Saturday

Ah, the rarest and best of days. If Sunday found me in a fiery cataclysm watching my very life pass before me, that would have been OK.

Early wake up and made panetone french toast. Somehow we managed to migrate back into bed after eating our fill and more curious still the Little Wonder left us alone for the most part. Slept until nearly noon.

Lunch under a blanket tent in the living room. Daughter laying upon my expanding belly while watching massive cakes being built on Food Network. Heaven.

Ordered Mexican food for dinner.

Our total progress for the day: one (1) load of laundry.

Although there is a twinge of regret at missing out on a hundred other projects to be had, there are so few days where it's just cool to simply exist. The very Zen of the entire day reverberates heavily in my mind even now.

Word of the Day: Humantic

Humantic (adj.): Overly large, massive; a contraction of humongous and gigantic.

After seeing my wife's pregnant belly, the Little Wonder proclaimed, "My mommy's belly is humantic!"

Updates

Laboring under a head cold at the moment. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a vicious head cold, but respiration is so underrated when you don't have it in abundant quantities.

Ended up sleeping over at work last week one night. Legally bound to produce the document on time (no kidding). I had to leave early and had no means to return until after 10 PM. I handed off my work to various others, but everything seemed to blow up right after I left. Runouts on paper and toner, crashed computers, maps suddenly not printing or changing colors in mid-print, Murphy's Law in abundance. Fixed the bulk of it in short order (we're calling it the Jesus Factor), but one map had to be completely rebuilt. Printing took forever (large maps) and I finally hit the silk (read: concrete floor) with time for just three precious hours of sleep. Wake up, shower and attack another "must have" job. Fun.

Several of you have asked how things are progressing on the home front. We've had a slight breakthrough in that we're talking more and trying our best to make time to see each other. A babysitter would be such a blessing right now.

Brought in doughnuts today to celebrate my tenth anniversary at work.

Ten years.

Married here. Honeymooned here. Became a dad here. Twice. Drove through hurricanes and snowstorms to get here and home. Hard to even grasp all the time I spent here, the stories I was part of and the many more I heard about, the people I met, the jobs I worked on, places I went to, things I discovered, about myself, co-workers, management, and the world at large.

The cashier gently cupped her hand under mine while giving me back my change. I try not to ignore subtle bits of kindness like this.

It snowed today. On the first day of spring. I know we can have snows this late, but it's still unsettling on a base level.

The Missus and I have started talking again, tentatively and brimming with barely concealed stress and emotions. It will be a long walk back to where we were.

A rough weekend. In-laws came over to watch The Little Wonder on Saturday and I spent five hours at work trying to get the impossible done.

Sunday became the backlash to a long week for me. I won't go into details, but I felt I presented a danger to myself. Good thing TLW was around.

Emotionally, I'm wiped out. I don't feel anything about work, home life, my wife, my kids, the future, nothing. I want them all around but at the same time they're just projects to be managed, nothing more.

I want to break from this, but I don't know how.

No Title

2:38:38 AM The insomnia has struck again.

Sometimes I can feel myself falling asleep and I think it's my kidneys going on me. As my IGAN progresses, creatinine will build up in my blood. One of the side effects is tiredness. So when I feel myself starting to go, I get up and go do something. I don't always win.

My latest craze: old woodworking machines. Drill presses, saws, jointers of every make and size, style and condition. I've started repairing a few and collecting several more. Although I do want one or two for actual use, most of it is for flipping, hopefully at a small profit.

Side note: whatever happened to America? Before the First Depression, before Social Security, what did we do to make it? Wait for a check? Bitch about the government? If I lost everything (house, car, job) tomorrow, would I be the only one to pick up a hammer and saw and just start over?

I know I sound like some uber conservative up there, but I really do miss seeing the grit and determination of people down on their luck. What gives me hope? Seeing some of it still alive.

Knowing I can take an aging and broken National Cash Register machine, hop on a train and in a few hours be in a store that's been fixing them since the time my father was buying penny candy in front of a similar machine just makes me smile.

And why start up the blog again? Well Facebook is great and all, but I kind of miss the mystery in my life: what happened to friends and old flames, diligently trying to hunt them down. And the mystery of blogging: whose reading this and why. Facebook is so instantaneous that I think I'm suffering from information bloat.

Postings will be sporadic at best and more likely in this stream of consciousness format. Hope you'll stay tuned.

Pure Magic

This warranted a post.

Last night we're sitting down to dinner when someone knocks at the back door. After hitting the "Cujo reset" button on the dog, we open the door to find my neighbor, Tom, with this:


Despite my love for books, tech and toys nothing really beats second hand stuff, especially tools. They come with a built in provenance that no amount of blow molded cases and laser guided gadgetry can match. Heck, there are even a few repurposed silver (and I mean real silver) knives in here (we think for window glazing). Nothing in the Craftsman stable can top that.

I may not have a use for any of it right away (heck, half the tools I can't readily identify), I may even throw out some of the real beaters, but I could easily spend hours studying, cleaning and thoroughly enjoying even the most savagely beaten screwdriver in the bunch.

If you're looking for a gift for me this year, kindly skip the malls and start haunting flea markets and Craigslist ads. Where you see rust, I see gems.