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Entry tags:

Pompeii and covid

I'm reading, and really enjoying, Annalee Newitz's Four Lost Cities.

I'm currently reading about Pompeii, and I was struck by the mention of about how little was recorded about that volcanic eruption and the cities that were "lost" in its aftermath.

I thought of how conspicuously absent our society's cultural response to the covid pandemic has been, even before Newitz themself drew an explicit parallel with the Spanish flu epidemic which apparently also had a similar effect.

I was struck by this because just this morning, I was in a meeting about an upcoming Mental Health Awareness Week event at work. I had to join a bit late so I don't know the context but as I joined, someone newish to my org -- which covers the whole country so we're mostly hybrid/remote -- said that starting this job was hard for me because going back to working from home was something he hadn't done "since covid." #CovidIsNotOver, of course. (I felt some kind of way listening to someone talk as if they were triggered by an event that is still ongoing if you ask me.) But he's totally right about how we haven't really addressed it in any meaningful way -- the lack of pragmatic mitigations almost requires us to participate in this cognitive dissonance of referring to the pandemic in the past tense when it's only the lockdowns, the testing, the mask mandates, the period of taking it as seriously as it warrants, which is past.

I was immediately reminded of that Audrey Watters piece I linked to the other day, about grief that isn't observed. If she's right that "it matters that GPT was released during the COVID pandemic (and ChatGPT shortly 'after')," (and how I appreciate the scare-quotes around "after" there!), this is a meaning that's lost if we don't talk about the covid pandemic.

I think covid is intimately linked to changes in transport infrastructure and the built environment that make my job harder -- hastily-enacted legislation to allow more tables and chairs on pavements means more obstacles that never had to undergo an Equality Impact Assessment; "pop-up" cycle lanes led to lasting trends in active travel infrastructure that still deprioritize pedestrians; e-scooters were seen as more useful in a world where people were discouraged to go anywhere but particularly to use public transport; I could go on -- and the further that lockdowns and other facets of pandemic mitigations get, the harder it is for me to address those things properly.

It's interesting to see what feels like such a modern ill also taking place as long ago as Pompeii, in as different a culture as that Roman one was. Is it such a fundamental human thing to just block out the bad times so thoroughly? I can't help but think we can do much better to look after ourselves, individually and as collective societies.

Entry tags:

ask me no question i'll tell you no lie

re: Cursive

TWO DAYS TO TRAVEL. The nerves are setting in fiercely, but I've got my itinerary laid out and all that is really left to do is pack. Will try to get that done tonight. Or at least started.

Currently announced matches for my trip: FTR vs. C&C at Dynasty (EDGE & CHRISTIAN'S THIRD MATCH TAGGING TOGETHER IN 14 YEARSSSSS), Ricochet vs. Rich/Deonna vs. Gisele/Rohan vs. Stu/Athena vs. Taylor at Global Wars Canada (gonna tick seeing defenses for two women's ROH titles off of my bucket list, even if Ricochet losing his belt at Revolution means the National will still elude me), Mercedes vs. Jody Threat at the Manitoba Museum (IT'S PROBABLY GONNA BE HER SECOND-TO-LAST BELT BY THEN, crashout eraaaaaa), and whatever Taka Michinoku and KENTA are gonna get up to at Mystery Wrestling. A PRETTY GOOD START. Now if I just get main event Kenny in Vancouver I can ascend.

Work remains ridiculous, but after just two and a half more days of it, it will not be my problem until halfway through April!

It was so cold again this morning, back down to -30 with the wind, and Mom went in to work early to keep clearing out her office, so I had to walk it. You know things are bad when I'm looking forward to the weather in Winnipeg in March.

26. Do You Write in Cursive?

Not since Grade 7, when they stopped making us. My handwriting is frozen in amber and still looks exactly like it did when I was 11.

Today's lunchtime joshi match was Mei Suruga vs. Rina Yamashita from ChocoPro #472. My perfect gremlin of an apple girl going toe-to-toe against a famed deathmatch freelancer in an absolute war, Baliyan Akki losing his everloving shit on commentary during the ending stretch was everything. And then the aftermath, with Mei still lying dead in the ring while the locker room empties and everyone runs around singing and she has to be comforted by her victorious opponent? God, that's the good stuff.

Okay, back to the inbox. So many sold units. So manyyyyyyyyy...

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Address Unknown, by Kathrine Kressman Taylor

An epistolatory novel about the friendship between an American Jew, Max, and a German, Martin. As Hitler rises to power, their relationship sours, in some expected ways and some less expected, as their characters are revealed.

Very short, very powerful, very technically skilled, a quick easy read with an unexpected and unforgettable outcome. Seriously, don't click on spoilers if there's any chance you'll read the book. That being said, I read it because Naomi Kritzer told me the whole story and it was still great. Thanks for the rec!

The book was published in 1939 under a male-sounding pseudonym, but the style feels almost modern and the themes feel incredibly modern. There's an afterword about what inspired the book, which which is worth reading. Taylor had some German friends who seemed like kind, wonderful people, who became fervent Nazis and abandoned their Jewish friends. In a question so many of us are asking now, she wondered, What changed their hearts so? What steps brought them to such cruelty?

( Read more... )

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rl_26

(no subject)

I will say, getting up when you wake up does make for longer days. What a difference an extra 2.5 hours can achieve. Not that I achieved anything yesterday which was rainy most of the day and peak couch potatodom the rest. But today, even though I lay in to 10, got me to the laundromat with towels and sheets and that pair of putative corduroy pants that are still too stiff to wear comfortably. Repeated washing and drying in hot has accomplished nothing. Where are the soft wide whale cords of my youth? (Yes, that really is whale as in cetacean. How odd.) And they need to be shortened as well.

In between whiles I took my tax stuff up to the courier outlet to be FedExed to outer Scarberia. Hope it arrives and yes, I know I should have made copies of the one form that can't be duplicated easily-- from the bank, actually-- and I now know to add the accountant's phone number, but it is out of my hands no use wibbling etc etc. *Maybe* next year I will trust to the tender mercies of Canada Post for delivery because dear lord FedEx charges what dinner at Le Paradis cost me last time I was there. Even without getting a signature which is another $12 plus tax.

However if it's all to do again no bother because I'm sure to get some kind of refund. Which may not be true next year because if I shake the money tree too hard, as I did in '21, there are capital gains taxes to pay. Should have shaken it when the Dow was at 50,000 but who knew someone would have blundered into an undeclared war?

Entry tags:

mutti & vati

not exactly value for money!

A couple of days ago, I determined that my webcam wasn't working on my laptop, for calls with my parents, or on my work laptop.

D kindly took it away the other day, and diagnosed it as Dead. He also reminded me we had one that I could use for work but doesn't work on Linux -- something I'd entirely forgotten about; I think I'd conflated it with the other webcam which had stopped working entirely...

He also sourced a replacement, sent me a link. Which I said was terribly sweet of him but I didn't really need, just for my parents when I could shuffle things around and just use the camera on the laptop. But it arrived the next day; he'd bought it for me anyway. "Thirty quid to keep your parents happen seems worth it," he said. Awww.

So, tonight I was so looking forward to the call with my parents starting with something other than my mom complaining that she can't see me.

Instead, the first thing she said when my camera pops on was "You're getting those deep wrinkles in your forehead too, like Grandma [my mom's own mother]."

Which a) only when I frown, or raise my eyebrows [so maybe this is the only way my parents will ever see me, lol] b) my grandma was a badass, so I hardly mind looking like her! c) to age is to live!

But most of all: she's treating me in a way she'd consider horrible bad manners if I behaved this way toward anyone.

Again. (A story I'm fond of trotting out is the time we were in a restaurant, my appetizer arrived, she looked disgusted at it and asked me warily what that was; I said "butternut squash soup" and she said "oh yuck!" A thing I'd have been told off for if I'd reacted that way to someone else's food that I both didn't have to and shouldn't have eaten!)

Can't believe D paid £30 for my appearance to be insulted like this, heh. It's a fancy webcam too; he said he got "only" 720p rather than the £50 1080p, and I was thinking this is already too big a number, I don't want my parents to see me in high definition (unfortunately for me, I said this as "that's too many p for my face!" which made D snigger because his mind is always in the gutter!). it's very zoomed-in too, which is unsettling for me too since I have to have my monitor so close to me. It's been such a long time since Mom commented on my facial hair and I'd like that to become a much longer time, an unbroken streak. She's gonna say whatever she wants as soon as she (thinks that she) is off-mic; all I ask is for her to be polite to my face!

Current Mood: thankful
Current Music: CSNY

(no subject)

The party yesterday was great as always and my friend who was going to be my ride home didn't show up but some other people gave me a ride home.

Entry tags:

more graphic novels

A Song for You & I, K. O'Neill, 2025 graphic. Beautifully drawn and colored coming-of-age fantasy in which a pegasus-riding trainee ranger befriends a violin-playing shepherd and mutual personal growth ensues. Quiet, simple, and lovely, perfect for fans of Kiki's Delivery Service or maybe Blue Delliquanti's Across a Field of Starlight.

Strange Bedfellows, Ariel Slamet Ries, 2025 graphic. Also YA; a college dropout in a good-future space colony ("utopian" feels more laden than I want to say here) develops a late-blooming superpower to bring things from his dreams into reality, including his high school crush. A terrific premise that didn't always work for me, especially reading it right after Song for You & I. They're very similar books at the core - two young people whose interaction helps each of them figure out what's holding them back - but felt very different to read, in a couple of ways.

Song is, like I mentioned, beautiful - it's set in a medieval-ish world that values harmony with nature, and drawn with a lot of attention and panel space given to scenery, from big vistas to close-ups of specific birds or plants, Miyazaki-style, a slow detailed richness of the world around the characters that gives the characters more emotional weight. Very peaceful and relaxing to read. Bedfellows, on the other hand, is in a very busy high-tech future, and the art reflects that - crowded pages, crowded panels, crowd scenes, a couple of different ensembles of secondary characters, inclusion of text elements like search results and chats and social media (some of which was so low-contrast I skimmed over it rather than squinting to read every word). An effective match of content and style - but *a lot*, sometimes to the point of being overwhelming.

And then also, Song is very, very chaste - the big romantic climax is a kiss on the cheek - which felt reasonable for the Miyazaki-like tone and possibly middle-grade audience. Bedfellows, on the other hand, is also weirdly chaste, with a Big Deal being made out of a couple of kisses, and... it just felt off to me? Like, yes, Not Everything Has To Be Porn, but something felt infantilizing to me about the way the relationships of these nominally college-aged young adults were rendered suitable for a younger-YA audience. Dreams are such fertile territory for the weird, the disturbing, the unsanitized, the id, but here they're pastel, quirky, dragons and unicorns. There was a one-off line about the idea of making out with your own dream-projection being masturbatory that felt particularly prudish, like, what's wrong with that, exactly? I'm sure not everybody would immediately fuck their dream of their high school crush if they projected that dream into reality but would a twenty-year-old really be scandalized by the *idea*? It felt like the kind of pearl-clutching neo-puritanism you sometimes get on Tumblr, the "there is s*x here MINORS LOOK AWAY" nonsense, and I think I personally would have found this book more interesting if it was a little more visceral. Get some horniness into those dreams, and a little horror too, maybe, or a more adult take on the whole idea, generally. Made me really appreciate that Simplicity and Other Jay & Eve didn't shy away from sex (and in the case of Simplicity, some very non-pastel dreams about desire and monsters from the id). I mean, there's nothing wrong with Young Adult! Every book its reader! I just thought it was a neat story (it was a neat story, a nice satisfying plot) and I would have liked it if it was catering a little bit more to me. :)

A Garden of Spheres, Linnea Sterte, 2025 graphic. I read maybe 100-120 pages of this and it was very pretty but I had no idea what was going on and I felt disconnected rather than intrigued. I don't mind slow and I don't mind having to work a little but I think I need a little more of a thread to follow. :/

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I guess The Old Family Lawyer just doesn't exist anymore

Anyway.

Partner and I are in need of a solicitor for a fairly routine and non-urgent matter, so, looked up who it was we went to last time we had a routine life admin thing requiring the services of a legal professional.

(This was actually a bit more time-consuming than I anticipated, have I mentioned that archivists are really Not All That at keeping on top of their own papers? The cobbler's children syndrome.)

But, I found the name of the practice and looked them up on The Internetz and they are there, as having gone out of business some few years ago, on Companies House website.

And they are by no means the first solicitors I have had dealings with, though I think the ones in Kentish Town saw me through the purchase of First Flat and present dwelling and possibly various other legal matters, but are now no longer operating more or less adjacent to the Tube station.

I suppose that these days one should not anticipate that you have Old Mr Thing the attorney-at law and Young Mr Thing his son who keeps up the practice and Even Younger Mr Thing who is being brought on in the family tradition -

- and that these things come and go like everything else and they are no longer quite the repository of folk memory like in mystery novels.

Way back when I was starting out as a Wee Babby Archivist, I remember that a big thing of the day, practically A Crisis, was solicitors' records. As I was never actually employed in a repository where I had any direct dealings with the problem, I'm not sure whether this was due to practices going defunct, or just somebody going down into the cellar and realising that they still had all the papers from Jarndyce v Jarndyce back to its origins along with tons of other stuff. But anyway, there were Massive Amounts of Very Misc Material (quite surprising what turned up) which looking back I suspect had all sorts of issues around ownership to complicate matters even further.

(If anyone has recs for N London solicitors would be glad to hear of them.)

Hey Sam, I heard a piece on NPR/Marketplace, today, about GPS blockers, and it brought to mind your

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/811895661426589696

It's an interesting thought, but I would think if someone had a GPS blocker that could affect the drivers it would be affecting my GPS too, which it definitely isn't. There is some kind of weird stuff in apps about my building, but that's not uncommon in Chicago, to be honest. If you try to enter my building number into certain apps, it sends you to the alley rather than my front door or it sends you to a nearby park. My office moved about a year ago but the old office address would do the same -- entering the address would send you to the loading dock instead of the actual entrance. I used to have to walk to a nearby Dunkin Donuts and call a ride from there. Especially in downtown, Lyft will sometimes try to tell drivers to go miles out of their way to get to a certain destination that's only 10 minutes away. I've had drivers go "This is fucked up, you don't care if I go a better way, do you?" and I've had to go "Yeah uh, this isn't the first time, go ahead."

What's so strange to me is that it's not simply a matter of drivers being unable to find my address -- that's part of it for sure, but other aspects include restaurants regularly getting so far in the weeds they cancel my order, restaurants delivering unbelievably incorrect orders (I once got three orders of wings instead of the wings, pasta, and sandwich I ordered), and drivers delivering to obviously and visibly wrong addresses, like the guy who delivered to an address with both a different street number and a different street name, a block away. There have been at least two car crashes. One time, the power went out at the grocery store my Instacart driver was shopping at, literally as he was in the process of paying. I got a message that the shop had been completed and he was on his way to me! And then he cancelled the order and I had to call Instacart to find out why! I've had drivers call and text to say they've arrived and my phone simply never received either despite never having reception problems.

I'd also chalk this up to me living in the downtown area of one of the largest cities in the country, where things are just...more stressful and complicated for everyone. Downtown restaurants are under more pressure to put out more food faster, this is true. But this doesn't happen to anyone else I know. I have friends who live in my building and never have these problems. At this point the fact that I order delivery like, twice a year might be causing some bias, because I would imagine if you order food weekly the odds of you having this kind of issue every time goes way down, but I don't have either the budget or the mental health to risk it.

I'm not even mad -- by not ordering delivery I save money and I learn to cook food I really like, and I live within walking distance of plenty of restaurants. It was a real advantage during the height of the pandemic. But there are days I would really like to just order a pizza and have the pizza I ordered arrive to my address within an hour.

https://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/811895661426589696

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the shitstain won’t let airports get fixed until women are disenfranchised en masse

Make sure people know: DONALD TRUMP says airports will stay fucked until Democrats agree to vote for the Women’s Disenfranchisement (“save”) Act.

Everybody who complains about airports, everyone who complaints about gas prices, anyone who complains about anything: Donald Trump HIMSELF will not let it get fixed UNTIL 21 MILLION WOMEN are disenfranchised through his mass disenfranchisement act.

2 screencaps. On left, Hannah Brandt on X, 4:51pm 22 March:BREAKING: In a phone call just minutes ago President Trump told me Democrats want to make a deal on DHS funding but he doesn't "think any deal should be made on this until they approve save America."First I asked him how long he's prepared to have ice agents help out at airportsHe told me, "For as long as it takes."Then I asked "Some lawmakers are saying they should just fund TSA while they negotiate on DHS. What do you think about that?"President Trump said "Now that I did this the Democrats want to make a deal. And I don't think any deal should be made on this until they approve SAVE America."On right:Shitstain on Shithole Social, Sunday 22 March:I don't think we should make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats unless, and until, they Vote with Republicans to pass "THE SAVE AMERICA ACT." It is far more important than anything else we are doing in the Senate, and that includes giving these same terrible people, the Dems (who are to blame for this mess!), a Five Billion Dollar cut in ICE funding, a deal which, even when disguised as something else, is unacceptable to me and the American people - UNLESS it includes their approval of Voter I.D., (with picture!), Citizenship to Vote, No Mail-In Voting (with exceptions), All Paper Ballots, [anti-trans hate propaganda], and [anti-trans hate propoganda]. Put it all together, and also, let Leader Thune clearly identify those few "Republicans" that are Voting against AMERICA. They will never be elected again! In other words, lump everything together as one, and VOTE!!! Kill the Filibuster, and stay in D.C. for Easter, if necessary. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DJT

I don’t give a fuck if Fox says it’s not like that, it fucking well is. “RealID” doesn’t count. Name change documents don’t count. Marriage certificates don’t count. Changed your name when you got married? Well, if you didn’t also change your birth certificate or spend a couple of hundred dollars and many hours to get a passport, NO VOTING FOR YOU, BITCH.

Which is exactly how they want it. Way too much of “centrist” media is reporting this as a general effect, but it’s not. It’s targeting women (and trans people) and that’s how they want it, because they don’t want women to vote at all, and they’ve said so a lot since 2020. In the open. In words.

So they need to strap in and hold steady, because we absolutely cannot let that happen.

Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party want only elections if they are guaranteed to win.

Anybody whinges about airports, anybody complaints about gas, remind them: that’s what Donald Trump wants, because he wants to say in power forever.

#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Nature

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nature-4

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
All I'm saying is it fits the data.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/nature-4

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Munich

Entry tags:

episode review

Paradise 2.06 + 2.07

In the former, Jane sees herself as Alice to Sinatra's Luther, while in the later, Sinatra is informed it all comes down to Vader and Luke.

( Spoilers are saying hello to.... )

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Technology hates me

I already blogged about the failure of my Garmin satnav in Wisconsin. Since I got back, things have only gotten worse.

Sometime on Friday, my cell phone failed. It still turned on, still got wifi, but the signal was abruptly worse, no bars inside the house, and even outside, it wouldn't make calls. Or texts. Or even connect for data. You've no idea how much you depend on that little box, until you can't.

And then there's my email. I usually access my email one of two ways. If I'm on my desktop, I'll download everything with a POP mail client (Eudora, don't laugh. It still works), to read, sort and archive offline. Other times, I'll preview on my tablet, using their web interface. I always click the "Keep logged in" button, and they always log me out again in about a day.

Well, this time, I couldn't log back in. I'd get a little red message, "error with login or password." I almost tried a password reset, but that required two-factor authentication, and my cell phone isn't working. I tried to log in to my account to be sure I'd paid the bill--grabbing at straws here--but I'm locked out there too. And CenturyLink's customer support is only on duty weekdays during business hours, and their chatbot is useless.

If that's not enough, on Saturday, my debit card failed. Trying to gas up the car at Costco, neither of my Oregon Community Credit Union cards would work. Fortunately, we have another account at a different institution, so I was able to get home. But on Sunday, when I tried to deposit a check at an automatic teller, it told me my card didn't support that transaction. And when I tried to log in to their web portal, it said my account was "disabled." And of course, no customer service on weekends.

I'm beginning to feel like that Twilight Zone character who'd died and didn't know it.

I had a little success, though. Testing my Garmin on a charger at home proved the unit itself kept a charge, though still not on the cord connected to the car. I do have a USB plug that fits a car 12 volt/cigarette lighter outlet, and tried running the (too short) proprietary cord from plug to satnav. It booted fine when I turned the car on, though had trouble finding satellites until Denise held it up above the dash. At which point, it was able to direct us to our concert down in South Eugene.

Then yesterday afternoon, it occurred to me to check whether my cell provider had support on weekends, and Hallelujah! Boost Mobile were open from 8 am til midnight seven days a week. Did the chat, and the bot ran me through some simple tests--take out the SIM card, restart the phone, and when that didn't work, connected me to a human. She confirmed the tests I'd done, then took a phone number to have tech support call me. (Oddly, couldn't call my landline. Fortunately, Denise's cell is on a different provider.) They called fairly promptly, heard my story, took info about my phone, and decided I needed to replace the SIM card. I could have them send one in 3-4 business days, or I could buy one locally. There are no longer any Boost stores in Eugene but Walmart sells SIM cards, and they put a $10 credit on my account.

Turned out to cost $11.13, rounded down to $11.10 because I paid cash--no debit card, remember?--and they didn't have any pennies in the till. And while I was at Delta Oaks, I dropped in to Goodwill's computer department. Couldn't find a replacement charger for the Garmin, but was able to score a USB extension cord that would allow me to stick my satnav to the windshield where God and the satellites intended, for $2.75 with the senior discount.

Got home, installed the SIM, had a brief panic attack when the phone booted up on T-Mobile. Tried calling 611 for set-up help, as instructed, on Denise's phone, but that went to Trac-Phone. So I called the Boost set-up number from their website, argued fruitlessly with the phone menu, hung up and called the customer support number, got the same dialog. I'm not sure how I finally got it to connect me with a human--I think by saying Technical support in increasingly impatient tones--but finally got a human, who took the SIM number, my phone ID, had me turn off the phone and remove and replace the SIM--I shouldn't have turned it on yet. She did arcane things on her end, and when she told me to turn on the phone again, it was working properly again.

Two down, two to go.

ETA: Email is back! Though I had to change the password. Will have to update my Eudora. Still waiting on a callback from the credit union.

Manuscript discovered in library

When you hear that a fragment of "lost" medieval manuscript has been discovered, you can be pretty sure that it was found in a library, and specifically that it has been used in the binding of a more recent volume. What is different about the recent story about the discovery of a page of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin is the astonishing tech that was used to examine it.

Cambridge University explanation, with lots of technical details, excellent graphics and - thankyou, Cambridge University - a summary of the contents. This explains, for example, why the manuscript (whose existence was already known) had been catalogued as part of a Gawain story: part of the narrative is indeed about Gawain.

The BBC reports the story under the heading 'Futures': they are more interested in the technology than in any literary content. Which is fair enough, but doesn't explain their summary of the fragment:

In it, the magician becomes a blind harpist who later vanishes into thin air. He will then reappear as a balding child who issues edicts to King Arthur wearing no underwear.

I know nothing about the Vulgate cycle (it's in prose!): this doesn't match Cambridge University's account of their fragment, but does it come anywhere else in the romance?

There's a talk later this week, as part of the Cambridge Festival.

Entry tags:

starting slow is still starting

Communal Creators time-tracking week started yesterday, huzzah! And there's a spreadsheet! (Heck yeah, spreadsheets!)

I was planning to do crochet for my 'creative time,' but wound up doing 20 minutes of writing yesterday and not much else. (That was twenty minutes split into four 5-minute blocks. Writing is hard.)

Let's see what happens today!

I know your soul is not tainted, even though you've been told so. Can't you hear the rumble?

And somehow, way too quick we're back to Monday, and I really am not enjoying being upright. My back is pissed off, I'm exhasted from having difficulty sleeping. But most of all: I don't really want to do the work today.

Watch on YouTube

Okay, now that I've gotten that out. How is everyone. I am having some problems with my lower back, hip. I did something that pissed it off, no doubt.

Yesterday was a lovely low key day. Game was cancelled, so w went to Kenilworth Gourmet and had lunch. IT was pretty tasty, but my fish and chips were very heavily battered ao the poiunt that it was hard to bite into it. IT was also literally just out of the fryer. The calamari I had was hot, but that fish was nuclear. There was still a bit of grease still bubbling in one of the crevices.

After that, we went to the butcher, but it was bugfuck, with no where to park. Either I'm going to have to go to John Brown during the week, or I need to go to Butcher and Bay which has more of a parking lot. Instead, we went through some winding rooads that nearly gave me carsickness. Then, I went to a small grocery store instead. I was going to get lobster tails, but no one was behind the counter, even though I waited like five minutes. No lobster for us, unless I got to Sam's Club this week after work.

Of course, despite going to the grocery, once I got home and sat down, I cme up with 15 things I needed. So, I had a couple of things coming. One was a small doordash of things I needed. Then, I ordered some OTC pills for vacation, so that I'd be ready. We were out of antacids, and frankly, our family has a lot of it.

Then, in discussing Yoda's current diet, we mentioned that it's going to be a problem when Yoda is ready to go back to kibble. His dinner last night ws a chicken that has been boiled for 3 hours. Then, the chicken is removed, and rice is added to the broth. I use slightly less rice than is strictly needed, so that there's still some broth. Then I added green beans and peas and reintroduced a lot of the the shredded chicken.

IT was brought up that I could cook for him, and do away with regular dog food. I did some research on canine nutrition, and learned abut the need for Omega3s. I learned that he needed fiber and that brown rice was better for dogs as well as oats and quinoa. He can have spinach and green beans and blueberries. And all of it does something good. So, I've got some recipes that I will try. This week, he's eating the one I made last night. At least til Thursday. Then I'm going to have to try to figure shit out.

Then, I went on an ordering spree. Containers for his food, vegetables, and salmon oil, and brown rice. I had eggs and meats. I definitely want to go to the butcher now, to get some chicken gizzards and ground pork to cook up.

Today, I'll look for more of those containers. The store only had 4, but I need at least 30 of them to stock his food. Fortunately, as the vaction draws closer, so will the amount of food we have in the house decrease to hold his stuff. I'll cook them on Saturday and Sunday, so for a full week, I'll need 14-15. It might take a little while before I have my portions figured out to make a full week of food. I think I'll need to cook it in two batches, so I'll probably do two different flavors. That way he doesn't get bored. (he will 100% get bored)

Tonight, for us, it'll either be stuffed shells or steaks. Both are ready to go, just the shells mean more time on my feet, with my back yelling at me. We'll see how it's doing then.

Work is bound to be kind of insane today. I'll be officially starting our new job. I wonder if they're announcing it? I will change my signatures and what not today. I refused to do it unitl it was official. Maybe they'll announce it today, maybe not. We'll have to see.

Definitely, after the Friday meeting, I'm looking at some of my coworkers differently. Some, the info that they're not doing as well as they could be isn't a huge shock, but some, it was a total surprise. I'll probably be on the phones today for the most part. Especially, since we're going to be one down on people as the Columbia office has stolen another of our team. She's really sweet, and she'll do great at a face to face customer service job, but she'll be missed.

On the other hand, they may be offering her job to one of my IKEA friends, so that would be cool. Another $1000 for me, just in time for the holidays.

The rest of the week should slowly calm the fuck down, and of course, on Friday, I have both our weekly manager bitch fest, plus Frostmaiden! I don't know how this is going to go. This is either the last or next to last of the regular Friday night Frostmaidens. After that, it's going to have to switch to Saturdays, so that our West Coast player will be able to do the boss battle and finish the campaign. That should be another few games, plus maybe one wrap up session, a debrief, so to speak.

I was considering the merits of setting up a one shot for the last night of the cruise, but I think we'll see when we get on the ship how good and consistent the wifi is. If it's good for the first couple of nights, and we don't have anything else, we'll play. D&D on the boat should be fun.

I'll find a simple module, and we'll go from there. We'll look at the itinerary and see what we want to miss and schedule around it. We'll be three hours later than most of our players, so the latest it'll be is 4pm for us. That gives us the rest of the evening to eat and take in our last night on the boat.

We'll see what we can work out. I'm also taking a bag of dice, just in case we meet anyone who likes to game and want to run a one shot. Might throw in a print out of a couple simple maps. There's meet ups for everyone, so why not one for D&D?

Day two of Mounjaro, and the sugar is still elevated. It says that you may not see any real movement in your numbers for a 3-6 weeks, so I guess the glucose testing unit will be coming with us. At least it's once a week. That makes life so much easier. I set an alarm, and at 9 am every Saturday I'll be stabbing myself.

The next two weekends we're pretty open, so I'm trying to figure out some fun stuff to do.

Okay, time for me to hop off and get myself together. Everyone have a outstanding Monday!