Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

We have these decorative/non-load-bearing posts on the porch that run from the roofline to the concrete and the trim at the bottom of one had gotten all effed up and basically fallen away from the post.  I’d been noodling around in my head the best way to replace it – and yesterday the wind was nuts and I happened to look outside at lunch AND THE POST WAS MOVING IN THE WIND.  Seems that the trim itself was more than decorative.  😬

I got it secured with a spare piece of wood from the basement and some bungee cords and spent the evening with graph paper figuring out what lumber cuts I need to create a solid base for that post.  It is going to be over-engineered, because I am my grandfather’s granddaughter, LOL.  But that post won’t move anymore.  

So, today I am off to the hardware store – THEY WILL CUT THE LUMBER FOR ME OH HAPPY DAY – and then keeping pieces of the house from literally falling off.

At least the weather will be decent today to get that trim in place.

Happy Friday!!

We have had a warmfront come through and we have had 24 hours of glorious humidity! It has been insanely dry this winter and I am miserable for it – the little humidifier has been working overtime and done good to break 30% this season.

The warmfront has also brought a fuckton of wind which resulted in the recycling bin getting blown over, but nothing escaped, so I am taking that as a good omen for the day.

The possibly cursed mini-feature from heck is done with the testing in the current version, YAY. We have two other versions to go, but I think we’ve gotten all the kinks out, so that should go hella smoother.

AND IT’S A LONG WEEKEND!! And honestly, work is probably not going to get my super best today – it is Friday and I am tired. Well, they’ll get my best, it’s just that my best may not be awesome today.

But it’s all good, the sun is shining, I have a very large cold brew, a reasonable to-do list, and a three day weekend a mere 8 hours away.

Starting early, but off at 3 to go donate blood – they’re finally having a drive at the local firehouse. The regular main blood donation place is part of the hospital complex halfway across the county – I am not keen on a) setting foot in a healthcare complex these days, and b) driving 45 minutes after dropping a pint of blood. But I can certainly swing the 8 minute trip back from the firehouse. And I get to use my volunteer PTO for it!

And the fact that it’s right across from my diner and I will be picking up dinner afterwards doesn’t hurt. I just hope it goes better than last time – I have great veins and they had no problem getting the needle in, but somehow the way it got placed, it hurt like a mother the whole time and I came very close to giving up before it was done.

Work should be less ridiculous this week, even if the schedule is kinda tight cause we crammed in too much stuff into one monthly release, but a few things will be pared down cause it’s regression testing and it’s mainly just checking the basics.

And on that note, I’m gonna go get shit done so I don’t have to log back afterwards without enough blood to think straight.

Super Bowl followed immediately by Valentine’s Day? I AM SO SORRY.

Didn’t even watch the game – had so little interest in either team I didn’t even want to hate watch it. But hoo boy, I had to laugh about the reactions to the halftime show from the right. God forbid you’re not the target audience for anything.

Hopefully this week at work will be a little less fucknuts insane than last week – at least I have a short day tomorrow to go give blood (get to use my volunteer PTO!) and a holiday & half day Friday next week. This weekend was far too short after last week.

But, just gotta power through it. I really like my job, but I am just very tired right now.

Happy Valentine’s Day my peeps – go get yourself some chocolate.

THIS GAL! They said it would start snowing overnight, but when I woke up, no snow – it started just as I was getting ready to make the coffee run. It didn’t get under freezing last night and there was some rain, so fingers crossed none of it sticks to the roads and sidewalks and I don’t have to shovel anything later. And I have coffee! And MonoBob to watch!

So – ice dancing… It makes sense to have a theme for the season, but I cannot reconcile the words “street dance” with anything I have seen or heard so far, LOL. I keep finding myself in cranky old lady mode going GET OUT THERE AND FUCKING WALTZ DAMMIT.

And OH HELLS YEAH, I got all my tax forms and plugged everything into Turbo Tax and I don’t owe as much as I thought!!

And since I am such a damn roll, I am gonna go get all my other shit done today.

You have a great Sunday and if you’re watching the game, I hope your team wins.

The test kits arrived.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I thought it was 4 test KITS per household.

Nope – it’s 2 kits, 4 tests in total.

It is certainly better than no tests at all, but it feels like yet another fucking unforced error, right up there with $1400 is the same as $2000.

This administration really cannot get out of its own damn way some days.

So, my brother is going to go watch the Super Bowl with his buddy this weekend – I’m not totally sure I’d do it – but it’s two vaxxed & boosted people that have been on their best pandemic behavior sitting in a living room, so short of staying home, I think it’s pretty safe.

That being said, it means I have the house to myself and I GET SALMON! (My brother isn’t a big fan and I always feel weird making it just for myself if he’s around – I know, I should get over it.)

I was just going to get some from the grocery store, but I have to get my car inspected today, and it’s right over by the butcher shop – and I need to get some ham shanks* for ham & bean soup and they’re the only ones that have them – and they have salmon, too.

And they also have crabcakes. And stuffed shrimp. And steaks.

I’d been thinking of doing some kind of fun takeout tonight, cause it’s out of the question tomorrow** – but I suddenly have a ton of very yummy options I’d not considered. And supporting a local business to boot.

* When I got the Honey Baked Ham at Christmas, I got a 1/4 bone in size, so we could use the bone for soup. Somehow we got the quarter of the ham that had no bone in it, LOL.
** Takeout on Superb Owl Day just is not happening – I will not add to that hell for any kitchen staff.

Seriously, 8AM, on a Saturday, I rolled over and was just…awake. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just weird. But hey, more weekend to be enjoyed!

My Shop app tells me that I have a package from USPS coming today – I think it is the test kits?! Granted, they took near a month to get here and Omicron seems to be in our rear view mirror, but good to have anyway. I’d honestly given up on them ever actually arriving and had written it off as another admin/USPS failure.

Our 7 day average is down to the low 300’s, nicely down from the peak of 2590 this time last month. Hopefully this surge will be properly over soon – we’ve still got a ways to go before my ass is in a restaurant again, but hopefully before summer. I miss being all fancy and having a sit down lunch somewhere.

I am still just gobsmacked by the fact that we have gone through the worst surge since the pandemic started and government on pretty much all levels just pretended like it wasn’t even happening.

It’s one thing to accept that we’re going to probably have seasonal outbreaks forever. It’s quite another to just be all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about it. I’m all in on everyone doing their part to mitigate risk to the community, but you just CANNOT put it all on individuals, because as we have seen – half the population of this country utterly sucks. Thousands of people are still dying every day and I keep reading bullshit takes of “well, we just need to move the fuck on cause the only people dying are old or disabled, and they can just stay home and we can go back to pretending they don’t exist.” Jesus Fucking Christ.

And these folks railing against restrictions – PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THESE MYTHICAL RESTRICTIONS. Here in Virginia, everything is open and has been since last May. There are no restrictions on the public whatsoever. Some private businesses are still requiring masks, but they’re few and far between. I have yet to be asked about my vaccination status by anyone other than my employer and that was to get 2 floating holidays. You can do whatever the fuck you want – and the case numbers over the last month show that a lot of folks have been doing just that.

And gawd it took long enough to get here. The weekend has started for my peeps in Makati and I’m sure they’re happy for it – their scheduling this week just repeatedly got blown to bits. The plan was to have that mini-feature testing done last Friday, but some jackass kept finding defects and extending the process*, and then the clusterfuck with the special version build for the special client…

But all that is behind us for the time being and we’ve got a half day today! Granted, most of it will be getting the rest of my to-do list back on track since that mini-feature just chucked all plans out the window. And things that have to be done by Monday/Tuesday are well in hand, but I’ll feel better getting at least one of those items knocked off the list today.

When I picked up my coffee, one of the baristas asked if I had any big weekend plans – just the Olympics and watching folks do ridiculous things. She said, “I really love curling!” with that tone of voice that said, “I did not expect to love curling!” We agreed that it’s very soothing – and there is something about the fact that they all look like normal people. I know there is lots of training and conditioning and whatnot that they do – but they all still look like folks I might run into at my bar. It’s also one of the few sports where you don’t have to start at the age of 6. There is something cool about an Olympic sport you can look at and go, “I could learn to do that and not kill myself.”

Well, time to go knock some shit off the to do list so I can enjoy my afternoon – you have a fantastic weekend!

* It’s me, I am the jackass.

Mini feature has reared it’s head yet again. A very special client needs a special version built with the mini feature included. Which, OK, it’s fine, it only needs to be regression tested and it was going to be built yesterday afternoon and then my friends on the other side of the world were gonna handle it – and they were gonna split it up into small bits so nobody had too much to do and it would all be fine, and it was something I wouldn’t have to think about again for at least a week.

Except the build didn’t get done yesterday. (IDK, something went sideways when they tried it.) And one of the team is on PTO tonight. So I start the day with a “Can you do Richard’s piece?” email – sure, it’s small, it’s doable. The build should be done by noon. It’s now 2:30 and the build is still not done… But at least I have everything setup and ready to mash buttons when it is done.

The deadline for the other thing that *had* to be done today, that got moved to Tuesday – which of course also has other things due that day. So I went from “get one thing done” today to “wait on something that who knows when it’s gonna happen and try to prioritize the rest while I’m waiting cause I’m gonna lose time when that build is done” – which is annoying. I had a plan for the day and it got chucked out the window the moment I logged on.

But – I have not skipped lunch. Me being hungry will lead to hangry which will be bad for everyone.

I keep reminding myself, tomorrow is Friday and a half day, and I have no plans for the afternoon other than nap and watch the Olympics.