what runs in a family

My father sent me an email at 8:40pm saying his computer was "all messed up" and I was able to be there by 9pm to fix it. It also means, of course, that it's almost midnight and I'm just now getting home. The fix wasn't that time-consuming but all the chit-chatting around it was. When I was at my parents' Tuesday night I had passed a set of children's folding chairs and table on the trash. I immediately thought I should stop to pick them up but was in a hurry to get to my parents'. After spending an hour or two with them, I mentioned to my father that I had to get going soon to be sure to get this miniature dining set to save it from the landfill. It's not that I have any miniature people in my house that could use it other than the occasional visiting kid and we don't even really have a lot of space to store it, but I couldn't bear to think that something so perfectly useful would be thrown away and wasted. It just seemed selfish on the part of the world and it was my job to worry about these things.

I've been worrying about all the waste we've produced in our big office move. Sure, we haven't moved in over five years and we've amassed a bunch of junk to remove at one time. But I just don't know who to call about a woefully out-dated server with a bad power supply and everyone we did call had no idea how to help us. So it went to the landfill and I fretted about it.

When I left my parents' house very late that evening on "trash night" I drove slowly down our side street looking for the dining set but it had already been picked up. I took solace that there are extended members of our "family" that will save things from the landfill.

40 years ago today

On Halloween night in 1967, my parents got engaged. Daddy had just gotten his papers to send him to Vietnam after having been inducted that previous February. He called Mom from a pay phone on Fort Sill in Oklahoma to tell her. Mom: "Well, what do you want to do?"

Dad: "I think I want to get married."

They were married the Friday after Thanksgiving less than a month later. Whenever I worried that maybe Rich and I hadn't planned ahead far enough for our own wedding, I always reminded myself that Mom planned their wedding in under a month and even made her own dress. She's always worked well under pressure.

I called Mom yesterday on my way home from dinner and she sounded upset. The water heater had burst in their house for the third time since she's owned the house and it's directly over their dining room which serves as their office. It ruined her expensive speaker phone, may have ruined the computer and soaked tons of important papers - and we were lucky we found it only an hour or so after it happened.

She started to get choked up when she said she thought all her pictures of our wedding were ruined. Thankfully, her quick thinking saved most of them and the others are easy to re-print from digital images. It was odd timing that 40 years after their nuptials she was concerned about losing her photos of our wedding. Maybe I can convince them to get a family portrait of all of us this holiday season before time gets away from us.

feeling shallow whining about luxury items

To paraphrase Rich I have a case of the "red ass" tonight. DirecTV was supposed to install our new HD dish this afternoon. My father spent 4 hours at my house and prepped the entire area, including bringing his own ladder to get on the roof and drilling the holes in the floor to run cables. The installer never showed and called an outdated number at 4pm asking for directions. This street has been here for over 50 years; it shouldn't be that hard to find. The good news is the next available installation date is November 9th. I'm mad that I wasted my father's day because they can't keep a map in their work truck. I think I'll be talking with a manager tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, we move from our old office to our new office Thursday morning. Movers will be there at 8am to load everything in the office and cart it to the new space. We still have to work on some firewall changes and get the phone server working but hopefully that won't take all day. I'm trying to remain optimistic but we'll see.

During the electronics move this evening (where we moved all the items we don't want the movers touching), I took a chunk out of my wooden dashboard with the edge of my computer case. I'm sure there's a Hallmark card somewhere for "sorry you fucked up your BMW with your Mac Pro," or maybe just an e-card someone can send to my iPhone. I'm annoyed because I did it while in a hurry in the rain and trying not to hit someone else's car. Oh well, I'm sure they'll fix it for a small fee at the dealer.

I'm cranky, low on sleep and probably should rest up for the big move. We didn't finish rebuilding the firewall last night until 1:30am. I'll leave you with this glamorous picture of life in a small company.

I think to give myself some perspective I'll donate some rice while expanding my vocabulary.