A Cold Coming On

I think we picked up something yesterday, either at the dealership or the supermarket, and I was really not doing well today, so I just puttered around the house organizing things. All tote and shopping bags are now out of the car, and throughout the week we plan on emptying most of the rest of it in preparation for trading it in. Meanwhile I ordered arm rests for our recliners, which have become a bit threadbare and I think are contributing to my IT band issues the way I sit in the chair. Oh, and new Apple Watch bands, did I mention that? Got me at least a dozen that aren't metal so no more catching them on things. The construction noise downstairs wasn't as bad as we'd feared, but the dozen houses facing us all seemed to be celebrating Mother's Day very loudly. My first Mother's Day without Mom just feels kind of numb.

Adventures in Car Buying

Our car is 22 years old, bought by my dad a few years before he passed. Now that he and Mom are both gone, it was up to me and Robin to visit our local dealer to see about either buying or renting a new one. The sales folks were nice but definitely leant towards the hard-sell side, particularly once they started steering us toward what they wanted to sell rather than what we wanted to buy. All talk of price came right at the end, after the test drive -- on a model I don't want to buy, as they didn't have a base model available and it never came in the entire time we were held hostage by them having my license (why did they need that if I wasn't buying yet?) and keys. Eventually the red flags built up to the point where we excused ourselves, said we had a lot to think about, and hightailed it out of there to do our food shopping and get home before the heavens opened. Now that we know what we're up against in terms of car dealers operate, we need to do a lot more research before heading out to New Jersey to try another dealer that perhaps actually has the model we want and, you know, an actual visitors' lot rather than a place you can't even drive into.

A Seamless Friday

I sat in on a conversation this morning about how to use the firm's Seamless/GrubHub's business account for engagement teams if I ever need to, the one area in which I was somewhat deficient in this new assignment because I've never had to do it before. Nice to be able to add to my knowledge base! My long-time colleague Traci, whom I've known since our Rothstein Kass days (over a dozen years back), officially retired today, so that put a tinge of sadness on everything. But I'm still grateful to have a job, I'm still two years away from my planned retirement, and I'm still learning new things every day!

Panicking with the Best of Them

While I often tell people I've achieved Peak Competence in my life (which of course might imply that it's all downhill from here), there are times when I still have the lizard-brain panic reation when something at work hits me the wrong way. Today was one of those times. I do the usual things to calm my vagus nerve, like taking deep breaths and such, but the thing that usually brings me out of it is reminding myself that I've been through ever so much worse in my career and have come out of it just fine. And so it was today, the obstacle was overcome in fairly short order and I reconnected with some old work friends in the process, so really a win-win. And I packed up at the end of the day after helping record a session in which I had zero interest (it was shepherded by a partner I support so I kind of had to record) and was pleasantly surprised to be able to leave at my usual time. Commute was pretty sweet too, I think I made it home in under 90 minutes which is usually unheard of because I have to walk two avenues and take two different kinds of mass transit. No notes, no complaints!

I Got Circadian Rhythm

My timing seemed to be off today. I've been awake since around 4:30, but can't seem to get up the energy to do very much other than work-from-home. Thank goodness I didn't have to schlep into Manhattan today, my aching legs and feet and IT band and whatever would not have liked that very much. This evening we watched a fascinating documentary about Life On Earth, a late '70s nature program by Sir David Attenborough, who turns 100 years old on Friday. Robin remembers seeing the show on BBC in the '70s, I don't think it ever made it over here. Then we watched a program made a couple years ago about dark matter, which still makes my head hurt, but the main thing was how much our understanding of the cosmos has changed since I was in high school. Say, did you know that Jupiter has way more than 12 moons?

Cinco de Whosiwhatsis

You'd think with tons of Mexican places around these parts I'd find a taco truck or something to grab lunch, but I didn't feel like traipsing through the Moynihan food hall or Penn Station at lunch since my IT band and therefore left foot has been bothering me, so the disappointing non-Mexican Whole Foods buffet it was. At least the weather was warm enough that I ate outside. Can it be spring at last? I returned home to find the storm door added to the main entrance to the house, but it doesn't close all the way. The actual locking door does so that's all I care about. The worker the landlord hired doesn't seem to be making that much of a racket, so I should be fine in the home office tomorrow.

May the Farce

It's a lovely spring day, we received new front door locks, work is going swimmingly, and I keep thinking towards post-retirement (after all, it's only two years away now). The lovely young lady who took my last batch of comics messaged me again to see if I have more, and I told her I'd be ready for her after the downstairs construction finishes and she can have all my beloved paperbacks as well, at least the ones from the living room. We really don't need to downsize right away, but if these reading materials are sure to go to a good home I'm ready to rehome them sooner rather than later! Another good day for NY baseball, even though John Sterling has left this mortal plane, but both teams won (and the Mets game was moved up earlier last-minute which I wish I'd known about as my TV listing was wrong and I would have liked to have watched it). I'm more or less ready for Manhattan again tomorrow, might even stop in Penn Station along the way for some sort of Mexican snack to celebrate Cinco de Mayo (today's Star Wars Day celebration consisted of me wearing my R2D2 necklace that my uncle bought me in the late '70s).

A Modicum of Banging

Honestly though, the downstairs renovation has just begun. But we have a new front door, albeit one without windows so the hallway is really dark until we turn on the flickering light. Even so, it's nice to have a door that closes and locks properly. Most of the banging seems to be coming from the kitchen, as warned by our already-much-missed downstairs neighbor before she moved out, so we'll see how much work I can get done from home tomorrow. It doesn't seem to affect the home office much (yet) but it's pretty hard to get an afternoon nap in unless it's during the worker's lunch hour. (Only one worker at the moment, that's sure to change!) At least we can amuse ourselves with sports, if Liverpool didn't keep losing. At least both NY baseball teams won for a change.

Windows Open, Door Closed

The landlord with his assistant and some workers came in around 8 this morning to work on the front entrance door and the downstairs apartment, and that went on pretty much all day. On the one hand, it drowned out the screechy childers, and it is nice to have a door that finally closes and locks properly. On the other hand, it made it very difficult to relax or nap. We got out for a couple hours of shopping and sushi, and timed it well as the lead worker had taken a break (and his vehicle) so we had a clear path right to our usual parking spot, but I'm glad we didn't do our car shopping as bringing back a new vehicle just doesn't seem like the right thing to do with all this activity. Nonetheless, I'm almost 100% ready for the dealership now, with title and maintenance log in hand and all the papers finally filed correctly. And the horse I rooted for won the Kentucky Derby, so I suppose that's something as well.

May Day!

White Rabbits! Now that our downstairs neighbor has moved out, the landlord has started preparing for renovations. We'll be getting a new front door at the foot of the indoor steps that actually closes for a change, and I suspect they'll be gutting the place pretty thoroughly. The noise today was minimal but still disruptive. I dread the noise this coming weekend, maybe it'll be an earbud kinda weekend after all. Meantime the laundry was done and has been put away in near-record time, I had a nice chat with the family financial advisor about my inheritance, I got through my work assignments in pretty decent shape to move forward next week, and I'm determined to finally organize my car maintenance files this weekend so I have my couch back!