3.28.2025

the green garden, moonlit pool, lemons, lovers, and fish are all dissolved in the opal sky

1 What have you done recently that you should have done a long time ago? 
the actual M's!
   started doing more—prehaps even the majority of—grocery shopping at a locally-owned store (M's) in a small town near here. After several years ordering delivery from the larger regional store (HV) , I'm heartily tired of poor substitutions, higher prices, time-consuming communication from the shoppers who aren't well-enough trained to trust their own decisions, awful produce, and torn bags. I still do a large order from HV maybe once a month, but it's much smaller and less often than before. 
    M's has an incredibly clean and well-lit store, pristine produce, fresh meat that does not languish on the shelves, a decent selection for a small building, excellent sale prices, and a smooth, efficient checkout system. Plus, they will carry one's groceries and load into the car! And I always feel best when supporting local business.
 
2 When was the last time you screamed out loud, and why? 
in ALL of her ladylike glory
    the weekend with the cat from Hell. 
    My massage therapist had planned a destination wedding. She and her now-spouse have four cats. We'd chatted about them before, and I'd heard that one of them bullies the other three. When they finalized their wedding trip they decided to try having someone cat-sit for the bully so that the other three would be safe. She asked me to do it ... during a massage. I was far too melty and relaxed to say No. I should have realized.
    Cats love me, right? And I love them. How bad could it possibly be?
    It was worse. She was extremely uncomfortable from the moment they arrived to drop her off. She meowed, howled, and bawled nonstop, in a uniquely piercing tone and volume. She scratched, clawed, and bit anything she could get at: furniture, carpeting, fixtures, cords. She was also as close to suicidal as any cat
Queen of the Death Stare
I've heard about—chewing cords, stuffing herself through the rails on the banister to leap/fall down the stairs, climbing the furniture to jump/splat to the floor. It didn't take long before I realized I could not leave her alone at all, for fear that she would destroy my home or herself. I had to take her into the bathroom with me (and close the door). When I tried to sleep, I had to close us into the bedroom together. Before long, I realized that I had to crate her in order to actually sleep, because she roamed about like a path of destruction, pawing and clawing at everything, yowling. 
    She is a beautiful cat, sleek and smooth. When she is in good-kitty mode (roughly 3% of the time) she is gorgeous, soft to the touch, and has a delicate purr. Most of the time, though, she just looks like an overweight (16# on a small frame) glob of horrific menace.
    And, yeah, in the middle of the last night that she was here, I screamed (in frustration, not directly "at her") and cried my eyes out, having gone without sleep for ~33 hours already). Through a very complicated string of events, I found someone else to care for her and VERY gladly gave her back after a dreadfully long visit. Never again!! 

3 What's your all-time favorite dip? 
    pico de gallo. Is that a dip? Love it with fresh, hot tortilla chips, or on baked chicken, or scooped onto a toasted heel of French bread.  
    If it's not a dip, then I would pick sour cream & onion. Not very chic but a throwback to my childhood as it was a staple of "family parties". The only appropriate accompaniment is very salty ripple (not ridged) potato chips (see below for the difference) and a lot of Coke.
ripple yes, ridge no
 
4 What have you argued for in the past that really doesn't matter to you anymore? 
    my past is a long string of arguments serving no good purpose.

5 What's the most ridiculous way you've managed to injure yourself? 
    got up in the middle of the night to feed the temporary roommate—in the basement bedroom. Didn't
bother turning on the light.
  Lost my bearings, veered left, and rammed my right foot into a heavy wooden stool. I heard a faint "Pop" just before a screaming pain shot into my toes, foot, lower leg.... Careful not to step on roomie, I struggled to turn on the light, scooped out some food, and hobbled back upstairs. Turned on my bedside lamp and folded myself in half to look at it up close.
    It wasn't broken in any revolving way, but clearly snapped. I buddy-taped him to his neighbor, pulled on socks, and went back to sleep. 
    It's been a week or so. Still swollen, but less so. Still bruised, but faded to yellow. Still sore, but only when there's pressure from above (like under a blanket). Taping only when leaving the house. 
    Ridiculous.  

6 What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud? 
    a Teams chat with some colleagues. I have ~8 of them going at once (though not active at the same time, thank goodness). The most involved one is just with Blackbeard, and is mostly about personal stuff but is sometimes a shortcut to getting work help. We are very casual about punctuation, spelling, etc., and use emojis heavily. One is only with my boss and is usually work related but sometimes gets pretty funny. He is a super-dry dude who appreciates a good meme. Another is solely with the TL from the
current project. He requires complete sentences, correct spelling, punctuation—and our content is evenly mixed between work, cats, and other peoples' grammatical errors. The others are with some combination of more extended colleagues, less voluminous (on a good day!), and much more general. I try not to engage too much in those because my sense of humor can be hard to read, especially via text. 
    One of those group chats relates to a sub-project within the ongoing gig. It was an especially detailed, boring, important, time-crunched task. The day we finished it was a mini-explosion of hilarious memes, emoji combos, and hilarious chat. I laughed a lot that day.

7 Other than lemonade, what's the best thing you can make with lemons? 
    John's Lemon Cake, of which the linked version is a reasonable variation on my family's recipe. It is a dense, intensely flavorful, rich cake with a unique texture. It is a family favorite and a big treat. 

[from 3000 Unique Questions about Me; the title quotation is by Virginia Woolf, from The String Quartet]

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