morrowlife

Here’s my family at some remote date in the past. What an attractive group! I’m not sure when it was taken, but I’m guessing we were living in Virginia at the time. Any better guesses, Loyal Readers? Great Art courtesy of . . . umm . . . some camera, taken by . . . umm . . . somebody, and part of my famous Shannon and Garden series.

That looks like a garden in the background to me, anyway. At any rate, it’s green.

Pretty good day today. Mark wasn’t feeling really well this morning, so we didn’t go the gym. Back tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning, as a matter of fact. Our cleaning ladies are coming at 8:00 tomorrow, so since we have to be up early anyway, we’re exercising at 8:00. Wish us luck, Loyal Readers. It’s totally barbaric to have to get up at 8:00. Don’t you agree?

Important announcement (drum roll, please): I worked today! Got a few things done, too. I spent a little more than an hour talking with my nephew Jack about search engine optimization and several other website-related topics. I submitted a bid to my friend Gary and it looks like he’s accepted it. So I’m going to make his website soon. And it looks like I may also maintain it on an ongoing basis. New line of business!

Jack also took the time to look at my website for PhotoDocumentor. It turns out that everything that could possibly be wrong with it IS wrong with it. Next assignment: redo the PhotoDoc website. I also have a bunch of PhotoDoc videos to edit heavily. That’ll keep me busy for quite a while.

And then there’s all the work I need to do on Common Core Classroom. And then there are a ton of updates needed to Morse Trainer. Of course, I don’t get paid for that one, so it’s pretty much the bottom of the barrel.

For somebody who’s not making much money, I certainly have a big backlog of work. Riches will surely follow, though. Better start thinking of tax shelters right now.

Mark and I had dinner at Rubio’s again tonight. We just can’t say no to Taco Tuesday at the best fish taco place in the world. I’m gotten to be at peace with the fact they aren’t including lime wedges with the tacos anymore. I’ve been reading about how the drug wars in Mexico have decimated the lime harvest there and how the drought in California has decimated the lime harvest there and I’ve decided to give Rubio’s a break. Plus, you can still get all the lime wedges you want at the salsa bar. And did I mention that Rubio’s makes the best fish tacos in the world?

So life is good today. Oh, how I wish Shannon were still by my side for it. But she’s not and life is still good anyway.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: hijacked Hershey’s truck!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and Mia after our Christmas Eve 2006 visit to the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco. Mia looks a little bit tired out there. That’s Andy there in the red sweatshirt and I’m pretty sure that’s a bit of Paul’s back with the black t-shirt and picture of a gun. Of course. That was a great Christmas. Great Art courtesy of Katy (possibly) and part of my famous Shannon series.

Had a pretty good weekend. The one melancholy spot was when I had a pretty serious case of wanting my wife back on Saturday afternoon. I felt that hopeless, empty sadness again. It was a very lonesome little while, but as with everything, it eventually ended and life continued. That is happening much less frequently these days and I was quite surprised by it. But it happens and I just have to wait it out when it does.

Otherwise, the weekend was just fine. I have no records or memory of having done anything in particular on Saturday, so let’s just say it was a restful day. Oh, one thing does come to mind – when I went to the HOA board meeting on Wednesday, I took the liberty of ordering a new front license plate bracket for my beloved pickup. Picked it up on Friday and wanted to rivet it in place on the bumper, but my pop rivet gun isn’t big enough for the type of rivets this thing takes. So I went to Ken’s house on Saturday to get it done using his copious supply of tools. Lo and behold, he didn’t have the right rivet gun either. We went on a pilgrimage to Harbor Freight and found a nice cheap heavy-duty rivet gun that was just right. Brought it back to his place, riveted things together, screwed the license plate in place, and everything is just great now license plate-wise.

Sunday was peaceful too. In the afternoon, Mark and I went over to Ken and Melanie’s house for our usual Sunday dinner, which was quite enjoyable, as usual. I could only stay for an hour or so because I had committed to going to another 40+ singles event. This one was at a place called Tommy Rocker’s Southside Grill. It was their last night in business and apparently the group has gotten together there many times in the past. There were a bunch of people there, some of whom I had met before. Others were new to me and it was really nice meeting several more people. They were all really friendly, as before. There was one gal there whose husband died of lung cancer about a month ago. We spent some time talking. She could understand better than pretty much anybody what I’m going through and I think I could understand some of her pain too. It was a useful visit, hopefully for both of us. We plan to meet up again in the future.

And that pretty much describes the last few days. Did a tiny bit of work today, out of the huge mound of work I need to get done. Maybe I’ll get super productive tomorrow. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the plan. Tomorrow.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: cold food-induced French McDonald’s ax attack!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and me posing last November in front of our front door here in Las Vegas. As you can see, her hair was coming back in nicely. As you can also see, her protracted serious illness hadn’t diminished her beauty. What a cute couple! Oh, how I miss being a part of that couple. Great Art courtesy of Shannon’s wonderful Canon EOS Rebel T3 camera, taken in front of our house, and part of my famous Shannon, Las Vegas, and Architecture series.

No post yesterday. I forgot until it was too late. Mark and I hung out in the jacuzzi from about 10:00 until 12:30. By then, I was tired and it was too late to write. So I didn’t. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about that, Loyal Readers.

Another thing I didn’t do: acknowledge the two-month anniversary of Shannon’s death on Wednesday. I did remember it on the day, thought of Shannon, and quietly grieved. But I wasn’t as desperate as a month ago. I strangely feel kind of guilty to be doing as well as I am (functional and relatively happy, although terribly lonely) so soon. But I’m not interested in being any more miserable and I’m also not interested in feeling guilty about recovering. So many mixed emotions.

Mark and I went with our friend Mark to First Friday Las Vegas tonight. We had dinner and a smoothie from a food truck, walked around, listened to the music, and looked at the Great Art. We spent roughly three hours or so and had a very nice time. It was a bit outside of my comfort zone (I’m a notorious crowd and noise hater), but it was fun. I might even do it again. Or maybe not.

No work today, unfortunately. I spent a bunch of time on the phone getting Shannon’s credit cards canceled. I still haven’t been to the Social Security office and I have no idea whether I’m supposed to get her driver’s license and/or passport canceled. Maybe Google knows. Hold on a minute.

Okay, I’m back. It looks like the passport people will cancel her passport if I want them to, but I don’t have to. The driver’s license people are pretty much the same. So we’ll have to see what happens. No promises.

And I need to go to sleep. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: communicating, cooperating chimpanzee!

See you on Monday.

Here are Shannon and Andy sitting by the campfire one evening during our memorable trip to Worlds End State Park in Pennsylvania. Great Art courtesy of my old Minolta camera (with its bad pixels not too obvious in this photo) and part of my famous Shannon and Camping series.

Yet another pretty decent day. I got to speak with several family members today, although I forgot to call Tony back. He called yesterday afternoon while my friend Gary was here and I promised to call him back today. I thought of it in the morning, but he would have been at work, so it seemed better to wait until the afternoon. At which time I forgot. Sorry, Tony! I’ll try again tomorrow.

Not much else to report today. I went to the Homeowners’ Association meeting tonight to meet some folks, thank them for their kindness to my family on behalf of Shannon, and listen to a nice lady from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society speak about the Light the Night walk scheduled at the beginning of November. Really wonderful group of people. They hold the meetings in a conference room at our local Ford dealer, so while I was there, I ordered a license plate mounting bracket for the front of my beloved pickup. The old one was gone before I got the truck, and I’d like to have it. They had to order the part, so I expect to receive and install it on Friday.

My new [amazon asin=B00BGGDVOO&text=Roku 3] arrived today. I got it installed and working in my bedroom and moved the old one to the office, as planned. Much better solutions in both places. Recommended, in spite of the fact that Amazon just introduced [amazon asin=B00CX5P8FC&text=a new competitor] today (or was that yesterday?). It seems like a nice unit with very impressive specs, but one review I read says it’s still quite rough and without much support from third parties. That will change with time, of course, but I can get a Roku that works perfectly today. So I did.

And that’s about it for today. As usual, I’m lonely and broken-hearted, and things are improving for me every day. Small steps, but improvements.

I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: sword-brandishing taco heist!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon and me having our first brunch together as a married couple. Wasn’t she a doll? I look a bit more pensive in this picture. I was probably wondering how I got so lucky. Great Art courtesy of Burns Newby (possibly), taken at the Twin Bridges Marriott in Arlington, Virginia, and part of my famous Shannon, Food, and Event series.

I just discovered via Wikipedia that the Marriott Twin Bridges was built in the year Shannon and I were born and demolished in 1990. It only lasted for 33 years. Sheesh.

Had a pretty good day today. Had another splitting sinus headache last night, so we didn’t exercise today. Got to feeling better mid-morning again. I’m struggling to understand the cause of these headaches. The only possible common thread is that I burned a black cherry candle a couple times recently, including last night. Did I burn it the last time I had a splitting headache? It’s an easy thing to test, but I’m kind of afraid to do it. Any other suggestions for how to perform the test without getting headache?

I did a little bit of work mid-day. Much more to do. Must . . . stay . . . focused!

Speaking of which, my good old friend Gary drove up from Las Vegas and we had a great afternoon/evening together. He took Mark and me out to dinner at Pei Wei, we chatted for quite a long time and caught up with the last 20 year of each other’s lives, and we talked about the programming job he needs done. I expressed interest, showed him a little bit of my work, and we parted with what I believe is the likelihood that he’ll use my services. In any case, we’ll stay in touch better than we have for the past 20 years. What a joy to see such a dear old friend!

I’m going to the homeowners’ association meeting tomorrow night. They’ve invited somebody from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to speak and asked if I would come. I’m so delighted with how the HOA folks have really wanted to honor Shannon’s contributions. She didn’t seek or need that honor during her lifetime, but I think she richly deserved it.

Watched the slideshow I made for Shannon last August again today. It really brings the tears to my eyes, but it feels so good to see all those pictures. I remembered today that I made that slideshow a couple days after we learned Shannon’s leukemia had overcome her stem cell transplant. At that point, we knew our chances had taken a large nosedive. We still had hope, but not like before. As it turned out, we had about six months left. What a wonderful six months they were. I’m so grateful for that.

That’s about all the news for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: fugitive Roman elephant! Note: the elephant is no relation to LRN12.

See you tomorrow.