... I believe that two of my friends have invented an entire spouse for a third friend (all former co-workers of mine) on the strength of baking.

Specifically, the colleague very occasionally brings meat pies in. And he was going to bring some in at some future point, but he moved continents before it happened. And his wife bakes them.

I was certain that no such entity exists, and that the man does his own baking.

The guys and I haven't synchronously discussed it, and they're not even quite sure on gender, and they barely hear of "her"...

I shall have to inquire.

But as things stand, two of the better informed and well intentioned feminist dudes I know believe that someone else bakes for a certain man...

As part of my attempt to leave the workplace better than I found it, I have been leaving thank-you notes via not!Facebook. If you do it in a particular way, it will wind up in the HR admin system flagged to the positive attention of their managers.

Community Thanks to: R, codepoetica, lb, Purple, sfa, jmeme, radius, Mr. Zune, the guy who was having the trouser situation that one time, phone
All of you embody the spirit of helpful cooperation that I have come to enjoy at Virtual Hammer. You offer a listening ear to frustrations, and offer your technical perspective towards solving problems, and of course it's great to see you over some beer and a cupcake.

Mostly the responses were variations on "thanks". And then --
( Read more... )

On Wednesday the 30th, I rolled a will save against sending an email to someone offering "support, moral or immoral" on the grounds that I didn't actually want to embarrass myself that badly to someone whose good opinion I valued (and if I didn't value their good opinion, why in the hell would I be offering immoral support?)

radius had said that he was probably leaving for Australia on New Year's Eve. That being a holiday, most sensible people were not in the workplace. He'd said that he got everything that needed shipping sent off with the removalists. (Earlier, he'd mentioned that he'd likely be left with some very odd odds and ends of food, but he was trying to use up what he could before he left. He'd had some ... innovative ... sandwiches prior to leaving on some previous trips.)

I wound up spending my Wednesday evening with some Star Wars, and discussing the new Star Wars with some of the other people who'd stayed until the end of the credits -- ( Read more... ), about Empire engineering vs. US handrail regulations, and all sorts of lovely things.

I had a nice low-key new year's eve, and a nice low-key new year's day. I decided against getting the rather heavy piece of IKEA furniture which would have solved some of my space woes on the grounds that I wasn't sure I could wrestle it into and out of my car on my own, and I might want to save any such things for when there was a bigger vehicle and someone else to haul things with.

New Year's Day was also a day for laundry, checking the mail, and getting my new registration tag on Vash. Fuck yeah adulthood.

Saturday evening was my aunt's game party. I invited some of the guys (lb, Purple, jld). It was good to see jld! We had two tables playing CAH. Everyone had a lot of fun, and I think we did a good job in making a space in which it was safe to say "yeah, that's actually too terrible for me", since somebody promptly named one of the cards which was entirely unfunny to him, and we all said "yeah, fair" and resolved to discard it quietly if it came up. (Which it didn't.) Dick Cheney was this game's trump card.

Another quiet day Sunday, during which I slept (and then didn't sleep) through a number of uterus malfunctions.

By the time it hit 7am, I was awake, and reckoned I'd best get up. Fortunately, I got my coffee before the coffee machine went down. Non-Boring Manager was the first person to punch me ("That was more of a fist bump.") this year. Dogesitter Designer and Madam Standards were the second and third. I filed a coffee ticket, then wrote up how to do a pour-over by balancing the filter basket on top of the open airpot and using hot water from the espresso machine and anemic fizzer. It may not have been strictly good, but it was still coffee.

Purple's table wound up in the depths of B, below and somewhat within earshot of lb's table upstairs, as the cafeteria was overcrowded and the outside seats were all damp. Purple called me to make sure I wouldn't become lost.

lb approached us, waving a brightly printed something. Someone had left yeast packets on his desk that morning. He'd determined that no one else had received yeast. Purple speculated that it might be the corporate overlords' way of telling everyone that more beer was needed. lb eventually concluded that it must be from radius; the former officemate agreed that this was likely.

<some dude> because they do yeast inspections?
<lb> yes
<lb> there could be bullfrogs or rabies in that yeast

I chivvied Mr. Zune to join #adventuresofstnono, and contributed to technical help in the arrival.

There was also a digression about whether or not people can read Braille with their genitals. Apparently not, generally. (Purple and I would later spend time in the parking lot discussing possible schemes for making it easier. I suggested an array of piercings.)

I chatted with my emergency birthday twin on the team, about custody of my toolkit after the contract end. He'd had a lovely Alaska vacation, and they'd taken a number of my suggestions for good local fun. They did get some aurora sighting! Only level 3, but hooray them!

There was some strategy chatting with lb. phone had passed along a message. I expect that the Singing PM's message which hit inboxes back in December will start to get shoveled out soonish ... maybe.

radius, having arrived in Australia and recovered some from the journey, got back on the internet.

<lb> radius confirmed as the yeaster
<Azz> Happy Yeaster!

Yeaster, I clarified, is where we celebrate the rising of Yeezus.

Purple had spent much of the afternoon away from his computer. Later on, he popped back in, and inquired whether I'd just dropped by his office. I hadn't. He allowed as how it had likely been the evening janitor; the scent was close to mine but not quite the same. He then sort of tripped over himself in attempting to explain that he hadn't meant any of this as a bad thing, just a nose thing. I replied mentioning the day I'd dropped in to his office, inhaled, and from the scent/heat/humidity wound up with a fairly accurate estimate of how long the office had been uninhabited that day. (He'd been at a hack day, it turned out.)

radius notes that I would be likely to get on with his family, based on my sense of humor.

When I wake up in the middle of the night freaking out over Something Or Other, I now have the energy to get up and start Doing Things. This is not always the greatest move. However, when I do start doing this, it does sometimes effectively call my body's bluff on whether this was a good idea, and I find myself going back to bed in short order instead of lying awake freaking out for an hour or two.

Last night's freakout was approximately:
* I am slowly recovering from a pretty gnarly low point, in which I was basically functional enough to go to work, but nothing else.
* For about a month, subsisting on frozen, single-portion-no-prep, and takeout while at home, has meant that my kitchen sink has seen little to no action.
* For the past week-ish, I've been doing enough cooking to wash/rewash a plate and a fork, although not particularly address the forest floor coating of forks in the bottom of the sink.
* Running water in a sink means that whatever's gone down the drain starts to take notice.
* And then there was The Stench.
* An unused garbage disposal, in want of a good hard kick, sits there and hums.
* Reset did not do the job.
* Somehow in some previous cleanup effort, I had put away or recycled all my IKEA hex-keys.

So in the middle of the night I got it into my head that there was no way I could make the kitchen look presentable at *all* (in order to be able to summon the maintenance guy to get the disposal functional to make the smell go away) before my neighbors wound up having the smell get into their apartments (via the kitchen and bathroom vents, which are all connected, so this isn't 100% paranoid fantasy) and complained and of course I would be immediately evicted.

Therefore I got up and about 2 minutes into tidying some of the most obvious kitchen stuff my body realized that actually sleep was a really excellent life choice and I went back to bed. And in the morning I did feel better.

I had a disturbing dream in which I found myself ( dream violence and dysphoria )

Lunch involved the usual suspects shoving two little round tables together, since there were no available big tables. Conversation started somewhere around The 300 and wound up at the Winchester Mystery House, having detoured through war and armies, Nepal's relationships with India and China, Switzerland's military force and neutrality, what sort of weapons the Swiss army had, and whether the "oh, everyone has their gear at home" meant an airplane in someone's garage, whether or not Winchester made ammunition (yes) and were they still around (yes), and the nature of the Mystery House, and how it's better than the Mystery Spot, and a few other bits and bobs.

At work, I am somewhat waiting on an install of the new version of the database tool to get all up ins and yell about. My aspirational duties also involve a certain amount of Research Logistics Yelling, which is part of the Plan.

After my 1:1, I opened up my email to find that this guy will be in my building sometime in the near future. I will make a point of poking my face in with jellybeans during a coffee break or something!

Tomorrow is radius's 40th birthday. Since it was already tomorrow in Australia, we wound up at the cafe (the closer one) in search of ice cream. I looked tragically at the bins with their delicious delicious carbohydrates, and allowed myself a half-scoop. (Upon which Purple did the *facepalm* "Sorry I forgot!" thing. He is a good Purple.)

Mid-evening, I looked back at my personal email and discovered that I was in receipt of a 36-hour notice to enter (24 hours, but they'd been somewhat generous and sent at the end of the previous day rather than the beginning of the next day) because there are Investors, and they are Visiting, and They Will Be Poking Around. Upon which I decided that I was going home at a sensible hour and not attempting to wait up for Mr. Deadline, though I would wait for traffic to die down.

In riveting Helldesk Software news, the team that's to fix the fucker has had a strategic meeting (the recording was posted to not!Facebook) lasting about 2 hours. I pulled up the viewer, popped on my headphones, and started sorting through my mail backlog. The conclusions involve ripping off the terrible front end and just going with the base SaaS package, which is in fact configurable, and they have no fucking reason to be developing bells and whistles on top of it. It also sounds like there are a few departments which may be getting some percussive maintenance in order to conform to some standard of service.

On the one hand, there are departments that really need it. On the other hand, I hope it doesn't interfere with departments which are functioning well.

I wandered over to say goodnight to Purple, with a butterscotch candy and some Mountain Dew. I eyed his whiteboard. I understood the 'It'\''s' and the It's in contrast to it, but what in the name of all *fuckery* was the 'It'"'"'s' ?????????!?!?! He explained. (His whiteboard writing does not differentiate particularly between double and single quotes, so it looked like a line of single quotes.) I got a hug goodnight and headed out.

( bluetooth drama )

I picked up a $5 pack of hex keys (including the vital 1/4" one) at Home Depot, as it was cheaper than the manufacturer's $7 single 1/4" hex key, and grabbed dinner on my way home.

Presented with overriding force in the person of someone mechanically turning the wedged-in-place blades, the garbage disposal whirred into action, and the ambient scent in my apartment improved notably. I shall sleep in peace.

Tidying continues. It may not reach a point that I'm actually comfortable with by Thursday, but it's already improved over yesterday, and there have been incremental improvements over the last few weeks.

12:13 PM * Azz ambles in a Silly Valley-ward direction
12:25 PM <Purple> hope Azz isn't going to work


Azz was, in fact, going to work. Partly because a conference week is not the world's most bountiful paycheck week (and therefore a four-day week the next week isn't the best choice) and partly because work has air conditioning.

I proceeded to turn on my disco lights and blast* Abney Park while catching up on the paperwork that drives my normal uncanny ability to remember arbitrary weird things.

* for values of "blast" that became nearly inaudible once you reached the bathrooms.

radius was also at work enjoying the air conditioning, as I learned once I checked in on IRC. He'd gone down to Curmudgeon* City to hack on some fun stuff, since it was a weekend.

* They're not jerks per se, but their group's team chat has an honorable history of being displayed in the team area using Microsoft Comic Chat.

The security guy came through and poked at the door, which was unlocking itself, accompanied by irritated beeping when you tried to lock it, again. He was seen on the phone, with some gesticulation. He went away. He returned with a buddy. They both poked at the door, which was no longer doing the thing. They went away.

Eventually it became closer to evening. radius and I made plans for dinner. Sensibly, he proposed that I drive us both, rather than having him go separately on his bike, as bike and dinner dress codes often differ. I was agreeable, but added that I would have to unearth the front seat of the car.

"I can sit on it," he demurred, not having seen what was in the seat.

"No, you cannot," I said, and proceeded to shuffle an amazing number of things out of my front seat: one of those fabric boxes that goes in the big IKEA cube shelves (filled with all manner of road trip snacks and less edible items such as alcohol wipes), any number of soft drink cups, cans, and bottles, a few used napkins, the empty container of blueberries that figured so prominently in Sunday's digestive misadventures*, a box of tampons, several cherry pits, an expended alcohol wipe, a household size fire extinguisher, and about five blueberries that had fallen down behind the snack box. The fire extinguisher wasn't exactly a surprise, because I knew it was there, but I'd sort of glossed over it in my mental accounting, which was mostly "all god's soda cans". radius helped by relaying a few trips to the bins. Mostly the fire extinguisher is in the car because you don't want a car to do something terrible without you have a fire extinguisher; not that I'm expecting him to do something terrible, but it would be just like a car to go ahead and do something like that if you didn't have one handy. So.

* 2 pounds of blueberries eaten over the course of about 11 hours of Saturday without actual solid food? after 2pm-ish? Not my best life choice.

We then went for dinner and gossip. I introduced him to the Book of Wholesome Hobbies. It's starting to get unwieldy, and I may have to start categorizing. There are an awful lot of prohibitions based on fire.

Eventually we traipsed back to work. I spent some more time whacking chunks of text around. The door started doing the thing again, of course when the other security guard wasn't looking. The first guy seemed frustrated. After he left, I went and poked at it myself. I went outside and badged the door, but didn't open it. The unlock window timed out, and the master door locked itself. Somewhat hesitantly, the problem door followed suit. So I may have figured out how to make it stop doing the thing. Next I need to figure out how to make it do the thing on command.

My notes are in better shape. Hooray!

My plans for tomorrow are approximately:

* Make ice.
* Fetch strawberries.
* Wait for evening to set in.
* Take ice, strawberries, liquid, and a lawn chair down the waterfront and set up.
* Watch other people let off fireworks.
* Share strawberries as appropriate.

Did I mention I got more BPAL? I got more BPAL. I ordered myself some labels off Amazon, and two more little boxes.

Got in early. Was scared I'd calculated my calendar wrong, but actually hadn't. I arrived at a few minutes after 10, but the customer call wasn't until 11. The researchers did their thing, so I was off the hook as far as notes went.

Lunch was nice. There were only bell peppers in like two of the things, and those could be avoided. Thank fuck. I had a burrito.

I first got into a ticket war with, and then avoided, a helpdesk guy. (He closed it saying it was a dupe of another. I re-opened it because my symptoms were entirely the fuck different. He IMed me. I set myself to away after about 10 minutes.)

I mentioned to Purple a crush I may have started to develop, on an engineer with no known disqualifications. Purple teased me gently.

Helldesk apparently did not dump a load of ghost notifs on me today. I am sort of surprised.

I promised Carmageddon that I could come in for notes for the Thursday late-morning research. Yay.

I am so, so, so proud of fishie, who has been doing things that she might not have had the nerve to do even three months previous. Based on a little bit of experimentation with a lowball dose of her anxiolytic, she may have discovered a dose that is still effective, but she feels safe taking while in a public place.

Purple has now encountered the Men Explain Things To Me article, and IMed me with thoughts as he was reading through it. He identified the largest number of clue-averse, Pathologically 'Right' splainers in his life as 'Nutrition And Health Expert' women. We discussed Oblivious And Pathologically 'Right' Splaineyness as a cross-gender trait. Then I asked him whether he would consider me a misogynist. He wouldn't, but saw my point that hating women was not a man-only trait. Then I mentioned that despite not actually disliking other women, I had in fact discounted the technical expertise of other women, just because I am so steeped in a culture which undervalues and dismisses women's technical expertise. Hello unconscious bias! Then he hit the part where none of the men who had condescended their ignorant asses off to this woman had ever actually apologized. He was appalled, because saying sorry is his first step when he's wrong. Then he dug a bit into some of the body language based biases he has, and how that has the potential to go wrong based on other common things. I like this one and I should like to keep him around.

I told him about BJ vs. the Phone Cord. Fuckin' BJ.

Pi Day is approaching. I expressed my hope for pie. radius expressed his pie recipes. I tagged his wiki page helpfully.

Purple declared that he was thinking about escape around 7. Around 7:15, I pinged him to see where he was. He could finish that up at home, actually; he'd be right there!

Five minutes later, and no Purple. I puttered around putting little things to rights (hanging up a phone left on a conference line for two extra hours, re-doing my calendar, doing a checklist) and he eventually appeared.

I have learned that one of the inevitabilities of having a Purple in my life is that Purple has a lot of friends. Purple knows a lot of people. Despite his best intentions, he can have unexpected hallway conversations that last an hour. I am occasionally the beneficiary of these. I am lucky enough to be a person with whom he enjoys quasi-scheduled parking lot conversations. There's only so much time in his weeks. So how can I actually complain when someone else gets some time? This time it was only about 15-20. He was still sheepish.

One of my nails got a near-perfect coat of polish. Since it was some good polish, it dried before it could get scuffed, and the top coat dried before it could get scuffed either. Showing off nail polish in the low light of the parking lot is hard.

When I got home, I labeled BPAL and reviewed my step count. March 4th = bump-up. Whee!

Monday:
Weekends always fuck up my sleep schedule. I did get six hours, and four hours of bonus nap on Sunday afternoon, but that wasn't enough, even though I did have nice clean laundry. That left me in a cranky as hell mood.

Purple worked from home, which is certainly a reasonable life choice for him to make (I didn't inquire as to why, and he didn't volunteer any information). That does make work a bit quieter and generally with a lower chance of hugs.

I popped into the cafeteria hoping that, having last week nearly actually started crying when one of the cashiers said something friendly about hoping I'd found what I'd wanted (I had not wanted a sandwich, I'd wanted a burrito, but there had been too god damn many bell peppers), that the message would have been passed on.

The problem with bell peppers:
( Read more... )

The message had not been passed on. At the burrito station:

* Possibly-Spanish rice, garnished liberally with chopped bell peppers
* Light beans, garnished liberally with chopped bell peppers
* Dark beans, garnished liberally with chopped bell peppers
* Mixed grilled vegetables, with bell peppers as about 1/4 of the mix
* The meat I would have wanted, with bell peppers soaking in the juice
* The meat I would have settled for, if not for the bell peppers sprinkled over it
* The meat which probably would have had too much spice and/or tomato, but I might have tried, except that, too, had bell pepper all over it
* lettuce
* sour cream
* guacamole
* tomatoes, which I also need to be careful with ( Read more... )
* cheese
* various salsas, which, see the problem with tomatoes

At this point my blood sugar had started to do the thing. I popped over to the next line, which had chicken curry that I wasn't altogether certain about, but it was a short line and I was reasonably sure it wouldn't actually make me sick.

I stomped back to my desk and crankily picked at my curry. I knew that the bell peppers were not the thing actually giving me emotional flux, but they were certainly not making things any better. When I stomped off to the bathroom before declaring it time for a milkshake walk, I sobbed for about thirty seconds in the hopes that it would make me feel better. It didn't help much.

The helldesk thing is just complete escalating woe. At this point I've been getting like a few dozen ghost notifications a day, and the person who has been placed into a project management sort of role doesn't seem to understand why someone might want to be involved with someone else's facilities ticket.

Lunch being unsatisfying, I declared it time for a milkshake walk. radius stopped by my cube, and we went upstairs to retrieve Mr. Zune if he was about. He hadn't been about, but he was walking back toward his desk just as we approached. We waved him over, and he came with us.

There is still one peanut butter truffle taped to the local helpdesk door.

radius's weekend had included darning the little holes that a Macbook had chomped in his bright orange software-from-my-friend's-department t-shirt, and so he was wearing that. Mr. Zune and I admired the darning.

We greeted our faithful milkshake bunker commando, the one who knows me by name (but pronounces it subtly wrong in a way that no longer feels alien). I mentioned that I'd thought I'd seen him on Friday, but I wasn't quite sure. It had indeed been him -- there was a painful saga involving a malfunctioning trunk lift on a vehicle. There was bleeding.

I selected a cheese danish with a scoop of the chocolate-chocolate-chip ice cream, lactose be damned. (I believe I had in fact remembered to take my milk-pills this time.)

I related the saga of That Time I'd Not Recognized My Own Sister to Mr. Zune and radius. radius let me know that at some point in the future, "all of this" (his below-shoulder mane of mighty hair) was going away. He held up his badge for comparison/inspection. I studied it carefully.

Despite milkshake, I still had the headache.

I did hear back about the bell peppers. The cafe manager was apologetic and understanding. And then I told her about the various ways I had tried to give feedback. She became very apologetic, said she would get on the asses of those responsible, and could she comp my lunch the next day?

Purple's general understanding and patient qualities have been somewhat strained by the bell pepper saga. He is not actually sufficiently in the hospitality planning department of life to recognize that no, there is actually a problem when the same commonly averse/allergic ingredient is in all the dishes at one particular station. His position is that it's a common enough ingredient in the cuisine, it shouldn't be surprising that it's present. My position is: in EVERY GODDAMN DISH THO?!?!

There is research to be done, and believe me, I am still alive. I scheduled research participants. Yay.

At a reasonable hour, I decided it was time to pack up and go home, in part because I still had the headache. I said goodnight to Purple (who, happily for me, does show up on IM when he works from home) and went home.

Whatever I did to my hair, I regret it. I spent part of the evening brushing it out, with a spray bottle of oil to help the knots slide apart. I think part of the problem is that some of the ends have reached an awkward length.

Thursday:

I arrived at work to find unusually scant pickings in the way of parking spaces. I wound up wedging my car in next to a Jeep which was parked uncomfortably close to the line, who was in turn evading a shiny silver Lexus SUV (here I would say "of course", but my aunt drives a not-so-shiny silver one of those which is like at least 10 at this point) which was parked ... well, one of the tires was "on" the line, where by "on" I mean "also mostly over". So it certainly wasn't the Jeep's fault.

I hit lunch early because of the now-inevitable 1pm Thursday meeting. If it's not one part of the conference planning, it's another. On stepping outside, I heard a rushing noise, sort of like any one of the following:
* Niagara Falls at a distance of a quarter-mile or so
* A jet engine, slightly closer
* About a hundred distant and terrifyingly in-sync jackhammers
* A white noise generator, turned way up

It was a lovely day, though, so Purple's lunch table was out in the courtyard. It was such a nice day that Purple expressed the desire to sit on top of a mountain for a while. His not!boyfriend apparently gets tired of nature very quickly, and the concept "Is that all there is, just all these trees and this lake?" was floated, to much hilarity. So that was the main topic of conversation for a while.

Eventually someone mentioned the noise, and maybe walking down to see what was going on with it. Some people hadn't even noticed the noise (cue incredulity from the rest of the table).

The 1pm meeting was something to which I was able to contribute constructively. A note to all would-be presenters: I don't care if it's "just" five dozen pens, if you don't tell the logistics person about it, it's not going to happen. I am likewise vaguely unimpressed with the attempt to add a poster session without explicitly telling me what the plans are.

Following that was the team meeting, featuring some guy who canceled twice before being able to make it finally. The meeting was punctuated with 10 minutes of rapid-fire buzzing from my watch, in which the helldesk software dumped "an offensive load" of quadruplicate stale notifications into my inbox. I was Not Best Pleased.

I returned to find that radius had proposed a milkshake run. He and Purple converged on my cube, and we stomped up towards the milkshake dungeon.

Helldesk wasn't the only thing which was dumping: it turned out that the roaring sound was the local gas company venting some of their pipes, in either reaction to, or preparation for, something. We started out discussing that. And while I was a little caught up in my own bubble for it to register, Purple greeted someone he knew who passed us on the sidewalk.

One of the reasons I was caught up in my own bubble was that possibly while this was going on, I had caught sight of one of the security guards coming down the path that we were about to go up. Ordinarily this would be unexceptionable, except that this was the guy who I am actively avoiding. Since radius and Purple were already talking a mile a minute, and we'd scrunched ourselves into a somewhat more path-friendly configuration, they walked slightly ahead while I walked behind between them. I was aware that they were essentially in forward bodyguard position, and I looked Pointedly Elsewhere as the guy passed, although he was talking somewhat loudly on a headset.

This occasioned (also somewhat loud and probably audible to the guy as we passed) commentary from radius and Purple, about ( not super sensitive of mental health issues )

The sight of ravens on the upper cafeteria led radius to explain about the difference between North American crows and Australian crows: the Aussie crows are much, much ruder. That naturally led into a discussion of Craig Ferguson's flag-mouthed profanity replacement.

The guys aren't used to the vagaries of the elevator in this building. It's a double-sided elevator, with one door leading inside and one leading outside. We typically enter the elevator from the outside and exit from the inside door in the basement. In order that the rear door button works, however, requires a badge swipe. Generally I operate the thing, since I'm used to it, but Purple was closer this time.

We queued up to get our various ice creams. I'd neglected to take my lactose pills before stomping out the door, which situation I usually address by getting the lactose-free sorbets (lemon and strawberry are my favorites, though there are others I really enjoy too) but the chocolate and the vanilla looked very good. I comforted myself with the plan that I would eat them slowly and then take the pills when I got back to my desk.

Purple greeted someone. "So this is why you were in such a hurry!" he said, or words to that effect. Apparently there was some reason or other, but one of the things was that he was going in search of those little oatmeal cookies that are said to be in the break rooms, but in practice nearly never are (except in the Building of Conference Rooms) (except when they've been overrun with conferences). Stymied in his pursuit of cookies, he came for ice cream instead. Purple was amused.

We went outside to sit for a bit. There is asbestos in these here buildings. California law is at pains to let us know about it, and all of the main entrances have this very long URL on the windows, which presumably people are supposed to type in by hand. We comment on it basically every other time we see it. This time we got mired in server response codes. Then we walked back.

I popped in to see Madam Standards, and we wound up going over some of the party details together. She did a lot last year with the Commandant; this year she's heading up the party committee. She knows basically what she's doing, but appreciates cross-checking, especially when I tease out aspects of her ideas which she hadn't really considered. This one: a simple socializing hack using candy dishes.

Mr. Zune had shared the information about the llamas, and soon the dress also hit [off-topic].

My battle re: helldesk was interrupted by Researcher Carmageddon with actual research-related tasks for me. Hooray! So I did that, and then it was time to go home.

Purple walked me out as per usual. Since I've been a bit less steady on my feet these days than is quite normal for me (the extra steps may be getting to my knees) he has taken to walking with me to my car when I'm parked further out, just in case I need steadying (and because when we chat, that means I can lean on Vash). "Where are you?" he asked, when a quick peer around the parking lot did not yield the correct little white car. I was in the same column, just way down near the end, behind the van blocking our view. By this time, the Jeep was long gone, but the silver Lexus SUV was still there, still on over the line.

Purple was merrily talking smack about the parking job when the vehicle beeped. He peered around the thing to see someone approaching. "Oh hey," he said, to someone he obviously knew. Awkward! "He was the guy who passed us on the way up for milkshakes," he explained to me after the guy whizzed out of the parking lot. (It was the hour of departures, as a little white car across the way left within the same 30 seconds, and the van which had been blocking line of sight from Purple's car left within a few minutes also.) I shared my blueberries (I'd guessed wrong; I thought he didn't like blueberries, but it turns out it's pomegranates that he's not pleased with; generally he is in favor of fresh fruit) and we talked about surreal video game plots.

After not too long we headed off.

Still no update on the launderizer situation. I keep expecting to come home to find some sort of missive, but it has not transpired. On the up side, this is motivation to not let my housekeeping slip much during the week.

I was tired enough to go to bed without a formal writeup, though I had contemplated the idea of attempting to explain my day from my phone in bed. It turned out my tiredness had other ideas.

00:31 Sunday, 22 February, 2015
While Purple and I were hanging out in the parking lot the other night, we mentioned that we hadn't heard owls in a while. Immediately thereafter, there was a screech. Owls.

00:10 Tuesday, 24 February, 2015
Heard back from the place where I applied. I don't know if there are any other blockers, but I would need the raise before they could accept me. Agh. (My 1:1 for tomorrow is canceled on account of the flu, on the part of my manager.)

This morning was canceled for me, on account of allergies. I woke up before my alarm in an amazing state of allergy snot. I took a claritin and washed out my nose, but it took a while to actually be able to sleep. When I did wake up, it was afternoon.

I grabbed some lunch and came in, and headed up for milkshake at the appointed time (as soon as I looked at Purple's IM status to ask him if he was heading soon, and saw that he'd been idle for five) and it was good. I wound up walking up with my administrative friend, There was shirt color silliness, as everyone when I arrived was not matching. Purple was maroon, lb was purple, I was (per usual) black. When Mr. Zune arrived, he was green. "So what color shirt is radius wearing today?" we greeted him.

This was an unusual enough greeting to make him threaten to leave us, but after we "explained" (that we were being nonsensical), he guessed black. lb guessed orange (as he is vaguely aware that radius owns an orange shirt). When radius arrived, I said, "You're right!" to Mr. Zune. The shirt was in fact darkish grey. "Light black?" someone said. It was a bit of a running joke that afternoon.

Australia is, in fact, trying to kill everyone. phone's train was canceled on account of it was hit by lightning. We made radius attempt to explain these things to us.

Later, there was a different, and sadder, kind of train problem closer to home. When Caltrain meets a vehicle on the tracks, nobody wins, but physics favors Caltrain. Twitter tells me that two people died, one in the first collision and another in a subsequent one.

Conference planning continues.
Research planning continues.
Evaluation of the potential new tool continues.
The people responsible for the helldesk tool will get back to me about two questions I have had.
Closing a window did not fix the weird howling fan problem audible from radius's office.
The mood lighting in radius and Purple's building's bathroom has been fixed.

Five years -- nearly six, now -- is a long time. Fishie doesn't fully remember those early days anymore, so it's part of my duty as a fishmum to point out some of the changes I've noticed between then and now, and what I think of them. I am so, so proud of her.

Purple had some last-minute stuff for an internal papers thing, and I was on the point of grabbing one of his favorite candies and heading over to his building to say goodnight and I was going the hell home, when he finished up, and we wound up in the chilly parking lot.

I saw a meteor, but by the time he turned around, it had gone from a green-white streak into a collection of orange sparks and vanished.

We laughed about cats and hens and dogs and terrible/hilarious tv shows, then headed off for dinner and home.

Apartment remains cluttered but Less Dire. Attempted to get up at a vaguely diurnal time. It didn't happen. Went to work. Noticed that my friend the Singing Project Manager had dropped off one of her spare ice packs with me. (She'd advertised on [off-topic], because she gets one of those recipe subscription things, and they come with hella ice packs.)

Purple had the thing he was doing with new hires, so I dragged lunch back to my desk. I poked at conference stuff. My manager had questions about some equipment ordering, and dispatched me to go talk to our desktop support guys and ask how exactly the best (for them, since they get the brunt) way is to order a hella number of equipment. I detoured by the desk of the Singing PM and gave her some chocolate. She said if [off-topic] hadn't claimed the rest of the ice packs by the end of the day, she'd leave them with me. Local helpdesk was not in. I dropped some diplomacy off with Mr. Zune, and agreed on a time for milkshake.

I came back to #cupcake to see:
(14:31) radius: [local cafeteria] milkshakescapade at 2:40-ish?
(14:36) radius: Maybe that was not sufficient advance notice... 3:00ish instead?
(14:37) zune: 3ish sounds good to me
(14:37) ajl: 3ish was the time I proposed to zune, so sounds good to me also

radius joined us, and we soaked up a bit of sun, then went to see whether the new couch in the quiet room had been cleaned. However, there was someone being quiet in there (on something with a bright screen) so we detoured to the pinball room instead. Mr. Zune played a round of pinball, and radius and I demonstrated our mutual incompetence at foosball. We didn't keep score. The game was eventually called on account of me collapsing against the wall in giggles.

( Couch. )

The quiet room was empty, so we poked our heads in. The stain is still visible, but less visible. radius tested whether it was him-sized (he is hella tall). It was! Instead of napping, though, he let me in on the method of getting up to the mail room ceilings (counter-scrambling at dawn).

#cupcake:
(15:09) pkeeper: heee
(16:19) ***ajl eyes pkeeper
(16:19) ***ajl proposed milkshake, not propositioned marriage :-P
(16:21) pkeeper: well, unless his GF is REALLY open minded, I kinda
figured out what you meant
(16:23) ***ajl isn't looking for that level of committment at the moment
(16:29) pkeeper: that said I don't want to venture what a milkshake proposal might be a euphemism for...
(16:29) ***ajl whacks in pkeeper's general direction with a pool noodles
(16:29) zune: oh my...
(16:30) ***radius waves a crayfish.

Conference stuff is poised on the edge of the call-for-papers, and the flurry associated therewith. I tripped over a bit of Slack UI weirdness and dutifully reported it to their people. Since "their people" and the set of people allowed to read my locked stuff has a slight intersection, while the account is in my workname, I signed it, "Love, Azure Jane L." in the hopes that if the intersection did hit, it would be a friendly little cupcake moment. I also sent a somewhat more exasperated request-for-improvement to not!Facebook, because I'd just run into a thing which didn't work on mobile. Pro tip: when your fucking dialog overflows the goddamn edge of the motherfucking screen, it helps absolute none when you can neither scroll nor fucking resize. I figured I'd just rotate the screen. It was still too goddamn wide. Snotfuckers. I ran into that bit while eating ice cream in the courtyard, and my sudden explosion of profanity clued Mr. Zune and radius into the likelihood that either there was an email from somewhere in the depths of the helldesk, or I'd run into another fine little bug.

Earlier in the day, Researcher Sweatervest had sent out a New Year's email announcing that he'd left honey dates on the collaboration table, with many pictures of ... rams? goats? sheep? and general celebratory sentiments. The actual leaving of dates was somewhat more afternoon-ish. One of the designers had been sad about missing the dates when she hadn't seen any earlier, so I brought one for her. She traded me for huckleberry saltwater taffy. I saved one for Purple.

Outlook Web Access and Firefox are not getting along. Specifically, when you put deliberate whitespace in an email, OWA + Firefox don't let you, instead of going along with the whole non-breaking-space idea or whatever. The fix is some back-end thing that has to be applied to the server. Earlier this week, I came back and found that the mofo had been closed. I re-opened it and requested that we be given insight to whatever it is that they're using to track the issue. Yesterday I called and asked for an update and to be added as a watcher. This morning, I found they'd closed the mofo again. radius said this afternoon that it was open. I looked and it was still closed. Turns out, the parent ticket was closed while the second child incident was open. I called the helpdesk to find out what the ever-loving *fuck*. I was not especially convinced that the helpdesk guy's claims that the closure of the containing unit would leave the internal items in a state to be acted on, as it had the distinct sound of this-fact-i-just-made-up. But it was re-opened, so that was good.

You can add custom emoji to your Slack instance. One of the guys has already added Kool-Aid Man. I was looking for pictures relevant to pool noodles when I ran into something that I couldn't emojify, but that did make me laugh for longer than 15 seconds, and made me feel all warm inside. I'm part of a community. Then I had to explain "LART" to Purple.

The Singing PM came by with the unclaimed ice packs. Unfortunately, one of them was sliced. I'd just cleaned up the leaking gel from a hole poked into the first one (and patched it with packing tape). The new one got a glorious mess of gel all over, and after disposing of it, we repaired to the bathroom to get it off us, our clothes, and her scissors. I reported back to IRC that ice packs were the new couchbuttering.

Someone has driven some sort of power lift inside the building. Apparently there's about 2-3" of clearance for it to get through the double doors, and you have to tear down a cube or two to get it inside. It was a topic of discussion on [off-topic], so Lennon Glasses Guy and I went to see it. Later, I came back to take pictures for posterity. It's not every day, etc. etc.

( Lift. )

It felt like a Thursday, even though it was the Wednesday of a week shortened on the front end. Purple walked me out as per usual. He walked me all the way to my car, as my knees and ankle were all feeling somewhat poorly. There was silliness, including South Park on plastic surgery, some inadvisable forms of counterweight bra, and some relatively serious breast reduction chatter.

I was short on laundry, so I put it in despite wanting to make a relatively early night of it. Then I vacuumed and tidied a little bit more, both while the laundry was going and after. Soon, it will be time for showering and snoozing, and then see what time I can get up in the morning.