White Lightning Axiom: Redux

It was too wet to have the kids play outside on Tuesday night. Yesterday, it was still a bit damp, hot, muggy and just plain miserable. I let them go at it till Mommy came home, then they made the snap decision that it was just too damn unpleasant out to be manning the twin towers. Jeeze, and after I went through all that effort to clear off the spider webs and expatriate all the wasp's nests. Nasty little buggers ... no, the wasps, you meenie! In any event, that was the high-point of the last couple of days. I've been struggling with this particularly noxious little snippet of code that is not conforming to my will. I have figured it out, but the revelation that the 'standard Dated file' type is not compatible with a non-dated file and will only generate files with the correct date but null time is not one I wanted to experience. Sometimes, objects should just fail. Horribly. With much cataclysm and carnage.

Yesterday, I was supposed to meet the Mrs Boss Lady for lunch at a local restaurant in KOP: Maggiano's. Of late, she has been under a lot of pressure. Waning contracts, massive rollouts, bugs, clients, fickle employees, etc... We were to meet at noon in the lobby, but I pretty much guessed that she would not be there and sat myself in the bar area. Oddly enough, the service person patrolling the bar area also determined that I was not going to be joined by a second party and asked if I would like a menu and something to drink. Don't mind if I do! Soooo, I ordered up a bathtub of a martini ... Grey Goose with a twist, neat. It was a monster but complimented my minestrone soup and chopped salad with Blue Cheese & avocado nicely. While slurping and munching away, I observed the people flowing and ebbing through the lobby area between the bar and the take-out section. All varieties of people ... black, white, beautiful, smarmy, asian, Middle Eastern, young-old-strapping-crippled ... the works. I wonder to myself, how can so many people walk hand in hand, laughing and eating, while the rest of the world dives into a fight at the slightest perception of a slight. It was a rather thought provoking meal I sat through. At one time, I saw this little 4 year old girl with MDA come hobbling in only to have to drag her useless stick thin legs up a staircase with her mother. She eventually gave in to the requirements of expediency and scooped up the brave little tyke. Not more than 15 seconds later, and elderly man with spinal bifida entered the lobby. He could not have been more than 4 feet tall, but well dressed in a crisp suit obviously tailored for his stature. He asked the matron a brief question and she waved him up the stairs as well, but indicated that an elevator was available behind the staircase. In his time, he has probably had to scale many other stair-cases and opted to be stead-fast in his fight against his own fate. He took the stairs. Sometimes, I think that I should take the stairs too. To go the distance, take the harder path. I've become lazy while wallowing in the opulence that I've become accustomed to. Not so much the wealth that has come so easily to me, but also the luck of the roll where this persnickety disease has taken so little from me. I see the grandmother in the corner, holding a chubby little baby all full of giggles and wiggles. I think it was a boy. She is enjoying the fruits of going the hard path. A child who begat grandchildren and still wants the instruction and example of parenting. The struggle. I think I've lost sight of the struggle again ... it's time to pick up the sword of principle, the hoe of labor, the trundle of morality and sally forth. Funny what a gut of vodka can do to your thought process.

Oh, and there was another accident on the turnpike this morning. I was not upset about it or get to rankled about the poor driving of my fellow interment victims on the asphalt prison of incarceration. Perspective.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 11:36 AM