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Yesterday I spent the morning driving around to, and waiting in lines at, various tax-related offices in Austin, along with the spouse. It was...actually pretty decent. Nice chairs, no horrible waiting room music or loud noises, efficient queue processing, friendly and helpful people who got things done for us and were happy to work with slight wobbles in the expected process. Austin bureaucracy: it's the nicest!
(The DMV where I got my driver's license actually boasted that it was the friendliest DMV, though I don't remember of where. California? All of the US? In any case, that place has proven entirely typical of my experiences with face-to-face bureaucracies, governmental or otherwise. Go figure.)
Then we came home to a plumbing emergency. Got that resolved more cheaply than expected, but a certain amount of bailing was involved. And then I ended up working for twenty minutes to try to defrost the freezer, which had a solid lump of ice across 3/4 of the vents in the back and as such was not operating at what one might call peak efficiency. Meanwhile, I sent the spouse back to the airport to fly back to Minneapolis, and he got stuck in airport delays along the way because of thunderstorms...
Anyway, it's no surprise that my dreams last night were all about a wintery apocalypse we were trying to outfly on a tiny plane full of whiny children and anxious refugees of various types. Every time we crashed in a new place and had to wait a few days for repairs, the plane's cook was far too apologetic about needing to work with local ingredients instead of processed ones. (He made amazing desserts.) And I kept joining the bucket brigade, splashing water across fluffy plants with a layer of ice forming over their tops.
Now I am finally up and about, a bit late, contemplating language work and writing that I've neglected over the long, long weekend of delightful spouse visitation. (Pixel searched the house for the Missing Person, and slept in her crate during Cuddle With Pets Morning Hour instead of on the bed. I think she misses him already.) Time to really buckle down and get some work done.
Or so the theory goes.
(The DMV where I got my driver's license actually boasted that it was the friendliest DMV, though I don't remember of where. California? All of the US? In any case, that place has proven entirely typical of my experiences with face-to-face bureaucracies, governmental or otherwise. Go figure.)
Then we came home to a plumbing emergency. Got that resolved more cheaply than expected, but a certain amount of bailing was involved. And then I ended up working for twenty minutes to try to defrost the freezer, which had a solid lump of ice across 3/4 of the vents in the back and as such was not operating at what one might call peak efficiency. Meanwhile, I sent the spouse back to the airport to fly back to Minneapolis, and he got stuck in airport delays along the way because of thunderstorms...
Anyway, it's no surprise that my dreams last night were all about a wintery apocalypse we were trying to outfly on a tiny plane full of whiny children and anxious refugees of various types. Every time we crashed in a new place and had to wait a few days for repairs, the plane's cook was far too apologetic about needing to work with local ingredients instead of processed ones. (He made amazing desserts.) And I kept joining the bucket brigade, splashing water across fluffy plants with a layer of ice forming over their tops.
Now I am finally up and about, a bit late, contemplating language work and writing that I've neglected over the long, long weekend of delightful spouse visitation. (Pixel searched the house for the Missing Person, and slept in her crate during Cuddle With Pets Morning Hour instead of on the bed. I think she misses him already.) Time to really buckle down and get some work done.
Or so the theory goes.