the mermaid cafe

I meant to post last night but I could barely keep my eyes open so I went to bed early (and missed a super rare Mets comeback in Atlanta!) and slept for 10 glorious hours! I felt great at work today, and got some stuff done, and made some suggestions about the September board meeting agenda that I am sure the CEO and the Chair will not like, but they wanted to get radical and also not overrun the meeting time by 45 minutes again, and I offered a good way to do it to my boss. We'll see if anyone bites.

I am off tomorrow for the dentist - it should just be a cleaning (though I am braced to hear I need yet another crown) but I am always so tired when it's over. And my team meeting on Tuesday got cancelled so I am tempted to take next Tuesday off since I'm already off Wednesday (my birthday), Thursday, and Friday of next week. My boss was like, sure! but I'm still thinking about it.

I thought I had something else to post about but I can't remember... oh right, I finally watched Project Hail Mary the other night. I enjoyed it but it was too long. And there was not enough Eva Stratt, who was the best thing in the movie.

*

I finally caught up on the last 3 episodes of this season of Abbott Elementary and ( spoilers )

Also, my internet and cable went out for several hours this afternoon, I'm guessing because of the heat? but I was able to use my phone as a hotspot, so it didn't deter me for long. *wry* I took today off because originally I was supposed to be dog-sitting at my sister's before plans changed, and I decided to keep the 4-day weekend. I'm glad I did. I like my job and I mostly like my coworkers, but I am so tired of people asking me for things. Hopefully, I can get a bit of a respite and a reset.

I hope you are all staying cool if you're in the heatwave. <3

*

June recs update:

unfitforsociety has been updated for June 2026 with 10 recs in 3 fandoms:

* 8 Heated Rivalry
* 1 Dungeon Crawler Carl and 1 The Locked Tomb

✭

I slept in this morning, but I am still so tired. Luckily it's a short work week and I have a 4-day weekend next week for the 4th.

I got a late start, but I did make blueberry corn muffins and they turned out well, but I think maybe I just prefer to have blueberry or corn muffins? Idk, but I still have corn meal so maybe I'll just make corn muffins next weekend.

I also have cherries which I am excited to eat - there is so much fresh fruit now and all of it was on sale this week, so I had to choose, because I can't eat all of it before it goes bad. And last night, I set up the first coffee granita of the season, and had some earlier and it was so good.

Now I've started watching season 5 of The Bear and will probably try to finish it this weekend so I don't get too spoiled. I also watched that one-off episode Gary but did not enjoy it much. Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach have great chemistry, but ( spoilers ) It had some good needle-drops, though. Anyway, hopefully they stick the landing. I'll guess we'll see!

After that, I have so many other things to watch, so I will probably just end up rewatching something I'm already familiar with so I don't have to make a choice. *wry*

*

So I got up around 9-ish on Saturday morning and got the dough together and rising for some bread, which turned out nicely, and then once it was cooled, I sliced and toasted one loaf and mixed up the bruschetta topping while I waited for Friend L to arrive. She originally told me she'd arrive around 2-2:30, but of course, I got a text from her saying she was running late, and I guess she finally arrived around 3:45-4ish.

We hung out and talked and then I put together the bruschetta (though I did not bother with reducing the balsamic vinegar - I just mixed it in with the tomatoes, cheese, and olive oil) and put the ziti (which I made with shells instead of ziti and bacon instead of sausage) in the oven, and then we had dinner. And we were too full to eat any cake, so we had it on Sunday instead. You can see pictures of the food here.

We stayed up talking until 2 am! Which was fun but exhausting, and on Sunday, we ordered in Chinese food and watched the first episode of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries because I knew it would be right up her alley because of the clothes and how awesome Phryne is. She went home around 7 pm and I fell asleep on the couch for a while, so I went to bed early.

It was a lovely weekend but I feel like I am still so tired and I have a stupid in-person board meeting tomorrow and I have to wash my hair. Sigh.

*

My nephew Victor entered Mayor Mamdani's lottery for the 300 seats at City Hall for today's Knicks parade, and he won! So he and Trish got to sit through the ceremony and see everything from relatively close up! They said it was awesome. I watched but did not see them in the crowd. I enjoyed it. There were so many high points - Mamdani's speech, Brunson's speech, seeing Alvarado and KAT, who are local and really understand what this means to the city, dancing to Alicia Keys! Mariska Hargitay! Her and Brunson's mutual admiration society is so cute! A fitting end to a magical post-season.

*

It was very exciting to watch the Knicks win the NBA championship last night with another wild 4th quarter comeback! My brother's kids went to one of the watch parties and put me on alert that if they couldn't get home, they were planning to come here to sleep, and I said of course! And then I did not hear from them again, so at 2 am, I went to bed.

I woke up this morning and texted to make sure they got home all right, and when they didn't respond, I checked in with my brother, who told me that the subways had been shut down (I had not read or heard the news), so they ended up going to one of my nephew's friend's apartment to sleep before getting home this morning. But they said they had a good time and it looked like people were mostly being cool while celebrating from what I saw.

The parade is on Thursday! I am no longer one to stand in a crowd for several hours, so I have no intention of going, but I think it's gonna be super cool.

In other news, I was doing one of my every-so-often checks to see if there was a publishing date for Alecto the Ninth yet and I ended up on the Locked Tomb subreddit, which is fine - there is some cool meta there - but I have tried to consciously repress that Muir was in Homestuck fandom, and posts there always remind me, and I do not wish to know anything more about Homestuck than I already do, which is almost nothing. And there is still no release date for AtN. Sigh.

*

So yesterday, I logged off a call with my boss and the CEO, and my internet went down again, just like it had on Wednesday, at almost exactly the same time (1:30 pm EDT). After some back and forth with Spectrum where they insisted it was a me problem and scheduled a tech visit, I got a message that there was an outage in my area but it would be fixed by 4:30 pm.

Unfortunately, instead of being done with work at 2:30 pm like a usual summer Friday, I had a board call from 3 pm - 4:30 pm (despite all of my written and verbal instructions to Assistant J, many meetings were scheduled on times and days I told him not to schedule things, like the Tuesday after a Monday holiday, or 3 pm on a summer Friday, but I hope this experience of having to work 2 extra hours on a summer Friday stays with him so he never does it again), so I had to be on by phone, because no one from IT ever answered my question about why I couldn't use my phone as a hotspot, the way I used to be able to. Until I was logged in on my phone - then Teams started blowing up with instructions and I was like, sorry, on a board call, can't talk right now. But it should work going forward if necessary. I was looking in the wrong spot (I mean, I was looking under "hotspot" instead of "wifi" so was I really wrong? I don't think so. and yet!), which they kindly told me.

I could have tried to switch in the middle of the call, but figured better to stay on and get all my notes than disconnect and not be able to reconnect. And then at about 4:35, the internet came back! And I still had to wait almost 2 more hours for one of my co-workers to finish editing her slides so I could PDF them and send to the chair for review. And then the slides were too large, even as a reduced-size PDF, to email with all the other materials, so I had to split it into 2 emails. I told my boss they need to slim that deck down, but one of the VPs is insisting on having his slides in there twice since he gave the same presentation at 2 meetings, instead of just saying, "please refer to slides A-K for this presentation." I am desperately hoping the chair dings him for that, but he probably won't. (If it were up to me, I'd have just deleted them but when I asked my boss told me the VP specifically stated he wanted them in there twice. It's just the pre-reads deck that probably nobody reads, so it probably won't matter to anyone else, but I think it is a bad way to manage your meeting materials.)

Anyway! In other news, I mentioned friend L is moving back to ATL next month, so she's coming to hang out here next weekend, so I need to get some of my clutter tucked away before that happens. I ordered some Rubbermaid bins to pile stuff in, which won't look great but will at least free up the chair from all my mixing bowls and cupcake pans. (I know, I know, but sometimes it's just easier to always have stuff out then to put it away and need to pull it out again three days later.)

I'm thinking about what to cook and I might do the white lasagna I like so much - I could send half of it home with her and still have enough leftover for dinner for a couple of days - plus the SK strawberry summer cake. And maybe breakfast tacos on Sunday? And some coffee granita? Idk, I'm still thinking.

*

Baby Miss L is now in her pirate era, so I found some toddler-appropriate books about pirates, plus Commotion in the Ocean and sent them to her. Today I got a video of her reading Commotion in the Ocean - she knows all her sea animals very well! - and also a thumbs up from her mom, who uses it with her students(? she is a speech pathologist who works with preschool kids at a school, so I'm not sure if they are her students or clients) too.

I'm not the most superstitious sports fan out there, but I'm a little stitious and so I would not be surprised if the vibes turn rancid at MSG tonight due to the fucking cheeto attending the game. Fucking James Dolan can go fuck. *deep breath* Still, LGK!!!

In work news, my boss informed me that they would purchase home printer/scanner for me if I had one I liked and it was under $500, so does anyone have any recommendations? I would prefer that it be small, as I don't have a lot of room, but could keep it half under my desk if I shift around the air purifier. I'd need a shelf for it, too probably, so it's not just sitting on my 1939 parquet floor.

*

Yesterday after I logged off work, I made a ricotta cheesecake, and since I know my springform pans are leaky (they are old and need to be replaced), I just used a deep dish pie plate, and it was fine. I also added about 2/3 cup of mini chocolate chips that the recipe did not call for, but which seemed necessary, though it is also a delicious cake without them (the cinnamon/orange/vanilla flavor is actually super Christmassy to me? but the heart wants what it wants, even if it's June rather than December). Also the vanilla bean paste gives it those little speckles which means it's even more delicious than usual! *g* Anyway, if you need a cheesecake but don't have a springform pan or a stand mixer, and don't want to deal with a water bath, this is the way to go.

Then today, I tried to make baked mozzarella sticks instead of fried - mainly because cleaning up after frying is a lot and also the smell lingers - but I didn't realize you are supposed to freeze them for TWO HOURS so I got a late start and didn't eat until almost 6:30. They were okay but not as wonderfully crisp as they get when fried, even though I used panko. Also, despite what some of these recipes say, you really should season every layer - the flour, the egg, and the breadcrumbs. I am just saying.

My plan for tomorrow is to make bacon so there's that for lunch for the week, along with some chicken pesto meatballs - we'll see how they are. I am apparently on a ground chicken kick, because I have a bunch of recipes I want to try, and as long as it keeps being on sale, I'm good to go!

In other news, the Knicks are up 2-0 on the Spurs and only TWO GAMES away from winning a chip! They've won 13 in a row in these playoffs! What even is happening??? MSG is going to be nuts on Monday. But remember, you absolutely do not have to hand it to James Dolan. #go new york go new york go

*

So as you may have surmised from my posts over the years, I've been a sports fan all my life. I'm pretty well versed in baseball, football, hockey, and used to follow tennis as well, but I've only ever been a playoffs basketball fan, though since the Knicks have been in the playoffs the last couple of years, I've become more familiar with them (I was pretty familiar with the Ewing-era Knicks, because all my college friends were into basketball, and the spring/summer of 1994 when both the Rangers and the Knicks were in the playoffs was pretty memorable), so I didn't actually need this, but I did think it was pretty funny: The Knicks Are in the Finals. Act Like You've Been Here Before. #Go New York go New York go!

*

I meant to post earlier but then I kind of dozed off, whoops! Yesterday, I took my 90 mini cheesecakes and Baby Miss L's books and headed out to my sister's for Alyssa's birthday barbecue that was postponed from last weekend due to all the rain. Well, unfortunately, the weather yesterday was not really conducive to an outside party, so we ended up staying in the house. And my youngest niece, whose birthday was also yesterday, already had plans, so she (and my brother's family) couldn't make it. But it was nice.

When I got home today, I ended up having a long call with Friend L, who let me know that she's moving back to Atlanta (after being in New York for 30 years) to help out her sister with their mom, whose health has been declining. I kind of had a feeling this was going to happen, with how often she was going down there and how long she was staying each time, but she was in denial about it for a while. Hopefully I'll get to see her before she goes, and we can always facetime.

I also did the May recs update, and though there was some wonkiness with DW earlier, I think it's fixed now.

unfitforsociety has been updated for May 2026 with 8 recs in 2 fandoms:

* 7 Heated Rivalry
* 1 The Pitt

***

So here is a thing that happened this week: I have a monthly set of subscription deliveries from Amazon - stuff like dish soap, razor cartridges, paper towels, etc. - and it usually gets delivered the last Tuesday of the month, which was this week. I also had another book I ordered for Baby Miss L since the party got postponed to this weekend. Over the weekend, I get an email that my stuff has shipped. And then on Tuesday, instead of my stuff arriving, I get several emails saying everything in the package was undeliverable and is being refunded. So I check and my credit card has indeed been refunded. Most of it wasn't super necessary, so it was annoying but fine, but I did want the book (How to Catch a Star, recommended by justwontbreak), so I reordered it. I got an email this morning that it had been delivered, and when I went down to the package room, there it was...along with another box from Amazon, containing all the items from my order which had been "undeliverable" and refunded. It wasn't banged up or in bad shape at all, so I don't even know what happened, but I got my stuff, and now I have 2 copies of the book for Baby Miss L (one can stay with the grandparents or be given away, I don't even care). *hands*

*

New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals! Go New York Go New York Go! Bing bong!

*

Still with the don't wannas, but for once our All Staff call was mostly interesting (though it never fails to baffle me that people put their requests for different soda in the vending machine in the anonymous complaint form instead of just asking the office manager dude about it - as I said to my boss, no questions about COLAs but always questions about colas, which evoked a real out loud laugh from her so you know, score) and I got the 2 main things I had to do this week done, so tomorrow can just be waiting around for other people to send me their meeting materials (I loathe how they have no consideration for me and my summer Friday sign-off at 2:30 pm, but the C-suite level folks are always like that).

In other news, now I am not seeing Baby Miss L this weekend, because the weather is supposed to be rainy and chilly, so the party was postponed till next weekend. It's fine. I have gotten some lovely videos and pictures of her dancing at a wedding she attended last weekend, and that will suffice for now.

So Tuesday night, I turned off the Knicks game while they were down by double-digits in the 4th quarter and went to bed. Imagine my surprise to learn that they had tied it up and then won in OT! Let's hope they can win in regulation tonight.

And finally, I knew Mike Keenan was a piece of shit, but there's some stuff in this article about the 1994 Rangers (gift link) that I did not know. Interesting read. They won then and haven't since, so I guess it might really have to last a lifetime.

Now I have to figure out what to have for dinner. I guess it could be quesadillas again. Idk.

*