litheavocado

1. Yesterday morning when I got back from my walk, I somehow lost the top to my airpods' outer case. It had to have fallen out either on the porch or inside the house, because it's very noticeable without it so it could only have been right after I put them back in my pocket after putting them in the case. I looked around a little but had to go to work, and Carla looked some more during the day and didn't find it, so I ordered a new case, which came today and I really love it. For one thing, the top is attached! I really like the variety of colors, so I ordered another one for my backup pair, and for Carla's ones as well. Right after that, Carla found the top to the old case in the living room in a tangle of power cords lol. But these new ones are cheap and I really do prefer the attached top. The one I thought I lost was a Star Wars Pride one from Disneyland, so I'll still use it seasonally (I also have a Mickey Halloween one).

2. I got my haircut today. Carla had an appointment, too, so it took longer than when it's just me and I didn't feel like going to Gardena just for a little bit in the afternoon, so I just worked from home the rest of the day. It was just web meetings in the afternoon anyway.

3. This morning when I got up, my PC would not turn on. The power cord is one of those that has a light showing when it's plugged in, so I could tell it was still getting power and that wasn't the problem. I thought maybe it was stuck in an update or something, so I went for my walk, but when I came back it still wouldn't turn on. I decided to unplug it from the power strip while I ate breakfast and then it finally came back on again! I really should do a backup of my files just in case...

4. Few things are cuter than cats covering their face coyly.

1. We made mac and cheese for lunch inspired by the ramen mac and cheese we had at DCA last night. Added dashi in the water while the macaroni was boiling, and topped with furikake (all we had was gomashio, which is a mix of black sesame seeds and chunky salt) and it was delicious but we decided adding toasted panko really would make it better, so we actually ended up making it again for dinner with the panko. It was so good. Carla bought a different type of furikake at the store today but I just used the gomashio again and that went so good with the panko. Will definitely be making mac and cheese this way again.

2. A couple weeks ago I got the annual Costco rewards gift certificate and we finally braved Costco today so we could use it. We weren't going directly home, so that saved us from being tempted by any perishable products and we pretty much stuck to our list of basics that we needed to stock up on.

3. The weekend is over and I'm not thrilled about that but it was a pretty nice weekend overall.

4. Molly loves being in this window, hidden behind the curtain.

1. Last year when we went to Japan we parked at the airport and it was pricey but not too bad, but this time we're going for longer and I looked into it and the prices are kind of ridiculous, unless we park in the offsite lot and take a shuttle, which brings it down to about what we paid last year. So I think we're going to just leave the car at home and uber instead. The main annoyance with that is that if we put both cars in the driveway, Alex and Nessie will have to park on the street when they're over for cat sitting. But I think if we pull both cars all the way into the backyard, they'll both fit and then leave the driveway free, so I'm leaning towards that. I'm glad I recently took that work trip and am now familiar with using uber more, specifically at the airport (I'd only ever used it once before).

2. Recently Carla ordered a set from the lego store and it was stolen off our porch. We never have issues with packages getting stolen and would not have even realized what happened except she happened to find the empty shipping box on the street a couple doors down. When we checked the delivery info the picture of the box on the porch was really awkwardly posed and the time of delivery was when multiple people were in the living room watching TV and the windows were open, making it odd that no one heard it, so I think it was probably the driver who took it. We live on a sort of cul-de-sac, so there's not a lot of foot traffic, especially on a Sunday evening, and would be really weird for someone to come up onto the porch to take a package when there are noises from inside making it clear people are right there. Anyway, she submitted a complaint and lego sent a replacement, which arrived today safe and sound. I do wish lego didn't send their packages with a return address label that says lego on it, though.

3. We had a nice dinner at Disneyland tonight. It was pretty warm during the day, but not anywhere near as bad as last weekend, and had cooled off nicely by the time we got down there.

4. Cutie Chloe.

Recently Finished
Fog
Classic middle grade novel about a girl who lives on an island and when she starts junior high, she starts boarding on the mainland with some other island kids. She's been told it's difficult to adjust, but that doesn't prepare her for the mind games and possibily supernatural powers of the principal and his wife. I didn't read this as a kid, but I must have seen someone talking about it online and decided to check it out (it's been on my to-read list for a while so I don't remember where I heard about it). However, I don't feel like it really holds up to a first-time read as an adult, and I won't be continuing the series.

The School for Good Mothers
Oof. This is a tough book to rate, because it's very well-written and interesting, but I did not enjoy it at all. Not only does it become pretty obvious early on that there's no hope of any sort of happy ending, but there are many excruciating moments when you just want to scream at the MC for making bad decisions, even while having sympathy and seeing how she's been driven to that point.

The story takes place in the near future, where her state has just introduced a new program for people who've had their kids taken away by CPS. They are sent to a "school" (basically a prison) for a full year to supposedly learn to become good parents, but they are set up at every turn for failure and constantly subjected to psychological torture in the name of training them. It's a hard read, and I don't know that I'd actually recommend it, but it's good.

The Price of Honey
Short story about a group of women, the current wife and ex-wives of a tech billionaire, meeting up at his funeral. This was a freebie through Amazon First Reads, which is why I grabbed it. I liked the twist.

Idyll Threats
First in a murder mystery series about a closeted gay cop (though he's not closeted by the end of the first book) in a small town in the late '90s. I liked it all right but I'm not sure I'll read the rest.

This Is Not the Jess Show
The Truman Show for the YA crowd. I did watch The Truman Show back in the day but remember nothing about it except the premise. I really liked this take on it, and the ending was great.

Mapmakers and the Enchanted Mountain and Mapmakers and the Flickering Fortress
Books two and three in the Mapmakers trilogy of YA graphic novels. I read the first one a while back and didn't remember too much of it, but was able to catch up without having to reread it. This is a cute series.

Huda F Are You?
YA graphic memoir about the author's high school years after moving from a city where there were very few Muslims, to Dearborn, Michigan, where many of her classmates were both Muslim and hijabi. I've read a couple of the author's non-YA graphic novels about being Muslim and liked this one a lot more. There are others in the series and I'll probably read them as well.

1. Tuxie was back this morning looking no worse for wear (he still is missing fur/scabby on his forehead, but that's from a couple weeks ago). He wasn't out there first thing when I went to feed the other cats, but was there when I got back from my walk. He doesn't understand daylight savings time, so it was too early for him the first time lol.

2. I finally managed to get a work meeting scheduled for Monday that has been so hard to wrangle. Hopefully it doesn't fall through (even the people who didn't accept the invite yet did specifically say they would be able to attend so fingers crossed).

3. The other night Ollie looked so sad at being evicted from the couch when we had dinner lol. He settled in to the perch in a few minutes, but those first few minutes he just looked so put out.

1. I walked up to Whole Foods tonight and dropped off my Amazon return and got an email saying the money was credited back to my account while I was on the walk home.

2. I did two store visits in Orange County today and Carla came with me and went shopping (one of the stores is right next to a Book Off) while I worked, so we could just go straight to Disneyland on the way home. We haven't been doing midweek trips as much this year, but a friend of hers is in town for work and this was the best time to meet up. (But since the Food and Wine Festival just started, there's a ton of new menu items to try, so it works out in that regard as well.)

3. Tomorrow I am just doing a store visit at the store near home and then WFH in the afternoon for meetings, so no long drives, which will be nice (especially with gas prices as they are, though I do get reimbursed for the store visits).

4. The weather was about 15 degrees cooler today than yesterday at home and around 20 degrees cooler down in OC. Much nicer than yesterday!

5. Molly has been really into the old cardboard cat house lately for some reason.

1. We went to Best Buy this morning to look at mice in person and I ended up getting a different Logitec one, the MX Master 3S, which fits almost as well in my hand as the Microsoft Sculpt. I set up a return for the other one to Amazon. I do like some things about it, but it felt at the same time too small and too large, and while I didn't have wrist pain after I got used to it more, it just never felt comfortable. I do like that this new one, like the one I'm returning, is bluetooth rather than USB, especially since apparently it was the USB dongle that was causing my PC's sleep issues with the Sculpt (all these years I had no idea!).

2. It was so hot today. Not the hottest we've ever had, but record setting for early March, and it just felt awful. Like that baking desert feel whenever you step outside. I'm so glad we didn't have anything that required being outdoors during the day today, just errands in the car in the morning. I did take a short midday walk, trying to stick to the shadiest streets, but even then I couldn't stay out for long. Tomorrow is supposed to be about 15 degrees cooler, so fingers crossed.

3. Despite the heat, I made Japanese curry for dinner and it turned out delicious. I found a bag of frozen kabocha in the freezer the other day so I put some of that in as well, and that gave it a little something extra, even though I didn't feel like frying croquettes with it as I'd originally planned, or doing fried eggs over top like I sometimes do.

4. This pic was taken the other day. Not even Chloe wanted to be under the blankets today!

1. We had a nice morning at DCA. It's the first weekend of the Food and Wine Festival, so there's all sorts of exciting new menu items and everything we had today was delicious.

2. We have Verizon for our phones and until recently had Frontier for internet, but it seems Frontier has been bought up by Verizon, which is funny because we used to have Verizon until they sold our area off to Frontier or something idk. Anyway, I've been getting messages from Verizon saying that if I combine my internet and phone accounts I can save money and I just hadn't gotten around to it, but today they sent a flier in the mail, too, so I finally went and did that and now I will save $15 a month.

3. Multiple supermarkets near us still have McConnel's peppermint ice cream in stock, even though it's a seasonal flavor, so we keep buying it. I'm sure it won't last that much longer, but we're enjoying it while it's still here. It's so good!

4. Got some super cute pics of Gemma last night.