Still no snow here, just the usual rain lol.

Sorry to hear that Trump is taking away people's medication and rights.  Is he actually doing anything good or is it all negative stuff?

I went to Manchester last week with my husband and daughter to see a k-pop group called Ateez.  They were amazing and put on such a good show, it was my first k-pop concert (apart from a day festival in Hyde Park last summer which had a k-pop group called Stray Kids in the line-up).  The last time I was at that venue was to see BSB over two years ago, who were even more amazing lol.  Makes me want the boys to release new music and go on tour again, even though I know the DNA tour lasted years.  I do love a good concert.

Thanks! It was a pretty low-key birthday this year. Read some, watched A Real Pain and caught up on Severance and The Pitt and then had Chinese food. It was nice.

I am slowly allowing myself to watch the news again, like you. Things have been so terrible that even without watching the news, I was hearing about it all anyway but then there was the added question of whether or not what I was hearing was real, so I found myself looking it up to check for accuracy. Kind of counterproduct ive. So, now I'm going to allow myself to watch our local news first thing in the morning because even if there was a zombie apocalypse happening the only thing they'd report is how it might affect the Bills season! I am dreading the voting on these cabinet picks. Especially RFK. If he gets in there, people are literally going to die. I'm pretty sure I'll be one of them. I saw an article where he said he didn't believe that diabetics really needed insulin. That all it would take is a change of eating habits and diet. He'd like to do away with it all and it would save Americans billions of dollars. Sure dude.... except that's false! Sure, some diabetics can get themselves off insulin with just eating healthy and exercise but some of us, that's not the case. I know this because despite eating healthy and exercising and losing weight etc...and always being controlled meaning my A1C is 5.98, when they tried to take me off insulin, even with the addition of Monjauro, it didn't work. He doesn't think it ever will. Let alone type 1 people. So yeah, I'm kind of worried about this guy and that these idiots will vote him through because they are scared of retaliation from Trump.

I have tried to rewatch old seasons of Survivor but for some reason, I can't really get into them. I don't know if it's because I've seen it already or what, but it doesn't work. I'm glad it is fun for you though. I'm telling you, you should check out The Traitors on Peacock. It's a stupid mindless reality show and it uses people from all those shows. This season, Boston Rob, Danielle, Crazy Carolyn and Jeremy are on it. The first season Ciri was on it. Most of the other contestants I don't know because they are from the E! shows like the Housewives or Shahs of Sunset, there's a bachelorette on this year as well as Bob from The Big Loser and random Zak Efron's brother lol Alan Cummings is the host and he's awesome! There's a UK version of the show that takes place in the same castle they use for the USA version but the thing I like about the UK one, is they aren't celebrities. I think I would like that better.

It's still snowy here. But it hasn't been bitter cold, thankfully. I'm glad it's gotten better for you!

I'm happy for the boys for getting to perform for the SNL concert. I don't think I'll watch it because it's going to be really long, but I'm sure someone will post their performance. It's always nice to have something to look forward to. For me it's Critics Choice Awards on Friday although, now Kieran's most likely in rehearsals for his play. I'm really hoping he'll still show up for these awards shows. I didn't really think about that until recently. 

I hope you had a nice birthday yesterday, Mare!

How has it only been twelve days since he took office? 😫  So much damage done in such a short time!  I've started watching the news again in small doses, but it's so depressing and scary.

My distraction this week was binge-watching a whole season of Survivor.  It was the Second Chance season, which I hadn't rewatched since it aired, and I really enjoyed watching it again!  I couldn't even remember for sure who won until I got to the final episode, and I resisted the urge to look it up, so it was almost like watching it for the first time LOL.  I finished it earlier today, and now I want to watch another one while I wait for the new season.  Apparently reality TV is the kind of mindless entertainment I need right now.

It actually felt like spring here this week!  It was in the 40s and rainy most of the week, so the snow that's been on the ground since the second week of January finally had a chance to melt.  Now it's all brown and gross-looking, but at least it's not so cold.  40 feels warm compared to 0!

I had ordered some earrings from an Etsy seller in Louisiana, and they were super delayed by the crazy weather they got down there!  They finally arrived today after being stuck in Louisiana for almost two weeks.

On another positive note, I'm excited that the Boys are performing for the SNL 50th anniversary concert!  Now I have plans for Valentine's Day evening LOL.  Like you with Kieran, I'll take whatever glimmer of happiness I can get right now.

Trump has wasted no time in taking away as many rights as he can. He's reversed pretty much every civil rights law he could. Taking away equal rights in the workplace etc. One of my friends, a professor at Berklee, just lost his position in the coast guard because he was in charge of diversity and inclusion. He was relieved of his duties effective immediately. He has been a member for over 25 years. You know how people make reaction videos for everything from getting into college to seeing award nominations? I wish there were some for the people who voted for this guy and are now seeing that his policies are actually affecting them. Like taking away the cap on insulin and drugs in general. Seeing the price of fuel rise because of the tariffs. Seeing them lose the people they pay to clean their houses and mow their lawn disappear because they're being deported. It's a real shit show and every day I wake up angry. If it weren't for Kieran to distract me, I'd lose my mind. This is when it really pays to be hyper fixated on something. Baseball will be coming around soon too.

This weather is all over the place! The kids actually had school for two days in a row. Even though we got about 8 inches last night into today. In Allentown they would get 2 days off for that much probably. Or at least one day off and a two hour delay.

Steph, I hope you don't get hit with unexpected weather. Florida got 8 inches of snow as did New Orleans. These places are always warm. The world is ending.

Just from what I've seen online while trying my best to avoid the actual news, it seems like Trump is getting right to work implementing Project 2025, which he claimed to know nothing about. I wonder what it will take to get his supporters to turn on him. Just how bad does it have to get? I know most of them don't care about immigrants, people who aren't white, people who aren't straight and cisgender, people who aren't Christian, and people with disabilities, but they do care about the cost of stuff, like groceries, gas, and medications. I pray that the political pendulum will swing the other way in a couple years when they realize that he hasn't magically improved their lives the way he promised.

That's good to know that We Were the Lucky Ones has a happy ending!  That makes me more likely to watch it.

Steph, that's so cool that you got to visit the Anne Frank house.  I don't know if I'll ever make it to Amsterdam, but that would definitely be on my list of places to visit if I did.

I did have work today and yesterday, but I could get used to the three-day work week! LOL  The temperature warmed up to the 20s, which actually felt pretty good compared to the negative 20 windchills. But now we're back to snow. We haven't gotten a lot, thankfully, just enough to cover the ground.

Congrats on Kieran's Oscar nomination!  That is cool that he and Jeremy are both nominated in the same category.  Sibling rivalry!

The US is currently a hellscape where everyday something terrible happens, but that's okay because today Kieran Culkin became an Oscar nominee! A Real Pain missed for best picture which bums me out, but Jesse is up for best original screenplay. Jeremy, Kieran's Succession big brother is also nominated in the same category. I wonder of that is a first time in history thing that a year after a show ends two costars get nominated for the same category at the same time?

An extra day off for the weather sounds good.  We never get it as bad as you do over there.  We rarely get snow, so when it does snow the whole country goes into a panic and can't handle it.

I'm going to have to watch some of these things you're recommending.  Although I know they are tragic stories and what happened was terrible, I think it's important to remember so that things like that never happen again.  When I went to Amsterdam I went to Anne Frank's house and the museum and it was just so sad to think they had to live like that and ended up losing their lives because of some evil dictator and his idiot beliefs.  If I ever went to Poland or Germany I'd try to visit places just because we should never forget what happened.  My kids went to Auschwitz-Birkenau when they went to Krakow a few years ago, as they are both into history.  They said it's the kind of place you have to visit but it was incredibly sad.

And Trump stopping benefits for autistic and disabled people is wrong.  I know a lot of disabled people do work, but doesn't mean everyone can and should.

Ugh, I know. All those shoes and the people most of the time not realizing that as they handed their belongings to the nazis that was the last time they were ever going to see them again. The whole thing seems so surreal, that people allowed that to happen. All the bad stuff including the Rowanden genocide and what's going on in Gaza and lord only knows what's going to happen with Trump. Him suddenly putting a stop to DEI hires and sending them all home gave me chills because that's exactly how it started with the Jews. They were told they had to leave their jobs.

So far We Were the Lucky Ones is pretty good. The book was incredible. I finished it yesterday and was amazed when I read the author's note to see it was a true story based on the author's grandfather. It's hard in general to read or watch things about that time period because you know the result and it's never great, but in this case, an entire family. Including an old mother, father plus five siblings and all their children and spouses all managed to survive the holocaust. It's quite the story. The author didn't even know her grandfather was from Poland because he spoke English without an accent. It was only after he died that one of her cousins told her the entire story. Can you imagine not knowing your family's legacy because they decided they would rather forget and move on. I honestly probably wouldn't have even thought about watching the show if I didn't already know there was a happy ending. I know I'm spoiling it for you, but I think we all need a tragic story with a happy ending every now and then. If you do watch, her grandfather was Addy and the cousin who told the author everything was Felicia.

I'll have to check out the SNL documentary. I know from Kieran talking about his experience hosting how fast paced and super stressful it is for the guest hosts.

Yay for bonus days off work! It is really freaking cold, isn't it? We usually don't get hit with minus temperatures like you guys do. We just get bombarded with snow, but this week it's been brutal. The coldest in Buffalo's history. It's only 0 here today not including the windchill. Between the cold and the snow, the kids haven't had school yet this week.

Not to go back to Trump, but my sister works for Niagara County, and they just had a really grim meeting about Trumps policies and how they will affect her field which is mental health. If all goes as planned, by April they intend to stop giving checks to all able-bodied disabled people. I'm safe for now, but that includes anyone on disability for mental health issues of any kind and also things like autism and down's syndrome. So, they will stop getting any kind of benefits. He already reversed the cap on insulin and all drugs which is problematic. So, this is going to be a ruling which I'm sure will affect many of the people that actually voted for him. What a hellscape we are living in.

Yay to you getting a significant amount of writing done! Did you get another day off today? I didn't write even one word yesterday. I am going to try to get some writing done now. We'll see how it goes. I am easily distracted. Wonder why?

I thought the concentration camp scenes were very well done.  The total silence aside from James's commentary as they walked to each part of the camp and the actors' reactions made it emotional.  I doubt they had to act very much.  I can only imagine what it's like to set foot there yourself.  I've never been to one either, and I'm not sure I would want to go, although I probably still would if I ever found myself in Poland or Germany because I do appreciate history.  I have been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, which was good but so incredibly sad.  Just like in the camp they showed in the movie, that museum had a room you walk through that is just full of shoes.  That is the part I remember most; it made me cry then, and it made me cry watching the movie the other night, and I'm crying just thinking about it as I type this now.  Absolutely devastating to think that each pair of shoes belonged to a person who was murdered in one of these places.  I will never understand how anyone could hate a group of fellow human beings so much as to do something so unspeakably evil.  And the parallels between that period in history and our current one makes it all the more real and frightening.

I remember seeing the previews for We Were the Lucky Ones, but I never watched it.  You'll have to let me know if it's good.  I have to be in the right mood for anything Holocaust-related because it's so heavy.

The SNL documentary is good!  I think there are four episodes, and I've watched the first two.  The first one is about the audition process, and the second one is about the writing staff and what they do in a week.  They were both pretty interesting.

That is a scary thought but an interesting premise for a story.  Things would have turned out much differently if Trump were our president then.  If the US had sided with Germany during WWII, the Axis powers probably would have won, and our world might look a lot different nowadays.  I just pray our current administration is only a temporary evil and that we can take back control of this country in the next 2-4 years.

On a less depressing note, I got an extra day off work today because of the extreme cold (-23 wind chill when I checked this morning) and spent most of it writing.  My chapter is going well, and now I only have to work three days this week. Win win!

Dee, like Julie said it's very bloody. If that makes you squeamish, you might have a hard time with it. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that about 80 percent of the violence is gun related. People tend to be stabby too. I have a very low tolerance for gore, and it didn't bother me much. I did tend to look down at my phone when all the gunfire happened though. lol

Interview with a Vampire also bloody. Obviously. And What We Do in the Shadows can get gross sometimes. But in a hilarious way!