The Aerie
For the first time in a month I did not work over the weekend. Oh, I worked, but I didn't work on work-work, billing work. I just didn't have time.
Friday night we went bowling with our friend Terry and his two sons, and one son's charming and outgoing girlfriend. It was my delight to bowl a 134 on the second game (after not having bowled for a zillion years). This was using a nicked up house bowling ball, so it was quite an accomplishment for me.
At first I ran around in an annoying fashion trying to give my family members bowling tips. My spouse was challenged by the weight of the ball (you don't want to stand too close behind her) and my younger son has a remarkable delivery that involves a series of breakdance moves. My older boy got quite exasperated with my advice very quickly. So I stopped giving him any advice and he bowled a bunch of gutterballs, Now, I'm not one to indulge in schadenfreude, but he wins at everything. Halo, Fluxx, Elixir, all sorts of games, we play, he wins... so it was fun for his old man to thoroughly out-bowl him.
Not that I'd ever SAY that out loud... :-)
Saturday was spent cleaning house for Easter, since my wife was having her family over - well some of it. Only her parents, her sister's family, and her sister's father-in-law attended, but given the size of our house that was just fine. Anyway Saturday was spent cleaning, and then dyeing eggs. Afterwards I did my monthly business expenses and went through some financial and other documents related to my small company.
By the time that finished it was about 7:00 p.m., so I spent some time watching my copy of "Enchanted" that I picked up after work on Friday. The scene where Giselle leans out the window of the Manhattan apartment building in order to sing up the wildlife to help her clean house always makes me laugh.
The next morning was a nice relaxing combination of egg-hunting and breakfast, marred only by the destruction of my eyeglasses. The Boy was not well pleased when I snapped a photograph of him lying on the floor in his sleepwear, and wrestled the camera away from me quite vigorously. After the issue was resolved I realized that I had no glasses on. After a brief search (during which we discovered some lost eggs from last year) the glasses were found in the couch cushions - in two pieces. Somehow the left stem of my glasses had been torn completely off! I hadn't even realized they weren't on my face!
Easter went well, the smaller crowd of guests made the experience much more tolerable than some past family gatherings. After everyone left we watched the rest of 'Enchanted' that we had started the night before, then watched all the extras. After that break my wife and I washed the fine china (not leaving THAT to the teenagers!) and then it was time for bed...
This morning I phoned the Vision World near work, and got prompt service, including an eye exam. They had a cheap pair of plastic tortoiseshell frames that fit my existing lenses, which I can wear until my new glasses come in. They had a "any pair of frames for $59" sale, so I got a $250 set of frames for $59.
And, thinking ahead, I got a pair of twisty, flexible frames that can be wrapped around a stick and spring back into place. So next time The Boy decides to take on his old man in wrestling, all I have to worry about is having him pull my arms out of their sockets...
Gosh and begorah, 'tis St. Patty's Day, and I without a stitch o' th' green t'wear...
Greetings everyone, I'm back from a busy three or so weeks of soul-crushing depression interspersed with actual fun.
I'm happy to report that the Writing Retreat was a fabulous success. Tam arrived on Thursday night and slept on our couch since her brother was out of town. We stopped at Tobies on our way to the cabin, where both Tam and Mary agreed that their caramel rolls are way too big. Then we headed off into northern Wisconsin, finding the cabin without too much difficulty.
The difficulty was that the half-mile driveway was completely snowed-in!
Fortunately the neighbor's driveway was plowed, so we nervously parked in their lot and then trudged our stuff across to the cabin, leaving an apologetic note on the car window. The cabin was ridiculously cold, and we had to start everything up from scratch - the drained water pipes had to be refilled, the water heater started, the heat activated throughout the house.
It was cold until Sunday morning!
Then we had a marvelous time sitting around the fireplace, shivering, trying to write, hauling wood from the woodshed, etc. Saturday I went for a walk with my camera and I'll try to post the photos soon. Walking on the frozen lake, I discovered a mysterious set of regularly-spaced icy divots in the snow. Couldn't fathom what they might be. Later I discovered highly-traveled deer paths through the woods and, while following them, found similar divots in the snow between the trees. Only later when I looked at my pictures did I realize the divots were the same - deer beds! The divots were melted into the snow by the deer's body heat.
The following weekend I spent working, pursuant to my boss's request that I try to get in about 60 hours a week (seriously). Then this weekend the family went on a peace march through Minneapolis with a large number of people in our church. I was actually very proud that our blue baseball caps made up an appreciable portion of the fairly modest march. Probably about 3000 people in all.
Then yesterday I spent working again. I find working 60 hours a week to be terribly unproductive - I probably get about five extra hours work done in the twenty extra hours above 40. Still, since I was asked to work it, then I'm not going to apologize for my productivity - if my client wants to pay four times as much for my output as they might otherwise, well, okay. I sure need the money.
However I'm not entirely happy with this situation, so I've been entertaining other possibilities. One job which doesn't seem too likely is as a solution architect for the sales arm of a large firm. Nonetheless I've consented to the interviews in the interest of having some options should I choose to give up my 60-hour weeks.
So Friday I sat through 45 minutes of an hour-long interview, being grilled by some technical guy over the phone. I should have done better at the interview, but I was exhausted, so most of my answers were mumbles. Nonetheless I forged along until he got to the end and said "So, Tim, tell me why you want to leave Medtronic."
Well, my name isn't Tim, and I've never worked at Medtronic, so I told him so. Turns out he had been interviewing me thinking I was someone else. Even funnier, a friend of mine recognized the name, and said that "Tim" was strictly a technical guy - so I was probably being quizzed at a much more technical level than I should have been.
So maybe I won't get that job, but that's okay, hopefully something else will come along. Meanwhile my college homework has gone right out the window - in fact I need to contact my college advisors to let them know. But this overwork is very depressing, and I've found the last weeks of The Slog to be particularly difficult. So when I'm not doing something fun (and often when I am) I am enshrouded in a cloud of funk. It's depression, I know, and I know that just because I feel lousy doesn't mean that things ARE lousy - it just means that my brain chemistry is low on "happy" and so at best things get "tolerable."
I've got to figure out a way to manage all this nonsense - either just not work as much, or find a way to get some recreation or exercise on a regular basis. Meanwhile today is as gray and sleety as any other day of The Slog, but I've seen glimpses of Spring, and am holding out hope that with Spring all things will improve...