Five For Friday on Saturday

1. Well, I did Wednesday Morning School on Thursday, so let's just go along with the chronological chaos, shall we? Yesterday was a weird, stormy day. I slept badly, got up and went for a haircut, came home and stumbled around feeling like crap, then crawled into bed with a book and the dog at four and never really got up again. If NaBloPoMo is a tool for exercising my writing faculties for an entire month, this was an exercise in seeing that I can skip a day and the world will not end because I am NOT a slave to superstition. (I will, however, still write an extra post, because let's not get all crazy now).

Lucy being aggressively comforting

2. I am all in on Nicole's Tiny Secret Festive Season. I have been resistant in the past, and I'm not entirely sure, but I think part of it might have been that our house is so messy normally that I feel like I have to do a massive clear-up before I can decorate, and I don't have the wherewithal to do that in November. But last fall I somehow managed to stretch my usually-hours-or-days-long urge to clean and get rid of stuff into weeks, so this year there is minutes' worth of work to do rather than years. Part of this is because my kids don't live here full time anymore, and wow, that makes me sad, but silver lining!  I figure if I start decorating early, it will cheer up the Bleak November Nights, plus I won't have to do it all in December when I am already crazed. Every time I go to the basement, I bring up a few things.

Snowdrop soap

Not so tiny, but I love him

This is a fall/winter mashup, I guess

3. I went into Marshall's the other day to look for stocking-stuffers and powder room soap - they often have really nice liquid soap that you can't find anywhere else for good prices, and some really hilariously unhinged stuff like cereal-themed eye makeup that I enjoy. I looked at the dog toys, and this just... like, alcohol is really bad for dogs, and I know, I know, the dog can't read, lighten up you humorless scold, but  does this not just kind of scream For The Alcoholic Friend Who Has Everything?

 

4. Along with every sportswear, journaling and makeup retailer in two countries, I have somehow gotten on the email list of something called Medscape, which funnels medical stories and articles to my inbox. This is about the worst thing that can happen for an imaginative hypochondriac, but of course I have trouble looking away. Look at all the previously unsuspected things that are going to kill me or give me dementia! Also, every now and then you get a gem like this:

5. Sometimes I really understand why my mother used to look at me sometimes like she was wondering why I was just not quite right. My friend Sasha (HI SASHA) made me this adorable bookworm. "So cute", I thought, "I wonder why he's reading like that. Is it a gentle dig at how I make things unnecessarily complicated?"

......."oh".