Day Nineteen...

Hmmm...if it is Monday, that must mean I am working from home today. It also makes me wonder if the pool guy will show up this time. At least he did call last Thursday to confirm the appointment, so I think that is a good sign. As usual, we shall see. *A note added later in the day, MUCH LATER. The pool person was supposed to be here at 9AM, and I finally called at 930, and, oops, another miscommunication. So we made an appointment for 4PM this afternoon. To make a long story even more boring, she finally got here shortly after 5PM (although she did call and let me know she would be detained. As it all worked out, the pool tech is a very nice young woman named Jeanette, and I think everything will work out to every ones advantage. We shall see... NOTE: The afternoon high today was 68 degrees, so it did not suck to hang out at the pool with her.

Last night we went to Chipotle for dinner, had a great vegetarian burrito bowl dinner, somewhat healthy if you discount the sour cream and avocado parts. Have I mentioned to you that, here in the country (okay we had to go to Georgetown for dinner, but anyway) the folks that work in retail establishments seem to actually be happy to have a job, and they are nice when you approach them. This has taken a certain amount of getting used to. We actually had forgotten what nice was...the attitudes of mediocrity had crept over us gradually, over a period of time, and what we thought was civil disobedience in the form of a cashier at Target was really a trend of people thinking I needed to appreciate their rudeness. But living outside the sprawling metropolis (Austin is in the top 20 cities as far as population is concerned) has given us a new way of thinking about things. I think it has to do with the pace of everything...everything is not really in a big hurry, and I think that tends to make people a little (or a lot) nicer.

It is now 20 minutes past 7AM and the sanitary engineers just showed up and did their job rather efficiently. We still are working on taking all our recycling into Austin, where they do have single-stream recycling. No sorting, just put it all in one big pile, and it goes away magically. That is one thing they do not have out here in the country. It will come.

So...Jody and I went into the city, we left shortly after 10AM and headed for the condo to pick up another load of stuff. All-in-all it was an easy moving day. No trauma, just nice and calm, and a manageable load of stuff. If all goes well, we have until the 13th of February to be gone from the condo...that is the official closing date.

The working at home one day a week thing is actually working out pretty darn well, I like it, and I can do what I need to do from home (so far). Conducted some business today with some clients (they are in Australia), so no worries. Life is good.

Now, the next time you go out in public, try to be extra nice to someone, just because you can. I am really not interested in your political persuasions, and I am not wanting to get preachy about anything, but hopefully, after tomorrow, everyone will be happier, and we can all like each other a little bit more than we did the day before. See if you can't make that happen in your own little bit of the world.

PS: We should all say a little prayer to the 'spell-check' gods!