(Old) March forth into victory in the MMP!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

cookie, I hope all is well with the kittelagh.

It’s glorious outside today - supposed to be around 80F and sunny - which is why I’m glad I have the day “off.” It’s off in quotes because I have a couple things to do for work that can’t wait and most of my day will be spent moving things from my mom’s house to here or to a local shelter and taking kid #1 to the orthodontist. But I do have some nefarious plans to try to get a hike in, or a stroll or something that’s relatively ambulatory and not inside because it’d be criminal not to.

The weekend was one of those weekends that feels like it should’ve been languid but turned hectic in a hurry, but mostly because we were more social than usual, which was nice. Anyway, off I go. I’m going to put away one last cup of coffee before I drag my hide out the door.

22

Snowed overnight. The roads should be fine by the time I head to the grocery.

Paintcharge, lovely!

23

*Yeesh*

A member has a new a/r system. I’ve already written programs for the Aging and Customer files they’ve had since 2017 (and the Aging file was a little strange). Now instead of ‘flat’ files (one record per account), they have open-invoice aging… and the Customer file is now many lines per account. Oh, and there are no ZIP codes (required field). Since El Jefe doesn’t want me to spend my time programming, I was hoping I could just send the raw files to Big Multinational Credit Reporting Agency. But without ZIP codes, that’s a no-go. So I’ll have to write new programs. Here’s my strategy:

  1. Read the Aging file and capture the account numbers business names, and balance and aging amounts. Write a ‘flat’ file.
  2. Read the Customer file. Capture the account numbers, business names, addresses, cities, states, phone numbers and terms, and write them to a flat file.
  3. Sort the current and previous Customer files and match the a/r numbers to capture the ZIP codes.
  4. Look up and manually insert the ZIP codes for any non-matched records (there shouldn’t be that many).
  5. Sort the completed, current, Customer file and the flat Aging file.
  6. Match the sorted files to write a single, flat, file in the correct format.

If the client can’t send ZIP codes and I have to write programs, it will have to wait until the second half of the month when I have more time.

24

FCD has taken Higgs to a different vet and she seems to be more knowledgeable about pugs than the others. They’re going to do some tests - meanwhile, it looks like I’ll be dealing with the hospice nurse. I kinda hate this, and I’m rather pissed that the dog couldn’t have gone later. But I guess I’m stuck.

Dammit.

25

Flyboy, I understood about a third of what you just wrote, but it sounds like a pain.

Swampy, them taters sound nummy. I’ll have to try that recipe sometime.

Pilot, I said it once before, but just reading about your vacations makes me tired!

Me, I’m about to March Forth to Sacramento and subsequently Portland to get the irk week started. The airport’s a bit busy due to NASCAR having been in town this weekend, but it’s not too bad. But there should be a giant sign at the x-ray machine that says “GRAB YOUR SHIT AND GET OUT OF THE WAY!!” People standing right where the conveyor comes out putting on jackets, stuffing their pockets, rearranging their luggage, while my backpack sits tauntingly out of reach. Just GRAB YOUR SHIT AND GET OUT OF THE WAY!!

I’m generally a pretty mellow flyer though, so my annoyance was short-lived. I now have food and coffee in me, a relatively comfortable seat, and an hour until boarding. It’s all good.

26

Good morning all, and happy Moonday! I’m happy to announce my tummy is MUCH better. I’ve been taking very low doses of the devil’s drug (prednisone), and that calmed things. More auto-immune fun!

I’m cleaning out a closet but am at that “WHY did I decide to do this again?” stage and rapidly heading toward “Why can’t I just burn all this stuff without setting off the smoke detectors?”

Cookie, I hope Q’itteh is OK and her ills easily treated.

Doggio, I hope tomorrow’s Irregulars are less irregular. I hope you get a big shipment of Ex-lax and that all your anvils are light.

FCM, glad you have a hospice nurse. I hope Higgs is all right and that’s you get freed soon.

27

I had 3 of the ship’s entertainer / dancer types separately come up to me today and admire my energy last night. I wasn’t wasted and stupid last night either; just happily enthusiastic in a big crowd. One, who looked to be about 25 at most asked me how old I was. Her eyes got big when I said “65”. She’s probably thinking of her grand-dad and sees there’s just no comparison. It’s a curse sometimes, but on balance I’d rather be high energy.

What is scary is there is a woman at my old condo who’s 62 right now. About 4’10, 95 lbs, and she can absolutely run me into the ground. Back when her husband was sickly and my wife was too, for awhile we met up at 6:30 every morning I was home to go walk 5 miles near the beach. My stride is a lot longer than hers, but she was very hard to keep up with. Her normal walking pace looks like most people’s speed-walk. And she never runs out of breath. I don’t know how she does it.

28

It is a great annoyance.

29

Now I’m at the vet and FCD has gone home to deal with the nurse. The vet is just 3 miles from home so the swap was fairly easy. Higgs is in xray so I wait…

30

I slept 9 solid hours last night - no earplugs (slept thru the trash truck!) no bio break, no nuthin’.

Off to give Carless Co-worker a ride for some errands. He covered for me - and a lotta others - at work last week, so in the spirit of good karma, if nothing else, we’ll roll around a bit.

Hell, one of his errands is the nearby PetSmart, and this handsome black devil licking his butt nearby does need more kibble …

Anywayz, I’ll check back in with y’all later. Seems like there’s some huggzz, trouts, and unasked-for advice in the works.

31

Spot had to be trapped and sedated for that part!

:people_hugging:

I sure do hope this week is better. (maybe your mother will drop her phone in the toilet)

We don’t have natural gas out this way and propane delivery is not cheap. I’d rather have gas, but I’m comfortable with electric.

We stopped at Lowe’s to look at the stove we were planning to get and it seems to be acceptable. As always, it shocked me to learn that the power cord costs extra. We aren’t going to use our old one, its probably just fine but why chance it?

They also charge 150 bucks to remove our old stove and take it away. Yeah, no, we aren’t going to do that. We’ll offer the delivery guys twenty each to get the stove to the curb and then post it for free on Nextdoor. Just to be sure that it goes for scrap instead of going home to someone else’s kitchen I’m going to pitch the elements and power cord.

That would be a good idea if the stoopid breaker box wasn’t outside and around the back of the house. And up high enough that I’d have to leave a stepstool out there.

If this was going to be a long term issue, we could get a dohicky to go between the power cord and outlet to allow us to manually shut power off to the stove, but happily our new one will be delivered Wednesday.

I hope you start feeling better soon enough to enjoy some of your afternoon. Does Nelson take care of you when you are sick?

That sounds very cattish. “I’m bored, so I’m going to worry Mom!”

I’m glad you are feeling better and hope you test negative soon.

Poor kitty and poor you. I hope it is simple and easily resolved.

PM sent!

Did I miss something, I didn’t know Higgs wasn’t feeling well.

Today was the last time our housekeeper was going to be here, so I made her some cottage cheese as a going away present. She was really happy, she loves my cottage cheese. She was also happy at the green paper hubs gave her, but spent much more time praising my gift than his :slight_smile:

I wish her well in Texas. I hope her kids don’t follow her again, she deserves to be able to have some privacy.

32

They gave us a probiotic for the poopage issue and a med for possible allergies. Took blood to see if there is any infection but had no luck getting a urine sample. She mentioned the possibility of a brain lesion, but first we’ll see if things clear up before making that sort of decision.

33

Started Typing: 2:21 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 2:48 PM ET

Happy National Grammar Day, everyone! What better day for this professional writer and editor to get a little pedantic? :nerd_face: The Chicago Manual of Style defines grammar as “the set of rules governing how words are put together in sentences to communicate ideas”: it relates to how words change form when they become plural, change tenses, etc. A lot of folks conflate spelling or punctuation errors with grammatical errors: there is still some debate on this among my people, but I support the distinction that grammar applies to the language whether it’s written or spoken – while spelling and punctuation rules are strictly for writing.

Tomorrow is the presidential primary election; I’ll be an election officer at my “home” polling place. The polls are open from 6am-7pm: we have to report NLT 5am, and we stay until everything is done (closing out the ballot machines, preparing all of the reports, etc.) – usually around 9pm. I started supporting elections in November 2020, when there was a shortage of election officers due to the pandemic (and the fact that many officers are retirees), and every election day eve since then I’ve asked myself “WTF were you thinking??” and “what do you have against sleep?!” :wink: The good news is that the polling place is literally three blocks from my house, so I’ll be home just minutes after everything’s done/we get released. I’ll likely walk over this evening, for the setup, but tomorrow I’ll have a bunch of stuff with me (e.g., lunch and dinner) so I’ll drive.

The stupid sinus pressure that caused me to cancel last Tuesday’s personal training session is back today. Not as bad as last week, but there have been a couple of moments where my face almost felt a little numb. I’m really hoping this hide-and-seek symptom is related to the weather changes vs being a portent of impending illness – if it’s the latter, tomorrow’s marathon day could push me right over that edge. I have a pretty kick-ass immune system (I rarely get sick, even if around others who are contagious; I’ve never had COVID [:crossed_fingers:], etc.), but when I get worn down I’m done for.

What a terrible thing to do to sorbet! :sob:

Veddy nice! I like the middle one the best.

*whew* :slight_smile:

Good!

:hushed: !

As a lifelong renter, I’ve never purchased a major kitchen appliance: is that common for things like fridges, too? Or just stoves?

34

It’s my birthday!
I’m sick!
I’m loafing around eating cheesecake and playing word games.

I have no strong feelings one way or another about turning 41. I’m pleased I made it this far. Yesterday we did dinner at a fancy steak joint and I was just well enough to go, then we sat around in my husband’s empty office since it’s nearby and basically just wound down the clock waiting for the sitter to put our kid in bed before we came home, LOL. Parenting. I do love my husband and one thing I love the most is we almost never run out of things to talk about. I asked him what most surprised him about practicing psychology and he said he was surprised to find out that some people will pay a lot of money for therapy but are unwilling to do even a single thing to change their circumstances. This is an ongoing source of frustration for him. It was good bonding time.

I said the thing that surprised me most about my job as a social worker is that it’s not the touchy feely love fest you might imagine, I spend most days working with databases and drafting policy and procedure documents and having budget meetings. I love doing those things and I love how skills-based the work is but if you’re picturing the starfish story, that ain’t it. But I am macro. I’m not the one catching the starfish, I’m the one figuring out how they got stranded in the first place and trying to change the star fish delivery system.

Today I was supposed to meet with a board member for lunch, but that was cancelled, so I decided to just vegetate for the rest of the day. I’m already feeling crap and it’s my birthday so those two things combined suggest I should take it easy. I did meditate, stretch and go for a walk at least.

Talked to my psychiatrist, mentioned long COVID and she suggested some supplements that have been shown to help with brain fog in long COVID clients. I’m a bit of a supplement skeptic but she is a very knowledgeable lady, so here’s hoping. I am getting tired of my work day effectively ending at 2pm because I can’t brain anymore.

Tonight is movie night (TBD) and Betty Crocker blueberry muffin night. Because I’m an odd duck I’ve always eaten blueberry muffins on my birthday. It’s tradition. I think it started because I didn’t like cake as a child.

Alternatively, you could go love something.

Sounds like a shit day though, I’m sorry.

35

I will help you worry.

Ummmm…not sure what to say to that!

Happy birthday!!! Get better. Eat more cheesecake, it is full of dairy and has grain in the crust so it is practically health food.

Just stoves. this is the excuse given:

Electric stoves, ovens, and ranges do not come with power cords in the packaging. This is because manufacturers are unaware of the type of power receptacle that you may have installed in your home. There are no standard electric codes for stoves, ovens, and ranges, therefore the power cords are excluded from the packaging. However, some sources claim that electric stoves typically come with a power cord that plugs into a standard wall outlet.

I think it’s just a money grab myself. Electric dryers don’t use regular house current either and their outlets are all standard.

You are pretty awesome, thanks for doing it!

36

Yeah, it’s technically correct. Newer stoves have a four-prong plug (one of two types - 30 amp and 50 amp and appropriate gauge wire for either) and older ones have a three-prong plug. So your home may have the older type receptacle.

This is nonsense. The only stove that will plug into a standard wall outlet is one that sits on your countertop and is called a toaster oven.

37

Silly me. I’ve lived in condos or apartments with the breaker box in or near the kitchen for so long I forgot where they are on nearly every house in the USA: outside, around back, in the part of the yard least accessible from the front or back door. That was certainly the case on all the free-standing houses I’ve occupied.

Good luck w the new housekeeper.

Flyboy I’m a bit mystified how if zipcode is a required part of the file you receive, and the customer doesn’t provide it, the answer from your company is “Johnny will fix it laboriously by hand” not “This file you sent is unuseable garbage; please correct per the interface standard XYZ.123 and resubmit.”

But damn does that sound like the sort of stupidity and labor-intensive inefficiency that only PHBs can create.

It was about the color of the dark parts of guac, and truly amazingly good. Many folks were skeptical, myself a bit included. But wow, what a cool (heh) idea!

Yaay!!
Ouch. Crap!
Hooray! Sounds like a perfect compromise: a party for your tongue and tummy and no pesky party responsibilities to others.

38

And around a corner so they are out of range of the porch lights. If I knew who came up with that great idea, I’d give them a whack or two with my cane!

I admire your willingness to try new foods. I’ve honestly stopped going out to eat with my BFF because she eats like a five year old. No matter where we go, she eats chicken strips and fries. If they don’t have chicken strips, she eats a plain hamburger. Of course, I can order for hubs as well. It is so much more fun eating with people who are willing to explore all of the options.

39

We get paid for inquiries on the data we load. If the client cannot provide the required fields, the data can’t be loaded. To the client, not sending data only means they don’t get a small discount on their credit reports. For us, we’re potentially missing out on revenue. But once I write the programs and fix the ZIP codes once, the IPs will be captured from the previous file and I’ll only have to fix a handful. The previous suite of programs did the match-back to ‘clean up’ the file, and there were only five new accounts. So not a lot of work… after I write new programs…

40

Higgs has been “coughing” periodically for some time. Our regular vet said it was due to an enlarged heart (?) then tried to tell me it was Cushing’s disease (except she didn’t display any of the symptoms.) So she’s been seen by someone who just recently was at a pug seminar of all things.

Anyway, it appears when she exhales, her trachea contracts and restricts airflow. So we’ve got some meds for her to try and she’ll go back next week. They also did some senior evaluation on her and sent bloodwork out. All to the tune of just over $1K!!! <choke-gasp-wheeze> The thing is, apart from the coughing when she was kinda riled up, she didn’t act sick or in pain at all. So we’ll just see how it goes.

The hospice nurse was finishing up when I got back. MIL now knows it was about hospice. She’s worried about being a burden on us. I told her if she prefers, we can find her a nursing home, and she said she’d rather be beaten!! I think we’ve convinced her that we have been planning for this for years. And I think she’s resigned to giving up her apartment. The lease runs thru the end of April, so no rush to make a decision just yet.

Glad that’s about settled.