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Friday six pack, 2017, v31

December 15, 2017 by Jana 9 Comments

I think this is going to be the last one of these for the year. Maybe I’ll throw in another one if I’m feeling like it but with only 2 Fridays left (!), it might be time to finish these series off and figure out what to do for 2018. I like the idea of a weekly recap but I really hate the name. I’m open to any suggestions.

I actually don’t even know where this week went. It’s been batshit bananas in the news, Hanukkah started, and it was my daughter’s birthday (and my grandma’s is today and my future brother-in-law’s is tomorrow). The days have just bled into one insane long day that I’ve somehow managed to fill with some things.

Reading. My Absolute Darling. I picked up nothing from the library, requested nothing from NetGalley, and bought nothing. Thanks again to everyone who participated in Show Us Your Books and we have a special year end one on 12/26.

Watching. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. All the hype about this show? WORTH EVERY MINUTE YOU’LL SPEND WATCHING IT. This is probably the best show I’ve watched all year (or tied maybe with Godless, Ozark, and American Vandal) despite the fact that it didn’t make my list. To be fair, I wrote the list before I watched it.

Raging. Where to even start? With the unfit, deranged, sexually harassing piece of shit still occupying the Oval Office? Or the horse riding homophobic racist monster who won’t concede an election he legitimately lost? Or the FCC threatening the first amendment more than the aforementioned unfit deranged piece of shit? Or the fact that 5 years after Sandy Hook and the deaths of thousands more, we still have no decent gun control laws? Or the fact that CHIP still doesn’t have authorized funding? Or the tax bill that still might pass? My head is actually about to explode from frustration because I am flabbergasted that this country is devolving and people are starting to act like the frog in the water. I don’t understand how rational thinking people are okay with this sheer and utter bullshit. We deserve better. Our kids deserve better. Our country deserves better. Which actually leads me to…

Celebrating. Doug Jones’s victory in Alabama. To be fair, it’s bizarre that we were even at the point where an alleged pedophile who believes you can’t be sworn into office with anything other than a Christian bible and that the US hasn’t been good since slavery had a fighting chance but yet here we are. I was nervous as fuck watching the returns and never have I been so vested in an election where I didn’t vote. And Alabama had me nervous for awhile. But good sense and decency and morals prevailed thanks to black women and other common sense voters (but white women, we need to talk). And, just to add about the net neutrality, my representative (our first female black representative, whose election was one bright spot in the 2016 shit show) publicly denounced the vote and my state has joined a bunch of others to legally block the repeal. Delaware isn’t my first choice of places to live but I’m happy with the fact that our elected representatives (in the Senate and the House) are actually representing our best interests.

Loving. Speaking of Delaware, Joe Biden is everything. You saw that video of him consoling Meghan McCain, right? THAT represents everything we should be.

Laughing.

Hope you guys enjoy your weekend. Mine will be full of cheerleading (showcase night AND a practice!) and sitting on my couch avoiding the cold (and people) and NOT seeing Star Wars.

Three things: Holiday version

December 14, 2017 by Jana 16 Comments

I love the whole three things post idea. I’ve even done a couple before. I love them because they’re organized, they’re in list form, and they’re really easy to ~~steal~~ borrow from someone else. So when Tanya posted her holiday version of three things, I knew I’d be all over it.

Except. Holidays are weird. Do I talk about Hanukkah? Do I talk about Christmas? DECISIONS ARE HARD. So I decided not to decide (or, to quote Rush, If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. FINE. I GET IT. But I’m not feeling philosophical right now) and I’m just going to answer with a mess of both holidays.

3 Things I Love about Christmas

Lights. I love Christmas lights. I even loved them before I celebrated Christmas. THEY’RE JUST SO PRETTY. And for those who are wondering: white lights on the tree, multicolored lights on the outside. This is nonnegotiable.
Donating to Toys for Tots. It’s something I’ve done since I graduated from college and it’s one of the highlights of the whole season.
A fully lit menorah. Day 8 is beautiful, even on my rickety, old, covered in candle wax menorah. This might be a subset of lights but I stand by it as it’s own thing.

3 Things I Dislike about Christmas

The Elf on the Shelf phenomenon. FUCK THAT SHIT. I don’t need or want a creepy stalker elf anywhere in my house and I sure as shit don’t want to have to think about creative ways to move it or give it personality.
Perfectionism. Or, the idea of perfectionism perpetuated on social media. If your holidays are really that picture perfect, I’m not sure if I can trust you. Because I think you’re a liar.
Never being able to find anything for Hanukkah. It’s getting a little better now (thank you, Michael’s) but up until the last year or two, I’d have to go to New York or have my mother send me things for Hanukkah. Basic things like menorah candles. This shouldn’t be. I mean, Hanukkah is not a major holiday at all but COME ON. It should not be a stretch to find a box of candles.

3 Favorite Christmas Movies

The Muppet Christmas Carol. I have an obsessive love of The Muppets so this shouldn’t be a surprise.
Christmas Vacation. A standard.
A Christmas Story. Mostly because I quote it all year. P.S. I am oddly curious to watch the live version of it but I fully expect it to suck balls

3 Favorite Christmas Treats

Peanut butter fudge. All fudge, really, but specifically peanut butter. Because peanut butter.
Potato latkes. My great-grandmother made the best ones in the history of ever but even ones that aren’t quite as good as hers are still pretty damn good.
Cookies. Any and all. And not the gluten free bullshit than I’m usually resigned to. I eat the cookies and I expect issues. But so worth it.

3 Favorite Christmas Traditions

Decorating gingerbread houses. I buy a kit because there is no way in hell I’m making all those pieces. But it’s something we do every year and while it ultimately ends up as the ugliest Christmas gingerbread village in all the land, it’s a lot of fun.
Watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. True story: I saw in the actual movie theater when it was released in 1992 and now I own the DVD and it’s my favorite Christmas movie of all time. I’d rather watch it than pretty much any other movie.
Making reindeer food and elf donuts. I’ve had to embrace some Christmas normalcy because of my daughter, which means the whole cookies and milk for Santa (he gets fudge at our house, though, and also thank god we’re almost done with all of this crap because it’s exhausting) and back when I was an ambitious mother, I found something on Pinterest for both reindeer food (oatmeal mixed with sprinkles and thrown in the yard) and elf donuts (Cheerios covered in powdered sugar, cinnamon, or melted chocolate and put in a mini Altoid tin).
Bonus tradition: growing up, we always ate Chinese food and went to the movies on Christmas day because THAT’S WHAT JEWS DO

3 Favorite Christmas Songs

None. I loathe Christmas music and “I Have a Little Dreidel” is a pretty shitty song. But if I had to pick, it’d be:

All I Need is Love by The Muppets and Cee Lo (heavy emphasis on The Muppets part of the song)
The Season’s Upon Us by The Dropkick Murphys
All the Hanukkah songs by the Maccabeats (this one about latkes is my actual favorite)

3 Favorite Christmas Gifts Received

I actually have no answer for this question because my mind is refusing to allow me to remember gifts of any significance. I’m pretty sure I got a Cabbage Patch doll for Hanukkah when I was a kid and I know I was ecstatic but I’m not 100% confident that it was for Hanukkah so it can’t count. I also remember being over the moon happy when I got a VHS copy of Major League (one of my all-time favorite movies). Those are the two that are jumping out. Maybe we’ll revisit this question another time.

3 Gifts I Want to Give the World

Empathy. The amount of bullying and racism and lack of compassion and shaming for everything is out of hand. Everyone has some amount of hurt and sometimes, we wind up projecting our own hurt onto others (hurt people hurt people is #truth). And that’s not fair. Considering other’s feelings and realizing we’re all just trying to do our best goes a long way.
The impeachment of Donald Trump. A girl can dream.
Equality. In pay, in the workplace, in the home, in society, in everywhere. No one gender or religion or race is superior and we’ll all be better off once we start recognizing that. It’s time to smash the patriarchy, xenophobia, homophobia, ignorance, and intolerance of anyone not exactly like us once and for all. It’s time to start treating everyone with respect and basic human decency.

Your turn! What are three holiday things I should know about you?

Show Us Your Books, December 2017

December 12, 2017 by Jana 37 Comments

My reading slowed to almost a halt this past month. I don’t know what’s going on except that I’m insanely distracted. I also tried to force myself to read a book that was not doing it for me because I kept hearing good things about it and that killed my reading motivation. Spoiler: I quit on it because I truly didn’t find the book worth it and now when I see it on all these best of lists I’m all WHAT THE FUCK THAT BOOK IS NOT GOOD AND YOU ALL ARE VERY MISLEADING! I don’t think I’m cut out for artsy-type books and that’s what this one was. The book? We’ll get to that in a minute.

As always, don’t forget to visit Steph and some of the other bloggers linking up. And also don’t forget that we’re having a second, special year end edition on 12/26 where we’ll all get together and talk about our favorite reads of the year.

Show Us Your Books. Join the Link-Up! Talk books the 2nd Tuesday of Every Month

Here’s what I read:

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. This was the DNF. It’s not that it’s a bad book with a bad plot. It’s just that stylistically, this book is a humongous pain in the ass to read and I didn’t care enough to keep trying. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever read a more annoying book except for maybe A Prayer for Owen Meany. And I quit that one, too. (No link because fuck this book)

X by Chuck Klosterman. Of his 10 books, I’ve read 8. I quit on one and skipped another for some reason so needless to say, I’m a fan of Chuck Klosterman (we also share the same birthday so that’s fun for me). He’s smart and so good at pop culture commentary and making connections where you might not see them with just the right bit of sarcasm and wit. This book, which is really just a collection of essays he’s written elsewhere, reminded me of why I like him so much but it also wasn’t my favorite. Fortunately none of the essays built on each other so it was easy to skip around.

One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus So this book is like The Breakfast Club gone wrong meets 13 Reasons Why with a mystery/thriller twist that’s actually pretty easy to figure out even if you might question yourself at times (don’t. Once you’ve figured it out, that’s what it is). It’s fast paced and engaging enough that I read it in a day (I tend to read YA books quickly) and knowing the “whodunit” part didn’t ruin it and you wind up caring about and rooting for the kids. The ending was rushed and a little too neatly tied up for me but overall, it was a solid read and a good way to spend a day.

Ghettoside by Jill Leovy A painful, important in-depth look at homicide among black men in LA, centered around one case while not neglecting others, this book will make you angry and make you think. From the lack of resources for detectives, an environment that offers little protection, and a hugely systematic problem on all fronts, she covers the complex issue from all sides in a sensitive yet matter of fact manner. She also works to dispel some stereotypes of the detectives, neighborhoods, perpetrators, and victims and given the world we live in, it was an important highlight.

Dark of the Moon by John Sandford. This was a very fine, standard, nothing outrageously special mass market mystery. Virgil Flowers is a fun character and Sandford is a good writer but I am in no rush to read any more in this series but I would stock up on a few before a vacation or long plane ride.

Joe Victim by Paul Cleave. I love his books, I love how fucked up they are, I love his writing, I love everything about the way he tells a story and I’m also now terrified to go to New Zealand but that’s fine if it means he keeps writing books. I don’t like this Joe quite as much as Joe Goldberg but I would like to see them in a cage match. This was the sequel to The Cleaner and I really, really hope there’s a third in this series.

Currently reading My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent.

TL;DR: Joe Victim and Ghettoside FTW this month! Everything else is based on your own taste except I do not recommend Lincoln in the Bardo because people who tell you it’s good are liars.

Now it’s your turn!

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JA BizTown: An insider’s perspective (or: An interview with my child)

December 7, 2017 by Jana 9 Comments

There’s a lot of chatter in some of the circles I travel in (on the internet because on my current budget, I’m not doing any travel unrelated to cheerleading) that schools are doing a terrible job teaching personal finance. And that might be true for some but I can honestly say that it’s not been the case for my daughter. In fact, it’s been the exact opposite. Since 3rd grade, she’s had an economics unit, she can participate in savings at school through one of the banks, and this year, they went to a JA BizTown, run through the Junior Achievement of Delaware (it’s in a bunch of states).

I had no idea it existed so when she came home telling me about it, I was pretty interested. And curious. And she asked me to chaperone and I did (I was assigned to the newspaper. Probably the most apropos volunteer placement in the history of my volunteering). I should probably write about my experience and perspective on it (as well as my experience with an amazing event I did through CFSI while I was in Dallas. I do have a post drafted and in need of finishing, though). But instead of you hearing me talk about it, my daughter was eager to share her thoughts and opinions. She is my child. So I asked her a bunch of questions, interview-style, and this is what she had to say:

(P.S. I added a few liner notes throughout her responses. I couldn’t stay completely quiet.)

Me: Can you explain what BizTown is?

Child: BizTown is a place where there are all different businesses and instead of them being run by adults, the entire town is run by kids with some adults showing the kids what to do.

These are terrible pictures. I don’t know why they’re so damn blurry. But it’s supposed to show a whole bunch of different businesses featured in the town.

Me: What kind of businesses are in BizTown?

Child: Basic living businesses like a bank, a radio station, a wellness center, a drugstore, a print shop, and insurance agency. There were also government services like police, paramedics, a mayor, utilities, and a science center. There was not a grocery store, though, which I wish there would have been.

Me: So what did you do while you were there?

Child: I worked for the radio station as a reporter. I walked around and interviewed citizens about things like what they like, what they dislike, the prices of their products and services, how hard they thought working is, and what they thought of BizTown. I was also trying to report on the news but there wasn’t too much and I didn’t get it all in time.

Me: Was working as a reporter hard?

Child: In some ways. It was hard to find news and also DJ at the same time (when our DJ was on break, I had to fill in for him) but it wasn’t hard since I didn’t have to do too much beyond walk around and interview people.

Me: Do you think it would have been harder to be a newspaper reporter?

Child: Probably not because there wasn’t a lot of news like accidents or crime or elections. (Jana says: There was actually a “crime”. She missed it)

Me: Was it hard to manage your job and all the personal tasks you had to do like eat lunch and go to the bank during your free time?

Child: Not really. I had enough time to do everything because I did some stuff beforehand like fill out my deposit tickets and you packed my lunch.

Me: Do you think if you had a little bit more of a demanding job or if there were more news to report on, it would have been harder to balance your job and personal tasks?

Child: Probably not because everyone had the same amount of time. (Jana says: I wholeheartedly disagree with her belief here but I am also an adult with actual life experience)

Me: Tell me about managing your money. What kinds of things did you have to do?

Child: You had to keep track of how much you had in funds. You had to make sure you put enough money in the bank so you could buy the things you want. You had to open a savings account and remember to put that check in.

Me: Was it hard?

Child: It wasn’t too hard. (Jana says: I think if you ask different kids with different jobs or different capabilities, you’d get a VERY different answer)

Me: Why not?

Child: Because you knew in advance what your paycheck was going to be and you also had enough time to write the deposit ticket (Jana says: I could go off an a HUGE tangent about this but I will not).

Me: Do you think if you had bills to pay and more things you needed to buy, it would have been more difficult?

Child: Yes. Like, if I were the CEO or CFO and had to pay bills for the business, paid back loans, or paid my employees the right amount. This also goes for personal stuff. I wish we’d had more time to manage personal stuff for getting to work like transportation and buying lunch.

Me: Do you think you would have learned a little more about managing money if you had to take personal expenses into account (no pun intended)?

Child: Yes.

Me: But overall, did you learn what it takes to manage money and time at a job?

Child: Very much so. I had to make sure I had enough money to buy the things I wanted within the time I had during my breaks so I was back at work when I had to be.

Me: Do you think it’s hard to be a working adult?

Child: YES.

Me: Last question. What your favorite part of BizTown?

Child: Being able to be the DJ when he was on break. If it were my assigned job, it might have been boring but since I only had to do it occasionally, it was fun.

Me: Anything I didn’t ask you that you want to add?

Child: GO TO BIZTOWN!!!! That is it.

Ten best in 2017: Shows I’ve watched

December 5, 2017 by Jana 14 Comments

With the year coming to an end, all the best of lists are popping up all over the place. Steph and I have a special Show Us Your Books planned for December 26 where we’ll be sharing our favorite books of the year (we hope you’ll join us) and I figured why not share some other things that have entertained me this year.

I might do a list with podcasts and movies but the simplest place for me to start is with TV shows. And by TV, I really mean Netflix since 90% of what I watch is from there. I also waffled back and forth with including this year’s seasons of shows I’ve previously watched on actual TV like Fargo, Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot, Longmire, Silicon Valley, Ray Donovan, Billions, The Affair, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and opted against that although if you’re interested in a list beyond the extensive one I’ve inadvertently provided, I’m happy to oblige. So instead, I picked some shows that I’ve seen for the first time, even if they’re old, and shows that gave me so many feels I still think about them.

I acknowledge that some of these may not make lists put out by actual critics but I am a real person and not paid to critique or look at shows with any sort of discerning eye except for asking myself if I like it enough to keep watching. And recommend that you watch it. There’s a mix of stuff here, although if I’m being honest, it’s ~~mostly~~ all dramas. I have a type. #sorrynotsorry

Okay. So. Here goes. The 10 best shows I watched this year in no particular order with where I found them. For some reason, my brain is rejected everything from Amazon but I think that’s because I don’t watch a ton from there like at all, ever (but I will once the newest season of Orphan Black shows up. My dumb ass forgot to set the series recording and I have all episodes for this season except the first one).

Rectify (Netflix)
American Vandal (Netflix)
Ozark (Netflix)
American Crime Story: The People Vs. OJ Simpson (FX)
Snowfall (FX)
Godless (Netflix)
Westworld (HBO)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
Alias Grace (Netflix)
13 Reasons Why, G.L.O.W (tie, both on Netflix)

Honorable mention: Mindhunter (Netflix), Mudbound (movie, Netflix), and Big Little Lies (HBO)

Oh, and I know it looks like I watch a ton of TV. And maybe I do. But my habits are unhealthy AF. Like, I’ll DVR a whole bunch of stuff, binge watch everything over a couple of days, not turn on the TV for weeks, lather, rinse, repeat. This is also how I deal with all the Netflix shows.

So. That’s it. What did you guys watch this year that I should consider for 2018? What do you think of my list?