The world is falling apart, but …

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

Slept in a little bit, cleaned up the kitchen while my wife went and got groceries, had baked potatoes for lunch for some reason, went to the art fair, came home with a couple of really cool photo prints (pictures to come, six months from now, when we’ve hung them), had burgers and brats and blueberry pie for dinner. Tried to play video games, failed, and now I’m going to go clean up the basement for a little while– speaking of projects that you need pictures from.

Not a bad day, so long as I look no further than the tip of my nose and ignore the entire rest of the world. Happy Father’s Day to those celebrating.

In which some was gotten

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

As I have become sadly accustomed to when attempting to sell things, we did not make a ton of money at our garage sale. We made enough to cover the tables we had to rent and probably the gas to get to and from the place we had to rent them from, and the rest will maybe get a delicious McDonald’s meal for two of the three of us. During the last hour, we switched to “get this stuff the fuck off my driveway” mode, however, and my wife posted on a couple of come-get-free-shit groups on Facebook, and indeed, people came and got free shit, to the point where there was very little left by the time we closed up shop, and nothing that we’d have to make any phone calls to get hauled away. Which is good! We did this to clear space, not to make a ton of money, and the space is cleared, and some folks got some stuff they need. I’m good with it.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day. My wife and I just had a brief conversations about my expectations re: said holiday, and really, all I need/want/care about is to be acknowledged. And, like, even that doesn’t require much, but I’ll admit that last year I was a little upset, as my father, my brother, and three former students all said “Happy Father’s Day!” to me before my son or my wife did. I don’t need presents or a special meal or anything like that; we’re going to a local art fair for an hour and a half or so in the afternoon, assuming either of us can make our legs work, but that’s something we both want to do. I’d just like it if my ten-year-old manages to remember.

(“But what about Mother’s Day?” I can hear you asking. And the answer is: for reasons that are hers and therefore I’m not going to get into here, my wife loathes Mother’s Day, so beyond the perfunctory Acknowledgment of Holiday Status it is generally best ignored. And she’d probably be just fine without even the acknowledgment. I want that much, but not more.)

Let’s see, what else? I’ve now seen two episodes of Ms. Marvel and it continues to be the best thing Marvel has ever done. Yeah, I said it. It’s maybe not up to the emotional level that the first Iron Man and the first Avengers got me to, but it’s coming close. I fucking love this show.

Okay. I’m tired. Books and chairs for the rest of the night.

In which being stupid works out

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

I cannot calendar. I don’t know if you can calendar, and I feel like I used to be able to calendar to some degree of accuracy or another, but I have lost the ability. I don’t know how long things take, I don’t know how long ago things happened, and it is generally impossible for me to keep track of such minor details as holidays, birthdays and dates that my son might have off of school that I don’t, where we need to provide some sort of child care for him, since it turns out that you really can’t just drop them off at school on days off.

And! For once! This deficiency has finally worked out for me, as I discovered today that April 1, which is not this Friday but is instead next Friday, and was previously thought of as the last day of school before Spring Break, is an asynchronous e-learning day. Did I know this? I did not. It’s even the day after Parent-Teacher conferences, so our district did something sensible and I didn’t even notice!

What that means is that this morning I thought I had to survive ten school days until Spring Break, and now, magically, I have survived one day and I only need to survive for eight more! Because days with no students do not count.

Woohoo!

The blog posts no one reads

Luther M. Siler2 Comments

Today and tomorrow, along with New Year’s Day, are historically completely dead days for the blog. This will not prove surprising to anyone. Usually I try to come up with something spicy for those posts since no one will notice anyway, but I find myself not in the mood for Christmas in a wide variety of ways right now. There was more work on the bathroom again today, but it was more mudding and drywalling. Monday will be sanding and primer, and Tuesday they’ll paint, and that does put us on track to be done before school starts back up again.

Assuming, that is, that school starts back up again, which — don’t tell anyone– but I’m starting to seriously doubt. The trend line on Covid is currently vertical for the country, and I think Indiana’s probably will be as well as soon as everyone starts reporting again, because I doubt that we’ve actually managed to show a decline in cases with Omicron on the loose. But we’ll see what happens.

Merry Christmas, to all who celebrate; those who don’t, enjoy the weekend anyway. I will almost certainly post tomorrow in some capacity or another, but there’s no reason to not be nice to people early, I suppose.

The dumbest thing I said today

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

The context: my father has been told that he needs to replace his phone by January 1, because it is not 5G capable and T-Mobile is phasing out all of their 3G towers.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine they’re that busy at 2:30 the day before Thanksgiving. Let’s just go get it taken care of.”

Pfah.

(I’m not griping, especially since I’m fully aware my dad will read this. But it was completely stupid of me to not realize these places are crazy-busy all the time, and “the day before Thanksgiving” is not a salient concept to people who need phones, because that is a thing that is not always something you can put off.)

And I came home and stuffed my face with Chicago deep-dish pizza, so all in all I am full of cheese and it was a good day.