Nearing an Anniversary
2008-08-06, 3:59 p.m.

Day 1445

It�s occurred to me recently that my effort to quit smoking is nearing 4 complete years. That means my time here in this lovely little journal is also nearing 4 complete years. As far as the smoking goes, I don�t really recall any difficult periods beyond the first couple of weeks. Must be it was just the right time to quit.

Got a bit of a shock this weekend too. Found out it was Cindy�s Uncles birthday. Turns out he�s only 10 years older than I am. Those have been a rough 10 years I�d wager. I�d like to think that if you stood us side by side and gave us a once over, you�d think Uncle F was more than 10 years my senior. And not due to my boyish good looks either. Uncle F looks like he drinks too much and smokes even more.

Then there�s Uncle D � all of 6 months older than me. (The Bob�s dad married a much younger woman after his divorce from The Bob�s mom and she produced F & D. Then up & died when D was a young boy.) Uncle D is headed down the same path as F, just not quite as quick. Once I go over The Bob�s camera card, I may have some representative shots to support my arguments. (Except for that one that shows my little monk like bald spot on the crown of my head.)

Made it to the pond store yesterday (LandMasters � odd name for a pond place, ya think?) and got stuff ordered for this weekends shovel wielding extravaganza. 12,000 ponds of rocks in various and assorted (and sorted) sizes & colors. Red & blue/gray mostly. Also got 4 humungous boulders that will eventually become a bench (the future for two of them), an architectural design element for another (we watch too much HGTV) and who knows what for the fourth rock. It might become smaller rocks as needed if there are gaps to fill in the stream or pond edgings. Yes, there will be pictures. Before, during & after.

Still have potential layouts flitting through my head. Should the first shelf be 4 inches deep, or 6? Should the shelves be in 6 inch increments or 8? How deep over all, 30 or 36 inches?

Lordy, I�m never going to finish this one. Here we are at Wednesday already.

So yeah, there�s all these questions about the pond. One of the big ones? Well, I mentioned those 4 huge boulders. Want to use at least one of them as that �architectural design element�. But it needs to be moved into place. Dealie is this � a pallet of stone weighs in at 3000 lbs or so. A pallet of boulders might go as high as 3200 lbs. If I said screw it and just divided the pallet weight by 4, I�d be dealing with an 800lb hunk of stone. But. (There�s always a but, isn�t there?) This �architectural design element� is the largest boulder on the pallet. Even the dude at the store agreed it may go as high as 1000 lbs (half a ton for those keeping score) (heh � that stone weighs 71 stone). So. The way to move it? First, have the delivery truck/bobcat get it as near the final resting place as possible. Then, I�ll tug it around using a come-along and any well placed tree I can find. I just have to get them to put the stones down in a place where the tree positions are advantageous. Really, I only have 2 to play with � a 40 or 50 ft. Norway maple and a 40 or 50 ft. Blue Spruce. Hope they�re up to the task. The really hard part? Tipping it up on end to make it interesting. Dude at the store says drag it up onto a pile of dirt first, then undercut it to drop it into position. That �onto a pile of dirt� part he didn�t offer to help with. He just smiled. Bastard. It also doesn�t help that I�m getting all this crap delivered before shovel 1 hits the grit. There will be no pile for the bobcat to drop this rock onto.

Oh � wait. My neighbor, The Other Bob, has a 5 ft. pinch bar (spud bar? Mofo? Peej � I forget the proper term here.) I could maybe pry up one end enough to get a floor jack under it. Then add a scissor jack and other various and sundry propping items until we�re happy with the look. Then try and figure out how to make it permanent. Maybe it needs to become part of a waterfall or something. In any event, you know what I�ll be doing this weekend.

Hmmm. Exercise front. Did spin Monday � no bike riding. Had to tote my laptop back in to work and I won�t risk riding bike with it. Yesterday I biked in to work. Gorgeous morning for riding. About 5:15pm one of the other bike commuters stopped by my office, dressed for riding and said �Have you seen weather.com? Rain is coming, and soon!� That started a mad scramble home. Scampered to the locker room, changed, refilled my water jug and hit the road. Second fastest ride home yet � uphill and into the wind. Even managed to stay dry. About 15 minutes after I got home the rain started. About an hour after and we were in the midst of a really nice storm. Glad Perry kept me from staying at work late.

Rode in again this morning. Well, rode to the Y first, did spin class with Patty. Then headed to work. Slow ride. Wind out of the north. I�ll give you great odds on betting that is changes to the south for the ride home tonight.

During class, Patty asked if any of us were thinking about doing The Highlander next month. Then she looked right at me & nodded hopefully. Heh. Not this year. Maybe, MAYBE, next year. We�ll see. Tour de Cure first, (actually, get Zach & Jill married first), then think about training for some ridiculous climbing. 23% grades indeed!!

Cindy? Went to AA Monday night. Drank last night. Will probably go to AA tonight and drink again Thursday. Again it�s not like she�s stumbling around, taking headers down entire flights of stairs. She just drinks enough to be �off�. I can smell it, her reactions are slow, she asks the same questions over & over, and I think in an effort to appear to have her act together, she comes off as aloof and kind of an asshole. The kids are asking ME what�s wrong with her. Why her attitude is so lousy. Last night I think it was because we were all sitting at the kitchen table, keeping her from getting to her stash, which she unwisely decided to hide in the cabinets right next to the table. She doesn�t know we know, yet. I was looking for some oddball platter and stumbled across her latest cache. She must have figure out that we�ve blundered across all her old hiding spots at some point because she does keep shifting things around. Eric says she�s even taken to using different cups/glasses than normal. Usually she�d use these translucent white or green mugs (because they were huge), but lately she�s been using more opaque travel coffee mugs. Fine. So we can�t see it. She�d better figure out how to not breathe too.

Got a book the other day. "Boundaries Face to Face: How to Have That Difficult Conversation You've Been Avoiding". Any idea what�s been on my mind lately?

I think we�re �there� again. Either she stops cheating on me via the bottle, or we start to discuss how to let her have her drinks and not be cheating. We can make it so she can drink all she wants and not bother me a bit. Yeah, THAT conversation.

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