One lawn to go

This is me avoiding mowing the lawn.

The back yard lawn is done and the side yard lawn is done. The front lawn is stilling waiting its turn.

It might wait until tomorrow.

...

My sister was complaining about how someone asked her to meet at an inconvenient time to her. My sister was doing a favor for the other person and this was not the first time that I have heard this complaint from her.

I said, "You know, sometimes you get to drive the boat."

I said it like it was a popular saying. I do not know where it even came from. If you google it, it does not show up as a popular saying.

Sometimes, I make up my own sayings.

I was complaining to myself about my work situation while I was mowing the lawn. Some of the situation I have let be created and some of it I have chosen not to handle in the best way possible. My rational is that I didn't make the situation so I don't have to solve it but it is starting to have a negative impact on me.

I heard, "Sometimes, you get to drive the boat."

too

Too many people ask me for too many things.

"It was one problem after another" would have been more welcomed than several problems all at once.

I was waist deep in problems when a pretty coworker came by my cube and started telling me her problem. In part, it was that she saw a problem on the street and tried to address it and the guy told her to go pound sand because I had told him that he could do it.

I told her I would fix it but that she was fourth on the list.

I did actually give permission to the guy to do what he was doing but I thought he was going to do it in a slightly different place. 

I walked outside and told the guy that he had to move, at least a little. 

The guy moved.

...

My patience is mostly gone and I am challenging folks when folks really shouldn't be challenged. 

Sometimes I am rude.

"How are things today?" I was asked as someone sat at the desk I was at.

"Not good. How can I help you?"

Shots rang out

"Shots rang out in the night"

It was about 2:30am Monday but it still felt like Sunday because I was sleeping.

I heard the distinctive pop/crack of a gun being fired. Three or four shots at first and then a couple more a moment later. What I didn't hear were police sirens. I remember thinking that the newspapers would probably say the shots rang out even though most gunfire doesn't ring.

I was wrong though because I didn't see any mention of any shooting in that part of town.

I am across the tracks from a neighborhood that seems to like to settle things with firearms.

It is five sets of tracks and an eight lane interstate highway and a different neighborhood trying to survive in peace between them and me.

I could hear the cars on the interstate that night.

The sirens were heard about a minute later so I opened an app on my iPad to listen to the police scanner.

Three crime scenes. Two found victims. One shot in the neck. One shot in the abdomen. The neck wound was non-life threatening on the male victim. The female victim was quickly taken to the hospital.

Someone said something at a party that a certain other someone didn't like was the motive.

I feel asleep not long after that.

Things are different. Things are the same.

I was supposed to have been there, sort of.

In danger's way, and if unscathed, then I was supposed to help.

But I had went to lunch, and then home because it was just another do nothing event.


I still have trouble going into that place where I had lunch because coincidentally the same folks that own the place where I had lunch also are the same folks that own the place that was known as location number two.

Survivor's guilt, I guess.

...

The drinking has returned but it is no longer an assortment of hard liquors after a few beers, it is mostly just beers.

Beers and Margarita's because if you win a round of trivia, you win a round of Margarita's and playing trivia is a good way to convince yourself you are not an alcoholic but a games man.

Which two Presidents were born in 1924?

2013-1924=89

89 years old. George H.W. Bush. Jimmy Carter.


In which decade was Goldie Hawn born?

Goldie was on Laugh-In in the 60's and she was in her twenties.

I think I actually wrote down 1960 minus 20 instead of just doing it in my head.

You do not get extra points for showing your work.

I asked.

...

Lately, I just want to shout at people but all of the people that are within shouting distance are not the actual problem, which leaves me no one to shout at, except myself and then I am that crazy guy on the subway.

Finish Line

That is my pass for the 117th Boston Marathon. The black letter F on the yellow dot means that I was allowed access to the finish line area.

It is the same type of pass that I have been giving for the past four years.

Prior to the race, I walked right down Boylston Street stopping here and there to say that things look good to the people that I knew putting the finishing touches on the area. I also walked down either side of the sidewalk and stopped in the Starbucks along the way.

Everything did look good so I drove to the other side of town to check on what was going on with the Patriots Day Parade and then drove by Tufts Medical Center to check on something else and then headed back to the finish line area.

Things still looked good.

The people that run the marathon have been doing it for quite some time. It is a huge event but most everything happens the same as last year. The set-up sometimes get tweaked but no big changes.

I walked the sidewalks one last time and then I left.  The things that I was there to address would have already made themselves evident if they were a problem. There were no problems so I went to lunch.

I watched the end of the Red Sox game and would peek at the other tv with the Marathon on it occasionally, as I ate something called Cajun chicken Alfredo and sipped a cheap draft beer  My friends asked if I was working. "I was but I'm not now. I don't like to milk the overtime so when there is nothing to do: I leave." was my answer. After lunch and a couple more beers I went home.

The first couple of times I was asked to worked the marathon I would stick around longer, trying to find stuff to do.  I would walk up one side of the sidewalk and down the other. I would do it seven or eight times. I would never see anything.

This year, I would have seen something.

Some people reached out to make sure I was okay.  I told them that I was but I could not help reflect on what might have happened if I didn't leave when I did.

Halloween

Hurricane Monday

I tell myself

I tell myself to just deal with the present.

But both the past and the future haunt me.

Prior

My feet weren't moving.

My mind wasn't turning.

I was unaware of things changing.

My world was getting smaller and smaller to the point I could not see past my arm's length.

Calls from beyond the length of my arm were distant and impossible to connect with.

I imagine from the outside it was like trying to wake someone up from a coma.

I could hear but I could not respond.

The leaves are falling like large snowflakes. I guess it is Fall.

Membership

(Friday, instead of drinking)

My membership gets me previews and I feel a little stupid not using them so I end up seeing more exhibits than I typically would.

I try to get into the mood. I try to not feel guilty and sad.

It was some photographer's work. I actually recognized some photos even if I didn't recognize the name.

One of his quotes about the space says that he tries to push the edge.

I thought: "there are times I do that."
But usually it is in some unpleasant way. I will say something that goes about almost too far.

I don't really enjoy the exhibit and I blame it on the crowd which really wasn't a crowd at all.

At 3:30pm we started making plans at work on what to do after. I said that I would not be joining them I said that I was done drinking for the day. I got a couple of eyebrows to go up.

I get a pumpkin latte. I do not like lattes.

I do like pumpkin though.

I didn't know how much of his photos were real there is something about catching the moment and that thing is different than creating the moment either physically or digitally,

She then mentioned something about chandeliers and morano glass

The work week has started

My goal today I'd to get ride of some clutter. There is a chance that today might be almost normal.

When she left me this note, I wondered what type of drugs she was on. It was at a time when I did not feel I had any patience for anything and I felt angry and frustrated and ineffective. I know she had heard me get a little curt on the phone a couple of times and also heard me complain about the workplace. I tried to buy her good favor by gifting her a tape dispenser that was in the playful shape of a women's red shoe. More than once I had caught her using my stapler when i had left my desk so as a joke I was going to give her a stapler but then I saw the shoe tape dispenser and thought it would be a better gift. She certainly had a different view of what was going on in my cube than I had had.

Out the kitchen window

From my kitchen window I can see my world. Well, not my whole world. Actually, when I looking out the kitchen window a lot of my world is behind me or to the left because my kithcen is in the front of the house and to the right. I just think that "from my kitchen window I can see my world," is a pretty fair opening line. I spend a bit of time in the kitchen and a lot of that time involves looking out the window mostly because the kitchen sink is under a large window and coffee mugs and dinner plates do not wash themselves. From the window, I can see most of my front yard, the city street beyond that and the city park beyond the street. Last Sunday, I was looking out the window and noticed a landscaping crew, they were planting a tree. I thought it was odd for the city to be planting a tree on a Sunday afternoon. I thought it was odd that a crew of three from a private landscaping company were planting a tree. I thought it odd that, other than the crew of three, there was nobody else around. I thought that the scene before was eyes was not legitimate but then I thought "Who would be so bold as to plant a tree in a city park without permission?" I told myself to relax and to mind my own business. I said to myself "Who cares if folks are planting a tree?" Even though I cared, people just cannot do whatever they feel like on city property. I tried to let it go. I made a deal with myself that I would not persue the issue of the tree unless it presented itself. I felt that it presented itself Tuesday mornign when I was sitting across the table from someone from the Parks Department. I asked who would know if a tree was supposed to be planted or not and mentioned why I was asking. I was told the arborist for the city would know. When I got back to my desk after I settled all of my urgent issues, I sent the arborist an email and told him everything I thought was odd about what I had seen on Sunday. His reply was that he remembered receiving a request for a memorial tree but that he guessed that the requester didn't like his answer {and planted the tree on his own}. It is relatively easy to kill a tree. Especially a young freshly planted tree. On a different note, it is not uncommon for me to be able to hear the guy in the cube next to mine chewing which is almost as bothersome as hearing the guy in the other cube next to mine slurping his coffee. It is not all bubbles and sunshine where I am.

There is this guy I know from the bar who at one time I disliked immensely. He was violent and angry and didn't seem to be able to control himself but over time I started to listen to what he said. He would say mean things to people when teasing them and at times he was very quick with it. Over time I learned that he is smart, loyal and dependable while still being violent, angry and lacking self control. He sees things differently than most people. He has made some bad life decisions and has gone to prison but he feels like he makes the right decisions but that things just turn out horribly for him. I will tell people that in his head he thinks he is making the right decision but that sometimes stabbing a guy is the right decision. He tries to visit his son but then he will get a restraining order taken out against him because he called his mother in law a stupid cunt during an arguement about how he should get to visit his son. I think that he basically has a good heart but his brain is off. And I think his brain was damaged early on in his life. He tries but he doesn't have the proper equipment to succeed. And I think that is how I feel about my coworker. He is still that guy that has helped me to succeed. He is still a careing and helpful soul but part of his brain is different than what most people consider normal.