Ponderings and Musings

I had been in my cubicle for approximately 23 seconds when I was informed that the telecommunications service for an entire section of the city was down and more importantly, I needed to print out my time sheet immediately so that it could be sent to payroll by noon.

It was 9 a.m.

Still charged from the weekend and not really feeling the moment, I let out a low, rumbly growl that came from somewhere deep inside this bear. Everyone that was talking to me scattered and went back to their desks.

I am not a morning person. I am not a Monday person. When I was in a managerial role at a previous job, everyone that reported to me knew the golden rule: give me five minutes to get my bearings before bombarding me with the business of the day. I can handle the stress, I can handle fires, I can handle the crisis; just let me make sure my caboose is on the track so I can head in the right direction.

Now they know.

Work is an interesting environment today. Early in the morning it seemed like the theme was “Talk very loudly in your cubicle and make sure your cell phone rings ridiculous ringtones.” That all simmered down when…

… the Human Resources Manager was seen in black. This is never a good sign. We are now down one person. Unfortunately, that person was never one to talk loudly in his cubicle. He never really talked at all. Not even on the phone, which is odd, working in a call center and all.

Today kicks off my first full week of on-call since returning to my job almost six months ago. I’m not feeling overly pressured by the thought but some of my co-workers are giving me the “psych out” about how I’m going to get no sleep and be very busy all week. Talk of blizzards, rain, violent winds and such are being shared with me to keep me on my toes. I take it all in stride. They don’t realise how good I am at psyching people out in my personal life. And besides, if it’s a busy week, I can roll around in the overtime loot. Naked.

One thing that I’ve never understood is the use of pictures of people sprinkled through software applications. I’ve mentioned before that one application we use has images of Asian woman sprinkled here and there. We now have this image on a sign-in page:

I don’t believe the woman looks very happy. Dignified, yes. Excited about being in a software application? No. And quite frankly I’ve never understood why the guy is sitting out in the middle of a really shiny floor in his office chair. Where did his desk go? Is he playing office chair NASCAR? Does this make the woman angry that he’s not at his desk and sliding across the shiny floor in his office chair?

Many questions on a Monday.

This is my favorite time of the year. I enjoy the cool, crisp autumn breezes, the crunching sound of the leaves when they’re walked on and the lack of oppressive humidity and heat that summer usually brings to these parts. What I don’t enjoy is trying to get up in the morning when it’s still dark. This task fights against the natural programming of my body.

This coming weekend would normally marked the end of Daylight Saving Time but because of Bush Lite and his wacky cast of characters, we have to wait a few more weeks before getting the clocks relatively aligned with what is really occurring outside. I don’t know why this frustrates me but nevertheless it does. I mean, last year we had to endure the same extension of Daylight Saving Time as we do this year. Maybe I should go back and read the blog from a year ago to see if I complained about it then. I probably did.

Meanwhile, I’ll stumble around in the dark getting ready for work. I think I need to buy one of those light therapy boxes to give myself a boost.

I’m sitting at the local medical center waiting for my turn to have a chest xray. Nothing peps up tired blood and kicks off a work week like a healthy blast of radiation.

I’m wondering if our fine citizens are going deaf or if medical facilities are trying to distract patrons from horrific screams because the music in this waiting room is loud. This is not the first waiting room that I have encountered this. When I was a kid there was a small speaker at the family doctor’s office. Said speaker played music from the 40s from an AM radio station. It wasn’t loud.

After my chest xray I head over to another lab for the last of my blood work. I haven’t eaten since 7 p.m. last night. I am hungry.

Earl and I are in Bucks County, Pa. for his niece’s wedding tomorrow. The weather is beautiful, the drive was wonderful though I had to take a power nap in a rest area for 20 minutes or so. I fell asleep really fast and had some really weird dreams, all in a 20 minute span in the front seat of the car. It was a little odd. I blame my new medicine.

Anyways, tonight was the obligatory rehearsal and dinner afterward. It was a nice gathering. We then caught up with my in laws for the weekly poker game. Earl threw some chips around and kept it respectable; I socialised. It’s what I do.

I think it’s time to go to bed. One of the cool things of staying here with my brother and sister in law is that it’s our old bed from the old house. My ass still fits in the same spot from years ago, even though they bought a new mattress.

So today I went for my annual physical for the first time in two years. Dr. Lance, as we like to call him, is looking as good as ever. He was cordial and friendly and more importantly, very prompt as he entered the examination room. I had only been waiting one or two minutes. It’s a nice change of a pace from today’s lazy state of affairs.

Basically I’m holding up pretty well. My pulse is good in all my extremities. (He checks my pulse in my ankle like Dr. Bombay!) My reflexes kick well (I hate getting my reflexes tested for some reason) and my tongue still allows me the ability to say “ah”. He took my blood pressure twice, it’s a little high this time around. He wants me on blood pressure medicine for a little while. I was on blood pressure medicine back in the early oughts and it did fairly well. Earl kind of treats it like some sort of distemper shot as he says I’m calmer when I’m on it. My numbers were 134/94. Not overly high but a little high. It runs in the family so I guess that’s to be expected. On the other hand, Dr. Lance is rather hot so that could be a reason for having high blood pressure.

I have to do the usual fasting and ensuing blood work on Monday. I have to have a chest xray just to be sure of something, but I don’t know what it is. He said everything sounds good. I opted to do the non-fasting required blood work today. I’ll have those results in a week. I hope the black and blue mark from the lab tech is gone by then. The rest of the blood work involves cholesterol and sugar levels. He says that runs in the family and he expects my numbers to be high. Such the optimist.

The bionics upgrade from 2005 is holding well and he is pleased by that. Well he seemed pleased. I certainly am. That problem that hung around for 30+ years is well behind me now. Now things just hang nicely.

When I first moved to the area in 1991 I wore a flattop. I know that is hard for some to believe, what with me being bald for the past 12 years or so but once upon a time I had enough hair on top to wear a respectable auburn flattop. I complimented the look with a moustache.

Maintaining a flattop is a bit of a chore. If you go too long without getting it cut it starts to look all out of proportion and then you’re just a few short steps from parachute pants and exclaiming “Yo Hammer don’t hurt ’em”, so when I got settled in these parts I had to find a barber that could execute the precision my flattop required.

After a couple of missteps and bad haircuts, I finally found a barber that could do the job well. The barbershop is a standalone unit located on a side street downtown; it’s flanked by two empty buildings. There are two chairs but only one barber. The other chair was Sam’s station but he had passed away a couple of years before I discovered the shop. The front chair belongs to Carm, a jovial older Italian man. He’s tall and thin, his name has many vowels. I thought of him as “older” back in 1991, I still think of him as “older” today, 17 years later.

Carm is a pleasant man. I’ve never heard him speak ill of anyone. His shop is populated by all sorts of men; workers from the state and county office building, lawyers and police officers and construction crews getting cleaned up for the weekend. While not overly busy, I suppose he does a respectable business. I sometimes wonder when he’ll retire.

Though my visits to Carm became more sporadic as time marched on and my hair vacated my head, he has always remembered various stops along my career path: radio DJ, restaurant co-owner, computer man. I was last in his shop in August 2006 where he carved out my first incarnation of the “wide” moustache that I wear from time to time. He is located close my work and occasionally I’ll pass by on a wild attempt to get some exercise during my lunch hour. He always waves and smiles.

During my last visit to the shop I noticed that he had slowed down a little bit. I mean, he’s getting on in his years and that’s to be expected. I noticed two winters ago there was a sign in the window saying that he’d be closed for a few weeks due to illness. He came back and resumed his schedule a short while later, I’d still pass by and wave. He’d wave back.

Carm’s shop is still open today. Since that bout with illness I decided to drive by on my way home from work once in a while to see if the shop is still open. I have little reason to go into the shop: I don’t have much hair on my head and I wear a beard most of the time. I’d glance in the big window as I passed by and occasionally see him sleeping in the barber chair closest to the window; the task of reading the newspaper apparently turned into an afternoon nap that probably went a little longer than expected. So I developed the habit of giving a quick little beep on the car horn in an effort to remind him that it was quitting time. I’d then go around the block again to see if he woke up. By the time I went by the shop again, I’d see him stirring and making motions to close up for the day.

I don’t know if Carm knows what wakes him up on the days he falls asleep reading the newspaper near quittin’ time but I don’t think I’m doing any harm. His shop is one little piece of Americana in this fast paced world that I cherish.

Here’s a picture I snapped the last time I was in his chair. It was August 2006.

I called in sick for the first time in around 15 years today. I’ve been fighting a bit of a cold for the past 48 hours and this morning I just couldn’t get my head off the pillow. I was up most of the night with the sniffles. I’m hoping that a day at home resting will help the situation so that I can get back to work tomorrow.

I’m not a fan of calling in sick. I don’t really believe in it. However, I felt that I would be doing more harm than good by going into the office: I would prolong whatever it is that I have and I would not get any better due to being in the office. The new landlord of the building has decided that the lease agreement with the company I work for is unfair to him. Said lease agreement includes utilities. He thinks they should pay extra for utilities. To make his point, he has decided to not turn on the heat until November. It has been between 55 and 60 in the office all week. Thank goodness for sunny afternoons, it has allowed the office to warm up to a generous 62.

I don’t mind working in cool environment, but it’s probably better to be moving around to keep warm. My job involves sitting at a desk, talking on the telephone and troubleshooting various components of networks that span hundreds of miles. Aside from the brain power, there’s not a lot of moving around. I can’t help but think sitting in the cold allowed whatever wanted to make my body ill to make it’s move on my system. Therefore, I have sniffles.

Hopefully the company (and it’s team of lawyers) will win the skirmish and we’ll have heat soon. Today, I lie in bed, lie on the couch or lie in the sun in an effort to keep warm.

This is one of the reasons I am not a fan of daylight saving time. It is currently 6:46. I am to be to work at 8:00. My body is saying “but it’s dark and therefore we must sleep!” But no, we must drag ourselves out of bed, going against nature because we all know better of course.

I wonder if the world would be a happier place if we lived in harmony with nature instead of railing against it all the time.

I had a three day weekend but I’m not feeling particularly rested. The house is oddly quiet. I guess I got used to having my sister and the baby in the house. We drove them to Toronto Thursday night in anticipation of her flight to Switzerland this weekend so that she could join her husband in Biel-Bienne. We weren’t even in Toronto for 24 hours. I like Toronto. I wish we had time to go into the city and do our thing. But no, the schedule didn’t permit that this time.

Saturday night Earl and I played hosts of another bear night here. It was the busiest yet. The bar was packed and we had no food left. The theme was “OctoBEARfest”. We served brats and bavarian pretzels. Sauerkraut too. The night was a lot of fun. The bear nights are going well. We are going to do another one in December. We also raised a nice chunk of change for a local charity that helps those with HIV and AIDS. I fear that the younger generation forgets about HIV and AIDS. They shouldn’t.

Yesterday I knew it was autumn as I went into some weird happy homemaker mode, washing the sheets on all the beds, organising very odds and ends. I also contemplated baking cookies but then the sauerkraut from the night before started catching up with me and I figured that we had done enough cooking for the weekend. Even though sauerkraut shouldn’t have anything to do with cookies.