So when Belovedest and I went to help rescue Ev from the woes of bookshelfing (which I may not have mentioned here, oops), I brought along the spices.

It was something like 24 little jars of dried spice, and 12 little bottles of various liquid flavors, all labeled.

The combination of Not Cooking and a holdover philosophy of minimalism/broke-ism that frowns on making a large-commitment purchase without being certain of it made Ev's spice cupboard rather bare. (She did have salt, pepper, Italian herbs, onion, garlic, and I think red pepper.)

She'd gotten to the point of cooking stuff with recipes selected by her nutritionist, so I figured it was time to introduce spices that she probably didn't have, so her nutritionist could suggest a wider variety of possibilities. So over a few days I filled the jars out of our spice collection. I called the project Weird White People Spices, even though some of them might not be standard for a white people kitchen. I figured this would be the best way to let her try them without fully committing. If she liked them, she could get more; if she didn't like them, she wouldn't have to worry about having an entire container to figure out what to do with.

Despite me doing some of the bottle-filling while on video chat with her, Ev didn't guess what the surprise was. She was delighted!

Every now and then she tells me, again, that her nutritionist was so excited and thrilled. So many spices to play with!!!!

---

Bookshelfing -- Ev was putting together a 4x4 Kallax, and broke one of the pegs off in the hole. So Belovedest and I geared up, went over, pliered out one half the peg and drilled out the other, presented a spare peg or two, and helped get the thing together and upright. Masks on the whole time. Then we headed out. It was the most social interaction we'd had in months. What else is a parent for, right? :)

Ev had another interview up here. Since the price of any ride service from Seattle to Tacoma is dire, she asked for guidance getting here on transit. So I organized a little map, then talked her through the steps. The distance to the Orca card machine at the airport Link station was dire, given that she wasn't then taking the Link train. After the interview, I guided her to the bus stop and told her where to get off and got her safely on the Sounder train. I picked her up, she changed out of interview clothes, then Belovedest got home and we went to Costco for baking supplies. Her mentor at work from intern days is doing low carb now, and Ev found a likely looking recipe for almond flour cheesey quiche biscuits. The second batch included Old Bay, given that they were already pretty close to a Red Lobster cheesy thing.

Saturday involved Belovedest and Ev taking a Pokémon walk, someone from Nextdoor coming to look at the kneeling chair, then baking. Then we went out shopping for additional supplies as we had run out of sour cream.

I managed to render myself somewhat useless at that point, because I had:
a) eaten without then immediately taking my evening pills
b) zoomed all over the grocery store just as my beta blocker was wearing off
c) not put these facts together until I was sitting down and therefore unwilling to move for a bit.

So there was a bit of a pause before I was ready to make the next (double) batch. Belovedest washed the mixer bowl.

Sunday was the local NaNo kickoff party, at a local esoteric gift shop. The timing meant that we had to drop Alex off on the way to drop Ev at the airport, but we had a half hour or so to wander around the venue. I started giggling. Ev doesn't do NaNoWriMo. As her fishparent, I was effectively dragging her to a Tedious Grown-up Event. This is a traditional nuclear family rite, even though Ev is no longer actually a teenager and has really never been Sullen Teenager Stereotype except maybe to her birth mom. However, this was averted when it turned out that the shop is *full of shinies* and Ev loves looking at shinies.

The NaNo party had possibly more they/* than cisgender attendees, which was great.

We got Ev to the airport on time. She missed her cat, and is working on getting her ready to travel politely.

Ev was in town for reasons, and she showed up on our doorstep on schedule. Belovedest appeared at the same moment, and we went on a quick run for sustaining beverages and trinkets for the people who get trip souvenirs.

Saturday morning included a #fishpile in the big bed: Ev, me, and #fishlibrarian.

Ev has now met the cats. She prefers Murderface, and is gently wishing to kidnap her (and Alex).

We did a shopping run. Belovedest stocked me up on marzipan and satsuma soap.

We had to return Ev to the airport on Sunday, but not before a Costco trip for salmon jerky.

She's planning to come back for Thanksgiving. I'm glad.

Babyfish, who is definitely not so baby anymore, has accepted her first post-college job and is moving to San Diego at some point after finals wrap up.

Her ground crew in San Diego is ... somewhat more limited than previously thought, given that there was just an acrimonious breakup with the [UNFLATTERING OPINIONS GO HERE] boyfriend who lives in that area. (The idea that she would live with him in the post-college era was scrapped when she lived with him over the summer and it turns out that many of their personal circumstances are incompatible.)

Her brother's coming down, but she wants her mom to be there. Her source of comfort and stability amongst all the things which are going to be new and different and out of routine and terrifying.

... that is to say, not her birth mom, but me.

Excuse me. I'm having a moment.

Ev is applying to All The Internships, at a very sensible and sustainable rate. This week's applications includes a little company whose product I was ... privileged ... to have been introduced to during my time at Virtual Hammer.

I speak, of course, of the "new" (July '14) helldesk software.

Ev: "how did you hear about our company?" "my godmother wants to stab the hci designers"
Azz: not *just* the HCI designers
Azz: also the API designers
Ev: "my godmother wants to stab everyone"

I have asked Ev to ask some mutual friends about their impressions of the place, based on the words I've emitted about it over my 1.5 years of experience with the thing. So far the timing hasn't worked out so well.

11:27 Tuesday, 23 September, 2014
Woke up this morning well before my alarm, which was in accordance with the plan. Promptly went downstairs with the laundry, since the bra situation had already passed super-critical, and I was feeling too lazy to find another cardigan in the closet (the one in current rotation was in critical need of a wash after having both been washed by Sharkface and had a close encounter with butter chicken -- butter chicken can be rinsed off, but Purple is allergic to dogs).

While waiting for the laundry, I have attended to dishes and done some cleaning of my inbox.

Last night I was glancing at the subject lines of my work emails just to make sure that there was nothing that urgently needed my attention before I went to bed, and I saw something from not!Facebook which involved the incomprehensible twit. I immediately started to panic about having said the Wrong Thing In Public, and how I was Hopeless and Horrible and someone should really tell me this every time I opened my mouth and something terrible came out In Public.

... And then I realized that there is such a person. When I start making a fool out of myself at work in a bad way, not a class-clown way, Purple will say the equivalent of "Azure Jane Lunatic, you are making less sense than a kilogram of bee dick!" And then I felt better. Also my Overlady would say something tactful if I went way too far, but generally she does feel like there are some mistakes I should make for myself.

(There is no reason whatsoever for anyone outside of specialized types of biology and friends to have a kilogram of refined bee dick. That said, my friends will probably proceed to give me reasons.)


00:33 Wednesday, 24 September, 2014
Post-dentist Purple and "Sleep schedule? What sleep schedule?" Azz made a coherent duo at lunch.

There were two things on not!Facebook from the incoherent twit. One was actually pretty nice, as she was thanking me for my helpfulness and going on at a bit more precision about how things were. The other was ... less explicable. A few people and I have subscribed to every new update on the Page about helldesk. And there was a new update from her, detailing some of Friday's release and the docs on same. Said post quietly went away. A few of the usual suspects and I -- well. Gramp forwarded it to the cousin-team including the great-grandmanager and his right hand assistant. I quietly documented on the wiki. The Angry Man linked it from not!Facebook. :D

I have identified the person connected to the helldesk who I least enjoy dealing with. It's not the buck-passer-in-chief or the incoherent twit, it's High-Priv McMansplain (distinct from Racist McMansplain). This is the guy who has previously come to the negative attention of me and everyone within yelling distance for assuming that everyone else has the same privileges within the system that he does. (To the best of my knowledge, his privs are actually fairly low helpdesk.)

R&D End-User: How do I file a new ticket?
High-Priv McMansplain: [menu item which doesn't appear for end-users] > [child of that menu] :)
AzureJaneL: @R&D End-User: So I'm assuming you're in the [terrible portal] which looks like [baby poo]? [utterly baroque drilldown process] and whatever you do, if you click the blue button at the bottom right, you've just introduced several hours of delay into the process whilst they triage your shit manually. @High-Priv McMansplain: AND AS FOR YOU, GUY, please remember that the vast majority of the poor saps who find themselves asking questions in this forum are R&D, and are subjected to a super-weak read-only view, and the shit to which you refer does not exist in our circumscribed little world. Unless you can impersonate an account with our priv level [I suspect he does not have that access] then we may have no reference for whatever the fuck you're talking about. Peace.

Except I managed it without swearing within the hearing of either of those two, though I did disturb a passing manager and offices at least as far back as my Overlady's, who heard the "...HAT!!" part of "I'M WEARING THE TACT HAT!"

In the course of my chocolate-based diplomacy tour, neither Mr. Zune nor my great-grandmanager's right hand were at their desks, but I did discover that our local desktop helpdesk is now composed of Sir Only Occasionally Appearing In This Film, and Chip!!! Chip from our old building!!!!!!! Chip who occasionally I run into and say, "I've missed you!" with great and heartfelt intensity. Competent and effective helpdesk are a boon to us as end-users. I expect the company to award them with decent pay, good benefits, and reasonable job satisfaction. I will do my part by trying to not be a terrible user, and opening my candy dish to them.

Fishlet is settling in at school. It is good to have other fish come by chat for a bit, also! It is a mark of the sort of community we have that nearly every conversation has the ability to devolve into homework.

Procurement has switched to a whole new system. I have thrown myself upon their mercy in asking what the fuck sort of category to shove such and such a requested purchase in, because of the terrible adventures I had in trying to find out on my own.

Purple and I were not late in getting out: it was still somewhat light outside! Which quickly went the other way. A mutual acquaintance came through the parking lot and showed us cat pictures. (She was the one with the rampant mint.) There are two strays who have claimed her. She's joking about naming the flame point ragdoll "iPhone 6", because it's very difficult to tell a "best of cat pictures" ooh-and-aah session from a "shiny new phone" one. We had a jolly good chat. (I agree: cat poop font would look great on a wedding announcement.)

My left knee is angry with me, for some reason. I got out to the parking lot with Purple, and it threatened to go out. I recovered by means of a very quick adjustment with my right foot, which involved a stomp. Purple eyed me and asked whether that meant something in chicken language. "It means, my knee hates me." Heh.

Beardwatch 2014: so it turns out that you can't actually usefully say "there's been some manscaping done on the beard" because apparently by definition manscaping is below the waist. This conversation involved Purple, Steph, me, and me going very pink. "Wait, who's pretending to not be gay?"

And now I am home!

Happily, some swearing at Google and also fiddling and rebooting seems to have fixed it.

I'm starting to get myself hauled out from under backlog at work. Today's stuff involved going through my email box, measuring the things that I didn't get measured through yesterday's headache, and wrestling with Outlook. I suspect that the Stage Manager may have obliterated his room reservations accidentally by doing something else on purpose.

As evening wore on, I tiptoed across the courtyard, and spent some very pleasant minutes in Purple's nice warm office, curled up in the guest chair that's somehow made its way in there (it looks like a stray from a conference room, and I wasn't the one who put it there) looking at funny hot sauce listings. He sat sprawled out in his chair, feet up on a cabinet, web page zoomed a few sizes up so I could see clearly; I leaned forward into his armrest, arm along arm, coexisting peaceably in the little bubble of screen light in the gathering dusk.

He is soft and sweet and warm in a genuine and uncomplicated way that I wish I could emulate but I suspect I know the toll it takes to maintain (and I don't often have the energy budget to keep up). Go go team Sociable Introvert.

I often feel like I'm babbling around Purple; yesterday, I was kind of the opposite. I went home earlier than usual because headache (I suspect new glasses and low sleep over the weekend contributed, also the jump in temperature) and spent a little while waiting for traffic to die down, hiding out in Purple's office where it was nice and dark. He made up for both of us in chatter.

The spiders have slowed down. He hasn't seen any today.

There's a thing, and my little fishie is planning on coming to it, and it should be fun! Purple asked if he'd get to meet her. I said that yes, he was one of the people I'd been planning on introducing her to. He was pleased.

Today I found some unexpected peanut butter eggs in my box of transcription shoes. I think I know where they came from. ♥

Apparently my party hat is some sort of landmark in the building, as Madam Standards has seen passing crews of interns be pointed to it.

I had a chat with a person about a thing, and I'm vaguely superstitious about not putting hopes down in writing, so maybe I'm not going to say anything more about the thing and what I hope regarding it, but I had a chat, about the thing, and it was not a terrible chat. So. Lots of dependencies, lots of things out of my control and that person's control, but I'm not being consumed with pessimism.

One of my co-workers said that she had no idea that I was also involved in open source, and between the one thing and the other, I forwarded her the email with the extra link in it, the one that also named my talk in addition to fhocutt's amazing keynote. So now she knows who I am!

I need to remember to point out to the Stage Manager that the downstairs room is plenty big enough, but doesn't have the all-important remote hookup for our Cambridge crew.

Oh, the internet has reminded me that I'd like you to have the contact info for some 24 hour transportation on you. Particularly if you start going to places outside of walking distance with friends at all hours.

I don't expect that you would get into a sticky situation knowingly, but since shit can get weird pretty fast sometimes, and I would like to spare you the awkwardness of trying to share a one person bed with Shawn and his new fuckbuddy while he bangs her and you have just used your coat for a pillow and got chocolate covered cherry all over the inside of the pockets and it's -30 F and you really just want your nice, quiet, not being banged in, dorm room. This is an example of a very awkward situation and also abuse of dependent clauses.

Not that I imagine you will acquire a Shawn, but I think you get my drift.

Love,
Fishmum

( Fishmumly wibbling )

And the Fishmum often (but not always) wins the Gosh, That Was A Soap Operatic High School competition. I have been told that I need to make a diagram in order for that relationship progression to be even vaguely understandable. (I have been told this many times.)

Also, breaking up by text message is bad; breaking up by answering machine is awkward as fuck (don't be Ted Mosby); I once broke up with a dude by postcard, but to be fair, he deserved it and we weren't really dating anyway.