Let's go!

A week or so back, I suggested to The Crowd about meeting for drinks. it must be six months since we last did it. Everyone seemed keen, though GM claimed a lack of money, so would have to pass this time around.

Today, I followed up to see if people were still interested. I think it's still the same: everyone's keen but GM definitely can't afford it.

I suggested that we might stay local if GM is not coming out (S, FC/Mrs FC and I all live on the same side of town). There are about seven bars we could choose from, including CB Pub, and I don't mind any of them.

I'm not in a rush to make that decision, i just wanted to make sure we were still meeting, which seems to be the case. 

Green with envy?

With it being the day after Paddy's Day, Facebook is full of memories of past days. It's the women who stand out: Foreign Girl was 11 years ago. She was great fun. 15 years ago there was a near miss with a girl that I regularly saw on Plenty of Fish who ticked a lot of boxes: tall, nice figure, brunette. I didn't talk to her, and I can't remember if I even tried. On the same day, one of RB's friends came out because MF was out. She was cute in a Joanna Garcia Swisher kinda way. And there are pics of KfW2, who inadvertently wore a thin black top that didn't hide her blue bra when the flash went off.

It's been years since I went out for Paddy's Day, but I don't recall there ever being a bad day out. Even the day where it was only KfW2 and I and she was pregnant was a great day out.

FFS

I knew this was going to happen. I got my eyes tested a few weeks back. I knew that my eyesight had deteriorated, though I'm not strictly due an eye test until September. But off I went to the opticians. I explained about my eye sight and what my needs are: a set of glasses for being out and about, and a set specifically for sitting at a desk looking at a monitor an arm's length away.

The optician talked me into a new set of fancy lenses for the office work. "Office lenses" they called them. Varifocals but with a much shorter focal range: up to five meters.

"I'm not sure that's right for me"

"They get rave reviews" 

"But still, I don't need a range of vision, I literally spend all day either at home or in the office looking at a monitor which is exactly this far away."

I move my arm out in front of me to indicate the distance. It is literally an arm's length.

"They'll work" declared the optician. 

I picked up the glasses this morning.

They do not work. The varifocals are great for up close or far away (2 meters), but for that sweet spot for my monitors, any slight movement of my head makes everything out of focus, even more than with my current/old glasses.

It's not a case of getting used to them. They're just not fit for purpose (for me). 

I'm gonna have to go back to the store this week and give them the old "I told you so" speech. At least I should get some money back because plain lenses are cheaper. 

Over the top?

I'm just back in the house after staying over at KfW2's house last evening and then going to see two of her kids play football. Her kids have wanted me to go to a football match for ages, so I was happy enough to do it this time around. And remember that post I made a few days ago about KfW2's gratitude? Well, there were hugs. KfW2 is tactile as standard and we hug a lot, but there were a couple of extra ones in there. She really was very appreciative. A lot more than I would have thought for what I thought was a small favour.

It's not like they were celebrating a big wedding anniversary or something. It was "only" a charity pub quiz that they'd signed up for.

I'm not complaining. I like getting the compliments. I like helping people out. I love hugs. But the reaction still seems a little bit excessive. 

Gratitude.

Whatever frustrations and criticisms I have with KfW2 (which are mainly around how little I've seen her over the past few years), she's always been very good at being thankful when she feels gratitude is required.

And this favour I'm doing her tomorrow is no different. She was very thankful when I initially agreed to babysit tomorrow evening and she's just sent another message thanking me and helping her out and asking when I'm coming down.

A thought has already crossed my mind, and I can't remember if I've already mentioned it, but I've seen more of KfW2 in 2026 than the past two years combined. 

Normality.

Six years ago, to the day, I walked out of the office not knowing if I would be back in on the Monday. I had told all around me, including my bosses, that I was expecting things to shut down quickly and that we wouldn't see each other for a while. They were dubious, but I grabbed everything that I thought I'd need: cables, pens, notepads etc. And despite not fully admitting that I was right, I saw them do the same.

24 hours later, I was out with FP at CB Pub which only had a fraction of the people it normally would for a Saturday night.

48 hours later, while KfW2 was visiting in the afternoon, the call came in: the office would be shut for the foreseeable future, and that was the last time I was in the office full time.

And this is the new normal. 

Sigh.

Work has taken a turn. A deadline that's going to be difficult to hit because we only heard about it today... despite the fact the other team who are making the demands knowing about it for weeks and not simply sharing that detail with us.

No... instead, they tell their boss who tells their boss who tells their boss who tells their colleague who tells their underling who tells... you get the picture.

Is it any wonder the company is haemorrhaging customers?  

Please?

A text message from KfW2. I knew instantly that she was going to follow up and ask for a favour. And she did.

And I agreed to the favour. It's at the weekend and I don't have any plans.

She's really pleased. She always is.

So that's Saturday night taken care of. 

Dream a little dream.

I woken this morning to a semi-remembered dream. It was something that actually happened: a night out with MM and MMBF. They were out celebrating their birthdays (they were born only a few days apart), and MM messaged me and asked me to join them.

What happened in real life was that we chatted, MMBF added me on Facebook (or was it the other way around?), we moved to a different bar after the girls insisted I do many shots, MMBF went missing for about half an hour before reappearing, then MM and I got a taxi and went home.

In the dream, MMBF got very tactile and when MM suggested getting a taxi home, MMBF made it perfectly clear she wanted me to hang around.

I kinda woke up at that point.

I'd always wondered if MM had any ideas about that evening. M was nowhere to be seen, so it was puzzling why I got an invite out. I'd never been shy with M or MM about saying that I thought MMBF was attractive, though I think we all agreed she was too high maintenance for me. And at least one conversation from that evening was MM trying to talk MMBF into not talking to a guy that MMBF admitted was no good for her. So had she any plans for me and MMBF? She never admitted to anything and I never saw anything from MMBF to think that anything non-platonic was on the cards.

A pleasant start to Monday if nothing else, though. 

Regrets?

A question was asked on Reddit a few days ago: "When did you regret leaving a SO?"

I replied that I didn't regret leaving someone, but there was a person where I had second-guessed the timing. The person I was thinking of was CAB. As I've no doubt explained before, we always had an expiry date. She was going to go away for university and I had no desire to have a long-distance relationship. At best, we had six months, though I pulled the plug around the three month milestone.

Had I thought it through, I probably should have just kept on dating her. She was good fun, we had some great private fun even if there was never any actual sex (not through a lack of trying on our part) and I could easily have spent the summer going to bars with her, because that's really all we did. 

A thought that only crossed my mind recently was that we didn't feel like a couple, she felt more like a FwB to me. Was that just our vibe or was her imminent departure for university at the back of my mind and putting a barrier up against any real relationship growth?

But a pleasant enough memory. And here's a picture of Anna Kendrick giving me some serious CAB vibes:

Ups and downs

Family stuff reared its head again today, though thankfully it wasn't serious and only took a few hours to resolve. It did, however, allow me to indulge in my appreciation of women in scrubs.