The Temporary Partial Crown

It's not that I forgot to post within the chronological bounds of what constitutes a Thursday anymore, it's just that it's been a long day.

Please note that this is not a complaint. I'm on Day 15 of Not Working on my winter vacation. All of it has been spent specifically not-traveling to nowhere-else. So far I've eaten my body weight in M&Ms of varying types, what amounts to for all intents and purposes an entire pie,* most of a pan of brownies** and almost all of my company's generous Christmas bonus.***

I've seen several movies now--Star Wars twice, the Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour (a companion piece to the earlier-in-the-year superior Christopher Nolan film about the exact same time period, Dunkirk. Competent, fine. Gary Oldman really acted super hard) and Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird (a stellar, sad, funny sewn-together set of vignettes of one young woman's life in her last year of high school. Saoirse Ronan and one of my personal heroes, Laurie Metcalf, are peerless anchors of a beautifully directed cast) and watched more on various version of what now passes for television.

Today involved several trips to the dentist (one scheduled, one emergency to fix the thing that was supposed to be OK after the scheduled bit) and a bunch of time with the kids, including some marathon video game bonding sessions that lasted until... well, right through regular writing time.

And that's where we are now. It's 1:13 am on Friday. The fact that I'm getting to this at all, in whatever cursory and unsatisfactory form it eventually takes, is a true testament to either my dedication to you, the reader, or a final capitulation to my own compulsive need to serve the master of my self-imposed schedule. Or you know what? Why not both?!

Truth be told it's the last full night with all three of my boys before I go back to work and the oldest ships off back to college. The bummer factor is real and the lateness of the hour is as much an act of denial as it is sloven procrastination.  Or you know what? Why not both?!

Something more conventional will follow next Thursday. For example, it may even happen on Thursday.

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*Apple, pear and cranberry. Scratch made, by me. The kids weren't impressed or around enough to bother either helping me eat it or protecting me from eating it.

**I'd actually never scratch-made brownies before, so even though the kids were around and interested, they still couldn't get between me and the goods.

***When you work in fixed-price contracting with a limited structure and no expected raises, your bonus is a tin of popcorn. Four different varieties! None for the non-managers, though. They have to make due with another year of absolutely fuck-all.