Transplanting a Seattleite

My phone call with K. was abbreviated because she had an unexpected power outage (no bad weather, so extra weird) and needed to report it. It was nice to chat with her for a little bit, tho!

After carefully negotiating a different order of operations for the morning, and racing through tasks on my side so they would work for A., A. just did the usual anyway. *sigh* Good news, tho, I was able to get my ADR at 9 am, so that’s something. Later in the day, I set up a group chat for the 11 participants in this year’s holiday madness with information about which parks which days and which restaurants when and so forth. So far people are sounding very happy.

I had a fun Dutch lesson! Yay!

https://www.homesandgardens.com/solved/sunday-butterfly-method

This is a moderately good decluttering article, which I like mostly because it’s how we do things. Also, there is a completely bonkers quote in it.

“Professional organizer, KonMari® Master Consultant, and founder of Spark Joy and Flow, Rebecca Jo-Rushdy, says, ‘I love the Sunday Butterfly name as I’m neurodivergent, and totally relate to what Lydia has described. My husband recently teased me that it’s not multitasking, it’s rapid switching!’”

Rebecca’s husband is something else again. I don’t know what he thinks multitasking is or isn’t, but that word was invented specifically to describe rapid switching so … If you need another reason to be pissed off at het men in trad relationships, here ya go.

This isn’t some secret, altho I will concede it predates my existence. From the wikipedia entry on Computer multitasking:

“As a result, a computer executes segments of multiple tasks in an interleaved manner, while the tasks share common processing resources such as central processing units (CPUs) and main memory. Multitasking automatically interrupts the running program, saving its state (partial results, memory contents and computer register contents) and loading the saved state of another program and transferring control to it. This "context switch" may be initiated at fixed time intervals (pre-emptive multitasking), or the running program may be coded to signal to the supervisory software when it can be interrupted (cooperative multitasking).

Multitasking does not require parallel execution of multiple tasks at exactly the same time; instead, it allows more than one task to advance over a given period of time.[1] Even on multiprocessor computers, multitasking allows many more tasks to be run than there are CPUs.”

Again, I know no one needs more reasons to be angry at het men in trad relationships, but Rebecca’s husband just gave you another one because they are generous like that. (Having tracked her husband down online, I will also share with you that he spent a bunch of time working at a think tank and now does teaches mindfulness. I bet you are incredibly surprised by all of this.)

A. was 12 minutes late to class, which is perhaps the first time anyone has bothered to report that she was late. In the same class, dance / PE, she finally quit looking at her feet. On balance, I think we’re all happy. Weird.

I walked with M.

I finally completed the last of my tasks from Tuesday (the layout for the exercise room and a decision about how to handle the cleanout in that room, a solution for the fact that the raised sill in K+C’s rooms were raised a little too high — I’d already come up with a lighting panel that would do cutouts for sinks). I was on reddit for a bit. I stripped, washed and remade two beds (mostly because the bottom sheet was half off A.’s bed and it seemed like it was time). I did daily laundry.

A bunch of stuff has arrived, which is nice — we have eggs again, because Lilac Hedge delivery arrived. I cooked the bok choy from the store (we still have bok choy from the farm box) and used olive oil, orange juice and maple syrup to deal with the bitterness that A. was unhappy about (she doesn’t like balsamic vinegar). The result was excellent.

We had wings and tots for dinner. I added a piece of toast with pb&J. I didn’t even have a salad with it (altho I did have some veg at lunch with the previous batch of wings).

When R. came home from his show, I opened up the Flaviar Advent box and pulled out door #1. First of all, they have themed this thing in the most hilarious way possible. Second, 1928 Bhakta is awesome. I’m very excited to work my way through this.

I’ve managed to slog through a lot more of the day-to-day (and meal to meal) planning for the holiday trip. I don’t feel great about it, because we’re still in the middle of a government shutdown, but we’re still in the zone of probably could cancel / reschedule a lot of things. Once I start buying park tickets, I just don’t really know.

I drove out to the construction site. And after, I picked up A. Then R. and I drove out to Hudson and back for dinner at Less Than Greater Than. I refrained from dessert at New City Microcreamery because that plus a full meal is too much. Lots of questions on today’s tour of the house. I walked up the whole driveway, because there are a lot of machines doing stuff with earth currently. It was a gorgeous day, and mostly things had dried out (plus the driveway is paved) and the colors are fantastic. A walk in the woods up my own driveway was a whole new level of special.

I also had a delightful long conversation with A. Well, it was great to chat with her, altho she’s definitely processing through a lot of painful stuff that she kind of did not process as it was happening, which is always difficult.

I walked by myself in the late afternoon.

I had a delightful zoom with I.

I participated in family zoom.

I made myself some airfried cauliflower, then stir fried it with some grilled chicken thigh and garlic-ginger-lemon-marmalade-maple-syrup-red-pepper-pork fat sauce. I ate it with the last two small flour tortillas. Very yummy.

I cleaned the fridge of things that didn’t look good any more (some things I trimmed and cooked, other things went into the compost) and rinsed out the veggie drawer.

I ordered some minor things on the Zon that I am excited about but do not expect anyone else to be excited about (silicone lids for 9x13 and 9x9 pans, and silicone liners for same and also loaf pans — really excited about that last one). Also, I ordered a new travel umbrella, because mine has become somewhat damaged and unreliable. Also, when I tried to replace the current one (grey) with a purple one, the purple one broke almost instantly, so I’m taking another swing at a cute travel umbrella as opposed to a purely utilitarian one.

I showed R. the fabric choice and model choice of American Leather sleeper sofa for the music room, and he is fine with it.

After dropping A. off at school in Burlington, R. and I drove to CBS Exotics in Winchester, where we oohed and ahed over very, very, very beautiful rock. When I was renovating my kitchen in 1999 (when the startup I worked at succeeded wildly, I didn’t buy a sports car, I bought a sports kitchen, lol), I put in granite countertops. I looked at, but concluded I could not afford at the time, Blue Bahia. For one thing, there was a lot of granite in that kitchen. And for another, I was pretty sure that my fabricator had messed up on the quote (he had, and that was fine, because I had figured out what it should be and had the money for him. As is often the case with me and people I hired to do stuff for me, he was a little surprised.), and when I looked at what I thought it would cost with Blue Bahia, it made me uneasy. I don’t like to feel uneasy, so I picked a very beautiful, but much less expensive, rock.

Anyway. Less granite in this kitchen, so I finally get the blue stuff, and it turns out R. had never seen it before and he loves it like I do. Like everyone does, really, in the end.

CBS Exotics lives up to its name, and has sodalite (no, but pretty), onyx (blue, which we’re waiting on pricing for, and green, which we decided wasn’t quite as awesome), agate (omg but definitely not for the countertops. Thinking about some table tops, tho) and a lot of really pretty granite with great color and pattern. So much fun!

FF started late, and a couple people couldn’t make it, but there were four of us. I’ve been thinking about what would it mean to have something in the Customer Service Box (story idea) to “cure” various things. So we talked about ADHD, and the parts it is crucial to preserve and to what degree a “cure” for ADHD would mean environmental / job / educational setting changes, and to what degree a “cure” might mean changes to the person of a genetic or hormonal or other nature. Similar for autism — not being able to talk seems like something I’d like to be able to offer people a “cure” for, but a lot of the rest of autism isn’t something I see as changeworthy (I do think there are some aspects of neurotypicality that should be “cured”). We also talked a little about what kinds of dentistry would survive the ability to grow a replacement tooth or teeth in adulthood, and how long people would live if you really could get rid of “all” “disease” (not forever) and whether aging itself is something that could be slowed or reversed and how various science fiction has considered that. It’s fun to talk about the different approaches, and I found it healing. I was raised in an extended family context that had been JW since before my father was born on his side, and my mother was born into a Mennonite community altho raised mostly outside it (and part of that in JW-world). The idea of living on earth, in a world without disease and aging, is something that is normal to me — that’s what they offer most of their members — but it’s all magical. God shows up, kills everyone that’s not on His team, and fixes it all. Which honestly, if He could do that, wow, what a personality disordered way of arranging human history, testing everyone for personal loyalty. There’s no flavor on the promise, of exactly what it means to never need to have dental work done again. Do you still have to brush your teeth? Floss? Their answer to, but will there be children is, we don’t know we’ll have to wait and see. Unsatisfying! A refusal to engage with the consequences of any reality sneaking into the comforting promise.

I was thinking about _that_ in part because A. had some questions about conspiracy theories and mental illness. Current psych thinking is that they are not particularly correlated to psychotic disorders, but psych in general has a really interesting take on what counts as delusional thinking (religions don’t because it’s not a delusion if you are part of a group that believes the thing. I mean, way to dodge a lot of conflict, psych. Telling on yourself.). They are prepared to find a connection between high levels of distress and conspiracy thinking, and that, I think is a solid foundation for how people commit to the kinds of promises about Heaven and Hell and Paradise and afterlives in general. My dad belabored, when I was a child, going door to door with him, how people who had nice houses with nice gardens were unlikely to be receptive to what we were offering, because they already were living in a kind of paradise. Also, sort of ignoring the fact that essentially no one was receptive to what we were offering, outside of that whole period of time leading up to 1975. I particularly like the idea that distress in the present leads to people believing in afterlife promises, because it also explains the observed reality that a better life in the present tends to have less kookiness in it in general.

ETA: I listed a backpack on FBM and it’s already been claimed by R., the delightful woman who is a consistent customer (?). I love the backpack, but it actually holds less and is less convenient for my purposes than the Fjallraven Kanken. At this point, I’m probably ready to go list some of the remaining backpacks upstairs, as this is literally the only one I use anymore. It’s kind of funny, after aspiring for so long to be a onebagger, I have accidentally attained my goal after mostly giving up on it. Classic.

I canceled my phone call with J., and therapy, and Priestess and I drove out to the house. We got a tour with E., which was fun because Priestess has been hearing about this forever and now she got to see it. Woot! And I got a walkaround without having to make decisions which was also weirdly enjoyable. The wall tile in bathroom 5 is darker than I had anticipated, which is fine.

We had lunch at Miss Florence diner which was, as expected, yummy and crowded.

I dropped Priestess off at home, and then retrieved A. R. did not make dinner for A. in my absence, ugh, but it all worked out.

I am behind on blogging; I went to NYC over the weekend. I will endeavor to catch up.

Today, I got A. to school. She was late, even tho traffic was favorable. Also, our upstairs heat pump is not working. It was really really really low on refrigerant and they weren’t able to fix it in the first visit. They also have not scheduled a followup which is legitimately distressing. We had them looking at it in the summer because it was not keeping the upstairs adequately cool, and I guess we now know why. Ugh. Fortunately we have a few days to figure it out before it gets really cold again. R. picked up A., and they are getting along a lot better now. I am not surprised.

ETA: the 3 of us had lunch at 110 Grille.

We got a bunch of laundry done. We shopped for a new medium checked roller for Priestess. We picked up some breakfast groceries for her as well.

I made chicken and waffles for dinner.

Priestess and I had a delicious breakfast at Utopia Diner. Always a good experience. Then we went over to the NY Historical Society and took a look at the new gay harlem renaissance exhibit which was fantastic. I also looked at the Tiffany lamps, the Oval Office and some other stuff. We watched the Meryl Streep narrated “We Rise”, which was pretty decent. Mostly I wanted to sit down at that point. We looked at stuff in the shop.

We rested a bit at the hotel, then we took the subway to go to dinner at Westville in Hell’s Kitchen, but it did not stop at Columbus Circle, so we got off at Times Square and walked. Ugh. Priestess’ leg thing from August is turning out to be a Standing Is a Problem problem, probably some kind of stabilizer freezing up on her in a really painful way. She’s planning on getting PT for it, but in the meantime, the subway is a very poor choice. It was a short walk from Westville (which was excellent, and they don’t even serve pork so that works out great for Priestess) to the Golden, and we got an Uber back after.

Show was fantastic. I loved the whole thing, and it was fun thinking about the differences, and similarities with the one we saw in London. We went back to Amsterdam Ale House for drinks and pita bread and hummus (good, but the Arthouse stuff was so much better) with A. (Niece, not daughter). So much fun!

It was cool. It was sunny. The leaves are beautiful. This really is what we are here in New England for.

I did a bunch of laundry. I finished assembling Lego Castle Neuschwanstein. That was fun, but I don’t think I’m going to keep it for very long. It looks nice in the entry. I did a little rearranging to make space for it. I was thinking I’d take apart the Disney castle and train (I am still planning on doing this) and having it sit on top of the antique that I use to store lego, but I’m thinking probably not.

A friend checked into a hotel, and I had the presence of mine to contact the hotel accounting department yesterday and get through the credit card process. It was very smooth, and they have a thing where they sent you a secure link and you fill out a webform, so no email or phone call and give the cc that way. Who knows if it is genuinely more secure but one can hope. Checkin process was smooth, which was delightful.

It’s a little weird to be planning a trip with friend to NYC and leaving R. and A. (And T.) behind. This is a first for me.

Altho it was quite warm. I drove out to the construction site, because we had another meeting with the metal artist folks about the shower enclosure, which is looking awesome, and the railings, which are moving along nicely, and to discuss the overhang above the front door. There was probably something else we discussed, but it is not springing to mind.

I brought the knobs that I bought on Amazon and both E and J liked them. So, yay! Under $30 for 10 knobs and we all think they are quite nice. Can’t argue with that. The Etsy knobs for the vanity — 6, and 10X the total price of the former, arrived after I got back home. They are labradorite and super cool. I always worry that this stuff looks too muddy to be nice, but it really does not. I didn’t think to check hardness before ordering, but it is apparently a 6, which is fine. The last batch I ordered, the Schaub scarlet silk in the round form, should arrive before next Tuesday. It was fun to shop for those knobs, and it’s also enjoyable to have completed the task.

We also discussed the gate briefly. Apparently the gate guy who had something that would do homelink had cobbled together something using raspberry pi, which while clever is 100% not what I am looking for. I dug into the specs on the liftmaster I had suggested — and which no one has said won’t work, at least not yet — and found the weight limit, which is 2800 (4500 with “optional arm” whatever that means). We all agree that if the gate is anywhere near that limit, the gate needs to be reduced in weight.

Later on, I dug into the specs further, and learned that it has integrated battery backup, and can either open when it loses AC power or when the battery is below a certain threshold, which is awesome. The operating temp is pretty wide, but there’s an optional heater if we are worried about it. This thing looks really great, and works with homelink (R.’s criteria) and MyQ (my preference).