infryq

Yesterday we went to the military salute for grandad at Tahoma National
Cemetery. ( Read more... )

Exhausting day. I was good about taking moments alone to recombobulate and
recharge. Just being with people seems to be important.

Yesterday I found the artwork I want to show at the memorial reception, and
wrapped it for shipping. I went in early for a meeting with T, who is
pleased with my progress and wants to explore options for making the
semantic parser more robust next. I called the salon to see if I could get
in a haircut before we leave for Seattle, and scored one for end of day. I
did a pile of errands in the UC, sending off the art and also depositing a
check that’s been languishing for a while and also getting lunch at the
build-a-pasta place and a beverage at entropy. I spent the rest of the
afternoon releasing an old NELL dataset to the website, sending an email
blast about impending downtime to wipe and upgrade the cpu servers, and
starting a writeup of the issues I’m having with mod_wsgi in python 3 with
Django 1.11.

I bussed to sqhill, got an excellent haircut and caught up with my stylist
(she’s getting married! happy for them). Walked home, decompressed with P,
then dinner, internet and sleep. The formal academic drama with P’s student
is done for the moment, which is good; now he can focus better on the fun
part seeing his class present their excellent work to the client.

Yesterday I finished turning the last few sachets, then ironed a pile of
napkins and kitchen towels. Figured out the darning function on my sewing
machine and darned a few holes in otherwise-good towels. Finished Chalion,
which got a little too intensely rapturous but recovered satisfactorily. It
reminds me of a slightly more precariously-handled version of Brust’s
deities.

At work I checked in with S about the mice, who pointed me to building@ and
then promptly found a nest in a paper stash. So that’s escalating.

I worked through some more unit tests and made some more commits. Took a
snack break in the winter garden, which was extremely pleasant. I’ll be
taking snack breaks away from my desk for the next few weeks, until I
believe in the cleanliness of the soft surfaces on my keyboard rest and
mouse pad.

Home, and did the crossword with P before he went off to class. Dinner,
called my grandmother, watched some Flash while putting a few more petals
on Gerty’s embroidery project. P got home, then I had a snack and went to
bed. Trouble getting to sleep. Snack sat weird.

Yesterday I had P measure how much elastic he’d need for the waistband,
then I prototyped sewing a short length of elastic to a spare scrap to
figure out how much draw-in would be lost to the stitching (5%), and
adjusted the waist elastic length accordingly. I sewed the elastic to the
pants, and started tacking down the foldover bit. Had to restart that after
I got it crooked the first time, but I think I’ve figured out my method now.

Mom called with an update on how everyone is doing. Grandma is not great.
The timing of his death versus an unusually infirm and unusually busy week
of hers is a difficult thing. Aunt S is not great. She was the first family
member to arrive. Mom is okay so long as she doesn’t focus on it too
intensely. Dad is okay. Grandpa will be cremated, with a memorial reception
sometime in May.

We went to the Braddock library for their 120th birthday celebration/open
house to be demonstrators in the pottery studio. P was a bit overwhelmed by
teaching mode to start, but got into it with practice and really connected
with several groups of people of all ages. I was mostly a silent visual
demo, though I did steal P’s patter for one couple while he was taking a
break and exploring the old pool upstairs. Over two hours I made two medium
flower pots, one tiny flower pot (more probably for a succulent), a small
bowl, a medium-large bowl, and a bud vase. I’d wound up with the wheel with
permanently affixed bat pins, so I threw on a bat for the first time.
Centering was a beast. Next time I’ll be sure to throw a full-width bat pad
first. I was nevertheless able to compensate by throwing off the hump;
pretty proud of that.

Civil finally has Miles doing was would have worked if he’d tried it in the
first place; just being the reasonably good person that he is, in her
general vicinity. Why he’s so reluctant to talk to Cordelia about this
stuff, or even just the professora, is beyond me. I mean, misogyny. Sure,
fine.

The grow light for the seedlings and/or the timer has pooped out, so we did
some research on switching to LEDs. P drilled down further and found a
winner which will support the adult plants we keep through the winter as
well as not polluting the audio space with fan noise, nor burning the house
down, nor making P’s mornings disturbingly purple (he sits next to them for
coffee time).

The direct flight to Seattle on Alaska is perfect, but the flight home is
too early for Katies. The alternatives all route through ORD, which is
suboptimal. We’ll probably need a mixed-airline solution.

Dinner, crossword, supper, Flash.

Yesterday I finished the side seam, went in early for a therapy
appointment, had lunch from the miscellaneous pasta place in the CUC, wrote
a python script to turn my templates into sentences, and had a big meeting
with boss and the whole LIA crew where F detailed a new differentiable
prolog system. Home, P was at the garden so I ate with Money, then did the
fridge trash. Once he got home, finished the trash, then sat with him while
he ate. Crossword, sleep.

Civil continues to develop how gross all the men are. I hope Ekaterin kicks
all of them to the curb and runs off to found a wildly successful landscaping design business and keep as many cats as she likes.

Also, my sister txted me to ask that I take her lj off my access list here. Not sure why, but while it’s not a happy signal, I am always a fan of people setting the boundaries they need. A package arrived for me with my dad’s name on the printed return address crossed out and hers written in. P opened it so I could get my anxiety to chill out, and it contained stuff from the estate sale probably? Benign, anyway.

Yesterday I overslept a bit, so only did a tiny amount of additional
ironing.

It was a phone day. I tried to reschedule my physical Wednesday a bunch of
times but couldn’t get through. At lunch mom called to kill some time and
check in while they were in Portland picking up a trailer base.

At work I fixed a stuck process for a student, put in a few OS upgrade
requests I’d forgotten about from fall, made substantial progress on
PyTheo, and wrote up most of the exercises for R. At the lab meeting Z gave
a talk on neural text generation techniques, which was fascinating.

Over dinner I watched a captivating vlog on shopping for fabric in NYC’s
garment district. Two episodes of Heart; I stayed up until P got home from
class. Wasn’t sleepy.

Yesterday I underlined the navy waistband, sewed the fan pleats, and sewed
the pocket linings to the side fronts. Nearly ready to start the
complicated bits.

Chatted with M while I made lunch; he was interested in what my lessons
with R were like and seemed fascinated by both the concept of programming
being turtles all the way down (with a side of horrified) and the idea that
private lessons in cs is a thing (tbh I find it completely delightful as
well). M was in the midst of negotiations for a new medical illustration
collaboration project which he was somewhat nervous about for interpersonal
reasons, but they hammered out all the details later in the day and he’s
now pretty excited about it.

Work was good; fixed the colors to make it more obvious when you’re in
speak mode, and started adding a thing so you can make the response reader
shut up if you get the picture and want to move on. Learned about Material
Design and why everyone uses AppCompat instead 🙃.

P, M, and A went to Apteka for dinner, and I stayed home with the
snugglepup and watched more Lucifer. It was pretty excellent. Pup explored
a variety of cozy poses, and I got the debrief when folks came home —
Apteka is a vegan Eastern European tapas place, and while excellent, a lot
of the components are premade and everything contains garlic
non-negotiably. Alas.

Talked about books with A, then went to bed.

Yesterday was Christmas! P opened his hilariously large gift from me, an
epic bathrobe. So warm, so fluffy, very enjoyed. Also a book on
pottery-as-cookware.

I trued the ends of the canvas I bought for hem stiffening and washed it
along with the white voile that didn’t get washed last time around. I laid
out the center front and side front panels on the wool flannel, and
attempted to pleat the remaining fabric onto the side back pattern piece,
but it turned into a huge geometry pain in the ass. I opted to make a
proper pattern piece including pleats instead, and spent the rest of the
afternoon learning that fan pleats are legit trickier than standard
parallel pleats. I have a two-pleat version that looks alright, but I’d
like to try a three-pleat version for the same length and flare of fabric.
I think I’m going to have to do it with math instead of origami.

There was an extremely spherical rabbit hanging out in the front yard most
of the morning. 😍

I made a Persian lentil rice dish for dinner that turned out fluffy and
separate — the opposite of mujadara but similarly delicious. I bailed on
the potato tahdig for solanine reasons, and the rice version was
unpleasantly hard; crunchy but not crisp. Lessons for next time.

P made a loaf of part-whole wheat bread, and pizza.

P found a rogue gift for me that turned out to be a really lovely book on
Islamic geometric design, with a focus on compass-and-straightedge
construction. Very absorbing!

T was super enthused about the Snarky Puppy — apparently he already knew
about them but didn’t have this particular album yet, and is seeing them
live next spring. Success!

Yesterday I went for a walk in the morning and found a neat Japanese deli
with all kinds of good ingredients, including mugwort daifuku. I was
confused about the mugwort and consulted my sister, who looked it up. It’s
a digestive used to treat ulcers and stimulate menstruation. Cool!

I met up with P at Whole Foods and we got the chicken and walnuts for the
fesenjan. After lunch we started cooking. Last time it took three and a
half hours to make the polow, and while this time I had chopping help, with
the addition of caramelized eggplant it still took three and a half hours
to make. P was worried the chicken would be done too early, but it turned
out he had to redo a couple of steps due to reading comprehension, and the
timing worked out perfectly. Everything was enjoyed by all, and I even had
a sip of wine. Modifications from last time: 1 2/3 cup of rice, 4 large
carrots, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 eggplant, 2 teaspoons cumin, 2 large
potatoes. Toasted the rose petals before grinding them. Fried one side of
the potatoes first and flipped them before layering in the rice, and used a
huge flat sauté pan. Still made way too much; we probably ate a third of it
even though I used the same amount of rice as Wednesday when we only had
leftovers for two.

After dinner P and I did the crossword (quietly, since D and G like to do
theirs individually) and M played Dark Tower on his tablet— it’s an old
computerized board game from the 80s, and somebody digitized all the
original art and 8-bit sound effects so it’s pretty great.

We opened gifts afterwards. P had made aeropress receptacles and wee salt
pigs (with tiny spoons, since after shrinkage they turned out not to fit
fingers in) which were well-received by all. M’s present to us is heavy, so
he’s dropping it off in January when they stay with us on their way down to
South Carolina. DG got us a machined bit of aluminum in a particular shape
having only one stable and one unstable equilibrium point, which is
mathematically pretty cool. I got a lovely thick fulled alpaca scarf from
D, and a cello exploration of french tunes and a book from 1901 on early
color theory from P. D got a really pretty scarf from G, and a tiny (like
2” high) edition of Le Petit Prince from M that he picked up in Basque
country. M got tickets to a musical that will be in Greenville next year
once they’re settled in at their new place. Good hugs all around.

Yesterday I went with D to her tai chi class, which was lovely— the
instructor gave me a really nice set to handouts on vocabulary and
technique, and I more or less just followed along as they practiced for a
routine they’re doing at a demonstration in January. Also apparently tai
chi has a tradition of competition and performance? I don’t really
understand, but I’m more of a do-it-by-yourself-on-the-beach kind of
personality so whatevs. Really energizing, I might find a class in
Pittsburgh.

Leftovers for lunch, and then I went with P and M to the grocery store to
visit the foods and tempt myself with snacks. Spent the rest of the
afternoon on the couch knitting. G made barley oxtail soup for dinner, and
I made rice with pecans and carrots, which I managed to scorch. Overate a
bit; I should start measuring ingredients.

Crossword, then more knitting and sitting and stories. Family time is good.