Bummer you lost out on the thing, erika, but silver lining that you are not overextended, I suppose. Auctions can be dangerous that way.

Yesterday I got a FedEx package from my boss; we now have an award for excellence in technical writing, in memory of the writer who had hired me. I'm the inaugural recipient. My boss is going to announce it at the team gathering later this week.

Wow, congrats Atropa!

Congratulations, Atropa. That's really moving.

Well done, Atropa. A little bittersweet.

ION, San Francisco is gloriously blue skied and warm-ish after several weeks of torrential rain and one extended cold blast.

In international news, Paris is buried under snow and everybody is staying home, and the awful, repressive, misogynist regime in Iran seems to be falling in real time.

What took down Iran's Republic Guard? It wasn't the grassroots women's rights protests of a few years ago. They brutally repressed that with execution and torture. It wan't Trump's bombing their nuclear facilities. It was...inflation.

Plus, decades of frustration and resentment and sanctions.

So in one year, Putin has lost his three big satellite puppet-powers: Assad in Syria, Iran and Maduro in Venezuela.

Proving once again that nothing is so disastrous as being close to Trump because he will find a way to fuck you over.

It wasn't the grassroots women's rights protests of a few years ago. They brutally repressed that with execution and torture. It wan't Trump's bombing their nuclear facilities. It was...inflation.

It's The Economy, Stupid strikes again.

Congrats Atropa!

Today has been a comedy of errors.

I went to the pharmacy and picked up my refills. Got home, sat down to my usual chore with one of the medications of splitting the pills in half, and discovered the count was short -- 30 instead of 45. Drove to the pharmacy, explained the situation, gave them the pill bottle with my half-pills. They went away, came back, handed me the bottle, and I went home. Sat down to split the new pills, discovered there were no new pills in the bottle, just 60 half pills. Drove back to the pharmacy (trying very hard to not take my anger out on the other traffic), explained the situation (very calmly, I think), and they fixed it correctly this time.

Driving home, I stopped in at the grocery store for some ginger ale and a loaf of bread. They only had six-packs of half-liter bottles, not my usual two-liter bottles. The six-pack doesn't fit well in my refrigerater, but it's not a big deal, just an annoyance. Grump.

Got home, discovered that I had forgotten to take the tuna salad (that I had made this morning) out of the freezer (I usually put it in there for an hour for a fast chill, then move it to the refrigerator). It was mostly frozen solid. Grump. Oh, well.

Then discovered that the loaf of bread I had just bought was starting to mold. I discarded the top four slices, the rest is usable if I eat it in the next day or two -- which should happen ONCE THE TUNA SALAD THAWS!!! Grump again.

Probably I will feel better once I have eaten my very late lunch (ham sandwiches instead of the tuna salad sandwiches I had been looking forward to), but for now I am just mad at the world.

Grrrr. Aargh.

That sounds super annoying dcp!!

Congratulations on the award, atropa!

yeah, congrats Atropa. Yeah, it's better I stop messing with the auction. maybe there will be a better chance for a big-cat memento. but it was a cheap thrill for a moment.