Ugh. And Yuch! At the end of last year (that would be about four weeks ago, no?), after I downloaded and itemized an entire year’s worth of data from three credit-union accounts (each of which had several sub-accounts) and two American Express accounts, then itemized the tax-related entries, a halcyon idea fluttered into my by-then dangerously fevered little brain:
If I were to download this garbage once each month, the task would be a LOT less annoying, less exhausting, and less frustrating. Then come next January 3 or so, the job would be done! I wouldn’t have to sit here for hour after hour after un-fuckingENDING hour struggling with that brainbanging tedious job.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Even, we might say, sensible.
Yes?
Well.
No.
This morning I sat down to whip out the January transactions.
Three hours later…
Y’know…this stuff shouldn’t be that hard. But it is. It is, because anything that is touched by computer technology is fucked up.
Example: It should be simple — right? — to download a month’s worth of data from the credit union into a boring Excel spreadsheet, the avatar of simplicity.
And it is…if you like your data bass-ackwards. For reasons utterly incomprehensible to the 20th-century mind, the credit union insists on presenting transactions in reverse chronological order. There’s no way to make the things appear in a sane order online. So you have to download all that crap into an Excel spreadsheet and then have Excel flip the order.
Not very hard. Annoying, but not hard. EXCEPT…when you’re dealing with half a dozen accounts. Then you have six times the annoyance factor, and that does present a problem.
American Express, which used to present data in normal chronological order, as I recall, has decided it must do the same.: bass-ackward So…there, too: an extra layer of hassle. Extra layer x 2, for two accounts.
The last time I did the annual tax-prep task, I had no trouble downloading data from the AMEX site. Today…no chance. I could NOT see a simple way to download the current statement to disk. Asked their customer service bot or whatever she/he/it is. Got an endless, brain-banging series of ditzy instructions. Told it that I thought life would be much easier if I simply typed the data from the printed statements into Excel. Which is exactly what I did.
Took about 10 or 15 minutes, less than the amount of time I spent grinding my teeth and wrestling with AMEX’s inscrutable website.
Unstuck in time, is what we are. Sorry, young pups: but this 21st-century world you’ve inherited is some precinct of Hell.
Started out the morning determined to renew my driver’s license. Decided to forego the Big Brother National ID hassle, mostly because I very much doubt I will ever fly in an airplane again, and because the likelihood of my ever desiring to cross into Canada or Mexico is slim to nil. Also needed to refill a propane tank and the car’s gas tank at a Costco, where these fine products can be acquired cheaply and efficiently.
Arizona’s Department of Transportation has arranged with various vendors — most of them title loan outfits — to let them provide routine driver’s license renewals.
Welp, there’s one of those places right around the corner from the university campus where the credit union resides. Now that the CU, which resides on that campus, has made electronic deposit incompatible with my software, I had to drive over there to deposit another couple of diddly little checks from Medicare and Medigap. So, on the way, it was into the…uhm…yep: title loan outfit, where I expected to cool my heels for awhile.
Incredible!
There was ONE party ahead of me, and they were already being waited on, just waiting for the clerk to generate the plastic. The place was clean, quiet, and staffed by not one, not two, but three none too busy employees.
Got IN there and OUTTA there with a new driver’s license in under 20 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!
The last time I had to renew my license, I sat around the ADOT office for a good 90 minutes till they would wait on me; then sat another 20 or 30 minutes while they farted around doing the job.
Wow! Did that ever make my day!
Amazingly enough, traffic was light. So up the road to the credit union, then further up the road to the Costco without incident. (That, if you know anything about driving in Phoenix, is some kind of marvel!) Loaded up the propane tank, grabbed a couple of items, got into a short line, paid, and flew out of there, darted into what looked like an endless line at the gas pumps, but NAY! Both pumps were being hogged by a gigantic truck, whose driver was just pulling out as the guy in front of me spotted his chance and darted over there, with me hot on his heels. Or…wheels…whatEVER. We both got a pump without a wait!
Next to me: a guy filling up a…oh yeah…a late-model Maserati!
No joke. Maserati guys get their gas at Costcso! Who knew?
SHOOT up the freeway like a rocket. Nary a moron gets in front of me. What’s wrong? Where are all my nitwit friends? Are they all sick? Some sort of moron plague? Or maybe there’s a moron convention going on that’s taken them all off the road while the learn new stupid tricks?
Weird.
Navigate the off-ramp around the panhandlers, nooo problem. Something wrong there, too…
Fly across the surface streets to St. Vincent’s: drop off a pile of clothing. Hang a left across the main drag there (WOW! astonishing!) and fly back to the Funny Farm.
A good 30 miles of driving…UN. Mo. lested. Can you imagine?
A bag of gorgeous wild salmon steaks in the car. I want to grill one of these for dinner, but am not hungry. Take the dog for a walk instead, at which point we see rain clouds flying our way. Cut short the doggy walk and race back home, hoping to cook the food before the rain blows in.
But really truly am JUST not hungry enough to eat. Wait awhile, but…but…can’t stand it. Must. Have. Wild. Salmon swathed in olive oil and tree-ripened Meyer lemon. Must. have.
Fire up the ’Que. Fling on the last corn-on-the-cob, wait till it’s 3/4 cooked whilst defrosting a slab of frozen salmon. Fling on the salmon.
By the time it’s done, incredibly, it’s NOT RAINING yet. Not until about five hours later do the heavens open and release the deluge.
If there’s a God, evidently She’s in a good mood today.
When I came in the door to the garage the other day, the deadbolt jammed and my key got stuck in the lock. After some struggle, I managed to get the key out, then go ’round to the front door to get in. This, three or four weeks after an Anderson Locksmiths guy had come over and supposedly fixed the damn thing.
So I figured it was just worn out — we installed that lock when I moved in, back in two thousand and aught four. So the thing is 16 years old…and that’s the door I pass in and out of all the time. Up to the Depot; buy a new lock. Manage to find another Kwikset just like it!!!!!
Call Anderson and tell them to come install the lock.
When they show up — two new guys, not the fella who surfaced the last time — they’re floored that I bought a new lock. They say they can fix it.
So they fiddle with the thing a bit, mess with the strike plate, have a good time chatting, and…damned if they don’t have that fine device working like a greased chicken feather! It didn’t work this well when it was new. A-A-A-A-A-N-D because they discovered the trip was a “re-call” because the thing went back on the fritz after the first guy tried to fix it, they charged me exactly…NOTHING!!!!!!!
They suggested I take the new lock back to the Depot.
But…I’m thinkin’ maybe not. Truly, I was flabbergasted to find one that matched the rather expensive set(s) throughout the house. O’course, I had a job when I moved in here (remember those?), so I could afford to buy Kwikset’s better-than-builder-grade hardware. But how long are they likely to keep on making that line? The lock was pricey. However, if I keep it, I’ll have one on hand if the suspect lock craps out or if another one does.
There are three deadbolts in the house. Two — the ones in the kitchen — are identical. The one on the front door came as part of a fancy front-door set. It’s slightly more elaborate on the part that fits the outside of the door, but the same on the inside. I’m sure I can touch up the door’s paint if I have to replace that lock with this one. If I do stay here until I croak over, one day I may be happy to have this lock.
The Weather Service tells us it’s COLD out there! We noticed, already… 😀 Temps are supposed to go down to 35 tonight and 33 tomorrow night. They’ve revised Wednesday’s 32-degree forecast upward, to a balmy 33. That optimism notwithstanding, they’ve issued a frost warning.
I engineered this change in our weather fortunes singlehandedly: by purchasing a Ficus benjamina and planting it in the pot recently vacated by the sickly rubber plant. Ficus, as you may know, is frost-sensitive. But I’d already subjected it to potentially killing stress a couple days ago…really, it’ll be an amazing surprise if that thing lives to see the middle of March.
Well, to get this new ornamental house-tree into the gigantic pot I wanted to put it in, I needed Gerardo the Wonder Lawn Dude’s help. The rubber plant reached up to the roof, and I figured it would be too large and heavy for me to manage. The plan was to ask him to pull out that plant whenever he next came around.
Meanwhile, SDXB called and invited himself over, craving company and some kind of time-killing junket. Couple days ago, he surfaced at 9 a.m. sharp, ready to roll.
Naturally, Gerardo and his boys showed up just as SDXB did. I asked them not only to extirpate the moribund rubber plant but also to install the newly purchased ficus in its huge ceramic pot. This was, we could justly say, a mistake. What is the matter with me?
Was there some reason I could not have figured out, beforehand, that Gerardo is a landscape maintenance dude, not a nurseryman? Why would I imagine he would know anything about how to pot a plant? Or how to transplant a potted plant from Pot 1 to Pot 2? Whaaa?
In the first place, they busted the rolling stand the thing perches on. So he took the wheels off it, placed the remains of the top on the ground, and plopped the pot on top of it. On the deck, where it belongs? Where it’s sheltered by the patio roof? Hell, no: they left it on the surface next to the deck, where the plant would get the full blast of sun and frost.
With the dirt, the plant, and water in it, I could not even budge the pot, much less lift it six inches and leverage it into place on the deck. The thing was so heavy, I couldn’t even scoot it onto the dolly so as to try to leverage it up on that thing. Need we be reminded that ficus is frost-sensitive?
Come Wednesday, that plant promises to be a dead ficus.
Its only hope was for me to pull it out of the pot. dig the dirt out of the pot , then lift the pot onto the deck. Then refill the pot and replant the ficus.
To do that, though, I had to drive way to hell and gone up to Home Depot and buy a new rolling plant stand thingie to replace the deceased. That of course consumed an hour of the day.
And the rest of the day? Fully cannibalized by the replanting project.
I had to dig the soggy, wet dirt out from around the plant’s root ball, dump it into the wheelbarrow, lift out the plant and set it aside, then dig out the rest of the even soggier, wetter dirt and deposit that in the barrow. Then and only then was the huge blue ceramic pot “light” (hah!) enough for me to lift.
In the process, I found Gerardo’s guys had recycled the dirt from the rubber plant, dumping it back into the pot. And lo! What should I find dwelling in the stuff but nice, big, fat paloverde beetle grubs. Three of ’em. Shee-ut!
Welp, that’s three fewer paloverde beetles to depredate the land. And it explains what ailed the rubber plant — the things eat the roots of plants growing where Mom lays her eggs.
Next, I needed to apply some of the insecticide that is believed to at least make a small dent on this creature’s ever-growing population. But, too tired at the end of the day to continue, decided to put that chore off.
Til today, for example?
The frost is about to be on the palm!
Not so much. With hysterical FROST WARNINGS emanating from the government and the media, I figured I’d better drag the smaller potted plants inside and then cover the larger ones — including the twice-transplanted ficus — with drop cloths.
This, it developed, turned into one bitch of an all-day project.
To start with, several of the shop lights I use to warm the air around the potted plants that have to be left outside on cold nights had gone missing. I needed two more. Plus lightbulbs to go in them. Plus some other bits and pieces of junk. Sooo…it was back to Home Depot…again.
Came away with those and some 100-watt incandescents (these new damned LED lights not only fail to emit light that doesn’t hurt your eyes, they fail to emit warmth). Every time I spot incandescent bulbs, I grab a bunch to add to my stash. In-fuckin’-furiating!
Oh well.
I also bought a new Kwikset deadbolt to replace the one the locksmith claimed was jamming because the key was worn out. Galloping Bull Shit, that: the lock jammed again yesterday. And the other two locks, which also work with the same key, operate with no problem. So now I’ve got to get a locksmith over here to install that, to my annoyance. Later.
Back at the Funny Farm… I had forgotten how much work it is to hang all those frost covers. Seven or eight of them, most of which have to be tied up or tied down, with the help of a ladder, a hammer, a box of nails, and a bag of curtain rings. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve had a hard frost here — five or six years, at least. And during that time I’ve grown, well…commensurately older. Dragging that ladder and all those old sheets around and climbing up and down and up and down and up and down and zip-tying and hooking and farting around is a great deal more tiring in 2020 than it was the last time I did it.
None of these tergiversations were helped by cold gusts of wind, which came up in the afternoon. Every time I’d get a length of cloth in place, the wind would pick it up before I could tie it or weight it down with a rock. So, many a haul and a stretch and a throw had to be done two or three times.
I’m afraid I’m finally beginning to feel my age. Which is, we might say, considerable.
So we’re strolling along a sidewalk in Lower Richistan. It’s after noon, Ruby having had to wait until the Human got back from church to extract a DoggyWalk. As we approach the border of Upper Richistan, we spot a black cat up ahead. It’s messing with something on the sidewalk, presumably some prey it’s killed.
Ruby is more interested in wallowing in the neighbors’ lawns — her favorite pastime, since most yards in the po’ folks’ part of the ‘Hood are desert-landscaped, grass being something that is put out of the hoi polloi’s reach by the cost of water here. So I suggest, “Ruby! Lookit that cat. Git that cat!”
Of course she can’t get it, because she’s stuck on a leash. If I didn’t think she’d chase the thing to Yuma, I’d unhook her. But she can’t be trusted not to run out in front of a car or to follow the cat to Timbuktu. However, the cat hears me and so notices our approach, and it runs away.
I expect to find a dead bird or rat on the sidewalk. But…nay!
It’s a freaking tortoise!A little desert tortoise (endangered species!) about six or eight inches long and around five inches wide. It peeks its head out from its shell to see what the heck.
I ask a kid biking around on a neighbor’s front yard if he knows who belongs to the tortoise. He pretends not to hear me. He’s only about 10, but already his parents have trained him to recognize WT and not respond. Snobsville, and we ain’t even in Snottsdale. Hm.
Not wanting to leave the critter to amble across the roads, I pick it up.
Tortoise recoils inside his shell. Then sticks his head out, realizes he’s in the air, and sticks out his fiercely clawed little feet, which he now uses to try to force the human to unhand him.
I’m trying to figure out how to get a grip on him that’ll last long enough to carry him home, when voilà! Hustling up the sidewalk comes a tribe of dithering humans, led by a visibly distressed female.
“Have you seen a tortoise?” asks the chieftain. She’s so upset she’s almost in tears, and the males she has in tow are not in much better shape.
“You mean this one?”
They practically genuflected on the sidewalk, they were so thrilled and relieved to find their…uhm…pet.
The desert tortoise is protected by law. Fish & Game has a program where you can “adopt” a tortoise and keep it in your yard, registered and checked-on by AZ F&G. They have all sorts of regulations whereby you must house the beast. And no doubt they figured they were about to get in big trouble with Big Brother, to say nothing of losing their beloved baby.
So I come rolling in to the ‘Hood from choir along about 9:30 p.m. and see, buzzing over the southwestern precincts, a low-flying and very angry-looking cop helicopter. He’s in hot pursuit of someone, apparently fleeing down Conduit of Blight Boulevard. But he’s not alone. To the north and also to the west, another cop copter is hovering over my old house, scanning the intersection of Conduit of Blight and Gangbanger’s Way.
By the time I get the car stashed in the garage and the pooch out in the side yard to pee, the dragonfly to the south is circling Conduit of Blight and Main Drag South, and the one to the north is over the crummy apartments and the senior-citizen trailer park above Gangbanger’s. Wring out the dog to the lovely serenade of buzzing helicopter engines, fly back inside, and lock the doors.
