Body clock

Jayne celebrated her birthday yesterday. Thank you all who sent birthday wishes and cards!

Jayne and I had a morning break at the coffee shop and did get some time to get out to dinner at The Olive Garden in the evening. Of course, we were back in time for "Total Drama Island." Go Gwen and Owen!

This weekend is the time change -- fall back. The event reminded my old body that it's, well, old.

For more than a decade, I was in a rest rhythm of working until 1 a.m. or so, going to bed by about 3 a.m., getting up with the kids for school then sneaking a nap in later in the morning. Not ideal, but I was in a pattern my body adapted to.

Then, in March, I switched to a day schedule, starting about 8 a.m. (or 8:30 a.m. if I took the kids to school), finishing my day about 6:30 p.m. and getting to bed by 10 p.m.

Now, my hours have been changed again so I'm back to going to bed later (getting out of work after 8 p.m.) and eating later (dinner at about 9 p.m. or later again!). Bed times are creeping back past midnight. I'm still up with the kids in the morning.

What's a body to do?

I wish I was a "Millenial," those young folk in the workforce whose bodies just can't start before 10 a.m. Poor kids. I don't know how they survive. I mean, up all night video-gaming or bar hopping and being too tired to get to work at 8 a.m.

I guess I am old because back in the day (as we old folks say), you just went to bed earlier and got up earlier, but that's horse-and-buggy thinking.

Yep. I'm old. Soon I'll have late dinners at 4 p.m.

More coffee talk

Writing the last blog about coffee got me thinking about the entry I was planning on coffee-drinking habits. When I was formulating this a long while back, I took the above photo of my basic coffee-making tools.

Well, I've dropped my original ideas because I found the picture telling of my recent state of affairs.

First, I don't drink "creative" coffee. No double lattes with a sprinkle of fairy dust and an extra whisp of dreams for me. Coffee. Straight. Black as the heart beating in my chest. Nothing in it. I always figured that, if you don't like the taste of the coffee, why drink it at all? Kind of boring.

Second, no fancy coffee maker. Just the standard model. It is minimum input, maximum output, a model of simplicity that just needs to be cleaned every couple of months with vinegar. It's the uncarved block theory with a buzz. Actually, it's just boring. And cheap.

Third, a coffee grinder. I am a bit of a snob and like the taste of freshly ground beans. Note it's kind of old (about 14 or 15 years) and works by hand. No batteries. No electricity. It just keeps plugging along. Another uncarved block, but this one from Germany.

Fourth, look at the mugs. A mug from my parents from the city of Buffalo (old city, kind of blah); a mug from my wife with The Beatles on it (old music, kind of blah, blah, blah); and mug from a good friend with Charles Dickens on it (old guy, the best of blah, the worst of blah). Nothing hip. Nothing young. Nothing the modern world seems to want.

It all makes sense now.

Next, I'll show you my sock drawer.

'Tis the season

Above is a shot of the girls in their Halloween costumes. Elspeth is the ninja; Alyssa is the witch. I'm glad they picked cheap and easy costumes.

I had coffee Saturday with my former boss. He offered out of the blue to meet, so we got together at Respite in the morning. I was interested in what he was doing now that he left newspapers (he's working in communications in a huge health care group) and I think he was interested in how the newspaper was going. If you had asked me a year ago if this meeting would have happened, I would have said it was an impossibility, but people change and since he no longer held the power of employment life or death over me, it was easier to just talk.

A long-time co-worker of mine was amazed I was meeting my former boss. This co-worker said people use him as a reference and never hear from them again. Me? I get e-mails and phone calls out of the blue from former co-workers. Another person jokingly called me the paper's "ambassador." (I need something to hold onto these days)

Back to the coffee Saturday: What I liked besides the fact me and my former boss could just talk was that I saw a parade of friends and acquaintances come through to get coffee. I could say hello, talk about some casual things and joke about school or the weather. So, it reaffirmed to me as I sat talking to someone from my past that, at least in the small sphere I was in, I had worth, value beyond work.

A last note on this long coffee talk: As I sat there with my former boss, someone walked up to me and spoke my name loudly, smiled, shook my hand and asked how I was doing, saying she hadn't seen me in years. So true! It has been probably five or six years since I last saw her. She had left the newspaper and started her own business. Wow! Small world and good timing.

The other side

As you could guess, I'm feeling more down, more depressed and more useless at work.

My schedule has been changed. I will start at 11 a.m. and end at about 8 p.m. (or so). I will be spending most of my time proofing stories and pages. I'm back to where I started 17 years ago. A "Circle of Life" kind of thing.

This also means Jayne and I cannot car pool anymore (so much for saving money), I cannot bike ride from work (so much for saving more money), I won't be able to have dinner with my family (so much for nutrition) or help the girls with their homework (so much for being a good dad).

I told Jayne that I expect to be out of a job soon. I gave a guess I will be removed by Nov. 1 or by Jan. 1. If I'm not laid off or fired, I expect a decrease in pay to go along with my decrease in responsibility. It seems that, like the world, I will not go out with a bang but with a whimper.

I did have a nice visit this week at work. Jayne stopped in (though I was in a meeting) and left me a nice card, flowers and chocolate to cheer me up. It did help and I greatly appreciated her concern and love.

Holiday spirit

Lastly, not to depress all of us all the time, but I've been working on some homemade holiday cards. Not Halloween but Diwali, a celebration of new beginnings, of light's triumph over darkness. Jayne is helping me and we'll pass the card on to one of her coworkers who is from India.

It is the season of change!

Some loose ends

We had to put our cat Melvis down last Saturday, Oct. 11. He was about 18 years old and his health had gone down hill pretty fast -- bumps on his head that were expanding almost daily, he lost weight, lost control of his ability to use the litter box and was having siezures. He had been blind for years.

He was a good kitty. He loved being held and purred like a lawn mower. He was great with kids. He let them pick him up and drag him all over the house. He even put up with our spawn-of-the-devil little dog Mischa.

We now have no cats in the house -- the first time in 20 years. It's symbolic a bit in the changes Jayne and I have gone through over those decades. It also shows how old we and our family are getting, and how fragile our social network is.

Out of state

Our friend and a teacher for our girls is leaving the state, like so many others. Cheri Pedric is heading south. She has been a friend and art teacher since the girls were in kindergarten. We will miss her.

She has taught them how to express themselves in drawing, writing and other ways. The girls have really blossomed with her help -- Elspeth has a great creative drawing and writing ability, and Alyasa is really coming into her own with sketching and imagining fantastic stories. Alyssa also received a districtwide Art-A-Loan award last year.

The job of creativity

The last loss for me is less tangible. I was recently assessed by an important person as not being creative. I was told I have a store of institutional knowledge, am detail-oriented in the sense of punctuation and spelling, but otherwise pretty much a dud. I'm also a poor example to people around me and lead by dictate and not example.

I once had the hubris to believe I was creative at most, or at least different in the most mundane sense. High school and college seemed to reaffirm my thought imprints were at least out of the mainstream -- perhaps they were, but, it seems, things change.

I know I am not hip (never was!), but I thought people could still be creative and not be part of the trends (in fact, I once believed individuality definded creativity!); I am not 20-something, the most desireable of demographics; I don't club hop; I don't read the latest literature and no one reads my prose and poetry; I don't attend a hip church; I have never asked a coworker or subordinate to do something I can't or won't do.

It seems that, besides being full of self-pity, I am behind the times and as creative as a box of hammers.

Thoughts: I am at a loss.

Walkin' the line

Today was the first "Walk and Roll to School Day" for Saugatuck. The kids were dropped off at the Saugatuck Christian Reformed Church at Allegan Street and Blue Star Highway at about 7:45 a.m. and walked to their schools.

Elspeth was going to ride her bike but changed her mind when a friend said she was going to walk, not ride. Good thing. Elspeth's backpack weighs like 500 pounds and she had to tote her trumpet for band class. She's pictured above not wanting anything to do with me and everything to do with her friends.

Alyssa walked -- I went along for fun. She's pictured above holding the hand of her friend Kirsten. We were the last of about 300 people to make it to the school. Man, we were slow. Alyssa (on the right in the blue coat in the picture) moves at her own speed.

Then, we adults had to walk back to where we left our vehicles.

It was chilly out -- we're under freeze warnings -- but when the sun hit, we got warmed up fast.

Other bits

We're all waiting for the next character on "Total Drama Island" to be voted off. We watched the new episode Thursday night -- to heck with the debates. We're all pulling for Gwen and Owen.

My vacation is wrapping up. Not one for the ages, let's say. I did manage to clear up a plugged hose in the washer without having to call a $100-an-hour plumber and repair a door to our upstairs porch (the roofer forgot to reattach it so Elspeth asked me the other day why it was sprawled out on the roof. No wonder there was a heck of a draft upstairs!). No bike riding, which sucks.