01:07 PM Tuesday, July 6, 2021
Went to go get fasting labs this morning. Unfortunately the scatterbrained NP had not ordered the labs (the ones that she wants me to do a few days before the appointment). The appointment is canceled because she won't be in the office the day it was scheduled. I waited to see if she would be able to order the labs between patients while I was in the office and fasting, but she was not. Belovedest hauled me off to has cheezburger.

Further update on original pool: I went on a wild goose quest to get pool noodles to shove in the inflatable ring instead of patching the holes. I tried that. It did not work like I wanted it to, because the place I set the pool is not flat enough, and the slit in the ring to insert the pool noodles was on the downhill side.

A slightly smaller pool was on the way when I saw a thing on Craigslist about an inflatable hot tub that had been posted some seven minutes earlier. I texted the guy and we arranged a time. I gathered up my muscle and we went off! Belovedest helped the guy empty the hot tub. I hugged the hot tub lid. Next step in that adventure is making sure there is a place on the deck large enough to fit it.

4th of July was surprisingly quiet until it started getting dark, at which point it started to sound like a bag of microwave popcorn. Escape Calico took her chill pill (actually one of my sleeping pills, since we share the same size tablet and hers were a little old) with bad grace, but took it. The fireworks did not stop until well after midnight.

( In contradiction of the law... )

Belovedest's siblings declared Games; Belovedest went and picked up A Feast of Meats. I made room in the fridge to fit all of it. The cucumber salad went in the door somewhat precariously. The tiny cheese buns went in sideways, since they don't leak. I looked up a recipe and most of them call for tapioca flour. Hmmmm.

Having had her second shot a while ago and also having dropped a co-worker off at the airport at fuck o'clock in the morning Saturday, Ev is visiting, with Meow Meow.

My left wrist is doing better after whatever the fuck I did to it in March. Still not perfect, but fewer random things make it burn like burning.

I got some inexpensive alcohol markers and have been playing with them on my daily to-do sheets. Fun, so far, and a good supplement to the colors of the Zebra Mildliners (I have the big pack from Costco with all the colors).

With the summer ahead of us, we got a backyard paddling pool. It's big enough for a few people to sit in. We laid it out not as well as we could have, and the lawn is tilted, so it's not at the full capacity that it could theoretically hold. Freshly filled, it was ... very cooling. I'm still not entirely warmed up, but that was to my advantage because the living room temperature hit 79°F.

It is a perfect vantage point to sit and watch the chickens next door. Steph was extremely amused.

Ev will be going back home tomorrow. She might come next weekend too. She's not sure yet.

So stuff keeps happening.

The temp gig was in Redmond, helping people who might sing a certain Barenaked Ladies song at this particular big-Borg workplace for the duration of a several-day event. The task was: helping them sort their garbage into the recycle bin, compost, or landfill. (You would think that members of *this* Borg would not have trouble with the proper use of the recycle bin, but you would think wrong. Liquid does not recycle. I ended up bodily guarding the recycle bin against mostly-full cups of some sort of weird lavender-colored, and perhaps flavored, iced beverage.)

Apparently last year the waste streams got super jacked up, so this year the janitorial contractor hired subcontractors from various temp agencies to help out. I really enjoyed the task -- I can play an extrovert, and since I got put on the magical sleep meds, I am getting enough rest on a regular basis. (Re: sleep meds, a chunk of people apparently get hangovers from trazodone. I am one of the lucky ones who shrugged off the hangover within a week.) The main supervisor was a delight, one of those people who has the gift of making everyone she interacts with feel like the most special person in the room. (Slytherpuff, I think, with Hufflepuff ascending.)

In terms of physical location, I am no longer even pretending to live at Bohemia.

Partner regained possession of their house about two weeks after I arrived, and I spent that weekend helping them return it to a habitable state. Open Source Bridge followed. I spent a good chunk of the time after OSB helping, when I wasn't making sure my post-move paperwork (car and such) was sorted.

The parking situation at Bohemia was both dire and pretty typical of Seattle -- 2 hour parking between the hours of 7am and 6pm except on Sunday, which practically meant that I had to leave by 9am and couldn't re-park until 4pm. (I could have spent the day moving the car around, but having been moved to an active anxiety attack at having spent 20 minutes looking for a parking space, I ... did not find this to be a suitable hobby.) Instead I took to spending my days at a public library. That was nice, but also ergonomic hell.

After my partner got their house back, I did wind up sleeping over a lot. They live in Suburbia; aside from what would be a walk that I would struggle with when my mobility is bad if I needed to take the bus somewhere, I like it.

Assorted neighbors have met both me and the metamour. Daddy Neighbor supervised as Smol Neighbor waved around a sparkler, and then decided that this had been enough for Daddy's nerves this glorious 4th. (There is a Mommy Neighbor and a very friendly Pibble Neighbor; these are the ones to the immediate north.)

After some discussion, I am now their lease-signed, rent-paying, month-to-month tenant. When the work situation stabilizes, we both expect me to find somewhere less with them, so we can get used to being in proximity without actually being in each other's pockets all the time. (Frequent sleepovers are still anticipated.)

The cat likes me, and has identified me as a food-bringer. Thus I also get the mewing and head-butts when Miss Kittan thinks it's time for food. (She is food-insecure, and cannot be left with more than one serving of cat food at a time, or she will eat all of it.) She of course starts to think it's nearly food o'clock about an hour to an hour and a half before it's that time.

Hacker-kitty has defeated two different automatic feeders so far. We may go with one of those puzzle-feeders; she'll hate it but it may provide her some occupation.

Names used besides her name include:

Kitten (she is a full grown cat)
Kittan
Hacker-Kitty
Loud Child
Miss Air Raid Siren
Miss Fire Siren
Kitling
Kitty-bit

Last night I took a fly away from her. Unfortunately, between the time I went "Drop it!" and got a tissue to clean up, the fly realized it was still alive and started buzzing the carpet; it quickly recovered. No word as to whether the Mighty Hunter, Slayer of the Fearsome Red Dot actually caught and ate it afterwards, but I did catch her staring at a shelf with unnerving intensity. Because cats.

Things are still weird and unsettled and needing adjustment, but it's no longer the full-on frantic "OMGWTFBBQ" every day.

And I am so happy to be sufficiently geographically convenient with my partner that when someone has had a terrible day -- or a wonderful one, or has a stubborn itch *right back there on the shoulder, no, lower!" -- that we can be there to console, commiserate, congratulate, or scratch.

10:09 PM 8/22/2010
Josh offered to have the Johns' children, hollered from our Ewok perch. "Mpreg?" I asked.
Josh has short hair now! Not the shortest ever, but conventional-male short. I asked; it wasn't a can of worms, just one of those time-for-a-change things.

Josh and JD both know @tiger -- JD from college, Josh because they're roommates.


7:05 PM 8/23/2010
The troll next door seems to no longer be there. This is the second one who was involved in a screaming fight with his girlfriend, the fellow who would often be out smoking at late hours when I was either venturing forth or coming home from social events or shopping. I refer to him as a troll because when we were chatting once about what we did, he mentioned (apropos of me mentioning that I did Online Stuff) that he was not much of an internet person, but he would occasionally (for entertainment) go and start shit on random message boards. Thus, troll next door.

I know he's no longer there because the door was open and they were ripping up the floor.


8:19 PM 8/24/2010
It's been a bit hot in the Bay Area.


11:08 PM 8/24/2010
How is it that I've never encountered this song before?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWA-L3JZO4
( Read more... )


6:35 AM 8/29/2010
Apropos of the Eternal Chat, I am reminded that I've got a few rather strict values about relationships.

If you're in a long-term relationship, you should be able to either trust that the other party in the relationship will not cheat on you, or that if the other party in the relationship is having happysexyfuntimes outside the relationship, that they are going to come back to you. (Also included in that last: having your permission to be doing that.) If you cannot trust them this far, why are you in a relationship with them, anyway?

Related: the trope that all friendships or acquaintanceships between people of compatible sexual preference are inherently fucking waiting to happen, is really messed up. Really amazingly messed up.


I have sketched up the approximate problem with my cellphone reception.



10:03 AM 8/29/2010
I ... may be unaccustomed to caffeine again. On the bright side, I have re-located my St. John's Wort bottle.

I think I've also figured out some of my problems with People. If I've slept enough, I love the whole world. If I've not slept enough, I'm a complete misanthrope.

Also, my aunts think Dad's depression is a side effect of OCD, which actually slots in really really well with one of the things I've learned about mine. I wind up in a lovely hate spiral where all the major things I've done wrong in X number of years will circle around in my head and remind me how much I suck. At least I don't think anything from elementary school is in the hate parade, but stuff from high school still is. And when I'm on meds, I can break out of it in a way I can't when I'm not.

Also it is entirely possibly time for a round of anger mismanagement classes (apropos of a friend's horrifying experience with an unexpected evangelist who got too inappropriately attached too soon) involving shrieking, stomping, hitting people with one's cane, fleeing vigorously, and avoiding being alone with anyone who makes one feel dodgy, even otherwise friends.

My sleep patterns are all out of wack, which is why I was asleep at 8pm and am awake now. I woke up to the sound of shouting and a touch of thumping, here and there. It was a man and a woman yelling at the top of their lungs at each other.

I considered calling the police. There was my phone. I grabbed my phone. My computer screen was in front of my face. This was what the thousand essays had mentioned. This was time to put my body where my mouth was and follow through. I grabbed a jacket to throw on over my lurid pink nightgown. I stuffed my feet in my fluffy black slippers. I fished my 3 D-cell Maglite from under the heap of cloak and scarf and sweater on the floor across from the front door. I stepped outside and scanned around with my ears. I thought it would be the troll and his girlfriend yelling at each other again, but it wasn't; it was coming from the next apartment: across the way and to the west. "GET OUT OF MY FACE!" she was screaming. He screamed back.

I marched up to the door (as well as you can in fluffy slippers) and knocked firmly, aware of the phone in my fist and the flashlight cradled in the crook of my arm. The yelling stopped. He opened the door, wearing a backpack. Average build, short (not registering as taller than me (which means he could have been by at least three inches, as I'll consider myself the height of a six foot man)).

It was dark inside; I spied her, standing, upset and apparently unhurt, shorter than both me and him. "Are you all right, ma'am?" I asked.

She said something that indicated that she was.

"Maybe you'd better go cool down a bit," I told him then, firm and cool and implacable, as if there was a Vulcan standing in my awkward body and absurd slippers. "Go for a walk or something."

Perhaps he'd already been leaving, but he walked out as I stood by, and she shut the door firmly.

"Sorry for disturbing you," he said as he disappeared into the night.

I popped back in my apartment and started shaking. They have police for these things. I could have put her in worse danger by noticing. He could have had a gun. I should have paused to offer her comfort. I should perhaps make a police report in case there's a history. I have no idea if there's a history, and if so, who's inflicting more hurt and who has more power. I came to IRC for comfort. They took a few moments to listen and counsel me, then went straight back to the boards, dragging me with them. The night's been nearly silent since then, though I kept my ear out for any sound that might have been his return.

There is a gorgeous patch of spiky stuff in bloom near home. I keep meaning to bring the camera.

I type in the community name as if it were a personal journal name, knowing LJ will redirect to community.livejournal.com/exampleusername from that.

http://community.livejournal.com/note_to_cat/2302512.html is painful and hilarious, and involves tea.

My sleeping habits have not been so good lately, but I'm working on that.


At the writers dinner on Wednesday night, I managed to completely win at whipped cream. We were sharing desserts, and I wound up putting some whipped cream on M's finger, and licking it off. Now, rhea_windrider had just done essentially the same. I am a competitive type, and if I have skills in an area, I do want to be able to showcase them. So, I wound up doing a very skilled job at removing the whipped cream from the finger.

The rest of the people at the table tell me that M was about one step from needing some private time.

I win at whipped cream.


The grocery store on the corner is evidently closing. Alas! This means bad things for the household. It's not screamingly horrid, but it is not good either. If I did not have a car, it would suck hardcore. There are enough people in this apartment complex who do not have cars that it will really suck being them.

Five bangs, one right after the other so close that I had to replay the sound in my head to count them. I got down pretty fast. When I looked at my alarm clock, which is 2 minutes slower than my computer clock, it was 1:10.

I don't remember if I heard cars. It's one in the morning. There aren't many. No voices. Just bangs.

That apartment complex that always had the back gate damaged went from some fence bars intentionally missing to a real human gate. Amusing progression to see.

I need to get a picture of the sign for the audio place. It has to be read to be believed. The random formatting only adds.