random thoughts – Day 1,214 – (Friday) – light assembly

It was another day with a little bit of everything the weather has to throw at us – sunshine, heat, an afternoon storm with lightning, booms, and rain slamming the skylights and roof. There was a flood watch for the area. An hour later, it was sunny again. The weather thingy on the tool bar on my computer screen had the temperature at 80 before the storm, down to 75 after the storm, then back up to 80 in the course of a couple hours.

My new home office file cabinet, ordered several days ago, delivered late in the morning. The message from FedEx included a photo of the box safely inside the dry, enclosed porch, sparing me angst when today’s installment of Monsoon Summer began. 

Once home after work, the box was hauled into the house and through the dining room, into the kitchen, and over to the office. Liberated from the packing materials, the necessary, not noted in the product description light assembly commenced. The Phillips head screwdriver was fetched from the tool bag and the wheels were attached through the pinhole sized screw holes which required dexterity, patience, and some effort. Then the drawer handles were attached with the impossibly small screws. 

Wheels on,
handles next.

The color of the file cabinet is a match to the office chair, and aesthetically pleasing, but the materials are lightweight, rather flimsy, and the pencil drawer has an issue right out of the box. The front panel isn’t connected to the side panel on one side and it doesn’t seem like it will take much for the whole piece to come off in my hand. That led to an online “Contact Seller” message to ask if there is a way to secure the panel, and the duct tape is on standby.

The next challenge is to find a place for the chrome kitchen rack holding baking supplies and cookbooks. It used to live in the 17-inch space between the desk and the cabinet, and was rolled over in front of the laundry closet to make room for the file cabinet. It is by no means a solution.

In the success column, I feel like a grownup with a file cabinet for all the papers I insist on keeping. Unlike the spacious desk I had in Tennessee in my very functional and comfortable office space, the small desk for the very small office nook off the kitchen lacks drawers, probably because it isn’t very wide. I also didn’t expect it to become a permanent home office, and the cheery yellow desk was chosen because the space could be used for a dining or food service area for the dinner parties I imagined having when I bought the house and also imagined I would make friends in Lowell.

There are now folders set up for important grownup matters like property repairs and car service but more hanging files are needed. The goal is that the file boxes cluttering the room that was once intended as a guest room can finally be eliminated, helping to remove the appearance that I never finished moving in. One apartment and two houses indicate that “not quite moved in” is a recurring decorating theme requiring the sacrifice of one room. It needs to stop. The BungaLowell is too small for that nonsense.

random thoughts – Day 1,213 – (Thursday) – time flies

How are we already nearly at the middle of July? Cripes. Having fun, not having fun, the time flies either way.

Gross and grubby gate section.

I keep thinking things like, “Once we’re past Memorial Day  … father’s day ….” I can [fill in the blank]. Umm, those ships sailed months ago. Twice this week I’ve thought, “Maybe on the Independence Day weekend I’ll wash the siding on the house,” then I remember that glorious four-day weekend was more than a week ago already. And no, there was no house washing happening. 

Extra grubby section of back fence.

The dream weather for spraying water onto the house’s vinyl siding and the fences, which inevitably results in me being soaked, is hot, sunny, and humid. The weekend weather this summer has been heavy on rain and not at an angle that provides a free nature power wash.

Until the right weather conditions coincide with me being at home, the landing outside the kitchen door, the front of the house, the side deck and steps, and all the other grubby spots where the sun never gets to rest will continue to accumulate grubbiness.

 On the bright side, when the washing finally happens, the results should be dramatic. The BungaLowell and its accessories will sparkle.

random thoughts – Day 1,212 – (Wednesday) – dear brother

My brother John.

My brother John. Today is the anniversary of his birth, and it is still painful knowing I can’t call him for our annual birthday chat. Or anything else. 

The last time we spoke was two years ago today when I called him to say happy birthday. He was driving home after being out fishing on his friend’s boat all day and sounded really happy. Because he was driving, we kept it quick and I told him we could catch up later when he wasn’t driving.

Dad was into cars and not sports, and it was Mummu who introduced my brother to Little League Baseball, watching football on TV, and fishing. She used to take us to “Cousin Johnny’s farm,” a 100-acre spread on Sheldon Road in Fitchburg. “Cousin” Johnny was actually Mummu’s nephew, and because her sister/Johnny’s mother was 20 years older than Mummu, Johnny was 13 months older than Mummu. She delighted in telling people how her nephew Johnny was 13 months older than she was.

Johnny would drive us down the farm’s dirt road through the trees to the pond, and under his tutelage, we would fish for hornpout from the dock. Note to friends beyond New England, “hornpout” are catfish. Cousin Johnny would bait the hooks, and we would tend the lines and shriek with glee when we caught a fish.

Later, Mummu would fry the sliced hornpout for our supper in her small fry pan on her big stove. It was always fun going fishing, especially the year that John got a new fishing pole and gave me his old one, and I caught more fish than he did. Not that we were competitive about it or anything. Much.

We were young once.

The trips to Cousin Johnny’s farm planted the seeds for my brother John’s later love of fishing. When he moved to the Cape, fishing became a regular part of the fabric of his life. He loved ocean fishing, whether it was surf casting from shore or from a boat with his friends.

I’m glad the last time I spoke with my brother he was happy and had been spent the day doing something he loved. He said he couldn’t believe he was 60 and never thought he’d be that old. I hate that it was the last time we spoke. I hate that underneath it all, maybe he wasn’t really that happy and I had just caught him on a good day. It was several weeks later that he took his own life.

random thoughts – Day 1,211 – (Tuesday) – desk jockey

The remote work desk jockey gig continues several days a week. Today saw some soul searching concerning the pencil holder on the desk. The container is a white enamel container with black trim and is part of a vintage set. When Mom gave it to me when I moved into my first apartment during divorce number one, she said it was the refrigerator food storage precursor to Tupperware.

Many moons ago, a long ago boyfriend helped me pack my kitchen stuff when we were moving in together. His packing style was to basically throw everything loose into a box without packing paper, without care, and the lid was never seen again. The glass globe on the lid of the much beloved and regularly used vintage percolator was also smashed during the same move. It’s tough when the boyfriend helper causes destruction. In retrospect, it was a sign of things to come, but that is another story for another day.

So many pens.

Now, the container with no lid serves as a desktop pen-pencil-catchall container. It was chosen because the office space adjoins the kitchen and it was sitting on a shelf doing nothing so it made sense. In the past three years, it’s gotten a bit out of control. 

Recently, the enamel holder thing has become crammed with pens I don’t use, the few versions of the pen I like, more highlighters than are needed on a regular day, corrector tape, business cards, random scraps of paper, and sticky notes. 

Today, there was a tiny reckoning and mini Marie Kondo moment. The pens I don’t like, the ones that do not “bring me joy” and just annoy me when digging around for the one style of pen I like, were removed. Why paw through a mess of pens to get to the one I like? That’s just craziness. Why rummage though highlighters that are rarely used? 

The pens weren’t fully Marie Kondo’d – they were relocated to the junk drawer, which gets junkier every month, but once it's pushed closed, it's really easy to ignore. The highlighters were put in one of the desk drawers and are quick to get to when needed and out of the way when not. Baby steps. Besides, what do I do with a bag full of pens? Throwing them in the trash feels wasteful. Anyone need a pen (or ten)?

random thoughts – Day 1,210 – (Monday) – motivation

Right around the time I felt sufficiently motivated to join a gym, specifically the Planet Fitness a mere half-mile from home in the same plaza as my beloved Family Dollar, I visited the website to check for specials. When I was a member there in 2018-19, I didn’t go as often as I thought I would, mostly because I prefer group classes and PF doesn’t have those. But I do love the hydromassage table. 

After PF and before the pandemic that derailed world, I joined a different gym the next town over. I was lured there by the Saturday morning yoga classes, but some time into my 18-month prepaid membership, they stopped offering yoga and my interest in the place dwindled. When the pandemic hit, with still about six months on my membership, there was no communication from the pace at all when it closed or when it reopened, so I was kind of mad at them.

Now, I have the motivation of a wedding to attend in October in a hot weather part of the country where the likelihood of me keeling over from heatstroke in a long sleeve top that covers my carefully un-chiseled arms and long pants or skirt that cover my unfit legs. Suddenly exercising, which I used to enjoy once upon a time very long ago, seemed slightly appealing again.

That’s when I learned via social media posts that the nearby gym is currently closed for renovations. There hasn’t been an expected completion date noted. Ugh. Not that it really matters. It’s still another two weeks before my physical therapy evaluation for the leg that hurts when I walk, and who knows if I could even exercise at all. But dang, I bet the massage chair and hydromassage table would feel good. Hmmm.... maybe I should replace the couch with one of those.

random thoughts – Day 1,209 – (Sunday) – pockets and thrifts

Early this morning someone posted a message on Facebook to the effect of “good morning, it’s going to rain.”  I nearly dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back for having mowed the lawn yesterday. I spent the morning waiting for the sound of rain, but it didn’t happen. This was quite ok with me. There was a lot of Sunday morning lounging about and phone calls with Mom and my sister as we formulate a plan to go shopping for outfits for the eldest niece's wedding in October.

Another day, another veggie pocket.

The obsession with veggie pockets continued. Since last Monday, there were eight meals of veggie pockets, with the last being lunch today. When I get on a food track, I really embrace the heck out of it.

In the afternoon, St Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop kept intruding in my thoughts. It was tugging at my brain and after an hour or two, I went. Sure enough, it was a jackpot day. There was no specific quest item, just a vague and general list of “things I could use” like summer blouses and the holy grail of 8.5-inch soup bowls.

Thank you St. Vincent de Paul
for the fabulous $16 haul.

The store was comfortably not crowded, and my attention was laser-focused on the two colors of tags on markdown – blue at half-off and green at 99 cents. The shopping vibes were favorable. After a couple laps through the store and adding carefully curated items to the cart, I left with two cotton blouses by Express, Vera Wang ankle length jeans, an olive cashmere sweater because winter happens every year and there can never be too much cashmere, a reversible satin baseball jacket in black and maroon because I seem to have an obsession with baseball jackets, and a like-new pair of tan suede bucks all for $16. 

The only “full price” item was the cashmere sweater at $4.75.  The shoes were 99-cents and spotted atop a children’s rack while trying on the tops over my tee shirt at one of the few mirrors in the store. Once I saw them, I couldn’t not get them.

The laundering process to remove the thrift store fragrance has begun, and most of the items are ready to flow into the wardrobe rotation. An equivalent number of items will flow to a donation pile. Eventually. These things sometimes take time.

A stop at Market Basket for more pita pockets will allow the salad pocket diet to continue. Tonight’s supper pocket, a repeat of the lunch pocket, featured feta cheese and kalamata olives. It will be interesting to see how long this food fixation lasts.

Preparing the trash for pickup tomorrow led to the realization that there are no more trash bags, prompting a trip to Family Dollar. While parking in the driveway, a flash flood alert displayed on the dashboard screen. It seems another storm is on the way. What a wet summer. I should probably be shopping for rain coats.

random thoughts – Day 1,208 – (Saturday) – competence

The first chapter of my grownup work life was a six-year stint in banking that began a couple months after graduating from Fitchburg State. During that time, there was a work seminar at the Fay Club, a private dinner-social club in a gorgeous building in Fitchburg. It was my first time in the Fay Club. My people were not Fay Club people. It was decades before I was in there again.

There was an abundance of ethnic- and religious-based social clubs in Fitchburg including the Franco American, British American, Friends of Saima Park, St. Joseph’s, South Fitchburg Social Club, Eastwood Club, Knights of Columbus, and more that escape me. We were not members of anything except for our church, where we avoided all the social situations available, and briefly, the YMCA.

The seminar at the historic and elegant Fay Club was led by a guy from Connecticut who commented on the absence of luxury vehicles he observed during his time in our city. He seemed to suggest that nobody in our city was of the same fine caliber as him. As for the seminar, I remember the lecturer's apparent disdain for the working-class roots of our city and absence of vehicular signs of wealth and status, and one specific segment of the workshop.

The seminar leader lectured about the psychological concept of the four stages of competence and how people could operate at different levels of competence. There is unconscious incompetence, where someone doesn’t know what they don’t know; conscious incompetence, where one knows they don’t know something and works to correct the deficit; conscious competence, where people know things, but really have to work at it on a conscious level; and unconscious competence, where people have skills that have become second nature and can be executed while doing other things. 

Today, a trip was taken to the Habitat ReStore in Billerica to look for a file cabinet. In preparation, the small space in the office was to be measured. It was already done a week ago, but in a possible instance of some form of incompetence, the paper with the dimensions was lost.

When I went to remeasure the space, I couldn’t find the tape measure. It wasn’t in the kitchen drawer, on the desk, on the counter, on the dining room table or the kitchen table, or in the tool bag. I was feeling quite consciously incompetent.

Before heading upstairs for a yard stick, I went into my purse for a pen. That’s where I found the tape measure. Apparently, some level of unconscious competence and trip planning had kicked in earlier, then was followed by amnesia (or senility). Measurements were taken. For the record, no suitable cabinet was found.

While out, Winston’s weekly chicken was procured and Marshall’s next to Market Basket was checked for a cabinet or shelving unit. After supper, the lawn was mowed. A file cabinet was ordered online and will arrive in several days. Competence levels were on display all over the place today, which were rewarded with a dish of ice cream. It’s important to celebrate life’s adulting victories.