Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

I thought I knew what I was doing after I fixed (I think) two others.  Next up was checking the arcs for a different cycle, also in the front yard.  Yesterday/Sunday afternoon I did, and I was OK with all but one, which was arcing in both directions so much that it was clearly wetting our driveway twice.

Learning what I learned before, I made sure to wait until the water got absorbed into the dirt enough to clearly twist off the head.  I oriented the arc so that its right-most would line up with the edge of the grassline bordering the driveway and no farther.  From there, I put in the key that shortens the arc to its left.  I had the cycle going on for 15 minutes, giving me plenty of time to see how far this head would go and either cut it or lengthen it so that it wouldn't sprinkle water on the driveway.

And I got it done.  It was perfect.  So, I pulled the key out of the top of the sprinkler head ... and the goddamn, motherfucking whole thing came out.  Without the sprinkler head, the water was coming out of just the open end of a pipe, so it just looked like water coming out of the ground.  I needed to stop it; fortunately, by the time I got to the garage, there was only one minute left in the cycle.  Water dribbled its way down to the street, but it stopped before it got really, really bad.

Swear to God I screwed it in.  But I have to admit that I had trouble when I didn't think I would have to worry about lining up the threads.  And for the goddamn life of me, I couldn't screw the fucking sprinkler head back in a second time.  I don't know what it was.  The threads at the bottom of the head seemed to be fine.  It's hard to look five inches deep into the grass, but I think the threads at the open end of the pipe are just fine.

There is only problem I could see, and it might be a big one.  There was dirt on and in the open end of the pipe.  I was able to scrape off enough so there was nothing blocking the threads so that I could screw in the sprinkler head -- I think; shit, I thought I did that the first fucking time, but apparently not.  The issue is that opening should be completely clean.  No dirt at all should be on or in it, because if there is, it would block the flow of water coming up through the pipe and into the sprinkler head.  I don't have a way of completely cleaning that opening, so now I have to wait until I have time (probably tomorrow/Tuesday evening, assuming it isn't raining) to turn on the cycle and see if water is flowing freely through that sprinkler head.  If it isn't ... shit, man, I could see enough pressure building that the goddamn head flies up in the air, or hits one of the cars, or dents the house, or conks some neighbor who's just walking.  If it's that bad, that sprinkler head is unusable, and since I can't turn off a sprinkler head, that whole cycle has to be shut down until, I don't know, I get the company to do what it does in order to blow out all the dirt that's in that pipe.

Motherfucking Christ, why in the fuck do we have this goddamn sprinkler system, huh?  In particular, I hate that My Fucking Father has saddled me with the responsibility of maintaining it.  It wasn't my goddamn idea to install a whole fucking system which, by the way, I have only used to only water the lawn only, like, four times so far (I've turned it on way more times to fix the arcs one some of the heads, a practice I'll continue to do until they're all correct).  He got off on something that made him feel like a tried and true homeowner, but the silly and stupid details like fixing this shit?  No, I deal with that because that bullshit is beneath him.

Let's go beyond that: Why do we have lawns?  Why do we need to constantly need to tend to grass?  What is giving a lawn a crew cut proving?  I think we do it just to keep up appearances, and as you all know, I don't give a good goddamn about keeping up appearances.  Fuckin' A, man, you should see how brown my lawns are.  And I don't care, and I don't have my parents here to make me care.

But now I have to fucking find some time to check out this sprinkler head and hope it's screwed on tight enough that it won't go flying from all the water pressure and smash one of my car windows or kill a stranger.  Oh yeah, then I have to hope that it still has the arc that I want.  This is just a frustrating pain-in-the-ass, man.  I just wanted to take the key out of it, that's all. ...

I was afraid The Third Department was going to be hell since one of my co-workers was taking the rest of the week off, and it was.  Goddamn, I didn't leave last/Thursday night until 7:15 -- that's a 10:45 day.  I'm glad I got to the pizza place (in a gas station very close by me) before they closed.  But it might be just as bad today/Friday because there are a half-dozen tests coming in.  There were only supposed to be two yesterday/Thursday but that became six, goddammit.

Since I got home much later than I was hoping, all the things I thought I wanted to do I just didn't do -- not just because I got home so late, but also because I was so tired.  At least I have enough energy to blog post this complaint.

Is She Coming?

So ****e* became unreliable again.  She was supposed to cum yesterday/Thursday to work on the house, but she said she just got up, then she was moving slow, then her ex dropped off her kids, and then she said she was just not feeling good.

Whatever.  She now said that she's coming Sunday.  She said she no longer works weekends, but frankly, she needs to make this up to me.  After all, she promised she'd be here yesterday/Thursday.  But I have plans to make a run to Clear Lake, Iowa and see the The Day The Music Died Memorial.  It'll take 2 1/2 hours to get there, and it'll be hot as hell Sunday.  On top of that, she said she'll be here at noon.  It would be best for me to go down there as soon as I wake up to attempt to avoid the heat, but now I have to wait and answer any questions she might have and leave in the afternoon.  And what do I do if she's late?

And yet, because of this fuck-up, I am even more determined to go down there and see it.  Doesn't matter that I won't be back up here until it's 8 or so.  That's what I wanted to do Sunday, and I'll fucking do it even though ****e* basically fucked up my plans.  Shit, it might be good at this point that she doesn't cum.  Dammit, so fucking unreliable. ...

Why Did I Think Cleaning The Condenser Unit Would Be Easy?

When it comes to maintaining the AC, I didn't think it would be hard.  I studied up on cleaning the condenser unit.  What I did not take into account is screwing back in the lid.  I should have, because screwing things back in is never as easy as unscrewing them.

This whole rigmarole surrounding cleaning the outdoor unit was a pain in the ass.  I had to first get the water system up and running.  I got everything set up in the backyard, but forgot that the gate valve in the basement had to be turned on, and when I did, I heard this scary as hell banging as the water started flowing.  And then I went outside and the pipe leading to the spigot (where I hooked up the hose I used to rinse the unit) was dripping water like crazy.  I thought there was a bad leak, but it stopped, so (shrug).

I then was able to unplug the condenser.  I was able to yank the, and I just learned this is what it was called yesterday on YouTube, the cartridge in the outdoor breaker, and then the cartridge in the main circuit breaker in the basement.  Unscrewing the cover to get inside the condenser was easy.  Applying the cleaner seemed fine, even though I though there would be a lot more froth.  And the hose worked in rinsing off the cleaner.  But goddammit, I kept lining up the lid, but the holes through which I had to screw the screws wouldn't line up for all five screws.  I was getting both frustrated and hot, and that's not a good combination, so I went back inside to eat the rest of my chicken wrap and cool off.  I tried again, got three screws in, then said screw it with the other two screws.  Everything works and I finally turned on the air conditioning for the first time this year.  But I have two screws extra.

My bedroom is right above the unit.  I don't think it's noisier than it would be if it had all five screws in.

I've Given Up And Am Going Out A Lot This Week ... Again

So I've bitched often (though not in the past week like I thought) about "needing" to go out too many evenings in the week.  Man, sometimes I just want to go home from work and fucking stay there.

I was trying to reach some equilibrium with that this week, especially since it's a holiday weekend and you're supposed to just veg out.  But I had to chuck that all out the window.  First it's because of my cousin and her son.  She said that Friday might work, but that's The Official Start Of Summer, and I had plans to go to my speakeasy and ease into this Endless Summer by drinking.  Saturday could work, too, but United FC has a Match in the afternoon, I wanted to relax with pizza and a beer afterwards, and there is the possibility of the English Championship Play-Up Match that morning (I say possibility because as I type this, there is a hearing to determine whether Southampton, one of the teams playing, should be kicked out for spying on Middlesbrough, the club it beat more than a week ago to reach the Final).  Sunday and Monday are a lot freer, but I was hoping to fuck ****e one of those days and stay in the other, and I want to do both so badly that I consider seeing my cousin one of those days, as convenient that it might be, a frustrating spanner in the works.  I don't want to say I would rather not see my cousin, but ...

I'm getting over myself.  For one thing, all this soccer watching is still up in the air; Sunday, for example, is Decision Day in the EPL.  If Tottenham Hotspur is still in jeopardy of being relegated, I'm going out to watch it at a pub that morning, and in that case I probably won't have any time to myself at home this weekend.  Still, I'm looking for some solace, and I have to look to the workweek for that, too.  My plan during the workweek was to go out last/Monday night because I had a gas coupon that was going to expire, so I might as well work on my receipts and eat out.  Tonight/Tuesday night and tomorrow/Wednesday night I would stay in, finally.  Thursday I would, for the first time ever, go out to the State Fair, which now opens for Memorial Weekend.  Then Friday's the speakeasy.

That was all shot to hell when I came home from work last/Monday night.  Taped onto my screen door was a notice from the city.  They're doing something with the main sewer line tomorrow/Wednesday.  Between 8 in the morning and 8 in the evening, I am not supposed to use any water at all in the house.  Well, fuck.  I might as well not go home after work.  So, what to do?  How about go to the speakeasy then?  I don't want to "celebrate" summer two days early, but frankly, it makes a lot of sense to just do this tomorrow/Wednesday night.  Not only would I give the city time to not mess up the house's sewer system, going out (instead of staying in) tomorrow/Wednesday night frees up Friday night for me to hang with my cousin and cousin once removed.  Looking at it that way, a lot of problems get solved.

So I'm being a social butterfly again.  Yippee ... ?

(Aside: I am working the early shift at work today/Tuesday.  I should be in bed instead of blog posting this.  Anyway, if I get done with work early, well, it would theoretically allow me to go exercise at a decent hour in the evening.  Yeah, golly, I can do that.  But on that announcement by the city, I am supposed to pour water down all my drains in anticipation of this sewer line cut tomorrow/Wednesday.  It may not take up a whole lot of time, but if I'm doing that, I might as well do other chores ... like go through my stuff, finally.  Yeah, I need to get in shape, but if I really want to go home -- well, I should just do this, huh?  Might as well salvage one night to do nothing.)

More Strainer Frustrations

So I blog posted about forgetting about putting in a strainer in the master shower for, like, a month or so.  Now, for the second time this year, as I was letting the washing machine wash my dirty clothes tonight/Monday night, I went downstairs once the machine was done to see the strainer dislodged from the drain.

Maybe I should remind you (I'm thinking I've blog posted about this before) that the drain coming from the washing machine isn't connecting to some drain pipe that automatically feeds down the main line and out of the house.  It's pointed right into the laundry room basin.  It's just pointed in there.  But, as I get occasionally reminded (especially these past two times this year), the force of the water coming out of the washing machine is enough to push the strainer, which is just sitting on top of the drain, off of the drain.

These two times I see the strainer popped out and just laying on the basin.  I also see wetness around the main drain on the floor.  If there is not anything holding back the water in the basin, there's so much water flowing through the pipe leading out of the house that it backs up, and to relieve pressure, it rises up through the cover on the floor's drain.  Hate when that happens.

And the thing is, when I was getting the clothes washed last/Monday night, I thought about checking in the middle of the wash to make sure the drain didn't dislodge like that.  But I was too busy zoning out on my laptop and TV.  If I had gone down there, I might have been able to put the strainer back in its place -- not in time, but possibly with enough time (if that makes any sense) that all the clumps of lint and fuzz wouldn't have gone into the drain and through the pipe.  I now have these unrelenting thoughts that the septic tank is backed up with all the crap that would've been trapped by the strainer, and I hate that I wouldn't pry my eyes from the two screens I had on and go downstairs to prevent that from happening.  Dammit, I hate myself right now.

So That's Why The Rear Seat Wouldn't Stay In Place!/Poor Pen/How Angry My Father Gets

I think this happened, I think, shortly after my parents left.

I have my back seats arranged, well, strangely.  The back seat on the driver's side is put all the way down.  That way I can throw a blanket on top of it so that, when I crawl into my car to sleep for lunch at work, I can just get into the passenger seat, reach over and bring it up to the front.  Also because I need to sleep at work, I lift up the bottom of the back seat on the passenger side.  That way I can completely recline the passenger-side front seat so I can rest.  It's a perfect system.

For reasons I now forget, I had to fold down the back seat on the passenger side so that it looks normal.  (I think I did this at work, even though that's immaterial to this story.)  There is a bar on the bottom of the seat that is supposed to latch to an anchor on the floor, and for the life of me I couldn't get it to latch.  Finally, I looked at the floor ... and I saw almost a dozen bits of a pen, just strewn on the floor mat.  It wasn't just snapped in two; it was obliterated.

Seeing this, I think I realized how that came to be.  During a time when my parents were still home, I wanted to lift up the rear seat on the passenger side because I wanted to put my computer bag there.  I could have just stood it up against the laid-down seat, but I guess I was going somewhere where I wasn't completely sure my car wouldn't get broken into, so my plan was to fold up the seat, lie my laptop bag flat on the floor, and put my car shades on it so no one could see it.

I distinctly remember laying the computer bag flat with one of its pouches unzipped.  It was a pouch in which I keep my pens.  I also distinctly remember thinking I should zip it up because I don't want anything to roll out of the bag, but I thought nah, it won't happen.  Well, I'm guessing that poor pen did roll out of the bag and onto the floor, and when I grabbed my laptop bag, I didn't notice it got loose.

I don't remember this part, but I have to think that at a later day, without my knowledge, My Father put that back seat down.  That pen must have gotten into the anchor, preventing him from locking the seat in.  The only way he thought he could get it to go down and stay down was through force, so he just pushed down the seat repeatedly and violently, not knowing that the reason the seat wouldn't anchor was because that pen was in the way.  So he basically broke a pen into pieces by smashing it with the bar of a car seat.

I get the frustration.  But I'm hung up on how much force, and really how much violence, you would need to destroy a pen just because a car seat wouldn't secure.  But then again, I could see My Father being so angry to the point of using brute force to get what he wants.  I've seen it.  I've been a victim of it.  Preposterous or not, seeing those pen remnants is a reminder of how vicious My Father could be.

I will zip up the pouches on my computer bag from now on.

Tax Form Filling-Out OCD

I'm trying to finish doing my taxes, and I keep making mistakes on these forms.  Not big, mathematical ones, but, like, one digit wrong in the tens place, or writing the amount on the wrong line.  My OCD is kicking in big-time, so I keep printing out forms and doing them, only to fuck up again so I reprint more.  I have printed them out at work, which I know is frowned upon.  I also have printed them at the library, where I am typing this blog post right now, but it's 20 cents a copy, which is why I printed them at work while I was at work.

This library sometimes has free copies of the main forms, like the 1040, lying about, which is great and another reason why the Twin Cities is a good, moral place to live in.  But I fucked it up, again, and I'm tired of re-doing it, so I am just going to give the federal government the 1040 where I wrote a whole amount on the wrong line.  Even my OCD, as bad as it fucking is right now, has limits.  Besides, I just printed out another form and I think I did it completely right, so yay, me, be happy with that one win.

Buying Wiper Blades Has Become So Complicated

Finally put on the new wiper blades I bought through Amazon yesterday/Friday.  Bought them for both my car and my parents', so there are six total blades that have been on both since ... oh, I want to say March of last year.

I bought five total.  One of them is the wrong length -- maybe (see below).  So there are two that still need to be replaced: My passenger side and the rear on the minivan (which, I want to say, has been back there for years).  Yeah, it's kind of a half-assed job seeing that two blades still need to be swapped out and I bought one that doesn't fit.  And surprisingly, Amazon wasn't much of a help; I ordered these through them before, but for some reason, like you see, I couldn't all of the right ones ordered.

It still seems strange that I would buy wiper blades through Amazon when Wal-Mart has them, so a few months ago, I went there.  I've bought a replacement or two there in the past, but this time around, things were different.  I'm going by the length of the blade, which used to be printed, in big digits, across the top of each blade package -- you know, "25," or "16," etc.  For some goddamn reason, there aren't just digits there anymore.  Some of them have a letter in front, and then a dash, and then what appears to be the length of the blade, and then some of them have a dash and yet another number after it.  What the fuck, man?  I just want a blade that fits my car, and they're complicating it, and I know it doesn't have to be.

About that blade I may have ordered by mistake: It's 13 inches long, and I swear I was told that is the length of my car's passenger-side wiper.  But I have seen in other places that it's actually 14 inches.  And believe me or not, the manufacturer can't give me a straight answer, and Google can't aggregate the websites that will tell me definitively whether it's supposed to be 13" or 14".  I looked through the links, and I see both lengths given.  Can it be either?  That seems dangerous to me.

Maybe it's my fault for not writing the lengths down.  But damn, they're just wiper blades.

Venmo Trouble

So I sent ****e* her money not too long ago.  I usually pay her in cash, but since I wasn't planning on using any cash yesterday/Thursday, and since the money I took out Wednesday thinking I was going to spend it on some sexytime with a stripper (which fell through) I am going to use at My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Version) tomorrow/Saturday instead, I was going to pay her through the "fake money" of Venmo.

I actually left last/Thursday night to attend a concert while ****e* was still working on my house.  She was gone by the time I came back, and, like she said before I left, she would request I pay her through Venmo.  I think there was a bit of a miscommunication; I asked for her username, but she thought I could just pay through the app, and I told her I never put money apps on my phone because someone might get in there and steal all my money.  I was able to find her username after I clicked on her request, so all is right with the world.

I have used Venmo a lot, so much so that I need to replenish it more often than I want to.  So after paying off ****e*, I tried to transfer money from my bank to my Venmo.  But I can't.  First, I tried to find the page where I can do the transfer, but there wasn't one.  I swear I've done it before, but I don't know where the hell the page is.  I look up instructions on Google, but first I only saw ways to add money through the app, and then I was told that I had to go to the "Me" tab, but there isn't one.

Finally, I stumbled on a Business Insider article that tells you how to do it.  I saw a URL.  I cut-and-pasted it, and that's when I finally saw the (unfamiliar) page whereby I can send money from my bank into my Venmo.  But then I tried it, several times, but I got an error message.  So I logged out.

Like I said, I haven't quite encountered the trouble putting money into my Venmo like I did last/Thursday night, but I have encountered the occasional trouble from this stupid application.  That thing is difficult to use, yet everyone swears by it.  I don't get it.

Addendum To: On Money -- When I Spend It And When I Complain About Spending It

OK, so this is what I did on Sunday.

I was still feeling the pull of the Megamall.  Moreover, I was feeling the pull of Grand Casino Arena, which was staging both Semifinals of the World Juniors.  I stay pretty late after Vikings Games to make sure the traffic thins out, but I could move it up and still leave without getting stuck.  So I formulated a plan to go down to the Mall Of America, buy some stuff at the pop-up store, eat at Popeye's (I had this digital coupon of three tenders for a buck), then drive to downtown St. Paul.  If I could find parking close enough to the arena (parking meters aren't enforced in St. Paul on Sundays, so yay for me), I would park, buy a ticket, then see the second Semi at 7:30.

That last bit was buoyed in part by the prices I saw at scalper sites.  I checked after Friday night's Quarterfinals, which included the United States losing to Finland in Overtime.  I thought the prices would crater because the host U. S. was no longer in it, but prices were too high for me to entertain.  In fact, I think StubHub told me there were no tickets to sell.  But I checked again Saturday, and not only were there many tickets, prices were falling like a stone.  SeatGeek's cheapest ticket Friday night was $93; it became about $50 Saturday, and while at work, I checked again and it fell to $39.  That's it, man; even though I was tired as hell and I would be driving all around the Twin Cities, I decided to do all this.

Well, first of all, me eating so much after the Game that I had to shit really bad threw the Popeye's deal out the window.  I felt this push out of my asshole while I was driving down to MOA, and if you know that feeling, it feels like you're about to fucking shit your pants so bad everyone will see and point at you and laugh.  Scariest feeling in the world, am I right?

But I made it to the public men's room next to the doors at MOA, aka the last place I would want to evacuate my bowels, but of course, I had no choice.  This diarrhea attack made me second-guess if I should even try and go to the Game.  Good thing, then, that I didn't plan on buying a ticket unless I found a space to park in St. Paul.

Systems back to normal, I went to the pop-up.  That orange quarter-zip that probably was going to be the thing I buy?  Well, it went from one or two of those to six or seven.  Unfortunately, the only sizes available were small and extra-large.  This was something I saw with several popular items while I was browsing for World Juniors clothing.  I couldn't buy that, and nothing else there interested me.  So I didn't buy anything there, like I thought I would.  Yeah, it was kind of a waste driving down there.  But I had to know.

Didn't feel the urge to crap after that excretory meltdown when I cashed in the winning Powerball tickets I bought (oh yeah, I did that, too) on my way out to the car, so I felt good going to the arena.  And maybe I shouldn't be surprised considering the half-empty crowds at Mariucci Arena for group and Quarterfinal Games, but I found a spot easy-peasy.  And so I turned off the car, leaned my seat back, and looked at SeatGeek and StubHub for a ticket to that 7:30 Game.  And I was surprised, and disappointed, that somehow prices for that Game went back up.  It can't be demand; these scalper sites are running fucking algorithms to maximize prices.  Makes me so goddamn frustrated.  But hey, I got there, and I wanted to go, so I bought a ticket for Canada-Czechia for, hrmph, $50.

By the way, great Game.  Back and forth, but the Czechs got the upset (even though this is the third straight year the country eliminated the Canadians), 6-4.  (That Semifinal, by the way, was delayed from its scheduled start because the first Semi went past Overtime into a Shootout, where Sweden slipped past Finland, 4-3.)  I'm glad I went, and this is the World Juniors, so maybe I shouldn't bitch so much over the price of the ticket.  Anyway, I had plenty of time to check out the merchandise tables at the "Gicka."  You remember my obsession/fear about "exclusivity," buying items that I could only find at Mariucci or the pop-up store at the Mall Of America?  Well, that OCD blew up in my face.  That hoodie with the huge 2026 IIHF World Juniors logo right on the front that I bought at Mariucci?  Saw it there.  And I also saw the Paul Bunyan & Babe t-shirts I also bought at Mariucci, as well as the first pair of t-shirts I bought, the ones that had the flags on the hockey blades on the front I bought at the pop-up.  Oh, and the pin, too.

So, when it comes to buying things that appeared to be at only one place, I got the scarf that I bought down at MOA and the winter hat with the logo on a plate stitched on it at Mariucci.  All the other stuff I bought I could've bought at any of the three places.  And the scarf and hat, for all I know, were being sold at the other two places before they sold out.  I'll rest in the peace of my ignorance.  But I think I could've been more judicious about what I would've bought if I could've went to Grand Casino Arena for that Sunday group stage Game if not for the snowstorm that blew in that day.  I think I would've gone up to the merch tables, realize that most if not all the items were the same as that at Mariucci, realize that some of the things I saw down at the Megamall I didn't see there (and vice versa), and purchased accordingly.  But now I have a lot of things that, right now, I'm not cool with (see Title of blog post).

But hey, it was the World Juniors!

And Are They Done For Real Or What?

Weird and ominous text I got from my sister-in-law Christmas morning.  As I do with pretty much all my friends and family, I text them on the holidays.  My sis-in-law is someone I'm keen on reaching out to because the only person I give Christmas gifts to is my niece/her daughter.  But since they live so far away, I don't have time to buy and wrap those gifts for her.  It is so, so much easier if I buy what my niece wants on Amazon and have them shipped to their house.

What I didn't know, even though I probably should have thought about it, was that my sister-in-law intercepts the gifts and wraps them up for her daughter/my niece to open them at Christmas.  I guess she's done that every year I've sent gifts to them, and so, when I wished her a Merry Christmas, I thanked her for doing the hard work of wrapping the gifts without my niece (seemingly) knowing.

As she usually does, she sent pictures of my niece opening up the three gifts I got her.  Amazon said that they would come in two shipments and the shipment for one might come after Christmas.  I had told my sister-in-law that could happen (and that has happened before), so I wanted to confirm whether that second shipment with that third gift came in time after all.  (Yeah, it's obvious, but still.)  She never confirmed.  Instead, she said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Welp, next Christmas is going to be different ... and you can talk about it with your brother."

I've spoken about this here before: I've wondered for a long, long time whether my brother and sister-in-law were on the outs.  I've never seen them act like they, well, love each other.  And I don't know if I described this on WAF, but my sister-in-law and I had dinner out several years ago where she just fucking unloaded on him.  She never said she planned on separating from him, though, so it made me wonder if she was blowing off steam or if this is truly a rift that will not heal.

This was, I believe, before we and the whole family went to Hawai'i over the holidays a few years ago.  I thought that if they were going to split up, they would have done so before then because it wouldn't make sense to act like one big, happy family and then announce their separation.  And then I thought that maybe they all wanted an excuse to go to Hawai'i, and then they could drop this bomb after the New Year.  Well, there was no announcement at all, so I just figured they were still together, or limping along in this relationship because they can't overcome inertia.

So what should I make of that text?  There seems to be frustration behind it, so this could be another case of her blowing off steam because, say, my brother said something to her that pissed her off.  Or, this is an announcement months or maybe even years in the making; a separation might finally be in its final stages for some reason, and 2026 is the year the relationship changes -- or ends.  I don't fuckin' know.  I just texted her, "Um, OK," and she didn't respond.

This shit is just too weird, man.

Addendum To: How Long Can My Computer Hold On?

So that weird thing where I start up my computer and can't login in to open it up, so I have to restart it so I can login a second time?  Some time yesterday/Saturday it stopped doing that.  I opened it up and I was able to punch in my password to get into my computer immediately, like it's supposed to.  I don't know what I could have done to "fix" my laptop.

It was getting to the point where I would have been so fed up that I would have bought a new lap before the fall, which is when the extension on security for this laptop (it runs on Windows 10 and I cannot upgrade this to Windows 11 because it doesn't have the space for it) that I opted into runs out.  I am getting really frustrated at how much battery life my cellphone is going through, too, so I have thought about replacing that as well.  I was getting scared that both my laptop and cell would lose support in the fall, meaning I would have to replace both in the fall, which would be two big-ticket items I would need to pay for at the same time, and I don't look forward to that.  That made me think that maybe I should take advantage of the deals that might be floating around for a laptop, move up my timeline, and buy a new lap now.  But now, with this thing working "normally" ... yeah, I'll wait.

It took me two fucking weeks to finally find an eye appointment at The Mall Closest To Me ... and I showed up late.  I thought I had time to get cash and buy motor oil, but goddammit, apparently it took me 19 fucking minutes to drive six fucking miles, and then it took me another five goddamn minutes to get to the eye shop.

The worst part about it is that they actually enforced my no-show.  I was afraid they wouldn't, but I don't remember the last time anybody did.  Maybe when I showed up late at my test scoring job?  But they turned me away.  And I barely hid my frustration.  I mean, you can still fucking do my eye exam, can't you?  But no, and I guess I could've come earlier, whatever.

I paid money for vision insurance this year, and I might as well use it, but obviously the year's getting late.  And I'm not going back to this place -- not after how they treated me, even if I guess it was my fault.  So I'm going to another mall and their eye shop.  Unfortunately, it'll be a month from now.  I should get there in plenty of time, and then I'll just, like, walk around.  Anything to get this damn eye exam in.

HOAs Suck

I should ruminate on this more, but I have to go.

Mother needed my help with some homeowners' association stuff.  In particular, she needed to register for an account online for one of my parents' properties.  This property, however, they have owned for a long time, and I know that there was a different HOA, or at least a different website, to which they registered an account online.  This may not have been the first time for this property, either.  Plus, I know that other properties they own have gone through management changes whereby, suddenly, a brand-new company announces they are the new HOA/manager.

This is, frankly, ridiculous.  There is no reason to continue to change websites or management companies or HOAs for the same property.  I don't know what it is, but it absolutely screams scam.  And unfortunately, they have dozens they have to deal with.  It is beyond annoying.

What I Am Describing Happened When I Phoned My Mother Just Now

No, it doesn't matter now that they're coming home 2 1/2 months early.  And I can see that Mother is telling me not to worry about it, and that she can take care of it once they come home so I don't have to do it.  But she is old and doesn't completely understand English, so this payment that needs to be made is something I'll eventually have to do, and I wanted to do it this weekend while I have the time because I don't work.

There is one overriding disappointment when she rebuffed my wanting to pay these payments for her.  It's a chore, but it's something I wanted to do.  Instead, her wishes won out, even if those wishes are, essentially, "I'll do this responsibility, you don't have to do it."  Mother (and Father for that matter) minimizing what I want to do has been a cornerstone of the nature of our relationship, and as anodyne as this interaction seems, there is a burning rage inside of me over what she (albeit innocently) said, and right now I am as frustrated over how she made me feel after the phone call as I feel over needing to be careful of myself around the house again.  I can never quite be free from the parts of my relationship with Mother that I hate because it keeps rearing its damn ugly head.

You've Told Me Four Or Five Times My Ass

OK, goddammit, I get the message at how ... let's just say "perturbed" you were when you accused me of making the same mistake at work four or five times.  But first of all, let me say that I don't ever remember you saying that.  Second of all, even if have told me before, it sure as hell wasn't four or five times, I can guarantee you that.  And third of all, lady, I am fucking inundated with bullshit the minute I sit my ass in that chair, and I can't stop until at least, at least ten hours pass.  That's how it has been since Boxing Day, and that my co-worker helped me with my job and I still stayed an extra two hours to catch up on work should give you an indication of how ragged my day is now.  So forgive me for forgetting, even if my fuck-up kind of rippled through the company.  Sorry.  Damn.

(As an aside, this was my first day in The Third Department this week, and I have noticed that even though I have been rotating through tasks for several years now, I am kind of, well, "off" the first day I move into a position after a few days away from that position.  As much as I want to say I remember everything I do, and I can easily switch my brain to the work I need to do at this job or at that job, I kind of forget parts of those duties if I've been away from it for a few days, and I think that's the case here.  This might continue to be a problem if all I do is rotate from position to position.)

Maybe I need to sleep.  Wake up and put this day behind me.

May Have Crossed A (Time) Line I Shouldn''t Have Crossed At Work

This has never been spelled out as official or even common policy, but from what I have been told in the (way) past and from what I have been able to get away with, whenever there is work to be done that needs to be done but can't be done within your usual eight-hour work shift, you can stay up to two hours, or (duh) ten hours.  Because work in The Third Department has been kicking my ass ever since the holidays, I've done ten hours frequently.  Lately, the work hasn't been done within ten hours, so I've left it for the next day and, sometimes, for the person doing in position for me.

Regardless, for many, many years now, I have held that ten-hour overtime standard as sacrosanct, a sort of demilitarized zone.  Not that I've never crossed it; I think I have pulled in way more than ten hours on a couple occasions, although those were under extremely unforeseen circumstances, and I may have clocked out a minute after ten hours once or twice.  But it's pretty much a no-go, a line you don't you don't come back from.  Since the New Year, even if the work has been overwhelming, I have swallowed my pride, resigned myself that I couldn't accomplish all that I wanted to accomplish, and packed up and left at exactly ten hours.

Till yesterday/Friday.  There were tests I needed to prepare.  A lot of them, and that has been a major contributing factor to me staying late whenever I'm in The Third Department.  I have been trying my best to get through them quicker, but I have been making very little progress.  I remember that on Thursday, there was a test that had me so confused that I needed to talk to someone three times to figure out what to do.  I want to say that I spent at least 45 minutes on it, but it could have been an hour.  That was incredibly frustrating, and typical of my problems in trying to get through these tests.  Now add that lately there's been at least half a dozen of them every day I work in The Third Department and that they come in during the afternoon, and you can see how that pushes my day past eight hours.

That happened yesterday/Friday.  However, the tests that I prepared this time around actually were easy, at least easier compared to the ones I usually encounter.  I got through them faster than I usually do.  And that, to be honest, kind of gave me a rush.  It made me feel as though I finally "got it," that I in fact have "mastered" how to do them.

And then I remembered that I have all these other things that should be done before I leave for the day, and that I have, oh, less than an hour to do them.  I still felt good, however; those half dozen or so tests I thought would have consumed the rest of my ten hours, and there would have been a lot of hell to pay by my supervisor and boss for not getting to the other tasks they say should be done.  But I had time yesterday/Friday, and so I delved into that work ... and then my ten hours were getting close to being up, and I wasn't quite finished.  And then I saw a mistake that I needed to fax out again and, after deciding that fax could be done by my co-worker tomorrow, I changed my mind and thought it best I do it -- knowing that would probably push me past ten hours.

And it did.  I clocked out ten hours and ten minutes after work began.  Now, you may say what's the big deal, it's just ten minutes.  Like I have blog posted before, neither of my superiors have lately took me to task for staying an extra couple hours.  Heck, before she left work yesterday/Friday, my supervisor said I shouldn't go past ten hours.  However, I can see, from their vantage point, me staying an extra ten minutes is, to put it in a way, overtime creep.  I should tell you that on Monday, I overstayed my lunch break by ten minutes because I didn't set the alarm on my phone correctly and overslept.  The policy at that point is to stay as long as you overstayed your lunch break.  Well, I did that and worked ten hours total and still clocked out a few minutes later than that because I needed to tie up loose ends.  My supervisor and boss will know that I did that Monday, stayed a few minutes further than that yesterday/Friday, and start to question how long I am staying for OT, and why.

This all could change, and soon.  Next week everyone one of us are supposed to have a meeting about The Third Department, with a goal of getting enough of the work done each day so that no one is taking overtime.  I don't see how that is possible without a second person working in The Third Department at least half the day, but that is my boss' goal.  Maybe what I did this week is a sign to him that changes to this department can't come soon enough.  And maybe this will accelerate scrutiny of my work day and work processes.  Which would suck because, all the stress this job is putting me through aside, I do love making OT money.  I checked my bank account and saw that my latest paycheck is significantly bigger than the one before it.  Will this money train stop?

Pressure At Work --> Eating (Out Of Order) At Home

So I just ate a slice of turkey and colby jack cheese even though I ate a cookie and part of a brownie a couple hours before then.  I have a rule whereby if I have dessert, I eat no other food that night.  Dessert is the last thing you eat, so you don't eat anything else after that, right?

Well, I did, partly because I realized I bought more food than I can finish before my parents come home, and partly because work is still stressing me the fuck out.  I am absolutely convinced now that The Third Department is a two-person department, and firing one and letting the other retire without filling her position full-time has become a mistake because I worked back there, by myself, for another ten hours yesterday/Thursday and, once again, I still did not get everything done.  In fact, I think I left more work (for myself; I'm there again today/Friday) than I have ever before.  It's a combination of heavy work that came in late and one particular test that I swear took 45 minutes and talking to four other people, one of them three times, to finally figure out.  Tedious problems like that take time, and frankly, I don't have a lot working in The Third Department to spare.

What makes this day worse is I kind of told my boss about the workload I was facing.  He was about to leave, and as he normally does, he asks all of us how we're doing.  My thinking was there was no hiding or sugarcoating all the work that was still coming in.  I think he knows this and is at least tolerant about this; otherwise, he would be on my case for working overtime so often.  The problem this time around is that he asked me, semi-point blank, "How late (do you think you're staying)?"  I hesitated; part of me was really frustrated throughout the whole day (seriously, one comment that I decided to take wrong and I would have exploded -- that's how bad my day turned out to be) and wanted to let him know that, the other part wanted to keep my head down because my cover would have been blown, in a way, and then I would lose all the OT holding in all this frustration is for.  Luckily (?), my co-worker immediately asked him a question and he gave her his attention, and once he answered her, he left for the day.

I am afraid, then, that he will remember that he asked me how long I was staying yesterday/Thursday when he reviews my timesheet.  He then might start to impose time restrictions for me to prevent me from taking any more overtime.  That day is coming anyway, but like I said, I am holding my temper in just because of all the OT I'm racking up, so I want to do (or not do) all I can to not jeopardize the gravy train before I have to get off.  At the very least I am going to receive more scrutiny from my supervisor -- I will come in in the morning and she'll say, "Do this and I'll do that," and I don't how I will feel from such a direct order.  Maybe I'll be relieved to finally have some direction.  Or, maybe this is the start of being reined in to just eight hours of work per day.

So that's what awaits me today/Friday.  At least I will face it with a full stomach, even though I ate stuff after dessert

Work Sucks Right Now, In So Many Ways

Before I rant and feel sorry for myself, I want to say that I am grateful for the overtime I'm getting.  The money is worth the grief.

Well, at least I say that now.  While I was working yesterday/Friday, it sure as fuck didn't feel that way.  The Third Department is utter fucking chaos now.  It didn't help that all the work that got stuck down South Wednesday finally reached us.  The work that came for me ... I don't know if I have ever left so much work for my co-worker, who is doing The Third Department today/Saturday.  I apologized to her before I left work.  I stayed an extra two hours, like I usually do.  I could've stayed till nine o'clock and not gotten everything done.  Seriously.

There are so many things to keep apprised up in that particular position that I am constantly bombarded with things that crop up which I need to immediately address.  Toward the end of my day (which, because it ran so long, became my night), I saw something that essentially became a "STAT" thing that I had to drop everything to do, and I know I let out a "Fuck!" that I meant as a whisper but was probably loud enough for everybody in the room to hear.  It was that frustrating a day.

It didn't help that I screwed up, which I did right before I saw this "STAT" thing I just had to do.  I basically signed off on, like, a dozen reports that I should not have signed off on.  And so I had to go through each report and fix my mistake.  I had a shit ton to do already, and I didn't need to make it harder on myself by fucking up like I did.  But I realized that I made this mistake because I was not doing these reports every day, and that makes me susceptible to forgetting a process of, say, doing a report.  I see now how hard it is to step into work someone else started.  I can't just apply my training at any point in a particular process.  If I didn't start it, I am likely to screw it up.  And in a job where I hop from position to position, that will mess me up, man.

Aside, and I need to make this vague because, frankly, this may blow up into a shitshow: I may have made a mistake, but I sure as fuck don't like her tone.  There were so many other ways to tell me via e-mail to stop.  And by the way, the mistake started with the person not writing down the date.  What condescending bullshit.  And if she decides to take it up with my supervisor or boss, man, I could be in deep trouble.

With all my venting here, I'm going back to work today/Saturday to help out.  They're still behind, so much so that they might bring in people for Monday.  But goddammit, I'd rather this have happened last weekend, or next weekend.  'Cause this weekend was the only Saturday over at least the next month where I could watch EPL downtown, something I haven't done yet this season.  The combination of Matches kicking off at 9 this/Saturday morning doesn't involve any team that would take over the pub I want to go to, and I can't say that for any day until at least April.  But then this opportunity of working ten hours again has to come up this fucking Saturday.  I could decide to work a full day, but I have decided not to.  One, I really was looking forward to watching soccer, and work like this won't change my mind.  Also, I have pulled ten hours several days over the past few weeks, and I was so stressed after leaving work last/Friday night that I am trying to take time for myself.  I'll watch soccer, then go into work for an abbreviated day.  And if that means passing up some money, so be it.  I'm making plenty this time period.

With all that said, this incident from this e-mail may blow up.  There is a non-zero change that I won't have a job by the time today/Saturday ends.  Just a head's-up.