Category: Generic

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 2 (Preempted)

I had a second episode of The Stir Crazy Files all lined up and ready to go and then something came along to negate the need for it.

Yesterday my love came up with a plan to take a tiny little bite out of the cabin fever and also fight against the lack of exercise we are bound to suffer from during our social distancing.

She asked me if I wanted to take a walk around the block.  I said sure and off we went.  It only took about 15 minutes or so and it just felt great.  I mean, the exercise was just exercise, you know?  But actually spending a few minutes outside of the confines of our house just really hit the spot.

Normally I would be 100% in favor of not going outside for any reason, but now that The Man is telling us to stay in it just felt so good breathe fresh air.  We both felt invigorated and we agreed we’d do the same thing every lunch time until The Man sets us free.  Weather permitting, of course.

Can you see where this is going now?

When we woke up this morning it was pouring rain.  When we started working it was pouring rain.  When I looked outside after my morning meeting it was pouring rain.

Damn it.

When 1:00 came I didn’t even bother looking outside, I just went to the kitchen and made myself a sandwich.

Then… a minor miracle.

Jen had a meeting end around 1:00.  As I was sitting down to eat my sandwich she asked if I wanted to go for a walk.  But… but.. I thought.  Then I looked outside and wonder of wonders the rain had stopped!  It was still cold as ass, but at least it wasn’t raining!  We went outside and went for a walk.  Oh happiness!

So instead of writing a post about feeling stir crazy again, I get to write a post about not feeling stir crazy again.

Sweet.

Now go and wash your damn hands.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 1

Our toaster is a fickle minx.

Prior to the concept of social distancing taking over the known universe, my sweet, angelic, brilliant, beautiful, beloved wife Jennifer started having a hankering for English Muffins.  I get it.  Every once in a while I go through a phase where I can’t get enough of those muffins.

I like them on the well-done side.  Jen and the kids like them on the just-barely toasted side.  What ever your preference, our toaster can do it… it just doesn’t want to.  There is a sweet spot setting but it’s so hard to find it.  When I make toast it’s either just a little too done, or just a little too underdone.  No matter what I try it’s always just barely not-quite perfect.  That’s not to imply the English muffins don’t come out delicious, put some peanut butter on one of those little suckers and it’s bordering on bliss, it’s just that they could stand to be a tiny bit perfecterer.  Dig?

Yup… it’s only day four of the working from home/social distancing experiment and I am feeling rather stir crazy.  Hold on, kids.  It’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

Embrace the Bad Situation Part II

After doing all of the chores imaginable before work this morning, we found another way to embrace the shitty situation.

My wife and I took our lunch breaks together and went for a walk around the block.  It took about 15 minutes at a moderately brisk pace.  Weather permitting we are hoping to make this a regular thing.  If this mess continues long enough maybe we’ll be able to make more than one trip around the neighborhood.

Optimism AF, people.

Embrace the Bad Situation

By 10 minutes past 8:00 AM today I had done the following:

  • Folded the laundry
  • Washed the dishes
  • Cleaned up the living room (just a little)
  • Changed the cat’s litter box
  • Taken out all of the trash

That’s what I call making the (domestic) best out of an otherwise crappy situation.

Wash your hands, stay at home, and do the dishes before work.

Still Not Real

I listen to a lot of podcasts.  I use the podcast app on my iPhone to queue up a whole slew of episodes and I just let it play.  I play it in the car, I play it while I work, I play it while I’m cooking dinner, and so on and so on.

When I work from home I don’t use my iPhone.  If a podcast is playing and my phone rings, the podcast keeps playing in my ear while I’m trying to listen to the person on the other end of the call.  Tres annoying.  When I work from home I either use my MacBook, or my iPad, or my iPod Touch… yes, I am King Apple Fanboy the First.  After the work day ends I go in and edit my running podcast playlist on my phone so that it doesn’t try to play a podcast I’ve already listened to.

On Monday, the first day of social distance telecommuting, I didn’t listen to anything.  On Tuesday I did.  Just a couple of episodes (The Walking Deadcast and Grumpy Old Geeks) before shutting it down.  I used my iPad.

Here’s the sad part of the story….

After I punched out for the day I picked up my iPhone so I could update the queue for the next day’s commute.

Meaning, I was setting it up for this morning’s drive to work.

You see the problem?  There is no drive to work.

At my core I have still not accepted the changes our society requires from us.  In my heart of hearts, yesterday was just another day.  Yesterday was not a lock down to try and slow the spread of a virus that is going to fuck up our health care system and overrun our hospitals.  The company I work for sells software to hospitals.  The division I work in within the company supports new customers as they implement our software.  Even before most of the tech companies around here started talking about keeping their full staff at home I was hearing that some of our customers, hospitals, were telling our training staff to stay away from them.  They were implying that their lives were about to get really difficult and they didn’t expect to have time or energy to deal with anything other than their own patients.

This is real.  Don’t you doubt it.  Still… my tiny little wisp of a brain isn’t evolved enough to take that information into itself and impose a new, albeit temporary, reality onto the old reality.

Crud.  This sucks.

Wash your damn hands and stay home.

Distilled Jackpot

We did it again.  I went to the supermarket before work, and then Jen and I went together after work.  Again.  This time I was able to score two, one gallon jugs of distilled water for my CPAP machine.  I’m set for a while, folks.

Jackpot.

Music and Money

I’ve mentioned that at the start of March I decided to curb my post-RPM Challenge blues by doing another RPM Challenge.  I’m still working on it though it is very easy to be distracted by other things right now.  I’ve got two songs done, six more partially done, and I still need two more.

This morning there was a post on the RPM Challenge Facebook group (I didn’t check the actual RPM Challenge website, it might be there too) suggesting we all take advantage of being stuck at home indefinitely and do another RPM Challenge in April.  Good idea!  I mean, I was already planning on it, but I don’t have to do it alone.  Why not?  Why not use our stay-at-home time to do something creative?  I’m all for it… but I would have been without a global pandemic to lock me in the house so I guess I’m not the target audience there.

Turning to politics, remember when Andrew Yang was running for president and proposed giving everyone in the USA a $1,000 stipend every month?  I thought it was a good idea.  A creative way to help those in need as well as to stimulate the economy.  I also loved the implied, “you think Sanders is a socialist?  Wait till you get a load of this” vibe.

Yesterday Mittens Romney threw out a similar proposal.  Today Joe Kennedy did as well, though he provided some actual details with his idea.  Now it sounds like the fucking white house is jumping on the wagon.  They may be considering a plan similar to Yang’s.

First off, let me get it out of the way… if the dickless president really wants to make being anti-socialist a platform in his campaign, then giving away money isn’t a good way to do it.  I expect that anyone who ever said a negative word about socialism should refuse that money, right?  Just like they refuse public schools and public fire departments, and trash pick up, and police, and snow plows, and highways, and all of those other socialist things.

Second, can we just make Andrew Yang president now?  Like, let’s all vote today and just give him the job.  The proposal he made that everyone laughed at could very well be law within days.  Good work, Mr Yang.  Smart leadership is what we need and it is literally the furthest thing away from what we have.

So as for the social distancing, today is my second day working from home.  Yesterday felt like a normal telecommute day.  All day long I had this idea in the back of my mind that I would be back in the office tomorrow, same as any other telecommuting day.  It really wasn’t until I got up this morning and didn’t drive to work (I drove to the super market instead) that it really started sinking in.  Things are different.

There is a little sense of stir craziness, sure, but mostly what I am feeling today is the sense that this is going to be really hard to do.  Some how removing the commute and the office from the work day equation is going to make things more difficult?  I don’t get it, but that feels like where this is heading.  I wish I could explain it, but I can’t.

There is so much wrong with the world right now, and I’m not even talking about that textbook nazi prick in the white house.  There is so much out of wack that I can’t figure out what to focus my worries on.  I’m trying to only worry about things I can control like stocking the pantry and working from home and making sure everyone has what they need to do their work/school work without driving each other to drink (wink).  I don’t want to worry about all the other shit.  I don’t want to worry about the projections or the infection rates, or the mortality rates, or the stock market, or layoffs or closings, or the fact that I am weeks overdue for a haircut and now can’t get one (anyone want to lend me their flowbee?).

Positivity used to be the hardest thing in the world for me before I met Jen.  It’s still not easy, but it is closer to my normal mindset.  I am trying real hard to stay positive through all of this.  I may need to bash my guitar around in order to pull it off, but I owe it to everyone to do my best to keep the ship upright.  (I typo’d ship as shit and somehow that sounds better to me, hehe)

So keep your shit together, planet Earth.  I have faith in you.  You can do it.  Now let’s all celebrate St Patrick’s Day in our self imposed isolation by listening to some Irish music.  No, not U2.  No, not Makem and Clancy…

Rory Gallagher (I wanted the Irish Tour album but those pukes at Spotify don’t have it)