More Rain

A petite rain storm is passing through Western Washington this Labor Day weekend.  Bellingham got no rain today.  Hoquiam got 1.25”.  Seattle got .3 inches.  With a couple of rainy days in August, it was not close to the 30-40 days of no rain that we often get.  Even so, we had a all-time record largest forest fire in Washington State this summer.

Many of us Seattlites are a bit schizophrenic about the rain.  We don’t really like the rain, but we do enjoy the beauty of Evergreen State and having a copious supplies of clean mineral-free potable water.

I am grateful for the summer rains that cool us off, protect us from droughts and make it beautiful.

The Wandering Goose

Picked up Greg at the airport this morning.  His flight got in a few minutes early.  Fortunately TM was 30 minutes early to meet me and I was 15 minutes early.    TM had recently moved to West Seattle but traffic was light on my way into Seattle and over to West Seattle.  Greg did not have to wait long.

They are both foodies.  I like eating but lack an acute sense of taste or smell.  We went to the Wandering Goose in NE Capital Hill.  They serve breakfast and lunch with a flair for comfort food of the south.  It was really good.  TWG has a fried chicken Friday that I would like to try some afternoon.

It was good to see Greg doing well.  He will have 10 months next week.  This was the first time in years that he moved out a long-term hotel stay while working out of town without a relapse.  When he goes back to work next week, he will likely move into an Oxford-type sober house.  I certainly encourage him to do that.  Working mass hours out of a hotel room is high-risk for addicts, especially those of us with a history of relapse.

I am grateful to be sober to be able get Greg at the airport and that he is doing well.  It sure beats the alternatives.

The Evergreen State Fair

Lea joined me for a trip to the ESF in Monroe today.   The cool overcast morning warmed up by the early afternoon to a perfect day for a trip to the fair.  We looked at animals, crafts, vendors, canning, gardening  and people interspersed with some fair food then got some trinkets and had a nice time at an not-crowded fair.  We split a king-size corn dog  that was surprisingly good earning the title of “best corn dog ever”.  It was a good day.  One the way home, we stopped at the Maltby Café to get one of their legendary cinnamon rolls.  An empty oil train rolled through Monroe by at a good clip presumably headed back to get more shale oil from North Dakota.

The oil train reminded me that gas prices on the west coast are 50¢/gallon more than the rest of the country.  5 of 12 refineries in California reduced production for maintenance while the 3^rd largest refinery on the west coast In Blaine was not restarted as scheduled last week for undisclosed problems.  Looking forward to a decreased dependence on fossil fuels in an age of climate change.  The oil trains have also displaced grain shipments for farmers and the Amtrak Empire Builder train to Chicago has been delayed as much as 36 hours by oil trains.

If oil companies simply build refineries at the source near the Alberta tar sands, we would not have this gas-gouging issue due to lack of production capacity.  Nobody sees that being built.

I am grateful for farmers and all their food grown in Washington State, nice displays and a good time watching others.  It is good to have all the gas I want for my car.  It was good that there were only two days of record high temperatures in Seattle this summer.

Costco Return Policy

I bought a Delonghi portable AC unit from Costco last month.  It worked well enough when new.  Only a month later and not so good now.   It is 70° outside and the AC has been running on High for the last 2 hours and my bedroom is only slightly cooler than the rest of the apartment, much less being close to downright chilly.

A big part of the reason that I shop at Costco and try to buy my electronics there is for their return policy.  All I have to do is get the purchase back to any Costco return desk and show my membership badge to get my money back for 90 days if I don’t like it and for a year it is defective.

I am grateful for Costco’s easy return policy especially when compared with most other box stores.  It took 90 minutes to buy a cell phone at Best Buy two years ago—I can’t imagine trying to take that back—OMG!

More Resilience

Since I was my early teens, I know that I was either programmed to fail or had a fear of success.  That question was resolved in my 40s due to AA explaining that nearly of our self-destructive thoughts, feelings and actions were triggered by fear.  Most simply, it was either not getting what we wanted or losing something we already had. 

The old tapes in my head convinced me that “things never work out for me”.  Naturally with that fundamental belief things never did work out for me.  I always self-destructed and/or would not try my best to do well and finish what I was working on.  I never did my best and never got my best results.

I have great awareness of this shortcoming and many tools for how to overcome my fears.  A great cliché for this is procrastination is paralyzed by fear in five syllables.  I have been balking on doing simple projects with the consequent result of a great rise in negative self-talk with thoughts of using and suicide.   I know the solution for this is to simply do the projects around my apartment such as organize my smithing toys/tools, put a new motherboard in my HTPC and get it working, and get some exercise.  Knowing the solution is not the same as being in the solution.

One of the most annoying components of my addiction is that I know what do.  I get stuck in that chasm between wisdom and virtue.  Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do.  Virtue is doing the right thing.  It is stupid and sucks to keep doing the same thing expecting different results.  I was able to take some action today in putting a few things away and moving my PC to the workbench.  Spiritual progress not spiritual perfection.

I am grateful for the wisdom and smattering of virtue I do possess and for the resilience to keep on trying to get it right.

A New Plan

I need a new plan of attack for how I go about writing these Gratitude blog posts.  It would be best to write about my relationships with people.  After 900+ posts, I have pretty much covered the two handfuls of people consistently in my life.

I know writing this Gratitude blog has rewired the neurons in my brain for the better making me less depressed, more resilient and happier.  It occurs to me to write about science factoids that I like which is a genre that I have often already done.  That would lead to positive thoughts and ideas about at the end of each day.

Part the purpose of my blogging is to express myself.  Cutting-n-pasting web articles would be the antithesis of that.  We will see.

I am grateful for my consistency in writing these Gratitude blog posts.  This is the most writing I have done in my life by far and away.

12-step Meetings

Since May 1999, I have regularly gone to 12-step meetings.  Early on, it was twice a day.  While working it was two or three times a week.  I have gone nearly every day for the last 18 months least averaged a speck more than a meeting day.

Alcoholism is a disease of isolation.  Having a profound disability is also a socially limiting factor.  Going to a meeting is frequently my only social activity for a given day.  Staying home and isolating is a sure route to insanity and relapse.

I am grateful for the hundreds and hundreds of regional 12-step meetings and for the 100+ meetings here in Bellevue each week.

Online Education

I dreamed of online education since the early days of Compuserve in the 1980s, then migrating my dreams onto Archie and Gopher on the internet in the 1990s.  It wasn’t until the advent of Google in the early 2000s that online searching really worked for me in a functional immediate answers sort of way.  My first daily use of Google was while working in a call center doing MS Windows support. 

I have at least 50,000 lookups on Google over the last 15 years.  Seeking one answer can easily get up to 5 or 10 searches for some obscure tech support question. 

Intense dislike of the card catalog system in the library has morphed into a shallow wide thirst for knowledge.  Part of the reason I have a 3G and not 4G phone is so I am not stuck on Google everywhere I go instead of participating in f2f conversations.

My sister sent me a TED talk on vulnerability today.  Khan academy is a premier website for educational videos.  Next month I will take a free online class on happiness via a MOOC from UC Berkeley.  Product reviews on Amazon are a vital part of my learning curve for buying new products.

As a Pan Am pilot, my father traveled the world for a living.  As a homebody in Bellevue, I have access to orders of magnitude more information about the world, biology, medicine, history, and all other informational topics for the price of an internet connection.  Obviously reading about a place is not the same as flying to, over, staying at and flying away from a place.  For many places in the world, it is better to read about them than visit.  Much of Asia and Africa fall in that category.  All of Antarctica does!

I am grateful for the miracle of online education on the web in all its many forms and for those yet to come.

A Double-Header

Missed out on my Gratitude blog writing last night.  Posted earlier today (in that haven’t yet gone to sleep for the night sort of day since it is after midnight).  Writing again is what lead to this post’s title.

With the Mariners as the local MLB franchise, there is no reason for me to be a baseball fan.  Reading local news headlines I see that they are having, for the Mariners, a good year being almost in playoff contention.  The most I am likely to think about baseball is if for some reason I were to drive to Seattle in rush hour traffic and it is worse than its already usual sucky commute in the summertime, I might blame the Mariners.  So much for my sports metaphor headline.

After major chaos due to a front room reorganization for my new soldering jewelry hobby, it has taken some time to get it as I want it.  Tonight it is a bit closer to being as I imagined with a night stand for a printer stand and the old Ikea printer stand becoming a plant stand in the SW corner thanks to help from Lea.

I am grateful for the progress I have made today, being of service to others and help from friends.

A Birthday Celebration

A couple comes to our morning meeting with their young married daughter.  The couple had 21 and 26 years of sobriety this month.  We celebrated with his-n-hers chocolate birthday cakes and by passing a large birthday card around the room.  It was very sweet and a testament to the power of 12-step recovery. 

We are people that normally would not mix per Chapter 2  THERE IS A SOLUTION

We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, know thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill. Nearly all have recovered. They have solved the drink problem.

We are average Americans. All sections of this country and many of its occupations are represented, as well as many political, economic, social, and religious backgrounds. We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain's table. Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined.

The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree, and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism.

An illness of this sort - and we have come to believe it an illness - involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can. If a person has cancer all are sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worth while in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferer's. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents - anyone can increase the list.

We hope this volume will inform and comfort those who are, or who may be affected. There are many.

Highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with us have found it sometimes impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss his situation without reserve. Strangely enough, wives, parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and the doctor.

But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished.

Alcoholics can be described many ways, most of them varying degrees pejorative.  It is not a condition that any rational person would willing aspire too.  In a way, I am grateful to be an alcoholic.  It explains my behavior that is otherwise insane and has a highly functional treatment (not cure).

I am grateful for my sobriety, the relationships in my life today, celebrating the successes of others, being of service to others and for a neatly vacuumed apartment thanks to Lea.

More Positivity

Got to the top 10 list in Positivity today.  Here is a cut-n-paste from the HuffPo on positivity.

Dr. Fredrickson's came up with a top 10 list of positive emotions, in order of most frequent to least. Allow yourself an opportunity to scroll through the list and ask yourself, "When did I last fully experience this emotion?" The answers may surprise you.

Joy

Joy happens in an instant -- a perfect moment captured when all is just exactly as it should be. Think of a wonderful holiday morning with the family, an unexpected present that delights you, or seeing the first smile on your infant's face. What brings you Joy?

Gratitude

Gratitude is a moment of realizing someone has gone out of their way for you, or simply feeling overwhelmed with your heart opening, after being moved in some way. With gratitude comes a desire to give in return or 'pay it forward' in some way. When did you last experienced deep Gratitude?

Serenity

Serenity is like a mellow, relaxed, or sustained version of Joy. Serenity is a peacefulness that comes on a cloudless day, when you realize there's nothing you have to do. Serenity is indulging in a favorite luxury, and being mindful enough to take it in. Serenity is the moment on vacation when you finally let go. Has Serenity crossed your door lately?

Interest

Interest is a heightened state that calls your attention to something new that inspires fascination, and curiosity. Like a shiny new toy to capture your imagination, interest is alive and invigorating. Interest wakes you up, and leaves you wanting more. What Interests you these days?

Hope

Dr. Fredrickson describes it best: "Unlike other emotions that arise out of comfort and safety, hope springs out of dire circumstances, as a beacon of light. Deep within the core of hope is the belief that things can change, turn out better. Possibilities exist. Hope sustains you and motivates you to turn things around." The inauguration of President Obama brought me Hope. What brings you Hope?

Pride

Ever done something really well that took a little time and effort? Maybe you reached a goal you never thought was attainable? Then pat yourself on the back with unadulterated Pride. Stand back, take that deep breath and let it in -- you earned it. What have you done that made your proud?

Amusement

Think of amusement as those delightful surprises that make you laugh. It's those unexpected moments that interrupt your focus and crack you up. It's a great feeling to have amusement sparkle out of the doldrums and instantly change your perspective. Have you had any amusement in your life recently?

Inspiration

Inspiration is a moment that touches your heart and nearly takes your breath away -- or takes in your breath, as the word literally translates. Inspiration whispers between the strands of your hair, as you watch a perfect sunset, witness academic or athletic excellence, or observe unexpected triumphs over adversity. What brings Inspiration in your life?

Awe

Awe happens when you come across goodness on a grand scale, and you feel overwhelmed by greatness. Awe is triggered when we are faced with the vastness of Nature, or the cosmos. Gazing at the Milky Way and counting the stars, or standing at the top of the Grand Canyon triggers awe. Have you had a moment of awe lately?

Love

Guess what? The list is rigged. Actually, the #1 most frequent positive emotion is here at the bottom. Love encompasses all of the above: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration and even awe. Love is all that and more. When we experience love, our bodies are flooded with the "feel good" hormones that reduce stress and even lengthen our lives.

I am grateful for the joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love in my life today.  It is comforting to know what matters in making a good life.

Back Pain

I have medium/mild usually steady chronic pain in my right hip whenever I am sitting in my wheelchair.  It usually goes away after I lie down for a few minutes. 

Sometimes I will get a back in my lower back at the intersection of my hip and my spinal column.  I think it is due to a weak muscle due to lack of nerve power that occasionally gets a bit stretched.  That pain kept me awake most of the night last night and I did not feel good this morning.    I took the day off and slacked off between reading, napping, watching a movie and metalsmithing.  The pain in my back is mostly better now.

After 33 years with a spinal cord injury, most people have torn up their shoulders.  I have been extremely blessed for that to have not happened yet.

I am grateful that I have not had serious upper body joint problems.  That is the difference between living independently in my apartment and having to either get an attendant or live in a nursing facility.  I dread becoming on another person to be able to get up and around.  Thank you god, exercise, luck and good genes.

A Plug For Positivity

I am reading Barbara Fredrickson’s Positivity while writing an shameless easy plug as my Gratitude blog post for today.  Here are a few quotes from noted experts in the field of positive psychology.

Praise for Positivity

"The first time I heard Barb Fredrickson speak, the famous psychologist sitting next to me said, "That's the real thing!" This book, like Barb, is the "Real Thing:" It's the perfect blend of sound science and wise advice on how to become happier. Barbara Fredrickson is the genius of the positive psychology movement." —Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., author of Authentic Happiness

"Positivity is positively wonderful! Barbara Fredrickson offers sure-fire methods for transforming our lives from so-so to joyous. Highly recommended." —Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

"Positivity is literally the feel good book of the year, providing a scientifically sound prescription for joy, health, and creativity. Read one to two chapters daily as needed or until grumpiness subsides." —Daniel Gilbert, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Harvard University, Author of Stumbling on Happiness

"Written by one of the most influential contributors to this new perspective in science, Positivity provides a wonderful synthesis of what positive psychology has accomplished in the first decade of its existence. It is full of deep insights about human behavior, as well as useful suggestions for how to apply them in everyday life. What is more, the book keeps you in suspense describing the often convoluted process by which discoveries in science are made. In basic research, the journey is often as important as reaching the destination; and Professor Fredrickson is a wonderfully clear and helpful guide along the journey." —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D., Author of Flow

"Here at last, from an eminent research psychologist, is the science that supports and informs the power of positive thinking. And what a pleasure to read such lucid and vividly illustrated prose."—David G. Myers, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Hope College, and author of The Pursuit ofHappiness

I am grateful for library books, the stunning practical results of research on positive psychology and for being much less depressed than how I used to be.

Working on Consistency

I felt like I had been stuck on short—as in not long—Gratitude blog posts for weeks now.  Going back over the posts for the last 10 days I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were mostly three paragraphs or better.  Most important was writing and posting every day. 

A classic alcoholic behavior is do some grandiose act and quit much like joining a gym for the New Year working out hard for three hours and never going back for the rest of the year.  New behavior is doing a little bit every day and working to improve from there.

The every weekday morning meeting I attend has a topic de jour from AA’s Daily Reflections which is a short page thought for each day of the year.  It tends to work on the step of the month number so that August is focused on the 8^th step—especially so for the first few weeks of the month.  So we have been discussing making a list of persons we had harmed and becoming willing to make amends to them all.

In my mind, most of my harms to others have been of the being a jerk variety as opposed to theft, abuse or violence.  I think of them as too small to make amends for and yet they can popup in my thoughts and bug me.  The solution to that problem is to make amends.  I will work on that.

I am wonderfully grateful to be sober and consistently posting on my Gratitude blog.  Both acts are both god given miracles that I could not do on own.

No Drama

It has been a quiet week with no major crises going in directly in my life.  Today I got to chair a meeting on the topic of my choice.  I lead with meditation starting with how lack of power was our delimma segueing into prayer and meditation being the method of choice for getting power and taking charge of our lives.

I am grateful for how much meditation has improved my life and greatly reduced the amount of drama that I have to deal with—whether real or imagined in my magic magnifying mind.

Payday

Today is payday.  I get a workmen’s compensation pension for having been paralyzed while working as a logger 33 years ago.

There are essentially 3 payment schemes after getting paralyzed: 1) getting a big fat lump sum settlement; 2) pension from work or settlement; 3) nothing but SSI (at best).  Getting a pension worked well for me especially in light of my serious addiction issues. 

My workmen’s comp is run by the State of Washington.  There is security over being funded by a for-profit corporation.  There is no doubt in my mind that insurers have looked into ways of bundling these pensions in something similar to sub-prime loans that go belly-up.  The State of Washington is a reasonable financially sound institution compared to, say, the city of Detroit.

The medical insurance with my pension is 100% — for what is covered.  I tried to get acupuncture for back pain from an MD today.  That is not covered.  It is still vastly better than Medicare.

Many people I know are really struggling financially.  There are at mercy of the 21^st century version of a debtor’s prison.  Landlords in Arkansas can have tenants late on rent jailed.

I am grateful for my pension and for the financial security of my pension funding.  Money is really close to freedom for me.  If I can afford a legal activity and want to do it, I am free to do so.

Playing With Silver

After a front room reorganization and cleanup, I am finally back to project 2 from a jewelry metalsmithing book.  Hammering a disk out of a ball of melted silver took off like a rocket—several times as the bb-sized pieces went flying.  I stepped around that task by making disks using a circular punch on silver sheet metal.   That was quick and easy.

The lesson there is that there are many ways to do these projects.  I need to do things in a way that works for me.

The prison meeting was intense and excellent tonight.  The topic was steps 8 & 9 on making amends to others.   I am making many indirect amends by helping others around me when I can’t fix something that happened 30 or 40 years ago.  Being of service to others gets me out of my head with my own best thinking that has invariably lead to big trouble over the years.

I am grateful to be happy today, for being of service to others and for good friends such as Leslee and Lisa who go to prison with me every month.

More Later

I was trying to think of my favorite Emerson quote this morning even surfing the web for it.  No joy.  Wanted to write something short and it finally came to me at the end of the day.  A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

I am grateful for what memory I do have.

A Good Tuesday

Today was a good day with the usual Tuesday activities of clinic, meeting, meeting at Crossroads Mall, browse the farmers market, home for lunch, nap and an evening swim.  Gave Andrew a ride from the bus-stop to Crossroads on my way to the pool. 

Had a hard time with the lift at the pool.  The batteries are old and I seriously overweight.  They will be installing new lifts on the month-long break starting next Monday.  Hopefully the new lifts will have more power.

While thinking about topics to write about, it occurred to me that I am grateful for being a white man in America and not a black man.  Another black kid was shot in the back while walking down the street by the police in Missouri.  Cop says victim shoved him when trying to get out his squad car.  Witnesses don’t corroborate that story.  Evidence proves kid was shot in the back some distance away from the cop car.   White guys do open carry.  Black guys get shot holding a toy gun in the toy department at Walmart.

RIP Robin Williams.  Depression can be a fatal condition.

I am grateful for good days, overcoming depression and for not being the victim of homicidal racism.

The Last Hottest Day Of The Year

It was 94° in Seattle today.  We ran an errand to Seattle this morning and had several dim sum at the House of Hong in Chinatown on our way home.  The food was good.  It was a beautiful day for me and too hot for Lea.  After that it was a pretty quiet day reading in the air conditioned bedroom.

I had a heat stroke 30 years ago while driving to Seattle in northern California.  Clearly there was a problem beyond my feeling terrible.  I had stopped sweating in 100°+ heat.  Margaret was driving.  I remember pouring water on my head from a gallon jug.   That was a miserable experience that I fortunately don’t remember all that well.

It will likely not get much beyond 80° for the next or even nine months for that matter.  It has been a pleasant summer with a bit of gardening on my deck, a great wedding and lots of meetings.

I am grateful for our temperate climate, good friends, great TV reruns such as Game of Thrones, and warm sunny days.

A Sunday Trip To Prison

We go out to the prison in Monroe one Thursday per month.  Today we went out on a Sunday for the prison equivalent of a summer social meeting.

It was a beautiful drive out to Monroe on a gorgeous day in August.  The meeting lasted almost two hours.  The topic was “what people did to stay sober”.  Helping others and having fun were the two key answers.  Prison is not Disneyland, but the right mindset sure can make it better or worse. 

I am grateful to be of service to others, sober and not in prison.

A Beautiful Wedding

My good friend of eight years got married today at the church where she works four days a week.  It was a beautiful well organized affair done in a unique way.  Round tables were set up in the chapel with for close to 100 friends and family members.

Guests arrived and socialized eventually finding a place to sit at a table.  A buffet table to fruit and snacks was opened.  People ate and chatted for an hour.  Sandy and Victor greeted and hugged nearly everybody if not all in attendance.  Sandy was beautiful in a full sleeveless wedding dress with her hair done to a beautiful perfection.  She was a blonde radiant Elven queen.  The ceremony started with a Beatle song snippet about “home”.  Much sharing of love ensued.  They really know and love each other.  It was a mature love with their adult children watching mom and dad get married.

Sandy had encouraged me to do many things.  Two that were more clear than most were to get some sponsees and to call Art.  As it happened, Art sat next to me at the service.  Before we left, I got his phone number and talked about calling him.  By request, there were few gifts shared since they live in an apartment that is already chock full of their stuff.  While giving Sandy a hug goodbye, I told her my wedding gift to her was that I would take her “suggestion” to heart and call Art.  She was clearly touched.  We shared some more hugs.  I love Sandy very much.

I don’t go to many weddings.  This was the closest friend I ever had get married.  It was wonderful to enjoy their day as we all shared our love with each other.

I am grateful for my close friendship of eight years with Sandy.  I am very happy for her and Victor and hope that they have a long wonderful loving life together.  Blessed be and Amen!

Taking Action

Went to my GP MD, had lunch with Dan and went swimming today.  That feels a lot better than being overwhelmed by balking and procrastination on getting exercise.  The pool closes for a month on the 18^th.  I will swim more between now and then.

Dan looked good.  He had a rough few months after his doctor changed his medications.

I am grateful to have taken action today to improve my mental, physical and emotional health.  It is also good that Dan was able to meet me for lunch.

Balking And Procrastination

For the last several weeks, I have been balking and procrastinating on doing things that are good for me including swimming and completing my hobby space in the front room.  I am setting myself to be unhappy, a victim and blame others for my condition.  I am responsible for my actions leading to my feeling better.  It is part of my insanity to not do what I need to do to feel good and then wonder what happened.  I am less insane than how I used to be.

I am grateful for the insight and maturity to recognize that I am responsible for what I do and feel.  That is a lot better than how it used to be when I would set myself up to be a victim.

Clear Away The Wreckage Of Your Past

Lea cleared up some wreckage today.  She had a warrant for driving with a suspended license.  I drove her to the Everett muni cour t this morning.  She plead guilty, got a fine and a 90-day suspended sentence with 2 years probation.  No more warrant.

We then drove out to Granite Falls to see her son.  He was staying with her ex-husband and daughter that have yet to talk with Lea.  We went out to an early lunch and chatted.  Taking her son back home, Lea had hoped to say “hi” to her daughter.  Her daughter works a swing shift and was not available due to sleeping or to not having any part of talking with Lea.

That was some crazy wreckage.  Lea’s addiction got the best of her and she just walked out of the house on her hubby, the kids and her career for a life in the black-market mix of heroin addiction.  Most of us blow up our relationships so we can blame it on others for “not understanding”.  Lea just left.

It was sad to see a home without a wife, kids grown up without a mom, and a mom missing out on watching her kids grow up and not being part of the family.  I have seen many messed-up families and relationships due to addiction.  This one was expressively painful for the way her addiction had surgical removed her from her family leaving a permanent mark that will never go away.  As long as Lea stays sober, more healing will progress.  She has seen her son three times in the last two months.  That is a lot of progress.

Addiction tears tragic holes in the fabric of our lives.  Sobriety and recovery stop the damage and mitigate these wounds.  It takes miracles of healing to get past the guilt, shame and pain.

I am grateful that Lea is working her way through cleaning up the wreckage of her past.  Having an arrest warrant voided is huge progress.  Seeing her son is a good start on that family afterwards.  Her work and progress solidify the foundation of our relationship.

Listening Deeply

How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we shall act. 12x12, p. 37

If I accept and act upon the advice of those who have made the program work for themselves, I have a chance to outgrow the limits of the past. Some problems will shrink to nothingness, while others may require patient, well-thought-out action. Listening deeply when others share can develop intuition in handling problems which arise unexpectedly. It is usually best for me to avoid impetuous action. Attending a meeting or calling a fellow A.A. member will usually reduce tension enough to bring relief to a desperate sufferer like me. Sharing problems at meetings with other alcoholics to whom I relate, or privately with my sponsor, can change aspects of the positions in which I find myself. Character defects are identified and I begin to see how they work against me. When I put my faith in the spiritual power of the program, when I trust others to teach me what I need to do to have a better life, I find that I can trust myself to do what is necessary. Daily Reflections

Most of my life, I was terminally unique and listened for the differences.  No wonder I was a alcoholic loner with a small social network.  Today I listen for the commonality and strive to learn from the experience of others.

I am grateful that I am not nearly as terminally unique as I used to be and for the commonality that I can now hear when listening to others.  I am also grateful to have five months sober today.

Still Baffled By Dead HTPC

Got my car fixed today.   I was concerned about possibly having to replace the expensive new catalytic converter after curb bumping yesterday.  My mechanic solved the problem with an hour’s worth of exhaust pipe bending and a new horseshoe clip.  Yay!  Had it towed to the shop and got a ride from Leslee tonight to pick it up.  Easy peazy.

Now I am back to working my no-video home theater PC (HTPC).  Playing swap with the memory sticks did not solve the problem.  I have already tried changing the CPU, motherboard and power supply.  I am baffled.   The next try will be different memory sticks.  The PC powers up with no video nor POST beeps.  There is no UEFI/BIOS screen either.  hmmm…   More will be revealed.

On the bright side, what did work today was the portable AC unit in my bedroom.  That was the best thing to have working today.

I missed having lunch with Sandy today.  She is five days away from getting married.  It would have be wonderful fun to hear about her frenzied pace to finish her wedding planning marathon.  It will be great to watch on Saturday.  I am sure it will go extremely well.

I am grateful for AC, sunny days, a working car, a great mechanic/auto shop, good friends and two working PCs.  (That reminds me that my old 2-core primary PC is still working but I have not used it in two years.)  I will get the two nice PC cases I have again working this summer.

Breakfast At Alki And A Car Ouchy

Picked up Danica in White Center and went to Alki for a late breakfast on Seafair Sunday.  It was a beautiful day with a 2x2 mostly kids volleyball tournament in the sand.  We stopped at Home Depot in West Seattle on the way back to get a fan for Danica.  She lives upstairs in her new place and it gets hot.  They were sold out of fans.   We found a nice 16” oscillating fan that was a likely return that had not been put back on the shelf.

Once back in the car, I tried to drive forward out of the parking lot and drove over a concrete curb stop.  I was going to keep going forward.  Alas, there was two curb stops and so I backed up.  The transmission linkage was disconnected when I went to put the car in Drive and we were stuck in neutral.  The parking lot ran downhill away from the store so I let the car roll backwards into a parking spot.  The problem was not readily fixed by me or Lea so I called my mobile mechanic friend Dave.  He drove right over from Bellevue, but had to take the long way around due to the i90 bridge being closed for the Blue Angels show.

It turned out that I had bent the exhaust and my expensive new catalytic converter into the tranny linkage assembly.  Dave was able to wire it up with baling wire so I could drive home.  We dropped the fan off with Danica and went home 90 minutes later than planned.

I was slightly hot in the parking lot while waiting for Dave.  Lea cooks when it gets over 65°.  I could not start the car due to not being able to put the car in Park.  She was miserable in the heat.  We did cover the windshield with a blanket.  That helped.

It was good to see Danica and Jayse.   They are both doing really well and like their new place.   Danica is a naturally happy person and a joy to be around.  She asked Lea to be Jayse’s godmother.  It was really sweet.  I was happy for both of them.  Lea has made fantastic progress from incomprehensible demoralization to being asked to be potentially responsible for the most important thing in Danica’s life—her new baby Jayse.

I am grateful for a near perfect morning in the sunshine on Alki, for our rescue by my friend Dave and car problems where nobody got hurt and it can fixed in a day or two at Ali’s shop in Bellevue.  AC at home is also really nice!

Glad It Is Not Me

Went to a meeting tonight.  While chatting with Gary after the meeting, saw another friend walk off telling the person he had been talking with that they needed psychiatric help in no uncertain terms.  He had talked about having problems with a person before so it was easy to put that one together.  After finishing my conversation and going home, I gave my friend a call.  While he was agitated, he was not doing too bad considering his last conversation.  I am glad he is doing well. 

I am grateful for my sobriety, my sanity and for not being batshit crazy today.

PC With No Video — Alternatives cont’d

PC With No Video — Alternatives cont’d

My HTPC died in early July.  I replaced the motherboard and it still died not work.  Today I put in a new i5 Intel CPU.  No joy.  Maybe it is a memory stick problem.  I will work on it more later. 

Made good progress on putting things away in my toolboxes in the living room.  Even closer to being almost ready.  Actually I am using the space to work on my HTPC.  Once that is done with a pinch more organizing, I will be good to go on working my way through a couple of study books starting with the basics of sawing, filing, soldering and polishing.

Mentioned self-efficacy (is the extent or strength of one's belief in one's own ability to complete tasks and reach) today.   An RN participating in the discussion said she did not believe in self-efficacy giving all credit to god.  I am a firm believer in god helps those that help themselves.  I keep reflecting back on her statement and wonder how much science she does not believe in. Initially it felt a little personal, but I was merely stating what I had read for three minutes in the previous hour.  It is not my theory.  It is a basic term in psychology.  Clearly people that believe in themselves achieve more than the non-believers.  Things that make me go hmmm…

I am grateful that my big problem today is being baffled by a PC video problem on my HTPC while using my laptop to watch videos and surf the web while in bed.  Life is good.