Caution and Dignity

It’s Monday again, beloveds.

I intended to spend half the weekend working and the other half getting housecleaning done, but the world had other plans. I had to cross the river yesterday (apparently all the Best Buys in my area have moved south) to get another UPS for under the desk–that’s Uninterruptible Power Supply, naturally, I did not pick up a package-delivery service. It was a hundred-and-half bucks I don’t have, but work requires the desktop be both protected from surges and from outages. Aging infrastructure means a lot more of both.

That last sentence is only partly tongue-in-cheek. The past two houses I’ve lived in were built in the late 60s or early 70s, which means their wiring sometimes requires a bit of repair or babying. Or workarounds, like a brick under my desk keeping sensitive new electronics from being battered. Of course there’s also the tendency I have to blow out electrical things under high emotion–pop lightbulbs, make outlets spark, and the like. (I can’t wear a watch, either. Something about my skin contact drains the battery liek woah.)

I’m not complaining, really. Replacing the UPS seems to have fixed the problem, and the old one gave signal service for well over ten years. The new one has a neat little window on the front that tells one what’s going wrong, should anything go wrong, and that’s a giant improvement over the old one, which simply…screamed. I much prefer an LCD to a klaxon.

In any case, there’s coffee to finish swilling, breakfast to figure out, walkies and a run to accomplish, wordcount to get in…and I’ve plans for the teensy livestream today. A rather interesting question landed in my pile of correspondence, and I have Thoughts.

This assumes, of course, that the problem isn’t in the wiring and my desktop stays active. So far, so good–the new UPS appears to have fixed what was wrong, but I’m always cautious and 2020 made me even more so, not to mention 2021. We’re only two months into ’22 and my caution has grown to absolute Eeyore levels. “It’s probably going to implode” is how I feel about pretty much everything.

In any case, the coffee has cooled while I’ve been typing, and Miss B is making very certain I know her feelings upon the prospect of walkies. She and Boxnoggin were very peeved that I left the house not once but thrice this weekend (for a different urgent reason each time) and even the usual round of treats does not mollify her in particular, especially since her nails were also clipped yesterday and by the gods, how she hates that. She puts up with it because I insist, not to mention she gets praise and pets during and treats when it’s done, but she’s still miffed. I suppose it doesn’t help that I’m so deeply amused by her flounces and sighs. I’d suspect her dignity was touched, if she had any.

Like dog, like owner, I guess.

I suppose I’d best get started on the day. Looking at the news will get me nothing but a sour stomach, and Wordle is now stuffed with adware, so there go two of my morning time-sinks. It’s sad, but should up my productivity, right? Right?

Riiiight.

All right, Monday. Let’s not hurt each other, hm? I’d love to get a monster hunter in some trouble today, and write a six-on-one combat scene interrupted by a schoolmistress.

…I do love my job.