Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2012 (Mar-May) /
''Long-Vacation'' 2012* (Jun-Jul) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2012* (Jul-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2012* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2012* (Dec-Feb) /
''Lost-Spring'' 2013* (Mar-May) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2013* (Jun-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2013* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2013* (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2014 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2014 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2014 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2014 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2015 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2015 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2015 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2015 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2016 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2016 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2016 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2016 (Dec-Feb)
Following the journal entry dated 18-24 June 2012, the subsequent entries recorded in these ''Lost Seasons'' segments are reflective of events which took place when ''routine'' journal entries were not being kept-up with.
The time-gap was initially the result of what I'd referred to as my period of ''Radio Silence''... whereby I'd unintentionally fell behind on posting regular updates due to the circumstances mentioned from thence forward, namely, the result of having to shut down my computer system out of unavoidable necessity as part of my period of departure from the ''State of Hawaii'' to my subsequent ''transitional'' re-establishment in the ''Commonwealth of Virginia.''
This ''black-out'' period would regrettably extend into a much longer period of lost time, as I had allowed numerous other developments and circumstances to interfere with and hinder my commitment to update & maintain my personal records of activity (as will come to light as everything unfolds during this ''reclamation'' phase), which led me to adopt ''alternative'' methods of continuing to keep track of my experiences and exploits. Although the original intent for these alternate methods had simply been as a way of ''keeping current'' until the computer equipment I'd shipped ahead of my departure had arrived and had gotten ''established'' & ''connected,'' because of all of my misestimations and needless delays, I kept progressively getting bogged down further-and-deeper into backlog.
So what follows after the last dated entry of June 2012 are first the ''detailed'' record of what I'd originally planned on posting once I'd found myself in a situation where I could again focus time & attention to this activity -- then once those inclusions have been completed, all subsequent entries from thenceforth will be indicative of where various ''physical records'' (primarily in the form of calendar notations, as well as other types of loose ''jotted notes,'' ''sales/service receipts'' of various types, and ''dated photographs'') were resorted to in order to refresh cloudy memories and to compile the most accurate chain of events as they occurred.
In each instance, up until the point where the backlogged information has all been brought completely up-to-date, the day during which the actual typing of the new ''old'' entry is taking place during this ''catch-up'' phase will be plainly noted. Also, since a considerable amount of explanatory ''exposition'' is also necessary and unavoidable due to the loss of normal structure (as a result of not having maintained this journal with regular & timely updates), there will likewise occasionally be such disruptions in the normal flow of each dated entry for the purpose of supplying ''back story'' and additional insights (past or subsequent): such notations/inclusions will be indicated ((in this manner, i.e. enclosed within ''double parentheticals)).
~ (November 22, 2013 - Friday)
~ (December 21, 2013 - Saturday)
What now follows is more text from a ''pre-formatted'' advanced preparation reserve, the only difference being that the following entries pick back up from where the recording of events on my mother's old ''Gateway'' computer had concluded, at which point I'd made the transition over to my own personal computer system but still recorded these experiences in a ''temporary/on-standby'' format. Because of the fact that this information was at this stage being recorded and stored as part of my own personal files to which I had complete access, the following texts were largely incorporated into the ''official'' document records by means of ''cut-&-paste'' technique.
Re: the 1.5 Year Time-Gap...
*[[Begins second pre-formatted ''Backlog'' Recovery]]*
December 5, 2012 (Wednesday)
Caught a bad case of virtual diarrhea midway into my workshift this morning, and while I was thankful that this time it was not in conjunction with the accompanying headaches I almost always seem to get with them, this bout came with an entirely different issue of concern (worry) in that when I looked into the toilet after a few evacuations I witnessed that the entire water content in the bowl had turned blood-red! The only time I'd seen anything even remotely like that was when I'd been given those three little laxative pills the day before my abdominal X-Ray. I tried to retrace all I'd eaten within the past couple of days, and it could've been anything (assuming the problem was strictly ''food-related''). Disturbed and concerned by what I saw, I decided to take a photo snapshot of the situation, worried that the toilet's automatic flush mechanism would trigger and swirl it all away as a result of my trying to get everything set & positioned, but I did manage to get a couple of awkward shots (unfortunately, with parts of ''me'' in the frame)... the idea was to show them to my mother and explain what had happened, to see if her ''nursing expertise'' might have any insight as to what may have been going on.
Checking my post office box after work, I found my fruitcake package from the Trappist monks at ''Genesee Abbey'' had arrived (whom I'd ordered from last week, since somehow-- without MY supplying them with anything of the kind -- ''Gethsemeni'' managed to uncover my new P.O. Box in this city and keeps sending me their catalogs, although I'd made the determination the last time I'd ordered from them that I would no longer do business with them when they made the decision to start charging shipping for orders to ''Hawaii''): I'd ordered a date/walnut ''whiskey'' loaf, and a tin of ''rum'' fruitcake (in contrast to Gethsemeni's ''bourbon'' cake).
Also in the mail I'd received my state ''certification'' for my employment, so the next thing on my agenda is to take this, along with my bank information to start my ''direct deposit'' payments, and hopefully negotiate for my ''work weekends'' and get my back-to-back ''off weekdays'' again.
(Today also begins my reattempts at updating my severely backlogged ''journal logs'' into my own computer system, until I can determine whether or not I can transfer them out of my mother's old ''Gateway'' 56k modem system.)
* Update - (17:30):
Spoke with my mother about an hour ago, after she'd returned from a day out shopping, explaining these latest digestive issues situation to her, even though by this time I'd become somewhat certain that the cause could be traced back to the bag of ''Flamin' Hot Cheetos'' that Gracie had insisted I take to work with me yesterday, and it was not until about an hour after I'd eaten them that the cramping & bleeding from my intestines began... and it seemed that my suspicions were confirmed after another elimination again after I'd woken up this morning, whereby I'd had another mass of bleeding (still quite significant, though considerably less voluminous than at first), this time accompanied with the passing spices. My mother suspected (as did I prior to bringing the issue to her attention) that the over-saturation of those spices on the snack food caused both the irritation & internal bleeding, although she suspected that it might have also been the result of a bleeding internal hemorrhoid.
After leaving my mother I got on the phone with our scheduling supervisor and asked when he would be in the office next, so I could supply him with copies of my certification paperwork & ID and to (finally) set up ''Direct Deposit'' for my paychecks. While on the phone, I also asked him about any possibility that I might have my ''working weekends'' reinstated, with preference for starting on the weekend and working through into the normal weekdays; he said he'd see what he could do with that request.
7:30, Eastern Standard Time
Finding myself going through a series of ''System Restores'' in an attempt to uncover why the computer keeps freezing-up, regardless as to whether I'm connected to the Internet or not. At first I'd assumed that it all had been due to my recent ''upgrades'' to ''Firefox 17,'' but then found that even uninstalling the program would not fix the problem.
December 6, 2012 (Thursday)
Gracie went to her gyno appointment this morning, as I slept-in the entire day as a result of being overwhelmingly tired due to all of the running around and conducting of all-day-long computer diagnostics/repairs yesterday. As I was lying there after Gracie got back later in the day, I listened in to her telephone conversation with her grandmother and I was highly annoyed at how Gracie's grandmother keeps cutting her granddaughter off, never allowing her to express a complete thought without ''challenging'' it -- especially whenever it involves her trying to express some ''good'' news (particularly if it relates to ''self-esteem'' issues in her life: e.g. when she tried to share how she'd lost about 20 pounds since she's been residing with us here) or some information pertinent to how she operates in life (such as trying to explain her specific job duties or her medical issues, etc.).
According to what she was trying to explain to her grandmother, as she later explained to me at the dinner table, was that her gyno had revealed that her clitoral itching was due to a yeast infection (which I'd suspected), but also that she had been told that she should schedule to have an ultrasound done for what was said to have been an ''enlarged uterus'' which might possibly be linked to ''fibroids'' (which was something she said her mother had to undergo a surgical operation for).
19:30, Eastern Standard Time
December 7 - 9, 2012 (Friday-Sunday)
Tried to keep a promise I'd made to Gracie Saturday morning (Dec 8), when she asked me if I'd pick her up from her job later at night, because my mother informed her that she might not be able to come by to get her as she normally would whenever the buses stopped operating for the day (for which my mother charges Gracie the same $3.00 she would've had to pay for bus fare). So somewhere between 5-10 minutes after I'd received her initial call (@20:50, EST) I was out on the road to pick her up at the bus stop on the upper level of ''Valley View Mall'' right next to the ''Sears'' auto center, where I'd instructed her to wait for me until I'd arrived there, so I wouldn't have to go running around all over the place searching for her.
When I'd arrived (at what turned out to be somewhere between 21:00-21:05 hrs.), she was nowhere in sight. I'd made repeated loops between that bus stop and the lower mall level in front of the store where she works, each time not seeing head nor tail of her; so after the third time of returning to the designated bus stop I'd decided to leave her on her own, speculating that perhaps she might have changed her mind and taken a bus anyway, or perhaps had gotten impatient and decided to call my mother for a ride as a back-up maneuver: either way, I was not about to hang around like a limp dick in a cold lake, nor was I going to be running through the mall hoping that our paths might cross, especially since I'd dressed myself in a blue bath robe over top of my ratty-ass ''about-the-house'' clothes.
When I'd arrived back at the house, my ''9:00 PM'' alarm had been sounding for exactly 12-minutes (reading ''9:22'') from the PM-time where I always keep the alarm set at (e.g. ''9:11'' - thus making the actual time of my return to the house almost exactly 21:12 EST, adjusting for the fact that I keep my room clocks set to run ten minutes faster than actual time).
So after returning the house, I simply went about my business, reheating one of the sweet potatoes my mother had baked -- it was during this time that Gracie had called to leave another message, but for whatever bizarro reason I could not hear either of the phones from inside the kitchen. When I'd learned that she had tried to get in contact with me again, I called back the number that displayed on the Caller-ID and asked someone to page her, which she did not answer, nor did the person answering the phone say that she had seen anywhere on site after volunteering to look. Eventually, Gracie did call my mother's cell number, and my mother went out and picked her up.
After her return, each of us of course pleaded our own best case without trying to call the other person a liar, but the ''time elements'' were way-too-far-off for either of our stories to be considered ''believable'' to the other person. It was not until I'd begun to replay everything back the next morning (Sun., Dec. 8), using the math of the various ''time stamps'' I'd had at my disposal (the telephone message IDs and the alarm clock), that I'd come to the uncomfortable conclusion that we had both spoken ''truthfully'' (according to how we each perceived the situation from our own individual perspective) and each of our explanations in our own defense was both ''correct'' and ''mistaken.'' -- As a result of putting all of the ''time elements'' into place and following the timeline of events, I'd determined that what had likely occurred was that after Gracie had called me from the store phone @ 20:50 (after which she had been detained briefly by her supervisor regarding how she had been picking-up work shifts that she was supposedly not ''qualified'' for), by the time she had arrived at the bus stop location (factoring in how much time it might normally take for someone to walk the full distance through the mall to that particular bus stop), I'd already ''come-&-gone'' from the pick-up point before she'd even gotten a chance to get to the bus stop, thus providing the possible explanation for why she insisted that she had been waiting at the pick-up spot for a half-hour before leaving the spot to call again -- which would seem to be confirmed by the ''time stamp'' on the follow-up message she'd left while I was cooking & eating in the kitchen as having been recorded at 21:45 hrs.
After I'd offered the preceding breakdown as a possible explanation when she returned home from her job Sunday night, that's when the ''Twilight Zoney'' mindfuck really became unglued... After she kept explaining to me that she'd made her initial call at ''19:50'' (not ''20:50''), I had to call my own phone to confirm that the ''message recording'' time stamp is off by an hour (e.g. the ''record'' time is still operating on EDT, the ''handset/CID'' time displays the correct EST). So with EVERYTHING still the same according to the flow of time, the only discrepancy is that a full-hour is COMPLETELY lost & unaccounted for! W.T.F.?!
During breakfast Sunday morning I'd had another episode where I needed to eliminate my bowels, and was relieved when at-first there was no longer any noticeable blood in my stool, but a certain bit reappeared again just before I'd finished the process, and it did not seem to be connected with the external hemorrhoid which occasionally does tear & bleed, so again this one appears to be due to some internal injury.
''Weekend in Review''
December 10 - 13, 2012 (Monday-Thursday)
Called the motorcycle dealership Monday morning (Dec. 10) after my temporary license tag expired at the start of the month and I'd still not received my permanent license plate, only to be told that I should've had that done at the DMV... and yet while I was down there trying to have that done in conjunction with localizing my driver's license, the clueless wench behind the counter kept telling me that whatever I'd needed would've been handled by & come through the dealership. So now, for all of my trouble bothering to ''trust'' other people yet again, I found myself in another predicament that I ''allowed'' someone else to shuffle me into. So in response to the situation, I resorted back to restoring my Hawaii license plate and hoping I can escape notice until my re-registration materials are processed & arrive.
Gracie's been giving more indications (subconsciously or knowingly? it's difficult to tell) that she's hoping (...perhaps even actively ''trying'') to get me to make her pregnant : after several ''emotional reaction'' tests, after all of the excuse-making about how she's afraid of receiving or not being able to afford the IUD, after all of the times wondering if my ''sperm count'' is strong (since she hadn't gotten pregnant in all this time), and after lamenting about how I allow her to go through ''dry spells'' prior to her ovulation cycle, her latest tactic has now been to find any excuse to ''beg off'' of going to the pharmacy down the road to pick up the ''pills''-- along with the ''yeast infection'' medication --she was prescribed after her gyno visit. She put off getting it Monday (even after having been told that they would have her order transferred from the location in Vinton, where they had actually filled the order, to the location close to the house, and that it would be there in an hour), then the next day (Tue., Dec. 11) she begged off on picking it up again, even after explaining to my mother for the second time since she'd been written the prescription that her gyno instructed her to start taking the birth control pill regimen on the first day of her menstrual cycle, and this had by now been ''Day #2'' of her current cycle.
''Week in Review''
December 14 - 16, 2012 (Friday-Saturday)
Dressed up in the so-called ''thermal underwear'' (called ''COLDPRUF'' -- note: NOT ''cold-PROOF'') for work on Friday (Dec. 14), and the cursed things only intensified the cold!
That same night I rushed out to get to work on time, only to learn once I'd gotten there that I'd arrived an hour early, as a result of improperly resetting the time on my alarm clock, which made me suspect that perhaps something similar to this might have been responsible for the lost hour when Gracie had called me to pick her up last weekend, suspecting that she might have been messing with the clock sometime prior to that incident, but that still would not have explained the phone message time-stamp, so I'm still at a loss for a rational explanation.
''Weekend in Review''
December 17 - 20, 2012 (Monday-Thursday)
Martha presented me with what she called a ''Christmas Present'' on Tuesday (Dec. 18), still refusing to accept & respect my request to not participate in any way with the so-called ''holiday'' season(s). The ''present'' came in the form of blocks of cheese which she had purchased at ''The Fresh Market,'' which I immediately socked away in hiding from Gracie, which is something we've regrettably had to resort to doing with her in regard to certain food & kitchen items until she can learn the importance and techniques of conserving and doing things ''economically.''
Also on Tuesday, Gracie mentioned that she suspects the hormonal ''birth control'' method she's been assigned (''The Pill'') has resulted in an increase in the frequency of her urination.
In my post office box Thursday morning (Dec. 20) I'd received a notification from the Virginia DMV saying that they could not ''forward'' my driver's license and have sent to my ''physical option'' post office address which was where I'd requested to have the document sent, so I had to go online and supply my actual ''post office box'' address, despite the fact that I'd already told them (as I continually tell everyone whenever trying to engage in ''official'' business) that my ''MAILING'' address is separate and distinct from whatever they enter as my ''physical/residential'' address... but does anyone EVER listen?
Later in the day, Gracie returned from her ultrasound appointment, confirming that she had several ''fibroids'' growing in her uterus... one supposedly being the ''size of an orange.''
''Week in Review''
December 21 - 23, 2012 (Friday-Sunday)
My mother decided to give me a ride to & from work Friday (Dec. 21) out of concern for the weather, which I didn't think was that severe. As morning rolled around (and seeing that the prediction of the Mayan ''Enna-da-Wurld'' didn't occur), an almost equally curious ''make-up'' for that failure presented itself in the form of snow flurries -- my first ever since leaving Galveston, Texas.
All weekend Gracie was panic-stricken because of heavy bleeding she'd been experiencing just a couple of days post her ultrasound examination, which only made her worry more about the actual condition and express concerns about the various alternative methods for treating the situation.
She was particularly upset with me because of my coldly brushing her off all Saturday night (Dec. 22) when she kept on disrupting my sleep, constantly shaking me awake to be attentive to her ''needs,'' so it was the next morning (Dec. 23) that I finally explained to her that her constantly shaking me out of my slumber for completely irrelevant & annoying reasons resulted in my recently clearly-irritated responses to her doing that, and that what she had essentially done was created a ''Boy Who Cried Wolf'' situation with me, and that I was doing all I could do to keep from yelling at her each time she does that, especially since that for the past week I'd been struggling & fighting to stay awake at my job because her constantly disrupting my sleep had been leaving me drained and ill-rested, putting me in a real situation where my job may genuinely be threatened.
Also, Gracie's bleeding had intensified overnight from Saturday into Sunday, to the point to where she's spotted the sheets; I took the soiled items off the bed and soaked them in cold water in the basement, taking the opportunity to sort the ''white'' items into the washing machine so that they'd be ready to wash.
I decided to ride along with my mother when she drove Gracie off to her workplace: I wanted to use the trip as a way of getting a ride to the ''dollar store'' so I could buy Gracie some toothpaste (which she desperately needs, because of her refusal to look after her teeth properly & regularly), as well as to grab a few snacks for myself to take to work with me.
Before leaving Gracie's drop-off point, I asked if we could double-up the trip with a swing-by first to the post office so I could check my mail: it wasn't until I'd gotten to the post office that I'd realized that I'd still managed to forget to bring my house keys with me (among which I keep my P.O. Box key), but I saw through the mailbox window that Gracie had finally gotten something in her name addressed to the post office's ''physical address alternative'' so that now she could have something in ''OUR'' address to take to those numb-nutz at the VA-DMV so she can get her ''local'' identification card, and so I can use that same instance to get my license plate request submitted.
I also used Sunday as my opportunity to finish paying off the balance of the motorcycle charge on my credit card, after I'd been satisfied that I'd still have enough left over in my bank account to prevent me from getting assessed as ''service fee.''
''Weekend in Review''
December 24, 2012 (Monday)
Rode out to ''Food Lion'' this morning, originally for some ''B.O.G.O.'' raw shrimp I saw they had on sale (of course today being the last day to take advantage of the offer), plus I'd wanted some raspberry preserves and wanted to see if canned tuna was on sale (which it wasn't), and maybe get something to drink to take to work with me: I somewhat expectantly engaged in a little ''impulse buying'' as well, grabbing a couple of boxes of ocean perch, some fresh asparagus, some ''natural'' peanut butter, and some frozen ravioli & tortellini, among a few other things. As a result of spending over $75.00, as part of some month-long promotion they were having, I received a scan code good for a free state lottery drawing number, which I kept asking the none-too-thrilled-to-help-a-customer black woman behind the service desk to explain to me, since I'd come from one of only two states in the Union (the other being Utah) that does not participate in lotteries.
I was disturbed to learn when I went upstairs to take a shower that Gracie hadn't even so much as ''opened'' the ''BOX'' containing the tube of toothpaste I'd given her, and I'd informed her about it just last night after we'd eaten the dinner I'd prepared for her, and as she watched as I'd brushed my own teeth right afterward with some paste from the tube I'd purchased for myself... and no, it was not a matter of her sneaking some of mine, since we each keep our mouth-hygiene items in two separate washrooms! Her penchant for clutter, poor hygiene, and other revolting behavior (such as tossing bloody pads in the dresser drawer), as well as her unwillingness to learn how to ''conserve'' (in EVERYTHING that costs money!) is really causing me to reassess just how much more of her lack of self-improvement I can tolerate without taking some sort of drastic measures short of sending her back to New Jersey.
15:30, Eastern Standard Time
December 25, 2012 (Tuesday)
While I was sleeping upstairs last night, my mother got with Gracie and made sure she got this disaster of a room back in some reasonable sense of order, and she told me this afternoon (as I was trying to get a little something inside my gut after a long bout of headache & intestinal issues) that Gracie's habit of tossing her bloody pads into her dresser drawers was much worse than the one I'd originally come across when I was searching for my hairbrush yesterday, since I'd stopped searching the drawers after coming across the first instance of it.
My appetite was not helped any when Gracie's attempt at dinner again resulted in another hyper-salted inedible disaster; I just took what was left of what was supposed to be some sort of shrimp-pasta dish (which turned out near-perfect the first time she'd done so last week) and set it aside in the freezer, thinking of ways I might be able to salvage it so that it wouldn't have to go to waste.
Also discovered during my last workshift, after I can't entirely recall how many years of inactivity, that I was being treated to another herpes outbreak: it had escaped earlier notice because it was uncharacteristically asymptomatic, except for the raised bump at the base.
This morning at (what was for me) ''breakfast'' I took the suggestion of something Gracie had impressed upon me in a dream, which gave me the idea of adding ''ice cream'' to my coffee instead of that dog-awful non-dairy creamer my mother uses... and it turned out to be the only suggestion that had ever come to me in a dream that had ever actually been worth anything of value in real life.
19:30, Eastern Standard Time
December 28 - 30, 2012 (Friday-Sunday)
Decided to do a round of shopping at ''Food Lion'' after noticing a few more items I wanted in the latest flier Friday afternoon (Dec. 27) and admittedly to try to take advantage of their ''free lottery numbers'' monthly promotion again, now that I was aware of it.
I went to do the grocery shopping right after work on Saturday (Dec. 28) after spending about an hour online trying to sort through my pile of bills: it was during this online time that I'd decided that I no longer wished to continue doing business with ''Verizon'' for their so-called ''local'' phone & internet service, mainly because I'm tired of being billed for something I either have to mail in to them (in an entirely different state), or ''pay with penalty'' at somebody's ''convenience store'' (which will hit us with an additional $1.50 tack-on charge), or they want access to my credit card or checking account so they can siphon payments off of me ''behind the scenes'' -- all without seeing as much as a single ''receipt'' being placed in my palm the moment I hand over my money! And on top of it all, the ''service'' they provide is nothing all that spectacular anyway! So these things all became more incentive for me to start re-looking into seeing about ''re-establishing'' an account with ''Cox Cable,'' especially now that they keep hyping this ''$25x3/month'' year-long contract ''bundle'' promotion.
Wanted to use some of the mozzarella cheese to make stuffed jalapeño peppers for Saturday's dinner (Dec. 29), but it turned out that the peppers that had been in the freezer long before my arrival had sat for too long to where they had spoiled and became mushy & unusable. So I decided to make a pizza for the evening and set aside the flounder until the next night.
Prior to Gracie's return from work (calling to say she'd be taking the bus after all, instead of working the extra hour or two she said she'd agreed to and wanted me to pick her up afterwards, since she said she didn't have the money to give to my mother for the ride), I'd accessed her laptop to email some downloaded image files to my own email account, and sent the files through her still-opened email account. While there I'd discovered an email correspondence she'd had with some internet chat pal where she'd again exposed our business, even going so far as to tell this other person my (our) personal business, history, and locations... up-to and including having sent this person our photographs! -- This had happened the very next day after I'd left the Islands en route to the East Coast... and this after I'd already explicitly warned her about how seriously I take having my/our personal business thrown with no caution to the cyber-wind! I'd initially planned on saying nothing about it, but brought the whole thing to her attention after she'd arrived back to the house, explaining how yet again I felt totally betrayed and vulnerable because of her need to be liked or ''validated'' in somebody else's eyes, even if the person is a complete stranger to her.
Sunday morning (Dec. 30) I chose to accompany my mother to visit my grandmother at her ''assisted living'' facility, and the experience was more depressing than normal -- the old girl's faculties just seem to keep deteriorating downward. After the visit there my mother stopped by her brother's house -- my ''Uncle Danny,'' who recognized me right off the bat, even though the pair claimed he hadn't seen me since I was a toddler.
''Weekend in Review''
December 31, 2012 (Monday)
Tried this morning to back-up the journal updates I'd been saving on my mother's ''Gateway'' desktop, which I'd started doing after I'd arrived from Hawaii while waiting for my own equipment to arrive, but continued to use her system while I kept trying to get my own system restructured, believing that her system had CD-burning capability and that I'd be able to transfer it to removable media at any time, only to find out that there's nothing in her system which will allow me to do that. So now I'm stuck with trying to find a way to copy & transfer all of that information from her system and incorporate it into my system; I'm afraid that my only possible workaround will be simply to ''retype'' everything word-for-word -- my only problem being trying to decide whether to retype everything onto Gracie's laptop & emailing the finished projects that way (unsafe from prying eyes), or taking photo snapshots of each & every page and retyping from there (unless I can perhaps figure out how to work with ''Adobe Reader'' to take up that slack for me).
I got lazy about trying to contact the local insurance company to see about bringing in my adjusted balance to update my motorcycle coverage, presupposing that they'd be closed for the so-called holiday anyway.
Expressed more disappointments with Gracie's wastefulness: earlier about her overuse of my liquid soap (which is now almost completely depleted, which should have lasted me well into next summer!); later regarding her wastefulness of food -- particularly her overuses of cheese and salt, although I could/should have also mentioned her same excesses of butter and cooking oils, although on the latter she has been showing some improvement).
Before dinner and a quick nap I tried-out the treadmill my mother had set up for ''US'' (Gracie and myself) at my request (although the idea was that it would be more for Gracie's benefit, as one of her promises to me when she began engaging in conversation with me was that she would be committed to losing weight, and that if she had access to a treadmill she'd make use of it): I managed to hold out for about 13-minutes, but discontinued my activity mainly because the cold air was killing my mouth & throat, although the physical activity in-&-of itself was challenging enough.
January 2, 2013 (Wednesday)
Rode directly out to the post office this morning right after work to mail off the bills and the Hawaii Department of Taxation's change-of-address request form that I'd been working on last night, then came back to the house bypassing my important nap time to call ''Cox Cable'' to find a promotional plan to replace ''Verizon's'' bullshit ''non-'' service, and went with a 12-month plan that would expand my mother's bare bones ''basic cable'' package to include some of the channels that she (we) loved but had been missing due to the costs involved in ''upgrading.'' She approved of the additional television package for herself (while I'll be covering my end for the Internet & Telephone bundle) even though it would cost her an additional $10 per month.
I was likewise expecting Gracie to start getting ready to ride out to the state's local DMV office with me, so she could get her ID current while I took care of my state license plate, but she gave no indication that she was serious about going, playing around on her laptop as I was trying to wind down the time in order to call my vehicle insurance agency in Hawaii during their reasonable local business hours, so I could ask about a ''due balance'' I was informed I'd have to pay to get my policy current: I was informed that I'd have to have my policy transferred to a local agency anyway in order to be ''legally'' covered here ''locally.''
18:55, Eastern Standard Time
18:35, Eastern Standard Time
January 3, 2013 (Thursday)
Went out to the local DMV office this morning, heading out later than planned, because once again Gracie was determined to stay wrapped-up in Internet activity more-so than paying attention to the progress everyone was making in preparing to leave. When we finally got there with what we hoped this time would've been sufficient ''additional proof''' of Gracie's residence (a letter from her OB-Gyn addressed to our ''physical mailbox'' post office option), we were told that it was likewise not sufficient, so again I had to end up telling her to get her mailing address changed with the people she work(s/ed) for before they start to mail out her end-of-year tax statements. So I was left to check the status of my driver's license and vehicle plates, explaining the massive run-around I'd been going through in trying to get everything transferred over. I ended up standing literally for over an hour as they kept trying to correct all of the errors involved in preventing me from receiving my items: one of the major faults was mine, as I'd forgotten to designate which type of license I was applying for (...this oversight resulting in my inadvertent [and unchallenged] assignment of both a regular vehicle operator's license as well as my motorcycle designation, due to the clerks assumption & misreading of my Hawaii license, and not recognizing her error in that she'd explained that I'd ''underpaid'' my driver's license fee and needed to be charged more to so that I would've submitted the ''correct'' amount); the other reason for the delay being of course their ignoring of my ''mailing'' address, which is always so typical of these ''governmental'' agencies and the businesses who contract to work on their behalf.
After getting all of my stuff finally taken care of at the DMV, we stopped off to get my insurance current & registered locally. After nearly driving away from the office without my house keys, the agent had brought them out to me, and upon noticing the custom-made scarf my mother was wearing asked if she could have one made for herself also (one of my mother's girlfriends' hobbies is crocheting various clothing items but refusing to sell them).
Back at the house, Gracie kept delaying my recommendation to contact who-/what-ever she needed in order to get the process of updating her address information for these backward-ass ''Commonwealthers'' while I called my former employer in Honolulu to verify that they had my current mailing address on-record for when they decide to send out our tax statements; it should not have surprised me one iota that they had not updated that information the last time I called them. I then proceeded to take photographic snapshots with the dejikame of the journal texts that are still stuck unmovable on my mother's computer system, from which I'll be having them progressively transcribed later.
21:40, Eastern Standard Time
January 4 - 6, 2013 (Friday-Saturday)
The ''Cox Cable'' technician came early Friday morning (Jan. 4) who set up everything successfully, and it was during this time that I was made aware that what was suspected of being a breakdown of my Ethernet router turned out to be due to a electronics incompatibility because of the way ''Verizon'' structured their combination modem/router box. It was also during this time that the tech informed us that there was an extra $6 monthly rental fee for the television cable box after I'd asked if both my mother's viewing room and her bedroom could share the same cable box and was told that separate boxes would be required for that. During the channel surfing inspection, there were a significant number of channels which were not mentioned as part of the package by the telephone representative (who also did not inform us about the additional ''box rental'' fee), but there were also a few channels which we were told would be part of the package which were not part of our line-up either.
While I was checking the new set-up, my mother took Gracie to ''Kroger,'' since she'd asked to go, and the groceries she bought (especially now that she's without a job, as her ''seasonal'' job had ended), both in specialized items and in final costs, just caused me to see more of what's causing me to feel that there just may be no getting through to her to get her to understand the importance of budgeting, conserving, and not being wasteful.
After reconnecting my wiring after the tech visit, I'd inadvertently set it up where all power routed through the surge protector, which had the unforeseen effect of shutting off the telephone lines, which was sort of a blessing in disguise, because Gracie has the annoying habit of chatting on the phone with her people in New Jersey and talks for hours while I'm at work.
Early Sunday morning (Jan. 6) Gracie was stirring out of sleep, bawling her eyes out: I feigned ignorance, but she explained it later that she had been roused from a nightmare where I'd vociferously rejected her and told her it was over with us. I suspect that the seed was planted the previous evening (Jan. 5) when I was on the telephone with my father, and perhaps on a semi- or subconscious level she may have heard my Dad asking me if I had married this girl yet and I'd responded with a bunch of hemming & hawing. But even before she eventually got around to explaining it to me (because I kept brushing it off, because I didn't want to be subjected to any more of her teary-eyed emotional manipulations), my mother had already informed me what it was all about -- and it was during this conversation that I'd finally come clean with my mother about my serious lack of optimism concerning any future this woman and I may actually have down the road, because she just keeps falling back on her ''Old Self'' which we've been constantly trying to break her out of, so it's becoming more & more apparent that she doesn't want to make any real improvements.
''Weekend in Review''
January 7, 2013 (Monday)
Gracie tried to crawl back into bed this morning, after asking me to set the alarm to wake her up at 07:00 so she could get ready to keep her OB-Gyn appointment, and even when I did manage to get her up, she still refused to do her hair properly. When she returned back from her appointment she explained about why she would not be getting surgery for her fibroids, based on her Gyno's recommendation. But she also revealed that her Gyno explained to her that her spontaneous & heavy bleeding episode last month was most likely due to Gracie's discontinuing her ''birth control pill'' regimen about as quickly as she'd started it (which is, to me, more evidence that this woman absolutely wants nothing to do with *ANY* form of birth control (especially after I'd kept trying to push her into getting an IUD, even if it were to have been at my own expense), despite all of her protestations that she does not want to and has no intentions on getting pregnant.
After I finished washing the dinner dishes, I went out to wash the motorcycle and make a few minor adjustments; when I returned inside Gracie was getting engaged in some very heated discussions with her grandmother and birth-mother concerning why she hadn't sought an ''invasive surgery'' option to deal with her fibroids and (as if she were deliberately upping the ante) to inform them that she's no longer working. Listening to this whole family dynamic of hers is really frustrating the hell out of me.
16:15, Eastern Standard Time
January 8, 2013 (Tuesday)
My motorcycle almost got me stuck down at the post office after work: it began refusing to crank the engine over at the jobsite until it began to drain of power; I gave it a few moments to rest before attempting it again, and when I finally got it started, I thought the extra trip would recharge the battery enough to carry me for the rest of the day, but I found out just how wrong I was when I tried to restart from the post office parking lot, where this time I'd pretty much pushed it to the draining point. A little panicky, but I'd decided to try giving it another rest break while I worked on readjusting & tightening the mirrors when a man in a pick-up came by to ask me if I was having any problems, and I told him that I'd pretty much drained my battery but was uncertain if my real problem was the ''battery'' or if the ''oil'' was being thickened due to the near-freezing weather (since the only times I've been having problems with starting the engine have only been on bitterly cold days & nights). When he connected his jumper cables, the dash displays lit up like they hadn't done in a long time, so it seemed to become apparent to me that the problem may have been a combination of the cold weather and a stressed battery. So later in the day I'd informed my mother of the problem and said that I might have to enlist her services for the shopping errands I'd had planned for today, and perhaps might request a ride to work as well: I asked her if during my errands she'd be kind enough to swing me out to the motorcycle dealership so I could see about purchasing a battery charger, which is when she revealed to me that she actually had a charger in the garage, so that saved me from having to swiping any extra unnecessary credit card charges.
* Update - (21:15)
XX:xx, Eastern Standard Time
Had a bit of a brief scare an hour ago, when I decided to check to see if the motorcycle would start normally after having sat since this afternoon when I last checked it, and I couldn't find my second set of keys anywhere in the house: I'd locked the primary set inside of the dash compartment after the first test, and I'd feared that the secondary set was likewise somewhere inside one of the locked compartments, but it turned out that I'd already removed that set to one of the unlocked compartments when I'd removed it with other items this morning in order to gain access to the battery.
January 11 - 13, 2013 (Friday-Sunday)
On Friday (Jan. 11) I finally completed the entire ''final draft'' on the anti-''Homosexual Marriage''/anti-''Gay-Rights'' project that I'd been working (read: ''struggling'') on for at least the past three years! Although about the first four of five video installments had been completed and uploaded, two very disruptive things had happened since then which were decisive in my taking so much more time than what was originally planned & intended: (1) The utter ''death'' of my original factory-installed hard drive, which resulted in the loss and irretrievability of most of my earlier video commentaries, projects, and related multimedia reserve folders and (2) the near-loss of a significant part of the ''rough draft'' portions of my earlier script... although some of the actual text had indeed been destroyed when I thought they'd no longer served any purpose once the audio/video project was successfully completed to satisfaction, there were still enough ''rough-jotted'' notes & topical points which allowed me to reassemble some idea of what points I was trying to get across and in what manner of presentation I'd originally intended.
In retrospect however, the loss was something of a ''mixed blessing in disguise,'' as since that time I'd done nearly a complete overhaul of my original presentation and kept ''adding'' to it to include any new or pertinent information I felt was important and would make the most factually-based and effective point to present & sustain my argument. But because of all of the pressures and time restraints I'd found myself under, getting to the point of completion was a long and agonizing journey, and it became even more imperative for me to dedicate intense effort to completing the final draft when I'd heard that the U.S. Supreme Court intends on hearing the arguments for/against the legalization of ''Same-Sex Marriage'' -- although as someone in my upload community had pointed out, they are more than likely to rule in favor of ''States' Rights'' in their ''initial'' ruling, though I am still quite convinced that at some point in the very near future there will eventually be a ruling in ''favor'' of its national recognition. Even so, I still don't know when I might actually get started on recording & producing this new series of chapters (which will total 37 in all, hopefully all fitting within a target window of no more than 15-minute episodes each), especially now that I'm somewhat divided between reading excerpts from William Lutz's book, ''Double-Speak,'' as well as finally getting around to trying to set-up & organize my ''road trip'' photo/video documentation, which I spent considerable time prepping Saturday (Jan. 12) and Sunday (Jan. 13), focusing on trying to sort through a ''royalty-free'' music website for some theme music, and renaming & arranging my photos & videos.
Spent the early part of Sunday to deactivate/remove ''Java'' from my computer system, as recommended by the security firms. Later in the afternoon Gracie and I (at my somewhat uncertain suggestion) decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather, but with no real plans and having no particular place(s) in mind. I'd intended as part of the trip to ride out to the far end of Salem to run past the first church I'd ever regularly attended (though such attendance had not been entirely by choice) and where I'd received my first ''baptism'' (when I thought it actually meant something) -- but even though this drive-by was indeed something I'd wanted to do, my original intention was to make it more of a ''direct'' trip, rather than the random haphazard ''just ride for the sake of riding'' excursion it'd turned out to be in actuality. I was made even more determined to swing by there after I'd discovered early on during the ride that the second church that was part of my adolescence was not only on the same road we'd been traveling down, but it threw me off when I learned that I'd mistaken the name of this ''second'' church-- ''Green Ridge Baptist'' --for the name of the first, which, after a series of spontaneous twists & turns en route to Salem, I was reminded was named, ''Fort Lewis Baptist.'' For a moment, I was wondering if that church had even existed anymore, because we'd gone a distance that I'd not recalled having been quite so far out of the way. From the looks of the building and the surrounding property, and seeing all of the care and improvements they'd made since I was a young teen, it would seem that they'd been successful in raking in a generous & steady supply of ''money.''
(During this trip out, I'd taken note that on the same stretch of road further back into Roanoke City, on a corner just barely a half of a block west from where the local ''Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses'' is established on the opposite side of the road, there was a ''sold'' empty lot which announced that it would become the site of a church named, ''Kingdom Harvest Fellowship'' -- a ''coincidence''? ...I dare say, I think not.)
After letting myself overshoot the exit ramps back into town on ''Interstate 81,'' crossing into Botetourt County, I decided to turn back, first asking Gracie if she'd wanted to stop for a quick restroom break, because I was determined to get back into town before it got too dark and cold. She said she wanted to stop for a longer break because she was uncomfortable, which gave me even more reason to head right back without wasting any unnecessary time. But when we got back into the driveway she decided to let loose with another of her classic emotional manipulations, first telling how it was ''not cool'' that I'd ''done that'' to her without trying to explain what the hell ''that'' was when I'd asked her what she was talking about, then clamming-up and saying that she wanted to ''wait until we got inside'' before she decided to let loose with her indignation. When I refused to allow her to move the discord inside the house, she copped attitude with me about my decision not to stop until we'd gotten back to the house because of her discomfort on the back of the motorcycle (and to think that she had it in her mind during the previous late-summer/early-autumn months to ride to New Jersey as my passenger). I let it be known that I would not allow myself to be guilt-tripped or emotionally manipulated, and that I was tiring of this sort of behavior, explaining that this sort of thing may have worked on her grandmother and birth-mother, but I refused to tolerate it. Back inside, she went directly to bed, and while I was on the computer working on the latest journal entry for this weekend she was determined to let me know-- twice --(after I'd asked her if her sniffling was perhaps a sign that she might be coming down with whatever my mother said was ailing her) that she was crying, again trying to use her tears to manipulate. (Really getting tired of this.)
Damb-near sliced a huge gash in my hand while trying to wipe-off the new knife my mother had bought -- so that was both of us who nearly caused some ugly damage to ourselves as a result of misusing or mishandling that blasted thing.
''Weekend in Review''
January 16, 2013 (Wednesday)
Did some grocery shopping this morning, despite the cold rain, partially to take advantage of a ''free milk'' promotion with the purchase of four boxes of select cold cereals that I thought were also going to be part of a special sale price but were instead assigned to some sucky-ass ''kiddie'' cereals, so I ended up paying more for items I ''did'' actually want (''Chex'' brands) but were still part of ''some'' kind of sale, though not the nbsp;''$1/box''nbsp; promo that had originally enticed me. In any event, it still would become the first time I'd even purchased & eaten ''box cereals'' literally in years, which was something I'd discontinued doing in response to ''Safeway's'' disgusting logo redesign on their nbsp;''lucerne''nbsp; line of dairy products.
I'd also decided to do this shopping trip to build up my ''gasoline points'' which I'd earned about half of what I'd need for the ''extra 10¢ off per gallon'' incentive.
In the shower this evening I'd finally had to come to grips with the fact that I am indeed beginning to develop the proverbial ''middle-age spread'' as a result of eating everything this woman sets in front of my face: I'm determined *NOT* to allow this $#!T become a reality I'll be cursed with after having become completely accustomed and quite comfortable in what has ALWAYS been my ''ideal size & weight'' (... I'm already immensely pissed that the texture of my hair has changed drastically; I'm not about to let a change I can actually do something about make me feel even less satisfied with something about myself).
19:50, Eastern Standard Time
January 17 - 20, 2013 (Thursday-Sunday)
Starting the ''Weekend Review'' on ''Thursday (Jan. 17)... yeah, I know, a bit of a ''cheat.''
Anyway, after my previous workshift Thursday, instead of going right to bed to try to get some rest for the next workshift, I decided to work on the redesign of the title-introduction splash cards for my anti-''Homosexual Marriage''/anti-''Gay-Rights'' video project, which kept getting wrought with all sorts of disruptions due mainly to the program I was using freezing & crashing. Later in the day I also wound up paying the price for over-consuming on milk & cereal, knowing that my digestive system does not tolerate that combination very well.
Halfway into the same day, the ''snow'' that was projected for our area came upon us and ''stuck,'' which resulted in my asking my mother for a ride to work, as I wished to challenge neither the sloshy roads nor the cold air (which surprisingly did not feel all that cold after the snowfall, perhaps due to the non-movement of the air), but against my expectation and to my disappointment the snowfall had in fact turned into actual ice over the course of my workshift.
After my workshift, I'd wound up spending an extra four hours on the clock because my next shift relief person called to say that he'd gotten himself involved in a ''single car wreck'' while still in his hometown of Bedford, and so he would not be coming in. I could not help but have my ''suspicions,'' since he'd already mentioned to me the previous day that if it snowed he'd likely stay home. When I informed our supervisor of the situation I also took that contact as an opportunity to inquire if any progress was being made on trying to work me back into my ''four day'' work schedule as I'd requested; he said he'd be looking further into it (...given the fact that for the past couple of weeks I've been fighting like crazy to keep from falling asleep on the job, I hope an adjustment is made soon).
All throughout the past week, even though I still considered my major video project ''final draft'' to be ''complete'' for all intents & purposes, after realizing just how terrible a ''vocal reader'' I truly am-- even with my own written words! --I took that time to do a full ''read-through'' of everything vocally to pick out where I'd be having the most difficulty in trying to keep such audible readings flowing smoothly as possible, and ''tweaking'' the text in such a way as to aid me in accomplishing that goal. It was also during these ''re-reading'' practice runs that I decided that a nice ''added touch'' to the project would be to include little snippets of close-out ''bumper music'' at the end of each of the chapters, except for the final concluding chapter, which will be played-out with my standard project closing-theme.
''Extended Weekend in Review''
January 21, 2013 (Monday)
Martha went to attend Pres. Obama's 2nd inauguration, leaving Gracie and myself alone in the house, spending virtually all of our waking hours on our computers -- a good portion of which was me searching for & downloading (of those I actually could locate) those songs I plan on using as my closing bumper themes for my uploading project (I'd also taken the time to upload a very scathing critical commentary, immediately after its conclusion, on Pres. Obama's Inaugural Address, which they had streamed live online). Also during this time I reacted to some suspicious banging noises which seemed to be emanating from just outside the house, so I patrolled & peered with a couple of our most threatening kitchen knives until it was discerned that most of the banging was as a result of the lanai screen door slamming in the wind.
19:00, Eastern Standard Time
January 22, 2013 (Tuesday)
Went to the toilet after waking-up, being bothered with gas & growling stomach issues again, presumed again to be related to my cold cereal diet of late, and after a massive near-diarrhea evacuation which again temporarily clogged the commode, I'd observed that I was again bleeding profusely from my rectum in the same manner as had occurred previously.
XX:xx, Eastern Standard Time
January 24, 2013 (Thursday)
Looked through my mail this afternoon to review my driver's license to reaffirm that I'd indeed been supplied with both a regular ''operator's license'' in conjunction with a ''motorcycle'' license: this gaff on their part offers me the unintentional largess of not having to go through all of the other motions in trying to get licensed for a regular motor vehicle license (no ''driving school,'' no ''learner's permit,'' no ''road test''). But what presented itself as a downer in relation to this was finding myself getting slapped with another ''tax assessment''-- this time from the city --which they say is something that has to be handled ''personally'' (which is not even taken care of during any ''purchasing'' transactions), and that this becomes an ''annual'' fee along with annual vehicle taxes paid to the ''state'' (or ''commonwealth,'' as they keep trying to explain themselves off with), and with nothing to show re: being ''registered'' (e.g., a visible sticker on the vehicle).
Prior to calling for an explanation of this, I'd called ''Verizon''' to inquire as to why I was still receiving new charges despite the fact that I'd discontinued service with them; after being given the run-around at least three different times, they finally addressed the situation and cleared my records.
I'd also taken the time to finally check my ''lottery'' numbers, and was in no way surprised to learn that nothing at all came up -- but they were ''free'' games and I did still manage to get some groceries out of the whole deal.
19:10, Eastern Standard Time
January 26, 2013 (Saturday)
The second time snow has hit the area, and for the second time I was left sitting my arse at work for about four extra hours because the person who was scheduled to relieve me (a different person this time) left me hanging because of some ''complications'' associated with it.
Back at the house I'd finally had my first bowel movement since the bleeding incident, and happily there was nothing left to show for it, not even anything that could be considered ''residual.''
Went to my credit card website later in the evening to discover that I'd overshot the ''due date'' on my next payment schedule by a single day: at first I was about to dispute the claim, but then checking my transaction snapshots & emailed receipts I was disappointed to learn that I had indeed overlooked this latest round, so I believe I'm still stuck with being assessed a ''past due'' charge of $10 extra.
Kept attempting to email to myself a video file I was working on while I had the laptop at work (which I'd taken with me at Gracie's suggestion, in anticipation that I might actually get hit with another end-of-shift ''no-show'' at work as eventually did happen today) so that I could have access to it on my own computer to work on at my leisure, but the transferring service kept locking-up across all three web browsers, so out of utter frustration I simply trashed all of the files I was working on as part of the project (which involved a rant exposing more of the lies and hypocrisies of some attention-whoring cyberbully whom I strongly believe is going to get himself hospitalized or worse at somebody's hand for all of the shit he stirs-up with people online in his quest for ''cyberfame at any cost'' routine).
20:10, Eastern Standard Time
January 27, 2013 (Sunday)
Called a ''conference'' with the three of us together to discuss with Gracie what problems I'd been having with how she's been falling short in the expectations department, calling to mind how much we've been trying to help her improve since she's been here and how we (I, especially) have been disappointed with her backsliding or lack of attention to herself and her surroundings. The gasket was finally blown tonight when I'd decided that I could no longer tolerate her accusatory and selfish attitudes after she stormed away from the dinner table, and I had to explain to her how I've divested myself away from my own projects & activities for her sake, and yet she keeps giving indication that she feels ''slighted'' by the fact that I want to get caught up on my backlog or sometimes just do certain things without constantly being shamed/guilted into ''including'' her into my sphere of attention or being bothered with manini guff whenever I'm trying to focus on whatever it is I'm addressing at the time.
Prior to the big blow-up, I'd worked on and managed to complete the first (actually, ''introductory'') chapter of my anti-homosexuality multimedia-rich commentary series, and proceeded to upload the file just before midnight.
23:50, Eastern Standard Time
February 1 - 3, 2013 (Friday-Sunday)
This weekend began a (somewhat) return to my old schedule: though it is not exactly the arrangement I'd requested, it does at least restore me to the two full days off I'd been accustomed to, and which is going to help me with my regular errand routines.
After work Friday (Feb. 1), after what was a sizable but ''non-sticking'' snow but which left the roads wet, the air had gotten cold enough for patches of the roads to ice over, and I nearly had a slip right at the base of the eastside hill (the smaller of the two entrances onto our road), so I opted to have my mother drive me to work for the remainder of the weekend, especially since the weather reports kept mentioning snow which never came.
Spent much of the weekend also working on my video project, trying to get sorted & established the second of the back-to-back toughest, most time-consuming parts of the project before I can feel like I can ''cruise'' somewhat: the first part I'd finally managed to complete Thursday (Jan. 31), which I had to re-upload about three different times because of impatiently overlooking what I was doing before catching my mistakes.
My entire working weekend could easily be summed up with one title: ''The Late Show.'' Saturday & Sunday consecutively saw me having to stay late after work because the same person arrived late both days: first supposedly due to vehicle engine troubles, next by oversleeping; then when I was supposed to return on that second day I'd gotten so enthralled with working on my video project that I'd become totally oblivious to the fact that I'd incorrectly set my own alarm clock, so by the time I'd realized this I had already overshot my check-in time by about eight minutes and arrived on site 20-minutes late.
''Weekend in Review''
February 4 - 8, 2013 (Monday-Friday)
Tuesday (Feb. 5) I considered ''Angry Day,'' because of everyone's refusal to honor my wishes to not have the day treated as something ''special'' when I'd made it clear for decades that I don't honor pagan-inspired celebratory dates.
On Wednesday (Feb. 6), after realizing that ''Amazon.com'' had cancelled part of my order, because they were having some trouble accessing my credit card, I reordered what had been dropped from the original order and combined it with what I'd already had on pre-order. After thinking about it for a while, considering the discussions my mother and I had been having these past couple of weeks about musical performers, I'd offered her a ''compromise'' and said that I'd cover $20 of the water bill (which Gracie asked me to cover because she said she'd be unable to pay it this month, due to her not being frugal with her money, as we'd kept trying to impress upon her) if she's count the pair of albums I'd ordered for her, which she'd been saying she really wanted, as part of the payment -- to which she agreed, but in requesting a different album for one of the artists it raised the final price by three dollars, so we agreed that Gracie would pay the $3 difference.
Gracie had also been claiming since the previous day that she had resumed her birth control pill regimen, and like a weak-ass fool I'd allowed myself to give-in to her demands for sexual intercourse: NOT SMART!
I finally broke lazy on Thursday (Feb. 7) and began the process of pulling out all of my backlog of papers & documents to get them sorted and organized... of course, the job is still not complete, and probably won't be until next week.
Thursday night also saw the ground getting covered in a blanket of snow, despite an entire week of first calling for 70% chance of rain for Friday, decreasing to a 30% chance for Friday and no calls for anything on Thursday.
''Extended Week in Review''
February 14 - 18, 2013 (Thursday-Monday)
Received visitors for my mother Thursday afternoon (Feb. 14). I'd not been aware that they had drove from North Carolina, otherwise I would've invited them inside: I only became aware of this when Gracie called from ''Tanglewood Mall'' asking me to come pick her up because she claimed to have gotten ''lost'' (later changed to ''traffic scared'') from putting her job application in at one of the local stores on Franklin Road, and on my way to get her I saw that the woman who had originally come to the door, and a man in the driver's seat (whom she later identified as her brother, and both of whom I'd met in Rocky Mount during our family gathering), were sleeping in their car which was still parked in our driveway. Still believing at the time that they were local residents who had just dropped by for a passing visit who were just waiting on my mother's return, I asked if they'd do me the favor of driving me out to the mall to pick Gracie up. When we got back to the house my mother still had not returned: I tried to get the pair to come inside and wait around for about 20 minutes or so, believing that she would likely show back up around that time, since she always loves to catch her ''Judge Judy'' program, but they said they wanted to start heading back to beat the dark, but they hadn't left 5 minutes after dropping us off back at the house that my mother walked inside the door -- I told her what had happened, and she called them on their cell phone and they talked for a while, but they still decided not to return to the house.
Later that night and the next, Gracie found herself giving way to tears, not stating what I already knew was the reason, in that my mother had given her a ''two-week notice'' on finding a new job.
The weather on Friday suckered me into believing that Saturday (Feb. 16) was going to have me confront snow in the street, so I needlessly asked my mother for a ride to work. The next day however (Feb. 17, Sun.) did see snowfall, but none of it stuck, and rather than melting it was all swept away by the wind... UNTIL I'd arrived within a half-block of our turn-off, where not only patches of snow were still on the ground, but also where some slick spots had formed right at the base of the hill. (Coincidence?)
Monday (Feb. 18) I finally got back around to spending some time working on my cross-country documentary project for my video upload presentation.
Also during the weekend while at work I took advantage of the opportunity to weigh myself on the infirmary scale to confirm that there has been sufficient weight gain with me since having returned to this area -- the only thing I was not expecting was that I'd gained somewhere in the neighborhood of an extra TEN (10) pounds!
''Extended 'Holiday Weekend' in Review''
February 19, 2013 (Tuesday)
Gracie went out for a job interview this afternoon, back to the store where she'd worked for her ''seasonal'' gig. Prior to leaving, she'd received several phone calls from her family, as part of the whole ''birthday well-wishes'' nonsense; during a conversation with her grandmother I'd overheard that she would again be receiving some money as a ''birthday gift'' -- but she kept trying to be ''careful'' about broadcasting it plainly, as I was also in the bedroom ''sleeping.'' The fact that she was being somewhat secretive about the largess, and also hearing how she again had no intentions on ''looking after'' her finances, but instead intended to resort to playing ''Mad Money'' again, as she'd done with what savings she had previously, despite having declared that she's since ''learned her lesson'' now that she's operating bone-dry financially. But because of her enthusiasm over the job interview (which really went nowhere, but still left open some little ray of promise), and the fact that she'll be receiving something from her grandmother via ''Western Union,'' she's stopped being so insistent on me helping her to ''pawn-off'' (through ''consignment'') a very nice pair of winter boots she'd received from her mother this past weekend, just so she could have a little bit of cash-on-hand.
Between the entry dates of February 19 and March 14 there is a considerable ''gap'' in the timeline of events: this is in significant part due to the fact that it was around this time I'd not only begun experiencing major computer problems (which would interfere with and prevent my ability to continue making ''key-typed'' recorded entries), but such problems would be extended and exaggerated as a result of gross mishandling by the technicians whom I had enlisted to make the necessary repairs (as will be reviewed as the transcription of these journal records continues). It was during this interim that I'd resorted to jotting ''notations'' on my wall calendar (and occasionally on random strips of paper) with only the briefest of details on the dates of occurrence.
What now follows (and what will continue to be transcribed until the ''final entry'' of this ''seasonal'' segment) is a transcription as derived from of all of the ''available'' notations made on the wall calendar in question, all of which will be closing out at the ''conclusion'' of the year 2013.
[*Note: any notations that were made for which I've since lost all memory as to what such notes are in reference to, if it is evident that they were made in reference to something that was considered noteworthy, such inclusions will be designated [[*Thusly: with 'italicized' double-brackets possibly followed by additional information explaining what the notation MAY perhaps be in reference to?]].
21:15, Eastern Standard Time
~ (December 28, 2013 - Saturday)
*[[Ends ''Cut-&-Paste'' Pre-Format Transference/Incorporation; Begins ''Calendar-Notation'' Backlog Transcription]]*
February 26, 2013 (Tuesday)
It had been for about a week, starting around the preceding Wednesday (Feb. 20) or Thursday (Feb. 21) ((as determined with the aid of a ''public video'' I'd uploaded to an online on hosting site on March 11, where I'd explained many of the details of the event)) that Gracie began experiencing very painful and debilitating stomach issues which were enough to keep her bedridden and in so much suffering that she was not eating regularly, often opting for a ''liquid'' diet for practically the entire time. It had gotten so bad that on this particular night (Tue., Feb. 26) Gracie could not endure it any longer and asked my mother to drive her to hospital. After having spent some time with her, the staff said they wanted to keep her longer to run more tests, so my mother returned to the house -- later in the evening, after calling my mother back to explain the situation and to arrange for a ride back to the house, my mother whispered to me that the girl had gotten herself pregnant and had already been in about her fifth week -- I tried to betray as little emotion as I could, but I'd felt a combination of ill-preparedness and especially betrayal.
...And as if it wasn't as though the universe wasn't already trolling me enough, my computer, as always, pushed me to the point of infuriation with those attitudinal ''always locking-up'' optical drives, where it'd made me so mad that I'd hauled-off on it with one of the most determined smacks I'd ever laid upon it, and as soon as I had done so the monitor screen went completely black... but every start and restart routine would indicate that the active system itself was still fine. So this meant more money that I'd have to spend on something I didn't want to.
February 28, 2013 (Thursday)
Gracie went to keep her ultrasound appointment that had been scheduled for her in follow-up to her emergency examination, and it was there that it was revealed that she was experiencing a problem pregnancy whereby she would likely lose the baby. ((Throughout the following week her OB-Gyn had her taking a regimen which would aid her in [painfully] expelling the dead or dying fetus.))
Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2012 (Mar-May) /
''Long-Vacation'' 2012* (Jun-Jul) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2012* (Jul-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2012* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2012* (Dec-Feb) /
''Lost-Spring'' 2013* (Mar-May) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2013* (Jun-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2013* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2013* (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2014 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2014 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2014 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2014 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2015 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2015 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2015 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2015 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2016 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2016 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2016 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2016 (Dec-Feb)
