May Be A Super-Busy Weekend

I expect to work both the Gophers and the Vikings Games over the weekend-ish.  (Did both teams raise a concern that both football teams in town seem to be playing home Games over the same weekend?)  I say "-ish" because the gigs, if they come through, are going to seep around the weekend, too.

The Gophers play early Saturday morning.  I've been asked if I'm free, to which I said yes.  However, I also said yes to working the day before, the set day.  I haven't been confirmed for either day, but if I work one, obviously it'll be Saturday.  But I can work both.  Heck, I'm free Friday; originally I had the day off from it because I planned on my doctor's appointment then, but I'll cancel it if I'm asked to work.  Hopefully they'll get back to me on time.

The Vikings don't play Sunday.  They play Monday, and I have been asked to work it.  I haven't really gotten this job yet either.  I asked when I had to report on Monday, and he hasn't gotten back to me.  I hope the reason he hasn't is because he doesn't work weekends.  Anyway, I said I was also available Sunday; haven't heard back from that yet.

So it's possible I'm working gigs from Friday through Monday.  That will make me a very busy, tired (especially since I'm working my job too) and kind-of rich (?) boy at the end of it all.

Work was light enough today -- and actually the entire week -- that I was able to move up my appointment to finally get my COVID shot at my clinic's pharmacy.  Came home, replenished the new tree with about a dozen gallons of water, then I made myself a sandwich with the very last slice of turkey, ham and chicken, and now I am watching college hockey (two Games actually, but I'm concentrating on the Minnesota/Penn St. Game on Channel 9-2 because the analyst for the St. Cloud St/Arizona St. Game on Channel 23-1 is being annoying) on free TV.

This is bliss.  And I was about to post something about my parents, but I don't think I want to jinx myself by publishing my true thoughts.

Addendum To: Gas Follies

Oh yeah, so I made it to the gas station before work.  Car got there, no problem, no stalling or anything.  I gas up ... and it stopped at 8.4 gallons.  My tank (supposedly) holds 10.6.  You're telling me that I lose all 20 bars and that low gas indicator light goes on when I have 2.2 gallons of gasoline left in my tank??  I could've gone to work, came from work to home, gotten dinner (which I did last/Monday night), then gone to the gas station, and I probably would've been fine.  My fears were unfounded because apparently, my car dashboard is a lie.

Dammit, I knew I freaked myself out.  And because there was so much traffic backed up where I wanted to go, and I didn't want to wait in traffic, I took the side streets and thus was late for work.  And now I figure that I probably didn't have to be late because I probably didn't have to stop for gas in the morning.  So stupid.

Addendum To: Missing: My Hawaiian Shirt

Update: Found it!  It was hidden underneath the pile of clothes next to me in my bedroom.  Knew I would find it!

So now I hope I've woken up early enough to get gasoline, buy lottery tickets, and get to work on time.  Wish me luck!

One Downside To The Fall: Being Late For Work

The leaves are starting to turn around town, and it's gorgeous, obviously.  All the yellows, browns and reds dot the landscape wherever I walk or drive.  Add that yesterday/Tuesday was almost totally a cloudy day and was just above 60, and that is how I want to the weather to be every day for the rest of my days.

I subscribe to Racket, the online Twin Cities alternative created by four writers formerly of City Pages.  A couple weeks ago, as part of their "Friday Open Thread" prompt, they asked readers to rank the seasons.  I think it's unanimous that we all said autumn's #1.  It dawned on me, though, that whenever I've seen a rank of seasons (and I think I've seen more than one would estimate), that rank is published around the fall, meaning that the beautiful colors prompt a ranking of the seasons.  I'm fairly certain of that "coincidence."

For all the pros of the fall, I have noticed an annual drawback -- almost without fail, traffic going to work is so bad compared to the summer that I am routinely late for work.  We lay back in the summertime, but once we get past Labor Day it feels as though the entire state starts to get serious again, so everybody's going to work, and at the same time.  Add to it that the Sun is casting its oppressive rays on east-bound traffic around the time I go to work, and it's a massive challenge to get to work on-time.  I have been tardy a few times the past couple weeks and flat-out late a couple times in that same period.  That includes yesterday/Tuesday morning.  It doesn't help that the cold weather disincentivizes me to bolt out of bed and begin getting dressed.  But yesterday there was a huge car crash that happened right in front of me.  The two-lane I was on is busy that time of day, of course, so it took me several minutes before I found a gap in the traffic so I could get around what I found out was a three-car accident.

This should prompt an adjustment to me getting out of the house.  But like I said, it feels so much better to stay in bed.  Yep, the turndown in temperature is conducive to staying in my pajamas and underneath my sheets.  So, not only does that make it harder for me to get to work on-time, it makes me more likely not to care that I'm not at work on-time.

Should go to bed now.  Maybe getting more sleep will get me up early in the morn.

Changing My Whole Day So Some Dude Could Climb On My House

OK, so this blog post is so sprawling I might not be able to gather all my thoughts, so this could go several places.  I just hope to remember what happened when. ...

On Wednesday, after I helped Mother with getting insurance information, she told me that she had arranged for an inspector to look at the roof, siding and gutters ... the next day.  She asked me to unlock the side door (but put the recycling bin behind it -- you know, to keep it "shut") so he and the second roofer we spoke to could inspect everything.  Mother knew I was working then, but thought nothing of having some fucking stranger climb on top of and meander behind our property without me or her or Father being there to see him.  And she said all this shit would happen the next afternoon.

This pissed me off to no end.  But there are two dimensions to my pissed-off-ness.  There is, of course, the idea that I, or she, would let anyone look at our house, our home, our sacred castle, without us there.  What I have just realized, however, that I am a bit more upset that, once again, she has sprung one of her hare-brained ideas on me without telling me, without giving me any time to process it, and without having my say as to whether it's a good idea or not -- again.  She once again just went through on her fucking bullshit flights of fancy, and she just goddamn assumed I'd be OK with it.  I don't care that she felt like I didn't have to do anything more than unlock a door.  If someone sees that door open, I have to deal with that fucker breaking into the house, not her.  But she didn't give a flying shit.

Having to catch this hot potato of news, I (once again) wasn't as clever on my feet as I should have been.  I told her that this was a bad idea, having some guy crawl around the home without me there, and once again, fuckin' A, My Fucking Mother retreated back into defensive mode.  "What do you want to do then?" she asked, without realizing for one goddamn second that this was all my parents' idea.  "I am the one who has to come up with ideas!"  Ideas for what?  Who said that the roof and siding and gutters needed repairing??  She acts like something hard and unavoidable has fallen into her lap when she's the one telling me what the fuck's going on ... and telling me poorly, by the way.

---

Going to bed (well, after going to this volunteer event and then getting an HJ by ******a -- man, did I need that!), I thought I had no choice but to do what she says.  I swore that I had told Mother that I had Friday off, and that was the perfect time for them to come over.  I didn't think when she dropped this fuckin' bomb on me to remind her in case she forgot -- thank Buddha for ******a; she thought saying that to her would be a way to draw boundaries that obviously aren't there right now -- but I figured it was too late.  But I live in this house, and right now, I am the only person who lives in this house.  It does not sit right with me to unlock a door that is always secured when I leave so some stranger can come look, even if everyone else says it's OK, because it's not OK with me.  It doesn't matter that I live in a good neighborhood; I should not and will not leave my house unlocked.

So I woke up and decided that I would ask/tell my boss I have to take an extended lunch break to go home and oversee whatever it is this inspector wants to look at.  I didn't want to do that to my boss, but My Fucking Mother left me with no goddamn choice.  And even though I'm sure My Fucking Mother told the roofer that the side door was not going to be locked, I texted her in the morning that it would be locked and that I would come home to unlock it.  Once again, I have to make room for My Fucking Mother's whims and demands, but now I had some control in how it was going to happen.

---

Or so I thought.  I went home earlier than planned in case the inspector got there early.  And by God, he was there earlier than me.  I went home to see some dude on top of the house with a ladder.  I took umbrage at that, so I parked my car, looked up at him and said, "Who are you?"  He was the inspector, of course, and he was there to look at the roof.  And I think I said some other things that conveyed how upset I was that he was on my house when I wasn't there.

I saw the roofer talking on the phone next to her car parked a ways from in front of my house.  She was talking a mile a minute about our homeowner's policy, but I didn't care about that.  I cared about why in the hell this guy was lording over my house when I told her that I was coming over to oversee everything.  She told me that she just got there and that the inspector was parked.  She said that the inspector thought that he could start his inspection as soon as she (the roofer) got there because he was told that the only person supervising the property would be her.  So, once she got on site, he thought he was good to go, locked side door be damned.  Maybe she should have told him to wait until I got there, but My Fucking Mother apparently got into the middle of this arrangement too and ... ah, fuck it, I don't know what else was said.  There was no need for me to continue to be angry at some guy who didn't seem to deserve it.  He even said that he thought he got the go-ahead as soon as the roofer drove up.  Also, he says that he climbs on roofs all the time without the homeowner or anyone living the house there.  Is that true?  That sounds reckless to me.  Whatever; I opened the side door once I got there, and I saw him, well, inspect and leave.

---

So he's supposed to whip up a report that he's going to give to the insurance company since we (well, Mother) made a claim.  The insurance company will give it to us and, if we want to go ahead with repairs, we can send that report to the roofer.  However, the roofer is now pooh-poohing our chances of justifying any repairs or replacement.  She understands our policy better than we do, and it looks like our deductible is too high and that we don't have enough of the components (?) that would induce the insurance company to pay for most of any repairs.  My Fucking Mother asked me later Thursday evening what to do.  Once again, she's throwing on my lap some lame-brained fantasy she cooked up in her own goddamn head.  I don't know.  Maybe as the person who technically owns the home, maybe I should know.  But right now, I'm still too pissed at my narcissist mommy to set my anger aside and make the most out of her scheme.

But back to my original point.  No harm, no foul on leaving work for more than half an hour; there was such light work that, even if I had a normal half-hour break, there wouldn't have been enough work for me to stay eight hours.  Still, all of this would have gone much smoother if the inspector came Friday.  I was home and the person winterizing the sprinkler system would've been there, too.  Kill two birds with one stone, and I wouldn't have had to impose upon my boss to see through some bullshit idea by My Fucking Mother.  God, she sucks.

The woman who looked at the house Monday texted me at work yesterday saying the claim with the insurance company has been filed.

What does this mean?  I don't know all the ins and outs.  But Mother said, when I spoke to her also on Monday, that if they can get reconstruction on the house going, they'll be flying home to oversee it, probably next month.

Well, on the one hand it sucks that they're not going to just stay away from Minnesota for a whole year even though it's now the coldest time of the year (or at least it should be -- damn you, El Nino).  On the other hand, I don't have time to oversee people re-do the house's roof, siding and gutters.  Plus, this is my parents' idea.  If they want this done, they can come home and watch the house.  In the meantime I need to work ... and then at night go to concerts ... or sporting events (like I did last night -- USMNT beat the Canadians, 1-0!) ... or plays ... or do nothing.

Glad I got that off my chest.

Booty Call Answered

Well, ******a couldn't make it -- crossed wires; she could have stayed in the area, but I didn't know how long I was going to be at work, I realized I could come home at a decent hour and even have the roofer inspect the house, but she was out in the western part of the area -- but I just got money and I wanted to get wanked, so I lit up a solar flare to both *****y first, then ******e.

They both got back to me late.  ******e texted saying she was taking a nap.  That was after *****y got back to me saying she turned her phone off because she was seeing the movie Verity.  I was going to go exercise, but *****y, after checking, made it work, and even though it took a little while for me, she, uh, got me off.  She looked sexy tonight -- tight black dress that hugs her curves and BBL, ponytail, and glasses she kept one while wanking me!

Glad I stayed home!

When Will This Mailing Tabs Saga End??

So before work yesterday/Monday morning I go back downtown to the post office, which was where I mailed my parents' tabs.  It was supposed to be in their hands Friday evening, but according to the website, the last known location was St. Paul Thursday evening.  I was hoping that the postal worker could bring up more information beyond what I found punching in the tracking number onto a website, but it doesn't look like he did/could.

It was the right thing to do, going to the post office, but I would be lying if I wasn't badgered into doing it by Mother.  When she recommended going in the morning, she wanted me to call her.  It was around 5:30 a.m. her time, but, well, my parents are fucking crazy like that, waking up in the morning.  She was her usual panicky, overbearing self when I broke the news that there was no new news.  So she wanted to go to Plan B.  We get two tabs when we renew, but in Nevada you need only one license plate, so you need only tab.  Mother told me to send her only one tab for situations just like this, where the other gets lost in the mail.  That happened, so now she wanted me to send the other one -- but to Federal Express, not USPS.  Logical.

She wanted me to do this as soon as possible.  I thought to hell with that, and I told her I would go as soon as my workday was done, and no sooner.  I even turned off my phone from time to time at work because I didn't want her bothering me.  To be fair, she didn't call, and it just so happened that I got out of work at a decent time, so I went home to grab the tab, then go to FedEx.  (This is where I confess that I lied to Mother; when she asked me if I brought the tab I have to the Post Office, like she said she told me to do [and she did], I said yes when I knew I left it at home.  So glad I had time to go home, then go to Federal Express.)  Unfortunately, the cutoff time for packages to be sent overnight was five minutes after I got there.  However, I was directed to another FedEx place south of this location which has a later cutoff.  I went home, changed vehicles (I drove the minivan to the first Federal Express), kept my tab on me, and drove.

I made the mistake of calling Mother, which she wanted me to do when I was calling her from the first FedEx), when I was at this second FedEx.  She was telling me to do things with the tab that were obvious.  She was talking my ear off because she's anxious/upset she hasn't gotten the first tab I sent her.  So when I got to the front of the line, I hung up on her.

So for about $40 Federal Express says they will send it overnight, and it'll be in my parents' hands by 5 p.m. this/Tuesday evening.  Hope so.  Anyway, this fuck-up once again brings out the bitchiest in My Fucking Mother, which I abhor.  Saying that, none of this would have happened if the USPS just overnighted my package to my parents like they promised they would, and like I paid for.

I've lodged complaints.  Someone apparently from a post office in Las Vegas left me a message in response.  I'll hopefully hear from this person tomorrow, because I want this goddamn saga to end now.

And That Busy Week Has Gotten A Bit More Complicated

How?  First of all, I didn't think I would be so swamped with goddamn work in The Fourth Department like I did.  Don't know why or how -- and I never do -- but there was work waiting for me in the morning, then more came during the morning, and a little more in the afternoon, and I had to leave for Pizza Hut and Monday Night Football after ten hours.  I had to give myself a limit because not only was I determined to watch the football Game (which I was late for; I thought I put in the Pizza Hut order overnight, but apparently the order didn't go through, so I had to order it there and wait 15 minutes), but I was fucking pissed off at all the goddamn work that blindsided me that ten hours was my limit before I was going to go postal.  I did all the work I absolutely had to do.  But had I done all the work I usually do to wrap up my day, I might have been there another damn two hours.

So I know what I'll be working on once I get in this/Tuesday morning.  And this is why I always try to stay late to get any work done -- if I leave it till the morning, I might put myself behind the 8-ball if there is an avalanche of work that comes in the morning.  That could have a cascading effect whereby I would be leaving even more work.  I don't work tomorrow/Wednesday, so technically it won't be my problem, but it will be my co-worker's, and I can't speak for them, but I am usually pissed as hell if I had a shit ton of work that was left for me.  Saying that ... I am racking up the hours.  If this workload keeps up this week, I would be getting overtime pay ... but I'm not working tomorrow/Wednesday.  Which makes me think I should pull back my paid time off and work.  I have arranged to fuck ****e that afternoon, and I plan on seeing a movie after that, but I can reschedule those.  I don't know how big work is going to be, but I feel confident I'll be staying as late today/Tuesday as I did yesterday/Monday, so a little bit of OT for working all five days would be guaranteed, and I'm a slave to capitalism.

But then last/Tuesday night I got the word: My psychiatrist passed away.  His memorial service and funeral will be Friday afternoon.  Frankly, I don't know if a patient of a psychiatrist should attend his memorial and funeral.  It feels like an invasion of privacy, as if I'm crossing a boundary and infiltrating the sacred, vulnerable space of those closest to him.  Although I poured my heart out to him, I can't say we're friends, so I wonder if going is a bit exploitive.  On the other hand, this will be the last time I get to see him.  Also, his secretary was the one who texted me the news about his death and funeral arrangements, and I think that she wouldn't divulge the details if patients weren't invited.  Finally, it's relatively close to work, and I think I can take off half a day, and start my weekend early, to go to a funeral service, even though it looks like a total washout outside.

I really feel like this is important to go to.  But assuming I can attend the funeral service, that'll be, like, four hours of paid time off I will be giving up.  That's on top of the eight I'm using tomorrow/Wednesday.  That's a lot, and even though I need to make sure I use up enough by the end of the year to get below a threshold above which I would just be giving hours away, I don't want to use so much this year.  So if I work tomorrow/Wednesday instead, I would get myself closer to the 40-hour mark above which I will get time-and-a-half.  There's no chance to get OT pay if I take 1 1/2 days off, obviously.  So, maybe I should do it?  On the other hand, my therapist's death is a reminder that you have only so many days on this side of the dirt, so maybe I shouldn't sweat getting just below the maximum number of hours before the New Year and instead take off when I want and watch what I want and fuck who I want.

Nah.  I'll wait until I see how I feel at work today/Wednesday.  I am so wishy-washy.

Worried About When To Eat Pizza From Where

I'm taking the optimistic and lazy way of living through life right now and assuming my folks in fact will not come home.  And instead of doing chores, I've been looking at the Internet and thinking about when I should eat pizza, and from where.

This was all prompted when, at work yesterday/Friday, I was given this e-mail/coupon because it's my half-birthday.  It's at Green Mill, a chain of pizza restaurants I haven't been to in at least a decade.  I get a free order of garlic breadsticks if I buy some other food item.  Trick is I have to use it by the 22nd, or is it the 21st, can't tell.

Meanwhile I have a hankering for Pizza Hut.  Thought about eating from there for the season premiere of Monday Night Football this Monday.  I kind of need to, too; my points will expire if I don't buy from them after six months.  I just checked, and six months is next week.

Well, might as well have pizzas for the next two Mondays, since I can see MNF on ABC/Channel 5 for the next three Mondays.  So it's Pizza Hut this upcoming Monday, then Green Mill the following Monday.  And yes, this is how I spent a large part of tonight.

Teeth Things

Yesterday/Tuesday I went to the Fair.  Great time to go, especially since 1) work so non-existent I left an hour early and 2) the forecasters says it is going to be as dry and cool as it will get the rest of the Fair.  (I thought about going today/Wednesday, but, even though the air temperature today/Wednesday will be a few degrees lower than yesterday/Tuesday, the dewpoint today/Wednesday is higher, so that will make it feel hotter today/Wednesday than yesterday/Tuesday.  And I enjoyed myself (more than five hours!!) to the point of exhaustion (that's why I am blog posting now) and getting a stomach ache eating all that I could.  Too bad I started yesterday/Tuesday biting my tongue so hard while eating oatmeal before work that I could feel it my entire time at the Fair.  Shit, man, I feel it now.  Sucks to bite your tongue.

---

Just woke up.  Took my guard out.  It's been two days and already the pads that are supposed that keep my molars from touching and grinding each other are beat up and flattening.  But I also noticed that the right pad seems more worn out than the left.  That's not the case, not usually.  I use them to the point where I break through one of the pads; I replace it only when, like, almost half of the pad is torn through.  That's usually the left one, like I grind more on the left side of my mouth, for some reason.  But looking at the pads, it looks like I'm grinding more on the right.  Maybe something is changing?

Still No Rest For The Wicked

Should try and stay home one of these days, but the last time I did that was Monday.  It could have been tonight, but my friend just told me she's stopping home this weekend, so I think we've just made plans to go to the State Fair.  (I say "I think" because I'm not 100% sure if she meant tonight/Friday night or tomorrow/Saturday night.  I can't go tomorrow/Saturday night because I have that MNUFC Match ... but, honestly, if that's the only time I can see her, I'd skip that.)

I'm not going to say this has "ruined" my night in, because honestly, I have thought about going to the Alabama Shakes concert.  They're in town to perform tonight and tomorrow night.  I'm not the biggest fan of theirs, but they have a new album that technically has come out now/Friday, and I think it's cool to see a band who's in town to play a concert on the same day their new album drops.  On the other hand, Alabama Shakes is playing at Surly Brewing Festival Field.  I've been to their destination brewery, and they have ample parking right there, but all of that is taken up when a band is playing, so I don't know where to park or whether I have to take public transportation in.  On top of that, work has actually been non-punishing this week.  I actually got out of work only a little bit past eight hours yesterday/Thursday.  If that happens again today/Friday, I will have too much time to kill between work and the concert, and my laziness might coax me not to go.

But I am doing something, apparently, and that is hanging with my high school buddy and eating our brains out.  Hey, YOLO, right?  What's the other appropriate axiom here -- I can sleep when I'm dead?  Yeah, that too!

Addendum To: Addendum To: Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

There was such little work that, even though I came in early, I got done at 2.  Another sign that I should try and fix the sprinkler head!

The old and busted one worked, or "worked."  I just wanted to know if the head would stay screwed in, and it did.  (I also saw, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it's broken; the inside sprung out of its case so much that is began spurting water from behind, and not just from the small hole in the front.  That's the reason why there was such a flood around the part of the backyard it was in.)  So it wasn't the pipe but the sprinkler.  I breathed a sigh of relief that all I need to do was buy a new sprinkler head ... but I decided to try and put in the one that was in the hole, just one more time.  I made sure it was screwed in ... and it worked, perfectly.  Well, I have to adjust the arc again, but besides that, I am where I was Sunday afternoon before I yanked the whole damn thing out.  I don't know how it worked now.  Like I've said, I screwed it in before, I swear.  But it, well, works now.

I'll turn on the cycle Saturday afternoon at the duration I want it to run.  If there are no problems then (Lord willing), I have fixed yet another cycle of sprinkler heads!

Addendum To: Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

So since I got out of work on time (and I don't know the last time that happened when I was tasked to do The Fourth Department), I figured this was an opportunity to go back to working on the fucking sprinkler head.

The first time I turned on the cycle it was worse than Sunday.  Not only did the shitty head pop out from the pipe, one of the other heads didn't pop up and water.  I presumed that this sprinkler system relies on pressure, so that when this shitty head popped out of its socket, there wasn't enough pressure for this other one to rise up and do its thing.  But this shitty head popped out on Sunday, and that other head worked just fine.

Anyway, after putting a wood pallet into my second storage unit, I came back and took another shot.  I made damn sure the sprinkler head was screwed into the pipe opening.  I pulled it up to make sure it was secure.  I turned on the system ... and I'll be goddamned, the head was just floating in its hole because it popped out of the goddamn pipe opening again.  (By the way, the sprinkler head that wasn't working earlier in the evening popped up and watered like it was supposed to, so there's that.)

I'm beside myself right now.  Swear to fucking God that thing was screwed in tight.  So I'm working on another theory, though I might be doing so just because any alternative would drive me up a wall.  Maybe, when I yanked the whole fuckin' thing off of the pipe, I broke the sprinkler head.  I took a close look and it, well, looks like the thing isn't retracting completely.  And for all I know, the threads (either on the bottom of the sprinkler head or on the pipe opening) were stripped, either through me or through years of wear and tear.

So what I'm going to do (possibly tomorrow since I work and presumably get home early) is take the old and busted sprinkler head and replace it with the old and busted sprinkler head I replaced in the backyard.  Yes, it's not working, and yes, it's just been laying around the past several weeks.  But what I'm worried about right now is if the issue with that sprinkler head is the sprinkler head or the opening it's supposed to be secured to.  If it's the head, I can just buy another one, and many of my problems would be solved.  But if the fucking thing pops out again ... well, I might need to call in the lawn maintenance company.  There is a bunch of dirt in the opening, and try as I might, I couldn't completely clear out the pipe.  It's possible that dirt is creating such a build-up of pressure that it's going to turn any sprinkler head that's screwed onto it into a projectile missile.  And so if it needs to be cleaned out, that'll require equipment, expertise, and patience I don't have.

God, I just hope a new sprinkler head will do the trick.  Fuckin' Christ, man, if I had just waited for the cycle to end, I think I could've kept the old sprinkler head and the cycle would have been perfect because there would be no water splashing onto the driveway or street.  Fuck!

I Definitely Have Brain Rot

Woke up this morning to the sound of my sprinklers going.  Now, lately I've (or my body has) gotten into a pattern of going to sleep and waking early (at least when compared to when I usually go to bed).  But this/Sunday morning, man, I think I would've been able to sleep in ... if not for the damn sprinklers being my alarm clock.  I don't need an alarm clock this morning, especially since I did need one yesterday/Saturday because I was working.

The sprinklers were on because I turned on the sprinkler system yesterday/Saturday because I wanted them to water the lawns while I was off to work and not in the house.  I just forgot to shut the system off last night so it wouldn't wake me up.  And I forgot because I have brain rot.  I got home late from dinner after work last/Saturday night, and sure, I went off for some late night Taco Bell, too.  Oh, yeah, there was a lot of soccer I was watching, too.  (Hey, the Loons won -- whadathunkit!)  But I spent the vast majority of my evening doomscrolling.  Goddammit, man, my mind has atrophied not due to old age but because I'm on my fucking phone all the time, filling my brain up with short dopamine hits of what gets me off.  I think that if I wasn't so addicted to my phone, I would be way more attentive at doing things, like chores, or just remembering stuff, like turning off the water sprinkler system.  Shit, I have a bunch of things I should do now, and yet my cellphone is just waiting for me like a dealer in the alley.  And of course I'm going back to him -- definitely some time today, and possibly right after I blog post this.

I have a lot of stuff to do -- going through my stuff, the laundry, etc.  And I do want to fix the sprinklers; after I did a couple heads in one section of the front lawn last weekend (at least I think they're fixed), I want to try to fix the other heads in the front lawn.  But I wanted to do it on my own time ... well, my body's time, but my body was forced to wake up to the sound of the sprinklers out front, and I think because of that, I will be tired later on this evening when I want to go out.  May be overdramatizing, but maybe not.

Need to stop looking at screens and start looking at real life.

Filing For The First Time In A Long Time

Today/Friday and tomorrow/Saturday I am filing at work in place of someone vacationing.  I am nervous as all get-out because, even though I was trained on this years ago, it's been at least a year since I've filed.  I don't quite remember how to do things, so no, it's not like riding a bike.  It gets worse tomorrow/Saturday because I will be all by myself there.  If I don't know what to do, I am supposed to just leave it there for my co-worker to do it on Sunday.  Which might be what I have to do, but that sounds like I am not able to do my job.

Wish me luck.  Might have to fake it.

Waste The Day

I just wish I had the motivation right now to work on my stuff.  But other things get in the way.  Stuff like other chores.  For example, right after I got home (from a long day at work), I immediately (well, OK, I ate some nuts first) mowed the lawn, even though the weather has been so dry I was mowing over brown spots.  I thought I needed to mow if only because I hadn't done it in about a month.  I did that instead of, for example, going through my stuff.

I think I'm doing this because I think I have time.  I don't know if that's the case.  My parents may say they're coming home at a moment's notice.  It would be nice for me to have everything packed up and ready to go into storage, also at a moment's notice.  Shoot, at this point I would settle for immediately knowing which boxes I would put my stuff in, throw everything into those boxes, and then leave.  I would take that as a plan.  But I haven't gotten that far yet.  Instead, I'm mowing and eating and doomscrolling.

I work early tomorrow.  After work I want to get my hair cut because it's getting so long I have to wait an hour before it dries.  Maybe after I take a shower I can tackle my stuff.  Or, I'll take a nap.  I'll probably take a nap and waste yet another day that I could've used doing something productive.

I think I was able to fix the two sprinkler heads I wanted to work on this weekend so that they arc on my lawn and not our house or the neighbor's driveway.  (Unfortunately, there is still the possibility that wind could push the water from those sprinklers onto the driveway, like it did yesterday/Sunday afternoon.  I don't know if that can be helped.  What I needed to make sure was that those two sprinklers didn't arc beyond grass, and I think I accomplished that.)

But after getting a wood pallet from work home, I ... didn't do much of anything.  Sure, I've done some laundry, but that was yesterday/Sunday morning.  I still haven't really done anything with my stuff because I've been busy doing yardwork.  And I could, for example, work on my fantasy football draft, but now I'm too tired to do anything.

Damn, I feel like such a lazy failure.

I don't know if she likes me, but I know that she kind of pissed me off yesterday.  She asked me if she could help with work.  It was relatively easy back where we were, but there was a lot of data entry, so much so that I was going to help key.  I told her that there what was left was one basic thing that could be done but is usually done the next morning.  To which she replied, "That is low priority," as if I didn't know that, even though she knows darn well I do.  I'm just telling her how it was with me because, you know, she asked.

And then she left seemingly in a huff.  I am going to be confident enough to say that she was leaving me without much consideration.  Which usually happens, but I take note after her condescension.  Dammit -- her attitude just bugged the hell out of me yesterday.  What's up with her?