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Cinco de Mayo, 2018
Saturday, May 5 2018
I awoke early in a bit of a sweat this morning, and not because of the temperature. I'd been simulating a data processing algorithm in my head, and it led me to conclude that certain attributes belonging to certain entities were being misattributed. I needed to know how bad the problem was. So I went to my computer and ran series of queries, gradually narrowing down the maximum extent of any possible damage. This got things down to a maximum of 8000 records affected. But after a few more queries, I was down to a spreadsheet of only 20 possible contaminated records. And checking a few of these by hand against the original import data revealed no actual problems. This might sound like an esoteric thing, but it's the world I live in. What's more amazing that I've not yet presided over any actual disasters in the last couple years.
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After Saturday morning coffee, Gretchen went in to town with the dogs to recover her wallet, which had been found last night at UPAC, where she and some friends had seen the 1980s movie Pretty in Pink. Meanwhile I also did some driving around, first to the Tibetan Center thrift store (where I bought nothing) and then to the Home Depot on 9W, where I got a number of attachments for my trusty Hitachi WH 12DAF impact driver as well as nine treated 12 foot two by sixes to strap to the Subaru roof. On the drive home, I munched on some potato chips I'd bought at the Stewarts that had been prepared in avocado oil, and they were delicious.
Back at the house, Gretchen had bought bagels and fixings for a big Cinco de Mayo feast she was preparing (Eva & Sandor and Susan & David would be coming over for dinner). This meant that when I made a tempeh bacon & sauerkraut bagel, I could put some fresh jalapaños on it too.
Later, while Gretchen alternated between reading with the kitten and toiling in the kitchen, I put the rest of the decking on the screened-in-porch. Gretchen helped me with a final piece of two by eight planking, which was too warped for any use other than decking. In that application, it still needed to be straight, so I had Gretchen wield the impact driver while I pried with a two by four lever.
I should mention that it was a beautiful spring day, with temperatures in the 70s and the trees a riot of fresh new, not fully-unfurled leaves. Early May is not to be missed in the Catskills, though those little annoying flies that get in your face are out in force. I also heard the first treefrog of the year today.
I'd been so busy with the deck that I hadn't done the usual cleaning up that I would do. So I ended up doing some sweeping after Susan & David had already arrived. We spent most of th our time out on the east deck (which was full of winter debris such as pine needles and sand exfoliated from the roof shingles), and I swept that up from under people's feet. Gretchen had made a cheerful taco soup and tamales (with all the fixin's). I started out sipping on some pear sake but then transitioned to a Sierra Nevada Torpedo (which I pronounced "toorpedtho" even when it's not Cinco de Mayo).
Next we all hung out for a surprisingly long time with Diane the Kitten in the upstairs bedroom while she scampered about delightfully, playing endlessly with a wire toy decorated with small bondles of rolled-up paper.
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