Good Manners

Manners. They make social interaction work ever so much more smoothly. They are the grease in the cog works of society. I try to actually use manners but there are certain niceties I think of as just plain stupid. But on my part it is a conscious decision not to use the manners I have been taught. And I will use my manners when I am out with people I don't know so well, and I will relax them around people who I know can deal with that. That's just plain good manners.

Part of the deal with manners is just simple consideration of others. You wouldn't just sneeze in the face of some guy on the BART. Or keep a book that you borrowed from a friend. That would be plain rude.

What leads me to this rant is a recent time when manners just weren't used. And it really made a whole bunch of things rather inconvenient to me. And really pissed me off to be frank.

When one says one is going to do something, it is good manners to do that. And if one forgets, it is always good manners to inform the other party that it has been forgotten and then try to make an effort to do it. But if one yet forgets again, it would be good manners to once again inform the party that one, again, forgot, and so on and so forth until the thing is done or the person finally decides to give up on the matter and let you keep whatever it was. Or they take matters into their own hands and expedite the matter by picking up whatever it was or just doing it themselves.

And when in a case where one waits patiently for someone to give them something that was promised four months ago, it is good manners to give that thing in GOOD WORKING CONDITION, and not fucked up beyond repair when that person comes to pick it up after your not sending it to them after you promised to do that god knows how many times. And if one does this, do not expect the party who then had to go out of their way to pick you up from work to take you to your house to get some stupid messed up hard drive and then drop you back off at work and feel bad about asking someone to try to get the stupid hard drive thing to work, to like you very much anymore.

My own stupidity

Sometimes my mind is like a sieve. Things go in and then drain out. I notice this happens more often when I am either tired or emotionally drained.

I almost got fired from my job a while back because I was forgetting everything. But at home, I wasn't sleeping because someone was coming home at anywhere between 2 am and 5 am and there were other frequent temper tantrums to deal with. But once all that crap was out of my life, all of a sudden I was so much better at my job. Go figure.

Well yesterday, I forgot to do something rather important. The courier from the lab came by to get a specimen and I forgot to put it in the lock box. It would have been really bad because blood goes bad pretty quick and the results could have been skewed if it had been picked up today. Then I would have had to redraw which is bad for us and the patient, because I have to poke them again.

Fortunately for me, my boss was here to catch my mistake. Which is rather unfortunate as well.

I really have no one to blame but myself. I have not been sleeping as much as I should (I have been having too much fun hanging out to go to bed). And valentines day didn't help any either (it was super great, but at the moment it is overshadowed by how upset I am at myself for being such an idiot) as I was up pretty late. And I know I don't do well on not enough sleep. I know this!

Well we shall soon see how much trouble I am really in. And how profusely I need to apologize to my boss.

My Booger

On Sunday, Booger was a very bad dog. This is what I have taken to calling Kong's dog. He has been trying to crate train him, so that we don't have to take him along everywhere. There really are only so many sidewalk cafe's open on weekends within walking distance of Natoma. We went to WonderCon and tried to leave Booger in his crate. When we got home, the soft sided crate thing was torn to shreds, and Booger had begun to claw at the door after he'd gotten out. At the old place, Booger had his own room and could tear it up as he pleased. But in the new place, there really isn't a place to lock him up. And tearing up the place is not an option.

Now I realize that it is very hard to train a dog. I tried once with Amber, who was a puppy we got from the pound. She was finally relegated to the back yard and not allowed inside because no one else except me had the patience to train her and I wasn't getting any help. She eventually escaped from the yard and we never found her again.

Booger has gotten much better recently. I have been trying to be a bit more firm with him and trying out different things the all-mighty internet has offered. But until he is crate trained going out will be tough. I don't mind that too much. I have a tendency to be a bit of a home body anyways but it is frustrating occasionally. But I don't think its half as frustrating for me as it is for Kong.

But it really is totally worth it in the end. When you have had a crappy day, and you come home to a puppy that is so excited to see you and he puts his head on your leg and looks up at you with those big eyes, everything seems a thousand times better.

We had an interesting relationship at first. He wasn't used to having someone else there and didn't know what to make of me. Now he will sometimes prefer me over Kong to snuggle with, which was really nice when I was sick. And he's gotten used to me handling him and will actually listen to me, well... sometimes.

Kong's Blog

Today, I got a call from my mother in Mexico. This is her weekly call, but today the first words out of her mouth were: "Did you see what [Kong] wrote on his blog?". Quick as a bunny, I ran to the 'puter to see for myself, and I sat there reading his post with my mom still on the line. Needless to say the next hour was a grilling about how our relationship is going...

I would just like to say, I am truly touched by what he wrote about me. And that I feel the same way about him. He is silly. And brilliant. And funny. And... the list goes on an on.

Like I said before, he is really and truly, everything I never knew, I always wanted. And the more time I spend with him...well... um...I hate to say but words just don't do what I feel any justice.

His post was just the thing to lift me out of a weird week, which was originally what my post was going to be about. But I can't write about that anymore. I tried, but well... I can't...

My inquiring mind wants to know...

Much has been revealed to me over the last several weeks. None of it is very upsetting, but it is funny to see what happens behind the scenes, so to speak. What you think is going on isn't always what is. And others don't always feel that is their place to share. While others get mad at the parties involved for being so silly, and still others think that sharing will bring on untold evils. Things work out the way they do for some reason or another. And right now I am really happy they worked out the way they did.

But I have thought of what might have happened had someone tried to do something earlier or if I had been told about things earlier. Things might have worked out for the best, but they might not have, also. Timing may have been everything. Or things might have just worked out that way, anyway.

But there is one thing that I am glad didn't happen but at the same time would have been interesting to witness. I mean, I know I wasn't the only thinking that this would happen (I know of someone who wanted to make sure he was there for the main event). I mean I know it is rather well self important of me and all, thinking that I could be the cause of such thing, but at the same time it kind of hurts that I wasn't (and I still wonder who would have won?).