Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I've been using an odd thing called "idonethis," which bills itself as "team progress tracking" software, for several years; the pitch is that you can write down a few things in 30 seconds, so other people you're working with can see what got done and share plans. There was also a free single-user mode. The site would send out daily emails, prompting a reply with what I'd done that day, and reminding me of what I'd done a week, or month, or three or six months, earlier.

I started using this after roadnotes mentioned it; she liked it despite the ungrammatical name because it helped her remember that she had in fact done something useful or interesting most days. Sometime in the last week, they quietly discontinued the free service. I went to log into the site this afternoon, to jot down some things I'd done, and was asked for a credit card number and told that my free trial expires in three days.

idonethis is cute, but it's not worth $5/month to me, so I guess I'm done with it. Mostly, I'm going to miss the way the "what have you done today?" emails were an ongoing low-key reminder of roadnotes.

A couple of unrelated things had me thinking about, and missing, roadnotes. First was a conversation yesterday, at dim sum, with Elizabeth (who is not on DW) and a couple of people I don't know well (I think ron_newman was one of them), which went from "we all look so similar on 8 1/2 by 11 paper") to me telling Elizabeth that I understood people confusing the two of us on paper, but the weird thing was that they did so in person. Velma and I were sisters by choice, and looked as much alike as any two women of similar age and different ethnic backgrounds; nonetheless, even people who knew us intimately occasionally referred to us by each other's names. (This is the first time I can recall someone responding to my shorthand of "she was a few inches taller than me, and black" by asking if our hair had been the same color, though it'snot actually an unreasonable question.) That led to a brief discussion of missing her, and other people Elizabeth misses, and someone saying that these days when he sees an obituary he checks whether the person is around his own age. (I deliberately lightened the conversation by mentioning the family photo my mother recently sent me a copy of, taken at my grandfather's 96th birthday party.)

(ETA, something I was reminded of by a friend's post about her family: Elizabeth said that one difference between me and Velma was that Velma was a lot scarier/more dangerous. And some of that was deliberate acting: she once posted a Facebook status of "no heads on pikes this week." And some of that impression may have been that white people are likely to read a tall Black woman with a shaved head as dangerous. I don't think people read me as a threat, but as knowing what I'm doing in a way that means I get asked for directions by endless strangers, but have never been mugged. And when I had my pocket picked on a crowded train, I grabbed the guy's wrist and shouted "Where's my wallet?" without stopping to think about whether that was a good idea. (He dropped it, I recovered it, he got off the train, and then I held onto a pole and shook a little.)

And this morning, I saw that seanan_mcguire had posted another episode of her "Velveteen versus..." series about a superhero, called Velveteen, real name Velma Martinez. That's not a coincidence: elisem pointed me to these after Velma died, because Seanan had known her, and named the character after her partly to cheer her up. Early in this story, the Princess observes that Velma could have used a fairy godmother, but she's the wrong age to do that for her. And I thought "yes, she could" and felt sad in a slightly different way than the "I miss her" sadness of mourning.

I spent a pleasant afternoon with roadnotes yesterday. It was our usual ongoing conversation, this time mostly at La Lanterna over tea, fruit drinks, duck salad, and sweets. Then we wandered around the Village a bit, ending up with a brief stop at Varsano's for chocolate. I got a quarter pound of chocolate covered ginger (large pieces, still nice and soft) and a few truffles and creams. One was something labeled as a caramel truffle. I asked about it, and Mark said "would you like to sample one?" and handed one to each of us, noting as he did that they have liquid centers. I liked it, Roadnotes liked it, so I bought two, because cattitude is fond of caramels. He turned out less fond of it than I'd hoped, saying he prefers the basic chocolate-covered caramel, but that's not dislike, just modified rapture.

Having misread the subway rerouting notices, I allowed more time than I needed, and was downtown well before our agreed rendezvous. That was time to stop at Aphrodisia beforehand, and be reminded of why I carry a shopping list on the Palm. I went in for dried chives, which I got. I also got some cassia, which I remembered I was almost out of, and some brown mustard seed because adrian_turtle used some in a lamb and lentil stew that I liked. I took out the Palm, brought up the shopping list, said "oh," and selected a paprika. While I was on line the first time, a tour guide told his group that it was a "very hippie store." The proprietor expressed distaste, and I suggested that he just meant she'd been there a long time (and thus in his own head associated her or the shop with the Village's hippie days). Even with the stop there, I got to the cafe early. Roadnotes was, I think, also running early: I asked for a pot of tea and the menu, and the tea came quickly. It had about had time to steep when she arrived, but I hadn't poured it into my cup.

Other than that, I've been doing my best to take it easy and rest some. The main accomplishment today has been swapping out the Palm V and its cradle for the m515 ckd gave me a while back: no heavy lifting involved, and it took place entirely indoors. Yes, I have been out, in unexpected sunshine—Roadnotes and I picked yesterday partly because the forecast was for sun then and thunderstorms today—but briefly, just time to enjoy some greenery and regret that another of the trees in the nearby part of the park has fallen over.

When I wrote this, I meant to add that I have now received two bills from the hospital for the gall bladder stuff. One I have paid, and faxed a copy to the FISA account people: that's for $34.63 after what the insurance company paid and/or got them to discount. The other is for ten times that, with a note that they have, as a courtesy, submitted the bill to my insurance company, and that I should contact said company to find out what's going on. So, another call to Cigna tomorrow.