Sunday, August 4, 2013

The making of an action hero pt21

Entry #20 Being the good guy is tuff. In real life people don’t always live up to your expectations. In real life your expectations are often unreasonable. In real life the best laid plans fall to pieces despite your best efforts. Of course, in real life happiness is often just as unexpected. Friday I went to WMTrainguy’s home for a relaxing dinner, drink, and game. The first exceeded my expectations (as his wife’s cooking usually does.) The third didn’t happen. So the second kept dark beast™ from coming out. I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t fair for me to be royally frustrated with childrens’ behavior and then sit in a corner with a drink in my hand as the progeny in question proceed to joyfully, systematically, and unknowingly smash my plans to flinders. Previously my logic went something like this. • If child does something I don’t like, sit back and let the parents take care of it unless catastrophe is imminent. • If this interaction happens in a public place, defer to the child since even minor corrections are often seen as unwanted intrusions. • Don’t advise parents that their children are ruining a perfectly good evening because that would be “rude.” Not surprisingly, that plan hasn’t gotten me very far except frustrated. Friday I escaped to the basement where I had hoped to engage the host’s forces over a glass of something strong and flavorful. Several of the communal children ventured to the same area because (displaying excellent taste) they determined that was where the best toys might be found. In a display of cruel irony, those of us interested in quiet relaxation found ourselves cast in the role of involentary babysitters—preemptively scuttling our plans. The brunette discussed events with me and pointed out that while it’s rude to tell parents that their children are being rude, it’s no more acceptable for the kids in question to forcibly conscript unwilling adults into their machinations—especially if they’re destroying things in the process. One must understand that beast loves children and will go to great lengths to accommodate them. However, beast also tends to focus on one thing at a time and does not take well to being passively aggressively cornered into doing something by default, be it by parents happy to let others watch their children or by their spawn. Going forward, there will be a new set of protocols. Children will be told that in the rare times when he is neither willing nor required to deal with them that this isn’t a good time and that they should either find something else to do or wait until beast is finished what he is doing. Failure to follow this directive will result in a firm request to please leave beast alone. If that doesn’t work the parents will be petitioned. It isn’t fair for me to be angry with children when I haven’t set the right expectation. They won’t learn if I sit in a corner and broodingly marinate my liver—otherwise known as sulking like a child. The parents can’t honestly be blamed if I set the expectation that I’m fine with the current state of affairs—even if courtesy should prompt them to recognize the problem. I’ve been trying for a while to deal with issues promptly and politely rather than suffering in silence. The brunette calls it my martyr complex—due to my responses in such circumstances recalling those of Kif from Futurama. I don’t do it nearly as much as I used to, but it still happens. Saturday, Agents Squish and MX joined me for a rainy hike to some of our local portals. It was less of a patrol and more of a chance to get out of the house. Nobody was around—the skies lightly sprinkling the concrete jungle with their bounty. We hacked several portals and worked our way through the local historical society. There, sheltered from the rain under a tree at the top of a hill we had a peaceful moment among special agents. The war for humanity rarely leaves an agent such freedom; but one learns to celebrate the moments when the scanners quiet chirp harmonizes with the world we protect. Such moments make an agent’s work worthwhile. Today I slepped in after staying up late reading the most recent Kate Daniels book. Man, there’s an action hero. I finished the book this morning over coffee, a piece of Cherylkat’s apple bread, and a health shake of bananas, strawberries, spinach, almonds, skim milk, and touches of vanilla vodka and chocolate syrup. Following that repast, WMTrainguy and his lovely wife came up to try out the 1911 we’re selling. We shot a box of .45 hardball through the ATI and a box of copper jacketed .22 through the conversion unit. Both magazines feed better after I left them loaded for 2 weeks in the gun safe. The .45 only had 2 FTFs out of 50 rounds and the GSG fed flawlessly. Most semiautomatics require between 500 and 1,000 rounds fired to break them in. The parts have to find their rhythm and the magazines need to be mellowed out. The lower down the production ladder you go, the longer the break in period and the greater the chance of getting a dud. Buying a gun is about compromises in cost, reliability, value, and performance. They may or may not buy the gun, but either way I’m glad to see the ATI breaking in so easily. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the lair—putting things in order, consolidating, and throwing trash away. It’s coming along slowly but nicely. I have plans to put in play as soon as the brunette gets her low table. That worthy spent most of the day resting as she’s been under the weather. After dinner she asked me to come listen to a piece of music. I liked it but couldn’t identify the style or composer. There’s a good reason for that. She went to: www.fiverr.com And commissioned an action hero theme song for me to commemorate my most recent successes. It was a wonderful, unexpected, and touching gesture. I guess I have to finish my training montage now. After all, now I have to earn enough reward levels to create a soundtrack. You can listen to my theme entitled “The Man” here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3375356/The_Man.mp3 Today’s weight=295.4 pounds. Intake: Breakfast=A piece of apple bread, a health shake, and 2 cups of coffee. There was no lunch. Dinner=2 bowls of Mexican rice and chicken leftovers. I didn’t eat leftover dessert, the two mountain dues Cherylkat left in the fridge, or any chocolate.

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