Breathing~ma for your friend, Tep. Sorry to hear about stepdad's mother.

Teppy, I'm sorry for both of those things.

But yay, haircut! And highlights!

I’m sorry, Steph. But I hope you enjoy your hair treatments.

My hair has completely grown out of its pixie. I have no bangs for the first time in decades. I’m not sure if I’ll go back to bangs when I finally get a cut.

I'm sorry, Teppy.

Had a bone density done today. Low bone mass both sides of my neck. Not a huge surprise since this is the case with most women my age. Need to change up my diet and exercise routine and see if I can make something happen before my doc argues with me about meds.

My hair is long again. Long enough to have to tie it up when I swim or it gets caught in my pits. I wish it would be more gray, but not interested in dealing with color or such things anymore.

Promising news on friend with Covid: the hospital sent him home because they deemed him "not bad enough to keep." So that's a qualified yay on his behalf.

I had pancakes for dinner, and they were very satisfying.

I had half a pbj for dinner last night because there was absolutely nothing in this house--or in my mind, either--that appealed, and I had to take my meds. I can't remember my last pbj. This one was pdgood!

I've been looking at raclette recipes on Pinterest in lieu of eating...I'm currently too heavy to really exercise, so having to start with diet. Sigh.

Confession: Earlier this evening, walking home, I came upon a gigantic unbelievable chonker of a raccoon trundling up a side street in the direction of Haight. The raccoon, naturally, froze and then panicked and then darted under the nearest security gate and into a side alley. And then I spent the next ninety seconds pleading with it to please understand that I didn't want to harm it or poke it or even try to pick it up (without consent, anyway) and that all I wanted was for it to understand how deeply adorable it was, to own it and take pride in it.

The entire time it glared at me with a please stop making noises at me stinkeye, until I gave up and went home. I don't think I fooled it for a second; I think it knew the entire time that what I really wanted was to convince it to let me snoodle it.

In conclusion, I may be just slightly unbalanced.

(I wouldn't actually snoodle a raccoon. But it's been going on half a century since I last read Farley Mowat, and I'm astonished at how desperately I still WANT to.)

Toddson: I am the designated notes-taker for all lab meetings, I assume because I type fast and am an admin-person (rather than a scientist-person.) I regularly have zero idea what people are talking about because they use acronyms and names of fancy pieces of equipment I have no reason to know beforehand.

I have whoever is running the meetings save the agenda on a shared folder. I build the notes from the agenda. During the meeting I basically transcribe what I am hearing as best as possible. Afterwards I edit (and delete most of the chatter to try and get to bullet points.) Then I save it with "track changes" ON and send a hyperlink to all the managers and make them review it. Honestly, usually only my direct supervisor actually bothers - but since she makes all edits/updates/revisions directly in the document, I can see what they were as I accept the changes, and sometimes that leads to mini side discussions (like what an "elution tube" is and the difference between a QIASymphony and a QIACube.) Once a quorum of managers respond that they have reviewed and edited the document, I update it to finalized for distribution. Or sometimes it just hangs out on the shared drive until the next meeting comes around at which point I "finalize" the previous meeting notes whether they've been reviewed or not.

If you are only beholden to one manager, I highly recommend sending them your notes to "review" and make whatever edits or updates they feel are appropriate (if you aren't already). One- they can correct anything that you technically can't understand, and (perhaps more importantly) it gives them responsibility to provide constructive feedback, even if it's just in the form of edits. You can't be expected to know what someone wants if they won't fracking tell you. *sighs and shakes head*

• also shakes tiny fist at Texas*

So on Monday SC will open up the next phase of vaccines which includes people 55 and older and people who have certain pre existing conditions (including obesity) and front line workers.

Not anyone who works in the public just certain workers and then mid April it will open to people 45 and older and essential workers.

I'm trying to decide if I should use the fact I fall into the obesity pre existing condition to get the vaccine or wait until mid April. I seem to be relatively safe at work but McMaster has also lifted restrictions on mass gatherings and late night alcohol sales so I expect to see a jump in infections because of this.