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Dec. 24th, 2021 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnEveryone in my family-of-origin had agreed months ago that going on cross-country plane flights this Christmas was not a good idea (I hate flying at Christmas at the best of times, but we usually suck it up to see family), so instead we'd made plans to hang out with my best friend and her family for the first time in two years and go skiing over winter break to try to reprise a really excellent trip we had right before covid. But sadly a combination of raised omicron risk and weather foxed all those plans (as I know many others' plans have fallen through as well, this year) -- though we did end up going skiing by ourselves for a couple of days before the marked probability of ice on the road in another day forced us out too. I suppose the upside of this is that I'll be around on the 25th to read and comment on Yuletide gifts instead of in a car (the original plan), although as usual for me, it will probably be evening my time before that happens :)
(Skiing was great the first day and somewhat miserable the second day -- we were only out for a couple of hours -- because it was raining the entire time. Although the nice thing was that A. got a ski lesson that second day (we weren't able to book him for one the first day), and he is exactly the right age to learn quickly, and the instructor was excellent.)
Our situation is also significantly better than that of my extended family, who (because my uncle is an extreme optimist, I guess) had planned a family reunion revolving around going skiing in Canada (we had bowed out of that trip quite a few months ago, what with the uncertainty in when vaccines would be available for kids and also international travel uncertainty over Christmas in a pandemic) and just canceled the reunion yesterday. Some of the younger cousins are still talking about going up to use the houses. (I hope my cousin with a one-month-old baby doesn't go up, which the last email mentioned might be the case. Pandemic and risk to child aside -- not to minimize those, but honestly my first reaction was, I think I'd have murdered my husband if he went for a ski vacation most of a week when our first child was a month old.)
Also, here, have some things I wrote almost two weeks ago now (so, before people started getting worried about omicron) but never posted:
-I think I forgot to mention that one of the things that has made December busy was (covid) shots for everyone! (We'd gotten flu shots a month earlier.) Really happy I was able to get a booster at a convenient location (closest pharmacy to our house!) in the morning; kiddos also got their second shots last week at a convenient time for us (and I scheduled it at the pharmacy across the street from our favorite Indian takeout place, so we had some to celebrate). YAY all around. Kiddos also had zero side effects, not even any tenderness at the site, so I'm really really pleased about that. I had pretty severe flu-like chills the evening of, to the point where I was regretting my life choices for about ten minutes before I managed to fall asleep. I might even have avoided or at least been unconscious for the chills had I gone to bed when I actually started feeling tired like a smart person, or at least snagged an ibuprofen on my way to bed, but, well. The next day I felt similarly to how I felt after my second shot -- approximately how I feel when I have a reasonably bad cold. I felt more tired and less brainless than after the second shot -- it actually felt a bit less like feeling actively sick and more like my body had been through something that it now needed to rest from.
-I gave E Elatsoe to read and she really liked it! Score! The way Elatsoe codes as much younger than her canon age was a plus for E., and she also didn't mind (somewhat to my surprise) the interludes that didn't necessarily contribute to the through-line plot. (I also ended up moving Elatsoe much higher on my Lodestar voting list as a result -- to #2. I realized the only other books I would give E to read of this set were Raybearer, later, and Deadly Education, much later.)
-Everyone at church has been SUPER nice about my annoying and chivvying music emails. Music Guy (henceforth to be called Music Guy Baritone), after the third email where I was attempting to re-schedule his family (in this third case because I didn't understand his previous email, but we cleared that up) sent me a lovely note where he thanked me for organizing everything and how difficult he knew it was. Man, you know, my ward has tensions sometimes but overall does NOT do church politics well, everyone just is WAY too nice for that <3333333 (I also think our structure of callings, by which everyone plays musical chairs with different callings every few years, contributes -- Music Guy noted in his email that he'd had to be the music director before, so he knew how hard it can be, and it's much easier in general to be patient with someone else's failings when you've done that same job and know how tough it is!)
-Then there was the screwball comedy-like communications fail where I thought the kids' program had volunteered to sing without telling me, while they thought I was telling them to sing. It all worked itself out and now everyone thinks it's hilarious but wow self, next time up your communications game.
-That stake event where we did not have a choir to offer up? NO ONE had a choir, it turns out, for the obvious reasons. The only choir number was from a group from... the local Unitarian church?? (*) I find this utterly hilarious. (Also super weird! For another church it would not be weird, but my church is... usually very not good at playing well with others in our own space. I blame the stake music director for playing well with others!) Also there was the six-member group (the only actual group from my church more than three people) I managed to rustle up from my ward, where all were vaccinated and one member helpfully offered up the name "Safe Sextet." (...We did not go with that.) So Music Guy Baritone and Operatic Music Guy Tenor (who moved into the other ward, traitor!! Only I can't call him that because he very super nicely -- have I mentioned everyone is super nice -- helped out when we were going to be short a tenor) both did several numbers either solo or together, plus a couple of numbers with Smooth Music Guy Tenor (whose voice I am in love with and who ALSO moved into the other ward). But it all went super well and Awesome Organist Guy played the organ and everyone was so happy and, I mean, Music Guy Baritone and Operatic Music Guy Tenor and Smooth Music Guy Tenor are all completely excellent so no one was actually opposed to listening to a program that was all them.
-but I am very very happy to be past that particular event, I think actually last week was the big week rehearsal-wise and now we've rehearsed almost everything, yay, and HOW GLAD are all of the music people that we don't have a ward fireside/evening music program on top of all of this? SO GLAD
-how am I dealing with all of this? yes, by writing more (short) Yuletide fic and kind of feeling amused at the process by which I'm like "yeah, that prompt is great and I want to read it and definitely not able to write that myself" to "...but what if..." Also, betas are the best!
(*) Since I wrote this, I found out that it is the local Unity church, which is distinct from Unitarian, which I actually did not know before last week!
(Skiing was great the first day and somewhat miserable the second day -- we were only out for a couple of hours -- because it was raining the entire time. Although the nice thing was that A. got a ski lesson that second day (we weren't able to book him for one the first day), and he is exactly the right age to learn quickly, and the instructor was excellent.)
Our situation is also significantly better than that of my extended family, who (because my uncle is an extreme optimist, I guess) had planned a family reunion revolving around going skiing in Canada (we had bowed out of that trip quite a few months ago, what with the uncertainty in when vaccines would be available for kids and also international travel uncertainty over Christmas in a pandemic) and just canceled the reunion yesterday. Some of the younger cousins are still talking about going up to use the houses. (I hope my cousin with a one-month-old baby doesn't go up, which the last email mentioned might be the case. Pandemic and risk to child aside -- not to minimize those, but honestly my first reaction was, I think I'd have murdered my husband if he went for a ski vacation most of a week when our first child was a month old.)
Also, here, have some things I wrote almost two weeks ago now (so, before people started getting worried about omicron) but never posted:
-I think I forgot to mention that one of the things that has made December busy was (covid) shots for everyone! (We'd gotten flu shots a month earlier.) Really happy I was able to get a booster at a convenient location (closest pharmacy to our house!) in the morning; kiddos also got their second shots last week at a convenient time for us (and I scheduled it at the pharmacy across the street from our favorite Indian takeout place, so we had some to celebrate). YAY all around. Kiddos also had zero side effects, not even any tenderness at the site, so I'm really really pleased about that. I had pretty severe flu-like chills the evening of, to the point where I was regretting my life choices for about ten minutes before I managed to fall asleep. I might even have avoided or at least been unconscious for the chills had I gone to bed when I actually started feeling tired like a smart person, or at least snagged an ibuprofen on my way to bed, but, well. The next day I felt similarly to how I felt after my second shot -- approximately how I feel when I have a reasonably bad cold. I felt more tired and less brainless than after the second shot -- it actually felt a bit less like feeling actively sick and more like my body had been through something that it now needed to rest from.
-I gave E Elatsoe to read and she really liked it! Score! The way Elatsoe codes as much younger than her canon age was a plus for E., and she also didn't mind (somewhat to my surprise) the interludes that didn't necessarily contribute to the through-line plot. (I also ended up moving Elatsoe much higher on my Lodestar voting list as a result -- to #2. I realized the only other books I would give E to read of this set were Raybearer, later, and Deadly Education, much later.)
-Everyone at church has been SUPER nice about my annoying and chivvying music emails. Music Guy (henceforth to be called Music Guy Baritone), after the third email where I was attempting to re-schedule his family (in this third case because I didn't understand his previous email, but we cleared that up) sent me a lovely note where he thanked me for organizing everything and how difficult he knew it was. Man, you know, my ward has tensions sometimes but overall does NOT do church politics well, everyone just is WAY too nice for that <3333333 (I also think our structure of callings, by which everyone plays musical chairs with different callings every few years, contributes -- Music Guy noted in his email that he'd had to be the music director before, so he knew how hard it can be, and it's much easier in general to be patient with someone else's failings when you've done that same job and know how tough it is!)
-Then there was the screwball comedy-like communications fail where I thought the kids' program had volunteered to sing without telling me, while they thought I was telling them to sing. It all worked itself out and now everyone thinks it's hilarious but wow self, next time up your communications game.
-That stake event where we did not have a choir to offer up? NO ONE had a choir, it turns out, for the obvious reasons. The only choir number was from a group from... the local Unitarian church?? (*) I find this utterly hilarious. (Also super weird! For another church it would not be weird, but my church is... usually very not good at playing well with others in our own space. I blame the stake music director for playing well with others!) Also there was the six-member group (the only actual group from my church more than three people) I managed to rustle up from my ward, where all were vaccinated and one member helpfully offered up the name "Safe Sextet." (...We did not go with that.) So Music Guy Baritone and Operatic Music Guy Tenor (who moved into the other ward, traitor!! Only I can't call him that because he very super nicely -- have I mentioned everyone is super nice -- helped out when we were going to be short a tenor) both did several numbers either solo or together, plus a couple of numbers with Smooth Music Guy Tenor (whose voice I am in love with and who ALSO moved into the other ward). But it all went super well and Awesome Organist Guy played the organ and everyone was so happy and, I mean, Music Guy Baritone and Operatic Music Guy Tenor and Smooth Music Guy Tenor are all completely excellent so no one was actually opposed to listening to a program that was all them.
-but I am very very happy to be past that particular event, I think actually last week was the big week rehearsal-wise and now we've rehearsed almost everything, yay, and HOW GLAD are all of the music people that we don't have a ward fireside/evening music program on top of all of this? SO GLAD
-how am I dealing with all of this? yes, by writing more (short) Yuletide fic and kind of feeling amused at the process by which I'm like "yeah, that prompt is great and I want to read it and definitely not able to write that myself" to "...but what if..." Also, betas are the best!
(*) Since I wrote this, I found out that it is the local Unity church, which is distinct from Unitarian, which I actually did not know before last week!
no subject
Date: 2021-12-24 11:01 pm (UTC)Can confirm, based on my experiences of betaing by you! <3 <3 <3
no subject
Date: 2021-12-25 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-25 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-25 05:05 am (UTC)Yes, this is why I hate traveling for Christmas in any year -- everything is so busy! And D and I like doing Christmas at home. So although I'd really like to see family (especially my sister, whom I haven't seen in two years) this is actually a good outcome for us :)
no subject
Date: 2021-12-25 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-26 08:17 pm (UTC)