First Night Alone
Monday, February 27th, 2023 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioI dunno if you recall, but back in December, when Dad first broke his hip, I knew he'd be gone longer than a week, so I decided to get his computer in the back room functioning normally again (it had been infected with spamware).
I figured I could use it down here while keeping the dog company, over the long weeks until his return.
Well... here I am this evening, a little after 5PM, writing this entry from that computer in the back room.
------------{=0=}------------
I was up by 10:30AM, and oustide walking Yvette with my coffee before 11AM. Snoop & Prowly both joined us in the back yard again.
Tim was doing last minute laundry and taking a shower.
He and I left for the train station at 11:30, stopping at Fiesta Food Mart for smokes on the way.
By the time he'd bought his ticket at the window, the Metra train was pulling into the station.
Some weird guy on the platform who'd just gotten out of prison spoiled our farewell.
He saw us smoking and came up for a light... then wouldn't stop talking about how he'd just gotten out of jail... and the world was so different from 2019... and he had to fight black guys... bla bla bla.
I guess the post covid world is a lot different from 2019.
At any rate, I didn't have time to say much of a goodbye to Tim before he boarded the train, but we did have a quick hug.
--<>--
I was back home by 12:10PM. Still over two hours before I had to leave for work.
But here I was, after all the chaos that's been going on since Dad broke his hip... finally alone at home, for real!
I mean, I was alone here a lot through December, but... Dad was still out there... and he was coming back.
This was... alone at home for real!
And I thought, I can't just go to work in two hours like this is nothing! This is a pretty heavy moment!
So I texted my supervisor and told her I was recovering from the flu, but would for sure make it in tomorrow.
She texted back telling me to get well.
And then... I washed the dishes.
------------{=0=}------------
After cleaning up around the house for a bit, I went into the back room to assess the computer situation.
The desk that was back here, wasn't gonna work. It's an old desk from the 1920s... very small... and zero leg room underneath, unless you're sitting bolt upright in a wooden chair, with your feet on the floor.
I'd spent too much money on rugs, blinds, and cameras to go buy a computer desk, but... just a folding table would work a lot better than this desk. So I found one on the Walmart app that would fit in the space, for thirty bucks.
I had a computer chair down in the basement, that a doctor was getting rid of, back in 2019, when I still worked at the hospital. Would that work?
It was kinda buried behind stuff down there by the furnace, but I got it out, and tightened it up. It would be fine! Broad enough for me to sit cross-legged on, like I do upstairs, and sturdy.
I brought it out the hatch entrance of the shop, around the yard to the back door, and into the back room.
Then I went to Walmart to get; the folding table, a little 3-port USB hub, and a 3-cup coffee maker.
The coffee maker is to replace Dad's old one down here, because it's too tall to fit under the cabinets, and... it's just needlessly complicated!
But anyway, back at home I did some shuffling of furniture... put the desk into Dad's room, and then brought one of the two dressers from Dad's room out to the back room.
I then put the folding table, here in the corner, and set up Dad's computer on it.
Also rotated the twin bed back here, to align with the back wall, and moved some night stands around.
------------{=0=}------------
So, what I'm doing now, is just testing out this set up.
Can I sit back here and use this computer comfortably?
So far, the answer is yes.
It would be better in Dad's room, where I don't have cold air blowing in through the cat door, on a windy night like tonight. I wouldn't be wasting electricity with the space heater.
But electricity is also what Dad's room lacks! It's only got two, outdated outlets, which are on the same circuit as the kitchen!
And it still needs to be patched and painted in there, so I don't wanna get anything too involved going in there until after thats' done.
But yes, so far tonight, it's been pretty comfortable using the computer back here.
I'll have more to say later in the evening, as I am also testing out... just living a whole day in this house by myself.
So I'll update later tonight.
------------{=0=}------------
10:55PM
Okay, so I kinda had a lot of fun this evening!
I experienced a bit of two joys I've known in the past; moving into a new place, and getting a new computer!
Of course, I'm not in a new place, but... it feels like it down here, especially when setting up camp in the back room.
And this isn't a new computer, but... it's new to me... and it's not that old of a machine! It's running windows 10, has no speed or signal issues, and has 800 Gig of drive space free... even after I installed all my shit onto it!
--<>--
I'm an old hand at moving into a new PC. I've done it dozens of times over the years. So these days I have thumb drives with all the important shit, ready to go!
I spent some time updating my thumb drive upstairs, with the latest from the main PC up there, and then brought it down here, plugged it into the USB hub I bought today, and started importing everything to this machine.
Some of the folders on that thumb drive are pretty huge, so, I had time to do other things while the data was copying over.
--<>--
I brought down the old speakers and subwoofer I had upstairs. The ones I replaced last summer. They still work fine for normal applications... just not for FLAC files of key chimes.
I set them up down here, and then installed Amazon Music, and started blasting a favorite old playlist, just as the sun was going down!
It felt GREAT, to finally blast some music too!.. because I really have not been able to for eight years!
A lot of the song lyrics would've offended Dad, so I could never just play the music while he was awake... but when he was asleep, I was worried the bass waves would wake him up!
And even when Tim was here, for some weird reason, he was not into having any music playing while we worked on shit around the house! Like, we should've been playing music while scraping up the floor tiles in Dad's room with the torch a couple nights ago, but... no!
--<>--
I also brought down the scanner, which I never had much room for upstairs. I used to operate it with a tiny windows laptop on the dresser in the bedroom, but it was always hard to use that laptop, and I'd have to save the scans to a thumb drive and bring them into the back room PC for importing and processing.
The table down here is big enough to host the scanner, so now I can finally get serious about all the old photos, letters, and journals we've discovered in the house!
--<>--
As I moved from the upstairs to the downstairs and back again, I took care of other little things, like the litter boxes, and such. And I got that better feel for how the rooms on the timers do their little light routines over the course of the evening.
At one point, early on after dark, the living room, music room, and Dad's room were all dark at the same time. But after that, they've been mixing it up pretty good all night!
At times I would be walking through a dark living room. At other times it was light, and Dad's room was dark... etc.
It's an odd feeling, like... even from inside the house, and being the person who programmed the timers... it DOES still feel like other people are here!.. doing things in different rooms throughout the night!
I just never see them. It's weird, and a little creepy. But... in a different way, it's reassuring.
The cameras keep pinging me to check out what they're seeing, and the outdoor lights are coming on by themselves. Alexa is telling me that a package arrived.
The house is... alive!
--<>--
That package, by the way, was the padlock for the dog yard gate. And I did install it tonight.
--<>--
After all my files were imported to this PC, I spent another hour or two installing old, workhorse apps I've been using for years... and telling windows to run them like it's XP Service Pack 2.
I installed all my fonts. Oh, so many fonts!.. some of them going back to the 2000s, that you can't even find anymore!
Like antique furniture and wall art, these are the things I move in to every new PC hard drive, to make the computer mine!
The last step was stuff like, the send-to menu, and the folder options... I like everything to list details, and show the file extenstions. I like to send word documents to wordpad, and image files to one of my two legacy editor apps.
------------{=0=}------------
12:10AM
The new back room workstation is nice!
I can do anything down here now, that I could do upstairs, and in the same level of comfort, with a fridge, and a bathroom nearby!
And my first night at home alone, has gone well!
The dog's nearby. She's been in and out. The cats have been in, out, up and down. I've been up, down, and around.
It hasn't felt lonely.
It's felt kind of liberating.
It was good to take the day off.
--<>--
Now I'm set up to be down for Yvette after work.
Still don't think I'll sleep down here tonight, but we'll see how things evolve down the line.
I still have the rest of this week part time, and then a weekend.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
I figured I could use it down here while keeping the dog company, over the long weeks until his return.
Well... here I am this evening, a little after 5PM, writing this entry from that computer in the back room.
I was up by 10:30AM, and oustide walking Yvette with my coffee before 11AM. Snoop & Prowly both joined us in the back yard again.
Tim was doing last minute laundry and taking a shower.
He and I left for the train station at 11:30, stopping at Fiesta Food Mart for smokes on the way.
By the time he'd bought his ticket at the window, the Metra train was pulling into the station.
Some weird guy on the platform who'd just gotten out of prison spoiled our farewell.
He saw us smoking and came up for a light... then wouldn't stop talking about how he'd just gotten out of jail... and the world was so different from 2019... and he had to fight black guys... bla bla bla.
I guess the post covid world is a lot different from 2019.
At any rate, I didn't have time to say much of a goodbye to Tim before he boarded the train, but we did have a quick hug.
I was back home by 12:10PM. Still over two hours before I had to leave for work.
But here I was, after all the chaos that's been going on since Dad broke his hip... finally alone at home, for real!
I mean, I was alone here a lot through December, but... Dad was still out there... and he was coming back.
This was... alone at home for real!
And I thought, I can't just go to work in two hours like this is nothing! This is a pretty heavy moment!
So I texted my supervisor and told her I was recovering from the flu, but would for sure make it in tomorrow.
She texted back telling me to get well.
And then... I washed the dishes.
After cleaning up around the house for a bit, I went into the back room to assess the computer situation.
The desk that was back here, wasn't gonna work. It's an old desk from the 1920s... very small... and zero leg room underneath, unless you're sitting bolt upright in a wooden chair, with your feet on the floor.
I'd spent too much money on rugs, blinds, and cameras to go buy a computer desk, but... just a folding table would work a lot better than this desk. So I found one on the Walmart app that would fit in the space, for thirty bucks.
I had a computer chair down in the basement, that a doctor was getting rid of, back in 2019, when I still worked at the hospital. Would that work?
It was kinda buried behind stuff down there by the furnace, but I got it out, and tightened it up. It would be fine! Broad enough for me to sit cross-legged on, like I do upstairs, and sturdy.
I brought it out the hatch entrance of the shop, around the yard to the back door, and into the back room.
Then I went to Walmart to get; the folding table, a little 3-port USB hub, and a 3-cup coffee maker.
The coffee maker is to replace Dad's old one down here, because it's too tall to fit under the cabinets, and... it's just needlessly complicated!
But anyway, back at home I did some shuffling of furniture... put the desk into Dad's room, and then brought one of the two dressers from Dad's room out to the back room.
I then put the folding table, here in the corner, and set up Dad's computer on it.
Also rotated the twin bed back here, to align with the back wall, and moved some night stands around.
So, what I'm doing now, is just testing out this set up.
Can I sit back here and use this computer comfortably?
So far, the answer is yes.
It would be better in Dad's room, where I don't have cold air blowing in through the cat door, on a windy night like tonight. I wouldn't be wasting electricity with the space heater.
But electricity is also what Dad's room lacks! It's only got two, outdated outlets, which are on the same circuit as the kitchen!
And it still needs to be patched and painted in there, so I don't wanna get anything too involved going in there until after thats' done.
But yes, so far tonight, it's been pretty comfortable using the computer back here.
I'll have more to say later in the evening, as I am also testing out... just living a whole day in this house by myself.
So I'll update later tonight.
Okay, so I kinda had a lot of fun this evening!
I experienced a bit of two joys I've known in the past; moving into a new place, and getting a new computer!
Of course, I'm not in a new place, but... it feels like it down here, especially when setting up camp in the back room.
And this isn't a new computer, but... it's new to me... and it's not that old of a machine! It's running windows 10, has no speed or signal issues, and has 800 Gig of drive space free... even after I installed all my shit onto it!
I'm an old hand at moving into a new PC. I've done it dozens of times over the years. So these days I have thumb drives with all the important shit, ready to go!
I spent some time updating my thumb drive upstairs, with the latest from the main PC up there, and then brought it down here, plugged it into the USB hub I bought today, and started importing everything to this machine.
Some of the folders on that thumb drive are pretty huge, so, I had time to do other things while the data was copying over.
I brought down the old speakers and subwoofer I had upstairs. The ones I replaced last summer. They still work fine for normal applications... just not for FLAC files of key chimes.
I set them up down here, and then installed Amazon Music, and started blasting a favorite old playlist, just as the sun was going down!
It felt GREAT, to finally blast some music too!.. because I really have not been able to for eight years!
A lot of the song lyrics would've offended Dad, so I could never just play the music while he was awake... but when he was asleep, I was worried the bass waves would wake him up!
And even when Tim was here, for some weird reason, he was not into having any music playing while we worked on shit around the house! Like, we should've been playing music while scraping up the floor tiles in Dad's room with the torch a couple nights ago, but... no!
I also brought down the scanner, which I never had much room for upstairs. I used to operate it with a tiny windows laptop on the dresser in the bedroom, but it was always hard to use that laptop, and I'd have to save the scans to a thumb drive and bring them into the back room PC for importing and processing.
The table down here is big enough to host the scanner, so now I can finally get serious about all the old photos, letters, and journals we've discovered in the house!
As I moved from the upstairs to the downstairs and back again, I took care of other little things, like the litter boxes, and such. And I got that better feel for how the rooms on the timers do their little light routines over the course of the evening.
At one point, early on after dark, the living room, music room, and Dad's room were all dark at the same time. But after that, they've been mixing it up pretty good all night!
At times I would be walking through a dark living room. At other times it was light, and Dad's room was dark... etc.
It's an odd feeling, like... even from inside the house, and being the person who programmed the timers... it DOES still feel like other people are here!.. doing things in different rooms throughout the night!
I just never see them. It's weird, and a little creepy. But... in a different way, it's reassuring.
The cameras keep pinging me to check out what they're seeing, and the outdoor lights are coming on by themselves. Alexa is telling me that a package arrived.
The house is... alive!
That package, by the way, was the padlock for the dog yard gate. And I did install it tonight.
After all my files were imported to this PC, I spent another hour or two installing old, workhorse apps I've been using for years... and telling windows to run them like it's XP Service Pack 2.
I installed all my fonts. Oh, so many fonts!.. some of them going back to the 2000s, that you can't even find anymore!
Like antique furniture and wall art, these are the things I move in to every new PC hard drive, to make the computer mine!
The last step was stuff like, the send-to menu, and the folder options... I like everything to list details, and show the file extenstions. I like to send word documents to wordpad, and image files to one of my two legacy editor apps.
The new back room workstation is nice!
I can do anything down here now, that I could do upstairs, and in the same level of comfort, with a fridge, and a bathroom nearby!
And my first night at home alone, has gone well!
The dog's nearby. She's been in and out. The cats have been in, out, up and down. I've been up, down, and around.
It hasn't felt lonely.
It's felt kind of liberating.
It was good to take the day off.
Now I'm set up to be down for Yvette after work.
Still don't think I'll sleep down here tonight, but we'll see how things evolve down the line.
I still have the rest of this week part time, and then a weekend.
°¦}
