kareina

The comments rapidly go off the rails, but there are three links there to go through.

There's more linkage here.

I genuinely do not have the energy to read all of this. I will be sending out an email to my senators, I guess.

cathrowan

Pedicure and new shimmery toenail polish. An orange and cardamom latte from a new-to-me indie coffee shop. A bunch of tulips to put on the dining room table.

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

These questions were suggested by

thegreymouser.

1. What was the best gift you received?

2. What was the worst gift you received?

3. What gift did you wish for, but never got?

4. What was the best present you gave?

5. What was the worst present you gave?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

carrot_khan

After the stress of so much time on the road, arguing with the Bigs to get their life together, struggling with Sera to people correctly, and then feeling despondent that Edward was not getting the attention he wanted, I was really super oddly cheery and optimistic when I went to work this last Tuesday.

Like I totally remember driving down Rt 31 humming along to the play list (hilariously, I was listening to my Despair playlist) and grinning and just feeling good all while thinking "Why am I feeling so good? What's about to happen?"

So its Ruth and I just pattering around the shop, me sewing things on shirts and doing an inventory on the merit badges in the plans of restocking for camp summer madness times and Jimm shows up with a print out. Apparently my new phone (more on that later) was just not getting calls and he wasn't able to get a hold of me. So he printed out an email for the school and drive all the way down to work. I don't know why he didn't just call the shop (something I didn't even think of until now) but there is it.

Sera's graduation ceremony (they call it 8th Grade Recognition for some reason) was supposed to be on Wednesday and for some reason on Tuesday they realized there was a mis-schedule and had to move it to Thursday. Damnit. I mean, it doesn't totally fuck up the week, but now my mom can't go to the ceremony because of a meeting (probably church related) that she can't get out of, and now I have to jet early from work to get home on time to change and get to the school.

Ruth doesn't mind me dipping out early - although the last hour of the day always seems to be busy with people doing that rushing in from work and since we close at 5:30 instead of 6, it makes it worse. I just feel bad dipping out last minute after all the accomodations they've made for my schedule what with funeral-palooza on top of Tain Bo (more on that later).

I still feel pretty good. I think now that the big hump in my schedule (Tain Bo) is over and done with it feels like a plug has been pulled on the pipes in my brain and I can think a little bit better and now look forward to the rest of the insane summer schedule.

I'm gearing up to getting our four Cadettes through their Silver Award (cut off date, Sept 30th). On top/in between everything else, I'm sure it can be doable. The hardest part is that these four girls are a wet bag of neurospicy cats and herding them through everything is going to be fucking exhausting. And explaining to Max if they don't want to do anything, they can't get their mandatory project hours in and they're going to be shit out of luck when it comes to award time. But Max is literally incapable of understanding cause/effect/consequences and so I don't know how this is going to go. But still I remain oddly hopeful.

So, off to work and graduation tonight! My barbarian princess, partially grown up!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: dining room table
Current Music: suspicious silence

unicornduke

I've been tired all week, I thought it was due to lingering tiredness from the wedding. But this morning I woke up, got up, sat and stared at my computer for ten minutes, then went back to bed for another hour and a half. Then I tried eating a little granola and promptly threw it up. My mom and dad both said they had stomach issues in the last few days but they thought it was something they ate. But now I think there's a little stomach bug going around.

I feel way better now even if I'm still really tired. Good news is that it's a rainy gross day, so I'm doing some computer work and can take a nap later.

conuly

but Paramount Plus won't cooperate at all. So I finally convinced E to watch some Prodigy with me!

Man, I really love that theme song. Also, I'm gonna just say, maybe it's because it's aimed at a younger audience but this show does the best technobabble - just enough to explain, not enough to confuse or bore.

**********

( Read more... )

hrj

Ticked off two more things on the retirement checklist this morning: getting copies of the two paystubs that I was still missing, and getting my official "retirement gift" from the attaboy catalog. As usual, the catalog offerings were mostly either "already have one" or "no use for this" but in the end I settled on a wet/dry shop vac. You know, in the event that I ever get back to doing carpentry projects or whatnot. After you pick your primary gift, they roll you over into the gift card section, where you pick gift cards until you run out of remaining balance. So I currently have $250 worth of gift cards for Black Angus Steakhouse that I will be looking for a special occasion to use.

Most of the IRA activity is complete -- I have confirmation and documents for one of the annuities and for the managed fund (the "pretend this doesn't exist for now" fund). I should get the confirmation and paperwork for the other annuity shortly. I've updated my budget projections spreadsheet and concluded that the annuities are probably over-deducting for taxes, but I think I'll let it ride for now. This year is going to be completely weird for income taxes and I'd rather get a refund than have to pay. Next year I can fine tune things, and the year after that I should be able to predict fairly precisely.

Oh, and still waiting on Social Security to come through. I think on Friday I'll do another round of sitting on the phone to check in. (I check the website almost every day, on the chance that an approval will show up there before I get it in the mail.)

In the mean time, I'm continuing with an overstuffed calendar. Mon/Tues in Stockton to run medical errands for my dad. This morning recording an interview for the podcast, then working with the electrician who will be re-doing my electrical panel. In a couple hours I'll do a guest appearance by zoom for a college class that read one of my books. Tomorrow the electrician starts and completes the panel work, mostly while I'm out of the house for a combined bike ride and routine medical check-up. (I figure since they sent me a pre-work questionnaire about my exercise, I'll properly impress them if I show up in my bike togs all sweaty.) Online Wiscon is this weekend, then Monday the HVAC folks come to do my annual maintenance. And then I have nothing extra scheduled for a week and a half before the Nebula conference (which I'm attending virtually). June is pretty empty at this point, but the way things have been going, who knows?

conuly

The clowns running the FDA have proposed restricting access to covid vaccines, to people over 65 or who have certain medical conditions. There's a public docket for comments on the proposal.

Your Local Epidemiologist has a good post about the proposal, including that the people suggesting this know that nobody is going to do the placebo-controlled tests of new boosters they want to require.

Possible talking points include:

Families and caregivers wouldn't be eligible for the vaccine, even if they share a household, unlike the current UK recommendations.

Doctors, dentists, and other medical staff wouldn't be eligible either.

My own comment included that the reason I'd still be eligible for the vaccine is a lung problem caused by covid.

Seriously, this is just exhausting.

redbird

thisfinecrew)

unicornduke

I typed up a whole thing but deleted it because it became tedious to type, let alone read.

Highlights of the wedding weekend: delicious food, seeing many of my relatives, dancing, dog wrangling, the entire afterparty

Lowlights: staying up very late each night and waking up at 7am, a girlfriend of one of my brother's friends getting very drunk and being weirdly obsessed with my dad and then asking invasive questions about each of the family members

I'm still recovering from the absolute messing up of my sleep schedule. I was the only sober person at various points, so I drove S and L over to the hotel where we hung out after the wedding and then home, so sleep time that night was at 1am. They did ditch a lot of the traditional wedding nonsense like groomsmen and bridal party, the traditional dances, speeches, all that stuff, so the ceremony and reception were very streamlined and nice. Lots of socializing time plus the food was amazing. I got to take care of the dogs and walk one down the aisle and then take them home, which was a nice little break and I got back in time for the reception.

The afterparty was a lot more fun, some absolutely delicious BBQ and lots of sitting around chatting, then I played volleyball and then we all hung out by the bonfire. We cleaned up all the party stuff Sunday relatively quickly, which surprised me. My brother was up until 7am that morning and woke up extremely hungover around 2pm, which was about the time we had wrapped up cleaning up everything.

redbird

I just bought a membership in this year's Wiscon, which is entirely online, so I don't have to worry about energy levels, or covid risk, and all I'm paying for is the con, not airline tickets and a hotel room and all.

conuly

We're pretty clear on the cause, she got tangled up in some vines, and we've washed her foot carefully with soap and water. We'll wash all of her later and maybe soak her foot with some epsom salt, that should help. Well, I mean, the bath will just make her smell better, but the soak should help. I really, really don't want to go to the vet this week if I can avoid it, but if the swelling won't go down we may have to.

**************************

( Read more... )

carrot_khan

So two days ago - Sunday? - I did the epic patch sewing day I do on occasion. Sera and Edward both got a baggie of patches from all their scouting hard work and I spent the day putting them on their vests/uniform. Okay - I spent an hour. It doesn't take me that long. Anyway - Edward has crossed over to Second Year Webelo and that means the tan shirt of a grown up scout. I cut all the patches off his little cub scout shirt thinking that "Man, this shirt has seen a lot of time and years served, its still serviceable, I should hand it off to someone who could use it?"

But, as some of the longer-lived patches came off - the world crest and the council patch - it became really obvious how faded it had become, considering the dark blue under the patches. It hurt a little to put it in the garbage. I mean, it was still useable in that there were no tears or stains and all the buttons were still attached, but it had seen at least three cub scouts - if not four (uncertain since the boys were in together) and it had served all of them well. A little sad too, because so many of the kids had worn it, but also a strange sense of relief of having finally passed that marker and those days were finally behind us. I can't save everything, and I already have all their scouting swag set aside for Eagle Ceremonies. The shirt is unnecessary. Maybe.

Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed cub scouts and the kids had fun and that was the whole point, right? But it was a relief to have those days over and to be looking forward to more grown up adventures. Its sometimes hard to reconcile that Edward is a Big Kid because visually/situationally he's constantly being compared to his big lug older brothers and it always make Edward look like a puppy that needs to be helped/babied. He's not. He'll be ten years old in nine days. That's not a baby. When Xander was ten, he was riding his bike down to CVS with a twenty in his pocket to pick up some coffee, diapers, and whatever candy the change could get him in exchange for his services. Edward can certainly do the same. If we let him.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: dining room table
Current Music: suspicious silence

kareina

During the work day I am working, which, right now, means learning as much as I can about SweDigArch and SEAD, and all the rest of our time is getting ready for Double Wars. We leave tomorrow.

Most projects needing doing have been done. Most things are packed and ready to go in the car.

I am feeling accomplished on both fronts, and am going to post this now, as empty of actual content as it is, and get back to packing.

adrian_turtle

I was about to gripe about limited storage space in this apartment, but I'm not sure that's the right word. There's the storage space where you put stuff you aren't using. The extra toilet paper and soap and hair stuff we stocked up on. The first-aid supplies that just sit in a drawer until something goes wrong. The tube of toothpaste you use every day needs space on the counter, or space somewhere, but it doesn't feel like "storage" space. But the 3 of us like 3 different kinds of toothpaste, and this apartment has no counter in the bathroom, so it gets a little tricky.

We have a narrow little cart beside the sink, with toothpastes and shaving creams and sunscreens and dental floss, all placed so we could reach it when we need it, without walking across the apartment. So I reached for a tube of toothpaste, noticed it was white (Cattitude and Redbird both use toothpaste from green tubes), and failed to notice that it was sunscreen. I failed to notice that it was sunscreen until I put it on my toothbrush and started brushing my teeth with it.

I don't care if it wears off in 80 minutes. I threw away the toothbrush.

conuly

I named her that, not the company. I thought it was a pretty, old-fashioned name, something buoyed by the fact that Charlotte in Charlotte Sometimes is told by her 50-years-ago counterpart's younger sister that it's funny that she has such an old-fashioned name - and that book was written in the 1960s!

Take a look at how often the names "Emma" and "Charlotte" appear on each state's top three names for girls.

******************

( Read more... )

conuly

With or without feet.

There's a few people in that thread adamantly going up and down asserting that, duh, how could the rest of us be so dumb as to not know that certain types of toilets are specifically designed to be flushed with the foot. None of them have provided any sort of evidence for this claim, which makes me think that their evidence boils down to "Mommy told me when I was a kid" or "Well, I flush with a foot so I just sort of assumed", and - man, I hate when people do that. Fucking back up your claims, or at least qualify them. "I was told by my preschool teacher, but I've never verified it" would be a lot more honest and less annoying.

Anyway, I have emailed the manufacturer most often mentioned in the comments to ask for their opinion. Mostly because that is how things ought to be done, but also because if these flushers are designed to be flushed with the foot, great, but if not then we have to ask if the other contingent, which is equally vociferously asserting that foot flushing increases wear and tear on the mechanism and causes breakdowns, needs to be taken seriously. Because what's really not okay is breaking the toilet for everybody who comes after you - and sure, you'll say that you are not the sole person responsible for breaking the toilet that much faster, but c'mon, everybody says that.

So let's see what we see, and in the meantime, let's also all wash our hands. With soap and water, thanks.

unicornduke

Hey all, if you'd like to join the crafting hangout, it is tonight from 6-8pm ET!

Video encouraged but not required!

Topic: Crafting Hangout

Time: Mondays 6:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

Link

Meeting ID: 973 2674 2763

conuly

but we've got a new semi-feral slipping into our house, one of last year's kittens. So, uh, I'm still not allowed to fix that basement window I guess?

****************

( Read more... )

conuly

in a pot, not in the dirt, but still.

********************

( Read more... )

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

The Hidden Provision in the Big Ugly Bill that Makes Trump King

A day of small pleasures

The Friday Five for 23 May 2025

Shoulda known better

Ugh

We've been trying to go back and watch the sad episode with the future drone

Almost there! Almost! (Retirement)

PSA, text taken from thisfinecrew

proposed restrictions on covid vaccines

Weekend was busy

Wiscon

Moonpie's foot is swollen

End of an Era or Time Waits For No One

It is all fun, but it all takes time!

waterproof sunscreen

I have a cabbage patch doll from childhood named Emma Charlotte

Ask a Manager is collectively losing their shit over how people flush toilets

Crafts

Well, Sebastian has still not been seen (except by my down the block neighbor)

My neighbor around the corner has a Buddha's hand

Profile

May 2025

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags