Slight Reboot for Less Bitchin'

You may have noticed a few changes in the ol blog lately. Guess word of my blog had spread a bit to people I was not comfortable having know of it, namely wife’s employer. So after some panicked deleting and whatnot, I calmed the hell down and managed to save most of it. However, I lost most of the summer’s updates, but as they were mostly about how wife’s job took a turn for crazyville, an office she shares with mice, lice and a couple bats (really, REALLY), it was hard not to let my anger about the whole situation bleed into every piece of the writing here.

The place is horrible, and worth all the anger, particularly the many ways they circumvent things like employment laws and health codes. She had a day-long meeting of the kind they do to pretend that they listen and respond to concerns, but really don’t. However, after 30 minutes of people complaining that they don’t have access to filtered water or a fridge, wife stands up and says “Filtered water would be nice, but I would really appreciate not having to work with five mice and two bats. My students have now named them. If one of them falls out of the ceiling on me, I'm gone. No notice, I'm gone. I guess it's hard to for me to care about filtered water because of that.”  That kind of shut up all the other complaints for seeming frivolous by comparison.

But, I didn’t start this whole endeavor to become a repository for gripes about my wife’s work, and I think she feels bad when it takes over my blog. So, in a way, this is a good little partial reboot.

Time to take a breath and note the things that are going right:

I’m married to the woman of my dreams.

Phone calls from creditors has gone from 12 a day to 0.

Last week, we got to do a day trip to Red Wing. This weekend, we will be going to Prairie Home Companion for the first time. Next weekend, we will go to Duluth and the North Shore for a mini vacation.

I have a great job, and it’s only a matter of time before wife does too.

I get to be creative and write for a living.

I’ve got an amazing group of coworkers.

I get to carpool with wife nearly every day.

We have enough money to cover food, gas, bills, and rent.

I can do cute jigs for the wife, and make up new lyrics for songs on the fly as I serenade her.

Octoberfest season

Things like this Cowboy Pumpkin Duck in a Hula Skirt exist.