The Mandelbear's Musings

Well, not quite as late as last week -- that's something. Today I'm thankful for

• Getting our net/phone wiring fixed. The former rat's nest has been simplified; it'll cost us $89 for an inside-wiring job, but it was worth it.
• An Ubuntu laptop at work. I needed it because I'm on loan to another group, and working remotely through Windows is a nightmare. Sweet little HP EliteBook; not as capable as the Dell I've had for the last year, but without Windows it doesn't need to be; it's half the weight and fits in my sling bag.
• Maybe doing better at work than my own self-assessment led me to believe.
• Gin, hard cider, and new friends.
• My family.
• Our house. I still miss some things about the Starport, but Rainbow's End is truly wonderful.
• added: Wikipedia, source of the new wild turkey icon.

Let's get the party announcement out first: we're having our usual "sometime around New Year" party this Saturday, the 3^rd. It's actually on our anniversary this year, but we're not expecting presents, just presence. And food. It's a potluck -- food is always welcome.

OK, now the Thankful Thursday: Today I'm thankful for...

• Having gotten a few things done off my list from last year
• Software, gin, and a few other things that aren't exactly addictions but are nice to have.
• Coffee, which is an addiction.
• Rainbow's End.
• Cat therapy.
• Colleen. How -- and why -- she puts up with me I'll never know, but I'm grateful.

And finally, an annotated look back at last year's goals (not resolutions -- I'm too irresolute for those).

• Get back into recording. I don't think I can manage a whole album, but I can probably manage a lot of scratch tracks and a few complete mixes, and maybe build up momentum that way. Total fail.
• Eat better. I may not lose weight, much as I'd like to, but nothing says I can't have more salads for lunch. Total fail. Gained 7 lbs.
• Similarly, walk more. I've gotten horribly out of shape, but my new office is farther from my preferred bus stop than the old one. (The 70 stops only a block away, but I'd have to stand around at 3rd and Pike waiting to change busses. I'd rather walk.) I mostly succeeded at this one.
• Get the medical bills taken care of. I've been ignoring a lot of them. My sign-on bonus will probably go for that and taxes, mostly. Sort of. The sign-on bonus got squandered, but the taxes and -- I think -- the medical bills eventually got paid, out of the meager proceeds from the Starport.
• Bring some better order to my motley collection of blogs and web sites, with as much of the content as possible deployed using git hooks. Only if you count what I've done in the last week.
• Write more! Songs, fiction, essays, whatever. I haven't done any writing to speak of for, what? Two years? Mostly not. I've done written a handful of metafics and a recipe or two.
• Sell the Starport. Mostly. It did get sold, but a lot later and for less money than we needed.

So, out of seven goals, two total failures, one moderate success, and four "successes" that were mixed enough to feel like failure anyway.

May this year be better.

... and I think I missed last week, too. *sigh*

Anyway, today I'm thankful for...

• A cat who loves me and likes to sleep next to me. Cat therapy is good for me, apparently.
• Music.
• People who love me, too. Damned if I know why, but I'm not complaining.
• Caffeine and ethanol, my drugs of choice. (And occasionally Irish Coffee, which gives me both at once.)
• Tools of the trade: bash, sed, git, make -- and learning some new (to me) ones, like cut.
• The occasional burst of productivity.
• Spread-spectrum radio, as in WiFi and cell phones. Hedy Lamarr.

So, after another lenghty break, we finally come around to the Thursday before Thanksgiving. We'll see whether I can get two weeks in a row. But for now, I'm thankful for..

• Having finally sold Grand Central Starport. An era has well and truly ended, and I'm still somewhat in shock. But still.
• Rainbow's End.
• My wonderful family.
• Cat therapy.
• ssh -Xf $MYBOX gnome-panel

ETA: The first sentence would probably have been more effective if I hadn't posted this on Wednesday.

Today I am thankful for

• People who love me enough to be angry at me when I deserve it, and still love me afterwards.
• A life insurance policy I can borrow against.
• Getting off my ass, hopefully.

... and not for

• Old, bad habits.
• Avoiding the stuff I loathe, but have to do anyway.

Ok; today I'm grateful for:

• Financial advice.
• My family.
• The ability to borrow against my life insurance policy.
• Checks arriving just in time.
• People who tell me I'm not as stupid as I feel.
• Still being able to help Colleen get around.

So, today I'm grateful for...

• Cuddly cats and capering kittens.
• Ninja cat burglers. It seems Cricket has been taking lessons from Desti.
• Friday. Both the day and the tea purveyor.
• The ability to work from home occasionally.
• Family.
• Lox.
• Gin.
• git rebase --onto ...

NO thanks to...

• Another buyer backing out.
• Social anxiety, or whatever it is.
• Dysthymia.
• Weight gain as a side effect of antidepressants.

Hmm. Rough month this week. I'm thankful for

• Surviving.
• Friends. Including the cats. And Colleen, my best friend, who is also a Cheshire cat. Also goats and bears.
• Being able to help sometimes, a little.
• Mushrooms.
• Writers.
• Singly-linked lists.

Today I'm thankful for...

• Friday.
• Low mortgage interest rates.
• The bug being another group's problem. Not my circus, not my monkey.
• Apt phrases (see above).
• Gin.
• Kid hugs and cat cuddles.
• A fridge with an icemaker.
• New glasses (tomorrow).
• Massage therapy.
• ETA: Mom.

Yeah, it's Saturday. Deal.

Today my gratitude extends to...

• Scraping by
• Street fairs
• Colleen being well enough to go to a street fair
• People who sell sunscreen at street fairs
• Colleen bringing my attention to the fact that the potato chips taste sweet after the street fair
• A freezer with an icemaker, and a fridge with a bottle of gin in it
• A fan in the window
• The fact that some things are "not my circus, not my monkey"
• Not being the only techno-bear in the house.
• City water

... so it must be the proper day to be thankful.

• Curio.
• Colleen.
• Naomi.
• The rest of this crazy, delightful family.
• The new tenant.
• A change in the weather.
• Car CD players, and someone to commute with.

Late again. I'm thankful for...

• Getting Things Done.
• Public transit.
• Refurbs.
• Cat cuddles.
• My family.

Today I'm grateful for...

• Unions! Little things like the five-day work week, the eight-hour work day, paid time off... We didn't always have them.
• Spring! The First of May! Spring weather!
• Music at Rainbow's End. Most of the people reading this will have missed two terrific concerts already.
• The wonderful people I live with.
• Friends. Friends help you move. Yup.
• Cats!
• Public transit.
• Not being the only geek in the house.

So... today I'm thankful for...

• Music and musicians.
• A room big enough for house concerts!
• Kids and cats.
• Gin.
• The ability to hold things more or less together in public.

I'd add "getting the taxes done" except that I didn't. Bit of a short list today. Sorry about that.

Like it says on the label. I'm having a hard time feeling much of anything right now, I think.

Anyway, I'm thankful for...

• The ability to pay bills online.
• Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.
• Credit. Are we sensing a theme here?
• People who get after me to get stuff done.
• People who know me well enough to be able to tell me what I'm feeling. See Alexithymia
• Cats. Both two- and four-legged.
• Gin.
• Cuddles.

So today I am down in San Jose for Consonance, and thankful for

• Air travel.
• Filk cons.
• Old friends.
• New family.
• Our architects. It's going to be awesome!

OK, so it's a day late. It's still a good day to be thankful for

• Love.
• Family.
• Friends.
• Cats.
• Rainbow's End.

Late again. But anyway, I'm thankful for...

• Pete Seeger's music, which will live on for a long time.
• Allie Brosh
• People willing to take on some of my execrable paperwork. (Which still leaves me with (x-2)ecrable paperwork, but it's something.)
• Medical insurance, even if it's part of the x-2.
• Income.
• Silliness.
• Bacon. Eggs. Bacon and eggs. More ba--sorry about that.

Hey, it's Thursday again! I'm thankful for...

1. Colleen, and 38 years (plus 6 days).
2. Finding a great financial advisor. If anyone knows a great realtor in San Jose, let me know -- I need one of those, too.
3. Good food.
4. Backups. Which reminds me...
5. Cat cuddles. Both tabby and Cheshire.
6. Things that really suck, when they happen to be vacuum cleaners.
7. Better living through chemistry.

Hmm. This is getting to be more of a Friday thing -- I'll have to work on that. Anyway,...

• Family.
• Our first Christmas in Rainbow's End. Tremendous fun!
• Rainbow's End.
• Music.
• Amazon. In more ways than one.

There's undoubtedly more, but I'm sleepy.

• Sleep.

A little late, but no less heartfelt. Today I'm grateful for:

• A little cluster of things nice things around Amazon, starting with the fact that they decided to hire me full-time. And a rather generous sign-on bonus, coming at a time when I really seem to need it.
• Good advice on hard choices.
• My wonderful, whacky, amazingly awesome extended family.
• Weather. I kind of missed it in California.
• Music. And getting back to making it, a little.
• Cats. Cuddly cats.

Thanksgiving seems like a good day to re-start Thankful Thursday posts; I have a lot of catching up to do, so here goes...

Today I'm thankful for:

• FAMILY. Blood and chosen, near and far. I have an amazing, wonderful family. I especially have to mention my love Colleen, our kids, Emmy and Kat, who just keep getting even more amazing with time, my sister of choice Naomi and her kids, and my Seattle relatives, with whom I'm finally getting back in touch.
• Friends and friendship. Friends online and off, near and distant. Friends becoming closer friends. I love you all.
• Rainbow's End. We -- my crazy extended family and I -- found ourselves a wonderful house in West Seattle this year, and it has become our home.
• Employment. I've been employed here in Seattle for a little over a year, after far too long a gap since I lost my job in San Jose. A skill set that continues to keep me employable.
• Our cats. I hadn't realized just how much of a cat person I was until Curio walked up to me in the shelter and told me "Hi there. I'm your cat." Naomi had to translate for him, but I'm learning.
• Medical insurance. The American health doesn't-care system sucks, but I shudder to think of what Colleen's tab would have looked like if I hadn't had insurance through my employer.
• A kitchen big enough for more than one person to work in, and a Thanksgiving dinner that came out amazingly well.
• A lot of little and not-so-little things. Backups. Good tools, both hard and soft. Colleen's PT and other support people.
• ... and most of all, the fact that things haven't turned out nearly as bad as they could have. I've been lucky, and I know it. (I've also been incredibly stupid at times, but that's another post.)

This weekend I'm grateful for...

• A roof over my head.
• Good food to eat.
• Gainful employment, so I can afford to keep the above.
• A half-hour commute by bus into downtown Seattle.
• Colleen, both my kids, and my sister of choice, all living within easy driving distance.
• Democrats retaining control of the White House and Senate.
• Seattle.
• A mild climate with both rain and sunlight. The sun just came out, which I am going to take as a good omen.

Hmm. Been a couple of weeks, I think. Anyway. I'm thankful for:

• Friends. Friends help you move...
• Good friends. Good friends help you move bodies help you triage and pack things before you move.
• My coach at Lee Hecht Harrison.
• Boxes.
• Getting started on the office.
• Inkjet printers and card stock.
• Nibbles.

... so, today I'm thankful for:

1. Colleen and her sense of adventure
2. Friends
3. Pensions
4. Medicare
5. The compensations of getting old
6. "Every silver lining has a cloud around it"