Potpourri

-If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing...

Zimbabwean proverb

Everyone has the magic in them to create anything they want, or maybe in a less romantic sense, we all have the biology in us to create anything we want.  Either way, my brain is firing on many different cylinders right now, not necessarily in unison either, so I thought it best to title this Potpourri.  It's got a little bit of everything and also kind of smells good but stinks all at the same time.

Hold please...

Thanks for waiting, I know that doesn't really translate in reading, but I had to go get a beer.  It's been one of those days, weeks, decades.  It all comes to a head every now and again with a compatriot of mine at work; see he is a man of age only in a physical nature.  In terms of mental and emotional age, he quite literally equals that of a 10 year old boy.  I could deal with that if it meant I had the upside of dealing with a 10 year old boy.  You know, things like conversations about baseball, or maybe that new car that looks really cool, or maybe about how Star Wars is now in theaters in 3-D.  But unfortunately, I don't get the wide-eyed side of a 10 year old, I get the angry, it's never my fault, stubborn boy.  Today's example: we had custodial products that needed to be out at the sites.  He did a great job getting it out, what he didn't tell me is that he allocated product wrong and ended up bringing back and hiding an overage in the warehouse.  Only after being prompted about it did he come clean and when I asked where those items were supposed to be delivered, he didn't know.  His solution was to wait for people to call and complain about their shortages.  But if I had done a better job about making clear what needed to happen, then he wouldn't have made mistakes.

Hmm, he had printed forms denoting which site was supposed to receive what quantities of each item. Site A gets: three cases toilet paper, four gallons of disinfectant, etc.  Don't know if I could have made it much clearer.  My bad.

This leads me to wisecracks that usually find their way to Facebook.  Today's was a link of an old 70's song, "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" by Leo Sayer, with my tagline noting to change the word 'dancing' to 'drinking'.  What I forgot is that this is the first post my newest friend has seen, my mom.  She doesn't usually get to see my fully sarcastic side, so that means I'll be making a call to her after I wrap this post up to reassure her that I am not going to end up in a stinking stupor of drunkeness, risking life and limb passed out in the gutter in front of my house, partially naked.

But my frustration melts away into something of apprehensive joy (unless that is an oxymoron).  Despite that upcoming eviction, Lisa and I have been pre-approved to buy a house and have begun actively hunting.  There's some nice stuff out there, some we can potentially afford and others that are just nice to walk through and sample the cookies (literal cookies for you naughty thinkers).  But I stop and wonder sometimes as we are stopped and wandering through these homes, do other people feel this exhilarating fear that we do?  I mean, of course I know the answer, sure, of course they do.  Lisa and I are not so unique to the rest of the world that we are the only ones freaking out about buying a house, but man, it's scary stuff. We obsess at the grocery store so as not to pick a can of corn that is dented, so what he hell do I do if I buy a house that has a leaky roof?!

Then again, that's the fun of it all isn't it?  We don't really think about walking on the tight rope until we look down and see no net below us.  That's when we get scared and that's when everything goes sideways.  But realizing we are on the tightrope doesn't have to be a bad thing.  It'll make my balance better and worst case scenario, I don't think there are rules for walking a tightrope, I'll slink across by any means necessary.  And then that brings me back to my coworker, I can't be the only one who deals with a guy like that.  Maybe we in this world are all a lot more alike than we sometimes realize.  Blame the media, blame the neighbors, blame the dog, blame yourself, shoot, blame me (my coworker does).  We see things, we disseminate the information of what we see and we either use it or discard it.  I'm a big believer in events having meaning, so if nothing else, these days are lessons in patience and seeing the bigger picture I guess.  Hopefully it'll result in a home that I can hang a picture while eating cookies and having a beer ; )