Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

In all the world, my nest is best. :) The beach was great, but I’m also very happy to be back home with my LilyMonster.

While I don’t speak fluent cat, I’m pretty sure the earful I got when I got home yesterday was along the lines of, “Hey, that so called ‘friend’ of yours broke in twice a day, every day, and tried to bribe me so he could steal the TV, but I sent him packing every time!” A bit like this, but thankfully with no kicks in the crotch.

Though I did not need the jolt back to reality this morning of discovering my debit card had been compromised earlier this week. It was just a $1.99 charge and the problem is solved, no true damage done, but it’s gonna bug me not knowing for sure how it happened given that I don’t use that card online and only rarely in person in general.

The other bit of reality to handle this weekend is laundry. Very hot and humid this past week and I changed clothes A LOT.

But I think a nap with Lily comes first. You have a great afternoon!

Mildly being the operative word here, but it’s been tiny thing after tiny thing the past 36 hours.

Ordered usual breakfast yesterday to discover they have completely changed the item. Wasn’t bad at all just not what I thought I was getting.

I fucked up the dinner order last night. (The restaurant saved me – thought I was just getting “no mods” sandwiches, my dumbass managed to order them all PLAIN.)

Hear that cat has taken a swing at petsitter. His reaction? “She’s a cute demon monster and we’re gonna be best friends!” Thank god for that, LOL. I love his attitude!

Got wrong coffee this morning – still cold, sweet, and caffinated, so totally fine, just not what I ordered. Lids will then not fit 2 of the 3 cups. No idea how long I struggled at the pickup counter, LMAO.

Hit drugstore/grocery store/Walmart for cups with lids to just have in the car should this lid situation persist. Nothing above 16 Oz. Get festive reusable tumblers.

AGAIN this year someone has walked off with one of the the house keys, leaving only one. We have 3 people going different directions all week.

Get copies made because I know the rental office is overwhelmed. Text brother on beach as to where I am headed. Informed that I am missing dolphins. Of course.

Stop at coffee shop as it is the easiest place to turn around. Get iced coffee. Now lids fit perfectly.

Turtle food is for box turtles, not aquatic turtles. Walmart again.

Get to house, try keys, hardware store did not cut them correctly, they do not work.

Sit down. Have beer. Take shower. Break deodorant stick. Fortunately inadvertently packed a second one.

Grab power bank to juice up phone while I am on the porch. First one, dead. Second one, dead. Somehow the third one, which hasn’t been touched since last year, still full? I’ll take it! (I swear one and two had been charging at home, but I guess not?)

Any few of these things, fine, but all of them right in a row is a bit much.

I’m going for a reset tonight with a very stiff drink at dinner and I’m gonna have both my guys double check me before I tell my order to the waiter. 🤣

It is Thursday. I have had to remind myself of that multiple times already this morning. Work/Holiday/Work/PTO has scrambled my internal calendar, to be sure.

Speaking of PTO, I got through yesterday without telling anyone off and getting fired! Go me!

And my god, the social media wars… I don’t know about y’all, but I am getting overwhelmed with all this – and yet, in the past week, I’ve signed up for BlueSky and Threads, if for no other reason than to see what’s what and preserve my username. (Gotta protect my brand, LMAO.) I cannot even imagine the current hell for social media managers.

So, by my count, we’ve got 3 pseudo-Twitters out there in the running now. (I know there are more, but these are the big three that seem to have real traction.)

Mastodon – Love the decentralization, moderation has been good at least in my experience and I’m on one of the larger servers (I know that seems to vary wildly,) familiar mechanics once you’re signed up. Downside – folks have a hard time finding a server and finding their people.

BlueSky – Got an invite last week and went ahead with signing up, though I’m not thrilled about ownership by any stretch. Pros are familiar mechanics, found Twitter folks real quick, easy to sign up – IF you can get an invite code. Can’t speak to moderation.

Threads – This could be the Twitter killer, but they need to do a few more things. This definitely feels like “Twitter is on the ground and bleeding out, what can we get out the door this sprint that actually functions?” Again, the mechanics are very familiar, and signup is super easy – BBC was just saying they had 11 million signups in the first 7 hours. If you have signed up, you’ve seen it’s pure chaos right now and folks definitely want a viable Twitter alternative. Big downside is it’s fucking Meta, but at least you know they have enough engineers actually working on it. If they can do the following in short order, this could end Twitter:

• Boot the Nazis. They’re already there, get rid of them immediately.
• A chronological/following tab. They’ve said this is on the way. Folks don’t like the home feed with a bunch folks they don’t follow in it. I get why the home tab is the way it is, it theoretically helps you find new folks to follow, but it’s just too fucking chaotic for me.
• Federation. They’ve also said this is on the way, and from what I understand, they’re going to use the ActivityPub protocol, which means theoretically, I could find all my Twitter folks on Threads and then follow them from my Mastodon account. That would fucking rock. (BlueSky is supposedly going to federate as well, but they’re going to use Authentication Transport, and I suspect Twitter will use AT as well if they ever federate.)
• Open up to the EU – fix whatever GDPR issues you’ve got straightaway (which I’m betting has something to do with the fact that they track WAY too much) – it’s better for all your users in general.
• DM’s. I don’t really need them, but folks are absolutely clamoring for them, and I’m surprised they’re not there yet.

If they can do this – and we know they have the engineering staff, if not the will – it could be the final death blow to Twitter. And put a hurt on BlueSky as well – why wait for an invite code when Threads is right there and open to all?

I don’t think this hurts all the various and sundry Mastodon instances at all – they’re over there happily doing their thing and doing a pretty good job of scaling up every time Twitter has a crash, and if Threads federates, great, if not, who cares?

And I’m enjoying the fact that this has GOT to have Musk freaking the fuck out. Nothing like basically setting $44 billion on fire and having everyone laugh at you while it happens.

And on that note, I have to remove myself from social media and go do a metric fuckton of laundry.

You have a fantastic Thursday!

It is 11AM and everything that must be done for work is done!!!!

I know I was super, SUPER salty about working this past weekend, but I am so glad I did it. Monday and today would have been SO awful otherwise, especially with the one system being down all day Monday.

I may have snuck out to pick up a celebratory Starbucks.

Told one of my buddies in support the plan for the day was to just keep my head down and hope everyone forgets I exist – and it’s been OK so far!

If I could get away with logging off right now, I’d absolutely do it, LOL.

But I am content with just being online and available and not drilling myself into the ground over the next 4 ish hours.

Last day before I am on vacation, YAY!! Plus I have a hard stop at the end of the day for a post-work appointment with my lovely acupuncturist to disconnect my shoulders from my ears.

Just gotta get through 8 hours without losing my shit, LOL. I can totally do that. I think. Of course, today start with meetings, which is the worst way to start the day, but I will just keep my mouth shut and keep my eye on the countdown clock. In retrospect, I probably should have taken Monday and today off rather than torture myself with these two days in office, but hindsight is always 20/20 isn’t it?

Be interesting to see if the system that shit the bed on Monday is functioning today for working the remainder of Thing #3 and/or if Thing #2 has been fixed so I can retest Thing #1. That dead system on Monday…I was told “oh wait for the next build” – and we couldn’t run a special build Monday – so, we shall see if the regular build reset whatever got out of whack.

Oh and between Monday & today, the 7/19 deadline has been moved to 7/14. Can’t find any explanation yet, just that it changed. And that right there was why I worked this weekend to knock out as much as I possibly could – cause even though someone had pointed out, “Oh, the deadline is Wed 7/19” – which means internally we always shoot for the day before – I’d only have 2 days when I got back to finish shit – and now I’d have zero days.

But, looks like a bit of a reprieve on Thing #1/#2 and I only have ~2 hours to do on Thing #3, so today might be OK!

You have a fantastic day!

This is not a joke post, though the best answer is “don’t try to bathe the cat.” So, somehow Lily the Indoor Cat has picked up fleas and of course can’t tolerate the flea drops. So along with vac and wash and vac and wash – a flea bath was in order. I use the Wondercide Geranium bar shampoo for her – it works very well.

First, take every towel you have in the house, set aside a couple for drying time, and line the floor of your bathroom with the rest of them, You basically want a big, thick towel mat, for two reasons – one for the water that will be spilled, and so kitty has a secure/stable place to be sitting during the process.

You’ll also need a big container for water – I just grabbed our stock pot, and a small container with a spout, like a measuring cup, for pouring water over the cat.

Fill the big container with warm water. Grab the cat and get them in the bathroom on the big towel mat.

Get some water in the measuring cup, and start at the head/neck and slowly pour a small amount on the cat. You don’t have to get the cat all wet at once. Just small amounts at a time.

Then massage in the shampoo, and move on to the next section and repeat all the way to the tail. The tummy is a little challenging – if you can tip the cat up on its back legs and pour, great, otherwise you may have to cup the water in your hands and splash it up on the tummy.

For rinsing – same thing from head to tail – small amounts at a time, gently squeeze the excess water off the section, move to the next. Then go to town with the dry towels you set aside earlier. You won’t get the kitty totally dry, but certainly good enough.

I’ve only had to bathe Lily a couple times in 14 years, but this is SO much easier on both of us vs trying to get her in the bathtub, even if I line it with towels.

She didn’t love it, but she was very, very good and she smells lovely and this should keep the damn fleas off her while we continue to wash and vac and wash and vac…

Not really celebrating the 4th around here, cause this country is quite shit at the moment. But I’ll take the day off, for sure. (Hypocritical anti-nationalism, I guess?)

Lily’s meet & greet with our friend went so well and I didn’t realize how unconsciously worried I was about it until I could feel the stress leaving my body, LOL. I guess I was worried that she’d hide when he got here or at best, just be indifferent, but she was very HEY, NEW FRIEND AND YOU SMELL LIKE THAT DOG THAT MY BOY SMELLS LIKE SOMETIMES! She let him brush her, and she was all twirling around his ankles and it did my heart good. Also, many thanks to Bailey the Best Doggo for making our friend smell familiar, LOL.

We all went out for some beers afterwards and damn if those little webcams I got aren’t the best thing ever – I had way too much fun peeking in on the LilyMonster while we were out. And apparently Lily has entered a portal somewhere, because the parlor camera just picked her up walking by – and I have no idea where she actually is now, LOL. And I just walked around rubbing her slicker brush (it makes a very distinct noise) to see if she would appear and *poof* caught her walking out of the parlor. WHERE WAS SHE? I WALKED THROUGH THE DAMN PARLOR LOOKING FOR HER.

I’m definitely already mentally on vacation, which is great except for the fact that I have to work tomorrow, HAHAHAHAHAHA. That is going to be ROUGH.

But that is tomorrow and today I am just enjoying the day off.

Have a great day and don’t blow of your fingers with fireworks.

And I got off work ON TIME!! And a holiday tomorrow to boot!

They got a solid four hours of work out of me today, and I’d feel bad had I not worked 18 hours over the weekend. I was online and available all day, just not always at the damn grindstone like every other day. (I keep reading about these folks with jobs where they only work 3 hours a day. What are these jobs?)

The system I did need today shit the bed this morning and welp, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The weird shit I found yesterday – all total edge cases because I come up with some seriously whacked out test scenarios – bounced them off a couple other folks and we agreed, that clients aren’t doing that, and shouldn’t be doing that. So we’re gonna let those sleeping dogs lie.

My brother’s buddy has come over to get the keys and meet Lily and they both like each other VERY MUCH! That’s such a load off right there.

And now we’re all having adult beverages.

Thing #1 is done, but needs to be retested, because Thing #2 is broken, but I am not responsible for testing Thing #2. Thing #3 is 3/4 done. Thing #4 has been successfully yeeted. Today is Thing #3 and investigating TWO WHOLE NEW DAMN THINGS that I found yesterday, but all I’m doing with that is figuring out what is happening and getting bugs opened for those.

Again, these are things that are being split/parallel tested, so I don’t know if I’m just the queen of edge cases, or everyone else is just not having to bulldoze their way through the testing and I’m ahead of the curve. And I have had two folks ask why I worked the weekend. Um, my workload, plus 2 day workweek, plus PTO?

I am also slowly coming to the realization that perhaps it’s not understood that testing Thing #2 isn’t just “does the tickybox actually check & uncheck” but is in fact then looking at the aftermath. Even though I added notes to that effect, in bold and red, in the tracking system. Sigh.

FedEx, which I’ve had zero problems with in ages, decided last week would be the perfect week to lose Lily’s Chewy package – last seen in Hagerstown, MD, 5 days ago. No updates for 2 days, Chewy said on Friday, “No worries, we’re sorry, we will re-ship!” Order is now in 2 shipments, one left Ocala, FL 3 hours ago, the other is in Mount Juliet, TN. Both should be here before we leave, but not before we run out of crunchy treats & packet snacks… Fortunately, her prescription food arrived on time.

There will be an emergency treat run to the market today to at least get us to the Chewy delivery. I hope Lily appreciates the grocery store premium, LOL.

And in an act of work rebellion today, I’m keeping my jammie pants on and I think I’ll be working on the sofa with Sports Center on.

You have a fantastic day!

So, Thing #2 that I took a swing at today is broken. It is intertwined with Thing #1, which is working wonderfully on its own.

So, once that is fixed, Thing #1 will need to be fully retested.

I know what you’re thinking, “Why didn’t you test Thing #2 first?”

Well, cause I’m an idiot. But – Thing #2 also wasn’t assigned to me (granted I kept forgetting that and kept it on my list) so, technically it was never my problem.

But, I’m glad I took a swing at it anyway, cause this is best found now and not the middle of next week.

But, yikes.