Dead center

The running gag at rehearsals is the fellow who plays the guy who gets killed does much of his acting center stage. Dead center.

Started the day at a little after 7 with KOMO being my alarm clock, and Kaan poking my back with his head. He wanted to play fetch with his tie wrap. No, I don't do that. I just picked it up and dropped it over the side of the bed. Being cross-eyed, he has trouble following things close up, so he was just puzzled for a bit and curled up at the foot of the bed when I turned the light out and went back to sleep.

Finally got to work a little after 10. Forgot the bananas again.

Go a lot of easy stuff done today. There are lots of bugs which have been fixed but either my team had not verified the fix, or it was done in email and not on the bug database. And some of them were simple things like fixed typos and needing a sentence added to the spec and the user's guide.

I had time to listen to the Supreme Court DOMA hearing. Almost fell out of my chair when one of the justices suggested that the whole thing could be fixed by replacing DOMA with a law which took the word "marriage" out of all existing laws. It could be done with a single bill, the way DOMA defines marriage for all related laws on the books. There was some talk about marriage not being something the Feds should have anything to do with.

Very impressed with the deputy solicitor general, Srikanth "Sri" Srinivasan. Articulate, prepared, made a point of saying the justices' names the first time he answered their questions. Born in India, grew up in Kansas, graduated from Stanford (twice), clerked for Sandra Day O'Connor. Not as impressed with his boss Donald Verrilli Jr., whom the court called "General". He was never in the military, which confused me for a while.  DOMA defense lawyer Paul Clement was very solid on his right to be there, but was ripped several new ones when it came to the intent of the law. The attorney representing the gay woman who filed the suit, Roberta Kaplan, was a creampuff, her only arguments based on emotion. By the time she got to talk, everything which needed to be said had been covered, so no biggie.

Not surprisingly, Justice Thomas, a black man whose wife is white, never opened his mouth. I understand he has not said a word in court since his appointment. He really needs to be impeached.

Yesterday's lunch time was so good I did it again, this time I found a park I did not previously know about, practically right around the corner from work. Three minutes to get there. Big place, lots of big trees, a small playground, a basketball court, a few cement benches and three or four cement table/bench sets. Lots of grass. A long winding cement pathway around the perimeter. There were some middle school kids (there's a school across the street) and an interesting change - all the basketball players were female.

Read from my Kindle for an hour, went back to work and nibbled the equivalent of lunch which I'd brought in the cooler.

While I was at work I got email from Cafepress that my "Bite me" T-shirt had been delivered yesterday. But it hadn't. No note on the door, nothing from the apartment staff, no package at the door. Looked up the tracking number which said it was on my patio. Jeeze.

Home, did not see a package out there. Went outside, and it was on a chair close to the sliding doors, the back of the chair hid it from view from the apartment, and the patio wall hid it from view from the carport. The driver had to walk through the carport, up a small hill, and toss it from the other side of a small hedge. I will be sending UPS a nastygram - they are supposed to (a ) not throw packages and (b) put a note on the door.

Fired up TurboTax to see if there was help about amended returns, but saw there were three returns listed in the GUI, though I had only saved two - and had deleted one of those. I may need to call tech support.

Off to the Lyric Warehouse for our last rehearsal there. No rehearsals Fridays, though we really need one. This show will not be ready when we open, because the schedule is one rehearsal with the orchestra Saturday, Sunday the crew is supposed to break down the set in the warehouse and truck it to the theater. I can guaruntee that isn't going to be finished before Monday afternoon or evening. Stage Manager is insane if she thinks it will. Well, she's insane anyway. They plan a cue-to-cue Tuesday, which is bound to be a disaster. First dress Wednesday, Full dress Thursday, off Friday, opening Saturday. We really should do a preview Friday.

Wore the T-shirt, got a lot of laughs from it. I got it in bright green, which cut off the end of the final H so I magic markered it in.


We ran the whole show without stopping, and it was a mess because they had not bothered to make room for the huge trees. The trees are a huge WTF. The theater can fly tree-like flats into place, but the director wants people inside the trees to move them on and off. Totally asinine. It will be better when we get into the theater, where there is room in the wings and a big storage area stage right. We should have gotten out of there at 10:45 but SM ran her mouth for 20 minutes about things she should have sent email about. Or waited till Monday when we got into the theater.

So we got out after 11.

Some folks were going to an after-thing at a dive somewhere, but it was too far out of the way and I was dead.

Home, gave the cats their treats, took drugs, and fired up the PC. No dinner, I have a fasting blood test in the morning. Follow-up on my E. Coli adventure earlier in the month.

Plans for tomorrow:

Work
Maybe lunch with the gang
Home, relax, read

Playing Philosophical Ping Pong in my head

Lunchtime today there were two cars parked side by side. One had a couple of pro-choice bumper stickers and the other had a couple of pro-life ones.

I see both their points. And I see flaws in their black/white argument.

I don't believe a woman has a right to unilaterally decide to have a child. Such a decision imposes heavy monetary obligations on the father, and often on both of the prospective parents' parents. Deciding to have a child who will not be entirely wanted is not such a good thing. For those who give their unwanted children up for adoption, the foster care system in this country is bankrupt, and foster children are more likely to go to prison than not.

OTOH, I believe a child's life starts at conception. From that point on, there is potential for life. From that point on we are talking about killing.

But if killing an embryo saves the mother's life, sure. My definition of saving a mother's life includes saving a too-young woman, or a rape victim, from having to raise an unwanted child. In many, maybe most, cases a seriously deformed baby will be unwanted.

But my bottom line on this is it is not something for the government to decide.

A Quiet Day, Mostly

I needed to have a blood test done this morning to check whether my prostate foo was gone, a month after the E. Coli infection. This morning looked like a good choice when I looked at my calendar last week. While I was at it I was also due for my quarterly fasting blood/urine tests. The deal is to not have anything to eat for 12 hours, so I stopped nibbling at rehearsals by 10 pm so I could be bled at 10 am.

Diabolical plan - it let me sleep in about an extra hour.

As usual, parking at Kaiser homestead was miserable, they really need to re-think the traffic patterns there. I did find something, a long walk from the front doors. Took a number at the lab door, #28. The "now serving" sign said #6. I sat down for a long wait, but they had all 5 stations working, so I only had to endure the Obligatory Screaming Infant for about 15 minutes. And then another 15 minutes in line for a chair in the lab because today was National Don't Think For Yourself Day, with people in line not going inside to take the places of people who had left, until one of the phlebotomists yelled at them.  The good news is this meant that by the time I was seated I was #2 on the list.

They only took 3 viles vials of blood, I had already donated some pee in another room.

Usually I have results for most of th tests by now, but today it was a zoo in there, so nothing yet. They PSA (prostate thing) they are not allowed to post online, so it will be in my mailbox in a couple of weeks, and probably my doctor will email me next week with a generic "it's normal" or "call me".

Got to work at 10:30, so not so bad.

Did not do a whole lot at work, but I did manage to justify my existence somewhat. Lunchtime I went to my UPS box and picked up an Amazon package. I had no idea what it could be. Turned out to be 4 Crystal Lite Classic Orange tubes. That will last a while. Had lunch at Ocean Blue, a Japanese overpriced sushi place. I had tempura/beef teriyaki combo. Delicious, but the beef was a little too gristly, and was not completely cut. Awkward when all you have is chopsticks.  Very slow service.

Back at work I think it took me longer to write my weekly report than it did to do the actual work.

After work, straight to Starbucks on Mathilda, via the back roads. No rehearsal tonight.

Will probably have stuffed grape leaves for dinner.

Plans for tomorrow:
Sleep
2 pm rehearsal at some SJ middle school with the orchestra. The SM has no business being there, and lots of business being at the set shop, but she gleefully announced last night that she would be there anyway. Asshole.
Maybe there will be an after-party at some dive. I would go to that.