The Mandelbear's Musings

Today is the first of November, Samhain, and the Day of the Dead. The veils between the worlds are thinner now than most times, and it's a good time to honor the ones I have lost.

I don't have much to say, beyond thanking you for having been part of my life, however long or briefly that may have been. My daughter Amethyst Rose, stillborn in 1990; my mother-in-law Shirley Hentzell and my father Abraham Savitzky, who died less than two weeks apart in 1999; my mother Lynn Savitzky, who died in 2020 two months before her hundredth birthday; my dear wife Colleen, who left us in 2021.

And let's not forget our cats: Curio, who crossed the Rainbow Bridge a decade ago; and Desti, our pocket panther, who followed him in 2023.

I miss you all. I love you still.

I like to let the Thanksgiving gratitude post cover not only the previous week but the year since last Thanksgiving. Which is why I'm starting this on Tuesday. I am grateful for...

• having been diagnosed -- hopefully soon enough -- with one of the most treatable forms of cancer. NO thanks for my prostate gland and its immediate surroundings.
• (mostly) online support groups, particularly The Healing Center. Also other support websites, like Whats your Grief. (I'm not going to list them all, partly because I don't appear to have made a canonical list. Yet.) NO thanks for recently having to broaden this category beyond grief support. I'm glad those sites are there, it's just...
• rabbit holes, which appear to be my main coping mechanism right now. Particular thanks for the axiom of choice, group theory, Evolution, Wikipedia in general, Bandcamp, YouTube, ...
• my family. Or is that families? Kids R and E, sister N and brother-in-law G, niblings m, j, and c; and nearly-niblings(?) foster-niblings k, s", and g". (It's complicated.) (What's the opposite of family of choice, anyway? None of the alternatives I've seen, like "of origin" are anything more than adequate, and some are awful.) Additional thanks to Colleen for introducing me to the concept, and welcoming me into hers.
• Mom's cranberry relish.
• being financially able to afford health care and to help other family members. And pets -- vet bills have been astronomical recently.
• our cats. Cricket, Bronx, and Brooklyn in the house; Ticia in my Lair. Thanks too for Desti, who left us far too soon, earlier this year. Special thanks to Ticia, who has been my sleeping companion since Colleen died.
• the filk community.
• electric washing machines, dishwashers, and vehicles. Particular thanks for Molly.
• lithium-ion storage bateries and USB-C.
• Dreamwidth Studios (dreamwidth.org), my blog host, and dreamhost.com, my web host. (Not related, despite the similarly of names.)
• free-to-use artwork (both public domain and CC-licensed). Particular thanks to Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and pexels.com.
• open-source software, including Linux, Git, Make, Bash, Emacs, Audacity, WordPress, and Xmonad; also the computers I run it on, mainly my laptop, a Lenovo X230 called Sable. Additional thanks for the "spare" laptops, and Git's ability to synchronize them.

I don't think I've ever used "awestruck" in my Mood field before. But the James Webb Space Telescope's first images are worth it.

Here's the (recorded) livestream where they released the first images and spectra.

Additional links: Webb Telescope: First Science Images Packet | Science Mission Directorate and Webb's First Images & Data | Flickr

Finally, a personal note: this was an unexpectedly intense emotional experience for me. My father was one of the pioneers of infra-red spectroscopy, and Mom worked on the Hubble (they both worked at Perkin-Elmer, where the Hubble's mirror was made). The software that finds the spectral lines is (most likely) based on the Savitzky–Golay filter. When they put up the spectrum of WASP-96B I was close to tears.

It's been a week. I bought a Molift Smart 150 Patient Lift (via craigslist), and a portable air conditioner (off Amazon, selected purely on the basis of delivery date). N and her kids were here Sunday evening through Thursday evening, and we spent much of Wednesday going through artwork, and got in a little band practice Thursday afternoon.

We have accumulated a lot of artwork. Mostly at science fiction conventions, but not entirely: there are things that Colleen and I have inherited from our parents and grandparents -- my parents were serious collectors of Inuit art (most of which I let go to my brother because I'm out of wall space). A lot of nostalgia there.

We are, of course, in the middle of a heat wave. Welcome to the Anthropocene. Tomorrow is predicted to hit 97, which is still about 10 degrees less than what's predicted for Seattle. I'm glad we're not living in San Jose anymore. (Did I mention that on Thursday? No, apparently not.)

Hot-weather tip: soak a dish towel in water, wring it out to where it isn't dripping, and hang it in the freezer. Take it out an hour later and wear it like a scarf.

( Notes & links, as usual [CW: medical TMI] )

My mother was an excellent cook. I have no idea where she found her recipe for cranberry relish, but today is the day to make it if you wanted it to be at its best on Thanksgiving. So I did. It's trivial.

Ingredients: one apple, one orange, one pound of cranberries. Cut the apple into quarters and cut the core out. Cut the orange in half, scrape out the seeds, then cut each half into between two and four pieces; whatever will fit in the chute of your food processor. Don't peel either of them. It might help if the berries had been previously frozen -- we had some that were left over from last year.

Chop them all up in the food processor or, better, run them through a meat grinder with a coarse plate, which is the way Mom did it. I find that with a food processor it helps to put the cranberries in first.

That's it. It's okay the day you make it, but it's better after a couple of days in the fridge. Taste it the next day to see whether it needs sugar; it usually doesn't.

NaBloPoMo stats:
  10372 words in 25 posts this month (average 414/post)
    191 words in 1 post today
      1 day with no posts

N and the three teenagers arrived late afternoon; G followed after work -- I met him when the 5:40 ferry arrived. (That's the ferry that leaves at 5:40; I occasionally get confused and get to the dock by then. Would have done that tonight except that N gave me a sanity check. Useful, because my sanity account is somewhat overdrawn.)

It's good to have everyone here. Even without my kids -- the YD will be having her own Thanksgiving feast tomorrow -- it's a good showing. It did get a little loud between multiple conversations and music on the CD player. I occasionally retreated to The Ultimate Rain Sound Generator, with the "speech blocker" setting and my personal calibration applied.

The home-made donuts (made by the two oldest teens) were spectacular, so of course I had too many of them. I'll probably eat too much tomorrow, too.

I initially had trouble figuring out what to write about today; this is a lot like the frequent day-to-day posts I was writing before I started making the "done last week" summary posts. Anyone miss them?

Anyway, it's pretty close to bed-time. The problem with these stream-of-consciousness posts is that you actually have to be conscious while you're making them.

NaBloPoMo stats:
  14212 words in 27 posts this month (average 526/post)
    236 words in 1 post today

Not a good week, on the whole. Some high points, to be sure, but a week that covers an unexpected flashback and my wife going into the hospital (again) (and finding out about new problems) has to be pretty low on the goodness scale.

Well, let's have the good parts first. I published two posts: Writing Without Distractions (a curmudgeon post) and my second Understanding Ursine post; both appear to have collected some comments. (Not very many, but I'll take what I can get.) And I went to j's Bar Mitzvah yesterday, which went very well and included some good conversations with relatives I don't get to see very often.

But, as indicated, C is in the hospital again (Swedish Hospital in Edmonds in case you want to visit). She had a urology appointment on Wednesday; the doctor suggested going down to UW (where she's scheduled for a surgery consultation on March 19th, rescheduled from one of the days we were snowed in) as a way of maybe moving thing along faster. That didn't work, in part because they were out of beds. But it's a good thing we went, and a good thing she hadn't taken her BP meds that morning. She'd seemed weaker than usual over the last month (?), and we were getting worried. Turns out there were Reasons. ( Cut for medical TMI )

I think I'll cover the flashback in a separate post, if at all. The really interesting part was that I recognized what was going on while it was happening. (Whether an adrenaline spike triggered by a memory counts as a "real" flashback may depend on which definition you look up.)

( Notes & links, as usual )

So, once again I find myself approaching the end of a day without a post, so I'll give you an update on Colleen. When she got to her appointment with the nephrologist Monday, they took one look at her lab results and told her to go the hospital, stat. Apparently her kidney function was way down. (It has improved somewhat since then, but it's still rather scary.)

It feels like a lot longer that two days. I'm worn out. Some changes in her medication this evening should help with her level of comfort. (I'm going to skip the details, since I'm too frazzled to put in a cut tag just now. She's fired her urologist, which is expected to be an improvement.

I called the kids and my Mom a little while ago. Should call Mom before I leave for home. I've been keeping N in the loop via Slack.

Today I am grateful for

• My family, the whole crazy lot of us,
• A chance to sing with N and m -- adding m to the group makes a huge difference.
• New (for us) songs to work on -- "Ripple" and "Mother I Climbed".
• Taking back the House -- not enough, but a start.
• Scheduled interviews (for jobs I seriously doubt whether I can do, but my judgement is notoriously poor in that direction).
• The World Wide Web.

NaBloPoMo stats:
   4322 words in 9 posts this month (average 480/post)
    109 words in 1 post today

I'm not sure how I managed it, but I seem to have coped with this week noticably better than the week before. Whatever it is, I'd like some more, please.

High point of the week was last night's concert, the release party for Betsy Tinney's Wyverns in the Winery. Cello awesomeness. Guest sets by the Bohnhoffs, Vixy and Tony, and Betsy's new group, Menage a Trio.

High point for spending was Friday, when we paid for Colleen's new hearing aids. Ferociously expensive, but they make a huge difference for her. I also had my hearing tested; my cutoff has shifted down from about 6KHz to somewhere between 4 and 5, so I'm losing some consonants on the high end, but I'm getting by. Will get re-tested next year and see whether they'd be worthwhile for me.

I imagine there was more, but my brain appears to have turned to mush. G'night.

( Notes & links, as usual )

It's been a busy week here at Rainbow's End -- last weekend was g's Bat Mitzava and the associated parties; this weekend my Mom is visiting, and we had a few of the local cousins visiting yesterday. In preparation for last week's parties, we had the Great Room almost completely cleared out.

That, of course, made things interesting for this week's party, especially since many of our folding chairs are also in the pod. But between the purple sofabed, my desk chair, what was once Colleen's sewing chair, N's old recliner, and a couple of clunky metal folding chairs that had been languishing on the porch, we managed. We used three of our folding tray tables as a makeshift buffet for cheese and crackers, the blue coffee cups as wineglasses, and had a great afternoon and evening of food and conversation. Never found an opening for music, but...

We are trying, so far without success, to find an apartment for Colleen and I to move into for the next couple of months. Furnished apartments rented month-to-month are mainly for corporate clients, which can afford to pay hotel-room prices: 3-4K/month is typical. There's one place for about 1600, but the rooms are small, the "kitchen" is a tiny microwave, and they don't allow pets. We could manage unfurnished, though it would mean hauling our beds and Colleen's chair.

I was on call this week at work; I found someone to swap with for the weekend, so I'm off the hook until some weekend in May. $PROJECT officially launches (dialed up to 1%) on Monday, which is my actual birthday. So there's that.

I'm not in the best shape physically -- anything that requires me to bend over, like cleaning the floor or changing the bed, is likely to be very bad for my back. Bringing in the desk chair from the Great Room, however, is definitely helping. At least half my problems were caused by trying to use a computer from a folding chair. It also helps that the desk chair lets me use my heating pad.

I'm almost certainly not in terribly good shape emotionally (modulo alexithymia, of course). Leaving the house is hard. Well, grief counseling is one of the Middle-Sized Bear's job functions. I should probably re-read "Mark Elf" to remind myself of that.

( Notes & links, as usual )

So. Trumped.

I suppose I'll get through the next four years somehow. But the possibilities range from disagreeable to agonizing to desperate. N tells me I'm stronger than I think. I hope she's right.

What the hell can I say? The Joy of Tech comic... National curl up in a Ball Day kind of says most of it. I'm still not uncurled.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

( Notes & links, as usual )

The week started with my 69^th birthday, continued on through Pi Day and Colleen's birthday, and ended with dinner in Port Townsend celebrating Emmy's birthday a week early (to keep from being out of town for caucus day).

It was also a busy and productive week at work. Finally. Winding up in a corner with a window in front of me after the move seems to have helped; there is also more space in the new layout, and fewer TPMs, both of which reduce the cross-talk. I started working on my taxes, which probably won't be quite as bad as last year.

Pretty good week, considering.

Considering that I'm well over half a million in debt, in a house that is just what we want but which we won't be able to afford if I lose my job, which seems likely because I'm neither enjoying it much nor performing as well as I need to. I'm depressed and anxious, both with good reasons.

Looking back over years and decades of horribly bad decisions, and wondering whether there's any way out of the hole I've dug for myself. Probably not.

Well, it's another year. There always seems to be a lot of potential around transitions like this, but it rarely seems to get very far. A lot of my goals for this year are carry-overs from last year. I've been spending too much time beating myself up over things I regret not doing last year (last decade, last quarter-century, ...), many of which simply can't be fixed. I keep screwing myself over, and I don't really understand it. (More on that in a later post, hopefully.)

This does nothing to help with my depression. It may, conceivably, help me fight procrastination. Maybe. I'll start working on that tomorrow.

I have gotten a few more things done in the last 10 days than in most comparable periods in the recent past. A few. Largely reading and research around tiny houses and shipping container houses, and a couple of fun dives into math.

Last weekend Colleen and I celebrated our 40^th anniversary by going out twice: for dinner at the Melting Pot Saturday, and brunch at Salty's on Sunday (the actual day). That, at least, was good. It was a good set of mutual gifts to ourselves -- the last thing we need right now is more stuff.

Speaking of which, my book on tidying seems to have gotten lost somewhere in the clutter. Fortunately, I found a different one yesterday at Half Price Books.

Lots of links in the notes, for those of you following along at home.

Here are last year's goals (I'm too irresolute for resolutions). Let's see how I did.

1. Music. I'm going to lump recording, songwriting, and making music together, not so much because they're all aspects of the same thing as to give me a goal that I'm more likely to meet parts of. Mostly fail -- I didn't write or sing nearly as much as I wanted to, and didn't record anything at all. But I did write two songs: Windward (in January) and Ninety-Five Years (in December). And I gave a couple of good performances, but stupidly didn't record them.
2. Writing. I'd settle for one post a week that isn't one of the two scheduled ones, though I'd like to do more. Almost complete failure on this one.
3. Exercise. Keeping up the walking on weekdays is kind of a minimum; I'd like to walk a little on weekends, and maybe even get my bike back in working order. Between injuries and laziness, even my weekday walking declined. Mostly fail.
4. Food. As a minimum, get back to serving salad with dinner on most of the days that I cook. Fail.
5. Software. Get the household intranet back into shape. Finish revising my music-publishing toolchain. Set up a blogging toolchain. Bring my websites into the 21st Century, maybe. Write that HTML5-based lyrics app that I've been thinking about. OK, that's at least five sub-goals; six if you figure that the app and maybe the websites will require getting profficient in Javascript. I'll give myself 45% on this one: the household's network is back, including internal DNS. The music-publishing toolchain works pretty well, and it's part of a complete make-based toolchain that's been revamped from top to bottom. I did a fair amount of research into HTML5 and CSS, but didn't actually get anything deployed.
6. Organization. Do more of my 15min items, get my taxes filed on time, and hack my way through the piles of envelopes on my desk and the piles of boxes in the garage. Stick to my damned budget, now that I have one. Hmm. I think I met this one. The garage clean-up was a side-effect of turning 3/4 of it into a second master suite. Taxes got done, my budget was stuck to, and I ended the year no more in debt than I started it. The piles of mail are pretty-much gone -- as of yesterday. Did I mention that I procrastinate? Might have to make that a goal for next year.
7. Health. This is a stretch goal, but I need to do something about my depression. Or whatever it is. Find help. This was another win. After a harrowing six months or so, I finally got help in the form of regular sessions with a therapist, got my depression more or less under control (thanks to the above plus Good Drugs), and I lost on the order of 15 pounds. (On the other hand, the initial weight loss was a side effect of the severe anxiety over the effect my depression and procrastination were having on my work.)

It's been a harrowing year. Between injuries, some of which could have been fatal (I'm including the rest of the household here, but my nose-dive into a sidewalk definitely counts); months of depression that, in retrospect, could also have been fatal; the death of a beloved pet; and five figures worth of repairs to Rainbow's End -- well, let's just say that I won't be sorry it's over.

What got us through it was the love and mutual support we have for one another, scary amounts of money, and a great deal of help. But we got through it. We got through as a family. There were times when I honestly didn't expect to. But here we are, at the end of another year.

The big event this week was Mom's 95^th birthday party (her actual birthday isn't until the 28^th). About a year ago, when it was still in the planning stage, she'd asked me to write a song for her. Needless to say, I was blocked. A few weeks ago, all I had were a couple of lines and a vague sketch for the rhyme scheme. I got on the plane Thursday with those two lines on a piece of paper. And no pen.

It actually went more smoothly on the netbook. By the time I got to Mom's I had two verses and the start of a bridge, minus a couple of lines. By Friday night I'd taken out the lines I was stuck on (having decided that trying to rhyme three lines in each vers simply wasn't working), finished the bridge, and added a repeat of the first verse.

The song, Ninety-Five Years, came off surprisingly well.

The plane trip was hard on my back; a hot bath and naproxen helped. (But I had neglected to refill my naproxen bottle, so I'm going to have to get through today and tomorrow on nothing but hot showers and stretches. Ouch.)

I've been having fun catching up with relatives (including several cousins once removed that I didn't even know about), and did a fair amount of singing last night after dinner.

Aside from that, it was a fairly productive week at work (what little there was of it), and I had a good night out with Colleen last Sunday).

Mixed. Very mixed. Mostly bad.

The good stuff first, I think: we managed to recapture the cats when they escaped on Tuesday, and I had a couple of fairly productive days at work. Maybe that should be "at", since several of them involved working from home. And, of course, the recent Supreme Court decisions. My feeds are still full of rainbows.

OTOH, it will take about $5K to get gas turned on for the house, unless we can figure out a way to install a furnace. Which will cost even more, though it will be more efficient our current electric heating, and save money in the long run. And the really bad news: G was in an accident. Not nearly as bad as it could have been -- just a badly broken left arm (humerus), and a hairline fracture of the left fibula near the ankle. The fact that it's hairline means that he will be able to walk on it as soon as he can tolerate the pain. The fact that the broken arm is on the same side means that he can't use crutches.

OTGH, I'm on a new antidepressant (bupropion, which I've heard good things about), and should know in a week or two whether it's helping. Meanwhile, I'm stressed, still very anxious about work, and altogether not all together.

A LOT to be thankful for, but still not a very good week for the family.

Productive week. Very. Also a very bad week. Let me explain.

On the productive side, we -- mostly I, actually -- did some final clearing-out and organizing in the garage, and Kat and Glenn got their piles of stuff out. The maypole's cross-section went from a square with rounded corners to an actual circle, and it looks remarkably Polish now. Colleen got her catheter and bag, so we have a greatly-reduced laundry and garbage load. A lot of the framing in the addition has been done, and the garage portion is a couple of feet bigger than I expected it to be. It was also a pretty productive week at work.

On the bad side, I got into a fender-bender -- my own stupid fault -- so we don't have the Honda right now. And I could have used it yesterday. And Colleen's new prosthetic bladder means that she can't take baths. Which means no walk-in tub. And a screw vibrated loose on the router, which could have been drasticaly bad but wasn't. And my back was hurting for much of the week.

On the in side (where every silver lining has a cloud around it), not getting a walk-in tub means saving tens of thousands on the upstairs remodeling. And it's practically impossible to be depressed while wielding a jointer plane. Found that out last night.

Links in the notes as usual.

Strange week. The first half, at least, was terrific -- I was in New Orleans for a symposium at Pittcon | Conference & Expo. The symposium itself, sponsored by my mother in honor of my father, was Monday morning. Since everyone else arrived Sunday evening and I got in late Saturday, I had all day Sunday to myself to explore the French Quarter. Which I did.

I ended up walking six or so miles, which was surprisingly easy. Of course, it was all completely flat, but still. Spent about $50 buying CDs from street bands. I hadn't brought a guitar, and didn't need it -- didn't do any singing at all. Lots of good conversation, though. People I haven't seen in a decade and a half.

The symposium, Chemical Heritage Foundation - New Perspectives on the History of Infrared Instrumentation, was Monday morning. The high point was Foil Miller's talk: Anecdotes Involving Some Infrared Pioneers. At 99, he's "old enough to have known many of the pioneers of infrared spectroscopy personally", as it says in the abstract. It was followed by a luncheon at the Bourbon House. New Orleans is mostly about the food and the music.

Friday was my birthday. I turned 44 (hexadecimal), a number which contains two "1" bits, so I suggested that my cake have two candles on it. Saturday was, as everybody reading this probably knows, "The Pi Day of the Century"; I managed to get posts out at 9:26 on DW/LJ, Twitter, and Facebook.

The work week was short, frustrating, and unproductive even for a short week. The team I'm on loan to wants me to do my work in a new framework, which was only explained to me last week, and isn't even fully implemented yet, let alone documented. :P

I've been wondering why I always have so much pain when I get home from work, but not from walking all day in New Orleans. I'm beginning to think it's stress. Bletch.

And of course Terry Pratchett died. He was two years younger than me.

Links in the notes, as usual.

The main news this week is that my Mom had open-heart surgery Tuesday morning. They replaced her mitral valve, and repaired another (which wasn't in the original plan, so it went longer than expected). She was in really bad shape when my brother drove her to the hospital in the morning, and there was some debate as to whether they should do the surgery. She's 93.

We needn't have worried. They had her up and walking the next day; she called me on Wednesday sounding like her old self, and she's bouncing back much faster than her doctors expected. I'm not surprised; Mom's amazing, and she keeps on proving it.

The moon landing was 45 years ago last Sunday. Sad -- we were all sure there would be lunar colonies by now. Not to mention flying cars, robots, artifical intelligence, and free single-payer health care for everyone in the US.

Lots of good links in the notes.

Not a lot going on. I've been mildly depressed, so basically not wanting to do anything but sleep, eat, work, and read. You will observe that making phone calls, paying bills, and getting ready to do my taxes are not on that list, which adds anxiety to the depression.

All is not entirely bleak -- I did get the mac mini fired up so I can run the tax software on it, and I got a few boxes emptied in the garage. And Colleen and I went out to lunch (Mexican) on Wednesday on the way back from the dentist, and to dinner last night (Salty's, a seafood place on Alki Beach that we'd been wanting to try). Salty's was pricey, but good, and they had oysters.

On the gripping hand, I managed to destroy another of our non-stick pans, by leaving the burner on after serving myself. Unlike a gas stove, where leaving the burner on is immediately obvious, it isn't on this one. So that sucks.

Our van got a "move it or else" ticket Friday, so most of yesterday afternoon was spent jump-starting it, driving over to the dealer in Issaquah, and taking the bus home. Our usual dealer, in Lake City, doesn't have a service department that's open Saturdays. So... Anyway, I'm not going to count that as either a positive or a negative -- it was a hassle, and it's going to come out somewhere north of a grand to do all the work, but it needed doing.

The usual collection of links.

Last week we celebrated our first Christmas in Rainbow's End -- Colleen, me, and both of our kids; Naomi, Glenn, and her kids. The pile of presents under the tree was impressive. We never did find the ornaments, lights, and stockings from the apartment -- they must be there someplace. In a box.

Afterwards a succession of friends and relatives came by. Fun, and cozy. I set up the old TV in the Great Room (where the fireplace used to be), and put on a fireplace video (from YouTube, of course). Eventually we'll move the screen up to the master bedroom. The new one is a 38" Westinghouse that Office Max had on sale for an improbably low price the week before last.

It was also my first paid Christmas in Seattle -- I started work as a full-time employee at Amazon on Monday. This meant a week's worth of breaking in a new laptop (easy, since I don't use Windows for much of anything) and desktop (hard, because persuading Ubuntu to play nice with a guest VM turns out to be non-trivial, especially if, like me, you prefer focus-follows-mouse and raise-on-focus.

I also made reservations at The Herbfarm. And, last night, reservations at the Willows Lodge next door, since I finally figured out that I'd be in no shape to drive home after a 9-course dinner with wine. Pricey, but it looks wonderful. It's still cheaper than a weekend at a con, with hotel and meals. Which is kind of scary. Hmm.

We finished off the week with last night's concert at Wayward Coffeehouse -- Sunnie Larsen, Betsy Tinney, and Kaide Tinney. Fun! We went to the Indian restaurant next door for dinner.

... and some lovely cat cuddles with Curio when I was awake at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep. I am so pwned.

Links in the notes, as usual.

Hmm. Is tonight's major psychological breakthrough the fact that I'm feeling contented, or the fact that I actually noticed it?

My major news for the week is definitely that I had an interview for going full time at Amazon. And scheduled an interview and a phone screen for tomorrow. One way or another, I expect to spend the next few years as a full-time employee. Somewhere.

My major news. THE major news is Nelson Mandela's death. Sadness.

Links in the notes, as usual.

High point of the week: Colleen managed a car transfer in her PT appointment on Tuesday, so we scheduled a drive for Saturday. It was lovely. We spent nearly two hours in the Honda, driving around West Seattle, with me pointing out the sights. First long drive together in ages. Half a year at least.

Also yesterday morning, I was awakened by the doorbell. When I come to the door at some insane hour of the morning and see a woman holding a book, the first thing I think of is not long-lost relative. But it was, in fact, my cousin Susan, who lives here in Seattle. Her father, Dad's brother Kenneth, is visiting for Thanksgiving; he came later with her husband Dan. So... yay!

We exchanged phone numbers, so she can call ahead next time. We'll definitely have to get together a couple more times this week while Uncle Ken is still here.

I was a Useful Bear last weekend; I finally got around to installing new showerheads, and the adjustable shower-cum-grab-bar that's been sitting around since April or so. It was taking forever to drill through the tile in the shower stall, so I went down to Home Despot Sunday morning and picked up a Ryobi hammer drill and some new bits. Never did get around to trying the hammer feature (which works best on concrete and brick -- I'll be needing that this weekend), but tile/glass bits and a lower speed setting made all the difference.

I need to walk more. I did manage a couple of walks over the course of the week, and my walking speed seems to be up a little (probably thanks to the daily trek to and from the bus stop), but it really isn't enough. My weight has also gone up, in spite of being back on BP meds. Grumph.

I have set the wheels in motion for an interview loop at Amazon; I'm hoping to interview at a couple of other places as well, though that's by no means certain.

Links, as usual, in the notes.

So I came out (last) Friday morning to discover that the van's driver-side side mirror was missing -- apparently somebody had driven by and scraped it off. Growf. Came out this morning to find the battery dead, but that's another blog post.

In spite of that, I discovered that my mood was unexpectedly good on Friday. No idea why. It apparently lasted for a couple of days. I also seem to be bouncing back pretty quickly from back stress; that's a good thing, too.

Saturday we had Rainbow's End's first official party, organized by Emmy. Went very well, though we could have used more people. Fun! Our chili went over pretty well, but I'm thinking that maybe we should do Stone Soup next time.

We decided to drop Orycon this year -- Colleen simply isn't ready for travel.

I started using my phone's exercise app again (CardioTrainer). I *really* need to lose weight. So far it's not working.

... and the big news -- we got the "final" version of Naomi's website (delivered on CDROM -- how 20th Century!), and I put it up: Welcome to Rainbow's End Massage. It needed a few tweaks (and still does), and I had to email her designer to get the (Adobe Illustrator) source for the images. It still doesn't show up on Google (though the designer's test site does :P); I'm hoping that a couple of blog links will help in that regard.

Links in the notes, as usual.