Much cancer treatment~ma to your mom, Trudy. I hope MSK can work out a good way forward for her.

I'm sorry the bureaucracy nonsense is being extra nonsensical of late, erikaj.

I found out that one of my coworkers just tested positive for COVID. Since I'm 95% remote, this is usually a cause for moderate concern and well wishes. This time I was in a 4-hour in-person retreat followed by a 2-hour dinner with him the day before the test results, so it's a little more personal. I feel a bit wiped, but that's quite likely the 3-day conference followed by a division retreat and a jaunt to the botanic gardens in 90+F heat. I tested negative, but I have another 8 days when things could develop. What with vaccines and such, this is more "lordy, this darn thing" and less "OMG!!!" but it's still annoying.

I swear if they could make me stand on my head first, they would.(Which is why one my least favorite bits of Dem messaging is about "the dignity of Social Security" because I was absent that day.) Calli, I'd probably be tripping.(Although, in retrospect, my teenaged anxiety about germs could probably traced to a burgeoning consciousness of how out of my control things were gonna get, but that doesn't totally take the 'ew, ew, ew," away on its face.)

Tim is out of surgery and I just met with the surgeon, who said it went very very well! 🎉 The curvature was straightened out and they put spacers between the vertebrae. I can see him in half an hour or so.

Oh wow, I posted an emoji! I copied and pasted that message from a text to my bro, and assumed the emoji wouldn’t copy over.

Trudy, so much ~ma and good health to your mom, and coping~ma for you. Being a caregiver is really hard. I'm so glad she has you.

Matt, much ~ma for you and your mom.

erika, so sorry about stupid b-crazy.

JZ, SO glad you are feeling a bit better, but what an ordeal.

YAY TIM AND TIM'S SPINE! Sending quick healing and second-surgery good vibes to him and coping~ma to you, Yep.

Java, I so agree about Twitter. I don't have anywhere near the relationship with it that you did, but I used it a lot professionally (especially for scholastic journalism) and breaking news, and it's such a loss. I also really loved following people I didn't know and learning from them. I hope one of the alternatives eventually bears fruit, but I don't know how I'd find all the people I followed on Twitter again. It's so frustrating.

I am positive I'm missing people, but my thoughts are with you all.

Things look good for Mom. Her having been through that, without being more specific than she'd like, made her breasts different and probably threw off the imaging. Also, she has numb spots under her armpits so feeling wouldn't tell her very much, unlike before.

Oh wow, I posted an emoji!

Woot! Yay for Tim and his surgeon's skills.

Good to hear things went well with your mother, Erica.

Good, good for Tim and surgery news.

erika, good news about your mom!

Tim still has one more surgery to go, on Thursday. Fingers crossed that one goes as well as today’s did.

Tim is out of surgery and I just met with the surgeon, who said it went very very well!

Excellent news!

Tim still has one more surgery to go, on Thursday. Fingers crossed that one goes as well as today’s did.

Digits crossed!

Because we don't clean out our gmail accounts with any regularity we found the Apple receipt for buying JZ's laptop so we can prove she owns it when we take it into her ex-work IT people. Because they think it must be theirs or why else would it have grabbed a bunch of her work stuff off the cloud.

Oh well. Today's win is...finding the receipt.