The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

It's been a week since I posted anything, because I've deleted a couple of rants. I don't want this to become a journal of rants.

On Saturday night I got something jammed in the gum behind my last left-hand lower molar, and I think I got it out, but it was angry enough to require Advil Monday and yesterday. Today it seems to be annoyed rather than angry. I'll take that. Especially since I don't know when I could get it seen by anybody at HSDM.

It's not a trend yet, but Quirk is sleeping on top of the office cat tree, right out in the open, for the second day in a row. It's nice to have a cat hanging around in here with me, without feet on the laptop. And it's gratifying that Quirk has decided I'm non-threatening enough to be slept at.

As of February 4, my taxes are hanging around in the ether. I decided I didn't mind if they hung around for a week, and I wanted them to come off the "don't forget to do this" list. I should be getting my usual refunds, which is nice.

I've gotten fascinated with excavator videos on Youtube, drawn in by one that was on another site and captioned "Who do you call when your 22-ton excavator is sunk up to its cab in mud? This guy." When in doubt, go play in the dirt (or the mud) with heavy machinery. And the guy who extracted the 22-ton excavator is damn good at it, and I end up learning things about geology and physics and things like that. In one of the videos he says that his sitting there doing nothing while the state police are inspecting a dump truck he's supposed to be filling with rocks is costing the job $400 an hour. I wonder how one gets trained to run excavators? I could have a post-retirement career...

For now, though, I have to go make the university visiting committee happy, and make CODA happy, and make the Dean happy in terms of hoops I have to get the faculty search candidates to jump through. I'd rather go play in the mud with heavy machinery, though.

Back to 90 and humid again, just in time for the work week. 90 is fine, humid is getting tiresome. Under normal circumstances, next week I would be able to be up to my neck in the ocean somewhere. Not this year (I don't want to spend two hours on a train). I do have an untouched quart of chocolate ice cream, and a bathtub, but it's not quite the same. And I shouldn't eat an entire quart of ice cream in a week anyway. Maybe I'll suck it up and go on a whale watch sometime next week. It's outdoors and the wind is ripping right along on the way there and back, and if I wear a mask and stay on the deck rather than in the cabin, I can probably manage not to catch anything. They only run one boat per day, harumpf, but I suppose it helps to keep the crew from catching anything if they limit exposure to one boat full of general public per day. Too bad all the smaller charter boats run out of Provincetown, because I can't get there right now.

Also, today I'm grumpy because I have another meeting with the MMSc student who never wrote a research paper before. I'm at the point where I think it would be easier if I wrote half of it and then told her to write the other half based on mine. It isn't entirely her fault; she went straight from high school to dental school in India and never wrote research papers in high school. But I tell her what to put where and she goes and puts things in the wrong places anyway. This would probably be easier to do in person, but we can't do that. And Acrobat is having temper tantrums again, so I have three things on the list that I can't do until Acrobat gets over itself.

Popping bubble wrap is still fun. The trick is getting any in the first place without specifically ordering it. Lucky me, I've got both kinds at the moment. So, popping of bubble wrap ensued, and it was a little less Monday around here for a little while.

I'm annoyed with myself for wasting a perfectly lovely day yesterday staying indoors all day, but on the other hand, putting on shoes was one step too many, and I can't go any further than the driveway without shoes on. So I stayed indoors and did laundry and watched football and wasted a lovely September day.

It was Snip's 12th birthday yesterday, though. I had bought her some birthday provolone on Saturday and broke it out yesterday and she was happy. After next September I'll be living with two official teenagers.

On Saturday I did the running around, and got caught in the downpour because I had just gotten to Washington Square when the dive shop called to tell me my computer had arrived. So I turned around and went back down there, and got rained on some on the way there, and got poured on going back to the bus stop. Fortunately the bus stop is somewhat sheltered and the computer in question doesn't even care where it is until it gets four feet underwater. Although it was in a box, so it didn't actually get wet anyway. I wish it had better instructions, either in the box or online, because I have yet to figure out how to set the date and time on it. Youtube to the rescue, I hope.

I also went out again after it quit raining, and cashed in my collection of quarters. I'd been trying to be patient and fill the whole container, but it was within 1/2" of the top and I couldn't stand it any more because I wanted to know how much it amounted to. So now I know; if using a Coinstar machine and its almost-not-worth-it 11.9% fee, the quarter collection container amounts to at least $130.

Where the Crawdads Sing is a reasonably good book. I borrowed it from a coworker who had borrowed it from another coworker, and read it on Saturday morning. I don't need to own it, but I'm not sorry I read it.

Silly, but gratifying, milestone: for the first time in my life, a comment I made on a NY Times article got selected by the staff as a "NY Times Pick" and, as a bonus, ended up being the second most recommended comment on the article. It was about the high school swimmer in Alaska who was stripped of a win because the referee didn't like the way her suit fit. All I said was that on the swim team I was on in high school, the first rule was no comments about how anybody looks in a bathing suit. And nobody made any as far as I know, probably partly because it was a kicked-off-the-team offense and partly because after the first week we stopped noticing anyway.

I asked my gin-snob coworker last week about what I wanted if I wanted a G&T, because Tanqueray wasn't quite it, and he said Seersucker. So I tried it, and he was right. It shouldn't be drunk neat because there's too much mint in it that way (and I don't like drinking neat gin in the first place), but as a G&T, it's lovely stuff. I don't even want lime in it. Which is good because I never seem to be able to find any limes that aren't rocks with lime rind on them.

The bedroom rug went. I hauled it out from under the box spring (with help from Snip, who was standing on the rug and didn't get why it kept moving) without scratching the floor, and cut up the rug with a box cutter so it's suitable for the trash men to take away. The bedroom floor looks odd because it's naked, and also because where the rug was is darker than the rest of the floor. I ordered two 3 x 5 braided rugs, one for between the side of the bed and the bookshelf and one for between the end of the bed and the laundry hampers.

Side note: cutting up old rugs with a box cutter is more fun than it has any right to be.

I finally gave in to the inevitable and made vegetable curry yesterday. An office conversation going on around me on Thursday got me craving it. I hadn't made it in years, so it was merely adequate (at least when it was brand new; hopefully sitting in the fridge overnight improved it), but at least I didn't make an entire stew pot full, so I won't be eating merely adequate curry for the next week and a half.

I think I need to read fluff for a while, because reading The Nightingale, Midnight in Chernobyl, and The Alice Network back to back is depressing enough for anybody.

Knowing nothing about European building codes, I wonder if Notre Dame is old enough to be exempt from modern standards, or if the rebuilding is going to have to include fire suppression systems. I suspect it's either going to be a massive headache for somebody who has to rebuild it as a historic building, or a massive headache for somebody who has to figure out how to put a sprinkler system in it. (Speaking of depressing. But I take some small comfort in the idea that the Strasbourg cathedral burned to the ground at least twice, and it's still there.)

Trying to figure out what I can feed the graduating class, in the only room we're allowed to have dairy in, that doesn't fall into the "rice and cilantro" category. Nuts are also disallowed, so no Thai and no Vietnamese (and both of those are "rice and cilantro" anyway), and I'm tired of burritos. I think I'll try two or three nationalities of appetizers. Antipasto and tapas and mezze, maybe?

I have a cold, and I'm hoping it's not The Cold, because The Cold takes three weeks to go away and I want to go diving again before March. I was going to go this coming weekend now that football season is over, but I like my eardrums intact, thank you very much, so no diving. Besides, the instructors would yell at me if I tried. They wouldn't let me in the pool when I merely said my ear was going Thud every time I swallowed.

RB changed their minds about plating my ring with rhodium being a good idea, so I went on Saturday and retrieved it, and have worn it for two days with no rash. Maybe I just need to boil it every other month or so. But I was in Harvard Square for the opening of milk&pizza, and the line went from there all the way to the Sinclair, which is three sides of that block. The food can't be THAT good.

The list of fiction authors I wish would write faster keeps getting longer. George R. R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Diana Gabaldon, James S. A. Corey, Helene Wecker...at least Katherine Arden has a trilogy I haven't read yet, and the first one (The Bear and the Nightingale) is promising so far. And it's based on Russian folklore, which I know a very little about, so I'm not completely lost and I'm learning things at the same time.

I'm up to the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam book. How the hell did we not learn anything from that whole war and get ourselves mired in Afghanistan?

The jeans arrived last night, fortunately, because the inseams in the second pair gave up when I went to put the new jeans, which I had washed, in the dryer. So hooray, new jeans, and I don't have to hope it's really dark indoors when the office goes bowling tomorrow.

The silly shirts are somewhere between Georgia and Boston, supposedly arriving tomorrow. I suppose that's a reason to be glad Christmas isn't until the week after next, but I really wouldn't mind if it wanted to be next week. I've had about enough of the fall semester at this point, thanks.

I really am going to take Fridays off in January, February, and March. Everybody else around here seems to have a flexible schedule, so why not? And since I have 31 vacation days to use, it won't hurt anything to use 12 of them. And maybe I'll get things done on the Fridays off that I don't usually get around to on weekends.

I found the "make small projectile weapons out of office supplies" book on Amazon, so I could conceivably start a small war between Dad and Irbald if I wanted to. Their birthdays are six days apart in February, so do I wait until then or do I try to perpetrate this for Christmas? It has to be perpetrated sometime, because "silly for the sake of silly" shouldn't be confined to the Noank contingent.

Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE. But that's what I get for not eating any breakfast because there wasn't anything I felt like eating, and not eating any breakfast also helped me get cold (along with the sink in the ladies' room refusing to produce anything but cold water), so now I'm cold and starving. WOE.

Drained is about the word for it. Three days into the 3.5-day symposium and I want to go to bed and not get up again until Tuesday. I'm taking Friday off just so I can not get up until I damn well want to, and then go out and do precisely as much as I want (or don't want). But I did manage to talk intelligently about surveys and student feedback meetings for 50 minutes this morning, so now I don't have to worry about that.

I think I liked the first book of the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne better than the second, but I liked the second enough to go get the third. I wonder if I'll have time before the extravaganza in Cambridge tomorrow, but I suspect I'll have to wait until after.

I want an absurd amount of Vietnamese rice vermicelli salad with grilled beef, but I want it to be waiting for me when I get home, and that's not going to happen. Sometimes having another human at home would be nice. There are at least three major problems with the cats accepting my dinner delivery, the first of which is, they won't. (The second is, even if they did, they don't understand money; the third is, they might decide to eat the food for me.)

Having been through Day 1 of training last week, which was all about the MBTI, it is not a major shock that I am as introverted as it's possible to measure. I can pretty much go either way with the other three, which surprised me slightly. The introversion was not a surprise in the slightest. Even if it isn't gospel, it does at least give me something to think about in terms of how I deal with people. (What it boils down to is, no, I REALLY don't want to be a leader. But since I have to, I had better learn how.)

Being, as I am, a massive introvert, it was nice to get home a little early on Wednesday because being in the same room with 40 other people all day (they don't even let us out for lunch) was exhausting. Also nice is the Trader Joe's on Western Ave, which meant I could get most of the Really Important grocery shopping done on Wednesday instead of on Saturday in the rain.

Because I did expect rain on Saturday, I got the kitty litter home ASAP and then got rained on for the second lap, which was the not-as-important grocery shopping. And then I got the place clean enough not to be horribly embarrassed when the vet comes tomorrow to try to get blood out of Lily again. Unfortunately the laundry didn't go as planned; the washing machine decided not to spin at all. Last time it wanted to but needed a jump start. This time the motor makes all the right noises, but the drum ain't havin' any. At least not on the normal cycle. I got it to spin on the Permanent Press cycle, sort of, but there was still extra water in the clothes. Sigh. I don't really want another repair bill on top of another vet bill.

Speaking of vet bills, on Saturday the latest elderly Shih Tzu living upstairs went to the vet for the last time. She'd had chronic kidney failure for a while and it had stopped responding to treatment, so it was time. I think this was the best of the four I've known, and she came when she was desperately needed (after the marathon bombing) and I think she helped. If nothing else, she was relentlessly cheerful for most of five years. I hope the next one (and there will be a next one) is as good in her own way. (I'm assuming, but they've all been girls so far.) The third one was work, because she had mental issues; the second one and the first one were perfectly fine, but not my cup of tea.

On Sunday I looked at the rest of the chores list and decided that it was all work, and I'd had enough of doing work, so I got the cats brushed and then rotted my brain playing Civ all afternoon and evening.

This is Weirdness Week, being graduation week, so everyone either isn't here, is here and running around like mad trying to get signed out, or is here and trying to weather Weirdness Week. I'm trying to write a Powerpoint presentation on feedback and outcomes measurement, finish up the symposium scheduling (including dinner reservations; gotta do that tomorrow), start revising the graduation survey for next year, redact a copy of this year's graduation survey for consumption by the curriculum committee, provide a (thankfully short) survey on paper for a student's research project, and help figure out how to incorporate a new grading system for OSCEs with the one we've got now. (Side note: "pre-entrustable/emerging/entrustable" is the stupidest grade range I've heard in ages.)

On top of all that, I'm basically Calvin waiting for his propeller beanie in the mail, because I ordered myself yet another new work bag. The vegan-leather one is falling apart already because it doesn't like having my wallet in one of its inside pockets and my phone in the corresponding outside pocket, but I can't find my wallet in the bag if it isn't in a pocket and that's the only one that's big enough. So, after some buy-it-for-life type research, I ordered myself a comparably sized Tom Bihn cafe bag and a set of removable pockets (which they call a Freudian Slip). I just hope my thermos and the Freudian Slip will fit in the bag at the same time. We'll see. But anyway, I ordered this last Thursday, and paid for three-day shipping, and UPS will only tell me that it left Portland, OR four days ago and I should get it this Thursday. So I have no idea where it actually is, or why I'm getting it on Thursday if I paid for three-day shipping. First world problem, of course, but the Instant Gratification Monster is roaring like mad.

I don't precisely know why I fell out of love with my work bag, which is a Timbuk2 commuter laptop bag and does in fact hold my 15" laptop and half of the rest of my possessions if I want it to, while simultaneously being indestructible. But it's been annoying me lately, so I spent a week or so looking up bags online and being paralyzed by Too Many Options. I finally narrowed it down to the following requirements:

- Tall enough for my thermos
- Preferably tall enough for my duck-headed umbrella
- Pockets enough to hold phone, pens, ID, kleenex, and platypus (I have a stuffed platypus who lives in any work bag I'm using. He deserves his own platypocket.)
- Phone must be accessible without opening bag
- Must be crossbody
- Must not dissolve if it gets wet

Since I happened to have both thermos and umbrella on my person today, I stopped on the way home and tried them out on a bag in the Brookline Booksmith. We have a winner. I just wish it wasn't vegan leather, which is made of plastic. But it does everything else I need it to do, and maybe by the time I fall out of love with it, there will be an actual leather bag that fits the bill. I love the idea of a Saddleback Leather bag, but they don't believe in sufficient pockets and I'm not in the mood to spend that much money on something that isn't quite right.

Memo to self: if dress rehearsal gets out at 9:45, wait until 10:00 anyway because you'll be waiting for the 10:15 bus. Fortunately I have a "Long Songs" playlist.

The vet mentioned Tiki Cat wet food as a way to feed Lily more protein. So I went and bought a sampler pack of a dozen teeny cans in six flavors for $21. Came home, started reading labels and found that they range from 13-17% protein. The Trader Joe's tuna wet food I've been feeding Lily for years at 59 cents a can (and it was 49 cents when she started eating it) is 18%. So all I have to do is feed her more of what I know she likes. For once, pet husbandry is easy!

I've been a day ahead of myself all week, and today should really be Friday. But the fact that it isn't means I can come home tonight at a reasonable hour, and curl up in my huge sweatshirt and fleecy slippers and turn my brain off. Next week is two days long and then there will be pie.

I wish the universe in general would quit with the raining every time I want to go get some lunch.