carbonel

I received a phone call from a company that purports to be a local roofer and offered to inspect my roof for damage (after first ascertaining that I have insurance). Based on a friend's advice that the best way to get a new roof these days is it being paid for one's insurance company, I made an appointment. The only problem is, I've never heard of the company (what I heard was Clear Top Roofing) and I can't find anything about them online. I'm guessing that it's some nonstandard spelling, but there are so many sponsored links and companies that want to put a clear roof on the house that my Google-fu entirely failed me. I'd really like to find a review or three.

In Minnesota, people need to get new license plate tabs once a year. They can do it online for a modest surcharge or in person. The facility to do it in person is about a mile from my house. But I am a world-class procrastinator, so I left it until August 30. Unfortunately, because I had work-related errands on August 30, by the time I got to the facility it was too late to get a number.

On August 31 (yesterday), I went to the Minnesota State Fair to demonstrate spinning in the morning and didn't come home until evening.

Today, I woke up to a nastygram from the state of Minnesota notifying me that I was out of compliance and could not legally drive that car (but could apply online for the tabs). It used to be that you could drive safely with expired tabs until the fifteenth of the next month, but no longer. Scofflaw that I am, I drove to the facility with my expired tabs and got number 75. I waited an hour and it had only got to 70. I had to go home for a company meeting, so I got a new number (98) and gave my number 75 to a guy in line.

I went home and found that the meeting was canceled.

I went back to the facility and waited another half hour for 98 to come up. When the number was called, the agent asked me for my driver's license to start the process. It wasn't in my pocket. It wasn't in any of my pockets; I checked them all. She gave me a return tag so I wouldn't have to wait in line again and I went home to look for my license.

Luckily, the license was in my gym pants pocket and not lost at the fair as I had feared. I have no idea what it was doing there. I went back to the facility for the third time, and this time I got my tabs and applied them to my car, having checked very carefully that it was indeed my car. (The failure mode some years ago was when I applied those tabs to the wrong black Honda Accord.)

None of this was anyone's fault but my own; by the time I went back the third time, I had gone past aggravation into finding the whole thing funny.

Maybe this will be a lesson to me for next year to be more timely, but the odds don't favor it.

Some weeks ago, I noticed that a Ziploc bag of pistachios had a hole in it. I shrugged and rebagged it. Then I noticed a sandwich bag formerly containing brownies was now empty except for crumbs. Oops.

I've never had mice before, but a closer inspection revealed a few droppings. I started asking around for recommendations for exterminators. The very last straw was an avocado that I left in the same area (stupid, I know) that had what looked like a human bite taken out of it -- and a trail of droppings between it and the edge of the counter.

Yesterday, the guy from Rainbow Pest Control came and did a preliminary inspection. He said that I probably only had one or mice, which was a relief. I had envisioned an entire colony of mice. I'm glad I reacted reasonably promptly. He completed Phase one of the de-mouseification process, which involved setting out cat-safe poisoned bait, and a trap behind the stove. That was around $400.

The next step will be to block all the mouse access to the house. That's going to be another $1,500 or so.

That's one damned expensive mouse.

This time of year is when the fight against clothes moths ramps up as well. I protect my spinning fiber, but I still see the occasional moth flying around, which means there is a source (or sources) for the eggs that I haven't found. I put out the pheromone traps in hopes of reducing the chances of females finding males, and that seems to keep things at minimal level. But I really wish I could find an affordable permanent solution.

I haven't seen any ants so far this year, so possibly the last extermination of those is still keeping them out. That was pre-pandemic, so I'm probably due fairly soon.

Ah, the joys of being a home owner.

I haz a sad.

Yesterday, I made the hard decision not to go to the Minnesota State Fair, either as a demonstrator or an attendee.

I was signed up to do two four-hour stints of demonstrating spinning at the Minnesota State Fair, and I just canceled, because it’s indoors, unventilated, and will be full of unmasked and unvaccinated people. Normally it's an annual gig that I love (and I love the rest of the fair, too), but I signed up before Delta, and now I just don’t think it's safe.

Totally un-Fair.

(I did enter four items in the handspinning categories, but dropoff and pickup for those is under much safer conditions.)

(mostly for Minneapolis locals)

Before I post on Craig's List, I thought I should check here if anyone is interested in a 2001 black Honda Accord. It has all sorts of bells and whistles (more than my new car), and is in quite good shape for its age. It had a number of repairs in 2020, including the timing belt.

I'm asking $1,500 for it.

I can post photos and more information if anyone is interested.

This is my not-quite-annual "OMG, why do I do this to myself?" whinge.

I signed up for Yuletide, and got my match. Unlike many other years, I was totally unfamiliar with three of the four fandoms, but (of course) the last one was a fandom I'd offered. I came up with a vague idea for a story, and fleshed it out by doing story noodling with Pat WINOLJ. And there things sat for way too long.

I decided I really wasn't happy with what I had in mind, and hadn't put any words to the virtual page, and I'd be better off defaulting. Except that, when I checked, I had misremembered the safe default date, and it had already passed.

So I had to write the damned story to keep in good standing with Yuletide. I buckled down over the weekend, and last night, I finished it. I sent it off to Pat with a note saying that I was at the "I hate this story and everything about it" stage.

Today at the gym, she had a number of suggestions how to tweak things to improve it, but reassured me that it was a coherent story that worked for her. Which was a great relief. I'll want to do one more edit after she sends me her emailed comments, but in the meantime I've uploaded the current version of the story, because the deadline is imminent (sometime tonight). Thankfully, it's fine to keep tweaking things up to the point where the archive goes live.

I had such good intentions for this year. I was going to get the story done early so I didn't have to worry about things. And maybe even pick up a pinch-hit. Ha bloody ha. I wish I could figure out a way to deal with my decades-old procrastinatory tendencies. I do sometimes wonder about my executive function issues. But at least I know it's nothing new.

And right now I'm in a small bout of "yes, it needs an edit, but thank Ghu it's done" euphoria, and I can actually start to look forward to reading from this year's batch of stories.

I do not have the shopping gene. I especially hate shopping for clothes. Even when I was skinny, I hated it, and now I'm fat (and mostly okay with that) and it's even more no fun.

But I have my nephew's wedding weekend that I'm leaving for in a week, so over the past month or so I've been trying to amass enough to have decent clothes throughout the weekend. (My mother asked me a couple of years ago why I tend to bring so many clothes when I come to visit. I told her the truth: I was forever scarred by her asking me one too many times, "Are you wearing *that*?" I learned to come with options. She did stop doing that eventually, but I'm still paranoid.)

I semi-jokingly asked lydy if I could borrow a dress of hers. Turns out it looks good on me, and she graciously offered to loan me Angel (long lovely Elise necklace) and matching earrings. I liked that dress, but was worried that a long dress would be considered inappropriate. So I made an appointment with a Nordstrom personal shopper. The shopper came up with a variety of things. One dress was acceptable, though I wasn't wild about it. It needed some tailoring, but when the woman from alterations came over, she said what was needed was one size smaller. So that was ordered, since it wasn't in stock. I also bought a couple of new bras. That was painless: my size and favorite brand/style was available.

On that same trip to the Mall of America, I wanted a new pair of casual shoes from the Rockport Store. Surprise! It was gone. So I went to DSW Shoes instead and found a pair of Naturalizers that were reasonably priced and felt good. I also looked at dress shoes. But I was pretty much shopped out by then, and had to be somewhere, so I left.

This was about two hours of shopping, and nothing to show for it regarding the wedding.

A few days later, I went to a local Marshall's. I was hoping to find white silk (or otherwise floaty) pants to be part of an outfit for the rehearsal dinner -- which, as I understand it, involves no actual rehearsal. They didn't have white, but they did have gaucho pants in black. A size larger than I normally wear, but looking acceptable. I also bought four short-sleeved tops, one of which is white linen and I think will work with the gaucho pants for the dinner. That was fairly quick -- about 45 minutes to spend $90.

The only problem is that the linen top is kind of see-through, so I'll need a camisole, which is something I've never owned. Today, I'm heading to Kohl's to see if the one on their website a) is available in my size, b) fits, and c) doesn't show when I wear the linen shirt.

I can wear the gaucho pants with another top for the Sunday brunch, so that's sorted.

Yesterday, I went back to Nordstrom because the dress in the smaller size was in. In-between, I'd checked with my mother, and she said a long dress was fine, so I wasn't going to buy the Nordstrom one unless it was perfect. It wasn't, so I got a refund on that. Then I went back to DSW Shoes for another try at dress shoes. I'm seriously hampered there because I have very flat feet (inherited from my father), and have trouble with heels, and really need some support. Ankle straps are in this year, which helps, but it seemed like everything I could stand was a matte suede, and I wanted something a little more partyish. My mother happened to text me, and I ended up chatting a bit with her about the shoe woes. She suggested that heels were optional, and had I looked at the flats? I went over there and found a pair of gold Roman-style sandals that fit and were reasonably comfortable.

I then went to Chico's for an attempt at white pants, but no luck. And after that, home again.

That was another three hours, though at least I had something to show for it.

And finally, finally, I think I'm set for what to wear. Except for the camisole, that is. All told, I got off pretty lightly in cost -- about $140 for the pants, tops, and pair of shoes. Plus another $70 for the casual shoes from the first visit, which will also go to St. Louis with me. I had a $10 off coupon from that DSW purchase that was applied to the gold shoes. Buying the gold shoes netted me $25 in coupons, so I'll probably be going back there before it expires at the end of June. I guess I've accepted DSW as my feudal overlord when it comes to shoe purchases.

And I really hope I'm done with shopping for the next year or so.

The guy from Standard Heating came and installed the replacement fan, and the house is gradually cooling down from 86 degrees F (currently at 84F). That was $500, plus the earlier visit for $99.

The yard work guy (John) has made significant inroads in the my front yard, which is actually the least of the problems, but it already looks so much better. He also suggested some extra work for an additional $300, which comes as no surprise whatsoever, but which I think will be worth it. He did what he calls a California cut on my (IIRC) arbor vitae, which looks much cleaner, but sort of weird, but I approved him doing it for the rest of the shrubbery. He's going to do my gutters as well, which definitely need it. My next-door neighbor had a chat with John, and is (according to John) entirely approving of what's going on.

This is going to be an expensive week (including Ron the Sewer Rat for $160 last week), but at least I'm seeing results.

I just posted a first draft of my Yuletide story. The deadline is Sunday morning, at 9 am Central time.

I was this close to defaulting before the default deadline. I was at assignments page, about to click the default button, and I decided to see if I could get something. After about 10 minutes, I had 300 words, and I decided if I could do 300 words, I could do 1,000 (the minimum for Yuletide). And then I procrastinated some more.

When I finally got started, there were a couple of days of dripping blood onto the keyboard, but I finally have 2,700 not-too-awful words. I'll do a second draft after I receive comments from my beta reader, but it's a complete story, so it fulfills the basic requirement.

Why oh why can't I go through this process a month earlier? This isn't a tradition, it's a habit. A bad one. Maybe next year I'll just take the year off.

And it's not the first Wednesday of the month. It's clear and bright out, so I doubt it's a tornado warning.

I wonder if there's anyplace online I could go to check...