This is week 73 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing 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 504): Paying Off The Painter

#1GF! went to the walk for cancer and I played with music and wrote a good portion of LOR. I went to the house and paid the painter and sent him on his way. There are still a lot of issues with the paint, but I was really tired of listening to him complain, and I needed to get him out so that I could get other workers in.

Monday (Day 505): Talking To Doors, Walls And Oscilloscopes

We went to the gym in the morning, and I ran for the first time in a while. No matter how in shape you think you are for doing level 90 of the damned elliptical machine, running is a ball buster. I think other machines are just made for people who don’t want to run. I only ran a mile before giving up. When I was younger, I can remember going out and running at least a couple of miles with no preparation, but times have changed. Once I got out of the gym, I spent the rest of the morning editing LOR.

I headed over to the storage space to pick up a shop vac, but when I got there, the garage door of the space wouldn’t open. After a few minutes of tugging at it, I was sitting on the floor holding the door open a crack with one of my feet and saying things like “oh you think that’s funny, bitch? You think it’s funny to LOCK ME OUT of MY STORAGE SPACE?” Big orange doors are incapable of answering questions from angry lunatics, so my words did little more than break the incessant buzzing of the fluorescent lights.

When I finally managed to get the door opened, I found that what had been blocking the door was a lonely oscilloscope whose handle had clicked open. Yes. Mad scientist Jon has an oscilloscope. Don’t get all impressed like I’m the king of the geeks because I don’t have a clue how to use the thing. An engineer friend of mine gave it to me years ago, and there was no way that I could turn it down. I simply look at it as a giant, cool looking brick that I will inevitably wrap up and give to him as a gift at some point in the future once he’s completely forgotten that I have it.

Once I got the storage space door open, I sat the oscilloscope down and had a little chat with it. I asked it what it thought it contributed around here, and if it thought it was very mature to throw a tantrum and lock me out of the space the space. It sort of stared right through me like I wasn’t even there. I felt like I was talking to a wall. Or a door. I put it back, got what I needed, and left it there to think about what it had done.

When I got to the house, I hosed off the side door of all the brick dust, and then went inside to clean up the pile of garbage that various contractors helped to create in the middle of the master bedroom floor. I then attacked the pile of crap that had accumulated in the tub. I didn’t bother cleaning off all of the plaster and paint that had been spilled all over the it, but I managed to get rid of most of the debris.

I then started scraping the glass of two sets of French doors that two sets of painters had sprayed over. It wasn’t overspray. I had to scrape every window because no one ever taped it off. As I was standing there scraping, I wondered how the fuck I ended up working on crap like this for the amount of money that has gone out the door on this project. I have no problem doing small things around the house, but if I’m not saving the money from doing things myself, I shouldn’t have to do them. It was like paying to do the work myself. It sucked when I thought of it that way.

I had to hang one of the doors, but didn’t bring my toolbox. I wondered if there was a hammer like object in the cellar that I could use to set the pins. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I found a huge puddle of water on the floor. Most of it had come through the brand new basement window that was underneath the door, and some seemed like it was coming from higher like the door itself. I asked the window if it was fucking kidding me. Like the door and oscilloscope, it didn’t reply. I went back upstairs wondering what else I was going to find that was wrong with the house. Fu-huck me.

By the time #1GF! came home, I had only completed half of two of the doors. I needed to go home to get a hammer because I still had to hang one of the doors. Hanging doors takes five minutes, but it seems like one of those things that should’ve been done. Whatever. It’s no big deal. We brought back the tools and I finished off half of the second two doors while #1GF! looked for something to do. I just wanted her to sit and talk to me or something, so that’s what she eventually did.

Once I finished up, we tried to go out to dinner, but there was a private party in our usual restaurant. We sat at the bar, and within two minutes, I didn’t want to be there. There was no room at the bar, so we had to sit at an outer bar that would require the bartender to come out from behind the bar to get us some menus. I didn’t feel like waiting, and I wasn’t interested in sitting in a bar with two TV’s drowning out what little conversation we could muster.
“Can we get out of here and get some subs or something?”
“Why what’s the matter?”
“I don’t feel like waiting, and I just don’t want to be here.”
“Yea, sure. Let’s go.”
We left and grabbed a couple of subs and went home.

Tuesday (Day 506): Head Full of Schedules

I let in the floor guy in the morning so that he could sand and lay a coat of poly on the floors. He didn’t seem to think that the sanding left by the painters would cost me extra, which was a relief. I left them and went home to write. Now that the floors were in motion, I had to schedule the electrician, the plumber, and the appliance delivery. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure what had to happen first. I called the plumber and asked him. He said to get the appliances delivered and then call.

I had no idea how long the floors needed to dry before appliances could be set on them, so I called the floor guy, but he was probably too busy sanding floors to hear the ring. I drove over to the house and poked my head in a window. He told me that the appliances could be delivered on Friday. I called the appliance guy, but he was off at lunch, so I decided to take a list of books from the Recommended Reading List and headed to the library. They didn’t have a single book that I was looking for.

After spending too much time staring at a wall of books, and crouching in the stacks reading, I grabbed two books and went over to the appliance place and confirmed our order. For the first time in a long time, I dropped more money than I had. You know what’s awesome? After a lifetime of keeping my money straight and not spending more than I had, I’m getting dangerously close to being financially porked. Fuck. It happened when my last house burned down, so I guess shit happens. Whatever. It will work out. I’m like a mutherfuckin’ panther. Except I’m not black. Or smooth. Or cool looking. Or tough looking. I’m clumsy as shit, too. Other than those things though, yea. Rawwr.

From there, I was supposed to go food shopping, but I missed the turn and used it as an excuse not to go. Instead of doing something productive, I went home and read my feeds. Because I add everyone who comments or links to me even once, there are hundreds of feeds in there and very few of them are consistently entertaining. I never drop them though, just in case they have a moment of genius and I can drive some traffic to them with a link.

#1GF! got home late, and we had a simple dinner. We didn’t seem to be communicating too well, and I couldn’t seem to understand a word that was coming out of her mouth. Every question seemed to be answered with a question intended to clarify the question until the answer didn’t matter anymore. It eventually calmed down once we got some food and stopped talking as much. Hey, sometimes stopping the problem is a valid solution.

Wednesday (Day 507): Halloween Research

I got up at 5, worked out, and opened the house for the floor people. I went home and by the time I finished going through e-mail and checking stats it was 9:30. I managed to fix a long standing issue with my template that required the top menu to be absolutely instead of relatively positioned. It was such a simple fix that I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.

I wrote a little LOR in the afternoon, and then researched Halloween and VSTs. I came up with a lot of good stuff. I was again supposed to go food shopping, but the day got away from me.

Thursday (Day 508): Halloween Writing

I researched and wrote Halloween posts all day, breaking only to call the electrician.

Friday (Day 509): Ready, Set, Beard

I shaved with shaving cream for the first time in a long, long time to get a nice, clean shave before embarking on my annual quest into Sasquatchism. The growing season is officially open. #1GF! complained and pleaded like she didn’t expect it and then told me that I start earlier and earlier every year. She does this every year. Every year, I start growing a beard around the end of October so that I’ll have a nice full beard in time for Christmas.

I was supposed to go food shopping (for the fifth day in a row) and get some things done, but I ended up writing until 1PM and running out to the store before heading to the house to meet the appliance delivery guys. The guys showed up a half hour early, so I had to rush over to meet them. They delivered all the appliances, and after I cleaned all the floor dust out of a single closet, I went back home to write. So much for cleaning.

I had seven post ideas prepped and researched and realized that I had more posts than I had days for this week. It was actually a little crazy. #1GF! came home early to check out the appliances, so we went to an early dinner. Because I had been in such a writing frenzy, when we got home, I wrote until 11:30 before giving up. By the end of that day, I had five posts ready for final edits, one that was researched and ready to be written, and one that was still in the idea phase. They were all Halloween based, so I wish that I had started a week earlier.

Saturday (Day 510): Writing On A Weekend?

I was at the computer writing by 7:30AM, and wrote until noon just trying to get all the Halloween posts together. After I finished up, #1GF! and I went to the house to clean and figure out how to lay out the master closet. We finished up pretty late, and ran out to grab a quick dinner before heading over to our friends’ house to play a game.

We were charged with bringing the game, but because I give away all the best games at Christmas time, I found that we didn’t have any games to bring. We had to go out and buy Catch Phrase just to bring along. Every cool game that I thought I had are actually owned by other people.

The game ended up being the boys versus the girls. Catch phrase is pretty much like 10,000 pyramid where you’re trying to get your team to guess a word. If the device comes up with something you have never heard of, you are allowed to skip it. You are not allowed to skip because the clue is too hard or you don’t feel like it.

I don’t think there was a single skipped clue on the men’s side, even though there were a few that had to do with American Idol that we had no chance of getting. The women are a very smart group, so I was very surprised at how many clues they had never heard of that needed skipping. I’m not saying that they were cheating, but the way the men got absolutely creamed, it seemed more than a little convenient. Ahem. Not that I’m accusing anyone.

What I Learned

• I need to start Halloween posts two weeks beforehand.
• My idea of financially screwed is when you approach zero. This is a lot of people’s idea of financially ok.
• I ask a lot of questions of inanimate objects.

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