Done last week (20170521Su - 27Sa)

[mdlbear]

Big week. The sale of Rainbow's End (now "Rainbow's Ended"?) closed on Tuesday, after a marathon clean-up session. (The buyers had done a walk-through Monday evening, and called with a list of things that had to be cleaned up. If they weren't done by EOD Tuesday, they were going to hold up closing. Since the closing for our purchase was scheduled for Wednesday, that was a non-starter. Cleanup had to be done.)

First (realtor) Chris and I cleaned up the messes left by the movers who ghosted on us last week, the housekeeper, and me when I came by both Thursday and Sunday and simply ran out of spoons. I think some valuable things may have been hauled off by the guys from 1-800-GOT-JUNK, but I was pretty low on spoons at that point.

After that, (this is still Tuesday!) I met G at UHaul to rent a truck so that we could get his motorcycles out of the garage. Fortunately, our housekeeper (G', if you've been following the details of my notation) offered to store them at her house. We probably came within inches of dropping a bike, more than once.

After that, I came back to the house (no longer ours, since they did close on time) to pick up the hazardous materials we'd taken out of the garage, since GOT-JUNK doesn't do hazmat. I came around to the front after that, and took a blossom and a bud from the Royal Amethist rose. Then I sang "The Mary Ellen Carter" on the way home to keep from losing it.

Wednesday, the purchase of our new house on Whidbey Island closed. I also learned that 1. the household hazmat site on Aurora Avenue is closed on Wednesdays, and 2. latex paint is not considered hazardous, so they won't take it. I was, and still am, too short on emotional cope to react significantly to either event.

Thursday I bought cat litter for solidifying the paint. I was kind of out of it, and didn't do much except reading (see links).

Friday I found out that C had not gotten signed up for Medicare. Damnit, she was positive that she had; if I'd known we could have done it when we visited the office to deliver our marriage license. Weeks ago. Shit. I also took care of the nine cans of paint that actually had room for cat litter to be added.

Saturday I tried to get C signed up for Medicare, and failed. (I failed again today.) There's still a lot of other stuff I've been neglecting.

Meanwhile, I've been doing paperwork mostly connected with health care, utilities, you name it. If I'd been under any illusions that retiring was going to be less stressful than working, well, ... Maybe it gets better? Damned if I know. I've also been reading a lot, mostly math and computer science, probably because it gets me into a flow state where I'm not really aware of anything else. Not being aware of anything mostly sounds pretty good right now.

Oh, yeah; I ought to schedule an appointment with my therapist. Not that that's been doing any noticable good lately. I have difficulty imagining how it could do any good, which may be part of the problem. (That's not a new thing; except for learning about CBT and getting me on the first of a series of drugs that may or may not still be working it didn't do a whole lot for me back in California, either.)

And don't get me started on politics.

Notes & links:

0521Su
  * up 4:15; W=202.2; Shower
    My phone is, apparently, 1 hour fast.  WTF?  Could have tried to go back to sleep
    -> apparently "get time from network" and "get timezone from network" were unchecked.
       I'm reasonably certain I didn't uncheck them.  Tech support required "the primary
       account holder's PIN", meaning nobody else in the family can get support when they
       need it without calling me first and hoping I'm awake and near my computer. 
  % not as congested as yesterday, and my eyes aren't itchy and watery, so I think I'm
    doing better.  Throat still scratchy, but not nearly as bad as last night, when every
    time I tried to talk it started a coughing fit.
  * walk, TJ's.  Went up to University, down through the street fair to 42nd, and
    back on Roosevelt via TJ's.  Couldn't find jam or Greek Gods yogurt.  Did find
    cranberry orange scones (for Colleen -- scones tend to be too dry for me) and soft
    pretzels (not very good ones, but still)
  : The temperature, BTW, is up in the mid 70s.
  % 5:15 distinctly sleepy
  & wikipedia dive on symbolic logic.  Don't quite remember where that started.
    -> oh, yes:  the link from the math portal to Gudermannian function
       " 'Twas finite, and the polar cusp
       	 Orthogonal to the secant lay
	 The semi-tacnode operates on
	 The Gudermannian of A "
  @ Modus tollens - Wikipedia
    The article contains a link to the article on "Silver Blaze":
    " If the watch-dog detects an intruder, the watch-dog will bark.
      The watch-dog did not bark.
      Therefore, no intruder was detected by the watch-dog. "
    -> N. approves of my plan to teach the kids symbolic logic.
    -> so of course I had to go off and reread "The Adventure of Silver Blaze"
    
0522Mo
  * up 6:50; W=200.9;
  : G' called in sick with the bug that C and I are just getting over. :(
  @ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens
    (ysabetwordsmith | Poem: "13 Reasons Why")
     Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird - Wikipedia
     ... plus more commentary than one could possibly look at.
  @ Southern Whidbey Island Fault
    DEM Maps
    Our new place was built in 2015 and has tie-downs up to the latest standards.
  @ Eric S. Raymond / open-adventure · GitLab (esr - The Adventure begins again)
    osresearch/advent: The original Colossal Cave adventure in FORTRAN IV YAY!
  : YD has new phone service, and can get health insurance from work.  Two more things I
    don't have to worry about/pay for.
  @ If you haven’t heard, Yahoo plans to sell its operating business to Verizon. We
    anticipate the completion of the transaction to occur in June 2017
  : voicemail from M about kids.  Looks like we may not have them at all this week.
    definitely not today or tomorrow.
  ~ door painting: -> went out to check and found a painter at the end of the hall.
    They'll be here all week; arranged for them to come by at 10am tomorrow; we can
    reschedule if that turns out not to be a good time.
  : Call from YD where she told me she was on a different phone provider now, and where we
    established that she can get health insurance via work -- which is perfect.
  * take YD off phone plan -- she's on Martin's.
    -> required about an hour and a half of fighting with AT+T's "improved" website,
       followed by a call to customer support.  Which actually got quite a lot done,
       including switching us to a cheaper plan based on our actual data usage, but the
       woman who picked up the call was, although very helpful, rather slow about it.
  * pick up scooter at RE; deliver to Lisa
    -> got lost several times in the process, but managed.  Apparently I had dropped the
       house number in the process of cut-and-pasting it into gMaps
    -> rescued the Rock'nRoller while I was at it, and the hanging bracket for the Little
       Giant ladder.  There's still junk, dumped by ("mover") Tayvon who flaked on us, and
       G's motorcycles which were supposed to have been purchased by Tayvon yesterday.
  * Need piggy hay, cat litter, and a slab of Jones' ribs.
  " (self-talk on the way home from LW's) You can't live in the past.
    You wouldn't want to live there anyway.  Nobody goes there anymore. "
       
0523Tu
  * up 6:50; W=200.6;
  : Buyers did a walkthrough; we need to get a lot more cleanup done -- wish I'd known
    earlier; I could have spent most of the weekend on it.
    -> 1-800-GOT-JUNK scheduled for 12:30-2:30
    1998 BMW F650 (650cc) 
    1992 Kawasaki EX-250F (250cc) ("Ninja 250")
    https://www.rumbleon.com/Sell/Sell takes about a week with paper docs, but will take
    http://www.sellusyourbike.com/  2000 or newer
    http://nationalbikebuyers.com/ busy signal, call drops
    http://www.cash4motorcycles.com/ left message
    https://www.cars2charities.org/faqs not local focus on CA, NV, AZ
    http://www.kars4kids.org/motorcycle-donation.asp disturbing reviews 855-227-7454
  * Got the junk cleared, with the help of 1-800-GOT-JUNK and Chris; moved the bikes to
    Giselle's with Glenn and a UHaul.  Selling them is, at this point, his problem.  It's
    a damned good thing we got a truck instead of the trailer I'd originally intended to
    get.  Some of the junk incuded some motorcycle helmets some of which may have been
    still good; damned if I know.  G said it was all junk, but he wasn't there.
  * THE HOUSE SALE CLOSED.  It's over.
  % Picked the opened and opening Royal Amethysts; left a bud.
    ! grieving.  I noticed, but remarked to myself that I wasn't crying the way I did for
      Curio.  So there's that.
    Sang "The Mary Ellen Carter" on my way across the West Seattle Bridge.  Helped.
  @ Open–closed political spectrum - Wikipedia (via "did you know")
  @ Helping One Million Developers Exit Vim - Stack Overflow Blog (cellio)
  % sleepy and a little lightheaded.  Not too good.

0524We
  & Awake 3:30; apparently a wikipedia dive is not a good soporiphic
  * back to bed around 5:30
  * up 8:33; W=199.6; 
  * Cancel/transfer utilities at RE - has to be done after closing
    	0151430000 - SCL   (206) 684-3000 -> didn't actually need the account #s
	2755840000 - SPU   (206) 684-3000
    -> Next bill for the apartment is coming out June 3
  * noonish: wire transfers from sale complete
  * deleted no-longer-relevant utility payees from Union Bank account.  Leaving Sound and
    Wells mortgage in for the moment, for no really good reason.
  * made some transfers from UB to my savings account and personal and RE checking.
  * paid amex balance - was getting high due to the second Sewer Friendly charge.
  * 1:15 (or reschedule) door painting:
    " Your door will be required to be open during the painting and will have to remain
      open for about 30 minutes to allow for the paint to dry. They will be using a fast
      drying paint in an effort to cause as little inconvenience as possible. "
    -> prepared to put Ticia in the bathroom, but since she was sleeping on the sofabed
       decided to leave her there.
  " (from email to N.) I have not yet received definite confirmation of the purchase
    closing, but since the wire transfer went through and, as you can see, the loan
    funded, we at least have a mortgage if not a house just at this moment. "
    -> 6pm: we have a house on Whidbey Island!
       ... and it looks like the former owner, now our tenant, will be able to leave a
       month early, at the end of June.
  @ The Badass Rogue Who Cross-Dressed and Dueled Her Way to Infamy (ysabetwordsmith)
    Chevalier d'Éon
  % congested enough that I had to use afrin -- couldn't get neti through AT ALL
  % Dream included coming downstairs to find that just about everything had been taken out
    of the van--since that included the paint and other hazmat, it was on the whole not an
    entirely bad thing.  

0525Th
  * up 4:40ish;
    made some honey ginger tea -- from scratch, because although the PoP stuf was
    supposedly delivered Monday, I haven't seen it.  Probably down in the office.  I hope.
  % a little cuddle around 6am; tried to get back to sleep but couldn't.
    ! sadness? attack thinking about the glow-in-the-dark stars on g's ceiling.
      felt a lot like panic or anxiety, but clearly wasn't.  Not sure where to place it.
  @ Nick Craver - HTTPS on Stack Overflow: The End of a Long Road
    @ StackExchange/blackbox: Safely store secrets in Git/Mercurial/Subversion
    @ IANA — Root Zone Database TLDs
      checked:  .end isn't there, so rainbows.end is still internal only
    @ jordansissel/fpm: Effing package management! Build packages for multiple platforms
      (deb, rpm, etc) with great ease and sanity. 
    @ StackExchange/dnscontrol: Synchronize your DNS to multiple providers from a simple
      DSL basically a DNS compiler
  @ Steve Savitzky's answer to How can I understand Git commands easily? - Quora
    " One of the reasons I like git so much is that it gives you the tools to be both safe
      and fearless at the same time. "
  * call in credit card to pay Tanks for Dallas for the oil tank location job.
  . hazmat disposal.
    ~ batteries, cleaning supplies, etc. to Aurora household hazmat site.
      -> which is only open Monday and Tuesday.  Went down to the south one, but kept
	 missing the turn.  Finally ended up being too late
    * Home Depot for paint stirrer; picked up a nice little Ryobi 12v drill because I
      didn't want to pay $99 for a drill/battery/charger set I already had.  Ryobi _was_
      on sale, though.  The new one takes a smaller battery, of course, but it's a lot
      smaller and lighter, so it's great for apartment living and might be good for g to
      use in the shop.
    & QFC for cat litter plus some misc. stuff.  Didn't have tahini or skirt steak
    o apparently they won't take latex paint -- you *have* to solidify it with cat litter.
      It then goes in the garbage with the lid off.
      * get drill and paint stirrer.  Wish I knew where the drill went, but...
      * get large bag or box of clumping cat litter, x scoop
  : the muzak in Home Depot included "Big Yellow Taxi", which was entirely too apropos
  @ Landslide buries California's scenic highway [SR1] in Big Sur - CNN.com .
  @ Teach Yourself Computer Science (Q)
    *Excellent* teach-yourself course.
    @ Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces
  @ Me and SVG by Amelia Bellamy-Royds on CodePen
  * Read the booklet I got from the Whidbey Island Conservation District:
    Tips on Land and Water Management for Puget Sound Rural Living

0526Fr
  * Up 7:04; W=200.2;
  * e-signed medicare supplement application.  Don't know why they never sent me a paper
    version, but it needed doing now.
  : G' says the Colleen did *not* get signed up for Medicare.  WTF?
    And her address is still 4126, so I couldn't set up an account for her at ssa.gov
    because they're using the credit report hack to verify identity.  I'm assuming she
    doesn't have one, but there's really no way of knowing. 
    -> I'll try again tomorrow, and if that doesn't work go down to Burien with her on
       Monday.
  & Updated Raven and Purple, and made an account for Colleen on Raven, because I'd wanted
    to make the ssa.gov account from a local account that belonged to her.
  & paid off an ambulance bill for $89 and change.
  * Called Seattle City Light because I received an e-bill for the house we sold Tuesday.
    Turns out that there's not much connection between the online account and the real
    ones.  The agent added my new (for the apartment) account, then deleted the bogus
    one.  (Doing it in the other order would have deleted my online account.)
  * Solidified 9 of the 13 gallon cans of paint, and the two pints.  The remaining four,
    and two of the three 5-gallon buckets, are too full to process in place.  Could have
    dumped some of the excess into the mostly-empty bucket, but I'm also lacking the
    proper tool to open said bucket.  Used about 2.5 of the original 4 bags of
    cat litter in the 38lb package I bought yesterday, or about 20 lbs.
  @ Hate Mowing Your Lawn? Good! Don’t Do It. - by Ted Steinberg and Shannon Wright
    (infographic, via ysabetwordsmith)
  & wikipedia dive on Hilbert's problems, diophantine equations, surreal numbers, and so
    on.  (from a Quora answer)
  @ Steve Savitzky's answer to How can I be a better girlfriend? - Quora 

0527Sa
  * up 6:55ish; W=200.2
  % very little congestion this morning.  I can breathe.
  @ Key Crazy: Inside the Wonderful World of Keyboard Fanatics (ysabetwordsmith)
    Input Club - Programmable Mechanical Keyboards
  @ Energy-Saving Self Care Cards (jeshyr)
  * pasta and chicken salad; Colleen's recipe.  Yum.    
  @ It Is Really Important to Humanize Evil (amaebi)
  * Some bookmark re-organizing (Chrome)
  @ IXL | Math, Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies Practice $20/month
  @ Teaching and Learning official standards, etc.
  * reading Counterexamples in Analysis
    This is a book that fascinated me in college - it had been used as a text in the
    advanced calculus course in years preceeding mine, so there were copies sitting around