It’s been a bittersweet few hours. 

The US election was finally called and the Biden/Harris ticket has prevailed. 

While crying tears of joy watching the wrap-up of the speeches last night, I checked my email on my phone and saw a message at the top from the Oils office with the subject “Bones” from the Midnight Oil list I’ve been on for decades.  I opened it hoping it would be news that my favorite bass player of all time was finally winging his way to Australia to participate in the upcoming Makarrata gig project.

Unfortunately, the email was letting us know that Bonsey had passed away. Cancer. It was a punch to my gut. All the air went out of me and I broke down in tears. It may seem odd to react this way about a bass player in a band, but this was BONES! I’d met and spoken with him many times over the last 30+ years. A kinder, gentler soul than anyone I’ve ever met. Wicked sense of humor and never an unkind word said about anyone (except maybe Trump). He had the voice of an angel (I have a list of songs I can recommend, but have a listen to “One Country” if you can). His bass playing was unequaled (in my opinion). 

I’m so grateful the Oils got the band back together and toured a couple of years ago. My friends and I went to many shows across the US (like we did when we were kids). The stand out being the first gig in the US back in Atlanta. I got to see the band, explore Atlanta more than I had in the past and see my friend Magnus, who passed away not too long after our visit.

My heart goes out to his wife, family and friends. Rest easy Bonesy. You are a legend who is missed by many.  We are heartbroken you have left us, but thankful for the time we had.  To build on what a Powderworker friend said: I hope you’re up in front with the driver, guiding the way and enjoying the adventure.  I’m glad you were able to hang on long enough to see Trump lose, knowing you could leave us safe in the knowledge that things were going to get better and the chance of peace, decency, equality and justice were back in the mix. 

I’m going to be sad for a while with this one guys. It has hit me hard. I know it’s selfish, but I can’t help it. He was one of the good guys.

I’m trying to keep my mind on my country’s potentially bright future.  That will hopefully keep me from getting too down for too long. Trump, Pence and their rogues gallery of fascists are on their way out!  If we can pick-up the 2 senate seats January 5th in Georgia, we can make meaningful changes quickly.  I have a lot to be grateful for, even if the next couple of months are going to be ugly and full of hateful noise and rhetoric coming from the Trump administration and his lunatic cronies.

Here is one of my favorites of the Bones photos I took on that last Midnight Oil tour in 2017:

 Another quick one. Talk to your friends about voting. This morning I was talking to a co-worker about random stuff and they mentioned how weird it was they hadn’t received their ballot yet. They plan on voting in-person, so I reminded them they’d need to bring the ballot in order to surrender it at the poll on 11/3.

I asked when they last voted and it was in the last primary. Weird! I said “we gotta check your voter status”. Sure enough, they’d been reclassified as inactive, even though they voted in the last election!

Luckily, the deadline for registrations here is still a few days away and they were able to get re-registered in time.

Please, have casual chats with your friends and make sure they’ve received their ballots! My friend almost missed-out on voting!!!

 Just a quick mid-week post. If you are hoping Biden wins this election, please don’t believe the reports on the polls. In my office alone, I am out-voted by Trump supporters 6 to 1. Trust me, they ARE voting and they ARE NOT answering poll questions.

Don’t get complacent, please vote!!

Be safe, stay healthy and if you feel sick, stay home!!!

Take care of each other!!

 Today was an absolutely absurd day and you know what?  I couldn't stop laughing at all the stuff that went crazy wrong!  If it was another day of the week, I probably would have gotten angry, but as it is Friday, I just couldn't help but laugh.  

Everyone called out at the office today.  Seriously!  They either worked from home or called in sick and it was literally just me.  The thing about that is, everyone who did either of those things thought there would be someone who backed them up in the office to do the stuff that can't be done remotely.  NOPE!  Just me!  At times I felt like Lucy without an Ethel or French without a Saunders.  I was walked through a bunch of things over the phone though and we made it through just fine.  

The first burst of laughter came when I was instant messaging back and forth with my boss figuring out how to deal with the challenges we knew we were going to have when all of a sudden blood started gushing out of my nose, all over my hands, desk, papers, floor mat and the lap area of my pants.  FYI - Tide pen does NOT take out blood from pants.  I've always been prone to bloody noses, ever since I was a little kid, so I didn't freak out.  I stopped getting them regularly a few years ago (apart from when I would go to higher altitudes) and then about 18 months ago, they started back up and I've been having 3-5 a week.....except for the last week, where I've had NONE!  Not a single one.  Weird, right?  When I do have them, they usually aren't bad and stop in a few minutes.  Boy, not today!  It went on for a long while, probably because I was laughing so hard and saying "Shit!" over and over again as I scrambled to get more tissues. If they ever luminol the office, it's going to light up like a Christmas tree and they're going to think it is a crime scene!

Thank goodness nothing got on my blouse, so no one on my weekly Zoom call knew, HA!  With this group, I totally would have gotten shit for it!

I think I was able to calm the stressed-out folks who were working from and worried about their stuff not getting done and like I said, we didn't suffer at all from people not being there.

So I can't say it was a bad day, and that's a good thing!

Bring on the weekend!!!!

If it happens on Monday though, I'm probably going home sick. HAHAHAHA!!!

 Wow, I've had a few good days since my last post!  YAY!  The rumor we'd heard at work was true and they have begun allowing 50% of the office to work on site at any one time.  This is great because, before we were sent home and capacity was at 20%, it was a finite list of people that equaled 20% and only they were allowed in the office, so if they didn't go in, less than 20% would be there.  This time it's 50% at any time, so if I decide to go in, I am part of the 50% that's counted, but if I decide to work from home, that percentage can be used by someone else.  It's awesome!  Especially with the heat we've been having.  I've been going in to the office 4-5 days a week and loving it. (Hooray for free a/c!!)

I mean, it's a job, don't get me wrong, but being at the office is so much better than being at home.  There are still only four or five of us in there and we're really spread far apart while working and we stand at least 6 feet away while chatting.  I'm so fortunate!  I'm also very grateful that I have the choice to work either from home or the office.  When the weather cools down, I'll probably work a couple days a week from home.

Completely different topic - A few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to get some sort of exercise.  Bikes are pretty much sold-out everywhere and I didn't really want to deal with scratching the heck out of my car by trying (and probably failing) to properly install a bike rack.......so I went with rollerblades.  ROLLERBLADES!!!  Me?  Yes!  I haven't really been on skates since the late 70's!  There was a few times in the early 90's I tried skating again, but I didn't do much. 

This last weekend, a co-worker whose hockey league has been cancelled, said they would help teach me to remember how to skate and not fall down.  We went to a local park and skated for about an hour.  Holy crap!  I was so tired and thirsty when we were done, I almost threw-up!  It was so much fun though!  I was able to do well going forward up hill and forward on flat parts!  Down hill and braking..... not so much!  Gotta work on those two things!  I only ran into a chain link fence a few times and I didn't TOTALLY fall at all.  I ALMOST fell a few times, but that's different!  What's with only one skate having a brake and why is it on the back????  

The helmet, pads and guards are dorky, but at my age, who knows if I have osteoporosis or something equally bad?  I don't want to shatter my aged bones! 

Anyway, I had a really fun time and can't wait to go again!  

That's it for now.  If you're here in the USA-- don't forget to vote!  Read all your ballot instructions and make sure you follow them!  I voted yesterday!  It's a great feeling!!

Well, it's been a little over a month since my last post.  Being that we're in a pandemic, not much has changed. 

Right after I put up that last post, I decided to go a step further and not drink on the weekends as well as during the week and it's worked out pretty well.  To be honest, it's been too f-ing hot to drink.  I'm afraid that I'll get a hangover before I'm even done with a cocktail.  I did have one "video" drink to toast a friends' birthday, but that's it. 

I noticed I was getting really down, so I finally begged my boss to let me go into the office on the down low one day last week and one day this week.  It really helped my mood a lot.  They were the best two days I've had in months.  There were only two other people in the office, but it was nice to see them and take advantage of having a landline phone and use a computer directly, instead of remote-ing into it.  The air conditioning was pretty sweet too.  I work WAY more when I'm at home than I do in the office.  It was nice to fuck around a little and not be at my desk from 5am to 3pm, afraid that I'll miss a client emergency. 

On a positive note,  I was told this afternoon that they may start to let up to 50% of the office capacity come back (before it was 20% and it was a set list of people, now it's only 3 people able to go in) and I asked my boss if I could be one of the group allowed in and he said yes.  This time they're going to make it so that no more than 50% can be there at one time, so I could choose to go in a couple days a week and work from home the other days.  The days I would work from home would open up space for someone else to go in.  That would be ideal.  I just hope that people don't ruin it for us by going out and behaving stupid over the holiday weekend and cause a spike in the Covid cases here and they send us to exclusively work from home again.

Now I'm getting depressed again....

That's enough for now.  I'll try to come up with something positive to post next time.

Be safe, be kind, be patient and wear a mask!  Please!

A lot has changed since I last wrote a blog post. 

 I've gone from being able to work in the office three days a week to working from home completely. I can't say I'm happy about it, because I'm not. I'm REALLY not. There are aspects of my job that just can't be done remotely and every day, we hope that they don't come up. So far it's been a little bumpy and I've gotten frustrated, but I survived. Barely. Older clients who don't trust secure documents or e-signature items don't want to hear that we do not have access to that fax machine they just sent something to.

 My work space prior to being 100% at home wasn't really workable. The kitchen table was too high and the wooden chairs too uncomfortable. I got myself a new desk (robins egg blue!) and a simple table/desk that I could use as a return unit. I normally work with two monitors, so I went out and got a couple of inexpensive 24-inch tv's and the necessary adaptors and cables (thanks for helping me find them Manny-Man!) to get them to work properly, a new rolling desk chair, lamp, fan, desk pad.... ugh, I've spent way too much money and I'm not going to be reimbursed for it. It's not perfect, but it works. I chose an area of my living room that gives me a great view, should I have the time to look out the windows. 

I know I'm very fortunate I was able to do this and not be stuck on a couch hunched over a laptop. 

 The biggest problem I keep experiencing is this dumb earpiece I was given. It's supposed to log-in to my work phone via my remote hook-up and allow me to use that instead of my mobile to talk to the back-office, co-workers and clients. It works fine for the first two calls I have during the day, but then it craps out and sounds like the worst cell phone you have ever used. Drops in and out, is full of static..... grrr! I've talked with our IT dept. and they have escalated the issue. I'm waiting to hear back from them. Two days now... I wonder when they'll get to me? 

As of now, we don't have a return to office date. Most firms in my industry aren't returning until 2021, but I don't think that will be the case with us. They know we are all like family and enjoy going in to the office (as long as it's safe). They are reconfiguring things at most offices, but we don't really need to do much, other than all the new hand sanitizer, thermometers, etc. 

 Working at home is also bad for my waistline. At work, I can severely limit the snacks. Not so easy at home. The extra pounds don't bother me too much right now. I'll get back to where I need to be, but I'm not going to stress it. There is enough out there for me to worry about without adding this old stand-by. I'm also going through a ton of diet soda and sun tea now. I can't believe how many I'm drinking in the course of a day! I cut out booze, except for one or two over the weekend (if I feel like it). I don't generally drink a lot anyway, but I didn't want to fall into bad habits, so I thought it would be best to keep the liquor cabinet closed during the work week. 

 So far, all of my friends and family are healthy (to my knowledge), thank goodness. I hope it stays that way. Everyone wears their masks and stays home (for the most part). We're a lazy lot, so unless someone else plans it, there are no hikes or walks or anything. 

 The weekend ahead is going to be hot (starting tomorrow, it's going to be 98F+. I've started rearranging everything in the apartment to accommodate the new work area, so little-by-little I've been tackling the sun room (the horribly hot room I've been using to store stuff). I need to move some furniture in there that no longer fits in the living room. Already put one of the loveseats in there. I'm thinking about making it an office for the cooler months, but that's a long way off. 

 I've also been looking into dumpster rentals too. I have a lot of stuff that will take months to throw away if I use our regular trash cans. I wish we had a dumpster like most apartments. Then again, you don't usually have to pay for your own trash at most apartments. We pay for our own sanitation services. Ah well, nothing is perfect.  I think I may move after things calm down.  I have a lot to think about.  One thing I DO know, if I decide to move, it won't be with most of the crap I have.  I swore the last time I moved that I wasn't going to haul it all to the next place.  Especially my books.  I love them so much, but I'm too old to carry all the boxes (we're talking dozens and dozens of boxes).  Even getting them ready for movers is too much.

 That's about it for now. I might have more later. Take care of yourselves, stay healthy and be kind and patient with each other.