The Life of Riley is a weekly post that details my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 336): #1GF! Helps Humans, I Help Bits & Bytes

#1GF! went to visit family and I wrote until I stopped caring what words were coming off of the keyboard. I ripped some new CD’s into MP3’s, backed up some files, downloaded the latest version of Mediamonkey, removed some unused applications and games, defragged my system drive, and ran a spyware scan. While I was doing all of these fun things to pass the time, I noticed that my Joseph Palmer beard post had absolutely caught fire and pulled in more traffic in a couple of days than I normally get all month.

#1GF! called and said she was going to the hospital to visit her sick aunt and wouldn’t be back any time soon. Her aunt wasn’t doing well, so I picked up a little around the house and took out the garbage so that #1GF! would be a little more comfortable when she got home. Surprisingly, #1GF! hadn’t eaten anything by the time she arrived, and I hadn’t cooked anything because I assumed that she would’ve grabbed something with her family. Both of us had bowls of cereal for dinner, which always feels like a tribute to my old pal, Dick Clark.

Monday (Day 337): Running Around

I headed out early to a granite warehouse to check out a slab of granite while #1GF! was at work. This particular warehouse wasn’t really set up for the public because I had to put on an orange vest and wait in a small, roped off section while they brought the stone over with a forklift. The slab was the only one that they had and it was cracked, meaning I wasted 20 minutes waiting for 30 seconds of viewing. Maybe their process works great for insurance purposes, but it certainly isn’t very efficient.

From there, I checked on the house and did the food shopping. I ended up making a salad for lunch because I bought a head of lettuce when we already had one. By the time lunch was over, it was 1:30 and half of the day was gone. Explaining it makes me feel like a retired person telling you that they have no time for things despite their lack of jobs.

You know one of the great things about being unemployed and not being in contact with a lot of people is though? You can eat all the onions you want and not have to worry about offending anyone with your stank ass onion breath. I had that thought while making my salad, and added the onions because it’s true. No one stops by my house during the day, and if they stop by unannounced and get offended by my garlic /onion breath, it’s their own damned fault for not calling ahead. Shit. Now, I just sound crazy.

Anyway. I spent the rest of the day learning to retouch photographs with GIMP, and had a plate of enchiladas ready for #1GF! when she got back from seeing her aunt in the hospital. I was trying to make up for her eating cereal for dinner the day before.

Tuesday (Day 338): I Pity The Fools

I spent almost the entire day working on photo retouching. I didn’t come up with anything very interesting until I decided to bling out a picture of Mr. T. It wasn’t all that difficult to do, but it still took me a couple of hours to get it to look the way I wanted. Once it was done, I sat there staring at it and laughing saying things like “I pity the fool.” and “Ungh. I don’t want no milk, you crazy fool.”

Once again my Joseph Palmer traffic was going through the roof thanks to a personal blogger’s best friend: StumbleUpon. It’s fun when traffic goes through the roof for no reason, but I now know that the traffic rush eventually ends when people get tired of you. It doesn’t have to be a disappointment if you expect it to end.

Wednesday (Day 339): A Day of Waiting

I started the day off with the highest traffic that I’ve ever seen in one day, and then got a call that #1GF! had left work to go to the hospital to visit her aunt who wasn’t expected to live for more than a few hours. I wasn’t sure if I should head for the hospital because #1GF! might be leaving by the time I showed up, but I figured that I should probably go anyway. I’m not Chucky Goodguy and hospitals are far from my favorite places, but I thought that there was nothing that should stop me from at least trying.

I drove over to the hospital and took enough wrong turns that I thought that my subconscious was trying to avoid that hospital smell, but I eventually made it. Once I made my way upstairs to the ICU, I found out that her aunt was in rough enough shape to be on morphine, but it was uncertain if she’d live through the day or for a week. In any case, the outcome was looming, and #1GF! seemed to be pretty happy to have me there, even if I am as useless as tits on a bull when it comes to matters of comforting people.

Her aunt was unconscious, but despite the rules of only having a couple of people in the ICU at a time, her room was filled with people who were talking, arguing, and telling stories as if she could regain consciousness at any moment. She remained unconscious, and after about six hours of watching her aunt struggle with every breath, we headed home.

There, we found that we had no power. I called the power company who said that there wasn’t a power outage in my area, then I called our maintenance guy who made it to the complex as soon as he could. After a couple of phone calls to his supervisor, he figured out that the power company shut down the power to my apartment intentionally. I let him get on his way because there was nothing he could do, and I called the power company who agreed to send one of their guys out.

The lack of power isn’t all that big of a deal because we have lanterns and flashlights, but waiting for people to show up or call you back is the worst part in situations like that. We had no idea how long the power had been off or whether it was going to come back on because no one was calling us back.

The power company guy showed up within an hour and determined that my electric meter was shut off because it’s labeled with the wrong apartment number. He turned my power back on and suggested that I call the electric company in the morning to straighten things out. You may be wondering, as I did, if the meter that I get billed for is actually wired to another apartment, have I been paying someone else’s electric bill for the last four years? Then, I wondered if the bill I know is better than the bill I don’t.

Later that evening, we found out that almost immediately after the last family member left the ICU and the door closed behind them, #1GF!’s aunt’s breathing and heart rate slowed, and she passed away.

Thursday (Day 340): Keeping Busy

The funeral arrangements hadn’t been sorted out, yet, so #1GF! and I ran around doing errands to keep busy. We went to look at paint samples, called the contractor about the terrible job the plasters did on our house, bought my mom a Mothers’ Day gift, returned some stuff, and set out to sort out my electric bill from the day before.

The light company sent me to the Board of Heath, who sent me to the Building Department, who said I should talk to the light company before suggesting that I call the electrical inspector. It was humorously circular. Because I’m moving out soon, I got bored with the process and gave up.

Friday (Day 341): #1GF’s Aunt’s Funeral

It was raining like mad, and we attended #1GF!’s aunt’s funeral. It was a family only sort of thing, so it was small and lack of people seemed to concentrate the grief. Because I’m relatively expressionless and stand near doorways, one of the kids pointed out that I looked like a security guard. They released some pink balloons graveside, which I thought would be corny, but ended up being a nice touch.

Saturday (Day 342): Wasting Time

I called a few granite places to see if they had gotten in any new pieces of granite that we could look at. One said that they did, so we got dressed and headed over to their warehouse. When we got there, we found out that the lady on the phone had no idea what she was talking about, because nothing new had come in. We had an hour’s worth of errands to do and about four hours to do them before attending a Mothers’ Day dinner, so there wasn’t enough time to go home, but too much time to sit in a granite warehouse parking lot before looking suspicious.

We went into Mike’s Pastry to buy cannolis for #1GF!’s mother because she swears that they’re the best cannolis in the world. I don’t really see the difference, but if that’s what she likes, then on special occasions, we make the trip into Boston and get her some.

Once we picked up the cannolis, we went to fight the mob to get a card. I didn’t buy one, because I really don’t get cards. It’s like giving someone else’s disposable sentiments to someone. People read them, smile, wait a prescribed amount of time, and then throw them in the trash. It’s sort of like copying something out of a book without actually spending the effort writing. I don’t know. Cards must be a girl thing.

Even after getting a card, we still had hours to kill, so we went to a diner for a slow lunch. Despite trying to get to the bottom of my coffee cup several times, I was thwarted by one of the best coffee-slinging wait staffs that I’ve ever encountered. I kept chugging down the joe because I couldn’t shake the feeling of being worn down. There were other people who were having a tougher time than I was, so I tried to ignore it the best that I could. I didn’t think that I had earned the right to be so tired.

Even after eating, we still had time, so we went over to #1GF!’s Mom’s house. The kids were doing science projects and frosting cupcakes, and I was just wandering around harassing them. We eventually headed out and drive to dinner, and I started playing some weird game with the kids where I’d just call out things I’d see and give myself points for seeing them. Even though I was getting points for fire hydrants, the kids would get negative points because the things that they saw were “too common”. There’s something wrong with me, and those kids know it. We eventually had a nice dinner with #1GF!’s family and headed home.

What I Learned

• Games can be made up about anything and they don’t need a winner.
• Sometimes being there is enough.
• Hope, even when verging on delusional, can be inspiring.
• There are 2,303,602 shades of blue paint to pick from. I would be happier with less choice.
• Mr. T looks awesome in bling.
• I look like a security guard in a suit.

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Posted in Leisure