On my day off yesterday, I did one load of laundry. And watched four episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs! And painted my nails, but not until nighttime.

Oh, and I need to note that Pumpkin got out in the middle of the storm and ran all the way to the end of the block across porches and me chasing her and stepping in socks in big puddles and OY.

And apparently, I've reached critical levels of flake because I left off one of the catsitter's contact info!!

I'm exhausted from just reading those lists. I'm so not cut out for adulthood.

Ditto.

On the other hand, I really still love that we did a Buffista cookbook. I just had to look up a recipe. Sadly, it was one of mine but I haven't made it in a long time. Still, now I want to flip through it and get new ideas.

I use one of your recipes all the time, Cass! I love that cookbook. I just looked through it recently to see what high in protein recipes were in there that I might have missed back in my all-pasta-all-the-time diet days.

Man, I am so bored. I realize I would be a lot more bored if I didn't have power, and I should shut up and be grateful, but still. Crushingly bored. I even did some paperwork, but then I got bored.

The deployment I just did this weekend, when the last minute revelation came up that the disaster recovery software we needed for our virtual machines was different from what was actually installed was a panic with the sort of clarity my boss has been trying to instil in everyone: Don't change any of the features or precautions of the systems without clearance from on high.

We did get it sorted pretty quickly, but I had to make a very pointed case of how we were just as covered as any other app, and it was agreed that we needed to do a disaster recovery test in the first half of next year.

Every week all of the directors have to account to a good half of the IT staff for even five minutes of system downtime of their applications, and god forbid you're the plebe that had anything do with minutes that get held against them. These people are not fucking around--yes, the apps we're running have more riding on them than Gawker does, but we unless I'm missing something, their entire revenue stream requires uptime, and they aren't going to increase their casual readership by disappearing. And apparently it's the casual mouse click that Denton wants the most.

His whole IT shenanigans -- just a joke. Reminds me of my first US job where they were pretty much technophobic, but thought they could find the next sexy new idea to make millions on, but...phobic? Incapable of running a tech company? Unwilling to observe a rigorous software development lifecycle for more robust and well-tested applications? There's a limit to how far just sex ideas can get you, as the dot com bust apparently taught not enough people.

Pain doctor today did sell the implant a bit harder. I told him it seemed very invasive for something that wasn't even looking to fix my migraines. And I don't know how much it costs, or if it's covered. I think he's finally hearing my reticence. He admits there's not much hard data about it working on migraines with that positioning, but studies are underway this very second to prove or disprove that. And also--insurance will probably deny the diagnosis codes as "experimental" but he thinks there's a good case to be made for "tried everything else" and "do you want to pay for 52 ER visits a year, every year, end of time?" I don't have the energy for that fight, but somehow, describing a $20K procedure...I walked out of there as close as I've been to saying yes.

But I didn't. I stressed I'm in the information gathering stage still. I have a google news alert for neurostimulator and they are a bit more bleeding edge than is exciting for MY SPINE.

Your body, your decision. Did you have discussion of the freaking "agreement" he has to halve your pain meds? The fucker.

That wasn't his decision. That was my neurologist's. As was the suggestion that I just get admitted.

Well, the deductible for my insurance was taken care of long ago. Let's go crazy up in this shizzouse!

I use one of your recipes all the time, Cass!

I'm curious, which one?

I really need to sit down and browse through it later.

Hey ita ! curious, and I've been hesitant to ask when you were deploying and hurting... did you get a something in the mail?

We have power. The tree that fell, politely, in our yard so that it killed the fence and the sidewalk is now chopped into burnable bits. We spent all morning in the rain moving wood. This evening we invited everyone over for drinks and that turned into a pot luck dinner and it was fun but now I am all ache.

The news from NY/NJ is tapering in Philly - I'm hoping things get easier soon for those with flooding and without power.

Gah I have ridiculous levels of work to do.