Let's do this

I am in need of scribbling a bit (metaphorically?), so I am going to reboot a bit of writing/typing here.  I don't know if it will stick.  I make no promises.  But I find myself at a loss for not writing and putting my thoughts in order and I have a new machine with a B key at my desk in the basement, so I'm going to pretend for a moment like it's the dawn of a new era.  I can talk about...

• The weekend.
• My new job (going on month #3).
• Crocheting (a complete failure).
• Reading (more than usual now that I take the bus...see bullet #2).
• Leaving my old job (see bullet #2 and bullet #4).
• Working downtown (see previous mixture of bullets).
• The German foreign exchange student (no previous bullets, unless you sort of tie her to bullet #1).
• Family - see bullet #1 and the previous bullet.
• Selling rental property - see family, see the weekend, see the new job (as in impacting it).

Let's go with the weekend for now because I want to vent a little about how busy it was.  Friday I rolled myself up to my folks' cabin to get them snowbirded.  That involves moving a large pile of stuff from the cabin and bigger-than-the-cabin garage to the fifth wheel.  They've downsized what they haul with them, but it's still everything in the fridge; everything in the freezer; all the perishables (meaning mouse edibles) in the cupboards; and all the sewing equipment.  Plus some general cleaning and cleanup.  The roughest bit this year was getting the water softener under the cabin so my dad can hook it up from down there in the spring.  Seemed like it would be light.  Heavy AF.  And it's about 2.5 feet of clearance down there, so trying to lift and pull while bent in half was tough on my back and knees.  So tough that I thought I was having a real problem today.  Until I put two and two together and noted it felt like diaphragm pain and I'd been belching since 2 p.m.  Combined with a frozen meal I hadn't eaten before at 1:00 p.m., there's a 99% chance my back pain has nothing to do with a water softener and everything to do with an allergic reaction to a frozen meal.  

Saturday, we went to E's bowling tournament and then Pooteewheet and I met up with friends to eat at Chimborazo.  It's a wonderful Ecuadorian restaurant.  Kyle and I had been there before but it was new to the rest of our group.  My wife's Ecuadorian fried rice was particularly tasty.  Afterwards, Kyle, Poot and I went a few hundred feet down the sidewalk to Twin Spirits Distillery.  It was nice to catch a new place.

Are we up to Sunday? Breakfast with the rents at Junior's in the morning.  Coffee at Dunn for traditional daddy/daughter social time (bumped into an ex coworker), dinner at Chipotle (bumped into two of my new coworkers), and then E went to the Colin Mochrie hypnotism event at the Ordway while I served as Uber and dropped her off before heading over to Bad Weather to do more work and have a beer.  

It wasn't even done Monday, because I went to Day by Day in St. Paul to have breakfast with an ex-coworker before a late start to work.  And - across all of that - we have a German exchange student for a few weeks.  She was off to camp for the weekend, but we've been getting her out to dinner and to camp dropoff and pickup and trying to be as social as possible.

That's way more socializing than I'm used to in general.  It's putting a crimp in my energy level.

That was more of a list than writing.  But that's to be expected after being finger-mute for such a long time.  We'll see how it goes as I ramp up a bit.