FEB 07

2024

Wednesday: neither Julie nor I left the apartment at all today. Sunlight's finally starting to come in through the windows again, and several cats took advantage, chief among them Mim, who luxuriated on the mat for the dish drying rack for most of the morning. I enjoyed my work shift, which consisted almost entirely of time devoted to special projects, and after work, I finally finished watching the Endwalker playthrough I'd been following. For dinner, Julie had a new variation on a cheese-and-broccoli soup, which went great with croutons for texture. We continued our trip through the early Poirot episodes, and we don't really remember any of these we watched tonight. I have vague recollection of scene-setting conceits like "Poirot dislikes his vacation" or "Poirot tries to evade his dentist" or "Poirot doesn't accept cases about lurid infidelity," but hardly any memory for the cases themselves. I have a prodigious supply of dishes to clean tomorrow, to say nothing of my shopping trip or our trip to the gym, so I should go to bed soon, myself.

2023

Tuesday: despite fully intending to get to bed earlier Monday night, I still wound up crashing way too late Tuesday morning, and with no work alarms set, I woke up embarrassingly late. That meant I didn't have as much time to clean the apartment as I wanted before Julie got home, but I did manage to pick up the office, get some clothes put away, vacuum, and reorient things slightly to make the space work better.. My big goal, still unfinished, was to set up my new synth. I've had it for a solid year at this point, and I still haven't taken it out of the box! To be fair, Julie's right that there isn't enough room for it, but I know I can make it work somehow. If we can just unload a few more of these boxes... maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, after running the trash out and starting a load of laundry, Julie and I went to the gym, though there were too many people and the machines we prefer to use were occupied. I tried a stationary cycle, but it was pretty uncomfortable; I prefer a more recumbent style with an actual backed chair instead of a bike seat. I was rereading some blogs I hadn't visited in a while, so I'm updating my links on the front page again to simplify getting back to them next time.

After getting back home and cleaning up, we had more of the pasta soup from Sunday while playing Civ VI. I took the Khmer to an early lead and had the best science, culture, income, and diplomatic strength. I was suzerain for more than 80% of the discovered city states before we called it. I saved the game, but I don't know whether I'll go back to it.

It's nice that the cats like spending time with us, even outside of when they're excited to eat or play. Sure, some days they'll all stay off in separate rooms, and then sometimes they'll very deliberately hang out close with us: before she went to bed, we had Orange Juice on the egg foot rest, John curled up on a blanket right next to me, Grey Goose at the top of the tower, Koop lying on my shoes, Mim on the coffee table, and finally Pigs on Julie's blanket on the sofa. Everybody's content just to chill out here while I'm typing this. It's good.