“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 686 (Friday)

Random abandoned bike seat.

It was an office-office day. With remote schedules and other factors, it was a skeleton crew of four on all of  the fourth floor. Parts of the day totally dragged ass, other parts flew by in a blink, and then it was done. There was no mid-day walk to break up the stretch of it as it was cold outside and I am currently in full-blown weenie hibernation mode.

After work, bundled in a long puffy coat with the hood pulled up over my hat-clad head, it was a rapid walk to the garage in the brisk weather. While the pace was quick, there was still time to notice things on the journey. As often happens, there were unexpected, fascinating points of interest along the way.

Street shoes.

The first item of interest was about a block from the bank on Merrimack Street in front of the bakery where the beautiful and delicious office celebratory cupcakes are often procured. The place is usually illuminated and abuzz with the glow and energy of young folks at 5:00.

Today, there was the usual lively group inside enjoying the hanging basket seats and tables with chairs. On the sidewalk side of the massive plate glass window, two bikes were parked on the concrete near the door, and also a bicycle seat. Just a seat. A nice, rather new looking, cushiony bicycle seat, just laying on the concrete sidewalk. A gnawed chicken bone, looking like a stray punctuation mark, lay nearby. Both of the parked bikes were fully intact and neither was missing a seat. 

Not far away on John Street, there was a worn pair of shoes, casually tossed on the brick sidewalk. A puddle of light shone down from the lamp at the opposite end of the lamppost that rose up from a crusty pile of dirty ice and snow. 

Fresh bandana.

A half block further, a crisp and bright red bandana sat in the gutter. Its pristine cleanliness accented the asphalt street and the stone curbing. It was neatly rolled as if it contained something special, and maybe it did. It didn't seem my place to look, plus, it was cold and I was nearly run over by a motorist turning the corner from John Street. 

Unfortunately, there was no informative label copy or museum panel to interpret the intriguing artifacts encountered along the journey to the garage. There is nothing left to do but wonder about the bicycle seat and the chicken bone, the shoes, and the bandana, and how they landed on the streets of Lowell.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 685 (Thursday)

There were moments of panic. There were moments of satisfaction. In other words, it was mostly just another normal day.

Lunch soup. 

The morning began with turning on the laptop used for work earlier than usual to check some personal files and emails before logging in for work. The green battery icon showed 86%.  After about two minutes, the screen went black. The power strip was checked and turned on. The battery icon glowed red and showed “plugged in” with a whopping 1% of power. The battery was 86-ed all right. 

After 45 minutes of browsing photos from Tennessee on a recently discovered thumb drive, it was time to log on for work. The battery indicator was still red and showing a mere 4%, and I was feeling about 86% worried.

Logging on for work was beautifully uneventful, everything proceeded normally, and the battery finally charged to 100% after a couple hours. Maybe I’m just used to the cell phone Turbo Charger that charges the phone battery to 100% in next to no time. 

The day was productive. Specs and first drafts for eight ads were written for a project. Notes were reviewed for a meeting. Tomato vegetable soup with shredded cheddar and corn chips was eaten for lunch in a repeat of Wednesday night supper. Winston periodically went out and came back in. Morning coffee and afternoon fruit tea were had. Emails and quick Teams chats with colleagues took place. The usual.

When the workday was done, there was a quick personal email check, and a visit to my never visited by me or anyone else website. It hasn't been updated in a few years, which I realized when I finally checked in on it and read the content. Oy. And the fun part is, I can't remember how to get into the editing module, which is a huge part of the reason it's not been updated. 

Supper soup.

After too much time spent trying to figure out the website thing, it was time for supper preparations. After approximately 30 seconds of half-hearted consideration, the decision was creamy chicken flavor ramen for a double-header soup day. There was no interest or time to spend on actual cooking of real food, so it was the standard fallback option.

It was a basic ramen brick made fancy with cheese from a jar and Korean hot pepper paste mixed in, plus frozen vegetables and shrimp. It’s a household favorite, wondrously quick meal. Tonight, though, too much water was put on to boil, which wasn’t realized until the cheese, hot pepper paste, and powder flavor packet were already mixed in. It’s kind of hard to screw up ramen, but it can, indeed, happen. It was edible, just not as flavorful. That’s sort of the story of life lately – tolerable, just not as flavorful. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 684 (Wednesday)

The office-office day featured a slice of leftover plain pizza from the home freezer for lunch, and there were cupcakes for a Boss birthday, plus dried fruits and caramel.

There was a spontaneous research project that started with a simple question along the lines of “can you find out ..” It was heaven, looking through records and logging info in a spreadsheet and then sorting said info in said spreadsheet. Maybe it was fun because I’m a dork with a weird sense of entertainment, but the time flew by. The answer to the question that prompted the search was 2014. A few more tasks were tackled, and suddenly, it was 4:00. 

The just past 5:00 light.

It was one of the best work days in ages. And the icing on the day? It was still light out at 5:00. We have turned the corner and the light is noticeably longer, which is nearly as good as the icing on the carrot cake birthday cupcake I had at the office. 

At home, supper was more of the homemade healthy tomato vegetable soup, with a sprinkle of shredded cheddar and a handful of corn chips. It was followed by too many more of the less healthy handfuls of corn chips. Damn you, fresh bag of Fritos.

The current streaming show was “A Discovery of Witches” on Prime which would be more interesting if it wasn’t basically just a giant stupid romantic drama. I need more relatable shows – you know, about cranky middle-aged people. Bonus points if they mutter when trash from the neighbors blows in their yard every day and they yell at other drivers in traffic when said other drivers twice sit through half a green light cycle during the ride home.

Worse, the dumb “contemporary love story” on Prime has a charge to see Seasons 2 and 3. No thanks, I’m good. Had I read the series info in advance I would have been spared some angst about both the plot line (more love story than witch action, ewwww) and the news that only Season 1 is free on Prime.

It’s now onward and upward (or maybe sideways), to “Love Type D,” a movie about hard luck losers in love. Sadly, this I can relate to. At least it’s a lighthearted treatment of the malady.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 683 (Tuesday)

On Sunday, which was Day 559 of Duolingo Finnish lessons, a breakthrough was made. Sadly, not the dreamt of, wished for breakthrough where I am suddenly fluent in Finnish like a native speaker. It was more of a technology event.

One of the hardest things about doing the Duolingo online lessons has been not knowing why words were suddenly changing or what the grammar rules are. Duolingo lessons were being done since Day 1 in the mobile app, which is tops in convenience, but not so generous in dispensing the “whys.” Quick lessons have been knocked out while waiting for Winston during vet appointments or while sitting in the car waiting for it to be time for an appointment of my own. 

Sometimes, the translations from Finnish to English are successful not because I understand the Finnish provided, but because I know English, so it's easy to choose the correct multiple choice words. 

Laptop has "Tips."

Sunday, Duolingo was visited on the laptop. I still don’t know why I went to the website, but there I was. Once logged in, I clicked on Hobbies, the current lesson module, and there was a button labeled “Tips” just above the button for “Start.” 

The Tips button was clicked, and there it was, the critical key to the grammatical magic kingdom. But only available through the laptop portal. There is no fantastical, magical “Tips” button in the mobile app. And the key icon in both modules leads to an opportunity to test out and skip to the next level, not the keys to language learning and enlightenment. 

For 558 days it was a sometimes slow and usually painful process of slogging through lessons with no guidance on the rules of the language. Trying to memorize things with no way to understand the things is not so much fun. Make an error, lose a heart. Lose all five hearts, need to use points to buy more hearts. No points, no dice, so that means going back to practice old lessons and watch ads to earn hearts. So many struggles. At least some of the ads are good. The first time anyway. 

Mobile - no "Tips."

Apparently, the price for the convenience of having lessons in the palm of one's hand is wandering blindly in the woods. But that is history. 

Sure, some of the struggles will still be there, but now I know where to find the treasure nuggets and the golden rules. It was in my lap all along. The process of backtracking through 34 lesson modules to read about rules and gain cultural tidbits has begun. Enlightenment shall be mine. Better late than never. 

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 682 (Monday)

Instead of awakening to a winter wonderland snowfield, it was a slushy mess with cold rain coming down on top of the night's snowfall. Luckily, the clearing plan was limited to the front steps and walk for the convenience of Canine Overlord Winston. This was done while wearing the purple bathrobe over pajamas, so trust me when I say it was Olympic level speed shoveling before any neighbors had a chance to enjoy the spectacle. Luckily, it was 7 am, so hopefully the neighbors were still sleeping.

Due to the sloppy weather conditions, the plan was for an indoor day with housekeeping and tidying up. Somehow, the next thing I knew, nothing had been done except for unloading the dishwasher and wiping the kitchen counter, so the day was reclassified as “a relaxing day.” Easy how that works.

Tomato vegetable soup.

The pot of tomato vegetable soup started on Sunday was pulled from the fridge and set back on the stove. It was enhanced with the remnants of a jar of salsa, baked rutabaga from the freezer, fresh diced potatoes, and a heavy pour of half and half. Topped with shredded cheddar and corn chips, it was a tasty supper. It would have been great with a grilled cheese sandwich, but that part of the plan was forgotten when it was time to eat. Danggit.

Around suppertime, the basement was finally checked for water. It had been avoided all day. Sometimes it’s just better to not know. The usual locations had wet spots, but it wasn’t too horrible. The back yard, on the other hand, looks a lot like a swamp thanks to the rain.

Either Winston’s increased insulin dosage is working, or he was holding his water most of the day to avoid the rain. He didn’t want to go out as often today as recent months. It’s always good to have several consecutive days of quality time at home with the fur baby.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 681 (Sunday)

 This was one of those mornings when Winston needed to go out in the freezing cold of 3:00 to potty. The sky was clear and the moon was a shining silver disc over the street. When we returned to bed, it was a sleepless stretch. There was tossing and turning and rearranging of blankets. For both of us. After a while, I checked the time and noted that it had been an hour of trying to get back to sleep. 

The usual consequence is that once I finally return to sleep, it’s 8:00 before I wake up again. When I finally get up, it feels like half the morning is over. There were no plans to rush for, and by the time there was coffee and a shower, it was 10:30. There was casual shopping at Kohls-dot-com in the quest for new pajamas, a pair of slippers that will fit, unlike the just received torture slippers, and soup bowls, but it was incomplete. No touchdown. 

Sucked into the games.

The rest of the day was a crazy spiral of spider solitaire and the mahjong tile matching games on the laptop. It’s been at least a year since either game has been played or even thought about. All it took was for Mom to mention she was playing solitaire during a phone call yesterday. We had barely hung up and the next thing I knew, the games were open on the laptop and I was on my own trip down the rabbit hole on a cold winter weekend.

For chunks of two days, while three seasons of Bordertown played on the TV, cards were stacked in columns, then tiles were matched, and then it was back to the cards. My eyes are dry and glazed from hardly blinking. Spurts of obsession can be draining. There were brief potty and food breaks, and a pot of soup was started. 

In an amazing show of strength, a Christmas gift box of Godiva was not opened until today. I don't know how I managed to hold out for so long. Having a box of fancy Belgian chocolates go untouched for weeks in my presence is truly unprecedented. There ought to be a medal awarded. Preferably in chocolate.

“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 680 (Saturday)

Mr Handsome under the blanket.

The wind. The cold. Ole Man Winter is definitely in town. I’ve been actively avoiding the dude by staying inside. The closest I got to outside today was opening the door to let Winston out to the front yard, then closing it and running back inside. Then, in a minute or so, going back to let him in.

Winston and I spent most of the day on the couch under a blanket. I was dressed in what I imagine to be “ski lodge clothes,” based on faint memories of weekend ski trips of a million years ago – base layer top and bottoms, leggings, long CuddlDuds top and long cashmere cardigan, and thick socks. Winston was sporting his orange and brown striped sweater, but he was under the blanket so it was impossible to tell.

There was reheated leftover seafood with fries and later, hot cocoa. The day's viewing selection was “Bordertown,” a Finnish language crime drama on Netflix that I’ve already seen, but am watching again to see how much more language I recognize after 557 days of Duolingo lessons. It’s fun to catch more words of dialogue and actual complete phrases.

Perfect day for some
Finnish crime drama.

The newly arrived boots were finally tried on. It seems that Easy Spirit footwear sizing runs smaller than other brands in the closet. Luckily, I went up a half-size on the boots thinking “thick socks.” I can get the new boots on with regular weight socks, so it will be a fingers crossed situation that the thinsulate lining is warm enough outdoors. They were great for indoors, with my legs stretched out onto the ottoman so I could admire them while scanning the English subtitles. If the slippers had fit, those would have been the day's preferred footwear. Stupid too-tight slippers.

And now the hunt for silk socks is once again active. Years ago (think decades) I had a couple pairs and they were the best socks I’ve ever owned. I wore them skiing, along with a set of silk long johns. After years of use, the fabric ran, pulled, shredded, and finally just disintegrated. The sad part is I’ve never been able to find replacements. Had I known they could never be replaced, I would have stocked up way back when. Maybe someday I’ll find more. I’ll look great in the nursing home with my silk socks and long johns. Most people have bucket list goals like travel and adventure, and mine is finding the perfect socks. Something feels wrong here.