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This past Tuesday was a special election for a county-wide school millage. As usual I worked as a chair for Ann Arbor at the Senior Center (ward 3 precinct 24), though by now we were the sole precinct there. I had six workers (one of whom I'd worked with before and one of whom was working their first election ever), which was more than enough people.

We started slow with 11 voters in our first hour, but then picked up to a pretty consistent 14–15 voters per hour until 4pm, where we picked up speed. Our last five hours were our busiest and the 6–7pm hour the busiest of them all. We eventually averaged about 22 voters per hour on the day:

Time	8am	9am	10am	11am	12n	1pm	2pm	3pm	4pm	5pm	6pm	7pm	8pm
Total (Σ)	11	29	41	56	69	85	104	118	140	169	211	243	275
Delta (𝚫)	11	18	12	15	13	16	19	14	22	29	42	32	32
Rate (∫)	11	15	14	14	14	14	15	15	16	17	20	21	22

We were finished in-precinct by 8:35pm — in large part due to it being a one-box ballot and thus the reports printed quickly — and headed off to City Hall because the Election Headquarters building was being renovated. (Seriously, the landlord or property manager couldn't've waited to kick us out until Wednesday? They had to do it Monday night after the chairs picked up our notebooks and laptops?) We were the 6th precincts to report in. We had a brief wait to turn in our ballots, laptop, and zippered notebook, then a moderate wait to get our reports printed, then a brief wait for a receiving board to open up to process our paperwork. We finished up at HQ around 9:15pm and I was home by 9:30pm.

The biggest problem of the day was construction-related traffic on Washtenaw Ave. They closed one of two lanes eastbound just past the Y-intersection at Stadium. The backup was bad enough at my 11am lunch trip that I eschewed going out for my 4pm dinner and instead had Domino's deliver a pizza and salad. (Even then, with them coming from State and Packard, the 4:00–4:15pm scheduled delivery didn't get there until 4:27pm.) I scarfed down most of the pizza for dinner and had the rest as a snack once I got home and had the salad with dinner on Wednesday.

(Incidentally, back on August 5 we had an election and as usual I worked as a chair for Ann Arbor at the Senior Center (3–24). I never wrote it up but I did save the hourly stats:

Time	8am	9am	10am	11am	12n	1pm	2pm	3pm	4pm	5pm	6pm	7pm	8pm
Total (Σ)	11	41	52	67	87	100	120	142	171	1207	248	300	353
Delta (𝚫)	11	30	22	15	20	13	20	22	29	36	41	52	53
Rate (∫)	11	20	17	16	17	16	17	17	19	20	22	25	22

I had four workers, one of whom I'd worked with before. From what I recall we were something like the 12th or 13th precinct reporting into Election HQ at the end of the evening and I was almost certainly home by 10:30pm.)

I sure have fallen out of the journaling habit.... Using the same headings and order as the last time:

Car
The dealership wants me to sell them my car (2021 Totoya Avalon Hybrid). I may answer them at some point, but they won't be happy. My terms are "Give me a similar 2026-model vehicle as its replacement, for only the cost of the trade-in plus whatever I still owe on the existing loan," which as of next week is just over $6,200. There's no way in hell they'll do it, so I'm comfortable making the offer... and if by some stroke of luck they do go for it because of their desperation, I get a new car for "nothing."

It had its semiannual maintenance visit last week. Took a little longer than I wanted but still ready by the time they promised and under the initial estimate (even after adding new wiper blades).

Food
The food I'm making is in the previous entry. I did have a trip to Texas de Brazil a week or so ago, and there's commentary in the "Vacations" section below about Chicago food.

Health
My health has been generally good. Itchy eyes from allergies, being careful in the heat (especially this past couple of weeks). Had some issues with billing from the physical therapy that finally got resolved. I'm supposed to be on the hook for the co-pay, but they screwed up and tried billing three or four of the 15 visits against worker's compensation (from the 2019 broken foot which I closed out in 2020) instead of my actual insurance, so when WC declined the hospital billed me the whole cost. I, as you might well understand, objected. They eventually fixed it but I had to call about it twice because their first fix didn't catch all of the misbilling.

Home
Nothing major to report. The new tree hasn't died yet, though a lot of the ivy in the front landscaping has (thanks in no small part to my applying poison semi-regularly). The garage door cable broke and I had to get it replaced. They're supposed to be power-washing the building this summer, and they're fixing the brickwork. The major road through here (the city's responsibility) got a chip seal. I think my own road (the association's responsibility) is gonna be completely redone next summer.

Vacations
Cleveland in April (CLAW) went well. Both of my workshops were well-received, though they were more lightly-attended than I'd've liked. We were in a new venue out by the airport (who were cold to us at the start, until they realized both that we drink a lot and that we tip well; they warmed up by the end of the weekend), but we may not be there next year because rumors are they'll stop being an event space and become a data center. We had multiple hotels out towards suburbia, which was problematic in and of itself; my hotel was pretty craptastic: the building was settling such that there was a noticeable deep crack in the ceiling and floor indicating imminent structural failure, it felt dirty, and after we left they were supposed to close for a major renovation... which it desperately needed. The off-site dungeon space was too small and had no parking or signage.

Chicago in May (IML) went well too. The hotel was as expected, my one volunteer shift went without any problems (though I got to shush some of the executive board who were being noisy in the quiet-for-contestant interviews area. Had fun in my trip up to Boystown. I ate well (including my annual visits to Girl and the Goat and Giordano's). I tried a new-to-me Chinese place near the hotel; the food was passable but the service was abysmal; I might give them another chance next year but haven't decided yet. The train rides in each direction were uneventful, though I don't care for the new Amtrak Siemens cars. The Amfleet were more comfortable and their café car more convenient.

Car
On the way home from DTW on Friday, March 28 I guess I didn't swerve enough on Michigan Avenue between Platt and State and hit a dead deer. Minor damage to the left front bumper. Estimate came in around $1,900 so I filed a claim (bye bye, accident-free discount). Their app wouldn't let me upload the required photos, so I had to make no fewer than three phone calls (with the associated fighting through the menus to get to a human) to get things in, and even then the app still said "waiting on customer" even though they had everything they needed. Once they finally processed things they deposited the balance (minus the $200 comprehensive deductible) in my checking account. I'm still (as of this writing) waiting for the body shop to get the replacement parts in so I can schedule a time to drop off the car and be without one for a week or two. (I have some rental coverage but not enough to have it make sense to actually rent a car. I'll work from home, have groceries delivered, and if absolutely necessary I can take a Lyft between home and the train station for the Chicago trip in late may.)

Food
On Thursday, March 27 after the conference I went out to dinner with a dozen others to Taurinus Brazilian Steakhouse in downtown San Jose, and then on Saturday, March 29 I went out to dinner with a couple of friends at Texas de Brazil here in Ann Arbor. Mm, meat coma.

On Saturday, April 5 I drove to Bloomfield Hills for dinner at Mom's before my regularly monthly event in Detroit. Then on Saturday, April 12 I drove to Mom's again for first-night seder. I got to take home two servings of brisket, potatoes, and carrots; four servings of chicken soup (with chicken and carrots); three matzoh balls; and a jar of gefilte fish. All of that — except some of the brisket gravy — has since been consumed.

Before Passover I made a batch of mastaccioli. I had three dinners' worth of it and froze the rest.

Health
March included my last three PT sessions for my foot pain and balance issues. I need to keep up with my exercises but I should be okay going forward... though I'll keep using the cane for additional safety (especially for longer distances or when I'm tired). It also included my quarterly PrEP-related blood draw (everything was fine, as expected) and annual video visit with the prescribing doctor.

Home
In advance of my Cleveland trip I've spent much of the past couple of days cleaning. I've wet swiffered the front hallway, dry swiffered the rest of the upstairs, dusted the banister, cleaned the kitchen and both upstairs bathrooms, and did a fuckton of laundry (which is all folded and put away). I still need to clean the living and dining rooms, run (and later empty) the (almost full now) dishwasher, and take the trash and recycling to the garage before skipping town.

Speaking of conference talks, I haven't previously mentioned it here but I submitted two workshop proposals to Cleveland Leather Annual Weekend (CLAW) this year... and they accepted both! The first is "Home Dungeons on a Budget" which I and my co-host previously offered in 2023 and 2024, so 2025 is the third (and likely final) year for it. The second is a sequel called "Dungeon Parties on a Budget (Without Going Bonkers)" and I'll be teaching it solo.

The coordinators released the Skills & Education schedule (at least the preliminary version) earlier today (delayed from the "end of February" goal). They're offered in the reverse of the order I would have preferred. The sequel workshop "Dungeon Parties..." is on Saturday, April 19, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., while the original "Home Dungeons..." workshop is on Sunday, April 20, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. As it happens both are in the same room (5)... though the schedule is subject to change.

This afternoon I have completed both slide decks (they needed to say how late the vendor market is open which varies by day), created a copy of each with no speaker's notes and no edit history, generated a QR code for each of the stripped-down decks, and put it on the last slide of each deck (so attendees can snap a picture for their copy of the slides later).

Other than printing some hardcopies of the QR codes (to give as handouts to those who might want them), my workshop prep is effectively done.

On Wednesday I made a batch of split pea soup with ham.

Ingredients

• One large white or yellow onion, about 1 lb.
• About 7 oz. of carrots (I used carrot sticks from an hors d'oeuvres pack)
• About 7 oz. of celery (I used celery sticks from an hors d'oeuvres pack)
• 6–8 cloves garlic
• 1 lb. dried split peas
• 8¾ cups (five 14.5-fl. oz. cans) of chicken stock
• ½ tsp. fresh ground black pepper
• 3 drops liquid smoke
• 2½ lbs. ham

Mise en place

1. Large dice the onion, carrots, and celery.
2. Mince the garlic.
3. Rinse and drain the split peas, removing any hulls.
4. Dice the ham into bite-sized pieces. (You can do this while the soup simmers in Step 3 below.)

Directions

1. Sweat the onion, carrots, and celery in a 10- to 12-quart stock pot over medium-high heat.
2. When they start to become soft and the onions start to become translucent, add garlic, dried split peas, chicken stock, freshly ground black pepper, and liquid smoke.
3. Bring to a simmer and simmer until the peas have lost their integrity (about an hour).
4. Attack the soup with an immersion blender until it reaches the desired smoothness.
5. Add ham and continue to simmer until heated through.

With the new dishes, despite the bowls being of similar size to the ones they replaced, they're larger; this made only eight bowls of soup — dinner Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and lunch Saturday (today) — instead of the 10–11 it used to.

This morning at 3:30am, the bedroom smoke detector tripped (not the low-battery chirp but the full on alert triggering all the other wired-in detectors to go off). It’s not that old — I bought and installed them all in September 2023, so just over a year — and it’s only the one detector tripping. <Sigh>. I may swap it with another unit and see what happens. I may also just remove it from the circuit and clobber it with a sledgehammer.

I spent much of today deep cleaning the house (including dusting the ceiling fans as the ladder was upstairs; see above): Bathrooms (hall and master), dining room, kitchen, laundry, library, living room, and master bedroom all got dusted, vacuumed, and sanitized as appropriate. Did a load of laundry. Remade the bed with clean sheets. Showered after dinner so there's a clean me to go on the clean sheets.

And I'm exhausted. I wonder if my budget can afford a cleaning service.

On Thursday the 19th the city posted a notice on my front door that there would be some road work — specifically replacing the curb from my street to the cross street — starting Friday the 20th. That morning I had to run an errand before lunch so I ran out at 7am to try to beat both the road work and the school traffic. I made it out but not back in time; they'd already blocked it off and were starting to saw up the repair area. I had to take the long way around to get home.

On Sunday the 22nd I finally got a call I was expecting: My homeowners association would be doing scheduled concrete repairs of front walkways, driveways, and sidewalks. They started with the odd numbers on the 500 block, then did the 300 block and were about to move to the 400 (my) block. That meant my driveway could have been out of commission as early as Monday the 23rd for about a week. I made arrangements with one of my even-side neighbors to use her driveway. I moved my car there Sunday night in case they started Monday the 23rd.

They didn't start Monday.

On Wednesday the 25th afternoon they (finally) tore out my front walkway, the bottom of my driveway, and two sidewalk panels. I was under the impression they needed to frame it out and get the rebar in and then have the city inspect it before they could pour new concrete, so I figured it'd be poured Friday the 27th at the earliest. But when I went out to grab takeout sushi for lunch on Thursday the 26th they had poured it and were working on smoothing it out. That means I should be able to use my driveway and park in my garage again as of Tuesday evening the 1st (five days later).

As of today (Saturday the 28th) the city has yet to pour concrete for the curb repair, so access to my street officially still requires going around the long way. I say "officially" because there's just enough room for one car to sneak in or out between the cone-surrounded hole and the curb. After this morning's grocery pickup I snuck in that way, parked on the street at my driveway, offloaded the groceries to the house, then parked in my neighbor's driveway (again).

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Dinner last night was rosemary lemon pork tenderloin with oven-roasted redskin potatoes. I don't have a grill so I baked it off in the oven instead but it was still delicious. It needed to rest longer than the five minutes in the original

I started with a salad of red leaf lettuce, grape tomatoes, chopped scallions, dried cranberries, bacon bits, and blue cheese crumbles in blue cheese dressing.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tbsp chopped dried rosemary
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• ¾ tsp salt
• 2 pork tenderloins about 1 pound each
• 2 lemons quartered and seeded

Directions

1. In a shallow bowl whisk together all but the pork and lemons.
2. Pour into a zip-top bag and add the pork.
3. Refrigerate at least 4 hours and overnight if possible. (I did it overnight.)
4. Keep turning the marinade bag with the pork in it.
5. Preheat oven to 400˚F.
6. Brush lemons with oil and put in an oven-safe pan.
7. Remove the pork from the marinade and put in a foil-lined baking dish.
8. Bake the lemons for 20 minutes then remove.
9. Continue baking the pork for another 10 minutes (30 minutes total).
10. Transfer tenderloins to cutting board and rest for 10 minutes.
11. Carve crosswise.
12. Squeeze the roasted lemons over the top of the pork.

I served it with oven-roasted redskin potatoes:

1. Wash and pat dry about 6–8 redskin potatoes.
2. Slice into 8 to 16 mostly similarly-sized pieces.
3. Put them into a baking dish.
4. Drizzle with olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh ground black pepper.
5. Bake for 45–50 minutes at 400˚F. (You can cook the potatoes for about 10–15 minutes before adding the lemons and pork to the oven, and leave the potatoes in while the pork rests. If they're looking too done you can remove them while the pork rests.)

Dinner tonight was another salad, leftover pork, and a new batch of roasted potatoes with added dried rosemary.

I had three over-ripe bananas that finally got soft enough to turn into banana bread, so after I was done with work today I made a batch: Mash three (over)ripe bananas, mix in two eggs, then slowly incorporate 2 cups of flour, ¾ cups sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, and a healthy splash of vanilla. Pour the (sticky!) batter into a buttered loaf pan and bake for one hour at 350˚F.

I hope I'm in the mood to eat it this weekend. I got my flu and Covid vaccinations this morning, and several others who've gotten both report that it basically flattened them for a couple of days.

Tuesday (yesterday) was the Michigan state primary election and, as usual, I was precinct chairperson for my usual precinct, 3–24. As in February we were back at the Ann Arbor Senior Center right at Burns Park and sharing with 4–33. We set things up differently, with their precinct using almost the entire gallery space and mine using the gallery entry for the applications, EPB, and ballot handouts and the conference room for the booths and the tabulator. We again shared one voter assist (Touchwriter) terminal and one selfie background poster between our two precincts. And we al think there's no way two precincts will fit there, logistically, in the November presidential election.

We had a few challenges. One of my five had no EPB training so they couldn't drive the laptop. One who did drive kept running into edge cases. One of the people filling out the application form forgot to put their initials on about 20% of them. We issued a couple of ballots out of order because the secrecy sleeve stuffing wasn't done entirely correctly (so for example we issued the sequence "10, 11, 13, 14, 12, 15, ..." at one point and "27, 28, 30, 29, 31, ..." at another). We had seven people cast their absentee ballots in person (and had to tell a couple that while they could drop their spouse's ballots off at City Hall or an approved drop box we couldn't tabulate them in-precinct since there's still the application form and ID check (or affadavit) requirement). Even with that our numbers lined up.

We started slow (with 9–10 voters per hour for our first four hours), got slower (with 6–8 for the next five hours), then picked back up for the last four hours, with an average of just over 11 voters per hour on the day:

Time	8am	9am	10am	11am	12n	1pm	2pm	3pm	4pm	5pm	6pm	7pm	8pm
Total (Σ)	10	18	28	38	46	52	60	66	73	87	108	129	146
Delta (𝚫)	10	8	10	10	8	6	8	6	7	14	21	21	17
Rate (∫)	10	9	9	10	9	9	9	8	8	9	10	11	11

We were finished in-precinct by 8:45pm (and the city can pay the workers until 9:00pm) and headed off to the new Election Headquarters building. We were the 13th (of 47) precincts to report in. We had a brief wait to turn in our ballots, laptop, and zippered notebook, then a moderate wait to get our reports printed, then a moderate wait for a receiving board to open up to process our paperwork. We finished up at HQ around 9:45pm.

I drove my counterpart back to his car at the precinct then got home around 10:15pm. I was out of the house for not quite 17 hours (5:25am–10:15pm). Had a brief nibble of some leftover ham and cheese, popped my evening drugs with added ibuprofen and muscle relaxant, and headed off to bed.

Normally I say my health is good (not great). Recently I've had a few issues, however.

In early May I went in for my annual wellness exam (and incidentally to meet my new primary care provider as the one I'd had the past 16 years or so left both the practice and the university late last year). Things were well enough.

Towards the middle of May I noticed that I could flex my right index finger... but not release it afterwards without using the other hand. I figured "tendonitis" of some kind and they had me see someone in Sports Medicine. Sure enough, it was diagnosed as stenosing tenosynovitis AKA trigger finger, and he gave me a splint and roll of tape, to wear 24x7 for two weeks, removing it for handwashing and showering and the like, and then whenever possible for six more. We have a follow-up in mid-July (eight weeks later). This got me in a splint just in time for the Chicago vacation.

I guess I wasn't drying off well enough as the skin underneath was turning white and looking but not feeling blistery. Some research made me think maceration but they wanted to see me to be sure and get me a larger splint. I went in for a second visit to see the nurse who provided the splint, but I pointed out it would fit over the existing splint. I wound up going back a third time for the doc to look and sure enough, it was too big and the original splint was correct. He gave me some (very light) gauze to use to wrap the finger inside the splint to help with moisture control. I'll still go back for the mid-July followup and we'll decide whether treatment is done, if I need to continue with the splint, or if we have to escalate to a steroid shot.

Meanwhile, in early June the cold I'd caught on my Chicago vacation had first migrated to my chest then up to become a sinus infection where the drainage was causing a very sore throat. I went to urgent care because my regular clinic didn't have any available appointments, and sure enough, it wasn't COVID, flu, or strep, so they prescribed me amoxicillin and sent me on my way. (It worked. The sinuses and throat are much better now.)

This past week I noticed my right eye itching a lot more than usual, and there was more crap to brush away in the morning. Between those and some other symptoms I figured "bacterial pinkeye." I was able to get a video visit on Thursday with my clinic for them to look at it (if they couldn't see me I'd've gone to urgent care); sure enough, it was pinkeye and likely bacterial, so they prescribed me some polytrim (a mix of polymyxin B and trimethoprim) eyedrops, with a refill in case it jumped to the other eye. It jumped to the other eye by Friday so I've been dosing each eye with a drop four times a day. (They're working. The discharge is gone, the redness mostly gone, and the itchiness is much reduced. I'll continue until this coming Friday and if necessary the next Monday, since the instructions are "for 7–10 days.")

Then on Friday I got a reminder that my quarterly PrEP labs were due so I headed out to the lab to give a few vials of blood and a urine sample. They drew some extra blood for PCP-ordered labs. Everything came back negative, though some of the various other measurements were just over or under the regular range (some of which are always just out of range). I haven't seen any commentary from the professionals about having to do anything about them yet though.

I had a potluck this past weekend and wanted to make a protein so I made pulled chicken in the crock pot.

Ingredients

• Family pack (about 4¼ lbs.) of boneless skinless chicken thighs
• White or yellow onion
• 2 c. barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)
• ¼ c. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp; garlic powder
• ½ tsp. black pepper

Directions

1. Finely chop the onion and set in the bottom of the crack pot.
2. Add the Worcestershire sauce.
3. Add the chicken, barbecue sauce, garlic powder, and pepper in layers.
4. Cook on low for about 5 hours.
5. Remove the chicken to a cutting board and shred with two forks.
6. Decant most of the remaining liquid from the crock pot. Either reduce over medium-high heat to thicken –or– discard. If you kept it and thickened it, return it to the crock pot at service time.
7. Return the shredded chicken to the crock pot and reduce the heat to "Keep warm."

Serve on hamburger rolls with added sauce if needed.