(... but it was rolling around my head, and it feels like someone's done this before, but it was a light bit of fun)

Dusky light filtered through the half-broken blinds covering the loft's windows.  A few desks were arranged haphazardly throughout the floor, sparsely covered in clutter and junk, except for one, at which sat a man wearing wrinkled linen shirt and pants, typing at a keyboard, dividing his focus between a wide monitor and a portable device.  A framed picture of the man and a woman sat on the desk next to a trophy about the size of a grapefruit, shaped like a three-dimensional snowflake composed of swords.

A small window popped up on the monitor, which he scowled at, and dismissed it with a grunt.  After about twenty seconds, it returned.  He frowned and clicked a button in the window.  "Shit," he said with a weary resignation.  He grimaced and looked at the time.  He closed some of the windows on his monitor and focused on the remaining one, typing with more alacrity.  After less than a minute had passed, the pop-up turned red and emitted a short tone.  "Shit," he said more firmly, took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and ran his hand through what remained of his hair.

Before he could resume his work, another pop-up appeared, red and blinking, its alarm synchronized with its intermittence.  "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."  He committed the data in the final window and closed it, then ejected the portable from its dock.  He put it in his leather satchel, and from it withdrew a grenade.  He grabbed the pin, then said, "Shit," grabbed the picture frame instead and put it in the satchel, which he then threw around his shoulder.  Now he grabbed and pulled the pin, then dropped the grenade into the open drawer of the desk and closed it.

He turned and hurried around the corner to the stairs. Upon opening the door, he saw a woman, black hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a trench coat, turtleneck, tactical pants, and combat boots, all black.  She was looking at her handheld device and looked startled when she realized that the door had opened.  Then she glowered as she recognized him.  He also recognized her and cried, "Shit!"  He quickly turned around in a panic and started to run back the way he came.

She shook her head, put her handheld in her pocket, pulled a stun baton from her belt, and started following him at a walk.  She had yet to turn the corner when an explosion shook the office.  "Shit," she hissed, and started to jog, then came to a sudden stop as she found his corpse, the sword snowflake driven into his pterion.  She pinched the bridge of her nose, gritted her teeth, exhaled loudly, and said, "Shit."  She put her baton away and pulled out her handheld, tapped the screen a few times, and held it to her ear. 

On the twenty-eighth floor of a building in the financial district, a disheveled man wearing a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, an unbuttoned collar, and a loosened black necktie threw his handheld across his office, where it struck the window that faced the port district, and yelled, "SHIT!"  He stomped to the window to stare in the direction of the loft, almost as if he could change events by looking at them angrily.  Then he noticed that the handheld's impact had cracked the window.  That was going to be an expensive replacement.

"Shit."

This struck me first as a mistranslation; the Spanish reads, "There are no leaf blowers."  But then again, the English has no verb at all; the "allowed" is implied.  Or is it?

(urns out that the reason is that there's a mobile phone lab inside the building and they do not want any dust kicked up)

The run-up to the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup was utterly dispiriting to me.

However, the games have begun, and things are feeling normal again, even in the face of... everything.

Mom asked us to come ASAP to see dad at the end of February.  We flew down on Tue Feb 24, saw him in the hospital (where he'd ended up due to pneumonia) on Wednesday, saw him come home on Thursday (and we took care of some legal paperwork), and said goodbye to him on Friday before heading to the airport.

Kim and i were scheduled to leave to Europe on Monday, but she'd been dragging healthwise due to what we suspect was human metapneumovirus, and we waffled on whether we should cancel the trip. We decided on Sunday to go for it, but neither of us being at our best meant that we managed to forget our CPAPs, which we then had our dogsitter express to Basel.  Then they got stuck in customs for two days, by which time our river cruise had begun, which required a courier to bring the boxes to the first stop.  All told, that brain fart cost us over $1k.  But it was quite a relief to sleep well after three days of almost no sleep.  The river cruise was eight days and extremely enjoyable, and i managed to see two childhood friends and a cousin along the way.  We then spent another eight days in Amsterdam with our niece and her family.

Dad died twelve days after we left Ecuador (the day before the cruise ended).  In addition to the stomach cancer, they'd also found an aortic aneurysm.  He died at home in the best possible conditions.  His suffering was minimal.  Mom's now in the process of moving to the new house, and my aunt Martha will join her there.

Kim and i gave up our community garden plot.  We have too much going on still at home and we weren't taking care of things.  It's the first time we haven't gardened since our very early days together, other than my GBS year.

Dad and Mom came to California to visit me and Paul in December; Mom said that he was very insistent and, well, when a 92-year-old is almost desperate to see his kids, you can guess what might be going through his head.  Turns out that his health started declining soon after his return, where he couldn't keep any food down.  They found a mass in his stomach that was blocking the entrance, and we hope to have the biopsy results... today?  Welp, tomorrow, then.  Again, at 92, it seems immaterial.  He's got a feeding tube installed now, plus a catheter because he's had trouble urinating, too.  They had just pulled the trigger on a house in The Villages and now it seems unlikely that he'll move from Quito, given his health.

My department at work only got 30% of the headcount they requested, so i, sadly, remain an employee of the contracting agency and not Google.  But my contract was renewed for a full year, so it's not all bad.

• Justin Bell, Eternal Journey: more atmospheric soundtrack-quality pieces, this time not attached to any video game.
  
• Madison Cunningham, Ace: this is not your typical singer-songwriter album.  Cunningham started in the praise music genre, and has left that behind and also divorced her husband.  There's some real weight to the lyrics, and the song structures and chord changes are captivating.  Some are making Joni Mitchell comparisons which, eh, kind of a stretch.
• Die Spitz, Something to Consume: i have been sporadically checking out KEXP on YouTube and Instagram over the years; i saw the first 30 seconds of this and was hooked on their gritty, punkish energy, plus the rhythm section is solid.
• Florence + the Machine, Everybody Scream: she released it on Halloween and you can feel the spooky, witchy energy.  The lyrics for One of the Greats are so good.
  
• Kaki King, Tutto Passa (EP): amazing breadth for an EP, acoustic guitar to soundscapes to loud electric guitar.
• Kaki King & Tamar Eisenman, SEI: "Kaki King and Tamar Eisenman have co-created SEI, a full-length performance piece where guitar movement takes over the entire stage." The album is very good but the performance looks amazing, wish i'd've seen it.
• Kaki King, Stop Sometime (EP): more acoustic guitar from King. 
• Sarah McLachlan, Better Broken: another solid release, this features her daughters doing backing vocals on a couple of tracks.
  
• Mogwai, The Bad Fire: the Scottish post-rockers are back; saw them live this year and THEY ARE VERY LOUD. (mistakenly put this in 2024)
• Nation of Language, Dance Called Memory: remember synth-based New Wave? These folks do.  Another KEXP find.
  
• Vernon Reid, Hoodoo Telemetry: the master guitarist with another eclectic collection of songs, some featuring members of Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber.
  
• Sphinx Virtuosi, American Mirror: the selections for this album focus more tightly on underrepresented contemporary composers.
  
• Steel Beans, Steel Beans: this guy went viral three years ago and somehow turned that moment into becoming the opening act for Tenacious D, and then Tool.  He'd been doing his own thing for over 15 years (he has over a dozen albums on Bandcamp), but suddenly caught fire.  I bought the EP that contained the viral song, enjoyed it, and waited to see what the next album would be like.  It does not disappoint.
  
• TAKAAT, Is Noise Vol. 1 & 2 (EP): like Garfield Minus Garfield, TAKAAT is Mdou Moctar minus Mdou Moctar.  Two short EPs featuring Tuareg rock originals and covers.
  
• Takénobu, Cosplay Karaoke コスプレカラオケ: another set of cello-centered chamber pop, this time with all lyrics in Japanese.
  
• veg., Defenestration: the instrumental metal grows in complexity in their first (short) album.
  
• zbs.fm, Tell Me Who You Think I Am: chill, downtempo electronica from the kid of a friend of a friend.
  

• BALTHVS, Harvest / Khruangbin, A LA SALA: these are very similar; loungey, funky, chill, mostly instrumental rock, two dudes on guitar and drums, and a gal on bass and vocals.
• Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham, Cunningham Bird: a complete cover of the legendary (and unpublished since its 1973 release) Buckingham Nicks, which put them on Mick Fleetwood's radar, whose band they would then join and the rest is history.  Buckingham and Nicks had made sporadic noises over the years about reissuing it, and it does not seem coincidence that they finally did so a year after this stellar cover, which in many ways improves upon the original.
• Andrew Bird Trio, Sunday Morning Put-On: Bird puts together a trio to cover some of his favorite jazz standards (coincidentally including "Django", which was on Buckingham Nicks and thus on Cunningham Bird).
• Nelson Echandia, Tu Creación: the bassist for the progressive joropo (my label) group Compasses puts out his first solo album.
• Garbage, Lie to Me (EP): three good new songs plus a remix from their worst album Bleed Like Me. Add the album they released this year and it seems that every fourth album of theirs is a stinker.
• David Gilmour, Luck and Strange: definite case of old man voice, but he collaborates with his youngest daughter on a couple of tracks to good effect, and his guitar is still amazing.
• Tony Levin, Bringing It Down to the Bass: the master of the bass guitar shows some range in this solo effort.
• Loreena McKennitt, The Road Back Home: a live album where she plays some of her favorite Celtic classics from her busking days.
• Mdou Moctar, Funeral for Justice: more socially conscious desert rock, Moctar agitates for his people and culture.
• Christian McBride & Edgar Meyer, But Who's Gonna Play the Melody?: two double bassists trade leads and share compositions.
  
• My Brightest Diamond, Fight the Real Terror: the title (and title track) are an homage to Sinéad O'Connor.  More of a solo affair, the instrumentation is a bit sparse, but the songs are good.
• St. Vincent, All Born Screaming: a return to form after the self-indulgent Daddy's Home, although it is probably her second-worst album.  She also made an extremely ill-advised companion album with the lyrics translated to Spanish that is best avoided.
• Tragic Lovers, VALENTINE (EP): post-punk from Portland, their compositions are really starting to gel.
• veg., DETONATION (EP): San José's own instrumental metal band.  The songs show more dynamics and breadth from their debut EP.

Hmm, looks like i missed a couple of years.

Andrew Bird, Outside Problems: the companion album to 2022's Inside Problems.  Instrumental improvisation, collected and curated.

Depeche Mode, Memento Mori: the twist here is band member Andrew Fletcher dying before its release.

Peter Gabriel, i/o: he couln't decide on the final mix so he released two versions, his first album since 2002.

Garbage, Witness to Your Love (EP): four tracks, including the title track which was first released in 2008 on a fundraising compilaton, and a Siouxsie and the Banshees cover.

Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer feat. Rakesh Chaurasia, As We Speak: Banjo, tabla, double bass, and bansuri. More genre-busting stuff from Fleck and Meyer.

Rodrigo y Gabriela, In Between Thoughts... A New World: the arrangements continue to become more elaborate as they grow in their craft. 

Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper, Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper: Gripper is known for playing kora tunes on guitar.  Here he pairs with a kora player and the result is magic. We somewhat randomly saw them live and it was so good.

Sphinx Virtuosi, Songs for Our Times: The Sphinx Organization is a group that supports underrepresented classical musicians and composers, and their Virtuosi is their top echelon.

Takénobu, Sushi Tapes Vol. 1, 2, 3: a collection of his YouTube cello improvisations.

3rd Secret, The 2nd 3rd Secret: Krist Novoselic's band added Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron halfway through the previous album. This one's better and more even, mellow rock with female vocalists.

Katie Wighton, The End: a quick pop album from one of the members of All Our Exes Live in Texas.

Given that the house renovation left us cash-poor, Kim looked into options for stretching our money and found out that a local food pantry will give weekly food items to anyone over 60, no questions asked. Some weeks are better than others; a month or two ago, we got some frozen 7-11 breakfast sandwiches, which we were not brave enough to try, and another time we got a sealed bag of Beyond sausage bits that, upon later inspection, was over a month past its expiration date.  Today's haul was three pounds of pinto beans (we're in the Rancho Gordo Bean Club and already have more amazing beans than we can handle), one pound of white rice, and six pounds of brown rice (plus a half-gallon of cow milk, some fruit, and some bread).

Unpacking proceeds apace. We'd like to host Thanksgiving so we probably need to hustle over the next three weeks.

Moving might have been a mistake.