#365Gratitude: Bugsquash

The Wednesday after I got back from Chicago, I had planned to have an easy workday.  Get in, work on my latest story-ticket, nice lunch, home early, all that jazz.

A coworker was demoing a story to the lead and the system threw a nice big juicy bug, putting an end to that plan.  The code that worked just perfectly when I ran it locally just horked up a lung and died when it was on the test box. 

Not ACTUAL bug, computer bug.  Still, horrible.

Said coworker enlisted my help, because they had no earthly idea what it could be.

After a while of banging my face against it, I figured out why it woiuldn't show on dev, but did appear in test, and exactly what was causing it!  (If you really want to know why and what it was.. the why was because of differences in the dataset and the what was that datatables.js doesn't support colspan attributes in tables.  Having one causes the HTML to be considered malformed by the library.  This can be easily fixed on a .gsp by swapping out the HTML in question conditionally, using a template.  See, you didn't really want to know, now did you?)

Anyhow, it feels good to figure that kind of stuff out.

#365Gratitude: Paid in full

A couple of years back my nephew was in college, and couldn't make tuition, and I took a loan off my retirement account to help him out.

The way the loan was set up, the repayments came out of my paycheck, so I wouldn't even notice them.  I kind of forgot about them, except when I changed jobs, and had to start paying them manually, by check.

I worked out how to set up a direct deposit repayment thing and proceeded to forget about it again.  

I don't have to remember it ever again, because on Tuesday I got an email that it was all paid back.

Man, that feels good.

#365Gratitude: Good Goodbye and Hello

Historically, I've been terrible at goodbyes.  I hate leaving, hate other people's leaving, and become sad, wistful, and teary.  The Monday that I left Chicago though (alright, technically Milwaukee) was a different story.

Squee and I had a lovely, long, slow goodbye.  

Monday morning I helped get her kids off to school, which was pleasantly, domestically enjoyable.  It felt very family-normal-good.  Squee, Kit, and I walked with their youngest daughter, S. to the bus stop.  At one point S. rolled her eyes at us, and said, "This is too many grownups at the bus stop."  (Because we're tragically uncool like that.)  But it didn't stop her from playing seedpod soccer with me and her dad for a while until the bus came.  I joked to Kit that it was the opposite of "Futbol Picante".  

Eventually the time came for Squee and I to get on the road, and we did so early, so we could really take our time at it.  This was a very good choice.

We drove to the airport, and then circled it a bit, sussing out our best options to maximize time.  I curb-checked my bags, and we got back in the car to park, sit, talk, and really channel our schmoop.

Coincidentally, a good schmoop channeling takes about 45 minutes.

Then we went inside, and in front of a busy terminal of strangers proceeded to hug and kiss for a while.  It was tender, and good.

I was able to go through security without being a weepy mess.  Then I had a nice, easy flight home.  I got my car out of the long term parking at a hotel near the airport, and drove home.  Missy wasn't home yet from her busy day, so I got some special time with the cats.  Well, half of them.

On the whole it was a most excellent set of goodbyes and hellos.

#365Gratitude: Squee's selenite heart

On my last day of my visit to my auntie Squee, she had me hang onto something precious to her, her heart.

No, seriously.  Here you can see it.  It's a crystal heart, made out of selenite.  I took it in its little velvet pouch and stuck it in my pocket, warming it with my body as we went about our day.

She told about it as we drove around.  When she first got it the heart was flawlessly clear, not a scratch on it.  The thing about selenite is, it's a very soft, pliable sort of mineral, and can scratch easily.  After only a little while the heart was scored and scratch some, and she worried what to do about it.  A friend told her that wasn't a problem, and to just keep it in its protective little pouch, and she could keep it from harm.

I immediately got this.  And understood just what it meant that she was letting me hang onto it for a while.  I took it from the pouch, and held it in my hands.

After a time I put it back in the pouch, and just before our long goodbye at the airport, gave it back to her.  Mostly.

#365Gratitude: I've got special meeple in my life

While the Saturday of my trip was mostly about alone time with Squee, Sunday was all about connecting with Squee's husband, Kit, too.

We bopped on over to their house, and while the kids were still away visiting with other family, had quality time together.

These are "meeple" - you use them to play Carcasonne.  Specifically, these were my green meeple.

This means we hugged, and we played Carcasonne, and then we, to quote Sokka of the Water Tribe, "did an activity together", that activity being kinky karaoke.

Years ago when I first read The Ethical Slut, an amazing book about polyamory, having a few things jump out at me.  One of them was how often our idea of our partner's new partner can be really damn scary, but when we meet and get to know them, we see that they're just people, just a person, like we're a person, and that that makes everything better.

That was totally what Kit and I were doing on Sunday.  And it was awesome.  We talked, like a lot.  (Anyone who knows me well will tell you, getting me to talk is not a problem.)

Squee made us all breakfast, and we sat, and talked, and played carcasonne, and just... bonded. It was beautiful.  There was this funny moment when we first set up the game that he offered the meeple to me and I went to pick, and right away went for the blue ones.  (Because oceans, sharks, etc.)  He got this little look of "oh well" on his face, because he's always the blue meeple.  I immediately gave them to him, laughing, and said, "sharing is love."  The three of us shared a knowing, warm, funny smile over it, and he was happy to have them back.

Then he totally kicked my ass in Carcasonne.  Which was awesome!  So awesome he did it twice.  He's a genius at that game.  It, for him, is like Scrabble is, for me.  His big move is using the fields to do farming.  I'm practicing, so I can get better.  

Later on, the three of us went out to do kinky karaoke.  I've never ever done karaoke before.  In the car on the way there, we talked about what the place was like, and what songs they had.  I asked about show tunes, then sang a bit of Red and Black from Les Miserables, which is like my go-to shower song, just because.  It felt good to sing aloud in the car in front of people I knew and trusted, before going to a place to sing in front of total strangers.

Plus, we talked about kink in general, and getting out there and meeting people.  Kit's kind of a shy guy, and he's just beginning to make inroads into the kink community.  He's excited to meet people, connect, and see what's really out there.  We had this awesome talk about what people get out of wearing diapers, and I totally threw myself under the example bus talking about why I particularly love to be in diapers, or diaper other people.  

Steven Universe shirt?  Check.  Queen song? Check!

When we got there, I sang two songs, Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen, and Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft by The Carpenters.  Kit helped me pick the first one, and I was totally prepared for it, so I rocked it.  It felt great.  The second song I didn't know as well (despite loving it) and was really in a much higher range than I can sing comfortably.  I stumbled a bunch, but Squee and Kit both cheered me on, and I got into it and I think, did a good job with it.  It was really fun!

Squee sang with some friends too, and did an awesome job.  Kit and I sat together with their friend Annie, and watched her, and felt good, and felt together.

What a damn good day that was.