lunch break
I'm just a non-posting machine, these days, innit. What's been going on lately.
Last week was Monday-Thursday in my current pattern of working four tens instead of five eights; and I Got Things Done, oh my goodness.
I already had five-ish pages of the paper written for my incomplete class from last semester, thanks and ice cream as I said to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ellen_fremedon; on Friday I went to visit a Site so I could gather information to finish it with, and I did gather information, hurrah. Then I went and got a pedicure, which I'd been meaning to do for weeks; and while I was at the mall I got Gentleman Caller a replacement phone charger for his one that had broken ()(cable breaks; USB connection fails to charge phone; other chargers fit but phone says they are "unauthorized"; GC thinks AUGH it may be time for a new phone, which he doesn't want to do for a variety of reasons; I say, why not just get a new charger?; he says, ... i hadn't even thought of that. tbf it is an old phone and it could well have been that chargers for it were no longer available. But the one I bought works, and the reason others weren't authorized has to do with a thing Verizon does that actually overloads the cable, so chargers that work at the capacity the cable was designed for don't actually charge the phone. Go fig.); and I stopped and fetched some groceries on the way home, and lo! I had been for months thinking Look, I'm intrigued by the almond milk I see in the dairy case, but I don't wish to buy a half-gallon of the stuff without having tried it and being sure I want to continue having it in my life. I'd buy a quart on spec, but a half-gallon seems too much. There were also four-packs of single-serve things to put in your lunchbox, over in the baking aisle (with the other shelf-stable milk products), but again, too much. I was just about to find a dairy-section employee to ask if they could get the stuff in quarts, when I saw a whole shelf of single single-serve things, hurrah! I bought one vanilla and one chocolate and couldn't drink them on the way home because they're pretty firm about how they'd rather you chill it before you drink it, so.
Friday evening GC and I conducted The Great King Bed Experiment, in which before spending piles of money on a new bed in the hope that it will solve our sleeping-side-by-side problems, we checked in to a hotel and slept in a king-size bed we hadn't had to buy to see if this was in fact a solution. And while we did both wake up more than once in the night, we both agreed it was because the air conditioning in the room didn't so much keep the temperature comfortable as wait until it was sweltering in there and then chill it down to freezing, and not because we either of us ever felt crowded. So the hypothesis was confirmed!, and soon there will be a new bed. (At his place. When we stay at mine, we're just going to have to live with the closer proximity.)
Saturday we went to the Sheep and Wool Festival, where I didn't find anything I needed to buy, and he was fascinated by the process of spinning. (I asked him if he wanted to learn to spin, and he said there are a lot of things it's interesting to know how to do without actually wanting to do yourself, which is a fair point. So I didn't get him a spindle.) His stepdad thought we said we'd been to the Sheep and Wolf Festival, which can't possibly be the first time anyone's said that. GC now wants to go next year in a wolf costume wearing a wool sweater. Then we came away, and went with his mother to visit his aunt in hospital (aunt has been very ill but is doing better; I waited in the lobby because she felt so self-conscious about looking a fright that non-family visitors would have upset her), and thence to a Derby party, where my horse (we picked names from a hat) came somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Sunday I sang at Mass, and there was dim sum brunch, and we went to see The Avengers, hurrah!, and I actually drank the almond milk, which was quite tasty, so on my errands on Monday I bought it in half-gallons. See, manufacturers? Trial sizes introduce consumers to new products.
Monday I also got the letter advising me that it's time to requalify for my subsidized rent, and that while the voluntary rent increase in the county is 2.8%, mine is going up 4.4%. If I feel this is excessive (if?!), I can call the Department of Housing and Community Affairs - who tell me that because I don't live in the incorporated city of City I Don't Live In, there's nothing they can do for me. Which the rental office is surprised to hear when I call to say Then why did you suggest I call them?!, and I'm annoyed, and have registered a complaint, and we'll see what happens, but basically I expect my rent will go up the full amount for the next year and I'll be stuck with it. (The whole housing thing is a Thing, as well, because if I break my lease at such time as GC and I are ready to merge households - which I confidently expect to be less than another lease-term from now - I'm technically on the hook for the whole rest of the year's rent, mitigated by some amount of refund if/when they find a new tenant. There's a wait list for subsidy-program apartments, so I think they will find a new tenant, but I have no confidence of getting any of that money back. Grar.)
Also, my dad has been having low-blood-pressure adventures, which after going off some and then most of his meds and continued observation turned into atrial-fibrillation adventures, so he was back in the clink last night and is feeling better today, but staying in for the whole day to get a transfusion because his hemoglobin is lower than they like. They're supposed to come visit this weekend, my folks, and the oncologist says he assumes nothing else will come up and they'll be able to visit me as planned, but I'm exercising cautious optimism. Hrmph.
Also also, GC's west coast aunt is coming to visit the aunt who's been in the hospital, and it turns out it's also high on her agenda to meet me while she's out here. His mother made more of a fuss about the second thing than the first, and I'm on the hook for dinner next Monday (the first night with no rehearsal). Whee, further family inspection. :-)
But College Roommate L is coming up next weekend, to help Friend S move and watch her graduate and because it will have just been my birthday (Tuesday!), and if all goes well she will meet GC at dinner on Saturday, which, I'm so pleased, because I've met more of his friends than he's met mine, and my very very closest friends in the whole wide world are scattered to the four winds, so the chance for him to meet even one of them is a positive thing for me.
Speaking of my birthday next Tuesday, I am totally getting the Fluevog Mini Elifs, which I already have in grey, in the new black-with-ivory color. Two and a half Masses = shoes I don't really need. Seems like a fair trade to me.
Last week was Monday-Thursday in my current pattern of working four tens instead of five eights; and I Got Things Done, oh my goodness.
I already had five-ish pages of the paper written for my incomplete class from last semester, thanks and ice cream as I said to
ellen_fremedon; on Friday I went to visit a Site so I could gather information to finish it with, and I did gather information, hurrah. Then I went and got a pedicure, which I'd been meaning to do for weeks; and while I was at the mall I got Gentleman Caller a replacement phone charger for his one that had broken ()(cable breaks; USB connection fails to charge phone; other chargers fit but phone says they are "unauthorized"; GC thinks AUGH it may be time for a new phone, which he doesn't want to do for a variety of reasons; I say, why not just get a new charger?; he says, ... i hadn't even thought of that. tbf it is an old phone and it could well have been that chargers for it were no longer available. But the one I bought works, and the reason others weren't authorized has to do with a thing Verizon does that actually overloads the cable, so chargers that work at the capacity the cable was designed for don't actually charge the phone. Go fig.); and I stopped and fetched some groceries on the way home, and lo! I had been for months thinking Look, I'm intrigued by the almond milk I see in the dairy case, but I don't wish to buy a half-gallon of the stuff without having tried it and being sure I want to continue having it in my life. I'd buy a quart on spec, but a half-gallon seems too much. There were also four-packs of single-serve things to put in your lunchbox, over in the baking aisle (with the other shelf-stable milk products), but again, too much. I was just about to find a dairy-section employee to ask if they could get the stuff in quarts, when I saw a whole shelf of single single-serve things, hurrah! I bought one vanilla and one chocolate and couldn't drink them on the way home because they're pretty firm about how they'd rather you chill it before you drink it, so.Friday evening GC and I conducted The Great King Bed Experiment, in which before spending piles of money on a new bed in the hope that it will solve our sleeping-side-by-side problems, we checked in to a hotel and slept in a king-size bed we hadn't had to buy to see if this was in fact a solution. And while we did both wake up more than once in the night, we both agreed it was because the air conditioning in the room didn't so much keep the temperature comfortable as wait until it was sweltering in there and then chill it down to freezing, and not because we either of us ever felt crowded. So the hypothesis was confirmed!, and soon there will be a new bed. (At his place. When we stay at mine, we're just going to have to live with the closer proximity.)
Saturday we went to the Sheep and Wool Festival, where I didn't find anything I needed to buy, and he was fascinated by the process of spinning. (I asked him if he wanted to learn to spin, and he said there are a lot of things it's interesting to know how to do without actually wanting to do yourself, which is a fair point. So I didn't get him a spindle.) His stepdad thought we said we'd been to the Sheep and Wolf Festival, which can't possibly be the first time anyone's said that. GC now wants to go next year in a wolf costume wearing a wool sweater. Then we came away, and went with his mother to visit his aunt in hospital (aunt has been very ill but is doing better; I waited in the lobby because she felt so self-conscious about looking a fright that non-family visitors would have upset her), and thence to a Derby party, where my horse (we picked names from a hat) came somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Sunday I sang at Mass, and there was dim sum brunch, and we went to see The Avengers, hurrah!, and I actually drank the almond milk, which was quite tasty, so on my errands on Monday I bought it in half-gallons. See, manufacturers? Trial sizes introduce consumers to new products.
Monday I also got the letter advising me that it's time to requalify for my subsidized rent, and that while the voluntary rent increase in the county is 2.8%, mine is going up 4.4%. If I feel this is excessive (if?!), I can call the Department of Housing and Community Affairs - who tell me that because I don't live in the incorporated city of City I Don't Live In, there's nothing they can do for me. Which the rental office is surprised to hear when I call to say Then why did you suggest I call them?!, and I'm annoyed, and have registered a complaint, and we'll see what happens, but basically I expect my rent will go up the full amount for the next year and I'll be stuck with it. (The whole housing thing is a Thing, as well, because if I break my lease at such time as GC and I are ready to merge households - which I confidently expect to be less than another lease-term from now - I'm technically on the hook for the whole rest of the year's rent, mitigated by some amount of refund if/when they find a new tenant. There's a wait list for subsidy-program apartments, so I think they will find a new tenant, but I have no confidence of getting any of that money back. Grar.)
Also, my dad has been having low-blood-pressure adventures, which after going off some and then most of his meds and continued observation turned into atrial-fibrillation adventures, so he was back in the clink last night and is feeling better today, but staying in for the whole day to get a transfusion because his hemoglobin is lower than they like. They're supposed to come visit this weekend, my folks, and the oncologist says he assumes nothing else will come up and they'll be able to visit me as planned, but I'm exercising cautious optimism. Hrmph.
Also also, GC's west coast aunt is coming to visit the aunt who's been in the hospital, and it turns out it's also high on her agenda to meet me while she's out here. His mother made more of a fuss about the second thing than the first, and I'm on the hook for dinner next Monday (the first night with no rehearsal). Whee, further family inspection. :-)
But College Roommate L is coming up next weekend, to help Friend S move and watch her graduate and because it will have just been my birthday (Tuesday!), and if all goes well she will meet GC at dinner on Saturday, which, I'm so pleased, because I've met more of his friends than he's met mine, and my very very closest friends in the whole wide world are scattered to the four winds, so the chance for him to meet even one of them is a positive thing for me.
Speaking of my birthday next Tuesday, I am totally getting the Fluevog Mini Elifs, which I already have in grey, in the new black-with-ivory color. Two and a half Masses = shoes I don't really need. Seems like a fair trade to me.
no subject
Boo to rent increases and so forth, bah humbug.