My step daughter, A was in town last week. Had a nice birthday luncheon with she and E, the darling daughter on Wednesday. Their bds are a couple days apart. Typically we do them both at the same time. At least recently we have. When A is town anyhoo. She's my world traveller. Works for Disney on Ice. She seems to get all her downtime at once.

Girl brought me a bottle of Jameson's right from the distillery. With my freakin' name on the label. How cool is that?

Called me Thursday and asked if I could get her to the airport Friday afternoon. I surely could.

On the way to the airport, I asked how her dinner with friends went for her birthday. She said it went well. Herself’s and my ex-roomate C was there. I asked how she was doing. Fine she said. Living in Trinity, but thinking of moving back to town. Apparently there’s a BF involved. And she would like to talk to me. Really?! I cannot imagine why? The last conversation I had with her a couple of years ago, did not go very well.

Honestly, I wish C well. But do I want to re-open a dialogue or more with this person? I’m on the fence about this.

While I confess to some curiosity, as to what she could possibly have to say, I’m not really sure I give a fuck. Sounds like I’m being nasty, I know, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time, actively staying away from (mostly) my former life in the burbs.

Haven’t spoken to any of Herself’s relatives in over a year and a half, other than my step-daughter. And I do not plan to unless it is by accident. Not so much because it hurts, but I don’t feel comfortable hanging out with that bunch. Far too many lies and bullshit amongst that bunch.

I don’t think I want to re-inject that into my life.

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Laptop was rec’d and turned around by Lenovo in less than a week. Haven’t even had time to power the thing up to see if they managed to fix it. I’m sure they did otherwise would they have turned it around and got it back to me? I think I can sit still long enough to power it up this morning ~ heh

________________________________________________________________

Continuing to think about changes for me.

Road trip is coming I think.

Started my dog sitting gig this afternoon. Could hear the dogs going berserk, as little dogs are wont to do, as I walked up to the front door. As I put my key in the lock, I dropped my Kindle keyboard. Even though it was in a case, it landed on the concrete with a sickening crunch. Sure enough, after I got the critters to settle down a bit, I turned my attention to the device, and it wouldn't cycle on. Kaput.

Crap! The thing has become my favorite way to read books. I've ordered a replacement as I cannot see going back to reading printed again.

But jeeeeeeeeeeeeez!

For playing your own soundtrack.

I can sit here in my bar, when there's no one in particular I want to converse with and dance (so to speak) to the beat of my own drum. All the while sitting in a corner watching people do what they do.

The barback here just came up and asked me what I was listening to. I showed him my screen, it was Traditional Japanese flute music. Heh.

His remark was, are you fucking kidding me? I like to surprise folks like that. Most would be quite amazed to learn what I'm carrying on my iPod. Not just an old rock-n-roller am I?

I listen to it all. I reckon it has a lot to do with my military brat upbringing. I was very fortunate to be exposed to as much diversity as I was.

Mostly back on track for WW. Had some pasta and some sorta stewish thing for lunch over it. Not very points intensive, but filling enough.

Gave the kitchen a good start today too.

Tried a new Chinese place around the corner from la casita. It's been there for a year or two. Used to be a Chinese diner/coffee shop. Yeah, weird. But you could get a decent breakfast plate there. That closed and this place opened.

Had a couple of deelish summer rolls with some kinda peanut sauce. Rolls were good. Sauce was rather bland.

Then they brought me a big platter of chicken chow fun. Big fat rice noodles with onions, bamboo, and nice chunks of chicken. Sauce was almost sweet, but soy sauce based. Scrumptious.

Took 1/2 for another meal at some point.

Listened to some (I assume) single dad eating dinner with his two children. Their conversation consisted mostly of dad bitching about their table manners and food choices. And then the boy fighting back. The girl, definitely the older of the two, mostly sat back and took it. Bleh. Not one of them knew how to act.

I seem to be in a better mental space tonight. Good thing. Was kinda foul last night.

Finally got my laptop off to Lenovo to be repaired. Let THEM figure that shit out. Big ass box they sent me was taking up too much space. Heh. Shipment was overnight prepaid. Should get the thing back at some point next week. Yeah!

Think it might (ha ha) be an early night for me. Then again. Maybe not. Most of the crewe is back in town or will be tomorrow.

Laundry later or in the morning. Need to program the droid vacuum to run a couple times a week. Little shit does a pretty good job with the floors and carpet. All I have to do is keep up with the rest. Har har!

Start a round of dog sitting for some friends at some point this week too. Wouldn't ordinarily volunteer to do that, but they were pretty desperate. Along the lines of, "Help me obi wan. You're our last hope!" kind of desperate. Soooooo....

I'm just not crazy about dogs. Especially someone else's dogs. But we all gotta do what we gotta do.

So, an even keel kind of start to the week, no? Of course it is early yet...

Hopefully I'll feel like doing some study work this week too.

Peace out.

When I will not be suffering fools or drinks gladly. And god help you if you are both a fool AND drunk.

Not quite sure what is up with my mood. Here I sit at the local watering hole, and ordinarily I would be happily hanging out.

Dunno.

My crewe is mostly out of town right now. And some of the folk hanging out here have been here far too long today. Know what I'm sayin'?

Maybe I'm looking for the wrong thing here. Duh! Intelligent conversation. Not happening.

I've moved to the back patio. Got headphones in. Don Henley blasting into my brain. I like it back here sometimes.

Wtfevar

To my dear Mother who was taken from us far too early.

Much love, my dear. I love you.

I miss you still. I guess I always will.

Yeah…

Except when it doesn't ~

Been moving component electronics around today. Hit a snag when my Living room Apple TV refused to connect. Like to drove myself crazy trying to figure this one out. Finally eliminated all SW and HW issues except for the Ethernet switch.

BINGO! Unplugged the cable and moved to a different port… All green across the board. But jeebus! I wasted a lot of time on this…

Guess that’s a problem with hyper focus.

Need to figure out a new setup for the bed room though. Not like I don't have enough equipment. Hah. Not quite as important, but needs to be done.


Weight ~

Been off the rails on my diet this week. And just about everything else too.

Still managed a net loss of about 5 lbs. No tracking, ate and drank whatever the hell I felt like…

Certainly didn't expect that! Maybe more physical activity (nothing planned or organized) last week, but I was out and about quite a bit last week. Worked up a sweat a couple of times. But this is SE Texas.

Jeez, I wonder what would have happened if I was paying attention?

Going to try and get serious with this again this week. I want to start cooking again.


Sleep ~

Has been consistently inconsistent. Sleeping every night (or morning). Except for the damned sinus headache I had over Friday and Saturday. Weather changed. Figure that’s what that was about.

That has screwed with my weekend fun though.

In by six out by noon!
Been doing a lot of this lately. Get home around 400 or 500, in bed by 600, up by noon.

I really should stop. But. Why? If I expect to rejoin the regular workforce, I’m guessing I’ll need to get back to regularly sleeping at night.


Living ~

I just signed a years lease on la casita. So. Committed I am. Or maybe I should BE committed. Hah!


Commitment is NOT a dirty word

Going to ream myself out now...

Except maybe for me. Been reading a lot lately about people who have committed to do one or two things every day. For a year. And succeeded.

Fuck! I can't even commit to daily doing anything for a month. Sometimes a week!

I'm off the rails on all my improvement projects. And have been for nearly 2 weeks.

Diet and weight loss - screwed
Meditation - screwed
Cleaning @ la casita - screwed
Using and abusing myself - perfect!

I need to get a grip and make it stick. Been kinda waiting to see what the results of my blood work yield, but I want to restart these projects.

Okay - Enough bitching. Off to shower and then scrounge up some food-ish type stuff.

The Mad Hatter:

Have I gone mad?

Alice:

I am afraid so… You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret.

All the best people are.

This might be one of the coolest purchases I've made in a while.

Meet my Neato Robotics XV-12.



It sucks. No really. It seems to hit almost all the areas. Got issues with a corner or two. But it does an all right job. Not as good as my upright dyson, but between 'big" cleanings, it'll do. Oh yes it'll do quite nicely.

I guess WW works!

I'm 3.4 pounds lighter today than I was at this time last week!

The new Dr. Who trailer is out...





Looking good too.