That sounds awful, Dana.

Aw, Dana, that's bad.

Yesterday I went to the movies! With friends! Who said "Hey, you two wanna come see EEAAO with us -" and the next thing I know we are proving that a 6'5" person can fit in a MINI - this meant friend and I were sitting cross-legged in the back snarking on an acquaintance's recently published book ("What did you think?" "It's heartfelt -" "And?" "It's a random collection of scenes and someone should have taken her thesaurus away before she got more than two paragraphs in." "Oh, thank heavens, we agree on this. Can I use 'heartfelt' if she asks me what I thought? It's fruitcake in book form, I couldn't get through it").

Today I have baked muffins after a cake failure, made polite conversation with the completely unexpected service techs here to do the spring HVAC inspection, written a "You are failing at notifications again" email to the property management group, and played another round of "Are we moving or not?" with my dear spouse. (Who is still processing the unexpected death of his dear friend and co-author three weeks ago, and helping his niece go through personal effects remotely is a heartbreaking thing, so I am not pushing. But argh)

Oh, amyp, that sounds so hard and sad for your spouse. Hugs to him, and to you while you love him through it.

Today's letter is the letter B! B is for birthday and beekaytee and beth b! May it be a beautiful day!

Cheers, Laura and everyone, for the birthday wishes. I can say without reservation, this has been the least interesting birthday of all my years.

The building manager assured me last Thursday that today would BE THE DAY that resolution would arrive. This being day 47 of our being adrift. I waited for everyone to get over their holiday re-entry before emailing. Then, I emailed again. Then, I called and the manager said to wait 15 minutes while she checked on something. That was two hours ago. Any bets that she plans to call me back today? Didn't think so. msbelle totally called that one.

I am now looking at the Balto environs for my next landing spot. It really, truly is time for me to leave DC. One of my clients is lobbying for LA. Another has a house outside Atlanta. I am open to whatever is right for me.

In other news, Todd has gotten much better and is back home. I called to check on her a little too late today, but will follow up in the morning. Her spirits are much higher and she is moving around fairly well.

Epic, I am so sorry to hear that you will need to go through some stuff, but it sounds like there is a team moving quickly for you. All the healing ~ma coming your way.

Hec, I don't know what it is about that style but it grabs me deep down every time I see it. Were I to visit your house, I would be too distracted by the carpet to make small talk!

Laura, the marina community near where I was before, was truly like its own Brigadoon. The characters were fascinating, and got along better than any solid building I ever saw. It's something about the can-do spirit, I think. Plus, the dog community among residents was adorable and surprising. Not a lot of pocket dogs, but all calm and friendly pups.

Happy birthday to my birthday twin! I hope yours was great.

Hey, Shir! Much good luck on your job transition. May it be easy, quick and fullfilling.

Kaiser just let me schedule my second booster, hooray! Going for Moderna after having Pfizer for all previous

Meetings canceled today, excellent! PT this morning, then an uninterrupted chunk of office time, potentially, which is much needed after the last week or so.

Office is regular temp today. Hooray!!

I am taking advantage of being the only one in the office in my area and listening to audiobooks when my work is not thinky or talky. Finished the current book for book club yesterday (The Children’s Blizzard) and am now listening to the book from 3 months ago that I never finished (While Justice Sleeps). I like this option since I have a lot of repetitive non-thinky work to get through (renaming and converting pdfs to jpgs).

Good morrow, Buffistae. We've been alternating grey rainy days with sunny days here in SF, and it's wet out today.

Hope it doesn't interfere with Matilda's softball game.

On Friday the whole family is driving up to Reno to celebrate my MiL's 80th birthday. Our Air BnB with the whole clan fell apart at the last minute (plumbing disaster) so we're scattered to various hotels now.

On the way back we'll stop in Sacramento and make two short social stops: 1) with my best man, Alex, who as an organ donor recipient has been lying very low during the Pandemic. So we'll hang with him and his family outside for lunch. We haven't had full family get together since Emmett was in Little League so that will be good to catch up.

Stop 2) will be with Cousin Nicole who you may dimly remember we hosted in SF during her HS years and she got super psyched to go out in cosplay to "blow their minds!" She's been in ill health the last couple years, and recently divorced so we have a giant box of books and graphic novels to bestow upon her. She and Emmett were close and haven't seen each other in more than a decade.

While we're gone the piggies will be in the care of Kalena.

Guinea Pig Update: Prubs is completely recovered from her surgery, seems perfectly fine and her fur is growing and her surgery wounds all healed. It's a guinea pig miracle of modern science.

So, the big news in Trudy Town is that I've gotten a dog. I've named him Warwick after the place where he was found thereby making this a tradition (three is a pattern, right?)

He's part of a group of animals rescued from a hoarding situation that was revealed by a house fire. Little man has been through a lot. He had a broken jaw that was never treated and healed wrong so all his remaining teeth had to be removed. We think he's about ten.

He's very sweet but skittish and much smaller than any non-mouse pet I've ever had. I honestly think my childhood rabbits weighed more. My cat certainly did. He could have six months, he could have ten years. We'll just have to see how he gets on. I intend to spoil him rotten - only nice things happen to Warwick from now on.

only nice things happen to Warwick from now on.

Pupper! What a lucky boy to land with you!