The Not Happy Thread

Got up early to do some "serious" writing but found only a blank screen that stayed that way, pulled up an old novel draft to see how it seems, found it sophomoric and tedious, recalled Dr. Samuel Johnson's observation that "Only a fool writes for anything other than money," and realized I'm unlikely to make any money with this drivel, so all in all it's been a tedious and depressing morning.

 

Dr. Samuel Johnson sounds like a right fucking killjoy.

 

Burned my cashews while making dinner tonight, and for a while it didn't smell that bad, but it's been steeping and now the house smells a bit funky.

 

I dreamed a dream I didn't like to dream, woke up and felt shocked. I went to sleep again, I was in between dreaming and somewhat-awake, so I was seeing a dream and try to come up with stories inspired by it, but all of my ideas seemed outright boring, like I couldn't think of anything new (from what I had thought before) or interesting. I felt like giving up writing. It was horrible

 

I hurt. I got up to hit the snooze bar on the alarm clock this morning, tripped over a dog, and fell face first into a little step thing we got so the older dogs would have an easier time getting on the bed. I bloodied my nose, busted my upper lip, and somehow there’s a small gash on my gums right above my front teeth.

It was dark, so I don’t even know which dog I tripped over, I tried to step over, and the dog jumped up.

I guess the up side is I didn’t break my glasses, didn’t break my nose, or knock out any teeth. But what the hell was the dog doing on the floor? We let them on the bed; it helps keep the heating bills down in the winter.

 

My neighbor died tonight. He was from Pittsburgh; he always pronounced bush boosh. I feel terrible for his wife and his little yorkie. He was a great guy and I'm so sorry to see him go. I don't know what got him; he wasn't too old but he'd had a hip replacement and he wasn't necessarily in the best of health either. He was the salt of the earth though, he really was. He'd been a professor of turf at the university here. I think he went over to Scotland one time to see the golf courses, but he could have cared less about the golf. His wife said that when she married him she expected the most beautiful lawn, but I guess in the house of the cobbler the children go without shoes. His lawn was pretty average. She always laughed when she told me that. They'd had some sorrow too--their son was shot a number of years ago. I don't mean to give you his life's story but it's a little hard to believe.

 

Life is a fragile thing isn’t it? You don’t know if you’ve just seen someone for the last time before they pass.

Just heard that a fellow coworker, a driller named Kaleb Hamilton, was murdered by his deranged fiancé, shot multiple times last weekend.

 

I got in to work this morning, and the snow removal people hadn’t been to clear the parking lot. Right off I set about clearing the four spots in front of my store, the one handicapped spot for our end of the building, and the sidewalk. Now there’s a daycare center next to our stripmall, not part of it, but next to it. They don’t have much parking over there, so I never begrudged them some overflow, it’s pretty cramped quarters in their lot, which hadn’t been cleared either. Drop off and pick up only run about 20-30 minutes anyway. So when they came over demanding I shovel out more spots for their clients, someone was told to eat shit, choke, and die. Their people don’t belong over here in the first place. I did all that shoveling for my customers, not theirs.

 

Not gonna lie, I'm starting to lose hope. Hope that we're ever going to be rid of COVID. I've been wearing a mask for a year now at work, the only one at work to do so and trying not to feel like a freak of nature doing it. I haven't been to Waffle House in a year. I haven't been to Starbucks in a year.

I'm not a man that is ready to give up. Indeed, I'm the exact opposite. I only give up long after everyone else had, but there's only so long I can keep at this. How much longer? How much?!

I can't keep going. I can't. At some point, I just need to quit. I can't keep doing this forever. And judging by how America is handling this...

...My country is never getting rid of this, is it?

 

The world is probably not going to get rid of it, from what I can tell. It seems likely that we'll have covid season and annual vaccines and all that. But there's nothing stopping you from going to Starbucks or Waffle House, is there? I'll bet Alabama's restrictions aren't too tough.

 

Well, no, it isn't, but my family would rather like it if I didn't go. Simply because I live with them, and some of them are of advanced age.

 

You could make your own waffles.

 

A waffle delivery, perchance!?

 

...

...

...

I don't know whether to say you're a genius, or say that I'm so goddamn stupid.

Not even being sarcastic. I'm stunned by my own stupidity.

 

Don't sweat it. The ongoing low-grade stress of coping with the pandemic is taking up a lot of processor cycles in everyone's brain leading us to sometimes miss the really obvious. I've had days when I was really too tired and unfocused to work and it didn't occur to me to grab one of the Red Bulls (I don't like coffee) that I bought specifically to caffeinate myself into functionality in the morning. Brain too fried to hit its own reset button or whatever.

If you do get a waffle maker, just remember you don't need as much batter per waffle as you think you do. Read the directions.

Trust me, I learned the hard way. Or there's always Eggo

 

Eggos taste better anyway.

 

Our sand filter in our waste water treatment plant at home developed a serious leak because when they backfilled after installation, a rock ended up wedged between the container and the backfill dirt. As it's compacted down, the rock has been forced like a ram through the container wall and its internal bladder.

The best quote came in at $1k. Shocked, I asked, "Why so expensive when I can get exactly the same thing from a swimming pool supply shop for $200?"

"Because you need to replace like for like and the ones from the swimming pool suppliers aren't officially approved by the Council."

"But it's exactly the same: same make, same model, everything. "

"Ah yes, but you see this embossed plate in the side of the broken unit? Well the new unit needs one of those to be legit."

"So I'm paying $800 extra for an embossed plate?"

"Weell if you put it like like, pretty much..."

The issue is Council have already been notified by the technician about the failure after he came out to investigate the leak, so I can't just rip off the plate and stick it to the new container because the serial numbers will be identical. I wish I'd known earlier what a PITA this red tape would be and I'd have sorted it out myself in one afternoon for a whole lot less $$$!

 

Contractors notify regulatory bodies about these sorts of things all the time to preserve their income stream. Once it's been reported you have to go through them, no doing it on the cheap by yourself. Odds are those serial numbered plates were lobbied for by the pipefitter's union.

 

First snow, now ice? What is going on in Central Texas these days? On Monday, the low is predicted to be zero. ZERO. Bear in mind, that is at least 30 degrees lower than the normal low temperature for this location. THIRTY DEGREES LOWER. What the heck. Spent a good 20 min chipping my car out of the ice it was encased in so I could get to work this morning. 2 hours north of here, there was a 133-car pileup on the highway that left 5 dead. What the heck, Texas?
A couple shots from my yard yesterday:

Spoiler: Big pics behind this link

 

Update: the owner of the daycare center next door stopped by the shop this morning, and ‘suggested’ I apologize to her staff for my language and behavior yesterday. She even threatened to call the police about the incident. Where do people like this come from? I pointed out it wasn’t my responsibility or my problem to provide parking for her customers. If she’s so worried about it, she can have her staff clear out her parking lot. Supposedly, she’s going to call the owners and have a talk about my attitude.

 

some one recorded a lot of it. I couldnt watch the whole thing... it was so horrible!
it looked like they were going full speed into the next car and you could hear the cars crunching. Me living in the Midwest where we have blizzards like every week, said "why arent they stopping!?"
my husband said "they cant. its all ice. they arent used to it"

i shut off the video and Facebook once the huge 18 wheeler crunched into the minivan and pickup truck at full speed.