The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

Just for the record, it is Friday, April 16 and it's snowing. I object. But if the marathon had been happening this year, it would have been on Monday the 19th, so I guess it's still technically not snowing on the marathon.

I need to go buy heavyish stuff, and I was going to go out and get some of it after 5:00 today, but the snow (which is now sticking, dammit) is putting me off that idea. I don't want to do it all tomorrow, but Grammie's 99th birthday Zoom is on Sunday afternoon and I'd like to get it done before that.

Harvard has decided we get four-day weekends for Memorial Day and July 4 (Cambridge still thinks everybody's coming back in August, but HSDM is coming back July 1), and I forgot that as of last year Juneteenth is a Harvard holiday. But Juneteenth this year is a Saturday, so I wonder if we'll get the Friday off.

HUHS is supposed to call me sometime next week to schedule my second shot. I suppose not having the second shot scheduled when I got the first one is appropriate penance for getting on the list in the first place, when I probably shouldn't have been on it. But I want to get the Battle of Second Moderna over with, so I can talk myself into leaving the house for fun once in a while.

I guess it's going to be one of those days...I dropped the cat food can, dropped the knife I was using on the cat food, and crashed my elbow into the cabinet door putting the dishes away. I managed to hit my funny bone and a couple of other places simultaneously and my whole elbow feels like a bruise, even though there isn't one on it.

I would like some new sheets. But on the other hand, I have two sets that fit the new mattress, and both are perfectly fine, and do I really need more than two sets, since I can only use one at a time anyway? (No, I don't NEED any more. But I miss the cranberry-colored ones that Snip shredded.)

Three hours and two Advil later and my elbow is finally not actively painful, but it still ain't right, and I'm half impressed at how annoyed it is and half annoyed at how it ain't right.

Speaking of annoyed, I got sent another article to edit. I swear I'm going to write out Goethe's three questions and send them to the entire authors list of every article I've been sent in the last four months. They all go like this:

What was the author trying to say? Damned if I know; see #2.
How well did they say it? Damned if I know, the writing is terrible.
Was it worth saying? Damned if I know; see #1 and #2.

And this is before I spend a couple of days forcing the article to make sense and the references to refer to the right things and be formatted correctly and all the tables and figures to show up in the right spots, and submit it, and the journal bounces it because the section headings are in bold instead of in caps, or some other stupid thing like that. I already had one to deal with this week, and got sent another one today, and am nowhere near in the mood to deal with either.

The only saving grace is I get to wrestle with articles at home for now, instead of in the office with everybody tromping past me or coming to ask me for externship letters or wanting me to schedule a meeting.

HARUMPF, however.

In cheerier news, both cats simultaneously thought the little red laser pointer dot Must Die, but were taking turns trying to kill it. This all started because Lily wanted lap space and I couldn't tell what Quirk wanted, but she wanted it very loudly, so I distracted her with the laser pointer.

I went to H Mart today when it decided to stop actually raining. Apparently I'm still not ready to wait in underground T stations for ten minutes (did that on the way there and found out it wasn't my best thing), so I walked back to Harvard from Central Square to take the bus home. Which was fine; I got exercise and didn't get rained on. And then when I got home I could hang around and read and eat miscellaneous Korean pancakes for late lunch. That was today's definition of unwinding, because I've been a pretty crispy critter ever since the week of March 8, which should have been a vacation week. The routine since about March 1 has been "see new email, shriek 'NO, GO AWAY' either mentally or vocally, get up, walk one lap of apartment, sigh heavily, sit down again, and deal with whatever it is that whoever it is wants THIS time." No email for three work days will be a good start.

Arm was still good and sore all day yesterday, and it happens to be the arm I sleep on top of, so I threw some Advil at it last night at bedtime. It's hardly sore today. Mom and Dad got their second Pfizer shots yesterday, and as of today my grandmother is officially fully vaccinated, because her second shot was two weeks ago.

I moved the pet steps into the living room when Lily had stopped eating much, because it's more important to me that she have easy access to her food on the cat tree than easy access to me in bed in the morning. Apparently it's important to Lily to jump up on the bed, too, since she hasn't stopped. I was considering buying another set of steps until I remembered that the new mattress and box spring, which arrive on Monday, will be at least three inches lower. Which means I won't need deep pocket sheets. Which means I can go buy flannel sheets in the fall if I want to. What an unusual idea.

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.

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."

I want a gold star for my forehead, because I received a document yesterday "for review" that needs to be formatted in a specific way, and was so badly done that the only way to fix it was to nuke it from orbit and start over. I did that this morning and sent it back with very clear instructions as to how to finish it, and managed not to actually say "That was really inspiredly fucked up, and you obviously didn't understand what you were supposed to do, so here, don't touch ANYTHING except the highlighted sections. And you owe me a bottle of Advil."

Then I got an email that says the University Visiting Committee wants a report, pretty much yesterday, on "remote learning, curricular changes, Curriculum Committee votes, data on student feedback (class of 2020 graduation survey results on our responsiveness to Covid), etc." So I slapped together five pages of everything up to the etc. (which worries me, because I can see "etc." turning into "But what about..." several times), and the Visiting Committee owes me a gold star for my forehead and a bottle of Advil too.

I suppose I should think about what, if anything, I want for time off this spring. I used to take a week in March or April back when life made sense. I do know I can't get all the way to July without taking a week off somewhere. But I've also burned out the bulb in my brain for today and I can't think about anything in a straight line until tomorrow. So I will not be doing my taxes or signing the financial documents I have to sign and mail back, today, either.

This would be externship letter season except for the fact that Harvard doesn't want any students traveling anywhere until at least after graduation. So I've written two letters, both for spring break in mid-March, instead of the hundred or so I was expecting. However, I'm writing things like a CODA report for the class of 2021 and various revisions to various people's CVs and a list of pros and cons for each of the seven semifinalists for an open faculty position. I feel a bit like the Lord High Everything Else this week.

The book I was convinced was being delivered by tortoise arrived yesterday, before it got snowed on. Ain't nothing slower than book rate mail. It took 28 days to get from California to Massachusetts. I hope the tortoise didn't get frostbite. But hooray, a book I haven't read yet!

Three pounds is a lot of mandarin oranges. I don't think I need to do that again next week. I wish I could remember what it was I wanted to put on the shopping list last night, and then didn't, because now I have no idea what it was. I don't even remember whether it was edible or not. All I know is it wasn't paper towels, because I know I don't need paper towels again yet.

Lily thinks a proper scritch starts just behind her eyebrows. Quirk thinks a proper scritch starts just before her shoulders. How do you teach a cat not to be head-shy?

Lily and Quirk met on purpose this morning. Lily's been going crazy wanting to climb over the gate in the office door since Tuesday (she can't, she's not tall enough), and Quirk wanted out this morning, so I took down the gate (partly because I'm almost not tall enough to climb over it either, and I'm tired of trying to do it with coffee in hand) and let them get together. There was some hissing and some meowing and eventually Lily went out again. An hour or so later Quirk went out, and Lily chased her (silently) back in here and she went into the back of the closet again. Lily kept going into the closet and meowing and hissing at her some more in between periods of hanging around on my desk and getting in my way. Quirk came out from the back of the closet eventually, and Lily went off for her afternoon nap.

I assume all the hissing and whatnot is because we need to know precisely who's in charge here. Surprise, it's me; I can call Lily off. But I don't unless there are signs of actual violence or unless Quirk can't get away, because they've got to figure it out themselves to a certain extent. Some of me wishes I could have taken the gate down and gone somewhere else for the next eight or so hours and let them sort it all out now that they're inclined to sort things out. But (a) pandemic, (b) great big snowstorm, and (c) Thursday.

Speaking of Thursday, it really should have been Friday yesterday. The student who can't write is now at the point of submitting the article for publication, and yesterday I sent her off to read the submission instructions for the European Journal of Dental Education, and she wrote me back and said she doesn't understand them and can I walk her through them, and walk her through reformatting the references, on Zoom? ARGH. No, I couldn't do it yesterday, because I was trying to proofread two sets of surveys and come up with ten years of admissions data and exam grades before tomorrow. And I don't want to do it today, because today I had to submit an article to the JDE (upon which email from my boss saying oh, by the way, I wanted these six people suggested as reviewers, and here are their names with no email addresses. But I can't suggest reviewers without withdrawing and resubmitting the whole article, and I can't even do that right now because it hasn't been seen by an actual human yet), and fill out and submit the six CODA site visitor annual forms (that were due in October sometime, of course, but my boss never did them, so she sent them to me to do ASAP please), and and and...suffice it to say I have no patience for any handholding, but if I don't do it today or tomorrow it's not going to go away, and will be hanging over me when we get back on January 4. I already have at least two recommendation letters for a student who's applying to MBA programs hanging over me and due January 5, which means I have to write them tomorrow. SNARL.

I have nothing against the MBA applicant. He's very nice. But I am completely sick of doing things other people should be doing, particularly at the last minute. And some of the data I needed yesterday had to come from the Drama Llama, and ye gods, the WHINING. I know that a lot of the problem with all of these things right now is me, in the "meet assholes all day and you're the asshole" vein. But I hate every single one of these tasks and pretty much every single one of the people who palmed them off on me. So there.

Thanksgiving was soup (homemade) and pie (chocolate cream, storebought) and a short Zoom with the parental units and my favorite aunt and uncle. Not at all what I wanted, but all I was going to get. And then I got a headache on Thanksgiving night and had it all day yesterday besides.

Today, not much headache, but not much patience either (still no word from the shelter). I cooked the small turkey thigh and got 2.5 cups of cat treats out of it (skin and meat chopped up small). Lily approves quite some, to the point of making a pest of herself about scraps. But at least I know she still likes turkey.

I got my 15-year Harvard anniversary "order yourself a present" packet in the mail yesterday since my 15-year anniversary is December 1, and normally I wouldn't have bothered because I don't need any more junk. But they offered a set of luggage, and I've never particularly liked my last-minute TJ Maxx suitcase. And I'd like to think I'll be able to travel again some year. So I ordered the luggage, which will theoretically arrive in January sometime and hopefully won't fall apart if I look at it sideways.

The luggage may have fended off the Instant Gratification Monster, which is getting rather annoyed about the shelter situation even though it knows that nothing gets done on Thanksgiving week. The MSPCA would be easier, but the Boston location has barn cats and special needs cats at the moment, and I'm not looking for either of those. Well, mostly. I can cope with a missing eye or a missing limb, or even an identified allergy, but not with chronic systemic diseases.

Apollo 13 is one of my most favorite movies, and two different lines from it are chasing my brain around. One is Gene Kranz hollering "I don't WANT another ESTIMATE!" and the other is one of Nixon's advisors to one of the NASA guys: "OK, but I'm asking you, when will we KNOW?" I want to know before the weekend (well, depending on who you believe, we know now, but nobody's being official about it yet, and that's annoying). At least it's looking rather more like the alcohol of choice should be Zombie Killer instead of Blithering Idiot. But dammit, I want it over with.

I almost got Snip to stop tromping over, and sitting on, the keyboard, by reminding her that the thing on the floor in here is the cat bed that used to be in the bedroom. Once she got all four feet in it chasing the laser pointer dot, she remembered what it was. So now she stomps in here in the afternoon and goes to sleep in the cat bed, instead of stomping in here and getting in my face. Last week I'd had it with that and hissed at her. I hiss at one cat or the other about twice a year, when they decide that personal space is a Communist plot and don't take the hint that I'm not in the mood. I felt guilty about it almost instantly, though, because Snip cringed so hard (which is why I don't do it often). All was forgiven at dinnertime as usual. And she stays off the desk before about 4:30 these days.

I'm not logging on for work after Tuesday next week, and my goodness, do I ever need that. I hope the weather stays nice for at least Wednesday.