Dandelyon's Worlds

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful, primarily, for my friends, here and elsewhere, from the closest loved-friends to the casual acquaintances. I count myself lucky to know and interact with so many people, people who are different from me and from each other in so many ways. I love having friends from so many different ethnic backgrounds. I love having friends who are introverts and who are extroverts. I love having friends who follow so many different religions—and some who follow none. I love having friends who live in red states and blue, and who live in other countries altogether. I love having so many women friends, and so many friends of other genders. I love having friends who are unrepentantly out about their orientations, their quirks, and their passions, and I love having friends who are just starting to experience and express new passions and new things about themselves. I love having friends who are curious about everything, from people who find an unusual color of mold on their pie and grow more to try to identify it to people who relentlessly fact check internet memes. I love having both friends who are comfortable with the role they were told they should fill as a child and people who forge new ways to live their lives despite those expectations. I love having friends who care about the world and the people in it, and I love it when they come to my page to discuss politely their differences regarding how to best move forward in the future.

I love the people who post cat memes and snarky internet comics. I love the people who write, who paint, who draw, who edit, who publish, who dance, who drum, who sing, and who quilt, and the people who do not. I love the people who stop to help strangers in the grocery store or on the street, the people who share kickstarters or go-fund-mes to help someone make a new thing real or just to help someone they know pay medical bills or care for a stray cat. I love the people who share recipes and pictures of their families and homes, the people who garden and sew, and the people who share their babies’ milestones. I love the people who share their travails with home ownership (and inevitable maintenance) and the people who share techie tips. Just as much, I love the people who share stories of their explorations, whether those are making something new or wandering the world in body or in imagination. I love the people who share cool stuff, from comments that glitter or display in mirror writing to cool stuff I’ll never be able to afford to restaurants that can safely feed people with weird food allergies. I love people who share our world’s history and people who share new discoveries. I love people who share their delight in cool stuff even when, or maybe especially when I never saw that particular stuff as delightful before.

I love having both friends with strong opinions and friends with questions.

I love the people who help me understand those who are unlike me in some way and the people who understand some facet of me so well because they feel that thing too. Your diversity enriches and delights me.

Thank you all for being a part of my world, in whatever ways you have chosen to do that. Thank you for sharing some part of who you are and what you love with me.

I hope that your winter holidays (regardless of which secular and/or religious holidays you personally celebrate or try to ignore) are not too stressful, and I hope the season brings you delight both in the fashion you hope it will and in unexpected, life-enriching ways.

Peace.

Last night I wasn't pleased with having spent a day's worth of my writing time on trying to get our heater fixed, but I was pleased with the technician who showed up, even though he didn't fix the boiler.  I was also pleased with the promise that he would be back in the morning no later than 10:00 to finish fixing my boiler by installing a new fuel pump. He gave me a bill for the service call and I paid it right away, even though I still had no heat. In retrospect, I should have refused to pay anything until the job was done.

He didn't show up at all today.

His boss Dave Maerzke 414-217-6114 decided not to have him finish the job.  ( the whole song and dance )
I know that heating contractors have a very busy time when the temperatures plummet. In general terms, I have a lot of respect for people willing to work early and late and very, very long hours to make sure folks they don't even know have heat.  I know, from a friend who's in that business, that when there's work it comes all at once, because the conditions that stress a unit stress all of the units in a city at the same time.

I  also try hard to give people the benefit of the doubt--we're all human, after all. 

But I think it's reasonable to believe that somebody who takes your money to start a job and promises to come back the next day to finish it should show up as promised (even if it wasn't the day before a long holiday weekend.)  To not bother to even try to complete the job seems to me to be derelict, especially since this guy's stated reason for his behavior is nothing more than the normal circumstances of the type of business he chose to be in.

So, I had hoped to be able to tell you all that I am thankful that I have heat.  Instead I guess I just have to be thankful that I can tell all of my friends about this heating contractor who can cheerfully leave a paying customer in the cold with the job half done.

I wasn't feeling good earlier this week, not a good thing before going to visit Aunt, who just got out of the hospital.  The Kid headed into Chicago right after school to do most of the cooking, but I stayed in Milwaukee until this morning to make sure I wasn't contagious.  It's really cool that my kid has the skills and focus to do that!  I'm proud of her.  Dinner was really good; we played games after.  Someone gave my artist-Sister a small trapezoidal "harp"; I tuned it for her and the kids, but especially her daughter, played with it on and off all night.  

So I guess I may be shopping tomorrow after all, finding some finger picks and maybe small hammers, a tuning wrench, and perhaps even a chromatic tuner if the price fits my sister's budget.  Silly day for shopping, tho.  IMHO.  

We also moved furniture around to make room for Aunt's Christmas tree...I guess I'll be hanging ornaments tomorrow.  My house isn't in any kind of shape for having my own Yule Tree...sigh...  I really want the energy I had when  was 18 back!  Oh, well, the face-hugger is giving me some of my energy (and mental clarity) back, so I'll count my blessings.