2026 Disneyland Trip #14 (3/14/26)
Mar. 14th, 2026 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torachanWe decided to go for dinner tonight to avoid the worst of the heat and it was very pleasant by the time we got there. Not too crowded, either.
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torachanDaily Happiness
Mar. 14th, 2026 10:29 pmtorachan1. Last year when we went to Japan we parked at the airport and it was pricey but not too bad, but this time we're going for longer and I looked into it and the prices are kind of ridiculous, unless we park in the offsite lot and take a shuttle, which brings it down to about what we paid last year. So I think we're going to just leave the car at home and uber instead. The main annoyance with that is that if we put both cars in the driveway, Alex and Nessie will have to park on the street when they're over for cat sitting. But I think if we pull both cars all the way into the backyard, they'll both fit and then leave the driveway free, so I'm leaning towards that. I'm glad I recently took that work trip and am now familiar with using uber more, specifically at the airport (I'd only ever used it once before).
2. Recently Carla ordered a set from the lego store and it was stolen off our porch. We never have issues with packages getting stolen and would not have even realized what happened except she happened to find the empty shipping box on the street a couple doors down. When we checked the delivery info the picture of the box on the porch was really awkwardly posed and the time of delivery was when multiple people were in the living room watching TV and the windows were open, making it odd that no one heard it, so I think it was probably the driver who took it. We live on a sort of cul-de-sac, so there's not a lot of foot traffic, especially on a Sunday evening, and would be really weird for someone to come up onto the porch to take a package when there are noises from inside making it clear people are right there. Anyway, she submitted a complaint and lego sent a replacement, which arrived today safe and sound. I do wish lego didn't send their packages with a return address label that says lego on it, though.
3. We had a nice dinner at Disneyland tonight. It was pretty warm during the day, but not anywhere near as bad as last weekend, and had cooled off nicely by the time we got down there.
4. Cutie Chloe.
2. Recently Carla ordered a set from the lego store and it was stolen off our porch. We never have issues with packages getting stolen and would not have even realized what happened except she happened to find the empty shipping box on the street a couple doors down. When we checked the delivery info the picture of the box on the porch was really awkwardly posed and the time of delivery was when multiple people were in the living room watching TV and the windows were open, making it odd that no one heard it, so I think it was probably the driver who took it. We live on a sort of cul-de-sac, so there's not a lot of foot traffic, especially on a Sunday evening, and would be really weird for someone to come up onto the porch to take a package when there are noises from inside making it clear people are right there. Anyway, she submitted a complaint and lego sent a replacement, which arrived today safe and sound. I do wish lego didn't send their packages with a return address label that says lego on it, though.
3. We had a nice dinner at Disneyland tonight. It was pretty warm during the day, but not anywhere near as bad as last weekend, and had cooled off nicely by the time we got down there.
4. Cutie Chloe.
A scattered weekly proof of life
Mar. 14th, 2026 11:24 amumadoshiI have worked. Uh. A lot. Over the past three weeks. o_o But now it's the weekend, and I don't currently have a rewrite to work on, and March Break lies ahead; the spring crunch isn't finished, but it's on hiatus for the week, and a normal workweek is a breath of fresh air at this point. (Also I'm taking a couple of days off during it.)
Yesterday work wrapped up early enough that I had an actual evening, so I was finally able to start Butterfly Effects, the fifteenth (!) InCryptid book. ("Finally" is a bit of a stretch, I guess, since it's still the release week, but this is a Sarah-narrated book. Mostly. SARAH.)
So my hopes for the weekend are pretty much: avoid napping (I don't find naps restorative and feel groggier after than before I started); finish reading Butterfly Effects; watch this week's The Pitt and hopefully the temporarily-streaming production of The Importance of Being Earnest withscruloose; get scruloose to redo my undercut; and (also with scruloose) do a second round of advance-prepping ten or so bags of the dry ingredients for my breakfast banana bread while also baking up a new batch of loaves. I think that last will also require decanting cinnamons from bags into jars, so maybe we'll manage a bit of other spice decanting/sorting while we're at it.
Yesterday work wrapped up early enough that I had an actual evening, so I was finally able to start Butterfly Effects, the fifteenth (!) InCryptid book. ("Finally" is a bit of a stretch, I guess, since it's still the release week, but this is a Sarah-narrated book. Mostly. SARAH.)
So my hopes for the weekend are pretty much: avoid napping (I don't find naps restorative and feel groggier after than before I started); finish reading Butterfly Effects; watch this week's The Pitt and hopefully the temporarily-streaming production of The Importance of Being Earnest with
scruloose; get scruloose to redo my undercut; and (also with scruloose) do a second round of advance-prepping ten or so bags of the dry ingredients for my breakfast banana bread while also baking up a new batch of loaves. I think that last will also require decanting cinnamons from bags into jars, so maybe we'll manage a bit of other spice decanting/sorting while we're at it.
friday five
Mar. 13th, 2026 08:54 pmthistleingreyVia a friend---
1. Have you ever watched illusion magic? Close-up, or in a stage show, or on television? Did it work for you?
I've seen Penn and Teller on YouTube a few times, not recently, and a few illusionists live, because two people I've dated previously were fascinated by the whole thing and somehow unable to understand why I wasn't similarly compelled. To me, it's small-space athletic feats plus emotional manipulation, and I can pretty much always do without the latter.
2. Have you ever wished on a star, or a lucky cat, or a coin in a wishing well? Did it work in some way?
No.
3. Have you ever cast a spell, made a love charm, or tried a curse? Did it work in some way?
Not in terms of rituals. In high school I read a few books on Wicca, went "Huh, okay," and decided it's not for me, a conclusion only strengthened by meeting pagans of assorted types during my few SCA years.
4. Are there any other traditional superstitions you pay attention to? Do they work in some way?
My Oma had a ton of these, and I heed a few of hers. Don't put luggage on the bed; that's gross. Picking up random bits of cash in one's path, if it doesn't belong to someone nearby, is fair game. I guess the person I dated who gave me a set of knives may've felt that it led to bad luck, since we broke up a few months later, but we really weren't well suited. The wooden knife block is still around; I've since swapped out most of the knives, which were cheap serrated ones.
5. Would you want major magical powers like in a fantasy story? Which powers, and how would you use them?
Nope!
1. Have you ever watched illusion magic? Close-up, or in a stage show, or on television? Did it work for you?
I've seen Penn and Teller on YouTube a few times, not recently, and a few illusionists live, because two people I've dated previously were fascinated by the whole thing and somehow unable to understand why I wasn't similarly compelled. To me, it's small-space athletic feats plus emotional manipulation, and I can pretty much always do without the latter.
2. Have you ever wished on a star, or a lucky cat, or a coin in a wishing well? Did it work in some way?
No.
3. Have you ever cast a spell, made a love charm, or tried a curse? Did it work in some way?
Not in terms of rituals. In high school I read a few books on Wicca, went "Huh, okay," and decided it's not for me, a conclusion only strengthened by meeting pagans of assorted types during my few SCA years.
4. Are there any other traditional superstitions you pay attention to? Do they work in some way?
My Oma had a ton of these, and I heed a few of hers. Don't put luggage on the bed; that's gross. Picking up random bits of cash in one's path, if it doesn't belong to someone nearby, is fair game. I guess the person I dated who gave me a set of knives may've felt that it led to bad luck, since we broke up a few months later, but we really weren't well suited. The wooden knife block is still around; I've since swapped out most of the knives, which were cheap serrated ones.
5. Would you want major magical powers like in a fantasy story? Which powers, and how would you use them?
Nope!
Daily Happiness
Mar. 13th, 2026 07:51 pmtorachan1. The store still had McConnell's peppermint stick ice cream in stock somehow, so we bought more. This is definitely the longest I've seen it in stock past Christmas, but I'm not going to complain.
2. In three weeks from today we'll be in Japan! Hopefully!
3. I'm playing another matching game, this one where you have to make 50 groups of 50. It's fun, but I shouldn't be doing this much clicking, it's not good for my wrist!
4. Gemma!
2. In three weeks from today we'll be in Japan! Hopefully!
3. I'm playing another matching game, this one where you have to make 50 groups of 50. It's fun, but I shouldn't be doing this much clicking, it's not good for my wrist!
4. Gemma!
Weekly Reading
Mar. 13th, 2026 05:27 pmtorachanRecently Finished
Fog
Classic middle grade novel about a girl who lives on an island and when she starts junior high, she starts boarding on the mainland with some other island kids. She's been told it's difficult to adjust, but that doesn't prepare her for the mind games and possibily supernatural powers of the principal and his wife. I didn't read this as a kid, but I must have seen someone talking about it online and decided to check it out (it's been on my to-read list for a while so I don't remember where I heard about it). However, I don't feel like it really holds up to a first-time read as an adult, and I won't be continuing the series.
The School for Good Mothers
Oof. This is a tough book to rate, because it's very well-written and interesting, but I did not enjoy it at all. Not only does it become pretty obvious early on that there's no hope of any sort of happy ending, but there are many excruciating moments when you just want to scream at the MC for making bad decisions, even while having sympathy and seeing how she's been driven to that point.
The story takes place in the near future, where her state has just introduced a new program for people who've had their kids taken away by CPS. They are sent to a "school" (basically a prison) for a full year to supposedly learn to become good parents, but they are set up at every turn for failure and constantly subjected to psychological torture in the name of training them. It's a hard read, and I don't know that I'd actually recommend it, but it's good.
The Price of Honey
Short story about a group of women, the current wife and ex-wives of a tech billionaire, meeting up at his funeral. This was a freebie through Amazon First Reads, which is why I grabbed it. I liked the twist.
Idyll Threats
First in a murder mystery series about a closeted gay cop (though he's not closeted by the end of the first book) in a small town in the late '90s. I liked it all right but I'm not sure I'll read the rest.
This Is Not the Jess Show
The Truman Show for the YA crowd. I did watch The Truman Show back in the day but remember nothing about it except the premise. I really liked this take on it, and the ending was great.
Mapmakers and the Enchanted Mountain and Mapmakers and the Flickering Fortress
Books two and three in the Mapmakers trilogy of YA graphic novels. I read the first one a while back and didn't remember too much of it, but was able to catch up without having to reread it. This is a cute series.
Huda F Are You?
YA graphic memoir about the author's high school years after moving from a city where there were very few Muslims, to Dearborn, Michigan, where many of her classmates were both Muslim and hijabi. I've read a couple of the author's non-YA graphic novels about being Muslim and liked this one a lot more. There are others in the series and I'll probably read them as well.
Fog
Classic middle grade novel about a girl who lives on an island and when she starts junior high, she starts boarding on the mainland with some other island kids. She's been told it's difficult to adjust, but that doesn't prepare her for the mind games and possibily supernatural powers of the principal and his wife. I didn't read this as a kid, but I must have seen someone talking about it online and decided to check it out (it's been on my to-read list for a while so I don't remember where I heard about it). However, I don't feel like it really holds up to a first-time read as an adult, and I won't be continuing the series.
The School for Good Mothers
Oof. This is a tough book to rate, because it's very well-written and interesting, but I did not enjoy it at all. Not only does it become pretty obvious early on that there's no hope of any sort of happy ending, but there are many excruciating moments when you just want to scream at the MC for making bad decisions, even while having sympathy and seeing how she's been driven to that point.
The story takes place in the near future, where her state has just introduced a new program for people who've had their kids taken away by CPS. They are sent to a "school" (basically a prison) for a full year to supposedly learn to become good parents, but they are set up at every turn for failure and constantly subjected to psychological torture in the name of training them. It's a hard read, and I don't know that I'd actually recommend it, but it's good.
The Price of Honey
Short story about a group of women, the current wife and ex-wives of a tech billionaire, meeting up at his funeral. This was a freebie through Amazon First Reads, which is why I grabbed it. I liked the twist.
Idyll Threats
First in a murder mystery series about a closeted gay cop (though he's not closeted by the end of the first book) in a small town in the late '90s. I liked it all right but I'm not sure I'll read the rest.
This Is Not the Jess Show
The Truman Show for the YA crowd. I did watch The Truman Show back in the day but remember nothing about it except the premise. I really liked this take on it, and the ending was great.
Mapmakers and the Enchanted Mountain and Mapmakers and the Flickering Fortress
Books two and three in the Mapmakers trilogy of YA graphic novels. I read the first one a while back and didn't remember too much of it, but was able to catch up without having to reread it. This is a cute series.
Huda F Are You?
YA graphic memoir about the author's high school years after moving from a city where there were very few Muslims, to Dearborn, Michigan, where many of her classmates were both Muslim and hijabi. I've read a couple of the author's non-YA graphic novels about being Muslim and liked this one a lot more. There are others in the series and I'll probably read them as well.
Daily Happiness
Mar. 12th, 2026 08:42 pmtorachan1. Neither Carla nor I had realized it was the season, but we stopped in at McDonald's for lunch today and saw posters for Shamrock Shakes, so we each got one. I am fine with them not being a year-round thing, but they are surprisingly tasty and I do like getting at least one when they're on the menu.
2. We're having a couple days of warm weather after a few cooler days, and there's supposed to be more warm weather next week, but for once the weekend is actually supposed to be cool. It'll still be warmer in Anaheim than at home, so we're thinking of going to Disneyland for dinner on Saturday rather than breakfast/lunch, but hopefully it won't be too bad. And it wasn't as hot today as it was a few days ago, at least. (Really making me wish the sun was still going down earlier, though! Then we'd have cooler evenings.)
3. Jasper was being a cutie on my desk earlier.
2. We're having a couple days of warm weather after a few cooler days, and there's supposed to be more warm weather next week, but for once the weekend is actually supposed to be cool. It'll still be warmer in Anaheim than at home, so we're thinking of going to Disneyland for dinner on Saturday rather than breakfast/lunch, but hopefully it won't be too bad. And it wasn't as hot today as it was a few days ago, at least. (Really making me wish the sun was still going down earlier, though! Then we'd have cooler evenings.)
3. Jasper was being a cutie on my desk earlier.
Daily Happiness
Mar. 11th, 2026 06:06 pmtorachan1. Tuxie was back this morning looking no worse for wear (he still is missing fur/scabby on his forehead, but that's from a couple weeks ago). He wasn't out there first thing when I went to feed the other cats, but was there when I got back from my walk. He doesn't understand daylight savings time, so it was too early for him the first time lol.
2. I finally managed to get a work meeting scheduled for Monday that has been so hard to wrangle. Hopefully it doesn't fall through (even the people who didn't accept the invite yet did specifically say they would be able to attend so fingers crossed).
3. The other night Ollie looked so sad at being evicted from the couch when we had dinner lol. He settled in to the perch in a few minutes, but those first few minutes he just looked so put out.
2. I finally managed to get a work meeting scheduled for Monday that has been so hard to wrangle. Hopefully it doesn't fall through (even the people who didn't accept the invite yet did specifically say they would be able to attend so fingers crossed).
3. The other night Ollie looked so sad at being evicted from the couch when we had dinner lol. He settled in to the perch in a few minutes, but those first few minutes he just looked so put out.
just press post already
Mar. 10th, 2026 09:48 pmursamajorStuck in my head this week: the CHVRCHES cover of Such Great Heights. Lauren Mayberry was the opener for the Northeastern leg of the Postal Service anniversary tour, and I have been enjoyably earwormed with her band's version of this song. It's making me want to do a ukelele cover of it, somehow.
( YT video within )
*
I don't usually pay that much attention to celebrity news, nor am I a fan of horror movies (I tend to run screaming the other direction), but it feels right to rewatch Army of Darkness upon hearing the news that whatever cancer Bruce Campbell's just announced that he's got is "treatable, but not curable." But jeez, that's like two major ones of these "fuck cancer" announcements in just a few weeks now. Le sigh.
Of course, this means I'll need to figure out how to get ahold of a copy of said movie, and I'm feeling just cantankerous enough about the state of media preservation that I'm wondering where I can pick up a physical copy on DVD (yes, DVD, we don't have a BluRay player). And it turns out there's apparently fifty bajillion editions, heh.
*
This year's hamantaschen flavors: vanilla dough with cherry preserves, vanilla dough with apricot hot pepper jelly, chocolate dough with raspberry preserves, chocolate dough with peanut butter. I tried out Smitten Kitchen's dough recipe this year to see how a buttery dough behaved compared to the oil-based recipe I usually use fromnoghri, with mixed success. The chocolate dough options remained intact, probably partly because I didn't roll it out to 1/8" thin, partly because I froze the peanut butter balls before folding them into the dough, and partly because the raspberry preserves were thick enough to not spread. I think it came out a little dry relative to the fillings, probably two minutes too long in the oven. The vanilla dough behaved with the apricot hot pepper jelly because it wasn't really a jelly, definitely more of a preserves texture. But with the cherry "preserves," it was another story, because the texture of that was much closer to an improperly-set jam, which I only realized starting to scoop it into the cookies. If you think all of the blowouts were the cherry ones, you'd be right!
Had friends over for dinner to help eat the hamantaschen, and I also made chicken adobo and rice and a mizuna salad with seaweed dressing. K brought fancy fruity sodas from TJ's, and we didn't remotely realize how late it had gotten until one of us looked at our watches and gasped that it was after midnight, heh. I really ought to do that more often; I like hosting my friends and us gossiping around a table until all hours. Plus, it's good motivation to keep things a bit tidier around here!
And it felt good to show off progress in the library/my office. Still need to figure out the desk situation; still need to frame the art I want to hang up in there; still want this rug to drape over the back of the glider chair. And I need to figure out a good reading lamp. But now that we've been here almost five years, figuring out how to make things the way we want; what we want to change, what we want to keep.
*
I never did post about our Super Bowl menu, but we made:
- Seattle: Teriyaki Wings, because it's a thing; every Seattle local friend I've ever visited there has taken me out for teriyaki there.
- Boston: Miso Clam Chowder. Used the Saveur recipe as a base, then to get it closer to Oga-style, added an assortment of Japanese mushrooms. Subbed out the cream for coconut milk, but that swung the flavor profile significantly more Thai, so I may need to consider other options if I want it to taste like Oga's. And I'll go ahead and pick up some ume next time for a topping, I think it needs just a bit of that fermented sourness to taste right.
I ran out of steam before making it to the Boston Cream Pie (Joanne Chang's, of course), but I did also make a smoked salmon dip: cream cheese, lemon juice, dill, onion powder, green onions, garlic, chili crisp, and smoked salmon on top.
( YT video within )
*
I don't usually pay that much attention to celebrity news, nor am I a fan of horror movies (I tend to run screaming the other direction), but it feels right to rewatch Army of Darkness upon hearing the news that whatever cancer Bruce Campbell's just announced that he's got is "treatable, but not curable." But jeez, that's like two major ones of these "fuck cancer" announcements in just a few weeks now. Le sigh.
Of course, this means I'll need to figure out how to get ahold of a copy of said movie, and I'm feeling just cantankerous enough about the state of media preservation that I'm wondering where I can pick up a physical copy on DVD (yes, DVD, we don't have a BluRay player). And it turns out there's apparently fifty bajillion editions, heh.
*
This year's hamantaschen flavors: vanilla dough with cherry preserves, vanilla dough with apricot hot pepper jelly, chocolate dough with raspberry preserves, chocolate dough with peanut butter. I tried out Smitten Kitchen's dough recipe this year to see how a buttery dough behaved compared to the oil-based recipe I usually use from
noghri, with mixed success. The chocolate dough options remained intact, probably partly because I didn't roll it out to 1/8" thin, partly because I froze the peanut butter balls before folding them into the dough, and partly because the raspberry preserves were thick enough to not spread. I think it came out a little dry relative to the fillings, probably two minutes too long in the oven. The vanilla dough behaved with the apricot hot pepper jelly because it wasn't really a jelly, definitely more of a preserves texture. But with the cherry "preserves," it was another story, because the texture of that was much closer to an improperly-set jam, which I only realized starting to scoop it into the cookies. If you think all of the blowouts were the cherry ones, you'd be right!Had friends over for dinner to help eat the hamantaschen, and I also made chicken adobo and rice and a mizuna salad with seaweed dressing. K brought fancy fruity sodas from TJ's, and we didn't remotely realize how late it had gotten until one of us looked at our watches and gasped that it was after midnight, heh. I really ought to do that more often; I like hosting my friends and us gossiping around a table until all hours. Plus, it's good motivation to keep things a bit tidier around here!
And it felt good to show off progress in the library/my office. Still need to figure out the desk situation; still need to frame the art I want to hang up in there; still want this rug to drape over the back of the glider chair. And I need to figure out a good reading lamp. But now that we've been here almost five years, figuring out how to make things the way we want; what we want to change, what we want to keep.
*
I never did post about our Super Bowl menu, but we made:
- Seattle: Teriyaki Wings, because it's a thing; every Seattle local friend I've ever visited there has taken me out for teriyaki there.
- Boston: Miso Clam Chowder. Used the Saveur recipe as a base, then to get it closer to Oga-style, added an assortment of Japanese mushrooms. Subbed out the cream for coconut milk, but that swung the flavor profile significantly more Thai, so I may need to consider other options if I want it to taste like Oga's. And I'll go ahead and pick up some ume next time for a topping, I think it needs just a bit of that fermented sourness to taste right.
I ran out of steam before making it to the Boston Cream Pie (Joanne Chang's, of course), but I did also make a smoked salmon dip: cream cheese, lemon juice, dill, onion powder, green onions, garlic, chili crisp, and smoked salmon on top.
Daily Happiness
Mar. 10th, 2026 07:28 pmtorachan1. I fried up some frozen croquettes to go with the leftover curry tonight and they were so good. Nothing like a crispy croquette fresh from the frying oil!
2. I was worried that daylight savings might throw me off my morning schedule, since I did wake up an hour late on Sunday, but yesterday and today I've woken up at my usual time, despite it technically being an hour earlier now, so fingers crossed that it continues. I like the time I wake up now because it gives me plenty of time to take a long morning walk, do all my morning chores, and have breakfast without even feeling the least bit rushed about starting work, and I really don't want to have to be waking up with an alarm in order to do that.
3. The annoying lady at work who recently moved into my office and was at the desk next to mine messaged me Friday that she is leaving the company and Monday would be her last day and she was sorry she wouldn't see me to tell me in person. I don't like, hate her or anything, but she is just low level annoying, and as seen by her text, for some reason thinks that we are closer friends than we are, so I am glad that she will no longer be at the desk next to mine.
4. I haven't seen Tuxie around today, but hopefully he will come around tomorrow like nothing happened and lounge on his cardboard scratcher again.
2. I was worried that daylight savings might throw me off my morning schedule, since I did wake up an hour late on Sunday, but yesterday and today I've woken up at my usual time, despite it technically being an hour earlier now, so fingers crossed that it continues. I like the time I wake up now because it gives me plenty of time to take a long morning walk, do all my morning chores, and have breakfast without even feeling the least bit rushed about starting work, and I really don't want to have to be waking up with an alarm in order to do that.
3. The annoying lady at work who recently moved into my office and was at the desk next to mine messaged me Friday that she is leaving the company and Monday would be her last day and she was sorry she wouldn't see me to tell me in person. I don't like, hate her or anything, but she is just low level annoying, and as seen by her text, for some reason thinks that we are closer friends than we are, so I am glad that she will no longer be at the desk next to mine.
4. I haven't seen Tuxie around today, but hopefully he will come around tomorrow like nothing happened and lounge on his cardboard scratcher again.
a moment of hilarity
Mar. 10th, 2026 12:03 pmthistleingreyMy mother has recently upgraded her phone. When I tried moving the SIM card from the old one to the new one, my fingers couldn't get it seated properly. The old one has a proper tray; her new one has a slim, bottomless frame. Perhaps they've changed the SIM spec and we need to swap the little card, I thought (that's what was wrong the last time I couldn't lodge a SIM in a new phone). My mother and I agreed to meet at the phone carrier's nearest retail shop.
The staffer at the shop was neutrally matter-of-fact as she clicked the SIM into its frame. Thanks, kind staffer.
Just my fingers' insufficiency of sensory feedback, and my long habit of being gentle with tiny bits of hardware, lest they snap. I guess the positive part is that while repeatedly mis-orienting the SIM, I could tell that my fingers were about to snap the little frame, but it feels like an enormous waste of time to have had to go to the shop, after I'd set up everything else on the new phone. (Less than an hour round trip, including my stop for a takeout lunch on the return, but still, a waste.) I apologized to my mother afterwards, and she shrugged and gestured to my cane; for her, those things go together. For me they don't!
OTOH, these are ways that one may learn about current capabilities and limitations, while still taking classes remotely and before attempting to find a paying job likely to be less kind about unexpected physical deficits that almost no one my age who can walk into an office would have. I've applied to a few long-shot jobs over the past year, and that's done.
From another angle: I've had the good fortune to seek employment in each decade of my age so far. IME, folks who sought new jobs mostly in their twenties---and not since---are likely to have the unadjusted false idea that one looks for whatever one can do. In middle age, one checks also for what one cannot reasonably do, to save some time/effort all around: if a hiring manager wouldn't believe in the possibility, there's not much point in trying to convince them. Atop that, I guess, is stuff like abrupt gaps in dexterity for a person with otherwise (even now) above-average dexterity.
(Once, as hiring manager in lieu, I declined to interview a former stay-at-home parent reentering the workforce who posited in a cover letter that homeschooling several kids was equivalent to managing multi-month office projects. No, it's also challenging, complex work, but one mode doesn't confer the skills of the other mode, and the open job req wasn't entry level.)
The staffer at the shop was neutrally matter-of-fact as she clicked the SIM into its frame. Thanks, kind staffer.
Just my fingers' insufficiency of sensory feedback, and my long habit of being gentle with tiny bits of hardware, lest they snap. I guess the positive part is that while repeatedly mis-orienting the SIM, I could tell that my fingers were about to snap the little frame, but it feels like an enormous waste of time to have had to go to the shop, after I'd set up everything else on the new phone. (Less than an hour round trip, including my stop for a takeout lunch on the return, but still, a waste.) I apologized to my mother afterwards, and she shrugged and gestured to my cane; for her, those things go together. For me they don't!
OTOH, these are ways that one may learn about current capabilities and limitations, while still taking classes remotely and before attempting to find a paying job likely to be less kind about unexpected physical deficits that almost no one my age who can walk into an office would have. I've applied to a few long-shot jobs over the past year, and that's done.
From another angle: I've had the good fortune to seek employment in each decade of my age so far. IME, folks who sought new jobs mostly in their twenties---and not since---are likely to have the unadjusted false idea that one looks for whatever one can do. In middle age, one checks also for what one cannot reasonably do, to save some time/effort all around: if a hiring manager wouldn't believe in the possibility, there's not much point in trying to convince them. Atop that, I guess, is stuff like abrupt gaps in dexterity for a person with otherwise (even now) above-average dexterity.
(Once, as hiring manager in lieu, I declined to interview a former stay-at-home parent reentering the workforce who posited in a cover letter that homeschooling several kids was equivalent to managing multi-month office projects. No, it's also challenging, complex work, but one mode doesn't confer the skills of the other mode, and the open job req wasn't entry level.)