Ponderings and Musings

When I got up this morning I saw a waving motion standing in the corner of the room. All I could see was a hand going “wave, wave, wave” in my direction. It was a gentle, yet effective way for my husband to say “good morning” to me. Saying anything to me at six in the morning can be a dicey proposition, so it’s best to proceed cautiously.

The waves of “good morning” were also appropriate because my husband was standing behind the mound of clothes that have accumulated around the clothes hamper in the Master Suite. Long gone are the days when clothes would actually fit in the hamper, so we have resorted to piling clothes up around the hamper. Earl has been living out of the dryer for the past few days when getting ready for work; said clothes have been in the dryer since the beginning of the month.

We are a little behind on laundry.

I always have high hopes of ending a weekend with all of the laundry neatly folded and put away and the hampers empty, but this didn’t happen last weekend because of my idea to wash all the bedding on our bed. Most would think that might be two or three loads of laundry, tops, but in reality, we like a LOT of blankets on the bed. We like to be pinned right down tight by a sheet, four blankets, the ripped up remains of a comforter from 1996, another blanket and then our fancy looking comforter on top of it all. Sometimes Tom helps out by laying across the bed and adding an extra 10 or so pounds. It’s all quite comfortable though admittedly it can be rather stifling when it’s 90 degrees outside and there’s only a fan blowing hot air around.

Washing all of the bedding turned out to be a bigger chore than I wanted it to be because I had to beg and plead the washing machine to actually spin again. If there is a chance that not everything is in complete alignment when it’s time to ramp up to 1,100 RPM, the expensive piece of electronic infused plastic will refuse to do anything than toss the contents of the drum around a few times and run it’s pump. It’ll do this for hours on end. I miss the days when the washing machine would just walk across the floor, reach the end of it’s cords and hoses and bang against the wall until someone intervened. We should have never put brains in a washing machine. It’s too smart for its own good.

Since it took ten hours to wash six loads of blankets on Sunday, we didn’t get a chance to finish the rest of our clothes and when you’re a power couple like we are (we like to talk big so that people think we have a big ego), there’s just no time to wash clothes after a long day’s work. We are too busy wining, whining and dining. Power couples seriously need a houseboy.

So today I washed some laundry before starting my day at the office and then I just folded a couple of loads for the frivolity of the first half of my lunch hour. We are going to go into the weekend with empty hampers, at least until Jamie gets back from his camping trip and then we’ll try to wrap up everything on Sunday night so we can wine, whine and dine again on Monday.

In the meantime, I am hoping and praying that the washer is in a good mood.

I can be an emotionally responsive person. I usually don’t realize how emotionally responsive I can seem because it comes naturally to me. I don’t know that I fly off the handle at the drop of a hat, but when my mood is in a certain space and the circumstances are in a certain place, I can get loud. I usually try to restrict this sort of behavior to my alone time but my family occasionally gets to see the best of it. It’s not something I’m proud of.

I never used to swear. I don’t remember my father swearing that much; I think my mom would occasionally swear around us kids. I didn’t really pick up the habit until I worked at the radio station where you needed to drop a few f-bombs to get anyone’s attention. Screaming and yelling and swearing was the normal course of action for speaking at any sort of meeting while I was working there, so I adopted the tendency as a matter of survival. When you work at a place where people throw knives (wish I was making that up), you sometimes need get rowdy. Again, not something that I’m proud of.

As I was going through my work email this morning, I found myself yelling out loud in my office. “What the F^!K did you think, numb nuts?” Now I don’t know if this person has numb nuts. Since the email in question was from a woman, I kind of hope that she doesn’t have nuts, period, but that’s her business. To each their own. I started firing off a snappy email when I decided to just close my eyes, count to 10 and then reassess the situation.

It really wasn’t worth raising my blood pressure over. You see, after I counted to 10, I realized that the world was still spinning and that nothing had changed, other than my blood pressure subsiding a bit. This prompted me to send out a simple tweet this morning:

I should probably stop calling other drivers “flea-bitten whores.”

Now I wasn’t driving at the time and actually the thought was completely random (that happens a lot with me), but it is something that I am going to remember via a sticky on the dashboard of my Jeep.

Since counting to 10 worked so well for me this morning (and my day has been just fine since), I decided to see if there was a way to remind myself that I should just take a deep breath. Of course, there’s an app for that.

Introducing CalmDown. Now when I get a bit riled up, I have the little ying-yang symbol in my menu bar to click on and remind me to calm down just a little bit. Yeah, it costs a buck but sometimes you have to invest in yourself. If this will help me lower my blood pressure and be a little more rational about things, then it’s worth it.

Now, if I could just stop the fucking swearing. Jumpin’ Mice.

One of the things that amazes me about getting older is how much time seems to be speeding up. I feel like I have kind of lost track of time a bit; it seems impossible to me that Earl and I have been together for over 16 years. It’s funny to think that I graduated from high school over 25 years ago. Heck, I can’t believe that I’ve been in my current job for 2 1/2 years already. I still feel like one of the new guys.

I guess there’s a part of me that wonders what it’s going to be like when I grow up. I still feel very much a kid at heart. The other day I watched an episode of “Maude” and Walter, Maude’s husband, mentioned that he was 48 years old. What? That’s only four years older than I am today and I don’t think I look or act like I’m only four years from looking or acting that worn out (no offense to Bill Macy).

Where on earth is the time going?

I ponder this because I am working from home today and I realize that it is nearly three in the afternoon and I feel like I just started my day. I then realize that I feel like I’ve just started my life and here I am at 44. Hell, I could be at my halfway point already.

I feel like I’m just getting through the warm ups.

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‘Stache On-‘Stache Off Update: ‘Stache On is ahead right now with some nice contributions to the Ali Forney Center. If you wish to contribute, please see this blog post and/or click ‘Stache On to vote for me to keep my mustache or ‘Stache Off for me to shave it off.

‘Stache On-‘Stache Off Update: ‘Stache On is ahead right now with some nice contributions to the Ali Forney Center. If you wish to contribute, please see this blog post and/or click ‘Stache On to vote for me to keep my mustache or ‘Stache Off for me to shave it off.
~~~
So as I write this, I have been on a conference call for work for 5 1/2 hours. We are waiting for people in Ft. Wayne, Indiana to get where they need to be so we can figure out why the light is going up the glass tubes otherwise known as fiber optics. Surprisingly, I’m not cranky about this.

The reason I’m not cranky is because I am on-call this weekend and I have just accepted the fact that it’s going to be a weekend of uncertainty and not knowing what I’m doing. I have very little in the way of plans. I kind of like this idea of coasting through a couple of days. Even though I’m on call, I’m hoping that I will find time to relax. I just want to chill.

I’m still feeling the effects of my cold but I’m did much better today. It seems like it was one of the 24 hour bugs. The one dose of cold medicine did the trick, apparently, because I haven’t taken anything further. Perhaps that’s why I’m so mellow.

So it’s been a very hot summer thus far. This big mustache of mine has been creeping in my mouth, sticking out all over the place yet garnering a few stares in everyday life (which I enjoy). As I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, I contemplated trimming it back or shaving it off completely. It’s been a while since I’ve changed up my look a little bit.

With trimmers in my hand, something in the back of my head told me that I had to do something special. After all, this mustache has been described as “epic”. “It’s huge!” “It looks like he has a small country sitting under his nose!”

I couldn’t bring the trimmers to my face. If it’s going to go, it’s going to go in style.

So I have decided to keep the mustache for the next three weeks and let the masses decide it’s fate. If this “epic” mustache is going to go, it’s going to go in an epic way.

So here’s the deal. I have started the “‘Stache On-‘Stache Off” campaign to raise money for the Ali Forney Center, which provides housing for Homeless LGBT Youth. I’m lucky, I have a loving family and have had the support of my relatives for as long as I can remember. Others are not so lucky and find themselves on the street with nowhere to go. This happens way too often and if there’s something I can do to help, even if it’s this little thing with this mustache I have, I’m going to do it.

So, this is what I need you to do. If you want the mustache to stay, donate to this campaign:
‘STACHE ON-‘Stache Off.

If you want the mustache to GO, donate to this campaign:
‘Stache On-‘STACHE OFF.

The bucket with the most amount of money at 2359 ET on 24 Aug 12 will determine the fate of this mustache. If it stays, it hangs around through the end of the year. If it goes, though I hate being clean shaven, I will shave it off completely and then probably grow a little mustache of more reasonable proportion after a few weeks. And of course, all proceeds go to the Ali Forney Center.

Please help me help those that need a safe, secure way to find their path in life.

Thank you.

So there’s a third season episode of “The New Adventures of Wonder Woman” called “Time Bomb”. In this episode, guest stars Ted Shackelford and Joan Van Ark play time traveling scientists from 2155; Joan wants to cash in on the capitalistic opportunities of late 1970s America and Ted is the inventor of time travel and needs to stop her. Of course, Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman does most of the stopping and there’s a bit of an attraction between Wonder Woman and Ted’s character. It always happens.

Aside from the fact that computers are apparently going to be very noisy in 2155 and decorating schemes are obviously going to go all to hell (see photo above), I bring up this episode because there’s an interesting bit of dialog that I have always kind of agreed with. Joan’s character is relaying how technological advances are slowed down because “The Council” (whatever happened to a Presidential figure in the future?) has deemed that no technology would be introduced to society if it was determined that it would have a significant impact to social norms. Once the cultural and societal ramifications were studied and determined, then new technology would be released to the masses.

I think that’s a groovy thing. I wish Joan and Ted were around when cell phones were being invented.

I just stood in line at the local Subway in an effort to order my lunch. In front of me was a young lady. I know that kind of wording makes me sound old, but she had to be only 16 or 17 years old. She was dressed seductively with shorts similar in cut to Wonder Woman’s 1970 costume shorts (less stars = more ass). Up to her ear was a smartphone. It looked like it was a Blackberry, appeared to be well worn and was decked right out in all sorts of bedazzlement.

The folks at the area Subways have put up signs that say “Please don’t talk on the cell phone while you’re ordering.” It’s politely worded. The font is friendly. There is no suggestion of reprimand, just a reminder of what folks should find to be standard manners.

Apparently the young lady can not read and does not comprehend standard manners.

As she giggled and carried on on her bedazzled Blackberry, she barked out things like “a foot long turkey!”. When the Subway assembly man asked her as to the type of cheese she would like, she clicked her tongue on the phone, said “hold on” and gave a stare at said Assembly Man before saying “American”. Luckily, she was able to indicate that she wanted her sub toasted before resuming her important giggling on the phone.

When it came to vegetable assembly, she continued barking out random items from a garden while talking on the phone before bringing the whole process to a halt and declaring, “oh! I want avocado!” Now if she had been paying attention to the matters at hand instead of talking to the remote, tinny, giggling sounds coming from her bedazzlement of wonder, this would not have messed up the assembly line, where subs were then rearranged, backtracked and reassembled.

All because she couldn’t put her phone down.

While I was observing all this merriment, I felt my phone vibrate it’s “text message!” pattern in my pocket. I did not bringing everything to a screeching halt to read said message, I waited until I had paid my money, assembled my large, unsweetened iced tea and sat down in the Jeep before proceeding.

Little Miss Short Shorts was still talking on her phone as she tried to carry her sub and drink on a tray. She almost ran down a woman in a walker but by god she was able to continue on her conversation.

Joan and Ted need to travel here from 2155, pronto, and show the world how much better it can be if we at least consider the societal impacts of technology before implementing it. Until that time, I fear that it’s only going to get worse.

I’m writing this to remind myself of this woman’s behavior, because I freely admit that there are times that I have had messed up priorities when it comes to using my phone.. As I try to better myself each day, a reminder of why I try to better myself is always a good thing.

So last night I finally got my wish and we had some powerful thunderstorms pass through the area. The fun started around 1:00 p.m., knocked power out at work for a little while and then storm after storm passed through the area until about two this morning. I didn’t get a lot of sleep for a number of reasons including the fact that I was excited about the storms, the lightning show was incredibly frequent and bright and the thunderous accompaniment was quite loud. If it hadn’t been a school night I would have stayed up and taken pictures until I couldn’t stay up anymore, but alas, work expects me to be productive and even though it’s Tuesday, I am working from work today because of our vacation that starts tomorrow.

I heard Earl yell several times at the weather radios throughout the house because they kept going off. He’s not a fan of the weather radios. New apps on my iPhone and iPad were constantly alerting us to what was going on outside and Tom put himself into a comfortable brace position for all the fun (comfortable brace position = kitty nap pose near patio door).

I saw several downed trees on my way into work, including in front of one of the houses a few doors down from us. Their powerlines were drooped down to about three feet off the ground. I was curious as to if that’s what caused our power to flicker a couple of times.

The best part of the storms last night was that it gave us the opportunity to see if the new creek/drainage area in the backyard was working properly. And lo and behold, the water was flowing in the creek and the yard was still dry.

Wicked awesome. I did a little happy dance this morning in a symbol of rejoice.

So last night it was insanely hot for this part of the country. When I woke up at 0100, drenched in sweat, I noticed that it was still 81F. This morning at breakfast time it was 79F and the humidity was at 80%. I’m not used to such a warm evening and not having air conditioning in the house is making it mighty hard to sleep at night. Sex is completely out of the question and that makes me cranky.

I said it.

If you follow my Instagram photos (either on Instagram or on the newly built Instagram page available in the menu bar at the top of this page*), you’ll notice that last night I was taking some photos of lightning. I also took a video and posted it on YouTube. The storm in question blew north of us, but it made for some very interesting lightning displays. There was a lot of cloud-to-cloud lightning so the clouds were basically just lighting up in interesting ways. We had a brief sprinkle of rain and some wind, but nothing that was ever going to cool this area down. It was kind of a bummer. I’m in the mood for a wild thunderstorm to blow through; something that’s going to make a ruckus and maybe make the weather station freak out. I like that sort of extreme weather. I always have.

It is currently 90F here at the homestead at lunchtime. Luckily, I figured out how to completely remove the window in my office so that I can have an ample breeze blowing through and keeping it all manageable. The humidity has dropped down to 50% so maybe there’s some relief in sight.

When folks find out that we live in Central New York, famous for its snowfall, they ask how we can live in all that cold weather. Truth be known, I’d much rather be cold than hot. It’s easier to put another layer of clothes on instead of trying to keep cool. If this global warming thing is going to keep things so toasty we might just have to break down and put air conditioning in the house after all.

It has been a year with many highs and too many lows, but I’m wishing the hap-hap-happiest of birthdays to my sister today. Here’s one of my favorite photos from when we were kids. I’m guessing it was taken around 1980, since the house didn’t have siding on it yet and the back porch is just a slab of concrete.

I wish I could find an adult-sized version of that t-shirt I’m wearing. Happy birthday, sis!

You may find this hard to believe but there are times where I am easily distracted. Now, I don’t mean that I go running off into another room because I saw something bright and shiny in there, ok, that only happened one time and I didn’t know it was the ladies’ room, but there are times where something will catch my eye and my brain will have to process it.

Today is the first of two, six-hour days of training for work. Because it is the 21st century, I work for a company that tries to be hip, the team I belong to is scattered all over the country and most importantly, remote training sessions are much easier on the budget, I am watching this training via WebEx and listening in via conference call. Actually, it’s not WebEx, it’s GoToMeeting and the audio connection information on the GoToMeeting should be ignored so that we can dial in with a landline instead (vs using the headset attached to my Mac). I am watching the presentation on my personal Mac because the display is much bigger than the screen on my work provided MacBook Pro.

I sound like an Apple fanboy.

I am an Apple fanboy.

Where was I? Oh yes, distractions.

I noted at the beginning of the presentation that the presenter mentioned one ten-minute break each hour during the day, however, at no time did he mention a lunch break.

Sacré bleu!

Now, I don’t know about most American workers these days but I try to work balls to the wall so I can get my stuff done and get to my lunch hour. I then work balls to the wall in the afternoon so I can get my stuff done and get out of the office at a reasonable time. Now, this might sound like it’s self-serving and quite frankly, it is.

The lack of the mention of the lunch break distracted me. As I pondered over whether we would have an actual lunch break or not during the presentation, I came up with alternate plans on how I would enjoy at least a snippet of a lunch break. This distraction led me to another distraction, and that was that the presentation and training seminar was apparently called “Click Here To Add Text”, but I digress.

I did my best to pay attention and I did learn some things along the way, but that niggling wonder of whether we would get a lunch break or not was always present in the back of my head. What am I going to do?

12:00 came and went. At 12:05 it was announced that we would take a ten-minute break and reconvene at 12:15.

NO LUNCH!

I ran upstairs (luckily I’m working from home today) and made myself a bowl of popcorn because a. I love the stuff, b. I find comfort in popcorn and c. it’s quick and easy.

I rejoined the conversation at 12:14, with a minute to spare. Said conversation was already in progress because they started at 12:13 with the assumption that everyone had already returned.

If we were on GoToMeeting’s audio and video controls they would have seen that I was still away.

Ugh.

The presentation continued as I munched on popcorn and listened to the tinny little voices on the conference call. I used the MUTE button on my phone so that others wouldn’t know about my secret stash of popcorn. I had usurped the lack of lunch during the “Click Here To Add Text” presentation! I made a little evil laugh.

At 12:50 it was announced that we would break for lunch and reconvene at 1:30 p.m.

w00t!

It turns out that the presenters are in Central Time while I’m in Eastern Time. I’m not used to having to bow down to another time zone. I guess they don’t realize that we are in the Eastern Time Zone, the time zone that reigns supreme from the mountains to the valleys and to the oceans white with foam. Stock markets close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Prime time television starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. I don’t care if you’re still eating lunch when “American Idol” infests the television yet again, that’s not my problem. If you want to see it on time, you’ll move to the East Coast which is the most important.

So now I have 11 minutes left in this Centrally Timed Lunch Hour. I supplemented the clandestine bowl of popcorn with a chicken salad-on-croissant sandwich and a large, unsweetened iced tea from the local Dunkin’ Donuts. I was happy to note that this store closest to the house is back to its old ways with the crankiest employees on the planet again.

And now it’s getting ready to thunderstorm. That will liven up the presentation nicely!