Salon post: June 1

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon post!


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Topic of the week
I am still at "Wow, May was exhausting" (not dire, but you know, I don't get to use this icon enough, so icon) though I have a little hope June will be easier.

(For values of 'easier' that involve driving an hour and change each way to present at a conference on Monday. This is a "I have 15 minutes as part of a panel discussion, plus I need to be social at lunch" thing at least, so the prep is not huge.)

My question for the day: What are you looking forward to this summer? What would you like to be looking forward to? (Summer is not my best season, because wow, do Jenetts not do well in heat, but July has some great plans in it.)

What I've been up to:
More progress on the Doctor Who watch (I'm up to Clara's second episode as an actual companion), a tiny bit of knitting, and a lot of pokinmg at our new catalog options.


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Comments

[alexseanchai]

Tracking for now, real conversation at some later hour

(or date)

Looking forward to moving to Oregon (fsvo "looking forward" omg where money)

Would like to be looking forward to vacationing in Greece (fsvo "vacationing" I mean in this fantasy there is def beach read time but mostly it's pilgrimage to the homeland of my spiritual ancestors)

and if someone happens to drop by real soon now: suggestions for getting my heart rate to knock it off? I would suspect simply overstimulated—I spaced the Adderall by about five hours between each but I def took more than the prescribed max of two in the last 24h, and also I've been caffeinating, I think I'm on my...sixth Pepsi in that 24h?—but the off to the races heart rate didn't start till the starting gun. by which I mean one of my kitchen ceiling panels crashed down broke. LOUD startle.

(I'm not allowed to sleep until after the apartment inspection. that might be in ten minutes. it might equally well be in nine hours. the uncertainty is actively unhelpful!)

I should be more emergency frantic cleaning, not typing this, but I can't butt off sofa???

[jazzyjj]

Agreed re uncertainty of apartment inspection. That has sort of been true of the current landlords for my building too. They apparently have only one crew member now, and they own several buildings in the area. But they're trying their best. Also agreed re startling noise. That same thing happened to me when my bathtub shower collapsed suddenly one day a few summers ago while I was having breakfast. But thanks to our landlords I now have a stand-alone shower complete with places to store items right in said shower. Not only that, they gave me a new toilet which is better.

[alexseanchai]

AND AFTER ALL THAT

he didn't do the inspection at all

he didn't see fit to mention this plan to us until I marched down to his office at ten till he was to leave for the weekend

*ragetears*

[cosmolinguist]

I'm dreading my final exam on Tuesday and my parents visiting for a week just after it, but then my summer gets a lot better.

I'm going straight from dropping my parents at the airport to a friend's wedding, it'll be a weekend away for me and another dear friend and I'm really looking forward to that.

And the weekend after I'm going to see Hamilton in London.

And the weekend after that I'm going with a bunch of friends to watch England women's cricket.

And somewhere in there, a friend wants us to go to a water park, something I loved when I was a kid and haven't done since so that should be hilarious.

[jenett]

That seems like a lot of awesome to look forward to!

[auroracloud]

Auroras do not do well in heat either. These genes have been selected by surviving -30°C winters, not summer heat. So my sympathies.

But I do look forward to:
- summer dancing classes!
- Finncon, the annual Finnish sf/f con in July
- getting my first proper long summer holidays in a couple of years. Maybe I'll even manage to travel! Need to make some plans.
- and hopefully swimming in natural waters at some point. Last year I didn't manage it because the waters were so cold, and I miss it!
- also, there are some books whose release I'm looking forward to, like Becky Chambers's third book

[jenett]

My genes are British (well, mostly English and Norman before that) and Eastern European, so yes, I agree with this. Unfortunately, Boston gets both moderate cold (fine, except for when there is excessive snow) and heat. (On the other hand, Minnesota got more extreme cold, and also heat.)

Swimming in natural water sounds lovely! It's one of the things I loved as a child (we used to go out to a small cottage in Michigan with a lovely lake: I am weird about ocean swimming, and New England lakes often come with enough plant growth to make me not want to swim in them, but the right lake, mmmm.)

[faithinseeds]

What am I looking forward to this summer? Going to concerts (Dar Williams is first up on the 10th! I've always missed her when she is in town. Yay!), travelling to see friends, playing with my new niece, and hopefully getting this new Special Collections job at PPL.

[jenett]

That sounds like a great summer! (And good luck on the job)

[faithinseeds]

One of the reasons I like summer is that I get to see people more. My family is mostly teachers, so they have a lot of free time in the summer. We always have people dropping in.
And thanks for the good wishes on the interview! (It's at 3 PM EST today, so if you want to send good vibes my way, I would appreciate it!)

[rootsofthestories]

Hi there! I hope you don't mind a random popping in!

Things I am looking forward to:
- Summer storms
- Getting our own apartment.
- Getting my two cats back
- Making friends in my new city of residence.

[alexseanchai]

- Summer storms

*nudgenudge* I poem

[rootsofthestories]

Ooooh, prettypretty

[alexseanchai]

eeeee

[jenett]

This thread is precisely here for the random!

[rootsofthestories]

Woosh, excellent!

[havocthecat]

Antpocalypse 2018 has been keeping me from writing. The amount of under-appliance scrubbing I've had to do is ridiculous, as is the toll it has taken on my knees, which were a little shaky in the first place.

I made my own ant bait/poison with boric acid and sugar and it's been working admirably well (I have a moral stance against hard pesticides in the house except as a last resort, and I barely use them outside the house either), but they've been after something under the fridge that isn't stopping them, even with the homemade ant bait/poison killing them off and luring most of them away from the fridge.

I don't know how many people consider antpocalypses real conversation at a salon, but it's pretty serious business when you're living in a place they've infested. UGH GET OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU LITTLE CREEPY CRAWLIES.

[jenett]

I feel that things that are driving you up the wall and away from doing other things you'd much rather be doing are entirely reasonable topics around here.

(I get seasonal ants, and then they go away again, and they do not bother me as much as they do you, but I am still NOT A FAN.)

[havocthecat]

I think we may have kicked the ants? But we did have to scrub and rescrub and I resorted to using lots of pennyroyal essential oil in our kitchen, which smells TERRIBLE. (I didn't touch it. It's on cotton balls which I handled with tweezers.) I also re-caulked the door leading to the deck (with white silicone caulk), which, after #cockygate, made for a lot of fun jokes this weekend.

Then I finally got to the scene with the character I've been desperate to introduce. I skipped a bunch of the travel stuff I didn't want to write (and just outlined the shit out of it instead).

[jazzyjj]

There are a few things I'm looking forward to this summer. First off, I may be starting a new job. It would be on a volunteer basis, but I think it'll be good. We just have to figure out if Google Docs will work for me, because if I do end up working there part of my duties would involve filling in information from drivers. The good news here is that somebody on an email discussion list just sent me a link to Google's accessibility support pages. I briefly checked out the Google Docs section and it looks good. So fingers crossed.





I'm also going to help my parents out in July with a big birthday bash. My father and a couple of his sisters have July birthdays. Last year he and I drove down to hot southern Illinois to join in the celebration. This year everybody is coming to us.





And of course there's my new toy, a.k.a. my iPhone 7. I've been doing more stuff with it and am happy with it. I'm told that Microsoft has 2 free apps which are must-haves throughout the iOS-using blindness community. One of these apps will supposedly help with independent travel, and that's been a big goal for me lately.

[redbird]

What I'd like to be looking forward to is long walks when it's not too hot, things like Community Path to Davis Square, T to Alewife, and look for frogs in the Alewife Reservation, or exploring the many bits of Boston I haven't yet. But I've been doing PT for various hip and leg stuff for months, and it's still slow going, so who knows?

There will, however, be strawberries. And other fresh local fruit. We were hoping for strawberries at the farmers market in Copley Square today, but no luck yet. (Nor in Davis on Wednesday.)

Yes, this is intensely local; I hope it makes sense even if for people who don't know the geography.

[jenett]

Those sound like great walks!

(Have you done the Middlesex Fells? I believe there are buses that go to at least some of the trailheads, but those are my old stomping grounds: that was part of the long dog walking option when I was growing up.)

I'm excited to explore the Arlington Farmer's Market, since I'll be coming back right by there on Wednesdays because of the allergy shots. (I normally hit Belmont's, on Thursday, but not every week.) I have a CSA this year too, because work set up as a pickup point, so that should be an interesting exploration.

[malgrin]

I'm looking forward to spending some time working in my garden (and hopefully making something that resembles progress).

I'm looking forward to making tincture from my patch of St. John's Wort - it is a glorious patch this year and will make a heap-ton of medicine.

I'm looking forward to whatever projects my husband and I manage to get done to our house while he's home over the summer (he's a teacher).

I'm looking forward to feeling warm enough. (I don't do cold very well.)

I'd LIKE to be looking forward to a grand and expansive adventure involving travel.

[jenett]

I agree with you about the wanting to look forward to other things! That sounds like a lovely summer!

[mrissa]

The farmer's market starts Wednesday, and I'm looking forward to that.

I'm finishing the rough draft of this book, and I'm looking forward to that and to the other projects I can do (including revising this book!) once that's done.

One of the reasons I'm trying to get this book drafted before Fourth Street is that I'm looking forward to Fourth Street in June, Readercon in July, and a trip to Copenhagen and Reykjavik in August, so not having the first draft of this book incomplete and hanging over my head for any of those interludes would be AWFULLY NICE. But I'm looking forward to all of them.

I would like to be looking forward to rest, but: see above.

[jenett]

Those are excellent things to look forward to!

(I am not attending Readercon: something in the hotel disagreed with me a lot two years ago. But I will likely come appear and dinner with some people sometime during the weekend.)

I look forward to further comments about exciting travel!

[mrissa]

I remember the hotel difficulties of two years ago. It's so much harder when you can't say "this thing here, this is the problem, can you fix this problem," but I absolutely understand not wanting to subject yourself to it again. Hope to see you at dinner or in passing, though!

[jenett]

Yes! If it were a thing I could identify, I could do something about it, but it was just this general state of "Wow, my body does not like this hotel."

(And at the moment, since I am currently poking my immune system with several sharp pointy sticks every week, I'm also trying not to add more stuff I might react to more than is actually necessary.)