Weekend!
It’s been a frustrating week that, magically, turned itself around. That thing that I was tasked to do that kept not working? I did one of those things where, in trying to figure it out, I made a mistake that, when I realized it was a mistake, illuminated the entire problem and told me what the deeper issue is.
Man, I love that.
So my plan for the weekend is to celebrate fixing a problem! Yay! Now I just have another 70ish problems to deal with.
This will likely involve wine and Babylon 5.
Oh! A Momo update! He came in here yesterday, mewed as if to say “hey, pick me up!”, let me pick him up, and I was allowed to pet him for a full two minutes in which he purred. Of course, he still has hissing contests with the others, but they’re getting fewer and farther between. They’re more realizing that they don’t like each other (which is a huge step up from hating each other).
I have high hopes that winter will arrive and we will find them all in a pile on the second or third sub-freezing day in a row.
In the meantime, it’s a billion degrees outside and they’re *NOT* sleeping in a pile. Nothing to be done about that in the short term, I guess. Just keep hoping for “hey, pick me up” moments followed by pettings.
So… what’s on your docket?
Porch tonight, and then as little as possible for the rest of the weekend. If I weren’t stupidly paranoid about jinxes, I would point out that in theory I don’t have to work OR do tiresome life things on Monday. But I will not point that out.
Sunday is one of the nephews’ family birthday party. Jaybird has been delegated to acquire presents.Report
OH CRAP I HAVE TO GET PRESENTSReport
Tonight, dancing. Tomorrow my wife and I will spend the day in Northhampton (probably), just going to shops and stuff. Sunday night she has some big surprise planned for me in Portland, ME — not sure what, but I suppose it will be a concert or something. (No spoilers if you know what bands are playing in Portland, ME on Sunday night.) Anyway, it should be an event filled weekend.Report
squeeeeeee.
Have fun in Portland
(I’m really sad not to have been invited!)Report
@zic — Well, it turned out to be a punk rock show, so I’m not sure if you would have had fun. But maybe next time 🙂Report
/used to hang out at the Rat, back in the day.
But now, I’m careful of my ears.
Hope you had a blast!Report
@zic — OMG Yes!
It was Against Me!, who I was supposed to see a couple months back, but skipped because I had a job interview the next day and I was super stressed and tired. Anyway, I had tickets to that show and was really devastated that I missed them. (On the other hand, I got the job.)
So anyhow my wife saw the show listed in Portland and got tickets and then didn’t tell me. And surprise! There they were and I watched the show and got crazy. And there was an oddly large number of trans gals for a punk show, for some reason. 🙂
(Actually it was actually kinda amazing to be pressed against the stage beside some hyper-masculine dude with a buzz cut singing together the lyrics of Transgender Dysphoria Blues. It was like, I would not expect this. But fun.)Report
So we bought a house! That, it turns out, seems to be a time consuming endeavor. Especially when we had no loan or any other preparation because we weren’t intending to for a few months.Report
… you paid cash?Report
No, we signed a contract that is contingent on financing. We were armed with a “pre-qualification letter” but they never asked to see it. Now we’re scrambling to get the documentation together for the loan. I’m beating myself up pretty hard because 2013 is the first year I failed to get our W2’s scanned and of course this is the first year I need to produce them. I’ve also been lax about keeping pay stubs for the previous two months, so I need to get copies of those, too. No home inspector lined up (it’s contingent on that, too), no movers lined up… sigh.
We were not expecting to buy for another six months or so. Then the perfect house made itself available at $30,000 less than we otherwise would have agreed to pay for it.Report
Will,
Just relax a little. Everyone wants the deal to go through, so if you absolutely need an extension, it shouldn’t be too hard to pull off.Report
Just got back from AZ, a short ceremony to intern my mil’s ashes next to her husband, and an entire week of cleaning out her home — a job only half finished. She’s a depression-era child; hoarding useless things was a real problem despite her wealth. So I have some lessons learned to pass on from the great sorting:
Do not bring home hotel soaps and shampoos unless you plan to use them; her husband travelled for work, and they travelled a lot after he retired. We threw out box upon box of carefully hoarded hotel soaps.
Do not purchase bulk items just because they’re a good deal and there’s no chance to use them. Aluminum foil lasts, I admit, but nobody needs 20 rolls of it. And body lotion does go bad, so two or three bottles might be acceptable, but a case is excessive. And nobody needs cases of dental floss who’s not running a dental office. From food to cleaning supplies to health and beauty aids, more is not always better when there’s a shelf life, storage considerations, or you might find you simply don’t like the product.
Wear your clothes, particularly the nice ones. Use your good things, don’t pack them away in boxes because they’re good. Put your valuable art out on display, not hidden away in a closet.
Give your money away so that it doesn’t spoil the relationships between your children. If you have more than one child, give as much or more authority to the youngest, not the oldest, because the youngest is most skilled at negotiating with the other siblings. (My youngest brother in law is a fine man, and I’m proud to know him.) Do not treat you daughter and son-in-laws as liabilities who will take resources away from your family instead of family members who bring resources to your family.
These things are really important, because boxes of hotel soap, hidden art and china and crystal, and designer clothes can grow in size until they overshadow a lifetime’s good works and cloud your children’s eyes with greed and judgement instead of family love. And that’s the saddest legacy of all.Report
Thank you @zic, that is wise and beautifully written. I’m very sorry for your loss.Report
@zic While I was at a conference this week, I learned that hotel shampoos and soaps are an asset to those people without homes. Hopefully that box you found goes to good use.Report
It’s weird. I am better with pets dying than with people dying.
I’m sorry that this stuff is going on as you’re cleaning out closets and nooks. It must feel surreal when mixed in with the grieving process, which is a bear in the first place.Report
Thanks, @jaybird
The biggest issue is that it seems to have supplanted the grieving process.
And Miss Mary, we sent a lot to Goodwill and a local thrift shop, but not boxes of 30 to 50 year-old hotel soap and shampoo, it went into the trash.Report
This weekend is the annual gathering of (NSFW) The Floating World in Edison, NJ.
According to its website, The Floating World is a pansexual community event with a focus on alternative lifestyle education and building community across boundaries, and a mission to support those efforts.
You can follow them on Twitter @TFWEvents
Please note I am not affiliated in any way with this organization. I just think it is funny that they exist.Report
Old friend in town this weekend, so socializing/food/outdoor events most likely.
Still recovering from my way-overdue dentist visits (one more to go!).
Planning a possible quick overnight roadtrip to see a show next week. When I was a young man, we’d just have driven straight back afterwards (what’s 3 1/2 hrs?) but I’m old and plan to have a beer or three at the show, so…Report
CRAP! Tonight shoulda been MD Listening Club! How’d this month get away from me?!Report
I think you can relax. I’m still wrapping my head around Electro.Report
I knew you were a freak-a-zoid.
I’ve been bumping this tonight:
Moderat – “Bad Kingdom”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1gewNVv1UY
I think I like the first album better, but II is not bad. Not bad at all.Report
Two of our nephews had asked if they could come for a sleepover and since Uncle Mike can never say no, we had two little monkeys (6 & 5) sleeping on cots in our bedroom last night. There was Chinese takeout, ice cream, a walk to the ‘cool’ playground down the street and we saw Planes: Fire and Rescue today which I must admit I found charming and fun.
Tomorrow there is house cleaning and laundry to do, dinner with my father-in-law because my MIL is out of town and he needs someone to feed him. UFC on Fox promises to be a good fight card. Sunday should involve some work on my Big Writing Project.
One sad note for the weekend: One of our cats, Midge, passed away last night. She had been sick so it wasn’t a complete surprise, but we had hopes she was making a recovery. She took a bad turn around 9pm and was gone in about an hour. So….there were tears at the Dwyer house, plus we were trying to keep the nephews from finding out because that would have been too much to deal with. We secreted her out of the room in a towel and then, after they were asleep, we held her and said our goodbyes and then I had to go into the yard to dig her grave by flashlight. We lined it with brown craft paper and curled her into a little ball with one paw over her face, the way she always slept. Then we placed another sheet of paper over the top and took turns adding some dirt. It was pretty surreal having it all happen so fast. The universe is kind though. Our oldest daughter had just happened to stop by for dinner last night and to see her cousins. She got to spend some time with Midge and pet her, not knowing that she would be gone in just a couple of hours. Tomorrow our youngest daughter is helping me pour a little concrete tombstone for her that we’ll stamp with her name and put next to her grave. Closure is a good thing.Report
Ah, it always sucks to say goodbye to an old friend.Report
I’m sorry, Mike 🙁Report
It’s a brain recovery weekend. I attended a “Gathering” (it is not a conference, it’s a “gathering”) and now my brain is exhausted. I’ve been celebrating my birthday with some of my most favorite people in the world for an entire week. Simultaneously, I had an old friend in town and was playing hostess. I was away from my baby boy for five whole days, which is highly unusual and tough on me as a single mom.
Bring on the aimless strolls in the park and television. Mommy needs to recover.Report
Aauugh! I have to finish deciding how the Post-Zombie Apocalypse Constitutional Convention pool is going to work, and write/sort of test critical software for it (ie, download and extract comments and meta-data in a usable form). Before Prof. Hanley decides to provide an unexpected update. And send something off to Tod as a guest off-the-cuff.Report
I was wondering about this.Report
@james-hanley
I fired an e-mail with a brief bit for off-the-cuff describing what I intend to do. Haven’t heard anything.Report