Apocalypse as light beach reading

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The week before last (probably the 10th, maybe the 12th, but it doesn't matter), I was browsing in a bookstore for beach reading and picked Meddling Kids. I thought it would be a fun read and I was right. In addition to the plot and characters, I enjoyed the world-building. (To put it in spoiler-free terms, a Lovecraft variation.) It seems more realistic and detailed than most. I vaguely pondered setting a post-apocalyptic story set in a world where the antagonist of this book succeeded.

Before we left I also searched our shelves for a book of T.'s I hadn't read that looked interesting. I picked The Fifth Season, the start of a fantasy series by N.K. Jemisin. I'm almost done with it now. It's pretty good (although calling it "fun" might be too strong; I'm pretty sure the climax will be traumatizing). I've soured on high/epic/voluminous fantasy in general in recent years but I'm more inclined to read the sequel to this than I have been in a while. 

It also has volcanism in common with Meddling Kids. And during and after reading Meddling Kids, I learned that a series called "The Famous Five", by Enid Blyton, was an even bigger influence on it than Scooby-Doo, and while on vacation I saw a Reddit thread about her for the first time I can remember. Bader-Meinhoff phenomenon all over!

Costa Rica

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Costa Rica was fun. (We got back in the evening of 4/21, I just didn't get around to writing this until now.) To put it in listicle format, we saw:

• Iguanas
• Monkeys
• Green macaws
• Sunsets directly on the ocean
• Half a dozen friendly cats
  

And that's without leaving the hotel! It was a great place, an owner-operated bed and breakfast on the beach, that a friend recommended to us. Four guest rooms plus a suite for the owner, a tiny pool on the roof, breakfast free with the rooms and lunch and dinner were worth it too, and we could eat (and drink) while the kid played in the surf. It was on a beach a little less than a mile long, with at least three other restaurants on the beach and some more just off it.

So that's where we stayed and what we did within walking distance. As for other stuff:

• On 4/16 we took a trip with a local driver to Rincón de la Vieja, a national park centered on a volcano. We zip-lined over gorges, went tubing in a river that was mostly lazy but had a few whitewater-like parts, went for a short horseback ride, and got painted with volcanic mud and bathed in hot springs. (The hot springs were man-made; I'll take the park's word for it that the heating was geothermal. The mud smelled like sulfur, at least. And we didn't feel up for hiking up the volcano itself on top of all the rest. Maybe next time.)
• On 4/17 we drove a shorter trip, to Playa del Coco, a beach at an actual town. We got ice cream and did a little shopping.
• On 4/18 we went on another expedition with the same driver. This time we saw (and swam under) a waterfall, and visited a coffee/chocolate plantation and took a short hike through the rainforest. We were probably never more than half a mile from the plantation and other examples of civilization, but we got to see wildlife anyway:
• A toucan before we even got into the forest
• At least five sloths (probably the same one twice? A mother and child together?), one of which was within arm's length
• Leaf-cutter ants hard at work
• Some monkeys, but at a distance and through trees
• A cute harmless green frog sleeping on the back of a leaf
• A bright red frog we knew better than to touch
• A bunch of birds and butterflies I couldn't tell you the names of
• On 4/19 we took a boat (it picked us up right outside the hotel!) and fed some monkeys by hand (probably not a good practice, but oh well), did some snorkeling (harder than I expected), and visited a beach with a natural tunnel we could have walked through at low tide but it was high tide and the waves going through it were too rough.

We spent the rest of our time lounging around the hotel and beach. The kid wanted to spend every minute she could swimming, which isn't bad but wasn't as much fun for us. She also spent a lot of the watching TV. We were more lenient about it than usual because it was a vacation but even so it got to be a bit much.

We all got some reading done; I'll probably have a separate post on that. Our stay overlapped by one day with our friends who recommended the place, so we got to have dinner with them and reconnect a bit.

If I had to pick my favorite activity, it was the tubing. If we go back, maybe we'd find another place with the same activity and other stuff as well, or a way to spend one whole day doing just that? If I had to pick my favorite "thing" overall, it was the sunsets on the beach. This was my first time so close to the equator and I was struck by how regular sunrise and sunset was, not just while we were there, but year-round. If not for the kid, I could imagine going and just spending even more time lounging around on the beach reading.

Relaxing in Costa Rica

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Saturday, getting ready to travel, had ups and downs. I got some unexpected time to myself, but I also got less exercise than expected, and should have planned dinner better or should have planned shopping better days before. 

The travel Sunday was fine. As fine as it could be, considering that we left the house by 5 AM. Everything went basically as planned. Once we got to the hotel we just relaxed.

That's the plan for the whole stay. I'm forgoing my morning exercise routine. We have scheduled events on three or four days but it's not a tight schedule at all. I brought two books and there are a bunch of loaners here. I'm a tiny bit worried the kid will get bored, but as for me, boredom is an irrelevant concept this week.

Touching Bases - Exercise

I feel like I'm getting in shape, sort of, slowly.

I kept my weight under 170 for 3 days, although it ticked up a bit after eating out last night. (Yay, Parent's Night Out at The Little Gym and therefore a date.) I've had two genuine workouts over the past week, plus generally being more active (high step count, biking the kid to school most days, running errands by bike, helping a bit with the gardening). 

All the above plus the shoe inserts and ad hoc physical therapy seem to be helping with the plantar fasciitis too. It's not completely gone, but it's not noticeably worse after exercise, and not so bad that it gets in the way of anything. I hope to see further improvement, but it's definitely better now than it was a year or two ago.

Fitness is a process rather than an end state, all numbers are arbitrary, sustainable habits are more important than any specific details, etc. The good news is, I think I'm making those too.

Touching Bases - Sleep Problems

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This post is the result of taking the use of labels to an absurd level, but it's not completely pointless...

T. getting a CPAP machine has been good for my sleep. Yay. It has taken her a long time to get used to the thing but I think she's there, or nearly. The past few days haven't been great due to various interruptions, and I'm worried about sleeping well as the days get longer and birds outside our windows get more active, but in general, I've had nothing to report about my previously endemic sleep problems. Woo hoo.

Touching Bases - Reading

I was going through Shada at a very leisurely pace. I was about three-quarters done with it on April 3. That's when I got a notice about needing to return Exhalation, a collection of short stories by Ted Chiang, which I had checked out at the same time. It was due on April 6. I liked Arrival but hadn't read anything else by this guy, but I've had good experiences with short stories before. I considered returning it unread, but decided to see how much I could complete, and in the end I finished it in the laundromat Saturday. Cool. 

The guy deserves his reputation. Every story was very different from each other, and from almost anything else I had read. Except where the similarities were clearly deliberate, like the time travel story in the style of 1001 Arabian Nights. If I had to pick my favorite story in the book, it would probably be "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom." If I had to pick the best, it might be "The Lifecycle of Software Objects," but that's a little too depressing to call my favorite. 

I'm planning to get some reading done during our upcoming trip. At a bookstore a few day ago on a whim I bought Meddling Kids, which seems to be a Scooby Doo deconstruction/Lovecraft mashup. I'm planning to grab at least one book of the shelf I haven't read before, just to pass the time while traveling and hopefully add another to the pile that can be decluttered.

Touching Bases - Warcraft

Warcraft lately has been, in four words, relaxing and that's OK.

On my main I've done nothing competitive in recent weeks. Instead I'm working on A World Awoken, the meta-achievement for competing basically everything in the current expansion. I've finished almost all of it except for the time-gated parts (as in, something that we can't make progress on indefinitely, we can only do so daily, or we get a chance to do so daily, or hourly, or on some other interval... yes, this is controversial game design, but it's a small part of the overall game and the time limit for it is long.) Individual parts of it might or might not be fun or interesting but they definitely aren't challenging, so I'm just zoning out while looking for certain treasures or killing enemies in a certain area or whatever. It might be stressful if it were close to the deadline, but it's not.

On alts I've been focusing on getting class sets. For each of the past 3 weeks, I'd clear the raid on Normal (LFR difficulty is too easy to be appealing) on 3 characters in hopes of getting set pieces, and when I finished one character's set, put them aside and work on the next. As of this minute I have the complete sets for seven classes (out of 13)(not counting multiple tints of certain sets): warrior, warlock, mage, druid, evoker, priest, and monk. I also have seven pieces out of eight for hunters.

That leaves five with very little progress, and honestly, that might be how it stays. Three of the remaining sets I'm not worried about, because they're roughly as easy to get in Season Four as they are now, but the other two will be harder to get then. Season Four starts on 4/23 and I'll be away for most of that time, on vacation. And I'd really be starting from scratch on most of the last 5; I'm not just missing the set pieces, I'm missing gear good enough to be invited to groups where I can get the set pieces. 

If I wanted to be sure to get them, I should have prioritized the ones that would be harder to get in Season Four weeks ago. I didn't. If I don't finish this, it's OK. "Get all the class sets" has never been a goal before, it'll always be possible if I decide I really need a certain set for a certain class someday, and none of the missing classes are my favorites. 

It's a game. This is a lull in it. When I complete all my goals in it for the moment, at some point I should look for new ones elsewhere.

Touching Bases - Magic

Honestly, there isn't actually any news about this, except that it's been fun to whip out the Doctor Who cards while watching the show with T. and the kid. I haven't had the chance to play Modern since two weeks ago, but I really plan and hope to make the next one. It's good to have variety in my hobbies, especially considering the status of the other two big ones...

Touching all bases - general stuff

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It's been a while since I've posted in detail and we'll be away for the upcoming week, so this will be the first of a hopefully comprehensive series. 

Way back on April 1 I built the awning pictured below, because the cover for the bike had developed holes and had a condensation problem anyway. It's probably the most handymanish thing I've ever done. Good for me. 

Saturday morning the drip was noticeably worse, so I shut the water off for the whole house. The plumbers couldn't come until Monday, so over the weekend we drank bottled water and a jug I bought at a corner store, took laundry to a laundromat, ate takeout and at friends' houses (lucky we have good friends!), and flushed the toilet with water from a rain barrel (lucky we got those, all those years ago!). 

We also gardened. This was a problem when the plumbers dug where T. had planted flowers. Tempers frayed. She got mad at them for not listening to her about where to start and me for basically the same, and I got mad at her for getting mad at me or gardening to begin with when there was no water. Ugh. Not fun. But we basically kissed and made up by bedtime.

The eclipse was fine. Saw it while the house was being worked on. It coincided with some crime in the neighborhood of the kid's school, and everyone was outside for the eclipse, so school chats have been blowing up ever since then.

I've basically finished that personal writing project. Not done, but at this point I'm confident I'll be done. This is purely just for fun but even so, good for me for sticking with it.

Work has been fine. No significant accomplishments, but no major problems either, and progress on a lot of little things. 

Same for life in general. I think I've been in a good mood lately and progress on lots of things might simply be the reason why. Simply the fact that I have things to say about basically all the aspects of my life at the moment (i.e. the labels I use for posts) is a good sign.

The Money Pit; alternate title: I'm not crazy!

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On Thursday, as I was getting the kid ready for school, we heard a drip. More importantly, we saw it, on the floor between the living and dining room, roughly under the toilet. Uh oh, we had a leak. 

It grew over the course of the day. I called multiple plumbers until I finally found one who could come the following day. This also motivated me to reach out to lawyers about the renovation permit problems. Over dinner that night, T. remarked to me that the dripping was driving her crazy, so it must have been really bad to be around it all day. Yes! It was! Despite the serious problem, I've been relieved to find that I wasn't imagining things!

Friday, as fate would have it, the handyman was also scheduled to work on the roof. So he was working most of the day with no problems. The plumbers, on the other hand, took more than two hours to find the leak. It wasn't in the bathroom, it was in the pipe leading to the bathroom in the dining room wall. It took multiple holes in the wall to figure that out, and after all that, they couldn't fix it that day. So they're scheduled to come back Monday. Same for the handyman.

Minutiae of the office

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Yesterday I went to the office for the first time in over a year.

Last week we got a notice that electrical power would be out at our house for some kind of work for basically the whole day, so I went to the office. I biked in, which took a little preparation, and I wasn't sure about until the last minute due to the weather.

I only miss two things about the old days: some of the people a tiny bit, but that doesn't matter because they're gone whether I'm there or not, and the fact that I get exercise easily. Biking is obvious, and in addition to that, I hit my phone's recommended step count by 2 PM. Even when I'm spending my working hours sitting at a desk, the bathroom and faucet for water are farther from it than at home, and I usually want to leave the building for lunch.

Other than that? It sucks. Phones don't have headsets by default, so if I want to make a phone call, I'm bothered by other people doing the same. If I want a conference room, I have to go through a whole process to reserve one. And the surroundings are sepulchrally beige. People seem excited that it's not in the basement like it used to be, but cubicles with windows got claimed early and they only have views of other brutalist offices. (Of course, it rained off and on yesterday, so that doesn't help.)

I picked one cubicle early. The certificates and paperwork on the desk left over from 2020 was funny. The chocolate bar next to them that expired in 2020 was a little sad or gross but mostly funny. But I later found a chocolate bar in a drawer which also expired in 2020 and had mouse gnawings on it and mouse poop around it. Not funny. I found another cubicle before having my lunch.

There's not even any benefit to work. In addition to the problems above, on-site collaboration isn't a thing because so many other people are home or at a different office. It's just as easy to procrastinate as it is at home. I can procrastinate anywhere I have an Internet connection - I wrote most of this there, after all. My productivity may or may not be a concern, but it certainly didn't get better being surrounded by cubicle walls. It was nice to meet in person someone I've only known through Teams meeting, I guess, but that was just recognizing his voice at the cafe.

I'm not completely ruling out going back at some point, but I'm disinclined.

I'm Ambivalent

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I feel like I should feel worse about things than I do.

At work, we've made progress and been productive by some measures despite my executive function not being that high.

In Warcraft, that break from my main ended. About eight days ago, on a lark, I joined a group for the last boss, it went well, and I got the item that starts the legendary quest. It was long and tedious but I finished it this past Wednesday. I also worked on some new "do everything" meta-achievement, which is kind of mind-numbing but easy and has a bunch of rewards. So I played my main more than planned. Conversely, the work on the class sets for those alts hasn't gone well, and after I get the three I'm currently close to, it'll be even worse to do the ones after them, so that's daunting.

I'm reading Shada these days. I read it once, a long time ago, but it's interesting to reread now, as I'm rewatching the show with my kid and Douglas Adams is a more faint memory. 

I tried to play Modern at Friday Night Magic yesterday. I forgot my deck, of all things. I played Draft instead. It was fun enough, and good for me for trying something new, but of all the stupid mistakes to make...

I seem to be hitting a wall in terms of fitness and weight loss (not the same thing). I'm not sure that's bad; I'm already well under the American average. But I'm a lot less fit than I was right before covid, so I feel it's reasonable to try to do a bit better.

Right now I'm exhausted and in pain because we biked to the kite festival. 3.1 miles one way, with a lot of standing and running around in between.

Calories in, calories out

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On 1/28, I started weighing myself daily when possible and writing it down. Simply paying attention to it had no noticeable effect. (Disappointing but not surprising.) It helped me slightly cut down on snacks or desserts, I guess, but my weight would predictably tick up after the weekend or eating out in general. Always between 171 and 180, not bad at all by American standards, but not as good as I'd like. This is related to the fact that I haven't been able to jog regularly since 2022, and the fact that biking the kid to school is far less exercise than I was used to, and I wasn't even doing that for most of the winter due to cold temperatures and the e-bike's flat tire. I just thought about my weight but did nothing about it for most of that time.

On 3/15, my weight ticked down to 171.4, the lowest since I started tracking it. That, unfortunately, was a Friday. We ate out that night as a family. The following day, we met a friend and some family of hers at a restaurant for dinner. The day after that, we had leftovers, but there were still a lot of them. Thus I started Monday a few pounds higher. But I got a taste of being in shape and it left me hungry for more. So, Tuesday, I went jogging for the first time in months. (In my defense, I'm still not over the plantar fasciitis, and I've got other kinds of exercise in the meantime.) I took it very easy to ease back in, 1.56 miles in 16:51 minutes, less than half what was standard 2 years ago, but anything is better than nothing.

Right after posting this I did some calisthenics and ran that route again, at or after the last minute before a Girl Scout's event. Let's hope I don't regret that...

It's not wallpaper, but the paint here is yellowish...

Apparently the 15th was Wordle #1000? Interesting.

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A lot of little things this week seemed calculated to drive me nuts. 

At work, to boil a busy week down to eight words, everything was harder than it should have been. 

• One subject matter expert retired a document I had already put work into. 
• Another subject matter expert reapproved a document without changes but I had questions of my own they didn't answer or apparently even understand. 
• Someone asked to make changes to an org chart when I was the only one around, and I had to say no because I didn't know them and the org chart showed they had no authority, but I probably could have handled my response better in other ways. 
• We had a briefing about a new task tracking system, and while the transition is unquestionably bad news for us, I'm more concerned about how unprofessional my teammate was to the messenger. 
• The kid had school inservice Thursday and Friday and I had to pick her up before a meeting. 
• Inputs for two urgent documents were late, and when they came, addressed the less urgent of two. 

Work aside, the kid seems grumpier and brattier than usual for no apparent reason. I've ramped up use of my orthotic shoe inserts to the point where I've worn shoes more than in most of the past 4 years (wow, there's a milestone), and it's getting warm enough that my feet get sweaty and therefore itchy. I'm even hearing a faint dripping in the walls off and on. T. can't hear it, and I can't hear it all the time either, but when I can, it's persistently annoying.

My mood is surprisingly good with all that in mind! Good influences include the weather, getting a little more exercise (which are interrelated, of course), getting more sleep, and making progress on some incremental things at work. Also presentism; I was miserable Wednesday and Thursday but Friday went unusually well. The WAR went well, I got some overdue admin work done, and we did some fun shopping before/around gymnastics. 

Healthy engagement with multiple hobbies might also be helping. Variety is good?

• I ordered some Magic cards online last week and made changes to my Modern deck this past Sunday or Monday, but haven't actually played it yet. Some of that shopping Friday was at Labyrinth, where I got a Doctor Who deck. Not the one either the kid or I was the most enthusiastic about, they were out of both of those, but it should still be fun. 
• I've mostly been spending my time in Warcraft doing Normal raids and easy Mythic+ on multiple alts, to complete their sets for the tier. It's a moderate challenge and a moderate amount of variety, and definitely a lot more interesting than trying to get the legendary on my main. 
• A couple weeks ago I checked out the first book of The Murderbot Diaries from the library, mostly on T.'s recommendation. I'm enjoying it. I'm now halfway through the second book. It's not big or deep enough to keep me engrossed for years, but for every Wheel of Time, there's a The Dresden Files, so maybe that's just as well.
  

Business and pleasure

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Work was productive over the past week, but not in fun ways. That effort to organize our backlog has paid off in that I could get to work, or put people to work, on the oldest or most urgent tasks with more certainty about what those were. Good for me. But there were a lot of little problems about how to work on them, and whether the information we've been given is actually accurate. Twice now a certain team has told us a document was good to work on, and then after we got around to working on it and put several hours into it, told us it was irrelevant and should be retired. If that happens a third time we're talking to management. 

Also, I got a scare when I did a security training and realized I hadn't reported international travel 2 years ago. It'll probably be fine, but still, that was stressful.

Haven't been sleeping well lately. T. seems to have plateaued on CPAP progress. Also, around 2 AM on the 6th I got up to go to the bathroom and nearly fainted. Something like that has happened twice before (this was the first time, and the second time was a couple weeks ago or so). Even though I didn't literally faint the two recent times, the fact that it's a pattern is a bit scary, so I made a doctor's appointment for Friday. It was inconclusive.

Over the past week I've been playing Warcraft a little bit less than let's say 2 months ago, and casually. I've got the Mythic Battle of Dazar'alor plate set (not soloable because that's in a legacy content gray area, but still casual) and three tints of the Dragonflight season 3 tier sets on various characters, and I'll probably continue doing so over the next few weeks, but no comprehensive or challenging goals seem interesting.

Monday or Tuesday I asked for advice on Reddit about my Modern deck and got some good ideas, so Wednesday I ordered a few cards that should hopefully make my current deck better. I don't want to spend too much, but I enjoy the hobby and hopefully would enjoy it more with these changes. I also spent some time organizing my cards. About 10 years ago they were organized fairly well, but there were two problems: (1) they weren't labeled, so it was hard to figure out what that organization was, and since then I've got new cards here and there that I never sorted. So Monday I labeled everything and started sorting the unsorted stuff. Progress. 

Friday was the monthly parent/family gathering for the kid's school, and was parent's night out at the kid's gymnastics class, so that was socializing, plus a date. Fun.

That's enough

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Monday was a bad day in almost every sense, to the point that I resolved to do things differently with work and my hobbies. 

• Work was a mess Monday. The same problematic tasks as last week continued, and a task that's been on my to-do list for months got tangled up in it as well. I powered through my role in it in an afternoon and did what I was told by rote, despite suspecting that the work I was doing was already out of date. 
• Domestic life was also messy. During the day Monday I got on the roof to work on the leak, so good for me for getting around to it, but it didn't work, so it feels worse in hindsight. On Sunday I thawed a 3-lb. leg of lamb for dinner, forgetting that T. was going to a political event Monday evening. Just figuring out a recipe I could do with it with what I had on hand was a pain, and I had to do it while handling the kid solo, including getting her to practice her guitar. T. cares about that a lot more than me, and I resented it a bit. (Not relevant to the aforementioned resolutions, just to my mood.)
  
• As for my hobbies, in some senses, Warcraft went well Monday. On my main I was in a group that killed Fyrakk on Heroic, the main activity for getting the legendary, for only the third time, and on an alt I've been neglecting for a couple months I did a whole bunch of easy-but-rewarding stuff, almost finishing their class set. But I'm frustrated anyway, because the Fyrakk kill was such a messy and unrewarding process! Killing him was basically the luck of getting invited to a good group. I died halfway through, due to someone else's mistake (and that's not just my opinion, the leader said so), but still, it sucks and my contribution was negligible. I'm not sure if the problem is my choice of class, my gear, my tactics in the moment, or all of the above, but I suck. And even if I had done better, it's still not a fun or meaningful process, it's just rolling the dice multiple times to hopefully get an item to maybe do better. 

So I'm done with my main. Maybe for good, definitely for the season. I finished my usual goals earlier than usual, went farther than usual, and am making myself miserable trying to go even further than that. I need to focus more on work, less on the game in general, and definitely less on my "main" character.

I stuck to that well enough for the rest of the week, playing in relative moderation and getting our backlog organized comprehensively. I didn't finish any tasks as such, but I started one and feel like I'm in good shape for more. 

Tuesday I also got orthotic shoe inserts, so I've been steadily wearing them more and getting used to them. (Recommended by the podiatrist way back here, and getting fitted for them was an errand on Jan. 22, and now they're fiiiinally ready for me.) 

Friday I went to Friday Night Magic. Lost two rounds, got a bye, and didn't stay for the fourth. Not too much fun. Maybe it was just bad luck or bad matchups, but I might want to consider doing things differently.

Relaxation, but not enough

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Last weekend was a holiday and the kid had an extra day or two off school ("or two": she had the Friday before and Tuesday after the holiday off, but on Friday she just had a lazy morning and T. took her and a friend to a museum while I almost had a typical day, so it's not relevant to the following), so we made our roughly annual pilgrimage to Rehoboth Beach. Left Saturday morning, came back Tuesday afternoon. 

It was fun. The beach itself was incidental at best. Instead we spent a little time on a nature walk at a nearby national park, a lot of time shopping, and a lot of time in the hotel pool. Despite so much family time, it was relaxing. (I feel a bit guilty writing that.) Sleeping in the same room as the kid helped enforce bedtimes for T. and I. She's getting into reading, so we could spend a fair amount of time reading our respective books without bothering each other. I wasn't cooking, and the kid can behave fine in a restaurant by now. 

Wednesday I kind of had to jump back into work with both feet. Some minor-but-annoying stuff came up while I was gone. Thursday and Friday were worse. There's this urgent thing going on, people aren't following our process and we don't have the standing to complain about it, and we don't even understand why it's being done that way. My management is reasonable, I have a good handle on what is expected of me and my team, and it's a different problem than last week, but still, it's definitely not good.

Fitness and frustration

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My parents visited briefly last weekend, so that was nice. We took them to Granville Moore's, which I've been trying to go to for a while.

So far, the only thing I've learned by tracking my weight is that I weigh more after going to restaurants. I've stopped tracking day-to-day outings, and never tracked my food intake to begin with, but it's obvious the morning after. Duh. As for exercise, Tuesday I got out the rowing machine and used it. Good for me. The bad news is, I'm still sore from it now. Working out like that once a week is probably neither useful nor sustainable.

The other part of the title comes from... basically everything else. Fixing that hole in the ceiling proved harder than expected; there's definitely water damage. We're trying to get a contractor in here but they aren't being responsive. The mortgage company also isn't being responsive about that one form. I'm at the point of calling a lawyer but T. and the architect seem to want to keep talking.

Work is frustrating. I'm frustrated in myself for not working harder, with basically everyone else in my office (not my teammates, but everyone we need inputs from) for not getting back to us faster, with management for pulling me into pointless meetings for unclear projects... the job isn't the worst it's ever been, but it's not great at the moment.

Warcraft is frustrating. In theory I could not play my main character at all, or spend 2 hours per week maximizing my chances of getting the legendary on them and spend the rest of my free time doing fun stuff on alts or outside the game entirely. But it's actually taking more like eight hours to almost maximize my chances of the legendary. I could maybe be a little more efficient about it, but still, it's neither a fun nor a smart approach to the game.

Even driving is frustrating! Wednesday there were four car accidents in the general neighborhood of the school during rush hour. I really need to get the kid back to biking, not that it would have helped Wednesday, due to swimming. I'm glad we finally had a discussion about why it's so hard for her, at least, she has trouble getting started and is nervous about doing it in traffic, so a practice session is on our agenda. But that doesn't make being stuck in traffic any more fun.

I almost think I shouldn't be posting this because dwelling on it reifies it! Thinking about my mood when I'm not in the middle of that stuff, it hasn't been all that bad, but I don't know why!

Crazy week

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It was crazy.

Monday I tried but failed to mail a package to the mortgage company to hopefully (not definitely!) deal with the biggest (one of the biggest?) remaining stumbling blocks to permits for our renovation. I failed -the post office didn't have suitable packages for sale, and by the time I made it to the UPS store, it was too late to go back to the post office.

Tuesday I actually mailed it. Yay. I also finally dropped T.'s bike off for repairs.

Wednesday after a routine trip to the bathroom I was surprised to see a hole in the ceiling of the guest bedroom. Apparently the plaster (sheetrock? Drywall? Whatever) can just "delaminate." I'm not sure there's water or insect damage, but I'm not sure there isn't.

Work Thursday and Friday was unusually busy. Lots of SharePoint issues, which isn't my specialty. I might have handled them poorly. I also tried to be productive about other things, which I feel good about in hindsight but wasn't fun at the time.

Thursday during the day I got T.'s bike. I also got 2.5 gallons of distilled water for her new CPAP machine. I meant to get one gallon. That was fun to carry.

I've got an adequate number of steps in by running errands, especially with so many being more complicated than expected. I haven't got any aerobic exercise, though. Not sure how I feel about that.

We had a nice date Friday night. After a rough end to a rough week, it was nice to have a semi-fancy dinner with T. and no kid.

Self-control is a muscle

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The big crisis last weekend was the kid's piercings. She tried to change earrings and couldn't get it back in, despite our help and a lot of screaming and crying. After a little research, it seems that Claire's misinformed us or we misunderstood them: we thought earrings could be changed after 3 weeks, but it's more like 6 or even longer. So we're probably going to have to get that ear repierced. This also resulted in some marital friction as T. and I disagreed about how to handle it.

Sunday I finished Anansi Boys. It was OK. Like American Gods, but based on different mythology. One more book to get off the metaphorical list and hopefully out of the physical house before we move. Next on the list: My Heart is a Chainsaw, a Christmas present I had forgotten about until T. reminded me. It was from her. It's only January. Yup, I'm an asshole.

I've been thinking more about fitness lately. Actual exercise is hit or miss, but I've cut back a bit on drinking and skipped dessert most days. We put batteries in our bathroom scale for an unrelated reason and I've started weighing myself daily and added the column to my fitness spreadsheet for it. It's too early to notice any benefit, but still, good for me. 

The kid has been really grouchy over the past week or two. I'm not sure if it's due to the earring, lack of sleep (we've been lenient about bedtime), trouble with her friends, or something else, but I'd hate to think it's the new normal. 

I didn't observe any Warcraft blackout days over the past week, but somehow I managed to play in moderation anyway. I was productive at work - maybe not perfectly, but more than usual - and got the essentials done around the house. Good for me. My latest goal is to kill the final boss on Heroic again, partly to prove that I can do it, and partly because of a bug where I didn't get all the rewards I expected the first time. (EDIT next week: or so I thought. I got it, I was just confused. So now I really am just playing for fun and very incremental rewards.)

Thursday was disrupted when power went out. It was maintenance. They said we got calls in advance. We didn't. So I went to the library, fuming all the while, and was surprisingly productive there.

Friday, in addition to the biweekly report and working on some old tasks, I wrote a letter to the mortgage company, went for a walk for exercise, troubleshot the flat tire on T.'s e-bike (it's been there since December; I can't fix it because I'd need a stand to turn the thing upside down), and went for a walk for exercise. I treated myself to lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl, but still, good for fucking me.

Potentially weekly check-in

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Hobbies

Warcraft

Tuesday I started the Warcraft week with only two +20 dungeons left, so I focused on it more than is ideal, and after several hours and four groups (the first one succeeded, the second completed the dungeon over the timer, and the third fell apart before starting), I got them both done. Cool. I have officially achieved all in-game rewards I could possibly care about for this season.

This is unusual. For years now, I'd go through a cycle in my Warcraft-playing pattern. Early in a patch/expansion, I'd play my main character heavily, splitting my time roughly evenly between "competitive" stuff (raids, dungeons, etc.) and "casual" stuff (quests, gold-making, collecting transmogs, etc.) Those competitive goals are seasonal. For me, the endgame has been Ahead of the Curve (clearing the Heroic raid) and Keystone Master (a score of 2000 in dungeons; roughly doing them all on 13-14). Neither one is the highest in-game achievement possible in their respective areas, but they're close and they seemed more than challenging enough to me. Once I achieved those, I'd play alts more than my main for purely fun stuff and less overall.

But not this time. This time I got Keystone Master earlier than ever, and sort of cheated on Ahead of the Curve. Dungeons are widely agreed to be easier than usual, so completing them at +20, truly the highest in-game achievement possible for dungeons was attainable to me. Numbers scale indefinitely but from this point on it's just about bragging rights. As of Tuesday afternoon, I was truly be done with the season. Maxed out rewards. Nothing left to strive for. I still might not have the legendary, but at the moment everyone online seems to agree that it's so lackluster, and getting it is definitely luck-dependent, that I think I'll be OK without it. 

So Tuesday night I went to bed, optimistic I'd find myself playing less naturally since I had achieved my "main" goals and then some. I felt good about it.

Reading

Soon after finishing Starter Villain, I started Anansi Boys. I'm doing it more out of completionism or stubbornness than actual enjoyment. It's too early in the book to say it's bad, but it's slow to start and twee in a way I wouldn't go out of my way to enjoy. 

So why do I feel an obligation to read it? To help declutter. (Maybe I should have a tag for this, it occupies so much of my thought.) In addition to generally getting more space in the house and using it better, we're planning to renovate in the next two years, which will basically require moving twice. The less we have to pack and tote, the better. Anansi Boys is one of many books around the house I've never read, and T. hasn't finished it either. I'd feel bad either keeping it and never reading it, or giving it away unused. Not sure the second thing is rational, but there it is. 

I've also been decluttering by taking books to nearby Little Free Library. When we move, I'm almost spitefully looking forward to putting my books in a limited number of boxes and telling T. that culling, packing, and lifting the rest is her problem. 

Good and Bad Days

Over the weekend we ran several errands, me driving because there's snow in the general area of course. We also went to see Frozen at the Kennedy Center, so that was cool, pun intended. I can't be exact about the errands because I'm not doing this on a day-to-day basis any more, but there's probably nothing wrong with that.

Monday and Tuesday were average or below average, except as discussed above. 

Wednesday was pretty good. I got stuff done at work and even at home a bit. Maybe not as much stuff as I should have, or not the right stuff, but the trend was in the right direction.

Thursday was a waste. No exercise. Not very productive at work. Not even in Warcraft, despite spending  a lot of time playing. (So much for those hopes Tuesday.) I did a set of races - casual and collectible, fair enough, and limited-time - but got sidetracked a lot. I also tried to raid a bit to get another chance at the legendary, and failed a lot. I underperformed as DPS and got complaints about my tanking. Raiding in PUGs on this character isn't fun and I'm bad at it. So why am I spending so much time on it?

That's a depressive way of thinking. Persistence theoretically leads to improvement. But the fact remains that it's bad for both my productivity and mental health. I really should limit time in the game. I've tried various resolutions and not stuck with them (although this week has been a return to the Wednesday and Friday blackout days, for what it's worth). And some kind of hours-per-day limit might be more effective with the right details or mindset.

Friday, in addition to not playing Warcraft, I was also good at work and got exercise. Good for me.

Only one normal day

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Monday was a holiday, of course. 

Tuesday was a snow day. I worked almost a full day but also played with/supervised the kid. 

Wednesday, school was delayed by 2 hours and instructional time ended two hours late (which didn't affect us much because it normally ends early on Wednesday, but the point is, they didn't lose class time, just extended day program). Also, in the morning I figured it was close enough to 3 weeks and the kid could change her earrings, but in the first ear we tried, we couldn't get the earring out the hole the normal way. It was horrible. She's been wearing an earring backwards since then because that's the only way she can.

Thursday was nominally a normal day, but the kid was grumpy all day for no apparent reason. Lack of sleep? Residual effects of the earring thing? In the afternoon she complained about a classmate being mean, but I'm pretty sure she was grumpy in the morning too. Also, in the afternoon T. had a meeting with a teacher, and I brought stuff there as donations, so that wasn't a big deal but was a disruption.

Yesterday was a snow day. Once again I worked almost a normal day. In the afternoon we tried to walk to Capitol Hill for sledding with the kid's friend and her mother, but after getting most of the way there, found out it was closed due to the March for Life assholes. Happily, though, we found that Gallaudet had reopened for this sort of thing, so I took the girls there later. We had an easy dinner of fried rice and Five Guys brought by the kid's friend's mother. I also went to Friday Night Magic. Lost first round very narrowly against a Yawgmoth deck, lost second round against an Omnath deck when the first game went to turns, won third round against elves, lost fourth round against burn. The second round was ridiculous and fun.

Snow

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I just said I wasn't going to post daily, but yesterday was the first snow with any accumulation in DC in 2 years, and my first time driving in snow in the DC area ever, so that feels notable. Not exactly by choice, either. We visited two friends' houses, one for lunch and one for dinner, and that could have been cancelled due to the weather, but T. had a doctor's appointment and needed me to get her there. 

On the round trip, we had two near-accidents (both of which would have been the other driver's fault, for the record) and saw a car that had had a bad accident (I don't know about injuries, but they crossed the median and hit a wall on the other side). We also had a car behind us pass us when we stopped at a red light. Only one lane in either direction, so they had to go around us and cross the double yellow line to run that light. So that's how DC-area drivers handle the snow, if you're curious. 

And today is a snow day for the kid, so that will be fun...

Sticking with it for two years

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Relaxing except for errands

Yesterday I went to the farmer's market before breakfast and got some bare necessities, including bread and French pastries for breakfast. Easy and nice.

Shortly after that, T. took the kid to a playdate at a friend's house and I took a nap for almost 2 hours. I woke up while she was taking down Christmas stuff. I helped with that and also did the laundry. When she went to pick the kid back up, I walked to the drugstore and hardware store for a car ice scraper, because we've never got around to getting one before now.

Dinner was chicken and a simple salad.

After that, a babysitter came over for the kid, and T. and I went out to a comedy show. I'd call it stand-up, but those are usually solo while this was a duo, Jordan Klepper and Roy Wood. It was fun. It was shorter than we expected, but considering my health, can't complain.

Meta-journaling

I stuck with daily updates here for two years. I feel like that's enough.

This has been a comforting routine. Journaling is sometimes therapeutic in an introspective sense. And it has felt useful to be able to point to specific days I did certain things, like errands or doctor's appointments, although it's hard to say how it's actually important. 

That's it. It hasn't resulted in personal epiphanies; I never would have expected that. Generating prose daily has not led to writing fiction, incisive commentary on current events, or anything else edifying. I have actually been writing for fun, but not here, and definitely not for publication under anything tied to my actual identity. I'm just not getting as much out of this as I'm putting into it. Good for me for sticking with something, but this particular thing literally daily doesn't seem worth the time.

Going forward, maybe I'll write when interesting things happen but not on routine, boring days. Or maybe I'll do a summary weekly - still putting specific events on specific days, but not a daily navel-gazing session.

Costco and relaxing

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Yesterday we had the usual brunch. Later in the morning we went to Costco for some essentials. Before going home we took the kid to an afternoon skating camp T. had found. She was reluctant but had fun in the end. Then we went home, unpacked and started the laundry.

Then I napped, or at least lay down in a dark room and relaxed, while T. did her own thing and picked up the kid.

Dinner was barbequed (oven-cooked) ribs and green beans. Easy and good, but messy. 

Last night I took melatonin and NyQuil before bed. I'm not sure if that counts as mixing medications (I don't think so), but I got 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep which would be great under any circumstances but especially now when I'm sick, so I feel like it was worth it.

Sick

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Yesterday I drove T. and the kid to work and school uneventfully. Then I came home and relaxed, although probably not enough.

Work was fine. Two meetings and one document published; not bad for a Friday that's not the biweekly report day. I played Warcraft, of course, and went to the store briefly. The "probably not relaxing enough" part is because I'm sick - bad cold or mild flu or something - and probably should have found the time for a nap, but didn't.

T. came home a little early due to the upcoming holiday. We drove to get the kid. She had a gymnastics class planned, but hurt her hand in school (got stepped on!) and was worried about hurting it further, so we skipped it. Dinner at District Taco, as usual, but home after that. 

In the evening we watched Doctor Who and went to bed early. I was in bed for 9 hours. T.'s snoring didn't help, but her body heat did; I had a fever and chills. Tradeoffs.

I finished Starter Villain before bed last night. It was fun. It left me wanting more about the character and universe (similar to ours with a few differences, like sentient cats), which I guess is a good sign. Like The Doors of Eden but less so. It's interesting, I've reacted almost with disgust when a book ends with a sequel hook, like the last Dresden Files book or a certain Brandon Sanderson book, but when these didn't, I'm disappointed. Is there a meaningful distinction to be made between interesting characters and an interesting world?

A first I have mixed feelings about

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I wasn't feeling well yesterday, as if I am/was getting sick. I'm not sure if that's why I didn't get much sleep, but regardless, T. took the kid to school without me for once. Cool.

Work was fine. 2 meetings in the morning, both productive enough. After all the needed follow-ups on them, I got my exercise for the day: walking to the library to get that book for the kid and the store. In the afternoon, I sent a few more emails and generally stayed on top of things. 

I also played Warcraft. I tried biting the bullet and leading a raid for the one boss I still needed for Ahead of the Curve, the raid milestone I normally regard as the endgame. After an hour and a half and 7 wipes, I gave up. I found someone advertising paid carries, accepted, and had my kill in less than half an hour.

I have mixed feelings about that. How much does doing it myself matter, considering that "myself" has almost always actually meant "pickup groups I'm lucky enough to get invited to"? I feel better about it this season than I normally would, because getting it isn't the endgame. My main is a warrior, so I sort of feel like getting the legendary weapon is the endgame, and this is almost necessary but not quite, and definitely not sufficient for that. 

On the one hand, I tried to pull my weight in the raid I was paying for. I survived to the end and didn't cause problems, unlike two other people paying for it who died early. On the other hand, frankly, I failed to pull my weight. My DPS was almost exactly the same as the tank's, less than half that of the top DPS. In layman's terms, it was bad. Part of the problem was a lack of preparation, which is partly because I've prepared more for tanking, and I can come up with more reasons that have nothing to do with skill, but even so, it's humbling.

Oh well. It's just a game. There are other things I care about this season (in addition to the legendary, and I don't want to worry about it too much because it depends on luck, I still have several +20 dungeons to go) and I'll try to reserve judgement until it's over.

So anyways, after that I took a nap. I went to get the kid and T. at the last minute. Dinner was pasta and squash. I got to bed early.

A bomb threat? Really?

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Yesterday I drove the kid to school uneventfully. I had a couple productive meetings in the morning. (Preceded by some writing, and a little Warcraft.) After them I planned to have a both fun and productive afternoon, but I took a shower around 11:45, and came out to find about 80 WhatsApp message. Apparently the kid's school was evacuated due to a bomb threat. (I didn't want to link to that site, but the top 5+ Google News links were also weird. Journalism for local issues has really bottomed out.) 

So I picked the kid up early and we had a big lunch across the street from the playground where they were gathering. Then we went to the library, tried to get a book reserved for her, failed because it was in her mother's name and not mine, and got another one instead. Then home. She watched TV. I worked a little more and played Warcraft. That resolution didn't last long. I feel a little bad about it, but it was a weird day through no fault of my own and I had fun and made progress in the game, so not too bad.

Dinner was leftovers. T. and I both got to bed early. Lights out before 10, which is almost unheard of, barring jet lag or illness. I woke up around 3:30 due to snoring, but that stopped soon but I couldn't get back to sleep for over an hour, so here I am.

Rain

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Drove the ladies to school and work yesterday. 

The first two meetings of the day went fine - easy and fast. But the kid's school closed early due to rain, of all things. The weather was supposed to be at its worst around rush hour, but still, it seems soft to me. So I rushed through some things in the afternoon. I did some very brief calisthenics during the third meeting and then left early (I wasn't participating anyway) and drove in to get them. The kid watched Doctor Who for a while, but the guitar school wasn't closed, so I drove her back there for the lesson. While she was in there I took a walk, despite the rain. How fit of me.

Dinner was pork chops and glazed carrots. 

I wanted to complain about the day, but I was OK at work, still got some good stuff done in Warcraft (one more +20 dungeon done), and the rain didn't effect us (even though it did effect our neighbors; this is the first time I've been glad to not have a basement), so when I went to bed last night and right now I'm feeling fine about it, really.

Back to the routine

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T. and I drove the kid to school yesterday. Traffic was good, maybe because we left earlier than usual. 

Work was fine. Two meetings, neither too busy/difficult. Sent one document out for review, got to one easy task from our backlog, dealt with ad hoc email. 

Late in the afternoon I went for a walk to get my steps in. 

Dinner was chicken, cauliflower, and a little of the leftovers.

Shopping and laundry

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I got up at the usual time yesterday, but T. and the kid slept in. After they were both up I went to the farmer's market for breakfast (egg/sausage sandwiches) and general shopping, since of course the fridge was empty. We ate while watching Doctor Who. The kid is working her way through the Ninth Doctor. 

In the afternoon, I took the kid for a bike ride while T. walked to the library and did laundry. After we regrouped, we went to the Craft Beer Cellar, more to say goodbye because they're closing than to actually buy anything, and Giant. 

Dinner was a steak, mashed potatoes, and a cucumber salad.

Going home

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I posted yesterday's entry after boarding the plane and before turning airplane mode on. The trip was uneventful. We got home around 4:30 EST and spent the afternoon unpacking. Dinner was pizza since, of course, we had nothing else in the house. 

I started reading Starter Villain, my Christmas present, before bed.

Work and packing

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Got up around 4 yesterday. Ugh.

Work was as good as could be expected, considering the biweekly report in another time zone. T. packed more than me. We had to take an extra suitcase due to presents and shopping. I tried to take a nap in the afternoon but failed.

I finished Skinny Dip in the car. Fun book, as expected. Dinner was at a Mexican restaurant with friends. 

Slept well in the hotel despite getting up early. 

A day to myself

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Yesterday I basically had the day to myself. T. and her parents took the kid on multiple playdates while I did my own thing.

Work was fine. I was more productive than I had to be, which is always nice. There was an early meeting, and despite some downtime in the middle of the day, I also finished an SOP I've been working on and did some organizational stuff. That downtime was for a walk, longer than usual for the past week. Good for me. 

I took a nap in the afternoon. Everyone came home for dinner, which was simple (soup, salad, and Brussels sprouts I helped make) but plentiful.

Warcraft, walks, and the date

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Work was uneventful yesterday. Sent a few emails, started a moderate-difficulty, moderate-urgency task. 

In Warcraft, I completed a +20 dungeon for the first time, a personal record and where the in-game rewards max out. This season is easier than usual, but still, I'm enjoying it and good for me. 

In the afternoon, I played with the kid a bit indoors (a board game, my idea, which I regret because she gets competitive, and dolls, her idea, which is just boring to me), but eventually T. and I insisted on her going for a walk with us. Just a short one, a square around the orchard and along the nearby road. She complained nonstop. She rushed home ahead of us. When we got there, we found her prepping to take the dogs for a walk with T.'s mom. We took the kid and the dogs for a walk instead (or rather, I did; with only two dogs, T. wasn't needed and excused herself). It was probably slower overall than the first walk, due to the dogs sniffing everything and getting the leashes tangled, but still, good for us. 

In the afternoon I took a short nap. Haven't been sleeping well lately (you might notice I'm posting this very early). Then T. and I went on our big date for the trip:

1. A winery, for a low-key wine tasting.
2. Costco. We had time to kill between the winery and the next stop and nothing else fit the bill. We mostly just meandered, browsed, and talked about plans for the next few months/years tangentially related to the merchandise we were looking at. It could have been romantic in many other settings. If it bugged me too much, we/I should have planned the date more tightly, but it wasn't bad.
   
3. Dinner at an Italian place. The food was good but kind of weird. In addition to what we ordered, the complimentary table bread was huge, and as usual we ordered too much. Leftovers.
4. A movie: Anyone but You, an R-rated loose adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing. It was fun, and funny. 

Overall, a fun, romantic, good afternoon and evening. Unfortunately, two things in the movie made me disappointed in my fitness.

1. There were jokes about the male protagonist's stamina swimming. He's "hot girl fit", as the female protagonist described him, and doesn't do cardio. I don't want to read too much into this - they're conventionally attractive romcom characters - but still, it's a reminder that there are different types of fitness and none of them come naturally to the vast majority of people.
2. I got a foot cramp. Sitting there in the theater, I had to take my shoe off and try to surreptitiously massage it. I assume it's related to my plantar issues. It's one thing to be unable to jog 3 miles, but to be unable to sit through a movie? Ugh.
   

Working in CA

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Got up early yesterday and spent the morning working from home. Being the first workday of the new year, it wasn't too busy. My supervisor is on leave (sort of; she's replying to emails) and I have the impression a lot of other people are too. 

The kid came to see us in the late morning or early afternoon, saw me playing my game, and objected. I stalled to a guilty degree but eventually came and pushed her on the swing for a bit. 

In the afternoon, T. and I went for a walk. Later, the kid went to the movies with her Papa to see Wonka, so it was just me, T., and her mother around the house in the afternoon/evening. In addition to the game, I also started reading Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip. It's funny. The decision to pick that up rather than Starter Villain, a Christmas present from T. to me, was fraught, but if I finish it before we go, I'll be totally vindicated...

Dinner was tilapia or some other white fish, salad, and mashed potatoes. Good, and healthy, but again, a ton of food.

New Year's Day Party

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Yesterday the big event was a party T.'s parents hosted. Lots of hors d'oeuvres. I socialized all day. It was more fun than I expected. No major connections, lots of minor ones. 

It made me think I need to get better about my health. Our crowd is aging. Again, this isn't big news, but it's a minor reminder.

The cable was fixed around 5, so we could once again resume online activities without worrying about data limits.

Didn't sleep well last night. I think the main cause was T.'s snoring, but my party-related alcohol intake might have made it worse.

Relaxing

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Yesterday I did something I've never done before and used my phone as a mobile hotspot. (The kid doesn't know, and doesn't need to know, that there is an option for media while the Internet is out. Heh heh heh.) It was fine so far but is untenable in the long term due to data limits, and we may have hit them in just one day. I'll find out after this.

Yesterday was again relaxing overall. T., her mother, and I drove to Costco for some shopping. The kid got to play with a friend across the street. Dinner was T.'s mother's cooking, of course, a chicken dish sort of like my vermouth/caper recipe plus several sides. 

T. and I watched TV late, but still got to bed before 11. I'm sure we'll have an exciting New Year's again someday, but it wasn't last night and probably won't be in California.