For some reason I am suddenly receiving a lot of telephone solicitations in the past week. I suspect it is because I moved and changed my address with the Post Office (which reminds me that I really must check my PO box as I only got the small one... I never checked mail at the place Jackson and I shared and rarely got mail as all of my bills are scheduled automatic payments, but who knows what might show up now that I moved... every junk mailer in the world, probably), closed my utilities and cable accounts, and am "fresh meat" for this pathetic commercial culture, but the last call was a robo-call that said I was "referred by a friend or neighbor." Hoping that is a lie. I am reporting calls to the National Do Not Call Registry and I verified my number is still on the registry. Go get them, beauracrats! lol. Seriously, I have not gotten an unsolicited phone call in years so I appreciate the government program that helps prevent them. Hopefully this new wave of sales calls will not last long.
I am also getting more calls from the previous job. Some of the workers there have called and left messages. They apparently miss me and are not happy. I was always a good listener. I am also getting calls from vendors about Spring maintenance and even got a call from one of the maintenance workers. They have been increasing and in the last week I received four calls. I finally texted the CEO and asked him to pass the message along to the organization and especially to the person running my former operation that he or she needs to notify people he or she is the one on call 24/7 and they should not be contacting me. I was polite and concluded with a friendly tone and well wishes.
I miss the people I managed and the people we cared for, but their rules prevent me from visiting or maintaining contact and their calls put me in an awkward position that they need to remedy. It really makes no sense as they started as a family-owned company many years ago and the founder still was CEO until just a few years ago and the reputation was friendly and great. We even discussed how different the organization was from others and how people who left often kept in touch, but that change in the past year and that is the primary reason I was not happy and expressing it which is why I am better off out of there. They seemed to lose track of the mission and values along with their ideals as they shifted gears to expand the organization by 70% over the next seven years.
I miss the income too, but I fell in love with the organization because they were and sold themselves as putting people ahead of money and that changed and when a non-profit goes on such a rapid expansion plan, they will lose the people who created the culture of family over decades.
Call me a fool, but I am much happier sticking with my ideals regardless of my living situation or bank accounts than I am living in luxury in a work environment that sells out on the primary purpose of the organization.
So who cares?
I do :)
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Sleep, Really?
Yes, and I probably could have fallen back to sleep again but came to sit up and see if I can see. Focus that is. The eyes blink through the milky glaze of semi-dried tears as I count the hours I slept. Many. About ten last night. More than the usual four to six the day before. Still broken, up every few hours between REM cycles to empty the ballder, but definitely an excellent improvement over the past years. One night, or even the thirty six hour period I am recounting, does not suddenly erase the stress and wear and tear of years of limited sleep, but wow, it feels so different today. The body healing can be felt. The brain recovery is happening somewhere in the fog. A few more days like this and who knows, I might be young again. Well, at least I am laughing again :)
Somehow it has already been a busy phone morning. Multiple messages from Curly to make plans for the next few days into next week. I offered to help him with lawn work he needs to get done in return for all the work he is doing around here. We have bridge set up for tonight. He might get back to the plumbing tomorrow if he feels better. He's got a cold and is run down so he is taking a couple of days off. That does ut off my hot showers here, but he needs to take care of himself. Then tomorrow evening softball takes over until Monday.
Then two vendors from my previous job called. That makes four this week. Apparently the new Administrator has not taken responsibility for notifying vendors and others that I no longer work for the organization. Each month since I left I've gotten several calls a month from vendors and staff (unhappy staff has been their biggest problem because they enable entitlement so much and that has been going on for decades... I told them I could change that culture but it would take years and they were too impatient and refused to change themselves as they refused to see they encouraged that culture by coddling staff and not keeping an Administrator around for more than a year {the one before me was there three months}... just goes to show my plan was working because the most senior staff, the ones who would swing the change of culture, are the ones calling me to complain now so I aappear to have earned their loyalty and respect). So I finally sent a text to the CEO asking him to straighten out communications.
I am feeling closer to wanting actual exercise (like running or weights or gym or something other than softball) and if I had hot water here I just might be out walk/jogging this morning but I am still feeling semi-clean (sad, I know, to consider a shower two days ago as still feeling semi-clean, but it's sure better than four or five days or more... imagine how they lived back a hundred or more years ago with a bath once a week or even longer... we certainly are spoiled in our modern western culture).
Changing habits must continue. More consitent sleep will hopefully lead to more consistent clarify and energy and motivation for more consistent exercise and weight loss and a healthier body and mind. Let's not stop at one night this year, aye? :)
Somehow it has already been a busy phone morning. Multiple messages from Curly to make plans for the next few days into next week. I offered to help him with lawn work he needs to get done in return for all the work he is doing around here. We have bridge set up for tonight. He might get back to the plumbing tomorrow if he feels better. He's got a cold and is run down so he is taking a couple of days off. That does ut off my hot showers here, but he needs to take care of himself. Then tomorrow evening softball takes over until Monday.
Then two vendors from my previous job called. That makes four this week. Apparently the new Administrator has not taken responsibility for notifying vendors and others that I no longer work for the organization. Each month since I left I've gotten several calls a month from vendors and staff (unhappy staff has been their biggest problem because they enable entitlement so much and that has been going on for decades... I told them I could change that culture but it would take years and they were too impatient and refused to change themselves as they refused to see they encouraged that culture by coddling staff and not keeping an Administrator around for more than a year {the one before me was there three months}... just goes to show my plan was working because the most senior staff, the ones who would swing the change of culture, are the ones calling me to complain now so I aappear to have earned their loyalty and respect). So I finally sent a text to the CEO asking him to straighten out communications.
I am feeling closer to wanting actual exercise (like running or weights or gym or something other than softball) and if I had hot water here I just might be out walk/jogging this morning but I am still feeling semi-clean (sad, I know, to consider a shower two days ago as still feeling semi-clean, but it's sure better than four or five days or more... imagine how they lived back a hundred or more years ago with a bath once a week or even longer... we certainly are spoiled in our modern western culture).
Changing habits must continue. More consitent sleep will hopefully lead to more consistent clarify and energy and motivation for more consistent exercise and weight loss and a healthier body and mind. Let's not stop at one night this year, aye? :)
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Closer to Hot Showers
As much as this life is laced with lament and challenges these days, there is still progress most days and today Curly and I (mostly him) worked on the pipes to get hot water into my bathroom. We paused and hope to finish tomorrow. I get a hot shower tomorrow at his place. These few weeks without hot showers have taken their toll on the body and spirit as it is a daily (life in this body is a moment to moment experience not always easy to ignore) reminder of the potential return to street life and of the lack of income and all that can go wrong in thise culture when the money runs out. I know way too much about that from my personal and professional experiences.
I know I could shower in hot water daily as I have at least a half dozen people (several nearby) who would insist I use their house if they knew the full scope of my situation but I do not like taking so much from a lot of others and I do not like others treating me like I am a failure (and some would because that is how we are trained to see someone in my position in this culture) and I am lazy and don't want to drive to take a shower every day. I could just move in with Curly yet I would be far from softball and enjoy this privacy. I am probably also punishing myself in my own simple way for not taking the good fortune and great income I had seriously and putting myself where I am. Hey, I could even spend $10 a month on a gym membership ($1 for the first month, $99 a year) where I could shower multiple times a day if I so chose to, but driving there (no less exercising) has been foolishly avoided by my selfish belief in natural consequences and again, laziness. Change your ways, old fool, or prepare to die.
Subtle, I am not. So anyway, would you like to swing on a star?
Yeah, I am still easy to amuse and laugh away most challenges by remembering there is always hope and I can survive just about anything this body can survive. So today was another sleep-in day after another night I went to bed after sunrise, but Curly woke me before noon and we started on the plumping. After we paused we went to buy more parts we need to finish the job and then headed to his place for a shower and cards. Tuesday night cards, remember?
Tusday night cards was fun. We only had four so we played spades and we split four games (Curly and I are usually on different teams because we are good at the game. It was after midnight when the fourth game ended so we did not play another. Farewells were shared and I headed home and here we are. Tomorrow Curly will call when he is ready to head over and I will wake up and help him finish the plumbing improvements and I will have hot water and a washing machine. Yay for that. Clothes lines or a trip to the local laundromat are preferable to heating up the place and the cost of running a dryer at the moment. Besides, the laundry room does not fit my large modern front loading equipment.
Same for the air-conditioning. Keeping costs down and making maximum use of the space (once accessible window and the best option for now is a window unit). Once the plumbing is completed I will return to unpacking and sorting and reducing the clutter. Now if I can only find someone with a huge truck willing to drive my stuff down from New York, I'd sort and finally reduce all of the material clutter in this life and in my head and who knows what might happen then.
Jackson just texted a smile in response to my midnight goodnight (Hers was sent at 11pm but I missed it. That must have been when I went to the bathroom during the card games). Before I could ask why she is up so late she texted back that she got up to pee. We really are a strange pair of adopted siblings, no doubt. And on that note, I wish you a goodnight too. Hope your day was fun and productive and hope, hope your night was fun and full of love, and hope you make tomorrow even better.
I know I could shower in hot water daily as I have at least a half dozen people (several nearby) who would insist I use their house if they knew the full scope of my situation but I do not like taking so much from a lot of others and I do not like others treating me like I am a failure (and some would because that is how we are trained to see someone in my position in this culture) and I am lazy and don't want to drive to take a shower every day. I could just move in with Curly yet I would be far from softball and enjoy this privacy. I am probably also punishing myself in my own simple way for not taking the good fortune and great income I had seriously and putting myself where I am. Hey, I could even spend $10 a month on a gym membership ($1 for the first month, $99 a year) where I could shower multiple times a day if I so chose to, but driving there (no less exercising) has been foolishly avoided by my selfish belief in natural consequences and again, laziness. Change your ways, old fool, or prepare to die.
Subtle, I am not. So anyway, would you like to swing on a star?
Yeah, I am still easy to amuse and laugh away most challenges by remembering there is always hope and I can survive just about anything this body can survive. So today was another sleep-in day after another night I went to bed after sunrise, but Curly woke me before noon and we started on the plumping. After we paused we went to buy more parts we need to finish the job and then headed to his place for a shower and cards. Tuesday night cards, remember?
Tusday night cards was fun. We only had four so we played spades and we split four games (Curly and I are usually on different teams because we are good at the game. It was after midnight when the fourth game ended so we did not play another. Farewells were shared and I headed home and here we are. Tomorrow Curly will call when he is ready to head over and I will wake up and help him finish the plumbing improvements and I will have hot water and a washing machine. Yay for that. Clothes lines or a trip to the local laundromat are preferable to heating up the place and the cost of running a dryer at the moment. Besides, the laundry room does not fit my large modern front loading equipment.
Same for the air-conditioning. Keeping costs down and making maximum use of the space (once accessible window and the best option for now is a window unit). Once the plumbing is completed I will return to unpacking and sorting and reducing the clutter. Now if I can only find someone with a huge truck willing to drive my stuff down from New York, I'd sort and finally reduce all of the material clutter in this life and in my head and who knows what might happen then.
Jackson just texted a smile in response to my midnight goodnight (Hers was sent at 11pm but I missed it. That must have been when I went to the bathroom during the card games). Before I could ask why she is up so late she texted back that she got up to pee. We really are a strange pair of adopted siblings, no doubt. And on that note, I wish you a goodnight too. Hope your day was fun and productive and hope, hope your night was fun and full of love, and hope you make tomorrow even better.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Long Lonely Nights
Seems to be a theme now, these lonely nights. Today and tonight was mostly fun because I do stuff I find fun, but I am a lot lonelier than I'd like to be because I want to share more. That is how it works. If I did not want to share time, space, activities, and myself with someone, I would not be lonely. I am only lonely because I want to share. If you understand that then you understand it is my choice. In case it matters.
Softball was another thud and the season is over. We lost big to the almost undefeated team and hopefully next season we (and I) will do much better. Several players are leaving and we are recruiting several replacements who are better than the players leaving. As for me, I have reached a point where I am deteriorating by the week because I am not exercising enough so I must stop procrastinating and get into daily exercise or my playing days are numbered. I also must get a mask and more protective equipment because one ball buzzes my head and I didn't react in time and that could have been the end of my playing days or worse very quickly and easily. Live better and safer or die sooner, that is my simple choice.
Jackson was not there because her team lost last week (this was week two of the playoffs) so I did not get to see her new car (did I mention she got a new car?... yeah, mixed feelings... but sad not to be any part of the excitement and experience after all the years we talked about her buying her dream car... alas, life goes on). Back to softball, I stayed around to watch the women's league playoffs because I know many of the players (I've played with many of them over the years and a half dozen or more are on my current co-ed teams). The team we all expected to win won because they are in a higher rating level than all of the other teams. Not really fair, but when only four teams sign up, that's the way it goes. It does give the lower level teams a chance to play up to better cometition and therein improve, or so the theory goes.
After softball I stopped for a food treat at Wawa. Two Subs (Meatball parmesean with bacon {not the best, provolone cheese and not enough, not enough sauce, but ok for a midnight snack} and Pepperoni Pizza {a lot of pepperoni, provolone and not enough cheese), a mac and cheese bowl (with bacon, luke warm, dry and pasty... needed butter, velveeta, more liquid, and heating up to be paletable), a buttered roll, and three vanilla crene filled long johns. I ate half of each sub, a few bites of the mac and cheese, and a long john. The long john was my favorite part of the meal and it is close to my favorite snack food, though Publix Yo-yos are hard to beat. I know way too many calories for my sedentary life style and even more, way too late to eat. I was up all night, as usual.
The night was filled with Facebook and online reading, a few comments, and some blogging. There is a returning hunger to share after I get home from activities and socializing and I quell (occasionally satisfy) the hunger with some online communication and mostly with these blog posts. The blogs let me stay in touch with myself and provides the hope (and illusion in the possibility) of sharing cuz you could read this and respond. Simple substitution of unwanted reality with hope of wanted reality by believing in the possibility of wanted reality and providing the means to it through the writings left here (there, and everywhere else, ya know?). Some sublimation required.
We could have been heroes, for now we are subs :)
Softball was another thud and the season is over. We lost big to the almost undefeated team and hopefully next season we (and I) will do much better. Several players are leaving and we are recruiting several replacements who are better than the players leaving. As for me, I have reached a point where I am deteriorating by the week because I am not exercising enough so I must stop procrastinating and get into daily exercise or my playing days are numbered. I also must get a mask and more protective equipment because one ball buzzes my head and I didn't react in time and that could have been the end of my playing days or worse very quickly and easily. Live better and safer or die sooner, that is my simple choice.
Jackson was not there because her team lost last week (this was week two of the playoffs) so I did not get to see her new car (did I mention she got a new car?... yeah, mixed feelings... but sad not to be any part of the excitement and experience after all the years we talked about her buying her dream car... alas, life goes on). Back to softball, I stayed around to watch the women's league playoffs because I know many of the players (I've played with many of them over the years and a half dozen or more are on my current co-ed teams). The team we all expected to win won because they are in a higher rating level than all of the other teams. Not really fair, but when only four teams sign up, that's the way it goes. It does give the lower level teams a chance to play up to better cometition and therein improve, or so the theory goes.
After softball I stopped for a food treat at Wawa. Two Subs (Meatball parmesean with bacon {not the best, provolone cheese and not enough, not enough sauce, but ok for a midnight snack} and Pepperoni Pizza {a lot of pepperoni, provolone and not enough cheese), a mac and cheese bowl (with bacon, luke warm, dry and pasty... needed butter, velveeta, more liquid, and heating up to be paletable), a buttered roll, and three vanilla crene filled long johns. I ate half of each sub, a few bites of the mac and cheese, and a long john. The long john was my favorite part of the meal and it is close to my favorite snack food, though Publix Yo-yos are hard to beat. I know way too many calories for my sedentary life style and even more, way too late to eat. I was up all night, as usual.
The night was filled with Facebook and online reading, a few comments, and some blogging. There is a returning hunger to share after I get home from activities and socializing and I quell (occasionally satisfy) the hunger with some online communication and mostly with these blog posts. The blogs let me stay in touch with myself and provides the hope (and illusion in the possibility) of sharing cuz you could read this and respond. Simple substitution of unwanted reality with hope of wanted reality by believing in the possibility of wanted reality and providing the means to it through the writings left here (there, and everywhere else, ya know?). Some sublimation required.
We could have been heroes, for now we are subs :)
Monday, March 28, 2016
It was many hours ago Yesterday
If you found the two song transition in the title, bravo and let me know. You may be entitle to an all expenses paid trip to Orlando, Florida or some other destination if there is ever any income around here (or if I win the lottery, though the odds are not so good there as I play maybe once a year)
It can be quite a lonely day, Sunday without softball, especially when the whole world is following a tradition of being with family (chasing eggs or bunnies or some such tomfoolerly). As I am not one who find much useful in most human traditions, especially religious traditions, I usually either spend holidays by myself or with someone who doesn't mind my alternative perspectives. Today was no differemt than most.
I did not feel like venturing on the roads and dealing with holiday traffic (and massive heat and humidty and some rain or at least potential rain especially since I am feeling hot and sticky... hopefully the shower will be hot in the next couple of days and this transition time of sponge baths and feeling uncomfortably hot and sticky will be a thing of the past), so it was a quiet day at home alone again, naturally (more mashed references for your puzzling pleasure). Since I was awake at least until sunrise last night I slept past noon once again and then puttered about the place for a bit and then, Facebook and reading articles on the internet (some older links may have slipped into that list, but I am actually up to date now {unless you count the many thousands of links not uploaded during the pause} and might even keep up with uploading the sites I saw in the blog called Sites I Saw [what a coincidence, aye?) just for you who needs to know, in case it matters). Anyway, I was mostly reading as I am quickly relatively burnt out in commenting.
That catching up on the world, current events, breakthroughs in science anywhere else breaktroughs might happen, amusing myself with cute (or a variety of) videos, collecting links and images, and general mayhem went well into the evening and night with several Ruzzle breaks tucked in and a round of Words with Friends that I play with Jackson. Dinner was a sandwich made from the assortment of meats and cheeses (four different lunch meats and six different cheese slices), I bought last week along with a bit of macaroni salad and cole slaw. Also some Spaghettios and meatballs with melted cheese on top.
There was probably more to this but I started nodding off. Hope you are having fun too :)
It can be quite a lonely day, Sunday without softball, especially when the whole world is following a tradition of being with family (chasing eggs or bunnies or some such tomfoolerly). As I am not one who find much useful in most human traditions, especially religious traditions, I usually either spend holidays by myself or with someone who doesn't mind my alternative perspectives. Today was no differemt than most.
I did not feel like venturing on the roads and dealing with holiday traffic (and massive heat and humidty and some rain or at least potential rain especially since I am feeling hot and sticky... hopefully the shower will be hot in the next couple of days and this transition time of sponge baths and feeling uncomfortably hot and sticky will be a thing of the past), so it was a quiet day at home alone again, naturally (more mashed references for your puzzling pleasure). Since I was awake at least until sunrise last night I slept past noon once again and then puttered about the place for a bit and then, Facebook and reading articles on the internet (some older links may have slipped into that list, but I am actually up to date now {unless you count the many thousands of links not uploaded during the pause} and might even keep up with uploading the sites I saw in the blog called Sites I Saw [what a coincidence, aye?) just for you who needs to know, in case it matters). Anyway, I was mostly reading as I am quickly relatively burnt out in commenting.
That catching up on the world, current events, breakthroughs in science anywhere else breaktroughs might happen, amusing myself with cute (or a variety of) videos, collecting links and images, and general mayhem went well into the evening and night with several Ruzzle breaks tucked in and a round of Words with Friends that I play with Jackson. Dinner was a sandwich made from the assortment of meats and cheeses (four different lunch meats and six different cheese slices), I bought last week along with a bit of macaroni salad and cole slaw. Also some Spaghettios and meatballs with melted cheese on top.
There was probably more to this but I started nodding off. Hope you are having fun too :)
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Equipment Maintenance
The laptop is entering it's ninth year soon (or has it already) and like the phone (entering it's sixth or seventh year), they are both such relative antiquated pieces of equipment with such outdated software and limited memory that most of todays programs and apps do not fit or work on them and the browsers are no longer being supported which makes for a lot of missed experiences online and a lot of time spent on equipment maintenance.
Waiting for Spybot to finish it's scans, I play Ruzzle for an hour or more, then I play chess for a game or few, then I ponder the life as I know it, though not very deeply. As I have hinted, mentioned, and flat out said in recent times, I am beginning to crave sharing again, deeper sharing. I share activities with others, friendsa and aquaintances, daily. I keep very busy in the evenings and on weekends (one reason I am not working right now is I was slacking off on the hours I gave to the previous job which is why I am looking for a 40 hour a week job instead of a 24/7 job now. 40 hours a week would be a huge step closer to retirement for me.
Each day of the week there is a group activity scheduled now. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, Saturday afternoons (and mornings whenever I feel like waking early), and Sunday all day, there is softball in five different leagues with five different teams. Tuesday and Thursday evenings and when I want to make it and don't have other plans, Saturday evenings, there is cards and games at two different locations. That does not include time with Harpo and that group of friends or with Helen and her friends or with Jackson and her friends. Additional time at sports bars is often available after the softball. So lamenting about loneliness seems strange and yet, still, I crave deeper sharing again.
The space is available again.
I suppose we might say the equipment maintenance on my heart and soul/spirit/anima/ka/me is completed and I am ready to take a chance again (omg, Barry Manilow?... I may never cease to amaze ya know).
So what's going on in you? :)
Waiting for Spybot to finish it's scans, I play Ruzzle for an hour or more, then I play chess for a game or few, then I ponder the life as I know it, though not very deeply. As I have hinted, mentioned, and flat out said in recent times, I am beginning to crave sharing again, deeper sharing. I share activities with others, friendsa and aquaintances, daily. I keep very busy in the evenings and on weekends (one reason I am not working right now is I was slacking off on the hours I gave to the previous job which is why I am looking for a 40 hour a week job instead of a 24/7 job now. 40 hours a week would be a huge step closer to retirement for me.
Each day of the week there is a group activity scheduled now. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, Saturday afternoons (and mornings whenever I feel like waking early), and Sunday all day, there is softball in five different leagues with five different teams. Tuesday and Thursday evenings and when I want to make it and don't have other plans, Saturday evenings, there is cards and games at two different locations. That does not include time with Harpo and that group of friends or with Helen and her friends or with Jackson and her friends. Additional time at sports bars is often available after the softball. So lamenting about loneliness seems strange and yet, still, I crave deeper sharing again.
The space is available again.
I suppose we might say the equipment maintenance on my heart and soul/spirit/anima/ka/me is completed and I am ready to take a chance again (omg, Barry Manilow?... I may never cease to amaze ya know).
So what's going on in you? :)
Night Becomes Day
As I was starting to say in the brief version (or step one) or this current daily two-steo blog, a person with a natural nocturnal circadian rhythm can become quite unconventional when not working and living alone. Here we are much closer to the sunrise than the sunset and the summary of the previous day is just beginning. I am in my element, comfortable and at peace, in the middle of the night and as morning nears, sleep calls so sweetly. Sleeping when the rest of the world is working seems so right for me, no wonder I worked night shift for years. If only night shift paid what day jobs pay, I'd probably be looking to work nights again. Unless, of course, someone would like to come along and be my everything, my love, my life parner, and so on. Any so ons out there?
Listening to Harry Chapin's Dance Band on the Titanic once again for the first time in this new space and luckily (or whatever) I was deeply distracted by more reading so the profound lyrics did not tear into me as they could. Should? Maybe. Maybe? That was on the previous CD. Ah, the cleverness continues to0 amuse me even if it is sub-par humor for everyone else. To each his or her own. And just in case my own as in one and only and I do mean the one is reading your place by my side is waiting patiently (though my patience is not always so patient as your place is, so come on already, get here, m'ok?).
I really do not want to listen to Tanya Tucker's Can't Run From Yourself these days and even John Denver's Seasons of the Heart is too much looking back at what has been. No matter how beautiful the memories, I'd much rather open the door for a new wonder and excitement (and you, if you are the one and just in case you think you might be and wanna be, here are a few links to blogs and rhymes that kinda introduce me and a few that express what I seek in the one. Yeah, the treasure map to my heart is right there online for anyone to find. Well, pieces of it, anyway. The maze leading to the center that only the one can find, however, has no map and appears to constantly change just to make sure only the one can find me in there. Wouldn't want to waste my time (or life) falling in love with someone not compatible at the center of our hearts, now would we?
See what happens when night becomes day? All the little children come out to dance and dream and long for romance it seems. As Harry so eloquently put it, if you just dream when you're asleep there is no way for them to come alive."
Apparently, sometimes the dirt, drama, and details of the life as I live it might reveal a whole lot more than the events of the day in the physical world. So what did happen today? Woke after about six hours sleep and Curly was letting himself in. He texted before he arrived to pick me up to go play bridge at Excel and the Commodore's place. Another player, we'll call her Goldilocks, showed up and we played Chicago style for hours. I did well for my second time playing, though Goldilocks had a different rulebook in mind sometimes and it became confusing when she and Curly tried to teach me together. I think I finally got the message across that telling me what to do is not letting me learn to make my own decisions. Curly and the Commodore (especially the Commodore) seem to enjoy making up rules as they teach to see if they can trick me and that adds to the confusion, but we have fun at my expense. By the end of the night the brain was turned off and I was just throwing cards out rather randomly (perhaps that was my way of giving them the impression I would never be a good player. Their sense of false confidence grows and they don't even know it. Shhhhh, don't tell lol).
6:18am... the recliner. We interrupt this blog post to bring you the following breaking story (pun unintended, really). The LED desk lamp fell and I discovered the base was some sort of fine cement-like ceramic that shattered exposing the wiring, alas, making it no longer convenient or safe to move around and use as the primary desk lamp for typing so an exploratory committe shall be developed to research the next primary desk lamp that will be purchased as soon as plausible (asap) based on a very overdue budgetary review. Alas. Sigh. We now, following a moment of silent lament for the fallen, return to the blog entry in progress.
Before heading out with Curly I gave almost an hour to the online world and almost a half an hour to the Ruzzle game. Dinner was on the stove when we got there so we ate during the bridge game. Spinach ravioli and seasoned ground beef and julien cut squash. No sauce. After returning from dazed and confused from the teach me bridge with three part disharmony tournament, I turned on the Blue Jays CD followed by the Harry Chapin CD mentioned earlier and ate half a sandwich leftover from this afternoon and a third of a can of spagehettios and meatballs left over from last night with some cole slaw and macaroni salad and then sat down to browse Facebook and read articles for a couple of hours. That brings us to the entries in the two step blog we now call home, home, in the words (or something like that).
Are we having fun yet? :)
THere's always hope :)
Listening to Harry Chapin's Dance Band on the Titanic once again for the first time in this new space and luckily (or whatever) I was deeply distracted by more reading so the profound lyrics did not tear into me as they could. Should? Maybe. Maybe? That was on the previous CD. Ah, the cleverness continues to0 amuse me even if it is sub-par humor for everyone else. To each his or her own. And just in case my own as in one and only and I do mean the one is reading your place by my side is waiting patiently (though my patience is not always so patient as your place is, so come on already, get here, m'ok?).
I really do not want to listen to Tanya Tucker's Can't Run From Yourself these days and even John Denver's Seasons of the Heart is too much looking back at what has been. No matter how beautiful the memories, I'd much rather open the door for a new wonder and excitement (and you, if you are the one and just in case you think you might be and wanna be, here are a few links to blogs and rhymes that kinda introduce me and a few that express what I seek in the one. Yeah, the treasure map to my heart is right there online for anyone to find. Well, pieces of it, anyway. The maze leading to the center that only the one can find, however, has no map and appears to constantly change just to make sure only the one can find me in there. Wouldn't want to waste my time (or life) falling in love with someone not compatible at the center of our hearts, now would we?
See what happens when night becomes day? All the little children come out to dance and dream and long for romance it seems. As Harry so eloquently put it, if you just dream when you're asleep there is no way for them to come alive."
Apparently, sometimes the dirt, drama, and details of the life as I live it might reveal a whole lot more than the events of the day in the physical world. So what did happen today? Woke after about six hours sleep and Curly was letting himself in. He texted before he arrived to pick me up to go play bridge at Excel and the Commodore's place. Another player, we'll call her Goldilocks, showed up and we played Chicago style for hours. I did well for my second time playing, though Goldilocks had a different rulebook in mind sometimes and it became confusing when she and Curly tried to teach me together. I think I finally got the message across that telling me what to do is not letting me learn to make my own decisions. Curly and the Commodore (especially the Commodore) seem to enjoy making up rules as they teach to see if they can trick me and that adds to the confusion, but we have fun at my expense. By the end of the night the brain was turned off and I was just throwing cards out rather randomly (perhaps that was my way of giving them the impression I would never be a good player. Their sense of false confidence grows and they don't even know it. Shhhhh, don't tell lol).
6:18am... the recliner. We interrupt this blog post to bring you the following breaking story (pun unintended, really). The LED desk lamp fell and I discovered the base was some sort of fine cement-like ceramic that shattered exposing the wiring, alas, making it no longer convenient or safe to move around and use as the primary desk lamp for typing so an exploratory committe shall be developed to research the next primary desk lamp that will be purchased as soon as plausible (asap) based on a very overdue budgetary review. Alas. Sigh. We now, following a moment of silent lament for the fallen, return to the blog entry in progress.
Before heading out with Curly I gave almost an hour to the online world and almost a half an hour to the Ruzzle game. Dinner was on the stove when we got there so we ate during the bridge game. Spinach ravioli and seasoned ground beef and julien cut squash. No sauce. After returning from dazed and confused from the teach me bridge with three part disharmony tournament, I turned on the Blue Jays CD followed by the Harry Chapin CD mentioned earlier and ate half a sandwich leftover from this afternoon and a third of a can of spagehettios and meatballs left over from last night with some cole slaw and macaroni salad and then sat down to browse Facebook and read articles for a couple of hours. That brings us to the entries in the two step blog we now call home, home, in the words (or something like that).
Are we having fun yet? :)
THere's always hope :)
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Not always linked (an explanatory note)
In case it matters, these additional details posts in this blog are not always going to be linked to an entry in the step one of this two step daily life blog set because some of the entries here will have no match there as sometimes life happens between the daily entry there and there may be no need for the surface summary if there are simply more details cuz that is what this blog is for and in keeping with the history (of course I should be sleeping) and traditions (in the bios) of self-inquiry (and creating me) and life (the early years) the old world (like a fool in the chill) left behind (from the beginning) in this blogging life (and these blogging lives) from the early (behind the candoor) babbles (in The Real(TM)) and rhymes (from planet candora) and fundamental (the funda know) transition (bullsugar) into the last daily (in (e)thereal splendor) with the flurry of others (opinions and complaints) not withstanding in these written gardens, this blog shall find entries uploaded whenever the whim might lead me here (so buckly your seat belts honey, we're in for another long strange trip down the long and winding road, wherever it may lead.
This may simply be an explanatory note now that it stole the show from whatevetr this entry might have been had I not felt the there was value in explaining why this blog has more entries than the first step of the daily blog set and something about what this blog is about as well. Are we confused yet?
Narf :)
This may simply be an explanatory note now that it stole the show from whatevetr this entry might have been had I not felt the there was value in explaining why this blog has more entries than the first step of the daily blog set and something about what this blog is about as well. Are we confused yet?
Narf :)
3-2|1
Not really. It is more a three dimensional spacial equation that I do not recall the symbols for but in words it is three forward, two backward, one to the side and it refers to taking three steps forward then two steps back then one step to the side and while it relates to the physical world and the laws of motion it also relates to everything else including the psychological, psychosocial, psychobabble, emotional, and intellectual aspects of life and progress thereinEver so brief as it was, much got done today.
Somewhere in your mind you hear the echo of these words, the day was cloudy as I woke around noon to a text from Curly who was on his way over to continue installing new pipes for hot water and take care of some other emergency situations like a couple of well pumps that overheated because his mom forgot to turn them off and other odds and ends. He got some of the work done but then rain came while we were eating (a Firehouse Subs) and we finished what we could in here. Hope for Monday for the hot water.
"The drinks can go on the microwave." and then I completely forgot why I said that and asked if he wanted his drink in the cramped space behind the washer in the laudnry room and he said yes and as if I was a false bungling prophet the drink went down, cherry coke splatted under the washer, dryer, and heavy boxes and worse, between the tiles into the grout channels and into the concrete outside of the laundry room and probably on the bottom of the washer as well. Cleaning delated the work for a hald hour as moving the washer (we gambled and did not move the dryer as that would have taken another half hour, at least, because heavy bozes were stacked on it and there was no room in the hall so they would have had to be carried further and anyway, cleaning with high dose Mr. Clean and then spraying with lysol and then spraying with bug spray and hopefully not too much was tracked on the concrete hallway. I';ll be on bug watch for a week now which is a crummy way to not be able to relax. Probably why I am still awake.
On the positive side, the pipes for the hot water are closer to being done as I mentioned and Curly got the well pumps fixed and reminded his mom not to leave them running non-stop for days and odds and ends were done and cleaning the fridge coils (which is not fun at all, especially not on a concrete floor in a cramps space... cough cough) and getting a plastic bag out of the fan seemed to fix the fridge just fine, yay for that. Much yay for that.
While loading his car out back his mom pointed out a septic field overflow, bummer, and he may be out here tomorrow to work on that or someone will next week. Not a pretty sight or smell out back of the house.
The evening as wonky with a nap and an increase in the lonelies and wah-wahs (one of the technical terms for a pity-party, mild in this case) and Facebook distractions were not too successful but I read a bunch of articles about this and that (those are linked here {the bottom couple of dozen, to be precise}, in case it matters) and finally bed, but then I realized that I do not have softball tomorrow so I got back up and played Ruzzle for a while and then, here we are. Just too much excitement for words, I know.
The neck is not coopoerating again. The lonelies increased again perhaps due in part to jackson texting me that she is going to pick up a new car tomorrow. I am happy for her but have mixed feelings due to her financial history, new relationship, and on a selfish note, my not being part of it... not being needed anymore, alas, a personal sadness for another lament somewhere else, perhaps). When the neck cooperates more.
In the end, just make it fun, yeah, make it fun and it's all alright :)
Somewhere in your mind you hear the echo of these words, the day was cloudy as I woke around noon to a text from Curly who was on his way over to continue installing new pipes for hot water and take care of some other emergency situations like a couple of well pumps that overheated because his mom forgot to turn them off and other odds and ends. He got some of the work done but then rain came while we were eating (a Firehouse Subs) and we finished what we could in here. Hope for Monday for the hot water.
"The drinks can go on the microwave." and then I completely forgot why I said that and asked if he wanted his drink in the cramped space behind the washer in the laudnry room and he said yes and as if I was a false bungling prophet the drink went down, cherry coke splatted under the washer, dryer, and heavy boxes and worse, between the tiles into the grout channels and into the concrete outside of the laundry room and probably on the bottom of the washer as well. Cleaning delated the work for a hald hour as moving the washer (we gambled and did not move the dryer as that would have taken another half hour, at least, because heavy bozes were stacked on it and there was no room in the hall so they would have had to be carried further and anyway, cleaning with high dose Mr. Clean and then spraying with lysol and then spraying with bug spray and hopefully not too much was tracked on the concrete hallway. I';ll be on bug watch for a week now which is a crummy way to not be able to relax. Probably why I am still awake.
On the positive side, the pipes for the hot water are closer to being done as I mentioned and Curly got the well pumps fixed and reminded his mom not to leave them running non-stop for days and odds and ends were done and cleaning the fridge coils (which is not fun at all, especially not on a concrete floor in a cramps space... cough cough) and getting a plastic bag out of the fan seemed to fix the fridge just fine, yay for that. Much yay for that.
While loading his car out back his mom pointed out a septic field overflow, bummer, and he may be out here tomorrow to work on that or someone will next week. Not a pretty sight or smell out back of the house.
The evening as wonky with a nap and an increase in the lonelies and wah-wahs (one of the technical terms for a pity-party, mild in this case) and Facebook distractions were not too successful but I read a bunch of articles about this and that (those are linked here {the bottom couple of dozen, to be precise}, in case it matters) and finally bed, but then I realized that I do not have softball tomorrow so I got back up and played Ruzzle for a while and then, here we are. Just too much excitement for words, I know.
The neck is not coopoerating again. The lonelies increased again perhaps due in part to jackson texting me that she is going to pick up a new car tomorrow. I am happy for her but have mixed feelings due to her financial history, new relationship, and on a selfish note, my not being part of it... not being needed anymore, alas, a personal sadness for another lament somewhere else, perhaps). When the neck cooperates more.
In the end, just make it fun, yeah, make it fun and it's all alright :)
Friday, March 25, 2016
and the changes keep on changing
As I said it was a great time day and night today. Curly spent most of the afternoon here working on getting the water pipes just right and he will continue tomorrow. Hot water, not that is exciting. Yes, hopefully by tomorrow evening I will have hot water. Just as exciting perhaps is that as he got things done and I saw the wall and space access he needed, I was able to move boxes around and make myself much more room. Eleven boxes when under the bed and became a platform raising the bed to about four feet. Another nine boxes became a headboard. I removed the closet door and now have a table for the microwave and food prep and a box and the large cooler fits under there. Perhaps I will get a few photos up to document the progress and provide a visual comparison to the first night here.
Curly also checked out the refrigerator and discovered the coils were so caked with dust, they would not wipe off with a rag on a stick. I am going to need to moveeleven heavy boxes and many odds and ends to get to the back of the fridge and if it can't be cleaned properly from there, we'll need to get the fridge outside for a hose down. That would be inconvenient as I just bought food for the month. Stupid move since the temperature has been wonky. Curly brought over a thermometer and we found the freezer down around 20 degrees and the fridge over 50 degrees. Had to throw out a moldy loaf of bread.. Oddly, last week the freezer was having trouble freezing ice and the fridge seemed colder. The temperature control knobs seem confused. Stop laughing, we could lose a lot of food.
Ok, so I am laughing. Amused by the wonderful progress so the stressors are not getting to me. Not the wonky fridge, not the additional holes in the walls, not the laster and cement dust, not the Tetras game I am playing with all these boxes, not the loneliness, not nothing, not no how. It was a great day.
I even got the internet hooked directly into the laptop via ethernet cable and we are now enjoying almost 100mps download and over 10mps upload and almost no latency. The laptop, due to age, clutter on the hard drive, two different active scanning tools (Kaspersky and Spybot) I chose and Windows Defender, and inner dust causing it to overheat without an external fan on high whenever it (the laptop) is one. Speaking of overheating, the other desktop fan was aimed at the refidgerator coils and we are hoping the temperatures will get in the safe range by tomorrow.
For the evening, we went to Excel and Commodore's place to play bridge and enjoy yummy Chinese food (yes, again). They ordered shrimp low mein for me and Excel's son (who is so very polite and friendly... he came out of his room and introduced himself the first time I was there and greeting me with entheusiasm and a handshake tonight... there is hope for humanity yet, aye?). They also ordered sechuan and ragular chicken and it all came with fried rice and crab rangoons and egg rolls and did I meantion it was all very yummy? Just as wonderful was I got an unexpected hot shower as both Curly and I were hot and sweaty and Excel and Commodore welcomed us to shower there. Great people.
On the bridge (the card game), I recall the basic concept of the game from years ago, but I am clearly a newbie when it comes to playing for real right now. They were very patience and eager to train a new player as they lost one of their regulars recently because she moved out of state. We may play again Saturday evening. There is so much to learn about all the communication during bidding and then playing, while it is very much like spades, a game I enjoy a lot and in which I have some proficiency, there are differences that require a lot of thought and memory.
Excel also had a bit of news about progress on the job she wants to offer me. She needs help with spreadsheets and data entry and improving a system to track sales and trends and market prices in the place she works and she met with the boss today who is finally ready to work up a job profile . Hopefully it will turn into something I can do to bring in some income and even more hopefully they will pay a reasonable salary or wage. All in all it was a great day or progress and a great night of fun.
After getting home I wandered Facebook for a while and was inspired to leave a few comments and left what they now call "reactions" on many posts and then I checked email and here we are.
Hope you had fun too :)
Curly also checked out the refrigerator and discovered the coils were so caked with dust, they would not wipe off with a rag on a stick. I am going to need to moveeleven heavy boxes and many odds and ends to get to the back of the fridge and if it can't be cleaned properly from there, we'll need to get the fridge outside for a hose down. That would be inconvenient as I just bought food for the month. Stupid move since the temperature has been wonky. Curly brought over a thermometer and we found the freezer down around 20 degrees and the fridge over 50 degrees. Had to throw out a moldy loaf of bread.. Oddly, last week the freezer was having trouble freezing ice and the fridge seemed colder. The temperature control knobs seem confused. Stop laughing, we could lose a lot of food.
Ok, so I am laughing. Amused by the wonderful progress so the stressors are not getting to me. Not the wonky fridge, not the additional holes in the walls, not the laster and cement dust, not the Tetras game I am playing with all these boxes, not the loneliness, not nothing, not no how. It was a great day.
I even got the internet hooked directly into the laptop via ethernet cable and we are now enjoying almost 100mps download and over 10mps upload and almost no latency. The laptop, due to age, clutter on the hard drive, two different active scanning tools (Kaspersky and Spybot) I chose and Windows Defender, and inner dust causing it to overheat without an external fan on high whenever it (the laptop) is one. Speaking of overheating, the other desktop fan was aimed at the refidgerator coils and we are hoping the temperatures will get in the safe range by tomorrow.
For the evening, we went to Excel and Commodore's place to play bridge and enjoy yummy Chinese food (yes, again). They ordered shrimp low mein for me and Excel's son (who is so very polite and friendly... he came out of his room and introduced himself the first time I was there and greeting me with entheusiasm and a handshake tonight... there is hope for humanity yet, aye?). They also ordered sechuan and ragular chicken and it all came with fried rice and crab rangoons and egg rolls and did I meantion it was all very yummy? Just as wonderful was I got an unexpected hot shower as both Curly and I were hot and sweaty and Excel and Commodore welcomed us to shower there. Great people.
On the bridge (the card game), I recall the basic concept of the game from years ago, but I am clearly a newbie when it comes to playing for real right now. They were very patience and eager to train a new player as they lost one of their regulars recently because she moved out of state. We may play again Saturday evening. There is so much to learn about all the communication during bidding and then playing, while it is very much like spades, a game I enjoy a lot and in which I have some proficiency, there are differences that require a lot of thought and memory.
Excel also had a bit of news about progress on the job she wants to offer me. She needs help with spreadsheets and data entry and improving a system to track sales and trends and market prices in the place she works and she met with the boss today who is finally ready to work up a job profile . Hopefully it will turn into something I can do to bring in some income and even more hopefully they will pay a reasonable salary or wage. All in all it was a great day or progress and a great night of fun.
After getting home I wandered Facebook for a while and was inspired to leave a few comments and left what they now call "reactions" on many posts and then I checked email and here we are.
Hope you had fun too :)
Thursday, March 24, 2016
DDD Deeper?
So there was a slight rumor that I maybe reawakening just a little and then we heard, rather nonchalantly, that Blue Jays was playing and now three other CDs high on my personal CD favorites charts are sitting next to me and I am choosing Hotel California (Eagles) and we shall see how the subliminal influence shows itself as the words and music enter the head and the words come out here in the babbling.
There was something, perhaps revealing, as the body stumbled into the heart and the mind tried to be clever, but you can read the whole episode as you wish.
I paused for a cotto salami and baby swiss with sweet mustard on italian bread. I am not a fan of cotto salami, but it's cheap and I pick out the peppercorns or whatever they are. Gonna definitely need to increase exercise and decrease portions or I will put on weight. Too much stagnation between softball games is causing some muscles to weaken and others to be overly stressed and ever since the heavy lifting work or the move and helping Curly my hands and a few other muscles are tightening and I am wondering if it is some disease like arthritis or something. I recently realized that I may have nine of ten signs of Lupus, so not having health insurance to get checked out is not a great thing. The specific changes leading me to ponder this is the increased tightening up and sometimes cramping of both hands, especially pain when making a fist with the right hand, especially the middle phalanx of the right index finger. Wouldn't have anything to do with the ball mouse I use and how much time I spend on the computer, would it? Softball pitching plays a role as well. Start Glucosomine, perhaps. Flax too. I have some of both in one of the boxes. It's come and gone over the years but has not been this painful before. Alas, age takes it's toll on the body.
So where were we? Ah, did I just avoid the deeper stuff that might have been bubbling by eating and wandering off into the physical ailments and la dee dah, aren't I am clever dummy. Look, or don'tlook, but this was my first philosophy of life written when I was still in single digit years. You want more, look around there and you'll find The Early Years and Creating Me which just might be how I made myself into who nI am by expressing who I wanted to be, or something like that. Thank goodness for the Wayback Machine (The Internet Archive) or I might forget who I am (the tapes left in Toronto don't help... hear me Toronto?).
Music brought a sweet distraction, then there was a chain reaction, light did a dance of defraction, and I fell asleep so now without a peep there will be no more deep and what might have been will keep 'til another day... sometimes it just has to be this way.
Nite Nite :)
There was something, perhaps revealing, as the body stumbled into the heart and the mind tried to be clever, but you can read the whole episode as you wish.
I paused for a cotto salami and baby swiss with sweet mustard on italian bread. I am not a fan of cotto salami, but it's cheap and I pick out the peppercorns or whatever they are. Gonna definitely need to increase exercise and decrease portions or I will put on weight. Too much stagnation between softball games is causing some muscles to weaken and others to be overly stressed and ever since the heavy lifting work or the move and helping Curly my hands and a few other muscles are tightening and I am wondering if it is some disease like arthritis or something. I recently realized that I may have nine of ten signs of Lupus, so not having health insurance to get checked out is not a great thing. The specific changes leading me to ponder this is the increased tightening up and sometimes cramping of both hands, especially pain when making a fist with the right hand, especially the middle phalanx of the right index finger. Wouldn't have anything to do with the ball mouse I use and how much time I spend on the computer, would it? Softball pitching plays a role as well. Start Glucosomine, perhaps. Flax too. I have some of both in one of the boxes. It's come and gone over the years but has not been this painful before. Alas, age takes it's toll on the body.
So where were we? Ah, did I just avoid the deeper stuff that might have been bubbling by eating and wandering off into the physical ailments and la dee dah, aren't I am clever dummy. Look, or don'tlook, but this was my first philosophy of life written when I was still in single digit years. You want more, look around there and you'll find The Early Years and Creating Me which just might be how I made myself into who nI am by expressing who I wanted to be, or something like that. Thank goodness for the Wayback Machine (The Internet Archive) or I might forget who I am (the tapes left in Toronto don't help... hear me Toronto?).
Music brought a sweet distraction, then there was a chain reaction, light did a dance of defraction, and I fell asleep so now without a peep there will be no more deep and what might have been will keep 'til another day... sometimes it just has to be this way.
Nite Nite :)
Modest Progress
Today was another day of letting the sleep happen as it will. Also another day of spending time on Facebook, this time almost three hours. A conversation about politics with a few Trump supporters was interesting. I ignored the insult one of them tried to bait me with. He overlooks the arrogance (acknowledges it, just accepts it) and denies the hate-speech, fear-mongering, racist and mysogynist statements I've heard claiming that is media distortion. He excuses moving money and jobs overseas and blames government policies for that action by big business. I don't get the reasoning, but it is the view of many. Some want to trust private industry to take care of our needs. Some want to trust government. I lean toward government because if voters organize, we can fire government. We have no control at all over private industry.
I headed out to get the blood pressure medication and did some food shopping. The freezer is not working right so I did not get frozen food. Curly will look at it next time he is here which should be tomorrow. Then I stopped for chinese food because a food treat is an easy way to comfort, stress-relief, and happiness. I kept telling myself (and Harpo who was on the phone with me at the time because I was driving home and prefer hands free phone conversations) $6 for shrimp fried rice will be ok since I bought a lot of very economical foods (bologna, for instance) to eat for the next month or so. $20 later I had a quart of shrimp fried rice and a large order of shrimp Peking style. I told myself (and Harpo, came into the place on the phone with me) that it would be two or three meals, justifying the expense. Went home and ate and it was so very yummy. After finishing all of it, I nodded off.
Yes, I ate it all. Not the best decision, I know. I was heavily influenced by the fact that the container was overflowing and therefore would be sticky in the fridge and I have no sink to wash dishes or anything so I just kept eating. Ahen. Don't judge. Anyway, food was followed by sweet sleep.
I woke about 2am and caught up on blogs and may have even exposed myself a bit (the next entry will cover that) and then spent three hours sorting boxes and the place is much more organized. Though it is still much more a warehouse than a living space and I emptied only two boxes, I gave fifteen more boxes designated spaces to be emptied when the final arrangement of stuff is decided. Eight of those are boxes of CDs. Just as important, I sorted boxes by area (laundry, nbathroom, clothes closet, under bed storage, other room storage, outside storage, living area, bedroom area, and kitchen. Organization can relieve stress I am told. Clutter increases stress I am told. So this should be a good thing.
Blue Jays (Justin Hayward & John Lodge) plays in the background. Blue Jays is one of my favorite CDs of all time. Much more than mere entertainment, it helped me in so many ways over the years. Some music just gets me all the way to wow and this CD gets me there more than a few times.
So the place is almost ready for Curly's plan to come over tomorrow and work on hooking up the hot water. Wiring for the washer and dryer and air conditioner is also part of the plan (though I will not hook up the dryer due to the confined space and the electric bill. I can either drive over to the coin laundry or hang up clothes inside or outdoors. I will hold off on the air conditioner too for now for the same reasons.)
Amidst the challenges of space and time, progress is a good feeling. :)
I headed out to get the blood pressure medication and did some food shopping. The freezer is not working right so I did not get frozen food. Curly will look at it next time he is here which should be tomorrow. Then I stopped for chinese food because a food treat is an easy way to comfort, stress-relief, and happiness. I kept telling myself (and Harpo who was on the phone with me at the time because I was driving home and prefer hands free phone conversations) $6 for shrimp fried rice will be ok since I bought a lot of very economical foods (bologna, for instance) to eat for the next month or so. $20 later I had a quart of shrimp fried rice and a large order of shrimp Peking style. I told myself (and Harpo, came into the place on the phone with me) that it would be two or three meals, justifying the expense. Went home and ate and it was so very yummy. After finishing all of it, I nodded off.
Yes, I ate it all. Not the best decision, I know. I was heavily influenced by the fact that the container was overflowing and therefore would be sticky in the fridge and I have no sink to wash dishes or anything so I just kept eating. Ahen. Don't judge. Anyway, food was followed by sweet sleep.
I woke about 2am and caught up on blogs and may have even exposed myself a bit (the next entry will cover that) and then spent three hours sorting boxes and the place is much more organized. Though it is still much more a warehouse than a living space and I emptied only two boxes, I gave fifteen more boxes designated spaces to be emptied when the final arrangement of stuff is decided. Eight of those are boxes of CDs. Just as important, I sorted boxes by area (laundry, nbathroom, clothes closet, under bed storage, other room storage, outside storage, living area, bedroom area, and kitchen. Organization can relieve stress I am told. Clutter increases stress I am told. So this should be a good thing.
Blue Jays (Justin Hayward & John Lodge) plays in the background. Blue Jays is one of my favorite CDs of all time. Much more than mere entertainment, it helped me in so many ways over the years. Some music just gets me all the way to wow and this CD gets me there more than a few times.
So the place is almost ready for Curly's plan to come over tomorrow and work on hooking up the hot water. Wiring for the washer and dryer and air conditioner is also part of the plan (though I will not hook up the dryer due to the confined space and the electric bill. I can either drive over to the coin laundry or hang up clothes inside or outdoors. I will hold off on the air conditioner too for now for the same reasons.)
Amidst the challenges of space and time, progress is a good feeling. :)
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
maybe reawakening
Step one came from memory tonight and most of this too, except for a paragraph linking to tomorrow somewhere below because, as I said, sleep came sweeping me away before the computer finished updating and scanning last night so the dirt, drama, and details of the day come in retrospect and that leaves it quite precariously dependent on memory, in case it matters, for what it's worth. And for better or worse, the circadian rhythm is turning day into night and night into day as my natural nocturnal clock is permitted to find it's balance, a balance I must constantly resist when working the usual day shift. Oh, how I long for the perfect world for me where I fit in perfectly and everything is perfect. Not really, but it would be nice to find someone else to share a similar rhythm and rhyme as mine.
Today I allowed sleep to come and go in as natural a course as I've allowed since the working responsibilities stopped. Still not completely free of the day-time time-clock rhythm, but without the dog, the cat, the girl, the job, and the social engagements, my personal rhythm comes closer once again. I woke a couple of times and laid back down for a couple of naps and feel almost refreshed, perhaps even as close as 49% me which is closer than I have been in quite some time (a deeper reflection and assessment may come, but that is left for further inquiry for now).
I then headed out to renew a prescription and shop, but the prescription was going to take at least 90 minutes so I, in my subtle way, asked for a free pill as I was going to miss my evening dose if I did not get one. "Oh dear," I lamented, "what am I do to? I suppose I will just have to miss a dose." The lady behind the counter looked at me and I must have struck just the right look of self-reprisal and forlorn as she reached up to the shelf for a bottle and put one tablet into my empty bottle and gave it back to me. Bringing the empty bottle presents a good effect in these situations. I thanked her profusely and she smailed and said Don't you tell anyone. and I swore myself to secrecy and gave her a huge smile back. We shared a laugh.
So I put off shopping and headed straight to Curly's house for a hot shower, dinner, and cards. Oh, the clean feeling after a hot shower was sweet. Not quite ideal as he has a really tight flow limiter restricting the spray and I rush through out of respect for his water bill (a twenty minute shower is not respectful to Curly nor to the planet, but oh how I (psychologically) and the muscles want one so badly). I appreciate Curly's gifts greatly.
The burgers I bought a few weeks ago were discovered in the freezer (he did not find them last week) and that made for a main course while leftover pork loins were defrosted earlier in the day to make two different slow-cooked pulled pork and beans pots aided by macaroni salad and sauteed mushrooms (with onions, carrots, and garlic) made for a yummy meal for five and then, fun with the cards. Tonight we played one or two games of Oh Hell and one two games of Hearts. I did not come in last. Even won the last game of hearts. All the games were much fun.
I arrived home again after midnight, I decided to let Spybot do it's thing and it took a while. While waiting for Spybot to finish it's scans, I played Ruzzle for an hour or more (and finished first for the day and third in the weekly tournament), then I played chess for a game or few (level three, easy wins... I use chess as a sleep aide, so I keep it easy), then I ponder the life as I know it, though not very deeply, and then, before I got started in the nightly updates, I fall asleep. But before I rolled over into bed, I wrote this.
I am beginning to crave sharing again, deeper sharing. I keep busy socially. I share activities with others, friends and aquaintences, daily. Each day of the week, except for Wednesdays, there is a scheduled group activity now. Friday evenings, Saturday afternoons (and mornings whenever I feel like waking early), Sunday all day, and Monday evenings there is softball. Tuesday and Thursday evenings there is cards and games. Additional social time at sports bars is often available after the softball as there is usuall a group who head out for food and drink. Still, I crave deeper sharing again. The space is available again.
Maybe reawakening? :)
Today I allowed sleep to come and go in as natural a course as I've allowed since the working responsibilities stopped. Still not completely free of the day-time time-clock rhythm, but without the dog, the cat, the girl, the job, and the social engagements, my personal rhythm comes closer once again. I woke a couple of times and laid back down for a couple of naps and feel almost refreshed, perhaps even as close as 49% me which is closer than I have been in quite some time (a deeper reflection and assessment may come, but that is left for further inquiry for now).
I then headed out to renew a prescription and shop, but the prescription was going to take at least 90 minutes so I, in my subtle way, asked for a free pill as I was going to miss my evening dose if I did not get one. "Oh dear," I lamented, "what am I do to? I suppose I will just have to miss a dose." The lady behind the counter looked at me and I must have struck just the right look of self-reprisal and forlorn as she reached up to the shelf for a bottle and put one tablet into my empty bottle and gave it back to me. Bringing the empty bottle presents a good effect in these situations. I thanked her profusely and she smailed and said Don't you tell anyone. and I swore myself to secrecy and gave her a huge smile back. We shared a laugh.
So I put off shopping and headed straight to Curly's house for a hot shower, dinner, and cards. Oh, the clean feeling after a hot shower was sweet. Not quite ideal as he has a really tight flow limiter restricting the spray and I rush through out of respect for his water bill (a twenty minute shower is not respectful to Curly nor to the planet, but oh how I (psychologically) and the muscles want one so badly). I appreciate Curly's gifts greatly.
The burgers I bought a few weeks ago were discovered in the freezer (he did not find them last week) and that made for a main course while leftover pork loins were defrosted earlier in the day to make two different slow-cooked pulled pork and beans pots aided by macaroni salad and sauteed mushrooms (with onions, carrots, and garlic) made for a yummy meal for five and then, fun with the cards. Tonight we played one or two games of Oh Hell and one two games of Hearts. I did not come in last. Even won the last game of hearts. All the games were much fun.
I arrived home again after midnight, I decided to let Spybot do it's thing and it took a while. While waiting for Spybot to finish it's scans, I played Ruzzle for an hour or more (and finished first for the day and third in the weekly tournament), then I played chess for a game or few (level three, easy wins... I use chess as a sleep aide, so I keep it easy), then I ponder the life as I know it, though not very deeply, and then, before I got started in the nightly updates, I fall asleep. But before I rolled over into bed, I wrote this.
I am beginning to crave sharing again, deeper sharing. I keep busy socially. I share activities with others, friends and aquaintences, daily. Each day of the week, except for Wednesdays, there is a scheduled group activity now. Friday evenings, Saturday afternoons (and mornings whenever I feel like waking early), Sunday all day, and Monday evenings there is softball. Tuesday and Thursday evenings there is cards and games. Additional social time at sports bars is often available after the softball as there is usuall a group who head out for food and drink. Still, I crave deeper sharing again. The space is available again.
Maybe reawakening? :)
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
tough loss, fun anyway
Today was challenging and fun. I am starting to get some reasonable decent sleep since I am not working, though it is still not on my circadian rhythm and sometimes more restless than ideal. I did some tidying around the place and visited Facebook for an hour or so and played Ruzzle for an hour or so (I don't mention it but I play Ruzzle to pass the time just about every day, especually since I started playing in the Ruzzle tournaments while require daily playt to do well as they add up each days scores for a weekly competition. Winners get coins though I have not explored what the coins buy). Jackson texted that she had a 6:30pm game and I did too, so I headed to the softball fields, said hi to Jackson and Brandi and her team, and headed to my game.
After winning our last two games of the season we finished with a 2-7 record but the team we beat in those last two weeks also had a 2-7 record so we finished third. We got to play the second place team who had a 5-4 record and the team we beat twice got to play the first place team who had a 9-0 record, winning all nine games easily scoring 115 runs and only giving up 38 runs in the nine games. Our game started off ok. We took a 2 run lead in the first and they came back to tie it 2-2. A couple of innings went by without scoring and then we opened up a 6-2 lead in the fourth. They came back in the fifth with five runs on five errors to make it 7-6. We tied it up in the sixth, held them in the bottom of the sixth, and went into the last inning tied 7-7.
It's the first game of the playoffs and we are tied 7-7 in the top of the last inning. Our lead off batter hits a triple. The next batter watches strike three go past. The next batter pops up to the catcher. I get up and watch a ball go by that is called a strike, but was very questionable. I swing and foul off the next pitch and swing and miss the third pitch. I might go down with a swinging strike out once a year in a few hundred at bats. I lost focus. Bad timing to suck.
The other team gets up and after two strikes I walk the first batter. The next batter hits a ground ball to short and we get one out but miss the double play. The next batter hits a single through the shortstop and third baseman. The next batter hits a ball back to me and I turn and throw to the shortstop who is running toward second. Unfortunately, he was a little late getting there so I had to wait a couple of seconds and the second baseman also ran to second and the runner slid and all three got there at the same time. My throw was accurate and the shortstop caught it, but he tripped over the runner and second baseman and we missed the double play again. Worse, the umpire called the runner safe claiming the shortstop never touched the bag. Bad call, the shortstop tripped because he stepped on the bag and the sliding runner took his foot out from under him and the second baseman was in the way so he lost his balance. Unfortunately, the second baseman also blocked the umpire's view, so he called the runner safe. The next batter hit a fly ball to right field which would have been three outs and extra innings, but because of the call at second the runner on third tagged up. They win 8-7.
Frustrating. Maybe I should have thrown to third to get the lead runner, but the runner going to first was slow and I fielded and threw the ball cleanly. It was an easy double play to end the inning. Frustrating. Even more frustrating because five of the other teams runs came in one inning on five errors. Balls hit outfielder's gloves and bounced out twice. Three wild throws. I had really good control of the batters at the plater getting them to ground ball and pop up a lot, but they win. Tough loss. That's the game. Most frustrating is striking out with the go ahead run on third.
We drop into the losers bracket and play that game next week. After the game I hung out with some players who's wives play on the woman's teams that played after us. I play or have played with many of the women on co-ed teams in other leagues so I hang out to watch them often if I have an early game on Monday nights. That was fun.
And that wraps up the dirt, drama, and details of today. Hope we had fun :)
After winning our last two games of the season we finished with a 2-7 record but the team we beat in those last two weeks also had a 2-7 record so we finished third. We got to play the second place team who had a 5-4 record and the team we beat twice got to play the first place team who had a 9-0 record, winning all nine games easily scoring 115 runs and only giving up 38 runs in the nine games. Our game started off ok. We took a 2 run lead in the first and they came back to tie it 2-2. A couple of innings went by without scoring and then we opened up a 6-2 lead in the fourth. They came back in the fifth with five runs on five errors to make it 7-6. We tied it up in the sixth, held them in the bottom of the sixth, and went into the last inning tied 7-7.
It's the first game of the playoffs and we are tied 7-7 in the top of the last inning. Our lead off batter hits a triple. The next batter watches strike three go past. The next batter pops up to the catcher. I get up and watch a ball go by that is called a strike, but was very questionable. I swing and foul off the next pitch and swing and miss the third pitch. I might go down with a swinging strike out once a year in a few hundred at bats. I lost focus. Bad timing to suck.
The other team gets up and after two strikes I walk the first batter. The next batter hits a ground ball to short and we get one out but miss the double play. The next batter hits a single through the shortstop and third baseman. The next batter hits a ball back to me and I turn and throw to the shortstop who is running toward second. Unfortunately, he was a little late getting there so I had to wait a couple of seconds and the second baseman also ran to second and the runner slid and all three got there at the same time. My throw was accurate and the shortstop caught it, but he tripped over the runner and second baseman and we missed the double play again. Worse, the umpire called the runner safe claiming the shortstop never touched the bag. Bad call, the shortstop tripped because he stepped on the bag and the sliding runner took his foot out from under him and the second baseman was in the way so he lost his balance. Unfortunately, the second baseman also blocked the umpire's view, so he called the runner safe. The next batter hit a fly ball to right field which would have been three outs and extra innings, but because of the call at second the runner on third tagged up. They win 8-7.
Frustrating. Maybe I should have thrown to third to get the lead runner, but the runner going to first was slow and I fielded and threw the ball cleanly. It was an easy double play to end the inning. Frustrating. Even more frustrating because five of the other teams runs came in one inning on five errors. Balls hit outfielder's gloves and bounced out twice. Three wild throws. I had really good control of the batters at the plater getting them to ground ball and pop up a lot, but they win. Tough loss. That's the game. Most frustrating is striking out with the go ahead run on third.
We drop into the losers bracket and play that game next week. After the game I hung out with some players who's wives play on the woman's teams that played after us. I play or have played with many of the women on co-ed teams in other leagues so I hang out to watch them often if I have an early game on Monday nights. That was fun.
And that wraps up the dirt, drama, and details of today. Hope we had fun :)
Monday, March 21, 2016
using more distractions
Ok, so as I mentioned, there was no softball this Sunday because the free fields were rained out and the coach is not paying for fields anymore because too few people show up for practice. Glad I checked my phone and was informed before I drove there because the free fields are at least a half hour away without any traffic. That allowed me to go back to sleep. Yesterday evening I let myself fall asleep shortly after getting home from the tournament and woke around midnight and wrote the previous entry and was still awake in the morning when I got the text canceling practice so I went back to sleep. Some time in the early or mid-afternoon I woke again and looked around and decided to relax and not work on empting or sorting boxes until the evening when it would be cooler.
With no job, there is freedom to do whatever I want to do each day. Retired people who do not need to create new income understand the combination of ease and stress that freedom provides. The ease of no clock responsibilities unless you create them. The stress of what to do now? when there is so much free time and sometimes not enough to do to fill that time. When a life of giving has left one without the savings to permanently retire, the added stress of finding income at an age when no one wants to hire you is not fun. I am using distractions to keep my spirits up and stay in touch with the child inside who has never worried about anything because life happens and then it's gone so we might as well enjoy it (it's the best we can do and I want to do the best I can do).
Today I used Facebook (and someday I will get back to linking, though if Facebook blocks my new account that will just be another waste of time like the many thousands of links linked over the years are at the moment, but moving on) for distraction and amusement again. Something to occupy the fingers and eyes and parts of the mind that is not listening to the music. Yes, music still plays most of the time when I am here and awake. That playlist will appear eventually so we can see the relative randomness of the CDs I am pulling out of the boxes. Most CDs get the full play even if I am not a fan of the sounds at first. Some go into the ok, I listened, who wants this one? pile and some go into the keep this and listen again pile and eventually there will be other piles sorting out the most favorite favorites from the seconds and thirds and so on piles and each pile may or may not have a distinct name in words, but the music will be more organized than just the alphabetical order all thousands of CDs are in at the moment.
I still did not connect the TV here primarily because there is no cable and I am not sure how well I could get local channels but also because the space is in disarray as I gradually unpack and re-sort stuff in all of the boxes. I miss my imaginary friends from the TV shows I was watching late nights on DVR in recent years. Yes, this link will take you to a blog that, in the right column, lists all of the TV shows I've ever watched (that I remember, which means I probably left out plenty). The shows are even divided into categories of priority. TV supplimented the socializing I sometimes crave in recent years. There have been years I lived without any TV at all, like now. In case it matters.
Along about 7pm, Curly called to let me know I was welcome to head over to where he was playing games with two of the people from the Tuesday night card players. We will name them Excel and her dad, Commodore. I just updated the people page in the primary (brief) blog of this two-part daily blog and added a few more people I have not mentioned yet but who seem to fit in with the current progress of this blog thing, in case it matters. Anyway, I pondered my navel for a few minutes and decided I would wipe the body down a bit and fluff up the hair (still no hot water and I've got to be in the right mood for a cold shower) and head over there. We played a few games though I do not recall the names of the games and finished the night with a game of spades.
A whole lot of words for a day with a whole little activity, but that's part of the process of the babbling therapy and when there is more time, the babbling becomes yet another distraction from the nothing else to do or the loneliness or the stresses of the day. It's quite a complex process of maintaining sanity and stability that may be written up in some psychological journal one day, but until then, all you've got is this and the hundred or so other blogs to occupy your time. And mine.
Hope it was good for you too ;)
With no job, there is freedom to do whatever I want to do each day. Retired people who do not need to create new income understand the combination of ease and stress that freedom provides. The ease of no clock responsibilities unless you create them. The stress of what to do now? when there is so much free time and sometimes not enough to do to fill that time. When a life of giving has left one without the savings to permanently retire, the added stress of finding income at an age when no one wants to hire you is not fun. I am using distractions to keep my spirits up and stay in touch with the child inside who has never worried about anything because life happens and then it's gone so we might as well enjoy it (it's the best we can do and I want to do the best I can do).
Today I used Facebook (and someday I will get back to linking, though if Facebook blocks my new account that will just be another waste of time like the many thousands of links linked over the years are at the moment, but moving on) for distraction and amusement again. Something to occupy the fingers and eyes and parts of the mind that is not listening to the music. Yes, music still plays most of the time when I am here and awake. That playlist will appear eventually so we can see the relative randomness of the CDs I am pulling out of the boxes. Most CDs get the full play even if I am not a fan of the sounds at first. Some go into the ok, I listened, who wants this one? pile and some go into the keep this and listen again pile and eventually there will be other piles sorting out the most favorite favorites from the seconds and thirds and so on piles and each pile may or may not have a distinct name in words, but the music will be more organized than just the alphabetical order all thousands of CDs are in at the moment.
I still did not connect the TV here primarily because there is no cable and I am not sure how well I could get local channels but also because the space is in disarray as I gradually unpack and re-sort stuff in all of the boxes. I miss my imaginary friends from the TV shows I was watching late nights on DVR in recent years. Yes, this link will take you to a blog that, in the right column, lists all of the TV shows I've ever watched (that I remember, which means I probably left out plenty). The shows are even divided into categories of priority. TV supplimented the socializing I sometimes crave in recent years. There have been years I lived without any TV at all, like now. In case it matters.
Along about 7pm, Curly called to let me know I was welcome to head over to where he was playing games with two of the people from the Tuesday night card players. We will name them Excel and her dad, Commodore. I just updated the people page in the primary (brief) blog of this two-part daily blog and added a few more people I have not mentioned yet but who seem to fit in with the current progress of this blog thing, in case it matters. Anyway, I pondered my navel for a few minutes and decided I would wipe the body down a bit and fluff up the hair (still no hot water and I've got to be in the right mood for a cold shower) and head over there. We played a few games though I do not recall the names of the games and finished the night with a game of spades.
A whole lot of words for a day with a whole little activity, but that's part of the process of the babbling therapy and when there is more time, the babbling becomes yet another distraction from the nothing else to do or the loneliness or the stresses of the day. It's quite a complex process of maintaining sanity and stability that may be written up in some psychological journal one day, but until then, all you've got is this and the hundred or so other blogs to occupy your time. And mine.
Hope it was good for you too ;)
Sunday, March 20, 2016
yesterday, when I was younger
And getting younger all the time (in spite of the challenges which may go unnoticed by everyone but you as this life is a wild roller coaster ride these days in spite of the lack of income and lack of life partner and lack of comfort and lack of roommate and lots of loneliness. While I am living very frugally due to no income, I am splurging on softball and this weekend almost a hundred bucks went to a tournament. $30 to play, $10 for drinks, $30 for food, $10 for gas... ok, $80. Counting dollars takes the fun out of stuff so I don't do it much (I haven't balanced a checkbook in decades). It is essential when there is no income though and one of these days I will actually re-evaluate the dollars I have left in savings so I don't suddenly get the rude awakening of bounced payments.
Meanwhile, the day was a successful failure (or something like that) as I just may have become part of a new travel team (yes, softball, what else would I be playing now?) and even though we had no wins and I had no hits and I pitched poorly by my standards, I think I passed the test. At least that is what the coach said. Time will tell whether that was politeness or sincere. He seems like a sincere person.
The Freedom Tournaments are where some of the big boys play. Definitely above my pay grade (I thought I retired from competitive ball) but they want me because I pitch well and few people want to pitch at that level (those big boys hit up the middle and they hit really hard) in USSSA ball (harder bats, harder balls, bigger boys, much higher risk) they think I am better than I am. Everyone who cares about me says be careful because they hit up the middle a lot and they don't care if they hurt the pitcher, in fact, that is part of their strategy if they are losing. Some pitchers wear catchers gear including masks. I am considering getting a mask and catchers leg guards to replace the shin guards I cureently use and I should get used to wearing a cup as well. I must be crazy (softball addiction can be dangerous).
So I woke early and drove to Ormond Beach by myself (hopefully car pooling will happen for future out of town tournaments and even better, maybe I will find a softball partner this year) and getting there early, I signed us in and took care of the registration stuff. Ever so responsible, aye? We lost the first game 11-10 (eh, I made the last out on a long fly ball to right after the guy in front of me hit into a double play... so much hope for a come back dashed... I need to change the way I hit at this level because the fielders are better than at the recreational level). I also blew a play at the plate that would have ended a rally, alas, but there were at least a dozen other errors during the game so it was not just me. A few people on the team seemed to give up after that game. We lost the second game by more and the third game by more than that and poof, we were done. The coach was optimistic that we did ok for our first tournament and he said he will not be inviting back a few of the players who gave up. Hope.
After the game a dozen of us went to Houligans for food and social time. That was good. I just need to bring food next time and spend less on the food and drinks. See, no income is boring tedium, so let's look for squirrels.
I had a Little Debbie Swiss Rolls party all by myself in the car as I drove home and after getting home I sat down and fell asleep, waking a few hours ago more refreshed than usual and remembering a curious dream about two guys having a serious argument over business or something during the day and then their children celebrated an engagement or wedding that evening at which I was wasked to make a speech and I spoke about the tensions that started the day and how it was beautiful that here there was only celebration and most of the people embraced the unconditional love that the couple was sharing and that was the best gift and start for their relationship we could give them and the room of a few hundred broke into applause that lasted more than a minute (ego may have exaggerated) and the two guys almost smiled but the drama between them was far from over (where would the story go without drame and conflict, right?) and I woke up whistful and mostly euphoric and feeling good about myself and people and life.
Then I came to the computer and started updating some more (if you are curious or interested or simply must know everything,
here you go, aye? :) )
So how was your day? :)
Saturday, March 19, 2016
out of order too
Perhaps I refer to the posting of the entries in this blog (and it's briefer counterpart or any blog as time and datestamps are so relative sometimes), perhaps I refer to something else (human life, politics, religions, the refridgerator, for instance), even me (what, me worry?), but the title shall be left for future reference or nothing, even, and the entry shall go on as I try to remember what happened today, or yesterday, now that it is an entry written past midnight once again. And I dream a bass will join me...
And we will leave that Harry Chapin lyric reference for another time as well because I simply will not tolerate more lonely laments than I've already permitted this week because I did fun stuff to remember today as I met Jackson and Brandi Jackson's two nieces at the local Barnes & Noble and we wander the store and the kids played in the kids section and then we the kids played in the kiddie area that they remembered fondly enough to ask to return there (but after a while, we all realized they had outgrown it, which was pretty insightful for them at 5 and 6 years old) and then we went to Five Guys for burgers and fries (Not quite Coney Island Joe's but as close as Florida gets) and then we said farewell as they went off to bowl and I went off to softball and I was welcomed to come bowling by Brandi which felt really good cuz we are just starting out relating to each other (the kids wanted me to go too, but my arm has been sore and bowling is the last activity a pitcher needs when the arm is sore and tired, especially not with a tournament coming up tomorrow and a double header on Sunday and at playoffs comning up on Monday night). It felt good to be wanted and maybe I am a fool for not going and reinforcing the family feeling, but I also want to give Jackson the chance to build the new family feeling with Brandi.
And I am a softball addict (ah, the truth comes out) even if it's one of the most losing seasons (yes, we lost again, this time better than last week, only 8-0 and we went seven full innings) I've had in many years. The year is very young however and last year finished with one of my best seasons ever (3 out of 4 league championships and one second place) and this year I am in even higher demand so there's always hope. I really must start working out more to stay strong and sharp and uninjured. Yeah, coach, I will.
So a fun and active day and evening and home alone again but for the best as I must get some decent sleep as I have an all-day tournament with a new team tomorrow. It's kind of like we are all trying out for each other and hoping we put together a winning mix of talent and fun.
Hope you make life fun too :)
And we will leave that Harry Chapin lyric reference for another time as well because I simply will not tolerate more lonely laments than I've already permitted this week because I did fun stuff to remember today as I met Jackson and Brandi Jackson's two nieces at the local Barnes & Noble and we wander the store and the kids played in the kids section and then we the kids played in the kiddie area that they remembered fondly enough to ask to return there (but after a while, we all realized they had outgrown it, which was pretty insightful for them at 5 and 6 years old) and then we went to Five Guys for burgers and fries (Not quite Coney Island Joe's but as close as Florida gets) and then we said farewell as they went off to bowl and I went off to softball and I was welcomed to come bowling by Brandi which felt really good cuz we are just starting out relating to each other (the kids wanted me to go too, but my arm has been sore and bowling is the last activity a pitcher needs when the arm is sore and tired, especially not with a tournament coming up tomorrow and a double header on Sunday and at playoffs comning up on Monday night). It felt good to be wanted and maybe I am a fool for not going and reinforcing the family feeling, but I also want to give Jackson the chance to build the new family feeling with Brandi.
And I am a softball addict (ah, the truth comes out) even if it's one of the most losing seasons (yes, we lost again, this time better than last week, only 8-0 and we went seven full innings) I've had in many years. The year is very young however and last year finished with one of my best seasons ever (3 out of 4 league championships and one second place) and this year I am in even higher demand so there's always hope. I really must start working out more to stay strong and sharp and uninjured. Yeah, coach, I will.
So a fun and active day and evening and home alone again but for the best as I must get some decent sleep as I have an all-day tournament with a new team tomorrow. It's kind of like we are all trying out for each other and hoping we put together a winning mix of talent and fun.
Hope you make life fun too :)
Friday, March 18, 2016
almost morning
As I was saying (which is probably a good sub-title for this blog), today is actually yesterday, that is, the day I am summarizing is actually the day before the date of this entry but that's just how time happens, ya know? I am writing these entries after midnight, at least so far. Just noting that for what it's worth in case it matters. Bob's not my uncle, you don't have to be an Einstein to realize that time is such a relative concept, after all.
So back to the dirt, drama, and details of the day that was, I did sleep earlier, from about 7pm till 11pm, the usual four hour block, right here in the chair (the smaller brown chair... didn't actually mention we said fairwell to the big green chair, did I... those of you who've been with me a while might miss it too, but take solace in the fact that we did have a small ceremony as we put the big green chair and the ouch and love seat on the curb in front of one of Curly's rental homes {we thought about dropping a lamp and table and setting it up as a living room but we figured we'd not may the renter happy if a family of homeless people moved in instead of dragging the furniture elsewhere... that would mean it would certainly be trash and have no hope of a curb pick-up) and who knows, someone may be enjoying the comfort of the big green chair even as I write this). This town, like most, frowns on homeless people actually creating comfort under bridges or anywhere with furniture, so we left it for anyone who could use it or ultimately, if no one picked it up, the trash heap. The couch and love seat were about twenty five years old while the big green chair was about fifteen years old. All three were well past their prime, but still. A moment of silence for the big green chair.
I did lay down in bed after waking but the brain had other ideas (some of the stressful thoughts bumped into some of the creative thoughts and I reached for Ruzzle for distraction and played a bunch of games {like fifty or more... I have a playmate who seems as addicted to the game as I am as she continues to ask for rematches and accepts mine and we sometimes have three games going at once} and when that didn't work I found myself back on the computer looking at Facebook for distraction, but that was short lived as the laptop was running out of memory with three browsers and all the tabs open so I shut everything down except the blog tabs and started writing... many entries later {I'll get to that}, here we are). Prior to the nap, I woke today about 10:30am and spent the next four hours job searching on the computer and interupting that monotony with Facebook (no worries, you who want to know everything... the Facebook entries are coming). The intention was to blog, but time slipped by and I had to get laundry done. I emptied a large box (plastic containers are what I use for storage and moving as you would see if you found the entry with the photo of some of them) and filled it with the dirty clothes and headed out to the local self-service laundromat (after finding it on google).
Not living in a city (it is very suburban here, slightly rural in places... in fact this house is on several acres, at least, with three greehouses and fruit trees and another house out back), it was a 10-15 minute drive. It was not the cleanest place with old machines and a very congested set-up, but a very friendly family run place. They were happy to make change and take my money lol (but also extremely polite and tentative). Prices have definitely gone up since the last time I did not have a home washer-dryer and I had a choice of machines ranging from $2 through $4.50. I chose a $2 and a $3.75 machine for my two loads. Adding an extra rinse for one and additional wash time for the other was $1.50 more. Not finding laundry supplies, I bought two boxes of Tide at $0.60 each and five dryer sheets at $0.10 each. Then the dryers were $0.25 for 8 minutes so another couple of dollars went there. It was almost ten dollars for two loads when I was done. Another $5 to get a bagel and iced coffee at the Dunkin Donuts across the parking lot. Hey, it was dinner time and I had not eaten yet. No donut this time, I am trying to start actually dropping the weight put on during this sedentary non-working stress-filled traumatic change time of life, really I am dahrling.
Arriving home with clean clothes was an up, but having nowhere to put them yet was a down, so I added to the clutter and sat down to blog but got distracted by Facebook and by the time I started blogging, I nodded off. I think this is about where we came in (four hours later I woke, played Ruzzle, glanced at Facebook, and came to the blog world). Finding myself reaching for distraction more than merely babbling on, I looked back at blogs that have been long dormant and forced myself to add to them even if the mood for those particular blogs was not fully independent of my nudging. botts got a couple of entries and bullsugar got four, two or three of which had been kinda sorta started anywhere from a year to five years ago (never give up, never surrender) dot dot dot, ya know. Then I released a bit of disappiontment over two blogs that seemed to lose their way with help from outsde of my head and two more wayward blogs also received an entry each for no apparent reason (though the two for no apparent reason blogs did not get an update, just for the record and perhaps a bit of irony).
the blues were playing in my head as I updated what was supposed to be the next daily blog and I will likely revisit the whole night when I am a bit more uppity and awake. The sun is knocking on the horizon, after all. Plans for today include having shiney happy boppy bouncy energy for a visit from Jackson's two neices so I really ought to get a couplke of hours sleep now. First, I shall eat the second half of the eggplant parmesean I had for dinner. I'll lament about the fridge and freezen not working well, adjusting to living without air conditioning or hot water, the cramped space, the loneliness, the poverty, the stress of a bleaker tomorrow, and the very scary political landscap at some future time.
Would I be anything less than me if I was not laughing now?
Sheesh, get serious, will ya?
Later.
So back to the dirt, drama, and details of the day that was, I did sleep earlier, from about 7pm till 11pm, the usual four hour block, right here in the chair (the smaller brown chair... didn't actually mention we said fairwell to the big green chair, did I... those of you who've been with me a while might miss it too, but take solace in the fact that we did have a small ceremony as we put the big green chair and the ouch and love seat on the curb in front of one of Curly's rental homes {we thought about dropping a lamp and table and setting it up as a living room but we figured we'd not may the renter happy if a family of homeless people moved in instead of dragging the furniture elsewhere... that would mean it would certainly be trash and have no hope of a curb pick-up) and who knows, someone may be enjoying the comfort of the big green chair even as I write this). This town, like most, frowns on homeless people actually creating comfort under bridges or anywhere with furniture, so we left it for anyone who could use it or ultimately, if no one picked it up, the trash heap. The couch and love seat were about twenty five years old while the big green chair was about fifteen years old. All three were well past their prime, but still. A moment of silence for the big green chair.
I did lay down in bed after waking but the brain had other ideas (some of the stressful thoughts bumped into some of the creative thoughts and I reached for Ruzzle for distraction and played a bunch of games {like fifty or more... I have a playmate who seems as addicted to the game as I am as she continues to ask for rematches and accepts mine and we sometimes have three games going at once} and when that didn't work I found myself back on the computer looking at Facebook for distraction, but that was short lived as the laptop was running out of memory with three browsers and all the tabs open so I shut everything down except the blog tabs and started writing... many entries later {I'll get to that}, here we are). Prior to the nap, I woke today about 10:30am and spent the next four hours job searching on the computer and interupting that monotony with Facebook (no worries, you who want to know everything... the Facebook entries are coming). The intention was to blog, but time slipped by and I had to get laundry done. I emptied a large box (plastic containers are what I use for storage and moving as you would see if you found the entry with the photo of some of them) and filled it with the dirty clothes and headed out to the local self-service laundromat (after finding it on google).
Not living in a city (it is very suburban here, slightly rural in places... in fact this house is on several acres, at least, with three greehouses and fruit trees and another house out back), it was a 10-15 minute drive. It was not the cleanest place with old machines and a very congested set-up, but a very friendly family run place. They were happy to make change and take my money lol (but also extremely polite and tentative). Prices have definitely gone up since the last time I did not have a home washer-dryer and I had a choice of machines ranging from $2 through $4.50. I chose a $2 and a $3.75 machine for my two loads. Adding an extra rinse for one and additional wash time for the other was $1.50 more. Not finding laundry supplies, I bought two boxes of Tide at $0.60 each and five dryer sheets at $0.10 each. Then the dryers were $0.25 for 8 minutes so another couple of dollars went there. It was almost ten dollars for two loads when I was done. Another $5 to get a bagel and iced coffee at the Dunkin Donuts across the parking lot. Hey, it was dinner time and I had not eaten yet. No donut this time, I am trying to start actually dropping the weight put on during this sedentary non-working stress-filled traumatic change time of life, really I am dahrling.
Arriving home with clean clothes was an up, but having nowhere to put them yet was a down, so I added to the clutter and sat down to blog but got distracted by Facebook and by the time I started blogging, I nodded off. I think this is about where we came in (four hours later I woke, played Ruzzle, glanced at Facebook, and came to the blog world). Finding myself reaching for distraction more than merely babbling on, I looked back at blogs that have been long dormant and forced myself to add to them even if the mood for those particular blogs was not fully independent of my nudging. botts got a couple of entries and bullsugar got four, two or three of which had been kinda sorta started anywhere from a year to five years ago (never give up, never surrender) dot dot dot, ya know. Then I released a bit of disappiontment over two blogs that seemed to lose their way with help from outsde of my head and two more wayward blogs also received an entry each for no apparent reason (though the two for no apparent reason blogs did not get an update, just for the record and perhaps a bit of irony).
the blues were playing in my head as I updated what was supposed to be the next daily blog and I will likely revisit the whole night when I am a bit more uppity and awake. The sun is knocking on the horizon, after all. Plans for today include having shiney happy boppy bouncy energy for a visit from Jackson's two neices so I really ought to get a couplke of hours sleep now. First, I shall eat the second half of the eggplant parmesean I had for dinner. I'll lament about the fridge and freezen not working well, adjusting to living without air conditioning or hot water, the cramped space, the loneliness, the poverty, the stress of a bleaker tomorrow, and the very scary political landscap at some future time.
Would I be anything less than me if I was not laughing now?
Sheesh, get serious, will ya?
Later.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
wide awake at 4am
As I said, it is what it is when the dark clouds come around and cliches come around to try to save me. I only go down so I can go up again (thank you Alseigh Brilliant). It is only darkest before the dawn. You must know emptiness to feel fulfilled. It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. The best thing about hitting bottom is that there is nowhere to go but up. I see rainbows through my tears.
The past few days or more I've wasted a lot of time on facebook lamenting the loss of the pages I created to save myself from boredom and depression during the last months of last year. As if the cruelty of humanity was not already a major aspect of my experience in this life, Facebook decided that the name I used on Facebook for almost ten years was a violation of their "no psuedonyms" policy and instead of asking me to change the name to my actual name, Facebook blocked the account and demanded legal documentation proving who I was. As if I was about to upload a driver's license, passport, or any other legal ID into cyberspace.
I was trying to be positive about life in spite of my sudden unemployment and other loses and apparently Facebook would have no part in it. To Facebook we are just dollar signs, potential customers for their sponsors. In that atmosphere finding a real friend is not likely and as I learned, keeping in touch with real friends, softball teams and schedules, social groups, and anything else include one's own sanity is not part of Facebook's policy.
Many nights I am wide awake at 4am hearing John Bettis and Albert Hammond penned lyrics in my head and asking the same question, is there someone in this crazy world for me? for I am one of the natural nocturnals as my circadian rhythm is geared to wake at night. My mind rarely wants to sleep and is always seeking more stimulation so I used Facebook to provide me with amusements and distractions and started keeping track of music to remember (because music used to be so very important to my happiness, creativity, and sanity) and even started keeping track of stuff I might want to check out someday. We do live in a material world, after all. I was using Facebook to set back in touch with the news of the world and did much light reading and saw many scary and silly things (and some inspiring, true as I wasted my time building pages to share and to record my journey online. Some of the stuff I uploaded to pages was stuff I did not have time to read or watch, but Facebook offered a great way to maintain a library. Untill they revoked my library card.
They may have been unhappy with my social and political comments as I was starting to communicate with people on many current events asking thinks like is this OK with you? and trying to promote independent views in the hope that we could all be inspired to change America for the better, but I found that there are a whole lot of people addicted to their fears and hate and they simply would not welcome an honest inquiry into their fixed opinions and closed minds, especially not when it came to politics and my guess is it was a Hillary supporter or Republican who was not happy with my questions about their statements and record. My intent was to find out which candidate was best to be President, but Facebook seemed to have it's own agenda and the sense I got is that it was very much to push Hillary and censor those questioning her.
I was trying to use Facebook as an extra head for stuff I wanted to remember like providing tips for the WWIII generation and help for anyone who might need help. Even the religious who said they knew it all and did not like my questions (yes, I questioned all the religious too).
So sadly, Bugs Webbot was put down and wqhile I maintain hope for the return of Bugs Webbot (since Facebook is storing many years worth of photos of my personal life, which seems somehow at least immaral if not illegal (I know, terms of service, you sell your soul to the website when you click agree) and I would like to download my personal photos even if they never reinstate the account. I refuse to be forced into the imaginary world of facebook as a pretend real person and there are certainly serious privacy issues when a website will not communicate or identify a human being who will actually receive my legal documention proving I am a human being. I asked for a name and proof of identity of the actual real human person I am trusting with a copy of a legal document that could be used to steal my identity and Facebook never responded to my multiple queries for that person's information. Suspicious at best.
Just send us your bank statement, photo ID, social security card, passport, driver's licence, voter registration card, utility bills, credit card statement, or any number of a dozen other forms of legal photo ID with printed full legal name and birthdate and we won't do anything with the information other than reinstate your account. They obviously never heard of security breaches, hacking, corrupt employees, or accidents.
So I started a couple of new pages including a Bugs Webbot page and a Bugs Webbot group dedicated to the memory of the real friends, personal contacts, personal photos, and other personal information Facebook is holding hostage hoping they can get my identity in real life in their corporate clutches as if I don't get enough SPAM and junk from them and their affiliates.
And so I mean I wasted time on Facebook in years, at least for now, but then, waste is relative to perspective, discovery, and personal value. I mean, all this could be wasted time too. On the other hand, it's good for me, even if nobody ever knows.
As the brithers Gibbs eloquently stated, it's only words... and personal photos and worlwide connections.
The past few days or more I've wasted a lot of time on facebook lamenting the loss of the pages I created to save myself from boredom and depression during the last months of last year. As if the cruelty of humanity was not already a major aspect of my experience in this life, Facebook decided that the name I used on Facebook for almost ten years was a violation of their "no psuedonyms" policy and instead of asking me to change the name to my actual name, Facebook blocked the account and demanded legal documentation proving who I was. As if I was about to upload a driver's license, passport, or any other legal ID into cyberspace.
I was trying to be positive about life in spite of my sudden unemployment and other loses and apparently Facebook would have no part in it. To Facebook we are just dollar signs, potential customers for their sponsors. In that atmosphere finding a real friend is not likely and as I learned, keeping in touch with real friends, softball teams and schedules, social groups, and anything else include one's own sanity is not part of Facebook's policy.
Many nights I am wide awake at 4am hearing John Bettis and Albert Hammond penned lyrics in my head and asking the same question, is there someone in this crazy world for me? for I am one of the natural nocturnals as my circadian rhythm is geared to wake at night. My mind rarely wants to sleep and is always seeking more stimulation so I used Facebook to provide me with amusements and distractions and started keeping track of music to remember (because music used to be so very important to my happiness, creativity, and sanity) and even started keeping track of stuff I might want to check out someday. We do live in a material world, after all. I was using Facebook to set back in touch with the news of the world and did much light reading and saw many scary and silly things (and some inspiring, true as I wasted my time building pages to share and to record my journey online. Some of the stuff I uploaded to pages was stuff I did not have time to read or watch, but Facebook offered a great way to maintain a library. Untill they revoked my library card.
They may have been unhappy with my social and political comments as I was starting to communicate with people on many current events asking thinks like is this OK with you? and trying to promote independent views in the hope that we could all be inspired to change America for the better, but I found that there are a whole lot of people addicted to their fears and hate and they simply would not welcome an honest inquiry into their fixed opinions and closed minds, especially not when it came to politics and my guess is it was a Hillary supporter or Republican who was not happy with my questions about their statements and record. My intent was to find out which candidate was best to be President, but Facebook seemed to have it's own agenda and the sense I got is that it was very much to push Hillary and censor those questioning her.
I was trying to use Facebook as an extra head for stuff I wanted to remember like providing tips for the WWIII generation and help for anyone who might need help. Even the religious who said they knew it all and did not like my questions (yes, I questioned all the religious too).
So sadly, Bugs Webbot was put down and wqhile I maintain hope for the return of Bugs Webbot (since Facebook is storing many years worth of photos of my personal life, which seems somehow at least immaral if not illegal (I know, terms of service, you sell your soul to the website when you click agree) and I would like to download my personal photos even if they never reinstate the account. I refuse to be forced into the imaginary world of facebook as a pretend real person and there are certainly serious privacy issues when a website will not communicate or identify a human being who will actually receive my legal documention proving I am a human being. I asked for a name and proof of identity of the actual real human person I am trusting with a copy of a legal document that could be used to steal my identity and Facebook never responded to my multiple queries for that person's information. Suspicious at best.
Just send us your bank statement, photo ID, social security card, passport, driver's licence, voter registration card, utility bills, credit card statement, or any number of a dozen other forms of legal photo ID with printed full legal name and birthdate and we won't do anything with the information other than reinstate your account. They obviously never heard of security breaches, hacking, corrupt employees, or accidents.
So I started a couple of new pages including a Bugs Webbot page and a Bugs Webbot group dedicated to the memory of the real friends, personal contacts, personal photos, and other personal information Facebook is holding hostage hoping they can get my identity in real life in their corporate clutches as if I don't get enough SPAM and junk from them and their affiliates.
And so I mean I wasted time on Facebook in years, at least for now, but then, waste is relative to perspective, discovery, and personal value. I mean, all this could be wasted time too. On the other hand, it's good for me, even if nobody ever knows.
As the brithers Gibbs eloquently stated, it's only words... and personal photos and worlwide connections.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
dragging about a bit
Sleeping later does not necessarily mean more rest if it is near 5am when going to bed and not actually sleeping deeply. That is the sleep I am getting so at least I am getting more sleep than I had been for a couple of weeks. I am losing a sense of circadian rhythm and schedule and also forgetting to take the blood pressure meds, so it's not all good.
So as I was saying in briefer mode, today I slept in to 11am and woke to pack some clothes and bathing stuff cuz the plan was to head to the car dealership to get the oil changed and service done and get an estimate on the damage done to my car by Curly's mom. Did I mention she backed into my car and gave pushed in the corner of the bumper (and I am hoping not the side panel of have I neatly avoided thinking about it since Friday?). Unfortunately, the car is more than two years old as of last month so nothing is free and I decided to skip the servicing as it did not absolutely need it and even more unfortunately the collision guy was not there even though I made an appointment with him so the service guy took photos of the car and said they'd send an estimate. No estimate as of this hour, perhaps tomorrow. No estimate as of this hour, whatever hour it is. I mean, does anybody really know what time it is? Or care, even?
I then headed to Curly's early and hewasn't home yet. I took a hot shower, first since Friday. I miss that luxury. Ironically (or coincidentally), tomorrow or a few days from now I will find a photo that depresses me because it mentions hot showers as one of the best things in life, but we can leave the future for now and remain in the present. Hopefully the car will not get hit or I will associate that with hot showers (so much psychological trauma of late, how can I not laugh at the way the brain processes it?... maybe you had to be there... but who wants to enter my head, aye?).
After the shower I relaxed and waited for Curly. He got home with bad news about the job he had planned to be finished with and I went back out with Curly to meet a second air conditioner repair guy at one of his properties because the first one did not know what to do. Alas, all the nice clean feeling of the hot shower was gone after a couple of hours in the hot sun. We returned to his place for our Tuesday night cards and barbecue and the food was yummy and the cards were fun so it all ended well. Mostly.
Mostly mostly because I find myself dragging about a bit, but hanging in there. In case it matters, I ride the undiagnosed bipolar roller coaster like every other undiagnosed human. Mostly it's fun.
So as I was saying in briefer mode, today I slept in to 11am and woke to pack some clothes and bathing stuff cuz the plan was to head to the car dealership to get the oil changed and service done and get an estimate on the damage done to my car by Curly's mom. Did I mention she backed into my car and gave pushed in the corner of the bumper (and I am hoping not the side panel of have I neatly avoided thinking about it since Friday?). Unfortunately, the car is more than two years old as of last month so nothing is free and I decided to skip the servicing as it did not absolutely need it and even more unfortunately the collision guy was not there even though I made an appointment with him so the service guy took photos of the car and said they'd send an estimate. No estimate as of this hour, perhaps tomorrow. No estimate as of this hour, whatever hour it is. I mean, does anybody really know what time it is? Or care, even?
I then headed to Curly's early and hewasn't home yet. I took a hot shower, first since Friday. I miss that luxury. Ironically (or coincidentally), tomorrow or a few days from now I will find a photo that depresses me because it mentions hot showers as one of the best things in life, but we can leave the future for now and remain in the present. Hopefully the car will not get hit or I will associate that with hot showers (so much psychological trauma of late, how can I not laugh at the way the brain processes it?... maybe you had to be there... but who wants to enter my head, aye?).
After the shower I relaxed and waited for Curly. He got home with bad news about the job he had planned to be finished with and I went back out with Curly to meet a second air conditioner repair guy at one of his properties because the first one did not know what to do. Alas, all the nice clean feeling of the hot shower was gone after a couple of hours in the hot sun. We returned to his place for our Tuesday night cards and barbecue and the food was yummy and the cards were fun so it all ended well. Mostly.
Mostly mostly because I find myself dragging about a bit, but hanging in there. In case it matters, I ride the undiagnosed bipolar roller coaster like every other undiagnosed human. Mostly it's fun.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
R & R and sighs
Yes, as I briefly summarized in the slightly more formal and usually much briefer step one of this two-step blog life, I am mostly enjoying the R & R after two weeks packed with a lot of physical work. Loneliness interferes with complete enjoyment. Lack of the usual distractions and amusements (TV and the and people and pages on Facebook... gone with the winds of change, at least for now) such and such increases the awareness of the loneliness further decreasing the enjoyment of the solitary resting time. Still I am mostly enjoying the extra sleep in the mornings when the phone doesn't ring to wake me. Today I moved around more boxes and made the space a bit more livable (it is a work in progress). I caught up some here in the blog world and spent some time on Facebook in my new somewhat awkward and a lot less fun persona and though it is forced and faking it more than ever for me now, it is the biggest social network around so I won't bit my nose off to spite them. Eventually it was time to head to the field for Monday night softball. First up was Jackson's game and Brandi was there to watch (good to them her supporting each other... Jackson used to come out and watch my games). Jackson's team won big and they watched the first inning of my game. My Monday night team won it's second game as the bats finally woke up (I went 3 for 3). Next week is playoffs.
Home to the cluttered space, alone again. I don't know anyone I actually ewant to bring home (no desperation in the loneliness, just acknowledging it). More Facebook, for what it's worth. Here are some links to my Facebook activity, though some might not work for you if you do not have an account or are not friends with the people for whom I left comments.
link link link link link link link link link link link link link link link link
There is more to this but for now I'll leave it with a sigh...
Home to the cluttered space, alone again. I don't know anyone I actually ewant to bring home (no desperation in the loneliness, just acknowledging it). More Facebook, for what it's worth. Here are some links to my Facebook activity, though some might not work for you if you do not have an account or are not friends with the people for whom I left comments.
link link link link link link link link link link link link link link link link
There is more to this but for now I'll leave it with a sigh...
Monday, March 14, 2016
Sunday Softball and more
As I started to say before the "friends" at Brighthouse interrupted us (another random outage and here in this new space it is not my account so I am not sure how to check on the network status... I'll talk to Curly about that tomorrow... anyway, back to wherever my train of thought was heading), I decided to skip the morning socializing and hanging out at the fields so I could give the body more rest because I did not have any games scheduled to watch (for the ratings committee) so I got to the fields about an hour before game time and watched our coach's team play (and win... they are 3-0 so far and tied for first with the perrenial best team in the "C" Devision). Our coach plays in the "C" (Competitive) division. I mentioned in previous softball narratives that I retired to the "D" Mostly Recreational division a couple of years ago to play at a slower pace. Prior to that I played "C" and prior to that "B" for a season or two. It has taken a couple of years to adjust as I do have a competitive side and watching people give games away because they will not show up to practice or listening to instructions on the field (so they repeat the same mistakes) is frustrating. Losing when we play well and learned is acceptable. Losing because we are too stubborn to learn how to play better is frustrating.
We played one of the lowest ranked teams in the league and I shut them down for three innings while we scored seven runs. In the fourth I gave the other team easier pitches and they hit soft grounders and easy fly balls. Many errors later, it was 8-7 and time to shut the other team down again. When I say shut them down, I mean few of their players can hit my variety of spin pitches so I can strike out some of them and get others to hit back to me. Coach was upset, but I looked at him and said I wanted to see how our defense could handle an easy team so we known what to expect this season and we just proved we need a whole lot of serious practice and repetitive drills on fundamentals before we take ourselves seriously. Many players are talking about winning the championship again and doing well in the world series which is not realistic at this point. He agreed and understood and we agreed we were both not happy, but we could still win if we don't get down and swing our bats right.
We did come back in the next inning, I knocked in two runs after the guy in front of me knocked in two runs and we won 14-8, so we are 2-2 on the season in the middle of the pack. As I said, the team we played is very weak, they are 0-4 and have won about 2 games in the last two seasons (2-26) so we could have shut them out and run ruled them if we did not make so many mistakes. Coach said we will practice this coming Sunday so hopefully we will and we will make it an effective practice. Too often out practices reinforce poor skills because people are allowed to play sloppy and careless. Anyway, we started last season 2-2 and won it all, so nothing is impossible, but we have five new players, three of whom never played before and at least two who are very weak which gives us five very weak players, a dilemma for the season and tournaments. If they will listen and learn, we could make it a good season even though the competition is much improved this year.
After our game I watched a few more games with one of the new guys from the ratings committee and we discussed the process of rating players as we rated the players we were watching. I waited around for Brandi to play as she joined one of the women's teams and Jackson left work early to watch. Her team won and are a respectable 2-3 on the season so far. That is not bad for a brand new team. It takes some brand new teams two seasons to win two games after all. It rained a bit during the game and Jackson and I went to our respective cars for raingear. Separate ways, sigh. Jackson team (she plays with them on Monday nights even though she can't play Sundays) is 3-1 in second place at the moment.
After the game everyone and said fairwells, I walked over to the last game of the day and watched with the new ratings committee guy who was still working games. Love the dedication and the Assistant Commissioner thanked us for our diligence on the Ratings committtee Facebook page. That page is private, but you may be able to access the league page and see the standings here, in case it matters.
Enough details? (too much for most, if you are hanging in with me, thank you more than words can say... and hopefully we are friends and communicating in some way) :)
I headed home and once again face the loneliness. Sunday evenings are especially lonely and depressing. Before Jackson moved and when I was working, Jackson would usually get home late (she works Sundays, though hopefull that will change later this year as she really misses the softball league and not that Brandi is playing, it's even more challenging for her. She misses her UU church activities even more sometimes as she has been very active there (still is several weeknights each month) and she would be exhausted and head to bed after grabbing some food and sharing a tv show. Now that she is gone and I am not working and have no TV people for distraction and that strange sense of family regularly watched tv characters can give us if we let them, I am feeling the isolation. Heavy. I am turning to music more, grabbing CDs out of the boxes one by one, but it is still an adjustment more challenging on Sunday evenings than other nights.
Maybe because I know the working world will be heading to work in the morning and I will not. Maybe because I mark the start of yet another week alone in this world, more alone than ever in daily life. Maybe I just let it be more challenging.
So I am listening to music while wandering Facebook, then somewhere in the night, I shall nod off sitting here babbling and roll over to the bed and fall asleep.
Nite nite. :)
We played one of the lowest ranked teams in the league and I shut them down for three innings while we scored seven runs. In the fourth I gave the other team easier pitches and they hit soft grounders and easy fly balls. Many errors later, it was 8-7 and time to shut the other team down again. When I say shut them down, I mean few of their players can hit my variety of spin pitches so I can strike out some of them and get others to hit back to me. Coach was upset, but I looked at him and said I wanted to see how our defense could handle an easy team so we known what to expect this season and we just proved we need a whole lot of serious practice and repetitive drills on fundamentals before we take ourselves seriously. Many players are talking about winning the championship again and doing well in the world series which is not realistic at this point. He agreed and understood and we agreed we were both not happy, but we could still win if we don't get down and swing our bats right.
We did come back in the next inning, I knocked in two runs after the guy in front of me knocked in two runs and we won 14-8, so we are 2-2 on the season in the middle of the pack. As I said, the team we played is very weak, they are 0-4 and have won about 2 games in the last two seasons (2-26) so we could have shut them out and run ruled them if we did not make so many mistakes. Coach said we will practice this coming Sunday so hopefully we will and we will make it an effective practice. Too often out practices reinforce poor skills because people are allowed to play sloppy and careless. Anyway, we started last season 2-2 and won it all, so nothing is impossible, but we have five new players, three of whom never played before and at least two who are very weak which gives us five very weak players, a dilemma for the season and tournaments. If they will listen and learn, we could make it a good season even though the competition is much improved this year.
After our game I watched a few more games with one of the new guys from the ratings committee and we discussed the process of rating players as we rated the players we were watching. I waited around for Brandi to play as she joined one of the women's teams and Jackson left work early to watch. Her team won and are a respectable 2-3 on the season so far. That is not bad for a brand new team. It takes some brand new teams two seasons to win two games after all. It rained a bit during the game and Jackson and I went to our respective cars for raingear. Separate ways, sigh. Jackson team (she plays with them on Monday nights even though she can't play Sundays) is 3-1 in second place at the moment.
After the game everyone and said fairwells, I walked over to the last game of the day and watched with the new ratings committee guy who was still working games. Love the dedication and the Assistant Commissioner thanked us for our diligence on the Ratings committtee Facebook page. That page is private, but you may be able to access the league page and see the standings here, in case it matters.
Enough details? (too much for most, if you are hanging in with me, thank you more than words can say... and hopefully we are friends and communicating in some way) :)
I headed home and once again face the loneliness. Sunday evenings are especially lonely and depressing. Before Jackson moved and when I was working, Jackson would usually get home late (she works Sundays, though hopefull that will change later this year as she really misses the softball league and not that Brandi is playing, it's even more challenging for her. She misses her UU church activities even more sometimes as she has been very active there (still is several weeknights each month) and she would be exhausted and head to bed after grabbing some food and sharing a tv show. Now that she is gone and I am not working and have no TV people for distraction and that strange sense of family regularly watched tv characters can give us if we let them, I am feeling the isolation. Heavy. I am turning to music more, grabbing CDs out of the boxes one by one, but it is still an adjustment more challenging on Sunday evenings than other nights.
Maybe because I know the working world will be heading to work in the morning and I will not. Maybe because I mark the start of yet another week alone in this world, more alone than ever in daily life. Maybe I just let it be more challenging.
So I am listening to music while wandering Facebook, then somewhere in the night, I shall nod off sitting here babbling and roll over to the bed and fall asleep.
Nite nite. :)
Sunday, March 13, 2016
that was rest, softball, pizza and facebook, right?
As you may already know (if it matters to you), I skipped Saturday morning softball (which is either practices with any number of teams or it is batting practice and scrimmage with the seniors who show up at Red Bug Park) and slept in. The body and mind needed that. It is recovering well given the circumstances and pressures and streesors and age of the body and so on. After waking, I straightened up a bit more (every day it gets a little more or less cluttered in every way) and touched up some entries I was too tired to proof read and edit (I do that occasionally while I am not working and have more time).
I then headed out to the softball field for the 3:15 game and while we played better than last week, it was our second loss of the season (and to the same team) primarily due to the other team picking up a couple of ringers and our own errors, throwing the ball around too much, and a player we picked up at the very last moment (getting on the field) because one of our players didn't show up. As we were coming back in the bottom of the last inning I was couching third. I sent six runs home and on the next to last play, the pick-up player did not move to third when he could have on a wild throw home. He was the tying run. Then the next batter hit a line drive into the right center gap that bounced to the fence and I waved him around third and turned my attention to the guy coming to third from secon. I almost waved him in, but I turned toward home I saw that pick-up player stopped halfway and started back to third. Naturally he was tagged out since there was a guy on third (and a guy on second), game over. He was afraid of a play at the plate I guess and we should have put in a pinch runner for him. So we lost our second game. A really tough way to lose. We still finished first in the league and get a bye for the playoffs that start next week. We play in two weeks.
On the way home I picked up a pizza at the closest pizza place to here. This would be a sign of how much I would like the neighborhood (as much as I wanted it to be a sign, that is). It turned out great. As close to New York pizza as any I've tried in the area. Go figure, I used to order from the pizza place across the street from it until it closed. Maybe I will make some sweet lemonade here (lots of lemons to suck on, after all). After I sit down and check my finances (must stop avoiding that), I will do my best to work that into my budget.
I visited Facebook instead of doing anything after that and the body enjoyed the rest. Facebook was unchanged and more boring and meaningless than ever, but I try to keep in touch with people and several of my softball teams who use facebook as their primary communication method. After Facebook blocked my account after I built up well over a thousand friends from all over the world and created more than two dozen pages for various interests and memories and hundreds of photos were uploaded by many dozens of local friends, I've lost respect and much interest in the site. I hope something less corporate and more human comes along to replace it soon.
Eventually, I did sleep. Recovery is slow but happening. Adjusting to this new space is slower, but sort of happening. Adjusting the the life changes is slower, but still happening too. Life is still good, just more challenging and lonelier than I want it to be.
How about yours? :)
I then headed out to the softball field for the 3:15 game and while we played better than last week, it was our second loss of the season (and to the same team) primarily due to the other team picking up a couple of ringers and our own errors, throwing the ball around too much, and a player we picked up at the very last moment (getting on the field) because one of our players didn't show up. As we were coming back in the bottom of the last inning I was couching third. I sent six runs home and on the next to last play, the pick-up player did not move to third when he could have on a wild throw home. He was the tying run. Then the next batter hit a line drive into the right center gap that bounced to the fence and I waved him around third and turned my attention to the guy coming to third from secon. I almost waved him in, but I turned toward home I saw that pick-up player stopped halfway and started back to third. Naturally he was tagged out since there was a guy on third (and a guy on second), game over. He was afraid of a play at the plate I guess and we should have put in a pinch runner for him. So we lost our second game. A really tough way to lose. We still finished first in the league and get a bye for the playoffs that start next week. We play in two weeks.
On the way home I picked up a pizza at the closest pizza place to here. This would be a sign of how much I would like the neighborhood (as much as I wanted it to be a sign, that is). It turned out great. As close to New York pizza as any I've tried in the area. Go figure, I used to order from the pizza place across the street from it until it closed. Maybe I will make some sweet lemonade here (lots of lemons to suck on, after all). After I sit down and check my finances (must stop avoiding that), I will do my best to work that into my budget.
I visited Facebook instead of doing anything after that and the body enjoyed the rest. Facebook was unchanged and more boring and meaningless than ever, but I try to keep in touch with people and several of my softball teams who use facebook as their primary communication method. After Facebook blocked my account after I built up well over a thousand friends from all over the world and created more than two dozen pages for various interests and memories and hundreds of photos were uploaded by many dozens of local friends, I've lost respect and much interest in the site. I hope something less corporate and more human comes along to replace it soon.
Eventually, I did sleep. Recovery is slow but happening. Adjusting to this new space is slower, but sort of happening. Adjusting the the life changes is slower, but still happening too. Life is still good, just more challenging and lonelier than I want it to be.
How about yours? :)
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