Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

I don’t know about where you are, but September 1st hit here and Mother Nature was all IT’S METEOROLOGIC FALL, BITCHES!! Hoodie for the Starbucks run yesterday and a sweater vest today for my weekly therapy trip to the farmers market. I so love summer, but I do love these cool mornings, too. It was especially nice not to heat bonk at the farmers market like I did last week.

Mind you, it’s going to be back up in the 90s this coming week, but I’m pretending I didn’t see that.

This week the farmers market had grapes! I don’t remember seeing those before, and I got a nice bunch of crazy sweet green grapes to snack on. Downside – the googles tell me that they should be stored in the fridge. As someone with a terrible case of “out of sight, out of mind” – I’m going to try REALLY hard to not forget they exist.

So, yesterday the office closed down at 2 – it’s a nice little thing they do before a holiday weekend, and I appreciate it. Except when I end up getting out near two hours after that. As a result, I feel we need to establish some new rules when it comes to working.

#1 – My developer and I will no longer be working Fridays before holiday weekends, because we get stuck late far too often. (This one is admittedly highly specific and we probably won’t actually do it.)
# 2 – If your status on Teams/Skype/Slack status is “Available” – you cannot be farther away from your laptop than an emergency Starbucks run. End of story. If you are more than 15 minutes from your laptop, for the love of all that is good and holy, just put your status as Away.

My developer and I spent a LOT of time yesterday waiting on someone who was not in fact there. Had we known, we could have pulled someone else in earlier and actually left on time. Yes, I was super pissed when I found out that our time had been wasted like that.

I handled this in a totally mature manner and once I logged off, yelled to my brother “WANNA GO GET MEXICAN FOOD AND DAY DRINK?” Several patio margaritas later, I came home and slept for 12 hours. Gawd, I love margaritas and sunshine. And long weekends, even if I didn’t get off work on time.

Big exciting Labor Day plans are to try out the Ben’s Chili Bowl half smokes that you can get at the grocery store now!! The only place I usually can get them is at the ballpark, so this is a very exciting turn of events. (Yes, I do need to get out more, LOL.)

You have a lovely weekend and if you have to work, I hope your customers aren’t dicks. Be Covid safe, too. I want all y’all around.

I would very much like credit for not bitchslapping a customer at Starbucks this morning.

ProTip: If you order hot drinks and they come out as cold drinks, all you have to say is “Oh no, these were supposed to be hot drinks” and the response will be “Oh no, we’ll fix that!” and they’ll just fix it. Immediately. Your new drinks don’t even go to the end of the queue. And you usually get a coupon for a free drink to boot.

You don’t have to be dramatic about it, you don’t have to loudly announce you put the order in at 10:02 (it was 10:23 at the time) and act like it took them 20 minutes to get you the wrong order. Because I put *my* order of two drinks in at 10:16 and it was ready in 8 minutes. Those drinks had been on the counter for at least 10 minutes with YOUR name on them – I know you were looking for hot drinks, but they were there. (And you even said the other cold drinks in your order came out right away, so…)

I was right next to her and picked up my drinks and my petty ass thanked the baristas and said probably a little too loud, “Hope your day gets better!” This is a hot, sweaty, busy job, working under a corporate office that has gone to complete shit over the years, and they’re bringing us lovely coffee concoctions and snacks – there is zero need to be a jackass to them when a mistake happens. Zero.

I hate to think what this woman is like when something actually goes wrong in her day. I know the pandemic has broken our damn brains, but if you can’t handle a mistake at the coffee shop, your ass needs to stay home and meditate until you can.

It’s Saturday!! You made it to the weekend, well done! It’s also been a bit of a firehose of news this week, so don’t feel bad if you missed something. TFG, Prighozhin, that asshole in charge of Spanish football, a hurricane hitting California, and someone has been stealing shit from the British Museum. (That last one I find hilarious. NOT SO AWESOME WHEN *YOUR* SHIT GET STOLEN, IS IT?) And I’m sure there was a bunch more I missed.

Made my weekly sanity-saving trip to the farmers market and got myself a bit heat zapped. It’s was near 90º and the humidity was up there – I even asked the lovely lady with the shortbread stand if it seemed kinda warm already, and she confirmed it was not imagination. Even though the area is surrounded by trees, it’s in a blacktop parking lot, so it’s warmer anyway. There is a solid 5º difference between there and my house – grass and trees make a difference!

By the time I finished, I thought I was gonna hurl. Once I got into the car and blasted the AC and cooled down, I was fine, but yikes – definitely a bit unsettling. (Also took a shower and ate something upon getting home – empty stomach probably wasn’t helping.)

But – worth it cause I got the loaded baked potato, and feta/spinach savory strudels!

Oh goodness, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are in the neighborhood today. Haven’t seen them in ages. Made the mistake of very politely speaking to them once, then they came back and I had to explain that I’m basically an athiest and they probably shouldn’t be wasting their time and oh, they looked so hurt and concerned. I just chickened out and didn’t answer the door today. (Well, couldn’t if I wanted to, cause there are still two bins in the entry hall that I’ve not moved/unpacked since vacation, LMAO.)

I really have to wonder what the success rate of door-to-door proselytizing is for any religion. Just seems like the return rate would be way too low for the effort expended.

Whoops, I didn’t hit post this morning and now it’s almost 5, LOL. We also went to a “weed expo” today (it was Something To Do Outside) which was one medical marijuana certification tent, and one weed delivery service tent. While I didn’t get a certification given that I only partake on average once every 15 years – the process isn’t exactly robust, LOL. (In retrospect, I probably should have gotten one as long as I was there.)

Hope you had a great Saturday!

It’s a beautiful day again here, and I hope wherever you are that you’re safe, dry, and doing OK.

In California, The San Diego Union Tribune has dropped the paywall for the storm coverage. Yes, they’re gonna ask you to drop your adblocker for the page.* Looking at the radar, it’s very, very, very wet in SoCal right now. Hope everyone is doing as well as they can be.

WordPress has a writing prompt on their landing page, and today’s was “What do you love about where you live?” I got nothing, except Lily and my little brother. I don’t hate Fairfax County, but I don’t love it – but I also don’t know where else I’d go. Liberal, affordable, smallish, and good weather seems to be a bit of a unicorn location, LOL.

And speaking of Lily – it’s the third Sunday in August, which means it’s International Lily Appreciation Day! Established in 2019 by my brother, likely after a night at the bar. We’ve had breakfast and brushing time and she has a full basket of towels, and of course there will be extra treats today.

I think I’ve worked through my weather/Covid existential dread from yesterday. My friend Ashley let me know about an upcoming book by Adam Greenberg, Beyond Hope: Collective Power and Mutual Care in the Long Emergency – it’s currently only available for pre-order in the UK, but I will definitely be pre-ordering as soon as it’s available in the US.

The fact of the matter is – and we’ve seen it over and over again – we’re all we’ve got, and honestly, at least in the US, this “I have to do it myself or else I suck” thing that has been drilled into our heads since childhood, welp, that’s left a lot of folks with no damn network.

Well, I need to figure out what I’m going to do with myself for the rest of the day. There’s lots of things I should do around the house, but nothing critical, so…

You have a great day.

* Someone on Mastodon who doesn’t even follow me, decided he had to point that out. FFS, I know we all love our adblockers, but journalists also need to eat. Get over it for a couple days on one site.

You could almost briefly forget about Covid and climate collapse.

40+ years of scientists telling us we have to make changes, and 40+ years of policymakers kicking the can down the road because we can’t hurt the economy offend the yacht and private jet owners. Capitalism will kill us all, and it will somehow be the regular folks that get blamed for not recycling enough or some shit.

Wildfires in Canada, Hawaii, Europe and a fucking hurricane on it’s way to California – but hey, this is alllll fine. What’s the over/under on Elon Musk absolutely not being in CA when it hits?

And Covid is letting us know that we may have forgotten it, but it hasn’t forgotten us. Two new variants with 7 confirmed cases, which means hundreds, or more likely thousands of cases out in the wild. If just one person infects 3 other people a day who in turn infect 3 a day – that’s over 200 cases in 5 days and 59K in 10 days. And folks have absolutely let their guard down, and I think this wave that is starting is gonna be messy.

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in the US, the CDC is saying if you’ve gotten the bivalent booster, you’re “up to date” but that’s kinda bullshit given that it’s been near a year since most of us got them – and we’re not going to have updated boosters until October at the earliest because we don’t have the public health emergency anymore, so that delays the rollout. Oh, and they’ll be ~$110 if your insurance doesn’t cover it. (See above: Capitalism is gonna kill us.)

But at least one of the better risk mitigators is also the easiest – get yourself a good N95 mask and wear it. I’m a big fan of the 3M Aura N95’s – and you can get a pack of 20 off Amazon for $12 right now. And the usual stuff – avoid crowded indoor spaces, go reward those restaurants that have patio seating, and make sure you have tests on hand.

And I know, I KNOW, we’re all very tired of Covid. I’m tired of masking up, I’m tired of the constant risk assessments, I’m tired of pushing off plans to later, I’m tired of living in a country that doesn’t give a shit because the capitalist meat grinder needs bodies. I’ve seen folks rightfully ask why the government doesn’t seem to care about the disability crisis that’s going to come with long Covid. I know why – they don’t give a shit about disabled folks as it is, what’s a few more to ignore? (Yeah, I’m gonna be salty about the government response to this FOREVER.)

The sad reality is that no matter where you are – something is trying to kill you – weather, Covid or both. Be as prepared as you can, be as safe as you can, help others if you can.

You did it! Well done!

I had a dentist appointment today, and took the whole day off cause I had enough PTO to cover it, and the appointment was smack in the middle of the day. Set my alarm for weekend wake up, and literally as it went off, the office called, the nitrous machine is broken – can we reschedule? LOL, yes, we can.

Thing is, at work we lost a half day earlier this week to a bad build, and some things got shuffled around and I was gonna work late last night to get one last thing done so I wouldn’t be rushing on Monday and last night we had another build fail. I’d been thinking about going in this morning before the appointment just to see if I could knock it out, but last night said fuck it, it will be finished Monday.

And now…well, guess I’m gonna log on for a bit after all, LOL. But, it’s all good – I got to sleep in this morning and go get some Starbucks and I’ll be able to get that thing done, and a couple other things that I need to get off my plate. But I’m gonna have a bit of a leisurely morning and log off at my usual time – no need to try to make it a full 8 hour day, especially since it’s Friday.

I’m sure everyone up the chain LOVES the fact that I keep going “Well, I was gonna be out today but that’s being moved and here I am!” LOL.

Well, I’m gonna go have myself a very low-key day at work – you try and do the same.

Have a great day!

I mean, I did sleep until 9:30 and did the run to the coffee shop, farmers market, and grocery store, and got all that put away, but that definitely didn’t take 5 hours. Haven’t been doing really anything around the house other than rescuing Iggy the Roomba from the powder room. (Sometimes he hits the door just right and it closes and he’s stuck in there.) Played some phone games, had brushing time with the LilyMonster, had some snacks…but IDK where the rest of the time went.

But you know what? It’s been a very, very pleasant day and I have zero regrets.

Work week was good – calm, quiet, and only 4 days long. Neatly sidestepped not one, but two client issues! Well, the first one wasn’t even a module I ever use or test, and the other was a weird error I’d never seen before that dev had to look at – and that turned out to be a result of user error. And I’d rather have user error any day of the week vs “how the hell did we miss THAT in testing?”

Little bro is off to a pre-season football game tonight, so I can get whatever I want for dinner and not feel bad if I get something he doesn’t like!* Which also means I’ll probably end up with decision paralysis and end up having cheese and crackers at 9PM tonight, LOL.

You have a fantastic day, eat some good food and relax. You’ve earned it.

* If I take the time to get takeout or cook something, I legit feel bad if it’s something he can’t enjoy, too. Just one of my weird things.

We got VERY lucky and just had the skinny bit of the line of storms come over our place.

There was some heavy rain, but not a lot, and one rather scary sustained wind gust that had me sending Lily to the basement with my brother (with me ready to follow,) but other than that, OK here. Power, cable and internet all held. County as a whole has around 15K with no power.

We’re checking with local friends to see if anyone needs ice, cause we might have a cooler with 40# in it…

Did I completely panic and probably overreact when I heard the word “derecho” this morning? Absolutely. Do I regret anything I did to get ready today? Nope.

But damn, that was super fucking stressful waiting for it to show up, then wondering how bad it would get, and constantly watching the radar to figure out if it was done. When we had the derecho, I don’t think anyone realized it would be *that* bad ahead of time, so no pre-storm stress.

Definitely gonna be looking into one of those generators.

This morning they were talking about severe weather this afternoon and I just figured regular summer storms that can get a little wild. Then they started throwing around the word “derecho.” It may have been 11 years ago, but I remember it as plain as day.

So, breaks and lunch around here has been a bit of panic prep. Electronics and power banks all charged. Books & podcasts downloaded. Lanterns tested. Filled up the car. Got cash, ice, snacks, and water. Icemaker running to make freezer extra full.

Last time we went through this, we only lost power for 5 hours. But everything around us was down for days – and even when power came back, a lot of internet didn’t so, places could be open but only take cash. (Hence the trip to the ATM machine today.)

But, we’re as ready as we can be.

Though, there is a dude on YouTube who lives off grid (not a weirdo, he just wanted to live out in the country) and he has these solar powered generators and when I saw them I thought they were super clever and dammit, WHY DIDN’T I GET ONE WHEN I FIRST SAW THEM?

I will be taking a much closer look at those before winter hits, that’s for sure.

You made it to another weekend, WELL DONE!

Fairly calm and quiet week at work, which is always nice. Been making a point of trying very hard not to take on more work when I’m already at capacity, and damn, it works. Who knew?!

And the weekend is off to a good start – already done the coffee run and made the trip over to the farmers market for my weekly mini-food-festival dopamine hit. And the 4H fair is this weekend, so you know I’m gonna go over to the county farm park to see all the animals. And get a corndog, of course.

And this sleepy goober this morning. I woke up, found she was sleeping in the guest room on the bed, I said “good morning” and one eye opened a bit, there was a pause, then both eyes opened very wide and I swear, it was “OH SHIT YOU’RE UP, I WAS GONNA BE BACK IN YOUR ROOM BUT YOU’RE UP EARLY!” So much embarrassed meowing.

You have a lovely Saturday – eat something tasty, get outside if you can, and treat yourself to a nap.