In the end, this turned out to be more fun than I’d expected. Also, a bit sad in places.
tink-ta-tink-tinking
I stayed up too late last night.
Anything past midnight these days for me usually results in punishment come morning. So it was that I had a hard time rousing myself today. I snoozed the iPhone at least three times and only finally pulled myself from the sheets after I saw the time was well past seven. As I dragged to the bathroom for my pre-shower morning sit-down I could hear the rain tink-ta-tink-tinking on the windows. Through the tightened blinds I could tell the morning light wasn’t quite as light as the hour should have allowed. Sitting, flipping through the online news and working the dry out of my eyes, I noticed the sound of the wind on the roof. It wooshed and sang through the various attic vents. I could hear it against the outside wall, gusting. All omens of another stormy day.
The weatherman says it’s supposed to rain here for something like two weeks straight. That’s a long time. I have these cameras setup in the front and backyard of the house; they are mounted into the eaves, tucked away from the weather. They broadcast live video wirelessly. Originally I put them up with some notion of “security.” A misguided notion, to be sure, as they really serve no purpose above allowing me to randomly view what’s going on at my house via the internet. Sure, they can send me a note when they detect motion – but they are incredibly imperfect at detecting motion. Such as, they do nothing positive and have been reduced to novelty usage. For instance, I logged onto them today to watch the wind and rain I mentioned above. From my desk at work I spent a few minutes hypnotized, watching it bully our big empty garbage cans and rattle the spindly limbs of our fruit trees. Watching the video of home really made me homesick though, so I had to turn it off and get my brain back on sawmill-stuff.
But I had a meeting with someone. At work we have these hallways between the many buildings, we call them “breezeways.” The suits have setup little tables and chairs there lining the long ceiling-to-floor windows that look out. I’m on the third floor so this view is actually pretty nice. I can see a bit of the city and I can watch people walking to and from their cars in our huge parking lot. For cubicle folks like myself, windows are something of a fascination. Imprisoned so at the computer these snatches of the “world outside” become filled with some sense of nostalgia. “Oh dear it’s really beautiful ‘out there,’ isn’t it? Makes me remember the times when I was outside.” Maybe this is just me. Either way I enjoy having meetings in the breezewere where I can look out the windows. Today I sat and watched the storm during the hour I was there talking office politics, annual reviews, and technical crap. That kind of stuff is a lot more palatable when you have a visual reminder that a real world exists just beyond a thin pane of glass.
Cold and wind and rain dampen not only the ground, but my designs on productivity as well. I’ve been meaning to go out in the backyard and do some colder-weather cropping. Planting, tearing down dead summer stuff, arranging, etc. I thought on this yesterday after work, as it wasn’t raining – but the outside temperature in the car on the way home read 46 and I couldn’t muster the go-get-‘em required to go to work in the soggy outdoors in those conditions. Yes I know it’s not like I’m in Wisconsin or something… but the warm house was too inviting and I once again pushed the work off, mentally, to the weekend. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty, I changed the air filter in the house. Had to get out the step-ladder and everything. Even this little bit of productivity improved my spirits, likely because I’d also mentally pushed it off more than once.
Goodnight.
I stayed up too late last night. Anything past midnight these days for me usually results in punishment come morning. So it was that I had a hard time rousing myself today. I snoozed the iPhone at least three times and only finally pulled myself from the sheets after I saw the time was well past seven. As I dragged to the bathroom for my pre-shower morning sit-down I could hear the rain tink-ta-tink-tinking on the windows. Through the tightened blinds I could tell the morning light wasn’t quite as light as the hour should have allowed. Sitting, flipping through the online news and working the dry out of my eyes, I noticed the sound of the wind on the roof. It wooshed and sang through the various attic vents. I could hear it against the outside wall, gusting. All omens of another stormy day.
The weatherman says it’s supposed to rain here for something like two weeks straight. That’s a long time. I have these cameras setup in the front and backyard of the house; they are mounted into the eaves, tucked away from the weather. They broadcast live video wirelessly. Originally I put them up with some notion of “security.” A misguided notion, to be sure, as they really serve no purpose above allowing me to randomly view what’s going on at my house via the internet. Sure, they can send me a note when they detect motion – but they are incredibly imperfect at detection motion. Such as, they do nothing positive and have been reduced to novelty usage. For instance, I logged onto them today to watch the wind and rain I mentioned above. From my desk at work I spent a few minutes hypnotized, watching it bully our big empty garbage cans LINK HERE and rattle the spindly limbs of our fruit trees. Watching the video of home really made me homesick though, so I had to turn it off and get my brain back on sawmill-stuff.
The weather dampens not only the ground, but my designs on productivity as well. I’ve been meaning to go out in the backyard and do some colder-weather cropping. Planting, tearing down dead summer stuff, arranging, etc. I thought on this yesterday after work, as it wasn’t raining – but the outside temperature in the car on the way home read 46 and I couldn’t muster the go-get-‘em required to go to work in the soggy outdoors in those conditions. Yes I know it’s not like I’m in Wisconsin or something… but the warm house was too inviting and I once again pushed the work off, mentally, to the weekend. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty, I changed the air filter in the house. Had to get out the step-ladder and everything. Even this little bit of productivity improved my spirits, likely because I’d also mentally pushed it off more than once.
i should be able to pull it off
Happy Wednesday already internet.
I don’t know where this week is going, but I’d like to change the posted speed limit or at least get it to pay attention or something. I need just a few more than five days this time to get things done but I’m somewhat unwilling to give of my personal time just yet. Oh that day will come, each project at the sawmill exacts its slow-times revenge with requisite after-hours work at some point… I’m just not ready to yield even bits of my evenings quite yet.
I didn’t have a lot of options this morning. The laundry situation was dire. I don’t say this as a marital indictment, our recent travel is to blame. Feeling creative, I set about scavenging an outfit. After assembly and a quick mirror test I walked into the house proper where Sharaun was busily preparing breakfast for Keaton and coffee for herself (that’s allowed with a baby in-progress, right?). My wife then looked at me askew, cocked her head inquisitively while taking in my wardrobe decision and said, quite matter-of-factly, “It’s not your best outfit, but you don’t have to go change.” To her answer of my unasked question I laughed and said, simply, “Thanks.”
Don’t think this shook me, folks. No don’t pity me the belittled man. No way man, I’m the kind who easily suffers a factual judgment or criticism. You remember that when you really want to tell me something but are afraid to, OK? I can take a punch. And anyway, I was actually pretty proud of my creation. I don’t have a picture so I’ll word it out to you. Black dress slacks, matching black shoes and socks, and very dark and very bright (if that makes sense) blue button-down long-sleeve dress shirt. The kind of blue that’s just bang-for-sure primary blue. As blue as it gets. Over that blue shirt I donned a white sweater I have. It has little white braids down it in vertical stripes as decoration or dress-up. I wore this such that the only place you could see my Crayola blue dress shirt was up top and the neck where the collars popped out from under the sweater. I’ve always wanted to wear a dress shirt under a sweater in this way… it some how looks scholarly to me. Like something Professor College would wear.
So I don’t know folks. Maybe it was the combination of bright white, stark black, and this vibrant blue. Maybe it was the sweater itself, I got a couple more jabs on it later in the day – I think it’s the white braidwork. Or maybe just the white in general. A white sweater is somewhat non-standard I suppose. I see other people at work rocking this shirt-under-sweater look with success (or at least to what I deem success) – I feel like I should also be able to pull it off.
Goodnight.
i blame the fetus
Back from Oregon. Wasn’t nearly as wet or as cold as I’d expected. Even saw the stars some nights and some snatches of blue sky.
I didn’t write, though. Between work and doing stuff after work with work people and hanging out with family there wasn’t time. And maybe my fit of productivity the past couple weeks was due for a slowdown anyway. We came home early Monday morning so I could make it into work that day. The plan worked, but it wasn’t the best of days.
Up at 4am to catch the train to the airport, then our flight sat at the gate for 40min longer than it should’ve, then the bus to the car. I got rained on as I walked into work and my umbrella caught the wind and broke. At lunch I dropped my crusty roll in the elevator and scalded my thumb when I spilled hot squash soup on it. It’s karma. Punishing me because I took the Lord’s name in vain when my umbrella broke. Karma, God, whatever…
Tonight (Monday as I write) Sharaun’s got one of her infamous pregnancy migraines. When she’s got one, she’s 100% out of commission. This means that it’s Keaton and I on our own and fending for ourselves. After we ate, we washed up and decided to put on a movie. Is it saying something about me that I’m genuinely excited about the quality improvement on this new 50th anniversary remastered edition of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty? I watched somewhat rapt comparing the new vibrant widescreen to the old dingy pan-and-scan we’re used to watching. We don’t watch movies all that much… I actually start to feel guilty watching television as a form of “interacting” rather than doing something truly interactive. Nine times out of ten I’ll put on some music and we’ll play house or Memory or dance together. Tonight, though, dad took the easy road.
I blame the fetus. Pregnancy’s a mess; and more than once I’ve thanked God that, for me, it’s merely a spectator sport.
It’s late now and I should be getting to bed. Only, sometimes I think it’s not entirely worth it. About 50% of the time I can’t get to sleep when I want to anyway. Why is it that it’s so easy for me to fall asleep on the couch after getting home from work, yet when I finally retire for the evening and want “real” sleep so badly – it refuses to come on-demand? At “real” bedtime I’ll lay flat as a board in bed and think of a million different things I’ve no reason to think about. Money. Time. Music. Work. All sort of topics which would be much better served on a waking brain rather than one tortured for sweet slumber. I read somewhere that you shouldn’t be on the computer in the last half hour before you want to go to bed, that it overstimulates you and you’ll have a hard time “coming down” to get to sleep. That’s probably true.
We finally got the car back last week, just before leaving for Oregon. I almost forgot how to drive the thing.
Goodnight.
no beep. no light.
Back to non-canned writing now. Have to keep-up real time. Wish me continued success please and thanks again for the comments.
Work has me hot-footing it; running the pit of hot coals, deftly letting the balls of my feet linger in the red just long enough for a little layer of perspiration to evaporate into a protective bubble of steam before lifting them again. It’s that time of year at the sawmill where we do annual reviews. That blessed time where I get to sum up both my work, and the collective work of my team, with some words on paper.
Sharaun’s still taking me to work in the mornings and picking me up evenings. The broken car is still at the We Fix It In An Inordinate Amount of Time body shop. ETA on that changes every time they call me on the date they last “projected” we’d get her back. Slipped out in week increments at first but, perhaps sensing my growing frustration, they’ve now taken to half-week delays each time it’s “not quite done” yet. It’ll be nice to have a second vehicle back. Just think about it… in China you’re only allowed one child – and here I am complaining about missing our second automobile. Only in America.
One morning this week, arriving at work and kissing both my ladies goodbye for the better part of the day, I walked up to the doors as always. At work we have to wear a badge and on the way into the sawmill you’re required to wave your badge in front of a badge-reader. Once this machine verifies you’re badge is valid and that you’re still lucky enough to be gainfully employed a little green light will come on and a happy beeee-eeee-eeep will fill the lobby. This is your go-ahead signal; you have been validated; and while it shouldn’t be misconstrued as a personal endorsement from corporate or anything – you will be allowed to toil for another blissfully servile day.
So important is our being badged that we hire a security force to further watch for the green lights and listen for the beep. In this way, the sawmill suits contract out the most severe responsibility of catching the type of masochistic scoundrel who’d want to sneak into a place where one’s soul is robbed hourly of all joy. These human redundancies take their employ very seriously, and will shout choruses of, “Sir? Sir?! Sir!!” after any who dare pass the checkpoint without a beep and a flash. They are most dedicated.
This morning, however, my badge did not beep.
I stopped dead and attempted to wave the thing in front of the machine again, not wanting to be caught in a hail of interrogatory “Sirs.” No beep. No light. I walked to the next beeper machine (there are three, I assume to ease congestion). No beep. No light.
“My badge seems to be broken,” I told the uniformed man. “Try it again,” he suggested, the sum total of his knowledge regarding possible solutions to my problem now plainly evident. Like smacking a piece of electronics when it’s not functioning right, I waved the badge again so he could watch it fail. “No beep. No light.,” he said. “No beep. No light.,” I said. We looked at each other and for a moment I was worried I’d broken the poor man’s brain. But, with his debug procedure complete, he simply pointed me to the “badge office” and said I’d likely need a new one.
It was already past 8am now and despite the sawmill being extremely lax in holding us employees to appointed working hours I’ve always been an eight-to-five kinda fellow. I checked my watch, five minutes past. No meetings to rush off to and with only a slight disruption to my coffee and banana acquisition procedure I decided to see the “badge office” right then and there. I approached.
“My badge seems to be broken,” I told the man. He took it from me, verified that it was broken, and proceeded to sit down at his computer to fashion me a new one.
Now, let me tell you that I’ve been at the sawmill now for ten years and that back on that first day of my tenure here, now so misty in my memory, they’d taken a picture of me to use on my all-important badge. I’ve actually written about this picture before, for it is truly horrible. For ten years I’ve had this post-college me staring back at me on my badge, looking all beer-fat and sheltered to the realities of corporate life. Ten years looking down at that Napster-loving, $4-pizza-subsistent, neophyte.
I saw my window.
“Sure wish I could get a new picture on there,” I said casually. Now I know full well that, for whatever reason, likely cost, the sawmill is strongly averse to re-taking badge photos. I have a friend who lost a ton of weight and his badge photo ceased to resemble him in the least. Even still he described his ordeal trying to get the badge photo updated as pulling teeth. Knowing the ugliness of his travails I doubted my offhand comment would accomplish anything.
“Do you need a new picture?,” he asked. Oh. An opening. Play it cool Dave, don’t let on your excitement. Think logically. What would be a logical reason to request a new badge photo? Aha! “Just look at how fat I am in that one,” I replied. Now this is true; I have, over the past year, lost a considerable amount of weight. Not enough, mind you, that I’m certifiably healthy per government standards, but I’ve at least got myself partway there. He looked at the old photo, looked at me. “OK come on in,” he said.
Took maybe five minutes and I had my new badge. I think it’s an improvement.
Goodnight.
loss prevention
We went to Disneyland back in December with friends.
I took advantage of a promotion and got in free on the day of my birthday. Even though I came down with a stomach bug partway through the day it was OK. I wrote about it here so I won’t write about it again. I have a different story from the trip so I’ll write that here.
While we were there Keaton threw probably the biggest, loudest, most fantastically ridiculous fit of her short career so far. We shared a two-room hotel “suite” with our friends. They have Jake who’s of age with Keaton and we get along well with them and the kids get along well with each other so as joint vacations go it was good from a getting-on standpoint. This day, my birthday, I had left the group at the park and retired to the hotel early because I felt terrible and was near losing my stomach. They returned later in the evening, affording me some good time for resting and recuperation and sparing themselves the hazard of being in close quarters with me and the sole bathroom I was mostly stuck in. Of course Keaton hadn’t napped, and she was out of sorts.
I don’t remember what started it all but likely it was sassy-talk or something from Keaton. Sharaun told her to sit on the bed and not get off the bed and that she was doing a time-out on the bed. I was also on the bed resting under covers, trying not to move much or think much but just lay still and get the better of my bowels through the power of my mind. The bed was now Keaton’s prison for her bad behavior and that meant she was screaming and crying and carrying on next to me in my deteriorated state and it was making me feel worse and I got angry with her. I told her to “stop.” I overcame my malaise and started parenting. Things got worse.
I’ve been meaning to write about what I’ve named the “dam breaking” thing that’s been going on with Keaton recently. This is the phenomenon where nothing – not soft words, not hard words, not consequences, not abandonment, not the rod – nothing can slow the rolling snowball of her building tantrum. It’s a relatively new thing, but it’s supremely frustrating and makes a body feel helpless to do anything positive. This was one of those times.
All I did was a loss. She got louder and more ridiculous. Flailing and screaming and coughing for breath and red in the face. Not wanting to spoil the child I let my anger manifest all old school and took to spanking her. She kept going. I kept going. It was a back-and-forth volley, escalating tears and screams on her for escalating smacks on my part. Still none of it to any effect. All the while our friends were trying to afford us as much privacy as the little room allowed, and may have even retreated into their semi-separate “room” to give me some space. Didn’t matter, I knew in my head they could see and hear my performance.
Because of this it was all deathly embarrassing and personal. She’d lost control, I’d lost control, and here we were like we’re on a reality show with the voyeurs behind the fourth wall watching it all unfold with their mouths gaping. I imagined the thoughts going through their heads: how they’d have done it differently, how they’d react were it their child and we the ones looking on, how they’d never beat their child so. Oh it was so embarrassing! Afterward I knew that the spanking wasn’t right, hell even during I think I knew it wouldn’t be effective. Ben loves a story I tell about a time I spanked Keaton for hitting Sharaun. To the rhythm of my spanking I told her firmly, “We. Don’t. Hit!” A wonder the child’s mind didn’t explode at the hypocrisy. It always feels wrong anyway, and it feels even worse, sorrowful down to the soul, in front of an audience.
Later, when things had calmed down, my buddy did the neighborly thing and consoled me in the way men console other men. “I know how frustrating that can be,” he said, empathizing, “You feel like there’s nothing you can do, like everything makes it worse, so you do what you can. We’ve been there before, trust me.” And even though I know it’s the kind of stuff people say to each other to ease each other’s spirits I’m still ashamed that I whacked my child in anger in front of them. Oh I can smile and laugh and act like it’s all par for the parenting course, and, in reality, I suppose it is, but it still makes my stomach twist to think about it.
Goodnight.
what godless monster?
Monday and we’re off to Portland later this week. Wrote this entry way back on Thursday last week. Here goes.
I thought I’d written before about how they give us free fruit at work, but I couldn’t find where.
In the café downstairs there’s this large table under a big reddish market umbrella with four or five baskets heaped with fruit. The umbrella really serves no purpose other than atmosphere, I believe, and it’s high enough that I don’t have to duck to get to the fruit so it’s fine. There’s typically a different type of fruit in each basket, with some that are almost nearly always there and some that rotate through more unevenly. There are always, for example, bananas and apples. And there are nearly always some kind of orange or tangerine or the like. Sometimes there are pears or plums or something more exotic. Like I said, there are always bananas. In fact, they have trouble keeping enough bananas.
From my non-scientific study of the free fruit table, I’ve decided that bananas are far and away the most popular fruit item. It’s always the first basket to go empty in the morning, and it’s often refilled and emptied again before lunch. And then it’s over. I have a theory that they only fill it twice a day and that’s it. That accounts for two big boxes of bananas unloaded onto the table, I’ve seen them doing it. Maybe even free fruit has limits. Thing is, if you prefer the bananas – and who doesn’t, they are my entire breakfast all the working week – you have to make sure you get one early enough or you’ll be out of luck. Sometimes you can even get there too early, and they haven’t even stocked the banana basket yet. Oh there’ll be all sorts of other fruits out, but the banana basket will sit empty. It’s always a gamble with the bananas.
I suppose this is because they are just about the perfect fruit. Come in their own wrapping, aren’t messy, not too sweet, perfectly portioned. What the heck kind of Godless monster wouldn’t like a banana? We’re only supposed to be allowed one piece of free fruit each day, but on Mondays and Tuesdays I actually always take two bananas. I’ll tell you why. Oftentimes the are still green and pretty inedible. I take two and let them ripen on my desk for a day. I’m always a day behind on the banana I’m eating, and a day ahead on the bananas I’m taking. This way, come Wednesday I only have to take one and on Thursday and Friday I don’t even have to grab a banana because Wednesday’s or Thursday’s is now nicely ripened back up at my desk. It’s a system. I have a banana system. I figure it works out to one a day anyway, really. Five days and five bananas so I’m within the rules. May not look that way as I walk to my desk with two in-hand Monday and Tuesday, but I’m on the up and up.
Sometimes I mess up though and end up with an extra banana still ripening at my desk on Friday afternoon. I always feel guilty about this, but I don’t permit myself to take the leftover banana home. Somehow that would be stealing. That said, don’t think I’ll let you take this opportunity to challenge me on what I consider stealing and what I don’t. I’m very well aware of the discrepancies between my banana dilemma and my file-sharing habits and I know a day of reckoning is coming for the latter. As soon as Keaton asks me how I get all my new music, and I’m forced to attempt an explanation. I know it’s a day coming. Extra bananas though, those prick my conscience. So I leave them over the weekend. Although this may do for a rather soft brown banana on Monday, but it’s worth it to stay within the law.
Goodnight.