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 378): Father’s Day

#1GF! and I went to breakfast with my parents, and then a furniture store, Wal-Mart and the cemetery. It was Father’s day, and I noticed a young mom and her two young children standing over a newly dug military grave. The kids were only about two and five, so I hoped that this wasn’t the only way that their family could be together on Father’s Day.

When we got home, we were tired from running around, so I made some iced tea with three tea bags, some hot water, and some ice. It made me think that about the powdered iced tea mix that people buy. It seemed like the perfect example of how America constantly looks for ways to simplify already simple things and ends up making them more complicated. Iced tea mix takes about ten minutes to make, and we’ve demanded that it be reduced to ten seconds, no matter how many chemicals we have to ingest to get there. The only plausible reason why instant iced tea exists is so that someone can sell you something you didn’t know you needed.

Speaking of things we don’t need, I uninstalled Comodo Firewall and went back to Zone Alarm because the Comodo refused to take my exclusions and it was interfering with #1GF!’s DVR. One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t mess with a lady’s DVR. Once everything was back up and running, we ended up sitting on the couch and watching taped shows until bed.

Monday (Day 379): Light Shopping

I went out to check on the house, pick up some lights, and go to the bank. On the way, I dropped by the apartment complex office to straighten out a letter that said they hadn’t received my rent check and I was going to be evicted in fourteen days. When I asked about it, they said that the letter was standard procedure. I’ve been here for years and never missed a payment, so you’d think they’d call before sending an eviction notice. They got the payment in the mail that day, so it all worked out, but I thought it was a weird standard procedure.

I ended up looking for lights in a home store in Quincy, but they didn’t have what I needed, so I went to another store to not get what I was looking for. I was supposed to go to lunch with a former co-worker, but he had car trouble, and I had more lights to look for, so I had to cancel.

By the time I got around to going to the bank, I had forgotten what our counters cost and had to call #1GF! to see if she knew. Nothing inspires confidence in my ability like a phone call like that. Once I got the check filled out with the right amount, I popped into a Super 88 Market (a big Asian grocery store) to grab some ginger candy. I think I ate almost the entire bag while running around looking at lights because it was late afternoon and I was running on nothing but Cheerios.

I eventually gave up after a light store in Cohasset and headed home to spend the rest of the day writing. Nothing interesting happened except that I added Tony Collette to the Megalist of Actors Turned Singers, which still gets a fair amount of traffic even though it was written two years ago.

Tuesday (Day 380): Oven Cooked Ribs

I woke up trying to figure out if it was Saturday or Sunday, so I knew it was going to be a great Tuesday. I checked on the house, which wasn’t seeing a lot of action, did some grocery shopping, went light shopping, and eventually went home to write. Around 3PM, I started cooking ribs in the oven which came out tough even though they had been cooking for 3 hours. I would’ve liked to have cooked them on the grill, but whoops, I don’t have a house to grill at, yet.

At night, #1GF! and I brought some lights to the house to see how they’d look, and finally made a couple of decisions.

Wednesday (Day 381): Double Dose of Bad Intel

The hanging version of the sconces that we picked were too big for our house, so I called the manufacturer to see if there was a way to convert a small sconce into a hanging light. After fifteen minutes of checking, a nice woman told me that the operation was impossible because the light housing was fused and couldn’t be opened. I planned to spend the whole day trying to find a light that was similar to what we had picked, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

I took the lights back to the light shop and explained what we needed and what the manufacturer said. The shop owner grabbed a set of pliers and unscrewed the lamp and showed me that he could easily convert it to a hanging light without a problem. I ordered the lights and the extra parts right there, relieved that I wasn’t going to spend the whole day looking for similar looking lights.

The contractor told us that the house would be ready for appliances by the middle of next week, but I was incredulous. The appliances have to be delivered when the plumber is scheduled to come in, but the place didn’t look like it would be close to ready, and I wasn’t going to order them without a direct order from the contractor. I called the appliance place just to see what sort of lead time he’d need for delivery.

I spent the rest of the day writing and learning how to make a music mix with Audacity. I have no idea why. Maybe I just needed to create something that didn’t involve words or lights. I ate leftover ribs for dinner because #1GF! had gone out. I made an appointment for someone to come see the big purple sleeper sectional which I recently put up for sale on Craigslist because it doesn’t really fit in the new house.

Thursday (Day 382): I Should Be Demoted To #10BF!

I woke up and had to be reminded of a very important birthday, which I had remembered earlier in the week, but had slipped my mind somehow. I felt like a Hugh Jass. I cleaned the couch and dusted before we headed out because I thought #1GF! might appreciate it, given I’m not much of a cleaner.

#1GF! had the day off, so I packed up some of her favorite CD’s in a shoe box, and we went out to do whatever she wanted. I even put stuff like Janet Jackson and Dido in there because sitting through Dido without complaint is my version of love. It wasn’t a warm day, but #1GF! wanted to sit on the beach, so that’s what we did. We took our chairs and sat on the rocks until we couldn’t take it anymore.

We dropped by the house, and I picked some roses for her, which she seemed to like, even though half the flowers were technically hers, anyway. After that, we went shopping at a couple of places and waited around for #1GF!’s mother to get home so that we could go out to dinner and have a few laughs.

Friday (Day 383): $Effort++; $Results=0;

Watched season 3 of Weeds, and after every episode, I felt like nothing had happened. It seemed to be a theme for the day. I checked my mail and found out that the guy who was coming to the house to look at the couch canceled. We went to check on the house to see what was going on, and every door was wide open, but no workers anywhere. There were a bunch of tools on the floor, suggesting that there were workers there at one point, so I called the contractor to let him know that the house was wide open and that the painters might’ve been abducted. I had to leave a voice mail, so he may have been abducted as well.

We went out to pick up some lights, but didn’t get any because there was only one light left and the box had been used as a notepad. You know that if someone has written notes on the box, there’s a good chance that it’s been to someone’s house already and there’s something wrong with it.

#1GF! got really frustrated with light shopping, so I suggested that we go to an outlet mall so that she calm down by shopping for some girly house type stuff that men can’t care about or pronounce. The trip was uneventful, although at one point, I overheard a woman ask her friend if they were going back to the baby store. The woman’s answer: “IDKY”. She wasn’t a teenager, and she actually said the letters. WTF. BBFN, English. Thx, txting.

We ended up eating dinner in Quincy, and somehow got a waitress that seemed to be mad at us. I have no idea why. She smiled when talking at the waitress station, but whenever she came to our table, her face would solidify.

Saturday (Day 384): Too Much To Do, Not Enough Results

I had a mini freak out and changed my t-shirt about four times because I couldn’t get comfortable. It wasn’t the t-shirt as much as knowing I had so many things to do. I had to get the lights bought before going to a family cookout, a dance recital, the local town celebration, and a bonfire. Sure, most of them were fun things, but the lights were supposed to be done by Thursday, and we typically only have one day a week together when the light stores are open and #1GF! isn’t working.

We had to skip the town celebration, and get out and do the light shopping before the cookout. We ended up light shopping until 5 PM and missing the cookout. We ran in for a quick dinner before going to a dance recital. The recital was two hours of tap dancing to see two minutes of #1GF!’s niece. There were very few entertaining dances and very few cute kids doing whatever they wanted on stage, so that two hours went pretty slowly.

While we were waiting to go, a little kid missed spitting water on her friend and spit water all over my back. I’m usually overly tolerant of kid being kids, but after sitting through two hours of amateur tap, I was nearing my breaking point. #1GF!’s niece was pretty tired, too, so as they put her in the car, she started wailing so loud that she made a siren type Doppler effect as they drove away. It was one of those moments that I was ok with not having kids.

By then it was almost 9 PM, so we ran to a supermarket to hit the bathroom and then into a Dunkin Donuts for some iced coffee. Iced coffee at night isn’t a great idea, but there wasn’t much we could do. We were running on empty. We drove around for a bit, eventually finding a parking spot in one of the 200 churches in the area. The bonfire had already fallen over, so we missed the good part, but I was happy to sit in a chair and stare at the fire.

It’s amazing that so many people will congregate to see something as simple as a bonfire. We stayed for a couple of hours and it was relaxing and relatively uneventful. Because we met up with some friends who live in the town, a teenage girl came over and was talking to them. I can’t remember much of what they were talking about beyond, “My Dad thinks he invented the robot.” All I could think was, “Don’t we all”.

The girls friends, who were standing in a group apart from us, suddenly broke into “B-b-b Benny and the Jets” really loud. “Wow, that was random,” said one of our friends. “No, not really,” said the girl. “[Insert guy's name] and his girlfriend are like thirty, so that happens all the time.” Thirty was actually spoken in a way that if you didn’t know much English, you would’ve assumed that “thirty” meant “one hundred”.

The girl headed off to continue being a teenager, and our friends’ daughter showed up. Being a polite and properly raised child of good social standing, she offered us some food that she had. Unfortunately, the offer consisted of a quarter of a pixie stick. Being the ass that I am, I asked if she wanted a tissue that I had barely used. When she refused, I pretended to offer a band aid because I wasn’t bleeding much, but said I wasn’t peeling it off if she didn’t really want it. When she countered that I wasn’t really being fair and that kids share Pixie Stix and Fun Dip all the time, I suggested that it won’t be long before kids today will be feeding each other like baby birds. This is why people don’t offer me things. Or talk to me in person. Or make eye contact. This might be one of the many reasons why girls don’t like boys who write.

What I Learned

• America spends a lot of effort simplifying things that don’t need simplifying in order to sell people things that they really don’t need
• Comodo Firewall won’t play nice with my DVR. Things that don’t play nice with the DVR, don’t play nice with #1GF!. Things that don’t play nice with #1GF! get bahleeted.
• If someone asks you to go shopping for lighting or take a puck to the nuts, take the puck. There are way too many choices, and not enough reasonably priced good ones.
• Standard procedure for being late on rent is an eviction notice.
• Ginger candy with honey is as good as ginger candy.
• Most of the time, lighting stores will laugh at you if you ask to borrow lights to see how they look in your house.
• Even at 25o degrees, oven cooked ribs need more than three hours to cook.
• Sometimes the local light store guy knows more than the manufacturer.
• English is dying. Texting is the new spoken word.
• When there is a large gap between obligation and aspiration, I go a little nuts.
• I don’t know how to handle unfamiliar children accidentally spitting on me.
• 30 is the new 100.
• Used pixie stix are a valid commodity among teenagers.
• Kids will soon feed each other like baby birds.
• My love for the robot is not unique.

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