fire night and fire chat

 

This past week, the weather has been outstanding. Absolutely. Outstanding. The DC heat and humidity has gone, hopefully for the rest of the year. I worked outside the other day, with my lap desk, my feet up on one of the porch steps to give me some balance. I still want a full nice patio set, but they've been sold out or on backorder forever. I've been looking at the online neighborhood sales but haven't found one close enough. I also sort of feel wary of these sites. I love buying used stuff, but, I feel a level of sketchiness on Facebook or Nextdoor. Let's not even mention Craigslist. What a cesspool.

Last night after dinner, I said to Doug "is tonight a good night to have a fire, ya think?" He kind of made a meh face and I thought, oh. Okay. I'll.... just go back to working then? It's a bad habit, but after I finish dinner, I start working again. 

He watched the news, got up, put his sandals on and sighed. He picked up the matches, some flyers from the grocery stores, and headed out to the pit. "I guess it's as good as it's going to get." 

I finished my helpdesk ticket. I grabbed a glass of wine. I headed out to the patio. 

We had been piling up kindling and loose pieces of wood onto the fire pit for weeks. Doug crammed the grocery store flyers under the wood. I said that we should take the wood out, and build an actual good pile of kindling and give it a chance to catch, we can't just expect the paper to catch ---

He lit the paper and said "It'll start!" 

It took forever. I sat beside the fledgling flames feeding them smaller pieces of wood that I was breaking off from the pile. Twigs and thin branches, sliding them in under the bigger in the way pieces that were too damp to catch, and blocking too much airflow for the attempts at getting going. Eventually my corner of the fire pit began to catch, and we had ourselves a fire. 

Boy Scout Mom knows what she is doing.

It was glorious. Doug had kind of a crappy week, so he has been on edge, which probably is what fed into his lackadaisical attitude to actually getting it started. Maybe if it doesn't start, I can just go back inside and watch TV. I've had an incredibly stressful several weeks and I just was relieved to set that laptop down and not work another ticket. I let go of my sense of "you have to do this... because..." and let the work/life balance thing take over my brain. 

Geoff came out to sit with us, too. He had an orientation for next semester's clinical. He couldn't understand why it was so early, but didn't argue with anyone. It was in person, the first time his entire class group was in the same place at the same time since the pandemic hit, and their training had been somewhat derailed and delayed. They've  had zoom classes but no one keeps their cameras on. So he hasn't been able to make the kind of connections he's wanted to with the group. He said it was really cool to see people, and his instructor said that even though everyone had their masks on, she could tell they were smiling. 

He said when the program started, there were 24 students, but the group has dwindled to 17. He's not sure where some of the folks have gone. If they couldn't pass the classes, if they weren't doing good at clinical. He said it made him nervous. 

He did 3 weeks at a local radiology department, now he's back at Georgetown, and then in Mid November will be headed up county to a different hospital, and in the spring, sometime, he'll be at a pediatric facility. He isn't sure where but the pediatric facility is Children's National. The program tries to get everyone exposed to as many different kinds of spaces as possible. The equipment and experiences and types of offices and facilities out there is all different. At the doctor's office where he just was, their equipment was much older and he didn't know much about it, but now he does. He also said he had a huge language barrier with most of the patients. They all mostly spoke Spanish and he speaks "Bueno. Bien. Gracias."

The girl he was working with spoke fluent Spanish, but was not a native speaker. She was a white chick. I asked what he took away from that. What should he be thinking of doing, possibly, to make his professional experience more meaningful or to make himself more attractive to employers. For the last two years I have been encouraging him to take a second language, even if he just plays with Duolingo. 

You don't have to have the whole Medical Spanish thing down, but leg, arm, hand, head, turn to the left, turn to the right, sit up, thank you, I'm sorry, these things will make the patient's experience much better. 

I told him when I went in to the doctor last year for my mammogram, there was a tech there who was in the waiting room talking casually in Spanish to a husband and wife. He brought me out back to get set up and I told him I was impressed with his language skills. He told me he was Pakistani, grew up near Karachi. When he was growing up, they all spoke Urdu and Punjabi, and a few other regional languages because of the nature of Karachi. He learned English in school and then went to medical school, and it was incredibly helpful for him to know as much English as he did. He came to the United states and saw the need to learn Spanish very quickly. Now he dabbles in French to speak with the Haitian patients. "There are a lot of people in our city here who are from Ethiopia so Amharic is what he'll be learning next. 

I shared his story with Geoff, and of course Geoff's response was "why don't people just learn English while they are here." I said that is a good question, and maybe they should, but, if you're in a care position, you don't know how long someone has been here, how much they know, how they learn, if they've been successful in learning. Communities of people surround each other, keep their languages, and keep each other safe. The priority of learning English for a lot of people is minimized because they are doing just fine with their people. 

"You should look at people with empathy, not disdain. You don't know what their journey has been. Meet them where they are, and show them you care for them."

Hopefully a year from right now he'll be hired somewhere. And he's thinking about further certification in CT scans or "flouro" as it were. And hopefully some Spanish, or something.

Neighborino 2

My son was putting out the recycling tonight. We have a milk crate inside, and a couple of times a week, because we are so diligent and it fills up fast, he takes the contents outside and dumps stuff in the actual county bin that we put out on the curb on Tuesdays. 

I could hear her voice. And Geoff saying "Huh?"

I was making dinner, and could hear her rattling at him, and he wasn't answering. So I wiped my hands and went out back. 

"Oh! Christine! I have not seen you in a while."

"Yes, I know. I've been busy, and haven't been hanging out outside."

"Oh! What are you busy with?"

"I work from home. I work all day. Sometimes late hours. So I'm here, I just have not been outside in the back here, mostly up front with the garden, or with the dog."

"Oh! What do you do?" 

"I do technical support." 

"Oh, I need technical support with some things!"

no.

She told me that she noticed Geoff was doing the recycling. She was explaining to Geoff that she was hoping we would save the pull tabs off of our beer cans. And he didn't understand what she meant by pull tabs.

I figured it out rather quickly.

"You have a lot of beer cans. And I collect those tabs for charity."

Oh we have a lot of beer cans, do we?

...Yeah, that's not a lie, I guess. 

But are you saying we drink a lot? 

...No you're not. You're just noticing we have cans and...cans have tabs so you're just asking.

"Sure thing, we can grab the pull tabs and save them for you. I'll do that, no problem." 

Then she starts going on about the firewood. Again. That she went at Doug the other day about. 

"It's been too hot to burn," I said, "and if it isn't too hot it's pouring rain. We'll get to it."

"Yes yes, your husband said that."

So what's your point, lady. What he told you is what stands. We. Will. Get. To. Burning. All. The. Damn. Wood. When. It. Is. Wood. Burning. Time. 

She then went on a mystical explanation journey. 

"I had my driveway redone a few years ago, and I had some concrete stacked up here, and the neighbor, he is fussy, he called the county on me! My brother, he was so sick with the cancer, he couldn't do anything. And the company was supposed to come get the concrete and they did not, for weeks! And this man calls the county... and......."

"So what." I replied. "You know what? That's your business, and no one else's. You could have a giant pile of concrete, and that's no one's business. That could be an art installation. It's not anything to worry about. It's yours. You deal with it when you can." 

She started laughing.

"I'm totally serious. If it is your concrete, it's your concrete. If you needed time, that's no one's business. He could talk to you, ask you, offer help if it is something you need help with. And if anyone comes at you, you tell them you'll take care of it when you can take care of it." 

I'm thinking to myself so help me God if you call the county because I have firewood for a fire pit I will lose my mind. 

We exchanged some more chit chat and I went inside to continue prepping dinner. 

I really wanted to go out and grill, but I had Doug do it instead because I didn't want to deal with her. And Doug understood so he handled it with no neighbor sightings. 

One thing I forgot to mention in the last entry was the recycling bin that we had. 

When we moved in here, every house in the county has recycling bins. There are these gianormous bins for cardboard and paper, and a small bin (should be the other way around, really) for cans and glass. 

We had the one at the last house in the kitchen, but at this house there isn't enough room so we keep it under the back steps, and Geoff uses that milk crate that we keep in the kitchen to do the transfer.

The county glass/plastic bin, the small one, was cracked. It looked like it had been hit by a car. We taped it up, it was fine. It worked. You put recycling in it. It doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, a busted up and duct taped bin is kind of the definition of recycling in a way.

There was nothing wrong with the bin. 

One day in the spring, I was outside with the dog and she came over calling to me. 

"I called the county about your broken recycling bin. They are coming to take it away."

I'm thinking, what is your deal lady?

"Well, there's nothing wrong with it."

"It is broken," she says.

"But it works. We put tape on it. It holds garbage, recycling, it isn't something that needs to be beautiful, I mean. What?" 

"You can take one of mine. Leave your broken one here by my driveway because I called the county. They are bringing a new one and they will pick it up here at my driveway."

"You have more than one recycling bin?" 

"Yes, I have a basement apartment. It is totally legal. So I have two bins. Take one, and the broken one will be picked up by the county this week." 

I'm thinking to myself, what is wrong with you, you old busybody. The people who lived here before us used this bin did you give them grief? Or did you wait for us to get here so you could fuss. Also, why didn't you just say something like "hey I noticed your bin is busted? Have you thought about calling the county?"

So I took the bin and walked away. Later I told Doug and he was like "what is her deal?" Both of us were dumbfounded. 

Every exchange I have makes me miss our folks up the block. 

Hopefully the weather will be nice and acceptable, this weekend, we burn things. 

EDITED: 
Geoff went to the beer store yesterday afternoon, after the discussion about pull tabs. 

He bought bottled beer. I don't know if he did that on purpose. If that was a deliberate shade throwing act on his part. But it sure made me laugh.

Burn Out

So I'm feeling burned out. Burned the fuck out. It's my own fault but also because I don't really have a clear backup for other people to actually do my job. I was telling a friend of mine that a few months ago, I got assigned a task I really actually love, very much, while a colleague was on family leave. 

It takes me an hour per each task, so that can be only 3 hours or 4 hours a week. And I love doing it. I don't want to give it up.

I also host calls with stations before they launch, so that's another couple hours a week. And I love doing that. 

And once in a while, we have a station that is a little extra, and needy, and I do those calls. And I love doing those.

But I also don't really want to always be doing my actual job. I have grown to hate my actual job. 

When I started working here the joke was no one lasts at this job for longer than 18 months, or 2 years max. But I've been at it for 7. I believed enough in it to relocate the family. 

And now I hate it and don't want it anymore. Someone, come take it.

Thankfully we've hired a couple new people, and I've been assigning tickets to other people on my team a lot more.

But the tickets don't stop coming.  They just don't. 

I've been kind of a pissy bitch about a few things and was talking to a colleague. I asked her if I could unload about something, she gave me the grace to do so. I was mad about someone neglecting to do something, ignoring something, and I feel that he doesn't want to do the thing because he isn't interested in the thing. 

"You know," she said, "he reports to me." 

Oh. No I didn't know that. Shit.

She was happy to hear this, and we talked about what we can do to get the thing the attention it needs from this person. 

I said I didn't appreciate that he gives off the impression that this isn't something he values. He wants to do the other thing, or do product research, or come up with something else that is shiny, rather than take care of the thing that needs to be taken care of. I told her it makes me feel unvalued, puts the pressure on me constantly to apologize for the thing that doesn't work. I echoed the words of an old friend that I've always tried to take to heart, "no one can make you feel anything. How you decide to feel is up to you." and for a long time, I've felt really shitty about this situation. 

Knowing that one of my greatest allies is now his manager, this is helpful to me.

She told me that I can read a room, and I am spot on with my assessment. She told me her idea of support is "relationship" building and maintaining, not let's list a bunch of things to do that are maybe needed, and get to them eventually. 

It was a good chat. And in the end I don't feel he's in trouble or anything, and maybe I'll get some of the help I need. 

I've expressed my frustration to my manager and he has asked me to hang in there. He knows I'm a tired bean. 

Good things are overall my team is poised and ready to go. A lot of what is exhausting is that we have to wait on other teams. Things are broken, we don't fix them but we report to the other teams and they fix them. And sometimes not fast enough. So more things come in. And then those are not getting fixed fast enough. 

Someone asked me what would make things better. The answer is, and always has been, other people not getting things done the way we need in the time we need it. 

Another problem I've had is that I feel compelled to make sure all the new tickets that come in during the day are touched before I'm done for the day. And sometimes, after meetings and everything, it is 6pm and I still have to do tickets. 

My company talks a lot about Work/Life balance and when I try to hit that work/life balance thing, and not work after 6pm, the next day is a total shit show. 

Right now, on Thursday night, I'm kind of caught up. I'm looking to go into Friday with a meeting light day, hopefully nothing will super break (like last Friday) and I can totally catch up, and feel going into the weekend I've got a grip. 

I also feel like I need a week off, with a cabin, and sunsets, and a lake, and a kayak, or a beach house, and the ocean.

Doug is feeling the same. Maybe we'll get a day or two away and not work. I'd like that. A lot.

Neighborino

 When we moved, we met our new neighbor behind us. She's an elderly woman, and she's a little fussy. She doesn't like the dog barking. She complained that we let climbing vines grow all over the back fence, and on a section of the fence along the street. It's ivy. It's pretty. It's protective and gives us privacy.

"That's where rats live. In the vines," she complained. 

No, honey. Rats don't live in vines that grow along a fence. 

She doesn't like that we let our garden grow wild. She recommended her landscaping service. No thank you, I'm not interested in paying for gardening when I have a 24 yr old who likes to mow the lawn. 

The first time we used the firepit, she commented the next day that the previous tenants "didn't do that."

"Do you like having camp fires?" 

Uh, yes we do.

What are you saying. Do you not want us doing camp fires? Did this bother you somehow? 

"Oh, no. It's just that sometimes woodsmoke is smelly. It's okay, it's okay," and she walked away.

Tonight she came over and complained about the pile of wood we have in the backyard, and the wood behind our shed, which she can see from her backyard. 

"I have to look at it," she said to Doug. "It may be your yard, but it touches my yard. And I do not like to see it.

The wood behind the shed was was there when we got here. God only knows how long it was there. We obtained the pile of wood on our patio earlier in the summer, for using in the fire pit. Before it turned 900 degrees. 

"I do plan on burning it," Doug told her. "I'm waiting for it to be cooler at night. It'll be taken care of. " 

"Oh. in a camp fire?" 

"Yes," Doug replied. "It's just been too hot to do that, and we are waiting. But I'm going to take care of it." 

"Oh." 

We can tell this does not please her. I emailed my property management company to give a heads up that the neighborlady was fussin' at us. Took pictures of the wood behind the shed, and our wood pile. I just told her that "we feel there's no need to fuss, but if she does, let us know. We'll deal with it." 

The neighbors across the street got a new porch light this past weekend and it is the kind of thing I feel like I should go fuss. 

Now, compared to the wood behind the shed that my back neighbor has to "look at," I'm dealing with this raggedy nonsense that can be seen from the international space station, shining into my livingroom and my bedroom at all hours. 

I'm not fussing at them, though.

My neighbor sees the value in having a safe spotlight for his front porch (and ... the whole damn street).  I'm not sure if they are turning it on intentionally or if there is a motion sensor, because it will be off all night and then turn on at 3am. And then my dog thinks it is morning, and time to eat.

We're going to go buy better curtains - it's something we've wanted to do for the bedroom anyway, since the window faces East and boy oh boy is Juliet the Sun. Our old bedroom face west and it was never a problem in the mornings because heck, no sun shining in your face through the blinds. 

There are neighbor things that you fuss over, or choose not to fuss over, or fuss without like a truly valid reason to fuss. 

It makes me miss our neighbors up the street, who were always down to come over for a camp fire, who have the coolest baby. 

Here's to hoping it is about 70 degrees on Saturday, that Tony & Betsy are free to come over, that we can stream a bunch of JRAD, Guster and RatDog on the portable speaker, and deplete the pile of wood that annoys the back neighbor, before the light turns on for the front neighbor's sun display.

Alone for a change

Sidenote: Several updates to the Shenanigans With Dave beer blog have been posted in the past couple weeks, if yinz wanna read about our adventures, with beer. I had decided to rekindle the storytelling there, and am enjoying it. 

Today, Doug had to go to the office for a big meeting thing. In person. Everyone. Required. Presentations! Powerpoint! Suit! Tie! The whole thing! This is the first time (well, second?) since March 2020 that he's had to go in for work. He went in to get his brand new laptop and screens, and to get his first and second vaccination shots, but this is like Big Work Day vibes. 

He left this morning at 6:15am, the "meet and greet" part of the meeting started at 7 and his boss' boss said they should be there. He was happy to go then, because he would beat the traffic. Good reason. I fell back asleep after Geoff's Uber got here to get him. 

Since we have one car, Geoff had to head to clinical via ride share. If Doug has to start going back in regularly, we may have to evaluate our one-car lifestyle, especially if Geoff is assigned to a place where Public Transportation isn't going to get him there in a timely fashion. 

Anyway. sound asleep, there I was. It might have been a good idea to just get up, but sometimes I do my best sleepies between 7am and 8:30am, when my alarm usually goes off. Today though, the trash truck woke me up just before 9am, luckily. Not the first time I've been saved by the noisy contraption and its joyous crew. I forgot to set my alarm after the one I set  for Doug went off. Thank you Tuesday.

The dog and I are home here by ourselves.

For the first time. 

In months.

This solitude is weird. I have not experienced this in quite some time. It used to be like this every Tuesday for me, in the "before times" when I had my WFH day, one day a week. 

I'm hoping to have time in between the work things I want to do, like maybe vacuum, or do something around the house that I can't usually do because Doug is always up my butt or in my way. 

Doug and I don't work in the same spaces usually. He works downstairs, has 2 monitors and a laptop all set up in a workstation. Most of the time I am upstairs. I do a lot of zoom calls and the lighting is better up here, so I prefer sitting on the couch with my lap desk. 

When I have to do something that requires my second monitor, like today when I launch a station site at 3pm, I'll go downstairs. 

Sometimes Doug puts on headphones (he says I talk very loudly, and I do... I know) and sometimes he comes upstairs and plays a game on his phone while he's waiting for me to clear out of his space. 

Pandemic WFH life has been interesting, being together all of the time. 

We're sometimes in each others' spaces, but it hasn't been too bad. We have space that we can walk away to. We also have nice times where we make each other lunch. We have a puzzle table and we'll each take turns to work the puzzle pieces as a break from work. We take turns taking the dog out. We have chats. It's nice to not be alone-alone all the time. 

But I'm enjoying today and the solitude of the morning. I am going to unload the dishwasher and reload it  (I baked cookies last night and all of those dishes are waiting to go in). I will get to vacuum. I will ponder dinner. 

It's almost like what my WFH Tuesdays used to be like when we were still in Boston. It's lunchtime, and I may make myself some tuna fish, play some music, and work the puzzle for a few. 

Here's  a picture of the latest puzzle. It's actually going very fast so I'm worried we'll be done by the weekend at this rate!

Nice to see you, goodbye

Last week, I got invited to a goodbye party for a former college roommate. She and her husband have sent the kids off to their next stages in life, the house is huge and rambling, too much for them and their needs. Her parents are in need of support and care back home, he has a job here in DC. So she's moving up there, he's moving into an apartment close to work. 

It was also their birthday - their shared birthday, which I always thought was cute. So they had a birthday party/goodbye party. 

Since I moved down here in 2017, she and I had discussed getting together. They live over an hour west, and it always feels insurmountable with I-66 being such a nightmare to drive on. And with me working full time. And then the pandemic, like, no. I can't really go anywhere. 

But with her imminent departure from the area, and uncertainty about when we'd even get the chance to see each other, I figured, well. This is your chance to go see them, and spend some time, and make up for the years since moving here in 2017 and the years since we last saw each other - at a wedding in 1993. Jess was 14 months old. I still have a beautiful picture of them playing on a blanket with the Noah's Ark little people bath toy that we brought along, sweaty curls, flushed skin, big smile. 

Thankfully Doug came with me, see my feelings on driving on I-66 above. The party was at a beer farm in Virginia, and it was a beautiful setting for some fun. And there was beer. We got there late, because we both had to work, and didn't manage to get our shit together to get out the door until 5 when the party started at 4. We knew it'd be at least an hour before we got there. I warned her we'd be late and not to leave. We were coming.  

She said they'd wait.

Folks were in the process of leaving when we rolled up. She was thrilled when we walked up into the pavilion to join the gathering, and he acted like we were his very best friends that he hadn't seen in forever, which is weird because in College we didn't have any connection other than the fact he was dating my roommate and would sometimes be in our room. We were embraced with enthusiasm, brought to the bar to get beer on his tab. We talked mostly with him for quite a while as she was social butterflying around people, and he was more than happy to talk about Boston and how much he missed living there.

We had a good time catching up with them both and meeting a couple of their friends. The brewery closed at 9 and I believe we were the last people there. 

I don't really want to write in depth about some of the things her husband told me and Doug (which Doug could not believe he was saying). But suffice to say, it became obvious the sale of the house, and moving to separate locations isn't  just them making a plan for the next stage of their relationship and family care, there isn't a relationship between them any longer. 

Not only was this a shared birthday party for their shared birthday, and a bon voyage party for them moving, it was an end to the marriage send-off. This was it.

As we were some of the last people there (two other local friends stuck around to make sure they got home safe) it got teary but it never got snipey or ugly. A few burning glances across the table from her when he'd say something stupid. 

But there wasn't a level of drama brought to a drunken end of a gathering that say my family would have turned up to 11. It just was. It is what it is. 

Their friends drove them home, to the house they'd lived in for 5 years, where her stuff was packed in to her car for the morning departure. He was in charge of the rest of the move, and his own relocation. 

They'd stay one more night before she left, probably not speaking to each other. Maybe they would have harsh words then, having kept everything from boiling over at the party. Doubtful they'd sleep together (that vibe was pretty strong) and she'd be gone in the morning.

In college, she and I weren't really close or good friends. We lived in the same room and that's the extent of it. 

I am a few years older than she and our other roommate are (see the wedding above). The two of them had a tight closeness, I was on the periphery and that was okay. They were freshmen or maybe sophomores, I was a third time senior at that point.  

She was an only child, her parents older than mine (for instance, her dad is about to turn 90. My dad is 81 and my mom is in her late 70s). She was spoiled, and rich. She would come into the room at all hours of the night after hanging out with friends, and her "only child" behaviours were apparent. The overhead lights would be flung on instead gently of walking over to her desk and turning on the low light. The other roommate and I were usually already in bed, fast asleep. And then she'd talk in not a whisper but a loud and boisterous tone with the other roomie, who didn't mind getting woken up as much as I did. After all, there were stories to tell about her late night shenanigans. She'd turn on music. She listened to French music, having lived in France for a while. She'd sing. Jesus, God, help me she'd be over there singing in French and I had an 8am class.

It was at times brutal to live with someone who had literally never had to share time and space with others. We would have arguments about it, the other roomie and I trying to convince her how to act like other people were on the planet too. 

Eventually she started to get it, but I often was overwhelmed with the concepts of what selfishness does to relationships. The other roommate was the middle child of three girls (funnily enough, she then had 3 girls herself!) so she was always sensitive to space sharing and quiet time. We established guidelines: If it's after 11? Do not turn on the overhead lights. Try not to crank up the tunes and sing out loud and turn every light in the room on. And for fucks sake, do not sing a bunch of French pop songs. 

Especially if your roommate works full time to try and pay for college, and has to go to classes, and everything. You'll thank me later when I bring home a buttload of Croissants from the bakery I worked night shift at. If you want to enjoy the things I bring back, start acting like I matter. We left college on good terms. And that was nice, because at the bottom of everything, she indeed was nice, smart, and fun.

When Doug and I got to the party, after we found out about their separation, she pulled me aside and asked me "was it weird of me to include him? To invite him to this?" 

I told her that no I didn't think it was at all.  It was as much his birthday as hers, as much his last hurrah as hers, and it was obvious that these were his friends too.  

The most selfish person I'd known at one time had done something inclusive, for someone she probably can't stand being around at all anymore. And I thought that was pretty amazing.

So she's off. She's with her parents. She posted pictures on Facebook of taking her dad out for ice cream. It was quite adorable. She messaged me yesterday to thank us for coming to the party, apologized if it was weird or awkward for us. I told her it sort of was, but I get it and it does not diminish my love for her. 

Maybe let's not wait 30 something years to spend some time together again. 

Nice to see you. Bye, roomie. See you again some other time.