That Foreign Office And Death

I hate when they are constantly doing things to the parking lot at work.  All those silly projects tend to interfere with my weekends there, as I attempt to get my normal overtime hours in.  I guess this is the second time in the last six months, where they’re trying to repave the entire parking lot, because apparently, the first time they tried this, someone completely screwed it up.  The first time around, they only paved some of the lot and not all of it, like they were supposed to, so the whole lot itself looked like a patchwork mess.  Some spots were paved.  Other spots weren’t.  It looked terrible.

Here we are, now months later, and they’re going to give it another whirl.  Maybe they get it right this time?  In the meantime, the weekend warriors of the office either take the entire weekend off, like normal folks, or they travel to another office and work there, from a generally unfamiliar workspace and a foreign cubicle.  I opted for the latter.  It’s hard to walk away from the overtime that I do.  It’s easy money and I enjoy doing it.

I spent just over six hours working from another office yesterday, from one that wasn’t too far from my office, the one that was having its parking lot paved, again.  I want to say that I was mostly productive, being that I had access to a computer, our databases, and my saved work, but having been in a cubicle looked to have been empty and abandoned for maybe a few weeks, it didn’t feel the same.  I’ll be honest.  I felt out of place there.  I wanted to be back in my own cubicle, where I know where things are, where the layers of dust are nowhere near as thick as the abandoned cubicle I was temporarily assigned, and where I believe that I can truly be efficient.  Yesterday, I tried.  I worked from 5:15am until 12pm and I was done.  I wasn’t tired or even remotely fatigued when I left.  What I was tired of, I guess, was being in that other office.  It didn’t feel right.

Today, now Sunday, I didn’t even bother.  I worked from home.  I had convinced myself that that other office was now just way too far for me to drive, so I didn’t go.  Tomorrow is a department holiday.  As I write this, I don’t know if I make that drive to that office and start my day in that dark and desolate office at my customary 4:45am.  Maybe I stay at home and work from there?  I’ll figure it out.

Kim and I talked about death yesterday.  We get into some weird conversations sometimes, but I’m always willing to entertain them.  She was prompted to talk about death after she had stumbled upon an article online where Sir Elton John makes a statement about how he doesn’t believe that he has much time to live.  Elton John is 77-years old.  Kim, who is in her early 60’s, was talking about how she still missed her father, who died tragically nearly 30 years ago.  I reminded her that my mother’s six-year death anniversary is this coming Friday (10/18).  Kim’s father died suddenly.  I don’t know those details.  All I know is that he died somewhere in a jungle in Cambodia.  I don’t know what the hell he was doing out there, but he didn’t make it.

In mid-October 2018, Mother Visionary would deteriorate in three days’ time and would die in the early morning hours of the fourth.  She died at age 67.

Kim was angry that her father left the way he did.  I guess his death brought people out of the proverbial word work, some wanting to offer their condolences, while others wanted money from her and her family.  I suppose Kim’s father left behind some debt, to perhaps countless people, and they wanted the money they thought that they had coming to them.  If there was an exact number of people looking to collect, Kim never divulged it and I didn’t ask.  I guess you have to go after the surviving relatives to collect money because cremains don’t have deep pockets.  In fact, cremains don’t have any pockets, much less hands to give away their money.  I don’t know what came of those apparent debts, but Kim still seemed to have feelings about whatever mess her father left behind, now three decades later.

Mother Visionary died in 2018.  She was also cremated.  Her remains were put inside of a burgundy and pink ceramic box, adorned with a rose on it.  Today, that urn, as I’ll call it, rests on the mantle in Father Visionary’s house.  Nobody from her past came out of the woodwork looking for her or any money she may have owed them.  In that regard, Mother Visionary died quietly.

So, Elton John might die soon.  As I said, he is 77-years old.  I guess his potential passing made Kim think about her own mortality, as well as her own father’s passing.

So Saturday was one of those days, I guess, where I worked, talked to Kim about stuff, and was pressed into a conversation about death.  I didn’t do much beyond that, though that’s not unusual for me.  I tend not to do much.  I lead a fairly simple, though at times, mundane existence.  It suits me.

I figure that as long as I’m on this side of the dirt, I’m doing pretty well.