I feel triangulated in the Bermuda Triangle of service today. I know how important it is to be of service but the Ghost of Seaweed Past is always nudging others out of the way and inserting Seaweed at the head of the line. What is it Frankie of Assisi says? "Better to love than to be loved" or some such crap? What is Seaweed's reply: "I'm calling bullshit on that!"
Thank god for my friends.
Shorty has been taking me to school on the particulars of my visit home. I need remedial training on this matter - I need to be reminded that it's about what I can bring to the table, not what I can take away. People aren't setting the table just for me. People would rather I go eat at some other table. I've been working hard to set up a schedule of my own liking, with the kind of results you might expect. The best thing is to put the word out that I'll be around and then see what transpires. No one likes to be dictated to. I'm still trying to reconcile people I want to see with the fact that not all of them are clearing their schedules for my visit and people who don't exactly fire me up seemingly excited that I'm coming.
Shorty says it will be a good visit. He's right.
I have a much beloved cat who has reached the end of her journey here on earth. She has had a couple of serious setbacks in the last month but has rallied just when we thought the end was nigh. I'm starting to believe in the 9 Lives theory. But she's old and all of the change has been very hard on her. Hell, it's been very hard on me.
The thing is she can't talk. She isn't able to tell us what's going on. We're trying to read the signs - she doesn't seem to be in any serious pain - but it's so easy to interpret them as we see fit. Kind of like what I'm doing with my family and friends - it would be convenient to me for you to do this. It's not pleasant to think of voluntarily asking a vet to inject drugs into her tiny, little collapsing veins but maybe that's the higher calling.
It's funny to think of learning about service from a cat, but this is a pretty special cat.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Future World
Future: The time ahead; those moments yet to be experienced.
I'm heading home - The Old City home - for about a week. I'm getting pre-riled up about the visit. This is what I do - imagine future problems, in the future. I try never to pass up an opportunity to be miserable. I have family to see - painful obligations, to my thinking - and friends to catch up with. My expectations can be found somewhere past the outermost ring of Saturn.
A trap I fall into is deciding how my family should receive me, deciding what they should want me to do, how the visit should proceed. This is a trap of my own making. I'm the guy walking around, howling in pain, my paw caught in a large spring-loaded bear trap marked: "Danger: Property of Little Stevie Seaweed," still clutching the cookie I used to bait a trap to catch myself.
I enjoy imagining how other people should behave. It's not productive. The fact of the matter is that I annoy the hell out of my sister for a whole variety of reasons, most of them things that I can't change or won't. Many of them are very annoying things. And my parents - old and set in their ways, living in a small house - would love for me to stop by for an hour or so twice a week rather than compacting a whole year's worth of visits into 6 days.
It is, I believe that I've mentioned, all about me.
I'm heading home - The Old City home - for about a week. I'm getting pre-riled up about the visit. This is what I do - imagine future problems, in the future. I try never to pass up an opportunity to be miserable. I have family to see - painful obligations, to my thinking - and friends to catch up with. My expectations can be found somewhere past the outermost ring of Saturn.
A trap I fall into is deciding how my family should receive me, deciding what they should want me to do, how the visit should proceed. This is a trap of my own making. I'm the guy walking around, howling in pain, my paw caught in a large spring-loaded bear trap marked: "Danger: Property of Little Stevie Seaweed," still clutching the cookie I used to bait a trap to catch myself.
I enjoy imagining how other people should behave. It's not productive. The fact of the matter is that I annoy the hell out of my sister for a whole variety of reasons, most of them things that I can't change or won't. Many of them are very annoying things. And my parents - old and set in their ways, living in a small house - would love for me to stop by for an hour or so twice a week rather than compacting a whole year's worth of visits into 6 days.
It is, I believe that I've mentioned, all about me.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Too Busy To Die
For several years in The Old City - if by "several" you mean "three" - I attended a jail meeting with my sponsor. This facility catered to non-violent felons convicted of crimes directly related to drug and alcohol offenses, and the protocol was geared heavily to all kinds of educational and social classes, groups, and programs to sober these guys up and keep them on the straight and narrow.
I don't think my use of the word "catered" is appropriate here. It makes it sound like the facility was pretty worried that the residents might not like the protocol and go somewhere else, which they were not going to be able to do.
Protocol is pretty ridiculous, too. It kind of works but it was the first word that came to mind and I'm too lazy today to come up with something more appropriate.
Anyway, the meeting we hosted was entirely voluntary and on a good day we got 15% of the men in our particular cellblock. Mind you, most of them should have been there but you can lead a horse to water, etc, etc, and etc.
What do you think about "hosted?" It sounds like we were throwing a little party with cucumber sandwiches and petit fours, which we were not. No coffee, no cookies, no tap water. The jail had a culinary program as one of its offerings and each year they would invite all of the volunteers for a free banquet. My sponsor went. I did not. He didn't rave about the food.
OK, on occasion our meeting would fall on a holiday, such as Thanksgiving or Super Bowl Thursday or Guy Fawkes Day, and attendance fell to a vanishing point because the guys were given the day off to watch TV or to . . . well, watch TV, I guess. It was a telling fact. These guys literally had to walk 20 feet to get to the meeting and they didn't do it. Now I'm entirely sympathetic - recover is a grind, especially at the start, especially in a jail setting where the authorities are making you jump through a lot of hoops. But it requires some diligence, too. We wondered what would happen on the outside with no one telling them what to do and plenty of pleasant distractions and dangerous enticements available.
I saw a few of them at meetings over the years, but not many. And there was an intense grapevine in the jail so that if someone slipped and got busted it was common knowledge almost immediately.
Kept me sober. Which is the point.
I don't think my use of the word "catered" is appropriate here. It makes it sound like the facility was pretty worried that the residents might not like the protocol and go somewhere else, which they were not going to be able to do.
Protocol is pretty ridiculous, too. It kind of works but it was the first word that came to mind and I'm too lazy today to come up with something more appropriate.
Anyway, the meeting we hosted was entirely voluntary and on a good day we got 15% of the men in our particular cellblock. Mind you, most of them should have been there but you can lead a horse to water, etc, etc, and etc.
What do you think about "hosted?" It sounds like we were throwing a little party with cucumber sandwiches and petit fours, which we were not. No coffee, no cookies, no tap water. The jail had a culinary program as one of its offerings and each year they would invite all of the volunteers for a free banquet. My sponsor went. I did not. He didn't rave about the food.
OK, on occasion our meeting would fall on a holiday, such as Thanksgiving or Super Bowl Thursday or Guy Fawkes Day, and attendance fell to a vanishing point because the guys were given the day off to watch TV or to . . . well, watch TV, I guess. It was a telling fact. These guys literally had to walk 20 feet to get to the meeting and they didn't do it. Now I'm entirely sympathetic - recover is a grind, especially at the start, especially in a jail setting where the authorities are making you jump through a lot of hoops. But it requires some diligence, too. We wondered what would happen on the outside with no one telling them what to do and plenty of pleasant distractions and dangerous enticements available.
I saw a few of them at meetings over the years, but not many. And there was an intense grapevine in the jail so that if someone slipped and got busted it was common knowledge almost immediately.
Kept me sober. Which is the point.
Monday, September 9, 2013
The Closing
Close: To obstruct.
I remember with visionary clarity a conversation I had with EdRo many years ago on the subject of money. A large financial institution - evil by nature and definition - owed him a sum of money that was not insignificant. They cut a check and mailed it to someone who cashed the check. EdRo was not the someone so he objected. So far so good, except that the large financial institution balked at correcting the error. They thought EdRo was some kind of scam artist, I guess - they wanted him to prove that they hadn't made an error, to which EdRo politely replied: "Hey, why don't you #$!!s send me my $#!! money?" Logical to my point of view - the bank was less impressed.
EdRo worked out his frustration with me. He figured that the amount of money he was owed wasn't going to change the outcome of his life. He figured the error was going to be corrected, eventually. He figured that the $#!! large financial institution should be burned in the fiery pits of hell. I'm making that last part up, maybe. I think he got his money back. I don't remember because it wasn't my money so what the hell did I care?
Funny thing happens every time I'm getting screwed, which is often. I think about this incident. I learned a lot watching him work through the situation, with grace and some patience. When we bought our trailer home the title company - whatever the fuck they do - collected the space rent for the upcoming month which they were then supposed to pay the trailer home park. Here's where it gets funny: they didn't pay the trailer home park. They took the money but didn't pay the rent. It's a really good business plan if you can get away with it. The trailer home park people came to the door at the start of the month and said: "Hey, here's something funny - you didn't pay us our %$!! money which isn't a great way to get started here, you %$!! deadbeat."
I acted with outrage. Actually, I was out having coffee so SuperK acted with outrage. She fired off some very pointed and witty emails to the title company - the people who are basically responsible for collecting fees from us so that they can stay in business. One of them was called "Hold for Hold for Title Transfer." Another one was simply marked: "Padding." I'm not making this up. I particularly liked "Padding." I was expecting to see one called "Kickback." When you "close" on a house - even a trailer house - you basically stand out on a busy road and fling signed checks into traffic so that people can fill in any amount they think is good and cash the check.
Anyway it all got squared away. But not without a lot of furious witticisms.
I remember with visionary clarity a conversation I had with EdRo many years ago on the subject of money. A large financial institution - evil by nature and definition - owed him a sum of money that was not insignificant. They cut a check and mailed it to someone who cashed the check. EdRo was not the someone so he objected. So far so good, except that the large financial institution balked at correcting the error. They thought EdRo was some kind of scam artist, I guess - they wanted him to prove that they hadn't made an error, to which EdRo politely replied: "Hey, why don't you #$!!s send me my $#!! money?" Logical to my point of view - the bank was less impressed.
EdRo worked out his frustration with me. He figured that the amount of money he was owed wasn't going to change the outcome of his life. He figured the error was going to be corrected, eventually. He figured that the $#!! large financial institution should be burned in the fiery pits of hell. I'm making that last part up, maybe. I think he got his money back. I don't remember because it wasn't my money so what the hell did I care?
Funny thing happens every time I'm getting screwed, which is often. I think about this incident. I learned a lot watching him work through the situation, with grace and some patience. When we bought our trailer home the title company - whatever the fuck they do - collected the space rent for the upcoming month which they were then supposed to pay the trailer home park. Here's where it gets funny: they didn't pay the trailer home park. They took the money but didn't pay the rent. It's a really good business plan if you can get away with it. The trailer home park people came to the door at the start of the month and said: "Hey, here's something funny - you didn't pay us our %$!! money which isn't a great way to get started here, you %$!! deadbeat."
I acted with outrage. Actually, I was out having coffee so SuperK acted with outrage. She fired off some very pointed and witty emails to the title company - the people who are basically responsible for collecting fees from us so that they can stay in business. One of them was called "Hold for Hold for Title Transfer." Another one was simply marked: "Padding." I'm not making this up. I particularly liked "Padding." I was expecting to see one called "Kickback." When you "close" on a house - even a trailer house - you basically stand out on a busy road and fling signed checks into traffic so that people can fill in any amount they think is good and cash the check.
Anyway it all got squared away. But not without a lot of furious witticisms.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Pass It On
Off I went to one of the many excellent fruit and vegetable stands here in Vacation City. I like food and I like to cook, and it's a real treat for me to go to these places stocked with stuff that's harvested daily. My eyes were big. I stuffed two big sacks full of stuff and took it to the counter where the very nice counter lady weighed it and tallied up a sum.
"$24," she said.
I stood there holding my wallet. SuperK and I had discussed the contents of my wallet just this morning and 24 was not a figure that was mentioned. The fruit and vegetable stands are cash on the barrel head.
"I've got $14," I said. A humbler man would have been embarrassed. We started divvying and sorting and came up with a smaller pile.
"$15," she said.
"I've only got $14," I replied. She waved me off, cheerfully, and I picked up my fruit and vegetables and made for the door, forgetting I had brought my own environmentally conscious, locally sourced bags hand-sewn by blind war orphans in a 3rd world country for a fair and sustainable wage.
She was unloading the fruit that I couldn't pay for back into the bins. She handed me my bag and bid me farewell. When I got to my car I saw that there were 4 pieces of fruit in the bag. I'm not sure but I think that she left the fruit in there for me to have. I was too discombobulated at this point to go back in. I drove off. I was not in my Very Expensive Car but I was in SuperK's ride, which is not too shabby in its own right.
This woman doesn't look like me. People like her work in the hot sun picking the fruits and vegetables for terrible pay so that incredibly blessed people like me can eat incredibly tasty, fresh food for a pittance. Maybe she made a mistake and didn't see the last pieces of fruit. Maybe it was a kindness.
I'm going with kindness. Made my day.
"$24," she said.
I stood there holding my wallet. SuperK and I had discussed the contents of my wallet just this morning and 24 was not a figure that was mentioned. The fruit and vegetable stands are cash on the barrel head.
"I've got $14," I said. A humbler man would have been embarrassed. We started divvying and sorting and came up with a smaller pile.
"$15," she said.
"I've only got $14," I replied. She waved me off, cheerfully, and I picked up my fruit and vegetables and made for the door, forgetting I had brought my own environmentally conscious, locally sourced bags hand-sewn by blind war orphans in a 3rd world country for a fair and sustainable wage.
She was unloading the fruit that I couldn't pay for back into the bins. She handed me my bag and bid me farewell. When I got to my car I saw that there were 4 pieces of fruit in the bag. I'm not sure but I think that she left the fruit in there for me to have. I was too discombobulated at this point to go back in. I drove off. I was not in my Very Expensive Car but I was in SuperK's ride, which is not too shabby in its own right.
This woman doesn't look like me. People like her work in the hot sun picking the fruits and vegetables for terrible pay so that incredibly blessed people like me can eat incredibly tasty, fresh food for a pittance. Maybe she made a mistake and didn't see the last pieces of fruit. Maybe it was a kindness.
I'm going with kindness. Made my day.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Not Sure He Gets The Point
A while back a guy I know in recovery asked for help in getting started with his financial amends. I've done this a few times with other people - I'm pretty good with numbers and I love spending someone else's money. I've found the problem most people have with financial amends is that they're simply afraid to look at the numbers. It all starts with the numbers. People don't have a good grasp of where their money is going, so they waste a lot of it.
Anyway, we tallied up this guy's assets and liabilities and came up with a game plan so that he could get free from the money fears. He said it was important to be accountable so he was going to call me every week to let my know how things were progressing. I always careful to tell folks to make use of all available resources when working with money. Just because I'm cheap it doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about.
I was a little dubious about how much effort he was putting into his recovery overall so I was a lot dubious that there was going to be much of a real push with the money problems. He didn't call the first week. He called the second week to tell me he was going to talk to someone else which sounded like a bit of a punt to me.
That was the last call I got from him.
I did note on his Facebook page that he traveled to an expensive city in California for some vacation. I noted he left his city to go to Disneyland. I quit noting things after this. I'm not mad or surprised but I'm not going to waste any more time with his bullshit. I'm sympathetic - I want to right wrongs without doing any work or feeling any discomfort.
Last call for alky-haul.
Anyway, we tallied up this guy's assets and liabilities and came up with a game plan so that he could get free from the money fears. He said it was important to be accountable so he was going to call me every week to let my know how things were progressing. I always careful to tell folks to make use of all available resources when working with money. Just because I'm cheap it doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about.
I was a little dubious about how much effort he was putting into his recovery overall so I was a lot dubious that there was going to be much of a real push with the money problems. He didn't call the first week. He called the second week to tell me he was going to talk to someone else which sounded like a bit of a punt to me.
That was the last call I got from him.
I did note on his Facebook page that he traveled to an expensive city in California for some vacation. I noted he left his city to go to Disneyland. I quit noting things after this. I'm not mad or surprised but I'm not going to waste any more time with his bullshit. I'm sympathetic - I want to right wrongs without doing any work or feeling any discomfort.
Last call for alky-haul.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
SuperK On A Grouch and A Brainstorm
I get mad all the time. It's no big deal. Nobody likes it but it doesn't surprise them, either. SuperK, on the other hand, doesn't get mad very often. When she does get mad I pull out the camcorder because it's quite the show.
We dealt with a vendor here in Vacation City as we were trying to get situated in our new place. It was one of those situations where we explained what we wanted to do and the representative assured us that the solution he was proposing was going to do just that. He had to take us at our word that we were indeed going to do what we said we were going to do and we had to assume he was telling the truth that his stuff was going to get that thing done. There was a certain amount of trust in the transaction. There was also the possibility that everyone was lying like a biker. The guy seemed really nice and we trusted him. I'm no sucker but I also don't spend all my time assuming I'm going to get screwed, even though I'm getting screwed all the time. My life is really terrible with all of the liars taking advantage of me. It's a wonder that I can even get up in the morning.
This trust serves SuperK and me well. For the most part we're honest with people and they're honest with us. In this instance, as I'm sure you've surmised, the solution was not a solution at all. The stuff didn't work as advertised so we took it back, as permitted under our 14 day trial period. There was a restocking fee and a usage fee which together added up to roughly 182% of what the entire monthly charge was supposed to be. We found this distressing as we had the equipment for 3 days, or roughly 10% of the time that can be found in your average month.
I'm not going to recount the pissing match that went on for a couple of days in great detail. Let's just say that there was a lot of pissing going on. Our sales-guy was on vacation so we assumed, of course, that he was a lying liar who lied to us to meet some kind of sales quota, unconcerned as to whether or not we were happy with his product and services. We met with another sales-guy and an assistant manager; we called technical support; we called the corporate offices; if by "we" you mean "SuperK." I'm not permitted to speak generally but when I think I've been lied to and money is involved I'm not on the bus. I'm not going to tell you how much money was involved, either, because it wasn't very much - between $22 and $43, if you just have to know.
A lot of the time I'll pay a small charge that I find objectionable because I know peace of mind is priceless. But I'm also willing to stick to my guns if I think I've been lied to. This was a big company and I think they thought that we were going to go away- they didn't know that they were dealing with a couple of alcoholics who thought they were getting screwed.
Poor big company.
We dealt with a vendor here in Vacation City as we were trying to get situated in our new place. It was one of those situations where we explained what we wanted to do and the representative assured us that the solution he was proposing was going to do just that. He had to take us at our word that we were indeed going to do what we said we were going to do and we had to assume he was telling the truth that his stuff was going to get that thing done. There was a certain amount of trust in the transaction. There was also the possibility that everyone was lying like a biker. The guy seemed really nice and we trusted him. I'm no sucker but I also don't spend all my time assuming I'm going to get screwed, even though I'm getting screwed all the time. My life is really terrible with all of the liars taking advantage of me. It's a wonder that I can even get up in the morning.
This trust serves SuperK and me well. For the most part we're honest with people and they're honest with us. In this instance, as I'm sure you've surmised, the solution was not a solution at all. The stuff didn't work as advertised so we took it back, as permitted under our 14 day trial period. There was a restocking fee and a usage fee which together added up to roughly 182% of what the entire monthly charge was supposed to be. We found this distressing as we had the equipment for 3 days, or roughly 10% of the time that can be found in your average month.
I'm not going to recount the pissing match that went on for a couple of days in great detail. Let's just say that there was a lot of pissing going on. Our sales-guy was on vacation so we assumed, of course, that he was a lying liar who lied to us to meet some kind of sales quota, unconcerned as to whether or not we were happy with his product and services. We met with another sales-guy and an assistant manager; we called technical support; we called the corporate offices; if by "we" you mean "SuperK." I'm not permitted to speak generally but when I think I've been lied to and money is involved I'm not on the bus. I'm not going to tell you how much money was involved, either, because it wasn't very much - between $22 and $43, if you just have to know.
A lot of the time I'll pay a small charge that I find objectionable because I know peace of mind is priceless. But I'm also willing to stick to my guns if I think I've been lied to. This was a big company and I think they thought that we were going to go away- they didn't know that they were dealing with a couple of alcoholics who thought they were getting screwed.
Poor big company.
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