The year 2018 has gotten off to a very peculiar start.
At the moment I’m sitting in my shed/office/clubhouse where it is toast warm with my space heater on high while outside it is a cold, damp, foggy mess. It rained all yesterday and last night but now only the gray weather remains with no more precipitation. I’m pretty much all caught up in my work, this week being the worst of the year as everyone is now back in the office from the holidays and getting caught up from the work that accumulated over the past couple weeks. And so I wanted to get a post in as the start to the year really has been something else.
The first item is that the garage door opener is still not fixed. I tried to do it myself buying a new one from Sears and did everything right in putting it together. However, I didn’t know that garage door openers came in 7 foot and 8 foot versions. I previously had an 8 foot version but bought a 7 foot version. This difference in length made it so there wasn’t enough leverage to reliably lift the door: the opener really struggled and got stuck a couple of times.
So, after two days of working on it myself I finally called in a professional that has helped me before. It is from him that I learned I did everything right but that the spring wasn’t installed very well because it is the spring that should relieve most of the weight of the door, not the opener pulling the full weight. He had helped me once before when a leaf blower part got stuck, prevented the garage door from opening and dis-aligned it. He was able to get it working even with the strange spring installation. This time however, he is taking the time to fix the spring’s positioning properly which will allow the opener to pull the heavy door up. He couldn’t finish yesterday and so will be back this afternoon.
As I mentioned above, this week is busy since everyone is back at work and so I’ve got a lot of e-mails from my customers. This past Monday is the worst since we all have to get back into the swing of things all at once and all together.
Aside from work on that Monday I also couldn’t find my wallet, had left the passenger’s side window open just a crack which meant the seat got soaked from rain AND, it was possible that my wife might be pregnant! Talk about a Monday!
Well, I found my wallet which was in my karate bag. I had forgotten I put it there since I wore my karate dogi for the new year beach training on Sunday. As for the car seat, I’ll go take a blow dryer to it just as soon as I finish writing this post.
Finally, there was the big item and that is there was a very small chance my wife could have been pregnant again. I tell you I haven’t had a feeling of anxiety like that in a very, very long time. It is amazing how in one instant your entire life can change forever. Now, although I was a very anxious I also thought about how nice it would be to have three children. If it were a girl my wife would be thrilled but if it were a boy she would want to kill me since we have two rambunctious boys already. Honestly, I would have been fine with either and the only thing I would need worry about is how to afford three kids! I am confident I could do it but I’d need to make more money on the double. There are the summer Japan tickets to think of, college and innumerable other expenses that come with kids. So for me, I felt at peace with having another one except for the money part.little,
And so, my wife came home with a pregnancy test and we looked at it together. Those two minutes where we have to wait seemed a lot longer than two minutes and my heart started to race. Again, it is incredible how one of two completely different futures would be realized once we turned that stick over to look at the result. One future would be a continuation of how things are now while the other future would mean everyone’s lives and own futures would change dramatically. We turned it over and it was negative. In that instant a future with three children immediately faded away into a dream, a dream that could be realized if acted upon but not so if I decide to go get neutered or whatever fancy term they ascribe to it for men. I was never keen on doing that but after today I think I might go get fixed.
But then again it also makes me a little sad to think that the second future would no longer be even a possibility and would fade away completely and forever if I did have surgery. I like to think that it is still there, an open path we could take even though time is running out, rather then being gone forever.
And that is how 2018 has begun. I now need to go blow-dry my car seat.
