Entries tagged with minnesota

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: ithaca, ny

Entry tags:

drive-by update!

1. I had a uterine fibroid embolization on June 4. This is a minor surgery that basically murders a fibroid by cutting off its blood supply. I had to stay in the hospital overnight for observation, since blood clots can be Bad News and this procedure essentially creates an artificial clot -- they needed to make sure it didn't hare off and cause problems.

My sleep was very disrupted for about a week thereafter, and I had some minor side effects as well as discomfort, but I am now pretty much back to normal. It will take a month or two to see if the slow withering of the fibroid fixes some problems I was having.

2. Friday the 20th will be my last day at the rental company. I am trying to get a certain set of tasks complete before I leave, but Lawyer Man keeps yanking me aside to work on stuff related to our imminent website revamp, which is frustrating. I am 90% sure I will not be able to finish everything I want to wrap up, but such is life.

3. I have two U-Haul U-Boxes set to be delivered to my driveway on Monday the 23rd. My parents will arrive later that day, and the goal is to have the boxes packed and collected by midday on the 26th, and for us to hit the road no later than mid-afternoon on the 27th.

Then I get to crash in their guest room and go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa for a bit.

4. In July Mom and I will return to Ithaca for my surgery follow-up appointment, and probably also to close my Ithaca bank accounts. Later in July I am road-tripping through western Canada en route to a fandom friends' gathering, and then road-tripping home by way of Washington and assorted bits of the northwestern US, because why not.

Then I will do a bit more AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, and in August I start looking seriously for a new job. New housing will follow, since it's easier to rent an apartment convenient to a job location than to find a job convenient to an apartment location.

5. I have been sorting through boxes and bins of stuff that I have not touched for literal decades, and holy shit I have been clogging my apartment and my life up with so much nonsense. It will be good to start over on a cleaner footing.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: star island, mn

Entry tags:

brief update from Star Island

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.)

Current Mood: pleasantly tired
Current Location: star island, mn

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greetings from Minnesota!

My flights on Monday afternoon/evening went smoothly, and I arrived in MSP around 8:25pm. I spent the night at Nick's house (he is doing better, and is now working to get an appointment with Mayo Clinic for a specialized type of inner ear scan), as did Mom and Dad -- I slept on Nick's living room sofa, which is not really a sofa-bed but it's just long enough (and I am short enough) that it works as a bed in a pinch.

This morning Dad and I did a quick walkthrough of his and Mom's new house (a nice townhouse/duplex thing in suburb of St. Paul) and then drove up to Cass Lake. The drive took longer than planned, due to interminable road work (something something shoulders/medians) on north I-94, but we made it safely to the marina and the boat trip to the island was dead easy -- the water was literally mirror-smooth most of the way.

We currently have no functional internet, so I am using my phone as a mobile hotspot. It's all right for text-based sites, but it's utter shit for anything that involves images, let alone gifs and videos. Alas! Hopefully we can get in touch with Centurylink to fix the wifi soon.

Hmm, what else...

Our main task is to move the shore station outward along the dock (it's a very minimal dock this year, just four sections extending outward and no crosspiece or L-turn, due partly to unusually high water and partly to our dock guy having trouble finding staff) and then get it settled under the sand instead of sitting on top. Dad's plan is to hook it onto the back of our boat and slowly drag it along, while I walk beside/behind and keep it from bashing into the dock. We shall see if that works in practice.

We also need to clear some large fallen branches, lay the old boards around the edge of the cabin (for walkways in rainy weather), and assorted other cabin-opening tasks that got short-circuited when Nick had his crisis and my family had to book it back down to the Twin Cities last week.

Dad has a virtual Finance Committee meeting in about 10 minutes, and after that I think we'll tackle dinner.

Current Mood: drained
Current Location: ithaca, ny

Entry tags:

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

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. :(

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: minneapolis, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1285001.html

Entry tags:

greetings from Minneapolis!

Nick and I left the island today and are now at his house in the Twin Cities. We left at 4pm, had dinner at The 502 (the restaurant attached to Chase on the Lake in Walker), and then continued south while Mom and Dad returned to the island for one more day.

I have checked in for my flight tomorrow, which involved some annoying faffing around with the FlyDelta app since Nick doesn't have a printer and I therefore needed an electronic version of my boarding pass.

Tomorrow I will do... I dunno, something or other for dinner in NJ. Thursday morning and afternoon are wide open, after which wedding stuff commences. Thursday evening is bachelorette party, Friday afternoon is mani-pedi appointment, Friday evening is wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, Saturday morning is hair styling appointment, Saturday afternoon is wedding, and Saturday evening is reception.

Then I drive back to Ithaca on Sunday, probably leaving around 3pm because heck if I'm getting up early after all that.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go trim a cracked toenail. :(

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: star island, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1284695.html

Entry tags:

the best part of vacation is the lack of pressure :)

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. :)

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: star island, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1284504.html

Entry tags:

greetings from Minnesota!

It turns out that my family changed the plan and then I think my mom and my brother both assumed the other had told me of the new itinerary, when in fact I had not been informed at all.

In summary, rather than Nick meeting me at the airport and me spending an afternoon and night in Minneapolis, Mom met me at the airport and we drove straight up to the lake. Nick will arrive on Saturday.

I am not complaining! Extra lake time is a good thing! But it was a little confusing, you know? *wry*

What I did yesterday was mostly snooze in the car en route to the airport, get a bit lost trying to find my way through the correct security checkpoint (Newark Airport currently suffers from highly inadequate signage), snooze and read on the plan, and chat and listen to a podcast en route to Cass Lake, and have really delicious homemade BLTs for dinner.

Then I slept about thirteen hours because I NEEDED SLEEP.

Today I have: read, forwarded work email to Mr. Geniality, sat on the dock to read some more, overheard part of an antiracism Zoom event Mom is attending, and read a bit more.

Tomorrow I may venture a hike. This evening, our plan is to tackle the 1000-piece Monet garden painting puzzle I brought. We got the edge put together last night (I had saved all the edge pieces in a separate bag, because that was the one part I managed to finish at home before life (and my lack of adequate table space) interfered), but the rest will be fiendishly difficult because Impressionist painting lacks the clear edges and shapes that one tends to rely upon when reconstructing a picture.

Tomorrow I may also venture some writing. I am hoping to get somewhere on a couple stories this week, since I won't have my job always in my face and I have also begged off from a bunch of church stuff for the very good reason that I am ON VACATION, dammit. I have already missed a Zoom meeting this evening and I feel no guilt whatsoever.

Vacation is nice that way. :)

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: ithaca, ny
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1283588.html

Entry tags:

wherein Liz preps for vacation

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.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: ithaca, ny
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1224690.html

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daily update, Saturday May 30

Things done today:

1. I received my absentee ballot for the Democratic primaries (state/local and presidential). I don't remember if I mentioned here, but a few weeks back I got an absentee ballot application form in the mail, with the election in question pre-marked and a notice of what "reason" to give if I wanted to vote by mail because of Covid 19 restrictions. I am not sure if that was a statewide program or something Tompkins County decided unilaterally. Anyway, I thought it was an excellent move so I mailed back the application the following day.

I have now filled out my actual ballot (technically two ballots, since the state/local and the national elections were originally scheduled for different days -- yes, that is ridiculous and inefficient; many people have already made that point at length) and will mail it back tomorrow. Probably I will drop it into an actual mailbox outside the downtown post office outpost, for security, rather than clipping it to my front porch mailbox on Monday morning.

Today's other significant piece of mail was the proposed budget from the Ithaca City School District, and I should presumably receive an absentee ballot from ICSD within the coming week. It looks as reasonable as any budget can be under the circumstances.

2. I also received, via email this time, the proposed 2020-21 budget for my congregation. The Board of Trustees need to approve it by Monday night -- this will be an email vote that we will then confirm at our regular monthly Zoom meeting. Again, it looks as reasonable as any budget can be under the circumstances. There is only one part I'm confused about, but we're having a congregational discussion via Zoom around noon tomorrow, so I'll try to ask our treasurer about it then. (We're using the congregational discussion to test-run out electronic voting system. Here's hoping everything works out!)

3. Nick sent an update about the situation in the Twin Cities. The fires and looting are still well south of his new house and also away from his apartment, so he should be safe, but he's a little worried about driving back and forth as he finishes his move and also about reports of white supremacists coming to town and trying to agitate both sides into violence. I am so sorry for everyone in Minnesota right now. :(

4. Walked into town partly for general exercise and fresh air, but also to check if my barber shop was open now that Phase 2 of the great Un-Pausening has started in the Southern Tier. I wasn't terribly hopeful, since I'd tried calling earlier and got a "this phone number is not currently in service" message -- never a good sign -- and indeed, they were closed. But! I checked their Facebook page this evening and it looks like they plan to reopen (with restrictions) on Tuesday. So I will give them a call on Tuesday morning to see if my hair guy is in, and hopefully he will be able to fix up the wonky trim I gave myself to keep my hair out of my eyes and off the back of my neck.

5. Took a post-lunch nap. It was delicious. :)

6. Roasted asparagus for dinner. That was also delicious. :) I think out-of-season asparagus is actually better for roasting, since the stems tend to be thicker and hold up better in the oven. Skinny asparagus is really better steamed, but I don't have the kitchen equipment to do that properly.

7. Took kitchen compost to the communal backyard bin.

8. While I was out there, spent ~5 minutes doing some desultory weeding. My new thought is that if I spend ~5 minutes per day in the garden, it will never be enough time to register to my brain as "WORK UGH WHAT IS THIS NO" and yet I will still stay mostly on top of the weeds. We shall see how this plan holds up when exposed to reality.

9. Baked brownies for dessert. Continuing the theme, they are delicious. :)

And now I will attempt some writing before heading to bed for more delicious sleep.

Current Mood: bored
Current Location: twin cities, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1153205.html

Entry tags:

all good things must come to an end

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*

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: cass lake, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1152173.html

Entry tags:

lake stuff, writing stuff, internet stuff

Thursday was another slow day of mostly doing nothing, though I did pitch in to help Mom and Dad haul a tabletop up from the dock and then figure out how best to get it to fasten securely to our existing (too small for large family dinners) table. I ran a load of laundry, and then we left just past 4pm to run a couple errands and drive to Walker to eat dinner at the Boulders, where we met Nick who'd driven back up from the Twin Cities after some inconclusive work toward untangling his medical insurance thing. (He has set some relevant processes in motion and now has to wait for other people to get back to him. So basically phone tag, but with physical letters. *sigh*) And in the evening, after getting home, we had champagne cocktails and played multiple rounds of Hearts, because that's what we do as a nuclear family. :)

So far today I have been poking a little at a stalled story, and I think I've finally untangled all the bits where I was shoving down a misguided path and am ready to move on to new material. Unfortunately, said new material includes an action scene. I don't want to write an action scene today. Why do I do this to myself?

Also, Verizon has decided we've used up our data plan and dumped us into safe mode, which is annoying since we don't have an internet provider on the island anymore (we used to use a satellite dish aimed east-northeast toward a station on the mainland, but they either went out of business or decided the island wasn't worth the expense) and have to use our phones as mobile hotspots. What this means is that I can load text-based pages, but anything image-heavy is a no-go, to say nothing of gifs or videos. *headdesk*

Oh well, that means I have more time for reading actual books, I suppose.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: cass lake, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1151978.html

Entry tags:

the joy of doing nothing :)

Things and stuff:

Nick and I drove up to the cabin yesterday. The drive itself was frustrating twice over -- first we got stalled and then detoured by a nasty car crash right around the 610 to I-94 interchange, and then we got pinned down by a hailstorm that just mushroomed out of nowhere and poured down the wrath of the heavens for about twenty minutes. But we got here in the end, and had a nice (late!) dinner with our parents.

Today I have deliberately been doing nothing -- well, other than some reading -- which is something I have badly needed an opportunity to indulge in. I have done nothing in my room, downstairs on a couch, and briefly down on the dock in the sun and fresh air. Unfortunately this evening is not going quite to plan, since Nick unexpectedly had to return to the Twin Cities to deal with a medical insurance thing. Mom and Dad will be attending a church finance committee meeting via Zoom, so we'll be eating late again.

So far on this vacation I have read Proper English by K. J. Charles (Edwardian lesbian romance set against the backdrop of an English country manor murder mystery, very fun), Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher aka Ursula Vernon (unconventional portal fantasy), and The Door Into Fire and The Door Into Shadow by Diane Duane (first two books of the Tale of the Five, which is... uh... high-ish fantasy (disinherited royalty, magic, quests, dragons, elemental spirits, battles to save the world, etc.) in a weirdly science-inflected world where everyone is sort of background pan and poly, might be the best way to put it?). I have also continued slowly plonking my way through a biography of Isabella of Castille, which is very interesting but I can only seem to read about one chapter at a time before I have to go do something else. *hands*

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: twin cities, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1151668.html

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Greetings from Minnesota!

Quick update before Nick and I go do more stuff:

My flight from Ithaca to Detroit went smoothly and we landed early. My flight from Detroit to MSP, on the other hand, was a mess. We left nearly an hour and a half late, first because of some mechanical trouble (indicator lights on the navigation system acting up) and then because they let on some additional passengers who'd missed other flights. Then once we finally got to MSP, we were stuck at the gate for over ten minutes because there wasn't a gate agent to work the jet bridge, and then the person who came to fill in was very bad at it and couldn't figure out which of the airplane doors to aim for. *sigh* I felt very bad for the people who had connecting flights.

But Nick picked me up, we grabbed takeout from McDonald's, and that was all right.

On Sunday we started by going to Nick's church for the 10am service, which was neat. In the afternoon, we did the following: saw Minnehaha falls and walked down Minnehaha Creek to the Mississippi and back; ate lunch at the Nook (a local burger place); visited the Minneapolis Institute of Art; visited the Walker sculpture garden (including Spoonbridge and Cherry, which apparently has become an iconic symbol of the Twin Cities?); drove past our Mom's childhood home; and then walked around a bit of Lake Nokomis and stopped to have some hard cider and watch the water since we were already in the area. Then we grabbed some food from the takeout section of Nick's grocery store and watched four episodes of Good Omens, which we enjoyed very much.

It was a good day. :D

Today we have started by taking an hour or so to catch up on our own internet stuff, after which the plan is to visit a local cidery and another one of the local lakes. We will go to Frost's for dinner, and finish the evening by watching the final two episodes of Good Omens. Also presumably lunch will happen at some point.

I'm not sure what the plan is for tomorrow morning, but from noon to 3-ish Nick has a volunteer shift at a local animal shelter, after which we will drive up to Cass Lake. I will probably spend part of that time petting and/or walking dogs, but I might borrow his car and disappear for a bit to do... I dunno, unspecified tourist things. Or possibly just another stint of catching up on my own internet stuff. We'll see how it goes.

And now I am off to catch up on my email, because there is only so much I can handle on my tiny phone screen. *wry*

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: ithaca, ny
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1151452.html

Entry tags:

wherein Liz preps for a trip

Quick life update!

Today I leave on vacation -- heading to Minnesota. The plan is to spend two and a half days in the Twin Cities with Nick, and then drive up to the cabin Tuesday afternoon. I will return home on Wednesday the 19th.

I am about 90% packed, and the remnants are really just my electronics (laptop, phone, associated peripherals) and the cash and gum I intend to pick up on my way into town to catch a bus to the airport. It's a little weird to be taking a bus there in the afternoon instead of waiting for a taxi at the asscrack of dawn, but I can't say I mind the chance to be a bit more relaxed about my packing schedule. *wry*

Anyway, I transplanted all my peppers this week, and I will try to get my latest batch of gardening photos up on Tumblr tonight or tomorrow. I have asked my upstairs neighbors to keep an eye on my back porch garden in case Ithaca unexpectedly gets no rain in the next ten days. I have cleaned my bathroom just because it's nice to come home to a clean apartment.

Now I am preparing lunch, and I intend to walk out the door at 3:00pm.

Wish me safe travels!

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: ithaca, ny
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1137230.html

Entry tags:

2 things: writing frustrations and Minnesota plans

On my eighth attempt to defeat this particular prompt, I think I am finally getting somewhere useful. (The trick seems to have been, somewhat counter-intuitively, to add more characters.) However, it still refuses to end in a nicely compact amount of words. I think I need to just give up and acknowledge that it's going to be a fic rather than a ficlet. *sigh*

At least this version doesn't want to be a novel, which is what attempt #2 was trying to grow into.

(I could have filled the prompt in about 100 to 150 words weeks ago. It's exactly the kind of thing that lends itself to a drabble or a three-sentence ficlet, both of which are about distilling an idea to its most concentrated form. But there's a 500-word minimum for Ladies Bingo fills, and dammit, I am going to follow the rules.)

---------------

In other news, I have a tentative schedule for my summer vacation -- namely, the middle two weeks of June. The idea is to be at the cabin for roughly a week, but also to spend two or three days in the Twin Cities with Nick at either the front or back end of the trip. That is both because of general yay siblings!!! stuff (getting to hang out without sharing a roof with our parents) and because Nick is still campaigning for me to move to Minnesota.

I am starting to lean more toward saying yes to that idea, honestly. I mean, I love Ithaca! Ithaca is ridiculous and great and has been my home for... literally more than half my life, now? Wow, yeah, nineteen years and I'm thirty-seven. I love my apartment and I've gotten pretty attached to my little garden patch and stuff. And it is flat-out wonderful to live just a few blocks from a waterfall.

But while I love the city and the region, and I am attached to my congregation, I never did manage to make solid meatspace friendships here, and I miss living near people I can just casually go watch a movie with, or take a nature walk, or try out a new restaurant for dinner. And my whole family does have extensive ties to and history with Minnesota.

...

I dunno, it's still very much up in the air and I'm not about to cancel my lease and drive halfway across the country with no warning. But it's starting to feel like something I really could do in 2020 instead of a castle-in-the-sky dream.

Current Location: ithaca, ny
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1107064.html

Entry tags:

family stuff :(

( cut for a vague gesture toward privacy )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: cass lake, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1082188.html

Entry tags:

Star Island: Day 7 (planning)

Today's to-dos:

~~-breakfast, lunch, and dinner at appropriate times; clean up afterwards~~

~~-make initial post in weekly child psych discussion forum once Prof. S opens it~~ ETA: Prof S. did not open the forum :(

~~-read paper for child psych annotation project, maybe start outlining/writing response~~ ETA: wrote and submitted the whole thing \o/

-outline essay on "The Yellow Wallpaper," maybe bang out horrible sketchy rough draft. thesis is something about use of gothic horror/supernatural elements and their interaction with the more realistic psychological horror, blah blah thing. (intro something like: I first encountered this story in a collection of ghost stories, and there are reasons for its inclusion in that genre) ETA: outline achieved, intro and plot summary paragraphs roughed out, other paragraphs left as bullet points for now

~~-check if anyone else has posted in this week's English discussion forum; if so, respond to them~~ ETA: nobody else has posted yet :(

~~-laundry: wash, dry, put away~~ ETA: and then do it all over again after hiking, because ticks. UGH TICKS

~~-make packing list and start packing~~

~~-check in and print boarding passes~~

~~-dye my hair purple! :DDD (with extensive help from Vicky)~~ ETA: alas, Vicky had a minor life crisis (lost her laptop on her flight home from Florida) and understandably did not have time to buy hair dye. we'll try again at Thanksgiving or Christmas, probably

-read another chapter of We Have Not a Government ETA: finished the whole book! \o/

~~-do a bit of fic writing~~

~~-short hike?~~

~~-short swim?~~ ETA: decided against it in the end

~~-afternoon nap?~~

...

And that is more than enough for one day! So I will go get started on breakfast and my chapter reading. :)

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: cass lake, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1081863.html

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Star Island: Day 6

Continuing my Star Island chronicle... :)

Mom and Dad left this morning -- the plan was to pull out from the dock at 8:30am, but in the event they didn't get underway until just before 9:30. And now I am alone on the island for at least the next twenty-four hours, until Vicky arrives sometime tomorrow. (I do not expect her until noon at the earliest, and more likely a bit later than that.) We're going to chat tonight to hash out some logistics.

I have already washed and put away our breakfast dishes, boiled two eggs for Wednesday and Thursday breakfasts, and read the one remaining periodical I brought with me to Minnesota

The rest of my to-do list for today is as follows:

~~-vacuum the cabin interior~~

~~-search for motor grease to make the second hummingbird feeder usable again (we coat the hanger to prevent ants); if I find the grease, then make a fresh batch of hummingbird food~~ alas, I found none! must talk to Vicky about picking some up on her way to the island. ETA: asked neighbor if he had any, which he didn't, but he was going in to town and offered to buy a tube as part of his errands. hurrah! ETA 2: grease applied, hummingbird nectar currently cooling on stove, will funnel into feeder shortly. ETA 3: both feeders refilled and hanging beneath the eaves. \o/

~~-write and turn in my two assigned mini-essays for my childhood psychology class~~

~~-brainstorm and outline my English essay on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"~~ ETA: brainstorming successful! but alas, no outline yet

~~-make a post about Franz Kafka's "A Hunger Artist" in this week's English discussion forum~~

~~-maybe go swimming this afternoon? (if so, drag the neighbors' sailboat ~10 feet south, since strong winds have pushed the buoy anchor too close to our dock)~~

~~-maybe take a short hike? (if so, then check self obsessively for ticks, because ticks. UGH)~~ ETA: decided against hike; too humid

-get some fic writing done

~~-read one chapter of We Have Not a Government, possibly down on the dock between bouts of swimming :)~~ ETA: read two and a half chapters, whoops!

~~-lunch and dinner at appropriate times, and wash up afterwards~~

~~-phone call with Vicky~~

...

That sounds like a reasonable day to me. I will go get started on the vacuuming right away.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: cass lake, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1081741.html

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Star Island: Days 1 to 5

I keep forgetting to post about my vacation. Well, let's try making up for lost time!

Thursday: Airplane trips beginning far too early in the morning, which meant I arrived in Bemidji around 12:15pm, CDT. Mom and Dad met me at the airport, we drove back to Cass Lake and made a tiny grocery-shopping stop, and headed over to the island. The wind was very high, so we stayed in and grilled steak for dinner.

Friday: Wind continued high through the morning, but began to die down in the afternoon. Cinnamon toast and hardboiled egg slices for breakfast; everyone picked their own fruit. We took a hike down the south shore to the picnic ground (stopping for a conversation with Dave Martin), and came back by way of the south portage and the southeastern shore of Lake Windigo. In the evening, we headed to the mainland and drove to Akeley to eat at the Brauhaus -- a restaurant we'd been to a few times previously which now has new owners and a new cook. It was all right, but not something we really need to make that long a trip for. I drove the boat both ways.

Saturday: Rain. Rain all day. Pancakes and sausage for breakfast; choice of fruit. Mom ran a load of laundry, and I spent most of my time doing coursework despite a frequently laggy and glitchy internet connection. Chicken a la king for dinner.

Sunday: Rain in the morning, which let up shortly after noon. Random leftovers on toasted English muffins for breakfast; choice of fruit. (Dad and I had steak; mom had macaroni and cheese because she's weird like that.) We took a hike to the east portage and then home along the east shore of Windigo and up through the woods. Both before and after the hike, I plowed through more coursework. We had champagne cocktails around 5:30pm, notionally in honor of Father's Day, and then chili con carne and cornbread for dinner an hour or two later. After dinner we began a puzzle, but knocked off without finishing around 11:30pm.

Monday: Chilly overnight, turning to a gorgeous morning. Softboiled eggs, sausage, and cinnamon-raisin toast for breakfast; choice of fruit. We finished the puzzle by noon. Yay us! Dad attempted to demonstrate how to operate the shore station motor with a battery-powered drill in case of power outages, but we couldn't get the trick to work right though apparently my cousin Brian pulled it off last summer. (Our current theory is that you need to turn the motor key in addition to running the drill.) Dad and I carried Aunt Jan's kayak down to the dock and moved some rocks to mitigate an inconvenient splash pattern. Mom and Dad took a hike to the south portage and home inland while I took a nap. We're doing more laundry.

I believe the plan for tonight's dinner is BLTs.

It's been a good vacation so far. :)

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: cass lake, mn
Crossposts: https://edenfalling.livejournal.com/1081190.html

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ahhhh, vacation!

Greetings from windy Minnesota!

My taxi was on time, all my flights and transfers went smoothly, and I crashed for a very satisfying three-hour nap in the afternoon.

I also read the entirety of Yoon Ha Lee's Revenant Gun on my trip (the conclusion of the Machineries of Empire trilogy), and it was excellent as I'd expected. :D

Dad, Mom, and I decided not to go out for dinner because the wind is constant and strong and nobody wanted to be driving the boat through the resulting whitecaps. We grilled steak instead.

And now I have caught up to myself on in the internet, and I am going to bed because I got up 3:30am this morning (functionally 2:30am, now that I'm in the Central time zone) and I am beat.

Good night!