To Whom It May Concern

Quiet Around The Pad

Belly has been gone now since monday. It is strangely silent around the apartment, certainly the cats are still doing their thing, but take for instance now, I don't hear the usual hustle and bustle coming from the bathroom as she is getting ready for work.

I've lived by myself one other time, in 1995, for one month. I hated it. This will be for three months but I don't think it's going to be as bad. Yes, I'm certainly going to miss belly but I'm going to make the best of the time I have, to get my car repaired and get some other things taken care of.

In other news, there is 14" of snow on the ground, outside of course. I do enjoy having this pickup in terms of getting around. I never got stuck in my car last year, in weather just as bad, but driving my car in this weather is like performing surgery, one slip up and I'm done. Driving the truck in this weather is more like being at an amusement park, get in, buckle up, and hang on, because the four wheel drive lets you get away with just about anything. Now this doesn't mean I'm driving all crazy, even if I do kick the tail end out on turns once in awhile.

Yesterday was 'one of those days' pretty much all day, where nothing seems to go correctly. Took me like 10 minutes to find my wallet in the morning, so I barely made it to work on time. Took a delivery in one of our 'wonderful' Sprinter delivery vans, and got stuck, on FLAT ground, in about 2 inches of snow. Those vans drive really well when you are actually MOVING, the auto traction control keeps the wheels from slipping, but God help you if you end up having to stop. I spent 20 minutes trying to rock my way out and ended up moving only about 50 feet. Finally some guy came along and pushed me out with his tow truck. I had wet feet for the rest of the day though, that always sucks.

We have a guy at work who was hired on about a month ago who has to be the biggest whiner I have ever heard. There is nothing that he doesn't complain about, and he's a pessimistic know it all, too. It doesn't matter what the subject is, if I'm talking about my own mother, he'd have something negative to say about it to try to prove me wrong. No one likes him. He was supposed to be doing one particular job yesterday, and after one hour he comes over to me and says "ready to switch?." I looked at him with a questioning look on my face and said "uhm, no, I'm doing this right now" and he heads off having a little pity party.

He then argues with another guy about it, and finally our manager tells him to get his work done and quit trying to pass it off on other people. What worries me is that this guy is the type of guy who will do things just to be vindictive, in this case, the items he was putting away all need to be in specific order, and I fear he would put them all out of line just to be spiteful.

Anyways, I forgot to take a part with me on one delivery, but luckily it turned out the guy didn't need the part, so that was about the only good thing that happened all day. I figured I'd go work out then last night, like belly and I always did twice a week, so I drove the half hour thru still shitty weather to get on base to the rec center, and 'what the fuck' the rec center was closed.

That was sure nice of them, three days after a big snowfall and those lazy asses still don't have the place shoveled out, cleaned up, and open. Uhm, I worked ALL THREE DAYS and they are STILL not open? That's worse than your usual government workers, that is for sure. So after an angry cookie on the ice in the pickup, it was a 30 minute drive back home, where I did my anaerobic workout like I've been doing all the rest of the week.

I get home, and I had left the gas fireplace on by mistake in the morning, so it was 98 degrees in the apartment, literally, 98 degrees on the thermostat, down the hall. In the kitchen there was chocolate dripping down the front of the refrigerator from a chocolate bar that I didn't even know was up there. The cats sure didn't seem to mind, they were laying on their backs in the living room just soaking it up. Anyways, I cleaned everything up and had myself some chicken, scalloped potatoes, and green beans for dinner.

Oh, one more thing wasn't too bad about yesterday: that melted chocolate bar didn't end up being too bad, after I'd tossed it in the freezer for about an hour, haha. Oh well, here's hoping that today goes better.