My office job was taken down by the global Microsoft challenges everyone faced yesterday. I called the IT help desk every few hours and listened to the queue grow in size from 250 to 300 to 500 to over 500 and then by the end of the day, the IT folks gave up taking calls and finally said – please leave your name and phone number and your availability over the weekend and we’ll call you back.
Over 7,000 people affected. I might go into the office (aka the mother ship) on Monday to see an IT person in real life. Does that even happen anymore?
My handsome husband rode his bike into DC yesterday to have a full day of meetings. Five hours on the bike, coming home by 7:30 pm. It has been a full week here, I went to Alexandria on Wed to have lunch with a pal who is retiring from the office – Tues, I went with a friend to a rough doctor’s appt and then we went to have ice cream after dinner.
You know, there are so many things that I want to do that take 20 minutes – reading! guitar playing! walking! decluttering! exercising! crafting! talking to friends! planning and logistics! and there are more things things that it’s really impossible to do them everyday. Hmmm.. I guess I should do a staggered schedule. (And shhhh…. there needs to be like an hour a day where I do nothing. Like when I change tasks or when I come back from a social or physical thing, I need space to decompress and zone out and just lie in bed. It’s anathema to all the productivity gurus. lol).
Jeremy’s view on his bike rides.
Because Jeremy went on a five hour bike ride, he went to get ice cream. They’ve been out of pup pops for a few weeks now, poor Elka. He asked me if I wanted ice cream and I declined because I did not ride five hours and also because – gasp! I’m counting my MACROS. There was a meeting of tricked out Mazda owners in the parking lot. Lots of fun.
We had a nice summer outing last night at Main Street’s Summerfest at Lone Oak Brewery (the lone oak, majestic, fell down in a wind storm a few years ago). Who knew that these are our people, really? I’ve always wanted to party to Gangnam Style at 6:30 pm and have pizza and then the party is over at 7:30! Edda had a nice time, Ginny and her folks had a nice time. I had a nice time. I almost got my leg squished by a backing up car, but I did not, so no harm, no foul. I still have my leg and it works, praise the lord.
We met some familiar faces!
It was so so hot during the day, and then when the party started, it was pouring, but by the end, it had stopped raining and it was clear and cooler and full of summer fun.
We are enjoying our airfryer. It makes lots of stuff and it’s fun. I’m sure it would make an amazing hot pocket, but I have not tried.
Despite being down 5 gas burners, we are eating fine. We have: an induction hot plate, two full sized ovens, an air fryer, a toaster oven, a microwave and an insta-pot. Who needs a cooktop? Like no one. hahaha. This is what we are working with, we need to remove the gas line and the electrical boxes in order to tuck the vent into the space.
Today I learned that I’m supposed to run a tub cleaning cycle on my front loading washing machine monthly! OMG, that front loading washer is so gross and yucky even though I leave the door open. You know how lots of things don’t bother you until you see it with a new person’s’ eyes? Well, our tenant has been doing lots of laundry (which is fine), but I cringed every time I heard her use it because I thought it was too gross for anyone outside the family to see it. So I started cleaning out the drainage holes with tweezers and clearing out the clogs and then I tried to clean it with bleach and then I went on the internet and found out that I’m suppose to run the tub clean cycle monthly with special tub cleaning solution. I’ve never done that in the 20 years I’ve owned front loading washers. So I’m trying that today. We’ll see. I also remember my neighbor who had the most pristine tub ever. And lawn. And deck. And they did it all themselves with small children. Sometimes, people are just better at things than you.
Eliana took Edda to a lake yesterday and snapped this gorgeous photo of Edda. Sometimes, ever so briefly, I can see the person she would have been without her disability. It’s not something I dream of or think of regularly these days, there is no Edda without her disability, really, so it’s not good to think about it too much.
I volunteered at Main Street yesterday at their Boba and Books events. A trip to get Boba tea and to the library. I’m trying to read more, mainly because I want to improve my attention span which is now hovering at flea-level. I just want to be entertained by short videos of cute dogs. I ran into J who I haven’t seen in months, so it was nice to catch up with her.
Ordering boba is complicated, but I managed to make this purchase with my watch! I did not have to take my wallet out of my purse.
We dismantled our kitchen yesterday afternoon to install our new induction stovetop. It did not go perfectly – going perfectly is like pitching a no-hitter or getting a grand slam, so a rare occurrence. I’m OK with that. Turns out we need to move some gas and electrical things which I’m not willing to do, so we’ll need to call our friends out again. I think we won’t need to cut or replace the granite countertop. I was having dinner with some tasteful friends a few months ago and they redid their house so beautifully 20 years ago, with handmade tiles and custom woodwork and now there are some needed repairs that will have to go through all that beautiful stuff and my friend was like – we shouldn’t have had all that nice work done because I’m going to have to destroy it to fix some leaking pipes and I won’t be able to put it back. Honestly, tons of stuff is broken in our kitchen, but it’s 85% fine. Are we going to just landfill the 85% that works? Anyways, his statement makes me OK with having subway tile everywhere. It goes back to my theory of – I just want the Honda Accord of things. Well built, not custom, but easily fixable. Essentially very, very boring. So boring. We are boring people.
Of course, Jeremy and I are learning to work together – this is a weak spot in our marriage, home repairs. But it’s going OK. My motto is to turn towards Jeremy when he wants to float ideas (so many ideas! So many) and then be relentlessly cheerful. Even when I think we’ll be without a stovetop for 2-3 weeks? I might as well think 2-3 months and then I should be good with the estimate.
We went to Friday Vibes at Main Street last night. We haven’t been in about a month because of all the crazy travel/sickness that we’ve endured and so we were extra happy to be back. It was karaoke night which is so FUN. They encourage you to buy food at the attached little cafe, but we’ve eaten there many times, so Jeremy wanted to get food elsewhere and so we had Potbelly’s sandwiches. Jeremy somehow ordered the extra small sandwiches for us, so modest! And so we were happy to have chips for us and cheese puffs for Edda. She really likes those.
We are doing a ever so slightly shady thing in that we bring Elka and slap her dog park harness on her which kind of makes her Edda’s support dog. I KNOW. I KNOW. We are bad people. Anyways, she’s always on leash and everyone who wants can come over and pet her – she’s not always 100% support-dog-like, but she’s pretty close and loves to be there. But also, we forgot to feed her dinner before we went, so she was very hungry by the end.
Here’s our friend Joab who sang his heart out. He didn’t want to go at first because he was like – what’s Potbelly’s and where is this place we are going to? But by the end, he was like – I love this place and I love everyone here. Haha, it is a lot of fun.
It’s that time of year where I want to take a shower every 4 hours. I take a shower to go to bed and then I wake up and I want to take another shower. I have been not sleeping well for weeks now – usually waking up at 3:30 am and then not being able to fall asleep for an hour or so, but always sleepy for an afternoon nap. Anyways, I’ve been off my usual daily running routine for a few weeks now, and I’m just getting back into my rhythm and I’m happy to report that I’m sleeping better now, so I hope that continues.
I’m determined to learn to pay for things with my watch now. Nothing makes me feel older than using my credit card and the chip reader. I instinctively do that as a reflex, and I’ve been trying to change to the tap reader (which I forget to do 75% of the time) and then the other day I saw a stylish young woman pay with her watch and thought I need to learn to do that too. So hopefully I can get that set up and never need to bring my wallet with me ever again. Lol.
Elka de-squeaked her stuffy. And then she starts crying and whining and carrying the squeaker around like she just accidentally disemboweled her best friend. Poor thing. I picked up the squeaker and it said in raised plastic letters – game over! your dog wins!
We visited Baby Leon! Who arrived auspiciously on Father’s Day. It’s nice to hold a baby. They are so tiny at 3 months old! Yes, we had to do the bounce bounce to calm the little one down. How it all comes back. Bounce bounce bounce and cooing and telling Leon – you are OK! you are OK! See? We are bouncing! More bouncing! Hahaha. And then we give the baby back.
Jeremy has been tirelessly (haha, there is a pun there) working on his bike. He had a very specific problem (which he did spend many minutes talking to me about) and posted about it on Reddit and REDDIT CAME THROUGH and answered his question. Ahhh, sometimes the internet is great.
We had a lovely July 4th weekend which was mostly just the three of us (well four if you count Elka). All these years of having people care for Edda, you get really used to having people in the house, coming and going and I love them all and appreciate the help that they provide us, but it’s also so very nice to have long stretches where it’s just us. We are very used to each other and have a good time together and it’s very relaxing.
It was so very hot outside and very cool inside, so there was a lot of being inside. I caught up with a lot of paperwork (Edda’s annual fiduciary report was due to the court as part of our roles as her guardian) and called/texted a number of friends which always, while it seems like, oh I should talk to so and so, one needs to block off and hour or so to do that properly and texting also takes time. I’ve also spent a lot of time this weekend working on a trip with my parent on a fall trip to Hawaii – just me and my parents and focusing on my mother’s love of plants – I’ve been heavily using Reddit as an information source – which is, one of the last places on the internet that is good. I actually volunteer my time there as a moderator for a top 1% subreddit (over 3/4 of a million subscribers) which has been fun and weird as well.
We did see people – did have a lovely low-key dinner with friends on the 4th. Elka did get dressed up for a microsecond, but she was not invited. Poor thing.
Elka absolutely refuses to walk in the heat and just lies down in the grass in the hot sun leaving the walker person in sweating full sun trying to drag sixty pounds of dog towards the house and therefore she walks at 6 am and then again at like 4 or 5 pm where she makes multiple enormous poops. Girl! Because of the humidity, it doesn’t cool down at night, hence, even at 8 pm, the temperatures registers in the mid-90s.
Jeremy is finally well and has been spending the weekend working on bike projects. Here is what is essentially a glorified crock-pot so he can wax his bike chain. I was like….so…..how much was that crock-pot? And then, he’s like – I don’t want to tell you. Hahaha, it’s not like it’s a secret or anything. All our finances are spilled together and I pay all the bills so I should know. But we like pretending in this way.
This last trip to California revealed some issues with Edda’s sleeping arrangements. Currently we use this, but we thought it sprung a leak and it’s heavy to lug around, so we came up with using a single person tent (that we already owned) and so we set it up last night on the floor of Edda’s room on top of a queen bed from the guest room. This tent weighs three pounds vs the twenty of Edda’s other bed.
It’s not perfect. Edda’s main issue is that she likes to snuggle up against the edge of the bed, so we found in the morning that she had shifted the entire tent and moved it to the side and so her head was suspended in the air. Hmmm…
