the deep moans round with many voices

It has been kind of a trip living in a Minneapolis suburb these past few months, but I think on the whole I prefer not to get into any of that here.

In general, life continues. I ruthlessly yanked my little section of payroll (mileage tracking and reimbursements) out of chaos into proper organization, and then a coworker I have never personally interacted with got promoted to assistant manager and assigned all the tasks upper management had been trying to foist onto me. Which, on the one hand, I am glad to be free of a task I didn't want in the first place (to say nothing of the sweet release of not dealing with the executive director), but on the other it's annoying to have somebody else reap the fruit of my labors.

Ah well. One moves on.

I am working pretty minimal hours at Not The IRS this year, which is reasonable since I am new locally and don't have a pre-existing client base. But I have been making a good impression on various walk-ins and drop-offs and people who just scheduled an appointment with whoever's available, so next year I should have some repeat/request clients as well as clients of opportunity. I think I really must buckle down and up my certification level, as well as get our in-house small business certification, because that will make me more likely to show up as "the best match for YOU, dear client!" in our various scheduling programs. I have been lazy about testing up because my old office knew I am actually qualified to be a level 4 (or 4.5ish) tax preparer despite only officially ranking as level 3, but unofficial ranks don't transfer like official ones, alas.

I am slowly getting my new apartment in order. All the basic stuff has been done for ages, but I still have some boxes I should unpack and tidy away, my kitchen needs more organizing, and I have yet to hang a few pieces of art. But I bought a new armchair and some nice throw pillows at Ikea recently, so I am good on the furniture front. I think I keep putting stuff off because I want to kind of spend an entire weekend doing Household Tasks, but obviously I won't HAVE an entire weekend until tax season is over. It's a silly psychological block, but annoyingly persistent.

Hmm. Also I have been reading a lot of heavily trope-laden Harry Potter fic lately, sort of returning to my fandom roots. I feel ambivalent about this because, you know, Rowling and her everything (may she die in a fire), but a lot of people still writing for HP have taken an attitude of "Fuck you, you transphobic neo-Nazi asshole, you don't get to steal and destroy a huge part of my childhood," and putting in all kinds of things specifically because she's expressed disapproval of them. Which is kind of nice.

I have to be wary when looking through people's AO3 bookmarks, because a lot of the tropes I am currently wallowing in tend to come with a side of "let's bash Ron and Hermione in order to set [fill in character(s)] up as better friends for Harry!" and I cannot be having with that. There is also quite a lot of Ginny-bashing (but not Neville or Luna), which irritates me because Ginny's (still) (always) my girl and the particular flavor of that bashing leans HEAVILY misogynistic. :(

Also I am having way too much fun playing Fallen London. I did try to narrow my focus to one plot thread at a time after initially running around and sticking my nose into everything, but the game really encourages sticking one's nose into everything so right now I have about two dozen things going and I focus on whichever one speaks to me on a given day. I remain a Watchful Lady in search of my Nemesis (my brother's murderer), but I have backburnered that plot until I get up to level 7 in all the Name quests and crank all my base stats to at least 100. (Currently my Persuasive is lagging. I keep getting distracted from seducing the Barbed Wit.) Then I think I will let the Ambitious Barrister make me a person of some minor importance (I backburnered that too; she's been sitting in my lodgings for DAYS, whoops!), after which I shall at long last embark on a voyage to Venderbight in search of the brother-killing asshole who I am definitely gonna shank one of these nights. :)

Drive-by life update:

1. I have properly moved into my new apartment, by which I mean I am now sleeping and eating here. My books are still in my aunt's garage, and my plants are still in my parents' basement (right up against a south-facing patio door; they're fine, don't worry), but I have acquired a new sofa as well as an over-the-toilet storage rack, a kitchen storage/counter unit, a folding step-stool, and assorted hardware supplies. I still need a few more things, but overall it's shaping up nicely.

2. I have settled in at work, and I think it's going fairly well. Credentialing is a pain but I have been figuring out where information is stored and tidying up a bunch of old and/or duplicate files and folders, as well as making spreadsheets to keep track of data and projects.

3. This morning I had my 6-month follow-up for my uterine fibroid embolization, which basically meant I had a pelvic ultrasound so the tech and a doctor could look at my innards and make sure nothing seemed problematic. I am pleased to report that the fibroid in question (the one that pressed against my bladder) has shrunk from 4.9cm to 3.5cm. I mean, I'd already experienced a significant reduction in phantom urinary urges by two weeks after the June surgery, but it's nice to have hard numbers to back up my experience.

4. I got my Yuletide fic posted last night, so not quite right up against the deadline, but I am still moderately annoyed at myself for procrastinating. Ah well. There's always next year.

I officially took possession of my new apartment on Saturday! I am not actually moved yet -- I am still living in my parents' guest bedroom in their basement -- but all the big furniture is there and I spent several hours unpacking and putting things away on Sunday afternoon and again this evening.

Getting my three U-boxes delivered was more of a production than it should have been, which was entirely due to technical glitches on U-haul's part. In summary, I wanted to create a reservation to have U-haul drop off all three boxes on the street, hire some movers for two hours to unload them, and then have U-haul pick the boxes back up on Sunday. I even got permission from the local police to have the boxes on the street overnight despite parking ordinances that require everyone to clear out between 2am and 6am. But U-haul's website would only allow me to create a reservation for box A. Even if I clicked on box B or box C to start the reservation, the only box that appeared as an option was box A.

Eventually I made a reservation for box A so I'd have an order number to reference, and then texted U-haul's help line. (Yes, they have a text-based help line. This is both very nice -- no phone calls! no hold music! -- and moderately frustrating, because it can be harder to explain exactly what you need via a phone keypad.)

Instead of adding box B and box C to my existing reservation, the help line guy created an entirely new reservation for all three boxes, but set it to self-delivery instead of company delivery. Which meant I now had to cancel the initial unloading-only contract with the movers (I got a credit) and create a new one for delivery AND unloading.

Also a couple days later I discovered (via a U-haul email telling me the delivery had been rescheduled from 9am to 10am) that the help line guy hadn't bothered to cancel the original reservation. I duly tried to cancel it. U-haul's website wouldn't let me. I texted the help line again, got a different person, and told them to please CANCEL order #1 and KEEP order #2. The new help line tech did that.

Which you would think would finally clear everything up, but when my moving crew showed up at the U-haul storage center on Saturday, the U-haul crew initially thought they were there for order #1 and only had box A ready. *headdesk* The moving crew lead called me to verify which order was correct, I told him order #2, he said "I knew it! I told them!" and then went and made U-haul fix their end.

I think in the end the expense wound up about the same, and this way all three boxes were cleared out and returned on the same day instead of staying overnight, but it was a pain in the neck.

...

I already knew I needed to buy a new sofa (this one, I think, will be some kind of sofa-bed) and also a new desk, but I think I also want to get some kind of open shelving unit to extend my kitchen. The current cupboards and drawers have a bit less useful space than my old kitchen, besides which I want to move a bunch of the cookware to easily reachable height instead of having things way up high or down where I need to crouch to reach them.

I also want to repaint a couple pieces of furniture I've been hauling around since childhood (they are both sturdy and useful, but primary colors are not really my style) and either paint or varnish/stain a wooden "shelving unit" that I knocked together out of two cheap-ass shoe stands (I flipped one upside down and bolted them together) about 15 years ago. In my old apartment it languished in my entry room gathering dust and holding assorted random junk, but I have decided it will suit well as a nightstand and therefore it needs to be made presentable. :)

Also also I need to install curtains to supplement the blinds, buy a shower caddy, and add some towel racks or towel loops to the bathroom, but those are easier projects. You can buy curtain rods, shower caddies, and towel fixtures practically anywhere.

Hello!

So since I last posted, I reached the gathering site in Alberta (a very swanky "cabin" in the Canadian Rockies, and I will not be any more specific than that, thank you very much). The get-together was WONDERFUL, which is unsurprising, but alas all good things must end so the vast majority of people left Sunday morning (July 20) in order to fly home (or in one case catch a bus to Banff). I drove northeast to Drumheller, leaving around 11ish, and that was the only day where I had to stop on the side of the road to pee in a ditch because Google Maps decided to route me via county roads through the middle of nowhere so I had no chance to find a gas station.

The Royal Tyrell Museum was EXCELLENT and I highly recommend a visit to anyone who has the chance. If you have the time, arrive in the morning to take a badlands hiking tour (this obviously did not work with my schedule), but the museum itself is still damn cool. I then spent the night in a "hotel" that was 7 rooms above an Indian restaurant. The room was fine! It was just kind of a surprise. But on the bright side, I bought a double order of garlic naan for an evening snack and proceeded to munch on that as car snacks for the next two days.

I also bought a t-shirt, a pair of socks, and a travel mug (no handle, has a tea-and-dinosaurs pun) from the museum gift shop. No regrets!

Monday the 21st I drove back south into the US and then took the Going-To-The-Sun Road from east to west through Glacier National Park. (I had previously acquired an America The Beautiful pass which gets you into ALL national parks, plus any sites managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, and US Army Corps of Engineers that charge an entrance fee.) Glacier is fucking BEAUTIFUL. Due to time constraints (and also weather; it was gray and drizzly during most of my visit) I didn't do any proper hiking, but I did get to walk upstream along Siyeh Creek for a little way.

I spent Monday night at a motel in Kalispell, west of Glacier, where I was able to wash a load of laundry. And I will post about the rest of my trip another day.

-----

In non-trip news, I am currently staying at Vicky's house while she is off on her own two-week road trip. She is circling through Chicago, Pittsburgh, NJ, DC, South Carolina, Tennessee, and then Chicago again on her way home to Minnesota. Meanwhile I am dogsitting Alfie, bringing in her mail, and generally making her house look lived-in rather than vacant.

What I get out of this is A) some distance from our parents, which is nice (I love them but it's still fundamentally awkward to live in their basement as a middle-aged adult); B) BETTER INTERNET (my parents' wifi works fine for anything word-based but is frankly tragic about images, gifs, and videos); and C) the company of one of the world's most adorable dogs. <3

In job search news, I have applied to two Not The IRS offices in the Twin Cities area (annoyingly you can't apply for a region -- you have to apply to each office individually). I have also updated my resume and tomorrow I am going to poke at LinkedIn until I can figure out how best to upload it and start refining my job search terms.

Also I may have fallen down a rabbit hole reading Ask A Manager columns, but shhh, we'll keep that as our little secret. ;)

Trip planning is HARD, you know?

I will be leaving on either Sunday or Monday on an approximately 2-week trip. The main point is a gathering of fandom friends in western Alberta, but I have planned my approach so as to have time to do One Thing in Winnipeg (Manitoba) the afternoon of my first travel day, and One Thing in Regina (Saskatchewan) the afternoon of my second travel day. Then the gathering, and on Sunday the 20th I will head to Drumheller to visit the Royal Tyrell Museum.

I THINK I have my itinerary roughed out for the following week.

-Monday 7/21, drive south across the Canada/US border to Glacier National Park, hike an easy trail

-Tuesday 7/22, drive west to Yakima, WA; no stops planned

-Wednesday 7/23, drive to Olympic National Park, hike an easy trail, look for banana slugs, etcetera, then overnight in Forks or Oil City

-Thursday 7/24, drive south on US-101 and stop at some point to get out and dabble my feet in the Pacific Ocean, before heading inland and stopping short of Portland, OR, probably in Beaverton; might also visit Tillamook Creamery if time permits

-Friday 7/25, drive to Boise, ID, possibly stopping at a winery or two along the Columbia River valley (more research needed)

-Saturday 7/26, drive from Boise, ID to Bozeman, MD, skirting the western edge of Yellowstone en route; might stop for photos but more likely will just drive on through

-Sunday 7/27, drive from Bozeman, MD to probably Dickinson, ND, with a stop en route to sightsee in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and hopefully see some bison and/or prairie dogs

-Monday 7/28, head home to the Twin Cities; no stops planned

This feels generally doable to me. None of the driving days are excessively long, none of the activities are excessively strenuous, and I will return home before August. Now I have to research national park admission policies and also start making motel reservations. Argh.