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M and the cat came down Friday evening for the weekend.
Saturday morning, we went shopping at the mall. It was
partly cloudy and in the low seventies, so I was in short
sleeves.
Foley’s had a sale on (of course), and we had a coupon to go
with it, so we started there.
After Pizza for lunch in the food court, we strolled up and
down, dipping in a store here and there, before finally deciding
we had seen enough and driving to Sam’s to buy wine and fruit
before heading back to the apartment.
Youngest daughter called as we were contemplating what to do
next.
She had been in D.C. for the inauguration with the Longhorn
Band. They marched in the parade and had some sight-seeing time,
then appeared at the “black tie and boots” ball, where they saw
the president and vice president. She is always getting involved
in some new experience.
M and I watched part of the 1960 Paul Newman movie "Exodus" on
DVD in the afternoon as the pleasant breeze came in through the
open balcony door. It is a good movie, but it is also 3 ½ hours
long, so we stopped it
around 5:30 to go to dinner. I had a gift card for a Pappas
restaurant from serving on a team at work, so we drove to
the nearby Pappasito’s at 6 PM. The wait was an hour, but we
found a table in the bar area and ate there, finishing before
they ever called our name. We came home and finished the movie
before calling it a night. |
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I left for Galveston before lunchtime after a meeting at one of the plants I
support finished. It was a lovely, warm sunny day, and the drive down a
road I had never traveled before was
pleasant. I had an apple for lunch on the way, then had a bit of
time to kill after arrival, so I drove out to East Beach at the
end of the seawall. There was a handful of other cars spread
about on
the sand here and there, but it was such a contrast from the sea
of cars in summer. I drove to the edge of the
surf and watched the endless procession of ships streaming in and
out of Galveston Bay around the end of the island as I listened
to music on the radio.
When my free time was up, I drove back into town, to that
oh-so-familiar place where my journey began in earnest way back
in the spring of 1996. Nine years it's been!
Although I came back for a visit to the semi-annual group reunion meeting in
December, I hadn’t spent any one-on-one time with Dr. C for a
year. After some chit chat, he asked if I was interested in the
results of the battery of psychological tests he had done as a
wrap-up that
last time, since we hadn’t ever discussed them. Actually, I had
forgotten about them.
Some of the tests had been meant to detect any brain impairment,
such as might happen with a head injury or a disease. He
pronounced my brain fully functional.
The next set of tests, which included things like recognizing
patterns, numerical sequences, and organizing blocks to mimic
pictured designs were to determine intelligence,
or IQ. He took a sheet of paper and drew a bell curve on it and
started explaining how the overall population fits the curve,
and that two thirds of the people fall into the main part of the curve,
centered at IQ=100, between the one-sigma points. I told him I
was very familiar with statistical computations because of my
profession, so he moved along and said the tails of the curve represent those outside the “norm”,
the one sixth significantly
more or one sixth significantly less on the IQ scale. I nodded, and he pointed to the
end of the "more" tail and said, “You’re way out here,
'superior'.” I smiled and said, “Yeah, I’ve tested the same way my
whole life, but I suppose it’s always good for the ego to hear
it again, and to know your brain hasn't turned to mush on
account of bad habits or old age or something. But it doesn’t solve all your problems by any stretch
- sometimes it just gets you into more trouble.”
He moved on to the MMPI results next. The
Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory is a standard set of 400 questions
that has been used since the 1930s to measure all sorts of
things about the psychological condition of an individual. It
has been found to be accurate enough to be used in court cases
and similar legal proceedings. He interpreted the scoring for me
to indicate that I had no psychopathology, and he said I was not
depressed or anything like that. One of the several scores from
the test is a masculinity/femininity indicator, which he is
interested in for his client group. He said I scored in the
range of typical females, outside the range of typical males.
Not a big surprise there either. We talked about other things
going on in my life and with those people I care about, until
our hour was up.
My physical exam with Dr. E was next, after a brief wait. She is
always running behind. It was obvious by my weight and
measurements that I haven’t been getting enough exercise. I
admitted that I’ve been pretty much working, eating, and
sleeping in winter, but I promised to think about getting on the
exercise machines at the apartment complex rather than wait for
spring. I don’t enjoy indoor exercise, but I definitely need it
to stay in shape. My blood pressure has been fluctuating oddly lately, and
sure enough, when she measured it, it was elevated. She had me
lay down while she listened to my heart with a stethoscope for
awhile, then took the BP again. This time it was lower, but not
down at the usual 120/80. When she did my annual prescriptions,
she included a small dose of a common BP depressor. Overall
though, I continue to be blessed by excellent health. |
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Someone asked me recently about some of the older things that
used to be on the website, and it caused me to think about why I keep
writing here.
I took a lot of the older content down early last year because I had
started a new job, and I wanted to get off to a fresh start.
After all, it isn't possible for me to know who is in the
internet audience. Since then, the general idea, if not the
details, of my past
became known to my present coworkers, but I don't know
if any of them are aware of the web site. There are other
people whom I imagine check in here from time to time, including
some of my former coworkers, some of my family members, friends
from various points in time, and fellow members of my tribe. I'm not comfortable sharing everything with everyone in
those groups.
When my fellow tribe members and a few chosen friends were the
only ones who were interested in reading my ramblings, I went
into much more detail, with no reservations.
I'd like to still be able to keep my fellow tribe members up to date
on what is happening to me that they might relate to. But as
they are only a part of the audience, I usually just leave out
the more personal things. This quandary about what to write
about and what to keep private has slowed my postings way down. I wonder sometimes if there is much point in writing
when you become too concerned about who is reading. But on the other
hand, I have to remind myself that I really haven't had any bad reactions from the
occasional baring of my
soul - it has been just the opposite. So I suppose I should
just get over my worrying.
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I
started last year's commentary with a personal situational analysis and a
prediction of a good year ahead. Seems like a good idea to
try that again, so here goes:
The five of us are living in four different places, though not
in the grouping I would have predicted or preferred.
Rather than M and I together at home, I am 200 miles away, and
son and oldest daughter are the two who are sharing a house out
on the west coast. I never would have predicted that! But we
have been able to get everyone together at home twice this year,
and four of us have got together another two times. Thank
goodness for cheap airfares. Barring some unforeseen
circumstance (knocking on wood), we'll be able to continue
traveling to be together at least as often, or even more.
At the start of last year, I was looking for work. And now I've
been working for almost nine months. We've been able to pay off
some of the debt from the previous nine months and hope to be
completely debt free by the end of the year. Starting in a new
place after 21 years working with the same people takes some
getting used to. Much like the new kid at school trying to fit
in, it takes time for someone like me to get to know new people.
Fortunately, I've never been one who needs dozens of friends -
just a few good ones will do just fine, thank you.
Building professional credibility also takes time, though I was
fortunate to find a place where some people already knew of my
work and reputation. In fact, this is why I was hired. The
lesson, which I had not learned up to then, is to spend some
time becoming known in your field. "Network" as they say, if you
can. I was always reluctant to spend my valuable personal time
at functions of
professional organizations and chit-chat socials, since I don't
really enjoy that sort of thing. But I see the
value now. It could make the difference in finding work when you
have a sudden need.
My former employer somehow found out where I was working
recently. I
didn't tell anyone in management there, and I only told a few former
coworker-friends. Well, the company sent a tacky letter to my new employer,
warning them that I knew lots of confidential information, and
they wanted a guarantee that I wasn't divulging any of it, etc.
You would think that after 21 years of opportunity to assess my
character, my old employer would know better. They didn't
understand about honor when I left, and I guess they are still
struggling with the concept now. Maybe the author of the letter was
projecting his likely behaviors in a similar situation onto me.
I don't know. At any rate, the lawyers handled it and I went
back to working on whatever I was interrupted from.
About the only notable event with respect to friends is that my
long-time outdoor adventuring companion learned the whole story, yet we
all went on a summer vacation together anyway. My sense is that he
probably doesn't quite comprehend, and since we live too far
apart to see one another except for preplanned vacations, maybe it doesn't
matter.
I don't see much of my old friend from childhood and
beyond who lives here in the city. M and I have dropped in to
visit a time or two, but there has been no reciprocal effort to
visit me. A little more time perhaps.
I have seen a couple of work friends from back home a few times,
when I made the effort to write and invite them to lunch. But I haven't had
any e-mails asking how I'm doing in a while.
Probably nothing malicious, just the old "out of sight, out of
mind." Friendships really have to be a two-way thing I think,
and they are hard to nurture without occasional face to face
contact.
I had thought I would meet people here in the apartment complex,
but I guess I had forgotten how it is, or maybe it has changed
since my previous experiences many years ago. It surprised me a
bit that I almost never see another human outside their
apartment here. In fact, about the only time there is any sign of
life is when someone walks to or from their car.
My next door
neighbor, a single woman with two kids and a cat, knocked on my door one day and asked if I had
bug problems. She proceeded to explain that she had found out
that the bugs running around in her kitchen were roaches
(gasp!), and she was a clean person. She had complained to the
management, who promptly sprayed insecticide around her apartment.
I hadn't thought to complain, since I figured this was a fact of
apartment life. Since our kitchens share a common wall, it made
sense that if we both exterminated at the same time, we might
actually do some good, so I called the office and
they sprayed the next day. The result: lots of dead
roaches, which I had to clean up, but more babies born every
day. These little buggers are smarter than you think - they learned in
a couple of days to avoid the little poisonous roach
hotels M brought and put out. Oh well, maybe I'll try to think of them
as pets.
Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking and missed the opportunity
to introduce myself and invite my neighbor to chat sometime.
Other than the traveling home every other weekend, life has
become pretty ordinary. I'm just like the other apartment
dwellers; I'm mostly only outside going to and from the car. I
miss having the big yard and surrounding woods to walk around
in. I even miss always having some chore that needs done around
the house. One of the fallacies of city life is that having the
potential to do lots of things is the same as having the
motivation to do them. On weekdays, it is awfully easy to just
watch the news, eat dinner, and fall asleep watching TV,
especially in the winter, when it gets dark by 5:30. But I do
get out now and then.
Spring, where are you?
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