Cat mask fever

My sister-in-law sent these adorable masks. I have no idea where she got them, but this cat mask is too cute to be disposable! Although I usually wear one of the washable cloth face coverings my sister made, I keep a stash of disposables around as well. Such is life in the time of pandemic.

Our air quality is much improved, and it has cooled off. Quite beautiful! Earlier in the week, I wasn’t sick, but I wasn’t 100 percent, either. I woke up this morning feeling great, and that’s not the dexamethasone talking. I’m blaming the air.

Today I’m making baguettes, which we have for dinner with good olive oil, prosciutto, brie and whatever else is hanging around. We have some liverwurst spread similar to pâté, which I think will be delicious. Red wine. If all I ever do is make baguettes for Dale, he will die a happy man.

Speaking of red wine, I believe we’ll be taking a drive out to one of our favorite wineries today. Around here, you can join a wine club at any of the wineries. While it varies from winery to winery, at this one, we’re obligated to buy three bottles per quarter and get free tastings anytime we want.

Normally, it’s a lovely place to hang out, but we’re not tasting until I don’t know when – when we see some sort of sign this virus has mostly passed. But it’s an interesting drive, and we have a pick-up ready. Usually they have other sales going on, and the rack is quickly slowly diminishing, so we might purchase additional bottles. Members get a nice discount.

Local wineries are one of my favorite things about living in California, and I am looking forward to the full experience sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Now that the weather is cooling, I’m thinking about all my favorite fall foods. And Thanksgiving, of course. Last year I made pumpkin cheesecake for dessert, and it was absolutely wunderbar. I froze individual pieces.

The cheesecake resuscitated quite well but didn’t last long due to my persistent overindulgence. Those little big slices were like a gun to my head. Why, yes, I want to make it again. But Dale loves apple pie, so I’m torn.

However, I made another deal with him that might get me off the hook for apple pie. I’m not much of a Christmas person and usually complain bitterly the whole time about what a pain in the ass it is. I find the tree to be mostly a nuisance, but Dale loves it. We do have lots of handmade German ornaments that are quite precious, but still, I prefer to see them tucked away in the garage.

Perhaps it’s a touch of cat mask fever or maybe a pre-Christmas miracle, but I said this has been one hell of a shitty year. Who knows what will happen next? We’re not getting any younger. If a tree makes you happy, I’m all in. I’ll help, I’ll be happy and won’t complain. That’s why God invented single malt Scotch.

Anyway, it wouldn’t be all that different from work, where I used to pretend to enjoy all the team-building activities, including one where a high-priced consultant asked a colleague to get on the floor and bark like a dog. A friend and mentor advised me once to think of it as an out-of-body experience, and that mostly worked for me.

Except Dale is my team in real life, and supporting his happiness is part of the deal. It will be fun. Besides, I’m thinking Jolly Christmas Donna is a fair trade for pumpkin cheesecake.

Marriage … it’s all about leverage compromise.

10 thoughts on “Cat mask fever”

    1. Yes, whatever it takes! I’m actually trying to think of a way to do both, but it might be a bit much.

  2. “Pretend to enjoy team-building” !! Couldn’t agree more Donna. Nothing worse than those mandatory team building exercises.
    Maybe one of the few positives of COVID: no more of that BS!

    1. And one of the many positives of retirement! This positive pandemic message was brought to you by Retirement Confidential.

  3. I laughed at the team-building comment too! I never pretended. In fact I was very vocal in my dissent. I was frequently invited to the administration office to discuss my attitude but they never fired me. I think they secretly knew how ridiculous those things were but they had to have something to put in the annual report.

    1. Oh, wow, called to the big office. I applaud you. I have so many ridiculous team-building stories, but I decided early on I would not make this blog all about specific work-related bullshit or specific people who were certifiable. Still, I do slip a little something in from time to time …

  4. I’m glad I never worked for a place that required team building activities. I had a friend whose group did a locked room escape and a scavenger hunt downtown. Makes me shudder, especially the locked room thing. Hey, have the fires ruined some of the grapes? Another blogger mentioned a friend who usually makes wine with California grapes not being able to find any that hadn’t been affected. Of course that would be next year’s wine.

    1. I have done both! The scavenger hunt was pretty awful. The locked room could have been worse.

      The grapes situation appears to be complicated. The losses are a combination of grapes on the vine, stored grapes and bottles or barrels in storage. Additionally, there’s physical damage to the wineries themselves. I saw Chateau Montelena (from the movie Bottle Shock) isn’t making their estate Cabernet this year because the grapes were damaged by ash and smoke. As for accessibility, I guess it depends on how much backlog they have. I believe you’re right about future wine being impacted the most.

      We live in El Dorado County, bordered by Amador County. The wines here are fabulous and less expensive than Sonoma or Napa, but I don’t know if they’re available nationally. I think local vineyards have largely been spared, but some (I don’t know how much) of the local wine is made from grapes grown elsewhere, so there’s that.

  5. Oh, how I hated those team building activities but like you, pretended to like them. Ugh! So glad to be done with that. ha! The cat mask is very cute. Is it actually a disposable mask?

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