Greater and lesser

So, I took Friday off[1] as a mental health day (which didn't prevent me from accidentally beginning to commute out of habit) and lazed around and did some productive things around the house in and among errands and exercise.

Good: Got a weed whacker with which to mow the yard
Not as good: My "indoor" extension cord is about ten feet too short to reach the entire front yard

Good: Met the guy who bought the "clown house" (two doors down, the previous owner collected clown and owl art; there were hundreds of pieces at the estate sale when he passed away a couple of months ago)... who paid me $17 to run an extension cord from my front porch outlet to his place to provide juice for some of the renovations he's doing (with an eye towards renting rather than flipping, at least for now)

Good: Got the last of my interior trim painted in the new space
Not as good: Drips and erratic edging despite the blue masking tape. At least it's latex-based paint and wipes up easily.

Good: Going to dinner with a high school friend & her family, and having the attendant goofy pictures
Not as good: Children who have been cooped up in a minivan for nine hours, even when they're generally well-behaved kids, are at the end of their rope, and will act accordingly.

Good: Got the surround sound speakers hooked up and fiddled with my speaker placement for the main stereo
Meh: The surround and center channel speakers don't put out much signal, regardless of surround mode
Bad: No good way to mount my center channel speaker at present; looks like mounting a shelf above the TV is going to be my ultimate course of action
Gooder: Youtube videos that are nothing but hours-long repeating loops of songs I find awesome for testing and calibrating stereo equipment or providing work ambiance (specifically, the Terminator 2 and Halo themes). They sound lovely at "subwoofer makes the curtains twitch" levels.

Bad: Lost my goddamned car keys Tuesday night at yoga
Worse: Chewed the fuck out of my feet walking home in sandals
Bad: Couldn't find my spare car keys
Bad: Tore the damn house apart looking for them, and my title
Good: Found title, got replacement key cut inexpensively
Bad: The $11 car key cost about $150 to replace, factoring the cost of cab fare and the half day I took off from work
Good: My keys were returned to the yoga studio when I went to class Saturday (they hadn't been there when I went in Thursday evening). A thank-you message was sent via reply-all, since I don't know who may have done so.

Good: Kittens
Bad: Kittens wanting to crawl up into the engine compartment of my car (this is being disincentivized with stinky/herbal/hormone spray all over under the hood and components, as well as remotely triggering my car horn to honk to scare them out from there)
Other: Mayday is teaching them to hunt and eat, so there has been a sharp uptick in the avian mortality rate locally, including the leaving of a single bird wing in an empty food dish this morning


[1] The somewhat dismal findings of that reveal that 4xR = 5xB, and 3xR > 5.5xC