Caught Again

Fired up the PC to write this, but got distracted by Facebook. I'm blaming the Barefoot wineries wine spritzer. Almost finished the second little can (will do so before I finish this, I bet).

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Last night's apple cider did what I wanted it to. Relaxified me, let me get to sleep and stay asleep. The lights going on woke me. Spook was being spooky, meowing but I could not tell from where. Walked to the kitchen to see if she was looking out the window, and she came out from the guest room. I think she had been under the futon.

Took my time getting showered and more time getting dressed. Nothing at all on the agenda for today except minor gardening. It was going to be very hot, so a trip to Baylands park, which is always breezy and usually 10° cooler than home, was a possibility.

Checked the PC, weekend backups were done. Out of curiosity logged into Amazon, and surprise, surprise, they let me send back the Versacheck software. And they now have a drop box in my favorite Safeway, and a slot available. There are two drop boxes closer in 7-11s, but one is in a sleazy location and the other has maybe 3 parking spots.

So I boxed up the software, printed the return label, slapped it on the box and put that and my tablet in the car.

But first, while it was still relatively cool, I went to the front garden with my wide brimmed hat, clippers, and a pair of big black trash bags. The plan was to replace the ugly wooden stakes with the pretty green plastic ones holding up the Bee's Friend plants. But the plan changed when I noticed that all but one of the plants being held up were dead, gone to seed. So I started removing the ties, pulling up the plants, cutting them into smaller pieces (many branches, most of them more than 4 feet long. Main stems > 6 feet) and bagging them.

Got four of the six done, it was now getting very hot, so I took a break inside, drank some ginger ale and relaxed in the recliner. #6 still had flowers on it and wasn't quite dead yet, so I thought I'd put that one on a pretty stake at the end of round 2 this evening. Meanwhile I rewarded myself with a Coke float, double fudge ice cream.

Drove to Safeway, deposited the amazon box, and since the next part of the plan was Baylands, I bought a sandwich, chips and a diet Coke. Took the long route, which my GPS was not thrilled about. Longer in miles, but shorter in that it only used one street.

Parked in front of the restrooms, because I had this feeling...

Found a nice place in the shade overlooking the field. Planted the camp chair, put the soda bottle in the holder on the arm, took out the sandwich and smeared some of the included mustard on it, and on my hand, and on the wrapper.

Watched people on the field. There was an Asian father and young son, each with a basic boomerang. The son didn't have a clue, and dad didn't share. Dad, however, had the technique down pat. I haven't seen that much skill with a boomerang since I visited Australia.  At one end of the field were two RC planes, the other end were a couple of tiny speed racer drones. Not far from the boomerang was a kite flier.

Ate half the sandwich, and it was time to use the restroom. Glad I wasn't too far from it.

Back to the chair, ate half the chips. Read one of the Hugo nominee short stories on the tablet. After about an hour I packed up because despite the breeze it was still too hot out there. House is air conditioned.

Home, tried to watch an Amazon Prime show but it was lame. Office, PC.

One of my FB friends posted a video on how to make cuttings from my salvia/sage bush into plantable saplings. I'm hoping to replace the Bee's Friends with those, since on my carport garden they thrive in full sun, and both bees and hummingbirds love them. So I put the PC to sleep, rushed to Lowe's to buy root growth hormone (which I'd never heard of before) and potting soil for seedlings.

Got halfway down the driveway before remembering I had my slippers on. Back inside, put on my Tivas,  and out again.

Found what I wanted right away, but thought maybe I could get a couple of flower vases. I only own one. Toured the whole store, they didn't have any. Better to order those online, maybe.

Home, followed the instructions on how to take a cutting and prepare it. Got six cuttings, took them inside. Filled six peat cups with potting soil after putting them in a holder which can take 7, and soaking them a little. After filling them I watered them and poked a hole in the center of each with a pencil. Found an error in the instructions - it forgot to tell me to wash off the pencil afterward.

Dipped each cutting in water, dipped the root end in the hormone powder and planted it in the hole, pushing the soil against it.

Put the holder on the kitchen table, cleaned up the counter and took a picture.

It's going to take a while.

When it started to cool off I went outside for round 2 of the Bee's Friend project. Lots of work. There were a lot of vines behind the staked ones. And there were so few flowers left on #6 that I pulled it too. Two huge trash bags now rest behind the house, all the stakes are now behind the shed. Ended up not using any of the pretty green ones. Part of the task was pulling up some hanks of poppies which were growing past the barrier and into the street. Hosed a lot of small bits out of the culvert and into the barrier.

Took 10 minutes to recover from that, then took out the garbage and recycles. Dinner was reheated green curry beef, on reheated jasmine rice. Very yummy, even if it did give me the sniffles. Ice cream & halvah for dessert. Watched another episode on Netflix of what is turning out to be a pretty interesting sci-fi show, Dark Matter. They have a unique way of fleshing out the characters.

Sunnyvale emailed the cast list for Fiddler. I am suddenly elated I said no, their choice for Tevye was very wrong. For Lazar they picked someone who had directed the last children's production. Interesting, they did not list anyone as playing the rabbi. Not a huge issue since that's a part which traditionally is plucked from the ensemble. Which means they will get someone who can dance.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Home

Back To Sobriety

Hello, my name is Howard and I'm a carbonaholic.
Hello Howard
The past two nights I consumed carbonated wine beverages in an attempt to calm some anxiety and sleep better. It worked. I have been clean and sober for 24 hours.

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Actually, I wasn't drunk, just a little disassociated.

So I slept well, though it still took me a while to fall asleep, but it always does.

Was out and on the road early, for a change I phoned AG instead of the other way around. Just as I pulled into the work parking lot AT&T's local tower decided to die. The bad news is it was just before we said our goodbyes, the good news is I missed a stupid Indian recruiter call. He had also sent email. The only thing on my resume which matched was the word video. He missed the part about it requiring a bilingual English/Spanish speaker. It was the first requirement on the list.

Messaged Boss and the appropriate partner manager that I'd bricked the set top box, manager messaged right back to bring it to him in the big building and he would resurrect it. It was early enough that I could drive and park in the garage.

Also took Boss a unit I was done with, the one from Latvia. We had an informal sync as well. She said she would rattle some cages about the lack of air conditioning in the hole. Boss has lived in Cambodia, she knows I've survived worse.

Manager gave me the unit back, fixed but with an older build on it. He said the version I bricked was broken, not ready for prime time. Which is why I was testing it in the first place. But I'm okay with the solid one. Boss gave me a couple of projects.

Back in the hole, it was still pretty cool outside, the heat inside was working. It continued working as it got up to 85° outside. 83° inside. Boss added a comment to the facilities report asking for some relief, maybe a portable unit or two for me and the engineers next door. No response.

Lunch was quiet, I just missed another gaggle of sixth graders by waiting 10 minutes longer to leave my room. Swedish meatballs. Mango jelly. Famous Amos.

One of the projects required some parsing of XML files, but after way too much online research it turned out to be do-able with grep. But after two passes, it's clear that there are big gaps in the data Boss expected to find.

Break time I was starting to melt, so I stayed in the cool of the break room for half an hour. 

It looks like the rest of the week will be a cool-down.  

Home right on time. Totally forgot about Target which is good because this morning it occurred to me that Goodwill would be a better place to shop for flower vases, and I have some things to donate. Hang on while I check their hours. Sunnyvale store is open till 9. From work I should be able to be there around 6:15.

Dinner was a cold plate. Lox, HB egg, marinated olives, marinated artichoke hearts, soft sheep cheese. Cola.  Halvah for dessert. Watched the 6 o'clock news on Tivo. They were way behind on the Ariana Grande bombing. I'd been watching the story on BBC.com from work. The level of panic and lack of police/security control was appalling.

Spook is not pleased with the heat - she is spending a lot of time sprawled out on the floor. Air conditioning vents, you know. Though she slept most of the day on the guest futon, near a window with the blinds half up, on the sunny side of the house. Go figure.

Did a load of laundry, but won't start up the dryer till morning.

Now that the bee's friends are mostly gone, the front garden looks a mess. The good news is a few plants which had been smothered by them are now out and looking okay. I'll do some work this weekend.

The cuttings I did yesterday look lame, a couple of them don't look like they will make it. But online I saw that I can do rooting with roses in just about the same way, so that will be next. Roses are a lot more robust than sage.

Plans for tomorrow:
Dryer
Work
Goodwill - donations & shopping