#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things, small pleasures and other odds & ends

Annoying things: 

• 
  The Elf on the Shelf is back. He started appearing in my American friends' social media feeds directly after U.S. Thanksgiving, and elsewhere promptly on Advent Sunday/Dec. 1st.  As I made quite clear in a post several years back ;) (also here), anytime I feel sorry for myself that I don't have kids, I just think about having to remember to figure out some cutesy new situation or pose for the damned Elf -- every! single! day! during December (well, for the first 24 days, at any rate...!) -- and not just for one year but for as long as my kids believe in the thing. NO THANK YOU!! 
• Waking up and thinking it must be morning -- only to look at the clock and see it's still only 1:30 a.m.!! 
• Looking at my Christmas to-do list -- presents to organize (albeit not as many as I'd usually be buying), baking I want to do, cards to finish -- and feeling complete inertia. :p  (ETA:  I did get a batch of cookies baked yesterday afternoon... it's a start!) 

Small pleasures: 

• Coming out of the shower last Tuesday morning to find that dh had already set up & plugged in the Christmas tree. :)  It still needed to be "fluffed" and decorated, but just having it up and seeing the lights on made me feel infinitely happier and more Christmas-y. :)  
• Decorating the tree the next day, and having it on (all day, every day!) since then. :)  
• Not so pleasant:  I'll admit I had a few "moments" as I started taking out the ornaments and framed photos of my family from Christmases past. It hit me all over again that I'm not going home for Christmas -- that I won't be decorating Mom & Dad's tree this year with all the old familiar ornaments -- that it's been a full year since I last saw them and that I might not see them until at least NEXT Christmas (if I'm lucky), even if things start turning around in 2021. I had a good sob on dh's shoulder, then took a deep breath & started putting things on the tree. (But I made sure that none of the Christmas CDs I was playing included the song "I'll Be Home for Christmas" -- that would have set me off again...!)  
• Using my stash of holiday-themed essential oils in my diffuser... scents of pine, cinnamon and peppermint. :) 
• Sharing some of my holiday recipes with SIL, and thinking that just maybe they might survive me, if nothing else. Not a bad legacy to leave...!  :) 
• Cyber Monday orders from online retailers arriving at my door -- already! -- well before their estimated arrival dates. 
• New, fun, holiday-themed masks from Old Navy, colour coordinated with my outfits (much to dh's amusement), lol.  
• Adjustable ear straps! 
• Some cute onesies and T-shirts for Little Great-Nephew from Baby Gap, 50% off -- including a tiny Ramones T-shirt. :)  (His dad will like that one, lol.) 
• New adorable photos and videos of Little Great-Nephew posted on social media by his mom, including one of him playing with the dog & giggling madly. :) 
• Sunshine and blue skies after days of wet, dreary darkness. 
• (Finally!!) Feeling like myself again, post-hysteroscopy/d&c. It took me almost a full week before the cramping, spotting and general fatigue started to subside. I guess maybe I overdid it, or maybe I'm just not as young & resilient as I used to be? 

Other odds & ends (neither annoying nor particularly pleasurable): 

• I've been having some weird dreams again lately. I don't always remember them, but in a recent one, I dreamed I was in a crowded drugstore in Washington, D.C., and NOBODY was wearing a mask. I was horrified when I realized this, and even more so when I realized I wasn't wearing one either. I held my breath as I started fumbling in my purse. I found two sock masks I'd stashed there in case of an emergency and put them both on, one on top of the other. Sign of the times?? 
• I wound up attending my high school class (of 1979)'s Christmas party Zoom call on Saturday night. There were about 15 of us (from a graduating class of just over 100 people, 55 of whom are on the class Facebook group) -- 14 women and one guy (who always got along with everyone and isn't fazed by a bunch of gabby girls, lol) -- and we chatted for two hours... once we got everyone onboard & mikes unmuted, etc. (Some of us, at almost 60, are more computer-savvy than others...!) A good chunk of them still live in town (several of them married to other classmates!) and see each other regularly -- the Zoom party was in lieu of their regular Christmas gathering. But three of my best friends from the class signed up, which made me feel more comfortable being there (how very high school of me, right??  lol) and there were a few others who RSVPd yes that I knew I wouldn't mind/was curious about seeing. 
• It turned out pretty well. (Wine helped, lol.) Even if most of these people weren't really friends with me in high school, there's a certain comfort level that comes from a shared past and geography. 
• We went around the group & each gave a brief "what I've been doing since high school" spiel. (In some ways, I think we actually got to talk to each other more and learn more about each other than we probably would have at a real-life/in person gathering!) 
• Of course everyone mentioned how many kids & grandkids they had. Not all of them have grandkids (yet -- one woman's first grandchild was just born last week), but needless to say, I was the only one (in this subset of the class, at least) who didn't have any kids. I just didn't mention anything along those lines (never complain, never explain...), and nobody asked (thankfully).  My best friends, of course, know my story, and I'm sure several of the others have heard something through the grapevine. 
• My classmates' kids are all grown up now, of course -- in their 20s & 30s -- not likely to wander into the frame to distract the call (particularly right now with COVID). We did get to see a lot of very cute dogs, though. :) 
• One girl (who I didn't know very well in school) mentioned that she works with the local Compassionate Friends group. I missed out on the full story there -- I was chatting in the text box with someone else -- but I think she lost a daughter. Of course, one of my good friends lost her daughter in a car accident last year (as well as her brother and both her parents in recent years), and has taken great comfort in her own local Compassionate Friends chapter.  A good reminder that grief & loss of some kind happen to us all, eventually (especially over a timespan of 40+ years). 
• Many of my classmates have lost parents or are dealing with their aging issues. Spaces in local care homes are hard to come by, and some mentioned parents & other seniors they know being sent to homes up to an hour & a half away, while they wait for a local space to open up. Yikes!! 
• Annoying thing: looks like I'm the first person in the class (or at least out of the ones who were chatting) who will turn 60 in January. I know another classmate has a January birthday that's earlier than mine, but someone said she was actually born in 1962, not 1961, and so will only be 59. Hmmm...

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.