Coffee heat rising

Angst

One of Those Days, Continued

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Magically, the toilet has started working properly. Yep: outta the blue. This was shortly after I’d called WonderAccountant to get the number of the excellent plumber we share.

The telephone started working, too. Why?????

So I had to phone her back and call off THAT excursion. She must think I’m even crazier than I am.

Tooth hurts tooth hurts tooth hurts tooth hurts and not a DAYUM thing I can do about it. Too early to reach the dentist on the phone; plus it wouldn’t matter anyway because I can’t get to his office without a car.

There’s a dentist down the road from the Funny Farm, but I don’t have their phone number…so that is going to entail walking down there in 100-degree heat and soggy humidity. And…very probably finding them Not Open.

W.A. sounded a bit harassed this morning. Probably (as usual) working too hard. Having her nutty neighbor pester her over the phone surely cannot help her own sense of harassment… {sigh}

I fear it may be getting time for me to move into one of those horrid old-folks’ institutions. You know: where you live in a dormitory and you have staff baby-sitting you and execrable food served up in a dining hall.

Ugh. Any day I’d rather take a flying leap off the North Rim. But…what are you gonna do?

Doggy Day from Hell

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Migawd!  I had SUCH a sh!tf!t of frustration this morning that now Ruby the Corgi will not come out from underneath the toilet, where she’s hiding.

That’s after I stalked out of the house and hiked all the way around the park and back, by way of unwinding. She’s been under there nigh unto an hour, and still refuses to come out.

Helle’s Belles!

Well, I don’t know how to calm her down. Offered her all sorts of prime doggy treats: she’s having none o’ that.

Horrible morning.

Actually, meteorologically it’s quite pretty. It’s just that…well…what we have here is One of Those Days: when everything you touch, look at, or think about goes wrong.

Tooth aches. That’ll be a fine bout of dental surgery, no doubt.

Peripheral neuropathy is making the hands and the lips go BZZZZZZZZZ!!

Dog remains terrorized.

Toilet sounds like it’s leaking. Again. That’ll be another spectacular plumber’s bill.

Computer screen decides to “zoom in,” expanding the size of everything in view by about 120%.  “Zoom out” command does…exactly nothing.

Without a car, I’ll have to carry this damn computer to the repair shop: through the heat and humidity.

Yep. Just a few minutes after 7:00 a.m., and we’re already looking at ONE OF THOSE DAYS. 

***

Yea, verily: come 7:40 a.m., one of those days is what we’ve got.

Somehow, the computer fixed itself. How, I do not know.

Toilet: still leaking. Why: unknown.

Let’s try flushing it again to see if, by some miracle, that’ll stop it.

Nope.

Dork with the stuff inside the tank.

Nope.

So…that’ll be another fine plumber’s bill. Hot dayum!

Tooth hurts tooth hurts tooth hurts tooth hurts: upper left molar. Too early to call the dentist. Plus: how am I gonna get over there without a car?

Helle’s Belles!  This is gonna be ONE OF THOSE DAYS.

Ohhhh well… At least the Dawg relented, climbed out from under the terlet, and is now snoozing atop the bed.

Yep.
This.
Is.
Gonna.
Be.
ONE OF THOSE DAYS. 

Here We Go Again…

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Ugh! Today is the 30th, and the calendar says one “Janie” is supposed to surface at 8:00 a.m. — that’s 20 minutes from now — and hang around until 4:00 p.m.

Janie is a babysitter. A woman my good son has hired to watch over senile little me, drive me to grocery stores, and whatnot.

  • That the Funny Farm is within walking distance of three grocery stores: meh! Doesn’t matter.
  • That I value my privacy above just about all else: meh! Doesn’t matter.
  • That just this minute, I do not relish the prospect of having someone in my face: meh! Doesn’t matter.
  • That the kitchen  needs to be picked up before someone barges in and starts sniffing around: meh! Doesn’t matter.
  • That all I wanna do at 7:45 in the morning is relax and play with my computer: meh! Doesn’t matter.
  • That, failing a good loafing session, the second-best thing I wanna do at 7:45 in the morning is take a nice skinny-dip in the pool: meh! Doesn’t matter.

Well…the latter probably isn’t relevant. At this  hour, one never knows what yard and pool workers will show up.

At least the Hound and I got out the door early enough for the day’s circumnavigation of the park. Not history’s most pleasant stroll, though: it’s muggy and sticky and yucky out there. Reminiscent of (un)lovely Saudi Arabia, where you could wake up in the morning and see rain falling out of a clear sky.

Arizona’s never that bad. But today, we’re in the competition. The air is hot, wet, and gummy. And air-conditioning notwithstanding, I sure am glad I don’t have a job where I have to throw myself around cleaning house. Or pretending to clean house.

***
A-a-a-n-d…here she is!

What a marvelous pistol this lady is! If you MUST have someone underfoot all day, this is the one to have. 😀  She’s smart, she’s witty, she’s friendly, she’s got her act 100% together. And I think I can pester her into taking me to a grocery store.

She brought over some nopalitos: a type of cactus-based delicacy.

Onward!

God Bless Great Neighbors!!!

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Yeah: I mean that literally. We have THE best neighbors on this street: the nicest people, and those people are willing to help a brain-boggled old lady.

Thanks to these fine folks, our brand-new vacuum cleaner is now functional (noooo..it did NOT work right out of the box…you expected a frog?). Haven’t tried to clean house with it yet — that actually is the job for The Cleaning Lady from Heaven. But I wanted to be sure it actually works before she shows up here to wrestle with it. And yeah: looks like it’s running right.

I hope.

Meanwhile, the same fine folks are, in real life, accountants. (Not vacuum-cleaner repair techs!) They ride herd on my incompetent bookkeeping — somebody has to do it. And now it looks like they’re going to be willing to work with my son to keep my money matters in order and to keep him fully informed.

And that, my friends, is HUGE. 

No kidding! As more and more marbles roll out my ears, I get less and less competent to do even the routine daily money tracking. As you can imagine, this creates some fine headaches for my son! So…if things work out the way I hope, they may be able to relieve him from a gigantic PITA, while they help to keep the finances under control.

I sure do hope it works out that way!!!

Man!!! Don’t get old, my friends!

Soggy Doggy Day

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Echhhh! Seven a.m. on a June Wednesday, here in lovely uptown Phoenix. WHAT A SWAMP out there.

Just back from walking the dog around the ‘Hood. For a change, not too many “ohhhh, they just wannna pwa-a-ay!” morons came our way, so I didn’t have to drag Ruby out of any fights. That was refreshing.

But “refreshing” ain’t the word for today’s weather. Hot and wet: the air so saturated it actually feels soggy against your skin.

So much for “a dry heat,” eh?

Oh well. At least we got our exercise walk. Doesn’t look like any of the expected nuisance visitors have showed up at the door. If they did, they didn’t leave any sign of their (brief) presence.

You know what that means, though…don’t you?

Yeah: it means that the minute I get a fresh pot of coffee poured and sit down to sip a mugful of it, we’ll get BING B-O-O-O-N-G!!! at the front door. Followed by ARF ARF ARF ARF YAP YAP ARF ARF!!!!!!

Shee-ut.

I can’t even remember what today’s nuisances are supposed to pester me with today. Recruiters for one of the old-folkeries, I think. Someone my son sent over, too…on the assumption that my marbles have fallen out my ears and are scattered all over the floor.

These people pass judgment on your mental grip…which means I have to get the house picked up, spick & span, so they don’t conclude that I’m too batshit to take care of myself. Which they will, if they see a mess in this place.

And y’know…I don’t WANT to clean house right this minute, at 7:15 in the morning. I want a cup of coffee and a bite of breakfast and time to rest from this morning’s tromp around the park.

Anyway, I figure the minute I get the coffee poured, it’ll be BING-BONG, followed by a gang of wannabe babysitters.

Fortunately, Wonder Cleaning-Lady keeps the house preternaturally clean. So all I have to do is make the bed and keep the litter picked up. That’s a helluva lot better than charging through four bedrooms, two baths, a family room, a living room, and a kitchen to clean up the zoo. First thing in the morning….

Weird new phenomenon: The peripheral neuropathy has faded to the point where it’s almost gone.  Right now, if I weren’t pounding on a keyboard, I wouldn’t feel it at all!!!

What makes that weird?  Well: I was told it cannot and will not go away. It’s permanent: misery to follow you for the rest of your life.

Huh.

Maybe it isn’t true that PN doesn’t go away? The Cleveland Clinic seems to claim that it can resolve…

So…gosh! Wouldn’t THAT be something? I’d resigned myself to a future of nonstop tingling and pain. But…either I’m getting used to it or it’s getting better.

Morning in Lovely(?) Arizona

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The Corgi is out back, sniffing every corner of the yard — her daily task, right? The Human loafs, feet on the hassock, computer on the lap. All is quiet…for the nonce.

Not looking forward to this morning, though. M’Hijito has hired a babysitter to come in and supervise me, forgodsake. Today, as I understand it, is to be her first day on the job.

It’s only a little after seven, and so we presumably have an hour or two before she surfaces.

Once the poor soul is welcomed into the Funny Farm and has a chance to look around, we’ll have to try to get to know each other. And since Funny is in fact One Weird Chick, …heh!!  We’ll see how long she lasts!

😀

Seriously: I am a strange little broad and always have been, since I was a little kid. As a child, I had hardly any friends, because I did not and could not fit in with the crowd.

Over half a century of life on this earth indeed has taught me to keep my mouth shut. But that’s easy enough when the victim…uh…companion isn’t living with you. When you’ve got someone in your face all day long…well…that’s a whole ‘nother story.

So, truth to tell, even though I’m interested to meet this new person, I’m sure not looking forward to it.

By now Ruby and I would have circumambulated the ‘Hood on our morning walk. Instead, we’ve had to sit here and wait for the babysitter to show up. Of course, she has not done so, and because June is one of the hotter months in lovely central Arizona, our chance for a doggy-walk is already lost.

Since it’s unreasonable to ask some poor underpaid soul to surface before 7 in the morning, I’ll have to go over to the locksmith’s shop and have him make another key, to give to this lady. That will allow her to get into the house while Ruby and I are out junketing around the neighborhood.

Just what I wanna do: hand out front-door keys to all and sundry…

Meanwhile, my office looks like a bomb dropped in there. WHAT a mess! Instead of loafing here playing with the computer, I should be back there shoveling out that room.

Ugh! Grand way to start the day, eh?

This is part of what makes my character weird: I don’t like people telling me what to do with my life or what to do with my time. 

Ever has it been thus. So…school was a PITA. Organized sports: PITA. Church activities: PITA.

Huh….  What happened over the years to incline me to dislike other people so?

Hmmmm…

Well: my earliest memory is of the time I was playing in a sandbox with a neighbor’s two brats. I was under three years old, because this happened before we left for Arabia…and we arrived in that sylvan realm a day before I turned three.

We’re sitting there in a sandbox in front of the house my mother had rented in Berkeley, California. The neighbor’s two brats are there, too, playing with me.

I imagine we’re all having a good time, when the brat girl picks up a load of sand in her little kiddie shovel and SLAMS IT INTO MY FACE. 

Slams it into my EYES.

Oh, my god! Never has anything hurt so much, before or since.

And there you are, folks:

That is how I learned to dislike and to distrust other people. That lesson, we might add, has never been forgotten.

And that’s why I don’t want strangers in my home. It’s why I don’t want the babysitter my son has hired in my home. It’s why just now I do not want to sit here waiting for the woman to show up; but instead I crave to be striding around the park behind a bouncing corgi.

Humanity: God’s gift to Satan.