Pooka

A benign but mischievous creature - very fond of rumpots, crackpots.

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Reminder

If you follow me and your Tumblr only contains reblogs and no content that indicates you are an actual human being I will not follow you back and I will block you.

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I offered the jeweler $500 and he took it.

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Okay, so more info on the watches....

Most people liked #1.

It's actually the cheapest at $250 and I like that it has the date.

I'm pretty sure I don't want #2. While I like the Roman numerals, it's too dainty. It's $325

The third one was the one I actually went in for - I saw it several years ago at this jewelers when getting some pearls restrung. It's the only used one and while the most expensive ($595), it's a steal based on comparables.

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Went watch shopping today - intentionally not sharing prices to get your honest opinions 😁

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Spotted on my lunch break yesterday

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Nothing a ramen lunch with your old work bestie the night after Heated Rivalry sweeps an award show to cure me of the Mondays.

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Love our neighborhood!

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Our next door neighbor has electronic pest repellers on his front lawn and it's interesting how only some people hear them. I first noticed when we were getting quotes for our roof because the guy that came out for that asked if we had them because he could hear them (I cannot). Yesterday a canvasser (for rank choice voting, yah!) could hear them. When husband blew his eardrum out this winter he could hear them, but now that it's healed he can't.

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A feminist hill I will die on is that women should not change their name to their husband's when they get married (if you did, I think you know that was not a feminist choice - you are free to make whatever choice you want, but that was not a feminist one).

So, if that's you and you don't want to be offended, I've added a cut so you can scroll on.

My first husband was bothered by this, my second husband wasn't just ok with it, but encouraged it ("to me, you are First Name Last Name, it would be weird for you to be something different.").

I've been chatting with a friend about a disturbingly high rate of women who identify as feminists not only changing their name, but bragging about it. Ew.

Then one of my husband's employees announced she is changing her name when she gets married in a few weeks at their All Hands meeting (relevant because they have to sign their briefings, so this might confuse their stakeholders) and the response was not what she expected - a lot of people called her out. Like, "but you have such a cool name?" to which she claimed she would be the only First Name Last Name if she took her husband's name and they literally googled in front of her that she wouldn't be. They asked if she had a bad relationship with her dad and not only does she not, he expressed his disappointment to her that she was changing her name, which led to all the dads in the room saying they would be disappointed if their daughters changed their name (yes, I know in most cases that name is their father's name, but we have to start somewhere).

To me it just always boils down to "would a man say that?" Would a man say "oh, my name is just so common and hers is interesting" or "I don't have a good relationship with my dad, so I'll take her name" or "I'm just not that attached to my name" or "Hers is easier to spell?"

Hell no. A man's last name could be Smith or Hitler and he'd keep it when he got married.

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I don't think I'll be finishing anything this week:

The Only Good Indians: too gory, especially violence against animals, with not a strong enough plot otherwise.

Yesteryear: A page turner, but ultimately disappointing.

Tough Guy: It was fine, I'm just going in order until I get to The Long Game :)

Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela: A really interesting point of entry into recent Venezuelan history, but it read like a dissertation, narrowly focused and source driven, rather than contextualized and argument driven.

Lopapesya: A Knitter's Guide to Iceland with Patterns, Techniques and Travel Tips: a fun premise and I did learn things, but just a little too manic pixie dream girl angle for me.

Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice: Really difficult but necessary to read. Not that it needs to be said, but it really lays out how anyone who spent one minute with Epstein knew what was going on. Also, a very enlightening history of the various lawsuits involved. The ghostwriter did a good job letting Guiffre's voice come through.

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Husband and I chatted a little about buying a "new" car and he made some good points about size (how often do we need a bigger car and couldn't we just rent something if we needed that) and our habits/values (we'll still larger carpool together), so now we're looking at Prius Plug In Hybrids (vs. the RAV4) and they average 10k less, so that seems like a much less stressful monthly payment (mind you, we haven't had a car payment in over 4 years). We can always look for one with a roof rack/install one so we can still use our rooftop storage box for camping trips and the Prius hatchback is an improvement on our trunk for storage.

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It's getting real folks!

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We are cat sitting our friend/coworker/neighbors cats while they are in Europe for two weeks (dual income no kids gay men) and they are a little overboard with the cats (twice daily feedings, several water sources around the house), but they live so close and they watch our cat. Also they mentioned in their note to help ourselves to wine and beer so I went in the basement to see if they had something not too fancy they could spare...

So I grabbed a Dr. Frank!

Their living room is giving grandma 🤣

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It's so good

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I will not gross you out with photos, but we're pretty sure that infection husband found on his shin is a yellow sac spider bite. Apparently, a lot of people confuse these bites with brown recluse spider bites but this spider has a wider range and is less painful.

On Sunday it was a very clear baseball sized dark red outline around a central, raised puncture. They gave him the same antibiotics they would for Lyme and the worst complications from this bite would be treated with antibiotics, so he's going to wait and see until a follow up appointment in ten days.

The dark red circle is mostly gone but he has red molting and swelling down to his ankle. We're guessing gravity is doing its work to get it out of his system. He's also been applying topical antibiotics and cleaning it several times a day. Poor guy!

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How utterly predictable - less than a week after Google enshitified Fitbit my watch starts acting up.

Really need to commit to analog.

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I bought a new larger piece of luggage (not the huge size, but the one that won't fit in the overhead bin, so, like 28"?) for our Iceland trip because I realized our second larger piece had a broken wheel that couldn't be repaired.

Husband expressed that I was going overboard - how many bags did we need?

I asked him, "OK, so I have a checked bag and now our daughter has a checked bag that will fit clothing for 10 days including our camping related supplies like food and towels. Where do you plan on packing your things because you don't own a checked bag?"

He admitted I was not going overboard. And that he needed to buy a piece of luggage.