(no subject)
May. 28th, 2024 12:37 pmMondays are even worse when they're on Tuesday.
COVID Levels (as of 23 May) : Back up marginally, to 390 Bobcat-Robots.
COVID Levels (as of 23 May) : Back up marginally, to 390 Bobcat-Robots.
(no subject)
May. 28th, 2021 11:50 amQuarter peal attempt tomorrow! Hike with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
teenybuffalo on Monday!
I'm so excited, I'm about to lose my $#!7, and I think I like it!
Well, aside from the bit where I cannot REMOTELY concentrate on work today.
teenybuffalo on Monday! I'm so excited, I'm about to lose my $#!7, and I think I like it!
Well, aside from the bit where I cannot REMOTELY concentrate on work today.
Realm: Week in Review [Mid-Lent, 2020]
Mar. 22nd, 2020 09:03 pmSubrealm: A not-altogether cheerful Laetare.
So as I’ve said, the original plan was that I was going to go up to Maine for the tail end of this week, then get back to Boston in time for Mid-Lent Sunday services (and ringing) today.
Obviously, this did not happen.
Instead, I did the closest I could manage, which was doing a Zoom call with Squigamunk and Partner on Friday. (Squig. has been laid off; partner is working from home. They have been keeping themselves amused with re-playing Skyrim and acquiring a dozen baby chickens.) And I drafted this this afternoon while waiting for another Zoom meeting, this time with my relatives (and some wine.)
Life around here has sorta settled into a routine, though one that will probably need to be modified as my roommates start doing more online teaching. Get up (late)(by my standards), have breakfast, pick a work location in the apartment, attempt to keep my nose to the grindstone for 7.5 hours plus lunch break. Possibly take a REALLY long lunch break and go running, then put in an extra half hour in the evening to make up the difference.
If there’s enough going on, that is.
This weekend, we declared Saturday to be Spring Cleaning day (or at least Spring Cleaning pt. 1). I cleaned one of the bathrooms, took a break to make hot cross buns, and then cleaned the rest of the kitchen floor.
Today I got up, said Matins, ran a load of laundry, and then in the afternoon went for a 2-hour walk.*
So overall, it was an pretty okay weekend.
If you have to be in what amounts to (though isn’t yet officially mandated) Shelter-in-Place...
* I was worried for a time that this would have to be cut short, I’m also on-call in case a former colleague needs help. In a metaphor for everything that is wrong with America, she was already teaching while taking care of her elderly mother, who has dementia; and she is STILL trying to do the latter, only while she also has the Coronavirus. Holy shit.
PS Weather this weekend: was chilly (20s at night) but sunny.
So as I’ve said, the original plan was that I was going to go up to Maine for the tail end of this week, then get back to Boston in time for Mid-Lent Sunday services (and ringing) today.
Obviously, this did not happen.
Instead, I did the closest I could manage, which was doing a Zoom call with Squigamunk and Partner on Friday. (Squig. has been laid off; partner is working from home. They have been keeping themselves amused with re-playing Skyrim and acquiring a dozen baby chickens.) And I drafted this this afternoon while waiting for another Zoom meeting, this time with my relatives (and some wine.)
Life around here has sorta settled into a routine, though one that will probably need to be modified as my roommates start doing more online teaching. Get up (late)(by my standards), have breakfast, pick a work location in the apartment, attempt to keep my nose to the grindstone for 7.5 hours plus lunch break. Possibly take a REALLY long lunch break and go running, then put in an extra half hour in the evening to make up the difference.
If there’s enough going on, that is.
This weekend, we declared Saturday to be Spring Cleaning day (or at least Spring Cleaning pt. 1). I cleaned one of the bathrooms, took a break to make hot cross buns, and then cleaned the rest of the kitchen floor.
Today I got up, said Matins, ran a load of laundry, and then in the afternoon went for a 2-hour walk.*
So overall, it was an pretty okay weekend.
If you have to be in what amounts to (though isn’t yet officially mandated) Shelter-in-Place...
* I was worried for a time that this would have to be cut short, I’m also on-call in case a former colleague needs help. In a metaphor for everything that is wrong with America, she was already teaching while taking care of her elderly mother, who has dementia; and she is STILL trying to do the latter, only while she also has the Coronavirus. Holy shit.
PS Weather this weekend: was chilly (20s at night) but sunny.
(no subject)
Oct. 15th, 2018 08:17 amThings that happened this weekend:
- Watched De bestiis miris inveniendis, which is a fun and surprisingly poignant film.
- Picked and made cranberry sauce from some lingonberries.
- Saw Ben Butler, a.k.a. the play that has been eating my brother's life and sanity for most of the past month-and-some, and of which I should really write a review, but the short version is that you should all go see it if you can find a production to which you can afford tickets. As usual, I'd send you to Portland but Dan's production is closing today.
- Climbed Old Speck, for the third time, this time with excellent visibility and very low humidity. Nearly getting frostbite was definitely worth it in recompense.
Today we are having EDC's 60th birthday celebration! Tomorrow, I have a date! Some day, I will be able to describe my life as something other than "Fun, but way too busy"!
- Watched De bestiis miris inveniendis, which is a fun and surprisingly poignant film.
- Picked and made cranberry sauce from some lingonberries.
- Saw Ben Butler, a.k.a. the play that has been eating my brother's life and sanity for most of the past month-and-some, and of which I should really write a review, but the short version is that you should all go see it if you can find a production to which you can afford tickets. As usual, I'd send you to Portland but Dan's production is closing today.
- Climbed Old Speck, for the third time, this time with excellent visibility and very low humidity. Nearly getting frostbite was definitely worth it in recompense.
Today we are having EDC's 60th birthday celebration! Tomorrow, I have a date! Some day, I will be able to describe my life as something other than "Fun, but way too busy"!
(no subject)
Jun. 18th, 2018 08:44 amJust back from a three-day trip to Baxter State Park. 11-mile hike on Saturday (a pair of mountains called The Brothers, appropriately); six-mile hike yesterday. Views were incredible. I have eaten more bacon in the past three days than I probably have in the last two months. We got within about fifty feet of a moose when it waded out toward our canoe.
And now I'm sunburned, and have about a million blackfly bites, all of which are starting to itch; and could really have used an extra two hours' sleep and maybe a day of doing nothing but sit (and do laundry) and eating nothing but salad. Instead I'm at work. Let's see how this goes.
Lemme know if anyone wants to hear more details about the weekend. Or last weekend, or next weekend, for that matter.
And now I'm sunburned, and have about a million blackfly bites, all of which are starting to itch; and could really have used an extra two hours' sleep and maybe a day of doing nothing but sit (and do laundry) and eating nothing but salad. Instead I'm at work. Let's see how this goes.
Lemme know if anyone wants to hear more details about the weekend. Or last weekend, or next weekend, for that matter.
Two weekends of bells and people
Mar. 3rd, 2018 09:10 pm(First, before anyone asks: no, I didn't have the 'flu.)
As of yesterday morning, the sea had spilled over the tops of the wharves down on the Boston waterfront, over the sidewalks and the streets and probably the lobbies of the absurdly expensive condos in that neck of the woods. We'd been hit by a Nor'easter: that's a thing that happens.* (What I *am* going to blame on global warming was that it came down as rain.) But the Boston Globe had pictures and videos of all of the sea-washed wharves and sidewalks, which kinda ironic because my brother and I had been walking precisely there six days earlier.
This was the last weekend Dan and I were going to be able to hang out before he entered ten weeks of non-stop rehearsals for about three different plays and festivals. For a change, he came down to Boston, rather than me up Portland. I was a little conflicted, since him coming down meant I'd have to skip Saturday practice; but in fact, he was interested to see where I rang, and getting to see me actually ringing (and climb the tower to watch the bells as THEY were ringing) was an unexpected bonus. Like being able to make it to practice was for me.
Afterwards, we split one of those ginormous steak sandwiches from Dino's, made the nigh-obligatory trip to Mike's Pastry, and then, as I mentioned, wandered along the waterfront, catching up. We only got lost when we left it and tried to find a T station.
We bought beer, we made a meat pie, and then we hosted an evening of boardgames, featuringteenybuffalo, my friend E. from running club, and assorted bellringers and snacks and games. We slept late (by my standards) / got up early (by Dan's); then I went off to ringing, because we only had like four people signed up when I'd checked last, and he headed back to Portland for his first rehearsal...
Yesterday, I braved the wet and the rain falling horizontaly not only to go to work, but to do dinner with Teeny, since we both agreed that we don't cook enough, and especially don't cook enough with other friends. So that was pretty awesome, and now we also have lentil soup to last us for days, and also she helped me splice a bellrope that had broken the previous weekend, so she gets all the points.
And today I got up stupid early in favor of driving down to Hingham, a.k.a. the nearest tower that isn't Boston. I'd been down there once before, with a large contingent of fellow Boston ringers and various visitors from further away; but that had been an actual official event, so this time it was just me and M...who turns out to be involved in a bunch of my bellringing-related adventures, actually. So did an hour of practice with them, then hauled butt back to Boston for an hour of REGULAR practice, and finally some time spent being videotaped so that Old North can maybe have a video of ringing for the tourists that wasn't copied from VHS and doesn't suck...
So anyway, it's been a fun weekend so far, but a tiring one, and even more dominated by ringing than usual.
Postscript: Aww, man, I didn't even have time to talk about the apartment stuff! Uh, bug me to do that maybe tomorrow. I have to be up in like eight hours.
* My fellow traveler down to Hingham wondered, "I wonder if, when you buy a house in Hull, you just assume that you're going to have vast quantities of flooding damage every couple of years."
As of yesterday morning, the sea had spilled over the tops of the wharves down on the Boston waterfront, over the sidewalks and the streets and probably the lobbies of the absurdly expensive condos in that neck of the woods. We'd been hit by a Nor'easter: that's a thing that happens.* (What I *am* going to blame on global warming was that it came down as rain.) But the Boston Globe had pictures and videos of all of the sea-washed wharves and sidewalks, which kinda ironic because my brother and I had been walking precisely there six days earlier.
This was the last weekend Dan and I were going to be able to hang out before he entered ten weeks of non-stop rehearsals for about three different plays and festivals. For a change, he came down to Boston, rather than me up Portland. I was a little conflicted, since him coming down meant I'd have to skip Saturday practice; but in fact, he was interested to see where I rang, and getting to see me actually ringing (and climb the tower to watch the bells as THEY were ringing) was an unexpected bonus. Like being able to make it to practice was for me.
Afterwards, we split one of those ginormous steak sandwiches from Dino's, made the nigh-obligatory trip to Mike's Pastry, and then, as I mentioned, wandered along the waterfront, catching up. We only got lost when we left it and tried to find a T station.
We bought beer, we made a meat pie, and then we hosted an evening of boardgames, featuring
teenybuffalo, my friend E. from running club, and assorted bellringers and snacks and games. We slept late (by my standards) / got up early (by Dan's); then I went off to ringing, because we only had like four people signed up when I'd checked last, and he headed back to Portland for his first rehearsal...Yesterday, I braved the wet and the rain falling horizontaly not only to go to work, but to do dinner with Teeny, since we both agreed that we don't cook enough, and especially don't cook enough with other friends. So that was pretty awesome, and now we also have lentil soup to last us for days, and also she helped me splice a bellrope that had broken the previous weekend, so she gets all the points.
And today I got up stupid early in favor of driving down to Hingham, a.k.a. the nearest tower that isn't Boston. I'd been down there once before, with a large contingent of fellow Boston ringers and various visitors from further away; but that had been an actual official event, so this time it was just me and M...who turns out to be involved in a bunch of my bellringing-related adventures, actually. So did an hour of practice with them, then hauled butt back to Boston for an hour of REGULAR practice, and finally some time spent being videotaped so that Old North can maybe have a video of ringing for the tourists that wasn't copied from VHS and doesn't suck...
So anyway, it's been a fun weekend so far, but a tiring one, and even more dominated by ringing than usual.
Postscript: Aww, man, I didn't even have time to talk about the apartment stuff! Uh, bug me to do that maybe tomorrow. I have to be up in like eight hours.
* My fellow traveler down to Hingham wondered, "I wonder if, when you buy a house in Hull, you just assume that you're going to have vast quantities of flooding damage every couple of years."
Realm: Weekend - Subrealm: 6.8.17
Aug. 7th, 2017 03:11 pm...I should really be looking for jobs. Uh, constructive procrastination?
So it's just as well thatteenybuffalo and sovay weren't available for dinner Saturday night, 'cause that's about the worst batch of Vegetarian Heart Attack I think I've ever made. Moral of the story: taste the basil before you buy it.
Sunday I skipped bellringing (unnecessarily, as I realized later) to haul up to New Hampshire for this big family reunion thing my Aunt had organized. This would not, frankly, have been my first choice for the day: in additional to my campanological commitments, I hate driving,* I don't really have much of anything in common with my cousins anymore, and given my finances I'm kinda feeling like the black sheep of the family. But she was going to feel hurt if I didn't turn up, so...
And actually, it was ok. I mean, I still don't have much in common with my cousins (and almost feel more at home with my cousins-once-removed, the elder of whom has grown about a foot since I saw her last), but I really shoulda caught up with my stepcousin K., who (I learned) had just moved to within a few blocks of me. (wtf?) And the food was tasty, and I got to see my brother and get the latest from him.
More importantly (and this was an even bigger shock than the suddenly 5'6" cousin), I got to see my uncle. RM... huh. That's a story.
See, about, ooo, a year and a bit ago, RM. found out that the weird digestive problems he'd been having were, in fact, bowel cancer. And that would be bad enough, but, well, he was the one kid whom Grandma succeeded in bringing up as a Christian Scientist, and if you're a Christian Scientist and get cancer, the options are supposed to be 1. Miracle** or 2. Die faithfully. RM. ultimately went with option 3., which is Stop Being A Christian Scientist (I guess?) and actually get modern medical treatment; but when Mom visited him last spring, he looked about on his deathbed anyway, and I hadn't gotten an update since, so I was amazed he'd made it up. ("Your mom's always been the worrier," was his [typically] sardonic comment.) In fact, though, he'd apparently made the drive up from Ithaca just fine, and while he had lost more weight than was healthy, he was a lot less corpse-like than I'd been expecting.*** And not super energetic, but seemed to be mostly his old self.
So yeah. That was my weekend. Well, that and reading too many fantasy novels (and I owe you a post on that, too), with less than optimal results for my census productivity. I should get on that. First, job searching.
Nine days til I leave for England. Still don't know which city.
* The drive up, at least, was substantially better than I'd anticipated--in terms of driving time. What I ALSO hadn't expected was that they're still in the process of widening I93, thus simultaneously rubbing your face in the fact that they're tearing up the landscape so as to cover more of it with tarmac AND the bits where extra lanes might actually be useful still aren't done yet. Like seriously, guys, why was the interchange at the south end of 293 not the FIRST thing you did? And why do I suspect that the answer is somehow connected to the fact that there are still hundred-foot piles of gravel by the roadside?
** I don't know whether or not that's EXACTLY how people who go in for faith healing would describe it, but f--- them, because if it isn't, than they're even more irrational than I think they are anyway.
*** I also noticed he'd lost some hair, but then Grandpa was mostly bald by the time HE hit 65, and my brother's at least heading in that direction, so I don't actually think that's significant.
So it's just as well that
teenybuffalo and sovay weren't available for dinner Saturday night, 'cause that's about the worst batch of Vegetarian Heart Attack I think I've ever made. Moral of the story: taste the basil before you buy it.Sunday I skipped bellringing (unnecessarily, as I realized later) to haul up to New Hampshire for this big family reunion thing my Aunt had organized. This would not, frankly, have been my first choice for the day: in additional to my campanological commitments, I hate driving,* I don't really have much of anything in common with my cousins anymore, and given my finances I'm kinda feeling like the black sheep of the family. But she was going to feel hurt if I didn't turn up, so...
And actually, it was ok. I mean, I still don't have much in common with my cousins (and almost feel more at home with my cousins-once-removed, the elder of whom has grown about a foot since I saw her last), but I really shoulda caught up with my stepcousin K., who (I learned) had just moved to within a few blocks of me. (wtf?) And the food was tasty, and I got to see my brother and get the latest from him.
More importantly (and this was an even bigger shock than the suddenly 5'6" cousin), I got to see my uncle. RM... huh. That's a story.
See, about, ooo, a year and a bit ago, RM. found out that the weird digestive problems he'd been having were, in fact, bowel cancer. And that would be bad enough, but, well, he was the one kid whom Grandma succeeded in bringing up as a Christian Scientist, and if you're a Christian Scientist and get cancer, the options are supposed to be 1. Miracle** or 2. Die faithfully. RM. ultimately went with option 3., which is Stop Being A Christian Scientist (I guess?) and actually get modern medical treatment; but when Mom visited him last spring, he looked about on his deathbed anyway, and I hadn't gotten an update since, so I was amazed he'd made it up. ("Your mom's always been the worrier," was his [typically] sardonic comment.) In fact, though, he'd apparently made the drive up from Ithaca just fine, and while he had lost more weight than was healthy, he was a lot less corpse-like than I'd been expecting.*** And not super energetic, but seemed to be mostly his old self.
So yeah. That was my weekend. Well, that and reading too many fantasy novels (and I owe you a post on that, too), with less than optimal results for my census productivity. I should get on that. First, job searching.
Nine days til I leave for England. Still don't know which city.
* The drive up, at least, was substantially better than I'd anticipated--in terms of driving time. What I ALSO hadn't expected was that they're still in the process of widening I93, thus simultaneously rubbing your face in the fact that they're tearing up the landscape so as to cover more of it with tarmac AND the bits where extra lanes might actually be useful still aren't done yet. Like seriously, guys, why was the interchange at the south end of 293 not the FIRST thing you did? And why do I suspect that the answer is somehow connected to the fact that there are still hundred-foot piles of gravel by the roadside?
** I don't know whether or not that's EXACTLY how people who go in for faith healing would describe it, but f--- them, because if it isn't, than they're even more irrational than I think they are anyway.
*** I also noticed he'd lost some hair, but then Grandpa was mostly bald by the time HE hit 65, and my brother's at least heading in that direction, so I don't actually think that's significant.
Realm: Weekend
Sep. 14th, 2008 05:45 pm Geseah ic wuldres trēow,
wædum geweorðod wynnum scīnan,
gegyred mid golde; gimmas hæfdon
bewrigen weorðlīce wealdendes trēow.
One of the things Church of the Prevenient in Amoskeag lacks is a good cross. No really good crucifix; (one wood, modern, rather solemn Christ-in-Majesty over the pulpit); some plain gold (colored) ones, but nothing adorned with gems. Oh well, the service was ok: did a crux fidelis by Joao IV of Portugal (who knew seventeenth-century monarchs-in-exile wrote music?), though I kept wondering whether the bad version of the text was his fault, or the editor's. And managed to deal with the whole being-in-choir-while-looking-after-Peter thing, despite confusion due to first week at choir and the fact that it was raining. (And it's SOOO nice to be back in a competent and well-directed choir again!)
Afterwards, went off to local greek festival* for enormous lunch. I don't know how I'm going to have any appetite for dinner.
Interesting fact: medieval Christian tradition frequently held that the cross was made from the wood of a tree that had sprouted from Aaron's rod, which in turn was a sprig from the Tree of Life. So was it then an apple tree? And am I going to use this detail to segue back to what else we did this weekend?
Yep. ( Read more... )
wædum geweorðod wynnum scīnan,
gegyred mid golde; gimmas hæfdon
bewrigen weorðlīce wealdendes trēow.
One of the things Church of the Prevenient in Amoskeag lacks is a good cross. No really good crucifix; (one wood, modern, rather solemn Christ-in-Majesty over the pulpit); some plain gold (colored) ones, but nothing adorned with gems. Oh well, the service was ok: did a crux fidelis by Joao IV of Portugal (who knew seventeenth-century monarchs-in-exile wrote music?), though I kept wondering whether the bad version of the text was his fault, or the editor's. And managed to deal with the whole being-in-choir-while-looking-after-Peter thing, despite confusion due to first week at choir and the fact that it was raining. (And it's SOOO nice to be back in a competent and well-directed choir again!)
Afterwards, went off to local greek festival* for enormous lunch. I don't know how I'm going to have any appetite for dinner.
Interesting fact: medieval Christian tradition frequently held that the cross was made from the wood of a tree that had sprouted from Aaron's rod, which in turn was a sprig from the Tree of Life. So was it then an apple tree? And am I going to use this detail to segue back to what else we did this weekend?
Yep. ( Read more... )
Saturday: Planned to go to food closet at St. PJ's, so got up early, bought bagels for breakfast, and headed forth on my bike. Of course, haveing GOT to PJ's, they already had more people than they needed. So I headed up the street to the farmers' market. Which didn't open for another half hour. So I hung around, annoying our farmer friend Peter and helping people unload coolers full of meat and set up awnings.
Then I went home and went on a long run over East Rock.
Following lunch (leftover meat pie), Grace suggested that we should do something, perhaps climb East Rock. I pointed out that I had just done exactly this, but suggested Sleeping Giant. So we drove up there (note: the route has more Dunkin' Donuts per mile than anywhere else in the cosmos) and climbed over the Head, which I'd never done. It's unexpectedly steep.
We came home via Edge of the Woods (your local left-wing grocery store) and Shaw's (Edge doesn't carry enormous containers of flour OR of cheapo ice cream). Grace's computer's power cord having died, she borrowed mine for the evening..since she had a sermon to finish!
( Sunday )
Then I went home and went on a long run over East Rock.
Following lunch (leftover meat pie), Grace suggested that we should do something, perhaps climb East Rock. I pointed out that I had just done exactly this, but suggested Sleeping Giant. So we drove up there (note: the route has more Dunkin' Donuts per mile than anywhere else in the cosmos) and climbed over the Head, which I'd never done. It's unexpectedly steep.
We came home via Edge of the Woods (your local left-wing grocery store) and Shaw's (Edge doesn't carry enormous containers of flour OR of cheapo ice cream). Grace's computer's power cord having died, she borrowed mine for the evening..since she had a sermon to finish!
( Sunday )
