Archive: June, 2024

I have this T-shirt that I love, that was pretty cheap and is already not in great shape. It says, "It's weird being the same age as old people." It gets a lot of LOL's.

Jokes aside, there's a lot of truth in it. "Old" is admittedly kind of subjective (unless you're talking about the dinosaurs running for president). Last year, at the big five-oh, I had a great week around my birthday, with a little local resort stay, a good friend surprising me in town and Living Colour playing Epcot. I figured that power-drinking sangria and watching a very loud rock-n-roll band probably made me less old. At the very least, I can confirm that it's not something that I recall my parents doing when they reached 50. In fact, I look around at many, but not all, of my peers, and none of us really seem old the way that Boomers did. While open to the fact that this may be because of perspective, there may be some reality to the difference. Later child rearing, different attitudes toward work and career, less emphasis on gender roles, etc., do make us objectively different.

Still, there was something psychological about the milestone last year, because this year my birthday snuck up on me. I have made zero plans. For much of my adult life, it's been the one week where I have made it a priority to say, fuck it, this is my week. I'm the priority. This year, I feel like I've been kind of avoiding thinking about it. That's lame.

For the last few months, I've been taking a hard look at my anxiety, and other feelings that generally make me uncomfortable. I'm getting closer and closer to figuring it all out. Age is a component of it, but it's not all of it. I'm realizing more and more that my age is an asset. I've objectively done a lot of shit, and know many things. The ongoing challenge is to figure out how to leverage all of that to my advantage, without being an arrogant dick about it. I also have to come to terms with the limitations of my scope of impact, as these are not flaws as much as they are reality.

I don't have any specific plans for Jeff Putz Week this year. Tonight, I'm just going to enjoy the companionship of my darling Diana, and sip a drink known as a "porn star."

Giggity.

In a fairly divided America, one of the things that I struggle with is not simply casting out the people that I disagree with. Granted, that category of people are generally those who hate or wish to oppress or punish people for no other reason than that they're different. And you can't make the circular argument that the same group of people are like the ones they're against, in terms of being targets. Those they oppose aren't against anyone as long as they can be who they are. With that in mind, I've tried to understand what the root of the difference is. A lot of people say it's environmental, the idea that if you grow up with a racist, you might be a racist. This has been going on for generations in the US, but also throughout history. My assumption is that as you get older and gain life experience, you break out of the assumptions and behaviors you may have learned early in life. We know that doesn't always happen. Why?

I'm starting to believe that it's because at some point, many, maybe most people, stop being curious. I can't explain why that happens. I do think that children are inherently curious, and it's why they learn. Up to a certain age, you can't separate an airplane from magic. Hopefully you cling to the curiosity long enough to understand the physics. But it's a head scratcher when people think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, or that the earth is flat.

There are anecdotal circumstances that I can look at in my own life, that exemplify the power of curiosity. Growing up in desegregation Cleveland, it's not hard to understand the environmental reason that I'd grow up anti-racist. But my grandfather and uncle routinely made racist jokes. My theory is that curiosity beat environment. I was curious about the island, Puerto Rico, where so many of the neighbor kids came from. I was curious about what it meant to be Black in the years near the end of the civil rights movement. Maybe most importantly, curiosity caused me to question why an authority figure like my grandfather would say such awful things about my classmates. (One time I questioned him, in middle school, and my stepfather assured me that I didn't know what I was talking about. That had a lasting impact on my relationship with him through the rest of my childhood.)

Maybe curiosity competes with fear. The latter is certainly a powerful motivator. The refrain from a lot of the haters is that "[marginalized group] is ruining the country," but they can never explain why, or how they're affected by them. There are two modes of incuriosity here. The first is that they're willing to believe someone with no particular credential is offering them truth about why you should hate on others. The second is that they won't bother to learn about the people that they loathe.

The pandemic showed us just how the incurious react to science. It seems like our culture has decided that expertise is no longer a thing. Here's a funny thing, where I'm wrong to an extent. The anti-science folks are actually curious enough to "research" things, but reject the critical thinking to validate or authenticate the information that they find. Maybe that's an inauthentic flavor or "curiosity." Regardless, it's the hardest thing for me to reconcile, because the universe is so vast and so fascinating that no one could ever have their curiosity satisfied. That indication of our place in the universe would also, you would think, lead people to spend less time on trying to punish people who aren't like them. Ain't nobody got time for that.

For now, I'm as curious as ever. There are so many things that I haven't learned, that I would like to. And engaging in those things slows time, compared to doing the daily routines. I think that's going to ultimately be my measure of life. When I stop being curious, it'll most likely be because I've ceased to exist.

I don't often dedicate entire blog posts to TV shows. My gold standard remains The Newsroom, the best show I've ever watched (admitting that my bias involves the subject of journalism, and possibly Olivia Munn who is "delightful," as her character says). I vaguely understood that The Last of Us was a thing, and that is was based on a PlayStation game. When I saw that it was among the available things on Max, which had just come into our world when Discovery and HBO merged, I kind of blew it off. It's a variation on the zombie apocalypse genre, because it involves a frighteningly plausible fungus instead of a virus, so I was thinking Resident Evil. Those movies are fantastic, but mostly because the impossibly beautiful Milla Jovovich is an unlikely action star that kills many, many zombies, over many, many movies. Last, as it turns out, is in the genre, but is far less a zombie movie and more about the relationships. I didn't see that coming.

The Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal, playing Joel, is charged with getting a kid across the country, from Boston to somewhere in Colorado. Ellie is a kid who somehow is immune to the fungal infection that pumps hallucinogenic drugs into human brains while preserving their tissue, the thing that effectively makes people zombies. The rebels believe she's the key to a vaccine, which in turn is the key to defeating the fascist disaster response agency that is keeping some kind of "order" in quarantine zones. What I find particularly fascinating about this is that there technically are not really good or bad guys. Everyone has their motivation in impossible circumstances. Except for the cult leader. He's definitely fucked up.

So the series is less about monsters and more about how people behave when society is torn down. The central focus is the relationship of Joel and Ellie, but there are so many sidebars that include incredibly well drawn characters. I mean, Nick Offerman as a bear and conspiracy theorist survivalist? Didn't see that coming. The cult leader, Joel's brother and new wife, Joel and his daughter, a deaf kid and his brother, an anarchist leader... it just goes on and on.

Joel and Ellie in particular are just dragged through the ringer to the point of them questioning their own humanity in a world where the monsters aren't even the worst thing to worry about. But it's balanced against deeply emotional moments and circumstances that are emotionally exhausting. It ain't a zombie flick at all, despite there being zombie-like monsters.

From what I've read, the plot is somewhat loyal to the first game, release a decade ago and remastered for the latest PlayStation and Windows. I haven't had a PlayStation since the second iteration, not because of any Xbox loyalty. I just haven't had a compelling reason to get one. I still don't. I have so much available on Xbox Series X and Windows via Game Pass that there isn't much incentive to give Sony money. I'd consider buying the Windows game, but it's $60, and performance and compatibility, according to reviews, is not great. If it were on GOG I might immediately try it given their very excellent refund policy, but I'm hesitant otherwise.

The good news is that the second season is shooting right now, and the creators of the game and show have mapped out a third, possibly fourth season. Kaitlyn Dever will be in S2, and I think she has high potential for being a next generation great actor. If it is well watched, and HBO is into it, they might get made. I sure hope so. The hype and Emmy wins were legit. The last two episodes just wrecked me, in a good way. I didn't want it to end.

Thanks to the Internet, music-association memory, and frequent reflection, the Covid pandemic is still very fresh in my mind. I think about it especially when I'm at the theater, or a theme park. I remember the masks and the weird feelings of emerging after vaccinations. I also remember the chaos of 2020, the protests, the election, January 6, the 1.2 million people who died (that's like the entire state of Montana dying)... it was a pretty weird time.

With that in mind, I'm often reminded about how the experience changed me. The passage of time and aging is certainly at the top of the list of things for me. You know, we emerged from the pandemic, and I got tattoos and planned to travel more. I legitimately figured out when I want to shift away from my current career (not sure I'd call it "retirement"). I became more acutely aware of the shortcomings in our healthcare system, especially around health insurance and how broken it is to be tied to full-time employment, not to mention the disparity in care quality and access along racial and economic lines. I was encouraged by neighbors helping each other out as best they could given the need to stay apart. We even saw a momentary drop in greenhouse gases as the efficiency of delivery services and remote work pulled cars off the road. The allure of authoritarianism has become a scary and real thing, and it sure feels like we need to take it seriously.

The experience, to me, introduce a fair number of critical action items that could make the world better. But I feel like I'm the only person who still feels that way. People of all political leanings are still spending a lot of time paying attention to the Trump shitshow, while ignoring issues. And I'm not talking about culture war nonsense either, because that's only about people who fear things they don't understand or like, despite them having absolutely no impact on their lives.

At the very least, what are we doing now to prepare for the next pandemic? It could happen next year, or a hundred years from now, but it's important either way. Congress can barely pass a bill these days, so I guess I'm not surprised.

I remember at the start of 2021, as the vaccines trickled out, it felt like we were on the verge of some kind of new enlightenment. The scientific achievement was largely taken for granted, despite the fact that it most certainly saved millions of lives and was the real driving factor behind restoring some kind of normalcy. If we could do that, what other hard problems could we solve?

What we have instead, at least in the US, is nearly half the population worried about immigrants that have no impact on their lives, which restroom people take a shit in and conspiracy theories unsupported by any evidence. Critical thinking and expertise are viewed as weaknesses. I don't even recognize this country half the time.

As a technologist, I think my default is to be optimistic. It's not that tech always makes things better, but it is possible that it could. I don't want to see more backsliding. No point in the past is objectively better than now, despite what it feels like sometimes. Forward.

Our shower was pretty gross. I mean, I give myself a little room, because we were pretty sure it would be demolished anyway. Now that we're questioning our own motivation on that, perhaps we're going to just live with it until we sell the house, let's say six years from now (we don't actually know). There's a part of me that recognizes that it would certainly add value to the house, but as erratic as the markets have been my entire adult life, I'm not sure that I want to go there. Better off putting that money aside. That'll let us prioritize replacing the shitty builder carpet.

One of the problems with the shower is that the grout work isn't great, and that honeycomb tiles on the floor is a nightmare to keep clean. On top of that, the caulk around the edges was cheap stuff, prone to growing things. Also, the guy who once replaced the caulk didn't do so around the glass wall, so water slowly got through and hosed the drywall just outside of the tile. It's all pretty bad.

The remedy starts with stripping off the old caulk, which isn't hard once you let some Goo-Gone caulk remover sit on it for awhile. With a little scraper tool, it comes off pretty easy. The problem is that it wasn't applied particularly cleanly, so there's a thin film of it in places that has to be scraped off. Part of what makes this challenging is the spots under the step on the outside of the shower, and under the edge of the bench. The only way you can really see if you're doing it is to get down there, which is a lot like standing on your head. I think I got 90% of it, but the bottom side of both surfaces is not smooth like the top, and there's a fair amount of black stuff I couldn't get off.

I also noticed that there were spots in the grout that I thought were mold, but were actually small holes. It was particularly bad around the drain, where they did a pretty bad job of cutting the tiles. That said, pre-mixed grout in a tube is really easy to apply, and you just have to wait two days for it to cure. Fortunately we have more than one shower.

My angst though is really toward my inability to cleanly re-caulk everything. You can't do a nice small bead, because the gaps in most corners are pretty large. According to The Internet, the places where the walls and floor meet are the places mostly likely to crack, which is why you need caulk at all. There's a garage door opener literally under the shower, so I guess the potential for problems is real. But on one side in particular, there's a good 3/8" of grout between the floor and the wall. The shorter story is that the caulk is kind of everywhere. I'm gonna need to scrape it off on the wall tile in places, because you can see the same filmy layer I removed in the first place, but worse.

I often find that I'm not good at DIY home improvement. In my own defense, it's not like I do it very often. I've installed some WiFi light switches, and even an in-drawer power strip, but that's about as clever as I get. Well, I did install the glass cleaner in the bar, and the shelves, but that was easy by comparison.

We were pretty excited about renovating our bathroom, particularly as we had a GC that was highly recommended. After working up his estimate, he came to a staggering cost of about $54k. If you watch home improvement TV shows, you know that's what they spend on high-end renovations with exotic materials. While we were considering expensive tile, that by itself would have only been $5k. The labor estimate I worked out to $100 an hour, which seems insane even with the trades being in short supply.

Logically, of course we should seek other estimates. I gamed out materials at retail cost around $16k, $10k less than what he did. But for now, we're gonna try and repair our shower a bit (grout and caulk issues, and also it's gross). We think we're gonna pivot and prioritize new carpet. The cheap shit just makes everything feel dumpy. And I'm not one of the "Florida people" who want everything to be tile, or vinyl plank (which still looks like vinyl to me). I like carpet. I like soft things under my feet.

The bathroom, kinda hard to say if we'll follow through ever. If we want to be out of here in six years, which is also not a hard target, do we really need a new bathroom?

In my ongoing battle to understand why anxiety has become such a problem for me, I learned with my therapist that experience tends to form so much of our modus operandi in daily life. This isn't really new information, but it's interesting to take inventory of so many life events and show how they influence behavior today. My anxiety, I'm starting to learn, is rooted in the desire to ramp up defenses before something bad happens. Logically, you can understand that in a particular circumstance, a bad thing happened once in a hundred times. Unfortunately, the brain may take that one instance as reason enough to assume the worst.

This is an important thing to understand, because if the causes of my anxiety are things that already happened, I can't do anything about those. They can't un-happen. But what a crazy thing that the past can affect the now because of what could happen in the future. That's a real space-time mind-fuck if I ever did see one! It makes it harder to live in the moment and be content in it. Of the three places in the timeline, now is the only one that you can effectively manipulate.

I have to wonder then if all of the coaching and suggestion about letting things go is effective at all. (Suck it, Elsa!) This is how I went into the therapy sesh, thinking that I needed to talk through how to let go, because that will help reduce anxiety. But as she pointed out, and as I already know to a degree, life experiences can shape how you respond to things in the moment, and I've got a shit-ton of experiences that have programmed me to enter DEFCON 1. Knowing hasn't changed the battle parameters.

So I've switched the focus to how I deal with the anxiety, in the moment. This is not going to be easy. Some of it is the constant thought spiral that I have to endure. It is so, so hard to break out of that cycle. I do know of things that help bring contentment in the moment, but it's hard to think of them when the brain is full. I'm also very reactionary when anxious, especially when it comes to Simon, and that's not good for either one of us.

I don't have a lot of concrete solutions just yet, but I have self-awareness and frequency that hopefully will make it easier to break out in the moment and try to mitigate the anxiety.

Someone recently asked me what I would tell new managers as far as advice goes. This was specifically in the context of software engineering, but I imagine it could be broadly applied. Honestly, I've though about codifying my "philosophy" for a long time, but often fail to write anything down, or even know where to start. So much of what I know is what not to do, which seems negative, but I think it's valuable. But there is one thing that occurred to me when I was recently asked about what my style is. I gave the usual answer, that servant leadership is important, but the more I think about it, the more I realize there's an underlying principle to consider.

Management is about reaching certain outcomes. It is not about managing. I think a lot of people enter these kinds of jobs believing that if they're not constantly making decisions and telling people what to do and creating policies and processes, they're not doing the job. But while those things are important, they're only valuable if they're serving outcomes. I would argue that a lot of managers spend time "managing" without serving outcomes. And if you're not serving outcomes, you're mostly wasting time.

If I go way back to my post-college retail job, I had a boss that was a first-time manager. Our work was straight-forward enough: Sell computers. Despite the desired outcome, selling more stuff, he came up with all kinds of things to do that served little purpose other than to show he was "managing." I remember that we had some kind of checklist for openers, for things you would naturally do in a retail job. The staff rebelled and never used the list, but the work was always done.

That situation really stuck with me. I guess I've always looked at management differently, in part because managers don't directly add value, they can only facilitate and influence it. That's all the more reason to be outcome oriented, because outcomes can be defined and measured. Everything you do should enable outcomes, and I can guarantee that creating processes and setting policy without being aware of its impact is just creating overhead.

So if you find yourself leading other humans, ask yourself if what you're doing is moving toward outcomes, or just doing things that you think you should do because that's what managers do. They're not the same thing.

It's pretty obvious that I'm passionate about proper mental healthcare. Everyone has their shit, but few are equipped (read: makes enough money) to address it with professionals. Money is only half the problem though, as the other part is that there isn't enough care to go around.

Most of the good therapists have a wait list, and that's especially nuts when you consider few accept insurance. Specialists are impossible. We're getting Simon screened for dysgraphia, and after initial consideration, then "approval" for an initial screen, he won't get the full 4-hour diagnostic for another six months. I'm furious and it doesn't matter because there's no alternative. Experts are in too short supply. The worst part is that he'll already have two months of school behind him by then.

Science is extraordinary, and despite the human ability to leverage it to better everyone's lives, society does not make it a moral imperative to see it applied to all. Covid made this so obvious, as levels of care and mortality favored urban, well-off people. And in the greatest irony, it disfavored the people so completely against making healthcare into something closer to universal.

Everyone understands what the problem is, and how to solve it, but no one is willing to actually do it. And it's mostly an American phenomenon.

Our 27th cruise was a no-brainer. Last year Disney announced that they were building a second "private" island, and there would be an inaugural cruise that would stop there twice. It would also include a stop at the existing island Castaway Cay, be on the Fantasy (our favorite with sister ship Dream) and it would be out of Port Canaveral. That last part is important because, going forward, only itineraries out of Fort Lauderdale will go to the new island. Also, Fantasy normally rotates through the Caribbean itineraries, and honestly, most of the ports in the tropics feel the same. But three beach days? Sign us up!

We decided to sail with Internet friends, a guy I've known virtually for like 20 years, but only met a handful of times in real life. He has two teenage boys, so with an intersection of interests, including cruising on DCL, it just kind of made sense. Cruising with others is generally more fun, especially if there's no intention to do everything together. You also don't risk ending up at a dinner table with a woman who describes squatting on the side of the Beachline to take a pee on the way in (true story). It also meant having an opportunity to split the cost of a cabana, which at $900 doesn't make sense for three people. Even better, it was on the new island, kind of "first" if you don't count the media/VIP trip a few days before.

Embarkation day was a special kind of swamp-ass humid. I was kind of worried, because the ship felt crowded. There were some rooms left the week before, surprising for an inaugural cruise, but the adult deck was mobbed and getting a cocktail was a slow affair that day. Simon went to do teen stuff, Diana found a place to read, and I took a delightful nap. Just before dinner, I wandered into the La Piazza bar and had a quiet drink. After dinner, we took up residency in Skyline, happy to see one of the bartenders from our December 2022 cruise was still there!

The next day was at sea, which involves a familiar ritual. Breakfast, walking loops on the promenade deck, probably trivia or some other activity, mixology before dinner, chilling on deck 4 after dinner. I especially value that walk, since the Wish (which does the short Bahamas itineraries we often do) doesn't have a loop, which is super lame. Mixology gave us entirely new stuff, which was mostly good, but it wasn't super hands-on the way it has been with other bartenders. Our at-sea day on the last day was very similar to this, though with no-shows at mixology, we ended up consuming much of the "extra" beverage.

Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point is a really terrible name, and no one is really sure what to call it for short. The after-cruise survey, interestingly, just called it Lighthouse Point, which kind of makes sense, since that's what it was called before Disney bought it. The first look at the island, South Eleuthera, is a little intimidating, because there's a half-mile-long pier that you have to traverse before passing through the security checkpoint on land. This is necessary because the reefs make it impossible (well, environmentally irresponsible) to dredge out a dock right up on the coast. To compare, on Castaway Cay, the distance from midship to the tram stop is about 900 feet, or 0.17 miles. There's no question that people are going to complain about this. We don't use the tram on Castaway, so we're typically walking 0.6 miles to our usual spot on the beach. But there's something about this that feels different, and not just from the chafing in a wet suit on the way back.

But this first stop, some of us didn't even go into the meat of the island. For unclear reasons, they plopped the cabanas right there near the trams and checkpoint, so that's where we went. We're pretty lucky, because we were able to work the network for this reservation, which would be hard to get normally, let alone on an inaugural visit. Despite the distance to the rest of the property, they have some basic bar service and lunch to feed the folks in these 20 cabanas. The buildings themselves seem pretty much like those on Castaway Cay, as best I can remember from 10 years ago. There is comfortable furniture, a stocked beverage fridge, snacks, fruit, towels, beach toys and a fresh-water shower. Because of the tides (or so they said), they don't have a one-to-one ratio of umbrellas and beach chairs, which I know isn't going to go over well. We were one of the first there, so we quickly commandeered a bunch to sit at the water's edge. We barely saw anyone, really, so it felt very private for the seven of us. I do enjoy exclusivity, so this was excellent.

The basic drinks available included mojitos and rum-soaked Dole Whip, and they weren't screwing around with the pours, fortunately. The supply of canned water and soda was included, and the boys definitely wrecked the Coke and Sprite stock. The fruit quickly attracted so many flies that you'd not want to eat any of it other than the bananas. Lunch had the same problem, only worse. The amount of flies surrounding and invading the little service building was very bad. They had these little table-top helicopter like devices, and crew waving around napkins, but it didn't really help. I don't remember what all was offered, but I scored some spicy/crispy chicken (think Wendy's, only actually spicy) and some fries. I quickly covered it all with a napkin and went back to the cabana. The rest of our group had already returned, and the flies were overwhelming. I ate the chicken, but if you had to cut anything out in the open, forget it. It was so, so bad. Obviously they understand the problem, but it sucked for everyone.

Lunch aside, I spent the day doing mostly nothing in the water, in a chair by the water, on the chaise longue (not "lounge," Disney!), in the water and in a chair by the water. It was so quiet and peaceful. Unlike Castaway Cay, there's nothing keeping wildlife in or out, or blocking the waves, so it's far more dynamic in this spot. A little octopus or squid or something washed up between our chairs, and before I got to see it, it was gone. Fortunately, the sand crabs were everywhere, and I love how they, uh, crab walk. We concluded our time there by getting a golf cart ride back to the ship, a perk that I didn't expect.

Next day was Nassau, which I think I've been to at least 20 times, and only left the ship once, which was enough. We always book brunch at Palo, since it's free for platinum/pearl status. I'm not a fancy food eater, but the food is always extraordinary, as is the service. They have a chicken parm that impossibly doesn't seem fried, sitting on life-changing risotto. I could eat it every single day.

Castaway Cay was the next port, and we were really slow getting out of bed and moving. Simon has reached true teen status and is out later than we're up, most of the time. When we did go down, Simon took the tram, whereas we got our steps. The problem is that he didn't get off the tram, as he stayed on for a later stop where the teen club is. The bigger problem is that he didn't tell us, he had a bag with some of our stuff, and the wifi once again was down so we couldn't message him. The rain was closing in as well, so things were generally not looking great. The food is notoriously terrible on this island, and I don't know how they don't see it and change it. I realize I'm high-maintenance, only eating poultry, but dry-ass chicken doesn't require a master chef to see. A previous head server indicated we could special order stuff in advance, so I asked for that same spicy chicken I had on the other island. I got it, but it was cold. Simon finally showed up, and by that time I was just kind of deflated, and we headed off the rain, returning by 1. Unfortunate for an unusual day where all-aboard time was 6.

The return to Lookout/Lighthouse the next day had similarly dire looking weather, but fortunately it stayed dry. It was also a little windy, which mostly helped mitigate the problem with the flies. No VIP treatment this time, so we boarded the tram for the one-mile ride to the main area. It was really, really well done. There are very heavy awning structures over many buildings and eating areas, and a network of decks pass over an otherwise rugged landscape. There are some freshwater slides and splash areas for kids. Oddly, there are pockets of umbrellas and chairs behind the big dune that lines the beach, and you can only get to them by going over the dune from the decks and then back over the dune.

Our group set up camp at the northern most part of the family beach, close to the small handful of adult-only cabanas and dining area. Curious that the family cabanas were isolated, while the adult ones were not. We had lunch over there, and a live, local band was playing there. Many of the people working there are local to Eleuthera, so it isn't just crew. Lunch was basically the same as what they had over at the cabanas, only without the flies, because of the wind I think. As best I can tell, it was all stuff that was generally better than the Castaway food, though Simon for some reason wouldn't eat the burgers, and with no hot dogs either, he eventually returned to the ship earlier than the rest of us.

The beach itself is stunning. Right about the point at which you can't touch the bottom is where the coral reefs begin, so if snorkeling is your thing, this will blow your mind. We even saw a ray swimming around. The water is impossibly clear. But the biggest win, to me, is that there are real waves here, something Castaway sorely lacks. What I love most about the ocean is the sound of surf and the waves kind of tossing you around. It kind of tires you out, but I find it deeply therapeutic. It was so great. Overall, I think Disney completely nailed it, without going overboard like Royal Caribbean. And the only thing that costs extra is alcohol.

The property is definitely not done though. Bike rentals weren't available, because there was no bike trail. The nature trail out to the actual lighthouse was also not done. It looked like a lot of landscaping wasn't done yet, and I even noticed some missing signage where only sign brackets were.

We had a solid dining team, which is typical despite some recent experiences. The crew in the Skyline bar was every bit as great as those in previous years. We never did close the bar, not like we often did in Europe, but in addition to our cruise-mates, we met a lot of interesting people and enjoyed many beverages.

Overall, it was a great week, and it feels like it went by too fast. The new island is lovely. I'm also excited to have another family to cruise with.

I've been writing about how my anxiety has been troubling in recent years. It's frustrating because I can't necessarily attribute it to anything specific, but being stuck in my head like that is exhausting. When you're in the midst of those "thought spirals," it's hard to think about how you might break out of it. As it turns out though, there is one thing that brings me great relief. It's kittens.

Diana has been volunteering for a local shelter for years, and sometimes we watch a few of them at a time. Usually it's just a day or two, and often it's the older cats that don't do well in confined spaces. For the second time though, we hosted a litter of kittens. The first was in November, and they would just pile up on you.

This current litter, three girls and one boy, have an extraordinary amount of energy. It's like they have springs, bouncing all over the place. They started out very clumsy, but have come a long way in two weeks. They've been vaccinated and fixed while with us, and it didn't slow them down at all. They all start to purr instantly when you touch them. They're just completely delightful.

We let them roam the house a few days after their surgeries, and our cats all have different feelings about them. Remy seems to mostly hate them, while Poe just kind of hangs out and lets them pounce on his tail. Finn is mostly indifferent, but he's played with them a little. It takes them a good long while to finally get tired and pass out, and it's adorable that they do so together, for the most part. They have to be adopted two at a time because they're obviously pretty social, and it'd be a dick move to split them up four different ways.

What's incredible though is their ability to just melt away the anxiety. Sitting down with them is like the ultimate exhale. I mean, look at them. How could you not feel relaxed and happy with them? I've really enjoyed having them around.

This weekend though, they're likely to find permanent homes. I try not to get too attached, which is why I don't really think about their names (unless someone gave them really dumb names, in which case I think of new ones). In a lot of ways, it's kind of an ideal situation. You get kittens for a few weeks, earlier than you might otherwise, and you don't have to keep them for more than a decade as big cats. Not that I don't like adult cats, but I think people get sucked in at the cuteness of kittens, and they will grow up.

Good luck, little kittehs. It was fun to have you around!

As much as I feel like social media has become fractionally useful relative to its earlier days, I kind of like that people are at least a little more willing to share their struggles and problems. I'm not talking about the people who complain about traffic and their jobs every single day, I mean the people who share a health problem or parenting challenges or other human obstacles. I feel like this makes it more possible to feel "normal" relative to others.

There is a side effect of this that can be annoying. I know that we all mean well, but please, don't feel like you need to fix something or provide a solution every time that someone shares some challenging situation. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think it's reasonable to assume that a lot of the time, people just want to be heard. Just listen. That's all. Listen.

I saw someone talk about a health problem recently on the socials, and a dozen people suggested a dozen remedies that had nothing to do with the condition. That pushes all of my buttons... no critical thinking, no expression of empathy, and worst of all, no actual listening. I used to do this a lot, but hopefully I don't now.