Story 13Oct2022

The morning started in a rush, with me not sleeping after 4AM. I had pain in my left foot (not my right !?), and the application of painkillers let me maybe sleep an hour, if at all. However, the pain throbbed and, while not great, was enough to prevent sleep. I was up before my alarm and started staggering through my usual morning. I managed to find breakfast and had a cup of coffee. I was running late as I was slow this morning and found myself just beating the school buses and being on time at Clubhouse at the shoe company.

And then, and this would be a theme all day, my laptop refused to connect to Nike’s network as it had to perform an update. So I rebooted the laptop and then watched as the laptop slowly reconnected to the Nike network. Finally, after four tries, I managed to get Zoom to start the meeting for me and enjoyed the last minute of the status meeting. Just frustrating.

The next status meeting was the usual, but I needed coffee. I forgot to bring any coffee with me; I still have a French Press full of today’s coffee. So I got some free Star Bucks coffee after the meeting finished. For the program I am on, we get free coffee until 10AM–leadership pays for the coffee. So I got my usual, just coffee with cream–I stopped using sugar in my coffee when I started on diabetes meds years ago.

Next was another meeting, which was in a conference room with a Zoom meeting for more distant folks. I updated my status in Jira, which finally worked on my laptop. After that, I headed out.

I reached Susie in record time, as 217 (usually a mess) was running well. Susie was feeling better and was even a bit talkative. I always struggle to understand her, but today I got the general sense of what she was saying–a hopeful sign. I pushed Susie to the nearby bench in the park–there was sun and no wind, thus warm. Susie was already commenting on it being cold, but the sun worked.

We called Susie’s mom, Leta, on my iPhone and used, after a few tries, FaceTime to see each other. Leta had apparently unplugged something on her TV and was unhappy. She might have unplugged her network as her phone connection was initially troubled. Leta told us she had put away her music boxes and was decorating for Halloween.

Leta, during the pandemic, decided not to take her tree down and has redecorated for each holiday instead. She then shares pictures on Facebook with the family of the tree decorated for the season. It was a way to connect during the pandemic, but now she just likes it, and she has stuff for every season and gets a few new things each time to add. It is fun to see each season. She is a fan of the Dollar Store.

I had to return to work, I had a lunch meeting at noon, so I returned Susie to hummingbird house and Jennifer’s care and headed out in Air Volvo. I got to lunch and found that my lunch meeting was canceled. I then saw an acquaintance I had seldom seen in years, and we agreed to have lunch together. So that worked out.

Next, I took Air Volvo to the newish campus and sat at a shared deck in the Nike building Victory with the group that runs my old system, which is still running much of Nike’s supply chain and financial reporting. Always nice to be back and see friends, and I had a meeting about an application I worked on before. So it was great to be back for a bit.

I continued to install more stuff on my laptop and drove home. At home in my office, the Nike network started having issues again, and I could not schedule meetings. Growl. I followed along for a bit and rebooted my laptop multiple times.

I made dinner after closing my laptop and taking a rest. I was going to cook something, but the ham and cheese looked good and made a perfect sandwich.

Next, I wrote a bit about my Dungeons and Dragons adventure. This was followed by Theology Pub, a monthly church event. Tonight we talked about groupthink and the blind following of charismatic leaders. We agreed that things become dangerous once a leader calls out another and claims to be repressed by this other. Then, a call to action for violence often follows. We drew the obvious parallels to Hitler and the cautions of Mark Twain (if you are in the majority, you should reconsider). A group that harms others to protect something is something to fear and avoid.

After about an hour, we wrapped that meeting up. I wrote this blog. I am hoping tonight to sleep better and that the pain will stop.

A friend of mine, Michelle, admonished me when I said I was getting old at work today. Do not call yourself old, she said, as others will then do that too. Be young instead.

Mariah will take many of the tulips and plant them at her new home in Portland. I have about a hundred bulbs. I will keep a few and hope to plant them on Friday. I have decided to plant the bulbs between the new climbing roses, creating a lovely little flower garden. I ordered them when Glenda was here, and we visited the tulip fields.

So be young, like me! Thanks for reading!