I went to bed a little before midnight. After 1:00 I woke up enough to hear my mother go into the bathroom. Next thing I know it’s 3:30 and she’s in the bathroom. I knocked on the door but it took a couple of tries before she responded.
The question then is this: at 3:30 was she in the bathroom again, or was she still there from 1:00. We may never know. I just know that it’s 3:45 now. I can hear her moving around in there, but now I need to take a piss.
Fun.
I love my family. They are the best. You will never meet finer people.
Knowing that I am going to be at my parents’ for two whole days and that I won’t see them at all during that time, they asked me if I wanted to play a game of Ticket to Ride Online with them. We all have it on our iPads and figured it would be a nice thing to do together even when we aren’t together. Look me in the eye and tell me that isn’t the nicest thing anyone has ever done. I mean, seriously. How wonderful are Jen and Harry? I know Bellana’s not a big fan of that game, but maybe we can find something we can all play, assuming we can sneak it in around her work schedule as she is working up a storm in the final weeks before school starts.
I’m not sure who setup the network at my parents house, but I am pretty sure they have a firewall of some kind that is blocking online games. I’ve mentioned my troubles with World of Warcraft in the past, and tonight I had to switch from the wifi to my iPhone’s hotspot in order to connect to the game. I know my sister’s kids were doing some of their remote school here last year. I wonder if they put something in to keep them honest.
Speaking of online games, Jen and I have been playing World of Warcraft for the last month or so. WoW is owned and operated by a company called Blizzard. Blizzard has been getting demolished with charges of various kinds of sexual misconduct in the work place. I believe their CEO resigned over it recently. Karmically speaking (I do not believe in Karma, but the principal still applies) we are both starting to feel uncomfortable supporting the company so we’re looking for something else to play. Jen was looking into Star Wars: The Old Republic today. She won’t have to twist my arm to play that one. A game where I can be a Jedi? Sure! A game where I can get in touch with my dark side and be a Sith? Sure! I’ll have to download that one when I finally get home from this nana/papa sitting shift, sometimes in 2043 or so.
Last time I was here I mentioned that the only place I feel comfortable doing my “exercise” is in the cellar, and I don’t like going down there and leaving my parents alone without having a legitimate reason to go down stairs. There is laundry to do tonight, so I have my reason. I didn’t have a chance to start it until a little after 9:00, and only had five out of 30 minutes done, but I think I can close the ring. I have been down stairs once and I got my time up to 15 minutes. I think I will have two legitimate reasons to go into the cellar before midnight and I think I can get in the 15 remaining minutes. We’ll see. It’s really hot here and the humidity is unreal. We’ll see.
I left work for the day at 3:30 today so that I could spend some time with Harry before I came to my parents house. We watched the first episode of What If…? It was really good. I can’t wait for more! While we were busy with the Marvel fun, an email was sent to the whole company saying that our return to the office policy was changing again. Our requirement to come in approximate once a week has been temporarily put on hold due to the increasing Covid-19 numbers (which reminds me, I haven’t updated my spreadsheets yet). My boss called me a little while ago to make sure we were all on the same page. It’s looking like going into the office is off the table until (probably) mid-October. Obviously that could change at any time, but I feel much safer. It was pretty uncomfortable being there the last couple of times. I didn’t feel unsafe per se, I just didn’t feel comfortable. Tonight’s announcement was like a sigh of relief.
Okay, I need to update my MA and US Covid-19 numbers spreadsheets, and then I need to mix a song. All of that sandwiched around laundry and “exercising” and actually going to sleep and stuff. Here’s hoping the quiet night stays quiet. Fingers crossed.
I have nothing to write about at this particular lunch break.
With two whole days at my parents, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I started watching The Orville again last week and last night I finished the first season. If things go bad I could make a dent in season two. I started watching The White Lotus on HBO when it premiered but I haven’t watched the latest episode. Why? Because the show kinda sucks. Is it a comedy? Because it’s not funny. Is it a drama? Because most of the characters are beyond annoying. It’s just not good. I know it’s only something like six episodes, so I am half way through, I think, but it’s just not good. Oh well.
Music! I can do music! I have two songs to mix. There are six songs that need lyrics, I can handle all of that. Maybe I can start some new songs as well. I wanted to be further along than this before my 48 hour sentence started, but what can you do?
Mostly what I will do while I am stuck over there is miss Jen and Harry. I should be home with them, but I won’t be. That sucks more than I am capable to put into words.
I have 99 minutes left in my shortened work day. I just wanted to mention that because I could.
Looking forward to watching What If? with Harry and Jen tonight.
This is totally selfish. We’re just focusing on me here, not on anyone else, m’kay?
I am about to have a really rough time. I am leaving work early today, at 3:30. The plan is to spend the extra two hours off hanging with Harry. After that I head to my parents house for nana/papa sitting shift… for 48 hours. Two whole days there without a break. Without going home and seeing my family. It’s going to be a nightmare.
It is the price I had to pay in order to get most of the last week of August off so that I don’t have to miss a Bellana visit and so that I can help Harry move into his dorm. A double shift is going to suck, but it is absolutely going to be worth it.
We are hopefully going to watch the first episode of Marvel’s What If? tonight. Then when I get back Friday night we’re watching The Suicide Squad. It’s our last weekend with Harry before he leaves for school so we’re going to super hero the shit out of it.
Starting around 6:30 tonight I am going to have a miserable 48 hours, but after that it’s going to be great. Run that gauntlet, red head. Run it.
The photo doesn’t have anything to do with the title, I just like candles too. Not as much as I like good news, but whatever.
I’m still feeling the sense of impending doom though. I’m not sure how to process it given the events of the day. Maybe I am just in a state of perpetual freaked out. That makes sense to me.
There was one important thing I needed to see happen over at my parents’ house yesterday and it didn’t quite happen. It partially happened. Let’s say 60% of it happened. I really needed that other 40% though, and yesterday it didn’t happen.
It happened today.
It’s still not enough for me to start feeling positive. Yes, there is a light at the end of this miserable tunnel, but if I start focusing on it, it is going to turn around and break my heart and I just can’t do that to myself or to my wife or to anyone else.
Still… the partial big step I got yesterday is now a full big step.
Oh, how I need this to resolve. I need it to be over.
Please, please, please.
The next hurdle is, I believe, next Tuesday. Let’s hope that light in the distance gets a whole lot closer by then.
There were two big things going on in the extended family today. One was centered around my parents house. That doesn’t seem to have gone as well as I had hoped, but it was still all right. It wasn’t a slam dunk BOOM everything works out, but it was another step in the right direction. I’m just too impatient now to be happy about it.
The other thing was centered around my house, though it had nothing to do with Lake Asshole, and that seems to have gone much better. It isn’t the perfect solution, but all the boxes are checked and everyone seems happy so I am happy.
Now back to impatiently waiting for my parents thing to resolve… waiting… and waiting… and getting closer and closer to the inevitable nervous breakdown.
Urgh.
I am really nervous. Another step toward resolving my parents’ healthcare issues is about to happen. I am not going into details, but my brother and sister and mother and father are about to do something that I really, really need to go well.
No, that’s not a good enough description. Let me try again…
I really, really, really, really, really, really need things to go very, very, very, very, very, very well.
I’m sending out all of the positive red head vibes* I can. Come on, universe, don’t let me down. After a year and a half of Covid-19 on top of all the family health problems, you owe me, universe. You owe me.
Fingers crossed
Toes crossed
Eyes crossed
*Red head vibes are the best vibes. You have to be a red head to know this, but it is true. Red head vibes are powerful things. I have to be careful to use them sparingly, and to only ever use them as a force for good. I have used them a lot since Friday. When I say a lot I mean, a lot.
Looking toward the future, my father just sat my mother down and had a talk about some next steps. The response was positive. Not perfect, but good. Let’s call it progress of the baby steps variety. Another, slightly more impressive, step will happen tomorrow while I’m at work.
Raise a glass to forward momentum. May a wave of good news wash us away to a newer, better, safer place because I really need this to end. I can handle a lot, and I don’t think I am quite to the snapping point yet, but it’s getting close. Way to close for comfort.
Oh, gentle readers, could you do your humble narrator a solid and cross those fingers and keep ’em crossed? We need all the help we can get.
My father turned off the television a little after 10:00. He went to sleep pretty much right away. My mother turned off her television a little before 11:00 and seemed to be asleep a short time later. I had my CPAP machine setup and the lights were out around 11:30 but I didn’t get to sleep until just after midnight.
I woke up at 4:30 because my mother was up and walking around the kitchen. She was making breakfast. I got up to check on her and she was fine. She told me to go back to bed. I tried, but I couldn’t sleep. So four hours of sleep is it for me today.
It’s worth it if things keep up the way they did last night. Fingers crossed.
I’m not working today but I have set myself up at the dining room table as if I were. The home health worker is coming at 8:00, and I assume my mother is going to want to chaperone (I’m only kidding a little) so they will all be spending most of the day in the living room. There isn’t really enough room for four people in there these days, so I will bow out. I’ve got lots of music to work on, and lots of The Orville to watch. The Red Sox are on at 1:00. I’ll probably try to find a way to sneak myself into the room so I can watch the game with my father. Other than that, I hope I can be a fly on the wall today and just be here to help my mother with whatever.
After I closed my exercise ring last night I sort of made the conscious decision to go to bed without finishing the laundry so that I would have an excuse to go downstairs and sneak in some walking in place today. It’s 7:23am and 71 degrees outside. Inside I think it’s already around 80 and the humidity is at about 99.9%. I haven’t even started walking yet and I am already drenched in sweat. Hooray.
My mother is watching local cable right now. I think she might be asleep, but the TV is on. It is the Tewksbury Memorial High School Senior Awards presentation. I graduated from that school in 1989 and I don’t recognize any of the voices of the staff, but every time someone comes on to sing the praises of some TMHS athletics program I just want to vomit all over the house. They are still the arrogant pricks they were 30 years ago, and the team name is still the insulting racist bullshit too. Some things never change.
Okay, laundry and exercise, then pills and letting the health care pro inside. Talk to ya’ll later.
Inside the Red Head's Head 