The Mandelbear's Musings

Well, it was a week. Very mixed, and very mixed emotions about most of it. Monday I had my markers installed. Wednesday I had my "treatment simulation" appointment, which is for getting everything lined up and calibrated for the actual radiation treatment. (That starts a week from tomorrow.) Wednesday was also my 77th birthday. Thursday was Pi Day -- we had pizza. Saturday was Colleen's birthday, which was something of a trainwreck, but at least I remained reasonably functional. The rest of the days I don't remember much happening.

I took walks Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday (go me!). Also Saturday, if (as $G's fitness app did) you count time spent wandering around a grocery store, and exercised -- at least a little -- Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday I had things scheduled early, which threw off my schedule. That's my excuse, anyway. I'm going to have to lengthen my walks. And get back to singing, damnit.

In somewhat encouraging news, last year marked "the first time since World War II, when hydropower was booming, that a renewable power source has comprised more than half of the nation’s energy additions." Only the incrememtal change, but still. It's in the right direction.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Very lethargic most of the week -- can't tell whether it's depression or something else. Feels like depression, though. Colleen's birthday is two weeks from yesterday, and that may have something to do with it. That, and cleaning out the house. I have been getting some walks in, so that's something. One was with my old friend Ted Kaehler, who had just discovered that his (girlfriend's dog's) vet's office was only a block away from our house.

I tend to lose track of people, unless they come seeking me out. Colleen was the one who always kept in touch with people.

The subject of Things With Names came up a couple of times -- I thought I'd written more about them (or, more accurately, about more of them) but apparently not. Mostly they're cars, musical instruments, or pieces of luggage. The only post with a tag is The Hartmann bag; "things" isn't really a very good tag, and in any case I don't have the bag anymore.

The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center: Cohen, Rhaina looks interesting. More under Saturday.

( Notes & links, as usual )

A fairly eventful week, not particularly bad, but strange. Monday Habitat for Humanity came by with a truck and, under s"'s supervision, hauled off filing cabinets, plastic drawer units, and some (but not all) of the building materials from the garage. Friday Sno King Hauling Junk Removal hauled off most of the remaining clutter (though they didn't have time for everything -- they'll come back Tuesday for the rest, including the e-waste and some of the furniture.

The house looks very weird now. And Friday I took my mattress down to Seattle, because it's more comfortable than the one I'm using down there.

Also on Monday I spoke with the radiation oncologist, to get that process started. It will take about ten weeks, with actual radiation beamed at my prostate on weekdays for the last five of those. The first weeks will be mostly waiting for preperatory things to get scheduled. The first, not until March 11th, is getting gold beads installed in my prostate as markers. (I expect that to be unpleasant, but somewhat less so than a biopsy, which involved making roughly four times as many holes.)

Tuesday I had not one but two support group meetings by zoom - my usual grief group in the morning, and a new "living with cancer" group in the evening. (That one ran late -- they have an earlier one that I may switch to.) Wednesday I had a zoom call with Susanna M, the ARNP who's my contact for "Integrative Medicine" -- she's the one who referred me to accupuncture. She confirmed that my iron numbers are low enough that I should be taking a supplement. I think Wednesday was also a minor holiday that I don't celebrate anymore.

Thursday I drove up to the island for Friday's junk haul. That was the last night I'll ever sleep in that bedroom, which is just plain weird and the last time I'll sleep in a room that I shared with Colleen. Which is sad. Friday -- I've already mentioned Friday. The $G fit app said I walked over 8000 steps that day. None of it a proper walk.

Welcome to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, which starts today. Music for today's post is Libba Cotten's Freight Train, which I just learned on Monday is public domain (written somewhere between 1906 and 1912). First or second song I learned to Travis pick on.

( Notes & links, as usual )

We have been making great progress in packing up the contents of Rainbow's End North and putting it into storage, mainly thanks to N's presence both last weekend and this. This will hopefully finish next weekend (I'm going up with N on Wednesday); Habitat for Humanity are scheduled to send out a truck a week from tomorrow, and hopefully I will be able to hire a junk hauler for later that week.

Does that make it a good week? I'm not sure. Everything in the house brings back memories, which I think is why it's taken so long, and hurts so much. See Monday for the worst of it. On the gripping hand Ticia and Cricket, our two oldest cats, got their arthritis shots Friday, and are feeling much better. That stuff is worth at least half a life. Meanwhile, as I am writing this, Bronx is snoozing in his box on my desk.

Wednesday I had an appointment with a pelvic floor physical therapist, who assured me that I've been doing Kegel exercises correctly (and gave me some new ones), and with one of my urologists, who told me officially that I can stop using a catheter. Which I did a month ago, but now they know it too. And posted a rant, which made me feel mildly accomplished.

I've started tracking my walks more closely, using $G's app for steps and timing. (Their mileage is off because I won't let the app track me, but that's what trip planning maps are for.) I am still not up to 150 minutes/week, but getting there.

Good links: How a Complete Einstein Ring, Spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope, Can Reveal Mysteries About Dark Matter and How Ancient Giant Galaxies Formed, and Soil-Powered Computing: The Engineer's Guide to Practical Soil Microbial Fuel Cell Design (see Saturday for a news article).

( Notes & links, as usual )

Not a bad week, modulo plumbing problems. I hesitate to call it a "good" week when, on top of frozen pipes and a serious leak in the bathroom, I was almost completely unproductive, but I did a few self-care things: guitar, singing, and walking. And maybe I should count my daily self care habits as productivity as well. But I'm still no closer to clearing out the Whidbey house, preparing for the next move, or doing anything on my actual "to-do" list, so I think "not bad" is about the best I want to give it.

It would probably help if I paid more attention to my to-do items. The way I manage the to.do file could be a lot better.

Still, keeping up with my morning exercise routine and language lessons, playing guitar a couple of times -- and singing on Thursday -- and walking more than a mile (though not much more) twice isn't insignificant, it's more music and walking than last week, and I should give myself credit for that.

Link of the week is Hyperland, a 1990 look at hypertext - it's remarkably prescient considering that it pre-dates the web by a year or more depending on how you count. From the Wikipedia article,

It was written by Douglas Adams and produced and directed by Max Whitby for BBC Two in 1990. It stars Douglas Adams as a computer user and Tom Baker, with whom Adams had already worked on Doctor Who, as a personification of a software agent.

In hindsight, what Hyperland describes and predicts is an approximation of today's World Wide Web.

If you prefer food, here's Miyazaki’s Magical Food: An Ode to Anime’s Best Cooking Scenes, and Yaupon: ... America's forgotten tea made from the only caffeinated plant native to North America.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Since I missed the bubbly last year (through going to bed without thinking), I made sure that I got some this year, by way of bringing down a few bottles from the Whidbey Island house the week before. I also joined the New Year's Eve zoom circle, and sang three songs. A few more of mine (and parodies thereof) were covered by others. Went much better than I had expected, given that I've done hardly any singing in the last year. (One song in the closing jam at OVFF doesn't count for much. In a jam noone can hear your flubs. I couldn't hear my flubs.)

Public Domain Day 2024 happened, and the Mouse and the Pooh Bear have been loosed upon the world!

I drank a toast to Colleen on our anniversary, with the last of the case of The Glenlivet. Cross-posted to Callahan's Crosstime Saloon on FB.

My prostate continues to give me trouble. I hate my body. Fuck cancer.

Potentially useful link from Saturday: What Is Self-Care? Understanding How to Look After Yourself Mentally, Physically and Socially.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Not a bad week, as weeks go these days, but not all that good either. There is reason for optimism, but also a lot of things to be pessimistic about, which are making it hard to get to sleep.

My sphincter control seems to be almost back to normal, as of Wednesday or so. I was feeling normal enough to start taking walks again, including almost a mile and a half with m and j. I read somewhere that every mammal from the mouse to the elephant can empty its bladder in 20 seconds except for elderly male humans with enlarged prostates. A category which included me for the past several years, but apparently no longer does.

And I attended E's Yule celebration Thursday. (The Yule ritual on Whidbey was last night, organized by G and with me, g" and k attending. We had cookies and a bottle of 10-year-old mead. I don't remember who gave us that, or whether we perhaps acquired it at an Interfilk auction.)

On the other hand, the place we had (Subaru)Stacey towed to does not do body work, despite what it says on their website. We were unable to find a body shop willing to accept it on short notice, so it's going to sit in front of our house until we do. Then it will almost certainly be totalled. That plus the fact that I should have started on selling Colleen's medical equipment two years ago mean that emptying the house out by the end of January is going to be a stretch.

On the gripping hand, I also had my first (of eight) accupuncture treatments (which was fascinating), and made an appointment with one of Fred Hutch's "spiritual health" providers (there must be a better word -- chaplains?), after a delightful conversation Monday. (See also, Wednesday's " State of the Bear" post.)

Good links for the week include The Future of Web Styling: Classless and Class-Light CSS | by Shalitha Suranga, and What Makes LISP Unique? | by Erik Engheim. Most of the others are discouraging.

( Notes & links, as usual )

It's been a week. It's been a long month this week. And I haven't been getting much sleep. I'll probably put the health details in a later post, although if you're curious you can probably find quite a few in the notes even with the bathroom log redacted. Blarg.

I did, very belatedly, realize that the spasms I'd been attributing to my bladder were from a different thing altogether, and caused by constipation. As are a lot of my urinary difficulties. (But if it hadn't been for that I might not have gotten into treatment when I did, so I'm not complaining. About that part of it.)

I still am not pleased with my body. Parts of it are still working, at least.

It's getting late, and I could probably add to this, but I want to get to bed. TTYL.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Thanks to Thanksgiving, I think it worked out to being a pretty good week, modulo health problems and $A's customer service. (As for the latter, apparently "invalid address" means "the manufacturer won't allow $A to sell that product in your state". That's three hours I won't get back.)

The feast on Turkey Day was excellent. The niblings' other parents M and J) were here, along with N's foster-kids K, s" and g". J brought the bird, gravy, and roasted potatoes; I made my usual cranberry relish; and G made the rest. s" and g", who have been up on Whidbey, brought down apple and cherry Whidbey Pies, plus a (non-WP) pecan pie. Good food, good conversation, and Alice's Restaurant for after-dinner entertainment.

I stayed down in Seattle this weekend, rather than going up to Whidbey the way I usually do. It felt like slacking off, except that it wasn't really because most of my time and attention went into preparing for tomorrow's initial appointments with urological, radiation, and medical oncologists. And I spent some time on Wednesday making an icon out of an old illustration of the appropriate constellation.

In the links, Looking for the last universal common ancestor of all living organisms (the original paper is also linked from Friday's notes). Also, Metal clouds and liquid gems spotted in the atmosphere of hot Jupiter WASP-121 b may be of interest to fans of Cordwainer Smith (see also, story linked from last week), and Kim Kardashian’s Ultimate Nipple Bra is likely to be of interest to trans women and breast cancer survivors.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Not a bad week, I don't think. Not all that good, but not bad. I'll take it. The PET/CAT scan results came in on Tuesday; I'm guardedly optimistic about them. I'm more worried about not being particularly worried, than I am about the diagnosis, if that makes sense. But at least I have the results, and oncology appointments scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow.

Less pain than last week, after some adjustments on Monday. Also, (nurse)Val is magical. I'm still having problems, but on the whole they're tolerable. That does not mean I'm comfortable.

Everyone in the household has been a bit under the weather the last few days, mostly sore throats and coughing. Not COVID-19, thankfully -- we're all testing negative for that. I may be the least affected, probably thanks to my 76-year-old immune system. Gotta be good for something...

The problem I've been having with the shower in the Lair (and the reason why I shower at the Whidbey house instead) is that it doesn't seem to ever warm up. It turns out that it's hooked up backwards. Every other single-lever shower control I've encountered starts out cold, and mixes in more hot water as you rotate the handle counterclockwise. Not this one. Growf.

Nick Brandt's haunting underwater photos portray climate change in a new way. There are two previous parts of the series, collectively called "The day may break".

( Notes & links, as usual. CW: swearing )

It started out being a pretty depressed, stressed-out week (see previous post), improving somewhat on Wednesday with a referral to an oncologist and a call from radiology to schedule me for a PET-CT scan. (Which immediately queued up Perils of Modern Living by Harold P. Furth, because positrons are a common form of antimatter.)

Then Wednesday we brought the cats over to PurrfectCatBoarding -- two cars, because both N and m wanted to be with their cats, and so did I. I can fit four people and a cat, or four cats and a person, but three people and four cats required two cars.

And Thursday we set off for OVFF (Ohio Valley Filk Festival), which is winding up even as I type. It's been pretty good; some good catching-up conversations and lots of fantastic music (none of which I contributed to -- I pulled Plink out of her case for one song ("Ripple") at the Closing Jam earlier this evening. Then my back let me know in no uncertain terms that I needed to get back to the room and stay there. I was glad I'd remembered to bring my cane this trip.

Unhappy about the things I forgot to bring, including a water bottle, a pair of scissors, one of my several sets of bamboo utensils, and a toothbrush. I managed.

And despite being unhappy about missing last weekend's reunion, I'm very glad I'm here to help take care of N, who's been having a very painful weekend dealing with a toothache that turned into a serious infection.

Meanwhile, go over to Bandcamp and listen to (and buy) Bridge, Kathy Mar's two-disk compilation of "songs about the things that bring us together". Six of those were done at the release concert this afternoon, and two brought tears.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Last week started with a small earthquake, with the epicenter only a few km away, but 55km down -- startling but nothing to worry about. And ended with a annular solar eclipse -- about 80% as seen from Seattle. My first annular, which is pretty cool. I'll have to travel if I want to catch the total eclipse next April.

In between, I got the results from my biopsy last week, had another CT scan on Friday, and scheduled a bone scan for next Wednesday. So I will probably have Real Answers(TM) by next Friday evening. At which point I may be able to make plans. As I mentioned Friday before last, I'm not thrilled with how my body is behaving these days. It should behave.

In other news, antimatter falls down, not up. But kind of as compensation, 60 Years of Doctor Who drops on BBC iPlayer; see the online archive. If you're not in the UK you'll need a VPN.

Content Warning: same as ast week: medical TMI, including some things (mainly on Wednesday) that may very well be disturbing. I'm a little surprised that I'm not all that disturbed -- being a pessimist apparently has some advantages.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Bad week. Pain, bad news, impending possibly-very-bad news, hopefully-not-permanent life change. Death of a friend. I am glad the week is over, but fear that its problems will continue.

Content warning: it is too late and I am in too much pain to do a whole lot of editing of the log tonight. Parts are merely boring, other parts may include unpleasant medical details.

Top links: beware of rabbit hole: All objects and some questions | American Journal of Physics | AIP Publishing (via The Plot of All Objects in the Universe) Is the universe a black hole?

( Notes & links, as usual )

A basically quiet week, but I'm still somewhat stressed and depressed. Mostly, I think, because we're getting the Whidbey house packed up ahead of being sold. A lot of nostalgia is getting packed up along with it.

Last week I said that Ticia and I are both "okay for now and in pretty decent shape for the elderly animals that we are." Well... Ticia is in pretty good shape -- the anti-arthritis drug and new toy seem to be doing her some good. Whether I'm in good shape may depend on the results of the appointments I have scheduled for the end of the month. And my blood pressure has been creeping up recently. So that's more stress.

For the blood pressure, I'm switching to unsalted potato chips, and will probably have to change my diet even more. Because I can't change the stupid. (I can't be sure that the idiots ruining democracy and the planet are what's raising my BP, but if they're not I'd have to blame myself.)

If you have cats, you may want to look at Ticia's new toy and its accessories, which I mentioned on Thursday. If you have elderly cats, you may want to ask your vet about Solensia.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Not a bad week, mostly. Up until this Friday, anyway; I may have done something monumentally stupid Thursday; I've been having a bad weekend.

Sorry about the vagueness; more later maybe.

( Notes & links, as usual )

I seem to sleep more soundly when I'm up on the Island and not sharing my bed with a cat, but the company's well worth the price. I remember thinking the same thing when I first started sleeping with Colleen.

I'm currently finishing up a weekend at Rainbow's End North with N, s', and g" (is it time for a cheat sheet again?) (did I ever post a cheat sheet?) arranging for the latter two to stay here for most of the rest of the year and help with the organizing and packing. The whole thing still has an air of total unreality about it.

There's still time to watch the Perseids if you can get to someplace with clear, dark skies and don't mind staying up past 1pm.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Last Friday Desti, our household incarnation of Bast, was hospitalized with what turned out to be acute kidney disease. She crossed the Rainbow Bridge Sunday morning, which is why I held the weekly post an extra day. I'm writing a separate memorial post and page, but couldn't finish it in time -- it will have to wait. Meanwhile, you can find details under the cut.

The week has gone fairly well apart from that, as we continue our stay in the Netherlands -- we were in Leiden most of the week, with a side trip to Utrecht (which N thinks would be a good location for a bookstore) Friday; we have been in Amsterdam since Saturday.

( Notes & links; CW: pet death )

It's been a week. Locally-bad stuff includes my ongoing eye trouble and the second anniversary of Colleen's death. And some new (probably)RSI related tingling in my left arm and hand. (I'd be more worried about that except that it showed up during an extended texting session with the friend (E" (I'm a lisp hacker -- nested parentheses don't bother me)) I mentioned reconnecting with last week.)

On the other hand, there was the aforementioned text conversation with E" (I'm also a mathematician, albeit a lapsed one -- double-primed constants don't bother me either), a nice walk with m, and (apropos parentheses) the Medley Interlisp Project is Reviving Interlisp, which I remember fondly from my days as a grad student interning (not related to the Lisp function INTERN) at Xerox PARC. And I learned a few things about recent changes to HTML (see Tuesday and the HTML Standard), including the <mark> element, and new meanings for <i> and <b>.

But on the gripping hand parts of the US, mainly in the South, are suffering from a massive heat wave and a persistant MAGA infestation, LGBTQ+ people are still at risk, and the planet is at least a century past the start of a new geological epoch (or something -- there is still some debate around what to call the Anthropocine). Stay safe out there! (There are a few resources in the links, scattered amongst the bad news items.)

To end on a lighter note, take a look at this amusing story, and the Quote of the Week, Month, and maybe Year, ""The Dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed"".

( Notes & links, as usual )

Not a great week. Between hearing aids still not fitting, and what appears to be an infected cornea that I initially took for an ordinary "something in my eye", I have not been comfortable. Not to mention the Supreme Court, dangerous weather, and other disasters. The eye infection is the most immediately worrying, especially since it's hard enough finding an opthalmologist on a weekend, let along a holiday weekend.

I did get some singing in yesterday, swapping songs with Cathy and Jason (the folks buying the house). And ran into emotional landmines all over the place. (The songs were Where the Heart Is, Windward, and Lock Keeper. Only minor problems with Bigger on the Inside and Lock Keeper.) I don't think I can blame the tears on my eye infection. I need to practice more.

There's plenty of bad news in the links, so to compensate... Ethernet is 50 years old. Squids can fly. Animals don't get product reviews, but if they did...

( Notes & links, as usual )

So apart from my phone threatening to blow up (expanding lithium battery!), dental work on short notice (see Sunday and Thursday), and ongoing experimentation with OTC hearing aids, I guess it mostly hasn't been a bad week. Started and ended well, anyway, with more than the usual (i.e. negligible) amount of filk (which I've been neglecting) Sunday and Friday.

I replaced my dying Pixel 3 phone with a Pixel 6, which I like petty well except for the flaky fingerprint sensor and excessive Google bloatware. It was fairly expensive and I didn't have time to do more than minimal research, but I was also able to get it in under 24 hours. Also under the tech heading, the Zeus phone/laptop charger that I backed on kickstarter arrived.

The dental work resulted in a bit of account juggling, but in the end that included setting up bill-paying from a couple of my investment accounts, which will be massively useful as long as I don't overdo it.

The Sunday's dose of filk was the last day of Festival of the Living Rooms on Sunday, which included Capplor singing The World Inside the Crystal with harp! (Also on their album, Eponymous). And on Friday Kaleidofolk (consisting of me, m, and N) had our first practice session in quite a while. (Our voice coach, m, had us doing all scales and warm-ups, because we're way out of practice).

After band practice, I drove up to the island with m and k so that they could go through stuff left from the move out of Rainbow's End, and bring down the air conditioner which is currently in my bedroom. I'm only up here part-time, so it will get a lot more use in Seattle.

( Notes & links, as usual )

I've been walking a little more regularly, practicing a little more regularly, and attempting to learn Dutch; these may have improved my mood a little. Hard to tell, because of my usual combination of dysthymia and alexithymia. Maybe combined with anxiety and quiet grieving. I should write a river post soon, shouldn't I?

Meanwhile things have been getting worse here in the US. The parallels with the rise of the Nazis in Germany are uncanny -- and deliberate. They, too, went after the queers first. "First they came for..." etc. See under the cut.

And here I sit at my desk in the last house that Colleen and I lived in together, grieving more things than I care to list right now and worrying about my trans son's safety. I am not okay.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Since I joined Mastodon the number of links in these posts seems to have increased considerably. (Should remember to whip up a script to count them.) Starting to wonder whether I should split these posts between links and not-links. Pretty sure it wouldn't be a good idea, though. Thoughts?

I don't think it was a bad week for me, particularly, but I can't think offhand of anything particularly good about it either. A little bit more fragile both emotionally (grief) and physically (back pain). Not a whole lot of good things going on in the world, either (SEE WARNINGS BELOW).

I had a hearing aid evaluation appointment Monday, and decided that it would be advisable for me to try OTC aids first. It would have cost $1500 just to get Colleen's readjusted for me, and since I don't really trust the batteries in one of them it wouldn't have been worth it. I looked into open source solutions and found a couple of projects, but none had hardware available. Tympan actually has hardware designed, but they're sold out. Of course.

Sunday and Monday there was a heat advisory for western Washington. There's an air conditioner in my bedroom on Whidbey, but it's too heavy for me to get into the car.

( Tuesday: tl;dr: dental work )

WARNING #1: If you have eyedrops made by, EzriCare, stop using them NOW, and get yourself checked ASAP if you have any symptoms of an eye infection. They are contaminated with a highly antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria.

WARNING #2: The NAACP, Florida Immigrant Coalition, and the trans rights group Equality Florida have all issued travel advisories warning travelers away from Florida. Here's Equality Florida's advisory and press release. Here's the NAACP advisory. Here's the Florida Immigrant Coalition's advisory.

( Notes & links, as usual )

On second thought, maybe it wasn't such a good week after all. Let's all hope this week is better.

Today is International Bereaved Mothers Day. If that label applies to you, you have all my sympathy. I know Colleen's thoughts would be with you, if she was here, and I wish we'd known about it earlier -- it was founded in 2010, and like International Widow's Day and National Widow's Day (which was Wednesday) doesn't get a lot of recognition.

I have started learning Dutch, via Mondly. (I was studying French with it a few years ago, but let it drop. We'll see how I do this time.) N, G, and I are vacationing in the Netherlands for a couple of weeks this summer.

This functional but totally useless Lego construction is a gearbox with a reduction ratio of approximately 10^100:1. It's a bit like the legendary (apocryphal, really) Towers of Hanoi, only with a much longer cycle.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Not a great week; as usual, nothing really bad happened to me (unless you count my phone losing its ability to charge wirelessly -- this is apparently a known problem), but despite a couple of wins the political situation for trans rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and abortion rights is still pretty dire. It's not helping my dysthymia at all. Or my anxiety.

From the Wikipedia article,

Dysthymia characteristics include an extended period of depressed mood combined with at least two other symptoms which may include insomnia or hypersomnia, fatigue or low energy, eating changes (more or less), low self-esteem, or feelings of hopelessness. Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions are treated as another possible symptom.

I fit all of those, unless you ignore my comfort eating because it isn't actually a change. N said Tuesday that she thinks I'm coping, and I suppose that's true up to a point. Doesn't mean I'm enjoying things.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Not a good week. Certainly not in US politics, at any rate, and not so good psychologically either. Also, It's Time for Foreigners to Leave Russia (see Wednesday). Following on the heels of siderea's suggestion last Wednesday to leave coathanger states if you're in one of the populations under attack. And these reminders that the "S" in "IoT" stands for "Security".

Completely apart from the obvious outrage fatigue impied by the above, I was hit Friday evening by a sudden wave of something that might have been depression, loneliness, low blood sugar, or some combination. This was after... let me back up a little. N and G left for a week in NYC Thursday evening, and the kids were picked up by their stepmom J Friday evening to spend their spring break with their other parents. Somehow it feels different from spending a weekend by myself on the Island, or isolating with my cats in the Lair. I'm okay now, but Friday evening was a bit rough.

Meanwhile I have five cats to take care of and to keep me company for the week, and I've started working on my taxes (which is going more smoothly than usual for once). Determining yesterday afternoon that I'm likely to get a refund for once certainly helped my mood, as did spending the evening with J, M, and the kids for Seder.

I might even get some singing and writing in this week.

Also, quote of the week, from RFC 9402: Concat Notation (this year's April 1 RFC, which proposes a standard notation for describing cats and containers):

A cat might find themselves in a container smaller than the perceived volume of the cat. While this might seem to be a dangerous situation, it's actually a natural occurrence when the cat is in its liquid form.

( Notes & links, as usual )