Drunken Owls and Other Delights

The good news is that I've been doing a lot of opens lately at the day job, which means I get out around 2pm and have the rest of the day to do what needs doing. The bad news is that I had to work today (Sunday) and may end up working next Sunday as well as the head bookkeeper is taking that day off. Ah well, it is what it is.

The other good news is that I'm getting this Wednesday and Thursday off! One, I rarely get two days off in a row (I kind of like it, tbh, it breaks up the five-day work week) so I can catch up on rest. Two, apparently the weather here in SF will be warming up considerably on those days, so I'm looking forward to some nice outside time!

Today should have been a relatively normal shift...if it wasn't for the fact that a) my 7am coworker arrived at 9:30, b) the rain and the humidity is giving me a migraine, and c) someone was cleaning out the elevator shafts outside our store for an hour (which meant a loud-ass rattling diesel engine growling away at top volume every time the doors opened to let someone in). Suffice it to say I'm feeling a bit tired and cranky now that I'm home. 

The plus side is that I have three bookkeeper opens ahead of me, which means I have legit reasons NOT to be chained to the register or elsewhere unless I am desperately needed. [And I am dearly hoping I am not, because that's what's been happening for the last three months on the daily without fail.] Believe me, I don't hate this job. In fact it's one of the better ones I've held, I get along with almost everyone, and they treat me well. It's just that I feel like I've been thoroughly derailed and overworked since the start of the year and it's wearing me out.

And it's starting to show on my writing sessions, which bothers me. That's a hard line for me and I need to fix that.

Winter here in westside SF is always a crapshoot -- either it's unseasonably warm and sunny, extremely humid and rainy, or a mix of both with the weather border firmly holding at Presidio Avenue. It might be a thick fog in my neighborhood and sunny at the Embarcadero. Today? Overcast, misting but not raining, 99% humidity, and the chance of rain over the next several days.

Mind you, the weather does affect the customer volume I get at the store, depending on how extreme it is. When there was a torrential downpour a few weeks back, the store was dead quiet with only a few regulars and a stressed out last-minute shopper or two. On warm and sunny days we get hit with a LOT of volume (partly because we're surrounded by parks and people want to hang out and enjoy the day). It being the last week before Christmas, however, I'm thinking it might be a little busier than usual but not overly so. Our numbers might be down from last year, but that'll happen anywhere these days. We still have our regulars, several locals and the occasional visitor or tourist. 

Me, I've been doing a lot of dairy upstock days lately, which on the plus side keeps me from the stress of front end ringing but on the minus side keeps me forever interrupted by needing to unlock cabinets and guide people unsure where items are. It all balances out, though.

But yeah... I think I've pretty much accepted that I'm in a good Zen space in my head now, and that's been a long time in coming. Being in charge of my emotions instead of letting them get the best of me. Having the ability to plan out ahead of time and adjust on the fly. I thought of that the other day when I saw someone posting the meme of 'post a gif of where your mind's at'. I saw a lot of fiery 'this is fine' level gifs, Homer screams, cartoon explosions and other chaotic nonsense, but it dawned on me that for the first time in ages, that's not where my head's at. Sure, I still hate conservatives with a burning passion and get upset over stupid (and non-stupid) things, but they no longer completely ruin my day. They only fuel it to make it right, or better. 

Not bad, considering how my year started, come to think of it.

This hasn't been a stressful week at work, so why am I feeling so tired?? It could be that I've been doing a LOT of lifting work lately (yesterday was my turn to work on day stock for the entire shift, and some of those boxes are darn heavy!). Or it could be that the weather's been overcast and extremely humid, which added to the occasional allergies floating about, it's all draining me far too quickly. Thankfully I have tomorrow off and I have nothing big planned other than bringing the car in for an oil change and its yearly servicing.

I've been kind of lazy these last couple of weeks as well, to be honest, and that also might have something to do with it. Not lazy *because* I'm tired, but tired because I haven't really been moving around all that much other than at work. And I can tell that might be a valid point...I really need to return to doing stretches again, before or after work (I do some during slow points *at* work out of habit). I have to remember that's the way to get me through these gloomy overcast days.

 As they often say, weather in San Francisco really depends on which neighborhood you happen to be in. Out here in the Richmond it tends to be a bit cooler than downtown, though downtown can be a bit windy from the crosswinds coming off the Bay. The fog bank always seems to stop somewhere around Presidio Avenue near the JCC before it eventually retreats or burns off by midafternoon. Today my neighborhood had a nice thick fog layer going, but now it's only lingering over the mouth of the Bay, right at the GG Bridge, and the rest of the sky is clear. And it's warmer than yesterday! Not bad for a day off if I say so myself...

Which reminds me: I've been told by our landlady that we'll be getting new rear windows sometime in the next couple of weeks! Which is great because they're both a bit worn out and possibly touched with a bit of water damage on the sills. We of course plan on getting screens for these new windows so we can enjoy the cool air during warm days while the kitties can still perch up there and watch the birds. Looking forward to better working windows!

 It's wintertime here in the Bay Area, which means overcast and overly humid days and temps that don't quite break the mid 50s. It's not the bitterly cold and snowy New England winter of my youth, sure, but it's got its own miserableness. The humidity (along with whatever happens to be blooming this time of year) starts kicking off my allergies giving me a migraine, and every room in the house is chilly. And given where I work, I have my coat on all the time as it's always a chilly mid-50s inside as well.

Our two cats seem not to mind, though. They're silly as always, washing-up sessions devolving into playfighting and chasing each other through the apartment. Cali's a terror and has already damaged one of the cat tree posts and at least two of their toys -- she'd make a great mouser. Jules is more laid back and chill and takes her own time to sort things out, which makes her slow to play with but super smart and wily in other areas. She'll bat Cali with a few hilarious cheap-shots just when you think they're done wrestling. At the end of the night however, once they finally chill down, they'll join us on the bed (or go under it) for a nap.

At least I don't have to shovel any snow or drive in it! :)

It is VERY RAINY here in San Francisco, which means that the SFFD is having a field day on their Twitter feed, reminding people to a) not touch downed wires, b) don't drive on flooded roads, and c) keep an eye out for that overgrown tree in the front of your yard that just may fall onto your roof later today. We'd originally planned to go see something at the De Young Museum this morning but all this rain changed our minds (and the tickets were free so no worries), and lo, a tree on Stow Lake (not all that far from said museum) decided to give up the ghost. 

So yeah, we're inside, where we're about to watch the latest version of Dune, I'm doing the laundry, and A is prepping food for tonight and later in the week. Thankfully our roof is not leaky, though we have seen a few windborne bits dropping through our bathroom skylights! We're a little nervous about that giant tree across the street -- you know, the one that's causing some of the overhead wires to shake and has been in desperate need of pruning for a good couple of years now -- and just waiting for it to topple over into the street and crush the car that someone so foolishly parked there.

My only real worry post-storm is how the weather will be at the end of next week, which happens to be Outside Lands. It looks as though things will be fine, but here's to hoping it doesn't end up being a Glastonbury washout instead, yeah?

Other than that, not much new to report...I'm currently doing a Read-What-I-Have-So-Far of Novel Projects A and B and it looks like they're in good condition as far as rough first drafts go. Last night I'd found a single sentence in Chapter 2 of Project B that, if I changed just four words, would tie in PERFECTLY with a few Very Important Plot Points later on, and so literally jumped out of bed to do so before I forgot. I don't do that too often! 

Okay, off to watch a VERY long but amazing-looking film! :)

Yeah, don't know what possessed me to actually do ALL THE CLEANING today, on what's probably the warmest day of the year here in SF. (The weather app on my PC says 68F, but it feels more like 78F to me. We took a walk at Crissy Field this morning and topped it off with a bit of shopping and burgers for lunch at Bill's. And then I had the brilliant idea of vacuuming, which meant doing some shredding first so I can pick up any stray shred bits, which meant cleaning up a bit of the back room, which meant tidying up the back closet so I could put a few things away. And do laundry on the interim. Oh, and have I written my blogs for Monday and Tuesday yet? No! Sigh.

ANYWAY. It's 4pm now, the house is clean and the laundry should be about done in a few minutes. Then I can kick back and relax just a little bit before we start doing a bit of cooking for dinner. Whew! *passes out*

As I'd mentioned the other day in my writing blog, I'm at that point again where I'm doing not all that bad word-count-wise but everything I'm writing sounds like absolute crap. This happens right about this time every time I start a new project, and it usually means that I know what I want to write now (and how to write it) but everything thus far hasn't even come close to that point. It's frustrating, yes, but I'm dealing with it. Just powering through.

I started doing a Reread So Far of Project A, and yeah...it definitely needs some major rework. There are a few passages I should just delete for pacing issues, and a few others that need heavy revision (as in "that was a riff I'm deleting so this whole bit needs to be redone"). It is what it is, so I'll just have to hit it when and how I can.

Thankfully on Project B, I've gotten past a major revision bit (which, alas, I think I'll need to fix *again* later on) so next time I bring it up I can actually write NEW words instead of working on the older ones that have been there a while.

As for other writing projects...well, those are still moving hither and thither, but nothing major to report just yet. Still working on that. And not much else to report elsewhere. We've been trying to get our exercise despite the weather gloominess -- our side of town has pretty much been covered by clouds, cool temps and high humidity long enough that we lost count of how many days it's been. We might get a few hours of clear sky every now and again, but just like last year, our summers have been like everyone else's winter: cold and full of cabin fever. We've even gone on a few local road trips just to get out of the gloom! Hopefully this pattern will break soon...


Hope everyone has a lovely week! :)

Geh. I've been thinking again about whether or not I want to keep doing the two blogs. I just haven't felt the drive or inspiration to write them lately. It's weird, because it's not as if I *hate* doing them, or that no one reads them (I know I'm on at least a couple dozen personal reading pages, even if no one ever comments). Occasionally it feels like an assignment, but that's my own fault for falling prey to those thoughts to begin with. It's not as if I'm really running out of ideas, either. Sure, sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself, but a lot of blogs are like that. I need to remember that I'm doing this for the fun of it, not because Every Post Needs to Be Unique. I do my writing blog because I like sharing what I've learned in the field with other writers. I do my music blog because I'm just a big ol' obsessive music nerd.

Well. I think what I just need to do here is stop thinking so much about its worth and just DO it. Talk about whatever I want and feel like talking about, and stop worrying about it.

Meanwhile, it seems to be getting warmer here in the Bay Area, and I'm all for that. We very rarely get Uncomfortably Hot here, and instead get glorious days in the upper 50s and mid 60s. Occasionally a warm day in the 70s! This means more reason to get outside for a walk at the end of the day and on the weekends! Can't complain about that. It was such a lovely day yesterday we went to the Botanical Garden, and apparently that was everyone else's idea too, as it was filled with couples relaxing and toddlers on the loose! Nice day, though, and it looks like it's going to be like that throughout the week. Woot!

in other local news, they finally opened the new supermarket up on 32nd and Clement. That was an Albertson's a looooong time ago before they went out of business a year before we moved to SF and was empty until 2017 when they split up the building and Fresh & Easy and CVS moved in. F&E went out of business a few years ago, but just this week Andronico's moved in. (They're a sort of upscale Safeway...slightly fancier selection and a little more expensive.) A and I walked up there this morning just to check it out and duly left with many bags of stuff. We'll most likely still stick with Trader Joe's for our grocery shopping but it's good to know we have that extra selection again!

Anyway...it's been a typical Sunday. Errands, brunch, laundry, email and PC cleaning. Yeehaw!

 

Hope everyone has a good week ahead!