Today 1Feb2023: Wednesday

Sorry, I forgot to take pictures today.

Well, it is now February 2023. I started with a night of good sleep and then waited until 6:30 to get going. I skipped my exercises and stretches again. I will do some tonight, but I was still tired and sore.

I made the last bagel from NYC today for breakfast with liberal coffee. I then read emails (both mine and the company’s) and then reviewed updates provided by Slack channels. These also appear on my phone. There were no exciting texts to study.

I also read CNN, BBC News, and some New York Times to get a feel for what is happening worldwide. Using the bluntest of tools–Interest Rates–the Fed decided to only inflict another 1/4 point on us. Yes, I do not like this approach (Don’t try to explain it to me–I understand the theory). More shootings. It just hurts sometimes to read the news.

I went off to the office and managed to be ready and there in time to call into the stand-up meeting. The sprint is over, so we are closing tasks. New tasks will open on Thursday. It is the Agile way (I feel very Mandalorian).

The rest of the morning is meetings and me applying vendor patches (SAP OSS notes for those who speak SAP) and asking folks to test them. I also approve some access, and I am now, again, backing up folks. So it is a busy morning.

I head out to see Susie and arrive without any interaction with Beaverton’s Finest, experiencing any unique application of driving practices as often seen in Beaverton and the Greater Portland Area or the loss of paint on Air Volvo due to unexpected contacts. Susie had been up all night and was tired this morning. Jennifer was also running a bit late, and Susie was still eating when I arrived at 11ish. I waited fifteen minutes.

For years, Susie had issues with sleepwalking, not sleeping, wandering, and getting lost in the dark in the house. I would have to find her. Many of her falls were caused by confusion at night. I improved things by using voice control on the lights and Susie stopped getting lost and hurt. Thank you, Alexa (named Echo in my house).

Now, the nursing aides care for her at night and there is a crash pad next to Susie’s bed when she is alone. She has not been hurt for about a year now. While I miss Susie at the house, I am so happy she is safe and stable at hummingbird house.

Returning to the narrative, Susie was delighted to see me and seemed surprised and pleased to see her mother’s face on FaceTime via my iPhone. Susie was slightly confused today, likely caused by poor sleep. But it was an excellent time together, and I decided to run a bit over and rush back to the shoe company. I had twenty minutes to get back, the amount of time it took to drive back when I left Susie with a kiss. Jennifer was ready to get Susie in her recliner in the shared living room.

I returned to work just in time to meet the master data engineering team and join them for Jatin’s birthday lunch. We headed to Thailand for, obviously, Thai food. I had a lunch version of the Mussaman curry, beef, with rice. Service was just one gal and so it took a while for us to get our food. But we enjoy each other’s company and so it was a nice time.

At lunch, I talked to one of my colleagues about how he always feels like he has one leg in India and one in the USA. He is, as many Indians are, conflicted and has aging parents in a distant land. We talk about my experience with Susie and I can see the worry–he is flying back to India on Friday–and he wonders what the future holds for him. Hard choices come as you suddenly discover you are the responsible older adult in the room! When did that happen?!

I continued to work on crises of the moment and help where I can. Brad, my boss, discovers I am responsible for the status of the next test session, a 7/24 adventure starting soon.

I leave at 5ish and head to see Rev.Dr. Wayne Weld-martin at Maryville (room 113B–find 113 and B is the next room). Wayne is recovering from various medical challenges and looked good and was happy to see me. He had called me at work and asked me to see him. My game with Zophia was canceled today (Dondrea has a cold) so instead visited Wayne as that just worked today. We talked for a while and Wayne showed me his books to read. I left after Wayne’s dinner arrived.

Air Volvo returned me home without incident, and I made baked potato wedges and clam strips (we used to call clam strips, “The Show”) for dinner and had them with tarter sauce and watched more of the Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power. I really like the dwarf and elf relationship bits.

After that, it was already past 8 and I got to writing.

My 2600 showed up, but the story I wrote was not published. Hackers! Should be in the next one. Or the one after that. Growl.

Thank you for reading. Sorry if it is a short story today.