Run tokio runtime in a background thread(s) and provide callbacks-based API, I guess. That's not a terribly efficient, but a pretty sane approach.

I planned to get a Tuxedo laptop (specs look better that FW or S76) but ended up buying an HP ZBook Ultra - with good linux support and good battery life (I'm still in process of setting it up, so can't yet report in full detail, but so far it looks good)

That it's finally bringing some novel things (not in the PL research sense, but in the sense of being practically usable). And that it has macros (which was a big point for me as I was fascinated with Lisps at that time).

Yes, kind of. It gives me an idea of what can I expect of this software in terms of building, running, error handling, resource usage, security and so on.

Sorry for your loss. I like to think that it matters more how a cat lived and how much love (s)he has received than how (s)he left. I also lost my cat this year.