Trying Something New in the New Year

No, I'm not kicking off any big anything. But I did do one new thing yesterday, which: yay, me? Sort of?

I know some people believe that the way you spend New Year's Eve or the way your life is on New Year's Day sets the tone for the coming year. I don't feel strongly that way, though I will say that if it's true, I'm good with that. I spent NYE reading, was asleep long before midnight in my time zone*, slept in a little, and had a mostly lazy day. 
*Ironically, one night last week I was up until almost midnight, reading.

The new thing I did, amongst all that pleasant sameness, was to sign up for HBO Max in order to watch Heated Rivalry. I am not a consumer of streamed shows, and despite hearing many friends have conversations about have you seen this show, it's on Netflix, or that show, it's on Hulu, etcetera etcetera, I have never signed up for anything that doesn't bring me live hockey games. (I didn't even sign up for Apple TV last spring when they did Murderbot, though that was in part because I know and love the books so much that I was hesitant to watch the series.)

Sidebar: Have you heard about Heated Rivalry? I started to feel like I was reading about it everywhere. Here's what Wikipedia says:

Heated Rivalry is a Canadian sports romance television series created, written, and directed by Jacob Tierney for Crave. Based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel series, it follows two rival professional hockey players, Canadian Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Russian Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), whose on-ice animosity conceals a passionate, secret romance. It also stars François Arnaud, Robbie G.K., Christina Chang, Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova, Sophie Nélisse, and Dylan Walsh.

The first season premiered on Crave on November 28, 2025, and was picked up for streaming on HBO Max in the United States and Australia; Neon in New Zealand; and Movistar Plus+ in Spain. The series received critical acclaim, with praise for the directing, writing, and the lead actors' performances and chemistry. It also achieved strong audience viewership, becoming Crave's most-watched original series to date and HBO Max's top debut for an acquired, non-animated title since the platform's launch in 2019. The series has been described by media outlets as a global sensation and a break-out critical hit. In December 2025, it was renewed for a second season.

(IMDB page here.)

Basically it’s a gay hockey romance relationship show. There, you’re caught up.

So I signed up, watched season one (it's only six episodes), and whoa, so good! This series is NOT for everyone, and I don't mean that not everyone wants to watch a show about hockey, though truthfully it's not about hockey, it's about the relationship. But it's also a show with candid representation of sex on-screen, which isn't everyone's thing whether it's gay or straight. I mean, it's not full frontal, but you see plenty, and can definitely infer what's going on.* Frankly, it's hot as hell, and the people involved, both on screen and behind the scenes, deserve the kudos they are getting.
*Does this bother me? No. But I’m not watching it with my mother, thank you.

Funny thing, I’m sure plenty of people haven’t heard of it, but I was seeing stories about it (even the WaPo had an interview with the costume designer), and once a clip showed up on my Insta feed and I watched it, more and more showed up, and then memes, and now most of my feed is about it and even FB is showing me merch. This one is from a company that seems sketchy as hell, but I would buy the shirt if it was legit.

I even love the color. Oh well.

Since season two has been green-lighted but not started, it may not come out until 2027, so I will cancel the streaming at the end of the month. But until then, I’ll poke around and see what else to watch. And probably watch season one a few more times.

PS In case you thought I was exaggerating about this phenomenon, check this out.

It's the End of the Year

And by now, most if not all of my card recipients should have seen this, so here you are!

Thanks for being here this year. Here's to 2026 being a gentle one.

I'm Not THIS Relaxed, But...

...who is? Other than Newman.

Still, I am pretty relaxed, and I hope you are, too.

Happy Thursday

Just passing through to wish you a good day.

In my case, it's happy first of five days off.

(Since I only mailed the last of my cards this week, I'll give it some time for them to be delivered before showing the card here.)

About Holiday Cards

(I like the idea of stringing up cards so they can all be seen, but ... in practice, it doesn't happen. Someone gave us this holder last year, so we're using it this year.)

I finished up my holiday cards this weekend (and have some left*; want one?). I will be showing it here once they have time to be received, though you can probably guess who is front and center this year, based on recent years (2024, 2023, 2022, etc.). 
*In the past, I have ordered two dozen, which is almost enough so I make do, but this year the best deal I found was for 40, so ... extras!

But I've found myself thinking about what you might call the philosophy of sending cards, FOR ME (not judging anyone who feels/does differently, I promise), and wanted to work it out in my head, so here you go.

1. I like sending cards. There is certainly an argument against it from an ecological standpoint, but I get a little spot of brightness in my day when I receive a card, and hope that those who get mine feel the same. You can't put a price on that. There's so little happy mail in the box these days.
2. I also try hard not to feel bad if I don't send cards in a given year. Life happens. I do this to feel good, not bad. No judgements.
3. Similarly, I enjoy getting cards, a lot, but I do not keep track of who sends me one, and have zero expectation that anyone I send a card to must send one to me. This isn't a transaction, it's me doing something I want to do. I hope the recipients are glad to get them, but only because it makes me happy to think so.
4. I want to send cards, and therefore will pare down my own rules in the interest of doing it at all. I like the idea, the theory, of writing a little note to everyone on every card, but in practice that became paralyzing, to the point of not doing it at all. So I took an idea from many of my friends who do photo cards, and switched to those, with cat photo(s), and a little message on it.
5. I ordered from a different place this year, and at checkout they offered to send me self-adhesive envelopes. Yes, it cost a little more, but I am someone who tapes envelopes closed (after more than one paper cut on the tongue incident, I stopped licking), so I decided this might be easier. I am a convert! Worth the extra pennies!
1. Speaking of Photo Affections, the cards are very high quality and I am impressed. I used it because I got a Groupon, but would order from again.

I think that's all I wanted to brain-dump about cards! Any thoughts, any questions, want to vent your own feelings? This is a judgement-free, safe holiday-card-related space.

Under Glass

The other night, Newman was hanging out on top of a glass-top table, so I tried to get a picture from underneath.

Turns out it's hard to do without having a reflection of your phone in the middle.

No phone in this one, but an odd lighting effect:

This seems to be the best I could do:

I took Newman to the vet this week because last week, I noticed that he had scratched enough under his chin to have taken a goodly amount of fur off (as well as some behind the ears). The vet checked him out and wasn't worried, but gave me drops to put in his ears twice daily for a week, and pills to give him twice daily for a month. Whew! 

He's actually taking both pretty well, considering, and allows me to purrito him into a towel without drawing blood, but it's not the best part of the day for either of us. Fortunately, he likes the Pill Pockets pretty well, which helps with getting the pills in.

Also fortunately, he doesn't seem to hold a grudge.

Double Hilarious

I've written before about how unintentionally hilarious I find cybertrucks. The basic one makes me laugh, I saw a baby blue one that was hilarious, and I even have seen more than one with a business wrap on it, which is funny in a whole new way.

And then I saw this one, and the license plate is just _chef's kiss_ perfection.

Iceman! That's how cool he is! Ha!

It's Done! With Help

Earlier this month, I wrote about a gift I got myself, a bookshelf, and how hard putting it together was on my hands. By last week, it was less than half done, though at least I was making progress.

Still a lot of parts, though...

I had mentioned this at my knitting group last Monday night, and a few days later, one of my friends reached out to say that she had told her husband about it, and he volunteered to come over and finish it for me! (Perhaps I should call him her extremely handy and recently retired husband? Yes.) So Saturday afternoon, they came over with power tools, we did some back-and-forthing about what was supposed to come next (during which at one point I said that I felt like I was taking a quiz for which I hadn't studied), and when it was done, he said with seeming sincerity, "That was fun!"

And we had this:

It fits very neatly by where I sit in the living room, in the previously dead space between the end of the loveseat, the end table, and the bigger bookcase in the corner.

The books on it are a very random assortment that have piled up and I have been meaning to look at: gifts and things that I've picked up, that need to be assessed for the two big questions: do I want to read this, and do I want to keep this.

Even if it takes all year, having them at hand is more likely to work than having them where they were before.

Review Fatigue

In February of this year, my company launched the annual performance review cycle. I always hate doing that, but we do what we must, right? After the process was done, they let us know that due to the uncertain economy, there weren't going to be any raises or promotions "for now" and that sucked (the hope for a raise is most of my motivation for doing the review). But again, what can you do?

In July, they announced that there were going to be "mid-year check-ins," sort of a light version of the reviews, and we thought, hmm, maybe there will be raises now? Turned out, no. Okay then.

Then they announced that "this year," the annual performance review cycle was going to start in November and finish in January, instead of starting in February and dragging into April. So we are now starting our third review cycle in under a year.

Holy mama. I hated this once a year. Three times?

I swear, I look at the questions and my brain shuts down.

The Thing Is, Though

I don't talk a lot here about politics and especially the president, because I can't bear it, it's all so awful.

Pretty much all this year, "my desire to remain sane" has been winning.

Sometimes, though:

(Side note: I was reading a story recently in which a character is asked his name by the ER doctor, because he was found unconscious after bumping his head. He gives it and says, "It's 2025 and I'd rather not say who the president is. Not because I don't know, but because I'm in denial.")

Anyway, I say all this to lead up to this surprising sequence of words I never expected: I agree with something he said. 

Although not in the way he meant it.

This is from a Washington Post story today about an event he held in Pennsylvania:

Eternity! Yes, indeed.

A Story in Photos

Two things you need to know before I get to the story.

One, Newman sometimes chases his tail. It's hilarious.

Two, after seeing it on someone's blog (I thought I knew where, but I can't find it: was it yours?), I bought Newman this cat scratcher house thing:

A few hours after I put it together, he checked it out.

Scratched.

Considered the ceiling:

And promptly spent the rest of the weekend ignoring it, sometimes from close up.

However! Back to point one! Yesterday he went into it.

Paused.

Realized that the darned tail had followed him into the box.

Whipped after it:

Almost...

Got it!

Phew. Such tension. I was on the edge of my seat.

Visit Recap

As I mentioned, since Mom fell before my brother's visit, we definitely went low-key and didn't push to "do" too much while he was here. He's always glad to soak up the warmth (he's from northern California), and balance relaxing on the lanai with walking on the beach. Here are some pictures I took while he was here.

Saturday night, post-sunset and the crescent moon.

Sunday, bird on a lamp post.

The view from dinner. We both enjoyed sitting outside and watching the end of the sunset.

The restaurant is on the water, and they have some lights underwater that mean you can see the fish going by. For some reason, there were tons of them that night.

Which meant you could look up and see this peaceful view:

Or you could back a little and see the otherworldliness of the catfish.

Another night, another dinner with a view. To the side:

And straight west.

For Thanksgiving dinner, we again got a meal from Fresh Market, as we did last year, and then I made our family-favorite recipe, angel salad. I like to have cider to drink with the meal, and I noticed the top of the lid  had this messaging:

I didn't take a picture of the meal, or the table, but I had leftovers for lunch on Friday, so here's the recap:

And here's Newman, doing his best turkey-leg impression.

We had lunch outside on Saturday, before taking my brother to the airport. Another beautiful day.

With sailboats going by.

A party was getting back on their boat after lunch, and the shape of the dog's tail caught my eye.

And of course, what post would be complete without the many faces of Newman? One picture isn't enough!

He discovered the base of the scratcher condo:

And then realized it has an upper level:

"What? Is mine."