Ponderings and Musings

This past weekend, as busy as it was, has completely reset my whatever makes me tick. I feel well rested, I feel energetic, I feel focused, I feel positive.

Bring it on baby. Bring it on.

Lunch Exercise.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

My ass has been dragging this morning. Last night’s sleep was disrupted by my school clock collection spazzing out and ringing the bells non-stop until I figured out what they were and what was happening. This all happened at 12:38 a.m. Not a good way to get a good night’s sleep.

I thought about going home and chilling out during lunch, but then I figured that I’ve done too much of that. I’ve been silently wondering if I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or something for the past couple of months because it just feels like I can’t get enough sleep.

But I was wrong. It’s because I’m a slug.

So instead of curling up next to Tom for a noon-time nap, I decided to take a walk in our fine city and see some areas I haven’t been to in a long time.

I think I walked just shy of three miles in 50 minutes. The warm sun felt wonderful, I was armed with some fabulous tunes on my iPod and the energy on the streets was high.

I feel like a million bucks right now. Much better than feeling groggy from an afternoon nap.

Part of my job duties is delivering pagers to local medical professionals. Apparently they are so busy they don’t have time to send one of their office assistants to our office to exchange their pager after they’ve flushed it down the toilet, so they call it in, I provision a new pager for them and bring it to their office with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. And a contract in my hand.

Today I had to deliver a pager to a doctor (the third pager in 60 days, by the way, he needs to stop reading his beeper in the crapper) in a home health care facility. Being a beautiful sunny day, the staff had wheeled a couple dozen of the residents outside to enjoy the fresh air. It appeared to be a wonderful attempt to lift their spirits, but some of them looked scared out of their wits. Others looked bored. Many seemed to be enjoying themselves.

It must be hard to live in that type of situation. I worked for ARC (while not the same, it is a similar situation) for a number of years back in my 20s and it’s not an easy job. Whenever I think of these facilities, I think of my friend Pat.

I met Pat back in 1987. She was a close friend of my first boyfriend and lived next door to us in Jamestown. She was always included in our little adventures, including driving to Florida in a ’82 Dodge Omni. Patrice, as we liked to call her, has an interesting past. She is an extremely intelligent woman and a gifted piano player. She is also manic-depressive. While in college in the early ’60s, Pat was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. Her parents, with nowhere to turn, installed her into various state institutions, where she was given all sorts of drugs and lived in hideous living conditions. Years went by, I’m not sure of the history of this part, but she ended up living on her own, in her little apartment, working for the local hospital in the billing department.

I haven’t spoken with Pat in about a year. I really should give her a call. Anyways, the reason that I think of her when I’m in these health care facilities, is not because she once lived in a state institution. But rather because she spends her free time going to these types of facilities to entertain the residents by playing the piano and bringing friends along to sing and to entertain the folks. I find this a little amazing because at one time, the world turned on Pat. It dehumanized her to a point. It took away her confidence. It shut her away. Now that she’s part of the world once again, she is taking the time to give back to the community.

The world needs more people like my friend Patrice.

Pat has written a book of essays about her experiences through her life dealing with her mental illness. It’s called Blooming Is Tricky Business and is required reading for a graduate course in on the psychology of disability at the University of Texas. One of these essays can be found here. Her book was featured on Amazon and is published through Waldenbooks.

I’m back on schedule today, stopping home for lunch and writing in my blog using my PowerBook. Everything seems to be back on focus; it’s funny to think that using the Mac Mini instead of the PowerBook or dining out instead of eating at home would throw me so far off kilter.

I guess I’m a fragile being of sorts. Either that or it’s that I’m just plain weird.

I feel like it’s Christmas Eve of sorts, with the Bewitched movie coming out tomorrow night. Earl and I are naturally going to see it on opening night. I’m still trying to figure out which would be the ideal theatre. We don’t want too many people with cell phones. The seats have to be comfortable. The sound ideal.

So many variables to consider.

I always find it amazing how much crap goes through my brain. Especially when I’m cycling. I get into this whole “athletic zone” and think about a myriad of subjects, all of them unimportant.

On my ten mile jaunt this evening, I decided that I need to change my nickname. This line of thought came about because I was asked what “J.P.” stood for*. Most people know me as “J.P.” Its the name I tend to use except with doctors and dentists and such and that’s only because they don’t know better. I do a lot of talking on the phone at work, especially with a really big telecommunications company that rhymes with “Horizon” and when I say my name they always mangle it. “J.B.”? “J.Z.”? “Chippy?” “J.T.”?

So I’ve decided that from now on they can call me Jiffy. Like Jiffy Pop. I’ve always been a big fan of popcorn. I like Jiffy Pop, especially over a campfire (which you’re not suppose to do). And as I think about it, Jiffy Pop is probably better than “Jiffy Lube”. Jiffy Lube sounds kind of kinky. If I were to do porn movies, then I could be Jiffy Lube, but at the family reunion this weekend it would be kind of odd to have Earl introduce me to long lost relatives as Jiffy Lube. People would blush. Including me.

I once toyed with the name “J. Bear”. But I don’t really feel the name adequately describes me. I’m not a big fan of labels, anyway. Besides, I think it would subconsciously give me permission to gain weight. And we all know how I feel about that.

So the next time I’m asked what “J.P.” stands for, I’m going to tell them Jiffy Pop. “Oh.”, they’ll say with an odd look on their face. Then they’ll try to normalize the conversation… “How’s your day going?”

“Just Peachy.”

I met an online buddy face to face (for an appreciable amount of time) for the first time today. I mentioned Mike a couple of months ago. We’ve been chatting back and forth on e-mail, and since he had the day off we decided to get together for lunch. It was good fun. We talked old department stores, roads, cycling and rollerblading, beards, the fact that we’re exactly a month apart in age and that he grew up just around the corner from my aunt and uncle’s house and we’d probably seen each other as kids. It was cool and it’s nice to have a new friend. Earl and I will probably get together again with him soon, if I didn’t spook him today or anything.

I’m in sort of a “Woe Is Me” type of mood today and quite frankly I’m finding myself tiring of it easily. I can just imagine how my co-workers feel.

Last night was a hot, steamy, sultry night. The air was very heavy and very warm. You could cut the humidity with a steak knife. While this weather would be welcomed on the weekend, it doesn’t work out well during the week because it makes it very difficult to sleep in our house, considering we don’t have air conditioning. So I slept on the bed, and the futon, and the floor, and the front porch, and the living room couch and so on… and never got more than an hour or so of continuous sleep, interrupted by bouts just plain uncomfortableness.

So I’m a little cranky today.

Now let’s not confuse “cranky” with “surly” as I like to think that I’m being civil to people for a change. But I’m finding my patience wearing thin with customers. (Them: “I’m calling Hong Kong, and it’s taking over five seconds for the call to connect!” Me: ” Did it ever occur to you that Hong Kong is 3/4 of the way around the world and perhaps it takes a few extra seconds to let your fingers do the walking?”)

Just before lunch I had a meeting with the director of our department, who informed me that I will be attending a short training session on some new equipment tomorrow in Syracuse. That news actually put me in a better mood. It’s a little change of pace. A little bit of fresh air. And it shows that the company values my contribution by investing a little time in me.

So instead of taking a nap during my lunch hour like I vowed I would do when I woke up this morning, I celebrated by emptying the dishwasher, cleaning up the kitchen a little and writing in my blog. (Yes, the domestic God in me lives on, at least to a point.)

Sometimes its good to just suck it up and roll with the punches. You’d think at 36 11/12 years of age I’d know that by now.

As I type this blog entry, a little thunderstorm is passing through the area. It doesn’t have enough punch to lower the temperature or lessen the humidity. Its all flash and no substance. The wind barely rattles the blinds.

But down the rain comes.

It’s been in the high 80s to mid 90s for almost a week. Relief may be coming our way by the end of the week. Maybe.

I can’t remember it being so hot in June. And I’m a weather nut. It’s going to be a very interesting summer.

On our way home from Buffalo today, we decided that we needed a little chocolate high, as we were both very groggy from staying up past our bedtime and sleeping in a hotel room last night and then wearing yesterday’s clothes again today. So when we stopped for gas in Canandaigua, Earl ran into Wilson Farms and grabbed a couple bottles of water and a couple packs of Mallo Cups.

Oh My God.

I have not had Mallo Cups in a couple of years and I had forgotten just how wonderfully delicious they are. As an added treat, I had completely forgotten about collecting Mallo Cups points!

Oh My God Again!

I love collecting points. Granted, you need 500 points for a free Mallo Cup or something like that, but still, it’s a goal that everyone should strive for. I’ll probably eat my weight in Mallo Cups just to get that free candy bar.

These points have reminded me of the good ol’ days of S&H Green Stamps days. For those unfamiliar, let me quickly explain. You went to a the market or gas station or department store that featured S&H Green Stamps. Based on how much you spent, the cashier would spin a little wheel like contraption mounted above the cashier that dispensed the proper number of stamps for the amount of your purchase. (If you go to Subway, you’ll find the exact contraption if used there to give out Subway stamps.) You then took those stamps, licked them (I really think they tasted like ass, now that I think about it) and pasted them in your S&H Green Stamps book. Once you had the proper number of stamps, you browsed a catalog of varied merchandise and sent your stamps into the mail order company. They mailed you back your selected item. The big spenders with thousands of stamps got things like canoes and tents or entire living room set. We weren’t as disciplined as we should have been so we would only have a couple of books and would get a Tupperware canister set or something like that. The canister set had to be in avocado.

We were extra lucky in that we had an “S&H Green Stamps Redemption Store” in Syracuse. I can still picture it to this day, right next store to the old A&W on Brewerton Rd. in Cicero. This store resembled a Service Merchandise catalog store. Sure enough, there was that canoe and tent set for 10,000 stamps or something big. On the other wall was the avocado Tupperware canister set.

As I reminisced over S&H Green Stamps, I took the opportunity to search the internet for information and found that they have morphed into S&H Greenpoints. A quick scan of the website shows that they can be used with a nice variety of places, like Best Buy, Barnes and Noble and The Apple Store.

Oh My God Thrice!

I’m all excited about collecting points for a new avocado canister set, just like the good old days. It’ll give me a place to store all my Mallo Cups.

I’ve been a little down on my job this week as a result of my on-call duties. This round of on-call has been busy and I don’t take sleep interruptions well. I’ve been cranky. I’ve been somewhat foul. I’ve startled those around me with a blue flair for language.

Tonight we attended a company function. It was a village-wide celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the founding telephone company I work for. The company turned the backyard of the corporate office into a huge picnic for any customer that has dial tone with the company, plus all the employees of the affiliated companies throughout Upstate N.Y. It was a very impressive affair. There were live performers, delicious food, souvenir champagne glasses and tours of the equipment and facility. Many members of the community came out to greet their neighbors, and a couple of state politicians attend the affair as well.

The group of companies is family owned and operated. The owner and president of the company gave a well received speech about the goals and achievements over the past century, and what our company has to look forward to on the road ahead. Earl and I chatted with many of my co-workers. Pleasantries were exchanged, it was all good.

It’s exactly what I needed to get my career spirits back in order. On-call doesn’t seem so bad anymore. I’m looking forward to going to work on Monday. I mentioned a couple of entries ago that I envisioned myself working for a baby Bell someday. I no longer have that vision. I’m happy where I am right now.

It’s not often that I write in my blog before going to work but for some reason the inspiration has slapped me upside the head for a change.

It’s June.

I’m reminded of a song we used to sing in high school chorus. “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over. All over the meadows and hills…” Actually, I sang that song as a high school sophomore in Area All-State Chorus which was being hosted in Holland Patent (local school) that year. That weekend was memorable in many ways for me.

My maternal grandmother and my dear Aunt Jenn came to that concert, along with my mom, dad and sister. The concert was held in the gymnasium instead of the auditorium for some reason. The audience had to sit on the bleechers. I miss my Gram and Aunt Jenn very much. We all rode home in the ’78 Impala together after the concert.

Because Holland Patent was quite a distance from Pulaski, all of students from Pulaski spent the night between rehearsal and the concert in a small motel outside of Rome. The motel is still there. We hung out at the bar next door that night. We slept four to a room, two to a bed. I didn’t sleep, because, well, I was a sophomore in high school that knew what he was to become but dared not tell a soul who was sleeping in the same room with three other guys…

“Because It’s June. June. June. June.”

It’s funny how a particular memory can trigger another memory which goes on and on and on. I believe the song that’s ripping through my head now is from “Carousel.” It was part of a medley we sang that also included the song “When you walk, through a storm, hold your head up high. And don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm, there’s a starry sky…”, or something like that.

Today the sky is full of sunshine and the horizon is clear. And my mood and the weather are in concert today.

Because it’s June. June. June. June.