The Mandelbear's Musings

It's been an eventful week. I'm thankful that it's over. That's probably enough.

• We sold our house in West Seattle. Done. It required a marathon cleanup session the day of the closing (Tuesday!) after the buyers' walkthrough Monday night. Why the *bleep* couldn't they have done it Friday evening? But they didn't, and our agent and I spent all day Tuesday cleaning out the stuff that I'd been too tired to deal with last Thursday, and the stuff that the movers dumped on the side path after they ghosted on us Friday. And G and I rented a UHaul and hauled his two motorcycles -- that the aforesaid mover had said he wanted to buy on Monday but never showed up -- over to our housekeeper's house in Auburn. But we did it.
• In the end, after dropping off the truck, I went back to the old place to collect the paint cans the buyers had complained about, drove around to the front, and picked a bud and a flower off the Royal Amethyst rose. Thank you, Ame.
• ... and sang "The Mary Ellen Carter" as loud as I could on the way back over the West Seattle Bridge. Thanks, Stan -- I needed that.
• Our purchase of our new house on Whidbey Island went through without a hitch. That was a long search, and a lot of anxiety and research, but that too is done. Special thanks to our agents, Rob and (especially) Leif.
• Also somewhere in there my final payment from Amazon came through. Less than I'd been expecting because I hadn't allowed for Social Security and Medicare taking their cuts, but welcome just the same. I note in passing that they have not come through with my promised health care, so no thanks are due in that direction.
• Thanks to my family, too, the whole crazy lot of us. Special thanks to the Younger Daughter, whose new phone plan and health coverage through her employer have taken several additional worries off of my mind.
• Thanks, too, to you, my readers. Your occasional comments and encouraging words have meant a great deal during this, um..., adventure? Something like that.

Hey, it's Thursday! Today I am grateful for...

• My family.
• Colleen's fast recovery from a serious infection.
• Health insurance (though I'd much prefer a single payer system)
• Our realtor.
• A much-needed week's vacation.
• Our builder, movers, and organizers.
• Therapy cats. Cat therapy. Cats.

So we come to the final Thursday in 2016. I am both thankful that it's nearly over, and afraid that next year will be worse. In addition, though, I'm thankful for...

• My family. They're all wonderful people, and I am really glad they're in my life.
• Having a definite plan for next year.
• Therapy cats.
• The drugs that keep us all functional.
• My job, which I am somewhat surprised that I still have, but I'm not complaining.
• Warm blankets.

Hmmm.

• My family. Special callouts for N, C, and g.
• Hope. Feeling way too much like Pandora, except it wasn't me that opened the damned box.
• Therapy cats.
• Music. Special callouts for "The Times, They are A-Changin'", "Desolation Row", and "Julian of Norwich"; the last two being on opposite ends of something or other.
• Ethanol and caffeine. Also toward opposite ends of a different scale.

Ok, better late than next week? Anyway, today I'm grateful for...

• Revised schedules. Still dicey, IMO, but at least it's possible.
• Not being the only one responsible for the schedule slip.
• Our tenant. Rent is not to be sneezed at.
• Rain.
• Ubuntu laptops with SSDs
• Thinkpad keyboards. (Just got a new one. The one I'm using at work has developed a flaky space bar. Maybe too many aliens hanging out in it?)
• Ticia.

Today I'm thankful for:

1. Ticia.
2. Colleen.
3. Our new tenant, who is only here for about a month, but extra income is useful even when it's temporary.
4. My daughter and partner moving out this weekend. I mean, I love her, but... It will be good to have a little more space, and it will help a lot with the food budget.
5. A long weekend, and a week's vacation after that.

Today I am thankful for...

• Getting halfway through my week on call without blowing anything up. Or melting down, which was even more likely.
• Learning to ask for help.
• Help.
• Friends. Family. Cats. (There's a lot of overlap.)
• The fact that I'm still a pretty decent cook.

It seems unlikely that I'll write 500 words today, unless I write something else immediately after finishing this post. But anyway, today I'm thankful for...

• Cat therapy. Just being around Ticia raises my mood more than just about anything else. Sometimes I'll just sink into her purr and drift contentedly.
• An excuse to go back through my river posts. Maybe my idea from a couple of years ago of collecting them into a book is still a good one. They have deteriorated considerably since I started my weekly "Done" posts -- they were actually daily when I started; they took over the mind-space and time that other writing was occupying.
• Colleen. How she manages to put up with me -- and why -- I will never know, but I'm glad she does.
• xmonad -- both for providing a great desktop environment, and for giving me something to write about. By extension, Haskell, the language it's written in.
• Writing. Even if I didn't get anywhere near 500 words tonight.

Today -- Thursday, for those keeping track -- I am thankful for

• Employment
• Nibbles
• Therapy cats
• My family
• Ubuntu
• Xmonad
• Spare laptops
• Figuring (some) things out about myself

It's actually Thursday, and today I an thankful for...

• Free drinks (courtesy of $WORK's team event).
• Commuting by bus. See above.
• My therapist. It isn't so much about therapy as having someone to talk to who can point out that things aren't as wretched as they feel.
• Bernie Sanders.
• Walking, and finding that my self-talk isn't completely toxic this time.
• Belize.
• My kids. Who are turning out to be very nice people, even if it is unlikely that they'll be able to support me in my old age.
• The cats, and especially Ticia. Except when they're walking on my keyboard.

Wow -- I actually thought to do this on Thursday this week! Will wonders never cease? Anyway, today I'm thankful for...

• The fact that I'm still employed. This kind of amazes me, as seen through the usual haze of depression and anxiety. But I'm not complaining.
• My amazing family.
• Our cats, and especially Ticia. There is something inexpressably comforting about sleeping with a cat.
• DW and LJ friends who write the poetry and fiction that I love.
• Fountain pens.
• Ubuntu. And an employer that allows it to be used on company laptops.
• Tiny houses.

It's Thanksgiving, which means that in addition to the traditional Thankful Thursday, I get to look back over the whole year to find things to be grateful for. But let's start with the week: Today I'm grateful for

• Surviving my argument with a manhole cover and a sidewalk with nothing more serious than a slightly broken nose and some scrapes;
• My family, with a special callout to Naomi for driving me to the ER to get checked out;
• Cat therapy, with a special callout to Morticia;
• Sound Credit Union, for approving the loan that will pay for the budget overrun on our garage remodel.

Now, for the year:

• My family, again and always: Colleen, Emmy, Chaos, PocketNaomi, Ursa Minor, their kids g and j, and my Mom (whose 95th birthday party I'm flying east for two weeks from today);
• Our wonderful home at Rainbow's End;
• Our wonderful cats, and especially for the time -- far too short -- that we had with Curio;
• Seattle weather;
• An employer that appears to be much more understanding than I gave them credit for (though I'm still very worried);
• Good Drugs, with special callouts to methocarbamol and bupropion;
• Friends, coworkers, and health care providers too numerous to mention, but particularly Colleen's urologist and the three Anitas at UW;
• Filk and folk music, with special mention of "The Mary Ellen Carter", a song that had a lot to do with our surviving what has been an extremely rough year for all of us.

Today I am thankful for...

• Morticia. Morticia is a beautiful 8-year-old tortoise-shell cat, who Naomi and I found at Cat City on Tuesday, and I brought home yesterday. She's wonderful -- sweet, affectionate, friendly,... and she loves owns me.gfvvvxc 009vv (That's Ticia getting her own comment in.]
• Cats are, apparently, the world's most effective antidepressant. Or maybe it's NRE. Whatever it is, I'll take it.
• Sound Credit Union, for approving our equity line of credit.
• My family.
• I don't think I've mentioned the Seattle public transit system yet, but I'm no end grateful for the ability to commute by bus. That's nearly 2 hours a day when I can read rather than fight traffic.
• Git, and being able to show off my mastery of it to my coworkers in today's design meeting.

Yeah, well...

• A compelling excuse to go to OVFF and practice every day.
• Getting off my arse, at least a little.
• Writing, at least a little.
• Still being employed.
• Good ideas. (Special thanks to Naomi.)
• And again, and as always, that things aren't worse.

Well, gratitude is good no matter what day it happens on. Though 9/11 is one of the worse days for it.

• Still, the terrorist attacks 14 years ago gave me an opportunity to take a cheap flight to Ohio for my first OVFF. So there's that.
• I'm also grateful for my family. I'm not saying they keep me sane, but they do keep the craziness from getting completely self-destructive.
• My cane deserves a mention. Even when my back and knees are almost recovered, it helps. If only to give me something to lean on if I have to stand up, and a seat on the bus so I don't have to stand on something that's moving.
• And of course continuing employment, along with an increase in productivity.
• And finally, fervent thanks that things are not as bad as they could be.

Not much to be thankful for right now; it's been a bad month this week. I'll do what I can.

• Two years with Curio, a wonderful cat who taught me just how much of a cat person I am, how to live in the moment, and several things I never knew about love.
• Compassionate people.
• Having a licensed massage therapist in the house when you need one.
• Hot water.
• Good Drugs. Special call-out this week to naproxen and methocarbamol.
• Things not being worse.

NO thanks to

• feline infectious peritonitis
• my left quatratus lumborum muscle.

Been a while. Not feeling particularly good, especially about myself. So...

• Cats.
• Ethanol.
• Caffeine.
• Silly stuff.
• The Pope, mostly.
• Hanging on by my fingernails.

So today I am 0x44 years old, and thankful for

• Surviving this long.
• My family. Especially Mom, this time.
• A chance to visit New Orleans (for the first time) and see lots of people I hadn't seen for 15 years or more.
• Beignets and cafe au lait at midnight.
• Coming home.

Today I'm grateful for...

• Good advice from my massage therapist.
• Cat therapy.
• Self help websites. Special call-out to Helpguide.org, where I'm researching stress reduction tonight.
• Music night. People who like my songs.
• An OS that doesn't come pre-installed with crapware. (People with strong opinions about the systemd controversy may disagree.)
• Working for a company whose website's users are customers, not product.
• Sleep.

So only one day late this time. (Or a week and a day, depending on how you choose to look at it.) Today I am thankful for

• L-tryptophan. It's too early to be sure, but the effect on my mood seems to have been almost immediate. It goes on my...
• Amazon subscriptions. Because going out at the last minute for stuff you know you're going to need every damned month really sucks.
• Conflikt.
• Having a new song come out way better than I expected.
• Wheels for Feet, which in spite of being a tiny operation with a clunky web site turns out to be a good place to rent a scooter for the weekend. NO thanks to Spinlife, which still hasn't fixed Colleen's scooter, two months and counting.
• A work laptop that runs Linux and is small enough to fit in my sling bag. I know, I've mentioned it before. I'm still thankful for the technology that makes my work comfortable.
• X forwarding over ssh. Likewise.
• My family. I haven't mentioned them lately, but I love them all dearly. And they put up with me -- truly something to be thankful for.

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.