Day 54: self-motivated non-human entities in my living space
Friday, 15 May 2020 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freckles_and_doubtThose bloody horrible beetles are back, colonising my kettle base in droves, presumably high on contact adhesive after eating their way through the plastic barrier I'd lovingly constructed. I had to have another bash-and-horrified-yell session last night, with seething populations hyperbolically speaking in the thousands rather than millions, but still numerous enough for serious scurrying action. I am increasingly homicidal about this: I brought out the big guns last night, viz. the duct tape, and have now TAPED the plastic barrier FIRMLY to the base in an UNBROKEN LINE, through which I confidently expect the little shits will simply eat, in order to continue their dubious nesting activities in the warm, after which I shall resort to a small tactical nuke from orbit as the only way to be sure. Aargh.
Time is very weird in this crisis: the weeks are composed of pockets of glacial slowness strung together into days which whizz past very fast, probably because they are comparatively featureless. The featureless days undoubtedly owe some of their effect to my Cherished Institution's inability to resolve anything whatsoever without Yet Another Meeting, which means I've had at least one more or less interchangeable Zoom or Teams meeting daily this week. Today being notable for FOUR of the bloody things, the most recent one of which has been pleasingly enhanced by the random and erratic introduction of Jyn's ears or tail to proceedings, so clearly I have Arrived, in remote meeting terms. (No-one commented, but everyone grinned whenever she popped up on the camera feed, I feel I have contributed my bit to morale). This week has also been enlivened by a successful battery-charging episode, hooray, the nice neighbour lent me his battery charger, and I happily demonstrated to myself my continuing ability to uninstall and install a car battery without setting fire to anything, and in defiance of my complete inability to find my shifting spanner.
I have also celebrated my inadvertant money-saving by ordering a robot vaccuum cleaner, on account of my increasing inability to deal with the house's component of cat hair and tracked kitty litter, and my uneasy awareness that this is probably both my living and my working space for at least the rest of the year. Also, cute robots are consoling and will function as an extra cat for purposes of conversation and petting, both of which are keeping me sane. Taking suggestions for names.
Time is very weird in this crisis: the weeks are composed of pockets of glacial slowness strung together into days which whizz past very fast, probably because they are comparatively featureless. The featureless days undoubtedly owe some of their effect to my Cherished Institution's inability to resolve anything whatsoever without Yet Another Meeting, which means I've had at least one more or less interchangeable Zoom or Teams meeting daily this week. Today being notable for FOUR of the bloody things, the most recent one of which has been pleasingly enhanced by the random and erratic introduction of Jyn's ears or tail to proceedings, so clearly I have Arrived, in remote meeting terms. (No-one commented, but everyone grinned whenever she popped up on the camera feed, I feel I have contributed my bit to morale). This week has also been enlivened by a successful battery-charging episode, hooray, the nice neighbour lent me his battery charger, and I happily demonstrated to myself my continuing ability to uninstall and install a car battery without setting fire to anything, and in defiance of my complete inability to find my shifting spanner.
I have also celebrated my inadvertant money-saving by ordering a robot vaccuum cleaner, on account of my increasing inability to deal with the house's component of cat hair and tracked kitty litter, and my uneasy awareness that this is probably both my living and my working space for at least the rest of the year. Also, cute robots are consoling and will function as an extra cat for purposes of conversation and petting, both of which are keeping me sane. Taking suggestions for names.
