Weeknotes 01
- I also love bandwagons! I'm a good joiner! I have always very much enjoyed reading Nat, Alice, Tom, Chris (when he did them), Simon, Chris, and now Paul and Matt's weeknotes.
- I started watching S16 (!) of Grey's Anatomy over the Christmas holiday and one episode has a sister of one of the regular cast show up, played by the regular actor's actual sister, and they look almost identical. I LOVE it when shows do clever related casting like this. Is there a name for this? What other shows have done this? The last time I remember someone doing this well was Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson's actual mom, playing Joely Richardson's mom on Nip/Tuck (do not watch that show, despite them both being brilliant in it, I can remember now that it will absolutely not stand up to rewatching in a modern age). Anyway - after binging seasons 1-15 a couple of years ago, watching Grey's again now, after this year, is like meeting up with familiar friends after ... a pandemic? I don't know what that is like yet, but I imagine it will be like this. Also the storylines are just so ridiculous, I love it.
- My favourite thing about watching TV is talking about it with other people afterwards, and reading bitchy reviews online. My favourite season recap so far is from the MetaFilter FanFare page for Grey's S15, (uh, spoilers, obvs?) - which just states that "Grey's Anatomy is still on television".
- The other two best TV shows I watched this year were Schitt's Creek and Ted Lasso. Both super well written, well-acted shows with nice people who are nice to each other but also hilarious.
- My house hasn't had any heating today, so I returned to work today mostly from my bed, with the electric blanket on, which is basically like being in a warm but dry bath.
- We bought a chest freezer a month or so ago with the idea that having more ingredients on hand would enable us to make more interesting meals and waste less food, without having to always plan ahead for two weeks (the only grocery slots we could get for a while). The best side effects of this are: 1) hash browns whenever you want! Hash browns were previously a luxury item because they took up space required for leftovers, peas, ice etc, in the tiny rented flat freezer. AND 2) because that stuff is now in the chest freezer, there is more room in the stupid tiny freezer for ice for cocktails. AND 3) because we don't have to store 2 weeks worth of food in the fridge at one time, there is more room in the fridge for beer. I think grown-up people with houses and freezers probably already know all this, but for me this purchase has been life-changing in the same way that the electric blanket was - I feel like I'm living the dream with my delicious icy cold cocktails followed by warm feet in bed. (Also please share chest-freezer-organisation tips if you have them).
- I did a lot of research into apps to track the food in the various freezers and fridge, and this one is the best: no ads, nice-looking UI without frills, the only thing wrong is that I haven't figured out how to add emoji to it. https://foodshiner.app
- Obligatory pandemic-related update: After a period of initial panic, I've really enjoyed converting to working remotely, albeit helped massively by the fact that I've been at my current job for so long that I don't have to build up all those relationships from the start over Zoom. I don't know how I'd do that if I started a new job now. Plus for about half the week, at least 80% of my working day is made up of talking to other people, which counts as work, so I don't really get a lot of time to feel lonely, which is nice. I feel very lucky that most people I love have so far survived and that I'm still employed and getting paid.