the deep moans round with many voices

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.

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.

Sunday was a throwaway day -- I slept in, stayed home, and did nothing. It was lovely. :)

Today was my weekly day at the Collegetown office, where I am still trying to catch up on backlogged scanning, emails, filing, spreadsheets, etcetera. I made some reasonable progress. I also showed two walk-ins around a 1-bedroom apartment in one of our properties, since the 2022-23 tenant vacated early and we have it cleaned up and nice. Hopefully one of the people in question will return and rent something.

I did a quick mini-grocery run that was mostly just to buy some hard cider, some yogurt (for breakfast purposes), and a little thing of sushi for dinner. I have also set myself up to do laundry tomorrow evening, and then I think on Wednesday I will do my big supply run for my long weekend at Cape Cod and fill up my gas tank once I have a 20 or 30 cent-per-gallon discount. (My grocery store does a gas points thing, which was useless to me for many years but is actually quite handy now that I have a car.)

Hmm. I should probably also check the pressure in my tires. I think I left the gauge in the glove compartment...? Must remember to check that tomorrow, as well as calling my dentist and the gastroenterology office.

In other news, I have started work on an embroidery pattern. Thus far, I have completed a tiny woven-wheel rose in the center of the fabric. Tomorrow I get to work on some fly stitch, back stitch (I already know that one; that's just a standard sewing stitch), and split stitch. This pattern is by way of being a sampler to teach basic embroider stitches, and there's a YouTube instructional video to watch and work along with.

So far the biggest problem has been threading the bleeping needle. I have never had this problem before! I can get standard thread through any size needle eye, and my cross-stitch needles are pretty forgiving, but getting embroidery floss through this embroidery needle is like... I don't even have an analogy, that's how frustrating it is. And the pattern calls for three strands of floss at a time, so multiply the frustration by three.

I think I might try waxing the thread tips with vaseline or something next time unless they shape up and BEHAVE.

But enough of my frustrations. I am now going to wash some dishes and then fall into bed.

(Oh! One final thing. I wanted to note this, because it's unusual. I have not installed my air conditioner yet this summer. I haven't needed to. I had one miserable night back in May, but otherwise I've been able to get my apartment down to a reasonable sleeping temperature with fans alone, and it hasn't been unbearable during the day. I will probably need to give in and shove my AC in the window next week, which is forecast to be very humid and to hover around 70 Fahrenheit at night, but for now? It's been nice.)

Which is a completely random point en route between Chicago and Ithaca, picked mainly because I didn't want to get up early the morning after Thanksgiving, and my mom get very nervous about the idea of me driving long hours alone in the dark. And I mean, I don't mind night driving at all, but I am not one of nature's long-haul drivers so I don't exactly mind knocking off early and taking an extra day to get home.

We had takeout for Thanksgiving again this year, though from a different restaurant -- less Italian, and with squash soup as a starter and some almond-encrusted white fish as a supplement to the turkey. The soup was far too sweet for my taste, but otherwise fine, and the fish was very nice. The green bean casserole was WEIRD because for some reason they made it with whole green beans??? The entire point of green bean casserole is to use French-cut beans. But the sauce was good and the fresh mushrooms were nice.

This year we ate at Aunt Cara's actual house instead of at a hotel. This of course meant that Dad, Nick, and I were all moderately doped up on Benadryl because Cara has three cats, but we managed with an afternoon walk between the snack/cheese course and the meal, and then an evening nap between the meal and dessert for Dad and Nick. (I sat and worked on my cross-stitch project because I was pretty sure I'd go wobbly if I tried to stay standing up and do stuff in the kitchen.)

I also got to meet Cara's two birds, whose names I have promptly forgotten. They are conures, probably the pineapple morph/variety of the green-cheeked conure (Wikipedia reference), and both male. They are very sociable and like to play, but they bite fingers so I interacted with them both vocally and via a large gardening glove so they either bit empty fabric or at least I had some insulation between beak and skin.

It was good to see Aunt Cara -- I don't see her very often, and this may well be the last time I visit her current house, since she's slowly easing into the house-hunting process in preparation for moving to the Twin Cities.

It was also good to see Mom, Dad, and Nick. Nick is doing okay. He has a date scheduled for surgery to fix his problem, which is Superior Canal Dehiscence Syndrome (SCDS). (Wikipedia intro, Johns Hopkins info page, Cleveland Clinic info page, UCLA info page). He's not sure if he'll go through with the surgery -- it's still kind of experimental, since the syndrome was only identified in 1998, and outcome reports are mixed -- but it's a relief to at least have the option lined up.

In less fraught news, Dad shaved off his beard and moustache. He has had a beard and moustache for longer than I have been alive, and longer than he and Mom have been married -- so 50+ years. But apparently Mom has always found them mildly annoying, and around 15-20 years ago, when they first started making actual plans to retire to Minnesota instead of just having vague intentions, he told her he'd shave once they moved. She didn't really take him seriously -- probably because he never told anyone else! Nick and I certainly had no idea! -- but during his final stint at the cabin this fall, while Nick and Mom were down in the Twin Cities, he shaved and then appeared bare-faced to general astonishment.

And then none of them told me, probably so I could experience that same astonishment. *wry* It sure was a surprise! I am still stuck in the cognitive dissonance phase, but I will get used to the change eventually, I suppose.

I think I honestly might be having less cognitive dissonance if he'd shaved his head and left the beard and moustache intact, which is a wild thing to say but remember: Dad has had the same facial hair for my entire life, whereas I am at least used to seeing his scalp hair cycle through various lengths as it gets shaggy, he notices it's grown long and gets a very short haircut, and then it slowly gets shaggy again.

Ah well. It's his face! He can do what he likes with it. I'm sure I will be less discombobulated by Christmas.

Hmm, what else...

My drive has been smooth and uneventful in both directions thus far, and I expect it to continue similarly tomorrow. The hotel's free breakfast ends at 9am, so I intend to get up around 8-8:15am, and then hit the road by 9:30, which should get me home by 3pm, allowing for miscellaneous lost time and a short nap if my eyes get highway strain and I need to close them for a while.

And then I'll probably wash all the clothes I took on the trip, just to be on the safe side. I have been checking for bed bugs, but you never know. :/

This evening I realized that my habit of scheduling tax CE virtual class sessions on Tuesdays has betrayed me in November, because I will be working on the 22nd in order to take the 23rd off. This is, of course, because I will spend the entirety of the 23rd driving to Chicago.

(In point of fact, I will start the trip the evening of the 22nd to knock off a couple hours, because I am not the most efficient long-haul driver. My eyes are strongly susceptible to road strain, so I tend to pull off every 45-75 minutes to give them a break, and often to take a little 10-minute nap for good measure.)

Anyway, I rescheduled two classes, and for a third I will just go into work early on Monday the 21st and Tuesday the 22nd to make up for taking a 2-hour break from 10am to noon. Oops.

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In unrelated news, yesterday I did laundry a whole week late -- sometimes life just kind of happens, you know? -- and today I folded, hung, and otherwise put away the majority of the clean items. \o/

I also repaired the pocket in a pair of comfy pajama pants, so I can now once again stash my phone there while lounging around the house.

Oh, and it's Halloween! We (by which I mean the tenants of the four apartments in my house) pooled our money and Downstairs Neighbor S purchased a whole mess of candy for trick-or-treaters. We still ran out before the end of the night, as is traditional. I live in a destination trick-or-treating neighborhood -- lots of local kids; lots of houses close together, many of which are duplexes; slow traffic; good sidewalks; you know the drill -- so we are perennially slammed and never have quite enough even though we keep increasing the money pool.

I also provide a wicker basket and a laminated "Take 2 Pieces" sign (for when we're not around to staff the porch), because if you can't misappropriate the office laminator for personal projects, what is even the POINT of having one around??? ;p