Somewhere Over The Rainbow

I can't believe that four months (and a day) have already passed in 2026. Part of me wants to put on the brakes and the other part of me wants to speed through the next two years eight months and eighteen days (but who's counting).

I wrote a thing. Strange Mercies - Desert Hearts - Cay Rivvers/Vivian Bell. It's angsty

Mixed bag in the PWHL playoffs today. Montreal lost to Minnesota (boo.) But beloved Ottawa turned the tide and tied things up in their series against Boston (yay!) Now I have to wait until Tuesday for the next game.

The Blues minor league team is doing very well in their playoff series, but they still have a horrible human being employed by the team so although I'm happy for most of the players and the coach, I still feel like I can't outright root for them because of this awful person. I'm hoping that scouts from other teams will see him play and decide they need to have him so we can scuttle him off during the off-season. (He's not officially under contract with the Blues like many of the other players, but at the same time, I would rather he just not be there at all.)

Lots of things to look forward to this week- I have a friend visiting from Chicago tomorrow, draft lottery on Tuesday (which you will hear all about), choir on Thursday, and probably shopping with my nephew for tools one day this week.

That's all I've got for now. See you all tomorrow!

Which was nice because next Sunday won't be.

Did most of the usual Sunday stuff- laundry, church, grocery shopping for the week. Came home and barbecued pork steaks for dinner (I'll have one for dinner tomorrow as well). Then went to the bookstore to look at books and grab a card for mom (since I forgot to get one at the grocery store when I was there). I saw a Sapphic romance about high school football coaches, but that seemed very close to the one I just read, so I went on another track and grabbed a sci-fi book with some Sapphic elements to it. Not sure when I'll get to start it but it might be a while from now since I'm committing to read "Parable of the Sower" with a group from church. I got about a third of the way through it before, but had to stop because the future that Butler saw was incredibly close to our current reality.

Watched two more episodes of "Discovery" and I'm liking it more and more as time goes on.

That's it for now. See you all tomorrow!

It's practically Friday. I'm glad. It's going to take me a bit to get into a rhythm. It's April 2 and I'm already tired of people calling me about their air conditioners. *sigh*

Mom and I have been watching "The Count of Monte Cristo" miniseries on PBS. It's been quite enjoyable so far. I loved the book. It's been a long time since I've read it- I think I gave my copy to my nephew at one point when he was needing something on the lighter side. I'll have to ask him if he still has it.

My sister called to tell me that there was a playoff pre-sale happening. The Blues have an extremely slim chance of making it, but looking at the price (it would be a little over $300 for the whole series), it was a no-brainer to take a pass on them this year. Since we're going to see the Draft, I'm perfectly fine with them tanking and missing the playoffs by a mile.

That's all I've got for now. See you tomorrow.

It's back to work tomorrow. I think having a more regular schedule will help as I have fallen out of practice with some things this week. And I just remembered I need to make up my yogurt and get my lunch together for tomorrow- see what I mean by being out of practice?

I went for lunch with a friend from church today. Sort of an out of the blue thing, but it was nice to be able to socialize with someone who isn't in my normal circles.

We're clicking along with our "Star Trek: Discovery" watch. It's pleasant. I'm a little ticked that they have declared that "Starfleet Academy" will be done after next season. There were a bunch of traditionalists that didn't like it and the usual anti-woke crowd (some of who may be in charge at Paramount now) so it was doomed. Oh well, the fanfic will live on and I'll write odes to Caleb Mir and the things that happen to him in years three and four.

That's all I've got for now. See you all tomorrow!

Happy International Women's Day to all who celebrate. I was thinking about my journey of feminism and how even not so long ago (within the last 10 years), I was still reluctant to call myself a feminist. And in the early 2000s, I would swear up and down that I would never vote for a woman to be President of the United States. (I hadn't had the Donald Trump experience at that point, so it was easy for me to believe that.) But the older I've gotten, the more progressive I've become and the less apt I am to see things the way I saw them previously. Feminism is no longer a label I shun. It's one I embrace. And the more I hear from men and men's opinions, the more I want to see what women could do if they ran the world. That's not to say there aren't women who are assholes and racists and homophobes and predators, but if we're looking for a gentler world, I'm not sure men in charge is the answer.

We had an absolutely beautiful day today. I went to the bookstore and picked up two books- "Play You For It" by Samantha Saldiver, a Sapphic basketball romance between a coach and a journalist, and "Vampires of El Norte" by Isabel Canas, which was recommended during the Snowflake Challenge a couple of years ago (because woman cannot live on Sapphic romance novels alone). And then I sat outside for a half an hour and read the first chapters of both books. It was lovely.

That's all I've got for now. See you tomorrow!

Did the normal Saturday stuff- grocery shopping, both workouts (I thought about skipping weight training but there really wasn't anything better to do). Then watched/slept through the Bronze Medal game (was hoping that Slovakia could play the Cinderella card, but it wasn't to be). Went to dinner and then to the play my brother was in. It was good and he did well as usual.

I've done a teeny bit of writing today, trying to finish one of my WIPs, but really don't know where I'm going with it (which may be why I'd tabled it in the first place.) I might spend a few minutes after I'm done here working on something.

Gold Medal game tomorrow. Dad has "Miracle" on in the other room. I love that movie and, of course, I'm of an age when I remember the game somewhat, but what I really remember was being in church that Sunday and just wanting to go home to watch the end of the Gold Medal game and being worried that Finland was going to win. I think they mentioned the score of the game during the closing announcements. We did get home in time to watch it though. It's funny because it'll be the other way around tomorrow- wondering if the game will be over in time to get to church.

And then the Jordan Binnington (goaltender for the Canadian MNT and my St Louis Blues) watch begins. If it's not a blowout, some team is going to want him for a rental because even though he's dead last in NHL goaltending this season, he manages to come up big in big games.

That's it for me. See you tomorrow. Off to write.

Everything seemed to take longer than it should with my car today which was a lot of my doing. I had a 9am appointment at the car place which is literally next door. I dropped the car off on the way back from bloodwork at 8:15. They asked, "are you dropping it off?" I said "yes." Not realizing that "dropping it off" meant, "leaving it here so we can tend to everything but your car for the next goodness knows how long." I walked back over at 10, they still hadn't started on it. So aggravating. I didn't get to the DMV til 11:30 and at that point the line was going to take me past the opening faceoff for the Gold Medal game (priorities!) so I left. It moved much quicker when I got back later in the afternoon.

I think the PWHL has spoiled me a bit in that it's so nice to see the best hockey players in the world more than once every four year. Still the Olympics are special and both of the Medal games went to OT today. I was really happy to see Switzerland taking bronze and had mixed feelings about the Gold Medal game. The PWHL has affected me there too because the team that I despise the most there had six players on the USA team which made it a little hard to root for them. I was happy for Hilary Knight and am glad she got to go out on top.

Choir tonight was depressing as only four people showed up. We decided to abandon the idea of singing for this weekend and if we can't get enough people to commit to sing with us for Easter, we're probably just going to stop choir altogether.

I did get to see the moon on my way home. It's a crescent moon right now, only the crescent was rotated on the bottom so it reminded me of a lunar eclipse in a way. Very beautiful.

I finished "Bugonia". Odd film with very strong performances. So that's three of the Oscar nominees that I've seen and "One Battle After Another" is still leading the pack.

Wrote two drabbles today for hardtime100. I'm going back through the list and writing on the prompts that I haven't gotten to yet.

That's it for now. See you all tomorrow.

Hockey wound up predictably though Switzerland did put a little excitement into their game. So USA-Canada in the final and Sweden-Switzerland going for bronze.

Robert Duvall died. His role in "The Godfather" is iconic. I remember at one point that I was going to write something about that look that Tom gives Michael when Michael breaks out his plan to kill Solozzo. Searched my files and didn't find anything, so I guess I'll have to put it out there in the world later on.

Took a day off from the remaining fest work I have to do. I watched parts of movies instead- finished up "Sinners" which you have to watch through the first part of the credits or it won't be as fulfilling and started on "Bogonia" which looks like it could be either hilarious or horrible.

Everytime I'm scanning the movie list on Peacock, I get the incredible urge to watch "Bros" again. Pretty soon that's going to start challenging "Brown Sugar" for Most Watched Movie on a streaming platform.

That's all I've got for now. Going to try to go to bed at a decent hour. See you tomorrow.
-C

Glad it's Friday. Tomorrow's going to be a lot of running around- helping with grocery shopping, yoga, (possibly weight-training), and helping my mom assemble a bed frame in the new nursing home we're moving her friend into. I might be able to squeeze a nap in if we're done soon enough, but I'm not counting on that.

Every year I say I'm going to prep better for the fest and have most of my fics done, but that didn't happen this year and I'm basically writing them as we go now. Do I need to do something every day? No. Do I want to do something every day? Absolutely.

Watched a bit of the Olympic opening ceremonies tonight and that is time that I'm not getting back. I also watched all of the hockey today and that was well worth it. I'm getting a bit concerned for the teams in Group A because there's a nasty norovirus that has taken out two teams. Poor Canada is healthy but hasn't played a game yet and it's not looking good for tomorrow.

That's it for now. See you all tomorrow.
-C

Every year on the first Sunday in January, my church gives out "Spark Words" to all the people in attendance at service (either in person or on-line). The words are chosen at random and you're asked to use it as a sort of touchstone during the course of the year. In the past, my words were "Trust" (which I nearly threw back in because that's a hard one for me) and "Sunrise" (which I still am not sure what I was supposed to do with that)- there were a couple of others as well, but I don't remember what they were.

This year the word I chose was "Vitality." Merriam-Webster defines it as "lively and animated character" and "power of enduring". Some synonyms are vigorousness, vibrancy, exuberance, liveliness, cheerfulness, and enthusiasm.

So I guess the plan is not to sleepwalk through the next year, but to be enthusiastic in my actions. There might be days when this is as difficult as "trust.

If you had to pick a word, not at random, what would your word be for the year?

Until next time.
With exuberance,
C-