The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

It's not nice to bite people. And it's a short week, so I shouldn't want to bite people. But the Drama Llama is getting on my last nerve because I can't stop hearing him, even if I'm not listening.

And my boss is out of the office doing semi-work-related things, and since I'm technically her spare brain, I'm getting asked all sorts of questions I can't answer because I am not her actual brain. And I get to interview somebody she doesn't want to interview. She got out of it by not being here. I can't get out of it and I don't want to interview this person either.

And my assistant is now on medical leave until at least December and so we're getting a temp, and I'm suddenly in charge of that, and also in charge of answering "Any news from S?" from four or five different people every week. No, there isn't any news, she's on leave and I'm not expecting any news until after Thanksgiving at least.

And my phone has been stuck in 3G for the last month. It was perfectly happy in LTE when I bought it a couple of months ago, once I finally got the SIM card problem sorted. But suddenly it's stuck in 3G and I've tried airplane mode, I've tried removing and replacing the SIM card, I've tried restoring the network settings, I've tried messing around with the cellular settings, and it's still stuck in 3G. Which only really matters when it wants to update anything, but it seems to always want to update something, and it's frustrating that it takes ages.

HOWEVER. I am still going to Bonaire in January, and I'm going to the dive shop Halloween party tomorrow, and that means I can ask all of my questions about what gear I need and when I'm allowed to arrive at the resort and all like that there so I can start thinking about flights. And I can pick up my official open water diver certification card, which has my picture on the back and everything.

And I am still enjoying my silly tote bag, which fits everything I want in it now that I've added a pencil case to its permanent inventory.

And I got a letter that says I've been here for so long I can cash out up to 10 days of vacation into a TDA. Which I probably should, because I never use up all my vacation. But I think I'll only do five days.

And today is Friday, so I don't have to come back here and Deal With Everything for a couple of days.

It's not even pretending to be warm out any more, which is a massive letdown because it was warm this morning. Right now I want a delivery service that will bring me a sweatshirt and fuzzy slippers in half an hour, because my hands and feet are cold.

First chorus rehearsal last night, and I got home at 10:10, which was nice. Unfortunately I got stuck in front of the person who can't ever quite sing in tune. I find it mentally exhausting and almost physically painful to have to concentrate that hard on not listening. It's like cutting an annoying tag out of the collar of your shirt and then having to live with the remains of the tag rubbing on the same spot. The only thing you can do about it is change shirts, unless you happen to be somewhere you don't have another shirt to change into, in which case you grit your teeth and bear it.

Oh, I am sorely tempted to go to Bonaire in January and get my advanced open water certification. But I can't do it without going diving between now and January, so I need to figure that one out.

TGIF, tomorrow. I don't care if tomorrow is Friday the 13th or not; just get me through today, because Thursday the 12th usually seems to be worse. Anyway, tomorrow I won't have cold feet all day, and it will be Friday besides. I'm ready to stop coming to work for this week, thanks.

I really hope I don't know anybody who was on the dive boat that caught fire in California over the weekend. Most of the crew survived, but the divers are either confirmed dead or still missing because they were asleep and then trapped belowdecks when the fire started.

I also really hope I can get through the next month without giving the anatomy course director more rent-free space in my head than necessary. It would be one thing if she wanted what she wanted when she wanted it, but she also basically wants me to say "Yes Ma'am" every time she wants something, and that annoys me very much.

On a happier note, I was introduced to halfbakedharvest.com, which seems to have a lot of recipes on it that involve at most one ingredient I don't like. Last night I went and bought ingredients for a zucchini/orzo/lemon concoction that wants to go with rotisserie chicken (so I bought one of those too). I'm getting tired of hamburger casserole and I still have half of it left. Which, I suppose, is what the freezer is for.

Also on a happier note, I managed to go out on September 1 and get errands done without running terribly afoul of any moving trucks. I counted 70 on my loop through Brighton, Brookline, and Allston. Actually it was more than that, but I think I counted some of them twice at the end of the loop, so it probably wasn't really 90, but it was more than 70. Now, the cable companies, on the other hand...but at least I only got caught in a bottleneck once, and managed to get through it without anybody trying to sell me cable service. I would have told them that unless they were selling cat food, I didn't want to talk to them anyway, since cat food is what I was there for. So I got cat food, and got home again, and am altogether happy that for yet another year, I was not moving on September 1.

I got my open water certification, so now I can go diving for fun. The last dive yesterday (Old Garden Beach in Rockport) was for fun, and I got to aggravate some lobsters, including the one that went shooting straight at me (backward), so I reached out and grabbed him. He wasn't pleased, but I had him by the carapace, so all he could do was wave claws at me. And I was wearing gloves anyway, which is why I was also aggravating various sizes and species of crabs.

Other fun stuff, which I didn't try to aggravate, included a 1" flounder, a 12" spotted skate, a teeny little starfish, hermit crabs by the bushel, and a 4" empty clam shell (both halves) being used as a condo by probably 20 teeny little snails.

Today is for Advil and not carrying anything heavier than the trash any further than downstairs, because my shoulders are screaming at me. Five dives in two days, with 16 lb extra weights for the first three dives and 24 lb extra weights for the last two, and an 80-liter tank which weighs 41 lb full, will do that. At least today I'm down to starting with two Advil instead of three, and I don't have a headache. Saturday I got a carbon dioxide headache; yesterday I had a lack-of-caffeine headache; today I merely have a sore neck. Or I did, before the Advil.

And I still don't have to go back to work for another week. This is a lovely thought.

Good thing I'm on vacation starting the week after next, because I feel like every day this week started with hearing (even if I wasn't actively listening for) the Drama Llama whining for 20 minutes. I'm very much done with that. It may be time to start my day with half an hour of music or a Great Gildersleeve episode or something, at least next week. The alternative is being fired for trying to strangle him.

Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing, but I swear the cats were grumpy this week too, after Wednesday when it stopped being hot as balls outdoors. Lily's gotten over it, assuming she ever had it in the first place, and Snip perked up almost immediately when she realized there was provolone for the first time in several months. She still wasn't entirely herself until around lunchtime today, though. I figured she was back to OK when I got my nose washed.

Now that it's August, and I have vacation coming up, I should figure out when I want to go whale watching. I think I can call that a tradition at this point, since I've been doing it for about five years now. By August the whales are there, so even though being on the water at all is nice, there's a point to it. And whales are nifty.

Speaking of being on the water, I caved and ordered a full-length rash guard for under my wetsuit. I'm tired of the struggle to put it on over a bathing suit, although it does get easier if I start with the wetsuit inside out. Still not fun, though, and the rash guard is supposed to help. And even if it doesn't, I can go swimming in it if I want to, so I'll have an emergency backup bathing suit.

I went and did most of the major grocery shopping, but I need to go out again if I want to buy milk. I shouldn't, because if there's milk in the house, I drink it, and I don't need the calories. But I've been enjoying it quite a lot. Decisions, decisions.

The washing machine works! But now I need a plumber. The repairman thinks I probably have the original fill hoses for the washing machine, which normally have a five-year lifespan. So it's most likely time for new hoses, and the wall ends can be stubborn, so he suggested a plumber. And then he looked under the sink for paper towels and told me I definitely need a plumber, because the sink drain pipe is corroded. His exact words were "Don't touch it, because it will probably fall apart."

Diving last night was good. I brought my own wetsuit, but decided it was too damn hot to argue with it. So I went in the rental 3mm short one, and apparently I haven't learned any really bad habits over the winter. I learned a new game last night, though. It involves hovering just off the bottom and staying at that level while you pick up and put down a 2-lb weight. You shouldn't touch the bottom when you pick up the weight, and you shouldn't go up significantly when you drop it. It's all about the breathing. And by the time I went home, it was merely 85 and humid, instead of 95 and humid.

I also learned that there is, in fact, such a thing as a Deadpool mermaid freediving suit. I had been unaware of the freediving suit part, although I did know there's such a thing as a Deadpool mermaid suit. Divers are odd. (I knew that too.)

Because the washing machine repair took a while and I insisted on rearranging the kitchen furniture back where it belonged afterward, I ran out of time to take the bus to the T to go diving. So I walked. About the only intelligent part of that was the fact that I had previously frozen a half-full quart water bottle, so I topped it off and took it with me. And drank most of it by the time I got to Reservoir, because it was 95 and humid. By the time I got home at the end of the night, I undressed straight into the washing machine because absolutely everything I had on was drenched in sweat. (That's how I really know the washing machine works. But I had to lie on the floor and whimper for a while after I got back from putting the wet clothes in the dryer, because my arms hurt and my ribs hurt and my legs hurt and a full load of wet laundry is heavy.)

I wish I hadn't had meetings from 10:30 to 1:00 today, and I really wish I hadn't had to deal with "Give me the list of retreat attendees so I can see who I can carpool with if I go" turning into "Give me the list of retreat attendees so I can see if I want to go, or I'll tell the Dean search committee that you wouldn't give it to me" when I said I wasn't comfortable giving out the whole list. No, it's not confidential information, but the rest of the attendees don't have it, so why should I give it to one person who isn't even sure they're going? That makes me feel slimy. And I've already gone through multiple iterations of the retreat schedule to accommodate an hour of the Dean search committee anyway. I'm almost expecting the next step to be "Why are X, Y, and Z people invited?" Because it's my retreat, not the Dean search committee's, that's why. So shut up and fuck off.

Never mind. I get to go home and do the rest of the laundry (bedding and towels) and revel in the bedroom not being full of kitchen chairs and the kitchen table being back where it belongs, leaving room for the drying rack.

Retail therapy, in the form of some new clothes (particularly new shorts; I have one pair of shorts that fits me right now and the right inseam isn't going to last through next month), ensued with my birthday money. And then I spent an equal amount of money on cat food, but that's normal expenses. It does make me feel good to have the cat food shelf stocked up, though.

Next week I start with my one-on-one scuba sessions. I have a bit of a mental problem with diving right now, in that I've been trying to do it solo over the winter and it's not a solo activity. It takes me ages to get geared up when I don't have help and I still need help anyway, because there are things I can't adjust on my own gear while I'm wearing it. I'm afraid I'll be the person nobody wants to go diving with because it takes them so long to get geared up (although that's still preferable to being the person nobody wants to go diving with because they do stupid dangerous stuff, which is why I'm doing the one-on-one sessions. If I've taught myself to do anything stupid and/or dangerous, I want to know, so I can stop doing it.). And then there's the whole driving-to-places issue, but I bet I can get around that by offering to pay for gas and/or beer. Probably especially beer.

Good cherries have come in and, at least this week, are cheap. That's happy stuff, even though I tend to overdo it at least once a season.

Now that the trash trucks are starting at 6:00 instead of 7:00, Tuesday starts with "Gotta get the trash out Right Now!" even though they still don't get to us before I leave for work. So far, anyway. I could live without the moment of panic every Tuesday morning, though. If I hadn't gotten this week's trash out in time today, I really don't want to know what it would have evolved into by next trash day.

I made a command decision and am taking the middle two weeks of August off. Now the question is when do I want to go for the certification dives, since I'm doing it as a private session. That means I don't have to do it on a weekend if I don't want to. Hmm. Well, for the moment, get me through the faculty retreat in three weeks and then I'll think about that.

Speaking of the retreat, I've spent way too much time trying to get Excel and Powerpoint to do what I want. I can't believe the only way to get a legend out of a graph and put it elsewhere is to save the graph as a picture and crop it down to just the legend. Which is what happens when you have six pie charts you want to put on one slide and the six legends take up entirely too much space. (Yes, I know, six pie charts on one slide is absurd. But it makes sense in context.)

Decisions, decisions...what do I want for my birthday? More cookbooks, or more clothes, or a dive computer?

The makers of Advil are right up there on my list of people eligible for sainthood right now. Because the T was running charter buses instead of T buses this weekend, I couldn't get the 60 lb of kitty litter (2 in granny cart, 1 over my shoulder) on the bus, so I had to walk to Coolidge Corner and then walk home from Washington Square, and then I went diving and added 22 lb of lead. And bailed after about half an hour in the water. And knocked my left ear for a loop again, although at least now I know what to call it when it does that (reverse ear squeeze). Gotta go to the shop this week and talk to Dan about certification at the end of August. End of June is too soon and end of July is the weekend right after the faculty retreat on Friday, so I'll already be wiped out before Saturday.

Performance review day today. It's nice that my boss hates them as much as I do, because that means they tend to be "Are we still both happy? Good. Got goals? Have at them." And that is how this one went, with a side order of "Yes, we'll send you to manager training, you should have professional development."

I finally found Uncle Shawn and Bill and the Almost Entirely Unexpected Adventure on Amazon last week, so it should be arriving tomorrow. Even if it isn't a brilliant book, I still want to find out for myself. (It's got a badger and four depressed llamas in it; how bad can it be?) Also, The Godfather is a shorter book than I thought it was, but so far it's not bad. I finally saw the movie a couple of months ago and wondered about the book, so I'm reading it.

Dad's latest stint in the hospital as of last Thursday ended today. I wonder whether the nephrologist and the cardiologist had to arm wrestle to let him out. But anyway, now that he's out, he has to stay out, because I said so. So there.

I've gone from looking at my hair in the mirror and thinking "Ye gods, that's RED! But it's gorgeous" to "Ye gods, that's gorgeous! And it's red." Still not sure I want to re-do it in August, but we'll see. It's dark red, and it's coming off on my towels, but they're TJ Maxx towels, so I don't particularly care if they're still red after I wash them. I had to take my earrings out on Friday in order to get a panorex for the DTP OSCE exam, and never put them back in again afterward, so at least I didn't get my earrings dyed too.

I confused all the Year 2 students at the DTP OSCE by handing them a panorex that was actually me and had absolutely nothing wrong with it, when the story was that I had been hit in the chin with a soccer ball and couldn't open my mouth much, so they were looking for a TMJ disc displacement or edema. It was fun after the first group, though. And that was Friday, so I didn't have to go charging off to chorus again until Saturday.

The concert went pretty well, although it was long (6:15 call for 8:00 concert that ended at 10:45), and the music is still invading my brain at odd moments. But it's done with, and I'm done until September because while Dvorak's The Spectre's Bride might be fun, they're doing it in Czech, which is more effort than I want to put in twice a week for six weeks.

Speaking of which, I really have to get in touch with the dive shop and set up another couple of play sessions and a session with an instructor. Now that my major contribution to commencement (the graduation survey slides) is done, I should be able to think about non-Harvard things for a little while.

I need to have a fairly massive cleaning fit sometime this week, because I am tired of the tumbleweeds of cat hair and rug fuzz. Last week I didn't have the time or the energy to do anything about them, but that was last week. This week I should have considerably more energy.

I've been going through something of a saga with my watch. I have a Skagen watch I like very much, which came with a flexible metal mesh band. I nearly tore that band somehow in the process of putting up my scuba gear rack, so I went to the watch store in Harvard Square that claims to do Skagen repairs, and they replaced the original band with a stiffer one I didn't really like all that much. But it got the job done, so I lived with it, until last Wednesday when the clippy bit on the end fell off in a way I can't fix by myself, and I couldn't wear the watch at all. Not wearing a watch drives me crazy. The easiest way to fix that in short order was to buy a new watch, so I went to the Harvard Square store again on Saturday before the concert, and ended up with an Aristo watch with a Skagen band more like the one I had had on my Skagen watch to begin with.

What I really want is to take both watches somewhere and say "Please take the band off the Aristo and put it on the Skagen, and fix the band that is now on the Skagen and put it on the Aristo", but I've been through enough watch-related annoyance in the last month and right now I'm just glad I have one I can wear that works. And I'm not looking at my wrist nine times a day and saying "Oh yeah, no watch."