#332 - A Fridge Ruined My Disbelief

My alarm went off at seven.

Nope.

There was no way I was dragging my tired ass into the city to sit at a desk all by myself.

And I needed the extra sleep.

I got out of bed by nine because the messages always start coming in like gangbusters at that time. And sure enough, that’s what happened. Messages were flowing and I got straight to my desk to login. We had a soft goal of getting the episode finished today, but I had some big doubts about that possibility. I rifled off the stats of what still had to be done, and I think the others quickly figured out it wasn’t likely to happen.

We adjusted our game plan accordingly and set about trying to achieve the impossible. Just another day at the office, er, day at home.

There were a bunch of Art Director revisions that needed doing and my counterpart offered to dive into those first thing. Some would be very easy to do, and the others would require a bit more effort.

I set about sending the finished files to the next department that I had sent to our render farm last night and let them know they were there. This always triggers requests from they about things that are missing or not easily understood. I would spend a portion of my day getting those items for that department as needed.

Messages stopped coming in around ten am again, and I went down to make myself two fried eggs with toast and an instant coffee. I love eggs for breakfast and this is the second time in a row I have managed to make myself some.

Then I was back to doing approvals and revisions. I even managed to avoid spilling my hot beverages today! The remaining revisions required me to spend some time on them, but they had to be done. I found a few issues where the scenes were not accounted for and that meant liaising with the layout supervisor to figure out what had happened. This turned into tiny investigations that make me feel like more of a sleuth than an artist.

Messages kept pouring in and by noon I my head was spinning. I spent a few minutes writing everything down so I wouldn’t miss anything important. With a dozen spinning plates going, we took a break for lunch and opted for the park again.

The weather was perfect for a walk and inside the park, as usual, the temperature was even better. We encounter a couple of dog walkers who had six to seven dogs each. If this artist thing doesn’t work out, I know what I’ll be doing next. Twenty to forty dollars per dog an hour….hmmm. Seems like a profitable little business and you get your steps in as well.

It is always surprising how well behaved the dogs are when they are in the park. It’s like they know they need to be good and they really like being there with all their park buddies. You almost see the excitement on their faces and sometimes it feels like they are really smiling at you. Lots of tail wagging for sure!

We came up with the idea to have some people over to the house on Friday night to celebrate a friend’s birthday as well as their new job. A double whammy. And it’s a great time of year to hang out on the back deck for a couple of hours and unwind from a hectic week.

We invited six people and so far, we have three who said yes. And one of the people is the person whose birthday it is. Kinda important that they showed up.

Driving home from the park, we remarked at how smooth the ride was now since they repaved. Near our street there used to be a dip in the road like a reverse speed bump that was always annoying. That has been leveled out and for the moment, we don’t have to deal with it anymore.

I grabbed the mail after parking the car as I do most days. We have those little post boxes just around the corner from our house. It makes for a nice break sometimes to walk over there and get them mail. Get’s me out of my desk.

Today Robyn received a small package in a brown envelope. She proudly showed me her purchase after tearing open the package. It was necklace with a gold-coloured crayon box as the charm, and the lid opens to reveal some tiny gold crayons inside like a treasure chest. A silly purchase, but it brought her joy. Who can deny his wife such happiness?

Shopping therapy completed, we headed back to our desks to get some work done. Robyn handed in her assignments, so I had her help with some of the revisions to speed up the process and take some of the pressure off the others. But first I grabbed half a chicken breast from the other night and wrapped it in a whole wheat wrap as a quick and dirty lunch. It was tasty and fulfilled my desire to eat better at least two out of three meals.

I was going to eat my leftover tandoori chicken from the other night, but someone had snuck into the fridge at night and stolen it. They had the nerve to leave the takeout container in the fridge, however. Dastardly behaviour I tell you. What is the world coming to when a man’s leftover tandoori is not safe in his own house?

There is a kiddo in this household who is renowned for having a midnight snack and I would bet a thousand of your dollars that it was said person who committed the crime.

That’s right. I said crime.

There are somethings in this life that should be considered sacred.

Anyways, my other leftovers were delicious and filling too.

I spent the rest of the day doing approvals that required massive revisions. The amount of work left to do kept getting smaller as the hours went by. As soon as I thought I would need to find something else to do another couple of paintings arrived in my inbox. It was a steady pace that felt good throughout the whole day.

Robyn finished her revisions and I had her help one of the other painters that was struggling this week. Two of our staff have had to deal with severe flooding at their homes. One is having her entire basement ripped out, while the other is having water leak into his apartment from the roof.

There is mold in both situations and one of them had an assessment today that labeled their place as uninhabitable.

Both artists had to call the by law office in their city, get insurance involved and fight landlords who said there was nothing really wrong with the housing. But as I found out this week, once the by law officer comes in and makes their assessment the landlord is now in a heap of trouble.

And after dealing with all of that they have to paint beautiful artworks all week long. Not an easy thing to do when you are that stressed out.

But we got all the art director revisions done today and that was a feat in and of itself. We also were able to approve a bunch more paintings and send them along to the art director.

There is a small, but good chance that we will be able to get the show out tomorrow by end of day. And yet there is always some small item the lingers for weeks on each show. But I’ll take 99 percent done as close enough.

I worked a bit later than usual tracking down some more mystery scenes with the layout supervisor but ended the day contented with all we were able to accomplish.

Robyn left to share a meal with some of her girlfriends and ordered myself a burger from Chuck’s Roadhouse. I grabbed my book and read until the food arrived and then ate my meal out on the back deck. It was a perfectly grand night for eating outdoors.

Reading everyday is something I am trying to make sure I do, so I moved to the front porch recliner and told myself that I would read until Robyn returned from dinner. It was a joy to sit and relax at the front, watching the world go by and then getting lost in the world of China in the early 1920’s aboard a US steam powered gun boat. Story is interesting to me on so many different levels. As a writer I am fascinated when a writer is able to sweep you away and make you see and smell the world. I love learning about new cultures and history. The boxer rebellion was not something I associated with the Chinese.

The clashing of cultures between the American sailors and the Chinese men who work aboard the ship is interesting. Even how the old ship works is cool to me. There is a lot of humour in the book as well. It’s a nice way to end the workday, particulary with the weather being so nice this time of year.

Robyn returned and she joined me out front, reading her own book, so my reading session went longer than expected. But that was just fine with me. As the light faded from the sky, mosquitoes started buzzing about my ears and legs and i was ready to pack it in. Mosquitoes love me for some reason. They see me coming and think oooh, a buffet!

We headed inside and took a shower, looking into the mirror, there was a mosquito on my forehead having a feast. Damn bloodsuckers!

Once done, we finished watching the Last House movie on Netflix. I think it took us three sittings to get through it. There was always something or someone to distract us from watching it.

It was an interesting premise, likely inspired by Co-vid stay at home rules. But the hardest part, the part the yanked us out into dibeleif was a scene where they have run out of food and the kid, a preteen and her brother a teenager, open the fridge door only to find it is empty. Whoever wrote this clearly never had any kids of that age. They open the fridge and stare into it for hours looking for the answers of life. Then they close it and do it again.

Kids that age are bloodhounds that can sniff out a snack at a thousand paces. Did I mention the leftover tandoori chicken? Exactly.

Those kids would have known the fridge was empty before the parents did!

But otherwise, it was a fun little made for tv movie.

Robyn read for a little while afterwards, and I started my writing. She didn’t last long and was in bed before ten thirty. Unfortunately, I have to hit my quota and a little extra. And that means I will be writing until at least twelve thirty to hit the numbers I need for today.

As it stands right now, I have to write 3250 words per day for the rest of the month to hit my quota. I had some bad writing days mid month after coming off a surplus at the beginning of the challenge. Completely manageable numbers, but I do have to achieve it every day from now iuntil the end of the month. I have my mentor assignment due on Sunday and that will help with the numbers for sure. Leaving all the writing to the end of the day is killing me though. I know I have to do a little here and there, but it can be difficult to implement those ideas on a daily basis.

My teacher received a letter from the Anthropic settlement, the one where they scraped millions and maybe billions of books from the internet to train their AI model without the copyright holders’ permission. And although there are still appeals in the case, the Special Master seems to be going ahead with payments. The letter he received as about not getting paid for books that he wrote for Marvel. Disney has opted out of the payments and therefore he is automatically opted out as well.

Both he and his wife still have hundreds of books that are part of the settlement, but the letter implies that payments are pending. But will the payments ever arrive? Maybe when pigs fly.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been making the news around the world by standing up to Trump and meeting him head-to-head. Trump likes to bait and insult people, and Ford was more than happy to throw it back in his face. Not the usual way for politicians to behave, but in this case, I think all politicians should treat Trump the way he treats others.

He’ll lash out as all bullies do, but the name calling and all the belittling hurt him more than he can hurt others and that is the key to dealing with a guy like this. Bullies tend to have thin skins. I would be trotting out some new names for him like Diaper Donny, Dozy Donny, Mumble Trump just as some examples. See which one sticks just like he does to others.

I just had to take a small break because the evaporator fan inside my Samsung fridge sounds like it is hitting up against ice. These Samsungs are notorious for ice buildup. It’s been humid recently and I think that may have had something to do with the ice forming. It’s happened before and there is a mode you can put your fridge into that allows it to defrost for about twenty minutes. It beeps the whole time like a heart monitor, but it’s easier than unplugging the unit.

In the end I may need to unplug for a day to get rid of all the ice. I’m not sure how much ice can melt in twenty minutes.

But the fridge has run well for the last year or two with no issues. So, I really can’t complain. We had this issue when we were using the built-in ice machine. That thing was constantly freezing. I don’t think we can even open it up anymore.

I only noticed the sound of the fan when I moved downstairs to finish up my writing so as to not bother my sleeping bride. It’s the little things that make a marriage work. And tea, plenty of tea.

I got a message from the co-worker that I reached out to the other day, asking if we could still meet up tomorrow at work to discuss the needs of our two departments. This is the person I was politely asked to not speak to unless I had spoken to her supervisor first.

Ah no.

I don’t like being told who I can talk to at work about work things. The artists I am meeting tomorrow said she appreciates knowing when something she does can’t be used and that’s how I would feel too. Any professional artist would feel that way.

So, she is going to stop by our department just to say hello and if we happen to discuss business, then so be it. It’s our job to do this stuff, not protect someone’s fragile ego.

Finally, a reason to look forward to gang into the studio for a change. Viva la Revolution!

I look forward to hearing all about the challenges the Design department is having as well. Understanding the position each department is in can only help make us all stronger and helps to be more thoughtful about each other’s work.

Not talking, creates and atmosphere of animosity in my opinion.

I will definitely be rewarding myself with a breakfast sandwich tomorrow for getting up so early. We don’t have any leftovers to bring in either, so we will likely have to source some lunch. I might pick up a sandwich at Rabba fine foods on the way in or get two sandwiches at the Au Pain Dore café.

I was reading a bit more about the Tim Horton’s Harry Potter collaboration and how it really seems to be dividing people. I am a fifty plus year old man who has read all the books and don’t think there was anything in the story or with any of the characters that ever struck me as anti-trans. In fact, I remember Rowling standing up for the LGBTQ community when she made Professor Dumbledore openly homosexual.

I have heard she is not popular in the trans community because of her women first approach and her desire to protect children from unreversible surgeries at too you an age. I guess for me I don’t see the world of Potter as also being the world of Rowling.

Others seem out to get her at all costs. We don’t like what you say so we will attack you. That has always been apart of fame as long as there have been histories to record.

I will say I was surprised to see the food giant involved with Rowling because of all the animosity it automatically brings with it. Then again, from a financial aspect you just have to look at how well the Potter video game did after the trans community united worldwide and tried to destroy its sales.

I believe it became the bestselling video game that year. Tim Horton’s must be seeing dollar signs to have penned a deal with Rowling.

Anyway, it’s midnight and I need some rest. Tomorrow promises to be a whirlwind of activity.

Until tomorrow.