Author: scrivener

I took a vacation day Monday. I had a fraction of a day to burn before the end of September, so I just took the whole day. I slept in after another night of terrible sleep, took care of a few work emails, then headed for the beach. I haven’t been in the ocean during mid-day hours for a long time, possibly not since the company picnic in April 2019.

Picked up a Zippy’s Surf Pac on the way, and got a decent parking stall on the Kewalo end. I sorta did my usual swim, but the water was really moving, making it pretty tiring. I did the usual distance, a lot more slowly, then floated around for a while, enjoying my freedom.

There were a lot of people lying on the beach by themselves, per the mayor’s orders. Looked like people really tried to keep their distance, which hasn’t been my experience with the early morning swimmers.

Sat in my beach chair in the shade in the park, by the pond on the Kewalo end, for lunch and podcasts. It was really nice too.

I ached all over for the rest of the day, and if I weren’t too local to sunburn, a casual observer might say I looked a little pink.

I watched an episode of Halt and Catch Fire, read the news, did the crossword, played stupid games on my phone, and emptied out a large plastic tub in my decluttering effort. The Beast made me very hot and sweaty, but I also wheeled a full trash bin to the curb and opened up a little bit of space near my desk.

Crush Girl and I chatted most of the evening via G-chat. Jennifer sent me an otter update; I sent her a photo of a Christmas card she sent me maybe eight years ago, by her estimation, unearthed in my decluttering.

I skipped breakfast and the Surf Pac was enormous, so I kind of skipped dinner too. Finished off my potato salad, so I’ll count that as dinner. No snacking.

That’s it. A day of rest well taken. Hit me up in comments if you need someone to connect with. I’ll send contact info and we can text the night away. Or something.

I’ve missed out on a lot of major-network broadcast TV since I went to over-the-air digital. I purchased an antenna to receive the digital signals, and it helped, but it still left me with just the local Fox and ABC affiliates, plus the local PBS station and a ton of other stuff you wouldn’t guess is out there. And lately I haven’t been getting Fox.

It’s been a pain, since football is on Fox, NBC, CBS, and ESPN.

I thought my antenna just wasn’t good enough, so I looked on Amazon for other options, then did a little web search to see if people out there had reviewed a bunch of the stuff. And of course there are a lot of articles out there. You kind of have to be cautious about review articles for tech stuff, since there are a lot of fake websites in existence just to steer you to specific products, disguised as neutral review sites.

Consumer Reports did a rundown, but I don’t subscribe, so I couldn’t see what it recommended. However, it had a publicly available article about getting the most from your digital over-the-air antenna, and geez. The stuff I don’t know.

The FCC has a map of DTV antenna locations. You put in your zip code and select the local broadcaster whose signal you want to receive, and it shows you on the map where the antenna is. You can set the location pin right at your address and it tells you the bearing you can point your antenna to so it’s looking right at the tower.

I had it pointed roughly in the direction of downtown Honolulu, thinking most of the towers were there. Most of them are, and only a few miles away, which is why I got them okay. The KHON (NBC affiliate) tower, however, is on a mountain above Nanakuli, completely in the opposite direction and sixteen miles away. The FCC website says where I am the signal should be strong, though. So I moved my antenna six feet away from where it was and swung it around so it was facing west instead of east, and *bing*. The late afternoon football game, loud and crystal clear.

Part of me wants to scream at myself, because I had all this good TV at my disposal and didn’t even know. Part of me is like, cool. Digital over-the-air is great — it’s indistinguishable in quality from cable or broadband, as far as I can see. Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth have never looked more beautiful than on my own TV at home.

And because I’m only a couple of miles from the towers in town, the antenna being pointed in the opposite direction isn’t a problem at all for the other stations.

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I watched the early game on CBS, the Patriots and Dolphins. I thought it was a good game, but apparently a lot of people disagree. Then I messed around because the early afternoon game was on Fox and I didn’t figure out the antenna thing until an hour into the late afternoon game. Man, I can’t wait until next Sunday just so I can veg and watch the stupid games because I can.

I also watched episode eight of season two of Halt and Catch Fire. It’s seriously kind of a drag right now, which make sense. It’s a ten-episode season, so this is a good place for things to be nearly as bad as they’re going to get.

I played a ridiculous amount of Tsum Tsum, then got to work on that space in my laundry room. It was hot, sweaty, dirty work, but I got it cleared out and cleaned out, and I was able to move some of the newly-packed storage tubs in there, opening up living space where I hadn’t had any for some time. It’s a huge relief, and it’s a milemarker in this Herculean task of decluttering my space. It’s also going to be where I put my newly empty storage tubs. It pleases me enormously that there are more newly-empty than newy-filled.

Breakfast was my unnamed noodle soup thing, which I know I still haven’t explained in this space. Such a good breakfast. It’s mostly veggies, too. For lunch, I took a little inspiration from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and my friend Jennifer and made a little pizza on a tortilla. I crisped it up in a grill pan, then added some spaghetti sauce, white cheddar, and sliced Portuguese sausage. It was good. Jennifer puts hers in the oven and the tortilla puffs up. It wanted to puff up on the grill pan too, but I cut a few holes in it to keep it crackery.

I kind of thought I would skip dinner, but all that cleaning took a lot out of me, so I had a couple of burritos. In between somewhere I finished off the blondies.

Ali texted me super early with a link to a cute IG post about how to drive a book-lover crazy. Kathy got back to me after hearing the New Order song saying they still sound great. Sharon asked me for a coworker’s chocolate mochi recipe, which I was able to find in my work emails. Not a super busy day with texting, but Sundays seldom are.

It’s nearly midway through September. Six months since this lockdown began, with no end in sight. I’m utterly opposed to social gatherings such as we’re seeing on the news, and I have no words for the people protesting the local governments’ attempts to keep us from spreading the virus. But I get it. It’s been a long six months. Nobody wants to keep this up. It’s easy to feel like life is passing us by and we’re missing out on time with others.

But you know. People keep dying from this thing, and if we can do something to prevent the death, we should. I’m here for it. So if you’re reading this and you need some extra connectivity, believe me: I dig it. Reach out in comments and we can talk each other through it.

Crappy sleep doesn’t have to set the tone for the whole day; nor does it necessarily make for terrible weekend relaxation or productivity. In Saturday’s case, however, crappy sleep was the general theme. I dragged my self up after insufficient rest and mostly goofed off on my phone.

The rest of the day was mostly the kind of lazying you do when you have an unexpected super-rainy day when the bosses tell you not to come in. I checked the football news every couple of hours. I played a lot of stupid games on my phone, including Tsum Tsum, which I hadn’t played in three years.

It’s just as addicting now as it was when I first picked it up ages ago.

Read the news. Did the crossword. The Saturday NYT destroyed me — I couldn’t do any of the northwest corner despite working really hard to fill the rest. I watched two episodes of Halt and Catch Fire season two. Episodes six and seven.

I suspect many (if not most) fans of the show would say the relationships keep the show interesting, but I could honestly do without them. The show drags when it’s not about the tech, and the tech stuff is moving too slowly for me in the middle of the season, after some pretty great stuff early.

Despite my not grooving on the relationships, one character’s love interest, played by Aleksa Palladino, is freaking beautiful. She sorta makes it worth it.

Breakfast was a slice of blueberry peach pie. I was tired and annoyed with myself. It was there. Tasted great but did very, very little to assuage either my tiredness or annoyance.

I had a small ribeye in the fridge from my trip to the supermarket last weekend. It was delicious, but I overcooked it to medium well. I’m getting better, but I’m still going to do stuff like this. Good thing I like a well-done steak too.

I had it with instant mashed potatoes, with gorgonzola. It was enough food that I only ate half, then finished it off for dinner.

I consumed a couple of blondies a bite at a time through the day. Definitely not as good two days after baking, but still good.

Crush Girl and I texted a teeny bit, mostly concluding a conversation from Friday evening. Sylvia and I had a conversation about hot sauce — she sent me a photo of this Korean brand. I’ve seen (and tried) the super-spicy instant ramen from the same brand, so this is intriguing. Doesn’t look like a condiment, though. It looks like something you add to cooked noodles, like a shiru base.

Jennifer sent me a link to the new New Order single, which I didn’t know existed. It’s good; you should give it a spin if you dig NO. I forwarded it to my classmate Kathy, with whom I attended the NO concert two years ago. Jennifer also updated me on that orphaned otter. Very cute.

Football begins Sunday, despite my sorta not wanting it to. I’ll watch one or two of the games, depending on which network has the afternoon game. I get my digital TV over the air, and my reception of Fox is bad enough that my TV doesn’t pick it up. So if CBS is showing one game, I’ll watch one. If CBS is showing two, I’ll watch two. It’ll be more Halt and Catch Fire if it’s less football.

I have to wait until Monday before I can get into the water. This kind of sucks.

Reach out in comments if you want someone to connect with in these days of insanity. There’s room for everyone.

Once I decided not to hit the beach, I got a little more sleep, which I needed because I slept terribly. I ran a few errands before work, filling a few jugs with water from not my usual spot or my usual second spot, but my third spot, which is a bit further but still in the hood. It’s in front of a convenience store on King Street near the Zippy’s.

The Korean market is right next door, and although that’s not my first choice for Japanese things, it was right there and it was early in the morning, so I figured there wouldn’t be very many fellow customers. I needed miso.

On the way home I stopped at Golden Coin, not because I wanted anything but because I’ve got this expired safety sticker on the back of my car and there was a cop across the street. I pulled into the lot to avoid his seeing my tail. Had to go through the motions, so I picked up a pork adobo plate for lunch.

I hit the Taco Bell drive-though for breakfast. It was pretty good.

I worked super inefficiently Friday, but I did get stuff done, and then I worked until about nine to get that teaser copy finished. I was tired, and I only ate half the pork adobo at lunch, so the rest of it was dinner.

Went to bed but didn’t put myself to bed, and it was like that all night. Just effing miserable. And I got up like five times to use the restroom, which is one of the stupid symptoms of sleep apnea. I don’t get up because I have to use the bathroom; I have to use the bathroom because I’ve woken up.

It was just a terrible night.

Crush Girl and I texted intermittently all day about various mundane things. It was nice. Sylvia and I switched between the office Skype and texting through the day, about food, IM platforms, and food.

The week went by quickly, something I seldom say about a four-day work week. I could have used more and better sleep, but everything else was pretty okay.

Leave a comment if you’re looking for more connectivity in these idiotic pandemic days. I got some bandwidth for texting or whatever.

Thursday I did finish that acknowledgment letter. I think I did a pretty dang good job on it, if I did take far too much of my employer’s time to do it. Did a little bit of housekeeping stuff, had a phone meeting and a Zoom meeting. Kinda got started on this teaser copy for the emailed version of one of our publications. I didn’t get very far on it, but I’m not too worried. Sometimes you just kinda soak it all in, then you sit down to write it the next day and it just comes.

After I did Friday’s NYT crossword Thursday evening (in under twelve minutes, thank you very much), I got kind of caught up in another of their puzzle games, something called Tiles. It reminds me a lot of Set (which NYT also has on their site but which I’ve never played online) crossed with Shanghai. Pretty fascinating. My evening sorta got away from me this way.

Got ready for bed and turned in early-ish so I could go to the beach Friday, but when the alarm went off after some pretty crappy, useless sleep, I realized that depending on how you look at it, Friday was the first day of the monthly jellyfish invasion of Oahu’s south shores. Argh.

I used to look at this calendar that told me when the full moon is, then count nine days up from that. The real influx is on the tenth day after the full moon, but some eager jellies come in the day before and some laggers come the day after. I usually leave that three-day window tightly shut.

Lately I’ve been looking at a moon phases app, and it doesn’t give me a single full moon day. It give me like three. I don’t know which is the one day. It’s very annoying.

So I stayed in bed.

Let’s see. Breakfast may have been a blondie. And a half. They were better the morning after. I also had a couple of clementines and a few bites of potato salad.

For lunch, I still had the untouched leftover veggies and tofu from the Chinese takeout last weekend. I made a pot of quinoa, then stirred in the Chinese food. It was good. It was filling enough, too, that all I had for dinner was a few more bites of potato salad.

I had a bunch of questions for Ryan, about his status as a public figure and whether he had any publicly vocal haters. We traded some thoughts via text. It was an interesting conversation. Sylvia and I texted a few times through the day. She made some nice-looking homemade chips in her air fryer. We chatted a little about football.

Crush Girl and I chatted about my blondies and some other stuff. It was nice too.

Looking forward to the weekend, and to a productive Friday at my desk. The latter will make the former a lot better, so I’m psyching myself up.

Hit me up in comments if you need someone to connect with in these dark lockdown days. I’m here for it.

I was a little stressed about getting to the beach on time. I kiiinda had to go to the bathroom, in a way that using facilities at the beach was out of the question, but I thought there was a chance it could wait a few hours. Stupid, I know, especially in these days when businesses keep their restrooms closed to customers.

So I cruised right past the office on my way to Kewalo from the laundry, got to the harbor at around quarter to five, and saw there were a lot of open stalls. Based on recent experience, if there were this few cars in the lot at quarter to five, I could safely zip back to the office, use the bathroom, and get back in half an hour and be okay for parking.

I did, and I did, and I was. I don’t think the lot ever filled up in the three hours I was there.

I had another especially good swim. I’m doing things routinely now that used to be a big deal. This pleases me. The water was really nice, too.

Beginning Thursday, they open up parking again, and beaches and parks are okay for solo activity. So I won’t have to hurry to the water so early in the morning. Part of me is going to miss it.

I wasn’t very productive at work. Got stuck on this acknowledgement letter. It’s signed by the chancellor of one of the campuses, and it goes to donors who give more than a certain amount of money. Just had trouble getting into the mental sincere gratitude space. I don’t have to in order to write these, but I try very hard to make these letters heartfelt, and I’ve found I’m better at it when I’m actually feeling the sentiment. I also helped a coworker with a few paragraphs for her bio.

We had our office fantasy football draft at 6:30. It was fun. Thirteen of fourteen participants showed up, and we had a nice online draft with a ton of trash-talk.

After the draft, I lazed about for a while and forced myself up at about nine to make blondies. I’d never made them, and the last time I did any brownie-type baking, it was with R early in our teaching years. She liked to bake brownies. She hates cake and pie. At her wedding, she had a tiered wedding brownie.

They came out pretty good. I don’t have enough of a sweet tooth to do this very often, but I’m glad I have it in my arsenal now. Crush Girl was baking something at her place at the same time, so we had nice text message exchanges, with photos, about what we were making. That was fun. I asked for advice — more for the attention than actually needing advice, but of course it doesn’t hurt to get confirmation.

Sharon and I traded texts during the day about work stuff. Mostly about some coworkers who have moved on and didn’t seem happy when they were here. Sylvia texted me some commentary during our draft. That was fun.

I resisted the urge to pick up breakfast on my way home from the beach, mostly because I thought I had that last money-league fantasy football draft at eight. I didn’t; it was Thursday at eight. So breakfast was a couple of clementines, a few bites of potato salad, and a smallish slice of pie.

For lunch-dinner, I had a small wedge of Humboldt Fog, a goat cheese I picked up at Foodland Farms Sunday, with crackers. I drizzled local honey on some of it. I drizzled balsamic vinegar (that store-branded stuff from Foodland) on some of it. I drizzled habanero Tabasco on some of it. The balsamic was the best.

It was a quarter pound of richness, so I didn’t need more of a meal than that. I also knew I was making blondies later.

Week’s moving quickly, thank goodness. Lots of activity with a little bit of darkness on the distant fringe. Something’s threatening to bum me out, but I don’t know what it is.

Reminder to hit me up in comments if you’re looking for more connectivity during these lockdown days. Lockdown, schmockdown.

Got out of bed early after not quite enough (and not very good) sleep. I hate myself.

Heated up the leftover stuffed eggplant and ate it while I prepped for a 10:00 phone interview with a donor. Around 9:15 I splashed some sauce from breakfast (not an oyster sauce, but something like it) onto my keyboard. Great.

I pulled the keycaps without my keycaps tool — that’s still at the office, where until March I did most of my keyboarding. Quickly did a YouTube search and learned how to pop the caps using a credit card. Worked pretty well.

I napkined the sauce pretty well. Ran a wet napkin over exposed areas to get the residue, and a dry napkin to get the water. There’s sauce visible inside the S and X switches, but I tested all the exposed switches before replacing the keycaps and everything is working okay.

Washed and dried the keycaps. Put them back. Ten minutes to spare before my interview. That was enough time, thanks to my good prepping last week. Just not what I had in mind for easing into the week.

Had a couple of Zoom meetings; they were fine, if a bit lengthy. Worked on some acknowledgement letters I didn’t quite finish.

At six, I participated in a fantasy football draft. I’m putting one of my online fantasy sources to the test this year in a handful of money leagues. This is my third money league and I have one or two more. Very small stakes.

I did some chores, the prepped the laundry and water refill. Got to bed by nine, which was ninety minutes later than intended. Dang it.

The stupid water vending machine was out of order again. So I just hit the drive-through for dinner (Quarter-pounder meal from McD’s) and came to the laundry. I’ve had the place to myself until just now when the lady who I know likes my old spot came in. I have fewer than ten minutes left on the dryer, so the small overlap is okay with me.

Lunch was my yet-unnamed noodle soup with veggies I planned to explain in this space today but time’s running out, so I’ll explain next time. It was good, though, and a little throwback to when I was between jobs and making the most of my paltry resources.

Got a text from Juli (a former boss), who had a commas question. We chatted a while. Her daughter just graduated HBA and started school at Santa Clara. I helped her a little with her essay, which is one reason Juli shares updates like this with me. Suzanne texted to ask what I’m reading. Sylvia texted after I was already in bed to share a link to a potato chip reviewing blog. Interesting but possibly dangerous. She’s also a little worried about something in the Philippines with her family, so I tried to be a little encouraging.

They mayor extended the stay-home order, but parks are opening up for solo recreational use. Perfect for me, since parking is my only real issue. I’ll miss having the water nearly to myself, though. Most early morning swimmers go solo anyway, so the population in the water should be about the same as normal, at the hour when I go.

Dryer’s about done, so I’m running. Reach out in comments if you want to connect.

I slept pretty miserably Sunday night. I don’t know why. Sometimes when I’m achy from a hard swim, I have trouble sleeping, but I wasn’t feeling it enough for that to be the issue.

So I just got up, much too early, and put the last bit of work into my fantasy football spreadsheet. The thing is pretty cool. This sheet is my annual reminder to myself that for as much as I know about Excel and its ilk, there’s a lot of power beneath the hood most of us never tap into. So each year I tweak the sheet with some modification I don’t know how to execute. This year, it was programmable buttons to execute multiple functions. I didn’t do anything especially tricky — mostly just “look in that cell and place the info in that other cell when I click this button,” or “add five to that number whenever I click this button, but add one to the same number when I click this other button.”

These are the sorta Mickey Mouse functions. I’m eager to try the more advanced ones in another year’s time.

I finished early enough to get a short nap before the draft. We started at two via Zoom. Darren, who owns a design/build company, has a company account, allowing us (me, Marc, Don, Reid, Gregg, Darren) to have our draft. Kendrick, Sean, Marshall, and Byron couldn’t join us.

It took about three hours. And it was pretty fun. My high-school classmates are the only people I feel completely at ease with, totally okay being just myself. It’s a big deal. And I like it when there are enough of us that I don’t have to carry any conversations.

Not that anyone has to worry about carrying a conversation when Reid’s in the room.

Watched the news, did some writing, took a turn with the Beast, getting rid of a whole mess of VHS cassettes left over from when I taught speech. Student videos they used to keep in my classroom (because you weren’t allowed to present on your scheduled day if you didn’t have your tape, and missing a scheduled day was a 10% score reduction) and never picked up when the course was over. Yeah, I still have them twenty-three and twenty-two years later. Some of these tapes are of seniors in the very first speech class I taught. Fall 1997.

I actually kept several. Most had molded or mildewed. Magnetic tape in humid environments is such a fragile thing. But some looked to be in good shape, so they’re suriving the first purge. Some who belong to students I’m still in touch with or whose parents I’m still in touch with.

I don’t think I’m going to get to the Beast Tuesday evening, but when I get to it next (Wednesday?), I think I’m finally going to have a certain section of my house completely cleared. I started there because it’s where I can store the stuff that survives the first purge. I hate the way things get a lot messier before they get neater, when you do a big cleanup like this. Getting this small corner of my house clear is a huge step, and it will decrease some of my stress. Because right now, if I want to get a can of corn out of the closet in my laundry room, I have to move a few plastic tubs into my hallway, get the corn, and move the tubs back so I can get down my hall to the kitchen. Idiocy.

I’ve reduced the number of cooking implements I own by a great number, but there are a few things I need to keep, even if I don’t use them that often. They are in a large green tub I move into and out of my bathroom. More idiocy.

The trash bin went to the curb filled to the top. Very satisfying.

Breakfast was leftovers of the beef broccoli cake noodle. I didn’t even heat it up; just ate it cold out of the plastic container. For lunch right before the draft, I made burrito filling and had a few burritos. This filling’s a bit blander than the last for some reason. Might chop up some peppers and mix them in later.

Oh, I went to the supermarket half an hour before it closed, even though I didn’t need much. The Diet Pepsi supply was low. I wanted backups on dish soap and paper plates, in case of a hurricane. I also really wanted a decent steak.

I mention this because I hit the McD’s drive-through on the way home and picked up dinner. Chicken McNuggets. Just nuggets this time, no fries. Got home and watched an episode of Halt and Catch Fire before turning in around 1:00.

Sylvia and I traded some texts about our weekends. That was nice. Crush Girl texted to ask how my knee was. That was super nice. We talked a little about baking, and how we’re both staying away from Costco.

I run a fantasy football league in our office. Fourteen participants this year, half of them women. It’s very exciting, as team-building is a huge part of my thing at the foundation. We’re drafting Wednesday night, and I’ll be happy to get it over so we can enjoy the season. Draft season is a little hectic.

Ready for a new week. I can feel the productivity building up inside me.

Don’t forget that every day you’re not contributing to the health crisis, you are doing something positive, even if you’re consuming pie and chips at the same time. Cut yourself some slack. Get fresh air and sunshine. Stay connected to people. Connect with me if you could use more connection, ’cause I’m here for it.

I slept okay Saturday night. Got to bed around ten and fell right to sleep. I slept about four hours uninterrupted, which has been rare lately and was really nice. I woke up a second time around three, went to the bathroom, and decided I was up for good, rather than trying to squeeze in another half hour before the 3:30 alarm.

I’m growing to enjoy Sunday mornings the day before a holiday. I never used to, when I was teaching. I like them enough that I’m taking Mondays off the next two weeks. Need some me-time, especially since we have no holidays between Labor Day and Veterans Day. That’s far too long a stretch for Hawaii people.

Ali texted me with a prayer request, something I’ve been better about receiving with the expected heart this past year. I’m writing something about it, but I kind of want to wait until after the first week of November to conclude it. It’s Lent-related. We chatted a while and I said I would pray. Not something I say sincerely very often about third-party intercession.

It helped that I knew I’d be in the water, which is where I am most apt to do it.

I got to the parking lot a few minutes before it opened, joining the queue of expectant surfers, paddle-boarders, swimmers, and walkers. The surf forecast called for three- to five-foot waves on the south shore. At five, the lot still wasn’t full, but by the time I walked to Starbucks and back with my second pumpkin spice latte of the season, it was pretty close.

I spent the predawn half hour out at the edge of Kewalo, looking over Ala Moana. It was pretty. Drank coffee, ate a doughnut, and listened to Guns n’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction as morning broke. All days should begin something like this.

Got in the water a little ahead of what has been normal. The water was an incredibly lovely pale, transparent turquoise in the shallows, a color I don’t think I’ve seen there. The beach is reacting well to having far fewer people in the water every day.

I went hard enough that I’m still feeling it in my shoulders nearly forty hours later. It just felt so good, and I think the higher number of surfers in the lot meant there were fewer swimmers, because I didn’t have to deal with very many others. There’s a guy who looks like R’s father who doesn’t swim straight between the buoys — he kind of zig zags a little, and he always gets too close to me, sometimes causing me to have to stop where I am and let him pass.

It takes everything I have not to lose my zen. I gotta find a good Christian equivalent for this sentiment. We Christians are too conflicted about everything to have such a useful phrase.

It is quite possible that these morning swims are the best things in my life lately. Why should it be a struggle to drag myself out of bed two hours before sunrise to have the best thing in my life? If Anna Kendrick were going to be at the Starbucks at that hour, standing in line ahead of me every morning, you know I’d be there without fail. And that’s not even as good for me.

Still it would be good for me, though. So if you’re reading this, Anna, just come on by when the virus gets nicer.

I went to Foodland Farms at Ala Moana for some groceries. Came home with a few small wedges of cheese I’ve never tried or heard of. Also, Foodland has a store-branded balsamic vinegar and olive oil that’s a pretty good price. I picked up some of the vinegar to try with the cheese and my next loaf of bread.

I thought maybe Sunday morning, early enough, would be okay for a visit to the Korean grocery in my hood. It’s been since last winter that I’ve gone. My office is walking distance from a few good Korean markets, so if I need something I’m likelier to get it there during a lunch break.

It wasn’t bad, but I lingered a little too long. Then I walked to the Chinese noodle factory a few doors down and picked up some Hong Kong noodles. I stopped at Rainbows for a boneless chicken, post-swim gluttonfest. It went down quickly and I’m hoping I burned right through it.

The rest of the day was getting ready for the fantasy football draft with my high-school classmates. The draft is Monday afternoon, and I had more fiddling with my spreadsheet to do.

I don’t think I had lunch, but I had a slice of blueberry-peach pie for dinner. Crashed on (not in) my bed as I considered hitting the local supermarket before closing. Woke up too late to get there, but I knew I wasn’t going anyway. Ryan posted a photo he took at Waipio Costco Sunday — the line is serpentine in shape and Mississippian in length. Ugh. No thank you. Even if the crowd at the grocery was proportinately smaller, it would be too stressful.

The only other text was from Crush Girl, who sent me a photo of a snack she tried. We chatted a little about that, and about how her weekend was going.

I kind of thought I’d be watching a lot of Halt and Catch Fire this weekend, but I only got to see two episode. Goals for next week.

Let’s connect if connection you lack. Or lack in sufficient qualities or quantities. Stupid pandemic’s still going, and things don’t feel like they’re getting better soon. Just leave a comment.

I cruised into Saturday without a real agenda. Then I got the email from Don saying our fantasy football league, which goes back twenty-five years or longer, is on. In a group email we scheduled the draft for Monday afternoon.

I immediately scheduled a couple of live drafts in Yahoo leagues, money leagues this time, to get back into the groove. Then I popped open this Google Sheets spreadsheet I use, shared with the guys in my league. It’s sort of a real-time draft board, and every year I add something cool to it. This year I wanted to add some buttons, to automate certain repetitive tasks.

It’s not as easy as just recording a macro, which I’ve done in Excel. What I wanted to do required a little bit of scripting, so I taught myself some of the script Google Sheets uses and spent a huge chunk of Saturday playing around with it. The learning curve was initially steep, but my experience with coding helped a lot: I tried a few things intuitively, and they mostly worked.

Now the sheet is super functional but not very pretty — I knew if I tried to make the buttons pretty, I’d spend all weekend just on that. So this will be my improvement for next year.

I watched two episodes of Halt and Catch Fire. Got through a box in my attack on the Beast. Not a Rubbermaid tub, but a cardboard box this time. Almost all of it went into the trash. Yay. Took a while, though, since it was mostly papers and notebooks.

Breakfast and lunch were both leftover angel hair. I picked up another pie in the morning (blueberry peach), so a slice of that was my snack. For dinner I went to the Chinese restaurant in my hood and got takeout: stuffed eggplant, tofu and mixed veggies, and beef broccoli with cake noodle (it’s a Hawaii thing). Lots of leftovers, of course. I didn’t even touch the tofu and mixed veggies, and have half remaining of the other two dishes.

Sharon and I traded some texts about this thing I saw at the Chinese restaurant (her family owns a Chinese restaurant in town), then we got to other topics, mostly a former best friend of hers who’s been bugging her. Ali texted to tell me she read a passage in a book that made her think of me. That was nice.

Went to bed early with big plans for Sunday.

It’s too late to be part of my Sunday (I’m writing this on Sunday evening), but I’ve got a whole week ahead of me during which I expect not a thing to be different from the six months leading up to it, so if you need a little connectivity, leave a comment.