Masks and Warcraft

Wordle 468 4/6

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Yesterday was typical, except for the evening. Biked the kid to school. I have a weekly meeting on Thursday mornings and it went fine. I had a couple tasks at work and I finished them at the absolute last minute. T. went to get the kid without me so that I could have dinner ready as soon as they got back, because there were two school-related meetings and we each planned to attend one of them. T. was leading a meeting for the governance committee of the PTA and I was spectating at a school board meeting. I like to think I was prepared to take notes, but someone else on the PTA did a much better job than I would have, so I can't complain about that!

Masks

I think I've reached the point where mask use, or at least mask use the way we do it, is silly. I know the pandemic is still going around, and on the other hand I know the cryptofascists were calling it silly back in 2020, but if I think about how I've been using them, it's pointless. Wearing them in the grocery store is essentially a coin flip, or a matter of whether the first person I see has one or not. Tuesday, going to the concert, we wore masks in the cab to and from the concert, but not in the actual concert hall. It would have been pointless considering that we ate and had drinks, and few other people were doing it, but still, if you compare the relative risk, that's pointless too. 

I'm not going vaccine truther or anything, the kid still has to wear them at school and I don't want to make that any harder for anyone, I'm going to get my second booster soon, and I may always carry a mask around with me just in case. All that being said, my several-times-a-week use, basically any time I was indoors outside the home, is probably going to go down to less-than-monthly use. 

Warcraft

Yesterday they announced the date for the next expansion and basically all details we're going to get for the end of the current one. Am I ready? I'll say yes even though I'm not done with stuff and may not finish before the deadline. Either I've become more compulsive about the game in the last year or two, or I put things off more than usual in this season, or the developers have leaned a lot more on time-limited, fear-of-missing-out tactics. (All three are very plausible.) I don't want to lock myself in too much when I still don't know a lot about what's coming, or worry too much about what is in the end just a solo personal hobby for me, but I want my approach to the game to be different soon.

Goodbyes and first meetings

Wordle 467 3/6

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Yesterday on the way home from biking the kid to school, I did a little shopping, mainly sandwiches (more on this later). Other than that it was a typical Wednesday until the end of the workday, in that I had the house to myself. I worked out on the exercise bike without worrying about T.'s schedule, was more leisurely about getting dressed than usual, and worked and played with headphones off. 

A little after 3 I left to go to a happy hour, a going-away party for a soon-to-be-former coworker. I've known him since 2016, long before the contract transition. I've contacted him for work roughly weekly this whole time, and I might have seen him in person at this gathering, I'm not sure, but if not, then yesterday was the first time I've seen him since the Before Time. Wow. It was also the first time I met one of my two actual teammates. That was nice. No real revelations about her personally but it was nice to put a face to the name. Also at least two more subject matter experts I've worked with here and there and I got to chat with some people I had met but didn't know at all.

The location was in Rosslyn. It seems like a good setting for Fight Club: little retail or residential neighborhoods, just soulless office buildings and bars that cater to the people who work there. Somehow it's accessible to both metro and thoroughfares. The bar this was set at looked like it hadn't redecorated since the 80s, with a glittery formica curved bar. I don't mean to complain, though. It was a good setting for this and this setting is fine to visit every few months, I'd just find it nightmarish to work there. I had three beers over roughly two hours, but also plenty of food and water and the beers weren't that strong.

Then, after that, I met T. and the kid at a movie night at a park. Several friends/neighbors were there. The movie was Night at the Museum, but the kid couldn't care less about that while her friends and a jungle gym were nearby. However, her friends left around 8:15, and we took that as a cue to do the same. (So of course, now she found the movie fascinating.) In the end we got her to bed about half an hour late.

What was I thinking?

Wordle 466 5/6

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Biked the kid to school today yesterday. It was fine. Didn't exercise except for the physical therapy. I'll soon have to be more organized about that, doing it at specific times and stuff, but anyway. 

The usual weekly team meeting at work. It was easy enough. No direct follow-ups, but it reminded me of some stuff to get to. 

I had a little time to myself after that. T. had a dentist's appointment. By pure coincidence I had one in the afternoon as well, with a new dentist, but less than two hours before the appointment, they let me know that it would be over $300. That's after the co-pay. Apparently I got confused about whether they were covered by my insurance or not. Whoops. So I cancelled that - if they have a cancellation fee of around $50 or something, no hard feelings, and they didn't mention it anyway - and I'm now looking for another dentist. (This is the same reason I left my previous dentist. American healthcare, everyone.)

When we went to the car to get our kid, we noticed that three of our hubcaps have been stolen. I thought they looked a little funny the day before! T. had thought maybe they were just dirty, but today I looked at the car from the other side and saw that one of them was present, and that made the missing ones more obvious. So that's something else for our to-do list...

In the afternoon, while getting the kid, there was a parent group meeting at the school, the first in-person one for a wide audience in two years. (It was outdoors.) (I'm going to start calling this a PTA, even though it's not technically accurate, because using the group's actual name would de-anonymize me and describing the group every time gets cumbersome.) They served pizza, so that was our main dinner. T. is the head of a committee and it seems like some people were interested in joining, which is great, and I discussed a task I had worked on a few months ago with the secretary. Good for me. 

After that, home briefly to get the kid cleaned up and change into warm clothes. Then the nanny/babysitter came over to play with the kid for a few minutes and put her to bed, while we went to see Death Cab for Cutie. I had a chicken wrap there and T. had a burger. (I don't normally track food, but this morning I had a bigger breakfast than usual, and the pizza was a bit inadequate because we wanted to make sure there was enough for everyone, but we probably didn't need a whole second dinner... I'll try to work out today.) It was a good concert, but the title of the post is in reference to the fact that it was standing-room only. My feet still hurt. Not in a "the fasciitis was getting better and is now getting worse" way, but just sore feet in addition to fasciitis is bad enough.

Good day, bad night

Wordle 465 4/6

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Biked the kid to school yesterday and did a little shopping on the way home. 

Work was fine. I had four meetings at work, which is a lot for me, but they weren't hard. One team check-in for a team we're tangentially involved with (no action expected of us, just trying to keep an eye out for things). Two All Hands for various overlapping big organizations. One weekly check-in for a team we're very involved with (but it's almost more of a social call than a serious exchange of information). I sent out the first of what's going to be a monthly report to my boss with no problems, and also sent out a reminder about reviewing a SOP to an approver who's new to me and was rewarded with approval of the document, so that was nice.

Getting the kid was routine. She wanted to play with her friends longer. She never wants to be the last one, of course, but she'd rather play with her friends than sit in the car with us, so it's a delicate balance...

Dinner was tortellini and broccoli. It was hard to plan dinner out for the coming week because we're so busy, but that will partly mean just eating out more than usual, so that's not really hard. 

Last night, though... the kid came into our bed around 2 in the morning due to a nightmare and that threw everything off. T. and I were tossing and turning for the rest of the night after that. Made a bigger pot of coffee than usual this morning.

Fall is here

Wordle 464 5/6

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Today's word fits the weather, at least by DC standards. Fall is here, at least by DC standards. One day highs were in the 90s; the next, the 70s. Long pants have come out and windows are getting shut.

Yesterday I made omelettes to use up a few things instead of scrambled eggs for breakfast, so it was a little more complicated than usual, and home fries. Then we went to Eastern Market for a playdate. That started out at a playground, but the friends we were meeting have a pool on the roof of their building, so the kid got to go swimming a bit. 

By the time we got them out of there and got them to eat lunch, it was time for her guitar lesson. It's normally on Wednesday but we rescheduled. 

After that, home. The kid got to play with a friend. T. took a nap; apparently neither of us has been sleeping well. But I was motivated (or feeling guilty or whatever), so I got through a stack of postcards for this get-out-the-vote effort T. signed us up for. The kids did a very good job of playing quietly for a while. Fortunately I finished the cards before their patience for quiet wore out. When it did, T. was still asleep, so I took them to the park for a few minutes. While they played on the jungle gym, I tried to do some of my foot exercises. They called it creepy.

Dinner was a pork roast straight out of the package and string beans.

A very social day

Wordle 463 2/6

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Pancakes and bacon for breakfast yesterday, as usual. After that T. took the kid to the nearby park while I walked to the farmer's market. I relaxed at home for a few more minutes but eventually joined them. 

After that, laundry. Then we drove to the suburbs in Virginia to see some friends of ours. In addition to general socializing, they're training pets (one dog, about 2 months, of their own; two cats, about four months, being fostered temporarily, if I remember correctly) and are trying to expose them to new/challenging situations, like a 7-year-old. 

After that, Arlington, for dinner with another friend. I was surprised she offered to cook but didn't complain. It was "chicken caprese pasta". Nice.

I was tired all day, more due to the foot pain than true fatigue. I overdid it the two days before.

Long day

Wordle 462 4/6

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Biked the kid to school yesterday. It was uneventful except for people parked illegally in the bike lane. I should have called the police. At 11, the architect came over to take some measurements of the house. Making progress...

Work was uneventful. I didn't get much done, but on a Friday that's an off-week for the report, that doesn't matter much. I finished that training, so that was nice.

My doctor's appointment was at 3. Apparently the foot pain is plantar fasciitis. She gave me a handout with some exercises and offered to refer me to a physical therapist if necessary, but I'll try doing the exercises myself first. After that I did a little grocery shopping. I got home from that around 5. We picked the kid up late. (Maybe I shouldn't have done this on foot, especially given my foot pain, or skipped the shopping entirely. Then again, I had to wait about 20 minutes just to see the doctor; I would have been fine if not for that.)

We weren't late in terms of the end of after-school care, but we were late for getting her to gymnastics class on time. Fortunately, we pulled in right behind her friend, so she was in good company. 

Dinner was burritos across the street. Easy. I was tired. It was a long day.

Mental indeed

Wordle 461 5/6

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I feel like I should have got it in three, my 3rd and 4th guesses were weird, but I just couldn't think of the fairly common word. Oh well.

Biked the kid to school as usual. I had a morning meeting right after that to take notes at. I finished the minutes of that earlier than usual.

T. was in and out of phone calls, unpredictably as for specific times but definitely a lot of the day, and I didn't want to work out in the house and bother her, so I went jogging. I kind of regret it. It was the first time I've been jogging since the 7th. My foot still hurts, and that made it a tiny bit worse. Well, I have a doctor's appointment today, so my concern will be fresh...

Getting the kid was uneventful. After we got home a friend of hers came over to play. Dinner was pork chops and corn.

Anniversary

Wordle 460 4/6

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Biked the kid to school yesterday. 

At work I intended to get a training done, which required my corporate computer. The deadline on this training is 2 weeks away, but it's unpleasant, so I procrastinated. To do so, I worked out on the "exercise bike", dealt with issues with that biweekly report, tried to prepare for an upcoming presentation even though the person I needed to talk to was out, and thoroughly troubleshot problems I've had with the corporate computer. (And that's just the work-related "structured procrastination", not the time I spent on the "exercise bike" or fun stuff!) But eventually I stopped putting it off, opened the training page, and did a training. A training, as it turned out, but not the one that's due in two weeks. Ugh. So that's still hanging over my head. Oh well, the troubleshooting was relevant to the training..

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. One of those errands the day before was getting a card. After school was a back-to-school parent-teacher-conference event, but we arranged a quick meeting before it because the main event would conflict with our anniversary plans: dinner at the Kennedy Center and Hamilton. We meant to go straight from the school meeting to the Kennedy Center, but we forgot the kid's dress - it's a formal occasion! - so we had to go home. We were 20 minutes late for our dinner reservation but could still get it. 

The show was good. I'm not sure how much the kid got out of it. She's still young enough that a duel in a musical is pretty intense for her, and then there's the marital infidelity... Content aside, she was definitely crashing by the end. We got home after 11 PM.

Extra exercise

Wordle 459 4/6

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I made a mistake there, I didn't use a letter from the second guess in the third, but still, can't complain about getting it in four.

Yesterday I biked the kid to school. I took a slightly different route home, partly due to construction and partly to overlap with T.'s route to her office, because she was going there today and it would have been nice to see her on the way. But as it turned out, I got home before she left, so that was nice.

Work was fine. One meeting in the morning, productive. It had three follow-ups. One, I got to yesterday; one, I got to just now; and I think I can do the third before 10 this morning. Good enough. I worked out on the "exercise bike" after that.

In the afternoon I got through some collectible stuff in WoW. There's always something else to do, but I'm in a good place for this weird season.

Around 3:30 I biked to get my haircut. (Biked without a helmet. Reckless, I very rarely do it, but I didn't want to drive because parking would be bad, I didn't want to take the bus because it would take too long, and I didn't want to bike with a helmet because I wanted to minimize sweat before a haircut.) After that, some quick shopping, and then out again to pick up the kid and T.

Dinner was chicken in the air fryer and sauteed squash. T. and I liked it. The kid tolerated it.

It was my turn to put the kid to bed. It was rough. I finished reading to her around 8:30, but had to sit with her until around 9:20 until she went to sleep. My patience for this is going from bad to worse. I think a few years ago we should have put our foot down about bedtime and made her cry herself to sleep a few times. Unfortunately it's harder at this age. (For the record, I've been willing to, but T. breaks down, and that doesn't solve anything.) 

Last night/this morning I think I had a bit of a hangover. Maybe I need to cut back on my drinking. Last night I had a martini-like cocktail, strong, and an IPA, around 8 percent. That wouldn't be a lot for a night out but is for a Tuesday night. Although for whatever it's worth I only decided to have the beer after putting the kid to bed...

A good Monday

Wordle 458 3/6

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Woo hoo.

Yesterday I biked the kid to school and did a little shopping on the way home. Work was pretty good, except for a late meeting. I had a meeting in the morning to listen in on, but no action required. After that I worked out on the squatting machine. (I think I'm going to call it an exercise bike just because "squatting machine" sounds so silly.) I followed up on a couple tasks and managed to get them closed; it was just a matter of reminding people, but better that answer than none at all.

The cat had a vet appointment at 3. He's healthy, and he charmed the vet. 

That late meeting started at 4:30. If it had ended early, I might have gone to get the kid with T. like usual, but it didn't, so she went alone. 

I got started on dinner while they were gone. It was hamburgers and sweet potato fries. Easy, except for the effort of grilling, and they came out unusually well.

Kids are a pain

Wordle 457 3/6

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Yesterday we had the usual Sunday brunch, eggs and home fries. I thought they came out great.

At 11 we biked to a park for a playdate for the kid and a bike event. We were fortunate enough to run into another friend of the kid, who was there for a sibling's friend's birthday party. (It wasn't the only birthday party in that park at the time. The park was busy.) The people we were actually there to meet were late, but made it eventually. I mostly just read and played games on my phone and occasionally contributed to the mothers' conversation. My parenting was limited to someone else's kid. Some teen or near-teen was jumping around on the canopy over the benches and the jungle gym like it was a trampoline. He could have broken the canopy, or his own neck. Getting in a battle of wills with a kid like that seemed like arguing with a pig, but at least he didn't go up there after the first time I talked to him, at least not before I left, so I'd say I won...

After that, a tiny bit of quick shopping on the way home. Then leftovers for lunch. I had a bit of a headache and took an advil and lay down for a bit. i got up when another friend of the kid came over. They played for almost 3 hours. It got pretty nerve-wracking by the end, with all the noise and almost-but-not-quite-dangerous roughhousing. 

Dinner was spaghetti - I'm liking cherry tomatoes or similar, warmed up in a pan but not really mushy, more than sauce these days - and a new roasted green beans recipe.

H Street Festival

Wordle 456 3/6

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Yesterday the girls got up before me. At first they were just watching cartoons, which is typical enough. But I started making breakfast (pancakes and bacon) and soon after that they started playing with walkie-talkies and running around, so T. had a rude awakening.

After breakfast, we went to the farmer's market. We met the kid's friend's mother there and the kid hung out with her at their house for an hour. Then we all met at the H Street Festival. We walked around there for several hours, just seeing the sights and eating junk food. The kids liked the bouncy houses, plural, and the foam cannon. I unexpectedly ran into a co-worker who apparently has a side job/small business/whatever selling cool t-shirts. 

We took a break around 4 and went home. We did some laundry and played games on our did some laundry. That might have been it. There was more to see and do at the festival, but the kid only wanted to go back if her friend could. But that wasn't it, because her friend did go back. T. stayed home and relaxed, she was even more tired than me, and I took the kid straight to the bouncy house. On the way we tried to find another friend of hers but failed. The girls had fun in the bouncy house for a bit, but eventually got banged up by bigger kids. (I didn't see any bruises, but I can imagine it would have been scary.) So the kid wanted to go home. "I hate bouncy houses!", she said. Surprising words.

Dinner was sausages and a salad. Very, very easy.

Sharing interests with a kid is complicated

Wordle 455 3/6

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And then there's puzzles like this.

Yesterday I biked the kid to school. No exercise other than that, though. We had a cleaner come, so there was someone else around the house all day.

Work was busy too. The biweekly report was rough. Several individual team's reports were late, and for no good reason. If someone is in the ER or is dealing with a big, unpredictable crisis for their main job, I have sympathy. (Predictable crises, though, some people should manage their time better...) But if two people on a team each thought the other was doing it, or they did it but forgot to let us know, I have less sympathy. We're supposed to have all the reports by close of business Thursday. Realistically, we never do, but as long as we have them all by 9 AM Friday there isn't really a problem. Most days we're still looking for one or two by 11 AM. Yesterday we were still looking for three by noon. I exchanged emails with my manager and team about how, if at all, we could improve this mess.

So work was messy, but for me at least the hard part was done by 2. We could relax a bit in the afternoon. We picked the kid up at the last minute to get her to gymnastics class. While she was in there, we thought about returning a Tintin book to the library unread but ultimately didn't, and went to the bookstore and made a couple impulse buys. 

Dinner was at the neighborhood Indian place, where we met the kid's friend who is moving and her mother. The kid's friend came home with us for a sleepover. (The first time we've hosted one. The kid slept over at a friend's house when she was 4 right before everything shut down, and at an adult friend's house at least once since then but that's different.) The sleepover part last night was uneventful; I just read them a story and they went to sleep in separate beds.

The title of the post is in reference to Tintin. When I was a kid in the 90s or maybe even 80s, I read all the books but the first two and thought nothing of problematic parts of them. Then I went to France and read the first two, one of them being Tintin in the Congo, and holy shit, that was obviously racist even to an 18-year-old before the word "woke" had its current connotations, and in hindsight some parts of the books I had liked before were suspect. T. was concerned about letting the kid read my old Tintin books. I assured her it was fine and I didn't have the really bad ones. I remember some positive lessons in Tintin, where he and a Tibetan friend complain about racist stereotypes! 

But I soon learned it was more complicated than that. OK, it's not outright racist propaganda like Birth of a Nation, but it doesn't have to be that to be bad. Gone with the Wind is also very problematic. In and after France I realized that Tintin had some Portuguese stereotypes in it; I didn't even realize those were a thing growing up in Vermont. Even the "good" Tintin books have a lot of white savior stuff. Noble savages are still savages. 

I'm not saying the kid can't read them - for one thing, it's too late - but I wish I had thought a bit harder first.

Good for us

Wordle 454 X/6

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Ugh. One of those words. Thus endeth a good streak.

Yesterday I biked the kid to school. Good trip. I had a meeting scheduled in the mid-morning, but it was cancelled, so instead I worked out on the squatting machine. 

At 11, an architect came by, to discuss some work we hope to do on the house. Big project. We need more living space; this house has been good for two adults and an up-to-seven-year-old, but it won't be big enough for two adults and a teenager. So we have 5 years to either move or add a third story, and we like the neighborhood, so we're planning on the second thing.

Work was fine otherwise. Minor questions to answer. A little work on that presentation. 

Dinner was barbecued ribs - they came out better than expected; I haven't done that often, and I panicked when the first two or three recipes I looked up said they take 2 hours, but I found something faster that still came out edible - and a salad.

In downtime this afternoon and evening, in addition to WoW and watching TV, I worked my way through some get-out-the-vote postcards to voters in Georgia. T. agreed to send out 200 and I'm helping a bit with the stack. If I do half as many as she does, I'll be proud, and at this point it's actually much closer than that.

People should listen to me more

Wordle 453 4/6

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The day before yesterday I put long pants on while grilling just to keep the bugs off me. Yesterday I did something I haven't done since around April and wore long pants. Not that it was so cold that I had to, but it was no longer so hot that I couldn't. 

That was after biking the kid to school, and working out on the squatting machine. And I didn't go straight from one to the other, so it might even have been after noon. But hey, technically fall is coming.

Work was fine. One meeting in the morning, productive. Not too much going on and that's OK. (I have one task to get started on soon, and troubleshooting the problems with my corporate computer, and I guess I should have worked on those, but the deadlines aren't imminent.)

Work was a bit shorter yesterday than usual. Over a week ago the kid got a cold - headache, runny nose, cough, etc. Tested negative for covid and most of the symptoms went away on their own in a few days, but not the headache. That's still around now and then, so yesterday afternoon we took her to the doctor's. She ruled out everything concerning and just had general advice about drinking water, getting a lot of sleep, etc.

After that we went to the store. We got cream cheese, giving up on finding our preferred kind; snacks for the kid, since she had missed her afternoon snack at school; and ice cream, over my objections. (This will be important later.)

We had a little downtime, so I took the kid to the park, where she played on the jungle gym. A friend was able to join her for just a few minutes, fortunately. Then it was time for her music lesson. It went fine.

Dinner was spaghetti and broccoli. Easy enough. There was a PTA meeting at the same time we had both forgotten about, so T. was multitasking while I cooked and while we ate. When we thought about dessert, I went looking for the ice cream in the freezer and didn't find it. We had forgotten to bring it in. Whoops!

Right before bedtime, the kid was climbing on me (over my objections! It was time for her to settle down and she's getting big to climb on me!) and fell. I wish I had caught her but I swear I did nothing to cause her to fall.

Low executive functioning day

Wordle 452 5/6

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Yesterday I biked the kid to school, as usual. It's a routine I like, at least until it gets colder. Then I had the house to myself; T. picked yesterday as her day to go to the office this week.

Yesterday I just had no executive functioning ability, if I can borrow and probably misuse a medical term. It was so hard to focus on anything, particularly anything boring. I managed - at work, I got a sort-of-urgent item out as scheduled; personally, I went to the grocery store for groceries and the pharmacy to get something for T., cleaned the kitchen, and followed up on the doctor's request to reschedule - but it was just really stressful doing that much. A few possible reasons come to mind.

• The weather was beautiful. High of around 79 and low humidity. Fall in DC is great when it's not raining. I was tempted to jog despite my concerns about a possible injury, but prudence won out. Instead I did the shopping by bike and called that my exercise.
• T. being absent on Tuesday means more temptation to play WoW, because that's the weekly reset.

Just to make things a bit worse, at the end of the day I tried to log in to my corporate computer and had a lot of problems. I called tech support and I still don't think they're all resolved. I need to either do it often enough that it stays fresh in my memory or write down the procedure.

Getting the kid was uneventful. T. met me there. Yesterday we were earlier than the day before but the kid wanted to stay until later to play with friends. Can't win.

Dinner was steak and asparagus, grilled. I haven't used that much over the summer but it's nice now.

Busier than expected

Wordle 451 4/6

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Yesterday, as usual, I biked the kid to school. Later in the morning I worked out on the squat machine.

I came back to the computer after that to find the subject matter expert on a kind-of-slow-moving SOP asking me for a meeting. I didn't think it was needed, all my questions could have been addressed in the document itself, but OK, why not. In turned out that, in addition to him not seeing my comments in the document (I shouldn't overestimate familiarity with Word's comment system), he didn't understand why I was working on this. He had been in touch with someone else about this for weeks, but they hadn't bothered to tell him that they didn't actually work on this sort of thing. He had also been in touch with the client about this, so in the meantime it had become urgent. 

So work was a bit busier than usual, but not horrible. The meeting was productive in addition to informing him about the process, I got the information I needed to finish the document, it's just that actually doing so was more urgent than usual. I emailed it to the client for approval before logging off yesterday. Victory.

In the middle of the afternoon, T. asked me if I had paid for the kid's after-school care like I said I would a few days ago. I hadn't. Whoops. That reminded me to also pay for her school lunches, and schedule a doctor's appointment, which I'm slightly overdue for, and a dentist's appointment, which is more than slightly overdue. So it shouldn't have taken the reminders, but I'm on top of them for now...

We got the kid near the last minute. I kind of assumed she preferred that, so that she could play with her friends longer, but today she made it clear that she was the last to be picked up and was bored/lonely. Whoops. Earlier tomorrow, I guess.

Dinner was tortellini and peas. Healthy and vegetarian. Woo hoo.

A mostly rainy day

Wordle 450 6/6

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That was a tough one. No mistakes, unless repeating one letter in the fifth guess counts, it just took a long time to figure out a word with a repeated letter and two rare consonants.

Yesterday breakfast was the usual eggs and home fries. We had planned to meet a friend of the kid at a playground, but it was raining, so we rescheduled. Instead we got some errands done and went to the movies. 

A Costco run was uneventful but stressful anyway, just trying to keep the kid from making trouble and T. from making too many impulse buys. We got nothing perishable because we had other stops planned before going home, not that we needed much that was perishable anyway. After that we drove down to Arlington. T. had some shoes to return to Nordstrom. Parking was nerve-wracking; the usual parking garage was closed. I finally dropped her off on the corner roughly around the store and found a different parking lot. I then went to Walgreen's to get mothballs; I've seen moths in a closet. We reunited and left the area more easily than T. expected. We got on each others' nerves a bit. 

At 2 we went to the movies, to kill a little more time on a gray day. (It was no longer raining, but still threatening to.) The only kids' movie we could find was DC League of Super-Pets. It was fun for us too, but getting snacks was also stressful. I got popcorn while the girls were in the bathroom, but made the mistake of getting Old Bay on it, and didn't get any drinks. What can I say, it was crowded and loud and I panicked. 

Afterwards we got ice cream across the street. The kid ate more than I expected. She's going through a growth spurt. At this point it was sunny so we walked to a nearby playground, expecting to kill just a few more minutes, but the kid ran into a friend she hadn't seen in a couple months, so they hung out much longer than that.

Dinner was pork chops and several leftovers.

The kid is busy

Wordle 449 6/6

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Not my finest work. A mistake in the fourth guess, and the fifth guess was basically wasted too. Oh well, didn't fail...

Yesterday was the usual weekend brunch, followed by walking to the farmer's market. (We were running around a lot this past summer, but I like to make a habit of this when we can.) We are definitely well stocked for groceries. 

The kid was able to invite her friend who's moving soon over to play for a couple hours, so that mostly got them out of our hair, but sometimes their idea of "fun" is ringing the doorbell and pretending to be begging... 

Shortly after that, a late lunch, followed by another playdate for the kid, meeting some friends at a playground around 3:30. They are on a soccer team. She isn't interested in joining but was happy to play with them after the game. The playground nearby is apparently owned by a private school and is the biggest, fanciest one I've ever seen. 

We hung out there for a while, but eventually headed home. Dinner was spaghetti and a cucumber salad. Easy enough.

A specific foot hurts

Wordle 448 5/6

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Biked the kid to school as usual yesterday. She got stubborn at the last minute about wearing her school uniform, but we put our foot down. We also talked through the issue on the bike and I think or at least hope we might have found ways to make the uniform more palatable. A compromise, maybe. Who knows. On the way home I did some grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, but they were out of or never carried at all a surprising number of things I wanted. (Out of pastrami and the particular kind of cream cheese we like and never carried dried parsley. So, three, which isn't a lot but was still annoying.)

I worked out on the squatting machine again. I was still a little sore from the last time, but not in a bad way, just in a "muscles I haven't used in a while" way.

Work was OK. It was an off-week for the report, so that was nice. I got out some ad hoc reports we had been assigned a few weeks ago. It took me a while, but they never got around to telling me a deadline, so I got it in before that! 

After school, the kid had gymnastics class. We did a little more shopping and errands. Dinner was burritos at District Taco.

My right foot still hurts. Not a lot, although it added up with general fatigue by the end of the day, but any amount is a bit worrying considering all the low-impact exercise or no exercise at all. I need to make a doctor's appointment on general principles and it might be worth discussing that.

Tiring but not physically

Wordle 447 4/6

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I'm surprised it accepted my third guess. I was essentially filling in letters at random because I couldn't think of the actual word, which in hindsight was very common. Oh well, still got it in 4.

Yesterday I biked the kid to school. Traffic was as bad as ever. Someone tried to use the bike lane as a turn lane and I told them off (self-righteously and kind of recklessly, but I just couldn't believe it!). 

In the mid-morning, I dithered and waffled about how to get some exercise, and ultimately decided on nothing. (The squat machine seems good but I was still sore from the day before, and for that matter still am. My foot still hurts a tiny bit from jogging several days before. Biking might have been good but I couldn't convince myself to go far enough to actually get a workout or that certain errands were urgent enough.) While dithering on that, I wrote some personal emails I had been putting off, so good for me for using structured procrastination. I also did some dinner prep, although not before giving up on exercise.

T.'s trial ended this afternoon, and so did my having the house to myself. Not that it actually matters, it just meant I had to use headphones for my computer noises... 

We got the kid around 5:35. Not sure if she likes us getting her at the last minute or not. She likes playing with her friends, but if they're gone before her, it's not fun.

Dinner was a steak (it was big, but split three ways it wasn't fancy, I wish I had done that differently), a beet salad, and quinoa. It was my turn to put the kid to bed. It went OK.

Around 3:30 in the morning I was waked up by leg cramps so bad I had to walk them off, and was on the verge of taking an aspirin. Yet another reaction to my exercise attempts, or random fuckery?

Around the house

Wordle 446 5/6

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It had rained the day before yesterday and was cloudy in the morning, but wasn't actually raining, so I biked the kid to school. T. got herself to jury duty today.

Work was, once again, fine. The meeting originally scheduled for the day before yesterday was moved to yesterday. Productive but not difficult. I got a document approved and in the library and completed, which is always nice. 

In my ongoing quest to find a non-painful style of exercise, I got out a sort of rowing machine (squatting machine? It was a Christmas present from me to T., but she doesn't use it much lately) and used it while watching an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Good workout (and good show). I'm sore but only the kind of sore from working out, not from injuries. The only problems is I'd be worried about using it when other people in the house could be bothered. Maybe I can use that thing on workdays at a convenient time for T., and go jogging on weekend mornings before others are awake?

The kid had her guitar lesson this afternoon. I got her to it and read The Kaiju Preservation Society during her lesson. (Impulse buy last month but I've read several other books by the author.)

Dinner was a caprese salad and chicken with a vermouth/caper sauce. Haven't done that in a while.

During and after the kid's bedtime, there was a PTA-type meeting. I'm not sure how productive it was, but it was just an intro for this committee anyway.

Exercise is mental

Wordle 445 3/6

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Damn I'm good.

Yesterday T. planned to take the bus or metro to jury duty, basically equidistant from the school and our house, and I planned to bike the kid to school, but it was raining. So we left a little early and I drove them to both destinations. The round trip only took like 10 minutes longer than usual. The worst traffic in the city is between our house and the school.

Work was fine. I had a meeting scheduled at 10 AM, but someone else had to cancel, so that was just put off until tomorrow. Two other meetings, but neither required much (or any) input or activity from me. I finished the draft of a document I had working on and sent it out for hopefully final approval.

The rain had cleared up by noon, so I went jogging. "Exercise is 90 percent mental", they say, so in that sense I guess my attitude doesn't help, but sometimes it seems "mental" in the sense of "crazy". This is a lot of exertion with immediate pains and ephemeral benefits. And it's just plain weird. I might expect knee pain, but why does the sole of my foot hurt? Maybe I need to look harder again for another mode of exercise...

As for World of Warcraft, I got Keystone Master yesterday, my last seasonal goal. Good for me. There's still lots to do in the game - seasonal stuff that has been a lower priority until now, evergreen goals I haven't got around to yet, and of course simply playing for fun, it's just a game - but the "pressure" is off.

In addition, I also did the laundry. I feel like I was a little more productive today than on most days I have the house to myself.

I drove to pick up the kid and we went straight from there to a Scout meeting. I was just a deputy/assistant pack leader, but I was still responsible for helping maintain order in general, and for getting half the kids (14 total) through some brief games as both a team-building activity and a distraction while their parents were briefed on adult stuff, and it was nerve-wracking. I don't know how the actual leaders or teachers do it, wrangling over a dozen hyperactive seven-year-olds. 

Dinner was pizza. Bedtime for the kid wasn't as easy as two nights ago, I guess that was just a fluke, but I'd say it was still minor progress towards independent bedtimes, I guess...

A winery day trip

Wordle 444 4/6

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Yesterday I went grocery shopping before breakfast, to get it out of the way early. I walked to the store in lieu of jogging or other exercise. It's 1.8 miles, which is a poor substitute for jogging 3 miles, but I thought our plans for the day might include some walking so I wanted to save my energy. 

Around then I also got the seventh Mage Tower challenge and therefore the mount, a crazy magical flying book. I didn't manage it on my demon hunter, nor on the second class I put serious effort into, a hunter, but on my warrior, which was a bit disappointing because either of those classes would have unlocked a new armor set, but at this point, fuck it, who cares. I also made progress on some endgame stuff. I'm getting closer to my goals and there's still several months left in the season. I mostly feel positive about that, but I kind of wonder if I shouldn't have resubscribed for six months last time...

Breakfast was donuts and muffins fresh from the store. The morning was fairly leisurely. Then, around 10:30, we got in the car and drove to a winery near Shenandoah Valley. I had planned this outing, instead of T. We're lucky it worked out as well as it did; "planned" in this case meant just Googling wineries... At the first winery, we had lunch, had a flight of five wines, and bought three bottles. We might have gone for a nature walk there, there were trails, but it was drizzling. After that we went to another winery, had a flight of three, and bought two. While we drank, the kid read Calvin & Hobbes. Then T. suggested ice cream at a nearby town, so that was a nice snack/early dessert.

We got home around 5:30. No one really said they were hungry so we just had leftovers for dinner.

Treading water is exercise

Wordle 443 4/6

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Damn, I'm good...

Yesterday morning was leisurely. Scrambled eggs and home fries for breakfast; it's been a while. 

Around 11:30 we went to a pool to meet some friends of the kid. The pool we normally go to was closed for the season, but another one wasn't. This other one was awesome. Could have been bigger and had a diving board, I guess, but lots of stuff going on for kids and generally nice facilities. (The main draw of the first one is that it's within walking distance for some of our friends.) While the kid was in the water, I tried to tread water rather than sit, stand, or cling to the side, just to get a little exercise in. In addition to just swimming and climbing on/wrestling with me in the water, she also wound up giving impromptu diving lessons to some friends of hers. 

We spent about 3 hours there. After getting home and getting dressed, T. took a nap; all the chlorine or something had hurt her eyes. I got some laundry done but otherwise relaxed a bit. The kid watched TV, played games on her iPad, video-chatted with her grandmother, and read. 

The kid had guitar practice while I was making dinner. She didn't like that. Dinner was pork chops and green beans. She threw a tantrum when we were trying to find something we'd all like to watch and we very nearly said no TV at all for the rest of the night, but we compromised - TV, but not staying up later than usual like we had contemplated.

After reading to her, I casually left her room and sat on the stairs right outside, and she eventually fell asleep like that, although she called to make sure I was there every few minutes. It was the first time she fell asleep without us in the room and without a struggle in a long time. She didn't actually go down any earlier than usual, so I'm not sure how much of a victory it was, but I'll call it a victory.

In the evening, I (fiiiinally) finished The Lightning Rod. Good for me for trying something new but I don't feel the need to finish the series or hunt down the author's other work.

My feet hurt

Wordle 442 4/6

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Yesterday I went jogging in the morning. Pancakes and bacon for breakfast. For one reason or another it was the first time in quite a while. After that we went to the farmer's market for some groceries. 

 While there we met the friend of the kid who is moving, and her mother. They're busy packing, of course, so we got the kid out of the house for a while and took her to the national book festival. That was fun but it was a lot of walking. To and from the bus stop. Around the convention center. To stations for each state collecting stamps on a map, free books at a few, and many trinket souvenirs at most of them. To an arts and crafts table; the kids kept busy there a lot longer than we expected, making paper dolls. And around the shopping area. Some "cosmic putty" stuff was much more interesting to them than books. I saw a book I liked the look of, called "Sleepless", but was too busy wrangling the kids at first, and when I went back for it, I guess it had sold out. Ugh. 

After that, the girls played at our house a bit. They had perfect timing to make a mess (sitting on some slime) just 5 minutes before the friend's mother came to get her. I was too tired to cook, so we ordered dinner from Cava. There was a problem with the delivery so I had to leave the house to get it.

A long day for the kid

Wordle 441 4/6

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Yesterday I biked the kid to school, taking the bike through the house due to the wasps. Ugh. 

Work was OK. It was the day for that biweekly report. It went... average. Once again, three reports came in late. But unlike some weeks there were some signs of life from the offending teams early, and everything else about the process is smooth enough that I didn't mind too much. We even made it a bit smoother by consolidating the process a bit more. And once it was done for the day, I could relax.

Normally we drive together to get the kid after school. We don't like to drive alone because parking is bad in the best of times, so one of us can park illegally and wait in the car while the other actually goes to get her. But today, traffic would be much worse than usual around the school, due to a "safe streets" event right there; there had been some notable murders in the neighborhood. And T. couldn't come with me because she had got an exterminator to come. So I took the bus. After I got her, the kid got to play a little with a friend from school at the event. 

We had to go home before too long because we had plans with a different friend of the kids. That fell through because her mother had transportation problems, but there was only a little downtime before meeting a friend of ours for dinner. We went to a place near Union Market, I forget the name, Mexican-style fancy place that begins with D.

After that, a movie! But it was just Enchanted, on streaming, with that friend at home. Had to be something family-friendly because the kid was around, of course.

A grouchy day

Wordle 440 4/6

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Yesterday I biked the kid to school. The wasps seemed gone, so we used the back gate. Because of construction on the way, I took a slight detour on the way home and it turned into a bigger detour due to construction on a different block I had forgotten about. Just can't get around at all...

When I got back, I found more wasps. Ugh. We might have to call an exterminator.

Work was fine. I had a meeting at 9. (It's a regular thing but I keep on forgetting about it until the calendar reminder. One of these days I might go jogging at the wrong time and miss it entirely. I have actual responsibilities in it, so that would be bad.) There was one other scheduled but it was cancelled because the main people there weren't ready, so that's annoying for them but doesn't really affect me too much.

I went jogging a little after that morning meeting, around 11 or so. It was already uncomfortably hot, and I was grouchy anyway due to lack of sleep and the night before, but still, good for me. I felt dutiful.

Dinner was spaghetti, with a sort of improvised homemade tomato sauce, and a green salad. Healthy, easy, and vegetarian. Despite the simplicity of it, it was later than usual because T. had a meeting with the school parent's group.

A good day until the end

Wordle 439 4/6

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Yesterday I biked the kid to school, on time this time. 

Work was fine. I went jogging around 10:30. 

After school, the kid restarted guitar lessons. They're now at 5:45, a little later than before. Due to the late hour, I did a little prep work for dinner before we left. Good for me.

After we got back, I measured out some quinoa as a third side dish, and putting it back in the pantry, I spilled it. Probably almost half the remaining bag was lost, and a lot of the spill wound up under the washing machine and fridge, so it was a bitch to clean up. Motherfucker! I don't care about the quinoa so much, as a food it has turned out well but it's easy to replace, but we have a vermin problem I don't want to make worse! Also, dinner was late because of this.

Didn't sleep well last night. There was snoring but that might not have been the only problem. The previous few nights weren't great either.