The birthday

Wordle 619 5/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨🟨
🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

T. took the day off work yesterday. I drove the kid to school (back to normal, woo hoo!) while she slept in. When she finally came down, she appreciated the card and flowers I had got her.

Work was fine. (I almost titled this something like "weekdays are more relaxing than weekends" but the birthday seemed more important.) Three meetings, but I only had something to say in one of them and it was fairly simple. I could have got more done, there's one document I'm overdue to start on and a bunch of reminder emails I need to send out, but I wasn't completely useless. I got an upcoming presentation ready in advance, so at least I or my substitute would be just in case something like this happened again. 

I had the house to myself most of the day. T. got a facial and massage (one was a present from me for her birthday last year) and generally spent the day around town. Around 2:30 in the afternoon I went to the post office to mail a package of hers. I had forgotten about this office's weird lunch schedule, so I went to the nearby grocery store and got 3 things we could use that were light and easy to carry since I hadn't really planned on this.

After that, I installed a windshield wiper we had bought months ago on the car and walked to the parts store on the corner hoping to find replacements for the other two. Unfortunately they only had one, and it was a different brand from the previous one, so they'll be mismatched. I would have walked to another store for the third one but T. was back by now and we had to go get the kid soon.

We got the kid, came home, and went right back out again to dinner. It was at Le Clou, a new, fancyish French-ish place near us. We would have walked if the weather was nice, but it wasn't, so we drove. The restaurant was OK. Fancy, pricey (but if T. had a good birthday, that's what counts, and she says she did), modern, kind of sterile, but the food was good.

Not a big deal, but it feels like it should be: just now I noticed the old work-from-home reminder on my calendar. Before covid I worked from home on Tuesdays, and had a calendar reminder so that anyone looking for me or trying to schedule something could hopefully see it. I hadn't noticed it until now because it doesn't show up as "busy" and it applies to the whole day, so it's easy to miss. But it's clearly irrelevant, so I deleted it. I'm probably not going back to the office regularly at all, and I'm definitely, definitely not going back four days a week.

Another day "off"

Wordle 618 5/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟨⬜🟨🟨🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday after writing that I cleaned the kitchen and made breakfast and made no efforts to be quiet about it, but even so the kids slept until we deliberately woke them up. Breakfast was complicated - eggs and home fries for T. and I, and a toaster waffle for the kids after some drama because there was only one pancake and they both wanted it so in the end neither one had it, plus a fried egg for each kid and cereal for one after some deliberation - but quick, because the guest's parents came soon.

We expected the architect soon for some planning and measurements, but they cancelled without notice until I reached out to them. Ugh. So we had some free time in the morning. We watched TV and played our respective games. 

A little after noon, a quick lunch, then the kid and I went to a Cub Scout event: a hike. It was all on pavement (we're in a city, but still, maybe not the most nature-oriented event we've had), but it was near a park, and there was a talk about the buddy system and principles for being in the wilderness responsibly. Enrichment value aside, it was tiring for the kid, she started complaining about her feet hurting around the halfway mark, and for my bad foot as well. I'm a little confused, according to the map it's shorter than the walk I do once or twice a week, but something or other set my foot off. 

While we were doing that, T. coordinated with some Girl Scout moms and asked me to pick up some cookies from them and drop the kid off on a playdate. Unbeknownst to her, I also had plans to get a surprise for her birthday with the kid's help. She helped me pick out flowers and a cake. Then the kid got a playdate, I got the cookies, and I went home and got that stuff inside sneakily. (That is, walked in the front door, but verified that T. was absorbed in her game first.) In addition to planning all this out, T. had been busy with laundry and organizing tax stuff. We watched one episode of Pokerface and then I headed out again to get the kid.

Dinner was beef tips and roasted cauliflower. I did my physical therapy while cooking. I put the kid to bed about an hour earlier than usual. Dessert was T.'s favorite, tiramisu.

Stress

Another reason I've been stressed lately is T.'s birthday. I'm not great about picking or getting presents for her, or anyone. The bike mount I've been trying to sell was a present. Last year I got her a gift certificate to a spa and she's just using it today. By this point I've got her a card, flowers, cake, and we're going out to dinner tonight, and I got dinner a few times we ate out recently as well, that might be it but I'll keep my eyes open for anything worth buying/ordering today. Is that enough? It's certainly spending enough, but is it thoughtful enough, a "real" gift? 

If she just got me a card I'd be happy and wouldn't worry about getting her anything else, but she doesn't.

Around the house but busy

Wordle 617 5/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨

🟩🟨⬜🟩⬜

🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩

🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday brunch was a little late because we had company. I made the usual pancakes and bacon, she brought quiche, a good time was had by all. 

After 11 I drove her home because it was a longish walk and it was snowing (! Don't worry though, it never stuck on the ground), and I shipped my off my old work computer too. T. had asked me to go shopping and get dessert on the way home. I protested, but I had to admit we needed several other things, so I got them and grudgingly one dessert as well. I dithered about getting flowers as well, since T.'s birthday is coming up, but I think there will be a better time today.

We tried to fill the afternoon more or less productively. I did my full set of physical therapy around 2 or so. T. started the laundry while I was out. The kid managed to get a little more screen time after the usual morning, but we also got out a recent science kit present and made glow-in-the-dark worms, and I gave her a brief art lesson on perspective, and I took her to the park and we threw a Frisbee around. (Not productive, but physical activity and not screen time).

Around 5:30 a friend of the kid came over for what would be a sleepover. Dinner was pasta, glazed carrots, and asparagus. I might have skipped the asparagus but it was both small and had to be used up.

They mostly played by doing artistic stuff together, and watched one episode of the Who Was show, which they both like.

Bedtime was around 9, late for our kid. Around 1 AM I found them awake and told them to hush. Like usual I got up around 7 this morning and found them on the couch- not watching TV, but asleep. Heh. So I'm writing this on my phone in the kid's bedroom.

Musing

I decided that getting mad at T. about the dessert thing (or the impromptu party the night before, or generally how busy we've been) is pointless. Instead I should take more responsibility for my own actions or lack thereof. This may have helped with the productivity and active parenting today. This may also just take the form of being passive-aggressive but it's too early to say. 

Not relaxing enough

Wordle 616 X/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩

Oh well. At least I set a new streak.

Yesterday morning was typical for this week. Maybe the kid slept in until 7:15 or even 7:30 for once? I drove the kid to camp alone because T. had a meeting.

Work was fine. Not too busy. My teammate J. is being unusually taciturn, but he's still being professional so if he doesn't want to share, I'm going to try not to read too much into it. One meeting in the morning, my annual performance review. Good overall. 

I went for a walk for mild exercise in the mid-afternoon. 

The plan was to pick the kid up from camp at 5, but another parent was happy to do so and take her and some friends to their house so they could play a bit longer. Sure, why not. The plan then was to pick her up around 5:15 and go to gymnastics class, but when we got there they were having so much fun, and also had pizza to share, so they T. suggested we skip gymnastics and stay. I was opposed. In addition to the hassle of rescheduling the gymnastics, we have several things planned for this weekend. "When do we get to relax?" I asked T. But I bowed to puppy dog eyes and agreed to stay. We hung out almost 2 hours. Dinner was pizza and finger food. T. had a lot of fun chatting with the other parents, some of whom we're getting to know well by now. The kid of course had a lot of fun until she got frustrated by being "it" too often in games of tag, i.e. tired, and bruised from falls. I tolerated it all. I think I performed OK for socializability but there would definitely be room for improvement... if I cared. It had been a bad week or even two weeks. 

When we got home, I got the kid in the shower and then went to the bodega for bacon, juice, and eggs. Then I cleaned the kitchen, did my physical therapy, and went to bed by 9:30. T. stayed up a little later than me but not much. For once I got a good night's sleep.

Things that suck: aging and exercise, just for starters

Wordle 615 5/6

🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday the kid got up early again. She's enjoying a surplus of morning TV. T. took the kid to camp without me because I had that usual Thursday meeting right at 9, the dropoff time. On her way back she got donuts because she hadn't had any actual breakfast, including some for me. 

The meeting went fine. Other than that work was fairly typical. Dealt with an ongoing policy/organizational issue, where another team wants to use our tools in a way that's inconvenient for us (to put it generously to them, honestly), and a few ad hoc tasks. 

T. had a crisis in the early afternoon when she needed some ID documents for a job issue, including her birth certificate, and couldn't find it. After checking the safe, where she thought it would be, we checked about six other places around the house where it might be. Why so many? Partly because we've saved things we don't need, but partly because the house is too small to have one big centralized place to put paperwork, so instead it goes in half a dozen nooks and crannies. Clutter again! I should start a tag for this. Her birth certificate ultimately turned out to be with her parents in California, so there's no crisis.

Late in the afternoon I biked to the pharmacy to get a prescription for T., and then to Target for an Ethernet cable, and while there I got a few minor groceries. I forgot to use the fitness app but Google Maps says the straightforward route was 3.4 miles. Not bad. Then home for a little more work. 

I got the kid solo because T had a meeting. Timing was awkward for the evening and she was too hot for more playing outside so we wound up going to the library for almost half an hour. The kid browsed and experimented with searching the computer system for books and ultimately picked out two to check out. I got a graphic novel for myself and looked for a book about exercise but didn't see anything suitable.

The guitar lesson went well, I gather, although it wasn't the usual teacher. T. had mostly made dinner by the time we got home: grilled cheese and tomato soup. Easy and fast. 

I did my physical therapy at the very last minute before bed, but I did every bit of it.

I've had minor sleep problems for the past several days. Last night I put my earplugs in when going to bed, but woke up on my own between 5 and 6 anyway. Ugh. I have no idea why.

Musing or I might as well call it whining

The title is in reference to my general fitness issues. A minor annoyance over junk food almost became a big one yesterday when I ate some of the donuts T. bought, but not all of them because I wanted to save room for the cookie I got yesterday, but she didn't want the rest herself either. I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill but there are many moles.

While writing that voluminous post yesterday, I went back to posts from July 2022. In recent discussions in/about physical therapists I've guessed that the problem began in August, after our trip to Spain, when we spent huge amounts of time walking around touristy sites without thinking too much about footwear. The doctors' appointment where I got the diagnosis was indeed in September, and I got through some notable exercise in Vermont without problems, but apparently the problem started way back on July 13! See also posts on the 20th and 21st. What's going on? Was this just totally spontaneous?

Jogging is unsafe at least until plantar fasciitis is resolved. Biking and walking on errands isn't adequate, not when some days they're up to 3.4 miles and most days there are none at all. 3 years ago I might have expected the kid to go straight from a passenger on our bikes to biking herself around but there have been months in between and realistically it might be years.

What a fucking day

Wordle 614 3/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟨🟩🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday was crazy from the minute I got up, when I couldn't log in at work. The card gave me error messages that made me think it wasn't firmly in the socket, no matter how many times I took it out of the reader and put it in again, took the reader out of the USB port and put it in again, or restarted the computer. Around the time I was hitting a wall on that, the kid woke up, about half an hour early. She was fairly well-behaved: did the usual getting-ready-for-the-morning routine, negotiated one episode of TV, and then entertained herself quietly for the rest of the morning. 

Meanwhile I troubleshot. After hitting a wall with my personal computer, I wondered about my new work computer. It has been sitting around waiting for me to get the chance to set it up and this seemed like a good time. I followed the directions, and wound up calling tech support, and they told me I'd need a Ethernet cable, and it didn't come with one, and I couldn't find one. I probably had very intelligently thrown one out while attempting to declutter. Meanwhile I still have hundreds of comic books. After years of living fully in the house and complaining about clutter, I should be serious about it, and smart. 

Anyways, I also tried the old corporate laptop and got it working, but I couldn't get the card to work or otherwise get to the government network there either. By this point it was time to take the kid to camp. T. helped get her ready but I had to drive her myself since T. had a meeting. I considered buying an Ethernet cable and new card reader just in case but Radio Shack had closed and other places would be further out of the way. After I got back, I finished the previous journal entry, did a few other minor things, and went to the office, hoping that the problem wouldn't be a problem there or at least would be easier to fix.

At the office I first went to the basement. The room I worked in last time, and regularly before covid, was unusable because it had been taken over for storage of some kind of heavy machinery. Two others nearby had no actual computers at the workstations - desks and monitors and keyboards but no computers. Two others were occupied and at this point I was feeling silly but I didn't want to intrude or get caught setting up where I shouldn't. So I bit the bullet and went up to the third floor. 

Once I found a desk I had no problems. It was 10:35 or so and a meeting I was supposed to run had started at 10:30. Fortunately I had been texting and emailing coworkers during all of the above and my teammate S. had taken over running the meeting. It went well. 

While I was on my way, my teammates had been emailing each other and our manager about my computer problems (and my work account, so it didn't help me until I got in some other way) and said they had had problems with drivers on their cards recently, so I could hope that would be an easy fix.

Being in the office again was just weird. Even now, even on the better-used third floor, there are artifacts of March 2020 lying around, like a whiteboard with a very outdated schedule on it. The sign-in sheet at the welcome desk had only one name I recognized, a manager so high-level I've never spoken in his presence. 

The office setup was palatial compared to the dining room table. The computer seems lightning-fast compared to getting into email and shared drives through the virtual network. Forget about a dual monitor setup; for some reason the computer I was working at had three monitors. But the one in the most comfortable position had weird blurring, jagged bars in the text. It was like Chinese water torture, but unlike torture I could leave any time. There were plenty of other desks to choose from and I could work from home if not for technical difficulties, so why didn't I? The simple answer is, because I was there unexpectedly. If I went more regularly, presumably I'd look harder for a better workstation.

I got a lunch a little after 1. (An Italian sub from the cafe around the corner. Normally I had pizza for there but that looked likely for dinner instead. After the day I've had, I didn't think twice about indulging on the calorie count of one of their giant cookies. I did think twice at the expense, this meal came out to $16 when I remember $12 used to feel like a lot. Inflation.) I had thought I had physical therapy at 3:40, which is near the kid's camp, so the original plan was to pick her up just before or just after the therapy. But on double-checking things the appointment was at 1:40. So I called to cancel it and apologize. I also texted and emailed with T. to coordinate with her. In addition to her own fairly busy workday and a doctor's appointment (mammogram, unrelated to her recent back pain which is still coming and going), we were also expecting a delivery from a wine club, which we'd have to reschedule since we were both out of the house. It's a crazy day for her too, not just me.

In the early/mid-afternoon I sent a few emails and generally worked on minor or ongoing stuff. The only problem was unrelated to my account or physical location, just a familiar annoyance within my team about the minutiae of how to track tasks. My teammate J. has very definite opinions on it.

I logged off a little before 2:30, walked to the metro, and got the kid right at 3, the end of the usual day at camp. She cried when she saw me because she wanted to play with friends longer. Yes, this is exactly the opposite of what happened the day before! I called T. to vent for a bit about this (meanwhile, she was across town for a doctor's appointment), spoke to the camp manager, and left the kid there for another hour with no problem for/with the camp. Then I went to the nearby grocery store for a few essentials, and then, to a nearby brewery we liked and hadn't been to in a while. Yes, I treated myself to a beer after all that. 

I got the kid at 4. We took the bus home. We stopped at the library very briefly on the way. Then, home, and she read while T. and I worked. I managed to get in with the troubleshooting steps from my teammates, and finish one document. Yay.

My parents arrived less than 10 minutes after I logged off. This was their stop on their way from New Mexico to Vermont. They brought dinner, pizza from Costco, so that was nice and easy. We vented and unwound. The kid serenaded us with her guitar practice. 

I had to get the trash in after they left. Normally that would be Tuesday night but it was yesterday due to the holiday. Normally this takes 2 minutes, just unlocking the two gates, walking the bins in, and locking up behind me, but today the gate between the alley and the street was jammed. I spent 20 minutes with a screwdriver and flashlight to unjam it. Just a perfect cap for the day.

T. put the kid to bed and as usual we watched TV and didn't stay up late - no surprise. I did maybe as much as half of my physical therapy while getting ready for bed. However, my phone app says I hit my recommended step count and then some just by walking around town and stuff. That reinforces the value of my old commute, but then, yesterday I spent more time running around in circles than on a normal day in the before time.

Good thing the kid behaved

Wordle 613 3/6

⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

This week is the kid's winter break. We have her in an ice-skating day camp. Dropoff for that is at 9, later than at school, so she had more downtime in the morning. She filled it with TV, of course. 

Work was moderately busy. 3 meetings, but I only had any actual role in one of them. Can't complain. They all filled time, though. And when I wasn't working, T. was. We did one load of laundry early (because there was an emergency, because the kid couldn't find clean underwear!), but cleaning the kitchen and washing and putting away the rest of the laundry didn't happen until later. I'd normally feel bad about this, but T. specifically doesn't want kitchen noise in meetings and I don't exactly blame her. Late in the day, discussing problems with a meeting, I suggested the possibility of going to the office in person but dismissed it for preferred alternatives. Too inconvenient.

Got the kid around 4:45. She was hungry and annoyed I wasn't there earlier. Considered going straight from skating to swim but stopped at home briefly. While she was swimming, I went to a store for more snacks - she had complained I didn't have enough, and I wish she had eaten more of the lunch we packed her in the morning, but I have to admit blaming her being hungry on what she did hours ago wouldn't be constructive.

Dinner was fried rice from the freezer for just her and me. T. was at a concert with a friend. The kid was surprisingly well-behaved, which is good considering the mood I was in by the late afternoon.

I went to bed around 10:30, she got home around midnight.

The end of the trip

Wordle 612 4/6

⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Hotel breakfast again yesterday. Afterwards, T. took the kid to the pool while I packed as much as I could. We left fairly uneventfully just before 11.

Then to the outlet mall. I needed socks. T. still wanted to shop for new office-appropriate attire for the upcoming job and she got several things. The kid played hide and seek with me in the store. When her behavior got problematic (hitting me because I found her?) I took her to a near toy store to placate her (maybe rewarding bad behavior, maybe it would have been fine if we had negotiated something for the stuffed animal in advance, maybe totally neutral and with no meaning at all). 

T. was still shopping, so the kid and I went back to the car. She said she was thirsty and had a headache and wanted something cool, so I got her a lemonade from Chipotle. In the car she watched cartoons on her iPad, I tried to sleep. Still mysteriously tired. T. joined us around 1 or so and then we went to actual lunch, at a brewery we had driven by the day before. I had a bowl of chili, the kid had a hot dog, apple slices, and macaroni and cheese, and T. had a fried chicken sandwich. The brewery had a playground, so while T. finished her beers I took the kid there.

Then we drove home. It was my turn, so I did, even though I was tired. We stopped at a Target about an hour from home and did a little grocery shopping, including coffees in the Starbucks. The trip was uneventful otherwise. 

Dinner was pork chops and a salad. It was meant to be cauliflower, that's what I thought I got at Target, but it turns out I bought a head of iceberg lettuce. Whoops. Also, one head of iceberg lettuce results in a huge salad. Ugh.

I did my physical therapy right before putting the kid to bed. The day felt inactive, but between walking around the hotel, walking around the playground, and shopping, I hit the steps goal set by my app. Good for me, but I feel like it just shows how low the bar is set by the app.

Eating and Exercise

I have a lot to say about the calorie-burning part of fitness but the calorie-consuming part can be a problem too. Going from hotel breakfasts to light walks or playing in pools to eating out for lunch and dinner turns out to be a lot of food. I wound up on the verge of a food coma most of this past weekend even though I was trying to eat right. 

The kid ordered from the kids' menus but didn't finish her meals anyway, so I'd try to prevent leftovers or even if that's not possible just nibble on something in front of me, long after I needed to. We wound up with leftovers from dinner Friday and Saturday as well. The day before yesterday I had a crepe Florentine for lunch, and it felt like it would be healthier than a burger or similar fare, but in hindsight there's no reason it couldn't be big. It was. And, of course, all the alcohol. 

This sucks. A low-energy lifestyle is a vicious cycle, even though that sounds high-energy.

Well, if I take physical therapy seriously, hopefully I'll be able to resume jogging. When I do, I'll try to be even more serious and regular about it than I was before. Maybe even something beyond jogging? Who knows. Baby steps.

A nature walk

Wordle 611 3/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜

🟩🟨🟨⬜🟨

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Hotel breakfast yesterday, of course.

The big event of the day was exploring Cape Henlopen State Park. They had a small aquarium, but with a petting tank the kid found interesting. We went for a walk on a path to the beach and back, and that was a lot longer than planned because we encountered another family there, and the kids helped each other find interesting shells and stuff. Meanwhile T. and I were filling a bag with litter. In addition to empty shells and dead crabs, we also found two living horseshoe crabs. Or at least, they were twitching when I picked them up, so I put them in the water, but they didn't move much under their own power after that.

After that, a late lunch at a café. Then I took the kid to the hotel pool again. We had the place to ourselves at first, but eventually more people came, including a family with two girls around Lexie's own age. She can make friends anywhere. This is a mixed blessing. We were in the pool for almost an hour and a half.

After getting showered, dried off, and dressed, the kid insisted on visiting her new friends in their room. We didn't stay long because I didn't want to impose, but they live in DC, so we exchanged numbers. 

Dinner was at The Salt Life. Nice place.

There was no physical therapy yesterday, but between the hike and the swimming, it was one of my more active days in a while.

At Rehoboth Beach

Wordle 610 5/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜

⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜

⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday we had the usual weekend morning, but I started cooking before T. got up because we had plans. Pancakes and bacon, as usual. I did my physical therapy after breakfast. Then we packed for a trip to Rehoboth Beach for the three-day weekend. The kid was industrious and packed for herself - for a full week. Heh. T. drove and I slept as much as I could. I don't know if it was apparent from the previous post but I was tired for some reason. I got enough sleep by the numbers the night before, but maybe it wasn't enough to make up for the previous week. After we arrived, a little shopping, then dinner at a place recommended by a coworker of T.'s. Then to the hotel pool. Then bed, early. 

Test. Had a weird glitch with the first draft of this.

TGIF, I guess

Wordle 609 4/6

🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜

🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜

🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday, T. took the kid to school without me, so she could go to a parents' event at the school and then a doctor's appointment. I worked. The (bi)weekly report went better than usual, for what it's worth, but other random stuff came up and the week's general trend of being busy continued. I sent a draft of a document to the subject matter expert, which is always nice. 

By the time the afternoon came, I got to relax a bit. Played WoW, of course. We got the kid early due to a parent's happy hour near the school. It was very busy. It was fun, I guess, but brief. One beer and Brussels sprouts and a little chat while we dodged kids.

Then, to gymnastics. For once we had no errands to run unless returning books to the library counts. 

Afterwards, pizza for dinner. I wasn't starving, so we just got one pizza for all three of us. I did my physical therapy (good for me) right before putting the kid to bed. 

The latest book

Last night I finished reading Nona the Ninth. I wanted to like it, I liked a lot of things about it, I'm not sure if the problem is the book or my approach to it (maybe it would have been better to binge on it instead of reading ~20 pages a week?) or my overall cognitive state, but I found it too confusing. 

This book is the third in a series. The first book was a fairly straightforward murder mystery set in a sci-fi/fantasy world, except for a twist in the main character's backstory being revealed near the end. The second book was half straightforward sci-fi quest/politics, and half flashbacks with a twist, and at the end there was an explanation for that structure, which sounds confusing when I put it like this but felt straightforward enough when I was on the last chapter. Nona, though, is just a mess. Half flashbacks and I didn't fully understand what they were flashbacks to until I read about it on TV Tropes. The protagonist was an amnesiac, neurodivergent, or both, with superpowers and even after reading it it's not clear why. There were a bunch of supporting characters with random relationships and rivalries between them.

I'd be tempted to reread the series from the start, but the start is in California with T.'s parents. Maybe I'll just reread the second and hope that clears things up enough. Or maybe I'll just put this in a box and forget about it entirely.

Crazy, crazy day

Wordle 608 5/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

T. and I both went to drop the kid off at school.

Yesterday was crazy. Soon after getting back from dropping the kid off, I had my first meeting, a regular thing I take notes at. It went well enough, but it filled the whole time, which was unfortunate because I had three more meetings scheduled directly after it. These are part of a series where we're meeting with teams on our contract in hopes of getting them to update their documents. 

• In the first meeting yesterday, the team was reluctant to do anything with us at all due to security concerns, but when we made it clear that we were mostly asking them to update documents we already had, I think we got through and convinced them that we're worth working with on that, at least. 
• In the second meeting yesterday, the lead was very late, and politely informed us that he doesn't want to do anything with us at all and wants to rely on a different platform. OK with us as long as he actually goes through the steps to retire his documents. If everyone has the same attitude, then we could organize ourselves into big changes to our current job or even out of a job entirely, but most people are far slower and more disorganized than this guy so I'm not too worried about that.
  
• In the third meeting, they were ready to talk to us, already knew the status of all their documents, and we were able to discuss them in the meeting. A few were retired, a few could be reassigned to others, and we can expect updates to the rest soonish hopefully. Awesome. This was the first meeting that upper management chose to audit, apparently by sheer luck.

I had about half an hour break after that for lunch, cleanup, etc., before going into someone else's meeting about a contract deliverable. Lots of work for them but I was just listening.

I left partway through that to go to a physical therapy session. New location, down by Navy Yard. Took the bus most of the way there. New types of exercises. Scheduling follow-ups is getting annoying, though. They couldn't offer me the same time slot, so I have a different one for next week and plan to call a third location about the following week. Ugh. I walked home, despite the rain. It was a reasonable amount of walking for exercise.

I got home around 3. Then back to work for a bit. My teammates had been busy while I was gone. At 4, another meeting, this one a mandatory training/seminar/whatever about how to give presentations. It wasn't bad, and it wasn't completely irrelevant to the types of meetings I've been having lately, but it wasn't the absolute best use of my time either. If you're counting, this was my sixth meeting of the day.

After it ended, I cleaned up the kitchen and prepped dinner quickly, and then went to get the kid. I got her later than usual - not too late for school or the guitar lesson, but later than she likes just because the end of after-care is always boring and lonely. On the way to the guitar lesson, she wanted to race me there. I was carrying everything. Running across the street I stumbled on the curb and went flying. Scraped my little finger bloody and my knee a tiny bit too. No damage to anything except me, which is good I guess.

Dinner was orange chicken stir-fry. 

After a day like this, I don't feel bad about my usual indulgences like the cookie during the music lesson or a cocktail and beer after the kid was asleep, and got to bed before T. for the first time in several days.

A good day but only for me

Wordle 607 5/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday I dropped the kid off at school by myself, since T. was still in too much pain, or had missed too much sleep due to the pain. 

She was up by the time I got back, but left shortly to see a chiropractor, and from there to get x-rayed to make sure this isn't even more serious. I couldn't go too wild and crazy taking advantage of it, I led one meeting in the morning and had several follow-ups on it and things from the day before, but at least I could have my headphones off when not actually speaking. (I had to have them on when speaking even when alone because the headphone's microphone is better than the computer's. One thing I miss about the office is the simplicity of the setups.)

I did my physical therapy in the mid-afternoon, and then walked to the grocery store. I had a short shopping list, got several things that weren't initially on it, but forgot one thing that was, the milk. Ugh. One thing on it was Aleve for T. She got home while I was out and went straight bed but was happy to see me with the pills. We cancelled our plans for a date.

I went to get the kid alone of course. She was able to play with some friends in the playground, which was nice. As soon as we got in the car and I mentioned that our plans for the evening were off, she started wailing. She had been looking looking forward to her babysitter. I let her cry, said consoling things, took her to another park on the way home for a few minutes, but otherwise ignored it, and she was back to normal and even behaving well by dinnertime. I feel like I dodged a bullet, like it easily could have turned into a battle of wills or a full-on fight or tantrum. Maybe I'm figuring out this parenting thing?

I got the milk right after getting home. Dinner was pasta with an improvised garlic/olive oil sauce, and air fryer broccoli. I think they both came out pretty well. Cool.

T. went to bed around the same time as the kid. I stayed up later than usual but still not as late as the night before. 

I got up a couple times in the night due to foot cramps, of all things. Something to ask a physical therapist about.

Valentine's Day, technically

Wordle 606 6/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I cheated by checking that on another device and having T. help me. What can I say, I didn't want to break the streak. I feel like I didn't make any mistakes, I just wasn't lucky enough to guess the right letters early enough.

Yesterday when I got up I found that T. had got a Valentine's Day card and chocolates for both me and the kid. I only got her a card, although we also have dinner plans for tonight. I felt a bit bad about that, but she didn't seem disappointed, so let's hope it's OK.

I dropped the kid off at school and T. off at work uneventfully, although at the last minute because T. did the kid's hair, and had the house to myself, as has become typical for Tuesdays. Cool. I had 3 meetings at work, and they were all active and productive, although there were some complications in the last one. Cool. I felt more productive yesterday than the day before.

Late in the afternoon I prepped the kid's swim bag, and prepped a bag for myself to jog, before the last minute, good for me. Then when I texted the other parents to confirm plans, they reminded me that the pool was closed today. Whoops. But they invited our kid over to play with theirs instead, so we still had extra time in the evening and she had fun and burned off energy. So instead I did my physical therapy while I finished watching The Prestige, which I had got from the library a few weeks ago now.

T. got home while I was finishing the movie. It was good. Then we joined the other parents for pizza - their treat, how nice of them, we should do something to pay them back. When we got home, I got the kid in the shower. T. went straight to bed, her back was hurting her so much due to a pinched nerve 2 or 3 days ago. I stayed up a bit late playing Warcraft (more on this in a minute) and got up at least once in the night because T. couldn't sleep due to the pain.

Warcraft

With free time in the evening after the kid was asleep, I played WoW more freely than usual. First I spent about half an hour or so getting the weekly "chores" done on my main and in the process hit some profession milestones - cool. Then I joined a pickup raid for a boss I haven't killed yet, one of the last three I needed for Ahead of the Curve. We spent probably over an hour in there - hard to say but I definitely logged on before 9 PM and logged off at 10:59 PM, and I'm pretty sure I didn't spend an hour on the chores and profession stuff. In that time we wiped at least 7 times and didn't make significant progress on the boss. 

That's disappointing. Worse, it wasn't fun. Why am I doing this? Raiding like this is pointless. Nothing about the game forces me to work towards this goal. There's a social aspect if you know the people, but I didn't, and I haven't wanted to deal with a guild's schedule for years now. I was only able to hear their voice chat because I was doing this when not working after everyone else was asleep, which describes less than 5 percent of my play time. 

I don't want to make too much of this. My attitude would be a little bit different if the last 8 minutes, the last attempt, had succeeded. I still enjoy the solo stuff and dungeons. But maybe it's time to reevaluate my approach to, if not the game as a whole, raids.

Doing nothing

Wordle 605 2/6

⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

In addition to having a run of guesses in 2 or 3 tries, I have also surpassed my previous streak of 41. Woo hoo. Although admittedly getting that one in 2 was pure luck.

Yesterday I did nothing. At work I was responsive to email and Teams chat and attended 3 meetings, which come to think of it is a lot by my standards, but was just listening in on all of them, not actually doing anything. I cleaned the kitchen and made lunch for T. and myself rather than making her do it but that feels like the bare minimum. 

I played a lot of World of Warcraft. I made progress on that goblin mage - yay. I spent hours trying to down one boss on my warrior main, unsuccessfully - boo. I still haven't given up on Ahead of the Curve, so good for me for perseverance, but I've been stuck on 5/8 for a while. 

T.'s back was hurting so much she took some painkillers and lay down in the late afternoon and I went to get the kid alone. 

Dinner was lamb chops and a salad. It went well enough.

I did most of my physical therapy at the very last minute before bed. "Most" = the lunges, because that's the only part I could do at my bedside. Ugh.

A rainy weekend day should be more relaxing

Wordle 604 3/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟨🟨🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Breakfast yesterday was eggs and toast. Simple.

There had been plans for a Girl Scout event but it was cancelled due to rain. In the late morning we told the kid to practice her guitar, but she procrastinated by doing more digging in the gem kit and reading quietly. Can't complain. Meanwhile T. and I finished the laundry and I did my physical therapy and stuff. Around 2 she finally played the guitar because a friend of hers could come over. They played for almost two hours and weren't too annoying to us.

Around 5 we drove to Ambar and met a friend for dinner. It's an interesting place. One price per person, unlimited small plates. We stuffed ourselves.

Bedtime for the kid was hard.

The kid isn't allowed to have that much fun

 Wordle 603 3/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday we had the usual Saturday brunch, pancakes and bacon, but smaller than usual because we had plans soon. A friend of the kid had a birthday party in the morning. It was at public rec center but the main attraction was the indoor pool. The kid always likes swimming and apparently her friends do too. It was nice to chat with the parents a bit too.

We dragged the kid out of the water around 12:30, later than planned. Home for lunch (leftovers) and getting the kid showered off. Then we had plans to meet a different friend at a library downtown for an exhibit about Emmett Till. We tried to take the bus there rather than deal with parking, but we just barely missed two of them. I'm tempted to take it as a lesson about buses being worse than before we had a car, or our organization being worse, but maybe we just should always have given ourselves more time for a trip like that. So I drove. I paid $12 for the first garage I found rather than trying to find on-street parking like the last time I tried to park downtown, or the time before that although I can't find a link.

For some bizarre reason T. thought the Emmett Till exhibit would be kid-appropriate. It wasn't, at least not for our kid's age group, but fortunately the library had a big children's area so they kids had fun anyway. 

After that we took her friend home with us for a couple hours. T. and I cleaned and did the laundry while the girls entertained each other. I did my physical therapy while T. cooked enchiladas. The friend stayed for dinner.

It's a weekend so I thought it would be nice to let the kid stay up late and watch a movie. The rule was it had to be new to the kid, and something T. and I hadn't seen in a while. We settled on The Empire Strikes Back. It went OK. The big revelation of it wasn't news to her due to a baby-oriented Star Wars book, and she was distracted by T.'s games during some slower parts, but I don't want to complain about her not enjoying the movie the way I think she should. The movie was over around 9:30.

Bedtime, though, sucked. I don't mean the usual stalling, games when we're telling her to stop playing around, that sort of thing. She just had a tantrum like we haven't seen in months if not years. So we've sworn off letting her stay up late like that for a while. In fairness, it wasn't just the movie, it was also a very busy day, but still.

Easy Friday

Wordle 602 2/6

⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

OK then!

Yesterday the kid felt well enough to go to school. Cool.

At work I mostly did trainings. Got caught up through March, I think. 

The weather was beautiful, sunny and around 60 (once again, conflicted about global warming) and at physical therapy Wednesday the therapist asked if I had gone jogging, so I assumed it was an option, so I tried it out. Only two miles, I took it very easy. It went OK. Oddly enough, my left leg is sore, my good leg. I'm not saying I'm cured, but maybe physical therapy won't be a very long-term thing?

In the afternoon at work I finalized a document. Woo hoo. I also cleaned up my email a bit, although I'm sure I still have some unsorted. I did one set of my foot exercises in the afternoon while cleaning the kitchen, except for the ball-rolling because that actually requires sitting.

We got the kid at the usual time. We got her to gymnastics on time for once. I did another set of foot exercises while waiting, again except the ball-rolling. While she was in there, T. and I went grocery shopping. We didn't get too much perishable stuff because we have even more eating out than usual planned, but somehow we filled two bags full of stuff anyway.

Dinner was takeout from a place called Chiko. It was good. 

Exercise

Despite the lack of ball-rolling in my physical therapy sets, this was a very physical day, at least by the standards of the past several months. Many times I've heard people talking about concepts like a "runner's high" and I've been incredulous, even jealous, because I never have experienced it. I'd still say I haven't, but I would say I experience the opposite, call it a "sloth's slump", and it's good to break that.

As good as a workday can be with the kid around

Wordle 601 5/6

🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday the kid was sick and wanted to stay home from school. Honestly, the main reason I found it credible was simply because I've had a minor sore throat for days. She tested negative for covid, so we just had to deal with her around the house on a workday. 

It was OK. She quiet well enough during our meetings. Got lots of screen time, for better or for worse. I had two meetings scheduled but the first I was just taking notes at, no talking needed, and she kept to herself the whole time. The second I would have been leading, but it was cancelled, likewise for better or for worse. It's annoying how hard it is to get these team documentation meetings started. The people we need just don't show up.

In the early afternoon I took her to the park briefly, and I did most of my physical therapy there while watching her. then we to the bookstore for a couple books she's been asking for, and to the drugstore for more cough drops. In the afternoon I remembered a project she could work on, a gem-digging kit. It was a Christmas present, but makes a mess, so we want her to do it outside, which is a problem most days this time of year. 

We took her to her guitar lesson. She had enough energy and wasn't coughing too much.

Dinner was spaghetti and a cucumber salad. Easy and the kid would actually eat most of it. Yay. After dinner we had a phone call with my parents, mostly to talk about losing the cat.

I did the last of my physical therapy, the foot-rolling, while watching TV as T. put the kid to bed.

Grumpy and just trying to relax

Wordle 600 4/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday I had the house to myself for most of the day. I didn't do anything special about it other than generally try to relax. 

One meeting in the morning. I was in charge. It went well enough, but only because we reached out to the people we were meeting with to make sure they'd show up. It could be discouraging if we dwelled on it.

I mentioned trying to relax above - in theory this would have been a great time to work on raiding in WoW. Or if yesterday during the day wasn't great, Tuesday during the day might have been, but I didn't do it then either. It's just not much fun, especially compared to dungeons. Raiding used to be the endgame, and it's been one of my seasonal goals for years, but doing it with an established group is too hard to find/make the time for, and doing it with pickup groups is too hard. Or, worse, boring. Too much time waiting for the group to fill and explaining the fight and the plan for it. Conversely, I'm having a surprising amount of fun with my goblin alchemist mage. He has surpassed the warlock I thought I'd be spending more time on. Playing a mage is fast-paced, like my warrior, but very different in other ways. 

In the afternoon I went to physical therapy. The second and last in Alexandria. On the long bus and metro rides there and back, I just played games. I didn't even do anything as edifying as reading, I just zoned out and made blocks appear and disappear. Physical therapy itself was more strenuous than I would have expected based on the previous week. Forget about my bad plantar ligament, this was almost a full-body workout.

I walked home and then left immediately in the car to get the kid and T. The kid was able to play on the playground with a friend for roughly half an hour. That made dinner a bit later but no one really minded all that much. Dinner was risotto. Not my finest work, but better than the night before, and easy enough, and the kid ate an adequate amount. Good enough.

Bleh

Wordle 599 4/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

We drove the kid to school yesterday. 

Work was fine. One meeting in the morning. I should have been more prepared for it but I talked my way through things well enough. One morning in the afternoon, no action needed by me, just listening in.

I screwed up dinner somehow. I made a pot roast because it was a swim class night so we wanted something with little or no prep right before dinner, so instead I could do that prep in the morning, before 11 AM. I don't know if I got the wrong cut of meat ("prime eye", I think?) or set up the slow cooker wrong or what, but somehow the meat was overdone and the vegetables were underdone. 

I didn't get any exercise yesterday. I did my physical therapy while T. was putting the kid to bed. This has been procrastination, but maybe it actually helps by doing it right before I get off my feet for eight hours?

I didn't sleep well last night. This is three days in a row. Two nights ago I woke up, had trouble getting back to sleep, and assumed it was grief. Night before last I assumed it was T.'s snoring or my own congestion due to a minor cold. A pattern, though, is weird.

Putting the cat's affairs in order

Wordle 598 2/6

🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Getting the kid to school yesterday was uneventful. Same for work. Two meetings but no activity required in either. I got a little work done on a document that's been hanging over my head for a while, but not as much as I should have. In the late afternoon I went grocery shopping, on foot for the minimal exercise

Meanwhile we took care of some cat stuff. T. sorted stuff out to give away. After shopping I threw away the kitty litter and put downstairs the litter box, water fountain, food dishes, and other stuff of his we won't need while we don't have another pet. We also called the vet and gave her the news. After dinner a neighbor who's part of a stray cat network (she took care of Buddy himself, before we came along) came over and took the food and other perishable stuff. 

Dinner was a cauliflower bake. T. got the kid without me so I could work on it because it was time-consuming. I'm glad she did; even with extra time, it still wasn't ready until around 7. 

I did my physical therapy right before and during reading to the kid. Better than not at all, but should have been earlier than that.

The aftermath

I don't know how we'll handle it when a human we're close to dies, the cat is hard enough. 

Some stuff is simple. In addition to the cleaning we did yesterday want to clean thoroughly, now that he's not around to make a mess continually, but we didn't have the time or energy yesterday. One consolation for this is that my morning routine no longer includes checking for pee on the kitchen floor. It was a problem for us since his health started to decline in December, and we probably should have treated it as more of a sign that he was in pain too. I barely rinsed down the fountain and litter box before putting them away. But that's just the start.

Giving away the unused food, treats, etc. was simple compared to everything else (feeders, cat carrier, blanket...). Maybe we should keep the feeders, cat carrier, blanket, etc., because we might get another cat someday. But I always complain about clutter! Do we really want this stuff taking up space in the basement for maybe another cat someday? How thoroughly do I actually want to wash this stuff?

I'm also not sure about our usual vet. I wish she had made it clearer to us how things stood. In fairness, I don't think she ever actually used words like "cure", but I feel like I was in denial at least for a little while about how bad things were. Something to keep in mind with future pets, I guess.

The thing that seems the most unjust is the timing of it. He spent (whoops, I wrote "spends" at first) most of his time outside but comes indoors in the winter, especially winter nights. In December we noticed problems peeing, took him to the doctor, and they recommended about $3,000 of emergency treatment for a urinary tract stone that could have soon caused a heart attack or something. They recommended surgery because the treatment didn't solve the underlying issue, just the immediate crisis, but that would have been another $1,500 and at an inconvenient time so we balked. When we came back from holiday travel, the breathing issue overpowered everything else. 

If this whole thing had happened three months earlier or later, we never would have noticed the peeing because he would have been outside too much. We probably would have taken him to the vet when his breathing got particularly bad. Quick, minor tests would have made the tumor very likely and we would have said our goodbyes with little added pain to him or expense to us. 

But in defense of the cruel god who set the schedule for this, it could have been even worse. If this whole thing had happened one month earlier or later, we might have had that surgery.

The cat is dead

Wordle 597 5/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I thought the most difficult thing to do yesterday would be to get the kid through a museum without trouble. Hah.

I let the cat out as soon as I got up. I wouldn't have thought anything of it a year ago, and even a week ago it was beneath mentioning here, but given his health I couldn't help thinking about it. Breakfast was normal: pancakes and bacon. I did my physical therapy in the late morning. We had a leisurely morning, followed by plans for a Girl Scout event at 1. Just as we were about to go to that, I got a phone call. The local humane society had picked the cat up. They were planning to euthanize him until they scanned his microchip, learned he had an owner, and called us. 

The kid and T. had plans that could even be described as commitments, so I discussed contingencies with T. while dropping them off and then drove in the other direction to the shelter. I considered having him put down there as they were recommending, or at a vet's closer to home tonight or tomorrow so T. and the kid could say goodbye. On the way I had a couple confusing phone calls with the shelter that made it seem unclear they had him, apparently their doctor hadn't updated the records their receptionist was seeing or something, but it was definitely him when I got there. Their veterinarian put things more bluntly than ours had. Not sure if I'm mad at our vet about it. In the end, I decided to have him put down then and there. It was hard, but they were right, he was in pain and not getting better. 

I asked for a few minutes alone with him. I tried to put him on my lap. I know he doesn't like that, but I hoped maybe he'd be in pain enough to appreciate something soft and warm to sit on, instead of the metal table. He didn't. He didn't fight but his claws were tensed. It wasn't helping him, it was just me clinging to him while I could. So I... let him go.

But life goes on, ironically, and we decided not to disrupt the day too much. So after that I drove to the kid's friend's house, picked her up, and drove down to the Girl Scout event and picked up T., the kid, and another friend, and drove the 5 of us to Planet Word. It was fun enough. I enjoyed the poems and displays about etymology. The girls enjoyed the karaoke and guessing game for common idioms, e.g. one of them would hold up a cardboard pickle with a cutout for a face and the other would try to guess the phrase "in a pickle". We were there from around 3 until almost its closing time of 5. 

Then we dropped the friends off at home and then, finally, we gave the kid the news about the cat and had the talk we had been dreading about death. It was hard, of course. Her first reaction was to get out her iPad and try to look up "black cats for sale near me" and try to replace him right away. Her next reaction, after we explained that we couldn't get cats that easily and shouldn't anyway (a lot of pet stores are inhumane, and we'd want an outside cat due to our allergies but it's hard to make sure they'll be safe, and we want to try at least a few weeks totally pet-free to see how it is, and we can't replace Buddy because he was an individual we loved and we should treasure his memory), was lots of tears, of course.

I had planned a recipe to cook, but decided I didn't have the time or energy and just ordered pizza.

Too cold to do anything

Wordle 596 3/6

🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday I put coffee on at 8:50 and then went to get the kid. The party she spent the previous night at was close enough to walk to but I drove. Then home. She had eaten there. Breakfast for T. and I was eggs and home fries but the kid had already eaten. I did my physical therapy while cooking.

I called the vet and they said the cat's blood test ruled out everything more likely than cancer. Uh oh. They prescribed some steroid that should help with the symptoms, at least. We did some laundry and made the kid clean and practice her guitar had a lazy morning and unscheduled day in general. But I wanted to get some groceries for the next few days, and T. wanted to check out a popup shop she had seen an ad for, so we went to Union Market. We walked despite the cold. Needed the exercise and to kill the time. 

The grocery shopping went well enough. The kid asked for ice cream because it was warm in the market and a treat's a treat, and I had some too. It was hard to find the popup store T. was looking for and when she finally did, the line was ridiculous, so we skipped it. I got the kid hot chocolate at a nearby café before heading home. Then T. and the kid went home and I went to the vet's for the medicine. 

I called my parents in the late afternoon. We had missed them last week. Bad son. Dinner was chicken, broccoli, and couscous. Easy and good.

TGIF

Wordle 595 4/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I did my physical therapy first thing yesterday morning, before anyone else woke up. Good for me, but then, I didn't do it at all on Thursday. Starting off with a 50 percent compliance rate could be worse but could be better.

Getting the kid to school took longer than usual because we also helped set up a bit for that teacher appreciation event. It seemed more complicated than it had to be. Should we put the food on the table now? Maybe, but it's almost all lunch stuff, so maybe not!

It was the biweekly report day at work. Several were late. Some were done on time but they forgot to let us know. There must be an easier way to do this. Around/after that, I finished updating one of our old SOPs, spurred by the general documentation update effort, and created a page on the wiki by request. So a fairly busy day. 

We picked the kid up a bit earlier than usual, and her friend, because they were invited to a sleepover party. Woo hoo. Dropping them off went well enough. Then we went to the library to pick up a hold. Then home briefly to regroup and plan.

We settled on dinner at Lydia's on H, an afro-Caribbean restaurant. The food and cocktails were good. We got there around 6 and they only had their happy hour menu until 7, so dinner options were limited, but we made do. After that, dessert and additional drinks at the Queen Vic. 

As we were planning our evening, I was torn between doing something wild to take advantage of the kid being gone, and relaxing and staying out of the weather because it had been a long week and it was in the 20s. I think we hit a good balance. I'm glad we went to 2 places instead of just one and I'm glad neither of them was more than 5 blocks from home.

Busy afternoon

Wordle 594 4/6

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Work was fine yesterday. One meeting right after I got back from dropping the kid off, took notes as usual, minor productivity on other tasks. I owe someone a draft of a document and it won't be fun, but I can honestly say I've been busy with other things and almost say they're higher priorities.

Yesterday morning I called the vet about getting the cat a blood test. (Should have done it the day before but didn't get around to it. Ugh. We're bad pet owners.) They had a slot at 12:45, so we took it. T. dropped me and him off and had to go right away for a meeting, so I carried him back. He didn't appreciate that. 

Around 3:30 in the afternoon T. and I went to Costco. I hoped we could do the shopping (picking up the sandwich platters, plus some stuff for ourselves) and be done in time to drop me off at home and have T. get the kid to her guitar lesson by herself, because I couldn't honestly say I had put in a full day. (Yay, tracking time hourly, American work-life balance... but at least the fact that I work from home makes it easy to run errands like I've been doing for the past week to begin with.) But we didn't manage to do so because T. also wanted to look at new computers. Her personal computer is badly in need of replacement. Should have communicated better, I guess.

So we went straight from there to the school. Picked the kid up a bit early due to a Girl Scout event. She got to play on the playground with her friends between then and guitar. Guitar went fine. 

Dinner was spaghetti and cucumber salad. Easy and relatively fast, since guitar is so late. I did a tiny bit of work while T. was reading to the kid.

Haven't seen the cat since shortly after we got home. A year ago this would be funny. "Isn't our cat crazy, choosing to be outside in weather like this?" Now it's sad, if all the veterinary stuff has driven him away, and scary, although not as scary as his actual health.

I didn't do my physical therapy yesterday. Ugh.

I should have procrastinated

Wordle 593 5/6

⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Typical trip to school by car yesterday. 

Mostly uneventful work day. Most of it was focused on the review of our own documents, one of which became unexpectedly complicated. Wordsmithing our own document seemed harder than someone else's. With someone else's document, we often have to ignore the content because we aren't responsible for it and often aren't even capable of checking ourselves if it's correct, so we just focus on spelling, grammar, consistent fonts, etc. Not that there aren't enough problems with those to keep busy. But with our own, making sure that every single step of a fairly complicated process is exactly right, or at least specific enough to be useful and vague enough not to get anyone in trouble, is tricky!

So anyways, that was my workday, and I got it done and sent to my manager before logging off. Good enough. Then I went to the physical therapy appointment. When I made the appointment I thought this time and person probably wouldn't work out going forward because the location was a bit far away, but I kept the appointment rather than rescheduling and therefore putting it off even longer. Good for me, getting started on things, right? When I actually tried to get there I found it was even worse than I thought because the bridge was closed for repairs, and had been for months. Whoops. Using the Metro to get to Virginia is clearly no longer a part of my life. I actually considered the commuter train but managed to get there through Rosslyn and was basically on time.

The session was fine. Mostly diagnostic stuff and a few simple exercises. I just have to actually do them. 

On the way home I did a little grocery shopping at Giant. I mainly wanted hummus for our dinner plans last night, and I found several things but not the actual hummus. I was worried about being late to pick up the kid at this point so I called T. and had her meet me on the way to get the kid. With her, we stopped at Trader Joe's, and there we found hummus, and a few more things I couldn't say no to. I prefer shopping alone.

As soon as we were home and had unloaded, T. left again to go to an evening out with some friends, parents of other kids at the school. She had fun. Meanwhile I planned a dinner the kid could help with: falafel. It went well enough. It looked gross, she said, but she was happy enough to eat it, and it came out edible, without damaging anything despite the mess. Good enough. 

I got to bed a bit early, due to the night before and a general busy and stressful day, but still after 10.

Muddling through

Wordle 592 4/6

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟨⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday I dropped the kid off at school and T. off at work, as usual for a day she has to work.

The day was productive. Work focused mostly on the general effort to update our old documentation. One meeting with a relatively long agenda plus a few emails. Lunch was big but healthy. Afterwards I walked to Union Market to pick up the knives. 

The afternoon was busy. Around 3:30 I went to the post office to mail the holiday card to my aunt in France. (It was returned the first time because I wrote the address wrong. Whoops, I'm out of practice with French conventions.) Then to the grocery store nearby to get the kid a replacement balloon. Then to Costco, to put in an order for some sandwich platters for an upcoming teacher appreciation event. This required texts to T. and another parents to straighten out. Then to my credit union nearby for cash. This required automatic texts and phone calls. Apparently there's more fraud protection there than at the ATMs I usually use in 7/11s. Weird and annoying. After that, to Dick's Sporting Goods, to return an ill-advised Christmas present.

While at Dick's the vet called me about the cat to follow up on the respiratory issue. To summarize, they're worried about cancer and recommend more tests. Uh oh.

After that, home very briefly to drop off what I had picked up while out and about and pick up the kid's swimming bag, and then I attended the swimming lesson. It went well. Last week was actually too much for her and she asked for a break, which never happens, she loves swimming, so this week they toned it down a bit and she was excited about a new achievement. (Touching the bottom of the deep end, I think.) 

T. did most of the work of cooking dinner while we were gone. Orange chicken from Trader Joe's but with some veggies added. It came out well. I prefer my version but the variety is nice and I'm happy to encourage her cooking.

I stayed up later than planned playing WoW. Only until around 10:30, which isn't that much later than usual, but it's noticeable.

Good but not good enough

I feel like I'm kind of running in place on several fronts. Working hard but not getting enough done. Yesterday was busy and productive by several metrics but it doesn't seem to matter. I didn't find the time for art, which might be good to get back into and/or therapeutic. Or exercise, which definitely would be. In WoW KSM requires 2000 points, I started the day at 1970, and ended it at 1976, which I wouldn't mention at all except for the fact that (a) it wasn't totally crazy of me to hope to finish it yesterday, and (b) it's why I was staying up late.

The cat's obituary

He's not dead as I'm writing this but I can't help but feel like it's close. Maybe I'll be glad I did this in a week, maybe I'll laugh about it in a year. 

T. and I both grew up in rural areas, and so the idea of a friendly stray cat seemed silly. Either we didn't see strays at all or they stopped being strays quickly and got adopted. So when a cat introduced himself to us shortly after we bought our house, the friendliness was remarkable, even though it may be more common in cities. We called him Buddy.

He's a good pet for us. I'm more of a cat person, T. likes animals but has allergies, and the house is small, so pets inside would have been a problem. He rarely made that an issue.

We officially got him a microchip and made him "our" cat after about a year, when our second winter in the neighborhood came. He still preferred to spend most of his time inside, but he was happy to come in to eat and on winter nights. 

He's a funny guy. Some days he'd go in and out 10 times if we let him. He's friendly to people but would studiously ignore dogs and get territorial with other cats. We sometimes had to break up fights with him and other neighborhood cats. One time, someone brought their cat to the park around the corner in a little mesh canopy, sort of like this. He stalked the other cat from 10 feet away, curious about the pen but on guard against the stranger in "his" neighborhood. Had to show it who's boss.

He was never a lap cat but he let people know that he enjoyed their company in other ways. He'd ask strangers to pet him or scratch his ears. Neighbors often had to let people know he belonged to someone so they didn't take him. We weren't the only family that fed him. He made himself at home on the whole block. One day a house was for sale and having an open house and we went in just to see what it was like. He followed us and lay down under the dining room table like he had always lived there. The next time we went to an open house, he wasn't allowed in the door, so he jumped up on the windowsill and watched us, offended.

The kid has always been a little disappointed that she never got to see him as a kitten, or that he's simply not a dog, but I think she understands. Maybe someday we'll have another cat like this, but probably not right away.

As he aged, he spends more and more time inside, but we didn't think anything of it until this past December. This post is one of several that discusses it. I don't really regret how we handled things at the time. At worst it was tragic, or bad luck, but I think few pet owners would go through that much expense and hassle all at once. I do regret not getting him looked at again when we got home around the New Year's, or at least not trying to do something about it. Now, I don't know.