Captain, I am sensing emotions....
Jun. 26th, 2018 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogJust a sample from the past few days. I'm leaving out anger over the whole political situation, annoyance at various work things (I'll probably come back to one of them, where my opponent has run the gamut from petty to batshit-crazy and has even gotten into a Karaoke war with me;), and unbridled hate for the owners of my favorite baseball team.
Ah, I have one good-ish emotion to express about them, though:
Months ago, I ordered a ticket to a road trip to Toronto by Mets fans. It's on the evening of Independence Day, or, as it's known in Canada, "a week from Wednesday." The ticket order was before our Commander in Cheeto virtually declared war on our nearest and dearest neighbour, and I have my doubts about being allowed over thePeace Bridge Memorial To The Glorious American Victory Over Canada In The War Of 1812 Military Checkpoint, much less back in if ICE checks any of my blog or Facebook posts. The ticket came with an invitation to a pregame bar visit, a commemorative patch, and this Good Kind of Orange type of bling:
Yes, it's still a 2XL shirt, but I might have gone down a size since that was essential. I've gone most of this month consistently at, and occasionally below, the magic two-fitty weight mark which has taken me years to get to. I attiribute this to aspects of the next two emotions:
* Sheer joy.
Have I mentioned recently we have a new dog?
The morning walkies are now an established part of her, and my, routine. I worried that this weekend might disrupt that because of rain forecast throughout, but it held off both Saturday for our trip round the 'hood, and Sunday for our morning visit to the Parp! Here she is on the former, conducting one of her regular inspections of trees for killer squirrels:
Eleanor and I spent most of the rain-free portion of Saturday working on the patio extension. She builds; I break. The breakage is of almost 60-year-old mortar still hanging onto hundreds of bricks moved last summer from our front yard to the back patio. Some come off with a single swing of a hammer into a chisel; others take outright surgery. Pepper hangs out while we work and mostly looks cute.
Sunday got much rainier after parktime, so we did our work inside, cleaning various things. It was still pretty exhausting, and by early afternoon, all three furry life forms decided to lie down with me for I think the first time:
That's a Pepperpaw on the far right. Everybody left everybody else alone in peace- including me, for a change;)
* Mortal embarrassment.
It can't all be good, but this was about as bad as it got (other than the politics, some work shit, and one horrid dream about being stuck with an annoying former client on a bus going to Utica)....
This week is my third anniversary of doing (more or less) twice-a-week training at a HIIT joint near us. It's a franchised business, but this location is owned by "corporate," so it's about as "corporate" as you'd expect. At least a couple of the trainers have spontaneouslycombusted disappeared in recent months, one under less than kind circumstances (at least to hear him tell it). That led to me being a combination of shocked, disappointed and just plain sads when I checked the schedule for last week, this week, and well into next month and didn't see my first and still-close-to-favorite instructor on it anywhere. Her name wasn't even listed in a place where they say that X is subbing for the absent Y. She was just Gone Girl.
Three years ago this Saturday, I did my first-ever trial class with her, and she's always been patient, helpful and fun leading the group. (Groups, usually; most classes are split in half between different sets of equipment and the trainer needs to keep both halves going on a separate but equally timed schedule for half the allotted hourish time.) I knew, from assorted scuttlebutt, that she also ranspinning indoor cycling classes- and that she'd moved them from a chain gym to a newer, smaller specialty place up the street. This one looks just as corporate as the one I've belonged to- even using the same booking software and many of the same metrics- but it's a solo outlet at least for now.
Last week, after finding out of the sudden unannounced departure (which nobody was talking about), I toodled on up to the bike joint, signed up for a trial class with the same instructor, and even left her a heartfelt card thanking her for keeping me real all these years and hoping we could stay in touch....
and then yesterday, when I showed up at the old place, there she was. She'd just scheduled some time off to get all her certifications, for both training and her "day job" in the medical field, out of the way at once. I appreciate this, because I do better with my 24 biennial hours of continuing ed when I focus on getting them done.
Still, I was signed up for the bike deal this morning, so I stuck with the appointment and spent 50 nonstop minutes on a spinning bike today. Ouch. I expected the butthurt, but it's the wear on the elbows that surprised me the most- from the roughly half the class you spent "out of the saddle" riding with your butt in the air and your arms on the handlebars. I actually do better in the other setting in terms of heart rate and calories, at least if you believe what the monitors tell you, so it won't be a move I'll be making, but it was fine mixing things up a little.... in both senses of the term.
Oh, and she loved the card- even though the "I'll miss you" part had been rendered inoperative.
* Sweet relief.
I worked from home yesterday morning, trying these days to do more of that so Pepper gets to spend more time with one or both of her new humans. She's quite good when we crate her, but I'd rather not push the point. My big project was going after probably my biggest active collection account, against a doctor who didn't pay for oncology supplies. We got a judgment against him a couple of weeks ago, and I spent most of the morning drafting blinding-black-type notices to various banks and insurance companies to tie up his cash flow until the bill got paid. All of it turned out to be for mostly nought, though, because when I finally got into the office, there was a check, from him, for almost the entire amount of the judgment.
Man did this help. June is a rough month; clients are starting to get summer on their minds, so incoming payments from and outgoing bills to clients both go down, but the incoming home and office bills are still there the same as ever- plus with a big whammy of over $2,500 in quarterly and one big annual insurance bill all hitting with June due dates. Thanks to these fees coming in, most of the rest of that nut will be out the door by the end of this week, and the only remaining insurance payment is on schedule to get paid within time limits in July. It also helped me avoid a major pissing contest with the people who run my part-time gig in Rochester, who totally screwed up payments I received last week and which will delay about a grand of payroll to me by two weeks. I can deal with that now.
* Great fortune of the non-monetary kind.
I have no such issues with the people in my office here- but I did get an email yesterday which disrupted things a bit. For about two years, I sublet my current office from the attorney who was then on the lease, who had moved out of state. When the lease ran out, I went on the new one directly, but she still gets mail there, has clients bring things, and she left all of her office furniture for me to use until she ever needed it. Well, she now needs the desk chair my butt has been sitting in for most workdays since mid-2015. She's about 10 years younger than me, but is starting to have back issues, and the chair has apparently got good ergonomics to it. Her son, who goes to UB, is driving to their house this weekend, so she asked if he could come pick it up.
It cost me nothing, so I could hardly refuse- but I knew it would mean engaging in the dreaded event: shopping for a new one. After the class this morning, I headed down to the local office supply place and figured I'd be wrestling with instruction pages and Allen wrenches for the better part of the day. No such luck: rather, much better luck. For there, literally outside the storefront entrance, was an office chair on offer at a clearance price- already assembled, and almost matching those that two other lawyers in the office have at their desks.
Win.
Even better, while I knew the assembled chair wasn't going to fit in the back of my little car, I still had two bungee cords back there from when I hauled our lawnmower down the street last week for the little act of kindness I pulled off.
Here it came:
And, 20 minutes down Main Street later, there it went:
(It's bigger than the previous one, so I may need to do some reorganizing of the rest of the furns, but for now it gives me, as George Carlin once said, A Place For My Stuff.)
----
That about runs the gamut for now. Live long and prosper. I feel like we are:)
Ah, I have one good-ish emotion to express about them, though:
* Antici- SAY IT! - pation....
Months ago, I ordered a ticket to a road trip to Toronto by Mets fans. It's on the evening of Independence Day, or, as it's known in Canada, "a week from Wednesday." The ticket order was before our Commander in Cheeto virtually declared war on our nearest and dearest neighbour, and I have my doubts about being allowed over the
Yes, it's still a 2XL shirt, but I might have gone down a size since that was essential. I've gone most of this month consistently at, and occasionally below, the magic two-fitty weight mark which has taken me years to get to. I attiribute this to aspects of the next two emotions:
* Sheer joy.
Have I mentioned recently we have a new dog?
The morning walkies are now an established part of her, and my, routine. I worried that this weekend might disrupt that because of rain forecast throughout, but it held off both Saturday for our trip round the 'hood, and Sunday for our morning visit to the Parp! Here she is on the former, conducting one of her regular inspections of trees for killer squirrels:
Eleanor and I spent most of the rain-free portion of Saturday working on the patio extension. She builds; I break. The breakage is of almost 60-year-old mortar still hanging onto hundreds of bricks moved last summer from our front yard to the back patio. Some come off with a single swing of a hammer into a chisel; others take outright surgery. Pepper hangs out while we work and mostly looks cute.
Sunday got much rainier after parktime, so we did our work inside, cleaning various things. It was still pretty exhausting, and by early afternoon, all three furry life forms decided to lie down with me for I think the first time:
That's a Pepperpaw on the far right. Everybody left everybody else alone in peace- including me, for a change;)
* Mortal embarrassment.
It can't all be good, but this was about as bad as it got (other than the politics, some work shit, and one horrid dream about being stuck with an annoying former client on a bus going to Utica)....
This week is my third anniversary of doing (more or less) twice-a-week training at a HIIT joint near us. It's a franchised business, but this location is owned by "corporate," so it's about as "corporate" as you'd expect. At least a couple of the trainers have spontaneously
Three years ago this Saturday, I did my first-ever trial class with her, and she's always been patient, helpful and fun leading the group. (Groups, usually; most classes are split in half between different sets of equipment and the trainer needs to keep both halves going on a separate but equally timed schedule for half the allotted hourish time.) I knew, from assorted scuttlebutt, that she also ran
Last week, after finding out of the sudden unannounced departure (which nobody was talking about), I toodled on up to the bike joint, signed up for a trial class with the same instructor, and even left her a heartfelt card thanking her for keeping me real all these years and hoping we could stay in touch....
and then yesterday, when I showed up at the old place, there she was. She'd just scheduled some time off to get all her certifications, for both training and her "day job" in the medical field, out of the way at once. I appreciate this, because I do better with my 24 biennial hours of continuing ed when I focus on getting them done.
Still, I was signed up for the bike deal this morning, so I stuck with the appointment and spent 50 nonstop minutes on a spinning bike today. Ouch. I expected the butthurt, but it's the wear on the elbows that surprised me the most- from the roughly half the class you spent "out of the saddle" riding with your butt in the air and your arms on the handlebars. I actually do better in the other setting in terms of heart rate and calories, at least if you believe what the monitors tell you, so it won't be a move I'll be making, but it was fine mixing things up a little.... in both senses of the term.
Oh, and she loved the card- even though the "I'll miss you" part had been rendered inoperative.
* Sweet relief.
I worked from home yesterday morning, trying these days to do more of that so Pepper gets to spend more time with one or both of her new humans. She's quite good when we crate her, but I'd rather not push the point. My big project was going after probably my biggest active collection account, against a doctor who didn't pay for oncology supplies. We got a judgment against him a couple of weeks ago, and I spent most of the morning drafting blinding-black-type notices to various banks and insurance companies to tie up his cash flow until the bill got paid. All of it turned out to be for mostly nought, though, because when I finally got into the office, there was a check, from him, for almost the entire amount of the judgment.
Man did this help. June is a rough month; clients are starting to get summer on their minds, so incoming payments from and outgoing bills to clients both go down, but the incoming home and office bills are still there the same as ever- plus with a big whammy of over $2,500 in quarterly and one big annual insurance bill all hitting with June due dates. Thanks to these fees coming in, most of the rest of that nut will be out the door by the end of this week, and the only remaining insurance payment is on schedule to get paid within time limits in July. It also helped me avoid a major pissing contest with the people who run my part-time gig in Rochester, who totally screwed up payments I received last week and which will delay about a grand of payroll to me by two weeks. I can deal with that now.
* Great fortune of the non-monetary kind.
I have no such issues with the people in my office here- but I did get an email yesterday which disrupted things a bit. For about two years, I sublet my current office from the attorney who was then on the lease, who had moved out of state. When the lease ran out, I went on the new one directly, but she still gets mail there, has clients bring things, and she left all of her office furniture for me to use until she ever needed it. Well, she now needs the desk chair my butt has been sitting in for most workdays since mid-2015. She's about 10 years younger than me, but is starting to have back issues, and the chair has apparently got good ergonomics to it. Her son, who goes to UB, is driving to their house this weekend, so she asked if he could come pick it up.
It cost me nothing, so I could hardly refuse- but I knew it would mean engaging in the dreaded event: shopping for a new one. After the class this morning, I headed down to the local office supply place and figured I'd be wrestling with instruction pages and Allen wrenches for the better part of the day. No such luck: rather, much better luck. For there, literally outside the storefront entrance, was an office chair on offer at a clearance price- already assembled, and almost matching those that two other lawyers in the office have at their desks.
Win.
Even better, while I knew the assembled chair wasn't going to fit in the back of my little car, I still had two bungee cords back there from when I hauled our lawnmower down the street last week for the little act of kindness I pulled off.
Here it came:
And, 20 minutes down Main Street later, there it went:
(It's bigger than the previous one, so I may need to do some reorganizing of the rest of the furns, but for now it gives me, as George Carlin once said, A Place For My Stuff.)
----
That about runs the gamut for now. Live long and prosper. I feel like we are:)