Ponderings and Musings

Our new home has nite lights wired throughout the hallways and stairwells. These little lights have LED bulbs, are fit into a standard-sized outlet box, and have downward pointing shades so the walkways are illuminated. When we moved in they were all wired to standard three or four-way switches.

There’s three circuits of these lights. The third circuit illuminates the stairwell that goes to our guest room. I was going to replace the switch this evening; when the project was completed then all three sets of lights would be controlled by home automation.

Except the stairwell bannister passes directly in front of the switch in question. There is a one-inch gap between the wall and the bannister. I decided tonight was not the night to tackle this. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need to take the bannister off the wall to swap out this switch.

There are several interesting design choices in this house and this is one of the examples. At times we’ve found the wiring to be equally creative, but we’re getting that part figured out.

I just don’t understand why someone would install a switch and then place a bannister directly in front of it.

I have an ironclad memory. I’m known as the guy that remembers everything. I can tell you the bell schedule from high school (which I graduated from 35 years ago). I can tell you every home room number, every bus number, and I can give you SKU numbers from Ames Department Store, which closed in 2003. Magazines? 02730021. Greeting cards? 81230013. Candy bars? 67235515.

I can tell you very little about our drive a month ago from Chicago to Tucson.

It’s all about impact. The drive down made little impact. We drove through St. Louis. No big deal. It’s St. Louis. We drove through Kansas. It’s flat. It was our first time driving through the panhandle of Oklahoma. There’s nothing there. Our cat Truman settled down, we ate fast food, and bam, we’re living in Tucson, Arizona. We had very little interaction with the public, we didn’t see any friends between points A and B and I probably filled the tank on our 2016 Jeep Cherokee six times.

It was uneventful and for the first time in nearly 53 years, the ride did not make an impression on me. At all. I remember little about it.

I’m ready to make memories again. Our new home is a delight and we’re getting settled in, but I’m still not quite on my game. Things are not locking in as I would expect them to. Am I overwhelmed? I don’t think so. I’m missing my structured schedule. I’m still finding that structure. I like structure. It’s comfortable.

And when I’m comfortable, things make an impact. And that’s when the memories are written.

I need to find my comfort.

I was feeling particularly introspective during my morning walk today. I don’t know if it’s the arrival of spring (however that’s defined in our new home) or the magical sound of the wind sweeping across the desert or the presence of nature all around us again, but something had me pondering life and I’m better for it.

I am happy. I’m actually very happy and am thankful for this blessing of life. I try to never take things for granted and I realized it could all be taken away in nearly an instant, so I strive to treasure each moment, each thought.

For some reason I was thinking of my high school friend that passed on from cancer a couple of years ago. We were close friends in high school, lost touch with one another, found each other on the streets of Boston, connected again, and then he became ill and passed on to whatever lies beyond. I enjoy that he was always a calm one with a dry sense of humor. Now that I think about it, many of my high school friends were rather calm. Maybe I was the high strung one of the group.

This led to me to thoughts about death, and my eventual passing (it happens to everyone, you know), and how I’m very likely well beyond the half way point of this life. I’m not afraid of death. I fully believe without hesitation that something lies ahead on our path and it’s beyond our comprehension as to how wonderful it is. What we call life is just a part of a much larger journey. A sixth sense, a flirtation with death as a youngster, it all just makes sense and is part of a universal truth. I just know these things to be true. I need no proof. I need no reassurance. I just know it to be.

Where am I going with these thoughts? Forward. That’s it. They’re probably mere ramblings written down buy some middle aged guy in a blog of little consequence or impact.

I’m thankful to be able to share them.

My body seems OK with getting up at 5:30 AM Mountain Standard Time for my weekday schedule. Truman stays quiet and still on the bed until I show signs of being awake. My husband doesn’t get up until later, but I tip toe around the room, do my business in the washroom, and then throw on yesterday’s clothes so I can tackle the early morning team meetings.

I wonder if my colleagues notice that I’ve showered, shaved, and changed clothes between my first and second meetings of the morning?

My mood has been surprisingly pleasant with early rising. I’m starting to feel this new routine and it’s not a bad feeling. I’m pretty sure I can do this morning thing for as long as necessary.

Someone just hook up a device to my Zoom meetings so I can be jolted awake.

Actually, I’m kidding. The only stumbling block I have with these early morning meetings, other than being unshowered and unshaven, is my speech patterns. Speaking coherently and trying to keep my mild stammer this side of outrageous in the early morning can be a bit of a challenge. Like President Biden, I have little tricks I use to try to keep things running in the same direction, but once in a while my words and phrases and such can go in six directions at once with a repetitive stammer.

I’m like Bob Newhart without the groovy theme song.

Once I get the cylinders firing on all thrusters, though, I’m in my element and not feeling any bad effects from being up so early. I used to think getting up early was a thing grandparents did.

I’m now shocked to realize I’m the age my grandparents were at when I thought these things about getting up early.

April Fools’ Day is my least favorite day of the year. I’ve never been a fan of the frivolity others find in pranks, lies, and other foolish things to celebrate the arrival of April. Even back when I was a kid I would dread the day because it just seemed unnecessary.

Now, this is not to say I haven’t found anything associated with April Fools’ Day to be amusing. Way back in the early 1990s, a local radio station started running ads and announcements that the United States had converted to Metric Time. They had ads from businesses announcing you could bring your microwave or VCR in to be reprogrammed for Metric Time. I thought that little campaign was clever. There’s probably been a couple others I’ve found amusing over the decades but since the Internet destroyed took over the world it seems like April Fools’ Day has just ramped up and amplified stupidity and idiocy.

I always look forward to April 2.

This has bothered me since the “Downton Abbey” movie came out in 2019 and when the trailer was suggested on Youtube today, it finally hit me.

The did something with CGI to Dame Maggie Smith’s eyes in the final cut of the movie.

In the official trailer, Dame Maggie looks like Dame Maggie, as regal and glorious as ever.

In the same clip in the actual movie, they modified her left eye a bit.

Subconsciously I knew something had changed but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Not that I would put my finger in her eye or anything, but I’m happy I’ve resolved this little niggling in the back of my head.

And I wish they’d do another Downton Abbey movie.

We talk about “getting back to normal”, even though the COVID-19 pandemic is still here and doing its thing. I look around and wonder about the definition of “normal”. Always introspective, I ponder, “do we _really_ want things to be the way they were before the pandemic”? I feel like we missed some learning opportunities in 2020.

I get it, two many people are facing financial and other well being hardships because of lockdowns and the other precautions around COVID safety. But that speaks more to where our society was and what we depend on more than COVID itself. There are too many people that will simply not figure out a better approach to this societal existence. They want things the way they were before the pandemic. Full stop.

It’s never going to be that way again.

After we get through COVID-19, some other variant or similar type bug is going to come along and we’ll all be trying to figure that out. Luckily, I feel like we have a better leader in the White House to handle the next crisis like this. I fully believe we’d have still faced the challenges (opportunities?) of 2020 even if Trump did the right things (which he most certainly did not) but it wouldn’t haven’t been to the extent that we experienced.

At the New Year I tweeted, “if you thought 2020 was an awful year, you were paying attention to the lesson”, or something like that. There’s so many things we could be doing better now. Many companies are shifting their workers to full-time work at home status, but too many companies want everyone back in the office under their watchful, untrusting eye. Luckily, the company I work for discovered a huge cost savings on facility costs and a good sized increased in productivity when the teams work from the comfort of their own home. Even though around 15% of the workforce was already full-time work at home team members, there’s now a sizable chunk of folks that will never be going back to the office.

Less pollution from commutes, less dawdling for chit chat at the water bubbler.

I can’t understand why so many people are demanding to be seated shoulder to shoulder in restaurants. We’ve supported our community by ordering take-out when we can, but we actually saved a great deal of money by eating at home. It’s amazing to think of what can happen in your life when you save money by not eating out. I’m hopeful we’ll continue this trend when we move to Arizona next week.

There’s comfort in what’s known as normal, I get that, but there’s also a great deal of value in listening and learning.

I wish more folks had taken the time to do that. Because things will never be “normal” again, nor will things ever feel as “safe” as they did before.

Let’s continue to be vigilant with our masks and vaccinations. Let’s make that the new normal.

I didn’t ask my doctor about my tinnitus during my annual physical. We talked about what I’m calling my “COVID 10”, or the weight I’ve gained during the pandemic. Honestly, I could have easily gained more weight if I put my mind to it, but I wanted to make sure things were kept fairly reasonable. I get anxious about physicals and visits to the doctor in general, hence my blood pressure was elevated the first time they took it but much better the second time the put the cuff on me.

The lab took five vials of blood. Among the blood tests was an HIV test. I get tested every year whether I need it or not, I guess it’s the Gen-X/grew up during the beginning of the AIDS crisis in me that prompts a yearly test. I attended too many funerals in the 80s and 90s. I still remember.

She didn’t do a very good job of taking blood, though. It didn’t hurt much, but she left a mark.