The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

I don't know why I'm bothering to re-reformat this article, because if the JDE and CEDR both didn't want it, no way is BMC Med Ed going to want it either.  And then I'll have to re-re-reformat it and send it somewhere else.

And it's hot, and HUMID, and I would rather be up to the neck in the ocean, where I might as well be anyway, than glued to the computer all day.  And I don't even have any ice cream in the house.  Which is probably good in the long run, but if I'm going to be glued to the computer (which puts off heat) in my uncomfortable chair (which was fine before I sat in it eight hours a day for over a year) while it's 95 and humid, I want some sort of reward for it.  At least the fact that the laptop puts off heat is keeping Lily from wanting to plant herself on it.  Actually, I ended up playing Where the HELL is the CAT, because she was in the back of the closet.  I wish I could let them out in the stairwell, because it's noticeably cooler on the first floor and massively cooler in the basement.  They'd like that. 

Oh yay, on Thursday I can come in through the door closer to my actual office, instead of going into the REB, up half a flight of stairs, through another door, down two flights, through a third door, through the basement, through a fourth door, up three flights, and through a fifth and sixth door.  (Imagine how much fun that is if you're carrying anything heavy, or anything that requires more than one hand.)  Now that the Main lobby entrance is open, it's just up one flight of stairs and through two doors.  Hopefully on Thursday the weather will be a bit less like living in a hot washcloth, too.

It is really absurdly windy out. Or maybe it's just loud because I opened some storm windows to let some of the semi-springlike air in when we had some, and didn't shut them again. All the windows need washing, but I don't think we have enough ladder to do them from outdoors and I'm not going to start with gymnastics from indoors.

I hope Lily's renewed interest in food persists when the pain shot wears off this afternoon. Yesterday she got interested in Quirk's crunchies at breakfast (so she got some of her own and ate half of them over the course of the day) and raced me down the hall to be waiting on the cat tree for dinner. I forget when she stopped doing that, but it was nice to see her do it again. She does like the Royal Canin food, though.

There is precisely one person who's allowed to make me cross things off their task list for them, and it is not the person who tried to make me do it just now. And the person who's allowed to do it has been doing it a lot lately and I wish she wouldn't. Just as well I'm taking Thursday, Friday, and Monday off.

Speaking of time off, I'm sorely tempted to take tomorrow afternoon off too, since my vaccine appointment is at 2:20 and I have to get to Cambridge and back by bus. And I want to stick my head in the Coop and the Harvard Bookstore and see if I can find the sequel to Foundryside, which I read yesterday and enjoyed. I think Robert Bennett has read Patrick Rothfuss, because the way magic works is pretty derivative, but Bennett put it in a bag with "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and medieval Venice, and shook it up vigorously.

Yesterday was Quirk's third birthday. I hope it was better than the previous two. At least she got a little bit of celebratory sour cream (her favorite human food so far).

I did not take any personal time yesterday, unless you count the 15 minutes or so I spent providing Lily with lap space. I still need a vacation, but I seem to have found enough coping skills somewhere to get through yesterday and today. The next week I could take as vacation without probably getting work-related phone calls is the week of April 12. That's a long way away.

The vet suggested I take about a pound off Quirk and put about a pound on Lily. So far it seems to be working; Quirk looks a bit less like she swallowed a rugby ball, and Lily's spine has padding over it, and when she perched on top of me in bed this morning my first half-awake thought was "Oof, HEAVY!" I think she's got a little more energy lately too. Amazing what eating enough will do, I guess.

Quirk, meanwhile, has come out of whatever shell she had left, and I've figured out some of her various vocalizations. She doesn't squeak these days; she trills, which when she's walking around means "Here's me, where's you?", and she hollers, which means "It was mealtime AGES ago and I'm STARVING!" I haven't figured out why she'll sit there and meow at me when she doesn't seem to want anything.

Yesterday it was almost warm enough for open windows, so I opened the kitchen window farthest from the thermostat. Quirk enjoyed that, and didn't try to fling herself through the screen to get at the bird feeder. I enjoyed the fresh air. It's supposed to be actual open window weather tomorrow.

I still need to go get a dead keyboard for Lily to sit on. Maybe I'll sneak out tomorrow in the open window weather. If I'm really being nice about it, I'd get a beanbag compress to put under the dead keyboard, so she'd have her own warm keyboard to sit on.

The clocks change again on Sunday. It will be light enough for a whole grocery shopping trip after 5:00. If I did that, I might not have to stand in lines outside grocery stores for so long on weekends. I would love for the vaccination rate to catch up with the mask wearing and make "social distancing" completely irrelevant.

It's been a reasonable week, which is somewhat of a surprise, but I'll take it. I actually got to meet the new Dean via Zoom today, and he at least acknowledged that I'm more than a glorified secretary (partly because I introduced myself as the program administrator for the MMSc in Dental Ed and the DMD curriculum coordinator, and didn't mention that I'm also the assistant to the Associate Dean for Dental Education). New Dean is a periodontologist, and a researcher, so there's going to be some shift in focus because the previous Dean was a clinical oral surgeon. I think I might have wasted all the work I put into curriculum maps for a combined MD/DMD program, but what the hell, I got paid for it anyway.

I took the air conditioner out of the office window today, because I only really need it when it's 95 and humid, and it hasn't done that for several weeks and isn't supposed to do that for as far out as the weather forecast goes. I only really believe any given weather forecast for about three days out, but I'd rather have an open window than an air conditioner taking up all the room. I did at least put the screws back in the holes they came out of so I can find them next summer, if I'm still working from home next summer.

Having looked at the disaster going on around that window (the third-floor air conditioner leaked in the wrong direction several years ago and there was water coming through the top of the second-floor window frame), it's not quite as bad as I thought. Several hundred layers of paint have peeled off the plaster, but the plaster itself is just sitting there. (But ye gods, they must have used paint about the consistency of peanut butter last time they painted this place. I wonder how they got it through the sprayer?)

Anyway, never mind, it's a long weekend and I really ought to do something with it besides getting my hairs cut on Sunday. Still not quite ready to take the time to be a redhead again, but at least I can get it cut and not walk around looking quite so shaggy.

Small things:

- 85 and dry beats hell out of 95 and humid.
- My hair is dry all the way through for the first time in about three days.
- I slept in my bed last night instead of on top of it.
- I have enough cold coffee for at least tomorrow and Friday.
- It took Lily 13 years to figure out sleeping in empty boxes, but she's done it.
- The bathroom sink continues to drain adequately.
- I finally own the Complete Calvin & Hobbes and am enjoying it.
- Potato, spinach, chickpea, and paneer curry incoming, possibly tonight if I get motivated to cook.
- Two more weeks until not-online-for-work week.

I wish I had anything good to concentrate on today, but I didn't get enough sleep last night (partly weather, which at 85 and humid made me keep the fan on and made it hard to get to sleep, and partly brain going "Hi there!" at 3:00 this morning for no apparent reason), and I spilled coffee down my front this morning, and it's hot and humid and overcast and there isn't enough breeze to make it less miserable out. At least it was cold coffee.

While I was awake at 3:00 anyway, I woke Snip up, and startled her enough that she smacked me in the eye. No claws, but she made contact with the actual eyeball, and it's not sure what it thinks about that. It doesn't hurt, and it doesn't look hurt, but it does feel swollen. This is not Snip's fault; it's entirely on me. But it's not improving my morning, either.

Discovering this morning that I forgot to plug my phone in last night sort of put the cherry on top of today. It's just going to be Monday, that's all.

Good thing: I managed to make more coffee and pour it into the cold-coffee carafe without pouring it anywhere else (like down the sink or down my front). And now I'll have cold coffee for tomorrow.

Also probably good thing: I rescheduled a "write my journal article for me" meeting I would have had this afternoon. This is the first time I've ever rescheduled a meeting because I couldn't stand the idea of having it today. Today I think I can face it tomorrow. (Also, today I can't stand the idea of putting on a presentable shirt for a Zoom meeting. I'm wearing a tank top that doubles as pajamas if it has to. Tomorrow is soon enough for a shirt with sleeves.)

Actually, other good thing: since the keyboard stand arrived on Friday evening, I've spent about an hour a day messing around with the keyboard, playing songs by ear. I should break out some actual music one of these days. Messing around with the keyboard is a thing that requires use of brain without use of computer, and activities like that are thin on the ground these days. I'm enjoying it even though I have no technique at all.

If I took the big cat carrier apart enough to get the door off it, I wouldn't have to keep arguing with the carrier door when I want to shut the room door to keep the air conditioning in. Another thing for The List.

Lily hates fireworks. Snip hates thunderstorms. It's been a tough couple of days for the feline population around here. At least the thunderstorm last night wasn't as bad as the ones last weekend, in that it didn't come right overhead and involve earsplitting thunder.

I managed not to do a damn thing yesterday, despite the fact that the chores list is getting obvious again (the rugs desperately need vacuuming, etc.). And I didn't make vegetable curry either, despite having bought the necessary ingredients on Saturday. Anything I might want to do elsewhere is basically spending money, if wherever it is I want to spend money is even open, so I just stay at home indoors all the time. I have a perfectly good camp chair on the porch and I don't even go there. This is not the life I want. It's not even the life the public health authorities tell me I have to have, these days. But they've done such a good job telling me that stores are dangerous and not wearing a mask is dangerous and eating indoors in a restaurant is absolutely fatal that I don't want to go anywhere, even though there are places to go now. The dive shop was open for the 4th and I wanted to go, but I didn't, because I suspected it was going to be a madhouse with tank refills. I do want my own regulators, though. It would be nice to know whose mouth the second stage and octo were in last. Not that I'm going diving any time soon, though, mind you.

I think I need to give up Facebook for a while, because half of my feed is screaming about people not wearing masks and how everything is opening too soon, and the other half is screaming about racists, and I'm tired of it (can't say "sick of it" these days). I tried to filter out the screaming about masks, because that's preaching to the choir, but it filtered out scuba stuff I actually wanted.

Swear to FSM, my assistant would have no luck at all if it weren't for bad luck. Her grandfather passed away yesterday. So, since last September, she's had about six months of medical leave, been subjected to a race-based hate mail campaign, and lost her grandfather. Managing her is getting tiring.

Went to my eye doctor appointment today, and I'm likely to keep having correctable eyeballs for the foreseeable future. By the time I got home I could almost have seen lumps in a lump factory, because I had to walk all the way for want of buses, and it was a couple of miles. I stopped at Whole Foods for cherries, because 'tis the season and I eat a stupid amount of cherries when I can get them, since the season is so short. And I bought butter, despite the fact that I really shouldn't, because I have a pound and a half of apricots to turn into crumble, and I can't make good crumble topping without butter.

I did, however, get home before it rained. So much for "scattered showers if it rains at all", because we got a fairly torrential downpour for at least half an hour. And I got to be smug sitting indoors eating lunch and watching it rain hard. Lily used to be smug about rain, too, once she figured out that it didn't come indoors. These days she only cares if it rains in through the window with the cat tree in it.

I hadn't been on a bus since mid-March. The front third was blocked off and there were three other people on the bus with me by the time I got to the doctor's office (one, of course, wearing a mask around her neck and talking on the phone the whole time). I can't imagine how commuting by bus would work at this point, but I don't have to, yet. I have no idea what the buses will be like by the time I have to start commuting again, but I could walk it if I had to. Even though I don't want that much exercise before breakfast. They're tearing up Rte 9 between Harvard Ave and Brookline Ave quite some, and I can't quite tell what they're doing. When I could see, I noticed they've taken out the island between the outbound Pearl St bus stop and Rte 9, and I wonder what they're going to do with that.

The extension cord for the air conditioner arrived yesterday, and I fished it from the outlet, behind the bookshelf and the storage tubs, under the (open) closet door, behind the other storage tub, into the window. Now all I need is the air conditioner to plug it into, and that's supposed to arrive tomorrow. Just as well I didn't have to get the box off the porch in the pouring rain today.

Lily decided to put up with the blood draw, so Dr. P got a good blood sample, and the kidney results came back better than six months ago, slap in the middle of stage 2 disease instead of beginning stage 3. Since feline kidneys don't get better, Dr. P thinks the reading six months ago was probably because Lily hadn't tanked up on water at the time. Anyway, we get to keep doing what we've been doing. I'm going to need another prescription for feline happy pills before the appointment in November, though, because that's the "needle in the bladder for urine sample" appointment and Snip needs a happy pill to get a normal physical.

It was nice yesterday, when it got hot but there was still some breeze coming in. Less breeze today, and I turned the fans on, so it's still nice indoors. I feel like I should apologize to the garbage men, though, because I had to take the trash out yesterday for want of doing it at 6:30 this morning, and there was some badly freezer-burned shrimp and most of a half gallon of awful ice cream in it. I don't want to think about what was in the trash can this morning after it sat there overnight.

Awful ice cream, by the way, is Whole Foods store brand vanilla. It's cheap for a reason, and it's gummy and orange. It's orange because they were going for French vanilla, despite there being no eggs in it, and overdid the food coloring rather a lot. I do not want orange-colored vanilla ice cream. So I threw it out and bought some from Trader Joe's, which I haven't tried yet (I want to put dalgona coffee on it, but I have to figure out when. Possibly on a Friday night when I want to stay up for quite a while.). I do like TJ's coffee ice cream, though, so I have hope.

I have an eye appointment on June 11. I'm still not sure I want to go, although it's nothing I'd have to unmask for; it's that the T is still running the Saturday schedule and the 65 bus runs once an hour, which is a pain in the ass.

I spent a lot of yesterday being angry and grumpy and stewing in emotions I didn't want to live with, so I applied a fairly stiff G&T after work and then stumbled onto a Reddit list of "silly things you've done because you had both hands full and your brain stopped working" and nearly laughed myself sick, and felt better. Apparently lots of people give human food to their dogs and eat the dog treats by accident, but my favorite one was "At the beach skipping rocks and eating a sandwich. Threw the sandwich and bit a rock."

The (identifiable) reason I was angry is that I resent people making it my job to do their jobs for them. If there's a reason, sure, but don't get angry at me for not doing your job without telling me why you want me to. I'm sure there are other reasons why I was angry, too, but that was the one I could put a name to.

Lily's supposed to get blood drawn next Tuesday and I'm trying to decide whether I want to hand off Lily in carrier and let Dr. P take her outside to do it in her SUV, or whether I want to bring Dr. P in here and do it in the bathroom. We would both be wearing masks, of course, but this is my own private biosphere here and as far as I know I haven't had any coronavirus in it. Decisions, decisions.

I'm glad it's sunny more often than not these days. It makes being stuck on the shady side of the apartment all morning a little more tolerable, and the cats come in to hang out and sunbathe when the sun gets over here. I don't mind if they want to hang out in the sun, as long as they don't want to hang out on the desk, which doesn't get direct sun anyway.

I seem to be having a terrible time getting through the laundry. It's not that there's a lot of laundry to be done, it's just that I seem to want to leave it wherever it is in the process (wet, in the washing machine, for two days, or downstairs in the dryer for a week). I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because I'm keeping up with things like showering and getting dressed and doing dishes.