RIP my shredder

I was tackling my last two boxes of what I thought were computer parts that I no longer wanted, like 85 power cords because you never know, right?? 

It turned out that one was another box of ancient financials.  Off to the shredder, which started making horrible noises.  I made it halfway through the box before it gave up the ghost.  But it sort of gave a halfhearted attempt at working, which gave my ignorant ass hope.  I decided to take it apart and see if clearing the latest internal jam would fix it.  A pile of screws, tiny balls of wadded paper, grease smudges all over, and a couple extra parts later, it was fairly apparent that it would no longer service me.  Optimistically, I reassembled it all (it was very interesting to see the inner workings), and it made the same exact halfhearted noise from before. 

Ah, well, thank you for your years of devotion in making my personal information difficult to read.  May you rest in peace.

war stories

My Pops had to run some errands today, which included moving a couple of coffee tables.  He could easily lift the weight, but they were too bulky to manage alone.  Probably he could've found someone to assist, because who wouldn't help an old man do that?  But it's definitely easier with a second set of hands.  He picked me up, and I texted my sister that we were going to do it (because she had arranged it from afar).  She texts back, "are they even ready?"

Ugh, apparently, we didn't have any confirmation.  Pop said, oh well let's take a ride. 

Spoiler alert, they were ready, after many family drama texts later.

With some Tetris puzzling, we managed to fit both into his car.  One had a glass top, and we didn't plan ahead with any padding or wrapping.  Therefore, he decided to take surface roads home.

Pop was feeling nostalgic, so we drove by my brother's old house.  Which we couldn't easily get to because of new construction.  After a couple detours, we made it, and I texted photos to my brother, who was texting me photos of his poor dog at the vet, after a fight with another of his dogs.

We stayed on surface roads for about twenty minutes, until Pop got sick of the traffic, then he lost patience, was all, fuck it, and we tried to get to the freeway.  Three detours later, and we made it.  Surprisingly, the glass top of the coffee table was fine when we got it to his place.  We carried them both upstairs and set them up. 

After that, I was starving, so we picked up some food to go and took it back to my place. 

Continuing in his nostalgic mood, he somehow got on the topic of when he first enlisted in 1948, during a time of peace after the second World War.  All until the Korean War started, and he was still enlisted.  He was quite chatty, and his stories were so interesting.  About two hours into it, I wished I had recorded him.  But I thought it might make him self-conscious.  Plus I was fighting a migraine from all of the day's activity, and I could barely hold my head up and listen to him, let alone mess with any technology. 

It was with much reluctance that I finally said goodnight to him and went to bed to nurse my migraine.

wishy washery

I bought my first major appliance all by myself!  

I had months of anxiety.  And one pre-visit for research purposes.  Today I handed over my credit card.  Delivery is next week.  Fingers crossed that it all works out. 

My dishwasher had been having issues for almost a year.  Einstein tried to repair it for me, but they make them overly complex with circuit boards and blah blah blah, so it was only a band-aid fix.   I definitely appreciated the effort though.  It bought me more time and brought me to a point in my life when my anxiety and stress have gone way down and I'm better able to cope.

A few days ago, it went completely belly up.  I had to wash the whole load by hand.  That was a good motivator to stop being lazy and scared.   I'm not even sure why this was so hard. 

I need to stop telling myself that I don't know how to do these things.  I'm smart.  I can figure out the basics, right?  I guess I'll find out next week if I managed to arrange it all correctly. And if I completely fucked it all up, then I chalk it up to an expensive lesson.

Walking myself through the worst outcome helps to lower my anxiety surprisingly.  Maybe I'll figure this Life thing out before my turn is up.

JOMO arigato, Mr. Roboto

For any non-millennials, JOMO is the joy of missing out.  It was created in response to FOMO, which is the fear of missing out.  Essentially, it's defined as being content with what you're doing right now and not worrying what else you could be doing.

In that light, I had a relaxing, perfect weekend doing practically nothing, except spending time with one of my favorite people in the world.  The heavens aligned to give me this weekend.  I had very little migraine interference.  The weather was fantastic, including a brilliantly bright full moon.  I was completely lazy, although I managed to walk on the beach a couple of times at dusk when it wasn't too hot.  And I got to see pelicans diving and fishing for their dinner.

11/10   Would repeat

life doesn't get easier -- we get stronger

Life needs to come with a rule-book.  Or at least cheat codes and hints. 

Am I making the right decision now?  What about this one?  If I feel sad after making it, does that negate the rightness?

On the positive side of life, guess who is making new friends?!!?!

Strong, welcoming, smart, women friends.  I'm so excited.   It's been a while since I've had a lot of friends to casually hangout with or spontaneously meet for lunch.  If their phone numbers are in my phone, and we text sometimes, that counts, right??