Day in the Life of an Idiot

 
Image: manga cover

On Monday, Shawn had a Friends of the Ramsey County Library board meeting, and, so, as resident chauffeur, I tagged along. When she was at her meeting, I browsed the manga shelves, as one might expect.

I ended up picking up and mostly reading all of the above title: Turns Our My Online Friend is My Real-Life Boss by Nmura. The back cover copy pitches it to fans of Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard? (link to my review), which I can understand because it has a similar humorous office romance + fantasy element + slightly clueless hero vibe.  In fact, I think the thing that I'm enjoying about it so far is how our hero, Hashimoto, manages to have not one but two guys hitting on him both in Real Life and the game and... completely misinterprets every pass. To be fair, both of Hashimoto's suitors seem to misunderstand the other's motivations for a lot time as well. I mean, I, too, am a nerd? I also should probably carry a sign that reads: "If you are flirting with me, please just tell me. I have no idea." But, Hashimoto is almost mind-bogglingly clueless--to humorous effect, so it works? I mean, at least so far. I'm not quite finished with volume 1.  

Anyway, I am not sure I would have picked up this book if I were not marooned at the library for two and a half hours, however. Like, it's fine and cute and everything, but I am rarely fond of gaming-related stories. I don't know why. They're a very popular subgenre and I play TTRPGs, but I dunno. Something for me never quite translates--like the game parts don't grab me and hold my attention like they should? At least in this one they don't play the game so much as just hang out in game spaces as their avatars. 

I dunno.

That's what I've been reading at any rate. Nothing, as they say, to write home about. 

In other news, Shawn continues to do well post-knee surgery. She rarely uses her cane and can do much of what she used to. However, apparently one of her co-workers, who has also been through knee replacement, asked her if she had gotten to the point where she feels like the surgery was worth doing, and she does NOT. She's still got a fair amount of lingering nerve pain, which is not typical, but also, obviously, not fun. 

For myself, I went to cat cafe today with naomikritzer which was a great deal of fun. If I get my act together, I will post some pictures of it tomorrow. 

 Mondays are our physical therapy days and Shawn was, once again, a star. Still holding steady at a 128 degree bend, but officially down to 2 degree straightness. Go Team Shawn!

While she was getting put through the paces, I hopped back in the car and got Mason and I some fancy coffee from our favorite local coffee shop. On the way back, I stopped at the post office. Our post office, in its infinite wisdom, is down one outdoor mailbox RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Thus, when I attempted to put my mail into the slot, it actually couldn't go. There were mail pieces sticking out, the post box was so full. I ended up having to park and run inside and put my mail through an inside slot. Crazy! It seems like an incredibly foolish time of year to remove one of the post boxes, considering Christmas is one of the few times most Americans send actual snail mail.

Shawn and I were home for about half hour before we had to take off again.

Unrelated to her knee, Shawn had a neurology appointment scheduled for today. She would have cancelled it, but they're booking out into February (or were when she considered cancelling, who knows how far out it is now?) Neurology, however, equals renewals on migraine meds. And if your name is Shawn Rounds, migraine meds are critical. So, despite having hauled ourselves to PT and back--not to mention Shawn being put through the paces at PT--we dragged ourselves back out into the car to drive to Maplewood (an inner-ring suburb of my city for my out-of-town and international friends.)

We picked up a takeout lunch on the way home.

Immediately after lunch, Mason and I got BACK in the car and got our Christmas tree. 

Now it's just after 4 pm and I feel exhausted. Luckily, we had already decided we'd get delivery pizza tonight. We don't normally eat both meals OUT like this, but it was kind of a crazy day and I think it's justified. 

I have some thoughts on my various roleplaying games on Saturday, but I think I'll make those a separate post.

Things are proceeding apace here at Chez Roundhouse.

At this very moment, Shawn is sitting at the dining room table sorting out short-term disability. This is a very "normal Shawn" activity, so we have, at least, reached the stage post total knee replacement surgery (right knee) where she can concentrate on things that are not solely PAIN MANAGEMENT. I will tell you? A few days ago, Shawn was really not sure today would ever, ever, EVER come.

Yesterday, I was able to be... somewhat of a participant for my bi-weekly podcast recording. I can't say that I was firing on all my cylinders, but I was upright and present and caffinated. That's what passes as close enough these days.

Also in the plus column: I know what day it is: Wednesday.

And, as it happens, one of the things that I've been able to do while playing Personal Care Attendant, is read a LOT of manga.  In reverse order of when I read them:

Telework Yotabanshi/Home Office Romance by Yamada Kintetsu. This was a very cute slice-of-life straight romance that features a Systems Engineer who is... Very Engineer, if you know what I mean. It's very rarely stated in manga, but I feel like if this were written by an American it would just be stated that our main character, Mitsuhashi, is on the autism spectrum. He likes to do things in his very thoughtful way and doesn't like change and isn't especially good at picking up social clues. It's not stated that this take place during the pandemic (possibly to make it more universal and less era specific), but his neighbor also is working at home--she is a perky, out-going  archeology grad student named Izumi. This one-shot follows their romance as it unfolds through various chance meetings, etc. It's VERY RELAXING. 

The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All by Arai Sumiko which has a new release from Yen Press this year. It's a yuri, which, oddly, I rarely read in part because.... well, actually the reasons are legion, but among other things, I prefer my romance between adults and so many of these are situated in high school. This one is, too? But, The Guy She Was Interested in... solves one of my other big problems with a lot of yuri, which is that I RARELY find the women in them attractive. Lesbians have a look that isn't conventionally attractive. The heroine in this one is actually dykish and that works for me. Not that this is a "sexy" yuri--so few of them are. It's honestly much more of a coming-of-age story. This manga is on-going, but I read all 100 chapters of it that I could find.

Just Like Mona Lisa (Vols. 1 & 2) by Yoshimura Tsumuji, which I straight-up hated, despite the fact that the premise should have been a gimme for me, in particular. It's a science fiction story set on an alternate Earth where everyone is born without a gender. Some time around 12, most people have decided which of the binary options suits them best and they pick one or the other and grow into that. Our main character, Hisane, is 17 and a half, and is still genderless. This is not a problem for them until their two best friends (one guy and one girl) confess on the same day. I hated this for a number of reasons, but the main one was that we also find out that there is no option for Hisane to stay nonbinary/genderless. All of the others who ever stayed genderless this long died. So it's kind of a "f*ck or die" trope only with gender and I abhor it.

Akane-banashi by Suenaga Yuki (art by Moue Takamasa), Volumes 1-3. If you've read or watched any of  Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū this is that, only high school. If not, rakugo is a traditional Japanese theater performance style that is basically a one-man show. There are traditional stories that get told and the performer uses nothing but his (or, more rarely her) voice and a simple prop, like a folding fan.  Akane-banashi is a Shounen Jump product and I can't tell if that means that if I watched it, I would eat it all in one gulp, or if I'm starting to feel like a lot of these "my super power is some ancient Japanese artform" manga/anime are starting to all taste the same, as it were. LIke, as I was reading this I very much felt pulled along and it was hitting all the right "she's a genius!" and yet "she must struggle!" notes, but then I put it down and was very...  I feel like I've read this basic premise a million times already.

Then, I read something EXTREMELY smutty called Can’t Think Straight by Pangin (art by Huddak). I've been describing this manhwa to people as "the roommate trope plus enemies to lovers." It's basically about a horribly homophobic straight guy and his gay roommate who through very unlikely circumstances become fuck buddies and then... sort of (at least where it left off) actual boyfriends. This is the WORST example of a redemption arc because the love interest (the straight guy) still has way too much to recover from when the two men are already moved in together and supposedly dating. Luckily, I did not read that one for that PLOT.

A much more adorable and realistic BL/yaoi that I read was That Blue Sky Feeling by Okura (art by Coma Hashii), Vols. 1-2. Okura also wrote I Think Our Son is Gay which is a very lovely story about a mother coming to terms with the fact that her eldest child is gay. That Blue Sky Feeling kind of follows a similar arc where the young protagonist meets the first gay guy he's ever known--a kid who is out in high school and suffering for it--and sort of falls VERY SLOWLY in love with him. (I mean, I am guessing? It is also more coming-of-age than anything else.) Weirdly, this is also a VIZ product, but there's something very charming and original going on here that I quite like.

Two Sizes, Too Small by Mizore is the final one that I read which I also can't entirely recommend. It's about a height gap, which normally I can relate to because I am 5'2" and Shawn is 6'1" but, sadly, this one veered into creepy territory because the smaller one looked very, very... child-like and I had to NOPE out hard once the romance heated up.

So, for me this is a LOT for one week, particularly when sometimes I have to confess to not having read ANYTHING. 

In other--sort of related--news, I lost my Duolingo streak. Ironically, Shawn has been able to keep hers up. My problem has always been that I tend to sneak my lessons in when I am out and about town or in a queue or whatever. Because Shawn is at home, I'm just not waiting in the car for her at the usual times and so I have completely forgotten to even open the app. I think that I bailed at just the right time because some friends of ours and Shawn have been discussing on WhatsApp the fact that Duo seems to have become more menacing and threatening than usual. Anyone else experieince that?

Anyway, that's us. Hopefully, now that Shawn seems to be returning to slightly more normal activities, so can I.

 For those of you who want the tl:dr synopsis/spoilers: Everything went swimmingly. The surgery was a success and Shawn's pre-surgery PT has proven to have been well worth every minute of it.

And now for the whole story, start to present....

( cut for length )

Yesterday was, as previously reported, a day full of adulting. Shawn was on the phone or email all day with nearly everyone rearranging and rescheduling,, etc.

But, we got it all done. 

In the middle of all this, our handyman called to remind us that he had this week on his calendar to finally replace the fence on the south side of our house. This was a fence that we got... secondhand, from Shawn's brother Greg. Greg, I should note, has literally sold us cars that turned out to be total lemons in the past, so why we accepted a USED fence from him, I'm not entirely certain. I do remember that we had a problem delineating our property when we first moved in, because the people who owned our house also owned the house next door (to the south). I suspect we were in a hurry, hoping to discourage all the wandering over from the tenants of that 5-plex into our gardens and garage. This, I remember as my first "get off my lawn" moments as a homeowner. Not my finest.  At any rate, the second the used fence was installed it began rot. So this thing has been moldering on its posts for literal decades. Replacing it is long overdue. Thus, despite the fact that we were exhausted from all the schedule futzing, we agreed that this Friday was a fine time to finally tackle the fence.

Shawn, naturally, tapped out (as we call surrendering decision making to the other partner) on this. This is perfectly reasonable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I am the one at home who will be doing all the coordinating with deliveries of supplies, arrivals of handypersons, and the like. But our guy, Rob, really is just a handyman. He is not super interested in being a contractor who does all the getting of supplies and organizing deliveries or even purchasing the screws, if he thinks you've got what he needs or are willing to do it for him (and save yourself his labor costs.)

We are  definitely for that last bit. This fence is irritating enough already, and so the idea of it costing more than is absolutely necessary is beyond the Pale.

This morning, I took myself over to Menards and ordered and paid for the fence panels, posts, deck screws and even the "bagster" for all the detritus.  We obviously need to get the heavy panels delivered (I do not have a truck--I know, my lesbian cred is low). So, after buying what I needed, I headed over to the delivery department.

I will say that I felt like I was watching a sitcom at the delivery desk at the Midway Menards.

It was some kind of combination of "The Office" and "Brooklyn 99." There was the overly friendly guy who really wanted to comment on the t-shirt I was wearing who CLEARLY thought that his coworkers were his Very Best Friends, though it was clear to me the jury was still out on that one as far as they were concerned. Overly Friendly Guy was the kind of guy who called his colleagues, "the boss" affectionately, but the co-worker merely rolled his eyes and said to me (as though speaking to the camera in "The Office,") "I am what they call a peon. I do all the work of the boss, but shoulder twice the blame." This being real life, I was able to respond to Peon, "Yeah, I hear you. That was always my role at all the jobs I've worked too." This earned me Peon's one and only genuine smile of the entire 25 minutes.

The comedy was that Overly Friendly Guy could not do anything without help from Peon and Hanger-On--whose name tag read "Dom," which... I understood to be short for "Dominic" but one's mind being what it is, made the whole thing funnier to me. I think, too, I might not have gone straight to the other kind of dom, had not Hanger-On/Dom's ears instantly perked up when I noted that I had a wife. He then IMMEDIATELY found a way to contrive to drop "his partner" into the conversation. We shared looks and smirks going forward.

I can't even accurately describe the whole thing because it was so surreally like wandering into a sit-com set. I am reasonably assured, however, that we eventually got my fence panels set for delivery.

I came home and ate the leftover half of a Jimmy John's sub (I had treated Shawn to lunch out yesterday since we were both so frazzled and, at that point, she still had dozens of more calls to make.)  Along with the sub, I broke into the yellow beets and made a yellow beet and apple salad from the Saint Paul Farmers Market Cookbook. 





Given all the help I received ID'd this mystery plant, I thought you all might be pleased with the report that the golden beets are, indeed, golden beets and very delicious!

 Shawn is working until 5 pm tonight. This is her last day at work before the knee surgery (T-4 days!) and the bosses are getting their money's worth before she goes on extended leave. 

I've been working through the big list of Things To Do that she left on the piano for me. I've crossed off almost everything, including taking the air-conditioner out of the sun room window (by myself!). Today, I picked up some cookbooks that the Roseville Library had set aside for the history center. While I was out there, I drove through a Free Farmer's Market (Keystone) and I now have a small set of unidentifiable vegetables on kitchen table. I think they are turnips, but, honestly, they might be yellow beets. ID being somewhat hampered because these are not in great shape.


Image: ugly unidentifiable veggies

I did cut one open and smell it. The reason I am going with "could be yellow beets" is, in part, because the interior flesh was quite yellow.  The scent, however, was not distinctively beet (nor ringed like some of the non-red colored beets are when I buy them intentionally at regular farmer's markets), but rather slightly sweet in a way I associate with turnips. To be fair, however, I am not generally a fan of turnips and so I could be completely wrong about their smell.

Feel free to give me your best guess. 

I just got a text from Shawn. The big boss is running even later than expected, so who knows when she'll be able to come home. The thing is, she's the expert on this one thing and so they really want her there as they wrap it up. And, while they could call for advice while she's in recovery, probably you don't want her making important decisions while on OxyContin. Probably. 

The other things I need to do yet today--only one of which is on Shawn's master list--is get postcards to the mail and take the car in for a car wash. We have discovered that this is a luxury we really enjoy, having someone else regularly vacuum the schmutz from the floorboards, etc. I'll probably actually go do those once I finish writing this, if only to get them off the list. If I have to come home and do nothing for a while before turning around to pick-up Shawn that feels better to me than rushing to go get her from somewhere far away, you know? 

Tomorrow is my big GM gig. I am very excited, though a bit nervous because even though this is supposed to be a stripped-down version of D&D 5e, I feel like I need to be prepared to actually PLAY D&D 5e... which is a bit daunting, despite my zillion and a half hours of both playing the game myself and actually watching other (expert) people play it.

Right! I'm off!


UPDATE: I peeled them last night and all of you who guessed golden beets were, in fact, correct! Well done!