Even a blind squirrel...

Every once in a while I get off a good shot or two. Here are a couple of my favorites from this season. 

Girlfriend comes to town

Our youngest son came into town this week for a work related conference. The cool thing is that he came with his girlfriend, who happens to work in the same office with him.

Why is this cool? Because he called us before they came up to ask if it was OK if they slept in the same bed while they stayed with us. We had let his sister and her now husband (then boyfriend) do it, so there was a precedent. We were so happy that he had a girlfriend, we readily agreed.

He is the one we worry about, relationship wise, because he is very private about that stuff. He had to leave his first love because her parents didn’t like the Romeo and Juliet deal. They were Filipino and doctors, and nothing less than a Filipino physician would be good enough for their daughter, apparently. The funny thing is that their daughter was an actor—not interested in medicine at all. Our son could see that things weren’t going to get better, so he reluctantly broke it off and left for a job out of state. I’m not sure he ever got over that.

We met his current flame when they came up for Christmas last year. We didn’t have a chance to get to know her, since they didn’t stay long. This time, the first night they were here, we went to my sister in law’s house for dinner and whiled away the evening retelling family stories: how we met, funny things the boys did when they were younger—all that embarrassing stuff you love to trot out in front of your children’s friends.

A couple of years ago, we were concerned about our son’s weight gain. He confessed that he had been wolfing down too many double cheeseburgers. Girlfriend was a little chunky last Christmas, so they both started weight loss programs, mostly of their own making. Anyway, they both look great—son says between the two of them, they lost the equivalent of a Back Street Boy.

So let’s hope this relationship lasts. They both deserve happiness, they are both great kids, and we could use some fresh grandchildren around here.

Woo-hoo for windows!

Not the operating system, silly—the real glass and vinyl kind. The window company called Thursday and said they could come out the next day, so I called my boss and arranged to take the day off. We were afraid we wouldn’t get them installed until some time in November. We love them. All of a sudden it’s very quiet in the house. We can’t hear the wind; there are no panes rattling and no drafts in the kitchen.

Today is a great day to test them, as the wind is blowing over thirty miles an hour and it’s down in the 40’s. We went shopping for curtains yesterday and found some for the family room—big panels with loops at the top. I left the old curtain rod in place since I couldn’t seem to find an extendable rod that was long enough. The new curtains look great. I am especially pleased that I no longer have to put up the shrink wrap plastic on that huge family room window (122” long by 48” wide). The French doors still need plastic, but that’s not a bad job.

We had a total of eleven windows installed, and the worker dudes did it all in six hours, with no lunch break. They barely spoke to each other, but went right to their work—kind of like Santa when he landed in Clement Moore’s poem. They threw the old frames into the driveway, but cleaned up all their mess before they left. They looked for nails and such, and so did I, but I didn’t find any. Eagle-eyed Kathy found eight screws the next day.

We couldn’t find curtains that we wanted for some windows, so we bought some of those paper shades, supposedly popular in new houses with lots of windows (according to the saleswoman in Penney’s). I managed to ruin the first one, pulling the little plastic string guide thingies off with the first tug of the cords. But I learned from this mistake, and ruined the next one, but in a different way. They’ll stay down, which is all we really wanted. It’s an alternative to entertaining the neighbors behind us with our strip acts in the bedroom.

We’ve noticed that it’s much quieter in the house now. I can’t hear my obnoxious neighbor’s air compressor or his loud cursing at his children. Can’t hear the windchimes. Can’t hear dogs barking, cars going by. It’s kind of nice. Isolating, but still nice.

Something wicked this way comes

Something bad happened at work yesterday. I’ve never written about work before, usually because I didn’t want someone from the office to discover my blog. That’s unlikely now, so here goes:

A woman who reports to me is leaving. Her last day is Friday next week. We have always given a going away party/luncheon/or something for every single person who has left the office, even if we didn’t like them. This time however, no one wants to plan anything for her and so there will be no farewell festivities. She has managed to alienate every single person in the office, terrorizing one very sweet person, slamming her door on others, provoking one man into a confrontation that got him in trouble, but not her.

I am a very quiet person. I can sit in meetings and not say a word for a long time. On the phone, people are always saying “What? What?” until I start speaking louder. In the two years or so that this woman has worked in the office, I have swallowed a lot of stuff, bitten my tongue, tried to maintain professionalism in the face of outrageous behavior. She is always the aggrieved party, it seems, in these interactions.

She is leaving, and so is more outrageous than usual. She had some computer files that I needed because her name was all over them as the contact person, and I wanted to change them and post them to the website after she is gone. She refused to give them to me. My frustration built and built over last week until I asked her into my office to ask one more time. She asked me why I needed them. Anger bubbled up and I forced it back down and explained I needed them for the transition. She said she’d send me pdf’s, which of course I can’t edit, and I blew. I actually raised my voice, saying I didn’t want that, I wanted the original files. She jumped up and declared, “I don’t have to sit here and be yelled at” and stormed away. She went back to her office, got her stuff and slammed the door on the way out.

I am also a relationship oriented person. That means I want everyone to like me. That has been difficult with her. You know the sound a basketball makes as it clangs off the rim in a missed shot? That’s what so many of our conversations have sounded like over the past year.

This is what kills me: she is certified to administer the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator and so she of all people should know how to approach different types and give them what they need. All of this just flies right over her head, as she blunders ahead. It seems to me that she pushes people to the edge and then is so surprised when they fight back.

So. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. She shouldn’t have refused to give me the files. She is leaving. I probably would have maintained myself a little better if she were staying, but then this whole issue might not have come up. Maybe something else would have sent me over the edge.

Oddly enough, she finally tell my boss why she didn’t want to surrender the files. The guy who is the webmaster (the same guy who got into it with her and got in trouble for it) actually told her that we wanted to take her name off this one document that she had written “Created by ________” on the cover. We don’t put our names on things that we do for the office. It’s just not done. Besides, at least three other people had contributed to that document, so she couldn’t claim to have formed it from nothingness. Anyway, at least she finally told somebody what the deal was. And yes, we did plan to do exactly that, but you don’t tell the target you’re going to wipe them out. You wait until she’s gone.

Arrgh! It was a dumb argument anyway. I could have had someone re-type the documents lickedy split and no one would be the wiser.

What do you do with people like that? What in their lives causes them to act like that? She is 41, single, not in a relationship. She has friends, just none at work. Maybe she’s a better friend than a co-worker.

I have probably set myself up as the aggrieved party here, which is a strange position for me, since I usually give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and seem incapable of writing anyone off-- trying to be understanding, empathetic, saying things like, “You have to see it from their point of view”…”Well, you know she hasn’t had an easy time of it”…”Everyone deserves another chance”…And then, I am angry when people walk all over me. In trying to be empathetic, I just wind up being pathetic.

The other supervisor in the office feels that this incident with me was just another part of the pattern, and that I shouldn’t be upset about it. No one has suggested that I apologize. It’s funny, but I don’t feel any great compunction to say I’m sorry. I’m not keen on the idea of having our work relationship—such as it is—end on such a sour note, but I’m not enamored of the notion of making nice with her either. Maybe I should just let it go.

What do you think?

Our mission

You will be pleased to know that our mission at church was a smashing success. We had about 250 people each night. We had a bishop come up from Akron to do a three day mission on the Eucharist. The first night, our pastor asked if I would be the Bishop’s “prop”. I said sure, but I didn’t know what he meant. Here’s what happened: the bishop dressed me in the vestments, explaining what each piece meant. Then I stood in the heavy vestments for the next hour and a half, as he went on to explain the Mass minute by minute. He sent me up to the altar and go through all the motions of the Mass, which was kind of neat. When it came time for the readings, he asked the group, “Where’s my reader?” I raised my hand behind him and everyone laughed. I got up to do the readings, and he said oh no, you’re not allowed, explaining that the priest isn’t supposed to do that part. Anyway, it was kind of fun, and as he said, you can see everything from the priest’s chair.

Of course for the rest of the mission, people were calling me “Father John”. I just countered with “Bless you, my child” and the eighty-year old women really liked that. Several said I looked the part and that I should become a priest. I said, sure, just let me take care of my wife and I’ll get right on that.

On the final night, the nun who helped organize the event told me that the bishop had an emergency and couldn’t make it and he was sending a substitute. I thought she was just messing with me, but it was true. She neglected to tell Annette, the music director, so I told Annette and Annette thought I was messing with her. I said, no, you better get into the sacristy and check it out. I went in a few minutes later and she was getting things settled with the substitute priest.

He did a great job of wrapping everything up and we were glad to have him. We sang our hearts out and had a great time. Later, he remarked to our pastor, “These people really like to participate!” Well, if you get 250 people who really want to be there, you’ll get participation.

Here's a terrific prayer that we used for the first two nights: (feel free to use it)

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going, I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.

Starting over

After a short break, I have recreated my blog here. It is (I hope) anonymous. No one knows about this one except a few people. I had to shut down the old one because of a lack of anonymity. The wrong people could read it. I was too free with my information about who I was and where I was. Fortunately, no one from work ever found it, though some people made noises about looking for me.

Here is a place where I hope I can feel safe to say what I want and express myself without worrying (too much) about what other people think.

The original blog started two years ago. I didn’t know what a blog even was until I started my own. I didn’t know what it was all about. Here is what I learned:

There are some strange people out there.
There are some wonderful people out there.

I have elected to stay with the wonderful people. They cheer me, inspire me and let me know that I’m normal. And human—don’t forget human.

Do I want comments? Of course! I love comments. Some other bloggers know that I am a pretty faithful correspondent. Being relationship oriented anyway, it’s important to me to keep up with my cyber friends. So I try to check in regularly. Do I expect reciprocity? Sure. That’s always nice, but I know that others may not share my need for a relationship.

So this blog is called “Making a Life”. I fretted over what to call it, and what to call myself. The first blog went off in a completely different direction than I had originally planned, so this time I thought I’d think a little more about such a momentous thing as naming and building a blog. This meant answering questions like “Who am I really?” and what pithy statement could adequately capture me and what I am trying to do?

I chose and discarded several names before arriving at this one, once I realized that all I am trying to do is make a life: husband, father, grandfather, worker, church member, thinker, writer. All these roles rolled around in my head until I saw that they all go into…making a life.