Workwise things were pretty quiet since Tigress has the day off and my boss has the day off. I got pestered by people demanding Important Documents ASAP for half the day and had to fix other people's problems the other half of it. I had to contact tech support because somehow my email shrunk all my text for an hour and a half. But that was about it for Teh Work Dramaz today with that, at least.

But unfortunately the rest of the day got pretty weird.

Shanna's cat with face cancer started getting radiation today, so I checked in with her on that. Turns out that after a mere three treatments over the next half a week, he should literally be able to sneeze out his own nose tumor, This sounds incredibly strange to me. She also showed me various videos of her cat, and wow, poor cat. It's a shame he can't wear a pirate patch because that is quite a head gouge where his eye was removed. Then it got even freakier when Dawn sent me a photo of a facehugger from Alien, out of yarn. I was all, hm, the last hour of this day so far has gotten pretty gross. That was around the 11 o'clock hour.

During yarn club, we had some interesting discussions:
* Lori Ann was complaining about getting yelled at for spoiling "Rosebud is his sled." This led me to say, "Where is the statute of bitchitations?"
* Yemi was all, "spoiler for Shakespeare, everyone dies!"
* The other Jennifer that goes to Yarn Club came in today and was asked what she is working on: "I am working on a huge knot...."
* Other Jennifer also talked about some hippie school where she sent her kid to, and I guess they were trying to experience the joys of life in a one room schoolhouse. I was taken aback when I heard, "They're encouraged to bathe in a bucket..."
* Then the conversation turned to watching inappropriate movies as children, such as Highlander for Yemi and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for me, and The Main Event ("bearskin rug!") for Lori Ann.

Unfortunately, a pleasant lunchtime was rudely goddamned interrupted by my smoke alarm suddenly doing the dreaded infernal battery-dead beeping during the meeting. I climbed a stepladder and had a very hard time getting the thing out of the wall--this one is very wired in there, unlike the one (that doesn't work any more) in my bedroom*, it was a pain in the ass to get somewhat off the wall and to find the battery drawer. I found it, opened it up, and shoved in another battery....and then it just started CONSTANTLY FUCKING SHRIEKING INCESSANTLY.

* Note: these fire alarms are so close to each other in the apartment that when I tried to change the battery in the bedroom one and it refused to work for no good reason, I said "fuck it, the other one is like six inches away from it on the other side of the doorframe, who cares. I don't light fires in the bedroom anyway."

I was....you guessed it!....forced to call apartment management. And in the middle of doing that, I got a call from tech support at work for a problem I'd gotten fixed by someone else a few hours later, but I assumed (since I couldn't hear) it was management asking why my alarm was shrieking. That was awkward, though he did send me a nice "hope you got the alarm fixed!" email later. Anyway, I had to call the onsite manager ("I could hear it from the parking lot!") and let her in. Which is to say, I put on some masks and said, "I'm going to leave the door unlocked and I'm going to lock myself in the bedroom, give me a ten second count, okay?" To her credit, she did do that, she pulled the thing out of the wall, saying all the cussing things that I certainly wanted to, and said she'd have to get another to replace it, it might be a few days.... Fine, whatever.

I'm not happy about it, but it was all so sudden that I had no choice but to deal with it for a super unpleasant twenty minutes, so.... It's not like the entire damn complex wanted to hear that noise either when we're all stuck here. All I could do after having had her literally breathing the same air, something I have been trying to avoid, was to disinfect the door and stepladder. What the hell else could I do? No, I have no idea if she had a mask on. I had no way to check, but I assume she did not because literally nobody does even though NOW IT'S THE LAW IN CALIFORNIA. Looking out the back window during Fly Time, nobody's doing it still.

Of course, this does leave an outstanding mystery of "will I actually get a replacement smoke detector or not?" The lease is pretty harsh about that shit--apparently I really should have reported the broken one when I re-signed the lease this year--and it's not like she hasn't been notified of the issue this time, along with the entire street block. I declare it officially On Her at this point because under the circumstances, I am not in the mood to play Naggy Bitch. So far I haven't set any fires in here, so let's just hope I continue to not set any fires. I don't consider that to be dire under the circumstances.

I did also end up with two flies buzzing around. Boring thing to do: Having to turn off all the lights in the apartment and wait patiently (ugh) by the screen door, which is open a crack and might well expose you to Sneezy McCoughsALot hanging around outside again, waving your cell phone around like you're at a concert, waiting for the damn flies to fly through the screen door. Separately, of course.

On the bad news, slight good news side, it looks like Virtual Readers Theater is circling the drain, as we got half the signups as usual and Claire thinks enough people are being called back to work that this might be the last hurrah. SIGH. Dammit. I was really enjoying this. She also posted my ideas for other shows on Facebook today, but so far clearly there's no interest. Though on the slight good news side, I did get Bridget to sign up for a part, so there's that.

7:55 p.m. Dawn just called to say she was a few blocks away having a social distancing picnic in Central Park and can she drop off some yarn? I felt like a prize asshole saying I didn't want to see her (or anybody) and making very awkward arrangements to have her leave stuff at the door, even wiped down, while I freaked out and said I wasn't going to touch anything for days on end (she wanted me to pick the yarn Right Now). "Sorry, I'm not sane," I said. I honestly don't know how paranoid I am supposed to be about anything any more, but relaxing even just a little bit to have some kind of contact with a human--or having the fire alarm go off--might get me killed for all I know now, so how am I supposed to relax?

Yeah, that was awkward as shit. She did have on a face mask and I saw her through the screen door. She got out of there quickly. I think she was rather (and reasonably) annoyed at me for all of this stupid shit. I just can't relax and be okay any more about any of this.

Though Kelly wrote back, so I enjoyed writing back to her. There's that.

I heard from Mom: You know how we don't really talk to Dad's side of the family? Well, Mom heard from my cousin Tammy inviting her to an "open house" graduation of my baby cousin--now 18, obviously--Jessica. Who I last saw when she was 14 or so. I mostly remember her Hannah Montana phase. "I am not going, obviously," she said, though I think under normal circumstances she would have. Tammy was the one who did talk to us, albeit once in awhile, behind her parents' backs, what have you.

Now I am watching Peter Pan Live!" I'm not sure what to say about it....

* Almost all the "boy" actors seem way too old for this.
* So Wendy has a crush on Peter and Peter wants her to be his mother, this is pretty fucked up?
* Seriously, the Lost Boys house is clean, what the hell cleaning up are you talking about?
* One kid thinks his name is "Slightly Soiled."
* Tiger Lily is trying to help you, dude. Stop being a dick.
* Can someone PLEASE CLARIFY WHAT A KISS IS TO PETER ALREADY?
* "The wilting of the Tiger Lily" sounds just plain BAD. Ew.
* Okay, so Tiger Lily and Peter Pan made up. That's nice.
* Wendy: "If you must die, do it like gentlemen." Captain Hook: "That's it?" I second that.
* Wendy somehow just distracted one pirate with a teddy bear. WTF.
* Now Wendy's got a sword and is forcing a guy who can't swim to walk the plank, Go, girl.
* "AND YOU KIDNAPPED MICHAEL'S TEDDY BEAR." "You have a point." *pirate who can't swim literally drops off the plank*
* Hey, Mum and Dad, are you willing to adopt 12 more children?
"We'll be very good and not spend any of your money."
"We will always try to be so quiet."
"We have nowhere to put them." OH WELL WHO CARES, IT'S A CHILDREN'S FANTASY.

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