You can do it! You’ll get through this, and when the party is over, I hope you’ll have some juicy stories to share with us. 
If she gets through the holidays with just one party event I’ll be surprised. happy for her, but surprised.
Of course automatic CC payments don’t count as automatic bank debits. It costs the phone company 3% to run your CC and costs nothing to debit your bank.
Car seat cover update:
So I thought I had only ordered a single cover, but apparently the order I placed was for both front seats, even though the online form only allowed me to specify the correct cutout for one seat or the other. Huh. Got the driver’s seat cover installed this weekend, and I’m pleased with it. Customer service has also been responsive, which is nice. They’ll send me a new passenger side cover with the lumbar cutout.
But I have to ‘field destroy’ the cover with the missing cutout first. 
I know this happens every day – I’ve had friends who dealt with returns in retail, and I’ve seen photos from the ‘Dumpster divers’ who go through the garbage from department stores in search of intact merchandise – but this seems so damned wasteful.
Update on my earlier rant: I’m going home on Friday!! They’ve finally decided that I’m capable of getting around and taking care of myself. I’ll still be using a walker, and using home health service and possibly other assistance services, but at least I’ll be home.
Among other things, I have four weeks of unwatched TV shows on my DVR to catch up on.
What?!!! The end is truly nigh! 
That is good news! Enjoy going home and watching some shows 
I ordered some stuff from a brand X website a couple of days ago. Fortunately nothing of great value. Of course they use a Brand X courier service too. Which you have no way of knowing until after the package is dispatched.
Yesterday morning first thing I get an “order out for delivery” email. But by bedtime it wasn’t delivered. Usually a bad sign.
Today midmorning I get an “order delivered” email. With 3 pictures:
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A closeup picture of the package label with no background. Yup, it’s my package. With my correct address.
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A screenshot of the courier’s nav app, showing where it put the pin near my building’s address, but on the back side where you can’t see the entrance from there. The app is configured to give directions in Spanish.
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A shot of the package on the floor of a mailroom, with a smidgen of USPS standard indoor locking mailboxes in the background. Just one problem. That’s not the flooring of my building, nor any of the other 3 apartment buildings nearby. I went out to check.
I surmise the courier couldn’t figure out where my building entrance was when they came by yesterday with the package. So just dropped it at a random stop someplace today and took a pic for CYA.
This ought to be easy. But everybody doing everything with the least capable lowest bidder and no liability for mistakes leads to this.
We’re good at avoiding holiday parties.
Just last night, one of my poker buddies got in my face and said he really wants me to (finally) come to his “awesome Christmas Eve party”. All I said was “Ooh, sorry, I don’t think I can.”
(I was referring to my introvertedness, not my schedule)
~ ~ ~
One Christmas we just said “I think we’re done having family over for Christmas.” And no said “But you have to!”
So now we have a quiet day, and even get to go to a Christmas Eve service in a magnificent cathedral.
I’m not particularly introverted. But I despise obligation to difficult people. Who are often family. Much easier & better to just say “no” IMO.
Which was the challenge somebody else was having that I was referring to: A “must-attend” event with lots of difficulties. And no willingness to say “no”.
Same issue I had last week.
I borked my ankle Sat night. drove home with one shoe on & an ice pack MacGyvered rubber banded to my ankle. Hopefully it gets fully better quickly. I did have a brace that I wore all day yesterday but took it off as my toes were cold from it being so tight earlier today.
I was stone cold sober but what happens to people who get pulled over & asked to do field sobriety tests (which you should never, ever, ever do) when they obviously cannot due to some medical or physical issue?
Last night I pulled some leftovers out of the fridge to nuke for dinner; this morning I discovered that I never put the rest of said food back in the fridge; now I need to buy lunch.
Are you like my wife? Instead of putting stuff back in the fridge, she just leaves it on the counter right next to the fridge. Not sure if she plans to put it away later and forgets, or just expects the magic kitchen elves to finish her job for her.
After this, there is the big family Christmas party, where the three ruling families combine annually to make one giant conglomerate family. I have been married for 19 years, and have somehow managed to avoid this party every single year. Usually, I get sick. Will this the be the year I finally am healthy enough to get roped into going? Time will tell. I’m quite certain I will know nobody there except the ones who show up from our family. It’s usually like 400 people? But getting smaller. The younger generations just don’t have the stamina. According to my husband, it’s a lot of, “Hi. Who are you again?”
But even so, way less stressful than this one. For one thing, no pictures. Unless you count Santa.
Santa was taking pictures in the Maul this weekend…two weeks before Thanksgiving.
Speaking of which I did see a meme about holiday dates:
- Oct 1 - Oct 31 - Halloween
- Nov 1 - Nov 25 - Christmas
- Nov 26 - Nov 27 - Thanksgiving
- Nov 28 - Dec
2531 - Christmas
Sadly, it’s probably in accurate, more like:
- July 15 - Oct 27 - Halloween
- Oct 28 - Nov 26 - Christmas
Yeah, change it to ACH, then it gets deducted from your checking account, you get the discount, and don’t have to update it when your credit card expires either.
I’ve had to do that before. Once I ordered a custom miniature from Hero Forge, and the figure ended up being so fragile that it broke when I picked it up. Just gentle handling of it made it break. I reported it, and they said they’d give me credit if I broke it into little pieces and sent them photo evidence. So I did all that and got my credit. Though in my case it wasn’t wasteful since the thing was already broken.
Whelp, it’s done. It was weird. We’ll see if they approve of my method of destruction (they only asked for it to be cut in half).
Also, Mom has ‘discovered’ how easy it is to make tiny roasted potatoes, so we won’t even have mashed potatoes this year.
I went to get a bagel on Sunday and the local bagelry was playing the dreidl song. This was the first time I’d seem a business push HANNUKAH a month early.
Our senior cat, who is 15, is probably not going to be with us much longer. I can’t even get her to take in water, and catnip (which she normally loves) doesn’t even get her attention.
Quoting myself for context:
The plot gets thicker. But at least better for me.
A couple hours later building management calls me. They found my package. We have a small back elevator lobby that’s unstaffed, just a place for residents on that side of the building to have a shortcut in & out. Which needs a fob to get into; the doors are always locked. But sometimes package people slip in and just dump a package or several there. Despite the big sign on the door in several languages (including this courier’s Spanish) saying “No deliveries here” and directing them to the real lobby around the corner.
So the package did end up at my building and I did eventually get it into my grubby hands. Yaay! Which only leaves the never-to-be-solved mystery of where the picture of my package in some other building’s mailroom was taken and why that pic was attached to my delivery rather than one where the courier did drop it. A pic of that package with almost any background from that lobby would have clued me/us where to look from the gitgo. Sigh.