Planning

Wordle 772 4/6

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Not much to say, of course, considering when I posted yesterday's, but there were a few interesting things going on. 

I've been toying with the idea of going to Friday Night Magic for the first time in a long time. There's no better chance than when the kid is out of town, right? Yesterday I dug around under the bed for my Modern deck. I have more cards than I realized, and they probably should be better sorted. In the end I did find the deck in question, so in theory, if I want to go, I can.

We also talked a bit about plans for the fall. We're probably going to Vermont in October, and yesterday T. bought tickets to two concerts in September. She's a little disappointed we aren't going on an extravagant trip for our 10-year wedding anniversary, and I can kind of see where she's coming from, but it's in the middle of the school year and we're planning a bit expense soon... she says we didn't get out act together in time for it. I say we don't have the bandwidth.

Speaking of that big expense, we looked into budget stuff. Quicken seems more reasonable than I assumed. 

Dinner was dumplings and leftovers.

Gettysburg, music, and generally out and about

Wordle 771 5/6

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Yesterday morning I went jogging. Good run. 

In the morning we had the usual Saturday pancakes and bacon. I walked to the farmer's market and got some essentials while T. got cleaned up. We did some laundry and packed, and left for the weekend trip a little after noon. 

We drove to Gettysburg and stopped about halfway there for lunch at a brewery. After that, on to Gettysburg. A little browsing downtown and some minor history stuff. Generally lazy. Lunch was late and big enough that we didn't feel the need for any dinner besides refreshments at the show. The show: Iron and Wine. It was good. Got to bed late last night but got enough sleep anyway. That's rare.

This morning, brunch at a diner. It was crowded when we got there and even more crowded when we left. Then a little shopping in Gettysburg, including at the mandatory comic book shop. Then a walk through the cemetery. 

On the way home, a late lunch at a brewery in Gaithersburg if I remember correctly. Then Costco for gas and a short but bulky shopping list. After that, Aldi's for a few more things we didn't want to get at Costco. Finally home a little after 5:30. A leisurely trip.

Adequate on all fronts

Wordle 770 3/6

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Yesterday we had a cleaner come, so I had a distraction for most of the day, which was a bit annoying, but it's nice that the house is now clean.

Work was OK yesterday. One meeting, which went unusually well and I didn't have to do much in. Around midday when I moved my computer upstairs so the cleaner could clean downstairs, I had that card driver problem, which was a pain, but fixing it is getting easier with practice. I got the last of those way-too-old tasks back to the subject matter expert - woo hoo. Good for me, or good for J. for sort-of-gently reminding me. I also got the mere weeks old stuff set up. Writing this out makes me worry about forgetting the one thing that came in just last week...

The cleaner left around 2:30. An hour later I still hadn't done anything like exercise but it was boiling hot out, so I just changed clothes and did some calisthenics in the living room. Just cycled through pushups, situps, lunges, squats, and a plank or two for about 20 minutes. 

After that I texted T. and suggested we meet for ice cream on her way home from work, and it turned out that she was ready to go soon. Cool. We had a lot of ice cream.

Dinner was tuna steaks and squash. More stuff the kid wouldn't like.

In the evening, playing Warcraft, I tried a +18 Underrot (not my first at that level but it would have been my highest in that dungeon) and it fell apart on the last boss. Ugh. I tried the +17 and my mouse died just before the second boss. Fuuuuuck. And yet I persevered and finished the dungeon by keyboard and mouse pad with minutes to spare. Cool. Score improved, and I was really playing on hard mode.

Sometimes I'm not the problem

Wordle 769 4/6

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Went jogging first thing yesterday morning, the 3-mile route. Good for me. 

Work was fine yesterday. Definitely better than the rest of the week. One meeting in the morning and I got the notes done earlyish. In the afternoon I restarted work on the 3 to-do list items that have been open for months if not years. They're all waiting on other people for something; in two cases, I reminded them, and in the third, I started putting it in our templates (yes, they're that old!), in hopes that whatever that other person is being asked for (I don't even remember and I'm sure they don't) can be made much simpler. A new task came in, and in the process of discussing it, my teammate J. started to get annoying, but before I said anything, acknowledged that there were no simple answers and thanked me for my patience. It's such a relief when that happens.

I left around 4:15 to meet T. for a date. We met at the metro stop near her office. A few weeks ago she won a dinner-and-show deal for a theater promotion. It was unusually personalized; the theater manager(?) met us at the restaurant to sort out the reservations. Dinner was good, a place called Nooshi's. I might have never been there before. The show was interesting. The theater was set up in a bar, with audience sitting at tables, and there were three or four sets around the room, so every seat was a front-row seat but for any given scene there was a chance we were facing the wrong direction.

We got home after 11 PM. That was late for us on a work night.

Lazy at work, productive personally

Wordle 768 5/6

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Yesterday at work was slow, again. Two meetings in the morning, both productive, but that was pretty much it.

In the afternoon I got into gear on personal stuff. Walked for exercise and to go to the hardware store for some vermin removal (I'm worried about maggots and wasps again). After that I called our mechanic; the "maintenance required soon" warning has started in our car. Unfortunately they couldn't get us in before our trip this weekend. Should have called them earlier, but then, we tried at least once and failed. After that I made a therapy appointment, including filling out the insurance forms and screening questionnaire. I'm not sure there's a problem I need therapy for, but I'm not sure there isn't, and it can't hurt. I punctuated my day with some spontaneous push-ups to get a little more exercise.

I could wish I got started on that stuff earlier or got meaningful work done, but considering what the past two and a half days were like, I'll take the win.

Dinner was steak, grilled, and Brussels sprouts. Came out well. I had the evening to myself; T. went out after dinner with several friends from the kid's school. Normally I might have spent it playing Warcraft, but instead I smoked weed, did lots of reading (research into some financial stuff, plus going down rabbit holes about the UFO testimony), and got ready for bed early. Relaxation is good for me and it's not like I don't play enough WoW.

Warcraft

I recently mentioned going into detail on WoW and now is as good a time as any.

My main character is a warrior. Plate-wearing, badass, in the thick of things, leading the charge (tanking in dungeons, not so much in raids; more on this in a minute). I've got AOTC and KSM on him and completed the current tier's class set. That's all my seasonal goals except PvP, and that was only on my to-do list for like three seasons anyway. 

After him, the character I've played the most is probably my warlock. A pure DPS class with lots of utility. After her, it's hard to say between the mage I started the expansion on, created on a whim just because all servers with my existing characters were full, and an evoker, the new class, also the only healer I've played this expansion.

This is a first. I've played the game for years, and Dragonflight is the first expansion in which my main isn't a healer. It has been fun overall, but there are tradeoffs. 

• One thing I liked about healing is that it was always in demand. Well, tanks are also always in demand for dungeons, and conversely never in demand for raids, or at least not in ways or for bosses that I want to do or am ready for. 
• I feared toxic behavior and expected that an in-demand role would prevent me from being the target of it. Being a tank makes me still the target of toxicity, or simply constructive but unwelcome criticism. 
• I thought tanking would be easier than it was in BfA and early Shadowlands, when seasonal affixes changed the game completely. I didn't want the responsibility of using an addon to manage routes which would then change from one week or key level to the next. It has been easier, sort of, in that I got to my "main" goals earlier (probably, haven't compared dates exactly and it might not be an apples-to-apples comparison, but I was probably early). But it's not as easy as I thought, and the difference is noticeable between how I tank and how others tank when I'm on another character and DPSing. If I want to take a constructive attitude to this I could say that it's a learning experience, but in a humbling way, which isn't always fun. (Not to be too negative about this. Sometimes other peoples' groups suck too!)

So if I've finished my main goals, what am I doing?

• Incremental progress on pushing key levels on my main. Maybe I'll get to a score of 2500, which has a new reward of its own I've never got before.
• Medium-difficulty stuff on the warlock and evoker. They definitely won't surpass my warrior in the current season, but maybe I'll get their current tier sets or the evoker legendary. 
• Profession stuff on those characters and more. It's more work than usual, in fun ways overall. Making money (in-game; I pay a subscription for this game and very rarely spend real money on it otherwise) and pursuing completionism. I've maxed out all profession skills except jewelcrafting, engineering, tailoring, and enchanting. Over the past week or so I've got the easy stuff, the basic setup, on each of those. And profession skills is visible because there's an achievement for it, but it's far easier than maxing out profession knowledge; that's basically impossible to finish in less than a year but truly finishing it matters less. 
• Leveling two more classes. I still don't have a priest or demon hunter at max level. 
• Collecting appearances. In addition to the usual ways to do it they've added new stuff in recent patches. The new stuff is complicated.

To summarize, it's a fun and time-consuming hobby. The game is in a good place and I'm having fun overall, but in different ways in recent months, and I feel at least a bit worried about how much time I'm putting into it.

Experimental exercise and procrastination

Wordle 767 4/6

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Started yesterday with some experimental exercise. I shortened the jogging route, but I stopped at the rec center on the way partway through for some calisthenics. It went OK. Can't have too high expectations for the first time doing this sort of thing. A total of 20 situps, 20 backwards arm raises (not sure of the technical term), and some decent stretching. 

In the midmorning the kid started a video call with me and T.'s mother. This was a first, and it was in an unexpected way. She's getting technically savvy. (Although she still has some things to learn. She included my parents on it even though they were in the same house as her.) It was my first contact with her since she left, which was under unusual circumstances, so that was nice. 

Work wasn't too busy. I started the day with four meetings scheduled, but one was moved at the request of my team lead because she had a conflict. Two meetings conflicted with an All Hands, so they were moved as well, and the All Hands required no work and only a little attention. 

Despite the lack of meetings I wasn't very productive. I'm tempted to blame distractions (the kid's call overlapped with the All Hands, and various WhatsApp chats were blowing up throughout the day) or lack of sleep as mentioned yesterday, but regardless of the proximate cause, it's getting bad. I got through the bare minimum tasks done, and they were at the last minute. 

My one errand for the day was bringing a picture to a framing shop (also, as it turned out, at the last minute before T. came home). After that I stopped by Trader Joe's for some minor shopping. 

Dinner was chicken in the vermouth sauce - the fancy recipe, a very minor example of taking-advantage-of-no-kid - and green beans. We watched TV but still got to bed early. Sleep wasn't uninterrupted, there was snoring, but it was long.

Barbie and not much else

Wordle 766 5/6

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Not very motivated or productive yesterday. I had three meetings and they all had important stuff going on and I wish I could say they kept me busy all day, but that would be bullshit. The meetings were important (sort of; at least, they were most interesting than usual) but didn't require action of me, either during or after. I just followed along, did the bare necessities of stuff due yesterday, and played Warcraft. (More on this soon, maybe.) 

I took the bus to physical therapy. It was fine. I took the bus back. I stopped at home for about 10 minutes to collect T. and a few other things and then we walked over to the movie theater to see Barbie. It was hilarious. 

After that, dinner at Las Gemelas nearby. It was fine. Pricey for what we got, but fast, easy, and good. 

I was tired by night. I'm not sure if there's anything general to say about sleeping well and fitness but I almost went to bed without watching TV, but T. talked me out of it. Glad I only watched one episode, though.

There's no end to cleaning

Wordle 765 6/6

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Yesterday breakfast was simple: fried eggs and toast. 

We had thought about going to see Barbie, but the only good showtime was sold out, so we bought tickets for tomorrow instead. The only thing on the agenda for yesterday was laundry, so we anticipated relaxing. 

We kept busy anyway, though. T. organized the bathroom a bit, and while she did, she found a leak in the faucet. Working on this involved moving a lot of things around to air it out, a little plumber's tape, some stress positions, and some really foul smells. I think it's reasonable to hope this repair job will last until the renovation. That's not saying much. I also hung two pictures. One is in the nook under the kid's bed. This involved more stress positions. If the kid doesn't appreciate the work we put into her room now, I hope she does someday.

Dinner was broccoli and ravioli. Easy and lucky. I had forgot we had it; I thought our only option was dumplings. After that we walked to Van Leeuwen's for ice cream. 

Exercise

I figure walking to get the ice cream cancels out the health impact of having it, not that I'm worried too much about fitness anyway. Intense exercise every other day plus moderate activity daily is, I'm hoping, adequate. In addition to the general work around the house I also did spontaneous pushups several times throughout the day yesterday. The day before, I went jogging, and today I'll have physical therapy. This is adequate for now. Expectations should probably go up when/if I finally get over the plantar fasciitis, but maybe go back down again once the school year starts.

Goodbye to the kid, again

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Went jogging first thing yesterday morning. Good for me. I'm afraid I woke the girls up, but they didn't wake T. up, and the kid could benefit from being on local time, so I don't feel too bad about it. Breakfast was pancakes and bacon. 

The kids were bored in the morning, or bored with each other or something, because they involved us in their games. We tolerated it. 

The kid's friend left around 11, as scheduled, and we finished packing and left ourselves shortly after. Getting to the airport and through security was uneventful except for extra paperwork related to the unaccompanied minor. We had lunch as soon as we were through security. I wish we hadn't, because apparently we were supposed to be at the gate earlier due to the kid. Whoops! It annoyed people but there was no actual harm done.

Afterwards I had thought we'd go home but T. wanted to go to Ikea. We got one thing I knew we needed and a bunch of organizational things that I guess can't hurt. Meanwhile we made plans to see a friend who's in town temporarily, and that wound up being at Tyson's Corner, and of course when in a mall it's hard to avoid walking around it to meet up and while chatting. To summarize, my feet hurt by the time we got home.

The biweekly report with the kid around

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Yesterday went well, despite the title. I had the early morning to myself, as usual - jetlag makes bedtime hard but the morning easier, as long as you don't have anywhere to be. I goofed off a bit but still stayed on top of things at work. 

It was the day of the biweekly report. It went average. In addition, I had another of those team check-in meetings, but I didn't have to say much in it, I just put headphones on and unmuted briefly when needed. T. took the kid shopping around 11, so I had the house to myself for a little while.

I was done with the report by 12:30. Not bad. After that, one of the things we had to do to get ready for the kid's trip was get some forms printed out. T. and I had both troubleshot our printer a bit, but while she was gone I gave up, called the library to confirm they were an option, and walked over there. It was so easy I almost regret putting so much time into our own printer. On the way home I did a little grocery shopping. These errands were also my exercise for the day.

T. and the kid got home around 2:30. There was a little downtime while we waited for the kid's friend to come over, but we felt it was worth the time; they hadn't seen each other in a month.

The dinner would be baby-back ribs and a salad. Around 5 I looked into recipes for the ribs. The first few said it would take 3 hours to cook, which made me panic, but fortunately I found some faster ones. 

We had a quick dinner because the first kid's friend left right around when the second arrived, for a sleepover. They had fun. T. and I were tired but reminded ourselves that the kid should get to enjoy her all-too-brief time at home. 

PS: I forgot to mention this at first but a buyer came for the comics around noon. Nice to have that over with. Considering how many people expressed interest, maybe I should have asked for more money, but half the goal was freeing up space and I accomplished that. Feels like it should be a bigger deal.

Work and saying goodbye to the MIL

Wordle 762 6/6

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Went jogging yesterday morning. Wasn't sure about going at all but it was overdue; the first exercise since Monday and even that was just walking, not aerobic. Wasn't sure about doing the full route, but when I got to the last dividing point my lungs and feet felt fine, so I kept going. Maybe I shouldn't have, I felt some pain in my right knee - I'd say something like "another exercise session, another pain in a new place", but this isn't a new problem so much as a very old problem returning - but this pain wasn't exactly like that so I continued jogging, just gingerly.

I showered, prepped coffee for the household, and had a very quick breakfast before a 9 AM meeting. Work went as well as could be expected given my schedule and the people in the house and I'm not saying that ironically. Three meetings, all of which required my attention but none of which required me to talk extensively. I put headphones on, muted and unmuted myself as needed, took notes on the first one, and had enough downtime between the meetings to get to all follow-ups from them by noon.

Shortly after that, we drove the MIL to the airport. Traffic was bad, of course. The problem wasn't congestion so much as construction and various emergencies we drove by. 

In the afternoon I put in a couple more hours work. The ladies waited more or less patiently for the social event of the day: around 4:30, the kid's friends came over. The plan had been to go play in the fountains at the park, but they had so much fun playing dressup or whatever in her room that we never left. Their parents had drinks with us and we all had pizza for dinner. In the evening the moms had a meeting by video chat with some other parents of kids at the school, sort of a parent's association meeting.

The kid was still awake and reading when I went to bed, a little after 10, later than I wanted to. I'm glad getting her on EST will be my parent's problem...

Reparenting

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I worked a couple hours first thing in the morning. Then all four of us - me, T., T.'s mother, and the kid - drove to the kid's annual checkup. It was fine. She's healthy. Afterwards I went to the library and the ladies had a quick breakfast. Then the three of them went to a doctor's appointment for T. and then did a little grocery shopping while I took the bus home and got some work done.

They got back around 2. The afternoon was hectic for a while because I still had to work to get done and T. had a meeting and the kid was around. If we merely wanted to get stuff done undisturbed, she could have watched TV, but that would have been too loud for T.'s meeting. Eventually I emailed out my progress on a certain task and took her to the park. It was hot, so she wanted to play in the fountains. Nice to have that sort of thing there.

A little after 3, we all got in the car and drove to see our friend with the newborn for the first time since the baby was born. Cute kid. Tired and depressed mom, of course, since there's nothing like a sleep schedule yet.

Then we drove to the northern corner of DC for a swim team tryout for the kid. It got off to a rough start, I think part of the problem was that she was the very first kid to go, but once she got into the swing of things it went fine. I'm not sure she'll be selected, apparently there are both minimum qualifications and a lottery, but I'm proud of how it went.

After that, dinner at Granville Moore's. T.'s mother likes mussels. Once again we had a ton of food.

Didn't sleep well last night. Up off and on from 1 AM to 6 AM, and the night before wasn't great either. Not sure if T.'s snoring is worse or I'm sleeping more lightly, and either way, not sure if there's any particular cause.

The Return of the Kid

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Yesterday was OK at work. Could have been better, but was better than the day before. Two meetings, both busy and productive. Didn't get too much done otherwise but there were a few things.

In the afternoon, did a little more of the comic book stuff. At this point I think I'm as ready as I get to sell two boxes. Selling more will require dividing one long box into two short boxes and/or some tough choices. 

The flight with the kid and her grandmother arrived a little after 4 PM. We braved rush hour and drove out to get them. Rather than driving straight back we had dinner at a restaurant we like in Alexandria. 

At home, we gave the kid late birthday presents: two books and an electric guitar. Just what she needs. Then I took her to the park for an evening monkey bars section while T. and her mother visited.

Then, resuming parenting duties. We got the kid cleaned up and I put her to bed. 

I finished reading Hench, the novel I bought at Barnes & Noble. It was good. It was sort of a deconstruction of the superhero thing. It's funny how I read more of that than the straight superhero story these days, or in recent years.

Lazy at work, walking to PT, messy evening

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Not productive at work yesterday. Not sure if there's any particular reason for it besides the fact that my workload, despite its size, doesn't have imminent deadlines. (Warcraft was fun but that's not a good reason... some stuff at work is intimidating and I'm not surprised if I'd want to avoid it, but I don't think that's relevant...) I paid attention in two meetings but that was about it.

In the afternoon I walked to physical therapy. The walk by itself is a decent distance, once I get there I proceed to get a workout, and of course it's hot. I was tired and sweaty before I got back. Got ice cream on the way.

In the afternoon I goofed off a bit more, but eventually I realized that tomorrow is the deadline to finish my comic book sorting. I got the "keep" stuff fully sorted from the "cull" stuff. I may play around a bit more with short boxes and long boxes and labels and issues I'm on the fence about, but I feel like I got the important stuff done. Yay.

Dinner was chicken, corn, and some leftover salad. It was late, both because I was working on the comic stuff until 6ish and because while I was cooking T. spilled something and the cleanup was an emergency that took me away from cooking for a bit.

More cleaning, a movie, and hanging out with friends

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Yesterday I went jogging first thing. The full loop. Good for me.

I made waffles for breakfast. It's been a while.

We spent the late morning and early afternoon on cleaning, like the day before. The kid's room was fine but the rest of the house is messy in places, and I noticed maggots in the crevices of the trash can lid - blech. After doing some more around-the-house stuff with T., I worked on my comic book collection. I sorted about one short box of comics, let's say 150ish, and updated the spreadsheet with a lot of things I had done on previous days. 

In the mid-afternoon we went to the movies to see Joy Ride. It was fun. We're definitely taking advantage of the kid being gone.

After that, a quick easy dinner: salad and spaghetti. 

In the evening we walked halfway up the block and went to see friends. They're moving in a couple weeks. It was nice to catch up with them and generally chat about our respective plans for the upcoming year or two. Lots going on. Our kid would have enjoyed playing with theirs, but to be totally selfish about it, her absence made things calmer.

Cleaning the kid's room

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Didn't go jogging yesterday. Maybe alternating is good for me. 

After a leisurely morning of coffee and our various games, we went to the farmer's market, planning to do a little shopping and have the butcher's breakfast sandwiches for breakfast. They were good, but by the time we finished the shopping, got home, put everything away, and then ate, I was too hungry for that to be enough, so I snacked through the day.

The big event of the day was cleaning the kid's room. She'll grudgingly clean when we order it but for her that mostly just means getting things out of sight, as opposed to organized, and is reluctant to get rid of anything. So we're making some recommendations. (Not doing it unilaterally except when it's genuinely junk! Just, you know, "You haven't played with this toy in years, why not give it away to another kid?")

It was dusty work, and tiring simply due to holding awkward positions. We also did some laundry, and while walking around in the evening to deliver things we had found that belonged to neighbors, cut some weeds growing nearby. To summarize, dirty day.

Dinner was pork chops and butternut squash. After dinner we watched Polite Society. Good movie but weird. Seemed to change genres halfway through.

Getting around to things

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Yesterday was, in a word, responsible. 

I went jogging first thing. The medium route, I didn't feel up for the full route, but anything is better than nothing. 

At work I was merely average in terms of productive time but that still means I got two documents updated in the library, the last follow-ups that were my responsibility from the meeting with this team a month ago. I don't feel bad that it took me so long to do it because there has been so much else going on, but I'm still glad I got it done before the next meeting with them, on Tuesday.

In Warcraft I did the new "megadungeon" that came out Tuesday. Not that I had been putting it off all that long, but I hadn't found the time to do the new thing yet. It was fun. I also got boots that will complete the class set on Tuesday, not that this is a matter of "getting around to" it so much as "getting lucky", but it's still one more thing I can cross off my list. I've completed everything seasonal I've ever cared about (except maybe PvP? Hmmm... back to the Mage Tower for my rogue of course, and there's always collectible stuff...), and can just play for fun or challenges for months to come. 

There will be more people around the house next week, so I wanted to get to two more things too. One was resolving the issue with logging in to work on my personal computer. Starting in March I had problems with it, and I think this day in May was the last time I got it to work at all, until yesterday. I found the SOP on fixing the issue and followed the whole thing step by step. Simple once I actually knew what to do. 

I also worked on sorting out my comic book collection. I've got three short boxes full of books I want to keep and one long box full of books I've be happy to part with. Progress.

For dinner we went out for Bastille Day to a nice French restaurant, Bistro Cacao. Haven't been there in a very long time. T. said 10 years and I can't be sure she's wrong.

Hectic morning, relaxing afternoon

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Yesterday morning was, as the title says, hectic. For one thing, I had two meetings overlapping and had to attend them both. A meeting with the architect about the engineering diagrams, and a meeting for work I had to take minutes at. My own fault; I didn't let anyone know about the conflict until too late and no one could fill in for me at work. J. listened to most of it but had a conflict himself. Both the meetings went worse than they would have otherwise but I got the essentials for each.

After that I had only a brief break before a documentation update meeting, a particularly big one. Not as messy as I feared, thanks to hard work by me and others, but still busy. 

There was also follow-up on that SharePoint access issue. I didn't break anything, and J. was at least somewhat confused about the same things as me, which was a relief. 

After all that, I didn't feel too bad about not getting much done in the afternoon. 

Later in the day I walked to the store for some groceries. It was hot. That was my exercise for the day. It still didn't reach the number of steps recommended by my phone's app, but oh well. I felt I couldn't go jogging because I was still a bit sore from the day before, so to make up for it I did some push-ups after the shopping.

Dinner was beef tips and a green salad.

Getting off to a running start

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Yesterday morning I went jogging first thing, and felt so good about the weather and my fatigue level halfway through that I went the "full" route from a year ago, the loop from recent weeks plus some zigzags, 3.05 miles. Cool. If I can sustain that regularly, maybe alternate with calisthenics or even add a little calisthenics at the rec center near the end, I'll feel good about my fitness for months if not years to come. Of course, that's a big "if"; some days the weather is worse, when the kid is around I'm busier, and so on. But I feel like I have a reason for optimism.

Work started out better than the day before. I got to my to-do list early and stuck to it with fewer disruptions. J. had yet more process-related questions but was polite about it, and showed awareness that he can get on peoples' nerves. "Thin-ice walking" was how he put it. He's not an asshole, he's just very detail-oriented and his personality rubs me the wrong way, but he tries to get along and that's worth something. 

I spent most of my day organizing that document update effort. The two next meetings happen to be my responsibility, and particularly big and messy. It kind of ground to a halt when I asked J. about something I thought would be simple and turned out to not be, but most of the effort wasn't wasted either way. The day ended on a sour note, when a SharePoint access question came in that I might have screwed up, but even so overall it was better than the day before.

Dinner was salmon and Brussel's sprouts. After it and before TV we had a phone call with the kid. Beyond general chatting and showing off her projects we planned getting her an electric guitar. She is committed to music now.

Didn't sleep well last night, though. Foot cramps. Not sure if it's related to the jogging or pure bad luck.

Work is bad for my self-esteem

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Work yesterday was OK by some metrics (number of meetings attended, percent of time in them spent productively, number of to-do list items completed), but felt miserable. Two different discussions between me and my teammate J. dwelt on mistakes I had made, one roughly a year ago, the other yesterday. They were individually minor but that sort of thing is never fun, and it's common enough that I was wondering about the pattern. Is the problem me, or J. and how detail-oriented he is, or are our processes full of too many finicky pointless details? 

And then there were some weird glitches and technical errors, nothing concretely harmful but just weird and annoying enough to be stressful. J. losing access to a chat for no apparent reason, a formatting error we know we've fixed in a regular report reasserting itself... ugh. Around noon I felt like I had to get up and about so I went to the hardware store for more Drano (we've had toilet problems) and a few other things. 

Over the course of the day I wrote several paragraphs preparing for a meeting with my manager to ask for advice about the pattern of errors, but putting it in writing forced me to admit that the problem wasn't J. I'm still not sure if there's anything worth changing in our processes or I just need to be more competent. 

I logged off at the last minute before T. got back, did the essentials of housework, and made a simple, boring dinner: spaghetti and salad from a bag. Oh well.

In the evening we went to The Last Improv, a show at the Kennedy Center. We forgot to bring our reusable cups and therefore got no drinks. Just what I needed: sobriety. Ugh. The warmup standup comedy act was annoying but the show itself was funny. 

The weather was unusually mild during the day yesterday and last night, so much so that we left windows open overnight for the first time in weeks. A little fresh air may be good in several ways.

Work and PT

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Yesterday I was on my work computer the whole day since T. was around and I was sharing the table. I was busy. Finished two document updates and started a bunch more as part of a general organizing effort. I also worked on that bad-but-not-as-bad-as-I-expected document. Two meetings, but neither really required anything of me.

I wasn't totally swamped or hyperfocused, but when my mind wandered it did so in SFW ways, like old Unfogged discussions and webcomics. (This is totally mindless. If I ever feel bad about my game habits, I have to remember they aren't replacing anything particularly edifying.)

A little after 2:30 I biked to physical therapy for the first time in several weeks. It was fine. Lots of diagnostic stuff, partly to train a new therapist and partly because something about their records system changed, so it wasn't as intense as usual. On the way home I did some quick grocery shopping.

After I got back, a couple quick emails to make it a full workday, and then T. and I went to a nearby bar we haven't been to in a while. Once again, taking advantage of the kid being gone.

Swimming without the kid

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Yesterday we had the usual brunch and leisurely morning. A little after 11 we met up with a friend at the pool. She had her kids with her and they were disappointed ours wasn't with us. 

We hung out there for over 2 hours. I swum a lap. I'm not surprised. Swimming has never been the sort of exercise I'm good at. I tried now and then way back in ancient history before covid when the kid had swimming lessons at the YMCA. We also read a bit on the swim breaks and chatted with our friend and some friends of theirs; I'm not sure if them seeing other friends at the pool was planned or a complete coincidence.

After that, home for showers. Then we went to an open house on our block. Unfortunately there was nothing interesting to see. Then to Union Market for ice cream. We got caught in the rain on the way. My ice cream order was a lot bigger than I planned. 

Dinner was tuna steaks and a cucumber salad. I should make tuna like that for the kid at some point. She might like it. 

Glenstone Museum

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Yesterday I went jogging a little later in the morning than usual. I almost didn't go at all, I had several concerns, but concerns didn't seem to outweigh the fact that I wouldn't get any aerobic exercise otherwise. 

We had the usual brunch of pancakes and bacon.

The event of the day was a drip to Glenstone, a modern art museum in Maryland. We went with our friend C. We had never been before. I had never heard of it, and T. had thought about it but kids aren't allowed, so it's yet another thing we couldn't do until now. It was kind of interesting. It was also a lot of walking, and a lot of it was outdoors, and it was hot. Still not aerobic exercise, but I got sweatier and my feet were more tired than I would have wanted.

When we got home we did some laundry and made dinner. Pork chops and broccolini. It was OK. I was my first time cooking with that, so it was a learning experience.

Calisthenics, work, and grilling

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Yesterday I thought about going jogging first thing in the morning, and got as far as going out the door and taking a few steps, but something in my feet felt off. Maybe I'm not at the point of jogging one day after another yet. 

Work was fine. The biweekly report was average. I could have got more done other than it, but I never have high expectations for Friday afternoons. After that I did some calisthenics. The same routine as a week ago, but more moderate, i.e. both resting longer between exercises and shortening or skipping entirely some exercises that didn't feel right. I want to play it safe and be smart about it.

Late in the afternoon I walked to Trader Joe's for some groceries. 

Dinner was steak and squash, grilled, with red wine. How fancy.

Work and happy hour

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Went jogging yesterday morning. Good for me. The "medium" route. 

Work was fine. One meeting in the morning I took minutes at. That messy document I finished my draft of the day before, I got a response yesterday morning. It left something to be desired - I had one follow-up meeting about it yesterday and maybe more to come - but was still more than I expected. I could have got more done in some areas, we really are busy these days, but I feel good about work overall. 

In the afternoon, T. and I decided to have dinner at a happy hour. I did a little research and suggested a place on H St. we haven't been to in a long time. It was good. After that, ice cream a medium walk away. 

In the evening, two episodes of Secret Invasion. It's OK. 

In Warcraft, I got those last three bosses of the current raid in pickup groups. Cool.

Down to business

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I considered a title like this for the post about Monday, but when it came time to put fingers to keyboard my mood seemed more relevant, but it certainly fits for yesterday...

Worked hard yesterday. Finished one document (completely done, approved and in the library) in the morning, which is always nice. In the afternoon I finished my draft of another document. A lot more work than the thing in the morning, and "finished my draft" is very different from "finished". The deadline on this is the 12th. I got it to them very early because I had a ton of questions because it's a huge mess. 

In between we had a team meeting. Productive. Always a lot going on. I also worked on redesigning our system for documentation updates. Sounds boring but the current system has got messier and messier over the past few months and hopefully this should help.

Using my work computer and having T. around isn't a panacea for procrastination, though, because there's always Unfogged and several similar sites.

T. had a doctor's appointment around the middle of the day, so she just worked from home instead of dealing with going in for just a few hours in the morning and afternoon. While she was gone I tried a few pushups, just enough to verify that I still hadn't recovered.

After logging off work I went for a walk around the neighborhood to get a modicum of exercise. Still didn't hit my phone's recommendation of 6,000 steps for the day.

Dinner was scallops and asparagus. Easy and fancy, but the kid doesn't like them so it's another thing we can enjoy more while she's gone, but I think I'm kind of out of practice because they could have been better.

Happy Fourth

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Yesterday was particularly lazy, especially for me. I just had cereal for breakfast, which is normal for a weekday but not for a holiday, and T. had nothing at all. After 11 AM we drove to Union Market (also lazy in my opinion but T. had gardened and showered and didn't want to get sweaty all over again walking there) for breakfast/lunch and a little grocery shopping.

Around 2 we got our stuff together and headed up to Bethesda, where we spent the whole afternoon and evening with our friends up there. Their apartment building has a rooftop pool and we got to see it for the first time. Nice place. We spent at least three hours lounging in and by the pool and chatting with our friends and their neighbors and other friends. Then another few hours in our friends' apartment to play with their cat and the nearby lounge area with a bar setup for dinner. Lots of protein - burgers and steaks and grilled chicken, because in addition to our friend who likes to cook another guest was an actual chef - plus a token salad and potato dish. (Our contribution was bringing some beers and sparkling waters.) 

After that, the main event, going back to the pool deck for fireworks. We didn't have a front-row seat for any fireworks show, but we could see probably literally over a dozen fireworks shows at a great distance. There was debate over which one was the main fireworks show on the Mall, but regardless, it was overshadowed by some show from a country club or somewhere like that around Fairfax. 

Hanging out with friends all day was fun. It was a very relaxing way to do it, meandering from the pool to their apartment to the lounge back to the pool area. (I almost feel like I should have a "relaxation" label, it has been such a concern in recent months.) It was more peaceful than being closer to the fireworks would have been. When we had a newborn and/or a cat, fireworks shows were more stressful. (Of course, going there for the show doesn't completely remove the stress; if we had been there but our cat was still alive, we would have worried about him, and we still had to get home through traffic and neighborhood fireworks in the middle of the street and get to bed well after bedtime.) But for the specific question of "was the fireworks show good?" I wish we were closer. It made me look forward to finishing our renovation and gaining a roof deck. It'll only be on the 3rd floor instead of the 17th like our friends' place, but it'll be right front and center for that. And everything else...

Grumpy Monday

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Out of sorts yesterday.

For one thing I was still a bit sore from the calisthenics Friday and jogging Saturday. That's too long. I need to be smarter about exercise. 

For another, work sucked. I decided to be good and get down to business. That's not fun. The task I expected to be hard was. One or two new things came in and of course it's urgent too. It wasn't too busy, probably because a lot of people took the day off due to the holiday, but still... not fun. 

Also, T. was around. Sharing an office is hard. Especially when the officemate isn't working on the same things as me. Especially when the personal stuff she's looking into is shared with me, like email discussions about the kid's school or the renovation plans, and she's looking at them while I'm working or vice versa.

I went grocery shopping in the morning to get my steps in and get the essentials for the next few days. In the afternoon T. had a doctor's appointment so I had the house to myself for a bit. 

Dinner was barbequed ribs, cooked in the oven because I was too worried about rain to grill, and salad. Messy and very easy.

We spoke to both T.'s and my parents on the phone around then. In my parent's case, we had tried to check in with them over the weekend but failed. No real news to pass on. In T.'s parent's case, though, T.'s dad fell off a tractor the night before and they had to go to the hospital, with the kid. This was T.'s dad's second trip in the past week. It's worrisome.

Shopping

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Yesterday we had the usual Sunday brunch. Then we did a little work around the house - T. mostly gardening, me moving my comic book collection around. I've finished the heavy lifting. (For good. Forever. Yay.) I still want to actually get the comics I want to keep in one set of boxes and the ones I don't in another set and I haven't done that work yet. After lunch we noticed that a neighbor's house is for sale and having an open house and checked it out. Looks good. Some things, we like but aren't realistic or worthwhile for us; some things, we like and are planning as part of our renovation and got valuable perspective on. (Literal perspective, in one case; they have a roof deck, arranged differently from ours, and their house is only three over from ours so we can see how they would compare. I like how our roof deck will be in the front, unlike theirs. I'm not sure I like how big ours will be, it means the indoor space won't be all that big, but it's still worth doing.)

Around 2 we drove out to the Tyson's Corner mall. T. had heard about a clothes recycling option at a certain retailer, and had some money to spend at another one. After that, ice cream. I also had mentioned offhanded when on jury duty that I wished I had more heat-appropriate pants and she wouldn't let me forget it, so after the ice cream, to Banana Republic. I found pants that wouldn't look out of place in Tangiers and T. got a shirt. 

After that, T. did some shopping herself and I dutifully offered my opinions. Then she said she wanted to go to another store, and I said I'd rather browse the bookstore and it's near the car anyways, so we went our separate ways. I didn't plan to get too many books, books are a form of clutter too, but it didn't take too long to find something I'd like, and, hey, I can always give more books away. I got one novel and one graphic novel, and when T. joined me she picked out two novels for the kid. 

We had dinner at a restaurant in the mall. We hadn't been there before but we liked it. 

In the evening over TV I joined a random PUG raid in Warcraft that happened to be on the last boss of the current raid... and got Ahead of the Curve that way. Woo hoo. Now I've officially finished my goals for the season. But I did so without killing three earlier bosses (two are harder than the final boss IMO, and one is so easy that they're never looking for people, I gather), so I'm still kind of interested in them.

The movies and a party

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Went jogging yesterday morning, although maybe I shouldn't have because I was still sore from the day before. The "medium" route, 2.58 miles. After that and writing the post it was basically time to start making breakfast, pancakes and bacon. 

The morning was fairly relaxing, other than the usual chores like laundry. In the early afternoon we went to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It was fun. Probably a higher body count than most Indiana Jones movies, although I haven't seen the fourth. 

After that, home for a brief phone call with a friend, both to catch up and for financial advice. It's not her job but she's generally more savvy than us about that stuff.

In the evening we drove up to Bethesda to meet a friend. We were a bit surprised that it wasn't just us two couples but a good-sized party, a joint birthday party in fact, but we knew one of the birthday girls so it felt serendipitous to us. 

In addition to the pizza we ordered for ourselves, we also had some at a second location. And drinks. One cocktail for each of us, two beers for T., three for me, but the last was just a Michelob. Sounds like a lot, but it spanned 5 hours. It was fun. 

This was probably the peak of things we couldn't do with the kid around, with the day of the march a close second. Most of the time, of course, has been workdays, and she would have school then. We've watched movies on HBO but we could have done some of that after her bedtime. Dungeons and Dragons might even have been OK for her, not sure. But absolutely nothing today would have been. She would have driven us nuts and vice versa.

Stir-crazy Friday

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Yesterday was all over the place. Recounting it mostly asynchronously.

Work: had one productive meeting, got one document done, made tangible progress on another and presumably it'll be done as soon as the approver gets back from vacation, and started on another document. When I put it like that it sounds good. But that doesn't represent very much time actually working at all, and I still have a lot hanging over my head. I feel a little bad about that and would feel a lot worse if not for the general circumstances (a Friday, when I feel like I can, should, and need to relax).

Personal stuff: nothing. Thought about running errands but didn't get around to it. In the afternoon the architect emailed us something annoying, and right before bed T. responded to it in a way that was confusing to me, but then I was tired. Dinner was macaroni and cheese with fried cauliflower on the side. The macaroni came out OK but definitely could have been better. We had talked about going to the movies after that and seeing the new Indiana Jones movie, but when it was time to go we were only half done with our cocktails, so instead we just stayed in and watched stuff on HBO: the oddly named Book Club and the first episode of season two of Slow Horses. 

Exercise: I didn't go jogging, partly because I did the day before and wanted to pace myself and partly because the air quality is still bad, but I wanted to do something, so I looked up a simple calisthenics routine, put on some exercise music, and cycled through it for about 20 minutes. I didn't get bored before I got sore, which was something I worried about. All other exercises on that page require equipment I don't have and don't want, so jogging will probably remain the main method, and I wish I had prepared better because it was annoying to use my phone as a timer and as a reminder of what's next in the sequence. All that being said, it's nice to have some kind of a plan for days I can't jog. My phone didn't register the calisthenics as steps, so it thinks yesterday was my most slothful day in a while.

Warcraft: during the day I mostly worked on profession stuff - current professions for gold, old professions to collect appearances, i.e. make my characters look cooler. I tried competitive content on my main and it didn't go well, one group after another falling apart. It has been similar on my second-best character recently. PUG raids suck. (I tried an easy but still rewarding Mythic+ dungeon my third-best character yesterday almost in despair before logging off and it went great. I'm nowhere near changing characters, but it's annoying how big the gap is there.)

Sleep: I woke up twice, but not due to snoring. No, due to foot cramps, of all things. What's wrong with me?