Daily Adventures

Three days after I installed the bees, I had to release the queen. She was still in her cage, being seen to by her attendents, and with her caught in the hive, the other bees wouldn't leave her and would do their best to stick with her. But after two or three days, she had to be let out so that she could lay eggs for new workers so that they could get on with the business of being a hive.

( Lots more pictures and explanations of what has to happen... )

When we were browsing the bookstore at Uwajimaya I found a manga that was so down my alley it's amazing. It's Oishinbo, the Viz English translation is the "A la Carte" edition, with small series stories thrown together by type of food. The original has hundreds of chapters, so they're distilled for the Viz audience. I saw it by accident, and saw that there were "sake", "sushi", and "ramen and gyoza" volumes. Intrigued by volumes titled by foods, I impulsively picked up the "Ramen and Gyoza" one. We'd just eaten ramen, so it made sense.

I'm in love.

It's about a young food writer for a newspaper. He's arrogant, cynical, entirely unmotivated, but his love for and knowledge of food is intense and detailed. He has a very nice lady co-worker who is the one that eggs him on to help people out. Jet and I have been reading the stories together and we're both intrigued and fascinated by the sheer detail of exactly how he goes about finding the perfect dishes of Chinese style noodles. *laughs*

It's a real delight. I shall find more.

( The other thing I discovered isn't nearly as fun: I actually don't like coding for coding's sake. )

We had a pretty busy day today, it started with my actually waking up before 8, getting up when the alarm went off at 7, and the boys and I went to our local IHOP for the free buttermilk pancakes. And when Jet found out that the pancakes were actually a fund-raiser for the local children's hospitals, he took a dollar and a half out of his piggy bank and put them into the donations box himself! I was really proud of him for just thinking of it and doing it on his own.

They were pretty packed, especially for having lost a cook for the morning, and at least one of their serving crew. But the pancakes appeared really quickly, and Jet finished off his short stack in short order, and we were in plenty of time to get him to the bus stop on time. Then I started off on my crazy morning.

( School, consulting, King Cake, doctor's appointment, skipping Shrove Tuesday, and going home to write. )

I am unexpectedly depressed... took a few minutes today to go through the last of the boxes from work with John. He just held out each thing, I rendered judgment; and nearly everything I'd brought back ended up pretty much in the recycle, as a lot of it were the management docs I just couldn't let go of when I first left, when I thought I might still choose to go back after the initial, six-month leave.

I didn't.

( Read more... )

One of the more direct ladies at work invited me, last week, to lunch today, and she said other people could have their lunch. The one other lady in the meeting said, "Oh, I'm busy then... so you go ahead..." I thought it a little odd, but I'd be okay with having lunch with someone willing to just say goodbye that way.

So I met up with the lady, and since I had errands, we decided to drive separately. She met me right at my van when I pulled in, and then walked with me in. The hostess asked if we were part of the big Xilinx party and I said, "Uhm... I don't think so...." and the lady said, "Yeah. That's us all right..."

And there were nearly four table's worth of people. Three of them all lined up together, the fourth on its own... but... wow.

I was... flabbergasted. Sure... the prospect of a free lunch is rarely turned down, but... on the most part people were really glad to see me and talk with me and to say goodbye. I was amazed.

It was good.

( Read more... )

I finished the pair while trying to get my needles free for the cuffs of Jet's felted mittens. And a lady at church, whom I've always admired, has, in the past on seeing me knitting between Church School and the service, asked me when her pair will be done. :-)

So, today, I gave her the pair. They fit her just fine, so I'm happy with that. She really, really likes them, and gave me a hug for them, for which I am grateful.

It's a good thing.

We had snow yesterday, but it was exactly a typical Colorado snow, which is dark and gray and lots of fat, fluffy flakes during the morning hours, and at about 2 or 3 p.m. the sun breaks out and everything starts melting. Immediately melting. I went out to shovel a bit, and all the dark lines where the car had driven and the pavement had the least chance of peeking out were all melting and slushing away. Whereas in the shade, where it was thick, the snow flew like dust when I disturbed it, still bone dry and cold.

The weight of the class is gradually leaving me. It was two months' worth of work, really, and I'm finally free of it, and it's taking its slow weight off my stomach, off my head, and off my heart. Nothing really to be afraid of, so far as "getting fired' kind of fears, it's not like that would have mattered anyway. It's more just the primal fear of looking a fool among ones tribe, I guess. Of course everyone told me good things about it, and I, of course, had a hard time believing them, but since all the feedback I got was good, I have to believe that it went well.

I'm getting all the equipment from work that's at home and gathering it all up to take back to work. I am getting my cards together of all the things I need to do in the next week and it's mostly just clean up. Wednesday will be the celebration of the last release, and I'll go bowling with everyone and enjoy myself and a last big social gathering, and that should be It. Thursday I'll pack up and probably auction off some of my old C++ books as even if I do come back I doubt it'll be as a programmer. Too marked by management and the feeling of what it's like to get dozens of minds involved in making a project REALLY good...

I should remember to leave a message on my work extension that says what's up.

I'm realizing that the two boxes of business cards may well work as task cards in the old sense, so I'll just go through them instead of whole 3x5's for single task items. That'll be good.

Jet and John went to watch Jet's first semi-pro hockey game last night. A friend had gotten tickets he couldn't use, so he gave them to the boys and they were right behind the home team's goal. They had a blast, as far as I can tell. :-) They only stayed to watch the first two periods, but they didn't get home until 10 and Jet was all droopy and tired. His eyes are still a little puffy today and he seems to be starting a bit of congestion. But he was in excellent spirits this morning, and he talked all about how the first game was better than the second because they scored so much and how much he liked the noisemaker he'd gotten. And that he'd seen little kids playing hockey on the ice! And...

... it was cool to get the burbling this morning. It was a cool, little junior hockey game, so none of the big professional bru-ha-ha. Mostly just enthusiastic kids all over the place. So I'm glad his first exposure was lots of fun.

I had knitting in the evening, and it's getting close enough to the deadline that I'm working on the last scarf pretty diligently. If only I didn't have three baby sweaters to do, a promised hat, plus the last of Nobody's Sock so that I can get the cuffs onto Jet's felted mittens, and I promised John a pair of felted mittens before we left.

*grin* It's good to be busy. I have a near panic situation at work, trying to tie up all the loose ends AND do a class on Friday AND do all the reviews AND report the accomplishments of the last quarter AND do a good job of getting my replacement up to speed AND turn all the things over to him AND box up all my stuff AND get the last of the equipment at home back to work AND...

There are a slew of cards on my desk at work. I'm getting through them, but sometimes it feels like the pile grows far faster than I can get through them. Argh... AND the on-site massage lady has a sick kid, so no massage today... grumph.

Been thinking and walking through old memories of mine. Mostly the old journals on Flick, and other things that came up randomly as I deal with something someone else needed me to do. It's a bit odd to be haunted by something that happened more than fifteen years ago. Good to let it go, though.

It's odd to be so disconnected from what I was. Not a terrible thing, just... odd. And feeling a bit like I'm going to do it again. Another leaving, another good-bye to a situation I've known and have been comfortable with, to relationships I've build and harrowed in the last few years.

I'm tired. Jet was up several times last night, and I tried to take the bulk of it as John was sick.

I'm a bit depressed, what with all the endings I'm writing, engineering, negotiating, and passing off. It's hard to let go of so much stuff I had my grip on, and know that if I come back, it'll all be different again. I'm writing reviews, changing ownerships on all the email aliases, turning over editor privileges, terminating automatic notifications, and gradually unplugging myself from the thousand bits of data flow that have made up my thinking, daylight world for so long. I'm moving a lot of my industry email notifications over to my personal account. I also made a tentative stab at getting hooked up to LinkedIn, which is a little scary in and of itself.

Sea of Data Girl is moving on. Laughter... there's a name...

Navigator of the Seas of Data. I have always liked that kind of thing, plunging into the ten thousand things for any particular thing, absorbing it all and then saying, "That way... you think?"

Anyway...

I took care of getting Jet mostly ready for school before John woke up and I could shower. Jet and I cheerfully walked to the bus stop and he kicked every bit of snow he could find and marveled at the fact that the lines he'd drawn in the snow dunes were sometimes there and sometimes buried by the wind.

My back still aches mildly, but the domino affect has started moving towards the good side. My jaws and neck and shoulders are tied up but they don't hurt any more. Whew. The on-site massage therapist was working on my head and said, "Hmmm... clenching your jaws lately, have you?" "Uhm... yeah."

I had a good evening with the knitting ladies. Got pretty far on a third scarf. It should be done by the end of the month. I need to get at least one baby sweater, John's mittens, and the scarf done even before I go on leave. After I go on leave, I may give Teyani at Crown Mountain Farms a note and ask if I can spin for her now... it would be fun to do at least a box or two for her just to see if I can do it... *grin* Though... part of my brain goes, hm. It might be more fun to do the other two or three baby sweaters/blankets and things before that... ahem. Yes. My friends and neighbors all seem to be procreating at an unseemly rate, given that I'm over 40.

It's so odd to see so many small, tiny babies, now that Jet's so big and capable now. My.

The cool thing was that the dyeing of the Superwash went well the other night, and I have some gorgeous greens, now. Next up may be some mauves in Jet-painting style to go with the "Twist and Shout" or the "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". It's good to be able to spin what I want. When I think about that, I'm happy again. So I should do more of that.

I was up at 5:15 am this morning, Mountain time, and I got up, put myself groggily together while John snored away happily in his warm bed, and then I went downstairs and got all my stuff into the Passat and took off, out into the greater darkness...

( Read more... )

My boss announced that I'm going on a six month leave of absence, starting the 2nd of February, 2007 through to September 2007.

So I'll probably have a job if I decide to come back. I can extend our health insurance for the whole of the leave by paying for it all.

I haven't taken this much time off on purpose, since the middle of high school, because I was working summers when I could.

It's a very odd feeling.

A friend of mine asked, in email, "What are you going to do?" And when my typing was more than a page and a half of listing of things I wanted to do, I realized that I've actually been going a lot of background processing on what is next? She answered, well then I'm not entering the pool on when you're coming back. *grin*

She may be wise.

But I decided to take this smaller step just in case I do get the "I'm not making money" night sweats or something. I've been so driven for so long, it's starting to really sound nice to be driven by something other than money...