the deep moans round with many voices

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.

Also, a belated catch-up life update post:

1. My colonoscopy went pretty smoothly, aside from the part where it took two nurses three tries to insert the IV into my arm, what even. The doctor found only one polyp, but it was pre-cancerous and it was weirdly large for a single polyp in a person of my age, so they want me to get a follow-up in 3 years instead of 5. Which is more or less what I was expecting -- didn't really think I'd have actual cancer, but did expect some pre-cancerous nonsense due to family history, which is why I wanted the colonoscopy in the first place -- so I think that's as good a result as could be expected.

The laxative prep medication, on the other hand, was absolutely godawful. I literally could not drink more than one or two swallows at a time without tripping my gag reflex and needing to wash it down with either juice or chicken broth. UGH.

2. The Cape Cod trip was AMAZING. It was really great to meet a bunch of NFE folks in person, not to mention swimming in the bay and playing Cards Against Narnia and Narniopoly late into the nights. I got diverted en route to pick up be_themoon from Logan airport due to flight delays (there was some kind of travel curse that hit multiple people), but otherwise I personally had a pretty smooth drive both to and from.

3. I have a mammogram scheduled for Wednesday morning, which is cool; I have a dentist appointment scheduled for next week, which is also cool; and yesterday I got an email saying that I have an appointment with my GP on Thursday morning, which was news to me! So I need to call her office and A) figure out WTF that's about, and B) reschedule, because that's a work day.

4. Had a Zoom call with Cat and Susan on Friday evening -- always good to see them and catch up!

5. I splurged and bought season tickets to NYS Baroque, the Finger Lakes Chamber Ensemble, and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, because what is even the point of finally having disposable income if I don't spend some of it on nice things? (I mean, I also give a bunch to miscellaneous charities and stuff, but one cannot live on virtue alone.)

I think that's the highlights.

On the one hand, finishing the edits on all photos of an apartment and uploading a curated selection to our website is very satisfying, because of the Look! I Did A Thing! effect.

On the other hand, the actual editing process is mind-numbing.

...

I think tomorrow I will work on floor plans instead, and collate some rental rate questions we need to send to Company Owner.

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In completely unrelated news, the Zoom call with Cat and Susan was lovely, and we've mutually agreed to another one sometime "soonish," which probably means when I get around to poking them after Thanksgiving. *wry*

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In other completely unrelated news, I had a brain-fart and forgot all about a virtual tax CE session I'd signed up for, and have consequently rescheduled some things. This time I wrote them down on my physical calendar, and I'm going to add them to an electronic calendar tonight.

Things I apparently do while depressed and consequently low on impulse control:

1. Buy cross-stitch kits from Etsy

2. Buy baby clothes for my friend's kid

3. Buy tiny citrus trees

...

I mean, the last item isn't a surprise. My houseplant collection would not be nearly as large as it is if I didn't have a habit of buying greenery when I'm feeling hopeless, and I am determined to get fruit out of a tiny citrus tree eventually. (I have killed... uh... several. However, my second-to-last tree -- a clementine -- is still going strong after two years, and produced one whole flower last summer! Still no fruit, though, alas.)

The baby clothes make sense in context. (Did I mention that I visited Susan over the 4th of July long weekend while I was down in NJ helping my parents pack up their house? Probably not, given that I haven't been posting. Anyway, I visited Susan and her baby is the cutest baby in the world. He also looks a bit like a squashed frog, but you know, all babies look kind of like squashed frogs, so I don't think that can be held against him. *wry*)

And cross-stitch kits are the same kind of low-mental-effort creative projects as paint-by-number kits.

But still.

I would like some spoons back so I can funnel a few into renewing my self-control. *sigh*

I am down here for the weekend so as to attend Susan's baby shower, which was scheduled for 1pm this afternoon. It was very nice! :) There were tasty refreshments, some fun and low-key games (a word search, some mix-and-match, etc. -- played at one's own pace with no element of competition), and, of course, the gift-opening portion of the event. We also had the chance decorate onesies and bibs with fabric paint, fabric markers, and stencils -- I made a onesie and two bibs (one stenciled, one freehand, and one stencil-with-freehand-details), and while my creations were not remotely the most artistic, I flatter myself that they were not the least artistic either. :D

I drove down Friday evening after work, which was kind of annoying because work ran long. Mr. Geniality and I attended Destination Johnson, the Cornell business school's welcome weekend event for incoming MBA students, and I think we may get some applications out of it. But that was rather disruptive to our normal work pattern, plus I was trying to finish off some things since being in NJ is, for obvious reasons, not compatible with being in the office on Saturday. *wry* Anyway, I did get the most important things wrapped up, and the drive itself went very smoothly, so that's all right.

Mom and I went out for dinner tonight, at Il Goccino, an Italian restaurant downtown. Mom had the pollo Milanese, and I had the chicken rollatini special. The meal was delicious, as always. :)

And now I think I will go fold my newly washed linens (this is my laundry weekend, so I decided to take advantage of my parents' washer and dryer) and go to bed, because I was up too late last night and would like to take advantage of some daylight tomorrow before hitting the road. I am pondering a trip to the Chatham Bookseller, the local used book store, where I spent some very pleasant hours and made some much-treasured (as well as some much-mocked -- I read some awful nonsense back in high school) purchases in years gone by.