readsalot

good evening, my flist! if you're in a part of the us that got smacked with winter this past weekend i hope you came through it intact, and if you're in a part of the us that got smacked even harder the weekend before i hope you're all dug out by now. i missed TWO - count 'em - TWO snowstorms which honestly is a little disappointing altho the second storm was winter storm fern which buried greater boston in like a foot and a half of snow and wasn't too kind to a lot of the rest of the country either. so maybe i shouldn't complain too loudly.

and i missed two storms because i was in florida! visiting the mothership! and the boyfriend. (she moved in with him over the summer so i didn't exactly have a choice.) the week was MUCH better than last year's trip because the weather was warmer and sunnier and my sister didn't get sick and i got to do everything on my list. we ate at the spanish restaurant and the greek restaurant and i got a pedicure and we went to the james museum of western art (so much cool shit including some really fabulous contemporary native american art) and the mote aquarium (penguins! jellyfish! huge manatees! little sharks! i got to pet a ray!) and my sister and i went to the beach (tan! sand! gulf!) and two farmer's markets (the jam lady wasn't at either one but i did acquire a guava-and-cheese empanada which was yummy) and two art fairs and did i mention it was warm and sunny? and then my flight home was canceled twice because of the aforementioned winter storm fern and instead of getting back on sunday i got home on tuesday. which. whatever. i used my free monday to work on my story for writing group and the u was closed that day anyway. overall it was a good vacation but i was really ready to go home. it didn't even take as long to dig out my car as i was expecting.

the boyfriend really wanted me and my sister to feel comfortable in his house and personally i did - it helped that a lot of mom's stuff was there too - but he turns on the financial news at like seven in the morning, watches for an hour, changes the channel to the news, watches that, goes into the bedroom for a while and leaves the tv on, and he and mom listen to it LOUD. and i don't love being woken up at 7:30a on my vacation by the financial news on the tv at a frankly stupid volume. once or twice he went into his office and turned on the tv in there so there were competing news shows. >.< but if i asked - and i did - he would turn one of them off, or tell me i could. so he's kind of accommodating but also good lord, dude, turn the volume down. mom and my sister and i usually find something on tv to watch - one year it was yellowstone, one year it was a mexican series called who killed sara - but the boyfriend has pretty different tastes from us but we did catch some movies - jay kelly (liked it), the woman in cabin 10 (could've been better), and the rip (liked it and not just because i really enjoy ben affleck and matt damon in movies together).

and now i'm home where it's cold. phil predicted six more weeks of winter (maybe we'll get a little more snow?) but the best part of groundhog day was the various weather services getting kind of salty about a rodent acting like a meteorologist.

immigration enforecement in the us is a shitshow but you can also get crafty with your resistance. or get resistance-y with your crafts, i guess.

watch pandas playing in the snow.

yesterday was the westminster dog show (so many good boys and girls!). here's the highlights. also some photos. and are you curious why some dogs are named what they are? you are, admit it. :D