These days for this household, Christmas the date is increasingly observed as the date that far-flung relatives are having their parties, and the date that people not-of-the-household would like presents from them opened.

Belovedest's family developed the tradition of going to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve between First Mass and Midnight Mass, and that has translated to getting takeout. This time Belovedest decided to beat the rush and place an order in early afternoon so we'd get it in time for the evening. So we had the meal in the early afternoon. We picked a local teriyaki chain, and got their #2 feast combo with an additional specific combo on account of that was what Alex wanted, and requested both without bell peppers. I have made a note that this was excellent, upon the Seasonal Festivities paper, with some additional notes for managing the mess inherent in getting a large party platter in a bakery/deli tray. We watched Hogfather. I recruited some help in putting together a folder in the household media server with shortcuts to assorted Winter Holiday fare (mostly Christmas).

There were enough leftovers for eating, but not so many that we had to make super extra room in the fridge. (Steph helped a lot with the OK that thing needs to go survey.)

We opened stockings on Christmas morning, as is my family tradition, and presents after that. Everyone got a little wax seal kit, with a seal head or two, a handle, and a pair of wick-type sealing wax sticks. (Wicked!) Belovedest distributed chocolate oranges.

( Earlier in the week, later in the week )

No brain just nose

Three boxes of stuff gone out of the recent batch, and another one listed yesterday.

That makes five recent boxes listed total, and two waiting to go. There are a few more that are roughly sorted but still need pictures taken and a second round of "no, actually that is garbage".

Yesterday evening I sorted through the box of Christmas-themed stuff, plus a bonus round of putting office supplies into discrete bins and testing markers. A lot of them were still good, but some of the pens were not.

I feel like I made progress.

Probably unrelated to the craft stuff, my left index finger's middle joint is having some pain. It feels akin to the pain my right little finger was having. I should probably do what you do to start the medical process for arthritis evaluation, especially on top of the hip and the relatively recent estrogen loss.

Today was bouncy-ball day, on account of bodies being bodies. 45 minutes is a substantial amount of time if you haven't had good access to a bouncy ball recently.

Books:
More miscellaneous Outlander. I started using The Storygraph recently.

Social:
IRC, and chatted with Nora, who has a miserable cold. Remembered that I have my friend Dawn on LinkedIn and sent my phone number there. She'd been going through some rough times a few years ago and lost the prepaid phone number in the shuffle, sometime around when I yeeted Facebook. I've missed her.

Gems:
I got the bounty team to the top-scoring section of the board, and ground a little there. We made a respectable showing in the weekly event too. We have tokens for both that want using by tomorrow.

Fiber arts:
A minute or so each on the small quilt and the projector sack.

Cat:
I'm getting a kitty massage from Yellface.

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/the-difference-between-a-karen-and-a-becky-explained-1842708257

As told to IRC, with some elaboration:

I had some species of apoca-Becky encounter yesterday.

I made the foolish decision to venture forth to the closing of a JoAnn's (50+% off everything left, last day 5/28). Opening time was noon; I arrived at 12:06 and waited for 2 hours in socially distanced line; I foolishly forgot any sort of seat.

02:53 PM neilathotep oh no, closing for good!?
02:53 PM azurelunatic Just that one location
02:53 PM neilathotep oh ok
02:54 PM neilathotep i was wonderin since it seems they are doing some gang busters onlline


Some nice chats with a neighbor in the line, most people in line masked or with masks ready for inside.

By the time I got inside I was already sore and tired, because these days I can about manage 5 minutes standing without much pain. But they were doing a good job with managing the number of people inside and people were being courteous.

I didn't score an iron or a cricut (my goals) but did get innumerable rolls of ribbon on 80% discount, and fleece at 60%. I set myself a hard budget and came under it.


02:57 PM neilathotep ooh ribbob
02:57 PM neilathotep a blowout cricut would be cool


Unfortunately all the discounts were store-only and had to be keyed in individually, which meant I was standing at the register for what felt like 20 minutes but was probably only 10. It had to go in 2 transactions because the combined number of items + discounts apparently makes the register computers super laggy. So by the time I'm all checked out I'm balancing some ridiculous bags of fleece on the cart and hobbling painfully.

My audio processing is bad at best, and worse when I'm distracted or in pain. When some short little old white lady with hair that reminded me of Mama on a bad hair day popped up by my side, it took me time to figure out that she was asking if I was okay. I wasn't, but not in any way that needed help, so I said I was okay.

She kept bobbing along next to me, telling me I was beautiful, and had a beautiful spirit, and my hair was beautiful (I will agree to that, although it was a mess from all the wind and the colliding with shelves due to excess bolts of fleece).

I recognize the tone as that of someone who is not going to leave you alone unless told to. This is now above and beyond the standard unpleasant interaction of being in public while visibly disabled. (Person sees an obvious disability/struggle and offers help, thinking they're going to be a savior, and gets angry when the help is not accepted.) It had a very desperate vibe to it, like a social vampire who has drained her usual victims and is starving during the socially distanced apocalypse.

I reach my car, she's still following me, so I tell her to step back. She's not wearing a mask, of course. It takes 5 or more times repeating for her to actually get out from within arm's reach. She's arguing that she's not too close. She's small enough that under normal circumstances I wouldn't feel threatened, but I'm in pain and have already used up my physical confrontation energy on trying to get around a tight corner with the bolt of fox fleece (no other people involved, just too many bolts of fleece stacked badly), and she's not wearing a mask and I'm probably not even supposed to be venturing forth thanks to my various underlying conditions.


03:03 PM neilathotep yuck


She eventually huffs off around the corner of my car, and I lose track of her while I'm focused on loading my car in a way that doesn't slam the cart into the shoddy parking of the person next to me. I stomp the cart back to the store, because it looks like they only had about 10 carts circulating (one for each person allowed in the store, I guess, but some people were using 2 to hold their scores), and it's just courteous to return the carts under those circumstances. The cashier thanked me, and I took the opportunity to say that there was a lady out front hassling + not respecting distancing, and it took repeated requests for her to step back.

"Oh, that's not good," says the cashier. I agree.

I pop back out, and I hear her voice again, she's in the line holding forth at street preacher volumes about how we are all in this together, and we must love one another and we will get through this! and we are all beautiful -- ESPECIALLY HER [sic], and she indicates me.

I wave back in the time honored fashion.

https://www.ascii-middle-finger.com/
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The lady amps up the volume on the "love", and at this point I fucking snap.

At the top of my not inconsiderable lungs, I inform her and the line in general that she was following me way too close and would not leave me alone after I told her to, and I had to tell her so multiple times before she backed off.

She tried to insist that she was following social distance because she was standing far enough away from her line-mates.

That didn't signify, and anyway I was fucking done, so I stomped off to my car.

Then I heard some applause behind me, and I figured that perhaps she had uttered some devastating bon mot in my absence. That was aggravating, but at that point, what can you really do?

I figured that I would take her picture so at least I would have an external memory of what she looked like. (See: faceblindness.) I got my phone set up for map and for taking a picture of her out my window as I went past in the parking lot.

But funny thing: I saw the people ahead of her in the line.
I saw the people behind her.
I did not see her.

I came to the conclusion that in the time I was buckling in and setting up my phone, someone from the store came out and (forcibly?) removed her from the premises. I did see someone about the correct size going across the parking lot, but that didn't filter through until a little later.

I had to ask Belovedest if they had a live mic when I got home. I was bursting with WTF, and it would be unkind to unleash that kind of language on someone's unsuspecting co-workers.

Today I called the location and expressed my thanks to a person who turned out to be a manager for the employees handling stuff yesterday. I was hoping for someone to answer the phone who had actually been there for it, so I could ask for juicy details, but hey, that's what you get.

Face hurt.
Face hurt bad.
Loonie see dentist when dentist open at 9am tomorrow.
Loonie have work number in cell; loonie call apologize to snarky lady for blowing off at least part of the potluck setup.

Loonie had wrenched shoulder a while ago. Urgent care place thought wrenched arm warrant narcotics. Loonie no think so.
Loonie think ZOMG ONE AND A HALF OF MY TEETH ARE KILLING ME AND THE REST ARE PLOTTING TREASON BEHIND MY BACK AND ANOTHER HAS OPENLY DEFECTED TO THE ENEMY is sufficient reason for narcotics.

The ones that make the Little Fayoumis say I should not use Strongbad for a role model.

So. Yeah. I call Mama in the morning too. Thank goodness it is payday? Thank goodness my parents love me and are willing to step in when Bad Things Happen? I thought that I could poke around and look at recommendations over the weekend and call somewhere Monday, and maybe get an appointment before the end of the month, but this has just stepped into emergency territory. There's still a dull ache that I can feel through the topical anaesthetic and the painkiller, and I'm not going to do anything stupid with either of those measures.


On the bright side, at work I finished copying Management's floppy disks for her. I was working on that project since January of this year. That's a happiness.

This is my day at work, as transferred over from IM. (pharminatrix, you get to see the good stuff twice, but hopefully with more context/smoother wording.)

Today I was check-in, which means that I have to make sure that all the phone goons are in the right seats, and then I keep track of who's present and absent, and how many person-hours we're logging per job we're contracted to do. There's a new seating procedure, which means I have to deal with learning that and getting up to speed keeping track of who's in, who's out, and what who's on. This is stressful enough, because as it stands, the check-in job is sufficient to cause pretty much everyone headaches, and any change to procedure is an extra layer of stress syrup on the pancake-stack of OMG LOTS OF WORK. Old seating procedure: all phone goons file in past me, they tell me their names, I tell them their booth number, circle them on the seating chart, high-light them on the people list, and they sit down. New seating procedure: copies of the name/booth number list are posted. Phone goons read their assignment, walk in, sit down. I follow them around with the seating chart and verify that a) the seats are occupied, and that b) the butt in the seat matches the name on the seating chart. (I start looking decorative and official in the lobby at 2:55. Door closes at 3:05. I stand in the lobby catching stragglers for a few minutes. I go in and check things after that.)

There are new hires, so in the course of walking around with the goddamn clipboard and paper to see who's in their seats and who's out, I have to seat no less than six new hires, all of whom need help logging the fuck in. It's not that I don't like helping people, it's that I hate it when I have to choose between helping people (not my direct job, but my responsibility) and actually doing my direct job, which is keeping track of attendance and hours. All phone goons are supposed to be in their seats at 3:05. By 3:23, I had only walked 2/5 of the floor to see who was actually in their fucking seat. Note that me getting the phone goons logged in was mostly accomplished by their supervisors, not by me. And it still took that long. Adding to the doom was that we've recently changed servers, and there was considerable time lost because the old way to log in for a training survey is not the new way to log in for a training survey, and I have not had to log in or help anyone log in for a training survey since we swapped servers, so the old telnet does not talk to the new server and I did not know this.

At 3:23, and I know the time because it was at that point that a panicky figment0 catapulted into me, I was doing fine, if stressily. But at 3:23, the second most loud broadcasting empath in the building walked up to me to get seated, in mortal certainty that she had just lost her job. One of my friends, of course. Accompanied by her boyfriend, in similar attendance danger, and also accompanied by the loudly broadcasting reason they were late, the frantic carpool driver figment0, my bondmate. This, of course, was both a timesuck and an emotionbombardmentdrain. I was torn between conflicting impulses: "Hide! People loud!" "My friends are in trouble and anguish! I must comfort them!" "I must calm down the distressed employees and get them to work on their jobs quickly." "I need to get back to my actual task of seating people and verifying butts in chairs vs. names on seating charts."

It was near unto 3:45 by the time I collapsed into my desk to verify on the computer who was doing what where and how they were logged in. And issues kept coming across my desk, so it was 4:30 by the time I got the seating chart and everything copied and out to the supervisors. Which, of course, they need ASAP, so lo verily there was much bitching at me until I got it done. When Cute Geek Super asked me what was taking so long, I actually snapped that I'd be happy to explain as soon as I got time. I don't tend to do that.

To add to the general chaos and turmoil, the company is getting reorganized and squashed together with two other companies (7 call centers in all) of the same parent company. This is causing much upset at the phone center, never mind that all the theoretical disruption to the day-to-day activities of the company is the removal of the old company name from all signage and so forth and the posting of the new signage with the new unified company name. Unfortunately, this also means that as well as just a new nominal company, it's a new administrative company as well. Therefore, we need to get paperwork together as if everyone was a new hire again, which means an assload of packets to distribute, which is theoretically my job... It was five, and I still wasn't caught up on the notes for the swapping around of people on the hours chart, so I near-tearfully pleaded with Rev. Nice Super to start handing out the paperwork update packets. There were people leaving at six, after all... I was so behind on my paperwork that I did not even start getting the bulk of the ordinary stuff done until 8:00. Most days I have that polished off or at least started up nicely by the middle of the shift around 6:30 or so.

At 7:00, one of the newer girls came up with a packet that had had its front pages torn off (they're supposed to be unmutilated so they can sort 'em) and I had no idea what all was supposed to be in them, and I knew we had to do some stuff, and I hadn't yet been schooled in exactly what stuff I was supposed to do. I told her to hang on to it, I was not prepared to accept those at that point in time. Fortunately, Stressy College Chick came up and backed me up on the "not touching that with a ten foot pole until I figure out what it is we're supposed to do with it" front while I was talking with Rev. Nice Super; the phone goon had gone and talked to Rev. Nice Super wondering wtf she was supposed to do with the packet because the check-in girl had "had a nervous breakdown when I tried to turn it in to her". I did not scream at her when she acted smug at me, and I did not cry, and I did not hide under the desk. I was merely very stressed and told her that I was not about to even think about touching her paperwork right then. It isn't due in until July 01. I wound up printing out the e-mail that had come around about said packet and posting it around the bullpen, with some of the crucial stuff (need photocopies of ID, make sure the whole thing's filled in) high-lighted in blazing pink.

Cute Desk Guy offered to trade jobs with me. I considered it for a bit. But then, he's on the wrong side of $ISSUE_SIDE_JOB for me, so I had to say no. I told Junior Check-In Princess that we needed to cross-train Cute Desk Guy as a monitor, that was what. (She'd fallen short of monitors today, and needed one, but all the available monitors but figment0 were on jobs we couldn't pull them from, and we weren't so sure about that job either, but fortunately Phone Call In Super let her borrow him for an hour.)

...and I have to go back and do it all again tomorrow.