I Said I'd Do Better

I said I'd do better with my blogging, but alas, I have not done better with my blogging.  When was the last time I wrote a post?  I don't even remember...

Oh, I've had things to say.  I just haven't had the heart to say them.  It's been a real challenge since I lost my friend Suzie last April.  She was the one I was blogging to.  When I'd get stuck, or couldn't think of anything to say, I ask myself, "Now, if Suzie and I were sitting down having tea at the end of the day, what would I tell her?"  And like magic, the words would come.  

I keep telling myself I need to find another semi-imaginary friend to talk to, but nobody could take Suzie's place.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go cry for a minute...

Ok, I'm back.  Thank you for your indulgence. 

Night before last, I decided I wanted to start reading my new book, Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington. 

I tried.  I really did, but dadgum that is some tiny print in that book. 

Roku remote included for scale.  For those of you who may not have a Roku remote, it measures in at 6", including the little tag at the end.  My old eyes can't take that!  Someone suggested a magnifying page, but as it happens, the Kindle copy of the book was only 60 cents.  I bought it instead, and will relegate the hard back copy to my library.  

In the meantime, let me tell you a story from my Navy days.  

Back when I was in the Navy, stationed in Naples, Italy, I used to hang out at the enlisted club on country music nights.  We only had one enlisted club, and they played a different genre of music every night.  Which genre depended a lot on who was DJ, because they had to supply their own music.  

I had my little gang of friends I hung out with.  Most of them were normal, decent people.  There were two, however, that...well, weren't quite right in the head, you might say.  One evening, they were out trying to line dance to a song.  The dance they were doing didn't fit the rhythm of the song at all, but they were trying to force it to.  

About half way through, another friend turned around and said, "Those two could foul up a wet dream."  

Only he didn't say foul, but I am trying to keep this a mostly G rated blog.  I'll just let you use your imagination as to what he really did say. 

You want to know who else can foul up a wet dream?

My place of employment!!

It's never really been a good place to work, but here these last couple of years, it's almost become unbearable.  I'll be so glad when I can finally get out of there for good. 

So, this week, one of the supervisors has decided to shut down the component areas, and send almost everyone who works in those departments to the production side.  You know as well as I do what's going to happen.  Next week, they'll all be up in the front hooting and hollering about not having any headers, and they're going to be standing over us trying to rush us.  And I'm going to look at them and say, "I got no sympathy for you."  You shut down the component areas.  What did you think would happen?  

You know who else I got no sympathy for?  Our parts stager.  Why?  I'm glad you asked.  Back in the day, the plant had bought several adult sized tricycles for the parts stagers, maintenance men, and anyone else who needed to cover long distances in the course of the day.  Last summer, we got a new parts stager, whose job it is to take the completed headers and florators back to the production lines.  That young man rode that bike so hard, he tore the thing up.  It is now sitting back in the maintenance department, completely unable to be ridden.  I don't even know if they're going to bother fixing it, because he'll just tear it up again.

Anyway, I was back on line 4, line brazing, when the parts stager came back toting a big bin of parts.  They were heavy, and he was grumbling, and throwing things around, fussing and cussing.  And me, I was laughing at him.  If he hadn't have torn that bike up, he wouldn't have to be toting those heavy bins of parts back to the lines by hand. 

It was schadenfreude I was experiencing.  That's what that was. 

In weather news, they're predicting snow again for next Monday.  Not this coming Monday, but the 15th.  I hope it does snow, because I have a vacation day already scheduled.  I took it for a dentist appointment, which I think I'm going to cancel.  I'm going to use COVID as an excuse, but really, I just don't want to go. 

Even if it doesn't snow, it's still going to be bone chillingly cold.  A perfect day to sit in front of the fire.

Now that I have wood, I can do just that.