#351 - Some Sad News

Well last night’s writing time was a bit of a disaster.

I managed to work until about three AM before I ran out of steam. I was enjoying the process and fighting fatigue. The unraveling realization that I wasn’t going to finish in time hung above me like a guillotine.

I slept until nine and then the messages started flowing in. I got up and began to answer them. The messages died out sooner than normal as my supervisor was back to work and taking most of the new messages herself.

There was plenty for me to do today with revisions and approvals. My counterpart jumped in and helped with the revisions allowing me to spend the rest of the day on the approvals. These paintings, there were about seven of them, needed a fair bit of work and would take me the rest of the day.

By noon, I went downstairs and made myself some bacon, eggs and toast. While I was frying the bacon, my neighbor’s brother approached the house to tell me that his brother Bruce had days to live. He went to the hospital the other day and was diagnosed with stage four cancer. The initial diagnosis was hopeful but soon changed to them saying he only had days to live.

He also informed me that he could no longer see visitors and that he had made peace with what was happening and was glad he was able to say goodbye and arrange his affairs.

I sent my condolences back with his brother, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to see Bruce again. He was always the first person to help a neighbor. I’ll miss he quiet friendly manner and the back and forth chats we had over the back fence or while maintaining our lawns.

I offered to take care of the lawn maintenance for the time being and his brother left.

I sat and ate my food with a heavy heart.

After eating I sat out on the porch for a minute and just sat in silence. After some time had passed, I got up and mowed the lawn before going back to work.

We had a one o’clock meeting and our producer sat in this time. She announced the changes in staffing, mainly that I would be taking over the show as paint supervisor and that others were getting promotions and even more would be shifting on to the new show. The new show is one I would have loved to work on, but I wasn’t part of crew that did the demo. I also think a lot of the other supervisors were keeping things close to their chests to make sure they got the positions when the time came.

I don’t think many of our painters were all that surprised at the announcement.

Once the meeting ended, I got back to doing the more involved corrections and ended the day with just one minor fix left. One of my new umbrellas arrived today and I tested it out. It was a lightweight mini umbrella, and it was a small size when closed and big enough when opened. I don’t think it will handle wind very well, but it is a good size to pop into a back.

I was also supposed to receive my new Skull Candy ANC headphones, but they were mysteriously delayed in transit. Hopefully, they will arrive tomorrow as promised.

Robyn brought home Popeye’s chicken sandwiches for dinner, and it was delicious. I think they make the best chicken sandwich of all the franchises.

She left to do her second job, and I put on the new Super Girl movie to watch while I waited for her to return. The movie wasn’t great, nor was it bad. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it in the theatres though. When Robyn returned, we watched an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. For some reason we missed three episodes. The Apple TV app wasn’t picking up that there were new shows available.

When the show ended, Robyn elected to do some schoolwork and I needed to do this writing, I also played a game of chess and did some chess puzzles as well.

Tomorrow night, I am going to dedicate a portion of my evening to writing fiction. I’ve given myself the night off to recuperate and get a good night’s rest.

I’ll read my book at the end of my evening and wake refreshed in the morning, ready to tackle the day head on.

Until tomorrow.