Cav's Place

It’s a good thing I managed to build a tiny buffer and can add a few personal posts in a row again, because it seems to be the only way to get two posts this week, and that’s because I managed to write about November 18 and 19 earlier and can post this bit now. The idea was to split that week in two posts, even having the first five days in one and just the last two in another, or at least split it more or less in half, so four or at the very least three days in the first, but at this point I’m wondering how I’ll manage to write about this week over the weekend, so there’s no way to add more to this as well and I’m just throwing it here, including just those two days, and I’ll see when I’ll get around to the rest. That may well only happen after the end of the year, and at this point it seems likely that there will be three posts, but maybe I’ll manage to do better after all, somehow.

With Carrefour having its “Payment With PET” campaign again, in Bucharest between November 18 and 24, I was obviously going to take advantage of it, making use of the bottles we still had, even if I thought that was going to mean walking some 16 km per day, since I’m not using public transportation under the current circumstances and the location was supposed to be Orhideea. However, after getting up at 10:25 AM on that first day, I checked and found a mere comment on a post on their Facebook page, a post that wasn’t even the most recent one, that said the location had been changed to Baneasa, which meant going from 16 km on a simple route to at least 24 km on one I had to learn! And there was also no hot water at all, but I just hoped the issue will be resolved by the time I’ll get back, worked out and wrote down the route on a slip of paper and went out at 12:30 PM.
There was also light rain that day, on and off, and a lot of moisture in the air, and needing to learn the route meant I was out in that weather even longer. The first issue was just where the unknown route started, at Obor, as I had written it down from there but couldn’t remember just how to get to the first street I had on that slip of paper, so I wandered around that area for a bit until I found it, in the process also finding a pastry place, with a few cakes too, that I considered getting pretzels from on the way back. Was again rather uncertain about the next street, but got it right without wandering around, and then it was easy, just a long way to go, though when I finally got there I ended up going around that huge parking lot on the sidewalk instead of entering it directly and going through.
Found the place where the bottles were being gathered quickly once I was there, left the 20 I had, that being the maximum allowed per day, and then went in that mall just after 3:10 PM. Expected the place you got the fruits and vegetables from to be right at the entrance to Carrefour though, and since it was around the corner, inside, I didn’t spot it right away and went to the other entrance, only then going in and all the way back, until I finally spotted it there and got four Kapia peppers, weighing a total of 582 grams, four Bianca peppers, the girl giving me tiny ones, so they only weighed a total of 280 grams, four heads of celery, with leaves, which I didn’t weigh after getting back since they’re normally sold by the piece, four leeks, weighing a total of 880 grams, two cabbages, weighing a total of 2.033 kg, and two cauliflowers, weighing a total of 2.124 kg. They only had small paper bags though, and everything had to be put in them, and the girl was supposed to staple them and seal them with a sticker, but that only worked for the peppers, which went in one bag which she could seal properly. Then she had to tear the leaves off the celery and stuff them in after the roots, and bend the leeks to make them at least fit to some extent, those bags and the one with the cauliflower only being stapled and “sealed” in a corner, and she couldn’t close the one with the cabbages at all, so she just put a sticker on it and that was that.
After that, I got the cat food and the roll of plastic bags I had been asked to look for, then wandered around, searching for the area with expiring products, eventually finding it but not seeing anything interesting. Then I spent a long time arranging the stuff in dad’s backpack, just crouching next to the area where food could be donated for poor children. He gave me that backpack for that period, and it was large enough for the bottles, properly flattened and arranged, but there was no way to fit everything I had taken in it and I ended up choosing a solution that was much worse than the first one I tried. Had managed to get the cabbage, cauliflower and celery roots into one of the medium pockets of the backpack, which was great, but then couldn’t fit the cat food in the larger one, and instead of getting the other stuff in there and then being left to just carry one bag of cat food in each hand, perfectly balanced and quite light, I first struggled for quite a while to first get the cat food in that medium pocket and move what had been in it to the large one. When that proved impossible, I left the cauliflower out and tried to put it in a small bag, but its handle tore right off, so I removed the celery leaves from the bag they had been in, in the backpack, to put the cauliflower in it and carry it in one hand, and had the peppers and leeks, still in their paper bags, in the other bag, for the other hand.
It was 4:35 PM when I finally left that mall, after also taking a toilet break, but before finally leaving that area I stopped a few more times, and for quite a while, to arrange the backpack’s straps, then to untie and retie my hood, and I still had to keep rearranging a strap all the way back, since it kept slipping no matter how much I tried to arrange it. And that way back was longer than it should have been, since I missed a turn and ended up going straight. Realized it after a while, when I reached the back of Herastrau Park, but since I knew where I was then but not how far back that missed turn was, I didn’t go back, resetting my mental map and making my way back from there, even if that meant walking even more. Was a bit uncertain as I went around the park though, and when I reached the intersection with the main entrance and needed to cross through the metro station entrance anyway, I looked for a map, finding none at the first entrance and still none after going in right up to the turnstyles, but there was one at the exit. It was really high, I could barely make out anything, but since I just wanted a clarification, it was enough.
Since I was using that route, I also meant to use the opportunity to check out a restaurant I was going to be able to get some free food from, but there had been no reason to actually check the address before leaving and it turned out it wasn’t actually on that street. But I did at least get back to that pastry place and got two pretzels. Was worried they won’t have any left, since it was 7 PM, but they still did. Not long before that, I had stepped in quite a puddle while looking for a sign indicating street names, and it had also drizzled all the way, so I was quite wet when I got back, at 7:55 PM, having apparently walked some 13 km to get there and just about 14 km back, carrying almost 14 kg on the way back as well. With most of the weight in the backpack, however, it seemed rather easy, even if my back wasn’t quite happy with it and the backpack caused quite a few issues on that first day, the worst being just as I was getting close, at a stoplight where you need to run to cross all the way while it’s still green, where it slipped completely off my shoulders, both straps just hanging on my arms, which I therefore had to hold away from my body as I ran. But it was all fine in the end, and the hot water had also returned, so that wasn’t a problem either.

The next day it was almost 12:25 PM when I got up, when dad left, but that was pretty much as planned. It was past 2:50 PM when I was finally out, but had no more problems with the route, the only delay being one that became the norm after that, needing to stop at another mall that’s on the way, to pee, finding toilets quickly and being back on my way five minutes after going in. So I was in Carrefour, getting my vegetables, at 5:20 PM, and I got the usual four Kapia peppers, weighing 441 grams, four beets, weighing 581 grams, four parsnip roots, weighing 199 grams, four squashes, weighing 775 grams, and four eggplants, weighing 1.020 kg. And the problem with the bags had been solved as well, so large ones were available.
After that, just bought bananas for dad and a few more lemons, but also looked at a few other things and again spent quite some time arranging everything in the backpack. That and the fact that I peed again as well meant I only got back out of that mall just under one hour after going in, but the lack of large products meant that everything easily fit in the backpack and it was much easier to carry, and when I got back I found that the backpack and everything in it weighed less than 6 kg.
It was too late to buy stuff again on the way back, but I passed by three pastry places that were just dumping the remaining products in the trash as they closed. Or, well, I didn’t clearly see one doing so, it just seemed like it, but actually saw it done at the other two places, what was left just being taken and dumped in the trash, which was just infuriating when that food should be donated instead. When I first saw it done, when I passed the first such place, I thought I should have asked for what was still left, only paying for the paper bags or something, but couldn’t get myself to do so.
Either way, got the route right on the way back as well, though not on the first try everywhere, since I got confused when switching roads and went back and forth a bit, twice, and once I had to find a way to cross since I was on the wrong side and there’s no crossing in that area. All of it only added some 500-600 meters, however, so I walked 12 km to get there and some 12.5 km back, and was back at 8:55 PM. Then, after weighing and putting the stuff away and showering, made mamaliga at night.

Sunday morning it was past 5:20 AM when I went to bed, again worried about the right side of my mouth, though the pain I felt then seemed to come from one of the bottom teeth, so it’s an additional concern and things aren’t getting better. But it was, and still is, just a little pain and it wasn’t like I could do much about it then, so I went to bed and, somewhat surprisingly, only woke up for the first time just before 11:05 AM, when I decided to stay up, quickly grabbed something to eat and left to vote just before noon.
Nobody took my temperature, though it should have been required, and two women were standing on either side of the door of the room I had to go to, which didn’t allow me to keep the distance, but they told me to come in and otherwise things were quick and fine, with just one other person being in a booth when I went in and one more coming when I was retrieving my ID card, the person who was there telling me to get the sticker and place it on the card myself, though the other one had again gone against the regulations and handled it herself. I also used the pen that was there, since I had my own but wasn’t quite certain it was blue, and when I moved to take it out of my pocket I was asked if it was blue, and when I said I wasn’t sure I was told to use that one, since they’ll apparently get in trouble if signatures were in any other color. The somewhat interesting bit happened before and after I voted though, since as I was heading in, someone came out of another room, asking whether anyone had taken an ID card, and when I got out I saw her talking to the gendarmes who were there, who were advising her to go to the police and report that her ID card was taken.
Had a quick look inside this Mega Image on the way back, finding nothing interesting, and was back at 12:10 PM, taking a shower soon after that. Later, I finished Thief, put together the quick review for it, and advanced a little more in Witch’s Wake as well. So I guess the day was somewhat productive, but the next one was probably more notable from that point of view, since that’s when I finally managed to clean my room a little, and Tuesday I also changed the sheets.

Since I got to Tuesday, it snowed again then, so I took the opportunity to go out. It’d have been better to do so the next day, some more snow falling overnight and less of it melting over the day, but I couldn’t know that then, so I decided to stay up after waking up the second time, at 11:10 AM, and left at 12:45 PM. The snow was again melting by then, and it was even drizzling, so there were puddles and slush to deal with, but if the main idea was to take a slightly longer route to the Kaufland at Vitan, to look for a glass baking tray that was on sale, once outside I decided to first go to this Carrefour from the park. Didn’t find anything interesting there though, but then I also decided to make another detour, to that Auchan as well, because dad had said that Micky needed more food and, while she still had enough for the next few days, I was worried he’ll buy more at a higher price. However, I was the one who ended up paying more, getting a few and later finding that they were going to have a significant discount at Kaufland just when he planned to go there with my mother, on Thursday.
He hadn’t brought the next Kaufland catalog from anywhere, and while I had checked the next sales on their site the day before, the fact that they had reintroduced daily sales wasn’t listed there, so I just grabbed one of the catalogs after getting there and was left shaking my head when I saw that all pet food was going to be 30% off just on Thursday. But there was nothing I could do about it at that point, so I grabbed this month’s National Geographic and then went to look at that tray, carefully taking one out of the box and ending up discussing it for a bit with a woman who had stopped next to me. I asked whether she was waiting for me to take it out and she said she was, and after I did and we both had a look, she pointed out that the two trays were made to fit, so they won’t slide away when one will be used as the lid. Then she asked about the price, since I was standing in front of the label, but walked away without getting one for herself just then. So I had a closer look, and while I spotted a possible tiny issue, I thought it wasn’t worth opening another because of that, so I just put it back in the box and used the self-checkout without problems.
When I got out of there, it seemed to be snowing again, or perhaps it was sleet, and since I had the box in a bag, it got quite wet by the time I got back here, but I doubt we’ll be returning it for that to be an issue, and it probably shouldn’t be even if we will. Either way, I also stopped by that cheaper pharmacy, and after again spending some time waiting outside, even though just two people were ahead of me when I got there, the cashier also charged me the rounded amount, not giving me 0.10 RON as change. That struck me as odd, since they are so careful to fix their prices to always be 0.10 RON below those of that other pharmacy that I’d otherwise prefer to go to, since you can get many of the products yourself from there, without having to ask, but I couldn’t get myself to actually ask for that change and just walked away, getting back here a bit after 3:50 PM… And only then realizing that my mask had been on backwards, as in with the colored part towards my face. I have no idea how that happened when I don’t recall making such a mistake even early on, when I was just starting to use masks, but it did.

This week’s run was yesterday. I didn’t mean to run this week at first, but if there was a break in the rain yesterday afternoon, I went for it. The alarm was supposed to ring at 1 PM, but I saw 12:44 PM when I woke up the second time and got up then, having the usual stuff plus hazelnuts, the yogurt being the last of those “creamy” ones with 5% fat, and the sweet thing a slice of some cake received by dad, with added jam. The weather being cloudy, with a reported temperature of 4°C and possible continued drizzle, meant I had to switch to the old training suit, however, also having the t-shirt and undershirt I wear inside underneath, and had that thing I can wear on my neck on as well, pulling it up on the way to the park so I won’t put on a mask until after I finished running. Also had the old gloves and the jacket, the latter only for the walk, obviously being tied around my waist while running, and left at 3:30 PM, after leaving only the tiniest bit in the toilet, despite feeling like I had to go.
Well, that jacket and the changed clothes ended up being a problem, since I misjudged how tight I had to tie it around my waist and on sector two of lap two it started feeling like it was slipping, being pretty much on my butt and each step lifting it from the front as well by the start of lap three. Still, maybe it’d have stayed there if I’d have just left it as it was, but on sector two of lap three I tried pulling it up, and that unbalanced it, the stuff in its inside pocket making it twist around and start to unroll, soon feeling like it was about to slide down and trip me, and I also worried about losing what I had in the pocket. So I grabbed the side that was coming loose and held it, trying towards the end of the sector to stuff it under the sleeves that were tied around my waist, to free my hand to press the button on the stopwatch. But that made it even looser, so from the next sector I had to hold it constantly, switching hands a few times, and from the end of the lap I also had to hold the glove I had taken back off, to be able to press the button. And at the very end I wanted to make sure I’ll press it at the right time, since I couldn’t look at the watch as I crossed what I consider to be the finish line, and holding my hands the way I needed to for that made for a rather awkward running posture, so forget about sprinting and that little leap at the end, I was just sort of jogging. Without slowing down even more in that manner, I should have managed to just squeeze under two minutes on that sector, despite sort of just walking up those stairs and mostly jogging on the final straight, exhausted after pushing as hard as I had over sectors two and three of lap three in order to compensate for what I was losing because of the jacket and with my nostrils also closing in the cold air.
The thing is that, with the changed clothes, the low temperature and the fact that it was wet, so there were puddles to go around and the paved areas and those where leaves hadn’t been cleared away were a bit slippery, I was thinking that staying under 48:30 would be just great, and unexpected, so I’d be content with staying under 49 minutes and not terribly disappointed even if I’d just stay under 50 minutes. As such, considering the added issues with the jacket, I was quite pleased with 48:47.62, with sector times of 4:14.67, 5:08 (5:07.42), 6:01.09, 4:34.62, 5:08 (5:07.30), 5:58.48, 4:36.07, 5:05.28, 6:03 (6:02.08) and 2:00.61, making for lap times of 15:23.18, 15:40.40 and 15:44 (15:43.43). Just to show how hard I pushed while trying to compensate, lap three wasn’t much slower than two, and its sector two was actually the fastest. Admittedly, the one roadblock was on sector one of lap two, a guy from the edge of that large group stepping to fill the tiny gap I meant to use just as I was reaching them, making me need to slam on the brakes and go around, and also from the start of lap two I felt my toes going numb, those from the right foot more than those from the left, and that seemed to cause me to run somewhat awkwardly, at least for a while, since I tried to correct my posture after I realized it.

After the run, I put my mask and jacket on and jogged to that Carrefour, getting garlic and onions. Was hoping to be back at 5 PM, for ski jumping, but that’d have been next to impossible in the first place, and then it also took a while to pick somewhat better garlic from the pile and even more to get a quantity that added up to how much I meant to spend. Strangely, after finally managing that, I wanted to weigh the bag again on the way to the checkout, just to be sure, and the scales I used that second time listed the weight as being some 25 grams less, so I printed another label and used that, carefully placing it over the first one. It was just starting to drizzle again when I got out, but I meant to rush anyway, so I jogged most of the way back as well, and was here at 5:20 PM. And then, with dad working again, I made mamaliga in the evening, adding quite a few other things, most of which were spoiling there in the fridge, and really stuffed myself at night.

Otherwise, Tuesday I also started that booklet, and while it’d have been easy to finish in one day, I didn’t care to do so and only finished it two days later, also writing the quick review then, the one on Goodreads being in both English and Romanian. And, speaking of Thursday, that morning it was past 5:20 AM when I went to bed, so the fact that it wasn’t even 5:10 AM when I did so yesterday morning can be seen as a small achievement.
And now that I got back to yesterday, apparently my hosting provider migrated my site then, the e-mail I received only hours before the procedure stating that all sites on that server were being migrated. It said nothing should change in the vast majority of cases and I haven’t noticed any other issues, so if anyone happens to be reading this and does notice something odd, do let me know. However, the migration might have included a security upgrade, since I again find myself unable to access anything in Internet Explorer, when the plan was to probably switch the handful of other sites I still use it for to Vivaldi as of next month, when it’ll be a full year after it stopped receiving support, and pretty much just keep it for this one use, to keep this separate from any other browsing. We’ll see if it’ll just suddenly fix itself again or not, but for some reason, instead of trying to log on in that, in order to continue to separate it from the rest, this made me finally get around to uninstalling that old version of Firefox I still had last night.

Received this booklet after volunteering for something, even if there was some confusion and I arrived when the work was nearly done. It’s a selection from the Moral Letters to Lucilius and I just went through it quickly, so I won’t comment much. There’s little point to comment on the writing of something that’s some 2000 years old anyway, though I will say that I don’t care for the epistolary style either, and it’s quite rambling at times.
Still, it is a philosophical text, and while proper comments about philosophy require far more time and attention than I’m willing to offer this at the moment, the fact that it’s an effort to turn someone into a Stoic does make me say that I find most of the main tenets of Stoicism quite infuriating. There are some good parts, definitely, and some that are mixed, but there are also contradictions and fundamental concepts that, as I already stated, I find quite infuriating and rotten, starting with the core concept that inner happiness is what matters and it should be generated and maintained regardless of what happens, that external events must be accepted as they are, not seen as good or bad and not allowed to affect that positive state of mind. That bears a striking resemblance to the crap pushed by the modern professional mental health field, which blames the victims for not grinning and bearing whatever is done to them or the less fortunate for wishing to have access to the benefits that society should be able to grant and therefore discourages or even condemns demanding improvement.

Rating: 2/5

Maybe the book itself isn’t quite as unimaginative as its title, but it’s not far either. It’s easy to read and I could “see” what was going on, but that’s likely less thanks to the writing and more because it’s such a typical setting. The world and action are what you’d expect, the heroes are suitably heroic, with perhaps a bit of an exception for the lead character, the villains are suitably villainous, without being over the top but also without anything to make any element interesting. It’s like a writer of perhaps passable skill but with pretty much no experience set her mind on checking the basic boxes for a fantasy series, or for the first book of one, in this particular case, without daring to even try to get to the more advanced parts of the list.
As a plain, basic, typical early effort, it can’t really be said that it failed at anything. However, if it was to be published at all, it should have first gone through a massive editing process. And I’m not referring to typos, missing or misplaced words or punctuation problems, though there are some of those as well, but to how amateurish it all is. The writing is rather messy and the main problems are the structure, flow and story and character development. It’s all rough, rushed, pretty much as plain and typical as you can get, without any actual tension, twists, surprises, bits of wisdom, touching moments or anything else that’d make it interesting, provoke an emotional response or otherwise make it memorable. I have read worse, and at least it’s free, but it’s the sort of early attempt that more accomplished authors either try to bury or, if it was rejected and they didn’t self-publish back in the day, may only, and probably with some amount of embarrassment, get persuaded to release after they’re sufficiently famous for the publishers to know that their fans will grab just about anything with their name on it.

Rating: 2/5

Since I’m still leaving the huge post, or posts, about those long walks for some other time, this one will just be about this week, though I’ll also mention that last Saturday, so on November 28, there were again no visits recorded in either view. At this point, I don’t even know whether I’ll have those posts by the end of the year, with the priorities being reading the three more books I need to read to get to 12 this year and finishing Witch’s Wake, to finally, finally finish all of Neverwinter Nights: Diamond and also be able to claim finishing five games this year, if I cheat a little and count those additional modules as one, separately from Kingmaker…

Getting to the point, Monday it snowed a little, so I went out to “greet” the season’s first snow. I should have done so earlier though, since it was melting by the time I actually did, so I mostly had to deal with puddles and slush, but took the recyclables, including a whole pile of those things I take to Kaufland, first went to drop off the rest in a bin, then left those on the sidewalk to quickly check a Mega Image on the way, retrieved them, left them again on the sidewalk before entering Penny, got a few things from there, retrieved them again, and finally dropped them off after I got to Kaufland. Just had a look through Kaufland, but found expiring sour cream with 30% fat at a fair discount, so got some for something I meant to make again, then also checked Carrefour, finding unsliced bread of that kind that I get from there, and which was still on sale, so I got one of those. On the way back, after going back and forth for a bit, since I wasn’t sure of the location anymore, I returned to a new bakery I had noticed and quickly checked out the first time I passed it, buying two things, just to see how they are. And then, since I mentioned those priorities, in the evening I started the very unimaginatively named Thief, picked up for free back in 2016, not that it’s not free even now, and I’m close to finishing it, so the quick review for it will need to be the week’s second post.

After receiving an SMS stating that volunteers were wanted, Tuesday and Wednesday, to help put together packages for the poor, I meant to go, but the SMS asked those interested to reply to it, which I can’t, so I sent an e-mail. After receiving no reply to that by Monday night, I also sent a message on Facebook to the NGO the person who had sent the SMS works with and then, when there was no reply to either even after I woke up Tuesday afternoon, another e-mail, both to the person who had sent that SMS and to the NGO, and only then did I receive a reply with the link to register at. Why couldn’t that have been included in the original SMS, no idea, but it meant I couldn’t go Tuesday, since it was past 5 PM when I saw that reply, it’d have obviously taken me some time to get ready, the location was over an hour’s walk away and the work was supposed to finish at 8 PM. But she said she thought they still needed people, and I could go the next day, when dad also said he wanted to drive me there, even if it meant going in the opposite direction of the one he had to go in, so I planned to go then.
As such, after getting in bed at 5:20 AM, I found myself awake at 11:35 AM and wondering what to do, since I had set the alarm to ring at noon. Didn’t turn it off then though, getting back under the blanket and probably even getting a few more minutes of sleep, before my internal clock again worked really well and I found myself up and turning off the alarm at 11:59 AM. It was a bit after 1:30 PM when I left with dad and we got there quickly, but the location was a warehouse at the back of an industrial park and I wasn’t sure how to reach it. Had seen what should have been a straight route on the map though, and he couldn’t drive through there, so he left me in the parking lot and I walked that way until I saw a closed gate and a guard. So I approached the guard and asked him about the warehouse where volunteers were supposed to make some packages Tuesday and Wednesday, and whether volunteers were still needed at that moment, but he knew nothing about it, repeatedly saying that the public was allowed there on Mondays but eventually telling me how to go around the restricted area and reach the main warehouse from the other side.
Well, that turned out to be the relatively straightforward part, since I was there around 2 PM, looking at that main warehouse, which didn’t seem like a place anyone could just enter, but also seeing stairs leading up to what the sign stated was another NGO. I didn’t think they were involved in this, but someone was just coming down those stairs and she asked where I wanted to go, and when I mumbled something about volunteering she told me to go up to that NGO and also shouted to a guy to let him know a guy’s coming up. But when that guy showed me in, I found an office with three women who had no idea what I was talking about, but definitely wanted to help. I couldn’t immediately tell them which NGO I was supposed to be volunteering for, as that information hadn’t been included in the messages from the other one, but when they said a name I recognized it and said that’s probably it, and also gave them the contact name and number listed in the e-mail, saying I can’t call from my phone. They didn’t call that person though, instead calling someone else they knew from that NGO, giving her my number and telling me to go back down and wait for her to call me, which she did a bit later. She couldn’t figure out how to explain how to get from where I was to the warehouse I was actually supposed to get to though, repeating something about a barrier and saying I was very close to that warehouse, could certainly see it from there, but there was a fence in the way and they never get there the way I did, so she didn’t know how to tell me to get around it. Eventually she told me to wait right there and someone will come and get me, but instead, quite some time later, someone from that other NGO called me back up and showed me on her laptop, and also out the window, just which way to go.
The thing is that, since I was there, I don’t think it made any difference that I had arrived from the other direction, and the gate I went through was just behind the stairs I used to get to that other NGO, so it should have been very easy to explain if we’d have understood each other. But I guess I couldn’t really explain anything either and she realized that talking just increased the confusion on all sides, so she had to find a way to work around it and as a result I only reached that warehouse around 2:30 PM or so… Which was just before they finished, that lost half an hour probably making the difference between being at least a little bit useful and mostly a nuisance, which I guess I ended up being.
Still, when I finally got there, the one in charge asked the three girls who seemed to be the only volunteers how many bags they still had to put together and they said ten, and that they didn’t need me to help them with that, but she insisted to include me, since I was there, and I likely ended up costing them some time, as one had to explain to me what to do and I just put together two by the time they finished the rest. But someone drove in while I was doing that, starting to load some of the bags, and I asked the coordinator if I could help with that and she agreed. That again resulted in a bit of lost time, since I went right to it and had to immediately stop, learning that there were two different kinds of bags and they were counting exactly how many they were taking of each kind, so I left them to finish with the first kind, and when the guy took the first two of the second kind, I heard him say that he needed 22 of those, so I brought the other 20 to the car, leaving him to just put them inside. Then I helped the girl gathering the empty cardboard boxes and crates, and I think she left me to it after a while, and at the end also put some more apples and oranges in bags, after seeing a girl start doing so and being told how many should be in each, only stopping when I ran out of bags. By then, the girls had gathered around the coordinator, chatting and receiving some rewards for their work, and when one of them came back to grab some apples and oranges for herself and I asked whether they had any more bags she said they did, but I should just leave the rest in the crates, as they’ll take them to children and they’ll be easier to carry that way.
The coordinator had offered me some coffee or water earlier and I had refused, and I didn’t try to get anything for myself or even join them when they were still gathered there, feeling that I didn’t deserve anything after only getting there at the end and probably getting in the way more than I helped, but the coordinator gave me some cards and a booklet, and insisted that I should change my mask, so I threw mine away and took a new one from the box she offered. Had been feeling rather self-conscious about that, since the rest of them had more serious masks and I just had a regular surgical one, and replacing it with a similar one right at the end wouldn’t have done anything for their safety, but I did so since she insisted. And I also ended up with a muesli bar that the coordinator gave me just as I was about to leave, saying it was “for the road” if I didn’t want anything else.
The strange thing was that she could open the main gate in that fence, letting me out that way! The girls were asking where to drop me off, seeming to assume they’ll drive me out of that industrial park and at least to the nearest bus stop, if we won’t have a longer common route, but after awkwardly trying to figure out what to say, I eventually, and quite firmly, said that if I walked there, I could walk back as well, at which point the coordinator said that in that case she’ll open the gate so I’ll at least be able to get straight back and did so, only telling me to rush out so it’ll close again immediately. Yes, those at the other NGO hadn’t talked to her, but the person they did talk to should have known she could do that, so I wonder why didn’t she do it from the beginning, letting me in that way. Either way, I was through that gate and back on the other side of that fence a bit before 3:25 PM, so I spent no more than an hour, and probably a bit less, in there, including that time spent standing around at the end.

Since I walked back from there and it was on the way, I first stopped at the Auchan from Vitan. Really needed to pee by the time I got there, but after I took care of that problem I bought a few things, including the last small bag of raisins of the cheapest kind that I could find, also for that thing I meant to make again, and which I did make that evening, and more of Liza’s food, since I was there… Only to later see that it was going to be discounted at Carrefour starting the next day. Admittedly, the difference between Auchan’s regular price and Carrefour’s discounted one was just 0.01 RON, so a total difference of 0.20 RON, but it at least meant I didn’t need to get and carry it from there then. But I didn’t know that at the time, so I got those things, then made my way back, getting here at 5:50 PM. That was after making two more stops though, the first at a small store that advertised cheap eggs, asking what kind they were but not getting any when I saw that they were type three, and then at the Carrefour from the park, having a quick look but not getting anything from there either. What was quite unpleasant was that there was no hot water when I got back, and the situation didn’t change until I went to bed, at 5:20 AM, so I ended up finally taking a shower when I first woke up to pee, getting back to bed after that.

Moving on to Thursday, for some reason the Kindle software updated automatically when I tried to open it in order to continue reading and the new version refused to start. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but that didn’t fix it, and uninstalling again and using the version 1.12 installer I had saved produced the same result. I think I had 1.16 before, but hadn’t downloaded that installer after updating to that version, I believe after being forced to do so back then. Fortunately, a quick search revealed an archived installer of version 1.17, which others facing a similar problem for quite some time were saying worked, and it worked for me as well… Though I forgot to disable automatic updates at first, so it automatically updated again to 1.30, again failing to work, so I had to reinstall 1.17 again.
Well, dad got back as I was struggling with that, and I didn’t immediately go out of my room, staying here until I sorted things out… And he just turned on his computer. I didn’t know it at first, since he didn’t say anything either and I found him eating in the kitchen when I did get there, and the door to the living room was closed, but when he went back to the living room I saw that he had his e-mail open… At which point he just blatantly lied to my face, saying that he had just connected then, asking if I hadn’t seen him plug the cable in, which was of course impossible, since I had followed him there and there’d have been no way for him to plug the cable back in and open a site in pretty much no time. And I confirmed that by checking the logs after he went back to the kitchen, but I didn’t tell him that, only asking again how come he was on-line when he said he hadn’t been, and he calmly said he didn’t know, but would ask me why hadn’t I unplugged his network cable while the computer was off, so it won’t connect when he’ll turn it on if I didn’t come out the moment he got back. So he just blatantly lied to my face, again, and both were connected for some 20 minutes, again making me feel even more anxious than usual even about using my computer.
And on that note, another piece of software messed up in the evening, not long before midnight, my UPS doing a battery self-test and its software apparently turning itself off when it should have notified me that it had passed. I heard the UPS switch to battery, realized that it was testing when it lasted more than a couple of seconds and we weren’t having a blackout, heard the notification sound once it switched back, but didn’t see the message bubble, so I meant to check the software and found that its icon was gone from the notification area, and it didn’t reappear after I opened it from the Start menu either, so I rebooted. Things seem normal since then, and the entry in system logs states that the self-test was indeed passed, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about the battery just yet, even if it is quite old, and all that mess with the Kindle software earlier might have messed some other things up as well, but it was yet another reason for concern.

As for this week’s run, it was yesterday. Had moved the alarm from noon to 1 PM before going to bed in the morning, but a little after 12:10 PM those doing surveys called again and woke me up. Heard nothing when I answered, so there wasn’t even a survey to take, probably took too long to answer, so I only did that quick survey, basically just asking who I’ll vote for, this morning, when they again woke me up, this time at 9:45 AM. Either way, after yesterday’s call, got back under the blanket for a bit, relying on the alarm in case I’ll fall asleep, but don’t think I did and eventually got up at 12:35 PM. Then had the usual stuff plus hazelnuts, the yogurt again being one of those “creamy” ones with 5% fat, but before that I “managed” to spill some tea just after taking it off the stove, and a bit ended up on my hand, burning me a little. It wasn’t bad though, so I again also had those nicer biscuits as well, though this time I added jam instead of honey, not wanting to open a new jar of honey just yet, and put on the full running gear, this time leaving both the undershirt and the t-shirt I wear inside on as well, and had the jacket on for the walk, tying it around my waist while running. Left just before 3:05 PM, considering also taking my gloves but eventually giving up on the idea, the reported temperature being 11°C, maybe dropping just a bit by the time I finished.
The time was 48:23.02, with sector times of 4:13.76, 5:13 (5:12.82), 6:00.29, 4:31 (4:30.84), 5:08 (5:07.60), 6:00 (5:59.73), 4:29 (4:28.98), 5:04.31, 5:55.27 and 1:50 (1:49.42), making for lap times of 15:26.87, 15:39 (15:38.17) and 15:28.56. So I was marginally slower than last week, but if I was quite pleased with myself then, after all that walking that I still don’t know when I’ll finally manage to post about, this time I was quite disappointed. And there were relatively few people, so it was mostly just a matter of some weaving and going the long way around, though there was a bit of a roadblock on sector two of lap two, followed a little later, probably on the next sector, though it might have been on the same one, by a moment when I had to take to the grass and go around a garbage can as well, and then, on sector one of lap three, by a moment when I had to pick my way through what was about to become a multiple roadblock if I wouldn’t have found that path just then. On the other hand, yes, there was some wind, and going against it even on some of the longer straights wasn’t easy, but the main problem was that I just couldn’t sustain those sprints. I’m not even sure I managed to really sprint for a full 100 meters at any point, even if there were no specific physical problems I could identify, except perhaps my back bothering me a little. Still, after the first two sectors I was thinking that I was realistically looking at 49 minutes, and will need to push to not embarrass myself even worse, so the fact that 48:30 no longer seemed impossible after sector one of lap three was an improvement, and that unexpectedly fast final sector meant that I managed that by a safe margin.

Had a look through that Carrefour again after the run, deciding to get two large bio (organic) yogurts after all but forgetting that I had seen that the cat litter was discounted again and I meant to grab at least one more bag. The way back might have been a bit tricky if I would have done so, however, since another kind of chocolate I was interested in was on sale these days, this time at Mega Image, so I first stopped at the Shop & Go that’s on the way, leaving without anything since they only had the most common type, and then at this Mega Image, which had two of the other three types, so I bought one of each. That meant spending a bit more than I meant to these days, but I had decided to buy myself some of that chocolate if I’ll stay under 48:30, so I did. Of course, deducting it out of what I have for myself means it was no reward, and I’ll have to give up on something else as a result, but I only considered rewarding myself by getting something and deducting it from the rest of the money if I at least got back under 48 minutes.

Before finishing this, I’ll also mention that I timed my squats again today, for the first time in a long time, probably since July. Certainly don’t intend to do it regularly again, but seeing that I did them in 2:09 now was nice. Otherwise, sort of thought about cleaning my room a little and changing the sheets today, but didn’t, though I really should get around to it, maybe next week, when I should also read that booklet and count it as the year’s 11th book, even if it feels rather like cheating to do so. And then I’ll see what the 12th will be, maybe after I’ll finish Witch’s Wake, assuming it’ll seem likely within the next two weeks, so I’ll have at least ten days for that last book. Not sure if I’ll also write the review for Kingmaker by the end of the year, but if the amount of time it took me to finish them and the lack of notes meant that all I wrote about the main campaigns was the quick review for Hordes of the Underdark, I do mean to at least write a proper one for this expansion, including something about each of the three modules contained in it, since this time around I do have notes, even if the “main” one also took me years to finish and it’ll therefore be harder to put something together about it even so.