the deep moans round with many voices

On Tuesday, Landlord Dude asked if he could drop by my apartment on Wednesday or Friday to take some photos for use in advertising the unit. I said Wednesday was no good, but Friday was fine.

So I did NOT put off my laundry another week and instead washed everything on Wednesday, as well as tidied a bit. Thursday I did more tidying, put away all the clean laundry, and also baked snickerdoodles for a memorial service because I promised to do that a couple weeks ago and didn't remember until Thursday morning. (This is how me promising cookies for memorial services always goes.)

Then this morning I ran a dustmop across a bunch of surfaces and tidied a couple more things.

Hopefully he will get decent photos!

He also mentioned that he will have to start showing the apartment, which is fair. I do want to get some of the stuff I have been boxing up (or collecting for donation) OUT prior to any strangers tromping around, but that's not really under my control, so whatever.

Three more days at Not the IRS (Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday) and I will be DONE!!! for the year. I don't know if I want to do taxes next year in Minnesota -- on the one hand, I do enjoy the work, but on the other hand, it is a logistical pain in the neck and runs me ragged for 3.5 months of the year. Ah well. We'll see how job searching goes in general before I make a decision on that front.

(Apparently my dad has said that he expects me to live in their basement for 2 to 12 months, which seems like a reasonable range. We all hope it's closer to 2 months, but he suggested that it would be fine for me to lurk in their basement and finish a BA in accounting while doing taxes on the side rather than dive straight into the job market. TBH I would prefer to have a steady job and do school on the side a couple years from now when I am eligible for cheap in-state tuition rates, but. Y'know. Who can say what will make the most sense in six months? *waves hands at the general state of the world*)

Some stuff:

1. Flew out to Minnesota for Christmas and some ancillary visiting -- I left Monday afternoon (12/23) and returned home on Saturday (12/28). The flights out went smoothly, but both legs of my trip home were significantly delayed, which was annoying. Anyway, it was good to see Mom, Dad, Vicky, and Aunt C again.

2. Mom seems to have finally internalized that I am serious about moving to Minnesota this June and is now lightly panicking about logistics and my impending job search, which is... well. I am glad she cares! I am glad she wants to help! But it's also very tiring.

3. I thought I had finished all my Not the IRS paid training by the end of the year, but apparently they lied to me when they said all the training would be in X section of the company intranet. Actually half the training was still on Y section of the intranet (where all of it used to be) so I had to go take care of that portion yesterday. But now, finally, I seem to have ticked off all my mandatory boxes.

4. We rented an apartment to a guy with a start date of January 2 and I wanted to stage/photo/video it before he moved in. However, despite the apartment having sat vacant since FREAKING JUNE, our Maintenance department didn't finish turnover until Thursday morning and then the tenant showed up three hours early, so there went my plans. *sigh* However, I did manage to stage/photo/video a different apartment this morning, which is good because in theory we have someone ready to sign, pay, and move in this afternoon.

5. I am attempting a habit pledge for Get Your Words Out this year, after not writing much at all for a few years. I would like to get back into writing and I think a habit pledge is more useful for that than a word count pledge. :)

And now I think I will go grab some lunch before returning to work.

Tonight I have been prepping for my flying (...pun retroactively intended) Thanksgiving visit to Minnesota.

Context: we used to do Thanksgiving at my parents' house in New Jersey. This worked because A) tradition and B) it was halfway between Ithaca and DC. Then Vicky moved to Minnesota, but we still had east coast Thanksgiving because my parents still had the best house. (Also we randomly did Thanksgiving in my apartment twice over the past 15 years, but that was a logistical pain in the neck so it never caught on.) Then our parents finally retired back home to Minnesota, but! Instead of Minnesota Thanksgiving we did a few years of Chicago Thanksgiving because that's where my Aunt C lives and it's drivable from Ithaca in a pinch. (IIRC we had also done Chicago Thanksgiving once previously while Grandma D was still alive but was no longer able to fly -- Aunt C picked her up from Iowa and drove back to Chicago, while Mom and Dad picked me up from Ithaca and we drove west. I don't recall how Vicky got there.)

Anyway, this summer Aunt C retired back home to Minnesota, so now family holidays are in Minnesota and I am traveling by plane because I am not driving 20+ hours for a two-day visit.

The point of this story is that this afternoon it occurred to me that, given the short duration of the visit, I might not need to pack a suitcase -- instead, I could get by with a backpack and a tote bag. This would be preferable since then I would NOT need to planeside check any items and therefore wouldn't need to wait for any such items to be returned on the jet bridge after landing. That is important because I have a RIDICULOUSLY tight connection on my way west Wednesday afternoon/evening, and anything that saves time could be vital.

So far this plan seems to be working out in practice as well as in theory, but we'll see how the final few items fit.

Also the weather in Minnesota is proper wintry so I will be wearing my new winter coat to the airport and stuffing my all-purpose black hoodie into my backpack. Oh! Which reminds me that I must remember to bring my scarf and some gloves. Yes. I will go add them to my packing list.

We had an office meeting today at the rental company -- we try to do that at least one Friday each month, but we'd let it slide for a while. As a result of assorted discussion topics, I generated one new checklist and one new supplemental lease page so we have the cleaning policy for shared apartments in writing -- that is not super important in the grand scheme of things, but should hopefully head off some arguments with future tenants.

I also finally schlepped some staging materials down to the Commons, which I had spent two weeks not getting around to. (First I was sick, then the weather was bad, and by the time those objections were gone the suitcase had faded in my mental background until Ms. Random Numbers reminded me it was still there.) And, of course, I am continuing my floor plan project.

At Not the IRS, my scheduled client was a no-show, and while my digital drop-off client did send me a new document, it was not either of the two documents I specifically asked her to give me. So I did some document scanning for my coworkers, answered a couple phone calls, and otherwise read and poked at the Friday NY Times crossword. (I have largely given up on the NY Times for any news that even vaguely touches on US politics, but I still like their games section.)

I have two calls scheduled with Susan -- one on Saturday to catch up, and one on Sunday to talk about her taxes -- and a call with Nick on Sunday night. I also plan to attend a chamber music concert on Sunday afternoon, so my weekend looks pretty full.

We went to the Corning Museum of Glass -- Mom pointed out, correctly, that the thing about visiting wineries is that you tend to drink a bit of wine, and then usually want a nap afterwards, which would interfere with our relatively early dinner reservation.

So we watched a glassblowing demonstration, wandered through the scientific advancements part of the museum (Dad and I read all the plaques, watched all the videos, and played around with some of the devices -- Mom was more cursory and spent about twenty minutes on a convenient couch waiting for us to finish), and then headed to the 35 centuries of glass exhibit (where, again, Dad and I took our sweet time looking at everything while Mom was mostly off doing other things). Historical glassmaking is really cool, okay? Also, they had a working glass armonica with some headphones that played a recording of actual armonica music. :)

The museum had organized a game where they placed a small but distinctive glass sculpture in one of the exhibits, and if you found it and took a photo back to the admissions desk, you would win a small prize. I found the sculpture somewhat by accident, and won a sticker which is now adorning my laptop.

We had dinner at the Antlers, which is an excellent local restaurant. (I say "local" -- it's actually out in Varna, which is one of Ithaca's ring of hamlet exurbs -- but it takes under 15 minutes to drive there from my house which is local enough.) Mom had scallops au gratin, Dad had the porterhouse steak, and I had the Delmonico steak. Everything was unsurprisingly delicious.

With regard to presents: Nick bought me an art print I had requested, and Mom and Dad got me some useful gift cards plus a new saucepan to replace an old one whose non-stick coating was crumbling off.

Susan and Cat both called or texted to say Happy Birthday, which was nice. I also got possibly the world's funniest birthday card from my Aunt Cara. The front says Socially obligatory folded piece of paper for your birthday, and on the inside is the qualifier: With envelope. :D

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Café Dewitt -- I had their French toast special of the day (it sort of mimicked Honey Bunches of Oats? a bit odd but quite tasty), Dad had a deluxe fried egg sammie, and Mom had a ham-swiss-spinach omelet with a side salad. Then they headed south to New Jersey, where they attended a Superbowl party at my friend Susan's parents' house along with my friend Cat's mom. (I have always been a little confused as to why my parents ended up actual friend with MY friends' parents, but not really with Nick's friends' parents, but that's just how things shook out.)

Meanwhile, I enjoyed having NOTHING TO DO, and spent my afternoon taking a glorious nap and catching up on some reading, as well as watching some more videos for my Coursera class.

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Monday was pretty slow, just work as normal up in the Collegetown rental office. The previous new hire quit at the end of December because she got hired for a government job with one of the neighboring counties. It was the right choice for her, but a bit frustrating because she had been picking up the job well and had an excellent work ethic. Fortunately Mom Boss and Aunt Boss found yet another new hire in late January, who thus far seems to also be picking up the job pretty well. I have my fingers crossed that she will stick around for a while!

I managed to do laundry Monday night in case today's east coast storm did NOT miss Ithaca, but thus far we have seen no sign of snow. Over the past few days, it's been kind of funny to watch our forecast go from "OMG SNOW!!1!" to "2-4 inches" to "afternoon flurries, maybe a dusting will stick to the ground." The sky this morning was a bright and gorgeous blue, and I am beginning to suspect that even the flurries may fail to materialize. We shall see.

And now I will return to answering work emails.