First, it is a special holiday today as we celebrate flea's birthday! Happiest wishes for a lovely day filled with love and joy.

Count how many cabinet handles we have to replace in the kitchen (50).

Yikes, but nice to have so many cabinets! Yay for cool neighbors.

I have only 4 days of radiation left!

Sorry about the so-far undetected superpowers. But yay for being that much closer to being finished with that chapter.

Mini-meara:

Yay for seeing parents, msbelle! I'm sorry Mac continues to be a source of worry.

Poor Cupid!

Lisah gives excellent advice.

Happy Birthday, Flea!!!

YAY ALMOST DONE RADIATION, sumi!

So glad you and Rory had a fun camping trip, meara! I know the isolation of the past year and a half was really hard on extraverts like you, and I'm glad you're getting people time again.

Oh, Scrappy, I feel that pain. Yay for progress and cool neighbors?

As for me, I had my biopsy on Friday, and I'm here to report that was no fun at all. I get my results some time between Wednesday and Friday, so if everyone could please send no-cancer vibes in the genera direction of my left breast, I'd appreciate it.

so if everyone could please send no-cancer vibes in the genera direction of my left breast, I'd appreciate it.

No-cancer vibes!

~~no~~cancer~~vibes~~

No-cancer ~vibes~, Pix!

Also well under the incubation period but that's life in 2021.

Our policy states testing should happen 3-5 days after exposure. We'd be better off aiming for the 5, but alas. I'm curious to see if this means everything (tech, previews, opening) gets pushed back a few days or if the plan of sticking to 8 hour days for load-in gets thrown out the window after only one week.

No cancer vibes, Pix!

I skipped and skimmed a bit because I was up in MI visiting my family for the first time since Christmas 2019. There was a shiny new great nephew! We had such a lovely time hanging out on the boat, swimming in Lake Huron, and playing board games.

Timelies all!

~no-cancer-vibes~

We did dinner and live-streamed services at my MIL's this evening. Because she is who she is, it was all outside in her backyard. I have bug bites all over my hands.

Ugh. Trying to come down from the adrenaline after confronting my neighbors for leaving their dog alone in the backyard for 7 hours while he howled in distress.

This was somebody visiting the apartment owner and left their dog out there, while I (and the entire neighborhood) listened to him howling for his people. An old dog, with poor sight. One bowl of kibble. One bowl of water. Left in the noonday sun and then the cold as dark fell. For 7 hours. I was going over to put a note on their door, and there they were. And I fucking laid into them.

Responses from them were: "I'm sorry." And "That language is not appropriate."

To which I replied, "It absolutely is fucking appropriate because you are shitty fucking humans beings who don't deserve a dog."

I'm glad I just went over with the note because Plan B was to sit on their steps with a hammer in my hand.

(I'm turning into my dad who I once saw come within a millimeter of smashing a guy into the ground for beating his dog with a leash.)

I hope you got through to them on some level, David. How horrible for the poor pup.

Oy, Tuesday after a three day weekend. yawnnnn

Here's a good NYT explainer on new data on breakthrough infections: [link]

In short, if you're vaccinated and wearing a mask indoors a breakthrough is still very unlikely even with Delta (1 in 5,000). Also, the emphasis on the higher viral load in Delta was somewhat misleading in that while it does make it more transmissible to unvaccinated people, if you are vaccinated you are still very protected.

We're getting into the place where people have to do their own risk assessments which includes: underlying conditions, living with somebody with underlying conditions, the vax rate in your community and your risk tolerance.

For example, in San Francisco the high vax rate means that my chances of getting a breakthrough is more like 1 in 10,000.