Tag: panic

Big Red Haired Ball of Stress

Woah, boy… today… am I right, or am I right?

The stress level today has been through the roof. The contractor experience went off without a hitch, but the first half of the work day was… woah.

We caught a customer issue before the customer did and went into a mad scramble to get it straightened out for them. It took a little while to get a band aid in place but now we’re dealing with figuring out how to stop it from ever happening again while also talking the customer down from their panicked state. The code/app that my team is responsible for is downstream from the actual cause of the problem. It didn’t happen in our piece of the system, but it did present itself to people using our piece of the system. Yikes is the word of the day. Everyone involved, both on my company’s side and on the customer’s side, did a bang up job getting everything straightened out, and I bet that when the dust settles we’ll all agree it wasn’t that big of a deal… but for the moment. Yikes.

Back to the home owner situation, two more contractors are coming tomorrow. One is a plumber who will put everything that was taken apart today back together again. The other is just a routine maintenance thing. I will be in the office for both of them though. I am thinking about trying to find a way to be able to stay home for all of it. I don’t want my wife to have to deal with either thing. If I work from home tomorrow it means I will have to be in the office three days next week…….. yeah, I think I am going to work from home tomorrow. Command decision made. Three days next week.

On an unrelated note, today is the anniversary of my Uncle Johnny’s death. It’s been 17 years. He was godfather to both me and my sister. He was my father’s only sibling. He had a tough life but he overcame a lot of awful shit. He was good people and I love him and I miss him. I wish he could have known all of our kids. He would have been proud, I know it.

Okay. Back to the stress. Look out below!

Time to Panic

The Bruins lost two games over the weekend, including getting trounced by the Rangers on Saturday. Right now they are losing 3-0 to Columbus. I mean… Columbus.

Sure, they have the second best record in the NHL, but to lose the way they did and then to be down three to a meh team like Columbus?

Is it time for the epically pessimistic Boston sports fan in me to start panicking?

I think it might be!

Oh no!

It Hits the Fan Tomorrow

I haven’t started freaking out yet, but I expect I will shortly. Or maybe not. I don’t know.

My for really reals first weight loss surgery appointment is tomorrow morning. I took the first half of the day off so that I can freak out, go to the Zoom meeting, and then cry and freak out again. Like, my whole morning is scheduled.

Then again, maybe the fact that I haven’t freaked out yet is a sign that I am for really reals ready to do this. It’s going to suck, and it’s going to suck for months and months, but as far as my health is concerned it’s the right thing to do, right? Right.

I don’t know what to expect. It’s safe to assume I will have a million questions and when the Doc asks me if I have any questions I will completely blank out and not be able to think of anything. Safe bet that prediction is going to come true. We’ll see tomorrow though.

The Panic is Imminent

Imminent… did I spell that right? I think so. It’s one of those words, you know? One of those words that I am never quite sure how to spell.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the panic is imminent.

Tomorrow is Tuesday. After that… Wednesday. That’s when the panic will come full force. Wednesday morning. At Lowell General Hospital. It’s not even an appointment, it’s just handing in some paperwork and having my vitals recorded. The actual first appointment is February 3rd via Zoom. Wednesday though… that’s the next step. I have to get through that before I can do anything else.

Weight loss surgery. I am in a state of mild freak out right now. It will be a major league freak out tomorrow. Wednesday morning… full blown panic. I can practically smell it.

I’m doing it this time. No more wussing out like the last time. No more giving in to fear. No more worrying about what I won’t be able to do anymore once it’s done. The only worry worth worrying about is what happens if I don’t do it.

It’s the right thing to do, but I am still going to panic over every little detail, including dropping off the medical history forms on Wednesday.

Fuck. I don’t know if I am ready for this.

Fuck. I have to get myself ready for this.

Fuck.

Another Small Step

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.

Big Things

Two big things going on in our world today. One I will write about. The other I won’t.

I haven’t written about this before (I don’t share everything with you, oh my readers and only friends*, even if I do share WAY too much) and I don’t think I took any pictures so I can’t remember exactly when it happened. I was down cellar and for whatever reason I needed to look for something in the little closet under our stairs. Harry Potter’s bedroom, if you will. I noticed that the HVAC duct was hanging a little low at that spot. We’ve had issues with the ducts before and at some point we had someone come in and sure** it up a little. It hangs off of the ceiling in the cellar and normally the only problem is that I have to duck when I walk under it.

On this particular day though, it was hanging a little low in front of the closet under the stairs. I couldn’t quite see this before the events unfolded, but it was actually partially resting on the ever so slightly ajar closet door. When I opened the door…

A 15 foot long section of duct fell on my head. As I stood there in a mental state that was 50% shock and 50% utter panic, a second, smaller section that connected to the fallen duct also fell off the ceiling.

I don’t remember exactly when this was, but it was probably around Christmas decorating time. There are actually two ducts. Best I can tell, considering I have no idea what I’m talking about, one duct is heat and the other is air conditioning. We did some testing with the thermostat and determined that the fallen duct was on the air conditioning side. That was lucky, given that there was a pandemic and we likely wouldn’t be needing AC for months to come.

Well, here we are in April and it’s getting close to the time we’ll need air conditioning. Fortunately, the three of us are all vaccinated now, and the forth family member will be fully vaccinated by the time she comes home from college, and we can start taking care of all of the crap that has gone wrong in our house over the last year. The HVAC folks are coming this afternoon. Please please please please please let them be able to put the duct back together and secure the whole works because I can’t have this stuff falling on me again. We need our AC to work so that we don’t melt in the summer, but there are also two college tuitions to pay for and we can’t afford to be replacing the whole duct system in the cellar. That would be a nightmare.

Please please please please please let the HVAC situation be resolved today. Please please please please please.

*Yes, I paraphrase that line from A Clockwork Orange too often. You’re just going to have to deal with it.

**There is no way that “sure” is the correct spelling for this usage of the word. I totally used the wrong homonym, right?

Therapy

There is something delightfully therapeutic about bashing the holy hell out of an electric guitar when you’re in a state of near permanent near panic over a global pandemic. The plague might get me, but until it does I’m going to vent all of my frustrations through bad music and mediocre guitar playing.

Amen and all that.

Panic Level: Rising

I HAVE A GIG IN EIGHT DAYS!!!!  SWEET CHRISTMAS, I HAVE A GIG IN EIGHT DAYS!!!!

IAmNotReadyIAmNotReadyIAmNotReadyIAmNotReadyIAmNotReadyIAmNotReady

Here’s a bit of symbolism to demonstrate how I feel right now:

Yesterday I ordered some packs of guitar strings from Amazon.  I also ordered a little musician’s exercise tool.  It’s kind of like one of those things that you squeeze with your hand but instead of squeezing one thing you have four, one for each finger.  I was planning to spend the last week or so before the gig working out like a mad man in the hopes of not having the same problems I had back in November.

When I placed the order the estimated delivery date was 1/27.  When the order was processed the delivery date was changed to between 1/27 and 2/3… two days after the gig.  Yup, that sums up my current state perfectly.

Now that I’ve vented about that, let’s get back to Picard.  I found out this morning that there are a couple of prequel sort of things out there.  Tie in’s might be a better term.  The first is a three issue comic series called Star Trek Picard – Countdown.  I started my lunch break by reading it… well, reading 2/3 of it because issue #3 doesn’t come out until next week.  Admiral Picard, Romulans, and a predicted super nova.  Enough said.

There is another tie in too.  On CBS All Access there is a series called Star Trek Short Treks (I think… that’s the name, isn’t it?).  I was looking at it yesterday but I didn’t watch any of them.  Turns out the most recent episode, titled Children of Mars (again, I think) is somehow related to the new series.  It’s 8-9 minutes long so I watched that too.  Two school aged girls, both of whose parents work on Mars, are having a really crappy day at school and they really don’t like each other.  No spoilers, but it telegraphs the ending pretty clearly and it still hit Mr Overly Emotional in the feels.  I should also state that this clip proves that Peter Gabriel is literally timeless.  David Bowie too, but mostly Peter Gabriel.  If I were the director I probably would have passed on Gabriel’s cover of Bowie’s Heroes in favor of Genesis’ Return of the Giant Hogweed, but that’s just me.  Heroes made more sense in terms of the story but it doesn’t have an awesome riff like Hogweed does.  Again, just me.

Speaking of Genesis, apparently Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins were seen together at a NY Knicks game the other day.  80’s Genesis reunion confirmed?  What else could it mean?  I’m sure Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett were around too.  Were the Islanders playing that night?  Maybe they were there instead?  I’m sure we can count on a full reunion any day now.  The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway rides again?

Damn… I need to practice.

How Exciting

<sarcasm>

I am so excited about the prospect of going to the super market tonight!  WOOHOO!  I did some grocery shopping on Friday instead of my usual Saturday or Sunday so our cupboard is a littler barer than it usually is on a Monday.  So the plan is for me to go to Market Basket and get something for dinner for the next few days.

While that is exciting enough, low and behold we are about to get decked by a blizzard of historic proportions!  (according to the national weather service, of course)  That means I can expect a glorious evening of cramming my way through the overcrowded super market. dodging people buying mass quantities of break and milk while I try and get some supper for the wife and kids.  It will be like an olympic level obstacle course.  I can’t wait!

</sarcasm>

I plan on ducking my head down and just plowing my cart through the panicking throngs.  I don’t need to buy four gallons of milk or seven loaves of bread*.  I just need some chicken and maybe a jar of peanuts.  We already have plenty of quinoa.

Happy Blizzard Eve!

*The four gallons of milk and seven loaves of bread were not chosen randomly.  I have seen reports on Facebook today of people seeing other shoppers stock up on exactly those quantities of those items.

Pre-Game Six: I am Scared

I can’t help being from Boston. I can’t help being a Boston sports fan. It’s just the way I am. I was born this way, you know?

Game six starts in a touch more than six hours and damn it if I ain’t terrified. I was too young to know what was happening in 1975. I know I watched the Bucky Bleeping Dent game in ’78, but it wasn’t until a year later that I was fully engrossed in what would be a lifetime of baseball fandom.

I remember 1986, although I wasn’t watching when it fell apart in game six. I couldn’t quite get why everyone was just assuming that game seven was lost even before it started, even though deep down I felt the same way. I watched the start of the game. I got excited when the Sox took the lead against the Mets. Still, I wasn’t surprised when the Mets came back and won the game. I didn’t see the end. I was 15 and had to go to school the next day. I remember the pain though. I clearly do.

Back in 2004 there were questions being asked. Even after the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years, there were still questions. Would it ever be the same? Now that the eons of suffering were over, would we ever really feel the same way about baseball? The answer is no. Think about it. If you are a Red Sox fan, is there anything about the 2007 World Series that sticks out in your mind? I remember those idiotic Tacoby commercials, but that’s about it. 2004? Even thought he World Series paled in comparison to the ALCS win against the Yankees, I still can clearly see Suppan rounding third. I can still clearly see Wakefield and Schilling and Lowe on the mound. (not Pedro Martinez though. I wonder why?) So would it ever be the same? No. Not really. Two championships in four years removed all of the pain and suffering we’d gone through over the previous 86 years.

Then we got to 2011 and all of that crap came flooding back. The September collapse was a harsh reminder of our not so distant past. When we lost on the last game of the season, and then listened to the end of the Yankees game as they blew a huge lead and we lost our post season spot, it was devastating. It shouldn’t have been. 2004 cured us, didn’t it? Not completely, I guess. There was the same 1,000 yard stare we’d felt in 2003, and 1999, and 1995, and 1990, and 1988, and 1986, and 1978, and 1975, and 1967, and so on, and so on. Last season’s last place finish was just salt in the wound. It just hammered home that Boston was once again a place where we felt the pain of defeat. I don’t want to say we feel it more than other places, but somehow it’s not hard to believe that the sting is at least different here. I know Chicago is dealing with a much longer string of futility, but as was the case during our 86 years, we can always argue that it was worse for us because we consistently came close where the Cubs pretty much always blew.

I’m getting off topic. I’m afraid of tonight’s game. The Cardinals are an awesome baseball team. So are the Red Sox, but we can’t just assume victory is ours. Overconfidence is a killer in a game like this, and if we need a game seven tomorrow then another epic collapse is right on the door step.

The absolutely positively without questions MUST win tonight’s game. I’m going to be chewing my nails and shivering with fear and hiding my head every time anything happens. Even if we jump out to an 86 run first inning lead, I am still going to be on the verge of panic right up until the moment it ends in our favor.

Despite 2004 and 2007, I am still far too accustomed to disappointment at the hands of the Red Sox to ever truly feel confident. Please don’t let us down again, Red Sox. Win tonight.

Go Red Sox!