The Days Go By
*can't upload photos for some reason*
Since my last install I've been to thanksgiving dinner with my family and like any family there is some amount of strife between members, but we all, well most of us, seem to get along well enough for one evening of fellowship. While I do not understand why there is any amount of contempt for any other member of our family I am completely amazed by any act of negativity toward any member of our family. I will not say that I am the perfect relative, far from it, but I realize that we are all hard working, kind, and thoughtful people in our own way. I do my best to put all that negative junk aside and just have a great time with my family.

Our thanksgiving is done at a different time than what is known as American Tradition. Instead of having dinner on "the day" we have dinner on the Saturday after Thanksgiving day. That way we, all of about 35 of us, My mom and dad, long since become Grandma and Grandpa as well as all of their seven children, their spouses, and their kids, and their kids' kids, there are a lot of us, are able to gather as a family and still have Thanksgiving with our spouses family or with friends. That was my Mom's idea. But there is a lot of love there and I like it. You are all invited to join us next time. All of you.

In other news my reality has been checked again. I have been making the most of my job at Macy's and have been enjoying comradery of my fellow "associates" and I even got a few of us together, 5 to be exact, to go out and have a beer after work. We all work hard and I think most of us get along pretty well. I have fun there and try to make the most of each day at work. But damn if working everyday 5 days a week doesn't suck ass.

Here I've been without work for almost eleven months and now that I am back to work I see how difficult it was to get to where I was before I sold my house and took a journey. I had a good life, a good job, and many friends. I was very rich in those ways, and I still am. But looking back I can see the riches that I had and I miss that life but I chose a different path and I would do it again. But I miss having my friends near me. Sure I can travel to visit them. Yes I can make new friends, and I have never had a problem making friends, but many of my friends, speaking specifically of Ellensburg, I have had for years and I miss having them around.

Also, working for $8.50 an hour is not exactly an easy way to make a living. I filled up my gas tank and it cost me $32.17. That's half a days labor just for gas. I now see more clearly the difficulty of what is known as "the working poor" in America, where you have a job, maybe 2, and it is still not enough to get by, or barely make the monthly bills. Never being able to take a day off for illness, or just for just mental health, because the bills do not take a day off so neither can you.

I have moved from brother Doug and his wife Diane's home. They were so very good to me and I cannot thank them enough. Now I am at my sister Mary and her husband Kevin's home. Mary has a couple of great kids and there is a lot of love here. They have made me welcome and I feel right at home. Mary and I are very close in age and companionship, she is only 3 years older than me and she was always looking out for me while we were growing up and we have done many things together. I'm sure that she will claim that she can still kick my ass... but only if she catches me off guard. Love ya Mary!

I have been missing many things about the traveling lifestyle. Today, I did some laundry and had this very vivid recollection of walking a few miles in Yokohama Japan, to find a public coin-op laundry. Well one that didn't charge $15 a kilo. When I did get to the laundry there was this creepy looking guy in there smoking, sitting on a chair, with his arms held out so that his hands rested on the tops of two washing machines as if someone were about to leap in and take his clothes out and put theirs in. I just said "Konichiwa" to him and went about my business. Which reminds me, about Japanese coin-op laundries, I went to a few, all of them had small sized washers that did not require, as the Aussies call it, washing powder. You just put your money in and the machine put the soap in automatically at no extra charge. I love that idea.

Life for me is very different. I have a job to go to, at least for now, and that has changed my whole way of going about my life. I'm finding it difficult to put time into this blog for example. I am still inching my way toward a job in radio. It seems like I'm crawling after it, but I will get there. I have to for my mental health and happier life. But damn it if radio isn't a dying medium in the U.S. There are fewer radio stations every day. But I know that radio is my first love in broadcasting and many people in the broadcast field get their start in radio and that is where I will get mine. What will become of it? Who knows. But first I have to get a job in that arena and then I can be concerned about that. But I know where I must start that journey. It is only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time.