Sound On

They worked on our lanai today. (On Friday afternoon, they took down the screens and railings in front of two sections of the lanai, so we have to keep those shutters closed until the whole thing is done [they're digging in to fix the rebar under our lanai], which may take, oh, a week or so, if we're lucky.)

It's a bit loud, as you can hear if the video shows up here.

But in happier video, this dog leaping into piles of dry leaves is very satisfying.

As is this horse, blowing bubbles in a pond.



There's always the classic, baby laughing at ripping paper.



And Mary Ellen found this sea otter live cam! (I watched the penguin one, too.) What else have you got?

A Small But Satisfying Solution

Forgive me for not delving into the deep-seated uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic right now, and I will also not burden you tonight with the latest on the continuing and unending condo work. Maybe tomorrow. Feel free to comment on anything that's on your mind.

When I lived up north, and wanted to use my swift and ball-winder to wind a skein of yarn, I had an old table-y-thing that I set them up on; it was called a desk return, I believe, the side part of a desk, with some storage space underneath, that I had picked up at Goodwill years back. I used it in the kitchen for extra storage and counter space, and it worked well for yarn winding.

However, it was not in good shape, and did not make the cut to move with, and down here, I've struggled with the best way to wind. My makeshift solution has been the coffee table, which works okay, but it's low, which is hard on my back, and the beveled edges mean some unsteadiness in the winding.

Enter two bar stools:

The swift and winder can stay on them, and I can pull them out as needed.

And once I move that chest to the left back in front of the window, it will look a bit less like a secondhand furniture shop in here. But that may as well wait for the window inspector.

Pick Your Song

Of course I washed my hands before all the coronavirus fears, as I'm sure you did as well, but I'd be lying if I said that I'm not taking a little more care to be thorough about it these days. And if, like me, you're already sick of singing happy birthday to set how long you scrub, this nice person created a way to plug in a song you like, and get a washing poster set to it.

For me? As always when clearing out songs that are stuck in my head, I used Clean, by Depeche Mode.

What can I say, it works for me. Tell me what you'd use!

Still Here, Barely

How am I doing, you ask?

About like that. Holding it together, sort of, but one stretch away from snapping completely (I regularly do a partial snap, like when the cat is pestering me but she doesn't know what she wants but she won't stop bugging me).

Happy with my knitting, at least.

Meanwhile, some people have suggested (semi-seriously) I could try therapeutic drinking; I don't drink a lot (though I think some caramel vodka is going into a coke this evening). so that isn't a strategy for me. But we've ordered some more toffee. Be prepared.

BRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZBBBBBRRRRR

Turns out that today, they started digging into the front of the building under our lanai with either a small jack-hammer or a large drill.

In case you thought things might ever quiet down around here.

Week five and counting.

Hockey in Florida

Mom and I went over to Sunrise Thursday night to see the Bruins play the Panthers. And of course, I took some pictures! Mostly before the game started, but let me lay it all out here, as much for my future reference as anything else. (I found that my post about going to the game last year was very helpful, particularly in reminding me that the godawful loud goal horn was a thing I should be prepared for. Though I think it was nearer to my seat last year, which was closer to the other blue line than these seats were, and slightly higher up.)

Waiting to go in.

I thought the doors opened more than an hour ahead of time, but I was wrong about that. Oh well. An hour it is. Waiting outside is no hardship down here. Hockey in the land of palm trees.

This is the view from our seats, no zoom.

We were in section 317, second row, seats 15 and 16.

Those seats are next to a separate section with folding chairs. I don't really understand it, but to the point, it isn't accessed through our row, which meant no one going back in forth in front of us all game. I mean, they did in the row ahead of us, so there was some sight-line blocking, but no having to stand up or move your legs or anything. And it's right along the blue line, so you get quite a decent overview of the ice. Would sit there again!

Oh, good, we're here for the right game.

I will never not be amused at the rat instructions.

Warm-ups start about half an hour before the game. Here come the Bruins!

Scattering pucks everywhere.

And skating around in the weird lighting.

Until the Panthers got on the ice, and the lights came up normally. That's better!

Doing their weird stretchy moves.

And Pasta doing his limbering. Left.

Center.

Right.

Then joined by Krug and Grzelcyk for some company. We all go this way.

We all go that way.

We pair off.

And then we do some standing.

This kid is 12 years old and he did a fine job with the national anthem. I've heard far worse from supposed pros!

And we're off!

Lots of Bruins fans at the game, including the one in the front row in a Bruins puck hat.

As for the game itself (oh, that), it wasn't the Bruins' best effort, and they were outplayed by the Panthers quite a bit. But they managed to win it in overtime.

So thank heavens for that much, at least. It was a fun game, and we went to Ruby Tuesday for an early dinner first (there isn't one too near us, and Mom loves the bourbon salmon), which still left enough room for a pretzel at intermission, because that's the rule, I have to have a pretzel if I go to a hockey game. I'm just following the rules. (I love pretzels.)

I was pretty tired driving home, not unsafe to drive but I wouldn't want to drive any more tired than that. It's about an hour and 45 minutes away, once we got out of the parking lot (which only took about 15 minutes but felt longer). Home by midnight, and someone forgave me pretty quickly for being out.

She also very much approved of my having taken the morning after the game off work, so we could have some relaxed time to wake up and get moving.

For Now

Please accept these cat photos in lieu of actual substantive content.

Thlurp!

"Hallo."

The Update to the Update

I guess my complaining yesterday got through to the universe, because we heard last night that the window people would be starting on us today, and they did. The workers were pleasant and polite and communicated well, and also the process was noisy and disruptive and messy and kind of maddening. And although the worst of the noise stopped when they finished ours, they went on to next door, and will then be working below us, plus the roofers are back, so, well, it's still not ideal, far from it. But the new windows are in, and maybe I won't have to move my bedside table anymore.

The cat Is Not Pleased with all the goings-on here, as you can imagine.

Also, if the markings on the front of the building mean what I suspect they mean, our lanai may be one of the ones that they think needs rebar work, and if you thought the rest of this shit was loud, just wait.

So! I am going to send you to read this "can you believe it" story about the cars that cost $2 million each--and all 12 are presold!--and invite you to weigh in on that ridiculousness.

I will not be here tomorrow, as we're going to watch the Bruins play the Panthers, very exciting! So I'll catch you Friday night or this weekend.

The (Window) Story So Far

As I mentioned, we were told that the window replacement process would be starting on Monday. One of our (kind and handy) neighbors offered to come by on Sunday and take down all the shades/blinds/window treatments, much to our unhandy relief.

So on Sunday morning I moved things away from windows (Mom definitely would have done some of it, but she has a tear in her rotator cuff, so I wouldn't let her) to get ready for him. We're only talking about 4 windows (or 5: the kitchen is a double-window, so it could be counted as 1 or 2, then there's one each in the living room, office, and my bedroom), but it's amazing how disruptive it is to the whole place to have those areas cleared. The poor cat doesn't know where her food bowl should be!

After he was done, I moved my bedside table back into place (oof, that thing is surprisingly heavy), and slept sort of oddly between the outside/hall light shining in, and the awake-at-5-someone's-outside-the-window-aren't-they feeling.

We had been told that there would be three crews of workers: one for the penthouse, one for the easily accessed windows, and one for the windows that need a lift to get to, but as it turns out, just one crew came yesterday, so all they did was work on the penthouse. Not that we've gotten any official updates: it's all from Mom-talked-to-the-neighbor-who-had-talked-to-a-worker, like a game of Operator, though certainly we could tell from the noise (oh, the noise) that work was indeed going on*, and another lift was delivered Monday morning. But after getting all ready, moving the bedside table** and unplugging everything there, it's kind of annoying to still be in limbo here. I just want them to get it over with already.
*And the lanai across the way that's being worked on is getting tiled, so the sound of the tile being cut has added to the noise from upstairs.
**I'm not moving that thing again until the workers need to get to the window, that's for sure.

I did pin up a shower curtain over the window last night, which didn't block a lot of light but was still helpful. We're looking into getting a new, room-darkening blind in place of the old blinds, so we'll see what comes of that. The room doesn't get a lot of light, as it faces onto the breezeway, but it gets enough reflected light to wake me early in summer, anyway, and who wants that?

As to all the other work:

• The power washing seems to be done; at least, we haven't heard anything since last Wednesday, when we had to keep the shutters down while the front of the building was being washed, but they did do that, at least at our level (the grunge it left on the strip of lanai floor outside the shutters was disgusting), so hopefully that is in fact finished.
• The roofers haven't been seen for a while, but the roof is visibly not done, so who knows.
• The painting continues; they are making visible progress, but they haven't done the floors yet, which should be the last step. Hopefully they will indeed let us know ahead of time when that happens, so that we can choose whether we want to be stuck inside or stuck outside.

Week four of the chaos continues. Next time, knitting update!

Made It to March!

Further to the spirit of coping strategies:

Fingers crossed for March!

Building Work Updates and Coping Strategies

We learned on Thursday that the window replacement work starts next week. It's stressing me out because it's full of unknowns, and as you may have gathered if you've been reading here long, I am a planner and an anticipator and not at all good at spontaneity. Especially if it will come in the form of a worker showing up at the door and telling me I was supposed to have done XYZ already.

I am reminding myself that it is a really, really good thing if they can get this done, especially before I have a friend visiting in a few weeks, because the thought had crossed my mind that it would just figure, wouldn't it, if the two overlapped, and my office is also the guest room, and has a window, so that could have been very awkward. So this is better! And get it over with!

But I am still stressed out, so I thought I should remind myself of the ways I am coping and trying to get through this with my sanity not entirely in shreds (just partially).

One. I ordered noise-cancelling headphones. They won't provide me with a personal cone of silence, I don't think, but if they would just take it down to a dull roar, that would help. Anything would help.

Two. I was at the yarn store for knit night when I saw the email about the window work, so I bought some therapeutic yarn. I buy yarn there every once in a while anyway (it feels awkward to go and never buy anything, especially as so often I'm not working on a project using yarn I bought there, either), but I needed something comforting, and this does the trick.

Claudia Hand Painted Yarns, Oh Baby, which is a merino-silk blend; the color is called Mushroom Hunting, and it's a light taupe/brown that shimmers. The grande skein is 700 yards, 200 grams. And the way this catches the light is just lovely. I bought some of it last year at a trunk show, and haven't worked with it yet, but I'm willing to take the chance that it will be as great to work with as it is in the skein.

Also, The Loopy Ewe had a leap-year sale* on some limited colorways of one of my favorite yarns, Socks That Rock, where the first skein is full price but the second is $2.29, so I couldn't resist that, either.
*Runs through Saturday night, if you want to jump on it!

Three. Planning knitting! I'm still working away on the second Seashell Shawl, and am about halfway through the yarn I have, but I've been wanting to wind yarn (the Dirty Water Dyeworks colors shown here) and cast on a new project (the Trianglegram by Stephen West), and I'm going to!

Little things that will hopefully help. As is the hope that March won't be quite as crazy at work as February has been. On to a new month!

Gripes and Grumps, with a Cute Cat Chaser

I'm really glad that February is a short month, because it has kind of sucked in a bunch of ways, and I'm ready for it to be over. I'm already planning the celebration.

February for me has been the convergence of two main things:

1. A lot of high-pressure work reports (this has to be published in February! No, this has to be published in February! Everything has to be published in February! Including the 132-slide PowerPoint that we sent in at 2 PM Monday), several of which were very very badly written.
2. All the work that's being done to the condo: roofing, painting, power-washing, and window replacement.

What it's meant is that just when work is being stressful and requiring extra focus, the noise and disruption levels have been extraordinary.

The worker-noises have gotten to the point that it's almost funny, if by funny you mean it's not possible for this to get worse--oh wait, it's worse! This morning there was the banging from the roof, and power-washing* outside my windows, and a painter scraping outside the other window, and did I mention that someone in the building behind us chose this week to rip out their lanai? And that they were jack-hammering for the second day?
*And they're supposed to do the front of the building today, so we had to close the shutters on the lanai, leading to a very unhappy cat, who usually sleeps out there much of the day.

I tried playing music to distract myself, but it wasn't really working, so I thought, well, pack up and go to the library, and I did. It was quieter there at first. But then a woman and five kids sat down at the table behind me for some sort of tutoring or mentoring session, and while they weren't precisely loud, it was distracting, and then a group of women sat down at the next table over and started playing mahjong.

Chatting and bidding and the click-click-click of the tiles, on top of the 'science test is next week, and what did you do for you birthday'... And I'm supposed to concentrate on biosimilars in immunology? I didn't think to bring headphones; the library hasn't been that loud the other times I've gone recently. I know that these days, libraries aren't expected to be silent, but this was a bit much, and I came home again. Where it wasn't quite as loud as it had been, but the quiet didn't usually last long, leaving me on edge, wondering when it would start up again.

I'm only slightly insane, thanks.

I don't know where else I could go that would be really quiet. Maybe I do need to get noise-cancelling headphones, though I don't like the idea of wearing them all day long.

But the work is supposed to be done in a few months*. It's not forever. Supposedly.
*They keep telling me it will take months, and that the noise and disruption are only going to get worse. Both these things may very well be true, but I don't see how dwelling on them now helps me at all. It's not like I can prepare myself. Other than moving out, which seems a bit drastic.

I really hope that March will be a bit less insane at work; I hope so, I do. It would help a bit.

Your reward for getting through the griping: Miss Adorable Cat, last night and today.