reldnahkram

A pretty mixed day today. Got some stuff done in the morning, stalled out a bit in the early afternoon, forgot about an important-sounding meeting that turned out to be pointless; I made it only a minute or two late, but I was about to take a break to eat, and it kinda threw me off for the rest of the day at work. It was a beautiful day, and I totally failed to talk a walk, too. Although I did get another useful thing done before calling it a day, so hey. In general, I've been pretty disengaged at work for a while, but the past week or two has been a lot better. Anyway, we watched Stranger Things S5:E4 after dinner, and ( spoilers about my opinion about it, I guess )

I slept in very late, got up and maybe played a hand of Magic with Quentin in the morning -- I think maybe we've only played one recently, so it might've been today. I picked up the four Bloomburrow Commander precon decks, and he has the two Edge Of Eternities Commander precons, so we've been trying various combinations of those, most recently Peace Offering vs Counter Intelligence. That one was a bad mismatch, because Peace Offering works by giving benefits to an opponent in exchange for something good for yourself, but this is (presumably) much more effective when you have three opponents in a standard four-player Commander game, and doesn't really work at all in a one-on-one match. We sort of suspected that, so it wasn't too annoying, but I think Q would rather have gotten a more satisfying win. :^ )

That afternoon was Fashion Raid Day in pokego, featuring raid battles against eleven of the pokemon who have previously shown up in hats and other outfits during what they used to run as Fashion Week. Pokefriend Holly and I were only interested in one of them (Dragonite), which meant that there was only a 1/11 chance that any given gym would have what we were looking for; they were resetting every half hour, so we did a bunch of walking trying to get to two of them each half hour.

I made it back in time to get ready for Chaos's traditional second-night-of-Passover seder, this year on the fourth night for logistical reasons. It was very nice, and nice to see people. We got home in time to watch Stranger Things S5:E2, which meh. I stayed up too late again, and forgot to post again.

Disruption Week continues, with a visit to the dermatologist for an annual skin check. Everything looks generally fine, so yay. Got some work done in the afternoon, made Salmon Fiocchetti from the TJ's cookbook for dinner, and Quentin showed me Slay The Spire after dinner, a new game he got for his birthday.

Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.

Well, I suppose I could try to write some things about March. What the heck happened in March?

Happy birthday to us! I turned 55, and the kids turned 17 and 14. There are good days and bad days, but they're both still pretty great. Juniper got her driver's license. Quentin has continued to play at weekend LARP events and CIT at afterschool ones, and is now signed up to CIT at the April Break week day camp. I played some pokego, but didn't walk enough, except on days where I walked 10 - 15 km and could barely move the next day, this is a kinda stupid pattern. Not much Magic, although Q and I have gotten back into it a bit recently. I continue to aspire to play more, but haven't figured out how/where/when yet.

Work has been tough. I joined Care.com in 2014, a couple of months after the company had gone public; in 2020 we were acquired by media conglomerate IAC as a private wholly-owned subsidiary; and then a few weeks ago, we were sold to private equity firm Pacific Avenue Capital Partners. The IAC years had a lot of ups and downs. The PACP weeks have so far been pretty bad, with some really rough cost-cutting measures. You hear a lot of stories about private equity firms buying companies and dismantling them, and we're all really hoping that's not what's going to happen here, and upper management assures us that it isn't, and some of the immediate changes may be hard for now but good in the long run, but, oof.

(I knew this next aphorism wasn't original to me, but I wasn't sure where it came from, but I have lately learned that it was Gavin! Thanks, Gavin.)

You know what they say in New England: March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a cold wet pissed-off lion. Pretty accurate this year anyway.

[* On Feb 28th, I decided to start trying to post regularly again, and wrote a post, but then I found that I'd jotted down some sketchy notes each day from Jan 1st - 14th, and decided that I should post those first, but it was too late at night, and then I failed again to start after all. Here's those sketchy notes, with occasional comments written today in brackets like these. *]

Three sentences about 2026-01-02

Low-key day, pretty well forgotten. Quentin's hair is snarly but he's working on it. Stranger Things S2:E5.

Three sentences about 2026-01-03

MTE League at Omar's, finished our stuff, it was fun but somewhat annoying, I feel somewhat intimidated by more experienced players even when they're super friendly, not sure what my ideal MtG experience would be. Hair improving. Stranger Things S2:E6, no Elle!

Three sentences about 2026-01-04

Piplup Community Day, lots of walking, gave up a bit early, still just feeling very exhausted overall, hope I can walk tomorrow. Hair failure. Stranger Things S2:E7. Elle! Or I guess she's Jane now. I wonder which name she'll go with. Up way too late being dumb playing with Magic cards.

Three sentences about 2026-01-05

A bit of a slog at work, important thing that took a lot of waiting. Walking not too bad! Stranger Things S2:E8, Quentin very pleased about Mind Flayer. Hair is great!

Three sentences about 2026-01-06

Cleared cars in the morning, we keep getting like half an inch of snow at a time. More slog at work, Stranger Things S2 finale, pretty dramatic and some good emotional beats, not so sure about the plot/worldbuilding but enh.

Three sentences about 2026-01-07

Lunch with Matt, sluggish day at work, abandoned at pokego, Magic with Q, no Stranger Things. Up late being mad about MSP.

[* Pretty sure that "abandoned at pokego" had something to di with arriving late and others had left already by the time I got there, or something. That happened at least once; could've been as far back as January I suppose. Oh, and pretty sure that "MSP refers to the Gestapo (ICE) invasion of Minneapolis / St Paul. *]

Three sentences about 2026-01-08

Exhausted collapsed back to sleep. Made honey mustard salmon for dinner. Stranger things S3:E1, to bed.

Three sentences about 2026-01-09

Dead Cells w/ DVS, yellow curry meatballs, a friend of Juniper's over for a movie.

Three sentences about 2026-01-10

Kyurem raid day, D&D fell through, Thai for dinner, Stranger Things S3:E2.

[* "D&D" here refers to Quentin's D&D game, which I think we were planning to host, but then people couldn't make it after all. *]

Three sentences about 2026-01-11

Slow day, Quentin outing, TJ's risotto thing for dinner.

[* I wonder what the outing was. Ah, TSOR suggests that it was an Xmas present from Chaos & Gina, a trip to an arms and armory museum in Worcester. I wonder if we liked the risotto thing -- we've been making things from the Trader Joe's cookbook, and have acquired some new favorites, and I sort of thought there was a risotto thing that we'd had once, and apparently there was, but I now don't remember anything about it. *]

Three sentences about 2026-01-12

Ok day at work, Quentin podcast interview, Stranger Things S3:E3.

[* Quentin was doing a podcast for a school project, and interviewed me for it about my experiences playing D&D as a kid. It was fun. :^ ) I don't think I ever heard the finished result. *]

Three sentences about 2026-01-13

Sluggish, Magic.

Three sentences about 2026-01-14

Sluggish, Raid Hour,

[* Well those last two entries aren't super informative. I suspect the "Magic" one was against Quentin, and not something more exotic at Omar's, because I don't remember going up there on a Tuesday, and it's not on my calendar. I wonder what else I was going to write after the comma after Raid Hour, or if that was just a typo. *]