There is no substitute for good manners...

 An average NYE - I ditched a party when it became clear that the weather would not support driving to the location, made Cheater Quiche (Stouffer's Spinach Souffle x 2, 4 eggs, bag of shredded cheese, pepper, mix and pour into pre-made pie crust, bake for 45-55 minutes at 375), took a bath, read, and basically stayed up until midnight out of duty.

It beat last year, freezing at my aunt's apartment with international guests. Out of the six people present, three of us were raging introverts, two were utterly jet-lagged (one had refused to nap), and one didn't speak any English. The food was excellent, my aunt's apartment was beautiful, but all I remember is being cold, everything being dark, and bone-deep exhaustion. The best part of the trip was my dad offering to ride the L with me in a big loop through downtown Chicago. My parents divorced when I was young and my dad lived out of state starting when I was in middle school. He likes to say "you're just like me" but he's missing a lot of context, you know? So realizing that, yeah, riding a train I hadn't spent much time on (I think the last time was going to and fro from Midway when I interviewed for JET a million years ago) and just looking out the window was my cup of tea - good job, dad.

I have the day off and I need to tackle the sidewalk. The glacier has retreated slightly, but it needs to be shown who's boss.

Enjoyed an incredibly lazy weekend - except for aikido movie night, grocery shopping (a double string of green lights got me to and from the store in less than 30 minutes), and going to the bakery, I did not leave the house. I did do laundry and cook for the week, but otherwise I lived in my hoodie on the couch and watched Netflix and read. The cats appreciated this, sleeping in my lap in shifts.

At work we're doing a big file clean-up, so I'm going through change requests from 2002-2007 and seeing if they were ever actually implemented. It's a little weird remembering what I was doing at the time - I'm of average age for my unit and save for our data quality analyst (who's in her late forties), all of these change requests took place before any of us had graduated from college.

Movies

I watched National Treasure (2004) again and I think it might finally be moving out of the perennial re-watch category, much like Love Actually and Miss Congeniality. I also watched To All the Boys I've Loved Before, which was very pretty and had a healthier plot-line than I remember from teenage romances of my adolescence.

I might need to curate a new collection of holiday movies, with a good chunk of my 4th of July and Christmas choices now sliding out of favor, personally. There's still Die Hard, I suppose. 

Food

I made butter chicken (chicken makhani, not, like, chicken with butter and nothing else - Midwest transplant, not native) on Sunday. I replenished my garam masala last week and the difference was startling, even taking into account the fact that I never make the recipe the same way twice. I use the NYT Cooking recipe from Sam Sifton, modified to suit my tastes and patience.

Crafting

I reached square 300 on the blanket over the weekend. I've started working vertically, rather than horizontally. Still hoping for a 2022 finish!