Compulsion

I feel compelled to write something here. Why?

The Red Sox are playing a getaway day game against Seattle right now. They are losing 4-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning. Bummer.

I just found a bug on a script a former staff member of mine wrote on a Confluence document we use to track the minutes of our daily meetings. I am sad because I don’t know how to fix it. I know I can figure it out but I don’t have the time or the energy. Bummer.

The federal government of the united states is in the grip of fascists who are using the constitution as toilet paper after a particularly nasty shit. Bummer.

The Red Sox just scored. It is now 4-3. That is not a bummer.

Here is another obligatory cat photo. Also not a bummer.

I have 82 minutes left in the work day. 82 minutes between me and the drive home. That feels like a super long time. Bummer.

I just finished my water bottle. That’s good. I hit my water goal (64 ounces) for the day. I’m still thirsty though and the filtered water here at the office always tastes a little funny to me. I don’t like it. Bummer.

The Red Sox are out in the eighth. They still trail 4-3. Here’s hoping they hold the Mariners in the top of the ninth and come back in their last ups. That would be nice. We’re still losing though and that’s a bummer.

Okay, enough of this. Back to work, red head.

It’s All Down Hill from Here

October 28, 2024… the worst day of the year.

Why?

I had to go out this morning to run a couple of errands. I needed to go to the supermarket to grab something I can cook for dinner tonight. As I was putting on my coat I asked Siri to tell me how the current weather looked. She answered on our bedroom Homepod and said it was snowing.

Bullshit. I looked out the window. Everything was wet, as if we had a little rain not long ago, but there was no snow falling. I felt better about the state of the world in that exact moment, but the seed had been planted. The signs pointed to today being a serious downer.

When I got to the supermarket and got out of my car it happened. I saw the first snowflake of the year. It was followed by a second and a third and maybe a few more, but that was it. In the time it took me to walk from my car to the building it had started and stopped. When I left a few minutes later it had not started again, and it continued to not snow all the way home.

It doesn’t matter though. The first snow flakes have fallen. Winter has truly arrived. It is all down hill from here, folks. It’s all over.

Bad Vibes on a Bad Monday

I am not going to go into details but there was something in the track record of the company I’ve worked for for almost 19 years that made me very happy. As of this afternoon, that something is no longer in our track record.

It doesn’t affect me or anyone that I work with directly, but I really feel let down. I was proud of this little factoid and I can’t be proud of it anymore. It sucks.

Also, it’s gloomy and rainy out and I had a crappy night’s sleep last night and I don’t feel like I’ve physically recovered from this morning’s exercise. I guess I am just not having a terribly good day today and I am bummed out.

Third Annual Really Sad Day

For the third consecutive year we are celebrating the Really Sad Day. By celebrating I really mean we are bummed out majorly.

The kids are leaving for a week at camp today. Dad is taking them there. Mom and I are going to pick them up for a short visit before they go, and then we’ll pick them up at the end of the week.

Because of some vacation schedule shuffling, this weekend is a Dad weekend, and so is most of next weekend. We’ll get them at camp and then bring them back to his house the next morning. That means we only technically will be without them for our two days during the week, but still… it’s one thing when they are at Daddy’s, two towns away. It’s another when they are half way to Albany.

Welcome to the Third Annual Really Sad Day. I hope this week goes by fast.

Bad Things that Happened Today

Well today has had some negatives, I’m not going to lie to you.

I just acknowledged a summons for Jury Duty.  I get to spend a day next month doing my civic duty at the Superior Courthouse in Lawrence.  Hooray.

Even worse than that, I just watched the most recent episode of The Big Bang Theory which has totally ruined the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Say it ain’t so, Indiana Jones.  Say it ain’t so!

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend bums me out. Don’t get me wrong, I love love love me some three day weekend, but as three day weekends go, this one is the pits. It is the symbolic end of summer. How could it not be a major downer.

Spring in New England is great. Fall in New England is great. Winter in New England is six shades of suck. Summer in New England? Summer in New England is to humans as a belly rub from an Angel is to a kitty. Pretty much the best thing ever.

This week marks the end of the belly rub. Crap.

A Crappy Couple of Weeks

You know what?  These last two weeks or so have pretty much sucked.  Christmas and Christmas Eve celebrations have been the only bright spots in an otherwise ugly period of time.

First I got sick with what was probably the flu.  Immediately after that, my wife got sick with what appeared to be the same bug.  We still had a lot of Christmas shopping and prepping to go but we spent most of the week prior to the holiday in a nyquil induced haze of uselessness.  Entire days were spent in bed trying to sleep through the illnesses.

Near the end of last week Jen started improving.  A day or so later I started to slowly improve.  We scrambled through the end of the Christmas shopping, and started getting ready for the Christmas Eve party, but for the most part it was just a struggle to keep ourselves up and at ’em.  Once I started to feel a tiny bit better, Jen started feeling worse.  Oh great.  Christmas Eve came and she fought her way through the cooking and hosting like a trooper.  Christmas day she did the same, all while getting sicker and sicker.  We both felt like Santa was at less than his best this year.  Jen took care of all of it, and I am dazzled by the success she had, but I feel like I could have been more helpful, and if we hadn’t lost that week to the flu we could have made some of the kids’ last minute gift wishes come true.  That was a big part of the problem this year, the kids took their sweet time putting together a wish list and in the end my step son was still asking for things as late as 12/23, and then come Christmas morning he was expecting to get those things.  He tried to act like he wasn’t disappointed, but we could tell he was a little bit.  Next year I need to do a better job getting a list to Santa out of them both as early as humanly possible.  I might have them start taking notes on ideas for next year, tonight.

Don’t get me wrong, Christmas was a big success.  Everyone was happy.  I just feel like I should have contributed more, and I failed to surprise Jen at all.  She got great stuff.  It’s just that everything she got was on her wish list.  I didn’t manage to wow her with anything.  As for the kids, the last paragraph makes it sound like they got socks and underwear and nothing else.  That’s not true.  They got new iPads!  They got awesome games.  They got books that they are going to love.  They got a lot of great stuff.  I just wanted to do better by them and I couldn’t because I spent the week leading up to Christmas as a flu riddled basket case.

So maybe you’re asking, this is all in the past.  Why is that fat red head saying that he’s still having a bad week?  Well for me, New Years is ruined because of work.  I’m on call all day, and they are guaranteed to work my fat ass off all day and night.  It’s going to suck.  I still have a lingering cold and cough.  Not bad, but it is still there.  As for Jen?  Oh nothing.  Just fricken walking pneumonia, that’s all.  She kept getting sicker so she went to the doctor yesterday and got the news.  Pneumonia!  Are you serious?  How bad does that suck!  She feels really sick and she is just miserable about it.  I feel miserable because I’m here at work and not at home rubbing her feet and cooking her some Campbell Chicken Noodle Soup.  I should be home with her right now, but instead I am here working.  I hate it.

So what it comes down to is this.  This week and last week have sucked in many ways.  I am hopeful that things will start turning around soon, but the next few days still may be a continuance of the current suck fest.

Send some get well wishes to my beautiful bride.  She’s an angel and she needs to feel better soon.