fox

On my personal phone, ( I normally don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize. )

Only just now it rang with a number from the town next to my mother's, and I've got her cell and her um-friend's cell and land line and her doctor's and his partner's numbers all in my phone, but there are many millions of other people in the metro area. How do I know this isn't a complete stranger calling me because I'm high on her list of emergency contacts? How do I know she hasn't wandered off, fallen down, etc. etc. etc.? (I'm aware of the irony in my tendency to let calls that I know are from her go to voice mail at least half the time but pick up immediately when a call could, for all I know, be about her.)

It was an absolutely non-Mom-related organization I've donated to in the past calling to talk to me about their work (and, no doubt, ask if I'd like to donate again). /o\ Quick adrenaline dump and then I hope I was kind when I told the young person I'm glad they're doing well, my donation schedule is what it is, and I have to get back to work. Whew.

i was so ... anxious

Himself is on a business trip for the first time since February 2020. Naturally he was nervous about this, partly because the last three or four trips he took before the plague were unpleasant experiences for reasons relating to why he's not at either of those jobs anymore, and partly because, well, plague. So here's how our past few days have gone:

( Sunday, we buried his aunt. )

( Monday, he took the prince to school as normal. )

( Monday also had language research. )

Tuesday, I took the prince to school early to drop in at the morning edition of the extended-day program he already always goes to in the afternoons, came home, had a whole workday, answered the phone like a chump when my mom called exactly at quitting time, and went to pick up the kid. There are always some people being jerks on the road at the evening rush hour, but this was a particularly unanimously obnoxious experience, and at a red light I even posted to Discord about it:

AgentReynard (Fox) (she/her)
must everyone operating a motor vehicle in my community this afternoon be an utter ass?

I should have stayed quiet.

What happened next was we got home; I put the kid's bookbag and jacket (which had been in the bookbag) and lunchbag in the laundry because they were rank from watermelon juice having spilled out of one of his tupperwares; we had dinner, including sharing a slice of walnut povitica my father-in-law had brought over on Sunday; I took out the trash and the recycling, as Tuesday is Garbage Eve in our neighborhood; and meanwhile I excused the kid from the table when he asked, and he went to play games on the iPad, as is his habit. The second rabbi friend replied to the all-clear, saying "Oops, missed the initial message completely, glad it's sorted, how are you doing?" and I said "Oh, you know, handling the camera at a funeral that was a long time coming, followed by several days of solo parenting a kindergartener in a plague while managing long-distance tech support for my brain-injured widowed mother. Basically living the dream." Sandwich generation, after all.

I should. have stayed. quiet.

( A few minutes later, the prince said Mommy? I don't feel good. )

( So okay. )

I apparently did not succeed in washing the VapoRub entirely off my hands before the next time I rubbed my eyes, so that sucked, but I thought great, one complaint about traffic and this is what happens to my evening, it is wine o'clock, dudes.

( Luckily I didn't bother actually drinking any wine. )

( Wednesday )

I am unlikely to complain about traffic on the school run ever again.

Himself and the prince's last name (I didn't change mine) has a pronunciation that is not immediately obvious to most people in our area. This week and next, the prince is at a day camp where pickup happens in a drive-through situation; I put a printout on the dashboard with his name on it, and a teenager with a walkie-talkie calls and asks the people inside to bring him out. On Monday, the first young person to do this paused after the first name and then got the surname badly wrong. I helpfully said it for him; he ignored me and repeated the mispronunciation; and when he went away I got a pen out of my bag and wrote a phonetic version, impossible to mispronounce, next to the printed version. A couple minutes later a second young person who didn't know her colleague had already come by looked at my dashboard and called for my kid pronouncing his name correctly. Awesome.

Yesterday, the first young person was on pickup duty again, and he looked at the printout WITH THE PHONETIC SPELLING and read off the mispronunciation into his walkie-talkie. It's not even my name and I'm so annoyed by this. Which is funny, because "Mrs. ThatName" is also not my name, and it doesn't bother me one bit when people assume it is; it doesn't even bother me when people keep sending mail to me by that name after they've asked me whether I use it and I've told them I don't. I don't know why that doesn't bother me, but it doesn't. But this callow youth pronouncing it wrong when I've made two separate attempts to provide the right pronunciation? I'm unreasonably irked. :-P

Himself says he spent most of his childhood and young adulthood being seriously irked when people got his name wrong. We explained to the kid at dinnertime that people might pronounce his name in unexpected ways, and he just found it hilarious. I have to go pick him up in a little less than an hour, and I'm this close to crossing out the non-phonetic spelling so the only thing the boy in the pickup lane can read will be the thing he can't possibly flub. But I worry that he'd find a way and then I'd be even madder.

i was so ... contemplative

So I didn't manage to post anything Thursday or Friday, and then Saturday - it's always harder for me to do anything actively online on weekends. I can just about manage passively reading everything on my various lists but that's pretty much it. Anyway it was my turn to do the grocery shopping this weekend, and Himself took the prince over to grandma's for a little masked leaf-raking and apparently some tech support while I was out; they were still there when I got home, but while I was putting things away they came in the door and told me on their walk back the cheering from inside most or all of the houses they passed by had begun, including one neighbor on our street who burst out his door shouting "BIDEN! BIDEN! BIDEN! Hi, [Himself] and [prince]! BIDEN! BIDEN!" - and that's how he, and then I, learned that the networks had called Pennsylvania.

Of course it was like a fist unclenching and letting go of something in my chest. You all know the feeling. This tweet (https://twitter.com/PiaGuerra/status/1325405777402630144?s=20) from yesterday morning pretty much summed it up in the best way I've seen: alt

[image: Drawing by Pia Guerra entitled Morning in America, showing people doomscrolling from 2016-2020, ending with a person waking their spouse with news on November 7, 2020, and a couple sleeping peacefully on November 8.]

I'm sure I slept better Sunday night than I've done in ages (medicated times included). Then yesterday the kid went over to his grandparents' again and I curled up in an armchair in a sunbeam and had a nap like I used to do before he was born. It was glorious. When I woke up I poked at my phone a bit and then turned over and dozed a bit more. ... A little later I woke up feeling Quite Warm and took my temperature and it was high enough that the thermometer did the different beep to let me know it was a little alarmed. I got 99.5 and then a little later I got 99.8. So not wild about that, although when I was discussing it with Himself I said "Look, what I think is happening is that every self-preservation system in my entire body has been holding on by the fingernails for years and they've all relaxed all at once. The immune system is taking a break." Also I could smell and taste things just fine, which he seems to think is more diagnostic than I think it is?, but whatever. The temperature didn't continue rising, and the feverlet went away within about an hour. Maybe just cooked a little too much in my sunbeam.

This morning Himself woke up with a kidney stone (which the prince pronounces "kid-a-nee," adorably), so that sucked; I had to do kid wakeup and breakfast, which is not my normal task - though I don't mind it as much as the kid minds that I am not the normal Morning Parent - and day care dropoff, which the kid hated, and then hurry back to take the man to urgent care. I'm not allowed in with him these days, of course, so I came home to do some work and went back to get him when he texted he'd been sprung around lunch time. One stone out, another one still in (according to the CT) but not bothering him just now, and he's resting because morphine. Whee.

And it's open enrollment time. :-P

i was so ... okay
Crossposts: https://darthfox.livejournal.com/1464626.html

Four years ago, my co-workers and I all went out to the food trucks and got tacos for lunch in what we assumed was the first day of a world in which there would, as foretold, be taco trucks on every corner. Of course by about 10pm that had all gone to shit. And here we are today.

I did have some work to do today, which I did. I also straightened up my home office, where I've been working for almost eight months because of course I can't go to my office in the middle of a plague. I found the boarding passes I'd printed for the flight I was going to take on March 12 to an event that was finally cancelled on March 11. I cleared off, anyway, enough of the couch in here that tomorrow when I need to have a rest because I'll have been up late tonight watching the returns come in, I'll have some place to lie down.

I did my 24-ish minutes on the elliptical this morning. I'm going to make the kid's lunch for tomorrow before I go pick him up in about 45 minutes. Himself and I are having dinner delivered after the kid is in bed rather than try to exhibit any competence today ourselves. It's a comfort-food-and-maybe-some-drinkies kind of day. (Note to self: I should take the antihistamine out of my pill case on the assumption that I will want to drink alcohol this evening.)

Do you guys remember how awful 2016 was? It started with Bowie dying in January and didn't fucking let up, especially including the election but even after that? (My kid was born the day before Thanksgiving. That was the only good thing.) All the way through the end of December and Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. And since then has not exactly been a walk in a meadow, but this year has managed to make 2016 look like maybe one of those amusement park rides that you go on once and don't enjoy at all, maybe even feel a little sick, but it doesn't ruin your whole day. Only 2020 in that analogy is falling off the top of the ferris wheel and knocking people out of all the other cars on your way down.

Anyway. Extremely anxious about tonight and not going to feel better until some time Thursday or so at the soonest.

Crossposts: https://darthfox.livejournal.com/1464304.html

So Sunday I took half an Ativan at bedtime, as I said. Slept like a rock. Monday night I pondered whether I should do so again, and Himself said he thought I should - not that I should take it every night, but as I was still feeling the dad's-hospice-anniversary tension, it wouldn't hurt to ensure another night of good sleep. And I took the Ativan and did again sleep like a rock.

Last night, Tuesday, I did not take the Ativan and in fact my sleep was pretty fitful. ( Dreams and then today. )

I ordered a big junk-food lunch because sometimes it does help a very little bit to eat our feelings (and I can't actually drink during the work day). And I have to shake it off before I pick up my own kid, because while I can get a little mileage out of "Mommy isn't feeling well, so please be extra well-behaved," I can't do that every day, and I am not ready for him to know why I'm sad (either the dad stuff or the news stuff). So here I go.

i was so ... indescribable
Crossposts: https://darthfox.livejournal.com/1463745.html

I am a professional with several postgraduate degrees but I have literally just spent work time providing the kind of telephone tech support I normally reserve for my mom. (Now what menus do you see across the top of your screen? Okay, good, click on that.)

Crossposts: https://darthfox.livejournal.com/1459387.html

Like many of us, I've been suffering from rage-and-despair fatigue for the past year and a half, and I have extremely limited confidence that voting (which I early-did on Sunday) will help worth a damn in the midterms or even, maybe, in 2020; it's great to reflect that the moral arc of history is long and bends toward justice, but I want to improve the bit of the arc I'm going to be using for the next thirty or forty years, you know what I'm saying? "This too shall pass" is not super helpful to me right now.

Anyway. While I've spent the entirety of this administration seeing breaking-news headlines or hearing people sigh or curse in frustration and automatically asking "What did they do now?" - because that's the only thing you can ask, most of the time - in the past two days I have broken down in tears twice over the separation of children from their parents at the southwest border. I continue to rage and despair, but today I am also trying to do other things:

[eta: Oh, first, self-care: I am not listening to the Pro Publica recording of children sobbing. I have some guilt about the decision to protect myself from that, but I think it would tip me from having difficulty focusing or caring about much else into total inability to focus or care about much else, and that's not good for me or my family, so.]
I am planning to take my kid to the Families Belong Together protest at the White House on June 30. It will be over his lunch time and his nap time and will thus completely disrupt his day, and he can handle one day of disruption goddammit. If it will not be actually dangerous to him, I'm taking him with me and pretty invested in his father coming along as well. Going to a "Families Belong Together" event without my family seems to miss the point rather.
My Congressfolk are all sapphire-blue, so there's no need to yell at them persuasively or otherwise - but I wrote to my senators to thank them for supporting the Keep Families Together Act and to my representative to ask him what he's doing and what the living hell his colleagues are thinking, and I asked all three of them what else we can do. Busloads of Freedom Riders to overpower the CBP agents and tear open the doors, is what I'm working with right now. Open to other suggestions.
I've made substantial* donations this morning to RAICES Texas, Al Oltro Lado, and the ACLU. If you have the means, I hope you will consider doing the same. *I can't give tens of thousands of dollars per family member like the Teigen-Legends, but there's a lot of room south of where they are that's still more money than I need, so.
For many, many months, I've been resolved that the next time I'm anywhere the national anthem is played or sung, my knee is on the ground. That's not going to change until this does, that's for damn sure.
At ellen_fremedon's suggestion, I also wrote to the governor of my state, who is not sapphire-blue, and urged him to follow the lead of the governor of Massachusetts in refusing to deploy the National Guard to the southwest border, "where they would have 'supported security operations' by separating children from their families. I have a 19-month-old myself, and he doesn't understand why lately I've been loading him up with extra hugs - but when I think about these children being separated from their parents, it is so hard for me to put him down. ... One thing you can do is declare in advance that you will not - and will not require the Maryland National Guard to - collaborate."
Be assured that my use of the word "collaborate" was one hundred percent deliberate.

i was so ... furious
Crossposts: https://darthfox.livejournal.com/1446023.html

... so I’ll have to come over here to say this:

OH MY GOD turn the pages until you find figure T and that’s what page figure T is on.

i was so ... annoyed
Crossposts: https://darthfox.livejournal.com/1443446.html

I designed this with a border I bought and the caption maker at crosstitch.com (note only two s's) and the chart maker at stitchfiddle. (The Senate majority leader doesn't get credit.) Use it in good health.

i was so ... angry

I'll tell you what I told Facebook:

I really wish I could be with you all tomorrow. I mean I hate crowds and I haven't enjoyed any march or rally or anything I've ever been to, but I really badly wish I could join you for this one. But as important as it is - I just can't. This kid is eight weeks old, and (a) I can't be away from him for that long and (b) right now I can't risk something happening to me; and I can't bring him with, because (c) he shouldn't be out for that long or in that size of a crowd and (d) I can't possibly risk something happening to him. I'm feeling sad and guilty that I am able to turn inward and focus on my family and my own safety and all I'll probably personally be losing is the knowledge that one of the voices in the crowd was mine. I'd like to be able to tell my kids in the future that I was there; instead I'll have to tell them that the timing made it impossible.

Shout a little louder for me.

i was so ... sad

For a while now I've been thinking I wish I had a recliner in the family room. Den. TV area of my house. Whatever it is. The furniture we have is comfy enough, but I wanted something where I could have my feet up and my head supported and not prevent someone else from sitting comfortably (as Himself gets crowded off the couch when I lie down to get my feet up and my head supported). The more pregnant I got, the more strongly I felt about this, and a couple of weeks ago I decided that meant it was not a whim and I really wanted to make it happen. Did some research and ordered a chair in what looked like a nice grey color. That was a Sunday.

( Adventures with online retailer whose name rhymes with 'Hey there' )

me, 14th: FedEx did pick up the return today, but you know, I still don't have a shipping confirmation for the replacement, so I don't see how it's going to arrive on or before 9/15 (tomorrow). Very disappointing.
them, 15th: Hi, The warehouse has informed me that the replacement is shipping today. It is set to arrive on or before 09/18/2016.
me, 15th: Thanks. Right now the website still shows the estimated delivery as today, so as you can imagine, I'll be a lot more confident about your 9/18 estimate when I actually get a shipping notice with a tracking number.
them, 15th: I understand. I am showing the same information that you are. The information I provided you was provided to me by the warehouse.
me, 16th: I hear what you're saying, and I want to be clear that I'm not blaming you guys in CS, but the only obvious conclusion is that you're getting bad information from the warehouse, right? I mean I first placed this order on a Sunday and the wrong item was delivered by the following Thursday. That's admirably prompt. I got the notification that the replacement was in the works on a Sunday, and now it's the following Friday and the correct item hasn't even been shipped yet, much less delivered (though the website still says estimated delivery 9/15 - although it is now 9/16, which would be a neat trick). Maybe are they waiting until they get the return back before they ship out the replacement? (If so, I would think it shouldn't be much longer, but I would *absolutely* think someone should have told us this and I'll be pretty annoyed if that turns out to be the answer and I'm the first one who thought of it.) Is there someone at a more supervisory level who could look into this? I know 11+ days is not a long time in general life terms, but it's not at all what you guys lead your customers to expect - especially when there's no accurate information coming during that time.

them, 16th: Here is your shipping confirmation and tracking number. Estimated delivery is Monday 9/19 only because FedEx doesn't do weekends. We are so sorry. Here is a coupon for 10% off your next order. It expires this November 15.
me: Thanks for that, but what are the odds I'm going to place another order by then? Can you either waive the expiration date or apply that discount to this order that's caused all the trouble in the first place?
them: We are so sorry. Sure can. You should see a refund of 10% of the purchase price of your grey recliner on your card in the next 3 to 5 business days.

Stubborn annoyed pregnant lady signing off.

i was so ... good
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1429404.html

Look, if I search for "crib" and specify "-mattress" and filter to "furniture>cribs," why are the first two items a goddamn bed rail and a fitted sheet?!

i was so ... hot
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1425899.html

I drink a lot of soda. Not sorry about that. :-) So among the wedding presents we've got the most use out of has been a SodaStream. Much less recycling: hurrah!

Naturally, then, SodaStream recently stopped production of all three of the flavors I enjoy (caffeine-free diet cola, diet pink grapefruit [much pinker than Fresca, but that's the basic idea], and my favorite, diet cream soda). They say they are pivoting to focus on flavored water rather than soda ("a re-branding to focus on health, wellness, and the benefit that comes with making water exciting") but will have better availability of flavors by the end of January 2016. So there will be a caffeine-free diet cola at that time; the pink grapefruit thing will probably be a water essence rather than a soda, but whatever, I can live without Fresca.

The diet cream soda has been completely discontinued. Story of my life, really. Diet root beer abounds, but people don't seem to want cream soda unless it has sugar. I know it can be hard to get the flavor profile right around the sort of dry bitterness of a lot of the artificial sweeteners, but there have been successes (A&W, SodaStream itself, the much-beloved Dr. Brown's), and I can't have been the only one buying the stuff. SIGH.

But there's no real reason I can't make my own flavor syrup, right? The SodaStream fizzes the water, is all it does, so if their discontinuing the flavor I want to buy means I only give them money at rare intervals when I need to replace the CO2 canister, I can deal with that. How hard can it be?

If I wanted to make real cream soda, I would make simple syrup and shove a lot of vanilla into it. So the question is, what do I do to make this happen with Splenda? (Probably the answer is "experiment," but if anyone has already done such experiments and would like to share wisdom, I'm listening.)

i was so ... thirsty
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1418297.html

This morning when it was time to get up I just. couldn't. and had to take an extra snooze. When I had finally showered and dressed and was dealing with breakfast, I splashed coffee on the floor because I wasn't holding the cup steadily enough to keep it from sloshing over the sides - a thing that has happened to me exactly never recently, no matter how tired I was. While I'm eating my cereal, I lose my grip on and drop my spoon. None of this makes a mess or ruins my breakfast or my outfit, but the level of uncoordination is comically high.

I'm on the train minding my business when, at the third stop from my house (my office is at the thirteenth), a whole class of third or fourth graders gets on the train and, although they are well behaved, chatter nine-year-oldishly for ten stops before they mercifully disembark and leave us to contemplate our own thoughts in peace. I have seriously seldom been anywhere louder than that train. For a minute or so I thought about getting out and reboarding in a different car, but I knew I wouldn't get a seat and depending on the timing I might even have to wait for the next train (on which I would also not get a seat), so I stayed put. But holy crap.

Sent an e-mail to Himself in which when I went to paste in a link the thing just went ahead and transmitted, so I had to resend with clarification that I hadn't stopped midsentence.

I think I have a full complement of marbles, but just barely, and it's only 11:23 and I'm pretty much ready for this day to be over. Yup.

i was so ... exhausted
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1413350.html

Dear person on our street* who has been putting old busted-up furniture in our contractor-supplied dumpster and today left a toilet full of cleaning liquid on the street between the dumpster and Himself's car:

a) Yes, I am assuming you are the same person. If you've been leaving the furniture but didn't leave the toilet, I'm blaming you for the toilet just the same, because the toilet person wouldn't have thought the dumpster was for general public use if it hadn't been for your furniture.

b) KNOCK IT OFF. Dumpsters aren't free, dude. You know what's free? Bulk trash pickup. Call the county and make a freakin' appointment. And get your goddamn commode out of our parking space.

signed,
perhaps you didn't realize we are living here during the renovation

* I have chosen not to use the word "neighbor" because this is some unneighborly behavior, is what it is.

i was so ... annoyed
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1411010.html

I am having a very, very hard time believing that Thanksgiving is eleven days from now. I mean I guess I can't say I can't believe it, but JFC, where has the time gone!? Yes yes--the days are long but the years are short. But this year, the months and weeks and days are also quite short. I have managed to schedule myself into a series of corners; not sure how that happened either.

Mondays - chorus rehearsals
Tuesdays - curling
Wednesdays - curling
Sundays - Catholics
This week - extra chorus stuff; because I'm an idiot, I agreed to do a chorus gig with the BSO that involves rehearsing in Baltimore this Wednesday (spare arranged for curling) and Thursday and performances Friday through Sunday; also, next Sunday is ~~stir-up Sunday~~ Christ the King, which means I'm on twice with the Catholics, which could (or will?) make me late for the call time in Baltimore. I fretted for a while about how early I'd need to leave the second Mass to be sure I could get there on time and finally told the chorus I might not be able to make it on Sunday, and I've been sleeping a little better ever since. I might still be able to get there, but depending on what the roads look like, it's good to know I'm not going to be held to it. And it's Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, which I like very much, but seriously, that level of stress for a twenty-minute performance is not. worth it. Not at this time of year, anyway.
Plus - some side work doing a bit of light editing I said I'd help a colleague out with. Need to finish that today.

So that's November. For December, I can subtract the extra chorus stuff but add more Catholic stuff, because Christmas, and subtract the whole idea of getting ready for Thanksgiving, but add Yuletide.

This is going to have to be the last year I do two nights of curling on top of doing chorus. I don't know what's going to give, but it's going to be something, because I am exhausted. Switching my birth control pill this week should help, I think--I had a backup substitute formulation while they special-ordered the kind I said had the least unpleasant side effects, and I haven't been enjoying how it's been making me feel. But I don't think it's the only culprit.

Anyway I finally pointed out to Himself the other day that I've been--sort of not-quite-depressed, but I can kind of see it from here. I routinely feel like I don't want to go to rehearsal, but then I almost always feel better when I get there. (I've been having thoughts since last winter or spring about possibly having outgrown this particular chorus, but I'll want to think more seriously about that when I'm not overscheduled into the ground.) I routinely feel like I don't want to go to curling, but then I do always feel better when I get there. So it's not a matter of no longer enjoying things that I used to enjoy. I don't spend time at curling wishing I were at home instead. I'm not having panic attacks or crying jags or other symptoms. I'm just so tired that if I had a choice I would stay home and knit or read or do something else that didn't involve leaving the house instead. I don't have the choice right now, because I've made these commitments, but the next time it is time to make such choices, I think I'm going to choose differently.

We're thinking about trying to get away somewhere for a weekend. Bit of a recharge. Or a reboot. I hope we can find a time for this. We can only hang on by our fingernails for so much longer.

i was so ... tired

So this morning, I had a hard time waking up. I treated myself to an extra snooze, which meant I had nine minutes less than usual to shower, dress, eat my breakfast, drink my coffee, put on my makeup, and make my lunch. And I did all these things and walked to the train just like usual. I was right on time.

I was the only one.

My clever plan only to get on Silver Spring-bound trains in the morning was foiled when there were only Glenmont trains scheduled to come in for the next fifteen minutes. So I got on a Glenmont train - just as the PA was telling us that due to a track problem outside Dupont Circle, trains were single tracking between Dupont Circle and Van Ness and the whole line was experiencing delays. Van Ness is three stations in from me and Dupont is four stations in from there. The train I was on was very crowded, and then we sat at Van Ness for ten minutes to let four trains come through the other way on the single-track bit. With the doors open the whole time. So naturally it got more and more packed in there. By the time we got to the big transfer stations in the middle of town both the train and the platform were so crowded it was probably dangerous. ... Anyway, I got to work only about ten or fifteen minutes late, which is apparently a lot better than a lot of people did who start out later in the morning than I do. So there's that.

Today was the last day of the fiscal year, so everything we've agreed to print has to go to the printer by today. Which meant we were scrambling to get everything done and working late. Later than that. I'm a freaking editor, I can't do the layout and final polishing-up work, but I'm still there until 7pm helping the designers with everything I can. The other editor and I finally leave, she just misses a train going her way and I just catch one going mine, and fifty feet out of the station the PA says that due to an earlier situation at Silver Spring, trains are holding at every station along the whole line but as soon as the train pulls out of Union Station we'll move. We get to Union only a couple of minutes later, but by the time we get to Judiciary Square we sit there for a long time because the situation is resolved, the disabled train is off the tracks, but we're the last train for twenty minutes and we have to let the train behind us close some of that distance.

Bottom line, I finally get home about 8:15, having walked from the train in the nighttime darkness weeks before I was expecting to have to, so I haven't yet ordered a clip-on safety light. :-P But I still managed to observe Garbage Eve and make some dinner. I will not achieve vacuuming and the hanging of blinds, but I'm still calling the day a wretched success.

i was so ... tired

There has not been anything I have liked so far about the management company the owners of our house chose to handle it for them.

A litany of specifics would just raise my blood pressure. Suffice to say almost every interaction - from getting a copy of the fully-executed lease to getting a copy of the key to the back door - has taken at least three times as long as it should, and there is not a single thing we have not had to ask about more than once. These guys take non-responsiveness to an art form.

I know they don't work for us. They work for the homeowners. And their contractors obviously don't work for us (of course not; they work for them). So maybe they are more communicative with people who aren't us. Maybe. But jfc. I don't need everything done asap. I know that's not reasonable and wouldn't be even if I were the owner. But I'd be a lot less frustrated if I knew more than I normally do (which is nothing) about when to expect something to be done. Or when to expect more information to be forthcoming. Right now, the time when I can expect more information to be forthcoming seems to be within a day or so of asking for it again, which I find maddening. As Ask A Manager says: "if people have to follow up with you to get a response, you're not being responsive enough." I don't mind a thing taking three weeks. I mind being told on day one that it will be "soon" and then two and a half weeks going by before I ask again what's up and hearing that it took x or y amount of time to accomplish some preliminary step. Just keep me posted and it will be way longer before I get annoyed. Right?

Sigh. So I am trying to manage my expectations. I think a fair amount of it is their southern management style colliding with my east-coast preferences. Because they don't work for us, I'm the one who's going to have to adjust.

i was so ... annoyed

Look, if I order something or make a reservation or whatever on your website, and your booking form has a tickybox for "Yes!, please send me additional offers to the e-mail address where you will be confirming my order or reservation or whatever", and I untick that box, it is wrong of you to send me additional offers to that e-mail address. WHY THE HELL DID I SAY NO IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO IT ANYWAY.

Fuck. I am tired of "unsubscribe".

i was so ... annoyed
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1382832.html

... the water heater is fucked.

Fortunately, it took approximately 12 seconds for the plumber to diagnose this, and he's hooking up a hose to drain it the rest of the way now, and I'm pretty sure I just heard him tell GC that once he gets it draining he's going to head out and get a new one to replace it with.

Remember: this is a thing I wouldn't even have known about it I hadn't had to bring the window guy down to show him where the basement window had leaked in the big rainstorm. Home Stuff is even more fun when you don't own the place (because you don't have to pay for the repairs your own self)!

i was so ... cranky

So okay: the church where I have this singing gig has supplied me with IRS form 1099-MISC instead of a W-2. Fine. Everything they've paid me (less nothing, because they haven't withheld any taxes) is reported in Box 7, "Nonemployee compensation". Also fine.

I cannot work out where to report this income (slight as it is) on my 1040. The instructions for the 1040 are very firm that nonemployee compensation from form 1099-MISC is not to be reported on Line 21 "Other income", and insist that I refer to the instructions on form 1099-MISC to find out where to report that income - but it sure looks to me like the instructions on form 1099-MISC pertain to the employer, not to the (non-)employee. The whole instruction document seems, that is, to be about when you have to report that you made a payment. I can't figure out where it actually tells me anything about where to report this income.

Any help?

i was so ... okay
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1368784.html

The plan for the weekend was, I'd dye a couple of pairs of jeans over at GC's last evening and watch some TV while the machine was running, stay there, get up in the morning and go to my rehearsal aaall the way on the other side of the river from 10-1, pick up my repaired shoes at the Fluevog store, get a pedicure, and go see Les Miz at 4:20pm.

Instead of which, I couldn't start the dyeing until later than I meant to because of the number of stores that said they stocked RIT dye but didn't; did get the dyeing done, but the jeans came out much darker blue but not actually black (sigh); and, most annoyingly, woke up at 5am when Himself heard a noise downstairs, got up to investigate, and surprised someone who had just tried the locked side door trying the locked front door. Some noise and phone calls with the police later, I at least went back to sleep - but it was not as restful as it would have been without the attempted break-in. :-/ (We're both fine. They stared each other down for about fifteen seconds and the guy went away. He may have been stoned; he may even have just been lost. In any case he didn't get in, and didn't damage either of our cars out in front, or anything - only our peace was disturbed.) Went to my rehearsal, retrieved my shoes, got my pedicure, but I didn't have another three hours in me without coming home, so I came home and I might go to the movie later.

Right now: some food and a little nap.

i was so ... okay
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1367571.html

Today is my father's birthday.

( Other things. )

i was so ... okay
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1363560.html

You know, I forgot something that was annoying me the other day, and I may have just remembered it, which is that I don't like how the Movie Voiceover Dude in the commercials is pronouncing "Anna" when he advertises "Anna Karenina".

That's sufficiently trivial that I'm not surprised I forgot it between happening to hear the commercial and spouting off in my post. :-) But I've just been reading Ebert's review of it - in which he unconscionably uses "flaunt" when he means "flout", augh!, so now I'm annoyed and thinking about Anna Karenina, and boom, back to my mind it comes.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. :-D

i was so ... amused
Crossposts: http://darthfox.livejournal.com/1363154.html

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