Last Commented Lifestyle Blogs (2,471)

and checking it thrice. Taxes are done, no last minute rush to the post office. Client meeting today. the contractor is 4 weeks behind schedule and holding us up from completion. Car is making clicking sounds when I back-in and the mechanic in Delray said stop by Saturday so he can have a look. The rear brakes were replaced a few weeks ago. I suspect that's the problem, but I need to be in Miami Saturday for other reasons...

Two different places on the same morning... Singer Phil Collins did something like that. Performed a concert one morning in Europe, boarded a Concord and performed another morning concert in America.

Alcoholics. My adult life has been involved in woodworking and cabinet manufacturing. The first few years it was in wood shops cutting parts, assembling cabinets, installing hardware and assisting installation crews. After, I used experience from college and learned to design, draft and engineer cabinets and furniture, moving out of the factory and into the office.

Some of the larger companies had journeymen carpenters who completed industrial arts courses and registered as skilled union workers. Those were the early days. As I got older, I found many of the large companies had gone bankrupt and closed their doors. Smaller shops with lower overhead became the norm.

This was years after soldiers came back from the Vietnam war and guys with talent looking for steady jobs took some woodworking classes and ended up in the cabinet business. That was the good part. The bad part was many of them had drug and alcohol addictions. All of them smoked and a few were still suffering nightmares as young men fighting for America came back with little support to get them 100%.

One of those guys was Murray. Skinny, tattoos everywhere, missing a few teeth and needed a few beers during the course of the day. Murray didn't drive. He lost his license on a DUI and came to work on a bicycle. He had a small ice chest strapped to the back of his bike and no one was allowed near it as he parked in the back of the shop near the bushes. We knew Murray went back there on lunch and cigarette breaks to chug a few beers. The owner knew Murray was a liability, but you can give him a shop drawing and he would give you a material list, cut all the parts and assemble some of the finest wall units you could hope for.

Murray didn't often miss work. It had to be something serious as he couldn't afford to be without pay. Maybe it was a run-in with the law for missing child support, but he was there first thing the next day eager to work.

I hired 'the Rock' a guy down from New York looking to make a clean start. We didn't ask and he didn't tell. Fantastic cabinetmaker. He didn't show up for work one Monday. We later found out he was in line at the check cashing store when someone popped a beer next to him. The entire weekend was a drinking binge and lucky for him the Veterans had him on the rehab program, cleaned him up and put him back on the street. He was good for a few months. The next time he went off the edge, involved cocaine and he wound up in jail. A jail fight knocked him out, put him in the hospital where he died.

The custom shop I worked at 8 years ago had 2 guys on house arrest wearing ankle bracelets and often they were visited by counselors/agents with breath analyzers, just to be sure they were clean. Hard life.

I'm in a different environment now. No longer directly connected to manufacture. I'm away from that crowd. Although I miss being directly connected to the manufacture of high-end custom furniture, I don't miss the problems surrounding it.

Thanks for reading my blog!

A few weeks ago my neighbor asked to borrow my lawnmower. He's cut my grass when I'm busy so I didn't mind returning a favor. The big question was "Do you need gas?" He replied " No."
That was a mistake as 2 minutes into job and the mower stopped.
I asked to see the gas can and the top was cracked. I suspected dirt or water was in the can and now the carburetor was clogged.
So, I dropped the mower off at a local repair shop and they did maintenance (draining the oil, sharpen the blade, replacing the air filter) including pulling the carburetor apart and cleaning all the parts.
They called this morning to tell me the mower was ready for pick up.
I'll only cut a little today as I need to get back to my office and finish a quotation I wanted to send out yesterday.
Time to get out the SPF 70 sun block.

The inside of my car is a disgrace. The dashboard is thick in dust and the floor is covered in grit; I can hardy see out of the windscreen when the sun is shining directly onto it. I’ve tried to make myself clean it but my pleas keep falling on deaf ears; I simply can’t be persuaded. I know I could have the car valeted but I refuse to pay somebody to do a job that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself. I’m at my wit’s end; what can I do to make myself clean my car?

I was told by a nurse practitioner that it’s considered smoking because of the nicotine.

Okay, so be it.

I’m not quitting because of that. So I’m a smoker. It’s better than being a falling down drunk in my opinion. Which I made a sport of not too long ago.

I still managed to keep a job in the midst of all that.

But today my sister caught me side by side on the road with my pipe in my mouth...

Will she tell my parents?

Who cares. I’ll tell them that I smoke now if they ask. I’ll also point out though that I’m treating people way better because I quit drinking. Also, myself.

I smoke because I have way too much anxiety.

What are you anxious about? My dad would ask.

Yes, what could I be anxious about when I have everything...

Right.

I thought I might do something out of the ordinary again this weekend; I also thought it last weekend. There is very little chance of my doing anything out of the ordinary, but imagining that I could if I wanted to gives me something to look forward to. I don’t quite know how that works, but it does. Even though I know I won’t be doing anything, and even though I don’t know what I would do if I did do something, I can still, somehow, manage to look forward to it. Amazing.

More and more people in their 30s and 40s are choosing to be alone, to have a social network but no partner and no lasting ties. Most people on their own would rather have someone to go out with than to come home to. In fact the number of single-person households across the world has sky-rocketed by 80% in the last 30 years. The biggest age-group within that statistic is 35 to 64.

And at 64? Probably time to find a soulmate so you’re sorted for the last stretch.

One small problem, long-term singles are awfully picky. You might consider giving up your single status for someone who looks amazing, is excellent company but gives you space when you want it, will hop into bed and perform with gusto when but only if you are in the mood, and eventually look after your every need, including financial, as you move through the foothills of approaching age into the unknown. Anyone less, nah.



You could lower that bar, of course. There are a million websites offering to introduce seasoned singles to other seasoned singles. Find your very own lightly creased companion for the years ahead while you both have enough vigour and energy to get used to being together. Some do come with children, even grandchildren. No?

How about a young looker from another country who would rather be in your country and will in return be nice to you and look after you? You do need quite big bucks for that one. No?

So, looking ahead, what happens when there aren’t children so there won’t be grandchildren to make you feel young, when work isn’t the be-all and end-all that it was, and retirement looms, or has already landed. When the partner for life, if there ever was one, is no longer there. When being alone is no longer a choice but has suddenly become reality . . .

Problem?

Turns out, nah, not quite so much as you might think. The first few comments are bits that would have made this too long a blog. (Too late, too late!)

A weather system has moved in and giving my province loads of rain as well as winds depending on where you are living that will get up to 180 kph. Where I am is being forecasted up to 120 kph

Good night to get wasted

That's fairly recent, the whole hugging thing, when I was younger (and mammoths roamed the earth, I know, I know) you offered your hand and the stranger or acquaintance shook it and jolly good show what what. Now I'm introduced to a stranger or meet an acquaintance and somewhat to my alarm they close in for kisses (praises be I am in Spain, 2 kisses, and not France, 3 or more) or a hug. What? I barely know you! Even men meeting men do the half-hug / backslap thing here, and it was becoming increasingly common in Scotland before I left. Is it international now? I need a teddybear to handle my social hugs for me.



Don't get me wrong, I love real hugging. I would change my profile to say 'I could hug you so hard all your broken bits will join up forever' except that I get enough odd mail as it is already. but here's the other odd thing - the hug, it seems, is only for acquaintances now. When you know each other better, see each other often - no more hugging. Now that's just wrong. Them's the people I WANT to hug and cuddle and pat and scrunch just because I am so very pleased to see them, or when we are parting to tide me over to the next time I see them.

May happiness be your destiny.