Coffee heat rising

Angst

Egad! $$$$$

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Just realized that two of the five Panasonic telephones in my house are gone. 

Yeah, I had five extensions. Now I have three.

Ducky.

Got a suspicion of who the perp is: one of the cleaning crew. But which one? No clue.

Generous of her to leave me three, eh? Some kind soul came into my home and stole TWO of my phones.

Not sure how to cope with this. If I buy new extensions, can they be programmed to work with my system? Or….what???

Without a car, I can’t get to the store where I bought the phones. So replacing them will not be easy.

What the FUCK is the MATTER with people?  Stealing some old lady’s phones? SERIOUSLY????

Looks like it costs somewhere between $14 and $60 to replace one of these handsets. Here’s one online: $53!!!!

To get new ones, I’ll have to go up to a store in the nearest shopping mall, which I can’t reach without a car.

Can you believe this?????

Bashed!

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Seven ways from Sunday!  Not only physically, but apparently my feeble little brain has decided to quit working.

No kidding:  I just wrote this post, and now it’s GONE.  A draft was saved, but that’s gone, too. 

SHEESH! Ya can’t win for losin’!

Been a losing day today, more or less. Most recently: I bashed the bejayzus out of my left big toe while in the park this afternoon. Limped back into the ‘hood and presented myself at the WonderAccountants’ house — they live right across the street from the Funny Farm. Figured to have to ask them to drive me to the E.R., since my son has kindly purloined my car.

Just what I need: to have to limp around with a cast on my foot for gawd only knows how long….

But by the time I sat down and started to chat with my warm and friendly neighbors, the pain began to fade, and we could see I could walk on it. So…we’re assuming I didn’t break anything, and that it should be OK in a few days.

I hope. 

Interesting… Kindness makes pain go away. 

Peace! Quiet!

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Who’d’ve expected it?  😀

Seriously:

Ruby’s spider bite has receded: looks like it’s about gone. Mine had the back of my right hand mighty sore last night, but today that attack, too, has receded, leaving only a mild, almost unnoticeable ache.

Never did find the dog’s kiped water bowl. Fortunately, we have plenty of bowls that she can drink out of. Grabbed one of those out of a cupboard and filled it for her.

Good Son seemed mightily irked at having to take time away from his paying work to schlep me to the Mayo yesterday…for which I surely do not blame him!  It’s a gawdawful drive, half the time for little or no purpose. And it soaks up half your day!

We need to find a doctor here in town…one that meets his standards.

Little progress has been made on the proposal that we can the hired help — i.e., the one who, I’m damned sure, spiked the leftovers in the fridge with ultra-hot chili. Waiting to see what happens next in that precinct.

Have yet to get the electrician over here to get the backyard outlets and power switches running properly again. There’s a limit, Lord! Given that stuff like this has happened at least twice, my sense is that we’re past said limit… But, we shall see.

So…  {sigh} A lot of stuff is up in the air. Some of the gliding stuff is damned annoying. But most of it is just time-consuming. 

 

Malicious Meandering??

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This morning, by early light of day: contemplating the unmistakable fact that SOMEONE — not me — turned off all the watering systems that my yard plants depend on to stay alive. That would be…

* the bougainvilleas
* the roses
* four bearing citrus trees
* the olives in front
* the ornamental trees in front…

…on and on.

This would have required them to turn off more than one faucet. In the back yard alone, they would have had to manually turn off water for a dozen individually irrigated trees and plants! And that doesn’t count the front yard and the east-side yard.

It may rain today — one can hope. We have a 61% chance, according to Wunderground. Not great…but better than 0%. So that would get the yard’s plants through a day of summer heat. Maybe…

At any rate, I’ve turned the system back on  — as best as I can, since that is not my métier. Yard Dude is the one who rides herd on the automatic watering. Hope I can catch him the next time he’s here…won’t he be pleased to be asked to check and fix everything!

The thing that I’m concerned about is…well…the perp may be another of my employees, one who does not like me (I didn’t hire her! my son did…) and who has already pulled another malicious little trick. At least, I’m pretty sure she’s the one who did it.

If I can catch her the act — or round up some convincing evidence — she’s gonna be fired instantly. But…she’s a pretty slippery character, and so I’m afraid it’s unlikely that I will catch her.

And if I can’t?  It leaves me with two choices:

  • Fire ALL the hired help and recruit new household and yard workers.
  • Or sell the house and move into the horrible old-folkerie.

Neither of those is an appealing option.

I’m afraid the first looks better (to me, anyway) than the second. Actually, for my workers it’s six of one, half-a-dozen of the 0ther: if I have to move out of my home, they’re all going to lose their jobs here, anyway.

ohhhhhh keerap!

BING BONG! 
BING BONG!!

Now what? 

Trot to the front door. City of Phoenix: they’re turning off the water in the neighborhood, for some sorta water system project they’re doing.

No sh!t, Jose?

Race around the house and yard. Turn off the outdoor faucets that were running on the landscape plants. Fill a big coffee pot with water…  Fill the Brita coffee filter pot with water….

Should have enough water for me (not the plants) to last all day. I hope.

This development raises another question:

Is it possible that whoever turned off all the watering systems in the back yard was NOT an annoyed and malicious cleaning lady, but THOSE guys?

Hmmmmmm…..  Not likely. City workers wouldn’t be suicidal enough to just barge into your backyard to get at your water panel, not with legions of guard dogs lurking around this neighborhood. Plus they don’t have a key to the gate, which is kept locked.

No. Whoever turned off every watering spigot in the back yard was someone who could access that back yard and who did the job maliciously. And I have a pretty fair idea who that someone was.

And if I catch her on camera as she’s up to whatever her next antic will be, she’ll be looking for another job.

Besides, it couldn’t have been the City’s guys! I was able to turn on all the watering zones less than an hour ago. If the men had turned off the water to the house, those zones wouldn’t have been working (so I could test them).

Nope. Coincidence notwithstanding, what has happened here is that some a$$hole came into my yard and, in 100-degree heat, and cut off the water to ALL of my plantings. That was probably done yesterday or before. This morning I went out to turn it back on in time to water the trees and shrubbery before it really gets hot today, and in doing so discovered that the whole system had been turned off.

Those guys wouldn’t have come into my yard and turned off my system, certainly not without my permission. Besides, if they’d turned off the water from their end, I wouldn’t have had any water coming into my yard to turn back on. What they were doing was asking me to turn it off. So…no…  Obviously, they didn’t pull that stunt on me.

Not Gettin’ Very Far…

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Tried to call the electrician to ask him to come over and fix whatEVER was done to the backyard lights. No answer. Left word.

So…that’s not very promising.

Guess I should call around until I find a craftsman who will come over — preferably today! — and fix those lights. But truth to tell, I do NOT feel at all good. And do not by any means feel like trying to chase down a new electrician.

Honestly: I’m so under the (very hot!) weather that I just can’t even contemplate doing battle with this stuff. The lights aren’t the only issue. We also have the watering system and the gate locks and…on and effin’ on.

No kidding:  It’s 9:30 in the morning, and we’re coming on to 100 degrees on the back porch. Make that in the shade of the back porch.

{chortle!} What do you suppose the temp is in San Francisco, whence I emanated and where I would very much like to go back? Hmmmm….

Jeez. Sunny and 67 degrees. They expect a high of 72.

***

WHY am I here in this God-forsaken place? 

Oh, yeah: Because the kid is here. 

What Possesses People???

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Honest to Gawd! Are people malicious, or just plain stupid?

We’re talking about your regular workers, not some burglar or passing vandal. The yard guys. The cleaning lady. Arrrrghh! 

These days, I hire a phalanx of workers to keep up the Funny Farm:

  • Pool Dude
  • Gerardo the Miracle Yard Dude
  • Cleaning Lady from Heaven
  • Smartest Plumber on the Planet
  • Air-Conditioning Dude

And on and on and endlessly on. Together, they keep this place running, and see to it that nothing falls apart.

But singly…one wonders if any of them has a measurable IQ….

This evening I stumble out into the backyard behind the dog. As I’m trying to call her back into the house, I realize the motion-sensitive back porch light isn’t coming on.

Dang! Did the bulb burn out? Or what?

After dorking around with the system for a bit, I realize…waaaitaminit here! There’s nothing wrong with the outside lights. What’s happened is…Jeez! Some idiot has switched off ALL the lights out there! 

HUH? 

Why would you think I wanted the lights turned off if I’d left them all turned on? Why would I install motion-sensitive lights if I wanted to turn the backyard lights on and off manually?

O’course, this event could signal something more malign than mere stupidity. Somebody could have switched off the lights so they could creep around the backyard in a burgling project.

One never knows.

This, of course, is why one has a dog and a firearm. But still… Grrrrr! It’s the principle of the thing. Right?

Yea, verily: more malign than mere stupidity…. Just tried to turn on the motion-sensitive west-side lights. And…yeah. They don’t come on. At all. Someone has unscrewed or broken them.

No, not likely they burned out: we have four of them out there. One or two might burn out after extensive on’s and off’s. But not all four at once.

So…most likely: someone has set up the place so he can burgle around the house & yard unmolested.

Tomorrow I’ll have to call the electrician and have him replace those outdoor lights. Let’s hope whoever has been messing with them doesn’t decide to come a-visiting tonight….

Makes moving into a holding pen for old folks look better and better…

Makes a .38 look damn good, too!