on the verge

— पांच हजार छह सौ नौ — I actually worked half an hour late yesterday. Gasp! Fucking meetings! Okay, there's also this: Jennifer asked me over Messenger about the weather forecast in relation to our plan to meet at McMicken Island State Park tomorrow afternoon. We exchanged enough messages that it took about 25 minutes. If not for that alone, I'd have comfortably left by 4:30 as usual. So I guess I have only myself to blame. I have a lot I need to get done still, but multiple critical things are already done, so I'm still feeling fairly well positioned. Amanda is covering me with some very critical stuff on Wednesday and Friday next week, so I sent a very detailed email that went step by step over the things that absolutely have to happen on thoe days. Just writing up that email took quite a while. Michelle from IT, who sits two desks to my left, has frequently commented in the past about how I reliably get up to leave just before 4:30. She was just out for major surgery for several weeks but was back as of this week. It was 4:30 pm when she messsaged me on Teams: You are late in packing up. I was like, yep: too much shit to get done before PTO. This reminded her of my Birth Week—which I already discussed with her earlier in the week—so she messaged me an animated Happy Birthday gif with a dancing birthday cake, telling me to have a wonderful week. I fully plan to! Shobhit worked last night, his first shift since getting back. I made frozen pizzas for dinner. And then, just feeling like watching something, I rewatched the original Deadpool on Disney+. Only because the new Deadpool & Wolverine trailer got its hooks into me by using Madonna's "Like a Prayer." I don't think I've even seen Deadpool 2, so I'll have to watch that next whenever I get the time. Shobhit got off work at 9:00, and I walked to meet him at the Broadway Market QFC to take advantage of some deals: Special K cereal, Tillamook cheese I can use for my many picnic meals next week. I was in bed not long after we got back. I was kind of surprised by how wide awake I still was when I headed out at 9:30 pm, and was plenty tired by the time we got back. — पांच हजार छह सौ नौ — — पांच हजार छह सौ नौ — I still need to follow up with Danielle about Wednesday afternoon, but that's the only thing still slightly up in the air I think. Alexia is first this year, and is even picking me up from work at 4:30 today. She's on a trip the rest of the week so today was the only day I could schedule her. Then I'm off to visit Claudia for a couple of hours tomorrow in Port Orchard before heading to McMicken Island State Park on Harstine Island, where I'll meet Jennifer and later stay the night with her and Matthew. The next day: Anderson Island bike ride with Dad. Hopefully, anyway, if the weather cooperates—but we're going to the island regardless. I'm going to Karen's house in Magnolia for lunch on Monday, seeing a movie with Laney that afternoon, and then going to see Edmount Island from Ballinger Park in Mountlake Terrace with Shauna that evening. Monday will be busy. Tuesday is my actual birthday: day trip back to Lopez Island, this time with Shobhit! I already mentioned Danielle on Wednesday. That's actually also Action Movie Night at the Braeburn Condos Theater—totally by chance, my pick! Thursday is a picnic lunch with Valerie on Mercer Island, on my way to Snoqualmie for Gabriel and Lea's wedding rehearsal and dinner. Friday I do day drinking on a traffic island with Laney in the afternoon, and dinner with Tracy on Vashon Island. Saturday May the Fourth is Gabriel and Lea's wedding. Totally separate! Sunday the fifth will be lunch with Lynn and Zephyr in Everett. Like I said to Laney recently: I'm a girly-man with a plan. She said I need to get a T-shirt with that written on it. I told her now she knows what to get me for my birthday. — पांच हजार छह सौ नौ — [posted 12:31 pm]

all the last minute shit

— पांच हजार छह सौ आठ — Most of the time, I am delighted by the rain. I just want it to stop when it's convenient for me! No rain for my Birth Week, please. I've been cycling to work and back every day since last week. I had to skip the bike this morning when I got up and saw that it was totally wet outside. I checked the forecast and it's got rain every day through Monday. Dammit! It's too early yet to really worry about it, honestly. This is Seattle, after all: any forecast 10 days out is wildly unreliable; a forecast two days out is only maybe half reliable. Still, I texted this morning that it looks like rain on Sunday, and I will still bring my bike, so we can ride if it looks like we have a dry window, and otherwise we can just drive around Anderson Island. After a minute or two Dad replied, 13 news said mainly dry Sunday. I decided not to get into the research showing the National Weather Service forecast is more reliable than any news outlet, but the book I read some years ago that covered that research did not get granular about regions annyway. And Seattle forecasts change constantly, often by the day, especially in the winter and spring, regardless of the source. NWS currently says 90% chance(!) of rain on Sunday, but I'd love for them to be wrong. I guess we'll see. We have a contingency plan in place regardless—and we'll be going to Anderson Island either way. — पांच हजार छह सौ आठ — — पांच हजार छह सौ आठ — I had nothing planned last night after work, just as I don't tonight—which works fine for me, given how packed my social calendar is between tomorrow night and Sunday May 5. Shobhit and I made an eggplant dish together, which we ate with the kachoris Shobhit's mom sent him home with, soaked with oil but of course delicious. We caught up on most of the PBS Saturday night rerun episodes I never watched while he was in India. I also updated my budget through the next pay period, after I get my paycheck tomorrow. Shobhit and I decided together that, although it would be far more convenient for both of us if I rented a car for my Birth Week, it would save me a great deal not to do that, and for me just to drive his car when I need it and him to bus to work on those days (many of which I can at least drop him off at work anyway). With that expense out of the way, this looks like it may be my lowest-cost Birth Week since 2018 (setting aside Birth Week 2020 which was during stay-home orders). I hadn't even considered when I settled on islands as the theme this year that it would mean comparatively minimal costs: with the intention of taking picnic meals to many of them, the costs consist mainly of ferry fares, and eating out at restaurants, potentially four different times. That's not even including dinner on both Thursday and Saturday the 4th, which will be covered by the rehearsal dinner and then wedding with Gabriel and Lea. It may be inconvenient that they decided to get married during my Birth Week but I'll forgive them since I get two free dinners out of it! — पांच हजार छह सौ आठ — Jesus Christ, fucking meetings! At first I just had a half-hour Teams meeting scheduled at 1:00 with Gabby and Amy, to go over some stuff to get them closer to being backups on certain things before I am on PTO all next week. Then, a last-meeting Teams meeting with NCR, the company helping us launch a new Price Generation module in our system, had to be scheduled over lunchtime between noon and 1:00—which then had to run half an hour over schedule, pushing my meeting with Gabby and Amy to 1:30. All of this while I have plenty of other shit to get done before the end of the day tomorrow. So much for reading my library book over my lunch break today! Anyway that's why this is getting posted so much later than usual. — पांच हजार छह सौ आठ — [posted 2:03 pm]