days_unfolding

Reading the effects of the funding withdrawal from universities is making me sad. I work for a university, but not in research, so I’m probably okay. But I wonder what I can do for the university. They have been saying business as usual for the time being.

I’m going to investigate getting a Lithuanian (EU) passport after I get back from my trip. I want to keep my options open.

Someone is looking for a large dog bed on Buy Nothing. I’m going to wash Bella’s old one and give it away if it comes out okay.

I stayed up until 1 AM messing around. Exactly what I don’t need to be doing. I’ll set “quiet hours“ on my phone right now. When I was getting ready for bed, Bella was lying flat on the floor and Oliver was yawning. I can get the hint.

Woke up at 8 AM. It’s snowing and looks completely uninviting to run errands. Bella went out, peed, and wanted to come back in. I’m thinking about a Plan B for errands. I’ll be at Ulta next Friday to get my brows done and can buy makeup then. I need to look at my other errands. I can get some stuff on Amazon. Actually, I found some eyeshadow and such on Amazon too.

Lily is showing me her belly. New frontiers in dog grossness: I had to pull dangling poop from Bella and wash smeared poop off of her butt. Did I say “Gross!!!” Oliver is looking out the window at the snow.

Ordered makeup on Amazon. Ordered some chicken wire (there’s a small gap in the fence) for delivery from Lowe’s.

I think that it’s nap time. I had Bella, Oliver, and Lily in the bedroom for a while, which did not look restful. Bella chased Lily out, and Oliver decided to see what Lily was doing. Whew. NOW it’s nap time.

I just realized that I need wire cutters for the chicken wire. Sigh.

Napped. While I was out with Bella, my colleague and her daughter delivered my Girl Scout cookies. I’m making lunch, so cookies for dessert!

I’m feeling like I need another nap, but I’m probably just groggy.

Fuck. The remainder of my Lowe’s items are in a pickup locker at Lowe’s. I wanted all my items delivered, not just the first one. I can’t get there before Tuesday. Well, maybe Monday after choir. I reordered them for delivery.

Took another nap and overslept. Now it’s shower time. I need to feed the hordes too.

I’m preheating the oven for pizza and cleaning the kitchen floor. Bella does not like me cleaning the floor and bit me hard enough to hurt. Lily, on the other hand, likes the cleaning.

I used my Apple Watch to find my phone, which had fallen on the floor. It worked well, but it took me a while to realize that I needed to log into the phone to get the beeping to stop.

Oh crap. Lily ate some tomato sauce off of the pizza. I Googled and got some bad signs to watch out for. My bad; I didn’t put the pizza away fast enough. So far, she seems okay though.

I swapped out the recycling bin inside for an empty one. And Lily went down into the basement. Sigh.

I’m starting into my night routine and will get up early. The "quiet hours" on my phone worked well. Sometimes I overrode them, but I did spend more time cleaning than I usually have. I'll leave them turned on.

I had my Italian lesson today. It went well; she taught me some new verb tenses. The listening exercise is still hard. I need to spend time on other listening sites. News in Slow Italian is good. She still loves Mimi and spoke to her in Italian!

Zara is a funny little girl. She led me over to the bedroom to snuggle. I was petting her, but she has rules about petting that changes from day to day. This time it was "don't touch the tail". I told her that I'd snuggle during lunch, but now I have to work. She didn't think that was a good reason.

The university is having their charitable drive. I wanted to give to EarthShare, only to find that I'm already giving to EarthShare and a Bipolar and Depression fund. I'll let that ride.

From a security briefing at work: "In July, an executive at Italian car company Ferrari was contacted by someone claiming to be the company CEO. During a phone call, the voice on the other end sounded just like the CEO, even his accent and intonation. However, the executive became suspicious because the CEO was calling from a different number and asking for an unusual type of transaction. The executive then asked a question that only the real CEO could answer: what book had the CEO recently recommended? The call ended abruptly. This appears to be an incident of voice cloning, an AI-generated deepfake of a real person’s voice." This is getting scary.

I told my dad that I wanted to cruise the Greek islands to see Santorini, but they're unhappy with the number of tourists, especially cruise ships, so maybe I should stay there. There are a LOT of Airbnbs, which drive local people out. I did find a family-run hotel that looks good. But I'm going to go back to Italy first. And Paris.

Zara was happy that she got her snuggles during lunch. Now she's asleep.

I'm wondering in what box the dress that I bought for the Maui trip that I never went on because of the fire is in. The cruise will probably have a dress up night, but I don't really want to buy a dress just for this trip when I have one. I did find a lace dress on Nordstorm Rack that I liked. It might make sense to order it and return it if I find the other one.

Weeded the side yard. I found that one weeder that I bought didn’t work well, but another helped me rip out the weeds in short order. There were some thistles that were dug in, and I had to cut them down. I’ll try to dig them up in the spring. I planted some more daylilies and watered them.

I remembered that I had thawed some (rather good) burgers, and I made them with Brussels sprouts. That was very good. The problem with eating prepackaged food is that it gets boring, so maybe I should consult with a dietitian at the hospital and cook. But my insurance wants me to take an online class first. Sigh. I found some diet recipe books that I want to try.

Got the garbage out.

Spent too much time on Facebook. I’m worried about the hurricane in Florida and might stay up watching CNN tomorrow night, although there won’t be a lot of news before sunrise. I remember watching the news about Hurricane Katrina. Which means that I should go to sleep soon.