Friday Five 16-December-2022

thefridayfive 

1. Have you gotten your flu shot yet? If not, why?
I've never taken the annual flu shots. But I can twist it a bit. I've taken 4 Covid shots already, and with the China Health Bureau (whatever the real name is) saying that "Covid is just a type of flu", then I guess I can say, I've taken my annual flu shot.... LOL

2. Are your halls all bedecked or are you not quite there yet?
Mom has started to heckle us about it but I'm just not feeling it. I've decided I'll do it tomorrow (Sunday) because the cleaning lady comes on Mondays to clean up... so yeah. I'll set the tree up on Sunday and get it all sorted out, but the aftermath dusting of things... the cleaning lady.

3. What is something you should really do this weekend but probably won’t?
I'm done with the Christmas presents, so I have nothing overly important that I MUST or must not do.

4. How will you be spending the weekend – at home, at the beach, skiing, or swimming?
Most likely at home. I've discovered the app Libby and am going to muck around and see how it works. It's still best if I have a library card from somewhere so I'm going to look around for that too.

5. Are you already so over this year?
Nothing particular with this year, and even if I'm already "so over this year" it doesn't mean next year is gonna be any good. Time is a continuous thing... just because it turns to 1-January doesn't mean "new starts" are real.

That sounds so pessimistic and demotivating LOL.

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1. How much of a sweet tooth do you have?
I would like to say I've got a very sweet tooth, but I also noticed lately I prefer savory stuff to sweet... maybe I'm getting old.

2. What sweet dishes do you prefer at breakfast?
Pancakes?

3. What have you recently gotten a sweet deal on?
Ugh... I dunno. Shopping on Taobao is always economical. I did miss out on the very sweet deal the other day, but otherwise nothing was bank-breaking anyway.

4. What are some good songs with the word “sweet” in the title or lyrics?
Can't think of one at the moment!

5. What evidence might someone present to prove you are a sweet person?
I dunno. I try to be considerate when arranging for things, say like if I'm arranging for a get-together I'd consider the people who have no cars and think of a place that's easy to get to without one, and if the location is a hard to get to place I arrange for a car pool sort of thing. When driving people back, some people try to be polite and say "oh you don't have to go all the way, just stop me in the area" and if it's late, I'd say "It's the car walking not me, so it's fine." Of course, it can also be construed that the person really wanted to stop in the area to get something in the shops first.

Half Holiday Mood

Once again, I'm on a long weekend. Next week is chock full of public holidays on alternating days. Tuesday is a public holiday because it's the "Macau Special Administrative Region Establishment Day" (the day Macau got "returned" to China) and then Thursday it's the Winter Soltice, and then Friday, as is my custom in December, is off (I take Fridays off in December to help Dad around with his cookie baking and christmas cooking).

Could I have taken Monday and Wednesday off so have the whole week off? Yes. Would I have done that? Nope. Even when I'm off I'm still working. Like yesterday (Friday) I still had a meeting over Teams, that was a waste of time because of a government announcement right after the meeting.

Then my Boss wanted me to call a restaurant in Japan to make a reservation and I was all nervous and stuff and had to write a script to guide myself. Heck. I had the confidence I could ask for what I wanted. I have no confidence that I could understand what they replied though LOL, coz they'd be using Keigo (polite to-customer-format) and all that. I also had to double check how to say the dates as I remembered there are 2 days in Japanese that's not just reading the numbers as is. Wasn't the date I needed to say though, so I was safe. And of course, the first line as always, "may I speak in English?"

Which of course, after worrying about the call for 2 days, writing the script/guidelines for myself and all that, the guy that answered said English OK and then swiftly said but we don't take reservations on phone LOL. Tried to wiggle a bit because, guess what, I knew it all along, and tried to squeeze in that it's a repeating customer that came in November and really liked it, but no dice. Checked the website booking platform, still said it's fully booked, so just had to report my failed mission back to the boss *shrugs*.

At least that's one more task off my to-do list. I can enjoy the rest of the weekend.

I skipped my morning Starbucks ritual because my dog was being fussy last night and woke me up 5 times over the night... I have a slight headache so decided to just stay home and do what I usually do... I'm lucky the parents haven't come around and ask me for help or stuff while I was concentrating on reading bank statements and transaction details (doing the Financials for the dog shelter again). Might take a quick nap before lunch and see if the headache passes.

I'm trying to be festive so have some ambient music (Jazz + Christmas) playing. But I'm still not feeling it haha. I don't have the sudden urge to put up the tree. It's not cold enough. It's at 11ºC today, tomorrow is forecasted to be the coldest (7ºC).

Dad went to his old workplace (the local tourism/hotel school) to use the kitchens for his Christmas baking the other day. An industrial oven can bake a large batch of his cookies in one tray, if he bakes at home it'll probably take a whole afternoon baking by small batches. His friend and old work partner went to help out. The following day, the partner said he got Covid, or at least, the home test came out positive. So everyone at home Mom is feeling nervous, and started berating at Dad asking "why would you need to go out at all!??? You're bringing the germs home!"

And then, another day, Mom accepted a ride home from a colleague at her part time place. The following day, the colleague tested positive. I was feeling vindictive and said it to her face, "so after bullying Dad with your talks of righteousness, I'm calmly telling you, 'you're bringing the germs home'," she wasn't pleased of course, but she toned down with the Dad-berating (thank god for small mercies).

I supposedly have a dinner reservation with some friends. A local place is serving Cheese Fondue! It's a treat! It's non-existent here! But then one of them said her work colleague tested positive, though she herself is still negative. I wasn't worried, but another friend who's easily scared already said she's not coming. Okay.... I just asked that friend to test herself a few hours before so we can decide if we'll proceed or cancel. I'll also be doing the test in a bit just to make sure, you know, with Mom and Dad having had contact with someone that tested positive, and now with this headache... I still think the headache is from my not having a good sleep last night, but better safe than sorry, right?