MamaCat, Home for Christmas.

So how was your Thanksgiving, me little droogies?

I know, I know… I got home from the film gig, made a cute video about Halloween up here in the ‘hood, and promptly dropped out of sight again. To you, the reader, it may appear that I crawled into winter somnolescence an have been hibernating for six or seven weeks. Or eight? SURPRISE! Not so! And the view from over here where I am is more like: kick ass, rest up, have a good cry, have a few laughs, repeat. Intersperse the occasional cocktail or hot chocolate with friends, regular dog walks with Amy, and the largest collection of rejection emails for retail jobs I have ever seen, and there’s my month of November for ya, kiddoes! WHEEEE!!

And, whew!

Oh, yes, and there was this epic dinner around the fourth Thursday in November, big national holiday, I may have cooked like a fiend all day for that one! Yeah let’s just set aside the many, many historic lies and distortions regarding both the origins of, and ostensible reasons for, Thanksgiving. Let’s just focus down to the basics of how good it is to take one day to just be grateful. Let’s put on Bette Midler’s “Friends,” and reflect on a few things MamaCat has learned about life in her Damn Near Sixty Eight Years here on planet Earth. Here’s the Divine Miss M:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv2HtvibWhc

Headphones on? Good.

First of all, have I had a chance to thank you, my friends, for being a friend? Because please and thank you very much, I am so grateful for the support. Between donations to Buy Me A Coffee, messages of encouragement, and the occasional gift of a cocktail or a lunch, you have kept the old girl afloat through a very difficult adventure. Thank you! I knew this was going to be hard. I’m surprised with how much more difficult parts of it are proving than I had ever anticipated. And I don’t think I could be standing this strong unless you were there for me.

Secondly, when I say “home” for the holidays, I do not mean:
• That I have my own place
• That I am with Relatives
• That I have gone back to H.W.S.B.D.*

1. It’s going to be quite the hill to climb before I can possibly get into my own place. On paper, it can’t be done. But New York, and the Universe, have ways of making things work. One keeps the faith, baby.

2. I have no living relatives. None. It’s creepy and lonely but there it is.

3. I am never going back, ever, not a chance, But in the Good News section of our telecast here, let’s turn to the fact that I have finally obtained an Order for Protection. So to those of you who may have thought I’ve been exaggerating things (which seems to be a surprising number of folks, who knew?), no, Virginia, the State of Minnesota doesn’t hand these out lightly. Y’heard?

And yet his holiday season I feel more “at home” than I have felt in many a year. I feel less displaced here, as a guest who lives on the couch with her doggie, than I have felt in several years, including the last few years of my marriage. Hence all the fabulous gourmet old-fashioned Thanksgiving cooking and whatnot. Family is as family does, and Chosen Family isn’t just a fad for twenty-somethings in their first adult apartments. I mean that in a very cool way.

So, here is what I would like for Christmas: Remind Uncle Algo that I exist!

If you could, if you would, please go to Amazon or Spotify, and listen to some of my episodes, and give them a Five-Star. Wouldja? Couldja? Even if you don’t want to listen through, maybe go put the whole podcast on in another room and let the episodes run. Give the podcast a five-star on its page, make some snappy comments, share an episode if it has something you like. Pump me up! It would be an awesome gift. The algorithm has forgotten that I exist.

Even more, if the spirit moves you, would you mind going to Granny Has A YouTube and running some of my little videos? And giving them the likes and subscribes?

Honestly, there hasn’t been any gas in the tank for producing video content lately. And there still isn’t a booth so that I can go back to recording the podcast. But when I go back and listen to “Granny Has A Podcast,” I like where the show was going. I like what I was able to create. It doesn’t sound like any other show, and I can’t wait to get back into production in the New Year. And it would absolutely be a huge boon if you could increase my work’s visibility.

As always, if you are in a position to Buy Me A Coffee, it’s greatly appreciated. But bumping me up with listens and ratings and likes and subscribes? THAT’S the gift that keeps on giving!!

Anyway, here we are, Beagle dog and old lady podcaster, unemployed but not unfed; homeless but not unhoused; divorcing, but as it stands currently, I may walk away with a settlement that is merely lifelong debt. You take the good you take the bad and there you have the facts of life. We’re having a lovely Christmas, because that rash decision I made last April was the correct one.

Love and kissies and meows, darlings.