Tag: working

Coffee Shop Buzz

Daily writing prompt
What do you listen to while you work?
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Give me some chatter, baby. I like hearing the baristas tossing comments around as orders are given and taken. Add some background music, pop and rock songs which I sometimes know, hovering on my conscious awareness. Pump in some coffee making clinks, grinding, hissing, thumps, and clacks. All that together enhances my focus and concentration.

It’s a melange of familiar and forgettable noises blending into one sound, a combo which is easily shunted aside and ignored. It’s when a quiet rises and spreads that I stop my thinking and typing and look up to see what’s going on.

Sounds different from the norm will puncture my focus. Like, a child’s scream. A dog’s bark. A growing argument or increasingly loud disagreement. These all pull me up from under. But otherwise, with that coffee shop blend percolating around me, I think and type until, oh, damn, I forgot to drink my coffee. OMG, the coffee shop is empty. And, my ass has fallen asleep from sitting so long. And, I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago.

Those are all signs that it was a pretty productive day.

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An Ode to Joni Ernst

Call up all your relatives,

Friends and enemies, too,

Joni Ernst says we’re dying

And there’s nothing we can do.

Fire off the nukes and rifles,

Set off the poison gas,

Joni says we’re dying,

So come on, get off your ass.

Eat what you want,

Drink as you feel,

Forget about taking all those vaccines,

Medicines,

And pills.

Don’t worry about crime and punishment,

What are they going to do?

Joni Ernst says we’re dying.

You know it must be true.

So stop saving for the future,

Or growing all those crops.

Stop making those payments

To banks and other slobs.

Don’t worry about paying taxes,

Nor going to work a job,

Joni Ernst says we’re dying,

Looks like it’s over and done.

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Mom & Dad

Daily writing prompt
What were your parents doing at your age?
View all responses

I often think about Mom & Dad at my age of 68 and what they were doing.

Mom, with a couple divorces behind her, was a late bloomer in some ways. She’d given birth to seven children. Five lived. Forfeiting graduating high school to leave her small town of Turin, Iowa and find employment and begin her own life, she eventually acquired her GED. That was long after I’d left home and begun my life. After gaining her GED, she went to college and became an LPN and RN. A twenty-year in that followed; she retired at my current age, devoting herself to being a grandmother.

Dad and Mom had divorced decades before. Dad was in the military, the U.S. Air Force. After retiring at 20 years, when he was thirty-nine years old, he worked in the grocery business as a produce manager and then bought his own restaurant. When he was around 48, twenty years younger than I am now, he moved west to Texas. He worked in different retail businesses while becoming a real estate agent. He always like running stores, though. Eventually, he was running the largest truck stop west of the Mississippi. Along the way, he met another woman; she became his third wife. They’ll be married 33 years on Valentine’s Day of 2025. Meanwhile, he kept managing that truck stop. Every time he told them he was thinking about retiring, they’d offer him more pay, bonuses, and vacation. He did eventually give it up when he was 80. So at my current age, he was fully in the thick of running it.

They’re a surprising couple. From lower class working roots, they married many times. Each had productive careers. Between the two of them, each was parent to seven children but they also buried three children. Five of us siblings shared them as parents. I left Mom’s home when I was 14 to live with Dad and then left his house at 17, joining the military as Dad had done, so much of what I saw of their lives was through a long distance lens. Mom and Dad remain alive. Mom is 89 and Dad is 92. Both endure health issues but because of the era when they worked and the effort they put in, they have excellent health benefits.

Of course, the flip side of it all is, what will I be like at their ages?

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Through the Years

1973 found me living in West Virginia, having moved there the previous year, after moving to Ohio from Pennsylvania, and a high school junior. Yeah, changes were underway.

1983 – an adult, in the military, married, stationed on Okinawa with trips to Korea, China, and Japan that year

1993 – still married and in the military, in Sunnyvale, California

2003 – retired from military but still married, living in Half Moon Bay, California, working for IBM

2013 – married and in Ashland, Oregon, still with IBM

2023 – Ashland, married, retired from everything except writing

Different places and careers through the years, but the same marriage since ’75

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Another Erotic Dream

A young man, I was working alongside a younger woman in a hectic, busy department store in a large city. She was an attractive woman, with full, curly hair with blond highlights. Enjoying our work, we were putting a window display together when she propositioned me. Although flattered, I knew she was married and didn’t want to involve myself in another couple’s marital issues. She was wearing a low-cut black sweater with a short black skirt. After I declined her offer, she pestered me, trying to coerce me into making out with her. She began kissing my neck and playing grab ass with me. At one point, she seized my hand and put it on her breast. I scurried away. She came up, then reached around from behind and rubbed my crotch. I was aroused but kept declining her and then, finishing up enough with the window display, I hurried away to work elsewhere.

I was turned on, though, and had to hide that as I walked around, which was awkward and uncomfortable. I saw the woman’s husband with her down an aisle The two were looking over at me. I pretended not to see them and looked elsewhere. Irritated, I tried turning my attention to other things but every time I went around a clothing display, I saw the two of them.

A tall female manager in a red dress came by and told me she had a special assignment for me, and to wait there. As I waited, growing impatient, a senior management official, male, white, in a suit, came by and said, “Here’s your tool,” handing me what looked like a thumb drive. Speaking from confusion, I asked, “What am I supposed to do with this?” Already hurrying away, he paused to reply, “Someone will come along and tell you.”

Bewildered and exasperated, I hung out by a rack of clothing and contemplated the thumb drive as shoppers and other workers passed. The thwarted seducer found me. She told me, “I have to go,” and then, after looking around, tried hugging and kissing me. I fended her off as before. She said, “You know you want me, so I’ll be back,” and then rushed away.

Dream end.

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A Dream of Flying Home

I was back flying on an aircraft in last night’s dream. This dream found me going home.

I was finishing my military service, ending my career, and going home. Wearing my dress blues, what we used to call the Class A service uniform, I didn’t have shoes and socks on. I’d taken them off for comfort.

It was a working flight. Loose ends were being tied up. The aircraft was memorable. Quite roomy, I had a small office on it, with a desk by a window and a few chairs. Happy and engaged, people came to me to learn how I’d done something. The flight was spent answering questions, showing people paperwork, and helping others understand.

When I arrived at my destination, I said good-byes to people, then went to put on my shoes and socks. I couldn’t find my socks! Shrugging it off, I put on my Capps high-gloss Oxfords and tied them tight. Queuing to leave the aircraft, I then found my socks. Well, I wasn’t going to put them on now. I was already in line. People might say something, I thought. Then, so what if they did? Technically, I was out of uniform. Technically, I didn’t care. Technically, if someone really wanted to make a stink that caused me to care, I could stop and put my socks on.

But I wasn’t worried. I didn’t care.

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Call It Saturday

Today feels like Saturday.

So did yesterday, and the day before. I suspect that tomorrow will also feel like Saturday.

Lot of reasons exist for my feelings about the days of the week. One, I’m a writer. I write every day. I retired from outside employment a few years ago. My days of the week stopped being labeled work days and non-work days.

Two, I stream, and watch little broadcast television. I’ve been streaming for ten years, and cut the cable nine years ago. That means that I’m not looking at any guides or schedules to see what’s on television, which was always guided by the day of the week. For example, I don’t think, “If this is Thursday, then a new episode of X will be on.” I wait until all episodes are out and then I start streaming them on my schedule when they’re available. When they’re out depends on a date, not a day of the week.

Three, COVID-19, of course. The pandemic and the actions being taken to flatten the curve has dramatically affected social activities. Hence, we’re no longer going out dancing at the lake on Saturday night or heading for beer on Wednesday night, erasing another reason for tracking what day it is.

Four, it feels like Saturday because of my conditioning. Back when I did work, Saturdays were days for doing errands and chores. It was also a day for sleeping in a bit. No need to leap out of bed, do some quick exercises, eat, shower, dress, jump into the car and hurry to work on Saturday. I could catch another twenty minutes.

Everyday in COVID-19 land is like that now. There are chores and writing, but no errands. I can sleep in, if the cats agree.

The cats have never worried about the day of the week. To them, it’s always Caturday.

I get what they mean, now.

 

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