Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Our friends Alan and Jeanne are in town over the Thanksgiving weekend, visiting Elly (who lives in Salem). They spent the afternoon here. Alan is one of my oldest friends. We met in roadnotes' living room in 1983, when he lived in Toronto, and he and Jeanne now live in the Bay Area. [cattitude points out that I've known Elly about as long.]

I took a covid test for unrelated reasons yesterday (it was negative) and then I asked cattitude and adrian_turtle how they'd feel about visiting unmasked iff everyone tested negative. They said yes, so I suggested that to Alan, and also noted that I had already tested negative but had tested because I seemed to have a cold. Everyone tested negative, but Elly spent most of the afternoon wearing an N95 because she doesn't want to catch a cold. We also replaced the pre-filter on our living room air filter.

Much conversation, and we finished the apple crisp from yesterday's belated Thanksgiving dinner (Elly took her mask off for this). They left around 6:30, after spending 3.5 hours here. I suggested to Elly that we get together again when we don't have visitors from the other coast, and we hope to do this, either her visiting us, or the three of us taking transit and her picking us up at the commuter rail station. So far this is a hope, not even the glimmering of a plan.

The postponed Thanksgiving dinner, which we had yesteray, was good, especially the duck. I didn't like the rice salad, and Adrian and Cattitude thought it was only OK, but there were plenty of roast roots, so that was all right.

This afternoon was the gift-opening/reveal for the Scintillation Groundhog Day gift exchange.

lydy made me a wool hat, which is a wonderful shade of purple and big enough for me: most excellent.

Grace (who is not on DW as far as I know) was very pleased with the gift I sent her, three kinds of washi tape. I hadn't really known what washi tape was until she said it was one of the things she would like, but I looked around on Etsy and found some nice designs from a Canadian seller. (The mail, and customs, were iffy enough when I was shopping that I didn't want to send something from the US to Ontario.) I got an automated email a few weeks ago asking me to rate my purchase, which I can now do.

When I got back from Boston, I posted about eating and enjoying apples, and how pleased cattitude was when I brought a couple back to Bellevue for him.

The delightful browngirl commented, offering to send me some more apples. My answer was "yes, please," and this afternoon I picked up a package from the building management office. Walking back, I smelled the apples through the cardboard box. So, for an afternoon snack, I ate a Macoun apple, and Cattitude ate what might have been a Brock, and there was much rejoicing. I put the other four apples in the fridge, to keep crisp and because I like chilled apples: it looks as though we have three more Macouns and a Macintosh.

We just had a pleasant afternoon with roadnotes, talking and drinking tea. Conversation ranging from the here and now, to 30 years back: hair, people we know, plans large and small, who we want to be connecting with, culling belongings, the drawbacks of Facebook and the ways that websites' use of the word "friend" may have people saying "s/he's my friend" when acquaintance might be a better word for "I know her, and we hung out a bit ten years ago." Roadnotes is sorting through/culling stuff a lot more seriously than Cattitude and I are, but I've been using her posts as inspiration, in a mild way: a book or two here, an old Worldcon program book there, some worn-out clothes or things that just don't suit me. I sent her home with a green suede jacket, which had never fit me right (the sleeves are too long) and looks good on her. It had been sitting in a drawer for a couple of years; I'm glad it fits her.

A quiet day was what I needed: I'm still not de-stressed from the last few weeks of extra stuff at work, and my shoulder is being a nuisance. Not a sharp pain, but steady, and bad for my mood and patience. Roadnotes and cattitude are both easy for me to be with; being out somewhere might have been more difficult.

ETA: I have asked Cattitude to remind me, if necessary, that this evening is not the time to do any sorting or decluttering, even if I'm inspired by our conversation, because it would be bad for my shoulder.

Also, we talked about the idea of good enough decisions: reminding ourselves (as I seem to need to, these last several months) that even if some other choice might be/have been better, this one is also good enough. Sometimes you've eliminated the bad answers, and it's not a big deal if you pick the second- or third-best. So I try not to second-guess myself. It's working, sometimes.

I am back from Montreal, after a few very good days. Thursday afternoon cattitude and I went to a couple of used book stores, and as we were walking from the metro station, I realized that it had a "showing someone my neighborhood" feeling. Not something I was expecting: I've lived with Cattitude since 1985. But the places we went are places in walking distance of papersky and rysmiel's home, a bit of Montreal that feels familiar and comfortable. We got some used books (mostly by Avram Davidson), cups of tea, chocolate truffles, and then an assortment of food—deli meat, cheese, more chocolate, tea, bread, and fruit—from several shops in Marche Atwater, since we had a kitchenette in our hotel room. One treat was a really good melon: when the fruit seller saw me sniffing the canteloupe, she asked if I wanted a ripe melon, I said yes, and she asked when I planned to use it. So she found me a melon optimized to be cut for breakfast Friday morning.

We got the room with the kitchenette because I hoped I'd sleep better than I had in the regular hotel rooms in previous years. I slept decently, making the extra expense well worth it. The teakettle and fridge were also pleasant, for things including breakfast; the ability to get a cup of tea in mid-afternoon and not miss an entire panel; and a very pleasant conversation with mrissa this morning over a light breakfast in our room.

After going book and grocery shopping Thurday afternoon, Cattitude and I had a nice dinner with Mrissa and timprov, hung out with other early arrivals in the hotel lobby for a bit, and went to bed. I didn't stay up incredibly late any night: 12:30 or so Saturday and Sunday. The endpoint to Saturday's party was when Papersky gathered her household, the people staying with them, and a few other people who weren't staying at the hotel, so they could be sure to catch the last metro home.

I overextended myself a little bit Thursday and Friday, but not badly: when asked I told Papersky that I didn't have the energy to lead a group to the Jardin Botanique, and it turned out zorinth liked that idea better than taking a Biodome group, so I took a few people to look at animals and walk some, and Z took people to look at plants and walk lots. (rysmiel took a bookstore group, and Papersky got to sit down for a bit.) The lynxes were extremely active, as were the rodents of moderately unusual size. The trumpeter (a mostly black tropical bird) continues to boldly walk all over the rain forest area. We didn't see the sloth, and the otters were napping in their little transparent-walled den, looking very cozy and cute.

Friday night Cattitude and I had dinner with three people we don't see anywhere near as often as we'd like: wild_irises, kateyule, and davidlevine. We wound up at a randomly selected quasi-tapas place on Mont Royal called Nuevo, good food and good service in their back garden. We went to the designated Friday evening rendezvous, where I played a quick game of Zombie Fluxx (not, based on the one game, as good as the original game), and then I chatted with rysmiel and stakebait for a while, and then a bit with other people, and then went to bed.

With any luck, other people will say interesting things about most of the programming. I'll just note that Sunday mornings "Joy of Reading" panel was excellent, as in previous years, and that the * panel went quite well, though more linearly than the Minicon original.

Saturday tanac showed up with an example of some fruit she'd hoped jonsinger could identify. From her description, se'd at first thought mangosteen, but these were something different, with an odd citrus-and-pear smell. She also brought some mangosteens, and handed one around, priority to people who'd never tasted it, but enough sections that I got a bit. I also got to try the mystery fruit, but it didn't impress me the way the mangosteens a previous year did. At the Sunday afternoon "Solid Poetry" panel, a continuation of last year's "Making Real Things and Making Things Real" discussion of things like how to make the physical things in books feel solid, and the ways writing connects to pottery, painting, jewelry, and other crafts, everyone had visual aids. tnh's included a small glass of some kind of rather bitter citrusy liqueur she'd made; we never did find out what was in it, in part because she'd started with wanting to stump Singer and then the conversation wandered, but grapefruit seems pretty definite. Jon, Tanac, if you find out what that fruit is, I'd love to know.

I would have liked to have more and possibly quieter time to talk to Papersky, but as she noted last night, she keeps thinking that it's a small enough con that she'll have time to talk to all her friends, and not thinking about the extent to which almost everyone there are already her friends. We'll catch up later.

As usual at such events, I found myself talking to people about wanting to see them more—in this case including people who live in New York. But the energy constraints that are why I don't socialize as much as I wish I could haven't changed. The conversations with Stakebait were fun, and there's more short-term temptation and/or regret there, because she lives in New York City, than with Mris or elisem (who I also only talked to for a few minutes) or wild_irises or…

I have no idea of whether I'll go to the Montreal Worldcon next summer; I prefer smaller cons, most of the time, but there's some temptation there, for reasons including a chance to see some of my British friends, and my fondness for the city.

[this is incomplete, but I want to get it posted before I forget all about it]

I just had a long conversation with alanro and a brief but cheerful one with shikzoid [she answered the phone, then handed me off to him]. Alan and I do much better by phone or in person than by email or IM, and I was overdue for this. Life happened--they were out of town, or I was, or it got late and I was doing other things; when we'd talked in December we planned on January, based on when I knew I, and then they, would be traveling.

Alan seems basically cheerful about work, and on a shorter scale about a barbecued salmon he is now eating for dinner. Shikzoid was also in a good mood, but remarked on having trouble keeping track of time (in the sense of how long it's been since something happened, the specific being whether I'd visited since they got a particular cat), which is something I sympathize with.

I just spent a day and a half in Arlington. Or so it feels, given that we didn't get back from the train station, fed, and our shoes off at home until past ten Friday night, though my time away from New York was just over 48 hours. So, a short visit, and a low-energy one, as I was still getting over whatever had me home sick from work last Tuesday and Wednesday, but worth it. I took the train both ways, trading money for comfort and convenience. (Convenience in part because the Route 128 station is near adrian_turtle's job, so it made sense for her to pick me up there Friday, rather than for me to go all the way to South Station, by train or bus, and then take the T to Arlington.) Amusingly, Friday morning, I was telling some of my co-workers about the very cheap Greyhound tickets from New York to Boston that can be bought online.

I considered cancelling this trip, but we'd already not seen each other in six weeks, which feels like a long time (we average about every four), and if I'd not gone this weekend it would have been over two months between visits, which wouldn't have been good. We were quiet and domestic, mostly--that is, we did go as far as Cambridge, to eat pho and buy tea, before getting groceries. My major contribution to domesticity for the weekend was carving the chicken. Adrian fed me a nice mushroom-barley soup. cattitude has mentioned corn chowder. It tastes like winter.

I came home to an unrelated but very pleasant thank-you email. (*waves* in the direction of Minnesota)

They're discussing characters with skill points in "getting people to set the cheese on fire."

I went to the gym today, had a very good workout, then collected adrian_turtle at the bus station. She'll be with us through Thanksgiving.

Dim sum and then zoo Saturday with cattitude, quility, and jdoggiedog. Fun, though the otters have moved to Brooklyn. supergee and womzilla were also with us for dim sum, so three people I hadn't seen in too long, plus one I met for the first time.

Above and beyond: deciding to verify my strong hunch that an Aristotle quote said "ανθρωποι" rather than ανδοι" and thus that it was more accurate as well as more feminist to translate as "All people by nature desire to know" than "All men by nature desire to know." Perseus has the original text of Metaphysics conveniently online.

It's still all green, but the heat is on, for the first time this season. With a predicted low of 40 F (5 C), I'm glad of it.

roadnotes came up here for the afternoon, and she, cattitude, and I had a pleasant afternoon of conversation and tea-drinking. News, people, and me trying to get a handle on why I've been feeling tense. The time with her helped ease it, though, which may be more useful than tracking down the cause(s). We talked about pasts and the fallibility of memory (I'm particularly bad at tracking duration), work in its various aspects, and people, past, present, and we hope future.

I spent last weekend visiting adrian_turtle, which is always good. She and I spent Saturday afternoon with alanro and shikzoid, who were in town for other reasons (partly to do with Alan's job). I'd not seen them in a while, and Adrian had never met them. They got along quite well: ice cream (Tosci's) and conversation about life and relationships and books. I don't, at the moment, remember what precise remark of Adrian's led to me saying to Alan and Shikzoid, on the T platform, "See why I love this woman?"

Adrian also sent me home with some good advice (to do with taking care of my shoulder), which I have been taking: Saturday night, I asked her, if she saw me doing something stupid or dangerously careless with regard to health and such, to please tell me. So she did, noting that she only has one redbird and my mother isn't making any more. I sent cattitude email, cc'd to myself and to Q, to help me remember to deal with it, and this morning when I got to work I not only reminded my boss I need a better chair, I came up with a workaround for the bad mouse position, involving a rolling file cabinet whose surface is at a better height than my desk's. And Q reminded me about the issue in email today, as I'd requested, and I was glad to be able to say "yes, I've done these things to fix it." My loves take good care of me.