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I am home, after a weekend with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
adrian_turtle, in which I helped her buy a computer and met her ex-housemates. The computer shopping was complicated by the difficulty of finding a laptop with a decent non-flickering screen--she'd already bought one based on descriptions and had to return it. We swore at Mapquest, went to two different stores, and rejected one incompetent salesman, but Adrian got her computer, and this is very good. We had sushi beforehand, and determined that seagulls are irrelevant while in the parking lot at PCs for Everyone (a nice salesman there, but no suitable hardware).
Sunday Adrian did some writing while I proved that baking is not, in fact, an exact science--lacking measuring spoons, I guessed at the baking powder, and the cakelings came out fine. Then we went over to Keith and Cyd's, where I met them and their daughters. I read to Katrina a bit, and we did more baking before dinner. I think I had too much tea.
Today I am home, having discovered that mass transit can also get lost--the driver got on the east-bound instead of west-bound Mass Pike after stopping in Newton, but we didn't lose much time.cattitude met me for a late lunch of grilled tuna over salad, then we bought some groceries and came home. We spotted a newly blooming dandelion in the park, and he showed me where two of the January dandelions [sic] are happily forming seedpods, and another is continuing to bloom.
I am short on sleep, having been up past 2 on Saturday night and until 1 last night. Adrian gets up at 6 on workdays; to be out on time, I reactivated the 40-minute morning technique I perfected when I had the Commute from Hell. Since we had an hour, I was able to drink two cups of tea in that time, give Adrian one, and braid her hair. To my surprise, I drowsed on the bus--I almost never manage to sleep in any kind of vehicle, or while sitting in a chair of any sort.
The MBTA is replacing subway tokens with stored-value cards. Unlike New York City, they're doing it on a station-by-station basis, and just switched over at South Station. On Friday, I fed my token into a vending machine, which gave me a card that I then fed into the turnstile, and had to take out again before the turnstile would open. I automatically kept the card until I got out of the system at Harvard Square, because that's what you do with a London Travelcard, and the need to take my card back pulled up those reflexes. This morning, when I exited at South Station, there was a man standing at the entrance from the railroad station to the T station, with the decidedly unenviable task of shouting instructions on how to insert the new cards, repeating himself about every 20 seconds. This is a task that cries out to be automated--recorded messages don't get bored, nor do they get laryngitis.
adrian_turtle, in which I helped her buy a computer and met her ex-housemates. The computer shopping was complicated by the difficulty of finding a laptop with a decent non-flickering screen--she'd already bought one based on descriptions and had to return it. We swore at Mapquest, went to two different stores, and rejected one incompetent salesman, but Adrian got her computer, and this is very good. We had sushi beforehand, and determined that seagulls are irrelevant while in the parking lot at PCs for Everyone (a nice salesman there, but no suitable hardware).Sunday Adrian did some writing while I proved that baking is not, in fact, an exact science--lacking measuring spoons, I guessed at the baking powder, and the cakelings came out fine. Then we went over to Keith and Cyd's, where I met them and their daughters. I read to Katrina a bit, and we did more baking before dinner. I think I had too much tea.
Today I am home, having discovered that mass transit can also get lost--the driver got on the east-bound instead of west-bound Mass Pike after stopping in Newton, but we didn't lose much time.
cattitude met me for a late lunch of grilled tuna over salad, then we bought some groceries and came home. We spotted a newly blooming dandelion in the park, and he showed me where two of the January dandelions [sic] are happily forming seedpods, and another is continuing to bloom.I am short on sleep, having been up past 2 on Saturday night and until 1 last night. Adrian gets up at 6 on workdays; to be out on time, I reactivated the 40-minute morning technique I perfected when I had the Commute from Hell. Since we had an hour, I was able to drink two cups of tea in that time, give Adrian one, and braid her hair. To my surprise, I drowsed on the bus--I almost never manage to sleep in any kind of vehicle, or while sitting in a chair of any sort.
The MBTA is replacing subway tokens with stored-value cards. Unlike New York City, they're doing it on a station-by-station basis, and just switched over at South Station. On Friday, I fed my token into a vending machine, which gave me a card that I then fed into the turnstile, and had to take out again before the turnstile would open. I automatically kept the card until I got out of the system at Harvard Square, because that's what you do with a London Travelcard, and the need to take my card back pulled up those reflexes. This morning, when I exited at South Station, there was a man standing at the entrance from the railroad station to the T station, with the decidedly unenviable task of shouting instructions on how to insert the new cards, repeating himself about every 20 seconds. This is a task that cries out to be automated--recorded messages don't get bored, nor do they get laryngitis.