the deep moans round with many voices

FYI, am still in Minnesota, on Star Island in Cass Lake. Vacation is wonderful and I am enjoying it greatly, despite the minor inconvenience of our internet service still being borked so I am reduced to using my phone as a mobile hotspot. (Dad was able to get through to CenturyLink yesterday, and they restored our phone service but not our internet. Apparently the internet restoration can't be done until Tuesday, and will also require a new modem which Dad asked them to send to Aunt Jan in Virginia since she will be the next person in the cabin after we leave on Sunday afternoon.)

We've done some useful chores around the cabin, solved one simple puzzle, and are working on a second puzzle that is both NOT rectangular and is actively hostile to humans trying to engage with it. *wry* But we will triumph nonetheless!

Minor annoyance: I got my period this morning. I didn't expect it until next week, so I hadn't brought any supplies aside from the three pads I always keep in my tote bag. Fortunately Dad had a couple things he also wanted to buy in town, so we made a brief shopping run around noon and now I have both pads and tampons. (I already had ibuprofen. I always bring ibuprofen when I travel, for various and sundry reasons.)

I have been kind of flirting with burnout for the past couple weeks -- normally the end of tax season restores some of my free time, but at the rental office we are running four weeks ahead of last year, and last year was the fastest we'd rented in, like, twenty years, so. It's been hectic, though presumably this does mean we'll have a slower summer.

Church has also been hectic as we approach the annual meeting, and honestly I bailed on last month's board meeting because I had about -5 spoons. (I mean, I set up the minutes template for someone else to use, but I just could not face a 2-hour meeting.)

Church has also just recently had a minor explosion due to member discussion over whether or not to approve/accept the proposed 8th Principle. Staff had to shut down a Facebook discussion group and suspend all emails via the Breeze system to stop people from yelling at each other and spamming the entire congregation with manifestos. It is a mess. :(

Also this morning there was a widespread power outage over sections of Ithaca that included several of the rental company's buildings. One of those buildings is where my office is located. So that was fun. Given that I couldn't do any useful work in the office, I went down to the Commons where I staged a vacant apartment, took photos, shot a video tour, and then packed all my staging materials back into storage. By the time I was done with that, NYSEG had restored power to all of our properties, though several traffic lights were still out, creating a bunch of impromptu 4-way stops around downtown Ithaca.

I think we have finally caught up on our backlog of leases, and I was finally able to print my move-out forms -- this requires creating a specific spreadsheet and then executing a mail merge. I could probably copypaste the spreadsheet together in about 10 minutes, but I do it slowly and by hand so I can check each apartment as I go. This is our final point to catch errors like date overlaps and other glitches, so that focused review is important.

Anyway, I have my spreadsheet, I have my move-out sheets, and I have my security deposit return address forms. Tomorrow I will take the spreadsheet and create personalized labels for key return envelopes. Then I get to put the labels on the envelopes and assemble the packets (one move-out sheet, one return address form, one key envelope). Hopefully I'll be able to distribute the first round on Saturday, after which I will shove the remainder at Mr. Geniality to distribute on Monday.

This is a lot of tedious nonsense, but it reduces holdovers and improves key return immensely, so it's worth the bother. (Also, it's good to catch date glitches NOW instead of, say, in August when someone shows up to move in on the first day of their lease but the current tenant's lease doesn't end for another week. *headdesk* We fixed that, btw. It's much easier to fix in May before anyone's nailed down their travel plans.)

Tomorrow I also get to poke various people for various missing forms, waving the stick of "You cannot pick up your keys and move in until we receive this!" over their heads. *sigh* We are very clear and up-front about what forms are part of our lease, and what information is legally required for various purposes. And yet, some people always forget one piece or another until we remind them multiple times.

...

In happier news, today my parents bought a house in Minnesota! It's a two-level townhouse in a suburb of the Twin Cities, and it looks very nice despite a bit of silly buggers with the ceilings and roof line. God willing and the creek don't rise, they will close on June 6, which happens to be the same day I will arrive in Minnesota for my summer vacation -- I should therefore be able to see it in person before we drive up to the lake. :)

...

I refuse to talk about national or international developments of any type on the grounds that I am avoiding all news to save what's left of my mental health. :(

Day three of vacation: very satisfactory. :)

I got up at 9:30am instead of 11:30am, made myself a nice breakfast (scrambled eggs, English muffins, a clementine, tea), and then spent the day mostly reading (in the cabin and down on the dock), working desultorily on a puzzle, and doing some dinner prep and cleanup.

I also took a two-hour afternoon nap, which was lovely. I intend to pay down a significant portion of my chronic sleep debt by the time I leave the island.

Tomorrow should be cooler, and Mom and I plan to go on a hike -- possibly all the way around Windigo, possibly in the morning. Other than that, my schedule is wide open.

Hmm.

In reading news, yesterday I finished Harrow the Ninth, which is indeed a head trip. But in a good way! My one quibble is that the narrative voice which is eventually revealed to be ( spoilers ) doesn't have quite the right word choices before the reveal, though there are some hints. Anyway, I am now desperately curious for the third book.

I have started A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (who I was interested to learn is married to Vivian Shaw (who I somewhat "internet knew" from Homestuck fandom) -- I am always a bit surprised to be within six degrees of contact, however loose, to people whose books I read), and while I haven't gotten far enough to have much of an opinion, I can definitely say I'm not bored. :)

In nonfiction realms, I am working through Medieval Maritime Warfare by Charles D. Stanton, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz, In the Interim: Strategies for Interim Ministers and Congregations (2nd edition), and An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire by David Mattingly. I tend to have several books on the go at any time, and switch between them based on my mood for any given day or hour.

In writing news, I opened the file for "Guardian" chapter 18 and skimmed through the parts I'd previously written, but did not get any farther than that.

I am also slowly continuing to crosspost my Three Sentence Ficathon fills to AO3, which feels nice and productive. *wry*

And now I think I may go to bed, so as to continue paying down my sleep debt and be in good shape for a hike tomorrow. :)

I think I mentioned this a while back, but anyway, I have an actual vacation this year! \o/

It's a little weird, logistically, for two reasons. First, because of what Covid-19 has done to the airline industry, Delta chopped their daily flight schedule to and from Ithaca. That meant I would have either had to take an extra day off work or effectively lose a day of vacation due to weird flight schedules, neither of which is a great option.

Second, because I am tacking my friend Susan's wedding and related Events on to the end of my vacation.

So it wound up making more sense for me to drive to NJ Monday evening after work, fly from Newark to the Twin Cities, and then fly back for three days of wedding, etc., in NJ.

I also have a bunch more stuff to pack than usual, though obviously I will be leaving all the wedding-related clothes and supplies in my parents' house while I'm in Minnesota.

Relatedly, I am trying to get through a number of Tasks before I depart. Thus far, I have stopped my mail, set up a bunch of instructions for my coworkers to guide them through stuff I usually handle, paid my rent, paid my health insurance bill, pulled together some snacks, and made my various packing lists. I am also working to use up perishables so my fridge won't be a horrorshow when I return home.

Tomorrow I need to buttonhole one of my neighbors and ask them to water my plants while I'm gone, do laundry, and go vote early for my local primary election, as well as, you know, actually pulling down my suitcase and packing 90% of my stuff.

On my way home!

Which in practice means I'm sitting in an airport for the next hour-plus until my plane starts boarding, but as Nick said, better through security and bored than delayed and stressed. *wry*