Spinning on that dizzy edge

1. Friday! Friday Friday Friday!
2. The dream that I showed up to my job interview in a sleepshirt and no bra, spouting inane reasons why I wanted to work there, was thankfully only a dream.
3. The sunrise on the frosted grass at the park sparkling like diamonds. (Alternate simile: like the glittered carpet of a jewelry store at the mall.)
4. Taking off early today to run a bunch of errands.
5. Garden planning.

I mean, my pool of caring was near empty anyway, given that it's Friday, but posting a question to the team's Slack channel and having it go completely ignored just flushed the rest down the drain.

I think I'm all done with living in interesting times and would like some nice boring sameness for a while, but that assumes that next week brings some relief with a Blue Wave and not "Welcome to a fresh onslaught of never-ending dread and despair!" results.

I feel like I should post some sort of overview of the last (checks post date and sighs) 7 weeks; I just needed to clear that rant out of the queue first. I'm going to set this client database fix to run and go out over my lunch break to vulture over the Halloween clearance, hopefully returning with lots of Reese's pumpkins. They should make that proportion of PB-to-chocolate all year round.

1. It's Friday! This week is almost over! And the kid only has three days next week and is then on spring break, which lets me sleep in an extra hour. Woo-hoo!

2. A spoonful of store-bought harissa stirred into canned tomato soup is quite tasty. (Thanks, heresluck, for the intro to that ingredient, even if I didn't do the homemade variety.)

3. The medical supply place finally called me back, and rather than add complications by mailing everything, I drove over there to do the exchange. I got home to another message on my answering asking me to come back and sign a form they forgot. Um, I'm gonna go with no?

4. I picked up the in-canon novel "Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line" by showrunner Rob Thomas when it came out after the movie. It was not as good as another episode, and sadly not as good as the better fic, but still a way to show my financial support to the franchise. I didn't realize he wrote another one until I saw it name-checked in my recent fic binge, so I inquired with my library's online catalog, and now I have an electronic copy waiting on my Kindle.

5. I have about 9 days of vacation that I need to use or lose before the end of April, along with 7 days of carryover. I feel so grateful for that bounty; I remember in the kid's early years how I used almost every scrap of it. Now that I'm working from home for the most part, I don't even have to take time off to stay with him on his breaks or illnesses, or use the PTO rather than drag my ailing meat bag into the office when I'm sick. Of course it helps that I have 15 years with this company and a nice accrual rate. :)

A fabulous Friday and weekend to you all as well!

It’s actually, properly September now, the Friday before the last long weekend for a while. The husband and kid both have today off, and I am working from home. OK, "working": I’m waiting for the meds to kick in to combat my current bout of cramps, while keeping an intermittent eye on the work queue and fighting off a case of the fuckits.

Things I am grateful for:

The Internet, for providing me such answers as how to hack my CPAP to slightly turn up the pressure, and confirming that the shamelessly manipulative packet I got in the mail is from a charity with a shady financial history.

OTC medicine that can tackle mundane body issues.

My job situation, which lets me work from home whenever I want, and my work team, who are such an improvement from my previous position that my frogskin is almost all the way recovered from the boiling treatment.

My immediate in-laws, who are a band of enthusiastic and affectionate goobers.

My son, who gives me hope every day that he’s on the path to being a happy, independent, self-aware adult, which is my biggest goal for him.


Things for which I’d like to file a bug report:

The failure of the future to deliver robot bodies and instantaneous transporters. I’d even take a mashup of the two, where you rent a remote body.

Local companies that don’t call me back for work I need done, even after I’ve paid them!

My parent company, who in their infinite wisdom decided that the division of the company I work at (as in I have a cubicle in that building) but not for (my boss and team are an hour south of me, but we’re all on the same network) is obsolete, so they’re letting 100 people go in two months and outsourcing those responsibilities to third parties who can do them cheaper. It’s not a surprise - everyone in the building has been seeing this coming, but the timeline was a shock. Most of the people being cut have worked for this company for 15 or 20+ years, so their skillsets are out of date and they're much closer to retirement than most companies would probably like; getting new jobs will be a grim prospect. I am both grateful and guilty that years ago I jumped at a new position in another division when it was offered, but it doesn’t stop me from being angry at the recent decision. Fuck capitalism and its naked greed.

Right now I am also angry at the sheer awfulness of people; the hate playing out in the White House and the US, and across the world, make it really hard to raise a kid with any sense of optimism and belief in the merits of being a good or even decent person. It would be helpful if the positive news came in amounts larger than glimmers.

It’s a comforting delusion to believe that me and mine are insulated and far away from Those People, the racists and white supremacists, even as the local bumper stickers and check-out line conversations would indicate otherwise. But then I run smack dab into people I know, in the family circle, who are unbelievable DICKS, and my brain fugues into WTFery.

( Content warnings for familial anti-Semitism )

*deep breaths*

It doesn’t help that I’m still angry about something that happened to my son earlier this week. I picked him up from the library, where he hangs out in the teen space after school, and noticed that he was a little bit tense. "Mom, don’t be mad," he started, which never seems to end well, and proceeded to tell me that he had loaned his phone to an older kid who claimed that he needed to call his family. The phone came back to my kid with the battery almost dead, with multiple open tabs of porn and a porn app installed. My son closed and uninstalled everything, but he was worried that I or his dad might think that it was his doing, because he was pretty sure that the other kid had done it to get him in trouble. I had to hug him and assure him that I wasn’t mad at him at all, but I was plenty angry at the other kid for abusing his trust and making him feel bad for trying to be helpful. I also thanked him for being so open with me, and pointed out that being able to trust him meant we would automatically believe him.

I understand that the real world is mean and full of harsh lessons like that, but damn it, fuck that kid for reinforcing that the world will screw you over given the chance.

ARGH. I’m happy that it’s a long weekend; here’s hoping that everyone gets a restorative break. With enough deep breaths and restful sleep, I might even move past anger for a while.

This past week, it took some late-night cramming and heroic efforts on the part of my fantastic beta, but my Festivids treat is submitted, *PHEW*. I'm hoping that the provider doesn't ban-hammer it between now and Go Live; I do have a backup plan in case that happens.

I'm pretty happy with my assignment, and I hope the recipient is too. The treat, though, really makes me grin like a fool; *knock on wood* that others like it as well.

If anyone guesses one or both of my offerings, I'll come up with some kind of prize for you. Have a couple of hindsight-helpful clues: the main character's name of both vids starts with the same letter, and neither of them is from a TV show.

Now I can catch up on all the TV I postponed watching (X-Files! Agent Carter! All the DC shows!), and maybe even get some housework done. Ah, adulting: the fun never stops.

Because "reaping" seems far more active of a verb than I can take credit for, when what I did was mainly stay afloat.

( Stressing over October birthday and Halloween )

( Business trip and confidence torpedo )

( More traveling )

Even with my complete lack of motivation to do anything that pleases my manager (because I'm a sulky brat like that), I have been kicking ass and taking names this week at work. I really hope my team members are noticing, since I can't depend on my manager to catch on.

I'm hoping I can get my stuff together and take tomorrow afternoon off, because I need some quality time cleaning the house, and not putting out one work-related fire after another. Here's hoping for a relaxing weekend for everyone.

Today was an up and down kind of day. I started working on my last assignment for this release, and just as I was feeling confident and going with the flow, I discovered in trying to adapt my code that the report that I thought was working...wasn't. So I brought my laptop home and worked on it until after 11 PM, and I think *knock on wood* that I got it this time.

Tomorrow, there will be sleeping late, puttering around, going out to dinner with a friend and a concert with OK Go. I am geekily excited about this; I haven't been to a concert with a Real Live Band in...wow. I can't even remember. I want to buy their concert T-shirt and bop along to the music and act like a goof, and not feel older than the hills as I'll probably be surrounded mainly by college students and a few friends in my age bracket.

Sunday the Emperor and I will be road-tripping to go to a kid birthday party, which means I can't stay out too late Saturday. It should be a good time, as the other mom and I are fannish friends as well.

I came across a random post today: The real sin of Sodom and Gomorrah – lack of hospitality. If the pastors had preached sermons like that when I was growing up, I might still be attending church. I'm always fascinated by the reinterpretation of Biblical stories, especially when they give me fodder to stand up to the narrow-minded bigots at my workplace.

The weather is so cool and lovely outside right now, I kind of want to open my windows and sleep cold, but my husband will freeze solid if I do so. He somewhat lacks my natural insulation.

G'night everyone!

The weekend is soooo close now. We're having a potluck today at work, and I am about two bites away from uncomfortably full from the sheer deliciousness available. (And about two blinks from a nap, too.)

I could/should be working, but there's a code freeze right now as an urgent project gets approved to go live, so everything I do has to wait until next week anyway.

Instead, I am working on my Festivids offers and requests. I copied the whole list of available entries to a spreadsheet, then went through and deleted everything that didn't immediately pique my interest. Now I'm going back and removing those items that I merely own and/or have enjoyed, feel like I should want to do, or would like to see a vid for, in favor of the ones that really resonate with me, because 60 fandoms is kind of a ridiculous amount to offer. This is so HARD. I need to make another list of things I would consider making as treats, so I don't feel so bad about cutting them from the list.

Vidders, what's your winnowing process and criteria?

This week is so fucking fired.

Last Friday, my husband tweaked his knee (again) badly enough that he was limping, and wound up staying home from work this past Monday and Tuesday. Today the swelling has finally gone down and he's feeling better.

My BiL made it to work Monday morning, but has been home the rest of the week with the flu.

The Emperor was home from school yesterday with a cough and fever, and upgraded (downgraded?) this morning to stomach flu. (At least he's old enough to aim.)

Meanwhile, I was supposed to go in this past Monday for egg retrieval, but I've been super-slow to ripen, so much so that I've been in the clinic for blood tests and ultrasounds six times in the last nine days. It seems even odds right now that this cycle will fizzle out without anything to show for it - I have to wait for a call this afternoon.

Right now I'm trying to motivate myself to clean the house in preparation for Christmas decorations. Heaven knows we could use some cheer around the house.

I hope everyone else's Friday is going fabulously. Tell me some happy things?


UPDATE: Yay! After a nap and the news that we are going in Monday for egg retrieval, I'm feeling ever so much better. :D

...Except maybe my stomach in a few hours. ;)

Today is goodie day in my department, where everyone brings in something yummy to eat or drink, and we snack our way through the day. There are currently at least four kinds of cream-cheese based dips with crackers available, among other tasty treats. I think I'm close to the lead for healthiest offering with my broccoli salad with sunflower seeds and bacon, though the bacon and coleslaw dressing may knock it down a few pegs.

We are celebrating payday, the holiday next week, and the 2.6% bonus payout for almost meeting our sales goals this past fiscal year. This might be the last time we get one; I love the digital age, but it's leaving our printing company in the dust. It doesn't help that the marketing department for the parent company has no idea what to do with us. We've been a small but dependable source of profit for so long that now that our sales are slipping and our outmoded hardware and software are showing their age, people are starting to worry.

I am fighting to finish this razzer-frazzer project, and it is driving me batty. It's code initially written by several other people almost a decade ago, as they were just learning this development environment, and the last update was 2007. Trying to make seamless changes is nearly impossible; an improvement here breaks something else there. My user contact has been very patient, as she can see how much things will be improved when it's done. However, getting there is taking forever.

Meanwhile, as it's Friday, and there's food and distractions like the Avengers kissing fest going on over at such_heights, I am finding it hard to care about work.

How are you all doing?