serinde

That shit nearly done filled up, yo. Nothing left but King-size rooms. Book now or be staying in Outer Bumblefuck again.

(I am trying to get a suite for b00jum's hail-and-farewell bash, but I may have left it too late. Should have remembered that this particular venue has a, shall we say, accelerated and narrower window of opportunity.)

I've ended up heavily involved in the Shiny New Website for our department, and what this is making abundantly clear to me is that I'm the functional equivalent of the oldsters who would call up $JOB-1 for support because they want to see their grandchildren's pictures on the Googles, and they know a computer is involved but that's about it. There are all sorts of concepts involving information design that are wholly oceanus incognitus for me: words like "wireframe" and "workflow" swirl around me like riptide currents. I am managing to keep my face mostly above water, though. Mostly.

Also, it is strange having to do with a WYSIWYG CMS thingy instead of just banging out a bunch of HTML tags in emacs. I mean, it's not just the fact that you make clicky for boldtext, but the whole difference in what a page or other elements might actually consist of. Not being able to directly manipulate files is turning my world upside-down.

Finally, I have been introduced to Software That Makes Pretty Graphs And Charts. I spent the afternoon making a charty thing. It looks...chartlike. Considering the software is Microsoft spooge, I think that probably constitutes a win.

I'd intended to go to aikido after work today, but was in meetings until 5:30, so that was not going to happen. I scrambled and ran and just made the 6:13 train home--at the cost of sweaty dishevelment; I do not mean the sexy kind--and nearly lost my wallet at Secaucus junction. Indeed, I did lose it except that a kind person stopped me and pointed it out. (Side rant: My sistren, it is by means of our dress clothes that Man is keeping us down. Until we have useable pockets, we will continue to be the moral equivalent of barefoot & pregnant.)

Finally got home...whereupon I realized that my keys were not in my purse. For the first time in six months. And also, the first time in six months that neither audiovile nor naudia were home, nor were going to be for hours. The garage happened to be unlocked, so I got out my bike--mind you, it is dark, and I am still in dress slacks and a blouse--and rode the 2 miles to sweh's house to pick up his key. (Also, he fed me, comforted me, and let me rant, because he is loving and clever and supportive and other good things.) I only nearly died of stupid drivers twice. It would have been better if I could've taken my Burning Man bike, which is festooned with EL wire, but the tires were flat and the only pump we have runs off the car battery, aheheheheh.

Iz can be bed tiem now plz.

Having chased everyone else to bed in what is almost a sane hour, I am now sitting up because my bad knee has discovered a new way of playing sillybuggers. Instead of the usual "okay, you must shift it after having left it either straight or bent for N minutes, and there will be a sharp pop with a bit of pain as you move it to the other position", which I'm tolerably used to, we now have "hi, we are going to be dully uncomfortable building to unbearable--but with no actual pain--no matter what position it's in". Have taken ibuprofen and am elevating it in the hopes that this will do something or other. Am also wondering if falling on it Tuesday (I have a lovely skinned knee) had some effect, especially since that was how I injured it in the first place, but a) it seems a bit much in the lag time for that and b) should it not be then hurting in the fashion it did when I first committed mayhem on it?

At least I don't have to work tomorrow.

...was not a lot of anything but getting my bearings, really. Meetings with various & sundry of the people in the department, being given a tour, working on setting up my computer how I'd like, etc. Also, the boss was not in this week, and no one is entirely clear on what he wants me to be doing, so I didn't have anything specific to do; in spite of this, I started laying groundwork for what I think I will be doing.

And even though I had nothing terribly much to do, per se, I've been drained beyond all reckoning. Not like having mono. But not unlike being ill. And I've felt hugely discombobulated & disoriented (well, go figure), and aikido would help but I haven't sorted that out, and it was hard to find lunch that was good, cheap, and healthy, and and and. Today was markedly better, though, with the discovery of a Balducci's not two blocks from the campus (that is, it's just like Balducci's used to be, and indeed is owned by a member of that family--but it's actually called "Grace's Marketplace"), so I can haz good and cheap salad bar.

Things that have helped: the lovely little MP3 player sweh got me as a You Are Grownup Cat, This Is Grownup Job prize, which makes my commute tolerable; the weather has been good all week, so I've been able to walk every lunch hour (and sit out whilst eating); everyone has been exceedingly welcoming and friendly and seems genuinely happy to have me on board. And they all seem at the surface level at least to get along together, but I will just note in passing that, after the week of meetings, I did feel an awful lot like that bit in Persuasion when all the Musgroves individually nobble Anne to intervene in their little domestic wheel squeaking. I don't much know how this is going to play out.

Minor but deep annoyance: my second day, I saw a flyer for a (free) lunchtime yoga series for staff members, which started Friday (i.e., today). But, you have to get a "Physical Activity Card" to participate. Fine, got form, started filling out--is mostly assuring them that you will take responsibility if your arm falls off or something. Except that page 2 requires you to go to the doctor and get a TB test. Because if I had tuberculosis, I'd be more likely to transmit it in a yoga class than in a crowded office? And, you absolutely have to go to the first class to take the rest. Feh. Feh, I say.

They have a pool, but it is under repair until the end of time.

My Indelible Mark On The Department: Plugging in my new cheapo electric kettle this morning, I blew out our office's fuse, taking down five people's workstations. Go me.
(However, I blame the database wanks in the back half of the office, who have thirty-eleven things running on the same circuit.)

A few statistics, a la mangosteen:
- Trains taken: 3
- Escalators ascended daily: 12
- Network outages: 4
- Winces at what I've been told about how things are set up: 8-10
- Average number of students on line at the nearest girls' room: 2
- Number of students that there are room for to stand waiting in that bathroom: 0
- Pointless fire drills: 1
- Number of separate ICIT offices/locations, just at this campus: 7

Mom has been mailing updates this week and Grandma continues to improve. Emotionally/personality-wise, she is back to just about where she was before the effluvium hit the whirlyblades (though I don't know if she's still on haloperidol); mentally she has to take a little bit more time to access memories than had been the case, but she does find them. She's able to walk a little bit with her walker, and though her hands are still very lacking in mobility & strength, Mom reports that she's showing steady improvement. (Three cheers for physical therapy.) I don't yet know the longer-term prognosis (if indeed it exists yet), like whether she'll be able to go back to assisted living or what, but in any case her quality of life is looking way up.

Thank you all for the kind thoughts, comments, advice and so on during these last couple weeks. I really appreciate it.

The main problem I have with phase one of South Beach is that I don't want eggs for breakfast every goddam morning.

I've flown New York to Cleveland an awful, awful lot over the past fifteen years. And so I know how long it takes--namely about 45 minutes air time.

Wherefore, then, does Continental list the flight time of all their EWR <> CLE flights as 2 hours? I can only presume they're padding estimates so they can be delay-ful and still claim on-time-ness. Feh.