Sisyphean Laundry List
This weekend was yet another themed around this sense that there is just zero time to get anything done... ever. I don't know how people do it. We try (I think). We try to find balance between accomplishing tasks that need to be done and doing things we find some enjoyment in. Sometimes those items are one and the same.
My main goal this weekend was going to be to get the lawn cut. Friday that got nixed because it was raining. Saturday I could not get the lawn mower started. Now, the battery on this thing has been slowly dying since the day we got it. I guess the batteries for our particular riding mower (perhaps all riding mowers) lose their charge very quickly if the temps drop below like 70. It's a huge pain in the ass. But, as luck would have it, my sister actually gifted me something useful for Christmas once in the form of a plug-in battery charger/jumper thing. So I've been using that all summer. I hook it up the day or morning before and let the battery charge and the mower usually starts within a few cranks.
Well, that never happened Saturday. So I broke down and finally ran to the store to get a replacement battery. There was some minor stupidity on my part when the bolts didn't fit into the new battery pegs. It wasn't until the morning Sunday as I was laying in bed that it clicked in my mind to check the old battery to see if there were some square nuts under the peg things on that one, and sure enough, there were. So that problem was resolved.
The battery had been on the charger all night. But, the mower still would not start. I kept trying though for a few hours like a total fool. And then it wouldn't turn over at all. Completely dead when you turn the key. So it seems I may have burnt out the starter. Now I need to track down a replacement, figure out HOW to replace it and hope once that is done that the thing starts. Otherwise, I've no clue how we would even take then thing to a repair shop. Though it'd be a justifiable reason to finally get a custom bumper on the Jeep if I had to get a hitch to tow things.
My annoyance with this, beyond the fact that you can never get anything done and everything simple always turns into a headache, is my usual whining that I don't get to dump this issue off on someone else. *I* have to fix it. And I am so tired of the burden of responsibility of adulthood. I want to be like my customers or women like my sister, who get to whine about being helpless and someone else swoops in and does all the work and fixes the problem. For as long as I've had a job, I've never had the option to say "I don't know". It's exhausting.
Since the mower wasn't going to work I ended up pulling down all the outside Halloween decorations and put a bunch of stuff out there while the Sparrow hosed down and started organizing the outdoor plants into the back garage. The temps have really started to drop at night. So much so that I broke down Sunday morning and turned the heat on. As much as I felt the dollars just being sucked right out of my pockets doing so, it was just a tad too chilly.
Saturday after we went out for lunch we ran through this two building antique mall right by the restaurant. We love to go thrift shopping, but again... when do we find the time? Plus, we always feel guilty about spending the money. We found a couple records, an sealed John Denver 'Rocky Mountain Christmas' as well as a sealed copy of the 2018 'Halloween' score. Now yes, I do think those new movies were more or less crap, but I still love John Carpenter's music.
Comically, the new sequel 'Exorcist: Believer' came out and I guess it is bombing. I saw several people on YouTube utterly trashing it. It is by the same folks who did the new 'Halloween' trilogy and it seems they were up to their same old woke shenanigans. We may eventually hate-watch it, if we don't have to pay for it, just so I can legitimately trash it. But, I guess the mom from the original says in this movie the reason she was not in the room when the priests did that exorcism is not because she was terrified out of her mind in the original, but because the fucking PATRIARCHY wouldn't let her be involved (or some B.S. like that).
I'll say it again like I always do... liberals are the most miserable, un-fun sub-humans on the Earth and they ruin everything they touch. One reviewer in particular commented about how the whole movie was basically talking down to the audience. Which is a key factor in most modern leftist Hollywood movies. They think the audience is stupid, and half the time they are, but they dumb it down so the plebs can understand their "art". And if the movie is hated and rejected the filmmakers cannot admit THEY are the issue... they blame the audience.
We can only hope this disaster means they will NOT produce the two follow-up movies they intended to.
Back to the weekend though, not much felt like it got done. I was talking again with the Sparrow how it feels like there's no time to do "fun", "creative" things because we have so many obligations that MUST be completed. And even half of those never get done. We still have a huge pile of mulch to spread... which of course, can't be dealt with unless the riding mower is functioning, because our wheelbarrows suck and it'd be brutal to have to wheelbarrow mulch all around the property.
Bosco's dream house I intended to get built still hasn't. It's now cold out and it looks like it'll be another winter for him in his little plastic tote box. I am sure he is fine with it, but it upsets me. It was about 65 or 68 degrees in there last night when he was inside. I need to get the heating pad on top of it. Again, if I built a house for him I'd be able to get the heading pad inside somehow. With the plastic tote, the inside area is just too small and there'd be nowhere to run the wire out except the entrance hole. Building the house is one of those things that is both a fun/creative task but (in my mind) an obligation because I feel it'd make his life less harsh outside. Regardless of what it is, it's not getting done.
Saturday felt especially brief. When we were working outside in the afternoon it felt like it went from 2:00 to 4:00 in a matter of seconds. Meanwhile, any given work day the time span between 7 A.M. and 4 P.M. feels like it takes 22 hours. I took the last two days of the month off. Now I feel like I should take some random Monday or Friday just to have one day to do whatever I need to.
I am hoping work is mostly quiet today. I think we've seen the last of the hummingbirds so I need to get the feeders brought in and cleaned (except maybe one I will leave out just in case). None of the Halloween stuff we put outside is plugged in. I need to run extension cords for all that. I suppose I'll be off to Home Depot on lunch to get a new starter solenoid for the mower, which I'll then need to learn how to install. I suppose if I get that working I can mow the lawn this afternoon. Likely this would be the last time it needs a cut, though we literally get tens of millions of leaves on the lawn and those will need to be run over and chopped. Though, again, it is literally so many leaves that it has on occasion stalled the mower from choking the blades with so many.
The inside windows need to be sealed as we attempt to save money on heat and energy. And the windows inside and out need to be washed. It's been over a year and a half. Just an endless laundry list of to-dos. And speaking of, it's Monday so it's laundry day.
I had a message from Shylock this morning at 6:45 complaining about his email issue from Friday, CC the office manager chick. In the email he DEMANDED that *I* "rectify" his issue IMMEDIATELY. And said that if the software company needed to be contacted, then it MUST be done.
I replied back instantly and quite gleefully that I fully agreed with him that the software company needed to be involved. Of course, the moron doesn't understand I have no dealings with them and this office manager chick needs to be the one to do it. She responded back in her wispy, helpless tone that she would "try" to get them to respond but that they "always ignore" her.
It's funny, you fuckers ride my ass whenever there's an issue endlessly... yet you don't seem to do the same to this vendor. Maybe you should start.
My main goal this weekend was going to be to get the lawn cut. Friday that got nixed because it was raining. Saturday I could not get the lawn mower started. Now, the battery on this thing has been slowly dying since the day we got it. I guess the batteries for our particular riding mower (perhaps all riding mowers) lose their charge very quickly if the temps drop below like 70. It's a huge pain in the ass. But, as luck would have it, my sister actually gifted me something useful for Christmas once in the form of a plug-in battery charger/jumper thing. So I've been using that all summer. I hook it up the day or morning before and let the battery charge and the mower usually starts within a few cranks.
Well, that never happened Saturday. So I broke down and finally ran to the store to get a replacement battery. There was some minor stupidity on my part when the bolts didn't fit into the new battery pegs. It wasn't until the morning Sunday as I was laying in bed that it clicked in my mind to check the old battery to see if there were some square nuts under the peg things on that one, and sure enough, there were. So that problem was resolved.
The battery had been on the charger all night. But, the mower still would not start. I kept trying though for a few hours like a total fool. And then it wouldn't turn over at all. Completely dead when you turn the key. So it seems I may have burnt out the starter. Now I need to track down a replacement, figure out HOW to replace it and hope once that is done that the thing starts. Otherwise, I've no clue how we would even take then thing to a repair shop. Though it'd be a justifiable reason to finally get a custom bumper on the Jeep if I had to get a hitch to tow things.
My annoyance with this, beyond the fact that you can never get anything done and everything simple always turns into a headache, is my usual whining that I don't get to dump this issue off on someone else. *I* have to fix it. And I am so tired of the burden of responsibility of adulthood. I want to be like my customers or women like my sister, who get to whine about being helpless and someone else swoops in and does all the work and fixes the problem. For as long as I've had a job, I've never had the option to say "I don't know". It's exhausting.
Since the mower wasn't going to work I ended up pulling down all the outside Halloween decorations and put a bunch of stuff out there while the Sparrow hosed down and started organizing the outdoor plants into the back garage. The temps have really started to drop at night. So much so that I broke down Sunday morning and turned the heat on. As much as I felt the dollars just being sucked right out of my pockets doing so, it was just a tad too chilly.
Saturday after we went out for lunch we ran through this two building antique mall right by the restaurant. We love to go thrift shopping, but again... when do we find the time? Plus, we always feel guilty about spending the money. We found a couple records, an sealed John Denver 'Rocky Mountain Christmas' as well as a sealed copy of the 2018 'Halloween' score. Now yes, I do think those new movies were more or less crap, but I still love John Carpenter's music.
Comically, the new sequel 'Exorcist: Believer' came out and I guess it is bombing. I saw several people on YouTube utterly trashing it. It is by the same folks who did the new 'Halloween' trilogy and it seems they were up to their same old woke shenanigans. We may eventually hate-watch it, if we don't have to pay for it, just so I can legitimately trash it. But, I guess the mom from the original says in this movie the reason she was not in the room when the priests did that exorcism is not because she was terrified out of her mind in the original, but because the fucking PATRIARCHY wouldn't let her be involved (or some B.S. like that).
I'll say it again like I always do... liberals are the most miserable, un-fun sub-humans on the Earth and they ruin everything they touch. One reviewer in particular commented about how the whole movie was basically talking down to the audience. Which is a key factor in most modern leftist Hollywood movies. They think the audience is stupid, and half the time they are, but they dumb it down so the plebs can understand their "art". And if the movie is hated and rejected the filmmakers cannot admit THEY are the issue... they blame the audience.
We can only hope this disaster means they will NOT produce the two follow-up movies they intended to.
Back to the weekend though, not much felt like it got done. I was talking again with the Sparrow how it feels like there's no time to do "fun", "creative" things because we have so many obligations that MUST be completed. And even half of those never get done. We still have a huge pile of mulch to spread... which of course, can't be dealt with unless the riding mower is functioning, because our wheelbarrows suck and it'd be brutal to have to wheelbarrow mulch all around the property.
Bosco's dream house I intended to get built still hasn't. It's now cold out and it looks like it'll be another winter for him in his little plastic tote box. I am sure he is fine with it, but it upsets me. It was about 65 or 68 degrees in there last night when he was inside. I need to get the heating pad on top of it. Again, if I built a house for him I'd be able to get the heading pad inside somehow. With the plastic tote, the inside area is just too small and there'd be nowhere to run the wire out except the entrance hole. Building the house is one of those things that is both a fun/creative task but (in my mind) an obligation because I feel it'd make his life less harsh outside. Regardless of what it is, it's not getting done.
Saturday felt especially brief. When we were working outside in the afternoon it felt like it went from 2:00 to 4:00 in a matter of seconds. Meanwhile, any given work day the time span between 7 A.M. and 4 P.M. feels like it takes 22 hours. I took the last two days of the month off. Now I feel like I should take some random Monday or Friday just to have one day to do whatever I need to.
I am hoping work is mostly quiet today. I think we've seen the last of the hummingbirds so I need to get the feeders brought in and cleaned (except maybe one I will leave out just in case). None of the Halloween stuff we put outside is plugged in. I need to run extension cords for all that. I suppose I'll be off to Home Depot on lunch to get a new starter solenoid for the mower, which I'll then need to learn how to install. I suppose if I get that working I can mow the lawn this afternoon. Likely this would be the last time it needs a cut, though we literally get tens of millions of leaves on the lawn and those will need to be run over and chopped. Though, again, it is literally so many leaves that it has on occasion stalled the mower from choking the blades with so many.
The inside windows need to be sealed as we attempt to save money on heat and energy. And the windows inside and out need to be washed. It's been over a year and a half. Just an endless laundry list of to-dos. And speaking of, it's Monday so it's laundry day.
I had a message from Shylock this morning at 6:45 complaining about his email issue from Friday, CC the office manager chick. In the email he DEMANDED that *I* "rectify" his issue IMMEDIATELY. And said that if the software company needed to be contacted, then it MUST be done.
I replied back instantly and quite gleefully that I fully agreed with him that the software company needed to be involved. Of course, the moron doesn't understand I have no dealings with them and this office manager chick needs to be the one to do it. She responded back in her wispy, helpless tone that she would "try" to get them to respond but that they "always ignore" her.
It's funny, you fuckers ride my ass whenever there's an issue endlessly... yet you don't seem to do the same to this vendor. Maybe you should start.