Elayne Riggs' Journal (for Leah)

Wednesday, April 08, 2026

Silly Site o' the Day

Looks like we may be through the last of the April cold, and once my IT band exercises bear fruit and I can walk properly again maybe I'll go looking for some cool things on the sidewalk using the Worldwide Sidwalk Joy map (via BoingBoing). First I just need to stop being so chilly...

Tuesday, April 07, 2026

Silly Site o' the Day

Why am I so hungry? And yet, I'm not on Reddit or any of the other umpteen forms of social media because I'm An Old, so you'll have to discover We Want Plates for yourself.

Monday, April 06, 2026

Silly Site o' the Day

Busy week so far (and it's only Monday!), so running links to sites of interest instead. Today we examine the food storage guide Does It Last? (via BoingBoing). The title's in Spanish but it still works with the English language.

Sunday, April 05, 2026

Easter Consolidated and Cleaned

Lots of really good stuff accomplished today. I cleaned the bathroom a bit, got through all the issues of my local paper, and tackled the surprisingly large task of consolidating all our tax returns and stuffing them into an accordion file that used to hold some returns (not in order), important papers, and immigration stuff. The latter has now been moved to an expanding document portolio that used to hold a lot of my old Rothstein Kass stuff (most of which was thrown and I kept a few things in my "office stuff" under-bed storage), and the accordion file is now in the library with all our tax receipt boxes. Rob's currently shopping for a decent shredder as we really only need to keep the last 7 years' worth of receipts, and we now have to concern ourselves with all the stuff currently in our loft space as we try to downsize our possessions in the next couple of years prior to my retirement. But one thing at a time!

Friday, April 03, 2026

Paper Working

My brother and I spoke this afternoon after Rob and I got home from grocery shopping (finally found Cadbury Creme Eggs the day before Easter, had to get a few just because Wacky Tradition), and I think I have my old pension sorted out, but I need to speak with someone there on Monday because I should have been receiving it starting in 2023! In any case, seeking a copy of our marriage certificate to scan and print out to attach to said pension paperwork led me to realize that I need to redo a few more files, as I found a lot of Rob's immigration paperwork (and all our important papers like birth certificates and such) mixed in with some old tax returns, and we had newer tax returns in a totally different place, so I'm going to do what I do best, consolidation. Meantime, Liverpool is out of the FA Cup (what a miserable score, glad I napped during that game) but both New York baseball teams are winning, so I'll take it!

The Heat Is (Back) On

As I'd feared, despite the fact that a few partners I support took Good Friday as a vacation day, I had enough work to cover most of the day. I wound up taking a little over an hour as PTO, watching baseball and so forth, but mostly making sure all my work stuff was put to bed over the weekend. It wasn't easy, given the place was freezing this morning. We found out the landlord had turned the heat off at the end of March rather than the end of May, and my complaint to the super had him 'round remarkably quickly to turn the heat back on again. We also got new mailboxes to replace the crap ones he'd installed a couple years ago which fell apart almost immediately. So that's done. Tomorrow after shopping I speak with my brother about tackling my pension plan from my first long-term job, which came due three years ago although I didn't have any notification of same, so it'll be nice to have that behind me. Things are finally coming together and becoming organized, now I have to concentrate on a couple more medically-related things and perhaps some *gasp* spring cleaning.

Thursday, April 02, 2026

The Holiday Seasonable

The weather turned chilly again just as my hallux and IT band were starting to feel better. The big toe always reacts worse in rainy weather, but today's pain couldn't compare with the night before last, so I got through my workday more or less fine. I mean, I just went across the street to the Moynihan Food Court for a ramen lunch, so I made sure not to do a lot of outside walking until I left a bit early (heck, with Holy Thursday and Passover traffic was practically nil so I got in super early as well) to make the backpacked trek to the post office (rent check mailed) then the subway. Result? Very little pain when I finally got home again! But something tells me I'll have more work than anticipated on Good Friday tomorrow...

Wednesday, April 01, 2026

The Clown Makes Fools of Us All

White Rabbits and happy April Fools' Day, Pen-Elayne on the Web's official high holiday! When democracy threatens to crumble around us it's hard to keep our sense of humor, but it's also critical because that's our way of being critical of the madness. Robin found some nice corporate April Fools' Day sites here, here are some from Auntie Beeb, and I positively love this one courtesy of the Great British Bake-Off. Want more? Here are some aviation-related AFD things, and I really giggled at this entry from our NYC mayor's office.

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

A Wander Too Far

It was so nice and warm today that I just had to take in at least the entrance to the High Line. Unfortunately my IT band acted up by the end of my walk to the subway, and I had no knee brace on, which meant tons of pain in my left hallux by the time I got home. Definitely sitting still for the next few days! I just hope I'll be able to sleep, I'm in way more pain than I'd anticipated. Fortunately I've gotten all my client meeting scheduling done and submitted month-end timesheets and expense reports for all my folks, so maybe tomorrow will be an easier day.

Monday, March 30, 2026

Silly Site o' the Day

Work-from-home was fine today, I was able to forget about my right arm pain whilst putting out fires, and I'm in good enough shape for tomorrow. The only frustrating thing to most of us exec assistants was that our expense application didn't work for much of the day, and of course expenses are due month-end. It wasn't quite enshittifiation but it did remind me of this:

 

Via BoingBoing

Sunday, March 29, 2026

Diminisushi Returns

As expected, the trip to Jersey did a number on me, but we had to do our grocery shopping, so I figured let's make a treat out of it and go to the ShopRite in the same strip mall as "our" conveyor belt sushi place. Oddly, neither of us was in the mood to overeat, which was probably good for supermarket stuff but not so good for our preferred treat. Still, we were back and watching TV (currently catching up on Deadloch on Amazon Prime) and just resting by 2 PM, so that will help when trying to recover enough to schlep into the Manhattan office on Tuesday. In the meantime, hoping a nice shower tomorrow evening will loosen some of these arm muscles and tendons not used to driving so much.