Month: November 2020

At some point in the morning every day I’m at work – often right when I walk in the door – I sit down and write Ms. Boss a text about something I’m thankful for regarding her or our relationship together. When I started, I figured I would highlight one particular aspect of her character every day for a few days and that would be the end of it. Several months later I’m still going. Why? One of the positive lessons I learned from church is that prayers should be like finely ground incense – the more you break it down, the more you find you can be thankful for and such is the relationship with Ms. Boss. My day just isn’t complete without this.

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When I’m in a less charitable humor, you’ll hear me complain about the trials and tribulations of having four daughters – they want this, they need that, they won’t do this, they shouldn’t do that. To hear me tell it when I’m in such a state, they run the range from mildly irritating to outright pains. Then come those moments, however, those golden moments where they accomplish this or finish that or do something that shows that we’re not bad parent last after all that absolutely makes the whole child-rearing thing worth it. I am thankful, so very thankful they are in my lives and I can call them mine.

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I graduated from college in 1993 into what was at the time the worst job market since World War II. I moved straight from my college apartment into my parents basement and stayed there for six long weeks before someone hired me as a dispatcher – a skill I didn’t study for but nonetheless learned in college through part time employment. I’ve never been unemployed since. What’s more, I’ve been and around public safety communications – a profession I am proud to be a part of – for all but fifteen months out of the last thirty-plus years. The most important thing out of all of this is that I met ,wooed, and married Ms. Boss because of my chosen profession. To say that I am thankful for all of this would be a gross understatement.

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I should be dead. Three times now I’ve made decisions that should have killed me – once in my twenties because I was impatient, once in my twenties because I was drunk, and once in my thirties because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. All three times I escaped unharmed in any way. No, I don’t want to talk about them. I dodged life-altering effects of medication three times – once before I was even born because I was lucky, once in my thirties because my doctor wrote a prescription but wadded it up before he gave it to me, and once in my forties because I was cheap and asked for the twice a day dosage instead of the more expensive once a day. I’m thankful that all of those situations turned out the way they did.

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At 29 with a brand new masters degree in hand, I interviewed for my dream job – or at least what I thought was my dream job at the time – on the West Coast and absolutely crushed it. When they made their offer, I drew a line in the sand and said I would only take the job if they crossed it. After some back and forth, they said they would meet my demands, but not until the next year. I turned them down. The next summer I met Ms. Boss. What’s more, she shook up my mindset and journeyed with me down a path that led me to where I am now, a place I’m truly content. I am thankful beyond belief for that.

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My life is rich and full of blessings whenever I take the time to stop and look and assess myself with a loving heart. I could go on and on about how I’m thankful, but this is where this particular entry ends. Thank you, dear reader, for reading.

While discussing her upcoming work anniversary, Ms. Boss made the statement that it felt like she had been in her new role in her job a long time, but that it seemed I’d been in my job just a short while. I agreed with her right up to the point where we both realized that she was promoted AFTER I got my new job. It’s funny how the concept of time seems so elastic even comparing things during the same period of time.

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I recently took up the practice of meditation. I’ve tried it out several times before because people said I should, but didn’t really know why. Now I know. Meditation enhances your ability to dissociate yourself from the constant barrage of thoughts that want to take up your bandwidth including – most important to me – anger. Immediately after I picked up this nugget from a book I was reading, an opportunity to try this out presented itself… and it worked. I’ve sat in meditation every day since, sitting a little longer every week. Sometimes, the time flies by – my timer sounding at the end surprising me back into reality. Other times it absolutely drags causing me to check and see if my timer is working… with the inevitable and disappointing discovery that it is.

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As I mentioned in my last Random post, I used to work seventeen hour shifts on the regular. While it may seem counterintuitive, seventeens were almost easier to handle than my regular ten hour shifts. On tens, I used to watch the clock. On seventeens, I resigned myself early on that I would be at work forever.

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I have an objective measure of how bad a movie is. The earlier in the movie I look at my watch, the worse the movie.

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Haiku 35 talks about how I needed an app to find the moon. I wrote this because the app for my weather station started showing the phase of the moon and when moonrise and moonset were. I happened to look at it the other day while, saw that the moon should have just risen, looked up, and saw it. Once upon a time, man would have known the time of day by looking at the sky rather than the other way around.

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I know I said that Random posts would be fewer and farther between. I also know that posting two in one week is incompatible with that statement. You can thank (or blame) my bosses for this. Now that I’m commuting one day a week to work instead of five, I seem to have a lot more time on my hands.

A windstorm passed through town yesterday that knocked the top of a dead ash tree onto my roof. While I was very fortunate – a foot in any direction would have resulted in quite a bit of damage – I wanted to make sure it got removed as soon as possible. While I tried previously to get my neighbor who runs a tree service to remove it, he did not get the call yesterday. Someone willing to answer the call on a Sunday and promised to be out in the morning did. He arrived promptly at 9:00 with his crew of eight, quoted me a price of $1000 to remove it, and got the job. Half an hour later, his crew was done and on its way. What did I get for something that cost me three days pay? A tall gangly dude who could climb trees better than I can walk, a master class in chain saw work, a man who never dropped the cigarette while picking up two huge logs it would have taken two of me trips to carry, and one less tree on my house. Expensive? Yes. Too much? Probably. Worth it to me? Yes.

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My grandfather worked maintenance in an aluminum foundry. A proud union man, he worked hard for his money. A man like that deserves his vacation, right? He took it, alright, and used it to paint houses. Working with a brush in each hand, he painted as many houses as he could. He used that money to put my mother and his sister through the best nursing school in the state. He settled for no less than a BSN for both of them.

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My father sold heavy machinery in a sizable territory for a living. While most fathers spent their evenings with their families or at sports or in front of the television, he talked on the phone with the clients he wasn’t able to reach during the day. He sold during some times that weren’t all that kind to his business. Cell phones made his life a touch easier, but it was the hard years beating the bushes and building the relationships that truly paid off in the end.

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I worked as a police and fire dispatcher for over two decades. While it’s not the physical profession my grandfather worked, it does take its toll on you. The profession hemorrhages overtime and I worked more than my fair share of it. Seventeen hour shifts were a common occurrence. Unlike many others, I chose to take the pay rather than earn comp time. The I figured it, everyone’s comp time would eventually find its way to my pay check. I now work for salary in an occupation ‘adjacent’ to dispatching. If only I could earn overtime for all that I do.

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My mother and my stepmother worked – something not too terribly unusual for my generation. All three of my grandmothers worked – I include my stepgrandmother here – something a little bit more unusual. So I’m sure it’s not all that surprising that I married someone who also works hard. Ms. Boss and I met because we both worked in the same profession. Kids came relatively shortly after we were married and she put quite a bit of energy into that. After our last one was born, however, she went back to work as an eight-hour barista. Just six years later or so, she made it all the way to district manager where she became one of the best performers in the nation. She also earned her associates, bachelors, and MBA while still caring for our four daughters. When the boss she was working for wouldn’t support her moving up in the company, she found someone in another company who would. When that employer didn’t necessarily want the changes she was hired to make after all, she pivoted to another profession that made use of her best talent – her intelligence. If it wasn’t for pandemic, she would have been traveling internationally in 2020 exercising expertise in her field. Yes, she works hard, but more attractive to me, she also works smart.

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I’ve been a slave to the cellphone for the past ten years in my role as “essential personnel”. Recently, I’ve started saying “I’m looking forward to retirement” despite the fact I’m fifteen years away from it. But am I really? I worked my first full day from home yesterday because my employer told me to, and as much as I thought I’d enjoy it, it did produce some anxiety in me that I wasn’t doing “real work”. I guess I’ll just have to keep going. Besides, tree removal has to be paid for somehow.