Category: Ramble Page 32 of 57

Wednesday. I wake up tired and voluntarily ‘oversleep’, which means I turn the alarm off and end up getting out of bed around the same time that I usually wrap up my morning shift. The extra sleep leaves me disorientated rather than refreshed. I figure I can fix that via some caffeination at work … and then remember I’m interviewing all morning and won’t have time to get coffee until closer to midday. In the face of this emergency, I get a cafetiere going and figure I can caffeinate myself via the magic of a travel mug.

I drive the kinderbesten to school, where we quickly realise that neither beast has been accompanied by their school bag. I put this down to collective failure and we drive back home to get the bags. After the beasts have been unleashed within the school grounds I realise that I’ve forgotten my coffee as well, but I’m already running late and can’t be bothered to do a second return trip home.

At work I get the first interview wrapped up, then decide that the second meeting of the morning can be cancelled in favour of getting coffee. I then have two more interviews to do, after which I discover that someone has booked into a 2 1/2 workshop for rest of the afternoon.

I am, unsurprisingly, dead by the time I get home. I endure a delightful range of continuing tech-fail, but finally manage to sort out birthday cards for the folks back in the UK. I then have the unbridled joy of trying to work out how to claim a refund through PayPal, which is about the least fun thing I’ve done on the internet all year.

I go to bed, ridiculously exhausted, and pray for sleep. Or death. Whichever comes first.

Tuesday. Another bad night’s sleep. Seems to be a Tuesday thing. Luckily I’ve got the day off. I drop the kids off, then head into the city, with Rachel in tow, so we can sign the last of the settlement papers. We grab some coffee and breakfast, then sign the papers, which takes about as long as you’d expect it to take (unless, of course, you’re signing mortgage application papers, which apparently takes an hour).

We then head back to collect the Elderbeast–who has a presentation to deliver as part of one of his academic extension classes; hence the afternoon off. Inevitably I’ve planned my day on the assumption that I will be dreadfully late for everything, which of course means we’re way early so we kill the time with a quick bit of shopping and coffee. With yet another hour to kill, Rachel heads home for a bit while I pick up the Elderbeast and take him to his class. Given that it’s 1pm, and the presentation doesn’t happen until 2pm, I wonder what I’m going to do with myself. I needn’t have worried: I quickly get drafted into helping the Elderbeast and his partner finish building their cardboard ‘eco-friendly’ house ready for presenting.

After this, I head back to collect the Kinderbeast from school, all the while wondering what to have for dinner given that I have once again failed to take anything out of the freezer last night. I opt for some homemade Boston beans which, as it happens, turn out awesomely.

I then commission the kinderbesten to make some birthday pictures for the grandparents back home; a task which they happily throw themselves into. The Elderbeast then puts some further time into his PEAC homework, in return for some PS4 time (the trading scheme is, so far, working excellently). I occupy myself picking out goodies for a birthday hamper to send over to said grandparents.

I take some photos of the kinderbesten, both proudly holding up their birthday art, for inserting into some Moonpig cards, but apparently the technical challenge of getting the photos from my phone onto the internet is too much for me tonight. I am forced to defer until tomorrow. At least the hamper has been ordered successfully. There will be birthday.

Today we learned that Joss Whedon is a cheating scumbag. Which is disappointing on several levels; not the least of which is that it becomes very hard to continue admiring someone who has been exposed as a liar and a cheat.

It’s also disappointing because the various people who proclaim that they find his work overrated, as if it’s a badge of honour, will now somehow–absurdly–feel vindicated. I certainly won’t get any less enjoyment out of Buffy now than I did before. Then again, neither will I get any more enjoyment out of Age Of Ultron…

Whatever the fallout from this is across the internet, I will be studiously ignoring it. This will be yet another chance for the odd intersection of left and right that typically gun for Whedon to resharpen their claws and exploit this as a chance to attack his feminism; in doing which they will conveniently sidestep the thing they should be attacking him for (which is being a cheating scumbag) while giving lots and lots of men reasons to believe they can’t or shouldn’t support feminism.

I will leave the last word to John Scalzi, and his excellent post inspired by this matter: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/08/22/my-personal-feminism-2017/

It’s Sunday. I get up and do some writing. Then I shift to the kitchen as I want to get some banana bread baking for today’s game. I return to my writing desk while it bakes. Then it’s time to head off for Pathfinder, which I’m particularly excited about  this month as I have decided to–and been allowed to–make my new character a duck. A duck assassin, no less. The Duck Of Death, as he is informally known. And he is indeed a duck of death, and slaughters many zombies for the team during the course of the day’s play.

I head home, ready for the return of the kinderbesten. We eat a marginally disappointing slow-cooked vegetable curry. Then the Elderbeast and I check out the first two episodes of The Defenders. It’s slow to start, but by the end of episode two I’m interested enough to keep going … but that will have to wait until next Sunday.

It’s a #childfree Saturday. I enjoy a lie in, knowing that I don’t need to go shopping. The downside to this is that it takes me far longer to get my day started once I do get up.

I’ve pledged to try listening to some podcasts this weekend, and spend about an hour researching potential worthy listens. In the end I cheat a little and listen to an episodic audio drama called Homecoming. I stick it on in the background while I do my weekend’s worth of cooking: meatballs for Pathfinder tomorrow, with deep fried potato balls for the vegetarians. The whole exercise ends up taking me nearly three hours. On the plus side this means I get to listen to the entirely of Homecoming. However, I am also knackered so I prescribe myself some rest. I collapse on the sofa and continue my unofficial classic Doctor Who odyssey with a rewatch of Pyramids of Mars. As with my other recent choices, it’s every bit as good as I remember it being.

After that I’m sufficiently refreshed for an hour-long writing shift. I’ve had an idea for another short-short story and get most of the first draft written before it’s time to head out for movie night at a friends. We eat delicious chilli and then watch Dave Made A Maze – which is … a-maze-ing. But, seriously, it was weird and fun and different and you should all watch it.

I drive back home and am in bed by 10pm, which is a pretty unexpected twist for a Saturday night: an awesome night with awesome people, awesome food and an awesome film *and* an early night! Would that we could live like this every day.

It’s Friday. It’s so nearly the end of the week that it hurts. In a bid to get the most out of my Friday evening, and thus maximise my #childfree weekend, I decide to stop off on my way to work to pick up much needed cat food and litter. I then get to work and find there’s only two of us in, which makes for a day that is at once leisurely and productive.

Before I leave for home, Rachel messages me, offering to drive Beryl home. We usually alternate this job on a Friday evening, the task typically falling to the #childfree parent. This is a welcome and unexpected bonus and will give me about an hour back. However, I do want to make sure that I see the kinderbesten before they disappear for the weekend, so I arrange to meet them all at Beryl’s house–which is conveniently just down the road from work.

On the way home I have the urge to replenish my wine cupboard, so I stop at the bottle shop to pick up a few reliable favourites. I do my Friday evening cleanup, and opt for a lazy freezer-based dinner. However, despite the vast swathes of time that have been cleared in my Friday evening, I’m somehow only just sitting down to dinner when Seb arrives for Fridate.

I’ve had a few exciting deliveries during the week, which we entertain ourselves with for a bit. The first is a new bluetooth speaker (a Harmon Kardon Onyx) which demonstrates some truly thumping bass given its size.

Next is the real prize: a pack of old Target Doctor Who novelisations that I picked up via eBay. I used to collect the books when I was [much] younger, and when they were still being produced. Even then some of the first editions, with the awesome Chris Achilleos covers, were out of print before I was able to get my hands on them back in the 1980s. I’ve dithered for several years over whether I wanted to try collecting some of my favourites or not; then, the other week, I see a set of 21 books on eBay which more or less includes all of the specific editions that I’ve been covering all these years. Including shipping, the set came to $100. I asked myself whether I wanted to spend $100 on old books, but the answer quickly came back as a Big Yes. The package arrived on Monday, but I saved it for Fridate so that Seb and I could spend some happy minutes admiring the books and thinking back to our fading childhoods.

After that we settle down for Fridate Horror. This week’s selection is Tales From The Crypt, selected mainly because Vault Of Horror was so much fun.

Thursday. I wake up after another terrible night’s sleep and I drag myself out of bed just after 7am, but don’t even bother trying to write. I drop Elderbeast at his PEAC class. Get coffee. Do work. Then it’s time for PEAC collection two hours later. I return to work for an afternoon of meetings, which don’t prove as arduous as they sound.

I decide to do my ‘weekly shop’ on the way home, instead of Saturday. My Saturday evening is booked up, and I need time to make lunch for Sunday (it’s my turn to feed the Pathfinder group) and also to prepare my new player character. I want to get started and finished as soon as possible, so I can still have some quality ‘me time’ given that it’s a #childfree weekend, and not having to do shopping in the morning is a good way of clawing back an hour in my day.

In a pleasant surprise, I see the in-laws there: turns out they’ve just been visiting the rest of the family. In a nearly-as-pleasant surprise, my ‘weekly’ shop only comes to about $50 (less than half the current average). It’s true that it’s only really food for the weekend, but I’ll still claim it as a victory.

Wednesday. I sleep much better than last night, but still have to battle a mighty wall of reluctance in order to get myself out of bed. I manage a slightly leisurely morning shift, secure in the knowledge that it’s Late Start Day at school (when doors open at 8:50 instead of 8:30). Despite the relaxed pace, we’re all still ready well before 8:30. I twiddle my thumbs for a bit, and then decide I may as well do my mid-week grocery shop before school instead of after work. Which I do. Radical: I know! The kids get flavoured milk as a bonus.

My three-meeting day at work quickly becomes a one-meeting day, with added cake and cookies, so all’s well there. Suitably energised, I manage to knock a fair bit off of my to-do list. I also make arrangements to visit my settlement agent the following week to sign what will hopefully be the final bits of separation-related paperwork. At least, until the inevitable divorce. Which is about eight months away, at the earliest, at this point.

Tuesday. I have the worst night’s sleep. I struggle to get to sleep at all, and then wake up constantly during the night. On the plus side, my overworked brain comes up with an excellently mind-bending plot for a time travel story. On the lesser side, I’m too exhausted for a morning shift so I just have to hope the idea stays in my head long enough for me to write it down later. Back on the plus side, I don’t think I’m ill any more, but I feel so terrible from the poor night’s sleep that I can’t really tell.

I go to work for a couple of hours, and then have to leave briefly to ferry the Elderbeast from his school to another academic extension class he’s taking. I’m already feeling the grump from lack of sleep, but he truly awakens the beast when he tells me that he’s left his work folder at home.

I’m displeased about this because earlier this morning I asked him to make sure that everything he needed for his afternoon class was in his school bag. I knew everything was in there because I’d put it in there the night before, but I’m trying to encourage him to take responsibility for his own crap because for the last two weeks I’m the one whose forgotten to put it in his bag for him. So, in checking whether his folder is inside his bag, he has managed to transfer his folder to the outside of his bag and left it on the table. It’s lucky that I left work extra early to make sure that he wasn’t late for his class since we now have to go home first.

Then, despite having checked the route beforehand, and asking the Elderbeast to keep an eye on the map for me, we manage to go past the road we’re looking for by a considerable margin (like, over 2km). I get back on track, and get the Elderbeast to his class on time, but decide that today is definitely the day of death by a thousand fucking annoying cuts.

Back home, and my latest batch of settlement papers have arrived, which require both mine and Rachel’s signatures, and also require ID verification. I can have this done at my local post office, but at a cost of $40, or I can use another service and pay $50 instead. I decide it’ll be easier to just go straight to the settlement agent’s office next week and sign the papers there. Once again, I’m appalled/impressed at the ways in which so many other organisations are able to cash in from the collapse of my marriage.

I spend the evening writing up some notes for my time travel story, and updating my diaries. I then head to bed at the earliest available opportunity.

Monday. I wake up still not feeling right and decide to work from home so I can least spare my colleagues my sniffing and coughing, and potentially my germs too. I do some work and realise I’ve vastly overestimated my available energy levels.

I retreat and read for a bit, and then get prompted by my phone about applying for a new interest free credit card. I have the majority of my credit card debt on an interest free card, but I’ve been meaning to move the rest over for some time. The clincher was seeing exactly how much more I’ve paid off on the interest free card in the last few months, than on the other cards (sometimes I wonder why I even bother making repayments).

I spend what feels like an hour applying for the card I had in mind, only to discover that the tiny available credit limit won’t cover the amount of debt I want to transfer. I then hunt around for some other offers and find a much better prospect (one offering 20 months interest free). I go for it and get approved. Win!

I then write for an hour or so, to make up for missing my morning shift. I’m back on a story I was really excited about several months ago, but wasn’t able to quite get off the ground. I feel a bit more optimistic about it after reworking the opening few sections.

Then the kinderbesten return. I’m trialling a new scheme with the Elderbeast: making him earn game time (or pocket money) in exchange for doing chores. As an introductory offer, I propose 90 minutes of game time in return for tidying his room, emptying the dishwasher, and helping me make dinner. He accepts, and does a fine job of everything too. He invites Rachel to stay for dinner so she can have some of the soup he’s helped make, and she accepts.

After that the kinderbesten get themselves to bed nice and early and I settle down for the traditional Monday night of whisky and Game of Thrones, followed by a not-quite early night.