Transplanting a Seattleite

A few remarks on the new Colorado law and the SCOTUS decision

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 12:46:33 GMT

For background:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/04/the-non-partisan-puzzle-in-the-conversion-therapy-case/

And a couple days ago:

https://governorsoffice.colorado.gov/governor/news/protecting-lgbtq-youth-governor-polis-signs-bill-and-executive-order-protect-coloradans

SCOTUS said that a predetermined outcome was the problem. As the first link shows, that’s a really foolish and dangerous precedent that could crawl out and affect medical care across the board. I tend to think we’d all be better off treating the medical industry as hirable experts rather than trusted experts, but I also know this is NOT going to work for most people, so it isn’t a goal of mine for everyone.

What’s missing from both these links (it’s morning, I have things to do, I haven’t dug into it) is any discussion of all the pastoral counseling done in conservative churches, camps and so forth. It would seem to me that bans of speech, er, therapy directed at predetermined outcomes would likely cover those other activities as well. Heh heh heh. Will the future include a world in which het can only be validated but not advocated for in a therapeutic context? I would be fine with that. The way the original plaintiffs that led to the SCOTUS decision framed that decision was, hey, we CAN bring our worldview into therapy. The court signaled clearly that legislation that took a different approach to banning conversion therapy could work — whether it knew that as a whole or not, that was the effect, just as so many pre Dobbs decisions signalled clearly what the court was prepared to support.

Colorado’s prompt response is delightful.

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Uhaul, neighbors, Moodz, Prom, Amuleto

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:07:22 GMT

R. went back to the furniture warehouse and got everything but the sleeper sofa shuttled into the house. Meanwhile, I rented a Uhaul, because the sofa wouldn’t fit in the minivan. I also reached out to neighbors to ask for assistance getting the sofa out of the van. I’d started this process yesterday, and A. from next door and Z. from two doors down showed up, were very helpful and extraordinarily calm and polite and enjoyable to be around. Our neighbors are great parents / grandparent.

A. and I got our hair cut and I got mine colored (purple and blue). We had a nice time. A. wasn’t ready yet, but R. was back so he could bring her to the salon later and it all worked out.

A.’s prom was today. She went. She had fun. She wore a fancy shirt I bought for her last year (?). She tried her Mary Jane’s (Propet) but decided to wear the shoes she wears every day.

R. and I went to Amuleto. It was good, altho there is white chocolate in their homemade mole, and there were consequences so I won’t be doing that again. The drinks there are fabulous, as is the home made guac, salsa and chips. MMMMMM.

I did FF and that was lovely.

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Less Than Greater Than

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:03:04 GMT

I drove out to BostonWood Furniture to take a look at the bookcases in person. They seem fine. Their lead time is a little long right now, because one of their makers took a bad fall and broke his collarbone. Yikes. My dad did that as a kid, and R. did that when T. was little. It’s a horrible, extended recovery period.

I had a lovely phone call with JC while returning from BostonWood Furniture. R. and I went out to dinner at LTGT with the Bs, which was very fun.

I spent some time looking at recent pictures in ProCore, and saw one of the window in “Reception” (space between the kitchen and the bar, where the entry hall dumps into the main living room). I have these gorgeous silk lined curtains from India (during the tariffs, this was the one I received a legit message from DHL, reached out to the seller, and was reassured that they would be paying that — usually I’m the one who has to pay for it but in this case I picked a seller using a US side address, which I felt implied they were on the hook for the tariffs and rolled it into the price and I was correct). (I just want to say, I kind of want a court case that has the government suing someone for misrepresenting the value of the shipped item to avoid paying much tariff, and the argument revolves around whether it is a crime to misrepresent the value of the shipped item when the tariff itself is illegal but has not yet been found to be illegal but ultimately will possibly while the trial is in process. If you know of such a case, please tell me! I’d also take one where the shipper had to pay a fine, but then wanted to appeal it on the basis of the tariff being found to be illegal. I think the timeline was too short for any of this?)

Anyway. The silk curtains were for this window, and the lovely photo I was looking at showed the sconces (that I picked) right where the rod (that I picked) for the curtains (that I picked) was going to also go. Ooops. All. My. Fault. No one else was involved. *sigh*

I thought I’d have time to figure out a solution, but the Bs were done at the warehouse sale early and not inclined to return home, and immediately turn around to go to Hudson for dinner at LTGT with us, so they went straight to Hudson and asked us if we’d like to show up early. Which we did, but my head was all over the place. That’s fine. They have a great bar, and the brussel sprouts and the chicken was great.

Also! I asked MB (her) if IB might be willing to hang out / check in with A. while we were away in VA for a couple days in a few months bringing back my sister’s family and some of their stuff for a visit to the new house / first stage of their move. Or if MB knew of someone else who might be able / trustworthy for this role. (I found out a day later that YES! Yay!!!! Posting this whole thing on Tuesday June 2 as part of catch up blogging because Reasons).

T. made his way home successfully from Ireland, got through all the international reentry stuff and onto a flight to DC. I’m not sure exactly what he did, but he got to my sister’s, retrieved the box of stuff that successfully arrived there earlier today, as well as some towels and groceries for breakfasts, and into a rideshare to his apartment for the next two months. R. had no idea he was doing any of this, or why. There are days. It’s not like this was a secret or anything. R. knew he was in Ireland, but not why. I know I talked to R. about the timing on the end of the FSU sponsored learn-abroad ending and the beginning of the Washington Center internship.

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Sunday revelations

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:51:18 GMT

For the second in as many nights A. was screaming in distress at 3ish in the morning. This just isn’t sustainable, so I decided to do some real digging into making sure I really understood what was going on, because we’ve got her food intake earlier in the day and stabilized in a way that should have (and did) address any likely gas. Neither one of us is overjoyed with the character of her output, shall we say, but it also isn’t any kind of medicalizable situation and we aren’t treating it with anything either, so I really don’t think that’s the issue (it is contributing to the time spend in the loo).

I puttered. Which is to say that I started methodically cleaning and doing laundry and things of that nature. I figured if I wasn’t rage cleaning, then probably A. would participate and we’d have a nice time and she would chat. But she was really lethargic, and I kept losing her to her phone, so I said she had to stop with the phone.

It turns out that in addition to delaying bedtime until Very Very Late (we were starting the nagging to do routine stuff before bed around 9 pm, and she still wasn’t in bed lights out until after midnight), she wasn’t actually falling asleep. So the 3ish moaning/screaming was not someone _waking up_ distressed. It was someone running out of rope distressed. Welp. That changes things. We figured out what she needed to get done during the day, and I started planning for a nap, hopefully around 2 pm. That did not happen. It also did not happen at 4 pm. But she did get into bed with me before 10 pm, and I fell asleep, snored, and she switched to her own bed before midnight and stayed asleep.

Progress.

I did get to zoom with I. which was delightful, altho she apparently had some youthful type overindulgence with a friend. I’m sorry she felt like crap after, but also I’m kind of jealous that she got hammer with a friend drinking homemade margs and talking. Awesome stuff.

R. did family zoom with his mom and aunt. Yay! I poked my head in and waved.

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Apartment Tours, window treatments and crisis

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:44:22 GMT

Today, I was supposed to get A. to school, then drive from Burlington to Fitchburg to do two apartment tours for T. I did get A. to sleep through the night last night, by inventing a Pink Cottage for her to go into in her head, with some consoling magical elements. I fell asleep, snored, so she moved back to her own bed, and fell asleep and stayed that way. Finally.

Anyway. It was rough getting there (I’ll finish catching up on the blogging in a bit), and while we were looking okay on getting to school on time, as always it started falling apart around 9:45 am. I completely lost it, because I was trying to offload either the drive to Fusion or the drive to Fitchburg onto R. and he was doing his little dance of misinterpreting “Do you want to”. We had a phone conversation about how he wants to negotiate allocation of tasks. He suggested rewording of, “Can I”, and I pointed out that I used to do this, and he would said, “I can but I don’t really want to”, hence the current wording, and me taking on way too many tasks that should be split between us. He cannot really argue mental health requires him to go to work any more because he’s retired, and also, I was having a full on crisis of the sort that if exposed to outsiders would involve me being hustled off somewhere involuntarily. (<— This is not a joke.) (I know what that involves and I was having that kind of crisis.) (Things are really bad when I don’t get enough sleep. This is also a general truth.)

He wound up taking A. to school, and as near as I can tell, she got there on time. I drove to Fitchburg early, and T. rearranged things so that the tours started earlier and with more time between them which made that way less stressful altho still stressful. The Forest street apartment is super cute, but the stairs are deeply incompatible with getting a sleeper sofa up to the third floor walkup I was touring. Also, not sure how I feel about that steam heat. On the good side, it’s huge, and maintenance seems to be super responsive so whoever rents that place, I’m a little jealous.

The Willow Street apartment is probably what we will go with. T. wanted a tour of a 2 bedroom, which has two lofted bedrooms both open to the main room and thus no sound isolation of any sort anywhere. I asked to tour a 1 bedroom, and it’s the same but NO loft, just one bedroom and a big room with the kitchen, in the usual layout (walk in, kitchen to the right, peninsula bar seating, large room with windows — extra height because ex-factory building, bedroom, bathroom, you’r back to the door). No in unit laundry, but no mildew smell at all in the coin-op laundry on the first floor. Everyone’s very friendly.

Latest move in date for both is mid-July — they only JUST got their list of July 1 move ins, so it’ll be a few weeks before they have their August list, which they mostly already know but need to actually see commitments to moving out before they commit to re-renting. I think a one bedroom in the Willow Street building is the correct choice, even tho T. can’t fit all his planned furniture in there. He’s fine, and will just nix the dining table and chairs in favor of barstools. He went a little nuts on the furniture anyway.

I told him that I wanted to do some more looking around and would do more tours on my own and get back to him. That should get us to where we can actually get a mid-August move in date, which would be better all around. He’ll have to wait for some of his furniture, but getting fancy brand new furniture at this age is by no means typical anyway, so it’s probably for the best.

Oh, and I got an oat milk latte at Infinity Coffee right next door to Willow St and across from the intermodal station. Really Good Coffee. Nice people.

Meanwhile, there was the usual array of questions — some stuff about the garage, a bunch of things about window treatments. I did actually ask MC for a sheer in Reception to match the sheer in the Bar window, which will look awesome, and I’m approaching a complete solution for the window hardware and curtains that had been planned for Reception and then encountered the reality of the sconces I picked out for that window (and love).

There was a fire drill at A.’s school while she was in the loo, and head of school was amazing and helped her calm down but also expressed concern so I sent a detailed email update and am somewhat dreading what kind of reply I might get. If history holds, I’ll get something along the lines of, it sounds like you have a great plan good luck let us know if you need further assistance and we’ll stay in communication.

R. and I went to Great Road Kitchen for dinner and both had the poke bowl. They gave him extra mango (mine). It was yummy. It took longer to get A. to sleep and she slept in my bed; she’s too warm to sleep in a bed with so I went over to her room. Two nights of over 8 hours is really, really good.

(This is a catch up blog posted Tuesday morning)

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Will catch up in a bit

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:24:24 GMT

I’m a few days behind because Reasons, which I’ll get to. But first, nonsense!

I showed A. an old ad for Reese’s that is on YT. It depicts a young man and a young woman walking down the street wearing their walkmans. She’s eating peanut butter out of a jar. He has a gigantic chocolate bar. They run into each other, say the iconic phrases, what’s his face pops into the middle to show the Reese’s package and there is voiceover. They like it, they are showing walking away side by side eating peanut butter dripping off chocolate. Funnier than I remembered. Ages well as long as you recognize how surreal it was even then.

ETA:

Looking back over the last few days now that I have caught up on post-birthday blogging, I’m a little astounded at everything that happened. A crisis was inevitable. I will double down on my efforts to be lazier and refuse to do things, because this clearly was at least partially self-inflicted.

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Old Circle Furniture Warehouse Sale, Yard House, missed class

Fri, 29 May 2026 15:24:11 GMT

C. was available as an in person sub for A. for her dance / fitness class but that didn’t get scheduled until fairly late and we missed it. Oh well! She did go to her other class and I brought her down and back because R. was Busy. I had both the chicken lettuce wraps AND the poke salad at the Yard House with a Kish and Tell. It was way too much food, but I did not eat anything for dinner other than half of a Rubicon blackout 4” cake. Which was plenty!

The rest of the day was spent going to the Old Circle Furniture Warehouse Sale. I had no idea what I was going to be walking into, but I’ve been planning the furniture purchases for the new house for months now and we’ve been customers of Circle for over a decade so we had a lot of familiarity with the things that might be present in the warehouse.

And we did _great_. I got 3 recliners (2 with integrated foot rest, 1 with an ottoman), a sleeper sofa (for the music room — not the gaines that I wanted but the perry which is fine, and obviously a different fabric but it is lovely and will work perfectly), a nice live edge with metal oval legs console / wall table also for the music room, and a half dozen of the Corinna chairs that R. likes. We ALSO got 3 hiteak palm dining side chairs and a hiteak dining director chair. And a ton of Houe — a big outdoor bamboo and granite table, a smaller but still substantial Pico table, 10 stackable dining chairs (lamella), 2 lounge rockers (ditto). Everything but the sleeper sofa is already in our house (the teak is on the covered porch, and one of the recliners is in the garage awaiting transfer — I’m going to reuphoster my wing chair again).

I was really uncertain about the Houe for the big deck, partly because I felt quite cold sitting on the plastic lamellas, and partly because they are powdercoated steel and if the powdercoat comes of it is going to rust. But then I thought, hey, this would work fine in the pool room. So that’s all different than planned and not a problem at all. I’ve made some further adjustments (still need storage, but now going with Chili for the color instead of the Ash Blue, and I think cubby cabinets instead of the lower console). I’m not going to bother buying the fancy Gloster dining table and chairs for the big deck. We’re going to mix and match what we already have and maybe add a few pieces from hiteak, and get a manorhouse expandable — until I change my mind again, which feels inevitable at this point.

I redid the slides and spreadsheet to reflect the changes and started collecting images. It was a really fun way to spend the day.

Oh, and I think A. has some of my sorbitol sensitivity issues, so I’m going to start giving her gas-x whenever she has peaches / pears / apricots and similar. She was up late last night feeling like something was horribly wrong but nothing was localized. I’ve given her ibuprofen and a gas-x for this type of thing in the past since I had no idea what it was and that always worked, but I bet I could JUST give her the gas-x and it would be fine. Probably pre-emptively would be better. I mean, not when she eats the fruit, but a couple hours later.

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I did not drive up to Vermont

Thu, 28 May 2026 02:55:02 GMT

I brought A. both ways; she just had the one class, but wanted to stay for cooking club, which was then too loud to be tolerable. It’s tough to be A. these days.

R. drove up to Vermont and got to tour the shop while picking up my bed, which would have easily fit into my car. He drove the van, because we just were not sure.

I had a long phone call with my sister, and then I reserved a Budget rental van, made a hotel reservation, and started assembling a plan for how we are going to get the very tiny amount of stuff that is moving from her current house to the new place. I need to ask the three of them (B will be in Michigan) whether they would prefer to train both ways, or ride in a car to go up and take the train back and also collect dates. The middle of August is going to be an absolute fucking circus around here. Should be fun.

I got T.’s stuff packed up into a 14” cube from Lilac Hedge, and I’m hoping I can UPS it for about $30. We’ll see. I meant to do that today, but I got distracted.

Tomorrow, I am off to the warehouse sale from the Circle Furniture BK, run by the former owners (the long time owners). I’ll be looking for the things T. has already picked out, and then also things that my sister’s family might like, and things that I like. I shouldn’t be buying any more stuff to shove into the basement, but the opportunity is a little too good to pass up, at least in terms of going and looking. I will likely blog about the results. R. is going with me. A.’s only class is in the afternoon, which makes this easy, especially since my Dutch lesson was canceled anyway.

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Walk, drive out to house

Thu, 28 May 2026 02:42:48 GMT

I got up early enough to go for a walk with M. at 9 am. Woot! It wasn’t hot yet and it was nice to get a walk.

I made A.’s breakfast and my lunch and headed out to the new house with the drawer pulls for the drawers in reception. I made a lot of decisions about knobs. Good day, a little muddy at the house but not too bad. The railing in the 2nd floor seating area looks truly, truly, truly beautiful.

R. and I went out to eat at Silver Girl. I had the beans and greens and the foccacia and the olive oil cake. It was slightly too much food, especially with the Tokyo Boilermaker (in a can! And a fancy little glass and sitting on a tray — very cute, and very well curated beer + whisky — I got it because the whisky was nikka coffey grain, and I trusted them to pick a matching beer and they really did). I also got a 1 oz pour of the Van Winkle 12 year reserve. I’m thinking I really do need to get a bottle of that. I have thought this before, but never successfully acquired any. I’ll probably keep not actually acquiring any.

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Sunday and yet NOT the last day of the con

Mon, 25 May 2026 23:01:50 GMT

Because it is a holiday weekend, Sunday is NOT the last day of the con, altho sadly the last day of the art show so A. and I both missed it completely. Oops.

We did a last minute loop of the dealers and bought a bunch of stuff — chocolate, 3 d dragon, some laser cut wood coasters.

My sister and I had dinner at the hotel. The buffet was fine. I was sad that Clock Restoration was not open on Sunday.

We had gone to Whole Foods to get some stuff including PB &J, rolls, baked goodies for breakfast, and then stopped at Kneads Bakery. This was my sister, K and I. Kneads was good! Great service, 2 egg breakfast above average not just on the sourdough bread, either, and a latte with oat milk. Mmmmm. K. was a bit frosty because she’d had to wait so long for breakfast. I’d had no idea and felt kinda bad about it and also hey, you are allowed to tell me what is going on and I will try to help. Also, could have eaten at hotel cafe or restaurant and charged it to the room.

My sister had planned to return home today, but switched her ticket.

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First full day at the con, clock restoration again

Mon, 25 May 2026 22:58:13 GMT

We had breakfast at Miss Shirley’s, and I brought C.’s leftover Churro Pancakes back to the hotel for A. A. liked them. They were a bit overly sweet for C. I obviously didn’t try them.

We had dinner at Clock Restoration again, and brought leftover fish and chips from C.’s meal plus an order of chicken wings for A. That worked out pretty well.

May update panels attended later when I can check the schedule to prompt my memory. I think lunch was at Ramen Utsuke, just me and my sister. She didn’t get much toe at at Miss Shirley’s due to some confusion while ordering.

Morgan’s room party truly is awesome. I had a delightful long convo with the brothers D and C K. D had some useful observations about dealing with an anxious kiddo.

I took A. around the con space, and we spent a few minutes in the anime room and in the video room.

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Target, first day at the con

Mon, 25 May 2026 22:53:49 GMT

I got a Lyft over to Target to buy a couple foam pillows and some fruit and a bag of baby carrots. All the fruit would be eaten (I’m posting this on the train home a few days later) but the carrots went into the fridge in A.’s room and froze solid. Ooops.

I went to the Walter’s Art Museum to see the Doureia Fletcher exhibit, which I expected to be good and it wildly exceeded expectations. I walked around some of the rest of the museum and it was fine.

I went to Cajou, which does vegan / plant based ice cream, using cashew milk. Absolutely fantastic. I had the baklava scoop and chocolate scoop with raspberry, on a black cocoa cone. Soooooooo good.

I went to Clock Restoration bar and grill. Speakeasy! Fantastic bar. The old fashioned is amazing. The sazerac was really good. I got the cobb salad and inserted myself into a very fun couple conversations. Love love love. Highly recommend. You can bring under 21s in, even (foreshadowing). I brought an order of fish and chips back to the hotel for A., and she ate all of it.

I did a few panels and may or may not update with details when I can refer back to the schedule because my brain requires prompting.

My sister and niblings arrived, and I got them checked in, and then my sister and I went and had drinks in the bar (I had drink, since I’d already had two). We ran into JB (agent) and PF (his latest author) not knowing at all who we were talking to initially. That was fun.

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In Which We Go to Baltimore

Mon, 25 May 2026 22:49:27 GMT

R. drove us down to The Yard House in Dedham and we all got an early lunch, then he dropped us at RTE. This relieved me of my parking anxiety. He tried to reassure me that it was unlikely to be that bad, because it wasn’t like it was Columbus Day weekend, the last time I had trouble parking at RTE. I was like, well, it IS the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend.

The Yard House was good as it generally is, and A. seemed fine with her food.

The train was one of the old trainsets, and A. panicked in the bathroom from the movement of the train (we were pretty fast on a somewhat bumpy stretch) and I went in to calm her down but when the door closed, it had track jumped and we were trapped for a bit. Ugh.

A. was going through wipes really fast, which was stressful. I asked my sister to bring some wipes when she joins us tomorrow.

Feather pillows at the Renaissance Harborplace Baltimore Inner Harbor, and requests for foam (noted on the room request as well) failed — they were completely out of foam pillows and clearly annoyed at even being asked. Whoever supervised the recent room renovation clearly fucked up. The pillows have a sterilized waterfowl feather core surrounded by foam and they obviously thought that would be Good Enough and absolutely anyone who knew that Balticon was held there every Memorial Day weekend could have told them how wrong that would be.

In the hotel’s favor, the room rate was extremely favorable, and they let a teen stay in a room by themselves (not even connecting) as long as a parent is also checked into the hotel.

We had dinner at the hotel, and while it was a limited menu it was fine. The old fashioned on the menu was very alcohol forward and this should not be regarded as a complaint.

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In Which We Return Home

Mon, 25 May 2026 22:43:56 GMT

I did get a late checkout for A.’s room at noon, but we wound up getting out pretty close to official checkout time. My sister’s ticket change didn’t go through, so she had to head out early to get that figured. She wound up having to rebuy a ticket home, but apparently got it for pretty cheap.

I kept eying the 11:30 Acela and not being willing to commit to it. It would have been a few hundred more each, because it was day-of (I started looking the night before). In the event, we had breakfast in the room, popped into the geology panel and the science fact / science fiction panel, walked around the dealer rooms and bought a few more odds and ends (notably pins) and then walked over to Miss Shirley’s for lunch. It was a half hour wait, so A. went to the bathroom, I was seated and placed an order and after an hour in the loo she finally joined me. Her non response to multiple texts and calls and the really long delay resulted in me actually starting to feel ill. So I kept calling until she finally picked up and she came out eventually.

After Miss Shirley’s we went to the B&O Museum and I took a ton of pictures and sent them to M. So that was fun. A couple of really good signs explaining things like the Whyte wheel notation and naming scheme. Fun stuff.

After B&O, we retrieved our luggage and went to Penn Station. I asked A. about 40 minutes before the train was due if she needed to use the bathroom, because all of her recent trips had run 35 minutes or more. She said no, but at about 25 minutes until departure, she decided she had to go. I said okay, but I went in with her and made absolutely certain she really clearly understood that she could not delay.

We took the elevator down to the track and boarded and we got a new trainset! Woot! I got her a hotdog, an apple juice and a cookie and I got me a woodford and a pellegrino. We ate all the fruit (2 apples, 2 bananas and a couple oranges, so it actually wasn’t unreasonable ; we split it more or less in half). I tried the vegan chocolate fudge, which is fine. She had some of the snickerdoodles. I had a half of one of the portuguese buns with peanut butter. She wanted two hot dogs; I told her she could have a second one after an hour.

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In Person Shopping, but Eating At Home

Thu, 21 May 2026 03:32:08 GMT

I went to Landry and Arcari in Framingham to look at a rug. The rug was nice, but I ultimately decided that the antiqu-ing effect was not for me. There was a different, actually antique rug that was fantastic, but too large for the space. Oh well! I saw the Logan Express facility when I headed out, so that was cool. That’s a big garage where you can park your car, check a bag, go through airport security and ride a bus out to past-security at Logan. I’d read about these elsewhere and only recently learned that there was one near me. Very exciting!

I went to Lane Bryant, where I also did not buy anything.

I filled out A.’s permission form for the prom. I brought A. home. Traffic was horrendous, despite it being fairly early (before 3 pm when we started). It took about an hour to get home, so I was late for M., but she was able to be flexible and we had a visit anyway. She did not care to walk (it was very hot, high 80s or low 90s — or mid 90s on concrete). I got a walk later on by myself while chatting on the phone with AY.

I brought a Nature’s Bakery bar, a cookie from AS, and a banana with me because I was out during my lunch time. When I got back, I had a large salad and then somewhat later I had a burger; I made burgers for A. and R. also (and fries for them, too). I had some cereal late in the evening. A little odd for food today, but it seemed fine.

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Seasons 52

Wed, 20 May 2026 02:28:56 GMT

I brought A. both ways today because R. went out to the house. He got the closet measurements I wanted, and the plan I have for them has been refined (more Regency Spec Line and other stainless steel pantry items, basically). He wanted to know what the layout of furniture on the big deck was going to be in terms of power outlets and I was like, well, if we get the electric grill (current g+, I think was what I was looking at), that needs a dedicated outlet, but a fairly normal one just 20A, but not a dryer outlet or anything like that. I was specifically asked about the umbrella and I was like, no, that’s solar. I went to check, and the Midtown Supreme is indeed solar / battery, but the Starlux Treasure Garden does plug in, so I’m definitely going with the Midtown because I don’t want to have to deal with plugging the umbrella in that’s just silly.

We had dinner at Seasons 52, which was pleasant. R. had forgotten he was going to see The Mountain Goats, but I saw the reminder go by and he got there in plenty of time. He left some of his stuff in my car, including cheese and I did NOT forget to bring it in when I got home. Yay!

I am mostly packed, but I still have to pack for A. We don’t leave until Thursday. T. massively overpacked, but he was very good natured and we got it sorted out so his stuff isn’t oversize and overweight.

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Brunch

Wed, 20 May 2026 02:25:00 GMT

No walk with B., because she has a cold. I (possibly foolishly) picked her up and we got brunch. It was fun to get to hear about her travels! I got to meet S.G. at the house, and accepted that FB friend invite. A lovely person!

I wound up talking to T. about apartment hunting, and putting that on hold, and also refocusing on options closer to school.

R. and I walked over to Benjarong for dinner. I was really struggling to figure out why I was so frustrated about furniture shopping / move planning / etc., but I think I’ve mostly figured it out and it is what it is. It is genuinely right up there with giving up on cajoling other people into doing something, just doing it yourself, and then having everyone else want to participate also. I mean.

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A Very Beautiful Sunday

Sun, 17 May 2026 16:19:42 GMT

And it was made even MORE beautiful because I got a phone call from Not Son. He has indeed been at nuke school this whole time and is wrapping up A school with his comp coming up soon. I knew what absolutely none of this meant, and Not Son is a man of few words but I looked it all up later. He’s mildly nervous, which seems perfect, and he’s been doing fine so I have high confidence he will get through this hurdle and then it is on to Power School, I guess? I learn so much from all the wonderful people whose lives touch mine. Some friends he made while in Basic are on base where he is, so he’s got friends, he’s thriving, he’s healthy and he sounds calm and focused. It was soooo good hearing his voice and knowing in my whole body that he’s thriving. I could not be more proud of him. I keep tearing up thinking about how happy I am that he is doing so well. This is not a metaphor, and this is so not how I react to anything emotionally. I let JC know in a text, because I knew that she and the kids really cared about him and wanted him to find a place that really valued him.

I hope he calls and tells me he passed comp, and wants a lego set. I’d love to send him one, but I don’t know if that’s possible where he is. In the meantime, I told him I’d love to have him visit whenever he has the ability to go somewhere and the inclination to come visit, so hopefully some day he’ll come out and see the house, not as a construction site like he did last year, but as a comfortable place to hang out.

M. is off to B&N and The Sheep Detectives, so I’ll be walking by myself a bit later.

T. is off to hang out with a friend, so I’ll be hosting family zoom.

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End of an Era

Sun, 17 May 2026 16:13:48 GMT

T. and I and C. and R. all went to Puzzlescape for One Last Escape Room (at that business). It was the Odyssey game, and boy was there a lot to it. There was whack-a-hydra. There was a ball through a pipe maze. There was an aquarium maze (?). There was an old-timey hamster wheel treadmill turning an archimedes screw. So. Much. Stuff. GM was hyper involved right from the beginning and I was so grateful because I would have given up maybe two rooms in otherwise and I think there were five. Absolutely amazing experience. They were giving away all the shirts / hats / passports / etc. type merch since they are closing up shop forever, so I got a baseball jersey that says Puzzlescape and a hat and a passport. I apparently have real Lore in wearing hats for things I don’t do any more, but kinda miss.

We went to the Horseshoe after and the spicy chicken ramen was really yummy. I would order it again, even tho I lost a chunk of the noodles to R. who did not care for her meat and potatoes order.

I had a long phone call with JC, which was delightful as always. She has her schedule! She starts this month!!!! Good luck to her in her educational adventure; I have high confidence she will be an absolute star.

I had a long phone cal with AY, also delightful as always. I learned a bit more about her employer, which was really interesting. I really should do a deep dive one of these days in the corporatization of medicine, and the tradeoffs associated with that, and how regulation interacts with it and is used by all parties to advance their own interests / protect themselves. Certainly it is wildly contentious and under-reported aspect of our society that ultimately affects everyone.

R. drove to Brooklyn for a show with BS (yeah, that jokes has been made before) and will return tomorrow, so B’s car is parked in our driveway. Lots of cars around here this weekend, since T. has moved back. It’s nice getting to see him more.

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Rugs

Fri, 15 May 2026 14:30:41 GMT

A very long time ago, when I bought a nice stereo because I had money, the stereo was going into a room which was quite wide, but the sofa in the sweet spot for listening had a wall right behind it because the other dimension was not so wide. I contemplated options for sound treatments, and bought a very nice rug to put on the wall and it worked beautifully. The rug has followed me around in subsequent moves, and has been in my walk in closet for some years now, on the floor. The rug merchant — as rug merchants are wont to do — told me that the rug would last a long time, and I’d play with my grandchildren on it. At the time, I was on the fence about having kids at all, so I was more than a little skeptical. I don’t anticipate grandbabies of my own, but I am looking forward to hanging out with other people’s babies, which is, from a found family and community perspective, more than good enough for me.

I have subsequently bought a variety of other rugs, sometimes in a flaming hurry, such as when we thought we’d take our time moving into our current house but other circumstances required us to move in immediately. And more recently, I have been buying rugs for the new house, mostly online. Oh, and I also bought a new rug for the living room here with the possibility of moving it to the new house, but we really needed a better rug here because the deterioration of the old rug was stressing out A. and, if we are being honest, me.

Anyway.

People who remember the cavelike condo decorating scheme (you know the one, with the mantel painted in metallic gold paint — and yes, I made that decision and I still have such fond memories of it and I’m probably the only person who can say that), likely do not recall that the fabric on the wing chair (the chair I have since reupholstered 3 times. I think.) and the fabric on the curtains (currently hanging in my bedroom) clashed. But boy was I aware of it. I wasn’t getting rid of either of them, because I loved them both, and I put a lot of effort into making it so that it was not obvious just how poorly those two fabrics looked like together. It’s literally been a quarter of a century, and I still remember how hard that was.

I’ve been waffling on the upholstery for the living room couch and finally settled on something absolutely gorgeous … but it does not play nicely with the rug in the currently living room, which I intended to move to the new living room (maybe)(that was the theory when I bought it, but it is honestly a nice but probably not nice enough rug for that room). Also, I ordered a Stressless Adam, and the Batik upholstery doesn’t look fantastic with the rug, either. I have since been debating how to resolve this. Different upholstery on the couch? Different location for the rug (there probably isn’t one, unless I give up on my multi rug dining room, which I worked really hard on and love very very much but if it is a gigantic fail, this is a great backup option). But since I don’t love the rug that much (it’s not even that great in our current room, but let’s just not get into that right now), I am now shopping for a different rug that might make the upholstery of the chair (kind of not modifiable at this point) and the couch (I don’t WANT to change it, altho I haven’t ordered it so I could) play well with each other and the rest of the space.

I should mention that the rug from days of yore is a Persian, and the rugs for the multi-table, multi-rug living room are Oushaks. And today I learned about Sivas. Ahhhhhh. I have a candidate, but honestly, if this one doesn’t work, a different one almost certainly will. It’ll bridge that gap and make it look like It Was All Meant to Be. Mmmmmmm.

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Abatement came through

Thu, 14 May 2026 21:53:24 GMT

And it was a bit more than I expected, so I paid the remaining 10% or so. I also got some pretty detailed info from GG at the solar company, which was super helpful. He is always such a pleasure to interact with.

I had my Dutch lesson.

I had a visit, but not a walk, with M.

Last night and this morning, I’ve been talking with A. a lot about what she’s fearing / what is driving some of her anxiety. I imagine we are making some progress, however, I’ve imagined that before. *shrug*.

R. has gone off to get groceries, and has now been to two stores in rapid succession. Yay?

I sent an email off to NEWT about the tabletops I still need. I have a long list at this point of other possibilities if they don’t want the job.

It turned out to be trivial to identify really good selections for my sister’s pantry / laundry closets. After all the agonizing over which Lundia options to put in there, to have it be so easy to pick out Amgood and Regency Spec Line options was quite surreal.

After Tuesday’s trip to the house, I took another crack at the patio furniture, with a view to ensuring that the view from above (second floor hallway to music room has very large windows that look out over the big deck) is coherent. I kind of _hate_ that I have to think about how this space looks from my living room, my sister’s living room, and an upstairs hallway (and a feature stair, and the halls going from the front entry to both sides. I. Mean. So. Fucking. Many. Windows.). On the other hand, the result is starting to really look great, so there’s that I guess.

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Modoker convertible garment bag review

Thu, 14 May 2026 00:56:08 GMT

So, there is a weird category of luggage that involves a garment bag doing garment bag stuff, but that folds / rolls / zips up to form an additional compartment that will not hold very much, and which has various straps in addition to the handles of an otherwise more ordinary garment bag. I believe the best known example of this is a Halfday. I had absolutely no intention of buying one of these, ever, in much the same way I never intended to buy wood look tile.

Anyway. I bought one, because of some complicated travel plans T. has, and that required us to transport some items to DC for him. I figured the easiest way to do this involved handing it over to my sister who lives just outside DC, in advance of his arrival, and then she could deliver it to him relatively easily. Some of it got handed off in April when T. joined them at Busch Gardens (sheets, blanket). Some of it will be loaned to him by my sister (towels and pillows, mostly). And I’m on the hook to get his suit, shirts, tie and two pairs of dress shoes. I figured if I brought them on the train with me to Balticon, I could hand them over to my sister, and she could bring them back home on the train. But that left the puzzle of what luggage could I put his suit etc. in that I could easily add to my luggage and A.’s. Hence the Halfday knockoff by Modoker.

It arrived today. I took his suit out of the garment bag the Joseph Banks sold it to him in. He’s already worn it some number of times. I started by buttoning the top buttons of the two shirts and a lower button on each so they would hang straighter. Then I took the pants off the hanger, where… look, I trouser fold pj bottoms. I don’t know what the hell he did putting those pants on the hanger, but I was offended. I corrected it, got the creases lined up right and hang the pants to balance correctly. Then I put the jacket back on and put the result plus the shirts in the new bag, and folded the arms over in front, which is the only part of this process I’m not totally sure of. Oh, and I pulled the wadded up tie out of the shirt pocket, and rolled it correctly. I mean.

It all fits very nicely in the Modoker. It doesn’t zip well lying flat, but zips perfectly when hanging, so no real complaints there. The side pockets are generously sized. My son wears something like a size 11 (and for my family, that’s small) XW, so I was happy not to have to find separate bags for them. Technically I should probably individually bag each shoe within the pocket, but I’m not going to that much trouble for someone who wads up a tie and does whatever it was that happened to the pants on the hanger when I opened the other garment bag up. (T.: I am not at all upset with you or what you did. If you want help learning how to hang pants on a hanger so they don’t wrinkle, I can try to help, or your dad can help. But it truly does not matter. It’s just a hang up from my past.)

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with the setup. I’m leaving it hanging without the shoes in it until it’s time to go.

ETA: There’s only one shoe pocket, so I put the other shoes in the “duffel” compartment once the thing was zipped on the sides. It zips up a little awkwardly, but unzips great and the liner is really nice and sturdy. It’s heavy with a suit, shirts, two shoes in it, but sits fine on a Travelpro rollaboard. Part of why I bought this was the luggage sleeve, and part was the shoulder strap. I figured I’d bring A.’s rollabord, my backpack and park this on top of her rollaboard, which should let me wrangle it all effectively on and off the train and taxi/rideshare from the station to the hotel (I could walk it, I have, but I’m not doing that again).

Of course, you couldn’t actually bring this on a plane with a rollaboard, because it’s too big to be a personal item, but it would ride nicely on top of a rolling checked bag until you checked it, and then you can sling it over a shoulder. But all legs planned with this thing are train / car, so I’m feeling cautious optimism.

For under $50, this was absolutely worthwhile. Obviously, if you are transporting an actual suit for actual work and traveling light, you don’t put it in a garment bag, you wear it and you fold your shirts, and if it’s a problem you have the hotel fix it for you overnight, and if you are staying in cheap digs that won’t do that for you, you hang it in the bathroom after running some hot water in the shower. I grew up in a time warp, but I remember a few things. I would imagine, however, that most people traveling with a garment bag these days are headed to a destination wedding and wearing the fancy togs is not actually an option. If you find yourself in such a situation, getting a Halfday or a knockoff such as the Modoker might be genuinely helpful.

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Where the flatware goes

Wed, 13 May 2026 13:14:04 GMT

It is Lore that the first decision in any kitchen, whether designed or moved into when one had no say in the design, is Where Do I Put the Flatware? Lore is not wrong, of course, and each kitchen and each person making the decision about the kitchen has different constraints.

There are less legendary decisions in any living arrangement. Some obvious — where will I place the bed? — some less obvious — where will my keys/wallet/phone land when I walk in the door and put stuff down? The latter decision, for example, is prone to be made impulsively and, worse, inconsistently. Personal Organization / Decluttering Lore is full of Hero Organizers who come in and impose order on the drop zone.

Anyway. My sister and I had some discussions about requirements of our spaces. Early on, during the more intensely locked down months of the pandemic, I had envisioned a house with almost as many home offices as bedrooms, which I still am a little sad about not insisting on when the architect unilaterally decided that wasn’t necessary, but that the home theater and music room I had specifically said I didn’t want somehow were. The home theater went away because of some buildability issues (woot!); the music room “stuck”, because that’s where another R. requested feature, the turret, rose from. It has never had a particularly well-defined use assigned to it and for a while was going to be R.’s office. However, R. did a little too much complaining about the lack of windows in the exercise room, and I decided that entirely too much of the house was devoted to him wanting things for extremely specific purposes and then complaining about what he got. So the music room remains somewhat his, but is now operating as a hybrid 3rd living room qua guest suite (there’s a neighboring but not en suite bathroom that isn’t assigned to any one or two other people in the house), and this is all quite close to “Door 10”, which is the main secondary entry that isn’t the garage. Yeah, that’s confusing.

I felt somewhat bad that the office in my sister’s space wasn’t really large enough or well configured to be an office for her as well as her not husband B (in the event, even after contortion to satisfy her not husband, he’s still uncertain if he’ll ever even move in. He’s an adult. This is a decision he gets to make, and whatever decision he makes will be fine with everyone else). She described where she usually sits in her house, and I commented that this was also one of the places I set. My version of it is the stool at the end of the island counter by the fridge. Obviously, there is no comparable place in the new home.

I mean, there kind of is — I bought a vintage (not 100 years old so not “antique”) school chemistry table that I intend to use in the kitchen, and I made sure that the pneumatic stool tucks under it and rises to an appropriate height, so I can sit there if I so desire. But it is in no way the same type of “place” because the kitchen is intentionally enclosed in a way that the island countertop in my current house very much is not.

There is a bar in the new house, that is roughly the right location and space, but I don’t know if I want to perch at a 42” bar. I mean, maybe?

But there will also be a 36” square dining table with two dining arm chairs between the swinging door to the kitchen and the bar. If you come into the house through the front door, or from the garage door into the house, and you head toward not my sister’s side of the house on the main level (you don’t go up to the 2nd floor, or down to the basement, and you don’t head off to my sister’s suite — look at all the contortions I’m going to to avoid saying either “my side” or “the main side” both of which do and do not apply), you will inevitably walk past this table, whether you turn into the kitchen, stop at the bar, proceed into the living room and stop or continue through the living room or the kitchen to the dining room or deck, or R. and my personal suite.

In an “L” of cabinets, there is a difficult to access space and a lot of solutions to accessing that space effectively, many of which I am deeply familiar with. In the house I grew up with, that space was accessed from the back side of the cabinets, where there was a counter height bar with three stools. If you pulled the stool by the window out, there was a door, and that access to the counter space was where we kept the containers of breakfast cereal.

In this new house, I have a cabinet with a very simple face, painted the same color as the surrounding wall in the living room next to where that dining table will sit, that nestles into that awkward space in the “L” of cabinets in the kitchen (specifically, the “L” between the fridge and the smaller sink, where the granite is and ideal for baking — I really did cram every fucking thing I love into this house, and I’m still trying to shove more in there every day).

Obviously, this whole time I was wondering where my butt was going to land every day, I was plotting not just the comfy reading spaces in my bedroom and living room and other places around the house. I was also setting up a table with some drawer storage and a spot for someone to sit opposite or next to me and have a cup of tea (or another beverage) and an important conversation. In the really impressively comfortable new dining chairs. It would have been more helpful if I had known that’s what I was doing. I could have more clearly communicated it to everyone else.

ETA: Oh, my sister’s spot is almost certainly going to be the dining height table portion of her kitchen island. It’s a very clever solution to a really tricky room, that the kitchen subcontractor came up with, when I finally understood what the architect had planned, after JB (one of the project manager’s) pointed out how much was budgeted for the banquette and massive table in the corner. It was awkward, in the way that all large restaurant corner booths are, and because of the orientation of the table and because of some mobility issues was likely completely unusable for one of the two people who the space was designed for. And because of other mobility issues was going to be a problem for at least three other people living in various parts of the house. A genuinely impressive feat of That’s Not Going To Work For Us.

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Absolutely Wild Ngrid bill, dinner out

Wed, 13 May 2026 00:31:53 GMT

I drove out to the construction site today. There are some issues (with an HF Bento that shipped with a wrong part / missing part, and with some vanities) that are in process of trying to get resolution (and still working on the gap in the front LED light on the lighted mirrors). But in general, everything is looking really, really nice. C. came out to the site and it was nice to chat with him. It’ll be fun working with him, and he’s clearly very diligent and motivated and he’s worked on visualizations for the house so he has some familiarity.

It is sad to see NM leave (after his 100th OAC meeting!), but I really like M. who will be stepping up into that role, and I wish NM all the best on his new job over at Smith. He was great to work with. Also, hug! Yay!

JB is off to vacation adventures, so I’ll miss her for a couple weeks.

I got a text from Ngrid saying I had an overdue bill, which was surprising, because I have everything paperless and have redirected all paper mail to my current address. Indeed, a bill for the gate service arrived in paper form AFTER I called Ngrid and collected not one but two new account numbers. Neither of which is overdue, but one of which makes zero sense. Gate one is fine — the “solar” one is mysterious, and has months of charges on it before that meter was even turned on on site? I’ll have to call them and ask them an innocent question about what that canceled electric charge means and why is the number so high and exactly the same as the canceled charge and should they have canceled out? *blink* Perhaps it will disappear overnight; some billing systems are still pretty batch oriented.

We went out to sushi in Ayer at Osawa. We’ve been there once before and it was fine but I’d sort of forgotten because I think we were aiming for a different restaurant but it wasn’t open. In any event, really, really good sushi today, and a Blood Orange Cosmo that was fantastic. Also, the name of the sushi roll was “Fantastic Roll”, and try to remember to order it again. Mmmmm.

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Dentist, dinner out

Tue, 12 May 2026 02:04:44 GMT

R. took A. in this morning. I walked with M., and then drove to B&N with her. I read Home Psych at a table while she did her thing, and then I brought her home, plugged the car in, and had lunch. I went to Fusion for a meeting with C. that was helpful and then brought A. to the dentist in plenty of time so she could use the loo beforehand. After, we walked over to Martha’s Exchange, and had dinner and bought chocolate. They were nice and the fish and chips and chicken tenders were great, however, the edison lights were really painful so probably won’t be going back. Also, this is probably A.’s last trip to this dentist; she wants a woman dentist so we’ll get her one in Northampton in about six months. Probably should start that process now.

While reading Home Psych, I learned about the marshmallow sofa, fell in love, attempted to talk A. and then R. into getting one for the new house (there’s a rainbow one!!! I could conceivably do custom cushions!!!), but they were both a hard no. Oh well! Redditors think it is uncomfortable anyway, so I have given up on the idea. It is, however, still incredibly cool looking.

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