Boyoboy, I can hardly wait. /s/
That’s /s/ with a vengeance. You know it’s time to go when you realize you’re unstuck in time: I’m a creature of the 20th century that most surely does NOT belong in the 21st century.
This afternoon I have to drive to a huge mid-town hospital complex to meet a new doctor. This, because I decided to go in search of a new GP, one that is not part of the Mayo bureaucracuy. Not that MayoDoc isn’t wonderful — she’s very good. The problem is that the Mayo is halfway to freaking Payson, over a huge main drag that is always under construction
No overstatement: I cannot remember when I haven’t had to weave and trudge and stop-and-start through mile after mile of roadwork on Shea Boulevard, the only way out there from here. This was worth it when my great old doc was out there. But the woman onto whom they foisted me when he retired has made it very clear she doesn’t like older female patients and she especially doesn’t like me.
No kidding. Last time I was out there, she actually grimaced when I walked in her office door.
I’ll keep my place in line out there by visiting once a year, but meanwhile, I need to get a doctor in town for routine stuff. So…today we’ll see if this woman at Good Samaritan will be a decent fit.
Good Sam is where my son was born. It was adequate…I guess. The main thing I remember about it…heh….this is soooo stupid:
When the kid arrived on this earth, I didn’t know I was in labor until he was about to pop out. Why? Because labor does not hurt as much as your period.
I’d been told ooooohhh dear ooooohhhh dear, giving birth would be SOOOOO hideously painful, eek awk be ready for serious torture.
Uh….well…no.
At no time, not from beginning to end, did delivering that nine-pound boy hurt anywhere much as a routine menstrual period.
Down at Good Sam, which was the closest hospital to where we lived at the time, I overhear some broad simpering — no kidding, these were her words — “How can she stand it?”
Idiot. How do you think I could stand it every fuckin’ 28 days? 😀
This: the result of doctors not believing what women say. Many times I’d told doctors that my periods could drive me to the brink of suicide. And just as many times I got the pat on my pretty little noggin and the there there, little girl, it’s all in your head.
You wonder why I stay away from doctors as much as possible? Some of these folks do make Christian Science look good…
Oh well. I figure it’ll take about an hour to get downtown through the traffic, find the parking garage, navigate to the fifth floor of their office building…and how CAN i count the ways i’m not lookin’ forward to that?
In other sylvan realms:
Ordered up some rat repellent from Amazon. These finally arrived yesterday. Whenever I get off the computer and then have some breakfast, I’ll have to climb into the attic and toss a few of these things around — they come in the form of bags — and then place the rest of them in strategic places around the garage, where Ruby can’t get at them.
This appears to be truly nasty stuff. After I’d picked up the box to read the instructions this morning, I rubbed an itchy eye with my left hand. Understand: I hadn’t even opened the damn box!
The microscopic amount on my hands made my eye BURN AND BURN AND BURN. I thought I was gonna have to go to the ER! Finally, after I scrubbed my face twice with soap and water, it stopped. Thank the heavens for small favors!
Now we know, anyway, not to even touch the package without wearing disposable gloves.
***********
11 ayem…
Yes. Ever have one of those days? You know…where everything you touch goes
SPROI-I-I-N-N-G
???
Yeah.Well….this is turning into one of those days. Whatever I’ve tried to do and had to do has tangled itself up, unraveled itself, fallen apart. jammed together, whatEVER.
Finally got the supposedly rat-repellent bags of aromatic mint deposited here, there, and everywhere around the garage. Yeah. Uh huh.
Frankly, I think have about a snowball’s chance of this stuff working. Or doing anything other than emitting a stink that probably annoys humans as much as it annoys rats. If it annoys rats, that is.
There are those who believe it does repel our furry little friends,. But apparently it’s a short-term solution.
Some have suggested we might as well give up the endless war on rats and learn to live with the li’l fellas. This would be fine if they didn’t chew up the wiring, rip out the insulation, feast on the citrus harvest, and carry one disease or another. Or another. And another….
At this point, I’m up in the air. From what I can tell after talking to a couple of exterminators, for a small fortune those guys don’t do anything more than you can do yourself.
The most effective tactic would be to put out poison. But I surely can’t do that with Ruby around. If she didn’t eat the stuff herself, she’d almost certainly take a taste of any dead livestock she found out there. And that would be the end of her.
The fallback tactic: Cat.
Not just any cat, but a Manx cat.
These critters, in addition to being very smart and highly active, are big enough to take on a damned rat.
Yes. But.
Heh. They’re big enough to take on Ruby, too.
Over the years, Ruby has learned that the Human is highly entertained when she chases Other Daughter’s goddamn cats out of the backyard.
(Other Daughter is Tony the Romanian Landlord’s less-favored adult daughter. Apparently she doesn’t conform to his expectations well enough to be in line to inherit the Romanian Empire. But he does care for her, so much so that he has bought her a house two lots to the west of the Funny Farm. She’s a cat lady. There have been times when she’s probably had six or eight cats down there. She doesn’t run the AC: she leaves the windows and doors open, so the critters roam in and out. And if you have a bird feeder, your yard is the first place the little kitties roam…)
Anyway, the result is that Ruby delights in chasing furry things around the yard.
Unlike cats, though, rats are unfazed. They shoot up a tree or over a wall and then shortly come right back.
*more to come*