Lai lo le lo lai

Every time I start one of these posts, I feel I have to explain why I haven’t written in awhile. This time, it’s been a long while, so I’ll indulge the urge, but I really do want to stop doing that. Maybe someday I’ll blog regularly again. Maybe.

Not long after my last post, my primary coworker rage quit. He shares some of the blame, but he was absolutely provoked. So, management decided to accept him quitting and hire someone for the job. In the meantime, I had to do it, because who else would?

It was and is way more work than management knows. Hell, my job, which I wrote out in detail, is still way more work than management knows. My partner knows a lot more about both jobs than he’d care to, and helped a ton while I was doing everything, but even now, when he asks, “How’s work?” I just hit the highlights.

20 seconds in, 100% me:

A little over a couple of weeks ago, management hired the same coworker back, and by that time, I was grateful. They just had no other applicants even close to qualified or capable. Meanwhile…

One of three managers has been problematic for more than a year. And he’s finally gone, but not necessarily gone for good. I mean, he is if I have anything to say about it, and I will backchannel the hell out of this town to keep it that way. I can’t say anything about things as My Job Title, but I can absolutely say things as a private citizen.

So with that one gone, the other manager who was around when I was first hired has decided to become the next problematic manager. It’s nothing I can’t handle, but I’m already low key thinking about his eventual replacement.

In the meantime, my partner and I took a lovely long weekend in Colorado, at a VRBO off highway 12. This trip was so very important, because while my favorite part of Colorado is small and relatively insignificant, I wanted him to enjoy it. Going there genuinely feels like coming home, because it’s been part of my life since I was little. The trip was a rolling disaster, but somehow, it was all okay, and it did get better.

Around that time, I turned 40, and asked my partner for one thing for my birthday (besides the trip we planned back in the height of summer) that I really wanted: him to get the Covid vaccine. And he did, the day before my birthday. I was so ridiculously proud of him for overcoming the blocks that were keeping him from doing it all this time.

My birthday was a source of uneasiness for awhile before it happened, not because it was a major birthday at all, but because last year, my ex somehow managed to ruin every single holiday, starting with my birthday. I flew through this one on a cloud of happiness, and didn’t look back once. Next: Thanksgiving.

October not only contained our birthdays, and my best friend’s birthday, and the Colorado trip, but also a run downstate to buy firewood, and my friend’s wedding at the far end of the state. As a result, nothing has happened on the farmhouse for a month. We knew this would happen, but we didn’t know it would be so hard to get started again. And here I am, writing instead of getting ready to go work on it some more. But hope still exists, and I believe my partner when he says it’ll get done. I’m just impatient to move, but yet completely unprepared.

When we thought it might be in December, I started packing books. But since then, I’ve bought probably as many books as I’ve packed. Net progress: 0. Zip. Nil. Nada. I’ve got to figure something out.