New Driver’s License and Medical Services card ordered. New Autoclub card ordered. Credit card cancelled and new one on the way. New debit card obtained. New wallet purchased.
5 hours of running around completed.
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TL;DR - Largely First World Problems brought about by one person trying to help the other person feel better.
Everyone has a “Chaos Quotient.”
By this I mean an ability to filter out the general chaos around themselves and still perform tasks.
I find I have a very high CQ. WHile I prefer order, I can still continue to work if things around me are disorderly. I will take a performance hit, but I can “Suck it up and drive on.”
My partner tends to have a much lowed CQ. In workplaces she is able to whip it into shape in little time. At home, not so much.
Going back a few weeks now, when she was let go from her job, she opted to start cleaning up some of her beading and jewelry stuff. Now her “space” for this was in the basement in an area that has a very high level of Chaos as we have tended to shove lots of chaos from other spaces down there. It’s “on the list” of places to reno, but far down.
Around a month ago when I saw the signs (the signs of Chaos Fatigue) starting in her, I offered to move my home office back down to the basement and give her the bedroom I was using. She was adamantly against this. Largely due to the fact that in the five years we’ve lived here, my home office has been moved six time.
In this last month there was an attempt at re-doing the “closet” (the smallest bedroom on the main floor was converted to our closet due to “too much stuff”) This largely coincided with my Laundry rants. Also, last week saw the 80% completion of a the revitalized laundry center. Small bit of progress.
That brings us to this last week. Work stress hitting prolonged high. Home stress, higher than average. Due to the numerous started-not-completed reorg projects, the Chaos Level in the house was quite high.
I believe it was Tuesday when we finally moved forward with the plan to swap spaces. My Office would go back to the basement and she would be back it the bedroom that was my office. That’ll be the weekend then, I figure.
Thursday was a pretty bad day for my partner and work had been hell all week, so something had to give and that was work. I call off Friday and get busy moving my large, heavy desk set down stairs. Along with most of my other “stuff” save the book cases which don’t come apart and I’ll need BiL to help move.
Not as much work transpired Saturday as I’d have liked, especially now that painting her room was now on the schedule. And her concerns that not everything she wanted would fit in this space.
Sunday Morning. I bring the first bookcase down the hall and wait for BiL to finish his coffee. As my partner looks at bookcase, she muses, “It’s too bad they won’t fit on either side of the fireplace.”
Sigh.
Measure. Measure. Measure.
“Yeah, they’ll fit.”
On the plus side, I don’t have to wrangle the big,oak bookcases downstairs. On the minus side, I’m going to need new bookcases for myself.
We get them up on the brick hearth to either side of the fireplace, which involved shuffling a lot of chaos around. While I went off to find long enough screws to anchor the bookshelves to the wall, other plans were made…
The (white) elephant in our living room is a baby grand that my wife plays when her disposition allows. It was now blocking the one of the bookcases.
Between that and much of Saturday’s hand wringing of how best to setup her room, the new plan was laid out. Let her have the largest bedroom for her room, move our bedroom to the room formerly designated my office. Once the room formerly used as our bedroom is painted, move the piano down to that room.
I’m okay with this. After the initial renovation of the main floor, I’d proposed making that room her room, but for reasons it never happened.
But this now means moving some of the things I’d already moved to the former office back to the living room, to make room for the bedroom suite. And moving the rest of the stuff from the room formerly used to slumber to someplace until all the paint dries and the dust settles (probably into the drying paint)
So now it is Sunday evening, two walls have their first coat of paint. One of the ugliest ceiling fans has been replaced with a more traditional ceiling fan. My office space is functional for “work from Home” and is quite orderly if I look no other place than the monitor. A bedroom is ready for sleep - though I know it is not in its final form.
This week will be painting and trim in the evenings and Friday, some suckers friends will come over to move the piano. From past experience, this is the one time these people will agree to help move said piano. If we want to move it again, we will need to make new friends.
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Well, it seems to me you’ve made a heck of a lot of progress, including just figuring out what to do.
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[glances at cupboard organiser that still isn’t installed after weeks on end]
[hangs head in shame]
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I predict that you will find your missing wallet any minute now. 
I once lost my wallet in a similar fashion in that there was a very narrow window when I could have lost it, so there were realistically only so many places it could be. I looked all over for that thing, especially the chair in which I’d passed out in the night before, since the most likely scenario was that is had just fallen out of my shorts pocket. I removed all the cushions from the chair, and lifted it off the floor so I could look underneath it; my wallet wasn’t trapped in the cushions and it wasn’t underneath the chair. It had to be there somewhere, but it was just gone, and I had places to be.
And that’s how I ended up going off to college with no wallet and no ID. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I had a hard time registering for classes, collecting financial aid, and signing a lease without any ID, and ended up having to file a police report in a strange town (“I don’t know wtf happened to it, but I can’t find it and it had all my important stuff”, basically) and my plan to couch-surf for a couple days flirted perilously closely to actual homelessness. But it all worked out in the end, because I was lucky, and young & white, and this was all pre-9-11.
Later, after I’d finally sorted out all my documentation woes, I helped move the person at whom’s house I’d lost my wallet, and what do I find, but my wallet? It was stuck in the mechanisms of that chair that I’d previously de-cushioned and physically moved. I didn’t find it the first time, but this time when I picked up the chair, the wallet just fell out onto the ground, plain as day. what. the. actual. fuck?!
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They’re going to take my dad back into surgery tonight to put in more sutures. Just got the call, but it won’t happen until this evening. I’m told he should be okay, but… this is scary as fuck.
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Fingers crossed for a good outcome. Thinking of you both.
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Keep us updated. I hope it all goes well.
And in my fuck today, one of my daughter’s close high school friend’s dad’s died this weekend. I have no more info on how it happened, but I am so sad that my daughter will not be able to travel to support her friend at the funeral.
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I am so sorry for you all.
Dad made it through the surgery. Some sutures were torn at the level of the fascia, the internal connective tissue of the skin/abdominal wall. (I’m sorry if I’m not explaining it accurately.) The problem was, and is, how slowly he’s healing, since due to the esophageal cancer Dad lost a lot of weight and has problems absorbing nutrition. They caught the tear fairly quickly… but it also resets the recovery clock. Because of the new surgery, he won’t be able to move around much, which could also slow recovery more… and it seems too slow now. FUCK.
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It’s hard when parents start to get to that point where they don’t really get back to full health. <3 I’m glad you are there for him.
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Driving to work today…
Radio cut in and out a couple of times. Just when I thought the station was having issues I see my dash gagues all go dead.
Still a couple miles out from work, so I pull to the right lane in case it dies, but I do make it to work and get parked. Idling for a bit I try a couple of things and when I flipped on my lights on it died.
I trudge into work and figured I’d call the shop I usually go to and get it towed there when they open.
No such luck. “Critical Situation” at work aand I’m stuck in the conference room with the rest of the assembled team. It was four o’clock before I thought of it again.
As I’m leaving (had a ride) I tell the security guard I’m leaving the truck overnight because it won’t start. He’s halfway to getting jumper cables and I’m all, “Nope. Ain’t gonna worry 'bout that tonight. Not. At. All”
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Oh dear. From experience, that sounds alternator-related. I hope not.
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Sounds like an alternator issue to me too… I’m no car genius but I’ve had a couple go out on me (one this summer) and the symptoms fit.
I’m glad you got there safely, @Wisconsin_Platt.
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Yep. Twas the alternator that finally decided on an alternative state of functioning.
I am a bit peturbed that the battery needed to be replaced as well as I swear I just put a new one in two years ago.
I didn’t really want that money in my savings…
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Alternators are (very expensive) consumables just like batteries but two years is a bit fast for a battery to go out. However with a dodgy alternator I can see it causing extra stress on the battery that could have shortened its life. Or the shop has a policy dictating this. Or you just got dicked over.
Either way at least it’s done and it should last you many years.
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Had a student complain about getting an 85 for his presentation, when he went over time (which I said multiple times in class I’d count off for) and for presenting late. He snarked by saying should I have had it be 2 minutes… dude was covering Solomon Northup and it was pretty clear from his presentation that he was just regurgitating the movie… Plus, this kid kept showing up to class late, when he bothered to show up at all, when he commented in class, he was often rude and dismissive. He’s not going to be pleased with his final grade, I imagine… I suppose he feels entitled to a good grade just for showing up sometimes and occasionally making comments in class.
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That was worth an 85?
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Not really, but he hit most of the key points of the presentation project (10% of final grade). And I didn’t ask for sources for the presentation itself, because I was more interested in seeing if they could take a historical figure and place them in the larger historical context, which he did a decent job at.
I’ll see what his final paper looks like and if he’s clearly not done the work there (going to the book vs. the film), he’ll get off for that. He’s borked much of the participation grade, too, so he’s not coming out of this with a great grade.
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I remember when I was young and knew everything.
{ shudder }
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So last night a headlight died on my car. No biggie, just means that I have to replace the headlight.
Today, it won’t stay running at an idle. It dies as soon as it comes to a stop. Fuck. Just when I was starting to make some financial headway.
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