The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

This weekend I actually Got Things Done. On Saturday I made another batch of vegetarian tikka masala, and did laundry. Yesterday I went out and got my hairs trimmed, and dashed through the bookstore since there wasn't a block-long line, and did the grocery shopping, and went to the pet store and utterly failed to buy a higher-sided litterbox because they didn't have any. But I did buy more catnip mice. And I went to CVS and bought Kleenex and a Command hook for my printer and scanner cables so I can keep the connectors off the floor and stop worrying about running my chair over them. And I ordered a new litterbox from Chewy when I got home.

Today proved it was Monday right off the bat, because Lily woke me up by standing on my chest and sneezing in my eye. And then I opened my email and found yet another externship letter request and yet another conference registration request, and a couple of "acting like a helpless idiot so I'll do all the work for them" requests. The excuse this time is they're in a hurry and don't have time to format their references, and aren't any good at it anyway, so I can do it for them. Well, yes, I could, but it shouldn't be my problem. And then they have the gall to write back to my boss, who wants to know where it's at, and say they're "working with me" on it.

I wrote to the Computer Loft and asked them if they'd sell me a dead keyboard, because I am so done with Lily perching on the laptop and clicking on things. Even if I never hear back from them, at least I tried. And I hope they get a laugh out of the email.

I need a vacation. I want a vacation somewhere that gets three sunny days in a row. I need to decide if I'm going to sign up for the $2400 all-female dive trip to Costa Rica in mid-January 2022, which I would have to pay for in August. Right now I can't even think as far as August; my brain stops at "when I get vaccinated."

After Getting Things Done on Saturday, I did a fair bit of not much yesterday except reading a couple hundred pages of a book I bought after grocery shopping, and watching a couple of football games (sometimes reading and watching games at the same time, in the case of boring football). It was too humid for embroidery.

I thought we were past "this web site won't work with your browser," but I had to call Jabra customer service and clear my cache and cookies in Firefox only to find out their online store doesn't work with Firefox anyway; it wants Chrome but will settle for Safari. And then I had to remember all my various logins in Firefox again. GRR. This was work-related, so I had to do what I had to do. But GRR, anyway.

Before that, and semi-work-related, I ordered myself a kneeling chair because I've had one before and liked it, and it was the short way to end the Great Chair or Chair Cushion Quest. I threw a little more money than I really wanted to at the problem, but it wasn't very much more than I spend on six weeks of prescription cat food, and the chair will last a lot longer than six weeks.

Lily's got some sort of intermittent gait issue with her left hind leg, possibly soft tissue injury or possibly arthritis or possibly just Aging Ain't For Sissies. I'll have to ask Dr. P about it on Cat Herding Day, which this year is November 12. Which gives me exactly 13 days afterward to isolate myself before Thanksgiving, so as not to possibly bring COVID down to Noank. I wish I didn't think about that so much. I wish I didn't have to think about that at all.

Memo to self: put "flu shot" on the list for mid-October.

We've sent all the students off for spring break (next week) with instructions not to come back except for the 4th year students who still have clinic. But we closed the 3rd year clinic. I really wish I knew whether this was going to go on for two weeks, or six weeks, or the end of June, or what. Meanwhile, we're all preparing like crazy to work from home, except they probably won't let non-senior staff do that. I have permission to from my boss if I want to, but right now I don't. Routine is good, for the moment.

Partly in preparation for that and partly because my old laptop was getting pretty long in the tooth, the regiment reinvested last night and promptly got off on the wrong foot with Catalina. It took approximately three hours to transfer the old laptop's contents via Time Machine, and approximately 10 hours to run a Time Machine backup on the new laptop once the old laptop's contents were on it. And then this morning Catalina wanted to update itself, and I let it, and it got to 8 minutes remaining and sat there saying that for approximately five minutes, and then I had to go to work. I hope it's all happy again by the time I get home, so I can figure out where it put things and what doesn't work all of a sudden (there's always something). At least I remembered to get a USB-to-Thunderbolt adapter so I can print things.

So, Massachusetts federal courts are closed for six weeks as of today. It would be nice if I didn't have to go to Massachusetts state jury duty next week, but who knows?

I was so busy being confused yesterday, I forgot it was Due South Day (otherwise known as The Eleventh of March). I might have to do something celebratory about that this weekend.

Massachusetts got its act together over the weekend, so now my state taxes are e-filed and my federal taxes are accepted and I'm waiting on my $900 or so in refunds. I'm going to turn that around when I get it and buy my own BCD, because I'm sick of renting BCDs and spending ages arguing with the straps that are too long in places and too short in other places and you don't know that until you try to get into it. I want to set it and forget it. And I want a backplate and wing setup because that's what I trained with, and besides I have little faith in a jacket BCD fitting properly.

I have now watched all of the extended versions of the Hobbit movies, and I like them much better than the regular versions. Even if they are about three hours long apiece. And now the next time I find one on TV, I can start the extended version DVD at the first commercial break and still be done with it before the TV version is over. That works with the LOTR movies, too.

Snip has a new nickname, which she doesn't answer to because she only started needing it this weekend. DP stands for Dawn Patrol (a la Disney's Jungle Book), and refers to her new habit of waking up sometime between 3:30 and 5:00, going insane, and running across me at least two or three times. Which wouldn't be so bad if she didn't insist on stomping on pressure points, with claws, when she runs across me. She might as well be an elephant in that case, because that hurts. I need a massage, but not like that.

I also need a new kitchen timer, by which I mean I love my current kitchen timer (Oxo triple timer), but the 0 and start/stop buttons are tired and some of the other number buttons are getting tired (I hit 3 and got 43). So I need the same thing again, because this one is probably ten years old at this point and is (shockingly) still available from Amazon. Yet Another Thing From Amazon. Sigh.

On a happier note, it's nice out, and I might actually be able to go elsewhere for lunch for the first time in at least two weeks. Also, on Friday night I got through Montezuma in Civ 5, and am now working on Napoleon. I'm halfway through the alphabet and more than halfway through the list. And I think, but I won't swear to it, that Catalina and Civ 5 will play nice with each other now, so someday I might get my laptop to stop urging me to update it. And I managed to change the burned out lightbulb in the hall light fixture without dropping the glass dome on either my head or the floor, either of which felt like a distinct possibility. So hooray.

This is Day 1 of the New Feline Diet Experiment. Lily is not getting crunchies, because she only really eats them on New Crunchies Day anyway, and Dr. P wants her eating as much protein as possible and less phosphorus. So she got some Tiki Cat salmon glop this morning as a substitute for salmon and sweet potato crunchies, and ate some of it instantly. She'll get chicken glop for dinner.

Snip, meanwhile, is still getting crunchies, but is probably not so far behind in the kidney races, and the Trader Joe's tuna has lots of phosphorus in it. So I'm going to see if she'll eat Tiki Cat tilapia glop instead. I figure she probably will, because I hate the way it smells, and that's pet ownership for you. The worse you hate it, the more they like it.

If I can find one flavor that each cat likes, I can start ordering it from Chewy. And then I have to figure out what to do with 47 cans of Trader Joe's tuna.

Yesterday I figured what the hell, I'm sick of the update notices, so I finally installed Mojave on my laptop. Relatively painless, except for ten minutes after the upgrade when it wanted another upgrade to version 3, so that was another half an hour. And I can still play Civ 5 on it. I'm still getting update notices on my work computer, but that's because the HSDM philosophy is "Don't need it? Don't do it", so I haven't done it yet.

One of these days isn't it supposed to be spring? Then why was it sunny and windy and snowing this morning? Because it's New England, that's why.

My inner four-year-old had a fit this morning about having to put on socks. It's too humid for socks, but I sanded the side off my toe in sandals yesterday, so today I have to wear sneakers. Which means I have to wear socks. But it's shoot-me-now humid and 80 already at 9:35 in the morning, which is barefoot weather. Or Cape weather, but I can't be at the Cape yet. I hope we get the mother of all thunderstorms tomorrow, preferably after I get home so Snip can hide under my knees or in my elbow. I've finally persuaded her to do that instead of hiding behind the toilet or in the back of the spelunking closet.

Luddite that I am, I'm trying to decide whether subscribing to YouTube channels is a good idea. I object to being tracked in order to be advertised at. But I'm moderately obsessed with one channel that doesn't show the newest stuff first if you search for it and aren't subscribed to it.

I guess I'll have to go swan boating this weekend if I want to do it (a) before my birthday and (b) when it's not shoot-me-now weather. Doing it on a weekend means I do it with every tourist in Boston, but oh well. It's not like they'll put every tourist in Boston on one boat at the same time. (Speaking of which, I should think about when in August to go whale watching.)

The cooling beds I ordered for the Hairy Beasts are supposed to arrive next Wednesday. Sigh. I tried. I hope they help when they do get here. Lily will probably figure it out if I put catnip on one of them; she'll get up on it, get stoned and fall asleep.

If I were ever in a position to ask somebody who actually knows whether there's a god or not, I would ask "Are there gods?" instead. If the answer is yes, monotheistic religions are wrong. If the answer is no, there are no gods at all. (This line of thought brought to you by thinking about what the response to "Is there a god?" would mean. Mostly it would mean I'd have a follow-up question: "Which one?")

It was a major struggle to get myself going this morning, because I couldn't get going yesterday. Waking up with a headache will do that, even though I Advilled it into submission for breakfast. I got as far as cleaning out the fridge and opening the kitchen window for a couple of hours, but that was about all. I couldn't even get it together enough to embroider, and flipping the futon mattress over was Right Out. Besides, every time I thought about it, there was a sleeping cat holding it down.

On Saturday, on the other hand, I got a few things done, including buying kitty litter and doing laundry in the newly happy washing machine. The only thing is, having had the feet leveled, it doesn't go THUD THUD THUD when it starts spinning so I don't know when it's five minutes from the end of the cycle. Not that it's the end of the world if I don't know that. And I discovered that High Sierra doesn't play nice with Steam and/or Civ 5, so I can't waste time that way even if I want to. Harumpf.

On Saturday night I went to the BSO concert, because a chorus committee member had an extra ticket. I like Beethoven (8th Symphony) and Stravinsky (The Fairy's Kiss), but I do not like Ligeti's Violin Concerto at all as music. It's contemporary and it's very technically challenging, which I can appreciate, but musically the only way it might make sense is if I took a large amount of LSD beforehand. And it's half an hour long, so it gave me plenty of time to not like it (when they put a note in the program about how long a piece is, so you know when it's over, you're probably in for it). But it was a free ticket, and I would never have seen that piece live to appreciate the technical difficulty if I hadn't been there, so what am I complaining about? There was another contemporary piece that was supposedly a chamber opera (Powder Her Face by Thomas Adès, who was conducting it; also half an hour long, with a note in the program), which made more sense musically but kept reminding me of a poor man's version of George Gershwin and various other flourishes from various other musicals.

On the way home from the concert, my left ankle went out. Either because I was tired, or because I was wearing shoes I wasn't accustomed to, or both, but by the time I got home, it was definitely time to be off it. I stayed off it on Sunday on account of not getting my act together, and it seems to be mostly OK again. I really wish somebody would tell me why it does that. So far we know it isn't a bone issue (as of three or so years ago when I suddenly couldn't put weight on it, and went to the ER and got it x-rayed), and it isn't a sprain. My GP said it might be a nerve issue, but that's on the "well, maybe someday" list and it isn't someday yet.

My assistant is leaving at the end of next week, having found a greener pasture in Cambridge. Which means we're getting a temp until I get a new assistant. Whee?

This morning I lost the AirPod case somewhere either on the bus or on Brookline or Longwood Ave. It was in my bag when I put the AirPods in, on the bus, and then it wasn't there when I got to work. So I got on the phone and made a Genius Bar appointment for 7:20 and it cost me $73 for a new case (and apparently the AirPods know which case they belong to, so if you lose the case you have to re-associate everything). I really wanted to go home tonight and embroider in the lack of humidity, which is absolutely lovely, but the AirPods make me unconditionally happy and I need that very much until after the 12th.

Now that the weather is behaving better, I can stop worrying about Snip's internal thermostat. On Monday night, she was hot. Still eating and drinking and acting like herself, but her ears and her chin were hot enough to worry me. Especially because Lily's weren't that hot, and Lily's usually hotter. So I turned the bedroom fan on and Snip practically stuck her face in it, and I wiped her ears with a wet washcloth, and an hour later she was much better and stayed that way. I declared her cooled off when she glared at me and the washcloth.

I need to make a massage appointment for the Friday after CODA. I'm taking a personal day that day and planning to spend it taking out a lot of mental trash, however I need to. While I'm sorting out my brain, I might as well get my back sorted out too.

Just because that's how life is, this semester's sectionals for chorus are in the morning on Oct 14. I am not going. I'm not going to my cousin's wedding in Falmouth on the 15th, either. I might not be getting out of bed on the 14th, even. (I will be, because I only stay in bed all day if I've got stomach flu. But I'm going to be sore in a lot of very interesting places because I need a 90-minute massage.)

Friday the 13th has fallen on September in general, financially speaking. Hopefully after this week, I won't be spending several hundred dollars every couple of days. I suppose I could have held off on the new phone ($750), but I did need new contact lenses ($225) and the repairs to my laptop ($480) are still cheaper than a new laptop. And September is when I have to renew the pet insurance, which will probably be another $450 or so (edit: $850, sigh) on account of both cats now being "senior". I can afford all this, but it doesn't usually happen in a clump. The contact lenses would have happened in June if it hadn't been for CODA; I didn't have time to go to the eye doctor in June, so I did it in August, and it took me until September to get tired of 1-800-CONTACTS sending me reminders. (edit: at least I can get a rebate on the contact lenses as long as I buy a postage stamp and wait 6-8 weeks.)

My boss has a phone case I adore; it's got a pull-out section on the back with three credit card slots. I invested in one myself and put my T pass in it, and discovered this morning that the phone picks up some sort of data from the card reader on the bus, because the phone was offering to let me use Apple Pay (which won't work on the T). If that gets annoying enough, I can put my T pass back in my wallet, I guess. It just amuses me how technology tries to be helpful with no context whatsoever.

Since my laptop is elsewhere (dead/dying thermal sensor, requires replacing the entire top case), this morning I spent the time I would usually spend reading email making Snip extremely confused. She's been sitting under the kitchen window lately and looking up, so I picked her up and put her in the windowsill and she couldn't figure out where to put her feet. But then she discovered Food TV. She plastered herself to the screen for the next ten minutes, and ducked every time a pigeon came down from the roof. I wonder if she'll try to get up there herself now that she knows what goes on when she's up there. She did get down by herself when I offered to do it for her. Lily was confused too, because up until this morning, the kitchen windowsill was her sovereign territory. When she came into the kitchen and found Snip in the window, she actually meowed at me.

I managed to turn off the Word Document Gallery when I open the program, but it keeps coming up when I want a new document and the program is already open. This is approaching Clippy levels of helpful.

I've been trying to remember what I did between Thursday, when I got back from Falmouth, and Monday. As far as I remember, on Thursday I didn't do very much, except I did take a nap in the afternoon on account of having slept in twin beds in Noank and Falmouth and not sleeping as well as usual because I kept finding the edges of the mattresses. I remember falling over and thinking "Big bed!" and stretching out, and being happy about it.

I have no idea what I did on Friday, so I suspect I didn't do anything important. That might have been the really excellent embroidery day, though, because I did do some embroidery sometime between Thursday and Monday.

On Saturday I gave up and called RCN, and was shocked to find that they would send a technician on Sunday. I don't remember what else I did on Saturday.

On Sunday I was embroidering again when the technician came at about 3:00, looked at what I had for equipment, looked at what I was supposed to have for internet service, asked me what I was paying, and was aghast at the answer. He said I should call the customer loyalty department and ask for more service and less bill, because the service I was supposed to have is so slow it isn't supported these days. And the price for more service is lower than the price I was paying. I know good advice when I hear it, so I called on Monday and got double the internet speed for $30 less.

On Monday I had fun stuff on the list. I did note that the light outdoors was weird on account of the eclipse, but I didn't bother trying to look at the eclipse itself; I contented myself with looking at the crescent-shaped holes in the shadows on the sidewalk. And I went off and bought myself a $350 Olds Ambassador trumpet, because damn it, why not? When I got it home I broke it out and managed to play a C, a G and a D very badly. I printed out a fingering chart, because I already know how to read music (at least in treble clef); I just need to know how to make the notes. My embouchure needs work, though.

Yesterday I had my GP appointment at 8:15, which of course meant I got there at 7:20 and the office doesn't open until 8:00. Under normal circumstances I would have gone in search of coffee, but I decided not to in case of fasting blood test. I didn't want to have to come back again for that. So, appointment (I need to lose weight, but I knew that) and blood draw, and prescription refill, and no shingles vaccine until I'm 60 but go get it pretty much the minute my insurance will cover it (I had a raging case of chicken pox at 16), and then I went off to breakfast at Cutty's and coffee at Caffe Nero in Brookline Village because I hadn't been to either place yet.

Cutty's was good, but too far out of my normal weekend range to make it a possible destination for breakfast. Caffe Nero was good too, and I will definitely keep it in mind because they're starting to be everywhere. Following that I went to Walgreens and Trader Joe's and home. When I got home I decided to be a good kid and schedule the mammogram so as to get it over with, so I did that and it turned out to be for this afternoon. Hooray, I still have Thursday to go whale watching (bought the ticket yesterday) before I go to the eye doctor on Friday morning.

The tape they put on the gauze in my elbow-pit after the blood draw gave me a really impressive set of red marks exactly where the tape was. I probably should have taken it off before I went to the drugstore, but I try not to leave biohazards in other people's trash cans, so I kept it on until I got home.

I should not have read my work email on Monday, but I was trying to keep ahead of all the junk mail and FYI-type messages that get overwhelming if I look at two weeks of them all at once. That's how I found out that CODA has added a subsection to 2-23e (control of pain and anxiety) regarding substance abuse and effective immediately, which means we have to add it to our self-study now. They couldn't have waited until after our site visit? Never mind, I'm on vacation, damn it.

I'm really sorely tempted to drop a towel over Snip and cut her front claws. In my imagination, it works a lot better than I suspect it will in reality. Most likely I would need another set of hands to keep her in the towel.

Lily has trained me to give her cat treats with her morning thyroid pill (sniff at pill pocket in dish, give me a "That's all?" sort of look, act disinterested until she hears the treat bag open, look interested again, dive in as soon as the treats hit the dish). I don't actually care if she won't eat the pill without treats, as long as she eats the pill. Heaven forbid I ever have to give Snip pills twice a day. She'll turn into a dirigible with legs if she gets that much cheese.