My step son is home!
He came into the house and immediately hunted down the cats, kidnapped Robin and smothered her with affection, attention, and love.
As it should be.
I am very glad he’s here. He’s sitting on the couch doing homework, but he’s home and it is good.
My step son has all of next week off from school. He’s coming home tomorrow. He’ll spend a few days here, then a few days at his dad’s new house, then Thanksgiving take two at our house a week from Saturday, then he’ll go back to school. My step daughter will be home at some point though, but she’s no longer a college student and has to work next week. We don’t know her schedule yet but she’ll be here for Thanksgiving take two as well.
With the return of at least one kid being imminent, I am really looking forward to this weekend. As an added bonus, this coming Saturday will also see me and my friends Larry and Mike (the bass player) reliving our roaring 20’s by going to see Letters to Cleo and the Gigolo Aunts at The Paradise in Boston. We’re going to pretend it’s 1996 or so and go check out some Boston music… even though most of the members of both bands don’t live in Boston anymore. So what, it’s going to be nostalgic rock and roll like you’ve read about.
Today has been quiet, apart from the plumber visit this morning. I’ve had a couple of meetings and have one more coming up in a few minutes. I’ve mostly focused on paperwork. It’s been a good day so far. It’s 60 degrees outside, which is nice. Warmer days are rare at this point in the calendar. Granted I haven’t gone outside since 8:00am today and at that time the temperature was in the low 30’s. Timing is everything, folks.
Right then. Time to go and prep for the next meeting. I just wanted to write down how excited I am for this weekend. So many good things on the schedule. I’m ready for them all right now.
No word from the guitar shop today. The guitar looked finished in the pics he put on the bookfayce yesterday but I couldn’t really tell. There was likely some finishing work that needed to happen (file down, polish, adjust the new frets maybe?) that I don’t know anything about. Hopefully I will hear something tomorrow. I can’t pick it up on Wednesday as I’ll be in the office. I don’t even know if he opens his doors on any other days. His website books appointments on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Let’s see what happens, okay?
Two things that I need to do today. One, call a plumber to look at a leak in the old bathroom. Two, I have a doctors appointment after work. I also have 3.5 hours left in my work day. I am just wrapping up lunch now.
Harry is coming home this weekend. How awesome is that? Looking forward to having him around. Also really looking forward to Thanksgiving. The actual holiday we will travel to my sisters’. The following Saturday we will have Thanksgiving Part II (electric turkey boogaloo) with the kids and Jen’s folks. I am really excited about both. Not that I can eat like I used to, but I’ll still love every minute of both days.
When are we going to go Christmas tree shopping? We usually try to do that while the kids are home for Thanksgiving, but I don’t know how the schedules will work out this year. We’ll have to figure that out too.
Have I mentioned that I am absolutely freezing today? Stupid cold. Stupid winter (even though we’re still over a month away from the first day of winter, it’s basically winter already).
Okay. Lunch break is over. Get back to work, Robert. You have some custom code to deliver. Get to it.
It’s just after 8:30am on the Friday before Labor Day weekend and I haven’t punched in to work yet. I had a few things to do first. I went with Harry to the garage to drop off his rental car and pick up his car. It’s all set and it looks as good as new. He just left to go back to Burlington. He’s going to miss his first class this morning, but that’s about the only downside to this visit. All is well again.
I’m less than nine hours away from a three day weekend. I just finished season 11 of the new Doctor Who. I have 20 episodes over two seasons left to go and then I’ll be all caught up. I’m on episode 17 of season seven of the original show. Eight episodes left in this season and something like 2346123472572 episodes left in the full series. I don’t expect to finish either series this weekend, but I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be done with the new show in a week or so which means I will be 100% caught up before the next episode airs in November.
What about the music project? I have 27 songs finished and 39 total in progress. I have four more songs ready to mix and I hope to crank them all out tonight. I have 30 days left, including today, and a ton of work still to go, but I think I am more or less on pace to finish on time. I’ll have a few days at Disney World where it will be tough to make progress, but I think I will be okay. I should note that even though I took over two weeks off in August, I still managed to finish an RPM Challenge Rules album in a month as I started and finished 12 songs within the calendar month. I started and finished 10 in July too. In order to hit 50 songs over all I will need to start and finish 11 songs in September. Three album in a months in a row isn’t a bad place to be. I think once this project is finished I will try to get back into the last re-recording project which has been left hanging for a little more than a year now.
I mentioned in the last post that my stomach has been a little less than 100% this morning. I had some trouble with water early on and had to deal with a minor bout of The Foamies after taking my vitamins. I only got eight ounces of water in during my exercise, but afterwards I was okay for breakfast and I am feeling much better now. I’ve managed another eight ounces since I came home from Harry’s auto shop. I think we’re back on track today. I might have a hamburger on the grill for lunch today. We’ll see how it goes.
Okay, it’s 8:50am now and I have to be punched into work by 9:00. I think I’ll hit publish on this masterpiece of an update and get my work day started. Lots to do today, lots to do. Eight hours and 40 minutes to go until the long weekend.
You can do it, Robbie! You can do it!
Just jotting down some smallish, random thoughts on a Thursday afternoon.
My stomach is being a jerk today. Gas. Bad gas. Lots of bad gas. My stomach is a bit upset. A little bit of pain. Nothing bad, just gassy. Super gassy. Pardon the T.M.I. of it all. I just felt the need to share.
In the interest of daily creative behavior like the photo a day challenge and my current 1400+ day posting streak on this little bloggie, I was wondering if I should post a daily haiku. What do you think?
One haiku each day
You know, to keep the brain loose
Could be worth a shot
I have watched a lot of Doctor Who today. Like, an alarming amount of Doctor Who. A frightening amount of Doctor Who. Both the original series and the new series. So much Doctor Who. I may have a Who problem.
We brought Harry’s car to the shop today. Here’s hoping they get the work finished before he has to go back to work next week. I may have to drive him back to Burlington after I finish work one night, and then turn around and drive home right away. That could be a long night. I will do it with a smile on my face, but… yeah, that would be a long night.
The cats have been super affectionate today. I am not sure why. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it is definitely a welcome development.
I am working in the office today. I’ve had a few meetings and I just wrapped up my lunch. I have another meeting booked for 45 minutes from now but I will be leaving for the day shortly after it starts. Today is my Uncle Jim’s wake. It’s actually a lot closer to my office building than it is to home so working from here actually makes getting there a ton easier. Otherwise I probably would have taken the whole day off. I took tomorrow off as I will be going to the funeral in the morning.
It’s so sad the way my mother’s family has fallen apart over the last year. Three of the four siblings passed away within nine months of each other. Only the baby in the family is left and she has some health concerns of her own. It’s been a tough year for the extended family. I am one of 22 first cousins and most of us are on a facebook messenger chat together. Anytime I get a notification of an update to that chat I get scared. It shouldn’t be like that, but it is. Hopefully we can all find a way to generate some happy news in the next year. I don’t know how, but maybe we can figure it out.
Speaking of happier news, Harry is coming home tonight. He needs to have some work done on his car and he is taking it to a shop near us because he couldn’t find a shop near Burlington, VT that could schedule him any time soon. We’re not sure how long he’ll be home. It will be at least as long as the car fix takes. Hopefully he’ll watch a Doctor Who or two with me. I bet I can talk him into it.
Okay, lunch break is over. Time to go back to work for the shortened afternoon.
Not much to report on the song writing challenge front over the last two days. Day 23 was Wednesday and I didn’t do anything. Day 24 was yesterday, Thursday, and I didn’t get shut out but I also didn’t do much. I wanted to do a car music and track some vocals and maybe get a mix or two in and maybe write some lyrics but instead all I did was add two new song ideas. Just a couple of bass lines and a drum groove. All midi. I’m a little disappointed in myself for two days with very little progress, but the weekend is almost here and I am hoping to get a ton of music in (as well as more photography goofiness). Jen has plans to work on a project this weekend, so I will dedicate myself to a project or two as well. Harry will be paying a visit too so I will dedicate however much time he is here to him. I also want to visit my father on Saturday. It’s his anniversary, and the first since my mother passed. It’s going to be very sad and I don’t know if I am up for it. Mother’s day was rough but I fear this is going to be rougher.
So now we’re up to date on (more than) the current music project.
We saw both kids this weekend. That was awesome. I love it when they come home. We were supposed to go to a party at their aunt’s house today. A dual graduation party for my step daughter and her cousin who both graduated from college this year. Jen and I had to miss it because we both have a bit of a stomach bug right now and… well… at the risk of TMI, neither of us wanted to be away from a bathroom for the length of time that would be required to drive to the party location. Sorry. I am actually sad about it. It’s been decades since last we went to an event that was thrown by someone on the kids’ dad’s side of the blended family and it might have been a little weird after all of these ages, but I was still looking forward to going.
That’s not what I am feeling especially sad about. What I am sad about is that Bellana is staying at her dad’s tonight and Harry just left for Vermont. Our kid time is over for this weekend. Harry will be back in a couple of weeks, but for now… we’re kid free.
That’s why I am sad.
On a slightly related note, television-wise, I finished watching the two seasons of Spaced and now I need something new to add to my huge list of binge shows. Spaced has me in the mood for British television. Both kids have watched the new version of Doctor Who, all 300 seasons or whatever it is. We’ve watched a handful of episodes together over the last year or so and… well… I just started from reboot season one, episode one. I’ll finish this show in about 20 years. Then I’ll have to find the 300 seasons of the original version of the show. Yeah, this should keep me busy for a while.
Here’s a short list of things I am happy about today…
We are at Harry’s place right now. His roommates haven’t arrived yet, still. His room is all set up and it looks great.
Next stop is lunch with Bellana. Not sure if we will get to see her place today. We’ll see.
Inside the Red Head's Head 