The Mandelbear's Musings

Welcome to January, 2025! Hippo Gnu Deer!

May your 2025 not be nearly as bad as it threatens to be.

Last "Done Since" post of the year. I think... I think I've done a few big important things, but let a lot of the smaller but still important things slide. While doing a whole lot of small but less important things. Well, that's procrastination for you. The Terrible Trivium. See also, Why Depression and Procrastination Are Linked (with an extended quote on Tuesday if you want the tl;dr version.)

Meanwhile, a few good things happened this week: I received a liter of oude genever as a holiday gift, and I hit a couple of emotional landmines during singing practice. The latter is good because I have trouble recognizing emotions, and grief is a welcome allternative to the numbness of dysthymia. (Which prevailed most of the week, of course, along with the usual anxiety and some outright fear.)

Also in the health department, we have more proof that Cardiovascular Protection Tracks With Wine Intake, Now Provable With Urinary Marker (tartaric acid). Tl;dr: you want 12-35 glasses of wine per month. I don't think that works the same for gin, so I may have to pick uup a few bottles of red. For my health.

In music, some new protest songs are being written, like Martin Kerr - God Rest Ye Merry Billionaires (Official Lyric Video), and some old ones are still applicable, like "Which Side Are You On".

And on a lighter note, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) with new accompaniment by Gary McGath.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Well, happy sun-return to those who celebrate it (and even to those who don't). I meant to make a Solstice post yesterday, but I hardly ever follow through on anything and that was no exception.

Still not practicing nearly enough, but I went out for a walk Thursday, registered for health insurance (which I should have done over a month ago), set up DigID, got our DAFT business registered, and have been exercising a little in the mornings. Still letting things fall through the cracks, and very down on myself. Getting anything done is hard, which includes getting out of bed most mornings. (I have to be a little more careful about how I do that, too -- Bronx bit my toe Tuesday morning because I was letting it dangle over the side too long while I was trying to convince myself to get up. Cat.)

A few good things happened: our living room couch arrived Monday, which was good. It's in sections, and I'm refraining from putting the big pieces together until I'm sure it's not going to have to be moved. A very lovely dark green. The living room is, gradually, getting organized. And I had a very nice video call with E Thursday morning (Wednesday night for her), as she was setting up for a household solstice party (Thursday is her day off).

Hit an unexpected emotional land mine yesterday singing Paper Wings. That's not a bad thing at all.

If you need a quick cheat sheet for the command line, go to tldr: 📚 Collaborative cheatsheets for console commands. There's a another one at cheat.sh.

Check out Conway's Game of Life as a Musical Instrument and watch out for rabbit holes. Speaking of rabbit holes, also be careful around Quanta's The Unraveling of ‍Space-Time

( Notes & links, as usual )

It feels as though I didn't get much done this wee, but I think that's only partly true. I didn't do nrarly as much music practice as I intended, and I had several episodes of decision paralysis, where I spent as much as an hour not deciding what to do next. Not sure how to deal with that. And falling asleep in the yellow chair downstairs, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, a couple of times. Somewhat related to the decision paralysis.

On the other hand, I got the cardboard recycling dealt with (with some help from G this time), N and I went out and bought a scootmobile (3-wheeled enclosed mobility "scooter" thing) on Tuesday, and we put together quite a lot of flat-pack furniture, and we arranged for the couch we ordered a couple of weeks ago to be delivered (tomorrow), Paying for the scootmobile and arranging for the couch delivery required a lot of messing around phone apps, which I'm no good at. But they got done.

I should rephrase that: "I did them." I.e., I should use active voiced. I should work on my self-talk. I shouldn't "should" myself. I should break out of this self-referential self-talk loop. I think this was meant to be amusing, or ironic, but I think it fails at both.

Yesterday my brother emailed me to say that I have a new grand-nephew. So there's that.

Here Are 15 Pieces Of Advice For Life In Trump’s Economy | by Ossiana Tepfenhart (OTOH it's on Medium, so take it with a few grains of salt.)

On a lighter note, 10 Bizarre International Borders And Why They Exist (Sorry, it's on YouTube.) One of the weirder ones exists between Belgium and the Netherlands, in Baarle.

( Notes & links, as usual )

I've actually been getting things done this week. Including tuning a few of my aliases and key bindings, tidying my desk (in the process of looking for some lost paperwork), and guitar and singing practice, which... well, let's just say it's about time. That doesn't mean I'm getting enough done, of course. We have a housekeeper (N") now, as of Monday, which helps, but most of the things that I need to be doing aren't things that a housekeeper can help with.

Some good rabbit-holes. Unfortunately many of those involve video or audio, and I have found that with headphones on I can't hear our (rather loud) doorbell. I am learning (with very mixed success) to schedule rabbit holes for times when no deliveries are expected. Meanwhile go have a look at Friday (Knuth) and Saturday (Strandbeests), for example.

Saturday, right at the end, you'll also find the poem that immediately came to mind after the recent unpleasantness in New York.

( Notes & links, as usual )

NOTE: This was, obviously, supposed to have been posted last Thursday. Due to some weird error on my part, it got overwritten with garbage instead. So here it is, thanks to the magic of git revert.

As has become customary for me on Thanksgiving Day (or thereabouts -- I'm actually starting this Wednesday evening), I'll try to cover a greater expanse of time than my usual top-of-the-head, in-the-moment gratitude post.

• This morning's music, "The Great Remember", VERY Extended Version- Steve Martin Clawhammer Banjo Tune, played by Phoebe Sanders and particularly appropriate for the occasion. Also grateful for Phoebe and other youtube musicians too numerous to mention.
• BECU technical support, for helping me track down (more or less) what's blocking their site. There's a VPN in my future. I'm also grateful for Proton VPN's Black Friday sale.
• My Sherpa fake fleece blankets and fluffy bathrobe, because we have not yet completely figured out our new house's complicated electronic thermostat.
• Eyelid wipes and hypochlorous acid spray. NO thanks to demodex mites and blepharitis.
• Our household's members -- four humans, me, N, G, and m; and four cats, Ticia, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Cricket -- having made it safely over to The Netherlands. (I will also be very grateful for the large amount of our Stuff that we couldn't stuff into suitcases for the flight -- when it gets here. Right now it's on a boat. NO thanks for the shipping schedule, which just got pushed out to arrive here around Groundhog Day. :P)
• Apropos that, thanks to Delta, Airbus, Starwood pet transporters, and the Dutch public transit system, for getting us here.
• Finally getting off my arse. I may very well come out with an album next year.
• The way Linux makes it trivial to set up a Raspberry Pi as a print server and git host. (I owe you a write-up about how that's working these days.)
• Having been foresighted enough to mirror my fileserver onto a laptop drive and pack it in my carry-on bag. So the fact that its main drive is still on a boat doesn't matter.
• Good housekeepers. We miss E', our housekeeper in Seattle. (The woman we interviewed this morning looks like a good prospect. And the cats like her.)
• Roasted nuts and dried fruit. Getting my fiber the tasty way.
• My health holding up so far (knock wood -- or plastic).
• Support groups that meet in the morning, Seattle time, via Zoom.
• Grocery stores that let you order online and deliver, some of them with about the same speed as fast food.
• (Added 2024-12-01) Huge thanks as well to Git, gitk, and the awesome git revert. This is your thanksgiving bear reminding you to always use version control.

You should also go visit last year's Thanksgiving Day post, which is included here by reference because all of it still applies. I'm also kind of grateful that I didn't attempt to make a connection in that post between my family of choice and the axiom of choice. Anyway it's trivially true for finite sets. But Oh! what a lovely rabbit hole!

Pretty good week, I think, though it had a cpuple of rough spots mostly around mornings, and some cold evenings. Yesterday was American Thanksgiving Observed here at Schildhaven -- j had school Thursday and Friday. Not a school holiday despite the fact that Thanksgiving is celebrated in Leiden.

Extreme reluctance to get out of bed is somewhat new, I think; it's hard to say whether it indicates depression, 3am bladder wake-ups, heavy blankets, or something about cats. And whether that "something" is being slept on (see above) or having to sift the litter box can only be speculated about. I wouldn't know -- I don't really wake up until my second cup of coffee.

My main accomplishment for the week may have been tidying up the living room, which included taking out five or six bags of packing foam, consolidating the flattened cardboard boxes, and re-organizing my (physical)desktop. (N mentoned the improved state of the first floor, but that didn't really register until the next day.) And on Monday I called both USBank and BECU over different technical-support issues. Total distinct, but both due to my location. That's only one in an ongoing series of annoyances; I surprised myself by remaining calm and coherent over the entire two hours on the phone.

N and I discussed the next two recording projects: "Amethyst Rose" and another album which doesn't have a firm title at the moment. Their relative timing is similarly uncertain, as are the positions of a few tracks. But I've started practicing more. (Still missed two days in the past week though. Working on it.)

Hot off the net: google’s latest fuckery: if you write online, read this – Solarbird{y|z|yz} (via solarbird) -> Google app for iOS now adds THEIR links to YOUR posts from YOUR website unless you opt-out. Could someone with an iPhone please see whether this is happening to 1) this post, 2) steve.savitzky.net or 3) GoingSideways.blog? (This info will also be linked in next week's "Done Since" post.)

Also, MS Word is Using You to Train AI. How to turn off AI-scraping from your Word docs.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Today I am grateful for...

• My daughter E, who has grown up into a woman of many talents.
• N as a traveling companion. It's taking me longer than I would have expected to get used to public trasportation here.
• Discovering that going up and down the stairs several times per day turns out to be pretty good exercise.
• My cats, who (at the moment, at least) are contentedly snoozing near me on the ground floor.
• My Raspberry Pi 4 being trivial to configure as a print server. NOT so happy about TP-Link routers being rather non-trivial to configure as simple access points. (That could of course be due to my own stupidity, though I expect not in this case.)

Today I am grateful for...

• My support groups. I think I'm there more for the conversation and occasionally being able to help someone, rather than gathering information. I'm rather bad at asking questions.
• In general, opportunities to be helpful.
• A solid internet connection.
• Recycling. Cardboard and paper only get picked up once every four weeks, so I was a little skeptical when people assured me that they'll take any amount. But they took everything I put out. (Although I ran out of spoons before I ran out of cardboard. Next month...)
• Chicken soup with rice.

Today I am going to skip over the obvious bad news and my lack of gratitude for it, and go straight to some things I am grateful for.

• Our entire household, humans and felines, being together in our new home in Den Haag,
• Having gotten out of the US. (This does not keep me from being extremely worried about our friends and family still stuck there.)
• Comfort food. G's making mac-n-chee tonight.
• Nice fast household internet. Thanks as well to Caiway.nl for providing it.
• Having three local chain grocery stores that deliver to our house. Thanks also to Flink, which is online only, somewhat expensive, but can get groceries to our door in well under an hour.
• Distractions. Though I have to say, when things like taking out garbage and scooping litter boxes count as welcome distractions, I'm probably in worse mental shape than I think I am.

Welcome to November, 2024!

Welcome, as well, to the CATS!

This is my fourth "Done Since" post from Schildhaven Centraal. I'd consider making a list of things I forgot to pack, or neglected to do before we left, but it would be embarrassingly long and depressing. It's made for quite a few otherwise-avoidable $A orders. That by itself is embarrassing for reasons that should be obvious.

I also persist in thinking that I'm not getting enough done. The gap between things to do and things I've done may not be quite as wide as my brain weasels say it is, but it's still pretty wide. Quite a lot of writing, both of blog posts and of email, has fallen into that gap. It may be a struggle to haul it out.

Everything else in the week has been overshadowed by our cats missing their flight. The deities of felines and FedEx willing, they'll be here next Friday. If everything else goes as scheduled, G and m will be here Wednesday, which will help with cat-wrangling.

( Notes & links, as usual )

This marks the end of our third week in Den Haag. The cats are coming on next Friday, and the rest of our people the following Thursday. We are just barely going to have the place fully habitable by then, and the stuff we had shipped, and a few special order items, won't arrive until December.

Tomorrow I order a bed and internet service. We'd been using the internet connection left by the previous owners, but that ended three days ago -- a few days sooner than I expected. We've been getting by on our phones and my phone's hotspot since then.

I've been spending altogether too much time and bandwidth on $A. A lot of that is indecision, much of it more like decision paralysis. And a lot more is just forgetting -- I should have made a better checklist. And I should look more often at the one I did make.

And the whole plan is simply crazy. But so far we're pulling it off. Sort of. Today was a massive shopping trip for furniture, mostly successful; tomorrow a big Ikea delivery comes, including a chair for the desk I just finished assembling, and we need to order internet (which has been intensely frustrating so far).

( Notes & links, as usual )

It's been an exhausting week, but we're gradually making the house habitable. Things have started to arrive, mostly from $A, although there's also a company called Flink that delivers groceries (but has limited choices). We have WiFi, thanks to my having purchased and set up a cheap TP-Link router. We don't have chairs yet, thanks to very poor planning. My brain is barely functional at this point, and I was suffering from decision fatigue and depression last night.

We have a chair on order, which is supposed to be here tomorrow. Of course I could have said the same thing Friday, which would have been overoptimistic. We have a pot, a frying pan, pasta, pesto, and a few other -- not exactly staples, but food items. I have been making bad decisions partly due indecisiveness, partly due stupidity, and partly due to trying to only order things for next-day or two-day delivery.

Also regretting some of my pack-vs-ship decisions. With luck the boat will get here in December.

It's 19:30 here, and I should probably stop trying to do anything that requires thinking.

( Notes & links, as usual )

We're here! It's been a difficult week in a lot of ways, but we're in Den Haag, with keys to our house and a large quantity of luggage. (Even so, I made a couple of really stupid bring-vs-ship decisions -- the Starport tableware and the (Cal. Academy of Sciences?) stuffable backpack would have been really useful.)

But we made it. We have until Wednesday to finish moving ourselves out of the hotel, meaning we have until then to make the house minimallly habitable. We're going to start by getting some blankets and maybe sheets at HEMA, across the street from the hotel. The beds left in the house aren't what we want to end up with, but they'll do as a stopgap.

In the last week we have:

• Sold Molly (to N's ex, which simplified things greatly).
• Packed suitcases (leaving behind a few things that would have been very useful, like a stack of maske, the tableware from the Starport, and a stuffable small backpack).
• Flown to Schiphol, and taken a cab from there to the hotel (for which my large MEI suitcase/backpack proved very useful indeed, because it's about a block from the nearest drop-off point -- the street the hotel is on doesn't allow cars).
• Registered with the municipality.
• Met up with (real estate agent)Ceva, who gave us our keys, a lovely bouquet of flowers which we left at the front desk, and a trip to and tour of our house. (Details in yesterday's post)
• Been out to the house yesterday with j, taking a few items (my recording gear, Colleen's ashes, and the green tool bag that once was hers) and meeting the local swans.

It's been a difficult, strenuous week, but also a very busy and productive one. I'll take it.

( Notes & links, as usual )

After toasting to "our next adventure" in the Delta sky lounge at SeaTac, N explained that we were between adventures -- buying our new house, shipping our belongings, and packing for our flight marked the end of our previous adventure. The next will begin when we move in to SchildHavn later this week. In the mean time we are in liminal space. I find it particularly appropriate that my current reading is "On Fairy Stories" by J. R. R. Tokkien.

Internet here on the plane is flaky. The passenger "entertainment" system crashed, and it took them half an hour to reboot it. Apparently this is standard. My assumption is that they've gone over to the dark $ide. The food here in "business" class, OTOH, is excellent.

Packing up was frantic -- I hadn't left myself nearly enough time. Several errands disn't get run, and in the confusion I left most of my stock of masks behind. Among other things. Well, G and m will be coming in another four weeks or so, and we're working on the assumption that we'll be able to come back occasionally for visits. "Leaf by Niggle" is also appropriate.

A large part of the problem with packing was second-thinking my luggage decisions. In the end I wound up putting my sling bag into my pacsafe (?) tote. The tote's bigger. The question is whether I'm going to have to carry my carry-on as a backpack. Should probably have used the small Travelpro as my carry-on, but it really depends on whether we're going to be taking rail to the hotel. Which I don't know yet. Hope not, because my main suitcase weighs over 50 lbs (up from 39 when I checked it yesterday). That way madness lies.

A glass of wine and a light lunch in the Delta sky lounge went a long way toward helping me unwind. As did the excellent food in 'business" (let's just call it what it is -- First) class. A glass of something alcoholic on the plane is a large part of my travel ritual, and has been ever since I started college at Carleton. The drinking age in the air back there wa 18; I don't know whether it still is.

Unlike the food, the "bed" that the seat attempts to turn into is the most uncomfortable damned contraption I've ever failed to sleep in. It would have helped if the seat belt was adjustable. Why in blazes would they make a seatbelt that can't be adjusted? And I may have eaten a little too much. The idea of being able to overeat in a plane is still somewhat bizarre.

... Posting from our hotel, Cove Centrum/Passage Den Haag. Now that I've unpacked a machine with usable posting software. The new (ad)venture starts with the next post.

It's been a hectic (frantic?) week. The movers came Friday. Inevitably a few things got forgotten; there's a pile of stuff that's going into storage, until (with luck) somebody comes back for it. Also inevitably, there are a lot of decisions that are too late for second thoughts. And there are errands that never got run, which is a problem because I just got through selling (Chevy Bolt)Molly, the last car I'll ever own. (To M and J, but still...)

And of course I'm feeling down on myself for not getting things done, on top of several different layers of leave-taking, transition, and anxiety. On the whole I don't think I'm in very good shape. That's not even counting the ache in my left lower back pain (QL, probably) from carrying boxes, and right TMJ presumably from jaw-clenching.

This time Tuesday evening I'll be on my way to SeaTac with N. This time Wednesday we'll be in Den Haag. This time next week we'll (hopefully) be in the new house.

Wish us luck?

( Notes & links, as usual )

Today I am grateful for...

• A moderately functional back.
• Kegel exercises. Pelvic floor physical therapists, live and on line.
• Gentle Giant moving company.
• N, without whom my life would be a lot less interesting..

I would be grateful for another week to pack, if I had it.

NO thanks to Past Me, who was supposed to have gotten a lot of stuff done years ago.

Today I am grateful for...

• Understanding and support from my kids.
• Getting home before dark. (I have discovered that I'm a poor night driver, and worse in twilight). Having enough sense to recoginze this before I get myself or somebody else killed.
• Having enough luggage. Probably.
• Still having a few computers -- well, ok, all but one -- that haven't been upgraded to the latest version (22) of Linux Mint. NO thanks for important (to me) programs that require Python 2, now that Mint has elimiated the packages for it.

Today (well, actually I wrote most of this yesterday, because I was tired and confused) I am grateful for...

• Professional organizers.
• Not having permanently damaged my scanner by improperly removing a jammed original. The fix may have involved an undocumented reset button on the bottom of the unit. Whew!
• USB3.1. Wired connections in general. I have Problems with Bluetooth.
• Walking. Four (too short) walks in the last week.
• Getting a little more paperwork done. There's still a lot left, though.
• Getting the house payment in, more smoothly than I expected. My financial advisor, Jerad.
• Having caught my mistake in the date yesterdat before I actually posted.

Today I am grateful for...

• Air conditioning and ice makers. I am aware of the fact that, in some places, 30°C is not considered a dangerous heat wave. Seattle is not one of those places. I will be grateful for cloud cover, when it returns. Hopefully soon.
• Having luggage delivered to my door by places like REI, Travelpro, and $A. (NO thanks to my luggage addiction, which appears to be incurable.) NOT SURE about a cat with a leather fetish and an afinity for luggage.
• Eurofilk. A request to sing. Zoom. Songs I can perform well enough without having practiced for months. Soon being on Central European Time.
• Pushing through in spite of the brain weasels. Not letting embarrassment over my lack of practice keep me from singing this time.
• Discovering that hauling a guitar out once every week or so has kept my finger calluses in (barely) good enough shape for five songs. Have to work on that. (That's also about how long my voice held out.) NO thanks to not practicing, damnit.

It's been a week. A busy week; perhaps not busy enough. Arguably, a productive week. Again, perhaps not productive enough. It also included several (mental and physical)health- related things -- the final results from my colonoscopy (2 benign polyps, so no need for more colonoscopies in the future), my last (unless I find myself back here next year) Medicare "annual wellness visit" with Dr. Chopra, and zoom visits with my spiritual care advisor (is pastor the right word? I don't think so) Elizabeth G, my integrative medicine person (no idea what her official position is) Susanna M, and my oncology social worker Jonathan C. I have one more visit scheduled later this month with Elizabeth, and with my medical oncologist Dr. Sunkara.

I'm going to miss all those people. Some have asked me to keep in touch, which is nice. There will be lots of blog posts in my future, and thoughts about leave-taking rituals and self-care.

The whole idea of moving still terrifies and saddens me, but I've noticed that when I'm talking about it with someone else (see above), I seem to exhibit something that at least resembles excitement. I'll take it.

Links include This tiny Dutch vehicle for people with disabilities is taking off | MIT Tech Rev, This Japanese Artist Creates Delicate Food Art, and Here Are 73 Of The Best Pieces, and NASA Composite Booms Deploy, Mission Sets Sail in Space (ObFilk The Shores of the Night).

( Notes & links, as usual )

When a week starts with colonoscopy prep leading up to a procedure on Tuesday afternoon, it can't help getting better from there. That might not be saying much, but I'll take it.

(If you're squeamish about excretion, you might want to skip ahead to Wednesday.)

Among the links, there's a really good blog post about Recording and Processing Spoken Word by Laurence Tratt on Wednesday, some Pictures of animals from least to most related to you (starting with sponges), a video about why Dutch bikes are so cool, and the fact that New coronavirus vaccines are now approved. Here’s what to know.

( Notes & links, as usual )

I've been having a lot of stress and anxiety lately, and probably depression as well. And definitely decision paralysis, which is a symptom of something, but I don't know what. As I wrote last Sunday night, it shouldn't take half an hour of standing in front of the fridge to decide what to have for dinner. And finally give up and have oatmeal for dinner. There have not, however, been any personal disasters, and there is (slightly) encouraging news on the US political front.

Meanwhile, I'm prepping for a colonoscopy on Tuesday (ugh! but it's past due). And a month from Tuesday we're closing on our new (to us) house in Den Haag. There's no causal connection, except that I really need to get the colonoscopy done before we move. I seem to have a rather dark sense of humor, which helps.

Not sure whether this counts as dark humor or schadenfreude, but UAW Files Federal Labor Charges Against Donald Trump and Elon Musk for Attempting to Intimidate and Threaten Workers The press release describes them as "disgraced billionaires".

This week's reading includes starting Nature's Ghosts: The World We Lost and How to Bring It Back: Sophie Yeo -- reviews on Friday.

You'll also find links to the latest AMD chip vulnerability (Sunday) and impressively large data breach (Wednesday). Among other things.

( Notes & links, as usual )

This week wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been -- I'll take it. A week that begins with Amethyst's birth(?)day, and includes a lot of moving prep, the anniversaries of two atomic bombings, and some heavy reading, has the potential to be really bad. In fact, it wasn't, possibly because I was too busy to notice. And because the reading in question, The Overstory by Richard Powers, after going through some very harrowing parts, ends with calm, dark optimism, and tenuous hope.

Despite what I said about The Overstory, I highly recommend it. It reminded me a little of Moby Dick with the way that a huge amount of lore (about trees rather than whales) is woven throughout the text. And it doesn't kill off as many of the main characters. There are video reviews under Saturday. I'm not sure I'm up to writing a review, but I might try. Meanwhile, read more reviews and approach it with some caution, and a lack of respect for mornings.

Amethyst would have been 34 years old last Sunday. I didn't write a memorial post. Maybe later.

Apparently I'm aphantastic, or maybe hypophantastic. (Links under Tuesday.)

Two or more cups of coffee is associated with a 28% lower risk of dementia. The article adds that moderate tea drinking also lowers your risk, but doesn't say by how much.

( Notes & links, as usual )