Good news today! Omar (original Christmas Present) tested negative!

Also, for those of you wondering what it takes to get management to finally change the mailing address, the answer is "three lost/stolen/returned packages plus another email from mail services saying this isn't fixable or ending any time soon." FINALLY. They are changing it to the mail services address rather than the UPS store, because "they charged us $5 to hold mail." FIVE DOLLARS!!!!!.... seriously, that's less than they charge to change an address or to HAVE THE ABILITY TO LEAVE THEM A NOTE SAYING TO LEAVE IT ON THE PORCH.... UPS is awful, please don't give them business, people.

Oh yeah, and we're due to have two packages sent here next week! I asked "CAN WE PLEASE CHANGE THOSE ADDRESSES?" and got ignored...probably because "oh no, we can't pay another $17.50 for that!" I'd really like to know how broke broke broke our office is if that's going to break people. I also note that IF WE'D JUST CHANGED THIS WEEKS AGO LIKE I SUGGESTED, NOBODY WOULD HAVE HAD TO CHANGE ADDRESSES MORE THAN ONCE OR PAY MONEY MORE THAN ONCE.

See, this kind of thing is why I could never be A Leader, because nobody listens to a damn thing I say. I listened to a podcast today about the whole Twitter fiasco and the guy was all, "everyone told Elon this was going to be bad, and he ignored them and did it anyway, and it came out exactly as they said it would." People only want to hear positive shit and if you can't make it positive (oh, hey, how's about getting packages safely instead of waiting 3 weeks to get them redelivered, I guess?)....

Other than that, we had our group holiday breakfast today, which was tasty and we got candles and bath bombs. ("Even for the guy?" one person asked. "His fiancee will love it." I actually doubt he'd mind himself.) Then I went back home to work, processed whatever, la la la.

So I had my Saturday plans all laid out: do a Zoom in the morning with Meg and company, then go to a parade in Woodland in the afternoon and then go to dinner and the show at night there. But no, it's going to be raining. And Loretta was all "why don't we go to these three craft fairs in Sac instead?" and I said um, I can't just go to those all day unfortunately, I could go in the afternoon at most, and then she texted to say she bought tickets to all of them! After I said this! GRRRRRRRRRRRR. So anyway, now they are going to all those fairs without me because I can't go all day, and BLEAH. Literally my plans were to go IN THE OTHER DIRECTION.

And finally for this entry, I had singing lesson. We did all of "A Trip To The Library," as she decided we should do all of it and not just my audition cut. It's another one of those complicated songs from "She Loves Me" (I note we did "Vanilla Ice Cream" earlier, which goes from fast talky to freaking operatic), but that was going pretty well and she said it did some chest voice and some mix. I note she also had "Lost In The Brass" stuck in her head after last week, I was all "me too!"

And now, I am off to go watch another show, so I need to finish this off. As a bonus, I'll include a Hallmark review....

Noel Next Door: This frankly is one of the best Hallmark Christmas movies--possibly THE BEST--that I've ever seen. I'm usually not all THAT blown away all the time by the romantic couplings. I probably like one person in a pairing more than another or I don't really care super much and the chemistry between people varies. But this one has one of the best romantic pairings I've ever seen. I know this sounds dumb, but Noelle (I dunno why it's spelled Noel in the title) and Jeremy are right up there with the couple from Ice Sculpture Christmas for me for total, total cuteness. I also have to give props for them having a handicapped romantic hero, don't see that much.

Noelle is an absolutely gorgeous and sweet diner waitress whose husband cheated on her and left her 9 months ago and now has proposed to the mistress and is hounding her to let him have their kid Henry for Christmas. (I note it seems implied that her birthday is Christmas but they seem to have bleeped that out? On a related note, my castmate Noel was all, "I was born in MAY" on this topic.) Henry seems nice enough, but really does need to stop kicking his soccer ball against the neighbor's condo or whatever (they seem to be in some sort of complex). His pet bunny escaping is clearly on the bunny, though. Must be a magical goes-through-walls bunny.

The neighbor, Jeremy, is a classical musical conductor/composer who had a stroke (guess what day) three years ago and his wife left him after that. (She shows up once in the movie and was all "I didn't recognize you," which, BURN!). He walks with a cane in snow (I found this scary on his behalf) and his left arm is generally in positioned-like-it's-in-a-cast mode, and he's a nice dude BUT cranky AF about say, the ball slamming into the wall, or tripping over the Christmas tree power cord in the snow, and gets a wee bit forceful-Scroogey about stuff like that or carolers dropping by. Those who aren't already his friends think he's the neighborhood Scrooge. Henry and Jeremy (known as "Mr. Gear" or "224" to those who have encountered him in cranky mode) have a feud going on and Jeremy keeps trying to chase after Henry...again, with the cane in the snow, dude, that's concerning.

They have some bad dates. She gets fixed up with a guy who has no Internet profiles to look up BECAUSE HE'S BEEN KICKED OFF ALL OF THEM FOR MISINFORMATION (I bet he's back on Twitter now....) and is a flat earther and claims he only reads nonfiction and everyone else is all "yeah, I think what YOU read is fiction..." He gets fixed up with a girl who is all "you're making a scene" when he can't get his coat off his arm. (I was all GEEEEEEEZ LADY NOBODY ELSE IS EVEN NOTICING.). This is in Noelle's diner, so she nicely helps him get the coat off and gets him some treats and THEY ARE SUPER CUTE TOGETHER.

Around 1.5 hours in, we finally have Henry, Jeremy and Noel all meet at once (the show does a great plausible job as to how nobody knows that "Jeremy" and "Mr. Gear" are the same dude), and Noel is all "date's off," and both guys apologize to each other for being mutual jerks, and everyone reunites for Christmas. IT'S A DELIGHT. Like the reason I got on the Hallmark Channel website was to see if I could buy this one on DVD, but it's not on sale. This gets a rare four start review from me.

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