finding fathers

Yes, we were in Washington D.C. for Christmas this year. Chaco moved to the area for work a little over a year ago, and this was Magnum's and my first visit since then. 

Wolfgang and Meego had been out there in the spring, and they joined us this round as well. So all 5 of us were together for Christmas, and they were able to help Chaco with the tour-guidin'.

I'd never been to D.C. before, and I 10/10 recommend it as a destination! Maybe not during the holidays since holiday travel can be a hassle with crowds and potential weather delays. The weather gods shone upon us, though, with mild weather for the duration. D.C. was quite crowded, however. Chaco said he'd never seen it so, even last Christmas from what he remembered. 

But we couldn't complain, since we ourselves were part of that fray, so we moved about with the masses. 

SO much to see and do there - Museums! Memorials! Statues! People! People! Lotsa People!

I can't choose a favorite attraction, everything had much to offer. And thank gosh for the Metro!

I didn't take many photos, as is typical for me I suppose. Enjoying the moment and then later thinking, "hmm, maybe I shoulda taken some pics"

Christmas Day was our first full day there, and we saw the national Menorah Lighting from a distance. Meanwhile, we wandered over to the National Christmas Tree display on the Ellipse and quickly located the Colorado tree

Meego agreed to pose

Even though D.C. is not necessarily a typical winter destination, the holiday flair was a bonus. 

So Happy New Year to all! I like how blogging allows us to look back on our day-to-days, including things we might've forgotten. This trip would certainly make my 2024 highlight reel. 

Get ur walking shoes and go!

headed out

 

Greetings on this side of Christmas '24!

We are on a little getaway, and I'm spending a cozy bit of morning with the "granddog" Ella at Chaco's. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas season however it's done. This is the first time in  several years that I've traveled during the holidays, and the weather's been, thankfully mild.

I'm catching up on my blog readng. Meantime... here's me and a big thing.

spies and lame ducks

Happy Winter Solstice, y'all. We're "celebrating" by watering our trees? Really, we're so hardup for precipitation around here, had to fire up the hose.

I worked my last day of the year in the testing center yesterday. We're closed now until Jan. 2nd. We had an unfortunate turn of events this week in that we're pretty sure we got busted by a secret shopper.

These companies we administer professional tests for will occasionally send secret shoppers posing as test candidates to make sure we're doing all the security things properly. Someone got into the testing room with a cell phone.  Oooh, that's baaaaad.

I wasn't there, just heard about it after the fact. At least my coworkers noticed the cell phone at the testing workstation during the test, but by then, the damage was done. 

It's just really awkward to ask some stranger why the metal detector is going off near their crotch, and then, to investigate further! Apparently, this is what happened, and it was explained away with, "Oh, must be my belt buckle", and that was that. 

I recall a time I was scanning a woman candidate. She was a rather "stout" woman, and my detector went off at her mid back. I let it go without question because I assumed she had on a hefty bra with some serious hardware holding it shut, and I didn't want to go there.

I mean, if she was gonna hide something, she wouldn't hide it in her back bra strap, right? Right?? 

From now on, I'll just ask. And yes, take off the belt, let's do it again. 

On a happier note, I also had my last tutor session with my one high schooler. I mainly just tutor the college students now, but "D" is a holdover from about a year and a half ago when her mom contacted me because I'd tutored D's older sister. 

D is now a senior, and when we gathered online this week, she started the session with a sheepish, "So... some exciting news...". Really, she said it so shyly, I wasn't sure if she'd actually said anything at all. 

But then she continued, "I got early acceptance into my first choice university this week". Oh, goody!

I'm very happy for her, such a nice kid and hard worker. Her big challenge now is to make it through her lame duck semester of high school.

highest in the room

 Magnum tyically works from home, but yesterday he was onsite. I figured I'd check the Ring® notifications while I was at work.

As expected, nothing exciting - just my own comings and goings. 

I looked a little closer at the scene as I locked the door before heading out. 

Do you see what I see?

Yes! Miniature Batman! On my roof! Stealthfully watching my every move!

Gosh, I thought he only worked nights.

Honestly, though, I have no idea how Neighbor Cat got up there. And how long's he been doing that?

Speaking of high cats... Boss handed out gift bags yesterday for us underlings. He's a very thoughtful person, and each of our gift bags included treats for our pets as well. So, in addition to my little box of See's candies and my Barnes and Noble gift card, I brought home two peanut butter infused dog treats and a little catnip mouse.

I set the gift bag on the shelf after I got home, and went on to other things. 

This morning, I heard rustling rummaging noises. I thought it was pooch Merlin slurping at his feet as he's known to do, but no. Merlin was lazing on the couch. 

I peeked around the corner to find Napolion the cat, frantically nosing around in my little gift bag like a crackhead needing a fix.

I retrieved his catnip toy for him, and he was on it like the crackhead I didn't realize he was.

At first, he was like a lion on the Serengeti attacking a little wildebeast. This went on for a few minutes, accompanied by much flopping and rubbing. Then he turned back to my gift bag, still apparently wafting the sweet song of the catnip. He began tearing at the dog treats, which were thankfully individually wrapped so as to not take on much damage before I risked losing my fingers in rescuing them from Napolion's grip.

Then he flopped on this cushion and remained motionless with his mouse in this position for several minutes. 

As far as I know, this is Napolion's first catnip trip. We gave some to our earlier cat, Cookie, and he couldn't care less about the stuff - almost seemed insulted. So I never got into the habit of providing it.

He's acting his normal self now - maybe a little rowdier than usual. What a stoner.

elf on a...

I worked the Saturday shift with Blossom yesterday. It was a relatively quiet day, and we weren't complaining. Still, I found myself wanting to speed up time a bit, so I cleaned and tidied more than usual. 

We've put Work Study to work decorating the place for the don't-say-Christmas holidays. It looks festive enough without being overblown. Our don't-say-Chrismtas tree:

Story has it that, one year, they'd put a winged wolf (the college mascot is the wolves) atop the tree, but Leadership thought it too religious.

The past 4 trees have had the ornament shown as the topper.

It's a dumpster fire with the year 2020 engraved upon it. 

I don't know where Work Study found this nearly life-sized sticker, but The Elf adorns our entrance

I'm also not sure how easy it will be to remove him?

Another Elf reference adorns the microwave

We had our white elephant gift exchange party last week. I ended up with a queen size plush blanket and some fuzzy socks - not too shabby.

Happy don't-say-Christmas!

party going on right here

I worked at the testing center yesterday. It was the last day of finals and the place was a-rockin'!

In a nutshell, colleges and universities are required to have testing centers to accommodate students with disabilities that necessitate them taking tests outside the classroom. So we do that and also administer a whole crap ton of other tests for professional licensing and certifications for non-students. 

I swear the list of accommodations grows with each semester,  I'll say the most common accommodation is extra time - usually because of dyslexia or English being a second language. But then there are some obscure ones. Many are related to anxiety or past trauma, and we don't ask questions, just go with it.

Yesterday was all about the students, professionals be damned, and the schedule was packed. By the time I left, we'd made it through most of them with only a handful of glitches, and nothing earth shattering. 

I snapped this pic of "Felipe", at his station overseeing beverages.

Felipe was bestowed upon me for my recent birthday. A couple of weeks prior to that, Blossom asked what seemed to be a random question to us all, "What's your favorite dessert?"

Everyone expressed their opinions, and my answer ended up being, "Eh, I'm not really a sweets person. My downfall is more crunchy salty."

Unbeknownst to me at the time, Blossom was really plotting what treat to bring for my birthday.

My "birthday cake" ended up being a nacho bar! With all that Mexican flair, Boss decided it needed to be accompanied by a piñata, whom we subsequently named Felipe. 

The nachos were delish, Felipe was cute, but I was all, "How'm I gonna get him home on my bicycle?"

That's why he lives at the testing center - employed as watcher of beverages, currently wearing reindeer horns. He's empty of treats, by the way. But full of cheer!

And to update from my earlier grumblings about Blossom's work ethic. She has really stepped it up after having an actual medical thing that took her out for a couple of weeks. All those days she took off, seemingly just slacking, are hopefully behind her. 

After her return, she told me, "I really need to just take better care of myself", after realizing she hates going to doctors. 

...and I won't say anything about dealing with health insurance.

fork yeah!

Another busy week down. I feel I've neglected the blog and blog reading (as well as housework, but that's allowed) this past week. BUT the semester is now finished. Onto the next thing.

I had a PEO thing yesterday. Fun, but yet another obligation. I look forward to a relatively obligation-less week ahead. 

As such, I was over at the site where I do my other tutoring. There's a questionnaire for setting preferences and such, and I noticed some strange wording:

Forks yes, I have access to a car? I have no car, but use forks as a substitute? I'm interested in online tutoring... with forks?

So I sent a non-urgent message to the helpdesk informing them of the forks. Right after clicking "send", I thought, "hmmmm, what if the problem is at my end? Some weird glitch in the cache?". So I cleared my cache, then logged in again.

Yep, the "Forks" have been replaced with "Yes".  Aw, Fork.
Now, the helpdesk is going to see my weird issue and roll their eyes. Thankfully, I included the screenshot shown up there. I swear I wasn't hallucinating. 

So happy December. On a recent night, I awoke around 2am, realizing it was December already. And I thought, "*GASP*, Oma's gonna send her annual box of diabetes!"

Every holiday season since forever, my step-mother-in-law has sent us a boatload of cookies, candies, etc. They're store bought, nice quality, but SO much. Especially in recent years, even after offloading much of it to our now adult kids, most of it goes to the landfill. 

I decided to head her off at the pass, emailed acknowledging her thoughtfulness, but pleeeeeez, no more box of diabetes. She responded promptly, thanking me for my "honest feedback".

I was, however, not able also to ask her not to send me another desk calendar, which she has traditionally sent and which goes straight to the thrift store donation - while the year is just beginning. 

Baby steps.

a little psycho

 

Hey, how's everyone's week going? 

Better than Lillie's I hope!

Tutor Boss asked all us tutors to double check with our students to confirm their sessions since this is the last week of the semester as they head to finals. 

It's a mix. Some are raring to go, some just want it over. 

I have a vague recollection of finals time during my undergrad years. One year worked out particularly nicely because my roommate made hella messes when she was stressed, and I fell into clean freak mode when I was stressed. Perfect combination! 

She studied while trashing the place, I studied while cleaning. We rocked those finals, and our apartment got a sort of makeover.

We're busy over in testing as per usual this time of year. Then, after Monday, things will quiet down. I'm on the lookout for a white elephant gift for our party scheduled for next Wednesday. We looked up the meaning and origin of "white elephant"

"white elephant \WYTE-EL-uh-funt\ noun. 1 : a property requiring much care and expense and yielding little profit."

Well, that covers a whole gamut. 

I'm on a mission, much like this goose friend I encounted on a recent morning.

I don't know the goose's mission, but it was on it like a boss.