a Frustrating Week

This past week has been a less than ideal one for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the ole “Too much month and not enough money”. It’s been a tight squeeze to get things kept up since the layoff last February. Even though I wasn’t off long it was long enough to put us behind the 8 ball and with the new job being a salary position there isn’t any overtime these days to help us catch up like there was at Nowak last year.

The capper this week was when I found out that the wife’s bank, which I’m using now to pay bills thru her account, screwed up the electronic transfers they were suppose to make with my deposits and stuff that I thought was paid a month turns out never got paid, the money never got sent out. So I got a nasty phone call or two and now I’ve got late charges to deal with on top of the usual crap. I’m beginning to become a bit irritated with these folks attitudes that I’m doing business with….Since February I’ve asked for some help from a couple places and have pretty much been told to go screw myself, sink or swim. So much for customer service I guess. The whole late charge thing cracks me up cuz hey, if I’m late with a payment, especially given our past excellent credit rating, then there’s a problem. The banks answer to that is to slap you with late charges, which is tantamount to throwing a drowning man a brick.

I guess it’s just the way it is these days but it still cranks me. Several years when these loans were initiated gas wasn’t 3+ bucks a gallon, nor was my monthly gas bill what it is nowadays…….approximately 70 bucks more a month than it was this time last year. Add in increases in car insurance, the rest of the utilities and damn near everything else and we no longer have the cushion that we planned on. All these pirates raising the cost of breathing every time you turn around is making it difficult. I guess the answer is to not buy anything unless it can be done with cash in hand, but that’s not very realistic given the way things are set up to function these days.

Awww well, that’s enough whining for now. Another 30 years or so and it probably won’t matter anyhow. It’s not like anybody can do anything about it or even cares…….we’ve all got problems and I dare say there’s a lot of folks out there a whole lot worse off than we are. Our situation is temporary and it will get better. Of course, life itself is temporary too so I’m hoping the situation here get’s better before life proves how temporary it is…….

This past weekend was spent at home for the most part. I had planned on doing the Zeeland car show Saturday, but when I got up at 7:00am it was raining so that pretty much put the kibosh to the car show. By early afternoon though it had cleared up. The second part of the plan for the day was to head to Berlin for the first (and probably only) time this year to shoot some pics, but then Chris decided he wanted to go along so the camera stayed home and we sat in the stands instead of hanging out in the pits as planned. I didn’t want to say no to him if he wanted to come with me. I’m well aware at this point in life how fast kids grow up and leave home so a chance to hang out with my last kid was more important than the pics…..I can get them some other time. It was a fun evening. We ate stale popcorn, drank over-priced pop and watched the racing. I miss going as often as I used to go, but there just ain’t time or money to be everywhere I want to be…… it was after midnight by the time we got back home. I stayed up for awhile before calling it a day.

Sunday was kinda the culmination of the whole week’s worth of frustration. I slept in too long, sat around until noon in a pissy mood and then decided to go out in the garage and work on the cooking cabinet for the campsite. By the time Wanda took off and I was as far as I could go with the project it was 3:30. I wandered around the house for awhile, ate an early supper and then decided to take Mercury and Bailey for a walk from downtown out to the end of the pier and back. I parked the truck at the “Y” and we strolled out to the pier. It was a nice sunny, fairly warm evening and there were people everywhere. The boys got quite a bit of attention from people who wanted to pet ‘em or ask questions about Mercury’s coloring. They were both very well mannered and made me proud when I saw other people and their dogs pulling on their leashes, barking and being generally unruly. I’m always glad to see those people who can’t discipline their animals don’t have children. By the time we got back home from the walk it was a bit after 8:00. The walk had cleared my head a little bit and so I decided to take the hot rod around town one time too before giving it up for the day. Merc went with me for the cruise and hung his head out the window, ears flapping in the breeze the whole way thru town.

After getting back I sat out on the swing for awhile and talked to Jennette on the phone. Friday had been Jason’s 1st birthday. Jennette’s is the 24th and Ryan’s is in September. Not to mention the #3 munchkin that’s due any day now. Don’t even get me started about grandkids and how far away they are……that’s just something else I can’t do anything about. Such is life.

A side note before I say goodnight…..

I just found out that George McCorkle, guitar player for the Marshall Tucker Band, succumbed to cancer a couple weeks ago. The MTB was one of my all time favorite bands. I’ve seen them at least a dozen times and have spent countless hours with their music in my ears. It’s not like he was a relative but it’s still a sad thing to know he’s gone before his time. He was 60, not all that far away from where I stand today. I spent awhile reading the guest book entries from people all over the planet and signed in myself. I’d guess he finally found that rainbow he always sang about searchin’ for……..

Night.

TC