Experience
2006-12-18, 3:29 p.m.

Day 848 39 with 9 years experience

Yep. Today I get to add yet another year of experience at being 39 to my resume. With all those years of experience (9 of them) you�d think I�d be pretty good at it. Unfortunately there are still days when I feel like I�m 70 and days when I act like I�m 3.
So I�m thinking maybe I�ll have to get another couple years of experience, then I can allow myself to finally change decades. Besides, how many 39 year olds have a college graduate for a kid? A BS at that? (Knew he was full of something, but that?)

So yeah, birthday on a Monday and I�m stuck at work. Quiet week. Supposed to be wrapping up documentation on a project (again). Provided no more bugs show up, I may actually finish this time.

Saturday night turned out interesting. That would be the night of the primal scream therapy. Someone I live with decided that having only an LA Weightloss shake thingy for lunch would be sufficient. That�s about 8 oz. Of chocolatey goop. I forget what exactly happened, but I had to leave the house late afternoon. Wasn�t grocery shopping, I did that earlier. Second trip to the store, for the stuff that didn�t make the list? What ever. That opened the floodgates, and the whiskey bottle apparently.

I forget what I was doing for most of the afternoon. Making fudge, doing cut out cookies, making my favorite oatmeal/cranberry/white chocolate cookies (more addictive than nicotine, man). Oh yeah, running loads of laundry too. Cindy was �helping� with the cookies. Moving them off the cookie sheet while they were still soft from baking, stacking them in containers before they had cooled completely, not setting the timer on the fudge so we weren�t sure if it had boiled long enough (wasn�t critical I guess � it still tastes like fudge), but she was driving me bat shit crazy trying to �help� with things she asked me to do. Didn�t help that she was drunk too.

Anyhow, the real fun started later. Like 7-ish. Asked her what she might like for dinner. She said she wouldn�t mind going out for dinner. I�m sure I looked at her funny (bad reaction on my part, gotta work on that), then asked again what she wanted to do for dinner. She insisted that she would like to go out (as opposed to just ordering take out I suppose) I told her that personally, I thought she was too drunk to go out.

I was interrupted by another batch of cookies, so I let it drop for a bit. Went back later and asked again. She still insisted (slurred) that she�d like to go out. Fine. She offered to pay. Seems she got a pay check for chaperoning the schools sectional playoff soccer games (sectionals money comes from the state � not included in regular pay apparently) and had cashed it rather than depositing it, so she had cash handy and wanted to buy dinner. Fine. Suggested she get her duds and we�d head off to @pplebees, a whopping � mile away.

We get there, get seated right away. Not much waiting for seating at 8pm on a Saturday night. Ordered drinks (lemonade for me, water for her (thank Science!)), appetizers & dinner. We were waiting for our appetizers when she started rifling through her purse. Asked her what she was looking for. Seemed she was having trouble locating her wallet. The one that held the cash she was going to buy dinner with. Sweet.

Somehow, she thought I was supposed to go to the van and see if her wallet was there. Harumph. She thought I didn�t care. Well, that wasn�t strictly true. I did care. Now I was going to have to pay for dinner. But I could, so no worries there. She was insisting I should go to the van and look for her wallet. My arguments against went like this:

A � if it�s in the van, fine, it�s safe. I can pay for dinner. We�ll get it when we leave.

B � If you dropped it on the way in, it�s either gone or someone turned it in at the hostess station. We can check for it on the way out. (It wasn�t there)

C � If it�s not in the van and you didn�t drop it on the way in, it�s still at home. Safe.

D � It�s your wallet

E � I have mine.

Deal is, Cindy not being able to locate her wallet was a direct result of her locating the whiskey bottle - repeatedly. She needs to suffer the consequences of deciding to hit that bottle. So I let her. Secretly, I was soiling my shorts at the prospect of her losing $150, but it was a problem of her making. I didn�t have to get all worked up over it. I was also enjoying watching her squirm a bit.

In the end, after I paid for dinner, we did check at the hostess station for a returned ladies wallet. No dice. No wallet in the van either. Turns out it was on the end table, right where she left it. Might have taken it out of her purse, intending to take just her wallet, than grabbed her purse (minus the wallet) as we headed out the door. At least now I can smile about it. Don�t think a lesson was learned though.

Sunday was more baking. Cut outs, peanutbutter/Hershey k1ss cookies, some oat/chocolate/raspberry/almond thing that smells REALLY good (too warm to cut as of last night still), decorating cutouts. Also played chaperone to Bob most of the day. He bitched for the last time about the remote for the tv in his bedroom. Seems it has no cover for the battery compartment (he loses them like he loses his memory, sadly) and the batteries are constantly falling out (duh). We had a universal remote we weren�t using. When I ran him home last night, I took our spare remote with me, programmed it for his tv, then showed him how to use it. 3 times. Then I took his old remote home with me and crushed the living shit out of it. Felt really good. I just love taking out frustrations on inanimate objects. At least the only thing I stand to hurt is myself. But lordy, did I feel better!

Poor Bob. He�s so easily confused lately. He gets frustrated easily, knowing he�s having trouble doing things he could once do without a second thought.

Funniest story of the weekend. Bob was complaining about not being able to find his cell phone charger. Again. Worried that he couldn�t charge his cell phone. The cell phone he hasn�t seen in a week. Oi.

When we got back to his apartment, after getting the remote settled, I tracked down his cell phone charger. Found it in one of the usual hiding places. It was like he was seeing it for the first time. Again. I got some paper, a Sh@rp1e and some cellophane tape and labeled that charger. Then we set out to find the cell phone he hadn�t seen in a week. Looked hi, looked low. Checked all the usual hiding spots (file cabinet, dresser drawers, behind the silverware (I have no clue on that one). No luck. So I got my cell phone out and called his. Asked him if he was set on ring or vibrate. Occurred to me that was a bad question. Still, thought we might hear a vibrate if it was next to something hard. About 30 seconds into the call, we heard a single, distant BEEP. Then nothing. Looked around some more. Called his phone again. About 30 seconds into the call, we again hear a single, distant BEEP. I�m pretty sure that it�s his phone we�re hearing, it�s just that the battery is so low, all it can do is that little beep. We check all his coat pockets. The overcoat he wore to Syracuse last week, the vest he wears on his daily outdoor walks, his leather coat, the coat he just wore that day. Nothing.

Called his phone one more time. This time, I was standing next to him. 30 seconds into the call, I heap that beep again, but louder. Before I busted out laughing, I backed up, looked at Bob and asked him to pull the phone out of his pocket. He gave me this huh? look. I just asked him to get the phone out of his pocket so we could charge it. I could hear the beep, plainly coming from him. He finally reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The look of astonishment on his face was unsettling. I just took the phone, plugged in his charger and got the phone connected. As soon as his contract is up, I�m considering terminating his service. He�s hopeless in the cell phone department.

Also had to leave soon after that. I had kinda reached my daily limit. Between putting up with his daughter the night before, then his disconnectedness all day Sunday, my patience was frazzled. I had to politely excuse myself before I did something callous & stupid. Then I beat feet home to watch Surviv0r � only 30 minutes late.

I�m bummed. I was pulling for Ozzie. Yul (and Becky) may have strategized better, but Ozzie forced some of their strategy, then thwarted it by consistently winning immunity. The dude was a competition machine. I�m also disappointed that no one successfully came up with a plot to vote Yul out and force him to play his �hidden� immunity idol. It�s a credit to Yul that he built a very strong alliance and chose wisely when he admitted to finding the idol, but I�m still surprised that there was no play to make him use it once everyone knew.

Oh well.

Looks like I get to cook dinner tonight. Really, it�s fine with me. At least I know it�ll come out how I like it. We�re having Chicken Paillard with rice pilaf and a salad. Not too difficult to cook, meets Cindy�s low carb/high protein requirements (she�ll skip the rice) and is pretty tasty to boot. I�ll double the amount of snow peas & carrots and adjust the sauce up a bit too, but pretty much stick to the recipe. All told, it takes a little under an hour. I�ll let my sous chef (Zach) wrestle the salad.

Whoa. Got kinda long, huh? Better go.

Later dudes & dudettes.

Weight Stats:

Start: 206.5 on 1/1/06 (265.0 on 1/15/05)
Current: 188 on 12/16/06 (New rut. At least it isn�t going up.)
Next: 12/23/06

New target � Aim is 180, by Christmas. HA! Better just aim to not go up.

The Keep on Truckin goal: (miles piled up on elliptical trainers and/or running)
Miles at speed 12/18/06: 1007.92 (Made 1K late last week actually. Whoopee!)
Miles with cool down: 1107.50
Target for 2006: 1000 miles at speed (cool down miles don�t really count)

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