> get lamp

Been kinda absent for a couple of weeks because I was dealing with my dad being in hospital again ("again" in reference to when he was in late last October/early November) and the aftermath of that. Things are okay in the sense of immediate medical danger (and actually he turned out to never have been in any immediate danger) but this always comes with recuperation time and home nurse and physical therapy visits and yadda yadda. I'm catching up on my reading list now.

...just realized I haven't made any public posts since February and not even any to any filter that wasn't totally private since March, so already everyone would have been seeing a long absence. Oop. I just don't have much to say about general life these days, I guess.

This Bay Area city has the most expensive rent in the nation

Dunno why they made it all clickbaity like that; they mean San Jose. This is measured by median rent -- $3024/month. People often make fun of New York City as the most expensive, but apparently it's a few places down the list (I wonder if old rent controls might be holding down the median, relatively speaking). In fact the top four are all in California, and the other three are perhaps obvious: San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco - our other three largest cities (San Jose is actually #3, bigger than SF).

To put that in perspective, if you were trying to keep to the "rent should be no more than 30% of gross income" guideline, then you'd need about $10k per month.

Ugh.

Man, it's the day without dawn out there. It was so dim at 11 AM that the porchlight was still on. Kinda worried for people in Oregon who are being evacuated now. At least the smoke is high up and not worsening the air quality as much as it could be. And I... guess? the cooler temperature could be called? a good side effect? I mean yeah it's kinda whatever the wildfire equivalent is of nuclear/volcanic winter, but Sunday we were breaking triple-digit records all over the place. It was supposed to be cooler today but still almost 90; in fact it is only about 65 degrees outside at the moment.

ETA 4:45 PM: Santa Clara County Evacuation Warnings lifted for the #CZULightningComplex by CALFIRECZU. Phew. Obviously, not a permanent "all clear" since the fire itself is only 17% contained, but definitely a relief. The "yellow area" referred to below no longer appears on the map.

Burned redwoods at Big Basin, other parks will recover soon, experts say

The evac areas relative to where I live are, uh, getting kinda scary:
SCU complex
CZU complex - the area in yellow on the eastern side of the ridge, meaning "evacuation warning" (vs. "order" in red), was added Sunday evening. Last I heard the fire appears not to be currently spreading in that direction, but it's worrying.

Were we to have to evacuate, I'm not sure where we'd be expected to go. Every direction but northwards up the peninsula is on fire, anyway.

Just spent about 3 1/2 hours:

1. Changing my car's engine oil and filter
2. Rotating the tires (avec enotsola's help)
3. Changing the transmission oil, which required improvising a transmission-oil-funnel-o-phone (really, the finished contraption looked like some kind of orchestra instrument) with some copper tubing that had been bent in a funny U-bend-plus-a-right-angle shape for some other mystery project plus some black rubber tubing to join the two because for Some Reason we didn't have any clear vinyl tubing hanging around and the fill hole on a 2005 Corolla's transmission points directly sideways at a right angle to the end of the funnel AUGH (also avec enotsola)
4. Properly inflating all four tires and the spare
5. Replacing the cabin air filter, which by rights shouldn't have needed it yet, but I guess there's ick in the air? (enotsola did this)
6. Cleaning bird poop off my roof and cleaning the windows
7. Vacuuming the interior still needs doing but was not happening after all of that. $OUT_OF_JUICE_ERROR

Now I need a shower. Ew.

Santa Cruz County has banned surfing. Now you know this is srs bsns.

Current status: Sipping wine, nibbling cheese and crackers, listening to the Cocteau Twins, and reading a back issue of Faerie Magazine / Enchanted Living. Not too shabby.

I thiiiiink my hair needs a trim. I just managed to tuck it under the mattress with the blanket while neatening up a corner of the bed.

enotsola is an American citizen now. I don't know what the heck to do about this (mentally/emotionally speaking).

Besides half upending my mental picture of what forms I need to file enotsola's and my taxes (spoilers: if you have self-employment income it isn't really any simpler, and some schedules are still called the same thing while some aren't), this year's tax quandary is whether we can take the "Qualified Business Income" deduction. We seem to meet the requirements as to our total income and the nature of the business, but the forms all expect you to fill in an EIN (Employer Identification Number) for the business. It doesn't have one; it's a sole proprietorship with no employees and no legal entity of its own (LLC, S corporation). Trying to take this deduction if we're not actually eligible would not be a small error (something on the order of $1600-1700 difference in taxable income). Does anyone know anything about this one? I fear I may wind up having to actually call the IRS, which I would dread in any case but even more so this year due to the recent unpleasantness.

eta: I may have created a problem where there wasn't one. I am at work without my draft filled forms and am quickly glancing at fresh blanks, so I need to review this more carefully again when I get home. See my reply to elf.