Feb 13th, 2024
What am I doing today? I’m trying to catch my breath. Not that I’m suffering from a lack of oxygen. It’s just that there has been a lot going on. The rush started a few days ago on the eighth. Thursday is the day that I typically clean and set up the Murpah Shrine Club, after I get off work, for our Friday dinners. I enjoy being a Vice President out there, but my workload has increased lately because of some personal things another officer is dealing with. This may not sound important to a journal about my life until I mention that I have been doing his work as well in order to help maintain our success at the Club. That means part of my additional workload is recording notes and a summary of our monthly Shriner meetings. Then after our Friday dinners I have been doing a tear down and preparing for any other weekend events as well as additionally typing up the handwritten notes that I took from the meeting. I had to reword a section with some specific legal jargon for a financial account to be modified tonight.
I am lucky to have a supportive wife. She rode with me and assisted me with the room cleaning and preparations. She has been helping with taking food orders, busing tables, and doing dishes on the Friday dinners. I have seen a few marriages crumble when the support from the spouse is not there. I try to warn and mentor a few of my “Masonic Brothers” in these potential snares. There can always be distractions in the family and work balance that we all must combat. We have a six-month-old Golden Retriever named O. He is a high energy, very playful, and personality showing puppy. He hits a part of his body onto a bell that’s hung from a door to let us know when he wants to go outside. He is usually very good for me, but for my wife and daughter he seems to ring the bell a lot more and then end up trying to jump and play while outside. As far as when it’s time to go to sleep, we are wanting to get him accustomed to sleeping in the bedroom and then transition him to our daughter’s room. That is what we did with our last dog M, who recently died. My wife unfortunately has been, off and on, forced to sleep in another room so she can take O outside throughout the night instead of bothering my sleep. She has to get up early herself for her nursing job, so it’s been rough on her as well. When he is in our bedroom he seems to move spots throughout the night. One spot is just above my shaved head. He will then proceed to lick the top of my head for a few minutes while trying to fall asleep. And that’s how he was on that night.
February ninth was our annual Valentines Party at the Shrine Club. We had the “Remedy Band” playing and had some great food. Since its one of our bigger events, I was also asked to help out as a bartender. I am licensed as one, so I said sure. I ended up working ten hours at my job getting off work at 5:30pm. I then went home and took a shower and changed clothes and got to the Club just after 6pm. I then helped in the bar area until we left around midnight. My wife and daughter helped with waitress duties during the dinner section of our party. I would have liked to relax after my job but there is an inner reward in knowing that volunteering our time and efforts allows us to help charities in our community. After the costs to the band, food, and alcohol we should have gained about $2,000 in profit. That was a very successful event for us. Falling asleep was not an issue after all that.
February the tenth was Saturday. Normally it is a chance to relax a little however the Shrine Club needed cleaned a prepared for Sunday. We had a Super Bowl party planned in the same location. My wife stayed home in order to make some food for the event. After I cleaned up the room, I left to go to MCL for a Morningside Neighborhood Association Meeting. We discussed issues in the neighborhood, plans for our Serve Weekends to help the neighborhood, as well as plans for our Easter Event. While members were making suggestions and finalizing the plans I was also texting my fellow Shrine Officers to juggle our timelines to mesh since I am also helping with a Shriner version on the same day. After the meeting I ran an errand with my mother and sister, who were also at the meeting. It allowed me to spend a little more time with them. They live in Marion. Being an hour drive away and all of us having jobs there is not a lot of face-to-face interactions. It was a full day but at least I didn’t work this Saturday.
Sunday was February eleventh. Better known as Super Bowl Sunday. The Chiefs versus the 49ers. I grew up a Niners fan as a kid. I even wore 49ers gear to work a Colts vs 49ers game event while representing the Colts in Indianapolis when I was in my twenties. The Super Bowl didn’t end the way I would have preferred but both teams played solidly. The Fez Mates (spouses of Shriners) and Nobles (Shriner members) made food options that were free to anyone attending. One of our officers recently purchased some televisions and donated them to the club, so we ended up having four televisions all showing the game. We also had a hundred square board game for the betters. Each quarter had a $125 payout. A friend of a member won the first quarter and decided to donate his winnings to the Shriner Childrens Hospital. Second and third quarters both were won by a local politician and wonderful man named J. D. He decided to donate his winnings to our club. We will use that to help offset costs and then we plan on donating it to the Shriner Childrens Hospital at the end of the year. We had two years during the covid era that we had to pay for our insurance, property taxes, utilities, taxes, license fees, etc. but had zero dollars coming in. It completely destroyed our bank accounts. The final payout was won by a Noble who was sick and not at the game. My family had to leave as soon as the game was over, because it was late and I needed to get sleep for work the next day.
Monday, I worked my ten hours and then drove over to the Noble who won the final payout from the previous night. I needed to deliver a girl scout cookie order he placed. When I handed him the envelope with his winnings, he instructed me to donate his winnings to the Girl Scouts. So that’s $500 in winnings that everyone turned around and donated instead of keeping. These men set an amazing example to the rest of us. After the drop off I ran to a couple stores and picked up flowers and books for my wife and daughter. My wife likes Steven King as an author, so I purchased his newest book. My daughter likes to read Manga. I know one of the best-selling books during the last world cup was about a boy who plays soccer. The Japanese national team even had jerseys inspired by the book. I got her the first book in that series to see if she likes the story in it. It can be difficult finding time to be connected to our family, but we all should put a serious effort in it. We try to eat dinner together and watch a family appropriate series. Most of the time the shows are older. They hold up story wise and do not have a lot of the modern social agenda squeezed into them. It’s important to make memories and make sure your loved ones know that you love them. I wasn’t able to carve out a way to have a romantic dinner with my wife, but I still want her to know what she means to me and how much I love her.
So now we are to today, February the thirteenth. I woke up and went to work. Luckily, I have been running a batch order instead of one or two parts on an order. The parts are for a food manufacturing company and I have done them a few times and there is comfort in repeat parts as a Machinist. During my ten hour shift I conversed with two of my coworkers who brought spouses to the recent Valentines Day Party. I was able to get feedback on their experience and suggestions for future improvement. I listen to podcasts about a variety of topics while I’m working. I have recently found some videos of professional drummers who are given a famous song without the drum part and they have to create what they think the drum part should sound like. I found a couple females doing the challenge, so I forwarded those to my daughter. I have a vivid memory of a discussion with my sister a few years ago. She told me that growing up, she felt limited as a female and didn’t know there were even female astronauts until they came to our school. That is why I sent those videos to my daughter. I try to let her know she has endless possibilities in life. Part of my responsibility as her father is to encourage her pursuits and to give her opportunities. I have been feeling guilty about us as a family not attending church in a while. I plan on discussing that concern with my wife in the coming days. I feel that connection is more important than other things we are filling our time with. Well, after work I was able to go through group officer texts and found out the Fez Mates are searching for an Easter Bunny outfit that would fit me. If they get one, I will wear it at both of the events I’m working that day. I also found out that our Secretary is formally stepping down so I am going to be officially the Secretary and a Vice President for the remainder of the year unless I find a replacement for one of the positions. After catching up on those other emails and texts I sat down and jotted some bullet points from the last few days. I assume this coming weekend, I will expand on these points and create a post that you are currently reading. There has been a lot that I plan on putting in this post. Perhaps it will be longer but I need to cut it off at some point as I realize I need to clean and prep the Shrine Club for dinner this Friday. I will put that off until Thursday though so I can try to catch my breath.