Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

We had company yesterday: Alan and Jeanne, who are visiting from California, and Elly, who they are staying with. Alan is one of my oldest friends; I met him at a party in roadnotes' apartment in 1983 (so, more than 40 years ago). I've known Elly almost as long, and she lived next door to us for several years; I've "only" known Jeanne for about half that long.

We had the party with food, and without masks: everyone took covid tests Saturday morning, and we opened one kitchen and one living room window for ventilation with a bit of a cross-breeze, and ran two air purifiers. (Normally, one of them sits in Adrian's room.)

Good conversation, about a variety of topics, some more serious than others--some life catch-up, which included both health and health health insurance, and random other topics including travel, cats, memorably bad weather, and geography, both natural and the built environment (mostly streets and street names, not fanous or unusual buildings).

Molly was delighted by the open window, and by attention from more people.

We had pizza delivered for dinner, from Veggie Crust. At Elly's suggestion, we tried the portobello mushroom pizza with pistachio pesto. The pesto tasted mostly of basil, but it's a good combination, which we may get again.

Adrian baked chocolate chip pumpkin bread, and Elly made a custard pie. The pie is very rich, and I realized a few minutes after our friends left that the pie was still in our fridge. I'm not even going to try to finish it, because it's very rich (neither Cattitude nor Adrian can eat it, because there's a lot of cream in the custard).

[We have spent today quietly at home, by ourselves, because even the best socializing can be tiring.]

When I sent anne my annual "hi, would you like to go look at lilacs together?" email this year, she said she wasn't up for that much exertion, because she is still dealing with Long Covid. Instead, she suggested we get together outdoors somewhere and just talk for a while.

Anne, Adrian, Cattitude, and I were all free this afternoon. We met at the Public Garden, then walked a couple of blocks to a boring public courtyard that has tables and movable chairs, stopping long enough for me to buy a cup of soft ice cream from a Mr. Softee truck, something I hadn't done for years before the pandemic.

The conversation was part catching up, and part just rambling. It had been too long since we got together. When Anne started thinking that she might be running low on energy, we decided that would be a good time to stop. But today was the first Copley Square farmers market of 2024, and we were halfway between Copley and Arlington on the Green Line, so we went to the market.

It's early, so there wasn't much in the way of fresh vegetables, but we bought Macoun and Mutsu apples from one stall, and a small Concord loaf from Hi-Rise Bakery.

That makes three times I have socialized in person in less than two weeks, which is a lot by my current standards. The weather was excellent Tuesday and a little cool for sitting outdoors today. I hope to take advantage of the good weather some more before it starts being too hot for me to be comfortable.

Anne is being more covid-cautious than I, Cattitude, and Adrian, including keeping her N95 mask on outdoors. When we realized this, Cattitude asked if we should put our masks back on, and Anne said she didn't need us to.

cattitude, adrian_turtle, and I visited with nineweaving this afternoon. We sat on a patio drinking Burdick's chocolate (hot for Adrian, iced for the rest of us) and talking. I had a very good time, and Nine and I agreed to do this again soon, or at least not wait a year. I had last seen her in spring 2021, when we were vaccinated and a lot of other people weren't yet.

I suggested getting together a few weeks ago, when Greer decided it wasn't safe enough for her to go to Montreal for Scintillation next month. I already knew that her and my risk tolerances differ slightly—in particular, I'm willing to ride uncrowded buses and trains when the covid numbers are low, and she's not. So, we were in Harvard Square, which is walking distance from her place and near the buses from Arlington and Belmont.

It was a wide-ranging conversation, including eyeglasses and theatre and movies, and visiting very old buildings, and a bit about our respective pandemic precautions.

When we sat down, Nine reached into her bag and gave me the flashlight that I had lent her at a convention in 2019. I'd lent it to her because there was a construction trench near where she was staying, and I carry a flashlight in my daypack just in case I need it, which happens rarely but unpredictably.

I spent most of the afternoon looking at the laptop screen, because two different friends invited me to Zoom parties today, at mostly overlapping times.

To keep the conversations manageable, both friends were using breakout rooms. This worked, except that I barely got to talk to either of my hosts. But I had some fun conversations about topics including bits of history and politics, as well as catching up on each others' lives.

I like liv's parents, which isn't surprising, but is pleasing. I don't remember who said, in that conversation, that he thought peak Somerville was 7Ate9 bakery celebrating Shakespeare's birthday by giving free cheesecakes to people who could recite a sonnet, but I think he has a point. I do wish I'd managed to say more than hi to her, before she decided it was time to put everyone in smaller groups, so conversation would be possible.

At the second party, I'm particularly glad I got to talk to lydy and to alanro. I took a break between the parties because i wanted to get up, move around a bit, and give my eyes a break from looking at Zoom meeting rooms.

Tomorrow I'm talking to my mother. The plan is for her to call me 11ish; I was thinking of suggesting that we try Zoom, but maybe not after three hours or so on Zoom today.

Someone else's post about how much they'd done yesterday reminded me to note this:

I played Boggle and hung around for low-key conversation over Zoom with cattitude, quility, and some of Quility's Minneapolis friends for a little over an hour yesterday. Then I went and read my book, while they played for another hour+. I bailed because I was yawning, and we'd reached a sensible pause. (I warned everyone up front that I probably wasn't up for two and a half hours of Zoom gaming, and asked to play something where one game ends relatively quickly. Two weeks ago they gamed without me and spent three hours on a single game--which isn't flawed, but if they'd wanted to do that I'd excused myself rather than half to drop out mid-game when it might be inconvenient.

I did a batch of proofreading today. A chunk of this was due back to the client by this evening, and I sent that at about 10:30 a.m., then did another piece after lunch. Copy-and-paste plus spellcheck means that I have now found and marked two places where "compromise" should be "comprise."

It was sunny and pleasant this afternoon, so cattitude and I tied bandannas over our noses and mouths before heading outside. The Belmont rules (which are basically the same thing that the state is requiring starting Wednesday) require a mask or other face covering when in any sort of business, or anywhere else where you might have trouble keeping a six-foot distance from other people. I figure that means I don't need a mask to take the trash out, just to look through the window and make sure our neighbors aren't on the porch or stairs before opening the door. I have also been going for un-masked walks in less congenial weather, or at times when fewer people are likely to be outside. We did in fact see a fair number of people; mostly we avoided them by crossing the street if they didn't do so first, and once I stepped into a convenient driveway to get out of a cyclist's way.

I have lots of ice cream, having had Lizzy's deliver four containers (chocolate, strawberry, black raspberry, and chocolate chocolate chip), which arrived about twenty minutes ago.

Last night I joined cattitude in a Zoom game session with quility and a few other people. I left after about an hour of Boggle and chat, because I could feel myself getting tense even from that level of competition (nobody was keeping score); Cattitude played for I think another hour and a half, and then told the other people he'd have to leave now, because it's an hour later here than in Minnesota.

And I just remembered I meant to call my mother; the time difference means she'll be asleep by now, and there's nothing that can't wait until morning.

No, I haven't been incredibly busy today; this post combines stuff from the last week or more.

This afternoon I went to a low-key party at my friend Lori's house, where I talked to her, adrian_turtle, and a variety of people I didn't know, or knew vaguely but couldn't remember their names. In and around the conversation, I ate grilled corn, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, pineapple, rutabaga, and a bit of steak. (The party is outdoors, and I had RSVP'd as "weather allowing," not expecting that it would, but we lucked out, this being one cool-enough day in a string of hot to very hot ones.)

Yesterday I finished editing another chapter of the book I'm working on, and sent it to the client (who thinks I'm great). The day before, I started on a different (small) editorial project. I'm doing two passes on each book chapter, and wanted to take a couple of days between them, hence interleaving this. The other project is going more slowly, in part because it's proofreading as well as copyeditingg, and the document is already in PDF format. This is my second project for this client; having clients want to hire me again feels good, whatever the size of the job. This one is small, or I wouldn't have taken it on while preparing to move.

I called both Belmont Light and National Grid to put the apartment utilities in our name about a week ago. both were straightforward until the end of the call, at which point the Belmont Light person told me that I need to come to their office in person within ten business days to show her photo ID. And they're open 8-4 weekdays, except they close at 11 a.m. on Friday in the summer. If I had any sort of job with regular hours, this would be annoying if not worse; as it is, I expect it to be a minor nuisance, and in return I don't have to deal with Eversource, and National Grid only for natural gas (for the stove). So that's what I'm doing tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, cattitude spent a bunch at the new apartment, measuring the rooms in detail so we can figure out how we want to arrange the apartment. He did this for the last two moves, and we still have the little bits of paper that represent our desks, couch, bed, table, chairs.... He's going to measure the basement, and make more detailed measurements of the windows that we want to put air conditioners in, while I'm talking to Belmont Light.

About an hour ago I filed my first change of address, with the post office. After I post this I will check it off the (electronic) list.

(We hired a moving company last month, and the friend who was so helpful when I was having the cataract surgery has agreed to drive the cats, and probably one of us, from Arlington to Belmont on the day.)

I stayed home from work with an annoying cold Thursday (and went through about a box and a half of tissues). Yesterday I was feeling better through about mid-afternoon, and then the sneezing, runny nose, and eye watering started again.

I had been planning to go to tnh and pnh's today, for general hanging out and a chance to get out of my shell a bit. However, I may still be contagious, and they're planning to be singing at GAFilk next weekend, so even if I was up to enjoying the party (after the subway trip), it would be unkind to inflict myself on them. Or, for that matter, on anyone else who might be likely to catch cold.

I'm not making resolutions—they just make me grumpy—but Patrick's invitation reminded me that I really do want to see more people in person than I have been. Last weekend's Newtonmass party in Cambridge was good in that direction, but I want to catch up with people here in New York, and more people I already know (that party included a few people I knew somewhat, one or two I'd played boardgames with before, and a bunch I'd never met, though one of the latter apologized for not remembering my name from a context I knew nothing about).

Last night, cattitude and I had dinner with womzilla, supergee, nellorat, and their friend Charles who I don't think is on DW or LJ. Womzilla emailed us last week and basically said "meet us for dinner" and we said yes. We went to the Ollie's Chinese restaurant near Lincoln Center. Friendly conversation about a variety of things; nothing major seems to be going on in any of our lives, which is just as well. I kvetched a bit about work, and talked about having just come from the gym. I don't normally work out on Sundays, but if I was going to spend the time on the subway anyway, combining the two made sense, and meant I didn't spend more time traveling to/from dinner than I did with my friends.

The chicken with yellow leeks wasn't quite as good as I'd remembered, but the sticky rice was fine (if over-priced, I'm used to getting it at dim sum prices) and the asparagus was excellent. It had been too long since I'd had a really good cooked green vegetable. Decent salads, yes. Cooked squash and root vegetables, yes. Some green pepper in things, but not as the whole dish, or the center of it. I think I would have thought well of the asparagus even in May, but right now it was especially good.

Around lunchtime today, my phone at work rang, and Desiree, the office manager, said "You have a package." I went over, and she handed me a long cardboard box labeled as containing flowers. I now have a very nice mix of red roses and purple somethings (composites, a bit larger than the roses) on my desk, and a very nice card from adrian_turtle tucked into my paper journal. We don't usually do much about Valentine's Day (or any holiday except Thanksgiving), and this was a nice surprise. A coworker looked at them and said something and I smiled and said "I am a very lucky woman," which I am. (I took a couple of photos with the iPod camera, but "sync" here seems to mean "put photos on the iPod," not "download your photos to your computer.")

( as usual, gym notes )

I didn't manage a nap on Friday—one of these days I may remember to turn the phone ringer and answering machine speaker off when I'm home sick—but I did convince onyxlynx to come up and visit me for a couple of hours. Tea, chocolate, conversation. including but not limited to catching up on stuff. She's not in New York very often these days, but she used to live in Washington Heights, and had no trouble finding my apartment. This may be the first time I've spent with just her: usually, it's been a group (not usually a large one) of people, because I got to know her gradually through fannish stuff, and then she moved west, and when she is here she is trying to get together with lots of people in a short time.

So, I've been doing somewhat domestic things the rest of the weekend, for values of "domestic" that include shopping (Greenmarket and grocery store), walking in the park, and dealing with paperwork and bills. A bit of reading, a bit of email. The leaves are just beginning to turn, but there are still some morning glories, and I think we saw more dragonflies an hour ago than we had at any time this summer. Still not a lot, compared to some years: it was a cool, damp summer by local standards. When we walked past the salt marsh, a turtle was basking on the very top of a tire in the water: the tire is standing on end, with just a little bit exposed at high tide, and moving gently back and forth when waves pass it. cattitude took some photos; I didn't have my camera this time.

I'm still not feeling 100% well: not seriously ill, but enough that while walking is good, weight-lifting may have to wait a bit longer. I am glad I stayed home Friday, even if rest didn't equal sleep. (It often doesn't, for me.)