Yesterday when I got home, not only had Missy picked up some ice melt for our driveway, but spread it too.
Not me, not our actual driveway, but you get the idea
I'm the only one who parks back there generally, and it's been a treacherous mess for days.
She and Marybeth spent time crushing water softener pellets into smaller ones, and then scattered them for me.
They're really good to me.
Yesterday I showed up for my second day of work minus one thing I crucially needed: a mug for coffee.
(You can't work in IT without some way to caffeinate - it just isn't done!)
My co-worker and new buddy, C. lent me a mug. This one:
On the side it's got a geeky update to Ro Sham Bo, the game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" which adds "Lizard", and "Spock". (Incidentally, I thought that was a joke, but it's a real variation of the game - look at the Wikipedia link!)
A big part of my not-so-productive yesterday was getting to know C. and some of my other co-workers. We talked philosophy, Buckaroo Banzai, and tech. I like them. They like me.
At one point I said to them jokingly that I felt like breaking out in song, and singing I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here from Annie.
But I didn't, because as I told them, I like them too much to subject them to that.
Monday I started my new job. I was excited, and prepared.
For one thing, I had on my special work shark socks that my friend William Little had given me.
For another, I had decided days ago that I was treating this whole experience as a sort of personal reboot.
I think I had grown somewhat jaded in my last two jobs. They were for very large companies, which came with some very good things, but also many very bad things.
My new gig is at a teensy tiny company. That has different good and bad aspects.
One thing I made sure to do right away was to be proactive. From the moment I got there, I began looking for opportunities to bring value. I've already volunteered for a special project. I think people are digging my can-do attitude.
The best thing about this attitude isn't its effect on other people, but its effect on me. I'm excited to be there. I'm excited to see what I can do and learn, and how I can use it to grow there. Somewhere along the way, I had somewhat lost this simple truth: I love what I do.
Found it.
My very-long-day with Cargo on Saturday didn't end until very early on Sunday. When we got home from the spa, I introduced him to playing Minecraft together on our Xbox.
We kind of went batshit crazy with it. We stayed up until 3am!
Missy was busy with her own video-game based-bad-sleep-making-pursuits - on their way back from the spa, she and Marybeth decided to get up to some Ingress playing, and they didn't get home until about 2am, either.
I guess we were all a little punch-drunk after the long day, and the hydrotherapy from the spa, because Missy said we could stay up as late as we wanted. So we picked 3am.
Playing Minecraft with Cargo was SO MUCH FUN. It's a bit like legos for grownups. We went from digging a hole in the digital ground with our 8-bit hands to having a huge castle, complete with battlements, a glass skylight, fluffy woolen beds, and a mine that stretched for miles underground underneath it.
It was really amazing. Playing together like that pinged our mutual ageplayishness (sure, it's a word), as well as our geekery. (Also, a word, deal with it.) We each had jobs to do. I would crank out tools, and component pieces for him, while he would gradually replace the dirt walls of our shelter with good, hardened cobblestone. He would work on our farm, while I enlarged the mine. We had several disasters, where we got attacked, and our characters died. At one point, Cargo's character respawned at the bottom of a giant canyon, where he was stuck. I rescued him, and we literally dug our way out to the surface, in the dark, armed with only a few torches, and a pickaxe. It was gourmet, technology-aided, grownup pretend.
It was so good that the next morning, we decided to play some more. (Well, let's be honest here, afternoon. We went to be at 3am! We didn't get up until almost noon.) Anyhow, after we took a bath, and I got him diapered and dressed for his train home, we sat down to play for a little while longer.
Then, we exhibited excellent adult restraint, and decided to leave early, so we could go get some food, before I brought him into DC for his train home. Good thing we did! When we got outside to my car, we found it was covered in ice.
It kind of boggled our minds. We were so wrapped up in Minecraft, bubble baths, Minecraft, diapering, Minecraft, cuddling, and did I mention Minecraft, that we had no idea of the icy sleety rain that had been coming down since we got up.
Thankfully, I got him to the station safely, and with enough time for us to share a meal, while we talked about Minecraft.
It's not like we are hooked or anything, right?
It was terrible timing, but our boy Richard happened to be moving this weekend. Cargo is his friend too, and being the very good person he is, said he didn't mind if we carved some time out of his visit to help.
So after I got him diapered for the day, we bopped on down to Richard's new house, and joined a team of people to help move stuff from Place A to Place B.
It was a chilly day, filled with dressing in layers, work gloves, stinky old refrigerators, heavy couches, and many boxes.
But it was great. I was glad to be able to be there for Richard, who has been there for me countless times beyond measure. I was grateful for Cargo who selflessly gave his own time and help. The group helping Richard included my wife Missy, my sister-in-law Marybeth, and several other people who are close friends of Richard's and mine, as well as Camp Crucible buddies to us all. It was a bit like having a Camp reunion, just with different muscle soreness.
Afterward, Missy, MB, Cargo and I headed out to a Korean spa to relax our sore, tired muscles, eat exotic food, and spend time in a giant hydrotherapy pool. It felt very, very good.
