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)
Our new ''on-site'' (immediate) supervisor at work, whom I'd first mentioned on January 31, has been a source of some interoffice contention -- both directly (as a result of his decisions [supported, though not necessarily designed & implemented, by our ''main office'' chief supervisor] to unilaterally institute new and other job-affecting changes without much regard or consideration for the years of on-site experience of the rest of the team, despite his barely having worked a little over a month at the jobsite or in the ''position'' he had been promoted to) and ''indirectly'' (as a result of ''Gracie's'' poison-mouthed pot-stirring which keeps placing undue stress upon our working relationship that the rest of us on the crew have to share with the ''New Boss,'' as she shamelessly swoons to him and his every word as if he can do absolutely no wrong). The other co-worker (also male) seems to believe that everything the new guy has been doing with all of these new changes and how he's practically going overboard in his interactions with site staff are all blatant attempts at ''smooching-up'' for recognition and favors... and more & more I'm finding myself equally inclined to believe it's just that.
I'd not taken my motorcycle out of the garage at all during the final two weeks of the last quarter, due primarily to the assault of subfreezing temperatures (due to concerns over the difficulties I typically have trying to start my engine in such weather, particularly without draining all of the charge from my battery), then followed by a couple of relatively heavy snowfalls which while not so severe in and of themselves still made road conditions quite the cautionary mess -- though, thankfully, we got off super-easy, relatively speaking, as compared to the madness that the northeastern parts of the country had to endure.
I'd also been wearing those bifocal/progressive terrors almost exclusively since I'd acquired them, and they've been nothing but a headache, so much so that I'd given serious consideration to taking them back to ''Sears Optical''.and having them replace the lenses with the second single-vision ''compromise'' prescription I'd also had the optometrist work out.
March 5 - 8, 2015 (Thursday-Sunday)
Gracie decided to attempt another sneaky sleepover Wednesday night (Mar. 4) after having left earlier during the evening then returning later that night, which she then used as her opportunity to curl up beside me as I was trying to sleep. I got up a couple of hours later to straighten up around the room a bit, then around 1:00 EST Thursday morning (Mar. 5) I decided to take advantage of the finally turned milder weather and the snowless roads that had melted and had been washed clear by the rain and go riding, just to check the post office box, purchase a few grocery items, refuel the gas tank, but mainly just ride around aimlessly to burn up as much time as I could, but eventually could not endure the chilly wet weather, so I arrived back at the house exactly at 6:00 -- but no one in the house ever even noticed that I'd been up & about or that I had left the house and returned.
Saturday and Sunday (Mar. 7 & 8, during workshift transitions) resulted in more of a realization that ''Gracie'' is driven by some insatiable need to foment conflict and resentment, building upon the foundation of any minor or convenient excuse, mainly because she refuses to listen fully to whatever's being explained to her, and by rapidly reaching & adamantly sticking to her own conclusions regardless of any logic or reason to the contrary, leading to the point of frustration and bitterness. This really displays itself anytime I'm ever trying to discuss with her anything that has to do with engaging appropriately with our job duties: she's always putting forth some kind of challenge to my attempts to help her to protect herself from any sort of negative fallout, yet she always slurps-up and pussy-humps every word-- right, wrong, or indifferent --that emanates from the mouth & pen of our new immediate supervisor, whom she practically idolizes.
It was also during the Saturday switch-over, when I'd finally decided to start riding my motorcycle back to work, that I'd learned that not every ''universal'' USB cellphone adapter cord would allow me to transfer photographs from my cellphone (I'd asked to borrow hers since I'd forgotten to bring mine to the jobsite, because I'd wanted to copy & print the snapshots I'd taken of the truck that had arrogantly decided that ''MY'' designated ''motorcycles only'' parking space was his to flippantly disregard). This proved itself the next day when I again tried her cord and mine at the same time, and met with the same results.
Shortly after the phone cord incident (which even that involved another of Gracie's classic ''jump-to-conclusions'' arguments), she'd responded to a voicemail and got all excited over the fact that it was one of the department stores that had called her to arrange a job interview: amazingly, the first thing she'd said to me, after she'd seriously thought about the implications, was the fact that she had no ''interview-worthy'' attire -- whereas my immediate (unspoken) thought was that she would be making no kind of good initial impression at all if she would not spend any reasonable time on her hair, which she's just let go all to hell since she's been on her own, and which makes what's often considered a ''ghetto mess'' seem like an overstatement.
Unmentioned Highlights from Previous Quarter...
''Extended Weekend in Review''
March 9 - 12, 2015 (Monday-Thursday)
On Monday (Mar. 9), our immediate site supervisor at the job got into a conversation with me about Gracie, as she had told him about her job interview, and he mentioned that he had also been telling her about her hair and hygiene, and not just in connection with the impression it would give during a job interview, which I figured would have more motivational effect upon her than anything I or my mother ever had to say on the same subject. He'd asked more questions relating to her care of herself, including asking about her housekeeping habits (to which I'd stated only that her standards were not to my personal standards), and I thanked him for reminding me that I'd intended to pull up some of the images of her from the time she'd been been in this area and what she'd accomplished while we were living in the same house, which I did the following day (Tue., Mar. 10) and showed to him after he'd come in to assume the next work shift -- late again, as usual, this time marking the latest he's been thus far: (I was to learn from my mother three days later that Gracie had interpreted my showing our supervisor those photographs was out of a sense of pride and a loving gesture, which was opposite of the reaction I'd expected to get, considering I was showing contrasting images of not only what she was like when she first came here, but also how badly she'd regressed and stopped caring about herself other than obsessing about her weight, which she's still not doing a good job of managing).
I stayed inside the garage Tuesday after work to try to straighten out my motorcycle's ignition key which somehow got majorly bent during last Thursday morning's excursion (Mar. 5); afterwards I tried to do something similar with the P-38 military ''C-Ration'' can opener I'd been carrying around on my keychain. (The irony is that it was probably not the last one from among the many I'd collected while in military training and had lost over time, the last one having been misplaced shortly after acquiring my stable apartment in Honolulu, but was one that Gracie had found somewhere in the house.) Despite my best efforts, I only ended up breaking it, only then to realize that it was something I could very likely acquire on ''Amazon.com,'' and would later be absolutely amazed at how plentiful they truly were, even far into the age when dehydrated cardboard ''MREs'' replaced tin-canned ''Combat Rations.'' Trying to place my order for them on Thursday (Mar. 12), along with a host of other items I'd wanted to include (including a replacement mouse for the ''I Ain't Buying Anything With Fucking DELL's Name On It'' unit I'd bought ''used'' at ''PC LAND'' way back when) proved a lesson in frustration, as most of the items I'd placed in my online ''shopping cart'' were listed as ''free shipping,'' but Amazon kept tacking on shipping charges anyway, so I had to shuffle offers around and chop up items into smaller individual orders to try to get the benefit.
Most of Tuesday through Thursday was spent in bed, including when Gracie had come over after her interview on Wednesday (Mar. 11), during which time I'd overheard her in conversation with my mother that she'd finally been doing some things with her hair, and that the job she'd interviewed for was an ''on call'' position, and that she's still looking into the option of some type of ''restaurant'' work (for places such as ''Applebee's,'' etc.).
''Week in Review''
March 16, - 19, 2015 (Monday-Thursday)
Immediately following work on Monday (Mar. 16), after checking the post office box, I'd decided to ride out to ''Krispy Kreme Doughnuts'' to learn firsthand what all of the endless and ubiquitous hype regarding their product was all about, especially since I was thoroughly unimpressed with what I'd recently purchased at ''Dunkin' Donuts.'' My very first impression of ''Krispy'' was one of dissatisfaction in that they had practically no ''variety,'' which was allowed to sink in even further upon learning there were only ''individual unit'' and ''full dozen'' options available (they apparently don't believe in offering a ''by the 1/2-dozen'' alternative), and which only got much worse once I returned to the house and began sampling them and found them obnoxiously hyper-sugary and virtually unpalatable! -- even my mother, who likes things ultra-sweet, found them abysmally disgusting.
Tuesday after work (Mar. 17) I was so impressed with how unexpectedly nice the weather had become that I'd planned on going back out later to travel to the towns of ''Christiansburg/Blacksburg'' (Montgomery County) for a brief escape, which I'd intended to follow-up on with another road trip the following day (Wed., Mar. 18), this time pointing in the opposite direction to ''Hershey, Pennsylvania,'' but because of the weather later proving to be somewhat disagreeable, as well as my procrastinating by spending a lot of time reworking/redistributing files on my computers, I decided to postpone the Pennsylvania trip altogether and moved the intended Tuesday trip to the Wednesday slot. The trip out to the neighboring county would've been somewhat pleasant had it not been for the colder than expected temperatures outside of the valley, which exacerbated the throbbing, burning pain on the back of my shoulder where that condition (suspected of being ''shingles'') flared up to the point of torture and near incapacity.
''Week in Review''
Month 27 - 29, 2015 (Friday-Sunday)
Well... sometime during the earlier part of the week our new immediate supervisor, who is now soon to be our ''ex-'' supervisor (following the announcements throughout the previous week that he had tendered his resignation with our company and would shortly be vacating the position, even as there is still no one as yet tapped to replace him), did what I'd actually suspected AND expected he'd do (having learned early on that he's essentially a ''tell-all'') and told ''Gracie'' bluntly that I'd informed him about the misconception that she and I were an active and dedicated ''couple'' in the sense of establishing a permanent partnership, despite my emphatic declarations to her that/how we're not and may never be compatible, and so she just had to swing by the house right before I had a chance to prepare for going into the job, to put on her bawling oh-so-hurt show when I'd confirmed/reaffirmed the sentiment and attempted to remind her that I thought she'd already understood, after our latest blow-up (Sat., Jan 24), that she, her inadequacies, her lack of confidence in me, and her hysteric performances were all too draining on my mental and emotional well-being for me to ever seriously consider forming any sort of a permanent bond with her, which would've only resulted in me setting myself up to live out the rest of my life in misery and regret -- which she was really none-too-happy to hear coming from me. Fortunately, during this latest outcry, she'd put herself into the position whereupon my mother was able to engage with her, and together we tried, yet again, to try to get this girl to think ''inward'' with personal scrutiny and objectivity so that she could be confronted with herself in order to make the necessary personal improvements that would only be a benefit to her, but it has become apparent to both of us that there is really no getting through to her: she just won't let go of the ''little $#!t'' or divest herself of all of her dreamy & romanticized notions.
Thanks in part to the less than ideal weather, I'd asked my mother for a ride to the jobsite for the remainder of the weekend, which helped in keeping my interactions with Gracie during our workshift switch-overs to the barest minimum, as whenever I request a ride for myself we include gratis transportation for Gracie back & forth to work as well.
Finally managed to get in contact with my Dad on Sunday (Mar. 29), after failed attempts over the past several weekends: he says he's still holding up well, but has since developed another hernia on the opposite side, which he said he'll be having treated shortly.
''Weekend in Review''
March 30 - April, 2, 2015 (Monday-Thursday)
Received confirmation from our immediate supervisor on Monday (Mar. 30) that he would be leaving his position before the end of the week, which was followed up on Wednesday (Apr. 1) by our scheduling manager, saying that until someone else had been brought in as a replacement, the remaining crew would be required to work ''full weeks'' with no days off.
On Tuesday (Mar. 31), I returned that trash large-print ''illuminated'' keyboard I'd purchased through ''Amazon.com,'' mainly because it was defective in its described operation, but that also proved to be an additionally convenient reason to divest myself of it because of its difficult and ineffective use.
After the package drop-off, I'd decided to stop into the Latin grocery shop, mainly to ask if they carried ''tabasco peppers,'' but I was so uncomfortably ignored by the female who was initially behind the register, then so severely glared at the male who took her place, refusing to say even a single word to me the entire time I was bringing items to the counter or even during the transaction, still glaring at the the entire time, I'd decided that they're no longer worth my patronage, and I'll try to do business with one of the newer shops that are opening up.
And yet again, working (or trying to) with that bum-ass film editing software program continues to be such a hassle & frustration to use and complete a project with that it is in essence constantly reminding me why I should not at all feel guilty for not ''paying'' what they were presenting as the asking price.
''Week in Review''
April 6, 2015 (Monday)
Completed the major furniture rearrangement in the bedroom which was actually begun Saturday afternoon (Apr. 4), but continuation of which was delayed the following day (Sun., Apr. 5), due to staying in bed virtually the entire time, trying to drown out another bout of migraines with accompanying intestinal issues. Of primary concern was removing the bed out of the room and storing it in the basement, as I'd begun trying to acclimate myself to sleeping exclusively on the lounge seat which adjusts to a near-flat level for about the past three weeks -- the idea being that I might try to negotiate bringing it along with me when I make my next big move out of this state, but my decision to start sleeping on it at all and intending to remove the bed was actually in response to Gracie's incessant insistence on trying to work her way into sleeping over, the hope being that such radical readjustments would finally discourage her from trying to spend the night and/or trying to curl-up & cuddle. And while I like the arrangement, there's so much empty space now that most of the room feels severely underutilized.
While trying to put the final touches on my ''communication station'' set-up, my 5.1 speaker system kept giving me grief and refusing to work properly, even when I switched out and booted back in to ''Windows XP,'' but after one final fumbling around with some of the jacks on the back of the computer tower-- this time ''blindly'' --I must have either knocked something back into proper position or perhaps inadvertently crossed over into a different port altogether... but whatever it was that was done, it was finally enough to get all six speakers working as they should.
17:10, Eastern Daylight Time
April 7, 2015 (Tuesday)
Just completed setting up the ''communication station'' with the newest add-on items (the alternative brand of illuminated keyboard that I'd ordered as a replacement for the other piece of trash I'd sent back, plus the ''race car'' mouse I'd wanted) which I'd retrieved from the post office prior to my going into work yesterday, which I'd chosen to drop-off back at the house before continuing on to the jobsite, as I had the time and felt that the items were too bulky to be lugging around with me. Both items work fine, but both have some features I really do not like, especially the redesign/rearrangement of the ''return/enter'' key on the main portion of the keyboard; as for the mouse, the buttons are too short & narrow, and required the use of the USB extension cord which I'd originally added to the order due to the previously ordered illuminated keyboard's cord being a full foot shorter than the standard: it'll be much more difficult to adapt to the keyboard, but so far (as I'm typing this) it is proving a far better choice of product than the previous disaster. I also took a series of photographs to share on ''Amazon.com'' as part of the product reviews I'm planning on submitting.
On the downside of all of this however, my ''speaker system'' has decided to start jacking with me again, this time by not recognizing & playing through the ''center'' unit while setting up the ''5.1'' configuration.
Also, my intention to mail off my ''dispute'' letter to the debt collector (re: the endoscopy exam's uninformed sneaky hidden ''anesthesia'' charge not covered by insurance), which I'd also retrieved from the post office along with my other items, is being somewhat delayed due to my inability to locate all that mass of postage stamps which still somehow keep getting misplaced.
21:00, Eastern Daylight Time
April 13 - 16, 2015 (Monday-Thursday)
Got my ''annoyance mail'' (collection agency ''dispute'' letter and ''corrected'' amended Federal income tax return) sent off on Monday and Wednesday (Apr. 13 & 15) respectively, being informed after resubmitting the ''corrected'' information that I owed back $108 of my tax refund amount! (I should've known that the amount I'd initially received was too good to be true).
Gracie had informed me that I would be getting a call from our scheduling supervisor announcing that he might be ready to return us to a more ''normal'' schedule, but would first be contacting those of us of the ''old crew'' if we'd have any rescheduling preferences: Gracie used this as her opportunity to try to coax & ''convince'' me into radically altering what has been my preferred work schedule since official day one of my being on the job -- she claims because she's wants to alter her schedule but does not want us to not have a ''mutual day off'' (which she claims would be the result), and of course she had to try to pull the ''for your health'' card to try to sweeten the deal, but I already know that another reason for her request is because she holds some resentment toward me regarding the number of ''days off'' I get to (supposedly) ''enjoy'' each week.
''Week in Review''
April 24 - 26, 2015 (Friday-Sunday)
So much for things going back to ''normal'' at work: first I was called to come in four (4) hours earlier from regular scheduled time on Friday (Apr. 24) to compensate for the main new hire's absence due to her mother's death; then Gracie decided to get sick while at work the following day (Sat., Apr. 25), which resulted in her not showing up the day after that (Sun., Apr. 26), which caused another disruption.
''Weekend in Review''
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)
