Holidays Begin

Happy Thanksgiving, for those who celebrate it. Some Native Americans observe it as a day of mourning, while some ignore that to feast with family. I've seen posts on Bluesky even calling today another "Indigenous People's Day" as well. There was a lovely poem by Weyodi Oldbear saying "today is about the pie." I like this thread too from Willie Jack's Favorite Uncle. This year, Molly of Denali's Thanks-For-Giving episode had Grandpa Nat teach Molly about Thanksgiving as a day of mourning. I'm confused about this being Trini's first Alaskan Thanksgiving, though. Maybe that means that on the previous years, her family traveled back to Texas to celebrate with relatives there.

I have this weekend off and will spend it with family starting tomorrow, but today I'll spend on my own. I once again have to get caught up on my continuing education credits and do chores like laundry.

Yes I heard about Israel's ceasefire with Hezbollah, but what's the point of that if they're still attacking Lebanon? Fuck Netanyahu, and I hope he does get arrested for war crimes. Biden, stop putting out statements condemning the ICC arrest warrants. You know, you can just choose to stay silent, instead of backing up Israel's war?

I'm thankful at least that Derek Tran won his election in Orange County California, so our House numbers are a little better. Orange County is also the setting of Arrested Development, so it's nice to see it's not totally Republican anymore.

Xmas time is here

Christmas music has begun, both on the local radio station and some stores and malls. So annoying that they don't even wait for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, I got my new fridge installed yesterday. It's making a lot of noise while trying to make ice. I hope it'll settle down soon. The installers gave me a packet of documents, but it had the short version of the user manual, with installation instructions that are useless to me, the owner. I had to use my Centriq app to get the full manual with instructions on priming the water line and waiting 24 hours for the icemaker. Because of this major appliance purchase I'll have to put off getting a new phone. Maybe those prices will come down after Black Friday.

Meanwhile in Barbie news, I tried to do a leg swap on my Aztec princess Atotoztli so she wouldn't have high heels anymore. I was going to give her the leftover legs from my beach feet Barbies because they're a close color match. But this swap is not as easy as the previous leg swap I did.

First, the fabric shoes aren't big enough for flat feet, so I can't reuse the shoes unless I undo the seams and resew them with extra fabric. However the gold cuffs can be removed from the shoes, so theoretically she could just wear those cuffs as anklets and go barefoot.

Second, the legs are on strange hip joints not typical of other Barbie legs. Anybody know what part # 50-9199 is? I keep searching online but not coming up with anything.

Maybe if I heat the legs up, the vinyl will stretch enough to come off, but there is no guarantee that the new legs will be able to fit over the weird joints. If I can get the legs off, I could probably use scissors to cut the weird joints to normal shape, though.

Look ahead

After the election and for about a week after, I had a cold. The first 3 days were worst of all, with a fever and nausea. I tested for COVID, in case that came back, but I was negative. Then I just was sniffly with a runny nose and sore throat for a few more days. I hate colds in general, but on top of the disappointing election, it made the mourning more sucky.

Still, we have to pick ourselves up and continue as we did in 2016. Maybe make the most of life before January comes. We can fight on, but maybe have a little rest and break to restore our energy. Why wallow in following news about his garbage cabinet picks when we have four years to deal with that chaos? Enjoy Thankgsiving and Christmas before he ruins our economy with tariffs. Celebrate the wins we did get like new Black senators and abortion rights legislation. Even in Texas, it appears we defeated a horrid ordinance in Lubbock to ban travel for abortion. 

And celebrate the mass exodus from Twitter to Bluesky. I even got an account too, though I haven't posted anything yet. I'm still sporadic on my Substack.

In other news, my refrigerator is really dying now, not like last time. It started with the freezer not working and all my ice cream melting. I suppose there could be a repair option, but the fridge itself is many years old and it's not worth keeping. I had hoped it would survive longer, but I guess it's close enough to Black Friday sales. I'm having a new one installed on Monday.

God Damn

Can't sleep. Apparently American voters love fascism. The only bright spot locally was that our Democratic Congresspeople such as Jasmine Crockett and Marc Veasey got reelected. Other states may have some bright spots too, but nationally, such a disaster.

Fuck Ted Cruz.

Election Day

I have jitters but I also have a bunch of work to catch up on so I don't get obsessed with election watching and reading political sites all day. If you haven't already voted, please vote today.

It's been cold and rainy the last few days in Texas, with clouds blocking the sun all day. Time to get out my fall/winter gear I guess.

I did finish Agatha All Along, and was mostly satisfied with the ending, except that we got no backstory about Agatha and Rio's first meeting. I also didn't like Agatha's line about Nicky's death, saying she lets people lie about Nicky "Because the truth is too awful." That misled us to think that the truth was worse than the evil rumors that Agatha traded her son for the Darkhold. Instead we find out that the boy lived on stolen time for six years and then died peacefully in his sleep. Nicky's death may have been emotionally awful for his mother, but how is it "too awful"? Awful enough for her to ignore people spreading lies that she killed her baby or traded him for power? What mother would let people spread such dark lies instead of saying, "I loved that boy! I hated losing him!" But I guess she never got close to other people over the years, basically killing all covens that she tricked with the ballad, so there was no friend to share the truth with. Maybe it was easier to let the lies increase her villainous reputation. Well, I hope we'll see Billy reunite with Tommy soon, maybe in Visionquest starring the white Vision.

Speaking of Vision, Paul Bettany is in Tom Hank's new movie Here. I saw it last week and mostly enjoyed it. It's apparently based on a comic, where individual panels on the screen show glimpses of the same location, but in different time periods. The movie uses this technique to let us view multiple storylines in the same space. Paul Bettany is Al Young, the father of Tom Hank's character Richard. Their family are the main characters, though we get scenes of other people in the same space, such as a Native American couple, Benjamin Franklin's estranged family, an inventor and his girlfriend, and a Black family with a housekeeper who dies during the pandemic. Normally I don't like nonlinear storytelling, but this was well done with interesting juxtapositions between events in different timelines.

Al Young is a WWII veteran buying the house on the GI Bill in 1945. He and Rose are initially a happy couple, but due to PTSD and job disappointments, Al becomes more angry and drunk through the years. He doesn't become physically abusive that we can see, but the marriage becomes strained and he's been unfaithful offscreen. (At one point he does reveal to his son that Rose left him for a short while to go to New York and live life before she came back, presumably for the kids.) Al at least is devoted enough to Rose that he throws out his alcohol after she suffers a stroke, and he mourns her after she dies. Richard meanwhile also has career disappointments, having to give up art to become a salesman and support his family. His wife Margaret also gave up a career and hates having to live in his parents' house, and feels trapped there. Watching these couples age over the years and go through hardships was touching to me. I wish the movie was doing better, but I think it was released too close to Halloween rather than family moviegoing time closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas. On the other hand, if you want to get away from election coverage, Here is a nice movie to while away some time.