A long December

 One more drink he said,

and baby you got me tripping

though we're face to face

'bout to do it again, again, again and again

One more drink she said

I think I'm losing my head now

tonight we'll make

bad memories

(Meduza, Bad memories)

Last night there was the annual Christmas party, and no I did not attend. I have 0 intentions to attend a no-mask event with 2500+ people bumping into each other - meaning, I have 0 intentions to spoend Christmas break with covid.

Additionally, more than half of my time feels the same way about it, and this is lucky for me (as the only thing nearly as bad as getting covid would be having half of the team down with covid and needing to cover for them, which already happened in the past..)

Besides that, things are mostly okay, although we finally had to put down the black cat at my parents' place (the one who lived with us in 2020 during the lock downs). He had cancer and had gotten to a point that he was suffering so it was the right thing to do - yet a sad affair. That cat gave a lot of emotional support to husband when his dad passed during the first lock down in spring 2020. We will always remember him fondly.

Loki instead is doing well, growing up (I think he's going to be a big cat, my boy!). He's a very loyal cat, always running to me whenever I come home, wanting to be petted for a while, purring and so on. We're trying to potty-train him and, although it's a slow process, I think it's going well - we also spent two days with him at my parents' place and two at my sister in law's last week, and he behaved super well.

Blogging has been slow as I have a lot going on but it's some work related matters I can't really write about so, it is what it is. I'm confident there'll e enough family drama over Christmas to make for a good post or two :-)

Loki

I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no

If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in bloodshot eyes

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
If I could, you know I would, if I could, I would
Let it go

(Bad, U2)

How long have I been listening to this song? Must be 20 years at least.

I'm actually quite happy. Not about my weight, nor my looks, nor my back which aches like hell 25 days a month.

But overall, I am happy. I believe that the new family member has a good deal to do with it, despite the trouble of scooping up all his poop.

Meet Loki, the Brad Pitt of cats)

He is still very scared of being outdoor, but I keep trying and he's starting to be more comfortable as long as he can stay on my shoulder or in my arms. Hopefully we can train him to feel safe in a backpack where he can peek out.

On top, we're having a lovely autumn with long and dry days, pleasant temperature outside. My team is doing great at work and I always have a good time with them. This pretty much carries through work on a daily basis.

So the only thing is, I'm still fat.

the crazy life of a financial advisor during lockdown

The morning starts well. By now (after 5 weeks of smart-working from my parents' place and 3 weeks of total lockdown) Husband and I have completely corrupted my mother's black cat.
The Panther (aka Mom) has two cats: Tigros - a smart huntress, intelligent, reactive and a bit of a tedious whore if you want my point of view - and Negus (which means black prince in Ethiopia).
Negus is the dumb brother, he's a black cat who only has (had?) one goal in his life: being petted by my parents. He's super-loyal and affectionate, but the Panther always had a thing for intelligent ones (see Bro and I, where I was treated like the accident daughter until my late twenties).
After these weeks, where we have been spending only on treats for Negus, he's finally moved downstairs with us (insert evil laugh here).
So in the morning he steps in from our bedroom window and plops down on our bed, right in the middle. Goodbye morning sex by the way - clearly gaining the cat's affection has become more vital.

Despite everything, two clients managed to close their transactions this week - I usually don't develop much on my job, but basically they have acquired other companies. Given the lockdown (and the recession), it's almost a miracle.

Fast forward through a morning of conference calls, lunch with the family and quickly preparing some bread (currently baking in the wood stove upstairs).
At 2.45PM I was preparing for a long videoconference when a girl rings our bell and frantically warns that, in the filed close to our home where we keep the hens, she spotted a dog chasing Mom's hens.
Now, the Panther is a bit peculiar - we are virtually vegetarian and she takes very good care of her hens that are more like pets then anything else.
Husband reached that part of the yard first - blame it on my knee surgery, but I still cannot run (not even a few steps) at the risk of stumbling down. By the time I got there, it was a mix between a will coyote cartoon and a zombie apocalypse movie. The hens are 14 and live a very large yard, with their coop (the fox comes every night so they must be locked sunset to sunrise) lots of grass, bushes and trees.
There were feathers everywhere, bloodied pieces of hens spread around, dead hens, hens running like crazy and in the middle, my beautiful, brave, big husband with a pitchfork, chasing a pitbull that was chasing hens.
Surreal.
He managed to scare away the dog while my parents reached the owner, and then we proceeded for the next hour in counting the fallen, the injured and grouping the scared healthy survivors.

All while trying to soothe the poor Panther, who was very grateful towards us, until I suddenly realized I was 30 minutes late for a conference call, and absentmindedly dropped an F bomb right in the face of my Mom. Aw, well, fuck it.

Fast forward through a boring call, more cat therapy, realizing that I screamed into the dog owner's face that he is a fucking moron who likes to butt-fuck his sister (and most important, realizing I dropped all this in front of the Panther but she was probably in shock or something because she did not flinch nor mention this), I finally remember to bake bread for dinner.

While the bread was baking in the wooden stove I was strolling through pant-suits on IG and started wondering if we'll really ever go back to the pant-suit and heels life (well if my knee does not heal I can probably forget the heels). Back to the city, professional version of ourselves?
I honestly don't know any longer, but meanwhile I took a mental note that I need to fetch more wood for the chimney tomorrow morning.