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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.
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It’s been a series of beautiful fall days, a lot of meals out, great conversations with a house guest, and other things as well. Nothing bad. But I’ll be catching up a bit today.

ETA:

R. mowed the lawn (I know, weird this late in October?). I did my one mile with M. I also did the big loop with R. Woot! First time in a while.

In addition to catching up on blogging, I also finally downloaded the photos from Charleston SC and uploaded them to Flickr. And then I went to Snapfish and ordered holiday cards. All the things are happening! Lots of good feelings of catching up a little here and there.
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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.
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Priestess and I did some lego, the day of the dead kit that is the skull on one side and an altar on the other. Cute and clever!

We also walked with M. Yay! Weather and schedules coordinated!

And we went to Vector Stone in Lowell. I really liked the Verde Fantastico, but R. did not. Oh well, we’ll look at more somewhere else.

I drove her to the airport. Sad to see her go, but we had a lovely visit.

R. and I went to dinner at West Village Tavern. It was yummy, and I should never order 2 Stranhattans. I know better.

This was a really enjoyable extended visit, with the calmest vibe we’ve ever had with Priestess. She’s now walking much faster than I am, which is pretty awesome. Her cane was really inconvenient, so she abandoned it with me to post on FBM, and she picked up a different one, which was better but heavy and didn’t fold. While she was here, we ordered her a folding one that was light and perfect AND PURPLE!!! It’s unfortunate she’s still having leg pain while standing, but at least now we know it’s specific to standing (especially standing on a moving platform) so hopefully she’ll be able to get a referral to PT and effective help there.
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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.

Birthday!

Oct. 14th, 2025 11:00 pm
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Priestess’ birthday included going to Seasons 52 after picking up A. Priestess enjoys the vegan oatmeal cookie as much as I do. We also stopped by Cookie Monstah and got some Grasshopper Pie vegan ice cream and 4 cookies. Mmmmm.

Because it was a Tuesday, I had Many Meetings: OAC / MEPFP and also one about the bar shelving and some details in the shower surround. Pretty fun tho. R. drove out, so there was that at least.
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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.
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We got up, packed up, and had lunch (sandwiches from the lobby cafe, Le Lis — tuna and egg for the most part). The Uber app gave me trouble but restarting it fixed it. I thought we’d left enough time to get to midtown The Escape Game for a 2 pm, but I cut it a little too close because I failed to account for the parade. Ooops. We made it, but M. was carsick, and I was really worried we’d be more than 10 minutes late so I called and rescheduled to 3:30.

We walked over to NYPL, but no suitcases allowed (Priestess) and I didn’t realize they had a checkroom for luggage until later. So the B’s stayed and we backtracked to Gregory’s Coffee where the blender was broken and we got a coffee drink, a juice drink, and Priestess had a croissant. It was very pleasant and that’s where I figured out what was going on with the no suitcases thing.

We did Gold Rush with another family of 4. It was fun, and we finished with a few minutes to spare — they were really good at it, and I picked a 7/10 difficulty so it wouldn’t be painful. We mostly used hints when some element of the game was not working properly (a lock was sticking in one case, the gun didn’t fire in another, and stuff like that; we had the right idea but couldn’t get the mechanics to work always).

After that, we walked through the rain to Penn Station, because I was pretty sure that a car would go much slower and I didn’t want to risk more car sickness. We stopped at Bourbon and Branch and had dinner. That was awesome! I’d picked it last year as a place to eat when arriving / departing, but never went. I’m so glad I spotted it and we had the time. Their tuna wrap was fantastic.

The train was a bit late, but mostly made up the time. We dozed on the trip home. There _are_ power outlets on the new trainsets (we didn’t find them on the trip to NYC, only the USB-A outlets), but the ones between my seat and Priestess’ didn’t work. LOL. It’s fine; we had batteries.

The drive home was mildly terrifying on 95 because it hasn’t been restriped and it was really hard to see where the lanes were because of all the water on the roadway reflecting sign lights and car lights. Once I was on 2, it wasn’t bad at all.

When I got home, everyone was still up and that’s when I found out the HVAC wasn’t working upstairs. So we couldn’t really use the new room as someone would be coming by at 8 am. We put Priestess in T.’s room, and A. couldn’t deal with the snoring so A. switched to the brown couch, but she did so quietly and I didn’t even realize.
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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!
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I drove to RTE. I got there about an hour early, and was glad I did because it was tough finding a parking spot. Yikes! Since I had time, I looked up vegan / dairy free Dunkin’ options, and used the app, and $50 I put on the account years and years and years ago, to buy avocado toast, hashbrowns, and a coffee with brown sugar syrup in it. It was all fine, and I might do it again if I was at RTE or somewhere similar, and it was this or Cafe Car options for food.

The B.’s arrived barely in time (horrible traffic) and also had trouble parking. Fortunately, the Acela was a little late and it all worked out. We took the subway to 72nd, and walked to Arthouse, because we all had backpacks and no rollers. Go us! Once checked in, we met up with Priestess, and had drinks and the jalapeno hummus and listened to some jazz. After a while, we went over to Amsterdam Ale House and had more drinks (I really liked the Victory Sour Monkey) and food. The truffle popcorn was odd. The chips and salsa was fine. I had a burger and fries, and it was fine. It got crowded and loud after a while, and we returned to the hotel and slept. It was so simple to be alone and getting ready for bed without having to nag A. to go to sleep.

On the train ride down, I checked in with A. and R. and boy did they get into it. He was stuck in traffic; she wasn’t ready to leave, they both lost their temper and did regrettable things. I made it clear to her that throwing a (metal) water bottle was not a good choice, and I made it clear to him that I did not appreciate him wanting her to feel abandoned. Ugh. Whatever. They still have to live with each other because I’m not returning home as a reward for any of that.
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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.
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It rained. It rained heavily. There were some cloudbreaks, tho.

A. got out of school extremely promptly, so we were at the therapist at 5 instead of 515 or 5:30 or ugh even later. We discussed the previous evening’s discovery that A. did not understand the timeline on “if you don’t brush your teeth” and “your teeth will rot”. She was thinking a day. Nope. *sigh* I don’t know if this is anxiety or autism or a weird mashup of the two. But if she would tell me in more detail what exactly she was fearing, I could provide better reassurance. So we’re going to a brush your teeth every 12 hours, and don’t worry about whether you need a snack after you brush your teeth and go to bed.

Farm share arrived so I had a kale (and mushrooms but those weren’t from the farm) omelette with rye toast and almond butter for lunch. Mmmm.

For dinner, I rushed through a bowl of rice and vegetables (bok choy and mushrooms, and ginger greens), so we could go to Less Than Greater Than and have drinks. R. had the wings. Then we had ice cream. I got the vegan chocolate and pb oreo (mini scoops) and pb gravy (not vegan but no dairy; it has honey in it). Sooooo delicious. This is the first time I’ve got to LTGT and then had ice cream and not felt overstuffed after. Clearly, eating the real food prior is the Trick.

We got through the tooth brushing before midnight! So, real progress. Fingers crossed.
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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).
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It’s been warm for several days, like, 80 degrees. It got a little warmer than that today. I know this kind of fake post-summer summer has been a thing for a long time but definitely this is warmer and later than I am used to. Ugh.

ML came over for a visit today, which was lovely.

I walked with M.

I made some further progress on Lego Neuschwanstein (which I am probably spelling incorrectly).

R. went over his donations today, and I’ll do that later today hopefully and then we can make final payments and file. Woot!
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I don’t know why the small stuff keeps evading my ability to complete. But I finally got to the bank and dropped off some books in the donation bin. Woot!

The copper finish knobs arrived from the Zon, and they look pretty good. Not exciting, but they are for the side of the bar that isn’t visible from the seating, so they are probably good enough. If I find something I like better, that’s fine too.

My zoom with I. was canceled. A. is having her online playdate. I’ve been learning a ton about early labor history and the Chinese exclusion act and it’s all very weird and feels weirdly relevant at this point in time.

I walked with M. and ran a load of laundry.

I accidentally broke A.’s pink glass, so I ordered the 4-pack from William Sonoma. The single wasn’t available in pink currently, and this way if I break another, there are 3 immediately available replacements.
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I did a bunch of winter vacation travel planning. I walked with M.

The travel planning was interesting, because while 7 of us have been to California many times including recently, at least 2 of us have never been, and 1 hasn’t been in a really long time. Not sure about the last, but if he’s been, it hasn’t been recently. And it’s possible never. So there was some discussion about what we wanted to do with our time. I encouraged R. to reach out to someone he knows in the area, and I’ve reached out to someone I know in the area. And also we are discussing days in theme parks and so forth. I’d like to buy park tickets relatively soon, altho it doesn’t look completely urgent.

There’s some interest in doing Other Than Theme Park Stuff, and Requiem Cafe in particular has been requested, which I had never heard of and which looks amazingly cool. I found a couple speakeasies and some escape rooms and the Packing District looks like fun. I think we’ll have a nice time.
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I drove A. in but Dutch was canceled.

K. had to reschedule, but we got to have a delightful phone call.

I walked with M.

I made blondies.

R. picked up A.

I dis-assembled the Millenium Falcon and it was picked up. Razor Crest was picked up earlier today. I was ghosted on the router, however. I’ll probably mark it available tomorrow.

FF was in stages, first the S.’s, who are traveling, then a gap, then P. and finally J. showed up after B. returned to his mom.

I got sketches for the shower enclosure and they are amazing. So happy! Of course my happiness will be tempered when we discuss cost and constructability but it’ll be fine.

Nice day!
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I try to keep Thursday as empty as possible and I really succeeded. I walked with M. I dis-assembled Razor Crest. And I kept up on the usual (email and messages) but otherwise tried to just have an enjoyable day. We drove together to pick up A. and stopped at Mack Designer Hardware and picked out some knobs for kitchens and bathrooms. R. looked at doorstops for the guest bedroom. A very successful outing.
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I had a very brief phone call with J. because he got some shots and they really knocked him out.

I walked with M.

I had lunch with R. at Benjarong. We walked over and back; it was a really pretty day today.

I picked A. up and took her to therapy, and then we went out to dinner at NYAJ.

I had a phone call with my sister.
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Also podcasts. Yay podcasts! And I’m currently listening to Hozier Unreal.

I had to go early for a meeting about kitchens / bar / a bathroom. It went well, and led to a conversation with my sister that confirmed what I thought she would say about the bathroom and her kitchen. So, yay! Walkthrough was fun, altho insulation is happening and I wasn’t wearing a mask. We stepped outside. Lots of painting, which is exciting to see, and N. commented the soft marigold in the upstairs hall made him think about the Southwest. Wait until he sees how the main floor turns out. LOL

I also had a chat with Priestess. That was very pleasant. A. and I watched some Cedrus on tiktok.

I went for a one mile walk by myself upon my return. The weather is finally meaningfully cooling, at night definitely, and in theory tomorrow during the day.

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