Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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got that wrong
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   rockfall flagstones
Wednesday, March 30 2022
I took my customary Wednesday 150 milligram recreational dose of pseudoephedrine early this morning, and, as always, it made the every-other-Wednesday series of meetings more entertaining and increased my participation in them. I'm feeling like I'm forming good bonds with my new colleagues, and not just with Joe, the fairly-simpatico lead developer of the web team. Today, for example, when I mentioned that I had Passover plans though am not actually Jewish, one of the other, quieter developers on the teams offered that he had the same situation in his marriage. I've also increased the amount of banter in our Teams channel unrelated to work, which seems to delight Joe the lead developer and even gets occasional engagement from the others, who tend to be more like wallflowers.
At lunchtime, I drove the Forester out to the abandoned bluestone mine to gather more flagstones for the walkway project at the Adirondack cabin. When I got there, I found that a large piece of rock had broken free from some of the cantilevered rock at the top of the artificial cliff-face. This had produced a number of good flagstones, though I was nervous gathering them for fear that additional rock could decided to break free at any moment, and if any of it were to hit me, it would squash me like a bug. I also found other good stones in other places along the mine's central road, and the load ended up being big even for a Subaru Forester. I was sure to unload it not long after getting back home so it wouldn't be weighing the Forester down should I or someone else need to drive it somewhere.
People fifty and older could, as of today, now get a second covid booster (that is, a fourth covid vaccine), so Gretchen had scheduled both of us to get ours this afternoon at Village Apothecary in Woodstock. I headed out well before my appointment (bringing Neville but not Ramona) so I could visit the Tibetan Center thrift store on the way. Powerful had gotten a bunch of good electronics there last week, but today there wasn't anything I wanted. I do still have pillow needs with respect to the huge beanbag in the laboratory, so I picked up one that seemed semi-tasteful (it had an African design featuring a giraffe). It was priced at $7, which seemed kind of high, but it's for a good cause. Rob, the guy who used to be such a fixture there but had to leave for medical reasons, was there working again. I'd seen him there a couple months ago, but this was the first time he seemed to notice me since the start of the pandemic, and he said, "I haven't seen you in awhile." "Yeah, the pandemic," I explained. He only wanted to charge me $3 for the pillow, and when all I had was two singles and several twenty dollar bills, he said two dollars was fine. He's such a nice guy!
I still had time to burn, so I stopped at the Hurley Ridge Hannaford to buy taco shells, pasta, and a new variety of very expensive imperial stout ($18 for a four pack).
When I got to Woodstock, I went directly to the bookstore, where Gretchen was winding down from a weak day of book sales ($400). Killing more time before my vaccination appointment, I thumbed through The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, a book about surviving a wide range of disasters, including a swarm of drones. Meanwhile a customer was making a big fuss about Neville, who would be working a very abbreviated shift.
I left Neville at the store when I strolled off to get my Fauci ouchie. Things happened pretty quickly at the apothecary and would've happened even faster had there not been a whole family getting shots in front of me. Demand for covid shots is very low right now, but the apothecary still has someone hired to work the front door and handle the vaccination paperwork and direct people where to sit and where to stand. I was supposed to wait ten minutes after my shot (a second Moderna) in case there were ill effects, but I acted as though I'd gotten a call on my phone so I could go outside, and from there I just walked straight back to the bookstore.
Since I was in Woodstock for that reason, Gretchen and I decided to go out for dinner. Had it not been a Wednesday, we probably would've gone to the Garden Café, since they would've let Neville into the restaurant. But they're closed on Wednesdays, so instead we went to the Bear Cantina, the pleasant Mexican place on the east bank of the Saw Kill in Bearsville. It was only just after 5:00pm, and we were the only customers. There are no bad tables in the Cantina; we'd thought the best ones were back by the fireplace, but being next to the Saw Kill was even better. I ordered a margarita and the tofu burrito, the latter of which was a bit of a mistake. It was stuffed with a lot of soft tofu, didn't have much flavor, and was frankly kind of gross. But adding some habañero sauce, leafy greens, and guacamole improved it a bit.
Tomorrow Gretchen would be taking a bus into the city to surprise her friend Blond Marisa on her birthday, and this got us to talking about how especially hard aging has been on her women friends who happen to be beautiful. Gretchen doesn't consider herself beautiful and doesn't suffer much psychological trauma from the visual results of her own aging process. Truthfully, I commented that she looked fine for her age and that, if anything, I'm more physically attracted to her now than I used to be. This probably has more to do with the emotional dynamics of our relationship (perhaps helped by our increasing financial success) than with anything about her appearance. But she also looks really good to me.
After dinner, I dropped Gretchen off where she'd parked the Bolt, and we drove home separately. Unfortunately Powerful hadn't known we'd eating out and made us a spaghetti dinner. But, no problem, spaghetti is good as a leftover. Up in the teevee room, Gretchen and I watched Jeopardy! and yet another episode of the Dropout. [REDACTED]


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