Yesterday mom called to deliver the final news on grandma. There will be not a funeral, a service, or a memorial, but a party at the end of next summer.

With the rest of the day, I submitted orders for soap, luffa sponges, and oatmeal and polenta. I cleaned the upstairs kitchen and did all the dishes. After lunch I put in the laundry, then we did the crossword and I hung the laundry out on the line. Snack, then I opened packages from last week, one from a wicca supply place and one from a tooling supply place.

The first had some ingredients for incense, including makko powder and mugwort. I ground some up with a couple frankincense tears (very sticky; I’ll try freezing it next time), added water, kneaded smooth, then rolled a long thin rope. My ultimate goal is to break it into little bits that burn completely in 1-3 minutes, which is the opposite of everyone asking advice on the internet. Mugwort is new to me, but I like it in its raw dried form. If it burns as beautifully, I should look into growing it.

The tooling package contained new tiny drill bits, this time with a constant-size shank so they’ll be easier to get straight in the chuck. Unfortunately they’re too large for the pin vise I have, and I wasn’t in the mood for the dremel, so I picked the basswood prototype pieces back up and trimmed the last one down to the line with a fresh razor blade. By then it was time for dinner, then P took in the laundry while I did dishes. Laundry fold, finished 1993 Tales of the City (wat), started Crashing but it’s so full of people not talking to each other I probably won’t finish it. Did some mending on Monster, snack, sleep.

!markdown

Yesterday was an early start so P could catch the 9:15 shuttle. At work we finally skipped over Z and just picked something to put in the public release. I tracked down G and it turned out they had run tests last week but just neglected to tell us the results. I located the government guidelines on accessible data visualizations for S, who was confused about why our stuff needs to play nice with screen readers. I set up a cron job for a correlations dashboard, bounced back a PR for doing something needlessly complicated in PHP, fixed the monthly F micro data roll-up, gave N a brief introduction to the unfinished validation package, met with our claims data partner, met with Engineering, and had a surly moment with R&R about what kind of support I need for setting and maintaining priorities in the face of constant requests for updates on low-priority tasks.

Dinner, crossword, sewing and Originals (finished the second pocket; hemming is next), snack, sleep.

Tuesday, I worked late, but had a good chat with my sister. We both seem to be okay with a relationship where there are times when we’re good for each other and times when we’re not, and we talked about strategies for identifying transition periods. Also the usual mutual brain dump of everything that’s happened in the meantime.

Finished Gideon the Ninth and started Harrow the Ninth. It is extremely unreliable narrator circus, which usually gives me hives. So far it’s redeeming itself by making the unreliable part a pbafpvbhf bepurfgengvba bs bar bs gur bgure punenpgref (/rot13), and the author is using second and third person to distinguish the different modes. CN for emesis and gore.

Yesterday the aggregations failed again so I more-permanently turned off validation. I did the laundry and P helped get it on the line. I ordered more drink mix from DripDrop; their flavors are good and it’s easy to dose for everyday use. We had a video call with P’s folks for D’s birthday, which was a bunch of fun. We lit candles and blew them out, and A&M’s new-ish dog co-starred; very cute. Lunch, then P and I rearranged furniture in the work room so now it’s possible to move around in there, plus there’s another flat surface for maybe starting some hand sewing projects. Took in the wash, threw in some sheets, then put a couple hours in on the White. The rheostat is not what I expected; there’s no carbon stack and I suspect it’s not even really a rheostat, just a fat resistor with three settings. Took apart most of the knee lever to be sure, and yeah — it’s just a SP4T rotary switch. So that settles it, definitely replacing the whole shebang with a triac+diac and a continuous pot. Next I have to figure out how to build the circuit correctly so nobody gets electrocuted, which will require some unfamiliar calculations. I need a book.

Hung the sheets out, then dinner, which was challenging. Early period (23 days is some bullshit) plus humidity was either the sum cause of or exacerbated whatever nausea, which did the normal thing of coming in waves until I had a panic attack, worst in a while. Crossword, then did not return to Lucifer but instead started watching Kipo, a kids show about post-apocalyptic earth with tons of mutant/large/talking creatures. A++, would recommend. P helped take in the sheets, then I played Two Dots until I’d exhausted the panic engine, then sleep. Dreamt of debugging fancy drinks machines and being unprepared for an orchestra rehearsal.

Yesterday I delivered aggregations, and wrote and tested a thing to generate the individual response data, which will work better once we have weights more recent than the 11th.

Lunch, crossword, laundry, then I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up cleaning the White. Next is oiling and reassembly, though I expect that will wait until the weekend.

Dinner, caught up with mom on the phone, DS9, snack, sleep. Dreamt of strikes and long bus trips and watching other people’s kids and golems and YA fantasy authors and long chases through winding staircases in a cathedral.

Yesterday the qualtrics data broke, which turned out to have been my fault; thankfully L was able to restore our data and get us back on track. I tried a new thing where I ghost out of the lab meeting early so I have time to properly get lunch before the standup with F, which worked, someone else stepped in and took over notes, and I had enough time to comfortably eat lunch. Had a panic attack, but had enough time. Laid down some law with F about protocols for changing the survey and what is required by IRB vs the DUA. Spent the rest of the afternoon working with LB to figure out the aggregation automation system and division of labor, working with L on a new copy of the survey to deploy with the changes intended for yesterday and getting that published, handling some changes to the survey for A and G, and then finally getting the aggregation system to run without errors for the first time since Monday. Very proud of that. Grandma called in the middle of a conference call, and left a very sweet message; I tried to call her back but she must’ve been busy. I’ve been working about 8:30-7+ this week and should probably get a better handle on my schedule.

Dinner, P had already handled most of the trash so it was just the dead veg in the fridge to go, crossword, sleep. Dreamt of pollarding apple and cherry trees, houseguests, nail polish, feathered dragons.

Yesterday for work I fixed the broken CUDA upgrade and also applied it to the next machine in line. A student asked about compute resources for an upcoming paper deadline, so I made sure she had access, in the process fixing some broken python configurations that were missing pip and virtualenv.

It was super warm out, so during a break in the rain I dug some raspberries out of the lawn and potted them up for F. Easier than I expected.

For the White I started in on the throat plate and bobbin access cover. They are both nickel-plated and need slightly more delicate handling. There’s some old tape adhesive on the throat plate that’s being stubborn but I’ll get it. I asked facebook about a part I’ve been looking for that would make it reasonable to cast my own knobs out of resin: a D-profile tube to use as a shaft insert. Turns out it is not remotely a standard part, which is a shame. In the process though I found a manufacturer for knob clips that perform the same/similar purpose, and while I was explaining the A/B problem dad offered to just turn me some knobs out of aluminum. I sent him a set of barebones specs and he sent me a pic last night — the results are gorgeous, and even fit the sortof mid-century transitional vibe of the machine. I’m blown away. Once they’re on the shafts I can mark the positions for the numbers and they’ll be better than when the machine was new.

After dinner we did the crossword, then I watched DS9, had a snack, and went to sleep. Dreamt of time travel, floating, shape-shifting, author meet and greets, pen names, middle school, and a fun computer program using midi melodies to draw pictures and teach math.

COVID-19 update: the first case in the CMU community has been confirmed, a student who came back from spring break. Thankfully I haven’t been on campus since the sixth, so no worries there, but basically the pandemic is proceeding as expected. P is exhausted from remote teaching all week, and may need to reconfigure expectations and requirements so that everyone including him will make it to the end of the semester without burning out.

Yesterday I was possessed by several small cleaning spirits, and tidied the dining room table, the papers stuck to the fridge, and the third floor bathroom. P walked to Pigeon for a bagel, we ate lunch together, did the crossword, then he came down with an illness-foreboding headache and spent much of the afternoon in bed. I folded laundry, then started sewing the long piped seam on one of the chair seats. Gideon the Ninth continues excellent and I want to spend more time with these characters. Called mom to catch up on the holidays. Dinner, Voyager, snack, sleep. Epic dreams that Olin was founded in collaboration with a colony of dwarves living in Parcel B, had fallen out with them over a period of decades, and it was up to a small party of us to restore the relationship.

Yesterday I made another batch of nut and seed bars, with a lower oven temperature and checking on them more obsessively, and they only caught a little at the edges. Acceptable. P and I went to Staples for envelopes and mailing labels, and also picked up a long-arm stapler I’ll be shipping back to Pittsburgh. After lunch I did all the folding and stapling and stuffing and labeling, and they were just a gram or two short of an ounce so I put two stamps on all the domestic ones in case of scale miscalibration (international first class is good up to two ounces). Walked them down to the post office and done. Very pleased. While we were out earlier we’d picked up a nice piece of cod for dinner, some pot pie and quiche for today and the freezer, and ingredients for casserole to split up and freeze. D’s been running ragged for ages and sometimes it’s nice to just dump something into the oven for dinner instead of trying to cook tired. In the afternoon I started hemming another handkerchief. Baked cod, sweet potatoes, and green beans 2 for dinner (green beans 1 were discarded for being slimy, boo), and I made a kindof weird saffron quinoa pin oat raisin porridge for me. After dinner P got the radio working and managed to pick up broadcasts from China and we think Romania. Snack, sleep. Dreamt, but they’ve already faded.

Yesterday I made a bunch of illustrations for the New Years zine, rearranged some stuff, and did up the back cover. Front cover, photocopying, and shipping is left. M and D went to Trader Joe’s to stock up on the soup G likes. After lunch P and I took M to the airport, with many hugs and pats to transmit to A and the dogs. On the way home we stopped at the inferior Whole Foods for nut/seed bar supplies. D made chicken cacciatore for dinner, and I polished off the K-compatible leftovers. In the evening D asked about nutritionists for G, so I talked through the wide variety I’ve seen over the years and encouraged her to ask their PCP the right questions to get a referral to a GI specialist as well. Snack and sleep. Dreamt of a horrid alternate CMU campus, with mangled voicemails from MLD staff, getting interminably lost, and unexpectedly walking into active meeting rooms, lecture halls, SCA court processions, orchestra pits, etc.

Yesterday we went on an adventure to a latino grocery, and found dozens of them on Park St. the first one we went into was unexpectedly small and dim and full of big dudes and it was clear we shouldn’t be in there. The next one we picked was huge and bright and full of the right kind of vegetables. We got maseca for tortillas, cabbage, bell peppers, cilantro, limes, chipotles in adobo, and beans. I thought about but did not ultimately go for nopales. Home, snack, then I had some alone time with a new book and more hemming. The book is completely constructed out of tropes, and not in an ironic way, and I do not want to spend any more time with the characters, and so I shan’t.

For dinner D roasted potatoes, carrots, and squash, M made tortillas, sockeye, salsa, crema, and guac, and I made cumin peppers and green beans, saffron rice, and refried beans. It was a spectacular spread. Ate too much but no ultimate regrets.

D had the idea and P executed it to put the wedge cushions from the couch in our bed so I can have a better sleeping angle. Worked great! Dreamt of various psychic powers, long slides, circus acts, diplomacy, and episodes out of order.