Done Since 2023-03-19

[mdlbear]

Oddly, there seems to have been a relative scarcity of bad news this week, and I seem to have been mostly okay-ish apart from continuing to be extremely worried about the safety of my trans friends and relatives, queer people in general, women's health, and the rise of Nazism in the US. It was also not a great week for our cat Brooklyn, who had most of his teeth extracted on Tuesday (but, like Bronx the week before last, has made a very good recovery and seems to be doing okay with wet food).

You may remember that three weeks ago we had our marvelous housekeeper E' and her mom (who taught her how to clean) come up to Whidbey Island to clean the house and triage the junk. Well, last Saturday I arranged for a junk-hauler to come in and give me an estimate. He told me to call (local food bank)Good Cheer's thrift shop to send a truck out to collect donatable items, because he doesn't sort stuff and would just take it to the dump.

So this weekend was largely spend making several passes through the bedroom where E' et. al. had piled the Stuff, and re-triaging it properly for pickup. Good Cheer, unfortunately, is having to relocate their thrift store after their rent was raised, so they weren't taking large items. They did, however, take enough to make a difference -- almost all of the fabric and sewing notions, several of our ubiquitous plastic drawer units, two walkers, the 40" TV, one of the three floor lamps, and a four-footed cane among other things. And going through the junk room afterward turned up some things that were worth saving (or rather moving to the other bedroom, where we're keeping stuff that might be worth trying to sell).

I threw out all of Colleen's unfinished sewing projects. That was sad, but nobody is going to finish them now. I will probably continue being sad, on and off, about that, but I still think it was the right thing to do. But...

Notes & links:
0319Su
  & awake 2:30ish???; 
  * up 6ish; S=7:15, W=198.6; exercises; shower
    % L hip p=5.5; -> heat, acetaminophen 6:30am -> next allowable dose 12:30
  @ Far-UVC Light Safely Kills Airborne Coronaviruses | Columbia University
    " To continuously and safely disinfect occupied indoor areas, researchers at Columbia
      University Irving Medical Center have been investigating far-UVC light  (222 nm
      wavelength). Far-UVC light cannot penetrate the tear layer of the eye or the outer
      dead-cell layer of skin and so it cannot reach or damage living cells in the body. "
    Far-UVC light (222 nm) efficiently and safely inactivates airborne human
    coronaviruses | Scientific Reports
  @ Nix: reproducible builds and deployments
    Why do people love NixOS so much? | by Mike Kelly | The Gray Area
    DistroWatch.com Wikipedia
  * 10ish junk hauling estimate (Terry)
    -> accepted the mask I offered, which was encouraging.
    -> Suggested calling Good Cheer first to see how much of the furniture etc they'll
       take.  Tax write-off plus a few hundred less for the eventual hauling.
  @ A 5,000-Mile-Wide Mass of Seaweed Is Heading for Florida and Mexico | Smithsonian 
  @ Why Did Scientists Wait So Long to Study the Snake Clitoris?| Smithsonian Magazine
    " The delay is representative of a major problem in biology: Female and intersex
      animals are understudied compared with their male counterparts " i.e. sexism
  @ How 'Daylighting' Buried Waterways Is Revitalizing Cities Across America
  @ The Most Boring Number in the World Is ... - Scientific American
  @ Three Easy Ways to Make AI Chatbots Safer - Scientific American
    source and training transparency; watermarking and registration.  Good luck with those
  @ Facebook wants to charge you $12 just to protect your account - WaPo
    How to keep your Facebook account safe from hacks and scams - The Washington Post
  @ A break from Covid waves and a breakthrough for preventing Long Covid metformin!
    Outpatient Treatment of COVID-19 and the Development of Long COVID Over 10 Months: A
    Multi-Center, Quadruple-Blind, Parallel Group Randomized Phase 3 Trial 
  * take pictures of sellable medical equipment, serger, jewelry chest
  * sort the remaining stuff in the jewelry chest:  pins and belt buckles; earings
    % found a wallet-sized senior portrait inscribed to me on the back.  I just...
    " To My Darling Dear Steve // with all my love Love & Hugs & Kisses / Karen "
  & drive back to RS this afternoon because it's going to rain tomorrow.
  * SL: Molly needs new wipers -- maybe -> purchased along the way home
  % 9pm in lair; got the cats treated and fished; need a heating pad break because p~=5
  % 9:15 finished nose and teeth; back into bed. 

0320Mo  Equinox  * litter boxen
  & awake 1:45ish;  gave up 2:20;
  * up 7am; S=8:14, BP=119/69, P=69; 45 minutes in bed with the cats
  : WANotify COVID app says I may have been exposed 3/17-18 (Fri-Sat).
    -> I was by myself in the house Saturday, so it could only have been Friday at either
       TJ's or Payless, or RE while E' was there.
    -> CDC says to test Thursday (day 6 post-exposure)
  @ Not a single police department in 20 largest US cities compliant with international
    rights laws, report finds | The Independent | The Independent
  : Desti seems to be quite fond of canned sardines
  % 3pm drifting.  Snuggling with the cats.
  @ UN climate change report: Catastrophic warming will claim lives without action 
  * 7pm Brooklyn's pre-op anti-nausea pill.  No food after 10pm; water okay

0321Tu
  & awake 3:30; no mask
  * up 6am; S=2:46+~3:30; COVID test: negative
  * 7:30 Brooklyn's appointment at FAH -> looks like he'll lose most of his teeth.
    -* call to request gabapentin in liquid form
  : my keyfob for Molly needs a new battery, apparently.  * replaced  * tested
  * Walk:  around block (88th-87th) (because I'd parked Molly on Linden)
  % right TMJ has been feeling like there's a muscle knot, and not closing all the way
  @ Sailboat crew rescued in Pacific after abandoning ship sunk by whale - WaPo
    CW the following links are included for completeness but will probably be distressing
    cf. The True-Life Horror That Inspired 'Moby-Dick'| Smithsonian Magazine the Essex
    Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship
    Essex Chase, Owen (1821).
  . call Good Cheer  360-221-6494
    " The Good Cheer Donation Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 2 PM. If
      you have questions about what we are not accepting on any given day, please call "
    -> 1:20ish called, left message
  * order kibble
  * 4:30 leave to pick up Brooklyn at 5pm
  * 6:30 Recording -- more ProTools.  Last class.  -> back 9ish

0322We  * litter boxen
  & awake 3:30ish;
  * up 6am; S=6:26; 45 minutes of cat cuddle; exercises; coffee in lair
  * COVID test:  negative, as expected
  @ When to Use Ice on an Injury, and When to Use Heat
    " Ice can also increase pain for some injuries, especially muscle soreness, cramps, or
      knots. It tends to make stiffness and muscle cramps worse.  "
    " if the injured area is red, hot, and unusually swollen and painful. If so, it’s ice
      time. If not, you can probably move on to heat. "
  @ Seattle utilities consider massive efforts that could help green our grid 
  * 2pm Apollo Labs 101 webinar
    -> the device has an accelerometer; android app is in the pipe  -> joined waitlist
  @ This Is the Lightest Paint in the World | WIRED aluminum nanoparticles
  @ The Great Gaslighting of the JavaScript Era | The Spicy Web
  * guitar:  noodling, Bad Guys, bits of Millennium's Dawn, Band Played Waltzing Mathilda
  @ How an Uber-Geeky Text Mode in a 40-Year-Old Editor Saved My Novel org-mode

0323Th
  & awake 3:30ish
  * up 6:10ish; S=7:33;
  * 7:30ish - go down to Fremont Animal Hospital and pick up Brooklyn's antibiotic pill
    % a little extra walking due to having parked (free) a block and a half away on Fremont
  @ Here’s the full analysis of newly uncovered genetic data on COVID’s origins | Ars 
  @ Ethical AI art generation? Adobe Firefly may be the answer. | Ars Technica
  @ Most trans adults say transitioning made them more satisfied, Washington Post-KFF
    poll says - The Washington Post
  @ Google and Microsoft’s chatbots are already citing one another in a misinformation
    shitshow - The Verge
  @ Wehat's to fear about warming oceans? Flesh-eating bacteria
  @ Daily Nut Consumption Could Help Your Heart - Consumer Health News | HealthDay
  * late afternoon/early evening - drive up to Whidbey
  * Back on Whidbey:  let N know that I'm home.
  % 6:50 some kind of emotional storm.  Not clear what's going on.  Maybe just overwhelm
  * after arrival:  * water orchids  * sort mail
  . 15min:... pull furniture out of junk room
  * shrimp scampi, more or less, for dinner.
  * 15min:  10pm a lot of the more useable stuff has been pulled out of the junk room
    % not surprisingly, my back is complaining

0324Fr-26Su  FK-NO 4 
  * all weekend FK-NO 4 will be held March 24-26, 2023!
  -> Next year Live in Toronto.

0324Fr
  & awake 1am; after sleeping in recliner -- so no mask
  * up 5:30; S=4:09+2ish, BP=119/80, P=79; exercises
  @ ID hospital to stop delivering babies, faults Legislature | Idaho Statesman
  * 15min:  several expeditions into the junk room.  taking a back break at 9:30
  * 1:30 Good Cheer truck pickup -- they don't take furniture, but maybe the plastic
    drawer units.  Sort the room.  Add the clothes.  add kitchen stuff
    -> should have worn my mask while sorting because dust
    -> they took most of the drawer units, almost all the fabric (everything I could find
       that wasn't a partial project) and a lot of sewing notions.  Took the walker,
       rollator, 4-footed cane, widescreen TV, one floor lamp.  Left 3 of the plastic
       drawer units, and the Samsonite suitcase.  Took the Antler suitcase.  Didn't have
       time for the clothing.  I need to sort the shoes for next time.
  * spent most of the rest of the day lurking at FK-No
    -> two filks of my songs tonight:  WitC (didn't get title or performer; about filking)
       and Paper Wings (Capplor: Penguin Flight)
  * 15min:  laundry.  left a pen in my shirt pocket again :P
  * Upgrade Sherman to Mint 21.1 Vera.  Not clear why it noticed the upgrade so long after
    sable and panther, but okay.  Totally uneventful.
  % 10:20 drifting

0325Sa  E's birthday
  * up 7am; S=7:16, W=197.2, BP=120/79, P=79; exercises, shower
  @ We updated our RSA SSH host key | The GitHub Blog
    ssh-keygen -R github.com; curl -L https://api.github.com/meta \
        | jq -r '.ssh_keys | .[]' | sed -e 's/^/github.com /' >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts
  @ Principal resigns after Florida students shown Michelangelo statue - BBC News
  @ Kentucky governor vetoes sweeping GOP transgender measure
    " “too much government interference in personal healthcare issues and rips away the
       freedom of parents to make medical decisions for their children.” [...]
      “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God and Senate Bill 150 will
       endanger the children of Kentucky.” "
  @ Posie Parker tour of NZ: Anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull quits rally
    after being doused with juice, Wellington event reportedly cancelled - NZ Herald
  @ Wyoming’s abortion ban is blocked by a judge for the most hilarious reason - Vox
  * text Happy Birthday to E.  Almost forgot her b'day.
  @ With Canva and Adobe's new updates, the generative AI race enters the brand design
    space - Digiday
  * pack: bread knife and cutting board for Lair
  * 15min:  remove pewter switchplates and reinstall the originals
  * 15min:  throw out bagged, unfinished sewing projects, from the junk room.
    % very sad.  But nobody will ever finish them now.
  * 15min:  find the 2021 and 2022 tax folders -- moved by the (previous) organizer.
    -> in padded envelope to take down to RS
  % making multiple passes through the piles of stuff in the junk room was a useful
    exercise, was something I actually felt motivated to do, and turned up a couple of
    gems, including the instruction manual for the serger.
  * 3pm ish house appraisal - left 3:50
  * before leaving RE turn down heat,  * turn off fireplace
  * before leaving RE collect:  drugs, Sable, backpack; recycling
  * drive back down to RS  -> arrive 5:50ish  (left ~ 4:10pm)
    % felt a little sleepy a couple of times.  so went direct on I5
  % apparently left my green raincoat at RE.  Got a bit chilled going out to the Lair
  * out to the Lair ~8:35ish