Vacation, Day 11:
Hours of sleep: Seven, woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom again, also had to get up early this morning, so that sucked, see below.
Exercise: Yeah, I just watched more Postables instead again.

Projects:
Patchwork sweater: I have finished all of the squares and pockets last night, they are now blocking. YAY.
Butterfly sweater: I have hopefully finished all of the butterflies last night and they are now blocking. YAY.
Baby Yoda 1000 piece Lego: FINISHED. Go me! FINISHING FOR THE WIN!
Lego advent calendar: I stopped opening these after awhile--it was kind of a pain in the ass to follow the patterns off the box--but finished that off today as well. I am baffled as to why there is a Lego dressed as a .... motorcycle cop? Parachutist? I'm not sure what. BUT HE HAS A RANDOM PINEAPPLE! The City Lego advent calendar is totally strange and frequently inexplicable. The Christmas bits are cute though, at least.

Other Activities:
Had to go to the dentist today. Wasn't thrilled about that. Safety protocol-wise it was fine, about as safe as that is going to get, I think. But now they are VERY CONCERNED ABOUT ORAL CANCER and made me do a survey about how I sleep and it is RED FLAGS that I said I don't fall asleep easily and wake up in the middle of the night. (Frequently this is just going to the bathroom, though.) They think that's unusual? This has pretty much always been the case because I am a night owl and no night owl ever sleeps/rests well compared to the damned early birds. Even though the dentist says he does the same thing, and I do not snore, wake up breathless, etc., they want me to spend $300 out of pocket to do a sleep test and start consulting with various doctors and I was all "During a pandemic? Are you insane? No, I don't want to have to get more medical care than I absolutely have to." Except more politely phrased. I wanted to be "how's about we revisit that in 2022 under the circumstances." I know I probably should never say no to anything medical, but....I said no. I'm not doing anything more than the bare minimum these days about anything.

Then I went home, did the industrial shower, and then petted my fake cat for awhile. I had therapy afterwards--unfortunately I wasn't quite over feeling disturbed from the dentist--and was rather gripey about it. Though things are going well otherwise. Clearly she thinks I should go out and get medical care, but she literally does everything out in the world and has no concerns about that. Meanwhile I've been putting off having my nose looked at for most of a decade anyway (one nostril needs cauterizing, Mom had the same issue., but that requires two in person doctor visits and...nope! Not even gonna get to that shit and now there's pandemic) and I'm especially not gonna change that for a pandemic.

I agree with Theresa on this one: "Unfortunately, being on vacation makes me think about how much I don't want to work ever again. That's a problem. I've had a privileged life, so I can't really complain (spoiler: I'm going to anyhow!), but wouldn't it be nice to be born to a place where you could do whatever you wanted for the rest of your life?" It has been so nice to not have to give a shit about a lot of things for several days, but today (and the fun with the sink/stove), ugh on being reminded of reality.

News from my email: while my HMO has no news on the vaccine, I GOT EMAIL FROM SAFEWAY PROMISING VACCINES. WTF?! "coming soon to our pharmacy." Are you shitting me?! HOW?!?! I have signed up to see what they say, but this sounds implausible at best to have Safeway jump the gun ahead of literally all medical facilities.

On the good news side, I tried cooking rice at a slightly lower temperature and seriously, this is the best rice I ever cooked in my LIFE, delicious, tasty, fluffy, no burning, and none of it stuck to the pan! Huzzah! Also, stove seems okay so far still? There are some other pasta dishes I like that stick to the pan that I've been experimenting with to get them to not do that, but I really need to try something different with my favorite one next time I do it. Maybe I shouldn't follow the instructions so closely? I also made pizza later and did NOT put the hot pan on the stove and did not set off the fire alarm. So there is that.

Today's Viewing:
Back to cramming in as many Postables as I can before they expire. Episodes 5-8 are in the previous entry, since I tried to post a bonus/catchup entry so I can get back on count.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Episode 9:
Oliver and Shane end up locked in a bank vault reading old love letters and wondering when the air is going to run out, while new, clueless bank employee Jason mostly just ignores them and plays on his phone. Shane gets way too emotionally involved in this (the show seems to be implying she's thinking of Oliver, or freaking out about a running out of air) and freaks when the last few letters indicate that the lady might have died. (She survived, they end up meeting the great-grandson and passing the letters on to him.) Oliver writes a letter to Holly, which he does not mail later and Shane doesn't read, but dwells on. Norman finds out and he "has a cousin who used to do one thing, but now does something else," who ah...can give bank vault advice. "Friends don't let leave friends locked in bank vaults."

Snark about the vault:
Oliver: "There are three of us breathing." Shane, looking at the bank employee: "Debatable."
"I am concerned that after three hours, Jason's battery will run out and we'll have to converse with him again."

In other news, the semifinals for Miss Colorado Miss Special Delivery are going on, and Rita skips out for at least part of it once Norman overhears someone talking about people getting trapped at the bank. Rita somehow wins anyway? Ramon the dance instructor emcees it and Norman's thoughts on him: "He's weird."
I still want to know why the damn post office throws it's own beauty pageant, and how they have SO MANY HOTTIES working at the PO.

Episode 10:
This episode starts out with a lady having to abandon her baby Joshua at a church specifically because he has heart problems and she can't pay for all the surgeries. THERE IS NO COMMENTARY ON HOW EFFED UP THIS IS AS A THING TO HAVE TO DO IN AMERICA, everyone just treats it casually like "yeah, that's what happens." Somehow.... I guess decades later, this letter explaining the situation turns up.

It turns out that Norman is adopted--he was found wandering around an animal show alone--and got adopted at age 8. He has a file he hasn't opened about it and he actually USES THE PHONE to call his grandma, played as a rich hippie by Carol Burnette, who is clearly having a great time. On Norman: "He's a Parker Pennington Payne. Actually, he's just a Payne." Har. He and she go on a ... mining adventure together?, she ends up hanging out in a mail delivery bin. "Norman, would you mind removing your grandmother from the overnight delivery bin?"

We find out that the abandoned baby had his heart issues fixed, got adopted, and now he's a heart doctor who isn't interested in finding out why his mother abandoned him.

Norman gives Rita a present--a stuffed crab to remind her that she's unsquashable. THAT'S CUTE. She bear hugs him, he appears to be in a bit of distress and hand waving. "Nothing says I love you like crabs," Carol Burnett says, presumably enjoying every bit of saying that line. "She remembers everything that's wonderful," says Norman of Rita. Rita remember seeing Joshua...but it turns out the guy has a twin named Matt. DAMN. And apparently Grandma knows him, so when it COINCIDENTALLY (or not) turns out that she has a little heart incident and Joshua is her doctor, she calls Matt to come visit her. Then she starts trying to explain it all by telling a story about triplet clowns coincidentally showing up in the same restaurant, but that's when the drugs kick in. It's very amusing.
Grandma: "I'm nuttier than a fruitcake. Runs in the family. Oliver, you could use a little nuttiness yourself."

The Postables track down Matt and his mom and find out that yes, she did have twins, could only care for the healthy one, Matt is quite surprised. Again, nobody says anything about the state of health care in this country. Matt goes to the hospital and everyone meets. Awwww.
Oh yeah, and Shane talks Oliver into mailing the letter to his wife. This happens in absolutely pouring rain, which seems ridiculous to do with a paper letter.

And now we're into the TV movies:
SSD: Delivered for Christmas:

Meet Jordan, he's hot, nice, and into Shane. "The powers that be sent me to troubleshoot the Christmas rush, but there's no trouble!" HUH?! Also, Shane says they did 20,000 dead letters in 20+ days? Did she say that?! Don't they usually do one a week?

Everyone goes to the Postal Ball. "Rita, you certainly have expanded your wardrobe this year!" Oliver gets DECIDEDLY SNITTY about Rita dancing with some other dude. Like how dare you do the exact same dance. Later, Shane notes: "Two word nerds. Sitting at the same table at the Christmas ball. It's a Christmas miracle!" Shane is Not A Christmas Person, for the record.

Jordan drags them all out of the ball to deal with a letter written to God by a kid. Uh.... I know Oliver "can deliver a letter to anyone," but.... Oh, wait, I just noticed that Jordan's last name is MARLEY. Oh fuck, it's another Christmas Carol again and Shane is the Scrooge because she says she's not really into Christmas. Man, I know literally every show has to do A Christmas Carol, but still, so bored of it. And Shane's not even especially Scroogish. She just can't deal with the intangibility of God and wondering whether or not he answers. At least when kids write to Santa, they want stuff.

They sneak into a hospital by pretending to be carolers. They are best dressed. The dudes get LIGHT UP BOW TIES. A dog rolls over blocking their way, presumably in agony or just wanting pets. The letter writer, Hannah, is a little nerd girl whose mom is in the hospital and she and Rita hit it off right away. They are gonna put on a Christmas pageant for her.
Oliver to Jordan on his wife again. She walked out on me AT THE NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM. "She knew how much that meant to me."
Then there's another letter from a girl who just wants her happy family back and for her dad to come home. "I can't believe Oliver is off delivering another letter!" Uh, that's his job, Shane? I'm gonna take a wild guess right now that the letter asking for Daddy to come home is Shane's from like, decades ago somehow.

"We were a little short on Wise Men..." Norman has DECORATED THE BEAR. "Bearbuzzar." "I did not see that coming," says Oliver.

Called it on Jordan being well, something else anyway: "You're not from the post office." "I never said I was."

Please explain to me why a guy won't wait for you to get your purse and get money but will take your favorite irreplaceable necklace in trade? I'm wincing that Shane was forced to trade it for a random sheepskin in a cab.

Yup, that letter was from her.... called it. You have a happy family NOW, Oliver says to her (also, what could someone have said to her as a kid about the whole thing back then?).

Rita and Norman finally discuss her bad baking: "You don't like my cookies, do you?" "Not the eating part." Best answer to that ever. She's okay with honesty.

"Norman, put that Yoo-Hoo down and obey me." LOL Shane. Also, he's seriously pouring Yoo-Hoo into fancy glasses.

HEY, HOW DID HER NECKLACE GET ONTO THE TREE? Oliver: "Took a taxi home." AWWWWW.

From Paris With Love: THE INFAMOUS MISSING WIFE RETURNS!!!! I am so curious.

Oliver's letter to Holly got returned to the DLO, and then of course Shane and Rita opened it and Norman re-mailed it. Oliver is mad. At the same time they get some divorce papers 2 years late and when they find the business of the wife, she's gone, the husband's here and they are NOT divorced. And he doesn't want to any more and doesn't want her to know about. Oliver insists on delivering it to her tomorrow when she's back.

Oliver is "basically a human antique," according to Shane, and also kinda hypocritical under the circumstances. Oliver is still mad.

Ramon is now the town weatherman for....some reason. "I don't think about Ramon very much." -Norman.

Oliver has never heard of YouTube, but Holly made it there. Rita calls Ramon for a translation, as he knows all the romance languages. ("I never thought I'd need to be serviced so soon." Oh, Rita!) The poem is apparently one Holly wrote, in French, about how Oliver rescued her in a snowstorm. Ramon thinks the poem is crap, but full of passion.

"Okay, you guys have five minutes to be weird, and then it's back to work." -Shane

I'm thinking Ramon is this show's equivalent of Kirk from Gilmore Girls. He is now everywhere randomly. Norman is looking quietly miserable. I can't compete with that, he says. That's the first time you've admitted your feelings, Oliver said. I told my grandmother, Norman said. What do I do? LITERALLY MAKE A MOVE ON HER, NORMAN. YOU HAVE LIKE FOUR YEARS OF LEAD TIME ON RAMON. SHE HAS BEEN WAITING AROUND ON YOUR ASS ALL THIS TIME. I'm not in her league, he says. "Love can only survive on swagger and charisma for so long," says Oliver. She's holding out for a hero!

She's baaaaaaack! "Hi, I'm Holly. Would you like a Yoo-Hoo?" Shane is pretty well speechless. "He would be so fun at parties, if he would go," Holly says of Oliver. Also, if he orders clams and red wine, he's VERY ANGRY. "I guess I just have that effect on him, huh?" Then she starts going on about how good of a kisser he is and I'm all, this conversation is getting really weird with a lady you JUST MET. "So I stopped kissing him and went to Paris!!" Oliver walks in. Shane vamooses. Holly is....too dumb to figure out that she rhymed in a sentence. THIS IS PAINFUL. After we don't find out more about what they said, Oliver suddenly wants to go out for clams.

After hearing about how the couple almost split up and got back together, Oliver agrees to hand over the envelope to the husband....and then oops, he left it at work. And then Rita and Norman loudly announce that they have Caitlin's letter. UH-OH. Caitlin gets SUPER MAD. She wasn't cheating, she was just doing open mic nights! (Seriously.) As they hug, Norman and Rita are somehow holding hands.

"I was locked in a bank vault at the time I wrote that." Holly doesn't even ask, "Why were you locked in a bank vault?" Look, she's gorgeous, but she seems to be missing a few screws. Like, they've been married for 3 years technically and she's disappeared for two and never said anything? He thought marrying her would shake up his life. She needs her freedom! He thought she was delirious! "If you wanna grow up, you gotta be your own hero," she says. Basically, it was all about the sex. Could you please explain oh, ANYTHING? He's eaten a lot of clams, let's not get divorced tonight. Talk it over tomorrow? "I think I'm going to write a poem about this."
I don't know what we are supposed to make of Holly. Cute? Kinda screwy? Kinda immature? Kinda out to lunch in certain areas?
Manic Pixie Dream Girl situation?

They need someone to warm up the crowd before they hold a standup show at the restaurant. While everyone else argues about who should do it, Norman steps up and recites random facts ("One time we got a giant bear, and someone's dead ashes?") and everyone loves it, somehow. Rita is boggled. Then the husband gets onstage....and proposes again. How sweet.

Oliver and Holly dance together, finally. Shane watches from outside and feels sad. "Don't kiss her! Don't kiss her!" Of course they do. Shane decides to leave entirely. Like *gasp* quitting the PO entirely. "Nothing finally happened. Don't let nothing happen to the two of you," she says to Norman and Rita. Norman has no effing idea what is going on. If you don't tell someone you care, then they don't know and they find someone else, Rita says, crying, and then it's too late. Alas, Norman susses all of this out as "Are you in love with Ramon?" NO! You! To his credit, he kisses her. GOOD JOB, DUDE, CLUE BAT HIT. Then he's all, are you hungry?

Just as Shane heads home, Oliver's on her porch...for an hour and a half and "I had to explain to a couple of police officers why I was installing a porch swing at 2 a.m." She announces her quitting, forever and unalterably! No, really! "You have a habit of self-terminating when you come across a situation not under your control," he notices. He says it takes awhile to y'know, figure out if they can "work" together. He says she went back to Paris and he...went out to get Shane a porch swing. They just sit and rock.

Truth Be Told:

It's Shane's birthday and she's waiting on her new swing for the mail carrier. Who's Steve? (The DC married guy, I guess.) She gets a card that says, "How could I forget your birthday? I can't forget anything about you." NOT from Rita.

"Come back, Shane!" *eye-roll* "Really?" Oliver's dad shows up (he's a hottie) and Oliver runs like hell when he sees him, because of course he does. Wow, that's the most hostile I've ever heard Oliver.

Time for everyone to confess to their same-sex coworkers about kissing!
Norman didn't say anything to her love confession, but "I did something?" Kissed her and then they went out for pizza. "How was it?" "The crust was a little...." Oliver just sighs. Norman again: "I had this five year plan and I feel like I jumped to year four in five minutes." Suddenly this explains a lot. Love can't be scheduled, Oliver says. This makes Norman think they could be engaged by Thursday.
Oliver gets snitty when his dad turns up again. He later comes over to adjust the patio swing (since he did put it together IN THE DARK) and the maillady both ogles him and thinks he's "Steve."

"As you know, my relationship with my father is none of your business." Shane plays Shrink of the Day once she hears that Oliver's mom was flighty and took off, just like You Know Who. Unspeakable things his dad did: didn't mention that his mom died until it was too late, and QUIT THE POST OFFICE TO WORK FOR FEDEX. BLASPHEMY!!!!! Shane calls Oliver's dad for him ("I abhor voicemail!"). telling him at least this way he can get an explanation, like she could never get with his dad. Back at the office, Shane gets a Bad News Phone Call while Oliver is out...not working? His dad just died last night. Fuuuuuuuck.

I love how this show has gone from "We're going to put it in the mail and never mind we could just hand it to someone right now," to physically walking the lost mail to someone's house and then someone goes, "You couldn't just put it in the mail?" Anyway, it's a letter that was ON FIRE and they can't really read it, but are passing it on anyway. "Could I hire you to find out who wrote the letter?" the girl (Phoebe) asks. They suspect it has something to do with her missing in action mom. "I mean, we do have wide powers of postal discretion."

Oliver's dad shows up, having checked his voicemail. OH SHIT IS THIS A GHOST DAD?!?! Um.... I'm totally confused. Your father died last night, but it's a father you never knew you had? Apparently Oliver's stepdad was his biological dad. So much for being an illustrious O'Toole with the biology of the postal service, I guess....? This makes even less sense because the actor playing his non-bio dad looks really like Eric Mabius. "I'm a SCHMIDT!?" So the call Shane got about "see a lawyer at 2" was for a different dad entirely.

"What does bodice-bursting passion mean?" Yes, let's let the teenager read Rita's giant novel about how "Mr. DeLorman" accidentally branded the duchess. I'm so afraid to ask.

Harvey Schmidt was an inventor and ah...sounds like he had a lot to donate to charity.... "I leave my apologies." He also gets left a patent to... the only thing that ever worked? Who IS THIS HARVEY GUY? He sounds like he was a con artist ("but the only thing I stole was your mother") but somehow has a lot of money from inventions and patents? HUH?
I just love when people have tedious fights about the mail and forwarding addresses--in this case, that his mother stopped writing but DID have one. After Shane recaps the day to Rita, including two different fathers and inheritance: "So is Oliver having a good day or a bad day?" I'm gonna guess from his sulking that it's a bad one.

Norman mentions having "extra toes I didn't know about" and "they're gone now." "I love learning new things about you," says Rita. NORMAN IS THE NOBBY NOBBS, Y'ALL.

They find the guy who wrote the letter to Phoebe, but he says he literally can't say. Norman has an idea for his and Rita's first date. Good.
Shane says that she wants to hug Oliver, but it's not what he wants right now. "Since when did what I want ever stop you, Ms. McInenery?" So she does it. OH GOD THIS REMINDS ME OF...well, you know, sigh.

Look, most of this show has nothing to do with my daily life, in the beforetimes or now. Lord knows I would not want to date either of these guys and they would drive me nuts. Norman's very strange and Oliver desperately needs to go into a Hallmark time travel movie and settle down in the 1800's where nobody will ever mention the Internet. Rita at least seems quite suited to deal with Norman's strange and vice versa, and while Shane is normal and NOT strange, she at least seems to deal with Oliver well enough that his particular issues aren't totally putting her off. (I have enough issues at times with Scott not being online much with regards to conversation, can't imagine how a hacker chick deals with Mr. "What's YouTube?" at work every day, though.) Of the one episode we saw of Holly, it was definitely a case of "she's not great with words, she's super flighty, I just don't think this is a good match," so she seems a lot more fitting by comparison.

But these are extreme slow burn relationships going on here. Norman apparently had a 5 year plan going before he'd do anything about Rita even though he literally had a supervisor pointing out to his face SHE LOVES YOU, SHE WROTE 780 PAGES OF A ROMANCE NOVEL ABOUT YOU and he still didn't say anything until season 2-ish. Then they have one kiss and he thinks they're gonna get engaged. (I repeat: Norman is strange.) It seems pretty odd that Oliver's relationship with Holly was fast since he doesn't seem like the sort....and clearly a year of seeing if we are compatible coworkers (plus married) is a thing he does. But seriously, they just worked up to a hug after over a year. SLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
"She's very....efficient...." Oliver says of Shane. SO ROMANTIC, I SWOONED.
"Open this one first. It's an abacus. Solar!" -Norman, not comprehending the point of gift wrapping.

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