Hey Andrew, How was your brunch with your son? How did your daughter's visit go with her bestie?
Things are going good here. Kids are out of school for summer, except I enrolled my 1st grader into summer camp to help him maintain his skills and give him something meaningful to do every day! He seems to like it so far. It's only a half day and they give him breakfast and lunch!
Do you plant flowers? Or just maintain perennials?
It was good as always. I think the 2 week cadence works well because it gives us time to accumulate up things to talk about. He really seems to be thriving in his new job. Even without the mini-golf it was still a great Father's Day.
Originally Posted by dream
How did your daughter's visit go with her bestie?
No clue - I've not talked to her since. I think they have some of her in-laws visiting now. I'll hopefully catch up soon. I expect that it was very nice - she sent me the occasional snap-chat of this or that but none of them included her friend. She doesn't "do" the pictures of people thing much anyway.
Originally Posted by dream
Things are going good here. Kids are out of school for summer, except I enrolled my 1st grader into summer camp to help him maintain his skills and give him something meaningful to do every day! He seems to like it so far. It's only a half day and they give him breakfast and lunch!
Excellent. Boy they are growing up so fast. I think the last picture I saw he was just out of being a toddler. Sounds like he is thriving. The other boy is a couple of years older if I recall correctly? I don't remember.
Originally Posted by dream
Do you plant flowers? Or just maintain perennials?
I have a variety. I have 2 beds of perennials that I maintain - mostly peonies with some irises as well. The one bed that I focus on beside the house I have a couple of bleeding hearts in as perennials and then plant every year as usual a mix of flowers and vegetables in there. I also have 2 planters I built a long time ago that have leafy greens and flowers in them. There are also 3 rhubarb patches, a large patch of black currants and another of raspberries. It's a big property (about 1/4 acre) so there's lots of room. The real constraint is how much I wish to maintain. I try to encourage the young couple around the corner to help themselves to the rhubarb and berries.
Originally Posted by dream
Whatever happened with the house next door?
A contractor bought the property, gutted it and sold it to a young man for a substantial profit. The guy works nights so I pretty much never sees him. He's not taking great care of the property but his parents are there regularly doing a lot of the work for him. They seem frustrated by that (his mother likes to chat) but not my issue. It's nice to have it occupied and not vacant and also occupied by someone who is so quiet.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Two: Well Bruce, I heard the Prime Minister use it. "It's hot enough to boil a monkey's bum in here, your Majesty," he said and she smiled quietly to herself.
One: She's a good Shiela, Bruce, and not at all stuck up.
Quiet Saturday here. It is quite hot so I've decided to not do any outside chores beyond laundry. And a bit of tidying and puttering. No sense causing any risks to any monkeys that may be about.
Sad news today from my friend P. She had to put her rescue dog down a bit over a month ago - the aggression issues it had that she was working on just proved to be too much. A very tough decision - I really wanted to wrap her up and give her a big hug which I think she needed but didn't. She appreciated my sympathy and listening to her story though I think.
Been on a bit of a bumpy slide downwards lately. Just more or less drifting. I noticed a neighbour of mine signed up for OLD recently. The photos are mostly honest, some a bit older. I know she's heavier and older than the photos indicate. She's been divorced for quite some time and I think now that she's retired she's putting her toe into the pond.
Her profile indicates a bit of experience with dating though I think because it clearly states "If you have few or no friends, strained relationships with your children and are looking for someone to fulfill all your needs, keep looking".
I don't know her well, just socially. It could be interesting to see how she fares as a well educated woman of colour in an area that is so white and redneck we probably glow in the dark.
I'm still not in a place where I am wanting to date anyone but it's nice to know that people like her exist.
But even so - it's been seeming "darker" lately. World events, and just plain old loneliness and a feeling of just drifting are intruding. I've noticed that I'm more sensitive to sound and noise lately too. Generally I have some sort of background music etc going all the time. Lately I've been turning that off. Just too much input.
I'll get out of this funk I'm sure. Not sure how, not sure when.
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Had a funny experience at the barber shop. I've been having some challenges getting a haircut that I really like. The current trend it seems comes from Peaky Blinders and leaves a bit more on top than I prefer given that I'm more looking for just a plain crew-cut. The barbers were joking with me that I looked like I was some sort organized crime boss, then paused, re-thought it especially since they realized that I seemed rather knowledgeable about the challenges that ex-cons have re-integrating into society and then backtracked . I do tend to present I like to think a fairly confident and polished appearance and I'm sure that the freshly starched shirts, bow tie and some rather old-fashioned bling are pretty uncommon. Not to mention the fact that there are some signs of a more adventurous youth - they never did get my nose quite straight but it's not obvious unless you look closely
I do think though that I need to reach out to an old acquaintance who used to run a very successful hair salon to see if she can recommend someone for me. One thing I like about the shop I've been going to is that they are convenient. And TBH - they are pros at cutting hair so if they feel that a particular style suits me, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, but after a couple of iterations of it, I'm not so sure. This is where - like I've been feeling a lot lately - it would be very nice to have someone to give me other opinions on such things.
As a LOL - my xW was certainly never any help on that. Her best input was "you look fine" any time I would ask about something
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Monday I got up in good time, headed off to the plant only to have my tire low pressure light come on a couple of clicks out of town. After moderate bit of thought, turned around, got the compressor up and checked all 4 tires. Lost the valve cap in the hubcap, took that off, struggled but eventually got it on and pressurized up the low driver side rear tire.
Get to the plant where I had some "must attend" group meetings from HR on dealing with stress and depression that were kind of a waste of time. Headed out to the plant to inspect a freshly installed piece of equipment in the control room while the second session with the other half of the staff in it.
While inspecting the equipment, I bent over and accidentally hit the emergency shut-offs for most of the main pumping system with the top of my hard-hat just as the second session was finishig reviewing appropriate reactions to stress . That room emptied quickly and I tracked down the operations manager and explained what had happened which was not popular but made things a lot easier as now everyone knew why everything shut down.
The guys were good about the error - lots of teasing which I took with good humour. I screwed up. I admitted to it. But man-o-man despite the laughter did I feel rough about it.
Because we have great guys and so many were on site to attend these meetings, the plant was down for less than 5 minutes. I checked production later and we had about 3 hours of production that was sub-optimal before everything got back to where it should be.
When I got home I "really" needed to talk to someone about it, but as the song goes "I ain't got nobody" (I prefer the Louis Prima version) so stewed in my own juices. Early to bed with weird dreams featuring the xW wanting to reconcile and being confused about why I needed some sort of apology. Felt better this morning. It's funny in some ways, it's been so long since I've even seen her that I have only vague impressions from my dream on what she looked like.
Get up, head for work, low tire pressure light comes on, go back for the compressor (which now lives in my trunk), head back in to the plant for day-long meetings and some very pointed questions from my boss, leaving my house keys in my front door. I'm sure it helped that I owned my mistake and that it was pretty obvious that I felt horrible about it. I should not have been wearing my PPE in that part of the control room and should have been more physically aware of the control panel.
Meetings went well, went back out to the control room to finish my inspection, pointedly being very careful around the panel. Lots of teasing from the guys and also commiseration - it's nobody's surprise that even well trained operators will occasionally hit the wrong button. Some good suggestions on modifications to the panel to prevent this in the future which I'll take back and set up a review of both what went wrong and preventative actions as part of our Quality program.
Found out that I am getting a raise and everyone is geting a one-time bonus payment to cover the current bump in inflation. The raise is roughly equivalent to 2 week's pay so that will be nice. I believe everyone is getting the same percentage increase.
If one positive thing happened, this incident has certainly given me a jolt - not sure if it will be enough to help propel me out of my rut.
At least the next while may have some changes. We have one of our admin staff retiring this week and it's been announced that the major project I had been pulled in to has been delayed now to the mid-fall. I'm going to finally I think get back in to doing "real work" again. I suspect that some of the rail planning, production monitoring and managing one of our production segements will come back on to my plate. I miss feeling like I've accomplished something and made a difference. I also believe that I'll probably end up with some of the regulatory compliance and quality control tasks ending up on my plate. The engineer that is doing it now hates it and since it doesn't require an actual engineering certification it may come my way. We'll see. I am somewhat neither fish nor fowl there. A senior staffer who is skilled in analytics who also has no problems shoveling snow, performing inspections or whatever else needs to be done.
It would be so nice to have someone to talk to this about. My kids have their own lives and are just generally supportive. My friends, many of whom work in similar industries, I don't see often enough and we don't usually get too deep into the weeds just catching up whenever we meed. I need to start just moving myself along - somehow and somewhere.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Your ex wife seems to come very very frequently in your dreams . Why do you suppose ?
Not really a surprise that theme shows up when I am stressed or depressed. We were together for 27 years and I expect my subconscious just tries to fit her into the ensemble whenever "partner" is needing to be cast.
And generally fails with me being reminded of what she did and her lack of remorse.
Perhaps as kml suggests, I need to put myself out there again and do another casting call.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
It would be so nice to have someone to talk to this about. My kids have their own lives and are just generally supportive. My friends, many of whom work in similar industries, I don't see often enough and we don't usually get too deep into the weeds just catching up whenever we meed. I need to start just moving myself along - somehow and somewhere.
No friends you can call? Perhaps that’s the place to look. It doesn’t have to be a GF or significant other. Someone you’re just casually dating might not even be the best. But you shouid have some friends you can reach out to. I actually bet you do, you’re just not comfortable reaching out.
Or maybe I’m just lucky in this regard? While I’ve not had a SO to call in a long time I’ve got a long list I can reach out to - many of them women. And they do the same with me. I’d suggest re-thinking who you could have contacted. And if truly no one, perhaps it’s not a GF you should be seeking but just more friends. Even these too are harder to come by in later years but not as difficult as a quality partner. Give it some thought and a try.
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
One of the challenges is that many of my better friends who I would be ok reaching out to for many things that I met as co-workers are now customers / suppliers / competitors. The chemical industry is rather in-bred ... And while that sort of common background can be good for conversation, it also isn't a good idea to be sharing things about production issues, order and competitive things that it would be nice to just "vent" about. While my tales about the challenges around ammonium nitrate supplies for example would be interesting to them - it would be for more reasons than "AndrewP's having a rough day". We may all be friends, but we all want to make a buck as well. In the days of Covid the weekly booze-up Zoom call was always fascinating because you could see people literally biting their lips on some topics.
My local friends, I'm not so close to - after all I spend the greater part of my waking life working / commuting like the greater populace. We'll chat when we cross paths on the street - my friend "P" (the "psycho") around the corner is a good listener as are many others, but not people I can reach out to after a rough day at work.
And you are right as well - I don't like "whining and complaining" about my problems. I'm generally an upbeat and positive guy - even when I'm not feeling it.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
You can fee free to vent to me anytime. You know how to reach me outside of here. I’m not necessarily saying you shouldn’t date if you feel ready but having someone to vent to isn’t the only reason.
Me 52, H53 Bomb drop 9/29/2014 Divorce from XH final 12/17/2014 Marriage #2 12/31/2019 5 adult (step)daughters (3 from XH's first marriage, 2 from current H's previous relationships) 6 grandkids
He seems to like it so far. It's only a half day and they give him breakfast and lunch! 
. I do tend to present I like to think a fairly confident and polished appearance and I'm sure that the freshly starched shirts, bow tie and some rather old-fashioned bling are pretty uncommon. Not to mention the fact that there are some signs of a more adventurous youth - they never did get my nose quite straight but it's not obvious unless you look closely 