Tuesday Scribblings
Thoughts and commentary on seemingly random things
More and more I feel guilty that I’m not posting more content (aside from the Friday Bitch and Brag), and yet over the last few months it’s been difficult for me to focus long enough to sit down and complete an essay. If the first draft isn’t done in one writing session, it’s unlikely to get done, and that frustrates me. Perhaps it’s an offshoot of being a perfectionist.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how I could add more content, both for free and paid subscribers. What seems to work best for me is having a scheduled series of posts around a particular theme, and considering how popular the Friday B&B posts are, having a post that’s similar in tone but covers ideas, situations, stories and events that don’t fall under the categories of bitching or bragging strikes me as a good idea. With that in mind, I introduce Tuesday Scribblings: thoughts & commentary on the personal, regional, and global events and stories that are rattling around in my brain.
On Facebook, I’ve been seeing Reels by an older white woman named Babs that are often prefaced with “Did your mom teach you…” and then she shares a household tip or easy recipe, like using dryer balls instead of fabric softener sheets, or how to make deep fried Oreos in the air fryer. It’s fitting that I find her heartwarming content right at the start of my grief season, when Momcat fell and broke her arm 14 years ago.
My cats have been restless lately, bugging me to do…whatever. I found a couple unused shoelaces in my drawer, tied them together, and now I can play with them by dragging the extra-long “string” around and laughing as they pounce on it and follow the string up and down the stairs. Ippie picks up the string in her mouth and drags it around the kitchen, then looks at me like she’s disappointed that she has to do my job.
I need a new pair of jeans in a slightly bigger size—which frustrates the hell out of me after all the hard work I did to release weight between May 2020-July 2022—and as I’m browsing jeans online, it irritates me to see jeans for sale with holes and rips in them. This fashion trend was dumb when it started and it’s just as dumb now. Earn those rips by doing hard manual labor, mining for gold, or wrestling a 100-pound mud-covered mastiff into the tub for a bath! (Yes, this is really more of a bitch, but I’ll add it here while it’s fresh in my brain.)
I keep thinking about making another hummingbird cake…but will make hummingbird cupcakes instead, because that seems more manageable. Just thinking about that moist cake full of pineapple, banana, and toasted pecans topped with cream cheese frosting makes me wish I could wave a wand over all the ingredients and tell them to follow the recipe, like Fauna the fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Alas, I have not yet mastered that trick.
Pops and Mari appear to have a cat now, which is funny because Mari claims she doesn’t like cats—she’s allergic to them and she thinks they look crazy. Several months ago, a big orange cat started hanging around their house, and after a while they started putting out cat food for him. Initially Mari named him the Korean word for “selfish” because she didn’t like how the cat was behaving toward another cat that occasionally showed up for food. Pops later named him Max. I have seen Max a few times and he’s a handsome kitty. According to Pops, Max is getting way more friendly with both him and Mari, rubbing against their legs (which Mari hates) and meowing at them often.
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