Another Day in Paradise…

Oh, God, I don’t know when I’ve ever been so tired.

Up at 3:00 a.m. Work until 4:30 or 5:00, wrestling with Excel: check and check and double-check to be sure my English-major arithmetic is right before transferring a ton of money to joint checking to cover about half of my share of the 2011 PITI for the Black Hole of Money in downtown Phoenix. Figure out a way to get the tax covered as well as the other fun parts of this bill for the entire freaking year (assuming I don’t drop dead between now and next December), and still have a little to spare.

Not bad, for a bleary-eyed predawn foray into personal finance.

Stagger back to bed, shivering…it is sooo cold in a 59-degree house. Well, not really; but sometimes it gives the distinct illusion of chill. Fall asleep.

Wake again at 9:00, when I’m supposed to be at Financial Advisor Dude’s office, thereinat to get the new will signed, witnessed, and notarized. Cope with a flood of e-mails demanding immediate response. Fly around to feed the dog, wash the stink off myself, throw on some clothes, and dart out the door. Streak across the city, not arriving too obscenely late. Complete this little piece of business. Stop by the grocer’s to pick up some bacon; it’s close to M’hijito’s house and sort of on my way home. Figure to drop off the package with the updated will, new powers of attorney, new living will, freshly recorded…uh oh!

Forgot to bring the beneficiary deed for the house. Sumbiche.

Schlep uptown to my shack. Have NO clue where the beneficiary deed is, in the piles of paper scattered all over my desk. Have to clean out the office to find the thing, if I can find it.

Shovel, shovel, shovel, shovel, and shovel. Push papers around, pull papers around, organize papers, toss papers, shred papers, file papers, God how I hate paper! Find the recorded beneficiary deed. Lawyer only sent one copy. Photocopy it with my printer. Stick original in packet. Send e-mail to M’hijito explaining the importance of storing the originals of these documents carefully and not losing them, and also explaining why he needs the copies.

Phone rings: insurance adjuster. He’s sending an extra $550 to cover the cost overrun for the roof and AC. Says he might send more if I come up with an invoice for repainting the fascias. I hang up, kiss the ground upon which he adjusts claims, and call the painter.

Climb in the car and drive back down to M’hijito’s place, enormous waste of $3.15/gallon gasoline. Deposit fat packet of paper on his dining room table. Burn more gas driving home.

By now the dog resembles an overstuffed bratwurst.

Take the dog for a long walk in the park. Poor beast has to relieve herself not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. Good thing we brought plenty of blue New York Times plastic newspaper wrappers.

Unbelievably beautiful day. This is why we live in Arizona, why we tolerate intermittently being made the nation’s class clowns. Gorgeous. Dog finds a ball left behind in the park by some other, careless dog. Exhausts herself playing with it. An hour later we drag back in the front door.

Start to clean. Oh, this house gets filthy! Oh well, at least the office is picked up. Dust and dust and dust, scrub bathrooms, clean stove. Stop long enough—very hungry—to grab some cheese, fruit, crackers and wine.

Client e-mails to say he’s written another book; will we edit it? Will we edit it! Hell, yes we’ll edit it. Tina and I are both running low on editorial work; mighty glad to get this guy’s business. Back & forth with Tina, figuring out what we charged him before and how much time this is likely to take. Highly technical stuff, but the last book was generally coherent and easy to copyedit. Yes, she said. Yes.

Vacuum and vacuum and vacuum, climb under the bed to vacuum. Dustmop the rest of the dirt off all the floors, 1,860 square feet of tile. Steam-mop the grime off the floors. Climb on a ladder to reach the top of the refrigerator; Windex the grime off that and off the front of the fridge and off the fronts and trim of all the other kitchen appliances and the glass tabletops outside and…and…

Realize, really and fully, what an unholy mess the damn roofers made of my two most beautiful trees. The idiots hacked whole limbs off them…and they were NOT over the roof. What the hell got into those fools? They chopped a limb off the spectacular desert willow in front, leaving it sticking out like an amputated leg and yanking out a quarter of the canopy. That tree shaded the (very hot in summer!) front courtyard, and now it’s wrecked. The beautiful paloverde on the west side, which also provided enough shade to make a different sitting area tolerable, was not helped by their butchery, either. Lay a curse on them. Remind self to write a post on the hazards of relying on Angie’s List.

Throw the area rugs into the barely functional dryer, one at a time, along with rags laden with home-made fabric softener. This beats great wads of dog hair out of them, which collects in mats on the dryer’s filter. This, I reflect, may explain why the dryer threatens to burn the house down if it’s run on anything other than “air dry.”

Water plants. Feed the dog.

Finally finish cleaning. Just freaking beat.

Take the dog for a walk, bearing a mug full of iced tea. Glorious evening, Orion flying overhead, a brilliant half-moon silvering the yards, sidewalk and street. Enjoy the spectacular night through a haze of exhaustion. Stumble back in the house and, as I step over the threshold, watch the hard-fired ceramic mug slip out of my fingers and fly into the air.

Grab it! Just get my fingers onto it, only to see it slip free again, cartwheel across the room, crash onto the floor, and explode into a cascade of shrapnel.

God freaking dammit!

Get the dog safely around the sharp, broken pottery, lock her into the back room. Sherds of glass-like ceramic are all over the floor, under the sofa, on the sofa, between the cushions…what an unholy mess.

Haul out the broom, the dustpan and the vacuum (again!). Move the furniture, haul the gigantic sofa across the room, pick up sharp broken stuff, sweep vacuum vacuum sweep, vacuum the shattered pieces out of the sofa cushions. Haul all the furniture back into place, haul the cleaning gear back to the garage and the hall closet. Curse like a sailor all the while. Hate cleaning. Hate having to re-clean what I just finished cleaning even more than I hated having to clean it in the first place.

Have to be at KJG’s house, halfway to Yuma, by 8 tomorrow a.m., with the dog in tow. Great wads of dog hair are peeling out of her fur. Can’t take this animal over to her place, there to deposit  fleece all over K’s house, always much cleaner than mine.

Take the dog out to the driveway and brush the bejayzus out of her. Friend suggested you can clean a dog’s coat a bit with a damp microfiber rag. Try that out. Dog doesn’t seem to mind. Concrete is hard, back hurts, feet hurt, eyes ache with exhaustion. But dog is de-fleeced, at least some of the gray grime wiped off her erstwhile white little paws.

Phone rings. Fly in the house, being sure the dog gets in, too. Miss the caller. Go back outdoors to collect the dog defuzzing tools. Phone rings. Race back indoors, grab the phone. Crate & Barrel lady. They  just noticed that they ordered up the cushion for the ottoman I’m trying to buy from them, but not the ottoman itself.

What?

Why would they think I’d buy an ottoman cushion but not an ottoman? She says it’ll be another couple of weeks before the rest of the piece is delivered to the store. Since I’ve been waiting three months for this thing already, what’s another two weeks or so?

Just that much longer I won’t have to pay their bill.

Realize Funny didn’t post anything today; if a post is to go live tomorrow it’ll have to be written before I go to bed. Submit four posts to carnivals. Research Delta Dental: does it do business in Canada? Probably not, rendering the AARP Delta Dental rant ineligible for the Canadian Finance Blog Festival. {grump}

Write post.

Schedule post.

Go to bed.

Image: John William Waterhouse. Public Domain.