Road to Nowhere

Trying something new

[find-jupiter]

[find-jupiter]

My friend hates any story with an anti-hero for a protagonist. He loves golden retrievers.

I think those two facts go together.

[find-jupiter]

Cucumber Edamame Salad

This Cucumber-Edamame Salad with Sesame-Ginger Dressing is fresh, flavorful, and filling. Make-ahead friendly and perfect for weekday meals.

I made this last week and it's a keeper.

She suggests serving it with quinoa and I can't imagine it any other way. I added a cup and a half, next time I'll go with two cups.

I'll also reduce the oil--the ratio seemed off to me when I made it and to my taste it definitely was--more acid, please.

Oh, and I topped it with TJ's Crunchy Chili Onion Sprinkle because it's my favorite.

Husband: I didn't think I was going to like this but it's really good.

[find-jupiter]

The housekeepers are coming today. That's a new thing for us. I assume they are going to vacuum and mop, clean the bathrooms, and I don't know what else. We're using our own towels and bed linens so I hope they don't touch those. I guess I'll ask them that before I leave to go on a walk. Apparently, more than anything they come every two weeks to make sure tenants aren't abusing the house.

The law in Seattle is that the shortest term an owner can rent out a waterfront property is one month, so that's our situation. Right now we're lined up through the end of August. It's looking like we'll extend at least two weeks into September, if not the whole month to give us time to figure something else out.

Since it's highly unlikely that a house we would buy will come on the market before mid-September at the earliest, we probably need to move into a more normal, unfurnished rental property. That will be a pain in the ass but will take the expense of the storage containers off our plate.

Why not stay here? The amount of money we're paying to store our stuff is tolerable for the summer but isn't going to feel good beyond that. More importantly to me is that this place has an ODOR. It's ok when all the doors and windows are open as they are when the weather is warm. When the weather shifts and things need to be closed up, it's gonna be icky and we will go crazy.

Anyway, I'm in a period of freaking out about things I can't control like interest rates and property listings and how those impact MY FUTURE.

My faith that things are going to work out is shooketh at the moment.

Time to get present and be grateful for where I'm at and the fact that I don't have to clean the floors.

[find-jupiter]

Last Thursday I told my director that it's time to start thinking about transitioning the org away from using my contracting services. Like, I'm not giving two weeks notice, but figure out who's gonna do the things.

Of course, now that I've said it out loud I'm that much less motivated to go to today's meeting about hiring practices (in which, as a contractor I have had minimal involvement) and really don't want to go to next Monday's Team Day.

You guys are great but...

[find-jupiter]

My daughter 29 has always had ideas and opinions about baby names and now it’s time to act.

There are names that she believes are not for the Eldest Daughter. Good names but not special or important enough to bestow on #1.

It’s a slippery concept but I get it.

[bcnmar]

Gustav Klimt

[croaksac]

via Seattle Times:

Local Ballard raccoon has been spotted thriving in a remarkably unique and charming body

Yes he(?)'s actually factually real and has even been given an extremely millennial nickname: Jimothy. Wildlife experts advise everyone to just leave him alone and let him live his life

[find-jupiter]

You don’t say.

[find-jupiter]

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures but if I did Limp Bizkit would qualify.

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Oh! 26 and her guy have been together for over two years. His parents live in Seattle... a block away from 29 and Mr29! We have not met them yet and it's starting to become a thing.

BF's parents joked that they're starting to suspect that the kids don't want it to happen. Husband and I made the same joke.

26 told me last week that BF had a dream that when the two families came together his dad was naked.

LOL!

26 gently suggested to BF that there's usually a meaning behind that dream theme and it ain't woo woo mysticism. When she explained it to him he was like, hmm yeah I probably am worried about being him being exposed and embarrassing me.

His dad is an alcoholic. He's 61 and his mental functioning is declining. Poor kid. Probably need to get this meeting done sooner rather than later. I say it should be for lunch, not dinner when Dad has had more than a few. We'll see.

Fortunately (?) we have associates with alcohol use issues and most of the men we know aren't getting any sharper in the cognitive department, so I think it will be fine!

I did suggest to 26 that she not tell her dad about BF's dream. He tends to latch on to that kind of thing in ways that aren't great.

[find-jupiter]

In order to accommodate Husband's meeting schedule--on a day he scheduled PTO--we are leaving in 90 minutes. I need to pack the cooler, the car, and take a shower. No yoga for me this morning 😠

I think he'll be on a call during part of the drive? It was this or leaving at midnight last night. We decided that rolling in to our friends' house around 3 AM was not conducive to a fun Friday night. I don't really feel like the last minute addition of a bunch of meetings is a coincidence. Career urgency only pops up when there are plans or someone's in the hospital. I'm sure work will be very necessary when 29 has the baby 🙄

26's BF has been working his big boy job for a couple months now and hates it. Aside from the fact that it's a disorganized start-up with literal toxic waste lying around, he's not too happy about being in a lab all day, every day, with only weekends to go out and play. 26 is like, "Yeah, it's bullshit. We all hate it."

She won her first case. Not only that, but she won it administratively, meaning her writing convinced the judge to rule in favor of her client without even going to trial. She came into law school a skilled and confident writer who had to learn legal writing, which is very much not what she had been doing in school or for publications. It messed with her head but I knew she'd figure it out just like she figured out how to do undergrad after a rough first quarter. Great that she got this affirmation. Of course, the volume of cases that she's going to argue means that being undefeated is impossible going forward so she needs to savor it now.

I used to know the CEO of Taco Bell. I feel bad for him.

This country is so big. We don't share as many experiences as the media and internet chatter tries to portray. No one I talk to here is worried about lettuce. We certainly empathize with the smoke situation over there [gestures vaguely to the east] because it's us every summer for the last ten (?) years. Maybe more people will care about climate change now?

Speaking of climate change, I guess we'll have to hang out with Husband's (our?) friend the Fox news watching, climate change denying farmer this weekend. He's a kind, generous man. I hope he snaps out of it soon.

[find-jupiter]

I know that ultrasound measurements have a high margin of error so I'm interested to hear what 29's OB has to say about Baby Girl being in the 99th percentile with a gestational due date of Aug. 10 when her due date based on conception is Sept. 2.

The ultrasound tech estimated that little girl at 6.5 pounds now!

We've been hoping that she'd wait until September, but this may be an August baby.

[find-jupiter]

[find-jupiter]

The sale of the house closes in nine days. Almost all of our stuff is now off the property. There's a couple pieces of furniture in the garage that will either be sold on FB for the benefit of 26 or donated if no one bites. There's also some stuff in the shed that Husband has to deal with next week. A tangle of shovels, rakes, etc. will go to my parents' house with the outdoor furniture and a few other random items in their garage.

I suppose I'll go back with him next week to visit the house one last time although I have zero desire to be a part of the shed cleanup. I must say, he's really stepped up and taken care of a lot of tasks in "his department" over the last six weeks; unprecedented follow through.

What is "my department?" It seems to include making a home in each of our stops. It's the usual stuff with a higher degree of difficulty. I'm also staying on top of real estate inventory in our target neighborhood, which is pretty easy given the dearth of listings.

Just as I'm not completely dialed in to all the things he's monitoring, he's a bit disconnected to my projects. The other day he said, "I'm afraid we don't even know what we're looking for" in regards to the new house.

Really? Thank you for sharing your feelings and I would be happy to share the evolving list of criteria with you if that would give you clarity and help with the discomfort.

It's interesting to me that I am trusting him to get all his stuff done and not monitoring the progress at all despite many years of dropped balls and last minute scrambles. He's not quite placing the same trust in me to handle my end but the stakes probably feel higher? I don't know and I'm not sure I need to.

Resisting the urge to ask what's going on because it might come out more like, "what's your fucking problem? have I given you reason to think I don't know what I'm doing?"

Either the right house will come on the market soon (and we'll get it!) or it won't and we'll need to figure out housing for September and perhaps beyond.

[find-jupiter]

People who say “the best way to reach me is to call.”

No.

Just no.

[find-jupiter]

I'm just finishing up Yesteryear. The timing was not great with my bedtime last night. I mean, the book is very readable pop fiction but after the Big Reveal, Part Three didn't feel as though it was going anywhere so I put it down. Maybe I'm wrong in this case or maybe it is just another story that the teller didn't really know how to finish so they ramble on belaboring all the points. 29 just read it for a book club she's trying to start with her friends so I'm looking forward to discussing it with her. Great topic for a pregnant firstborn and her mom, don't you think? (ha)

I do think it's a great thing when there's a viral book going around. Reading is fundamental and so forth.

Now I need another book! I've got a paperback copy of My Sister the Serial Killer and 26 says it's worth reading, so that's probably next.