Social activity is climbing back to the mean

I've been having weekly meetings with my boss, trying to train her on what I do so that she can take it over while I'm out on paternity leave. That means that she finally has first-hand experience with what I've had to deal with over the last year, and along with the meetings I've had with some of the other management, hopefully that means that change is coming. Even if it's another database, which is what happened when the last new database turned out terrible...though obviously that's a monkey's paw wish considering that the current database is somehow even worse than the last database, which was already light years worse than the custom program written for us twenty years ago.

My current productivity is roughly 10% of what it was in 2016. So much for the advance of technology.

We've been more social lately! I was originally planning to go to the Anime Chicago sampler on Saturday, at least for a bit, but instead I ended up cleaning the house for a couple hours and then going to an early Shabbat afternoon dinner at maptekar's place! She cooked a giant meal for us, with Brussels sprouts, roasted potatoes, baked lemon chicken with onions, salad with hearts of palm, and a giant bowl of fruit for dessert. She and sashagee commiserated over how annoying it was to cook for me and having to keep dairy and meat separated, we talked about our lives since I haven't really seen her other than her dropping off some parenting books since we all went to Sea Ranch last summer. sashagee got to meet maptekar's cat Lily--who is extremely fluffy--and we made havdalah at the end before we left. It was a lovely end to Shabbat!

Then on Sunday, sashagee's parents came into town and went out to brunch with us at A Taste of Heaven, a local place where we had wanted to go with aaron.hosek a couple weeks ago but which was closed on Mondays. Not on Sundays--I got walnut caramel pancakes, far outside the usual savory breakfast that I like. It was good! Definitely sweeter than I usually eat, but as an occasional treat I'll take it. And yesterday, lisekatevans came over for dinner and to have sashagee cut and color her hair, for her first haircut in over a year. I made some beef stir-fry with fresh basil and rosemary picked from the herbs that sashagee and I went to go buy a couple weeks ago and it was delicious. No drinks this time, in a rarity, but that day will come again.

sashagee has been feeling kind of isolated lately since she's been at home all the time. Under normal circumstances, she'd get a ton of social interaction through her customer service jobs and then use her time at home to unwind and relax, which is why she's been a homebody. But nowadays she's not working so the only social interaction she gets is with me, and even then less than usual because she can't sit on the couch for very long so she can't really play games or even sit with me while I work. I've been trying to do more social activities so she can get social interaction, especially since we're going to have a baby soon!

sashagee is at her parents' house right now doing laundry because we're stillwaiting on the association to get back to us about reimbursement. Hopefully this is the last time we'll have to do this!