Good morning. Hello. How are you? #390
Weekend puttering, days off, the weird way the Webb family handles holidays, Superman I, sweet new waffle trick, Jane, gardening.
Good morning! Hello. How are you? All well? I do hope so. I’m doing okay. I took today off — four day weekend for my birthday, because why not? Seems kind of dumb, though. I’ll probably spend the day doing mostly stuff in front of the computer, and I’ll probably even do a little bit of work, and I didn’t have any meetings scheduled today? So what was the point of taking it off, you might ask. I can’t say exactly but… I do notice a difference. I’m too responsible of a remote worker, and I feel like I have to stay near my computer at all times — except my scheudled lunch break — even if I don’t have any tasks that need completing. I want to be available for coworkers should they need me for something. I don’t want to be the bottleneck. Of course, they have these things called phones, and they make Slack for it, so I could step away from my desktop during the workday, but in practice I almost never do. I’ve been working remote for years before the pandemic, so this isn’t anything new, really. So taking a day off, even if the bulk of it is going to be in front of the computer, is still a big deal to me: it takes that pressure off. If I want to get up and do some puttering in another room, I can. It generally lowers my stress levels. It’s really quite nice.
This morning before writing this I looked at Twitter and, god, that was painful. John Lewis Voting Rights Act, COVID in India, inmates around the country getting totally fucked because of a year of solitary confinement and COVID. Republicans assaulting democracy everywhere and passing weird laws about not being able to teach about racism. It’s just relentless. Two species of butterflies dying in Sweden’s forests. A pipeline got hacked and the eastern seaboard’s fuel supply is threatened, NBD. A much smaller pipeline broke here in NC a few years ago and the gas lines were insane. I don’t think people realize how big of a deal that one could be.
I really noticed, this morning, just how much it can… it can change you, the news. Social media. The news on social media. I mean, I’m always aware of it but consider myself to be somewhat inured, but nope. Big nope.
I will never, ever resolve living my mostly nice life in a world that’s so messed up.
BUT. It’s my day off. News consumption, to me, is like work. Well, sometimes. But yeah. I try and skip it on the weekends and enjoy myself. Then during the week I do the work of keeping up. It’s a luxury, it’s a privilege, etc. etc. I know this. But it’s good news for you cuz I’ll spare you some rant about Amy Covid Bash or Mitch today. But, man. Yeah. That’s a pretty harsh thing to wake up to: the world.
My birthday was swell, thanks for asking. Oh wait I already wrote about that. Well, two follow-ups I’ll provide are: first, the move of sacrificing the day for the greater good of the weekend was a good move, and the rest of the weekend was quite lovely, sort of aimlessly wandering around doing whatever long-lingering chore that needed to be done, or just laying around. The intentional removal of pressure to get anything done. It was quite nice. And secondly, that massager that Emma got for me is epic, and I am addicted, and I think it’s really making an impact on the years of muscle tension in my neck.
And Happy Mothers day, etc. etc. Emma and I had a long talk about mother’s day because growing up my family didn’t really do holidays. I mean, originally, this was news to me, because we sort of did them. Like, we weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses or anything. They just weren’t a huge deal. You were to say “Happy Mothers Day” or “happy birthday,” and maybe get a card and if you weren’t in the same city, ideally you would make a phone call. This is how Mothers and Father’s Day, Christmas, and all birthdays have been in our family for decades now. Christmas was a slightly bigger affair when Val and I were kids, but really since the early 90’s it’s been barely a blip. I think we’ve spent maybe 2 Christmases together in the last 30 years. My mother says that it’s because her mother was terrible and fascistic about Mother’s Day and it scarred her and so she intentionally reduced the importance of holidays in our lives.
So, like, to me, Mother’s and Father’s Day are like International Pancake Day or something. They’re not huge deals. It never occurs to me to do something special for them. And, of course, for these last three years, it just so happens that my wife is also a mother, so this point of view has no become somewhat relevant. Emma mostly gets it and mostly agrees, but of course who doesn’t want to, like, have something nice done for them on their special day. Every year, the day after, I think “oh huh yeah I should maybe get better about this. Next year.” And then I literally don’t think the thought again. Maybe next year when Jane’s a little older, we’ll try and do something nice. Wow, yeah, this all sounds really awful.
I did call my mom yesterday. She sounded positively euphoric. She ate a creme brulee and had to take a nap. She saw one of her best friends, who had moved out of Alaska and was rarely in town anymore, because her husband is 80 and it’s hard for her to travel. I suspect seeing your friends in your 70’s and 80’s is intensely emotional, since every time you never know if you’re going to see them again. I mean, I suppose we should all feel that way — you never know, a global pandemic or something crazy could happen — but I bet it’s more acute in your elderly years. Anyway, she was doing well, that was nice. And of course I talked to my sister and mother on my birthday two days earlier, so I am positively caught up with family members. Like a normal human being. The era where I went months without talking to my family is long past.
Had a nice Zoom with some friends on Saturday, that was a good time. Watched the first Superman movie in another window, on mute, while we were talking about it. That film is bonkers! It’s like an hour before Superman shows up. But that whole hour is amazing. I kept taking stills of it and every one of them was a masterpiece work of art. Here, have a few:
Just a lot more cinematic than I remember.
In other news, I discovered a fantastic new breakfast trick. After I butter the waffle, do a quick flip of the waffle to dump the excess butter on the plate and then flip it back onto the butter, before slicing the waffle into 2x1 rectangles for Jane. Then, when you move those rectangles to the side and flip the scrambled eggs onto the plate from the pan, whatever butter wasn’t soaked up by the flipside of the waffles will be soaked up by the eggs. Brilliant. Everything is butterier and less butter mess for Jane to smear all over her hands and face.
Two years into this breakfast routine and little improvements are still being made.
Man, Jane was rough last night at Bedtime. She would NOT go to bed, and eventually I had to pick her up and plop her into the crib, and she just screamed for, like, forty minutes until Emma went up and then spent another half hour just talking to her until she calmed down and decided it was time for bed, over an hour late. I tried all the tricks: respecting her feelings and acknowledging them, giving her many opportunities to reset and “try again” and get it right. Patiently explaining the situation to her that no, we can’t get the poopy diaper out of the diaper pail and put it on her so she could try again climbing up to the changing table. She knows this. But it didn’t matter. And even before that, teeth and jammies was a nightmare too, her refusing to do anything and me having to do it all against her will, which I hate, but, then, she immediately forgot about it and was happy again. It’s so weird. We did play a lot of Bonk and Bonk, though, which, in hindsight, probably got her too riled up to go to sleep. Oh. Whoops. Parenting, man.
Did some gardening this weekend. Not that much, but, you know, things are planted, there’s not tons to do. I did get one of the two big remaining tasks done, though: I got the trellis for the tomatoes built. Here. Have a picture:
I know that those grow bags are probably a little small for full-sized indeterminate vines, but that’s kind of my plan and experiment: can I keep their size contained a bit? It’s already gonna be waaaay too many tomatoes for us. And I have limited room up here. But I do think I might add one more on the end there, ha. Make it a bit more even.
Also fixed up the compost bins a bit – some of the screws were coming loose on my bay doors. I re-planted a pepper plant that does not want to take in the soil in this one specific spot in one of the Birdie’s beds. It’s really weird. This is my third try. The second was a bit rootbound, though, so this one I teased the dirt and roots a bit, really pressed and watered it in. Here’s hoping.
Everything’s looking good, though. I have a Napa Cabbage or two about ready to harvest already. The lettuce is looking good too. The beans are growing nicely. Only huge failure is that only one of the overwintered peppers has come back, which is a real shame.
But all in all, the thing is starting to look like an actual garden, which is super exciting. Oh, and here get a load of this:
Helping.
What else, what else? I cleaned up the bar area, cleaned up the wet bar area in the basement, cleaned up the workbench in the garage, ran a hose over to the compost bin area so I don’t have to lug water over there. Moved back into the master bedroom that my mom had been using, lugging all my clothes and toiletries down from the guest bedroom. Watched some Great British Baking Show and a lot of Civ VI livestreams. Listened to First Aid Kid’s Who By Fire: A Live Tribute to Leonard Cohen on vinyl, which was just phenomenal god, what a show. I used to think that band was kinda lightweight, but I was wrong. Listened to my new vinyl copy of Oh My Gawd: It’s the Flaming Lips and The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Bringing it All Back Home Again. Cleaned the stove top. Made a new batch of waffles. Finished up the (delicious) Indian leftovers and now I want to order from that place again. Listened to Flightmilk’s “I’m Starting to Think You Don’t Even Want to Go To Space” like 100 times. God, that song is so good. Installed an AirPod Mini outside on the covered part of the patio — we’ll see if that works or if the humidity kills it. Took pictures of various rooms in the house to add to the “Home” app in iOS and it was very satisfying.
You know. Puttered. It was great.
Today’s mix is from the legendary “W Hotel Lobby in a Better, Alternate Universe” series. Mostly some older stuff, though that Cut Copy song is new? Saâda Bonaire is new to me. Oh that Tindersticks remix is new.
OK well I’m off to putter. Gotta do my 750 words and check all the work vital statistics and check on the plants and then get my daughter and feed her food and then we’ll come back down here and update our quicken transactions. Today’s big goal is to get the studio work table cleaned off. Ambitious, I know. Wish me luck!