possible week off soon, if I can pull it off. I'll pay for it when returning to dozens and dozens of emails---quite possibly hundreds or hundreds and hundreds (the latter of which would, I guess, be 400 or more, yes?). Sort wish I could catch up on those emails BEFORE taking the time off, but it doesn't work that way.

Thought I had some notecards at the office, to fire off a condolence note, but I guess I took those home, during the sort before moving offices.

Here's a picture of one of the few old stamps I kept, for your potential mild amusement:

Well, there's a lot to talk about, but nuthin' I really feel like talkin' about, so I'll give you today's tie---

--and maybe come back another time and talk.

Happy New Year!

-- me

fflo

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Bow Tie Tuesday
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Bow Tie Tuesday
a late Bow Tie Tuesday report, wee hours of Thursday
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Bow Tie Tuesday
Yesterday was Bow Tie Tuesday.
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belated Bow Tie Tuesday post
Bow Tie Tuesday

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Entries tagged with btt

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

a late Bow Tie Tuesday report, wee hours of Thursday

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

Yesterday was Bow Tie Tuesday.

Bow Tie Tuesday

Bow Tie Tuesday

belated Bow Tie Tuesday post

Bow Tie Tuesday

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December 2025

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