Cafe Hitch-hike

2022-09-13

In my tousled kitchen and life (and kind of enjoying it)

Things are much better than we think they are sometimes. They often say it could be worse. So I’ve had a bad day / week / hour / feeling / etc. but it’s not too hard to turn around, see the very big things that are still in place, and embrace them. It’s easy to be down about something and stay down (God knows that never, ever happened to me, hah), but it’s nice to still feel there’s something I can reach towards to restore myself.

I say all this because of what’s been up on my own life, with its beauty, hecticness, and imperfect joys (expressed quietly, privately and otherwise). I cheerfully cooked myself a meal in my tousled kitchen. I used the air fryer in the adjoining laundry room because I didn’t want to get residue in the kitchen until the paint cures. It was kind of fun getting to know the kitchen.

Then this afternoon, I chatted briefly with my sis Beads who has been coming down my way for vacations the past 3 years (with this being the fourth, hopefully). She may not be able to make it because of a series of unexpected and misfortunate events in the hometown. Beads always tells me things directly, I appreciate that, and so does sis Lana the Wild Child. We’ll just play it by ear and see what happens, but I said to her before that:

“I hear you about shit being crazy because shit’s being really crazy here in my building. We are not even 3 weeks into our year and people are already getting sick, shit, bothered, and upset. I had to close the door of my office because of crazy shit. I mean it’s not horrible, awful stuff but just crazy fucking shit.”

However, we reminded each other that we just about always find a way to be together, and how good our Mom has gotten with traveling to visit us these past few years.

Oh, yes, and to the explain the ‘crazy shit’ bit. Today I got a brilliant earful from others within the larger institution. It is navigating through some very turbulent waters at work from many changes of direction and other influences.

For me, my workload is manageable and I’m rolling with it, but the summer group project has really torn us up. We’ve had a collaborator who has been difficult to work with, and the whole process is poking the hell out of everyone’s professional wounds.

It’s not a good place to be, but we are winding down the project. We will have a view of the finishing line next week. As my old softball coach Mr. Lurtsma said, “it’s not over ‘til it’s over.”. You play until the second team has the last out in the ninth inning (or get mercied). I try to assure the group to stay in the present the best we can and work with what we’ve got in front of us. I hope that’s decent advice.

So I piss and moan about it here. Isn’t that kind of why we’re here (hahahah)? *Raises hand and nods*.

Also in my life: it’s very pleasant taking the dog on walks in the neighborhood. I like hiking. I like watching storms and clouds pass over the flat wetland, and watching the sun and moon sets. I’m listening to an intriguing new mix on my streaming service. The chicken I cooked in the used air fryer was really good (my house still smells like it). There’s lightening in the cloudy night sky facing south.

A conversation with a delightful co-worker today ended with her giggling and laughing at the end of a phone call today. A couple of weeks ago, a co-worker and I had a series of laughs over the use of the word ‘space’ in a document and a horribly tangental conversation the new Space Force. The day before, I told my old boss about the Space Force parody that I thought they’d laugh at (they did, we liked MAD Magazine as kids). That memory was stuck in short-term, so I chortled like an obnoxious kid whenever the co-worker said ‘space’ and I told myself more than once I had to stop.

So there it is, the good with the ugh, my version of it.

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