With my apologies...
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:33 pm
For some reason, the Grinder, and those who bother to read it, has become my emotional toilet bowl over the years. I've hardly contributed anything else useful to the disOrganization in months, and yet, when I'm about to have a full on freak out, I come here and puke for you all. So sorry. You deserve better of me. On with the show.
My New Year has started as such: My dog went from jump off the sofa when I got home from work to completely immobile on day one. He's 11, which for a dane is fucking old, I have no right to complain. Took him to vet on day 2, who concurred, it's about time. Made appointment for Monday. After vet, daughter starts getting sick. I Love my kid, and I Love my dog, but fuck, I WANTED to go to work to get a break. Now home with her sick, which is just pathetic to see.
Spent the morning looking into the definition of Strategic Default in Illinois. It's stickier than I was hoping (old house is a rental now, I don't like being a landlord, it's 40% underwater). Whatever. Got a call from bank (refinincing current house before I nuke my credit record over old one). Closing has been moved up a month. Sweet! "You need to make $9000 appear out of nowhere for final approval in your bank."
Oh, and any deposits other than payroll need to be documented and justified, so I can't even borrow the money (not that I even know anyone or have the intestinal fortitude for it).
So I'm having a complete meltdown about my grand financial plan crumbling to the ground, my kid's sick, my dog is dying, and then I get an email from my musical supplier. Bagpipes (which are right the fuck out of my budget now anyway) are prettymuch custom made, 3-8 weeks delivery. My set were delivered just before christmas to my dealer, but were mising one back ordered part. Apparently we miscommunicated over that, so he sold them to someone else. I'm back on the waiting list.
The underlying problem here is the dog, so if you will, a story:
10 years ago, I worked at a summer camp in Wisconsin. I had my 8 month old, lanky-ass great dane there with me, under much protest form the management, but they needed me enough to allow it. He was a hit with the staff, and mostly hidden from the campers.
It was a long summer, at the end of a long and failed college career. I would be unemployed at the end of the summer, and only my dad's house to go back to, which was not a happy prospect at the time for various reasons. There was a girl at the camp (sexy voice, can't accentuate that one enough), not my girlfriend at the time, who just finished college much more successfully than me, and had an apartment in California waiting for a new career and life all set up, just waiting for her. We had flirted all summer, as stupid kids do on summer nights. And even, to my shame, more than flirted at the end of the summer.
The night before she was going to leave on this new adventure called her life, and I was going to drag myself back to Chicago with nothing but a place to live I didn't want to be in, she invited me to come with. No strings attached, her bed or sofa, whichever seemed right, start something new in California.
It was a long pause. Man I really had to think that one through. And I kept coming back to my dog. He couldn't live in a studio in downtown San Diego, and I couldn't possibly leave him behind.
For the first time in my life, I made a decision based on responsibility, not just on what would be easy. And while sometimes I wonder where my life would be in Cali now, I know that making a responsible decision was the right thing, and my life is so wonderful now because of it. I credit him. And I'm putting him down Monday.
FML.
-Rench
My New Year has started as such: My dog went from jump off the sofa when I got home from work to completely immobile on day one. He's 11, which for a dane is fucking old, I have no right to complain. Took him to vet on day 2, who concurred, it's about time. Made appointment for Monday. After vet, daughter starts getting sick. I Love my kid, and I Love my dog, but fuck, I WANTED to go to work to get a break. Now home with her sick, which is just pathetic to see.
Spent the morning looking into the definition of Strategic Default in Illinois. It's stickier than I was hoping (old house is a rental now, I don't like being a landlord, it's 40% underwater). Whatever. Got a call from bank (refinincing current house before I nuke my credit record over old one). Closing has been moved up a month. Sweet! "You need to make $9000 appear out of nowhere for final approval in your bank."
Oh, and any deposits other than payroll need to be documented and justified, so I can't even borrow the money (not that I even know anyone or have the intestinal fortitude for it).
So I'm having a complete meltdown about my grand financial plan crumbling to the ground, my kid's sick, my dog is dying, and then I get an email from my musical supplier. Bagpipes (which are right the fuck out of my budget now anyway) are prettymuch custom made, 3-8 weeks delivery. My set were delivered just before christmas to my dealer, but were mising one back ordered part. Apparently we miscommunicated over that, so he sold them to someone else. I'm back on the waiting list.
The underlying problem here is the dog, so if you will, a story:
10 years ago, I worked at a summer camp in Wisconsin. I had my 8 month old, lanky-ass great dane there with me, under much protest form the management, but they needed me enough to allow it. He was a hit with the staff, and mostly hidden from the campers.
It was a long summer, at the end of a long and failed college career. I would be unemployed at the end of the summer, and only my dad's house to go back to, which was not a happy prospect at the time for various reasons. There was a girl at the camp (sexy voice, can't accentuate that one enough), not my girlfriend at the time, who just finished college much more successfully than me, and had an apartment in California waiting for a new career and life all set up, just waiting for her. We had flirted all summer, as stupid kids do on summer nights. And even, to my shame, more than flirted at the end of the summer.
The night before she was going to leave on this new adventure called her life, and I was going to drag myself back to Chicago with nothing but a place to live I didn't want to be in, she invited me to come with. No strings attached, her bed or sofa, whichever seemed right, start something new in California.
It was a long pause. Man I really had to think that one through. And I kept coming back to my dog. He couldn't live in a studio in downtown San Diego, and I couldn't possibly leave him behind.
For the first time in my life, I made a decision based on responsibility, not just on what would be easy. And while sometimes I wonder where my life would be in Cali now, I know that making a responsible decision was the right thing, and my life is so wonderful now because of it. I credit him. And I'm putting him down Monday.
FML.
-Rench
