Busy Weekend
2007-08-20, 10:18 a.m.

Day 1093

To say the weekend was busy is a bit of an understatement. Got that 5K road race out of the way Saturday morning. 30 seconds off my best outdoor time, but it�s been a while since I did any running that involved even small hills. Boy, did it show. Did great on the downhill sections, kinda sucky going uphill.

The only person to pass me after the first � mile? A woman, about my age. Caught me at around 2.5 miles and just kinda cruised past. Had a nice little chat with her as she steamed by. The really depressing part is that as I was headed home (driving, thank you) I saw her running, again. I had cut across the village on my awy home and spotted her jogging along the course at around the 1.25 � 1.5 mile mark. Makes me feel not quite so bad about getting passed by her. Maniac.

After the race, had to head home to get ready to move Zach & Jill. They got back from their apartment walk through just as I came down from showering. The remainder of the day was spent hauling boxes, couches, beds, boxes, shelving units, clothes, boxes � you name it, UP stairs.

Very nice place the kids got. Second floor, balcony, private entrance. Complex has a pool and a small gym. The kids balcony exposure is north, so they�ll never get direct sunlight there. Ought to keep it nice & cool. Gave them some of our extra patio furniture to use so they can make the most of it. Only downside is that the people who had the apartment before them used a gas grill right up next to the building. Melted the vinyl siding. Now, all the 2nd floor folks have to keep their grills down on the ground floor, next to their entry door, but away from the building. All by order of the Fire Marshall. It�s a minor inconvenience, but still � what�s wrong with keeping it on the balcony, just out near the rail, away from the building? Security would be better too.

Sunday was going to be an R & R day, but turned into a good day for knocking off a bunch of little chores. The chores were too numerous & mundane to list, but necessary nonetheless. Snuck in a short bike ride towards the end of the day. Nothing major, just got a nice little burn going.

Next big event will be moving Eric into his apartment for college this year. That happens Thursday. This time, it�s a 3rd floor job. Plus we have the luxury of helping his girlfriend move in too. She may be on the 4th floor. I get the feeling we may take our time hauling Eric�s stuff. I might be a nice guy and bring our dolly though. Kelly�s dad might find a good use for it. I hope Eric�s load in the van allows room for it. Oh � need to keep a third seat in there too. The commander if Ice Station Zebra will no doubt want to come along and help supervise the move in. At least with the audience (Kelly & her parents) she�ll be almost civil. Maybe.

I gotta wonder. What with Cindy�s attitude of late, how on earth does she expect that I�d be interested in trying to patch things up? Since her first foray into AA a few weeks ago, she�s been nothing but cold, aloof and simply miserable. If I ask her a direct question, I might get an answer that�s mumbled under her breath, and not really directed at me. She appears to be making plans for re-doing the room formerly known as the family room and has plans for re-arranging the bedrooms upstairs now that Zach is off on his own. She seems to think that I�m willing to hang around and do all this work in spite of her constantly treating me like I don�t exist. Did she not get the idea that perhaps I noticed this treatment and when I asked her last week if she felt any commitment towards working on what�s broke? Did she not get the idea I was nearing my breaking point? Maybe she needs a reminder. I know it�s been only a relatively short while. But I see absolutely no signs of improvement. I think she�s done a decent job of not drinking lately, but she also hasn�t been to an AA meeting in over a week. If she isn�t drinking, all I have is one pissed off dry drunk.

The truly scary part is that as of Thursday night neither of us has the kids to hide behind. It�s kind of sad. The kids would come hang out in whatever room I happened to be in. That made it rather awkward, as Cindy would interface with the kids, but not me. But if the kids were with me � she had no one to interact with. More isolation.

Glad I have a therapy session coming up this week. As it turns out, my session is the day after we move Eric � right at the beginning of our new empty house lifestyle. Maybe we can discuss some survival strategies. I ought to update her on the Ms. CL situation too. Haven�t mentioned that little ditty here lately. It�s been interesting to say the least. Today, for only the second time since we�ve met, she (CL) has an appointment with her own therapist. I won�t really bug her about it, other than to ask how it went. If she wants to share more, fine. If she needs to keep mum, I have to respect that too.

My direct supervisor and I won�t actually cross paths this week. He�s taking time off for a little last minute camping, then hauling kids to school, I�ve got a quickie training seminar on top of my own college kid moving party. In essence, I have a 2 day work week. Monday & Tuesday spent at the zoo, Wednesday is the seminar (Verification of FPGA coding & routing using a C language based tool � aren�t you glad you asked?), Thursday is Fredonia or bust, and Friday will be 2 hours of work, my therapy session, then a company picnic. Nice way to start to wind down summer.

Since the boss man and I won�t be having any direct interface, I suppose I better go leave my mark with some actions. I�d like him to know I�ve been around and getting stuff done. The odor of burnt silicon is always a nice arome to leave behind. Plus I need to go coax some expensive UPS samples out of a local salesman. I need to find some that aren�t quite so easy to beat up, and I got a guy on the line that seems willing to let me try and break his. More fun!!

If you use a pop-up blocker, hit "Ctrl" when you click to leave a comment