Archive for January, 2016

Not an auspicious start to the day

Saturday, January 16th, 2016

I’ve been home sick for the last two days, and I’m still under the weather.

This morning, after sleeping in until about an hour ago, I got up to make breakfast. In the process of getting the ingredients together, I managed to knock over an open bag of chestnuts and drop an egg on the floor. In the process of cleaning up, I managed to knock over all of my brooms and mops.

The cats still haven’t come back into the kitchen. I think I’m going back to bed before I do something to accidentally start World War III.

Today has not been the best day

Wednesday, January 13th, 2016

I’ve been feeling slightly under the weather for a few days, so I’ve been thinking that I’m coming down with something. Today, that was verified for me. I almost didn’t go in to work, but I didn’t think I was that bad, yet.

I usually wake up when the light coming through my bedroom window gets bright enough, but this morning, I was actually awakened by notification sounds for a series of incoming emails. When I looked at them, I discovered that one of my favorite fan fiction authors, who has not been writing for some time because of family responsibilities, was recently diagnosed with cancer. I wish him well, and hopes he beats it.

Then, at work, my boss announced that she couldn’t keep the company going any longer. The customers and the money just aren’t there, and by going under without trying to run it out as far as possible, there’ll be an easier “landing,” and we’ll all be better off (apart from the no longer having jobs thing). It’s not really unexpected – we’ve been running close to the edge for some time, and we made a decision a few months ago on where to put our effort that was probably the wrong one. Even so, it was not what I wanted to hear on what I realized was the 30th anniversary of my original hire date – I’ve been with the company since January 13, 1986, which is almost half my life.

The boss offered to have a company lunch to celebrate my anniversary, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to eat lunch, and I went home and to bed.

All in all, I’ve had much better days.

I presume he’s hoping for chaos

Thursday, January 7th, 2016

This morning on my commute, I was behind an SUV with personalized plates that read, “Expired.”

I can just see it:

“So, it was a black SUV. Did you see the license?”
“Yes, it was ‘Expired’.”
“When did they expire?”
“Oh, they weren’t expired.”
“But you just said they were expired.”
“No, I said they were ‘Expired’ but they weren’t expired.”
“I … see. (mutter) Unreliable witness. (/mutter)”

Happy New Year

Thursday, January 7th, 2016

I hope your holidays were good.

Mine were very enjoyable. Marion and I came home a few days ago from a holiday trip to New York to visit her friends and relatives. We had a good time there, and I can recommend the food at Osteria Laguna and the Miss Korea BBQ restaurant – we had quite a good lunch there. I was good on the trip – I only gained a pound or so. I did pick up a couple new cookbooks at Kinokuniya, though, and I’m looking forward to trying some of those recipes.

Arriving home was a slightly different matter. We got to the car park, and my car wouldn’t start. Dead battery. Marion didn’t know how to deal with push-starting a car with a standard transmission, so that ended up being a fair amount of effort (on my part) and stress (on hers). Eventually, we got it started and managed to get home.

I took it in to my mechanic yesterday. It was a bad battery, which is not nice, but better than the alternator or some other part of the electrical system. Still, that’s money that I hadn’t anticipated needing to spend. It’s the third battery for the car, so I’m doing a little better than average on battery life.