Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness

Just as I put some stuff from the freezer in the oven for lunch, mother_bones said she'd like to go to Abakhan -- the big fabric store in town. (Hooray for our new better masks! She hasn't been anywhere except medical appointments since they went to Stornaway in like September.)

She was quick to say she didn't expect anyone to go with her and she was happy to get a taxi, but I love going there with her, and diffrentcolours had the excellent idea of going right then and having lunch at Koffee Pot, an old favorite. "Do they have tables outside?!" I said. He thought so. I don't know why I was so surprised; I wouldn't have had to think about such things the last time I was there, so I wouldn't have noticed.

Their menu is reduced to breakfast (English/Scottish breakfasts) and "brunch" (other breakfasty food), so I looked in vain for vegetables and instead had my delicious protein, fat and potatoes with a green smoothie. mother_bones was carefully avoiding the carbs as she intended to save all of today's metformin for the pancakes I had promised to make for dinner. It was lovely sitting outside under a beautiful blue sky; the staff member who served us even pointed out a heater that did gently warm the air around us but I was still happy in just my hoodie.

Then diffrentcolours went off to play Pokemon and we went into the shop. mother_bones and I had unrelatedly (unless this was what'd given her the idea to go today...) talked this morning about the possibility of her teaching me how to sew, after I'd said I'd always been left out of the conversations about fabric and stitches that my mom and grandma had all through my childhood; it was assumed that I was blind enough that such things would forever be off limits.

Of course mother_bones is keen on dismantling such barriers anyway, and is also interested from a pragmatic point to find out what I can actually do and how I can be helped to do the rest so I could, like, at least mend things or whatever, that'd be fabulous. It's so lovely that she's happy to mend/alter clothes for me but it'd be so badass if I didn't have to depend on someone else for stuff like that. So she spent extra time telling me about the different fabrics and how they're different and why it matters, and I asked some questions too. Mostly I was just there to touch things and compliment colors, but then so was she.

She got some cool fabric (only some of it is space stuff for me...) and I bought some very gay yarn to make a scarf for a friend (it's lace weight and I'm using a lace pattern and why are these things both happening at once; I am not good enough for this! there's so much counting! everything is so small! haha I am a victim of my own ambition here and no one can feel sorry for me). The staff were lovely, pointing out a much cheaper version of a thing she needed to buy, and we even made a friend of another shopper who asked our advice a couple of times on colors to go with something she already had to make a birthday present for her mother, aww. She also needed the thing that would've been expensive if not for the cheap version, so I'm glad she found out about that when we did!

We were all tired but happy and very ready to go home then, which unfortunately took an hour because of weirdly bad traffic! Gary was so delighted to see us though, it was cute.

After the Tesco delivery arrived this evening, I had all the ingredients (actually, the toppings) for pancakes! I thought about doing English pancakes with savory toppings for dinner and American pancakes for dessert, but we'd had a big and late lunch, and also I was tired. I didn't make the pancakes as early as I intended and having to wait for groceries in a 7-8pm slot meant it was very late (for me) by the time we ate. I've learned these last few months that I turn into a gremlin if I haven't eaten by 7, and tonight it was after 8. And close to 9 by the time I'd finished.

I got the veggie bacon bits I'd used in the carbonara last week, and threw them in a pan with some mushrooms. Mushrooms and cheese or spinach and cheese are my favorite savory pancake toppings, so I made sure we had grated cheese and baby spinach too. And it turned out we all just put all those things on all of our pancakes. There was just enough batter left for the cook to have one last one so I put lemon and sugar on that. mother_bones had a muffin for dessert instead, meaning there's only one left of the batch of blueberry banana muffins I made to use up the sad bananas, and now there are already more sad bananas! I'll make the peanut butter banana muffins tomorrow.

I was kinda grumpy that I have to miss my covid/disabled people meeting tomorrow to go to work -- every other time I've been able to skip or swap a work day for it, but this time I can't, so after almost a year and a half I really shouldn't complain too much and yet here I am -- but I actually had a really good one-to-one meeting with the chair today so I was able to vent my spleen and also hear some very, uh, interesting stuff from him that I know won't be said at the whole meeting so I'm feeling better about having to miss it now! And luckily that meeting with him, which was supposed to be at 2pm i.e. right when I'd have been eating lunch outside Koffee Pot, got moved at the last minute to this morning which ended up suiting us both a lot better.

Today has been a nice day for Things Working Out, and it has not felt like that has been true for a while.