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!

Charcuter-Me

Extra long day today, as after work (which was relatively quiet and I got a lot of reading and self-study done) one of our diversity groups had a charcuterie-assembly event, which honestly was more like a DIY buffet thing. So I grabbed one of the only chairs until the presentation was finished and we all gathered around the charcuterie table, and that's when the foot pain started. I can walk okay, I did it at lunch when I finally found out about a nearby Panda Express (when you're jonesing for Chinese food you'll take the fast food approach over nothing at all), but I can't stand for periods of time without it causing pretty intense neuropathy pain. So while the salami and cheese and nuts (I keep forgetting how much I love shelled pistachios) and dried apricots were nice and tasty, I had to leave a bit early due to my pain and was able to hobble back to Penn Station (where they were having some sort of basketball playoff rally at MSG) to catch the homeward bound subway. Because I was a bit past rush hour I got a seat right away, but then a woman at lease twice as large as me (and I'm still large) squeezed herself right next to me, and the seat on the other side of her as well, and the neuropathy was triggered again. And again, when I'd changed seats and someone exited the subway car by bumping my right knee. I'm quite the mess now, and happy I get to work from home until next Tuesday!

Everything Everywhere All At Once

A few days ago I had a feeling of impending wossname, and had no idea what the imminent dread could be. Today I had to face three stressful situations involving the usual phone calls to AI robots before I could get human beings, and that was just my morning. The afternoon was wall-to-wall work meetings, during which my family broker called, so I've put that call off until Friday. There's only so much financial and medical stuff I can do in one day. There are also only so many meetings. I had no problem filling my day, my body didn't experience too many aches and pains so that's a plus, and I'm in good shape to concentrate only on work tomorrow, getting in my month-end requirements.

Silly Site o' the Day

Pretty good day at work, just busy enough to not overwhelm me, nothing wrong with the commute, so let's celebrate with another silly site. Do you know what was going on the day you were born? Let Birthday Headlines help you with that! Via BoingBoing.

Silly Site o' the Day

Too much stuff on my body hurts, so here's a silly site disguised as an ad disguised as a well-deserved dig at the orange sh*tgibbon:

 Get me some o' those m*therf*cking chips...

 

Incremental Giveaways

Today we stopped by the local farmers market for the first time in awhile, as I'd promised my neighbor the cat-supply lady a feeding bowl and automatic water bowl, since we're not in the market for adopting another cat until well after I'm retired. Naturally I had to grab some of my usual stuff, earrings and veg and so forth, and we then visited my uncle in his assisted living place down the block (someday they'll pave that awful road so it takes us 2 minutes to drive there instead of 10) and left some plates from my mom's house that my cousin wanted. We're trying to downsize things from the car so that, if we wind up buying/leasing a new one next weekend, we don't have to empty out that much more. The rest of the day was spent watching both NY baseball teams lose so, you know, par for the course.

Stock, Car

I did have more neuropathy pain in the hands last night and this morning, particularly in the thumbs and unfortunately in my right hallux (big toe) as I was driving back from the grocery store (yay, new car battery working fine!) so that made using the brake and accelerator tons of fun, but I haven't had to take any ibuprofen so it's manageable with heat (doing the dishes warmed them up nicely, as did wearing wrist braces for an hour or so). We didn't have a huge shopping list but there was a "10 for $10" sale on two staples that we use all the time so we are stocked up now. Before we left I finally tackled my car insurance files, getting rid of all the outdated supplemental info (we have a fairly nice shredder now so all those pages got shredded) and putting all the renewals in date order. Which is a lot for 22 years times twice yearly! Now all that remains is the maintenance log, basically all the times I've taken it in for an oil change or other work. And I received my replacement title in the mail today, confirming that I don't think I've ever seen my car's title in my life. My guess is that Dad must have kept it and after he passed it never made it to me. Now I'm ready to go car shopping, possibly as early as next weekend if my body behaves itself!