The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

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.

Went to Noank and back and it was quite nice. Mostly I stayed the hell off my ankle, except for the 27th when I went grocery shopping with Mom just to get out of the house. Christmas in Noank tends to be about food these days, so there was shrimp cocktail for Christmas Eve and standing rib roast for Christmas Day and BLTs for Boxing Day. And the usual run of cookies and various whatnot.

Got back on the 28th and went out erranding on the 29th, including investment in an ankle brace I can dive in and an ankle brace for land-based activity. The braces are "moderate support" where the air cast was "firm support", but basically that means the braces fit in my sneakers (and my slippers) without so much arguing, and I can go up and down the stairs like a normal human being, instead of sideways and slowly.

Yesterday was the 30th and I celebrated the fact that I can go up and down the stairs, by taking out two weeks of trash and recycling. The kitchen felt a lot better immediately. Of course, now the kitchen trash is full of used aromatics from my making turkey stock, so it will have to go out again before I leave.

Yesterday I also got my brain to stop waking me up early just so I can worry, by reserving a room in one of the airport hotels for the night of the 3rd. I wasn't thrilled about getting up at an ungodly hour to try to get to the airport from home, so now the plan is: pack all of my own gear, leave home sometime in the afternoon, pick up the rental gear, go to the hotel, sort out what goes in which bag, eat something for dinner somewhere, fall over and get some sleep, and take the hotel shuttle to the airport in the morning.

I started making a packing list, because I've never packed for a dive trip before, and it's getting mildly intimidating. At least this time the rental gear is only BCD, regulators, compass, and SMB, and that will all fit in a smallish bag. Then there's my gear, and toiletries and clothes and outlet adapters and passport and phone charger. It'll work, I just have to figure out precisely how.

However, all that stuff can wait until tomorrow, because this afternoon I am going to see Star Wars. I'm not sure how much longer I could stay unspoiled, and the statute of limitations on spoilers will definitely have run out by January 12, so I want to see it before I leave. So I am.

I want to go back and do Saturday over.

On Friday night I observed that my DVD player's power button, which is red when off and blue when on, was purple. Google told me that in 2011, purple power button meant the player is hosed. And the company doesn't make DVD players in 2019. So, new DVD player was in order. So I went and looked up recommendations, and came up with a Sony Blu-ray player that Target had available for pickup at the tiny BU Target outpost on Saturday morning. Sweet, says I, I'll pick it up and come home and set it up and then go to sectional. And then I went to bed.

On Saturday I woke up at 8:30, and fed the cats and took a shower and had an apple for breakfast, and then went off to pick up the DVD player at about 9:15. But I hadn't known that the B line was running buses, and apparently it wasn't running sufficient buses, AND they were charter buses, so when the already-full bus got to Washington St, I got to stand up in it. And then get on the T and wait another ten minutes before it went off to BU. Picking up the actual DVD player was easy (scan bar code in email, sign, walk out again), but then I decided to hell with all this shuttle bus idiocy, and walked back to Harvard Ave, and got on the 66, and went to sectional with the DVD player. I got to Harvard Square at about 11:10, and sectional started at 11:30, so I just had time to go to the Bon Me truck and get an iced coffee and inhale it. At least the sectional went well, and ended at 1:00.

I had meant to go to Trader Joe's in Allston on the way home, but I hadn't eaten anything since the apple, and that meant I was going to buy the entire store if I went. So I went to Our Father's first and had some eggs that would have been lovely if they hadn't been (a) runny, (b) covered with onions, (c) garnished with cilantro, and (d) accompanied by caraway rye toast. But I was starving, so I ate them anyway. The tomatoes and avocado and farmer's cheese parts were quite nice. And then I went to Trader Joe's and didn't quite buy the entire store, and then finally took self, groceries, and DVD player home.

Got home, put away the groceries, unpacked the new DVD player (which is teensy!) and disconnected the old DVD player. The DVD of Avengers Endgame was stuck in it, so I hauled out the screwdriver and disassembled it enough to get the DVD out. The end cap on the screwdriver broke off halfway down the threads, so it wouldn't screw back in, and Snip decided it was a cat toy and swatted it under the bookshelf. GRR. Collected all the screwdriver bits, put tape over the end of the handle, collected all the old DVD player parts (and remote, and instructions) and put them in a trash bag, connected the new DVD player, and determined that it would turn on and the tray would open. The DVD remote also turns the TV on, which is slightly odd, because I didn't tell it to do that. But I think I can live with it.

Then I decided that the last thing on the list of errands, which was "buy gin", could happen even though it was 4:00 and I wanted to be home in an hour. So I hiked off to Winchester St and bought gin, and then hiked off to Coolidge Corner because I was tired and wanted to take the bus up to Harvard Ave to buy tonic at BFresh. Except, the bus app said five minutes, and I could only stand three minutes of paranoid conspiracy theories from a woman waiting for the bus (apparently there are corrupt historians in every library, who are tearing pages out of books to change history so it reads the way they want it to). So I hiked up to BFresh, and bought tonic, and took the goddamn shuttle bus back up the hill, where it sat in traffic because the bus before it wouldn't get out of the way and Comm Ave was down to one lane. I finally got home at 5:30, in a thoroughly rancid mood, and decided to have nothing whatsoever to do with the human race for at least the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday I didn't leave the house, which was just fine because it was windy and pouring rain all day. I did make cretons and do laundry and watch football, though. And I actually watched a DVD just to make sure the new player worked. Hero is still eye candy, even though I had forgotten about half of the plot because I hadn't watched it in years. But it is a gorgeous movie.

And here it is, Monday, and I'm back to being four people until tomorrow when I can go back to being three people. Actually, maybe I can go back to being a mere two people tomorrow. That would be nice.

So I went and did it. I decided I'm going diving in Bonaire in January, and put an $850 deposit thereon. And bought travel insurance and diving-emergency insurance for $100 each, besides. I still have to buy plane tickets, and there are no direct flights, so I'm thinking maybe BOS-ATL because JetBlue goes there cheapish, and ATL-BON however I have to. And vice versa, naturally.

Fall is always an expensive season, unfortunately, and that didn't help, but it's not that I can't afford it. It's just that it comes on top of chorus dues in September, pet insurance in October, rabies shot appointments in November, and holiday travel (Thanksgiving and Christmas) in general. I think next time I won't bother with pet insurance. At this point it's definitely not worth what I'm paying for it. But if I try to cancel it while the Hairy Beasts are still around, the insurance company will nag me to death. I know that because when it got to the point where it wasn't worth what I was paying for it, I tried to not renew it and was nagged mercilessly for months.

I suppose, speaking of things that nag me to death, that the way to get my GP's office to stop nagging me is to go make an appointment for a physical. At which they'll tell me to lose weight. I already know that, so why would I want to pay (albeit not much) to sit around in a paper gown in a cold room and be told that? Which is why I haven't done it yet. I do have to make the rabies shot appointments for the Hairy Beasts, though.

This weekend is supposed to be gorgeous, and I've decided not to waste it this time (see last weekend). Going to the movies might count as wasting some of a perfectly lovely day, but I do want to see Ad Astra.

Harvard has a massive case of craniorectal inversion today. 10" of heavy wet snow, arrived at the bus stop to find the 7:40 bus had slid into a light pole, roads not plowed, and I arrived at work to four emails from various offices about how Harvard is not closed. I am one of three people in the office, and since I'm the senior person in the office, I said we were ordering lunch if the roads were good enough not to get a food delivery person into an accident by 11:30. (Apparently they are, but we can't decide what's for lunch.)

This weekend I sat down and got some serious embroidery done. About damn time. This pattern is gorgeous, but sometimes I want a big chunk of one color instead of six stitches of each of 10 colors umpteen times. I got to page 14 and had to do a big chunk of one color in order to figure out where the six stitches of each of 10 colors umpteen times part goes. It was very satisfying.

After two weeks, I think I can safely say I can add "donate the Trader Joe's tuna wet food somewhere" to the Friday list. Lily doesn't want quite as much Tiki Cat as she's getting, but she is eating half-to-most of it depending on the day, and Snip has been hoovering up the salmon like a small furry vacuum cleaner, and it doesn't seem to have screwed up anybody's digestion. Now I have to figure out if I really need to spend $130 per month on cat food.

I recorded Free Solo last night (National Geographic channel ran it with no ads) without watching it, because I was busy embroidering and I want to actually watch it without doing anything else at the same time. It deserves at least that much. I did seek out one spoiler when it first came out, before deciding I wanted to watch it, though.

Last March we got four nor'easters back to back. I hope this year we can be satisfied with one largish snowstorm and a week of polar vortex and then it will be spring. (File under "Keep dreaming", probably.)

Lily's at Angell and I'm miserable. And I am so sick of not sleeping because my brain wants to be awake so it can worry. It worried about the diving certification off and on for two weeks. But at least now I have until Saturday to create a feline paradise, sort of, in the downstairs bedroom.

The dive shop called me last night. I just KNEW I was going to be going to pick up gear in the rain! At least the gear is designed to be wet and I won't melt either.

But speaking of rain, LeVar Burton was really good. I don't think Ken Liu likes translating as much as I do, though. He's a writer and a lawyer before a translator. I think he did it because it was there and he could make some money at it.

Stan Lee died this weekend. Excelsior. I wonder how many more Marvel movies he'll show up in? I assume at least the second part of Infinity War.

So here I am at work, being rained on and drinking free coffee that's worth the price, and trying not to be miserable, and failing miserably.

The Boston Music Intelligencer reviewed our concert, and said "More diction." In Sanders, you can't be on the stage and hear what the audience hears (or doesn't). I suggested we should circulate a few people per section through the house when we rehearse in there, so "more diction" will actually mean something to more of us, as opposed to being something the conductor says five or six times per rehearsal all semester, so we stop listening when he says it.

I have had it up to the eyebrows with responsible adulthood, and it's only Wednesday. This week the Gainful Employment subdivision of Responsible Adulthood needs to be good for more things than providing food, shelter, and payments for utilities, so I'm running off to the movies (Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2) tonight, rather than going home and doing the rest of the laundry.

Speaking of washing, I've ruined one of my favorite things about having a cat who hunts. These days Lily won't go into the bathroom voluntarily unless I'm in the bathtub (in which case there's no chance that the vet will descend upon her), so she won't come hunt grillonpedes in the tub. And I am damn well not getting into the tub myself if there's a grillionpede in it. Which, this morning, there was, and it was very large. And I had to flush it down the drain myself. Harumpf.

I have to make an appointment for Lily to have blood drawn sometime next month. She seems to be doing OK in all the observable-by-owner categories (eating, using the litterbox, sleeping, reminding Snip who's in charge, generally acting like herself), but I have no way of knowing what her internal chemistry is up to.

Snip got a claw stuck in the masking tape around my embroidery last night, and even that didn't convince her she needs a manicure. She does, desperately, but she's rather like Granny Weatherwax in terms of things she can't be having with.

Two nights ago I was running errands in the vicinity of Fenway 13 anyway, so I went and bought a ticket to see Rogue One last night. That was my first experience with actual reclining movie theater seats, and I think I'm spoiled for life now. The movie was worth what I paid to see it, too. (But if I were a stormtrooper and survived the movie, I would have words with somebody about the usefulness of the armor.)

Maybe I want to go see Hidden Figures, too.

Since last night was movie night, I turned it into cheeseburger-and-movie night. Sometimes you just want a cheeseburger, and nothing else will do. What I really wanted was a gold star for my forehead, because I didn't tell the faculty member I was dealing with yesterday exactly what I thought of his failure to tell me until after I scheduled all his lectures (Tuesdays only, please) that he's on vacation for two weeks in the middle of February.

The piece of embroidery I sold is Sampler Cove's Spanish Bleu, just so I have it written down somewhere.

Today did not start the way I wanted. It wasn't snowing when I got up, but it was when I left the house. And then the bus didn't show up for 20 minutes, so when it did, there were enough people on it for two buses already. Good thing today is Friday and I don't have to do that again tomorrow. I'd better do some grocery shopping tonight, though, because it's supposed to snow again tomorrow. I can think of worse things to do tomorrow than spend most of it with a cat in my lap.

If I ever find whoever it is who sees fit to dispose of their used chewing gum by sticking it under the tables in the tutorial rooms, they'll wish I hadn't. I keep finding it by accident. Ick. Why the hell would anybody do that when there's a perfectly good trash can in each room and one in the foyer outside?

It should be warmer out than it is. I left the kitchen and living room windows open this morning and I suspect I'm going to be sorry. The sun is nice, but the wind is Not. I keep waiting for the day when I don't have to think hard about whether I should wear my windproof winter jacket.

I took myself out for dinner and movie last night, because why not? So I went to Wahlburgers because I was curious (it was OK, but overpriced for what it was) and went to Captain America Civil War afterward. I wish they hadn't shoehorned Spiderman into it; there was no good reason why other than providing six people on each side for the brawl. But I was entertained for two and a half hours, and that was good. I don't go to comic book movies looking for Oscar-worthy material; I go for entertainment, eye candy, and explosions. All of which I got.

Must remember to go renew my library card this weekend. I don't generally go to the library, because the Allston branch has a thoroughly random selection of books and most of them are books I'm not interested in, and the main library is out of my way. But I like having a valid library card.

I got my "expected 7-10 business days" delivery in two days. It's always nice when that happens, and now I have rain pants. I'm still incapable of getting in and out of them gracefully, but I can live with that.

Mental health day 2:

Didn't even get dressed properly. But did finish the seventh section of the embroidery. Screwed it up somehow, but it still falls under "Persian rug symmetry" where there's the same stuff in each section but not exactly in the same place. So I'll live. Seven down, one to go, and the last one is pretty much copying the one before it. Should go fairly fast.

I really desperately needed the time off. There's entirely too much angst around here, part of which is the curriculum change intersecting with the accreditation (which would be bad enough by itself, without the curriculum change), and part of which is the added (to me) angst from the oral surgery course. I needed to stop being marinated in all that stuff. So I did, and after Friday I stopped thinking about work at all except to be amazed when I didn't have to go back to it after two days off.

I didn't make it to Zootopia, because both afternoon showings on Sunday were sold out, and Monday was a snow day and therefore no school and therefore probably movies full of screamin' chilluns. Not my idea of relaxing, at least not for this round of relaxing. I'll get there eventually, though.

I also didn't do as much cleaning as I should have, didn't do laundry, and didn't manage to make lemon bars out of the Meyer lemon juice. I'll do that tonight assuming I still have a brain when I leave work and remember to buy eggs on the way home. Yesterday I wasn't willing to get dressed enough to go out in public and buy eggs. (I did make black beans on Saturday, though, because I had bought bacon ends on Friday.)

The cats refused to get up this morning, because they got used to getting up between 8:30 and 9:00 over the last four days. But somebody who lives in my apartment has got to go make some money, so here I am. And I only had 43 emails, and most of them were either medical area spam (lecture announcements, award nomination announcements, Harvard in the News, etc.) or FYI-type stuff. I can deal with that.

Onward. And hopefully upward, but I'll settle for forward.