Pulling into Wilhemina Bay for our first photo op this morning. Lots of icebergs of varying sizes and shapes floating by.
If you get the chance to cruise here, I can highly recommend it.
Happy Moanday!
That sounds awesome.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 44 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 59 and mostly N.O.S. for the day. I guess this means there are no icebergs floatin’ in the cee-mint pond. Today shall be a day of high sloth. Nowhere we need or want to be, so sloth, general overall uselessness, nappage, and day drinkin’ shall rule the day. Even sup will be slothlike as it will be leftovers from last night’s sup. Have I mentioned lately how much I like bein’ a retired drain on society?
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah.
Happy Moanday Y’all!
Heck, I’ve been excited the temps were warm enough to melt the icebergs packed snow/ice in my driveway!
However, The Oracles predict “wintry mix overnight” which I’ve learned is a generic term for cold, wet crap of varying proportions, blended in with a giant side order of { shrug } “dunno, we’ll see?”
(What’s that old-skool thing where people posted a cute “shrug” figure made out of punctuation symbols?)
Oh, OH!! The big news from work!!
So, after much fanfare and subsequent delays, we’re officially joining the 21st century and getting an updated P.O.S. because … { drumroll } we’re finally gonna have an integrated online ordering system.
We’ll have printers, the noisy little kind that spit out tickets like you see on TV shows about “real” restaurants!
We’re not gonna have handwritten tickets anymore!! (No more “Um, what the 
does this say? I canNOT read this shit, girl!”) Ooooh, can you tell I’m super excited about that part?
Customers can - and will - order over the phone or in-person, just like they’ve been doing since God’s grandma was a little girl, but we’ll type everything in through the computer instead of scribbling it.
Order online? It’ll already be paid for when they pull up, which will keep the line moving much faster, plus no more arguing about, “No, but I wanted chicken on half of it!” where we misheard/misread the order and got it wrong. (Granted, we may make it wrong, but you can’t eliminate human error entirely, of course.)
So today the place is closed as usual - no doubt they’ll be installing all this stuff today - and tomorrow I am off. But my Sweet Manager invited me to come by tomorrow to see how things were going and get a sneak peek. I kinda laughed it off, like, “Okay, I might, but if I can jear people screaming from out in the parking lot imma go back home, ha ha!” … but as we were leaving for the night she was like, again with the, “No, really, Shoe stop by tomorrow!” so I guess I might, just to see how bad the carnage is things are going.
Look, I’m looking forward to it, but I have an I.T. background (which is why I was less than unsurprised when the initial rollout was delayed … twice … ) and I’ve used less primitive more sophisticated P.O.S. systems than what we currently have (the learning curve when I started was something akin to teaching an aerospace engineer how to bang two rocks together to make an arrowhead) plus I’m sick to death of deciphering this person’s scrawl vs. that person’s teeeeny tiny hieroglyphics but I also know there will be hiccups, and frustration, and unforeseen “WTF do we do now?!?” situations.
So we shall see what the next coupla days bring, work-wise.
Meanwhile, it’s back to bed with me. Later, scraping my hooptie down to the Fixin’ Place dealership, to ask about the plastic guard thingie that’s loose under my car (can it be re-bolted back into place, or simply removed?) and possibly an oil change, if I can afford both AND still make rent.
If not, two of the three can wait a week till my next paycheck, and it ain’t the rent.
I’d like to find out how much to fix the cracked windshield, while I’m there, but that’s lower on the priorities. Half this town is driving around with a cracked windshield anyway.
Afternoon, mumpers! It’s currently 12c/53f with a predicted high of 13c/55f, and cloudy. Weather app is suitably uninspired - “It’s gloomier outside than a fucking sad handjob, followed by a sad trombone during the fucking sad climax.” Yes, Weather App has a case of the Mondays.
Temps are warm enough for me, no signs of icebergs around here either!
It’s a work day but I’m at home so the commute was blissfully short and it’ll be just as good when I log off later today. 'im indoors is being 'im outdoors as he’s gone to the gym and then into town so he’ll be picking up lunch from the Indian deli truck today. Chicken tikka wrap and a veg samosa is in my future. In the meantime, I have a bunch of module options forms to construct. Might take me most of the week to do them all, but at least it keeps me out of mischief!
{ tilts head quizzically to one side }
@BippityBoppityBoo I thought of you briefly last night, after the Lions lost.
I mentioned to Sweet Manager after Oven Master threw a bit of a tantrum, “Well, he’s upset, but spare a thought for all the E.R. nurses working the night shift in Detroit right now. Bet they’re hoppin’!” … and I thought of you and your many, many night nurse exploits over the years.
Closer observation of the ratties over the last several days is confirming what I suspected: dude sold me a LOT of females.
Which is good! Worst case scenario was I got 100% males and couldn’t re-establish a breeding colony.
Anyway, I have visual confirmation of the current Romeo but I only ever just see the one dude. (This one has a triangle-shaped brown “blanket” on his back AND a big spot on his rump, which makes him just barely visually distinct from the others. Well, that and his other, uh, attributes.)
So that lil’ guy is, at least for a while, the luckiest sumbitch around, since - until their breeding is firmly established - he gets a complete pass from any Pretzel Meals ™.
Plus an entire harem!
Trash truck just came 'round (Monkey and I both watched through the window … and if that doesn’t scream “old lady/crazy cat lady” I don’t know what does) but since I’m wearing pants due to Bio Break Time anyway, I guess I could go out in the 34F dawn and bring the bin back around.
Or not.
Mornin’ all. About an hour after sunrise here, partly cloudy and 56/13 on the way to 66/19. So feels like icebergs have suddenly drifted nearby, but I can’t see any. I ate what was probably a too-carby late dinner and had a single glass of wine. By 8:30pm I could not stay awake, so went to sleep and 10-1/2 hours later I was up & refreshed. Felt very good, and doubtless the first of many restorative sleeps on my guilt-free tiptoe-less schedule.
Shoe good luck with the new POS of a P.O.S. I’m sure it’ll have some rant-worthy features. Which we’ll enjoy hearing all about. 
And best of luck resolving the car issues. Whatever plastic thingy is broken under the front / engine is 100% optional. Odds are you broke it, rather than a bolt coming out. A dealership might balk at just removing it without a replacement, but I’m sure any Bob’s Garage sorta place would be happy to pull it off and leave it off for you.
And double-hooray for Romeo. Free food and unlimited willing females sounds like my kinda job. Especially right now. :leer:
Although as I’ve commented for years decades about pilots who go into the drug-running trade:
Lucrative work, but the retirement plan really sucks.
One of my high school era airport friends went into that line of work. Died at the age of 20 in a hail of gunfire into his back “while escaping” from the Mexican Federales.
Romeo: Ask not for whom the snake awaits. It awaits for thee.
VanGo I’m sorry to hear you’re down in it. For me at least, winter always did that. Even down here where “winter” always needs quotes around it. I expect things will turn around in a bit for you soon-ish.
As to a couple things from last week:
Ultimately that’s it. And beautifully said. Thank you.
Which is why I concluded that extended counseling, etc., would be futile. Not for lack of mutual goodwill, but from lack of similarity in nearly everything that matters. I do not think she is wrong, merely too different. I believe, not that it matters, that she has a much harder time than I do separating personal opinion / preference from objective universal fact. Although I’d not be surprised to discover that she thinks the same of me; I truly don’t know and now (happily) won’t have an opportunity to find out.
Several of you last week made similar points. All of which were well-taken.
One of things I’d noticed in recent months was how much what I chose to write about HL was painting a real negative picture. And I was being deliberately selective, not wanting to turn into one of those people whose favorite topic is spouse-bashing. Looking back at the overall picture of what I was writing about HL was a form of Rorschach; showing me the feelings behind the facts so to speak. Or maybe finally seeing the forest for the trees. My recognizing that almost all of it was irritatingly negative was a big part of what catalyzed getting my ass in gear to do something.
Y’all make a great sounding board. Even if the “music” is mostly discordant.
I think doing something with exotic locals might be fun! Miami has lots of exotic locals. Some of 'em are even cute :leer:
As to visiting other locales, that is imminent. Totally TBD, but imminent. Might follow FCM to Antarctica.
30F and clear skies (finally) in MSP this morning. Still no snow this winter and nothing in the forecast. Meanwhile, my hometown of Anchorage is expecting another foot of snow and looking at sub-zero weather soon.
I think breakfast burritos are for breaking the fast today.
My daughter never made it yesterday. After she was two hours overdue, I was worried enough to try to call her, but no answer. Tried sending a PM, but no answer. So I called my eldest to see if he could raise a response, but no luck. Turns out she decided to take a little nap and it turned into several hours, so all is well.
Onward to the day!
No icebergs here in N. Ali-bama (outside of my icebox), but only 37F heading for 47F, so for most Southerners that’s close enough. Today is 4-S day (shopping-sammich-swimming-sauna) and nothing much else on the agenda. Do need to call the Handyman, Inc. folks about a couple repairs needed for the house post-plumbing, just been lazy about it.
Boo fae, 'keeps you out of mischief?" Where’s the fun in that?
shoe, hope the new P.O.S. means “Point Of Sale” and not “Piece Of Sh…” and works moderately well for you folks. And lucky Romeo…hope he doesn’t die from exhaustion…
OK, need to check around the message board and be about the day. Have a good week all.
Slow short heave. Par for a late January Monday. Early naptime I think. Or to quote Yakko Warner: “Early To rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, but socially dead.”
So are they compeltely redoing the POS, or just slapping new stuff on top of old stuff… I hate gradual add ons, because the wring ends up looking like a pile of hornked up spaghetti, which is fun when you are playing “trace the cable to see if it’s unplugged or not”.
So say we all.
When you’re right, you’re damn right.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but … eventually, he’ll be the biggest, oldest adult available. And Pretzel is a very, very big girl.
So yeah. But until then, he’ll have his glory days, for sure.
From my perspective, you wrote mostly positive things about her, when taken at face value.
But reading between the lines - and especially taken within the context of what you’ve said, separately in unrelated posts, about how things were in your 1st marriage - is where some of us sensed trouble in paradise.
Even the “tiptoe to make coffee” thing mentioned … at face value, could be taken as one person showing consideration for another’s schedule.
… which makes 150% sense if it’s, say, a work thing, for ex. one person is tied to an 8-6 office; the other works graveyard shift.
… but made just a bit less sense in what was yall’s context.
I guess that’s what you meant by Rorschach test.
I thought you hate cold weather?
Been there, done that; sheet lines all over me to prove it.
You know damn well what it means.
(Narrator: “It always means both.”)
100% brand new system.
There’s some physical logistics to be worked out.
The “fun” one will be that printed tickets can get WAAAAYYY long, and our line is set up for the standard-length handwritten tickets.
We can hang the new, much longer tickets higher up (so they don’t dangle INTO the damn sauce tub) but at a rather modest 5’7" I’m still a full head taller than some of my coworkers, and last I heard there was still ongoing discussion over how to manage it so my fun-sized colleagues can reach the new tickets.
(On an unrelated note … do Michiganders just, like, not feed their children or something? The “corn-fed Texan” stereotype must have something to it. Everybody here seems so damn tiny.)
Which raises a great set of questions about snake feeding.
Famously, “the pig in the python” is a slow process. I’ve never heard of “pigs plural in the python”.
So how does that work feeding a big snake? Can Pretzel eat 2 or 3 at a sitting if they’re small? Or eat them separately a couple days apart, so close enough together in time that they’re all in different stages of digestion at once? Or do you just need to find some single thing big enough to feed her that she can process the whole thing before she gets hungry again?
Other than guesswork and a calendar, how do you know when she’s interested in eating again? Just drop in a meal and if it’s still there a day later, rescue it back to the rat enclosure?
Etc, etc. I for one would enjoy a TED talk on python feeding.
I intend to visit the cold exactly twice more in my life: Antarctica, but on a cruise that lands on the continent, and Iceland to see the aurora. There are no other reasons on Earth powerful enough to send me into the cold.
“Fun-sized colleagues”! What a great turn of phrase. I’m gonna keep that one. HL is certainly fun-sized, although she’d kill you if you ever called her that to her face.
My 2 cents as somebody who’s never worked in a restaurant … Put the ticket rail on the front face of the work counter. So the tickets are at hip height. Yeah, they’ll get goop on them, but each ticket is disposable and if one becomes illegible, it can be reprinted. If the POS P.O.S. has that feature, which it certainly should.
Nothing exciting at all, shoe but definitely makes my head spin at times. I currently look after the dept of Anthropology and African Studies, and the dept of Classics, Ancient History and Archeaology. Around this time of year, we get in touch with our second and final year students asking them to pick the modules they want to study next year (September). We used to do this as a paper exercise but now we have the magic of MS Forms so we do it that way.
Since our programme structures and range of optional modules has changed, I need to create a complete new set of forms. It could be as little as four forms (one year 2 and one year 3 for each dept) or I could make it 5 with a separate form for a programme that belongs to Anthropology but is a joint honours one with Classics. Within each of the other four forms though, there are up to six different programmes to deal with, and they don’t all share the same optional modules.
That’s what makes my head spin!
♫ Sun arise, she bring in the morning.
Sun arise, bring in the morning
Fluttering her skirts all a-rou-rou-rou-round. ♫
LSLGuy, I’m so glad you got a good, sound sleep and don’t have to tip toe. It’s amazing how those things can creep up on you to the point where they feel totally normal, even though they’re not. I hope your guiltless “hedonism” (aka, doing reasonable things whenever you want, however you want, which isn’t really hedonism) continues.
shoe, I love the term “fun sized colleagues.” I’m going to have to remember that one.
The conversation with the vendor came with relatively little sting last week, which was cool, but I’ve already had my first fight of the day with a different vendor, which does sting a tad, not because I did something stupid but because it was just annoying.
It’s warm-ish (for winter) and foggy out today, which is lovely, though it’s supposed to be sunny later, which I assume will burn off all the fog. I have a neurology appointment in an hour; fortunately, my last three annual seizure visits have been accomplished via telehealth, which is really just delightful as hell. I’m sure it’d be different if my particular condition were more complicated (I’m an “easy” epilepsy patient because I’m well-controlled and I just hit my 15-year anniversary being seizure-free thanks to modern pharmaceuticals). The meds I take are used not only as anticonvulsants but to treat bipolar, so I wonder often whether, between the brain damage that can be caused by having a seizure and the medications, if I might be a hell of a lot smarter yet have bipolar disorder were I not medicated or had never developed seizures in the first place. I really would prefer to not find out at this point.
I found out last night that one of my friends in my circle of soccer moms is in the hospital - she had some gallbladder issues that caused her pancreas and liver to swell, so they can’t take the gallbladder out before the other organs chill out, so I may or may not have a few extra kids here for a day or two, assuming they don’t stay with family tonight. Poor kids. They’re all teenagers and can more or less handle themselves but they’ve got to be scared.
Good morning, kids!
Guess where I am?!
It was an absolute slog of a two weeks there, but I am relocated to South St. Paul and one-week deep into my fancy new managerial role. On the homefront, I am completely unpacked and my townhouse is 100% set up short only of the few things I need to spend money on. On the workfront, I am bouncing between feeling extremely confident and capable one moment and feeling entirely underwater and outmatched the next. My new boss is saying he’s astonished at how fast I’m getting up to speed and that he’s very impressed with me, though, so… 
Met up with all my Twin Cities pals for a week-delayed birthday thing, so that was fantastic. Haven’t been in one room with that many friends in well over a year. I am utterly enamored with St. Paul so far, it’s indescribably wonderful to be so close to a proper city again.
I’m pretty pleased with the townhouse. My only issues are that the front & garage doors are drafty and that there’s kind of an odd sewer-gas-y odor in the bathrooms sometimes. I noted both issues on the move-in condition report and they said they’ll have someone over to look at it this week. Aside from that, it’s roomy and cozy and the kitchen and living room are (comparatively) huge. Junior has settled in really quickly, which is a relief - last time he was a total mess for months after the move. This time he was making himself at home on day two, and now he’s acting like he owns the place. He’s especially fond of the chaise section of the new couch (which I got an absurd deal on, it’s huge and comfy and practically new.)
My work team is very cool - my boss is patient and very committed to making sure I have the training and support I need, and my minions are passionate and clearly experts at their jobs. I’m already attending some pretty heavy-duty high-level meetings and being asked for opinions and recommendations on some serious stuff. Very cool and very nerve-wracking! Definitely a position where my fuckups will be highly visible. So… No fuckin’ up, right? Right.
Only issue now is that I burned every bit of cash and re-maxed my personal debt to get down here, and I won’t be getting paid until the 16th - they got mixed up about where they were in the pay schedule and told me the 8th before. The 8th was already gonna be a stretch, and now I gotta hold out for over two weeks…? Eesh. I have plenty of groceries so I’m not gonna starve, but I might easily wind up overdrawn and with some late credit card payments in the meantime. I’m sooooo close to being done with my perpetually-cash-strapped days, but of course there’s gotta be one more hurdle to jump first.
I think that’s it! Exciting new work developments for shoe, I hope the new system winds up being a substantial headache-reducer! Sounds like I missed some big developments for Pilot, but it seems like you’re handling everything with characteristic verve and competence. Best of luck to you. <3²
OK, I’m in the proper thread now. Sorry again.
Got my MDHHS reports in, yay. So I get a tiny break now before resuming that big grant application, then I’m hoping for at least an hour to chill (and tomorrow will be more chilling.)
I feel a little bad about kvetching about my son having a birthday party. We scheduled it today and the cousins are really excited to show up wearing number clothes, and we bought number stickers for everyone to wear if they don’t have numbers on their clothes. It’s just going to be a low-key thing I guess. I think I feel less stressed now that January is (almost) behind me. (This is not until March.) Plus my own birthday dinner has now been scheduled. So I’ll try to calm down now.
Congratulations! And yes, there will be delays. Can’t blame you for steering clear for a while.
Wow, this is such a relatable post. I have had a few seizures in my lifetime, not sure what caused them but it’s possible it was Wellbutrin that lowered my seizure threshold. I had three grand mal seizures in one day during the last episode. Anyway, eventually they put me on Lamotrigine, which turned out to be great for my depression. I do not have bipolar but mood stabilizers have always been more effective than anything else for my depression, which suggests to me that it’s biological/cyclical. My Mom used to smack me repeatedly in the head a lot; my neurologist thought it might be the cause of my seizures, and then he suddenly died. So I am being prescribed seizure medication by my psychiatrist. I’ve thought about finding a new neuro, but… I haven’t had any seizures in seven years. So. That is the story of my seizures. I’ve had so few I even hesitate to call it epilepsy.
I never get any warning before I have them so I admit I’ve had some times where I am freaked out about driving, even though it’s been so long, I would have no warning. And the aftermath for me was just sheer disorientation and confusion for about 30 minutes afterward. Not a fan.
I’m glad you haven’t had any in so long. I usually at least have some warning - enough to lie down anyway. For me, at least, they’re really painful - I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck and have a migraine for around 3 days to the point where I can barely drink water and cannot sit up. I’m totally incapacitated, then when I come out of it, my emotional centers and taste are both dead, so I have to fake normal reactions until they come back.
My theory is it was a traumatic brain injury. I fell off my bike when I was a teen and blacked out for three hours. I remember vaguely walking home with something warm dripping down my neck and crying, then there’s nothing until I “woke up,” trying to play my violin. I went into my mom’s bathroom to watch my fingers (she had better lighting) and started screaming when I saw the right side of my face was more or less ground meat from my nose to my hairline. It was so large no bandage would cover it - it was just a bloody mess. I’d been running on autopilot and mom thought I’d just gotten a scrape. She had no idea until I told her two years ago that I wasn’t really there for several hours.
There was about a 5-6 year gap between when I fell and started having seizures, but apparently you can have a TBI and take a few years for symptoms to show. And I take lamotrigine as well - works way better for me than Depakote, which made me lose my lunch for a couple hours several times a week (shockingly I was much thinner then). I’m so glad your psychiatrist can take care of you!
And the old brain has been deemed as normal as it’s gonna get by my neuro.
Niner, your kitteh is beautiful, as are your new digs.
Onward with the day!
There’s a reason we called my early night nurse hospital ‘the Saturday Night Knife And Gun Club’. Never a dull moment. It was a sprawling, decrepit inner city/ghetto public hospital in Boston~I worked in the NICU in the maternity building, which was always a rolling reality show. Our windows overlooked the ER ambulance bay and the sirens never stopped when the Celtics or Bruins were playing in town. In those days nobody cared enough about the Patriots to get in fight over them~the Celts and da Bruins provided the good times.
It takes a lot of calories to stay warm for the 6 months of winter. Calories you burn to stay warm are calories that are not supporting physical growth.
Woot!!! You have utterly hit it out of the park! In two weeks you’ve gotten a beautiful and very homey place to live, and are kickin’ it at work.
Cookie lives not to far from there, so you two might arrange a meet-up.
I am very, very happy for you!! Being in the wrong life sux, as you discovered in your last job. And as I recently learned / realized too
I got up early in the dark and made coffee quietly alone for decades. The difference was first wife never guilted me when she got awakened and had to roll over. To be sure, living in larger quarters helped.
Hedonism? I’ll be getting minimally installed in my new digs on Tue afternoon and am leaving on Wed just after sunrise for a week in Saint Martin. Have an all-day catamaran swimming snorkeling adventure booked for Thu and the rest is TBD. But it’ll be warm and stressless. I might even find a place to sell me some rum in a tall glass with an umbrella in it.
Smooches back to you there Niner.