Long Time No Catch-Up. Again.

Life is fine. Work is tiring, that’s all, and I’m actively trying to get my ass out of my desk chair and do Other Things, and sadly, this tiny backwater blog is still a random online journal and gets pushed to the back of the to-do list. So.

I’ve read/listened to a lot of books lately, and am currently getting through The Ink Black Heart in audio format. A lot of reviewers of the Audible version have said that it’s hard to follow the online conversations in audio format, because it’s read as “@blahblah” to “@otherblah” and people who weren’t around in the early days online chatting on the interwebs (I mean, like back in the 90s, not when this story is set) struggled to follow. I am not having that issue because I actually was managing forums when we typed on black screens and used primitive commands, so my mind’s eye can follow the conversations without much trouble. Text would probably annoy me more, because it’s a lot of online chat and I can “hear” it faster than I could read it.

I AM having trouble keeping up with the enormous cast of characters, which is finally getting whittled down in the last three hours. And really, we are now FIVE FUCKING YEARS into Robin and Strike pretending they don’t love each other and both are afraid to “make the first move”? FIVE YEARS!! If that is not resolved in the next three hours, I may be done with this series. It’s now a weird, frustrating romance novel where literally every other character assumes they’re a couple, but they’re all, “Oh noes, we’ll ruin our working relationship!” Oy.

OTOH, I can entirely and enthusiastically recommend Beartown. I know, you’re thinking I lost my mind, I’m recommending a book about HOCKEY? It’s not. Well, it is, but it’s not. If you’ve never read Fredrik Backman, he’s just amazing. I discovered him when I stumbled on A Man Called Ove. That was another book that sounded so weird in the description, but so many people raved about it decided to give it a shot, and OMG, it was sad and funny and warm and had all the feels.

Beartown is like that, so don’t be put off by the description of the trials and travails of a small town hockey team in the woods. I do not give a damn about hockey. I have never watched an entire hockey game. Hockey is the backdrop for the story but the characters are well developed and it’s absolutely amazing. It’s the first book in a series, and I’m absolutely in for the next two. (I listened to this on Audible and the reader was fantastic, so if you’re an audiobook type, go for it.)

And, well…(there may have been wine involved) I’ve booked a cruise for next February, on the Disney Wish! I am ridiculously excited about it! It’s just a quick weekend trip to the Bahamas, 3 nights, a day in Nassau and a day at Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay, but as we are all first time cruisers, this seems like a good way to get our cruise feet wet, so to speak. It’ll be me, my daughter, and The Swimmer, and I am perhaps unnaturally excited about it. We haven’t told the kid yet.

This came about after a random conversation with my daughter when I said I’ve always wanted to do a cruise to Alaska. I still do, but as none of us have ever been on a cruise, perhaps that was a bit of a stretch for the first time on a ship? So we talked about that weeks ago, and then when I collected The Kid after school on Friday, she said her friends have all been on cruises and she wants to go on a cruise. She had no idea that her mom and I had been “wine-planning” it, then sobered up. So, serendipity.

So, Friday evening I floated the idea of a weekend trip, and started looking at options via Disney. Yeah, I KNOW there are lots of other, often cheaper, cruises to the Bahamas, but we would be two cruise newbies with an 11 year old with us, and yeah, sometimes cruises can be a bit sketch. Captains Mickey and Minnie run a tight ship. As my daughter put it, even her non-Disney-crazed friends who love cruises rave about Disney’s cruises, and as another sign, a former colleague emailed me out of the blue the week before last to tell me that she and her husband had just done a cruise on the Wish and we had to do it. So, yeah, the Universe doesn’t have to hit me in the head that many times.

It has triggered a waterfall of other good things, seriously.

I’ve been slacking and unmotivated about WW, exercise, and general “self care.” I’m not really DEPRESSED, I’ve just been blah. Unmotivated, unenthusiastic. It’s fine to say, “I really want to lose weight and get in shape” etc., but I need a goal and I work best on a deadline, and now I have one.

Just scheduling this little cruise has given me a kick in the ass and a goal to shoot for. I haven’t bought a bathing suit in 10 years. I did still have an old one that I stuffed myself into for our Animal Kingdom Lodge weekend in June, but yeah, I’ve definitely neglected that aspect of life. My life shrank in the last two-three years. I work from home, I keep my home clean and pleasant, I read, but my life is so small and boring that a weekend in the Bahamas (which, remember, I live in FL, so this is a weekend trip people who live here do all the damn time) for me is a BFD.

Now I have a GOAL. I will have a new swimsuit for the first time in a decade! And more important than the size of the new swimsuit, I want to be in shape to do the fun stuff. I want to learn to snorkel at nearly 65! I’m not sure what other things we’ll do in Nassau, we’ll book those in November, but there will be shipboard adventures and all sorts of good stuff. I will be fit and ready to go all in.

We haven’t told The Kid yet. It’s going to be her Christmas surprise. Her mom will get her a new swimsuit and shorts and such for Christmas, and then they’ll come to my house where she’ll get a new rolling suitcase of her own, and when she opens it, there will be a picture of the Disney Wish.

This is going to be FUN!