(no subject)

Google doesn't acknowledge any of the questions in the help forum, and doesn't ahve a way for people to get actual support or answers to themselves, but they do, apparently, edit their "known issues" page after enough people come up with the same problem.

The suggestion was to sign out, clear the cache, and sign in again. I had actually done this before, with no effect, but this time, it worked -- kind of. Still no tray icon and no popup chat window, and I still get return messages as if they were email and not chat.

But I am no longer cut off from the European continent.

moving in, bit by bit

What I'm mostly doing now is taking crap upstairs and throwing crap out. I like to think I'm not a clothes horse, and I try not to buy crap, but stuff accumulates when you're passive.

I am fortunate to have the attic area to put things into. Since my closet isn't finished yet, I have put three laundry baskets!!! of hangable clothes right inside the attic door, along with a box of hangers. I am also moving some just plain stuff into the attic -- things I don't want to go through, things I know I want to keep but I don't want to access all the time, and four boxes of children's books that will go in a particular shelf that has not been built yet.

I have put my folding clothes into the drawers in the bed that used to be Ted's and into some of the drawers in the wall that used to hold my clothes. I do not understand why, after a year of throwing things away and not buying things, I still apparently have more than I started with. I have subsumed some of Ted's clothes, but not that much!

For example. My underwear, swimclothes, pajamas and socks used to go into two drawers that are smaller together than the one big drawer I have subdivided with plastic boxes. I swear I could close those two drawers. I have culled a bunch more socks, also ironic because for the last year I have been desperately search for socks everyday, and now I find I have too many. Well, I stole all the socks that Emma thinks are too juvenile, so that's explainable. But as for underwear -- I haven't bought any in a long time, and I have been throwing pieces out because they were two worn out and discolored even for me.

Anyway, you can see the (very very dusty) floor in the former kid's room, but I haven't been able to sleep there in a week because I was using the bed for a staging area. The upstairs masttress needs cleaning before I can sleep on it -- not to mention all hundred pounds of it need to be dragged upstairs -- so I've been sleeping (badly) on the couch. It's okay for a nap, but a full night's sleep is not possible since the dog insists on sleeping with me even when it's obviously not possible. I'll have the downstairs bed cleared off for tonight, I think, and sleep a bit better.

I've been sweeping the floors that I expose, and sweeping my room upstairs when I track dirt up there, but everything's still very dusty. And there was a rat skeleton, which I think Truffle found somewhere, so naturally I'm coughing from my stupid reaction to the epithelial tissue. No welts were my hand landed on it though, which is a mercy. (Come to think of it, I never got welts on my hands from the pet rats back in the day -- only my shoulders and arms)

Now I have to go find a steam cleaner to rent, some paint for the walls and for the floor of the closet, replace the wrong hinges I bought, and let's see, dog and cat food too.

I hate the way my throat feels, though.

Babies

Here's a trailer for a movie I've not heard of before.

Watch the first scene of the trailer a bunch of times before you come to a conclusion about exactly what has passed between these two babies. (any time you have two babies who can sit up you will see the same scene played out several times a day, with variations, and no, it doesn't mean they're not getting along. It means that learning to do things together is hard work and babies get frustrated -- these babies are clearly the best of friends).