I speak machine

[the_siobhan]

Still not King.

Did birthday dinner with the gf. I realized at some point like... maybe a month ago? That I spent the entire past year telling people I was the age I actually am this year. How am I SO BAD at dates that I get my own age wrong for an entire year? I can't even blame senility, I have always been like this.

***

Finally heard back from the permit wrangler. He spoke to the engineer and the answer is no, he will not sign off on the work. This doesn't shock me. He told me the fucking contractor didn't even follow the blueprints that were used to get the permits, so he has no confidence that the foundations were actually built to spec.

So permit wrangler says he's going to go back to the city and try once again to get in touch with the original contractor. I really appreciate his commitment to trying to find a better solution, but at this point I'm kinda resigned that I'm just have to tear up the floor. I just want to get it over with.

***

So in the meantime I'm still here just cleaning and de-cluttering the rest of the house. Got a wild hair up my ass to pull apart the corner of my office where my weight bench sits and was able to vanquish much dust and dried cat-puke.

I still have too much fucking stuff. This would be simpler if I didn't have such a huge aversion to just tossing stuff into landfill. This is partially the environmentalist side of me, and partially because there was a time in my life when a third-hand hotplate might have actually saved my life. So I have trouble throwing out a perfectly functional hotplate when somebody out there might be in the same position I was in 30+ years ago. But you know, figuring how to get rid of this stuff takes time and so... Things leave, but in much smaller boxes than if I just hired a bloody dumpster.

***

The plus side of not being able to do house construction work is that I have have been spending a lot more time on my b-list, which is 1) plants and 2) family tree. The kitchen island is so huge that I have been able to devote an entire half of it to a bunch of pots that I have seeded with herbs. I installed grow lights in the chandelier[1], so it's going to be an experiment.

[1]Hauled my wobbly ass up a ladder. Did not fall off. Victory achieved.

I had the brilliant idea that if I started tossing birdseed on the deck outside my office, I would give Lord Brock something to look at that would distract him from screaming at me for attention while I'm working. This has backfired spectacularly, because now he climbs onto the window-ledge and screams at me to make the birds happen.

***

On the plus side, digging through my family tree has led me to discovering the other out queer person in my family which is pretty cool. (Statistically I figured it was unlikely I was the only one, especially given just how big Irish Catholic families tend to be.)

A question I hadn't anticipated; I keep coming across generations where there are multiple people with the same name but different birth-dates. I'm trying to figure out if they are cases where one source I'm drawing from has the wrong birth year, or if there were families where they re-used names when babies died. Like there is a French branch were they seem to have named half the boys after the father but with different middle names. Was that real? Was that just Anglos fucking up non-English names? (That happened so often with the Irish names, I don't have any problem believing they also did it to the French.) Or am I finding birth records, but not their death records in families where infant mortality was really high?

Also, I have no explanation for how researching my family name led me to an Irish vampire movie, but now I really want to see this film.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[lil_m_moses]

I have some Greek-descent second cousins that I met when in HS and they told me it's pretty traditional to name the boys after the father and just change the middle name. Wouldn't surprise me if other cultures did that too.

[elusis]

I saw headstones in Edinburgh with lots of infant mortality where this was done as well.

[greylock]

Damn. Did I forget your birthday again?
(Admittedly, I forget my own, and how old I am).
Happy birthday!
Or, Happy BIRBDAY <- if blink tags work.

but at this point I'm kinda resigned that I'm just have to tear up the floor.
Seems expensive. Your permit-wrangler seems like a good egg, so hopefully he comes up with a solution. Your contractor seems like a real country member.

Do you have Facebook? And 'free' groups? My mother gets rid of stuff via "battered womens' shelters".

installed grow lights in the chandelier[1], so it's going to be an experiment.

IME, grow lights really work well. I've bought some online, and I've found white are better than purple. (And hydration is important too).

This has backfired spectacularly, because now he climbs onto the window-ledge and screams at me to make the birds happen.

I have a birdseed feeder and a hanging bird bath. My boys are studious at ignoring birds in the bath, and the birds ignore the seeds.

Is he the kind of cat that screams at you about the wheather?

Also, I have no explanation for how researching my family name led me to an Irish vampire movie, but now I really want to see this film.

Well, that's my plan tonight, now.

[chasing_silver]

My sister's husband is French and he told me that in many cases, parents just name the kids "Mary Katherine" "Mary Joyce" "Mary Whatever" and it's perfectly normal. Same for the boys.

[flemmings]

Literally the same. The men on my maternal grandmother's side all had Marie as a first name. Marie Jean, Marie Pierre, etc.

[dissectionist]

1. Be careful with putting seed on the deck - it will eventually also bring rats. We used to have a low-hanging bird feeder until it brought all the rats to the yard and we discovered our error. Now any seed is placed high enough that rats can’t access it, but it still took months to drive them off after that. Now we have a clear acrylic feeder that attaches directly to the outside of the window. The cats get invested for about a month every year and then they get over it.

2. It was super-common to have 4-5 names that were used over and over and over. What a child was called socially may be very different, but on the birth certificate, it’s going to be the same 4-5 names usually, and for Europe they’re often following religious naming conventions (John, Joseph, Stephen, Samuel, etc). Of the ~200 male ancestors I’ve traced in my European family, 64 of them have either John, Stephen, or both in their name.

So yeah, what you’re seeing is a real thing. They’d be given their name at birth which followed either family naming conventions, religious naming conventions, or cultural naming conventions (like Ireland would have had a lot of Patrick/Padraig, Sean/Shaun type names culturally) , then they’d have an unrelated name they’d use in everyday life that allowed them to be distinguished from one another.

[armiphlage]

Any stuff that has use but is not being used by us gets thrown in a box and taken to Value Village. They're a for-profit company that charges exorbitant prices, so we don't feel bad about lots of the stuff being unsellable, and some of it doesn't go to landfill.

[elusis]

He told me the fucking contractor didn't even follow the blueprints that were used to get the permits, so he has no confidence that the foundations were actually built to spec.


JFC.

Civil court actions really ought to allow as partial remedy "one free and clear shot to the solar plexus, nose, or goolies, your preference."

"Buy Nothing" groups on Facebook are a good way of getting rid of "I can't possibly use it but perhaps someone else could?" things in my area.

[gatheringrivers]

...led me to an Irish vampire movie, but now I really want to see this film.

Damnnnn I think I need to see that too now. Thanks for the link!