In Which it's New Year's Eve 2023

 

...and going to be a quiet one. Beth, our person, managed to avoid it for close to four years, but COVID finally got her just before Christmas. She's pretty sure she knows who it was that came to work sick when they shouldn't have and needless to say, she is NOT a very happy camper. She didn't get super sick or anything - just a lot of sinus drip, a LOT of sneezing and an extreme amount of Samuel L. Jackson style cursing when the second line appeared on the little test thingy. She's been feeling better since Tuesday but still had a positive test this morning. She would tell you all to wear masks, although that train apparently left the station week before last. (And yes, she is indeed fully vaxxed and boosted, which is why she's up and about making peanut butter cookies and complaining about it rather than being in the hospital or worse.) I get it, though. Man, I'd be pissed, too. 

These weird things are some leftover Orbeez, by the way. I think she had the idea of using them to maybe root cuttings. She said she had some that were actually pretty (blue and purple) but she used them a few years ago in a failed attempt at keeping lucky bamboo happy. So these are apparently the ugly ones she's hydrating. These things are weird. Kind of like the love child of one of those Superballs you get out of a gum machine and a Jello shot. Don't tell her I know what Jello shots are, okay? You do learn some stuff being on the web. 

Speaking of learning stuff....

Lenore: I thought it was supposed to be sunny today.

Fawn: It was. *Supposed* to be. When was the sun out last, anyway?

Lenore: Christmas day....

Fawn: What were you asking Jamie about?

Lenore: I asked him if he'd asked Miss Beth about his sister coming here, and he said he hadn't yet. He also said there's a Miss Torrance who's going to be joining us. I think she's older, though. Like him. 

Fawn: Jamie isn't that old!

Lenore: No, but he's older than we are. And did you find the website?

Fawn: Right here. Archive of Our Own. That's the one Beth was talking about. 

Lenore: So where's this story?

Fawn: There are a bunch of them. This one's really funny, though. One of the characters is reading one of those really dirty books, but it's really badly written.

Lenore: It looks okay to me.

Fawn: No, the story isn't badly written. The book he's reading is badly written. and they wrote a bunch of excerpts. 

Lenore: Like the one Miss Beth wrote where one of the characters was reading that really awful romance novel?

Fawn: Yeah, except this one's really explicit. And funny. Like this. "My demon lover approached me and shredded the clothes from my body, scattering the shredded rags about the library like autumn leaves to the wind..."

Lenore: I hope he brought a change of clothes or that's not gonna be a fun commute home from work...

Fawn: I'm sure he thought of that somewhere along the line. He did plan this, you know."

Fawn, still reading several hilariously painful paragraphs later: "With this power from our coupling, I can replant the entire Amazon rain forest!" my demon lover declared as he vanished, leaving me sated and spent. It was then that I realized I had nothing to wear to get home..."

Lenore: Told you he didn't think it through.

Fawn: Well, I guess he could have worn a garbage bag. But that still would have been embarrassing.

Lenore: Not to mention that kind of went out of style awhile ago. And if the library has garbage bags like Miss Beth's office, they're all clear. So that wouldn't have worked either. 

Fawn: Yeah, he *really* should have thought that through. 

(For the record, Beth said "yeah, they're about the age I was when we started reading stuff like that, but we didn't have fanfiction. We had to make do with sneaking actual books. As long as they come to me with any questions, it's fine." She also can't remember the name of the one everyone was passing around like seventh-grade contraband, which, some to think of it, it probably was. She also said it was just about as comically bad, except it wasn't supposed to be funny. I think she enjoys playing benevolent cool aunt to a couple of twelvish-year-old girls.)

Lenore also got a guitar for Christmas, but she eschewed the "Campfire Sing-Alongs" book it came with in favor of looking up the chords to "Rock And Roll High School." Like Beth at that age, I think she's decided she wants to be Riff Randall when she grows up. 

Meanwhile, back in the living room....

Maddy: Okay, these things are weird. What are they again?

Hawthorne: Cool! A ball pit! COWABUNGA!!!!

Maddy: Hawthorne, wait up! This isn't a....

*SPLAT*

Maddy: I tried to tell you....

Barbie: Oh for the love of - Hawthorne, are you okay!?

Hawthorne: I thought it was a ball pit!

Hawthorne is fine, by the way. But we had a very long talk with her about (literally!) looking before you leap, and asking questions - and permission.

And no. I have no idea what Beth was planning to do with those Orbeez, but pixie ball pit probably wasn't it....

Anyway, Happy New Year!