In the strangest of places

Full list of February questions here.

25. When was the last time the windows in your home were washed?

We moved into the house in July 2014 and have never had the windows professionally washed. Once in a while we'll get a container of Windex Outdoor that hooks up to the hose and use it on the dining room windows, usually if they look bad and there's a party or something coming up. Those windows are pretty high up above the ground and neither of us would ever climb a ladder to clean a window. There's a deck off the dining room that runs along the living room, and it has a sliding glass door, a set of French doors, and two large windows that don't open. Those can be cleaned by hand from the deck and that happens whenever the deck is cleaned up. Each year when the weather starts to warm up? That sounds about right.

26. When you leave your home, what essentials do you have with you?

Keys, wallet, phone. Fun fact, I've been using the same wallet chain since 1996 or so, back when it was fashionable. By continuing to wear it, I'm definitely dating myself. But while I started wearing it because of the look, I can never stop because of the secure feeling. It's kind of big and one of my bosses back in the day wanted me to wear my smaller one Monday-Thursday and that one was suitable in her opinion for Casual Friday. When we started having to do tons of overtime because of her mismanagement, I started wearing it on Thursdays and told her Thursday and Friday would both be casual days as long as we worked so many hours that we passed 32 hours for the week before the end of Thursday. That really pissed her off and she complained about me to her boss, who basically told her it didn't matter and she needed to concentrate on things that do. It was great.

I don't take my whole wallet with me when I teach a class. On those trips I just have my driver license in my hoodie's zip pocket, along with my debit card if it's Monday and I'll be shopping at Winco, where they don't accept credit cards. The debit card also comes along if I want a lottery ticket any day other than Monday. There's typically no need to carry my physical credit card since it's stored on my phone and that works everywhere but the gas station.

I have a system that usually works for returning everything I take out of my wallet, which is to leave it hanging by the chain instead of in the back pocket of my current pair of shorts. That way if I'm getting ready to leave and go to put the shorts on, I knew without even opening it if everything's in the wallet.

And if you're wondering why I have a "current pair" of shorts, it's because I don't wear them much so it wouldn't make sense to wash them immediately. They stay on a hook for a week or two because for most of my trips out, I'm wearing exercise shorts.

27. Have you received a letter recently?

Somewhat! I have a friend who I exchange "round tuit" letters with, which we write when we "get a round tuit."

28. Do you own many notebooks? What do you use them for?

Not any more. I just don't like writing things by hand and I no longer draw, either. I recently came up with a great way to manage notes to myself. For years I would send myself an email and keep it in the inbox until it was done, but now I do it as a draft and back out of it. It's better that way because it doesn't have to be deleted from both the inbox and the sent folder to get rid of it. It just goes away when you discard it! I also manage much of my life in tabs of three different spreadsheets. One's a household one that I share with Garrett, another one for just me that started its life as the Caturday and Schadenfriday spreadsheet, and one for water fitness.

One thing I'll do when I get a round tuit is review a notebook I have from the early 2000s to see if there's anything in it worth saving before I destroy it. There's some very cringey stuff in it and I want it gone.