Most of what's on my mind these days are psychological ones: I'm in therapy, I'm going to a psychiatrist on Tuesday for another part of my full work-up, I feel terribly, terribly guilty that I'm not meditating as often as I should, which defeats the whole goddamn point of meditating, etc., etc., etc. Much of the rest of my mind is dedicated to my dog, and my housemate's dogs, which brings me to today's post (fair warning: I use One Post Wonder as a place to work through issues.)

I love my lil' boy, as anyone who has seen my recent Egyptian Face of the Book feed knows. However ...

why the hell do I feel so guilty whenever I think about him?

I live in a pretty small duplex with a tremendously small lawn - when you have dogs, you rent where you can - and Rover is a herding dog, who has lots and lots and lots of energy. I throw the squeaky for him, I try to take him to the dog park as often as I can, he has about three thousand toys, two thousand leashes, he's got a selection of treats that range from the prosaic to the mutant, and so on ... but I feel so incredibly guilty about the lack of running space for him it contaminates everything else in my head when I think about him. 

I wish the ol' ice-cream-scoop-to-the-frontal-lobes approach to mental issues worked, I really do. Because I don't have much else in my life, if my guilt over Rover ruins my appreciation of him, I think I'm going to spiral even further down than I already am.

Which, I should note, sucks.

This article by Lili Loofbourau on Slate sums up my feelings of sadness, helplessness, futility, and we're-fucked-ism. 

Enjoy!  Yay!  This is fun!

The only balm is watching dog rescue videos, re-watching Anthony Fantano's review of Corey Feldman's 2016 album "Angelic 2 The Core," and cooking videos on YouTube. 

I've been switching over to newsletters lately to get information in a manageable fashion and I have a few to recommend.

Morning Brew is a daily business newsletter that is fast, fact-filled and funny.

CB Insiders is also business, but tech-focused, and also has a sense of humor. They often link to robust studies that the company does. The free version is 2-3 days a week; there's also a paid version which I dearly wish I could afford.

Messy Nessy Chic is an interesting mix of Paris, travel and historical curiosities and manages to hit a lot of my interests at once in a really fun way.

I just made a decision of no great import. But it took me a long time to make it, it woke up a lot of memories, and I have no better way to process it than to write it out, especially considering how much my brain be broke lately.

so, about, oh, two, three weeks ago, a person who went to my high school when I was there sent a friend request on Ye Olde Booke of Ye Faces. What the hell , I went, and clicked okay. 

Thus beginneth the problem. 

 See, this was a person who had never made a secret of her disdain for me, back in the day. Sure, we’re all a lot older, and hopefully a bit better people, but, still, I have trouble acknowledging one of the few people who DID like me in high school on The Egyptian Book of the Face because I don’t know what to say to him after a good thirty years of radio silence. 

Why would someone who, given the choice between spending time with me and with a slime mole colony, would pick the colony nine times out of ten, want to reconnect? Hell, to connect at all?

If there are readers of this, then you may or may not have seen that comic that went viral this week about the person who found her high school abuser on-line, and was dismayed to see that that person was well-thought of and had a reasonable life. That’s kind of this situation, except that this person wasn’t an active bully, just someone who made the disgust at the thought of me very plain.

It doesn’t help, of course, that this person apparently has done very well indeed in the intervening years, and is now a quite respected scholar at a major university in the UK. I’ve got low-enough self-esteem as it is, and, as petty as I may be, but it kind of twisted the knife with my totally-unlikely-to-get-tenure-and-holding-on-to-sanity-with-the-most-feeble-of-grips situation to see someone who apparently was not only tenured but had been fought over by multiple institutions. 

The decision I spoke of above, by the way, was to unfriend the person. The memories awoken were not helpful, the shame and the perception of myself as a failure weren’t helpful either, and the fact that I’m sliding into a total breakdown was, really, on the unhelpful side, to boot.

I dunno. Maybe I should have used this as a face-ones-anxiety moment.  Maybe I’m worse than I think I am.

I can’t help but wonder, though... why send the request in the first place?

I've been warning my vet that her laptop is walking wounded for literally, years. So, it up and dies last month. They come to me in a panic. Nope. Nothing can be done. Unit isn't even powering on. Battery's good, power supply good. Buy a new laptop. I send them a recommendation.

And nothing happens for 3 weeks.

Then it comes in last Friday and it's assholes and elbows to get it ready for this Friday. Okay not a big deal. Install office, install AV, install AM. Except that her equally ancient portable printer doesn't want to operate on USB 2 or 3. And despite being advertised as Bluetooth, doesn't have the validation code on it anywhere.

Le sigh.

Digging around in HP's moldy basement I find a version of the installer that is marked "For IT use only". Well, I always was one that couldn't resist pushing the big red button labelled "Do not push".

After a couple of passes the IT use only installer finally installs a critical, missing SYS file and the printer groans to life. Huzzah!

So it's on to other problems. Notably that I use robocopy to create a running incremental backup of the practice management software's data that her veterinary business requires to an installed SD card. Ah, now it's Microsoft's turn to mess with things. It seems they've been busy monkeywrenching the schedule tasks interface. But really, it was just a matter of making sure the scheduled task runs at the highest level of authority. Nota bene, all is well.

But this time I installed remote access software so I can take a peek at problems from the comfort of my own home, the NEXT time it breaks.

The FIFA Men's World Cup snuck up on me.  It's harder to care when neither the USA nor Ecuador will be competing; add in the current host (Russia) and FIFA's corruption scandal, and the difficulty increases.  I do want to see the likes of Egypt, Panama, and Iceland do well.  I wouldn't even be upset if Messi and his team win it all.

I signed up for Hungry Root. The first box from this vegan meal delivery service showed up 2 days ago. I've been a vegetarian for 2 days now. 

I figured out that some time ago that I:

1.  Love veggies.
2. Am uninterested in planning meals
3. Dislike food shopping.
4. Annoyed when the cooking takes longer than the eating.
5. Not that good at cooking meats

I heard about Hungry Root when recently a campmate cooked up some tasty sweet potato Pad Thai. YUM. All the Hungry Root recipes are 10 minutes or less of effort. Lots of opening bags and sauteing. No chopping! So I bought a box (internet coupon for first one, 50% off activated!) I've had Kale Pesto Shaved Brussels and my own Sweet potato Pad Thai. And I have leftovers for both! I'm thinking Ginger Tahini Yuba Noodles or Kohlrabi Tofu Eggplant Pasta for lunch today. I'm certainly enjoying this box of yummy so far.

I'm not planning on being 100% vegetarian. And certainly not planning on being vegan (because breakfast mostly. And ice cream) But I'm am curious if this diet will change my energy levels. And/or help me shake a these 15 lbs I've gained in the last 2 years. And/or address my increasing tummy issues -which I'm thinking is more likely drinking related not diet related, but I'm not quite at the give up drinking stage. Yet.

Oh, I apparently have a $30 coupon referal code. If anyone is interested 

When Gary took apart my grandmother’s piano, he found one of Ted’s LEGO figures inside. Ted used to open the top lid and send them spelunking through the hammers and strings. 

Gary rescued the puppy and returned him to us. Now the puppy can have more adventures. 

H/T to @MontyandMatisse via Twitter.

Pardon the interruption.

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of France, the great and critical battle that ultimately sealed the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. Not only was the invasion a brilliant strategic and tactical success, it was probably the greatest feat of engineering (certainly military engineering) in human history. I ask that we take just a moment to think of those who risked their lives (and many who paid with their lives) so not only that we may be free, to that a continent crushed under the boot of unimaginable tyranny could be liberated.

I have a personal connection to this day. My late father-in-law, John Hohler, was among those brave souls cramped into the hull of C-47 transport planes in the wee hours of June 6, 1944. As his plane was pounded with flak from German anti-aircraft guns, he stared into the faces of his buddies in the 82nd Airborne, knowing that many would not see the sunset that day. John was one of the lucky ones who survived (having previously made it through fighting in North Africa) and went on to see action in France and later during Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and the invasion of Germany and liberation of the Wobbelin concentration camp. John never discussed much about his war service with his wife and two daughters. Only when he reached his 90’s would he talk tto me about it, and then not very much. While he spoke of North Africa, some of the later fighting in France and Belgium and Germany, he never spoke about D-Day other than to say that he was there. Although he returned to France many time (and loved Paris), he never went back to the beaches in Normandy. Shortly after John died at age 96, my wife, son and I took the trip to those beaches in his honor. I cannot tell you how emotion an experience it was.

So tonight, when you are safe in your  homes or enjoying a night out, raise a glass in honor of those who came before you and endured the unthinkable so that we may enjoy the fruits of freedom, safety and prosperity.

I will raise my glass to Sgt. John Hohler. A brave and quiet man who lived by the motto “Any day that Nazis aren’t shoot at you is a good day!”

Well said, sir. To absent companions.