Month: February 2019

Feeling pretty decent!

Posted on by Liz

Not to jinx myself by saying this but I feel pretty good lately. So many times it is routine for me to wake up just crushed by pain and exhaustion. I have to lie there slowly moving everything until I can get up. Even times when I had painkillers by the side of the bed. Lately I wake up and just spring into action. I might be a little sleepy or fuzzy headed and sure there is some pain but it is ignorable like a level 3 or so of pain, and a little mild activity around the house or a few minutes of tai chi unstiffens my spine. Hands hurt, knees hurt, ankles, etc but it isn’t bad, I’m good for any amount of walking around the house, I can recklessly go down stairs and do a load of laundry without that being the one damn thing I do with my body in the day.

What is going on! Why do I feel so good! It’s so nice.

That, and every day, I can just go out and do stuff, errands or a bigger excursion across town, without having to ration it out, multiple days in a row! Will this be the winter I get through without a giant flare-up?

Reading The Tiger’s Daughter

Posted on by Liz

I am in the middle of K. Arsenault Rivera’s The Tiger’s Daughter, an AWESOME book set in fantasy-not-quite-Mongolia and fantasy-not-quite-China. The super fierce and brave, aggro, teenage heir to the imperial throne with fantastic sword powers who also makes flowers change color (!) and her soul-twin who is a horse riding brilliant archer with so many complications which I shall not divulge. They grow up together! Mysterious troubles beset the land!

Oh my god I love this book! The writing is good!

It’s understatedly swoony with philosophical moments, like reading Mary Renault, but with horse-riding divine magic wielding teenage bandit-killing lesbians! AND THEIR FIERCE WARRIOR MOMS. I may cry just thinking about that bit.

Joy… it’s a trilogy!

Remembering a moment in 1993

Posted on by Liz

Every once in a while I think of this. I used to spend a lot of time in the early 90s playing (and writing) MUDs on my boyfriend’s leftover prototype Mac Portable (ie the “mac luggable”). (A bit later, another prototype Mini Duo Dock was like a dream…. so tiny and light!) I also spent a fair amount of time on IRC and gopher (and archie) just poking around, looking at stuff, spelunking, looking for new MUDs and BBSes to try out. My hangout was Dark Side of the Moon at the time.

Anyway one day in 1993 Kevin came home and was showing us (probably some combo of me, max, and my sister) this new awesome thing, Mosaic. MIND BLOWN. I remember just going into a sort of trance like I was on mental overdrive. I yelled “OH FUCK. They’re going to put ADS on our COMPUTERS.” “No… haahahah that couldn’t happen. What do you mean. What?” Look. I’m telling you. ADS… my god…. oh, god. OH GOD!!!!! “No one would let that happen. They’re our computers.” OH MY GOD YOU DON’T SEE IT. I’M TELLING YOU!!!!

It was like the Double Rainbow guy but the polar opposite. It was like being Cassandra or someone in a place about to be severely colonized. I could see it all. I could see the future.

Well, hello there past me. You were correct. It’s as dystopian as you thought it would be! And even weirder!

Sometimes it slams into me again all at once and I feel a wild sense of cognitive dissonance that this is where we ended up.

Dreams and imaginings, super poetic, not

Posted on by Liz

Conversation with my sister.

Me:

oh i just remembered you were in my dream this morning

we were about to have some coffee in a car or something and then the fire department stopped us and said we could not drink in the car as it was a choking hazard and they took our coffee mugs and water bottles

And I cried

Then i tried to twitter about it in outrage but couldn’t get my twitter app to work

we were both going “this is bullshit! and we haven’t had our COFFEE!!!”

Sister:

i had a whole pointless fantasy this morning that i was taking a watercolor class from this guy who only paints half naked women. so in the workshop i waxed poetic about painting mens balls and how important it was to get the effects of light glinting off ball hair.

needless to say i will NOT be taking that workshop

i considered taking the workshop and actually doing this. but quickly discarded the idea.

also: white guy: mostly painting partially clothed women of color gazing into the distance. probably/hopefully plotting his death

I really thought my crying in my sleep about firefighters stealing my morning coffee was going to win some sort of award for ridiculousness but the waking dream of telling off a real life annoying art teacher eclipsed it.

Dinner with friends

Posted on by Liz

I had dinner with seelight and friends and her parents last night at her parents’ awesome condo overlooking the Bay. Delicious food! Whiskey soaked cake! (Make a gluten free cake mix, Bob’s Red Mill preferably, then make a syrup with a quarter cup of butter, a half cup of bourbon or whiskey, half cup of sugar. Take the cake out of the oven when it has about 5 minutes left to cook (it should still be soft in the middle), poke holes in it with a chopstick, pour the syrup on, put it back in to finish cooking. (I think. Or, just take it out and poke the holes and then let it stand after you pour in the syrup.) I’ll have to experiment with that.

At one point while we were discussing trees on the sidewalk which while they may be nice, may also not be nice, as they are cracking the foundations of the house and/or completely shadowing a building from any sunlight, seelight’s mom went, “Easy. Put a little poison every day, no one will know. Not all at once, just a little. Listen to your mother.” Very dryly. We kept doing callbacks to it in later conversation (applied to cars, people, etc) and every time it just got funnier.

Epic journey to the south

Posted on by Liz

This morning I took the bus to BART, changed trains in Balboa Park (having a look around as I waited), onward to Millbrae, to Caltrain, then I had thought I was going to take light rail to the Mountainview office but the stop was eliminated in 2015 so I caught a small shuttle bus (happily, accessible.)

I took notes ecstatically on the weird concrete wall patterns (different in every station) and which ones were like deep canyons; the bronze statues in their narrative cement cocoons in Millbrae; which stations were above ground; and lots of notes today and last night about the Ramaytush and other Ohlone people of the areas I was traversing.

Interspersed with Ingress and Pokemon catching it made a pleasant ride. On Caltrain I was even able to work a little bit as it wasn’t crowded and just felt OK to do, while it would seem obnoxious to me on BART. So, in between all that I started the process of releasing Firefox 66 beta 10 and answering bugmail.

Happy hour with some nice people from the office on Castro street – then all the buses and trains in reverse order, this time whenever I wasn’t in tunnels, looking up the art and artists and architects of some of the stations.

Some random observations – the platform floor in Balboa Park is very smooth marble, pleasant to roll across. The Millbrae complex (largest intermodal station west of the Mississippi!) is beautiful if you take a step back from it and admire its soaring winglike structures of steel, glass, and fiberglass.

Also noted: There should be more high density housing on the Peninsula near the BART and Caltrain stations. Some high rise apartments will not ruin your lives, NIMBYs!!

Neighborhood mural goats

Posted on by Liz

I just met my neighbors who have the goats and it was so nice to chat with them! It turns out they have goats because they’re firefighters and they don’t want their yard to be overgrown and be a fire hazard. Therefore, goat gardeners! I suggested a goat window in their fence so we can all admire the adorable beasts.

Another neighbor is giving me a ridiculously nice end table (I am going to offer to pay though) As I was passing by when he was putting stuff out on the sidewalk & I asked about the table (not yet out but looked like it was in line.)

Had a nice chat also with Matthew from Bernalese as i obtained the perfect glasses to put inside Danny’s silly fake antique globe thing in his office (Inherited with the office I believe — and the same kind that I had in the houseboat, inherited from the houseboat owner.) There are tall straight glasses and then a nice cocktail or wine glass with a stem called a Nick and Nora glass.

I went out looking for Bob who lives across from the Safeway on the street to give him a good World War II book I got out of the free bin at Dog Eared Books. He wasn’t there so I will just keep the book in my wheelchair undercarriage till i see him next.

Also!! I heard a rumor the fabulous artist Crayone is going to paint a mural in our neighborhood. omgggg!

Balboa Park BART station, take 1

Posted on by Liz

At the beginnning of the year I promised reviews of all the BART stations and that morphed into this game writing project. So, instead of going to a new BART station every week I’ve been writing the underlying infrastructure of the game; the ticketing system, the train system itself, and a skeleton of all the stops and train lines.

Now that I have a decent infrastructure I’m ready to bop around town and observe some stations. Last night’s adventure in Balboa Park, I didn’t have a lot of time to explore but I did get an interesting impression of this massive nexus for SF trains. The new glass and steel was in places very lovely while my experience of the station was still one of being in a confusing and rather dangerous labyrinth. The routes for wheelchair users are not clearly marked – at all – debouching at least twice into railyards where my path was unclear and led me to be about 2 inches from passing trains or crossing the tracks right after a train comes around a curve as I went from the station to the tiny mysterious platform where you wait for the inbound J train. Granted that’s in a railyard so not likely the trains would be going fast. But it’s unsafe.

Despite that I kind of enjoyed my wanderings and liked seeing the evening MUNI trains trundle into their little homes! (Huge long sheds for maintenance; I am so curious to see inside them a bit more!)

Balboa Park is the end point and railyard for MUNI as well as being a BART station, with Cameron Beach Yard and Green Light Rail Center for train maintenance. Historically several other train lines had railyards here.

The maze like brutalism of this station has a sort of charm when I consider that it’s in part because it’s a station designed around the needs of trains, not the needs of people. As it’s next to a highway, the surrounding landscape of the station is designed to hold space for trains AND cars, with pedestrian bridges as an afterthought. Like little ants or wheeled beetles we crawl around on the concrete and steel geography, lacking rails, in our unruly swarms. Servitors of the machine! Hail the mighty ones! Temple of the trainyard! etc.

To enhance this station there should be more maps and diagrams, even a lovely metal 3-D model on a little pedestal, for people to understand its structure more intuitively, and more information about the history of the yards and how the trains are maintained. More elevators would also be VERY NICE.

For the surroundings, I am very interested in my next visit to go to Pineapples a few blocks away and get a Dole Whip (non alcoholic) and then visit the park itself where I noticed the playground looked like fun and there was a lively skate park.

Index to all posts describing my BART station visits

New coffee holder for my powerchair

Posted on by Liz

I had a pretty nice bottle holder for a bike that fastened onto a little bar on my powerchair, with a velcro strap, but it was not firmly fastened enough and would slew sideways. Then while it was sideways I went through a narrow doorway and scraped it right off, breaking the strap and the doohickey that attaches the strap. I’ve had my eye out for a new one for a couple of weeks.

Today I picked up the perfect thing, a bottle cage holder attaching gizmo, called a Minoura BH100 . It is super perfect – you can change the angle, it clamps on firmly and yet has a quick release. That gives some little bolt holes for fastening on a bottle cage. Perfect as this means I don’t have to try to drill holes in the frame of my chair.

I had two choices of cage, and went for the slightly less sturdy option simply because it seems a little more flexible for my metal travel mug.

Which is also perfect by the way . . . I like these 10 oz Chantal travel mugs. Not plastic, very sturdy, easy to clean, can open it with one hand by pushing the button on top and close it again with the same button so it’s ergonomic and also easy to deal with while driving your chair around.

OK, I realize that means I spent 55 bucks on fancy gear but I love always having hot tea or coffee with me. Nice while taking the bus or doing errands. Saves me buying coffee at times but other times if I’m out and buying a drink I can fill up my travel mug. Very handy!

Other stuff dangling off the chair: I have a “baggolini” that fits perfectly on one of the arms, and can be worn facing inside (I have several inches to spare between me and the arms even on the smallest Model CI – I do wish they had an even smaller narrower size.) This is going to be modified soon to have quick release buckles and better adjustability, because I need it to buckle separately with 2 straps over the arm in different places and it would be nice to be able to easily take it with me. This might benefit from expert help from someone better at sewing than me.

Underneath in the basket thing, which still rattles though I keep trying to add foam and tape to muffle the sound, I have a pouch to carry the charging cord and a spare pen and some duct tape. And also a tiny camera pouch velcroed around a slot in the undercarriage with emergency supplies (money, tampons, handkerchief, inhaler, allergy meds).

The back still puzzles me a bit. The protruding horns to hang backpack on are too shallow to fit the backpack plus shopping bags that they’re realistically going to have. So I’m thinking of trying to make them longer with sugru. The other problem in the back is that the slot for velcro for a cane holder interferes with the backpack strap action. If I have my backpack (or shopping bag or bags) hanging on the back, then put my cane through the strap, then need to get the backpack or bags off again, they get all tangled up. Ideally I’d like the cane to slot securely (while folded) just under the seat so I can reach down to grab it instead of reaching behind.

Coding day and a lucky find

Posted on by Liz

I wrote some truly horrible code today which I’m embarrassed will see daylight, but at least it works now. Getting the trains to report the time till arrival accurately posed some weird problems. There is surely a less clunky way to write it. BUT IT WORKS and I never want to think about it again. (Until I do, then will refactor mightly.)

Briefly went out in the sun and cold to do an errand and feed yatima’s cats. On the way home there was some pretty nice free furniture out on the curb. I have been meaning to replace the kids’ desk with a nicer one (which means a bunch of measuring and a time consuming errand and a conumdrum of getting a desk delivered). Their old desk is a very janky thing that is not quite a desk. Maybe it was a side table? It has a shelf underneath that stops you from putting your legs properly under the desk. And I had to repair one side of it with duct tape. But it was free and was on the sidewalk a block away.

And!!!! Now!!!! Another free desk just across the street from our house, a much better one, solid, sturdy, with one small drawer, very desky, just the right size (bigger) and painted a pleasant, not too childish, bright blue. It is in good shape but not so nice that you would need to worry about messing it up. As you may guess I got Danny to carry it with his mighty muscles across the street and then we both shoved it up the stairs. It looks super nice now. As usual, I forgot to take a “before” pic.

My feeling of triumph! The desk is good! I have arranged it beautifully in the room! I hope the kids will be impressed with me but of course mostly I just hope they like it and use it.

Danny has been livestreaming on Code Therapy a bunch today talking with someone named lambda malformation and some other …. probably Lisp nerds…. It’s soothing and he doesn’t seem to mind if I suddenly start cursing my screen or talking to the cat in the middle of his livestream.

My game is getting a little more fun and playable. I’m filling out 24th St. Mission station and its surroundings and I’ve started on 16th. Some of the puzzles are now in place. Next I might add conversations or more complex behavior with the NPCs (currently a tamale lady (not THE tamale lady), a flower seller, a street preacher, and a raccoon.

blue desk in a little room