Coffee heat rising

Angst

Cranky as a Cat….

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Ever feel out of sorts…like…all day? It’s what my father used to call “getting up on the wrong side of the bed.” {gronk!} Irrationally crabby, cranky, and…mad as a cat.

That’s my State of Mind of the Day.

What has brought about this predicament?

Mostly (I suspect) being forced to jump through a series of expensive hoops to replace the scratched lenses in my glasses, gouged up when I tripped over a busted chunk of sidewalk and fell on my face, in the dark.The insult of having to buy new prescription lenses is much exaggerated by the longstanding US law that requires prescription lens users to get new eye exams and new lenses — to the tune of a couple hundred bucks and two to four hours of their time — every year. It’s been about two months over a year since I bought the excellent glasses I now have and that I have exactly zero desire to replace.

And it absolutely positively infuriates me that I’m being made to spend several hundred bucks on an unnecessary eye exam for the privilege of spending 60 bucks on a new pair of lenses. This is just fuckin’ stupid and insulting. Let ME decide when I need a new vision exam…puh-leeeze!

But of course, if we all did that, our behavior would not enrich anyone, would it?

So today I had to trudge to Costco, sit around waiting to be seen (a half-hour or so after the appointed hour), dork my way through another eye exam, then line up at the glasses counter and present the resulting totally unnecessary, utterly redundant prescription to the unhappy counter attendant, fork over my glasses, and wait a week or ten days to get a new pair that works.

Just pisses me off no end.

You should be able to call on the phone, say, “Hey! I need a new pair of glasses in that prescription you have in your records!” and get it. Sure, let the optician say “Wellll, but don’t you think you really should, if you have any sense at all, update your prescription?” And leave it to the customer to decide yea or nay.

So that set me off on the wrong foot. The annoyed foot.

The time-fucking-wasting foot.

Moving on, this morning dawned clear with mare’s tails… The latter usually a clue to incoming rain. A dark streak of smoke blackened the western sky — fire, apparently. Brushfire? House fire? Another business burning down?

By midday the sky was gray, and it still is. Apparently rain is unlikely. But it’s cold and it’s glum.

On the way home from the Costco Optical Scam, I stopped by the (legal! keep your hat on!) marijuana dealer’s place, located in the Home Depot’s parking lot. Naturally they no longer carry the CBD cream that has helped so surprisingly with the spavined paw and arm. The clerk kept trying to sell me stuff with menthol in it. Something about “I simply hate the odor of menthol!” just does NOT register with some people. Neither does “I don’t want to smell like (fill in the blank: menthol, lavender, rosemary, or effin’ Nuit de Paris.) Grrrrrrr…

If they had what I want, I couldn’t figure it out, so left empty-handed. And annoyed.

Moving on…the cleaning lady was still here by the time I got home, of course. By now it was after 1 p.m.. Having enjoyed a light breakfast around 7 a.m., I was damn hungry and did not want anyone underfoot while I was trying to cook a full meal.

So opted the meal in favor of a few slices of avocado, a couple slices of cheese, and a slice of bread. Ugh.

It’s after 4 p.m. She just strolled out the door, leaving in her wake in incredibly, UNBELIEVABLY clean house. How she does that escapes me.

So one can’t feel too, toooo crabby…except on reflecting that one would like to have a nap (having as usual not slept well at night) and one would really, truly like not to get ripped off a little extra when one’s glasses get scratched up through no fault of one’s own.

Thus one could argue that I yam indeed irrationally crabby.

Ohhhhh…to frost the cookies, I forgot that tonight is choir practice. Can I possibly, possibly squeeze in a couple hours’ nap between now and 7 p.m.?????

Hallelujah! Another miracle…in spite of it all

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A couple of sweet little miracles occurred today…

This morning I had to traipse to the Mayo for yet another allergy test. We’ve ascertained that, despite earlier indications to the contrary, I am not allergic to ibuprofen.

Said earlier blessing has relieved Yrs Truly of substantial pain from the bunged-up wrist, elbow and shoulder. Yea verily, it is like unto a miracle.

So today I had an appointment, mid-morning, to schlep out there — waaaayyyyy out there — to be tested for the allergy to penicillin that was diagnosed before my son was born, some 43 years ago.

Yes. for the past 43+ years, we have proceeded on the assumption that a rash incident on a prescription for penicillin indicated an allergy to said penicillin. Even though the Little Woman tried to convince the Big Bad Doctor that the rash in question (and the fever, and the array of miseries) looked a whoooole lot like German measles, a childhood ailment she had escaped by being largely isolated from children throughout her formative years.

It’s a long, long, long way from the Funny Farm to the Mayo Clinic. Nevertheless, I figure the effort is worth it. So off I go, shortly after dawn has cracked.

I get HALFWAY ACROSS THE VALLEY on the journey to the clinic — planning to go, on the way back home, by the upscale Costco to set in motion the process to get the glasses fixed (the glasses that were gouged up when I fell flat on my face in the dark over a busted chunk of sidewalk), and then by the upscale Fry’s to pick up enough food for another week — and then it dawned on me:

I forgot my credit-card holder! 

Sheee-ut! The driver’s license is hidden in the car. But…but…no credit card: no groceries. No Costco card: no way to get into Costco’s eyeglass department.

I swear, the older I get, the less competent I get. In particular, the fewer thoughts I can keep in mind at any given time. Admittedly, there were several things to remember:

  • Charge up computer, hope it will last for the time I have to sit around and twiddle thumbs
  • Leave money and a note for cleaning lady
  • Pick up mess so cleaning lady can find a surface to clean
  • Empty coffee grounds on plants outside
  • Wash French press so cleaning lady doesn’t clog the drain by dumping coffee grounds down the sink
  • Write shopping list
  • Dump trash so cleaning lady can haul it out to the alley
  • Wash up, comb hair after a fashion (which is no fashion at all…)
  • Paint face
  • Hide the quarter I use to pop open endlessly annoying eye-shadow and eyebrow pencil cases (otherwise cleaning lady tries to put it “away,” where I can’t find it)
  • Correspond with financial adviser
  • Be sure dog is in house and safe
  • Get credit cards, drop in pocket
  • Find car keys
  • Remember to load computer into the car
  • Forget shopping list

Yeah. None of these things seem to be items that I’m competent to handle anymore… Well, except for the last one.

Speaking of Financial Adviser: I’d asked him if he felt we could spring loose another few thou’ so I can trade in the hated Venza on some older car that still has intelligible controls. And by the way, did he know a car broker?

He wrote back and said the partners there use the owner of Gateway Chevrolet for advice and consent about buying cars. Now…I wouldn’t have another Chevy if you gave it to me…but if he can do actual car brokering, well…maybe.  So asked him to get us in touch. Let’s see what he has to say.

The guys at the Scottsdale Business Association have a fella they like to use…but he gives me the whim-whams. Why? Because he owns a used-car lot. Duh! Guys! That’s not a car broker. That’s a car salesman.

…..

A-N-N-N-D after two hours of cooling my heels in the allergy testing department, we now know I’m not allergic to penicillin or amoxycillin.

No. Not at all.

We’ve proceeded on the assumption that I am allergic, because WAAAYYYYYY back in the day, before the Kid was born, I developed a rash and a fever after taking some penicillin prescribed by the good Dr. Daley. I surmised that I was enjoying a case of German measles (the symptoms exactly coinciding with that ailment). But when I suggested that to Dr. Daley, who hates it when women self-diagnose, he said nooooooooo, gimme a break! You’re allergic to penicillin.

And into the permanent medical record that went.

A few years go by and I decide to get pregnant. Now the gynecologist does a titer test and discovers that yea verily, I had German measles.

Sooooo….it’s unlikely that the penicillin allergy theory is correct, but no one has wanted to take a chance on it.

Meanwhile, last time I was out in the Mayo’s precincts, I learned that I’m NOT allergic, after all, to ibuprofen. Which was a kind of a miracle… On the way home, I bought a bottle of the stuff. Just the first tiny dose the Mayo folks gave me here, by way of kicking off their test, made the sore hand feel soooooooo much better! And a pill a day for about five days made that sprain one whole helluva lot more tolerable. In fact, I suspect the pain relief (or something associated with it) helped the injury to heal faster.

Life is getting a whole lot simpler, really fast.

😀

 

Ever have one of those *CLICK* moments?

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No, this doesn’t mean a Gloria Steinem moment of insight into the Oppressiveness of the Masculine Culture. By *CLICK* moment, I mean a why didn’t i think of this one before dawning of the light.

I’m sitting here contemplating the damn car and realizing that it’s so alien that trying to operate it is like trying to drive a flying saucer. In the 15 years between the time I bought the late, great Toyota Sienna and the time I got bamboozled into buying the endlessly annoying Toyota Venza, cars have changed so much that I truly don’t know how to drive anymore.

Out of the blue, it struck me that what I need here is driving lessons. I need to learn to drive again, the way I learned to drive in high school: with a driving instructor sitting next to me in the front seat.

Turns out there are driving schools here in lovely uptown Phoenix. They’re not cheap: instruction runs from $250 for a single three-hour drive to $645 for 16 to 18 hours of instruction. For an extra $250, you can get some sort of “MVD evaluation waiver” that apparently gets you out of some harassment of senior drivers by the state.

I have to renew my driver’s license this spring, as well as get the national ID card. This will be a major PITA if I’m required to prove I can still drive…especially since driving this goddamn car is like trying to drive a flying saucer.

Yesterday I did chat with Wonder-Mechanic Chuck and his guys about the idea of trading the Starship Enterprise in on a Subaru. They thought that was a less than perfect scheme. Chuck says all newer cars are now pretty much the same: brain-banging frustrating and complicated to learn.

Soooo….oh-kayyy…. If the problem is that you need to learn how to drive all over again, wouldn’t the logical solution be simply to do what you did in high school: take a driving course?

Duh!

Here’s an outfit that employs retired law enforcement officers. By golly! What could be more perfect?

So I emailed them and hope to hear from them on Monday.  While I’m not thrilled at the prospect of forking over $250 to learn how to drive all over again, as a practical matter I can afford it…and it would be worth it if I could get an experienced driving instructor to help me get acclimated with the Brave New World of driving technology.

Meanwhile, slo-o-o-o-w-l-y ad not very surely I’m getting the elaborate new landline phone to work.

Yesterday morning I realized that what I need to do is ONE. THING. AT. A. TIME. That is, don’t try to set it up with all its glorious functions in one swell foop. Instead, engage only one function at a time.

So: yesterday I plugged it in. I did NOT plug in the beloved CPR Call Blocker. Just plugged the damn phone and its handsets into the phone line and the electric line.

This alone took some doing. But without trying to connect the Call Blocker device, the system works fine. I think. When I call the land line number on my cell phone, it does ring through. And I’ve been able to talk with SDXB and with WonderAccountant…so apparently the basic function now works.

Today I succeeded in figuring out how to program often-called numbers into the “phone book” function. PITA of the first water, but it does seem to work. I think.

In addition, it appears that the Panasonic’s built-in call blocker also works, in much the same way. But how it’s doing that without my having programmed it escapes me. I’ve only received one nuisance call in the past two days; normally upwards of a dozen come in. That may just be coincidence…though I haven’t had a day without an unending series of pest calls in many, many months. Years, actually.

If it develops that this is just a fluke, then on Monday I’ll call the CPR folks — they have killer customer service!! — and ask how to get the thing attached to the CPR device without disabling the phone itself.

So of those two frustrations — car and phone — I feel a little better about one of them. As for the car, we shall see whether this driving school outfit will let me use their three-hour training class as a device to learn how to drive all over again. They say they have a special class for “seniors,” which leads me to suspect this will not be the first time they’ve encountered my little learning challenge.

Life and Death in Dystopia

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A friend remarked on the dystopic nature of our lives as they are affected by the ubiquity and inescapability of computers, whose presence has expanded to fill every cubic centimeter of existence. And how, brother!

Sometimes I wonder if the digitization of day-to-day life creates stresses and psychological disjuncts may be responsible for the madness we see around us — specifically, for the ever-increasing number of shootings by crazies. Life was frustrating back in the day…and scary, too — remember those air-raid drills? Everyone had at least one gun in the house — or at any rate, that was true of the blue-collar class in which I grew up.

But no one went out and shot up public spaces.

The mindset has changed, and I think that has happened because of the deluge of passive stimulation, of violent games and TV and movies and music and “entertainment” and hostile speech accessible 24/7, and because of the constant background demand that you respond to negative stimulation through social media, gaming, and incoming images and narratives. We’re blitzed with constant aural and psychological noise, much of it hostile and violent.

And there’s no viable escape from it. Remember when a little kid could sit outside and watch the clouds float by? Imagine a kid doing that today…right!

I mean…when I was a kid, I hated school. I deeply loathed my classmates, the obnoxious little twits who made my life miserable for years on end. I hated my fifth- & sixth-grade teacher (same bitch….she “passed” into the 6th grade along with us, to my horror!). But forgodsake, it never entered my fevered little brain to kill them. Though I would have been pleased if they’d all been dispatched to the other world, making that a DIY project was not even remotely imaginable.

Now we have the lovely situation in which we find ourselves. Today it not only is imaginable, it’s becoming commonplace. And a nutty, disaffected kid like me can find instruction and encouragement on a machine that brings the world to her bedroom.

Result: an ordinary neighborhood church has an armed security team(!!!) who must leap into action to save the lives of what could have been scores of parishioners. Look at this video of the latest outrage (if you don’t mind having your hair stand on end): the guy had some kind of long gun. You can’t see it clearly in this video, but it looks like it’s probably a semi-automatic.

The most striking thing here is that these guys were prepared. The one who shot the sh!thead was a former FBI agent. It wasn’t that a few parishioners happened to pack heat into church: the church had an organized, armed security team. 

WTF!! We’re in an era where churches and synagogues need armed security guards. Sorta like schools do. And movie theaters. And nightclubs.

Y’know, I can’t even count how many times I’ve sat in that choir loft and thought how easy it would be for a crazy to get a gun into the sanctuary below us. At this time of year, when it’s cold, everyone is wearing jackets…making it easy to hide a pistol.  There are four entrances to that place, not counting the two stairwells that lead to the organ loft. Anyone could carry in a pistol, take a seat, and bide his time. When he was good and ready, he’d have a large roomful of sitting ducks. If he could get into the choir loft (to which there are two entrances), he could shoot at people from above, though choir members would probably interfere with him. Or he could shoot us all in a matter of seconds.

What a world we live in!

Why I Hate My Car

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Oh, hell: make that “Why I Hate the 21st Century.” ’Cause I do: I hate almost everything about it, especially

  • Donald Trump
  • Lunatics who shoot up schools, churches, synagogues, and just about any other public space that suits their fancy
  • Opportunists who subsequently take advantage of the lunatics to propose confiscating our guns
  • Drug-addled thieves and crazies who make it necessary for a little old lady to own a gun
  • A medical system dedicated to making huge profits in shearing the sheeple
  • Homicidal traffic
  • Just about anything computerized… And consequently,…
  • My car

Day before yesterday when I went to get into the car, I forgot I had the cell phone I’ve taken to carrying around the house — so as to call for help if I fall or otherwise get into some kind of old-bat trouble — not only in my pocket but turned on.

A live phone, it develops, is a live bomb when it comes to the Toyota Venza’s goddamned “audio” system. Climbing into the car caused the radio to shut off and the screen thing that sorta operates it to switch to “AUDIO.”

Whatever “audio” does, it doesn’t play music. Apparently it wanted me to talk on the phone.

I did not want to talk on the phone with it. I just wanted it to fuckin’ GO AWAY.

Nothing — and I do mean nothing — that I tried would make AUDIO go away. This wrestling match, we might note, was going on while my car was rolling down the road. I punched every button I could think of, but of course many of the “buttons” are not on the dashboard but instead appear as images on the goddamned screen if and when you punch the right (or wrong) combination of…somethingorother.

Y’know…I do not want to use my car as a telephone. I do not want my car to tell me which way to turn in a quarter-mile. I do not want my car to order up a pizza for me.

Believe it or not, I can manage all those things without a car tutoring me. I know how to read a map. The only reason I carry a nuisance cell phone is because there are no pay phones anymore. Well…except insofar as the goddamn cell phone makes you pay for minutes and minutes and minutes that you’ll never use, lest ye be stranded by the side of a freeway 60 miles from home with no help in sight. All I want a car radio to do is PLAY WHATEVER THE GODDAMNED RADIO STATION IS BROADCASTING.

How hard is this?

For the nonce, I give up, by way of navigating Phoenix’s homicidal traffic without killing myself or any of my fellow crazies.

A couple of more efforts to fix it, after I reached a parking lot and later after I got the car back in its garage, failed. Ignominiously.

I now realize I’ll have to dig out the instructions from the THREE VOLUMES of driver’s manual…but later, please. Much later.

This morning I recall this annoyance, whilst bathing and getting dressed to go out. I think…maybe I should go by the Toyota place and ask them to put it back on “RADIO,” thereby giving me a chance to bellyache at the Toyota people. This, I realize, is an exercise in futility: discard that idea. Chuck the Wonder Mechanic’s place is just around the corner from the Toyota place: I could go by there and of course any of the young pups will know, instantly, how to work the damn thing.

That seems unduly lazy to me, though. Also it will make me look like an idiot…probably not an unfair characterization, but still…why advertise it?

I decide instead to shuffle through the owner’s manual’s voluminous index and try to figure out how to switch the accursed thing back to RADIO.

Yeah. Right.

Those three volumes that make up the Venza owner’s manual? ONE WHOLE VOLUME is dedicated to the complicated whack-shit audio system! Yes. TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO PAGES on how to use “AUDIO.”

For the love of God. All I want to do is listen to my cowboys crooning down from Wickenburg on the FM airwaves. Do I really have to paw through 232 pages of technobabble to accomplish that?

Well. Yes.

So after some difficulty I find the section explaining how to turn on the radio — which apparently is not what the system is designed to be used for — and discover the trick involves pressing a virtual button several ways from Sunday and then pressing some more choices that supposedly will pop up to get to a point where the thing will receive ordinary FM stations.

Jezus Aitch Keerist.

Honest to gawd, I wish I’d kept that Sienna and taken my chances with the alternator. Yes, waiting for the insurance company’s Roadside Disservice for five hours was exceptionally unacceptable. But…if I’d signed up for AAA — which I need to do anyway, obviously — and ponied up the cash for another unreliably rebuilt second-hand alternator, it would have cost one helluva lot less than the present endlessly annoying jalopy cost.

The damn thing is emblematic of all I hate about the 21st century and its digitization: a fair number of things — maybe most things — worked better in their analog formats.

No one should need 232 pages of instructions to turn on a fuckin’ radio.

Down at the HQ

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So… Trying to get out of the Funny Farm to drive down to the Religious HQ for today’s volunteer stint at the front desk, whereinat I now reside. Finally…

LORDIE, what a hassle.

To start with, I hurt from top to bottom. Even though the injured paw is slowly healing (I think) it’s very slow. The wrenched knee also hurts. If I get into the bathtub, I can’t get out through any normal contortions and so have to scrabble around to try to get on my feet without slipping and braining myself.

Not that it would make much difference these days.

A normal person would take a shower, not get herself trapped in a tubful of hot water, right? Yes. But first, I’m far from normal. And second — more to the point — soaking in hot water seems to be about all that eases the present tumble-induced aches and pains.

Next, the deadbolt on the door between the kitchen & the garage has jammed. Soonest I could get a locksmith out to the house was tomorrow. Fortunately, there’s a drill-proof Schlage lock on the garage’s side door, and prizing open the garage door itself…well…that’s not very hard, but it would be a little conspicuous for a burglar’s tastes.

But…I tend to mindlessly drive away from the house without closing the garage door. Invariably I think of this as I get about halfway up the block, so feel honor-bound to turn around, go back, and check to be sure it’s shut. This noon when I pull a U-ie…well, naturally, my computer slides off the passenger seat and tumbles onto the floor. Shee-ut!

It doesn’t seem to have broken. Otherwise, obviously, this wouldn’t be getting written.

To add to the kitchen-door issue, the lock on one of the Arcadia doors won’t work. Turns out for some reason the door isn’t closing tightly enough to force the little button that makes it possible for the latch to shift into place. These doors are supposedly warranteed for life, but taking advantage of that will entail digging out the paperwork from files that date back 15 years…won’t THAT be fun? And then hoping the manufacturer is still in business.

To add to the computer issue, the MacBook has developed a slowly worsening quirk: its cursor randomly jumps backward up the file as I’m typing, and since I type very fast even with one paw wounded, it inserts a series of letters into some random place in the file. This, I find extremely annoying.

I also find it’s a known issue. And probably will clinch the requirement that I buy a new computer, which I really do not want to do.

One reason I don’t want to is that I haven’t been paid the $1300 owed by my most recent client. Contact his admin and find it’s because she failed to enter some tiny speck of data into the university’s excruciatingly complicated computer forms.

Soooooo….. Let’s hope this thing survives long enough for that payment to get here, so I can afford to buy another unit and jump through the involved set of hassles that will entail.

Further adding to the fun… Usually the Thursday afternoon front-desk gig is quiet as the tomb. Not so today. The phone has been jangling since I sat down. We’re doing a concert of Handel’s Messiah — people are calling with questions to which I do not now, never have, and probably never will know the answers.

At any rate, this is the kind of day that makes me question the state of my marbles. I can’t even get out the door without a fiasco, and when I finally get here — pushing late — I have no clue what I’m doing.

The front yard looks a lot clearer and tidier with all the brush that Gerardo and crew removed yesterday. But from the street you still can’t get a full view of what’s going on — if anything — inside the courtyard. So, what with that guy obviously casing the house the other day, I’m  not at all comfortable at leaving the place. Ever. Especially not for several hours at a time.

So we’re brought back to the question that arises these days every time I get in my car and drive away from the Funny Farm:

Why am I staying here?

Argha!

Main reason? I have no idea where else to go.

Not that I can afford, anyway. If you don’t want to live in  a suburb of eave-to-eave styrofoam-and-stucco ticky-tacky, there’s really not much you can afford in a safer area. Not around here, anyway. All of North Central — where I’ve lived all my adult life — is now outside my price range. Well, except for the strip that borders Conduit of Blight Boulevard, all of which suffers the same issue as we in the ‘Hood confront: our neighbor to the west is one huge meth slum. That’s why the ’Hood is relatively affordable.

The alternatives are Fountain Hills — an hour’s drive from everything I do, and also largely ticky-tacky construction, albeit on larger lots — and Sun City –also almost an hour away from my life, and a ghetto for old folks, to boot.

Prescott? Wickenburg? Oro Valley? I’d have to start my life completely over in any of those places. And y’know what? I’m just too damn lazy to feel like building whole new networks of friends, whole new networks of retailers, whole new networks of doctors and dentists and optometrists and hair stylists and car mechanics and cleaning ladies and yard dudes and locksmiths and AC repairmen and plumbers and bankers and veterinarians and accountants and computer gurus and…augh!! It’s more than one can contemplate.

Ugh…some woman just hung up on me because I have no idea where to buy size 3x men’s pajamas. WTF????

And…ohboy, two seconds later the wooden gadget someone made to hold the door open got busted. Now the door is permanently latched shut.

BUT…the amazingly resourceful Nanette forthwith walked in through the door, retrieved the busted device, and fixed it.

A parishioner wants to know at which the Christmas Eve service do we sing “Silent Night” in the dark. I say it must be the midnight service…because that’s when the choir sings and we always sing…etc. No, says she, it can’t be the midnight mass because they never go to that.

Huh? Well, then, sister, it must be the service you usually go to, no???

An hour to go before I can head home and pour a bourbon & water.