Coffee heat rising

Dispatches from Hell

Some Punkins!

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How d’you like this mess?

And this one?

And how would you like to hit this chunk of concrete in your car or truck, while you’re tooling up the alley?

Guaranteed to take out your oil pan!

That crap is the dried-out remains of my former neighbor Sally’s backyard landscaping, which the new young owners have hacked out and dumped, higgledy-piggledy, into the alley. It’s actually less of a mess than it was: at first they just dumped it all over the thoroughfare. After a week or so, they (or someone) went out there and stacked it against the kids’ wall. More or less. Except for the chunks of concrete, which they left there to catch an unwary motorist.

See that thing that looks like a shrub somebody yanked out by the roots and threw on the ground? That’s a juniper. Juniper is one of the most flammable plants you can put in your yard. And all that loose debris? It’s been there a good ten days: drying out in 108-degree heat. It is, in a word, a pile of tinder.

The day after tomorrow is the Fourth of July.

Every July 4, people sneak into the alleys — ours included — to shoot off marginally legal and illegal fireworks. Our idiot legislators, who confuse “fireworks” with “firearms” and so must preserve our right to carry them, did away with all state regulation of consumer fireworks. They did allow a few cities to lay down limits…but their workaround for that was to pass another law stating that cities and counties cannot tell retailers not to sell any fireworks they please — whether or not said fireworks are illegal within the city limits;.

Right. Got that?

City to Morons: You can buy these things that will blow off your hand and blast out your eyes but you can’t set them off.

Morons to City: Sure, boss. Yup yup yup!!!

Phbhphbhthphththt!

So now every July 4 and every New Year’s, we have chuckleheads blasting powerful, dangerous fireworks in every neighborhood. And since some of these things are illegal to shoot off inside the Phoenix city limits, they sneak into the alleys to play, where they think they won’t be seen.

Fun, eh?

Well, my back wall is covered with a vine called cat’s claw. Satan and Proserpine planted it there, and I’ve let it grow because I like a whole lot of privacy around my pool. And everywhere in my backyard, for that matter. The building code forbids a backyard fence higher than six feet, but nowhere is there any law that says ornamental plants growing along a back wall can’t be as high as you like. So one way get around this regulation — other than ignoring the law and stacking block eight or ten feet high — is to plant oleanders, vines, and other plants that will block the curious and the criminal from peering into your backyard.

Cat’s claw can pile up on your fence to make a ten- or twelve-foot high barrier. But of course…it’s a plant. Far as I can tell, it’s no more flammable than any other ordinary plant — nothing that I’ve looked up mentions flammability as a problem, in the way that juniper and eucalyptus and cypress are problems. That notwithstanding, Gerardo keeps it trimmed up about four feet off the ground. Still…it is a plant. And there is a lot of it. And people who sneak into alleys to shoot off their illegal fireworks do not give one thin damn about the safety of your property.

Nor, speaking of thin damns, do the neighbors. Their piles of debris are easily three to four feet deep. If that stuff catches fire, the likelihood that it will jump across the alley and set my landscaping plants alight is extremely high. Not just the cat’s claw, but the palm trees (four of them) and the citrus and the devil-pod tree and the paloverde and the olive and the …yeah: and the roof of the house. All it will take is a stiff breeze — like the one we had late this afternoon — to spread sparks from here to Hell.

So this morning I went over and visited the guy who seems to be in charge. Explained the problem. Would he please have that stuff hauled off, it being illegal to dump in the alley?

He refused. By way of blowing me off, he actually said (can you believe this?) that the City’s bulk trash collection was supposed to come by before July 4.

That’s the day after tomorrow. Did I mention that?

Well, anyway: no. Look it up online, where it’s always posted. They won’t even start bulk collection in this area until July 30.

My insurance agent advises that I should call the city and launch a complaint. He thinks everything possible needs to be done to eliminate risk of a house fire.

My son, who also is in insurance, thinks this would cause neighbor trouble, big time. He suggests making a record to the effect that I asked them to get rid of the flammable debris — like sending them a registered letter! My insurance company would then have a paper trail so as to file a claim against their insurance company.

Heee! This is supposed NOT to cause neighbor trouble?

😀

Even if a registered letter could get there by tomorrow(!), that sounds like an exercise in futility. But I do have a record: my camera dates its pictures. And I’ve just described my exchange with the jerk here in WordPress, which also dates content.

Interestingly, it appears that the guy is staying there. His decrepit truck has been parked on the street day and night — all night — for as long as the landscaping exploit has been going on. After I walked away, I heard the woman come outside and ask him what I wanted. So she does know that I asked him to clean up the mess.

I figure he must be a relative or a friend who agreed to help them with their landscaping project.

Whatever he is, he sure ain’t a landscaper!

What a mess they’ve made of Sally’s formerly dull but pleasant enough backyard. They’ve pulled out all the planting except three or four scrawny cape honeysuckle up against the back wall. And they’re spread some sort of dust-like top cover all over the back yard, with no break or planting or anything.

I don’t know what it is, only that it’s not quarter-minus. It’s like a fine dust. Weird.

These are the people who claim to want four children. They’ve already started toward that goal. Maybe they think they’ve made a giant sandbox???? I wouldn’t let a child play in that stuff on a bet: it’s Valley fever waiting to happen. And Other Daughter’s damned cats habitually used Sally’s gravel — real gravel, the heavy stuff — as their catbox.

Ugh! It won’t take long for those animals to saturate that powdery stuff with cat urine and cat shit. What on earth could they possibly be thinking?????

Anyway, absent certified letters, my plan is to go out there along about four or five p.m. on the Fourth, haul the hose with a sprinkler to the far side of the pool, and soak the bejayzus out of those vines. Get them all very, very wet, like totally drenched.

That way if a moron does get a fire started in that debris, sparks that hit the vines probably won’t set them alight. At least, given that cat’s claw supposedly isn’t extraordinarily flammable, there’ll be a fair chance that they’ll resist burning if they’re already good and wet.

If the wind comes up, though, there will be nothing I can do should sparks or embers reach that damn weeping acacia. Those trees are as flammable as eucalyptus — which is very — and the thing is a good 40 or 50 feet high.

Damn, but I’m tired of dealing with other people’s stupidity.

Losing the Visa Card but Keeping Costco

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You may recall that when Costco dropped American Express and switched all its customers over to Citibank’s Visa card, I demurred — having enjoyed Citibank’s customer disservice in the past and had a bellyful. Instead, I decided to opt the wondrous benefits that attach to the Costco Visa card (which, it must be allowed, are considerable) and stick with a Visa card issued through my credit union.

This has worked OK. The CU’s Visa card even offers a few kickbacks, though of course nothing as generous as the Costco card provides.

But there have been a few problems. The biggest one has been getting the bills paid on time.

Item: When you use the credit union’s online bill-pay service — which should be transferring the payment electronically — the CU in fact pays Visa with a freaking paper check sent by snail-mail!!

This means it takes some ten days to arrive in Visa’s precincts. And then it takes another day or two for the check(!) to clear Visa’s bank. So if, say, the due date is April 10 and the check arrives there on April 10, payment is considered late!

The envelopes in which the CU-branded bills arrive are so discreet as to be practically incognito. It’s not obvious at first glance that a Visa statement (or any financial document) is inside. So it’s possible to simply miss an incoming statement, if you’re not paying attention.

I have paper statements sent as signals that it’s time to pony up some cash. This I favor over electronic statements, because a) my incoming email is a freaking NONSTOP tsunami, and sooner or later an electronic blat will get lost; and b) things computer make me tear my hair out. I do not want to deal with any more than I’ve already got, thank you.

So, if a statement doesn’t get here, chances are I will miss a payment.

This happened last month. The May statement seems to have been lost in the mail, and I never noticed that it hadn’t come and so hadn’t been paid.

This week, in comes a snarling wallop upside the head from Visa, saying they not only are gouging me $25 as a late payment penalty, they also are reporting me to all three credit bureaus as delinquent.

This morning I call and ask to get this reversed, which you usually can do if you don’t try it very often. WonderAccountant says most credit-card vendors will forgive one lapse a year.

Not so this outfit. The guy I reached, who sounded like a sweet enough young fella, said there was not a thing he could do about it. He pretended to absent himself long enough to make it look like he was talking to a boss, then came back on the line and said there was nothing they could do to reverse or undo the black blot with the credit bureau.

So I had to get in the car, traipse across the city to the credit union, and talk with the manager in person.

Forthwith, she got the late charge reversed and arranged to pay the bill in full. I said I wanted to close the account. She suggested not doing that. And yeah, I do know you really shouldn’t close a credit card account, because just closing it — whether or not a dispute is involved — will ding your credit rating. She did say that the credit ding was not slated to go through until the 22nd, and since we’re a long way from that date, there should be no report to the damned credit bureaus.

Okay. Well, that’s fine: I still have an active card. But there’s no way they can make me use it. It’s now in a file folder, hidden in a drawer.

In passing, I considered opening a Citibank Costco card, which after all would provide some rich kickbacks. But that is going to be a major hassle, with all the freezes on the three credit bureaus. When I talked with Citibank over the phone yesterday, their rep said they could not know which of the three credit bureaus they would use — apparently their software rotates among them  at random. So this would mean I would have to apply; then sit by the phone till I got a call from Citibank; then call the specified credit bureau; then demand a temporary lift of the freeze.

Yeah. Right.

Well, to start with, I have only one phone number that reaches a human (or did, the last time I called), and that’s with Experian. Trying to get through to those people is a headache of migraine intensity; as for the others…don’t even ask.

So. That leaves me with a Visa debit card, which I decidedly do not want to use at Costco’s gas pumps (or anyone else’s) and would prefer not to use at all.

Hm.

I spend way too much money at Costco, AKA “Impulse Buy Hell.” Matter of fact, over the past six months, I’ve averaged $332 a month in store purchases and $36 a month in gasoline.

Really, that’s not all that terrible when you realize I buy most of my clothing there, most of my food (I don’t eat out, so this is significantly less than $10/day), ingredients for the dog’s spectacularly expensive DIY food, all my personal products, and most of my household goods. And a fair amount of the S-corp’s office supplies.

Still. I suspect that if I weren’t packing a credit card every time I shop there, I could cut the spending. A lot.

Sure don’t want to write checks, and I sure don’t want to have that much cash around.

So. I think what I’m going to do is this:

Figure out what would be a reasonable monthly budget for all those necessaries, absent the impulse buys. Let’s say about $275, maybe $300 at the outside. Add on enough to cover gasoline — around $40 just now, but rising fast. Then go into the store at the start of the month and buy a Costco cash card in the amount of, say, $340.

Be more careful about purchases…knowing there’s a palpable upper limit will help a lot with that. Use it till it’s gone, and then stop buying there until the next month. Or if push comes to shove, pay for any serious necessaries with the debit card.

I refuse to put a debit card into a gas pump, nor will I use one at a restaurant — there just aren’t enough consumer protections against theft. But the occasional restaurants I visit always accept AMEX, and if the tank runs dry after I run out of dollars on the cash card, I’ll just pay a couple bucks more to buy at a gas station that takes AMEX.

It’s really not that much hassle. If memory serves, the last time I bought a cash card I was able to get it at the regular checkout register, rather than having to stand in a different line. But even if you do have to buy from the customer service desk, so what? It’s not that big a deal.

I guess…

I need another hole in my head….

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So along about 11:00 a.m., having organized this year’s mountain of tax papers, I stroll across the street to WonderAccountant’s place, there to deliver the trash. As I stroll down the driveway, I hear a woman shrieking, truly screaming in terror. Drop the papers on WA’s doorstep, holler at her to call the cops, and start to run in the direction of the yelling. By the time I get down to the house where I think it’s coming from, it’s stopped. I can’t find anyone around, so stand down.

While WonderAccountant and I are waiting for the cops to show up (they never do…) we see the Perp stalk out of Other Daughter’s house, jump in his car, and drive away. We realize the screaming was very likely coming from OD’s: WonderAccountant has noticed before that conversation taking place in OD’s yard bounces off house walls on the other side of the street and sounds like they’re right in her or Joel’s  front yard.

We debate whether to add this to our report to 911 but figure since he saw us standing out there, he’ll know where that came from. If (we’re still thinking, mistakenly, when) we see a cop, we’ll casually mention that they might want to check on her welfare, without commenting on the abusive father.

OD told another neighbor that when her sister, Pretty Daughter, was advanced in pregnancy, he socked her smack in the gut with his fist. Said he used to beat both girls and their mother when they were kids. It’s believable: he really is a beaut. But then: she’s certified nuts, too…evidently for a reason.

So there I am in the driveway waving good-bye to the plumber, who shows up half-an hour before the 1-to-3 slot he reserved, and thinking…God Dayum, I do need that German shepherd back.

Anna. She did quite the little number on the Perp’s schizophrenic accomplice, Son-in-Law (he who no longer lives with Other Daughter). SiL tried, apparently during a phase when his meds weren’t working, tried to get into my backyard through the side gate, while a friend and I were sitting on the side deck. He managed to escape (luckily he’d parked his car in front) before she could catch him, but I’ll tellya…he never came back here again. Scared the bedoodles out of him.

As for the Perp himself: she could’ve taken that aging sleaze out in about three seconds flat.

Sometimes I think I need to get another German shepherd.

Right. Just what I need: another hole in the head.

If I’d had Anna at hand this noon, I would’ve gone down to O.D.’s place to see if she was OK.

Right.

Today’s Day from Hell started yesterday morning, when I managed to clog up the main bathroom’s toilet. It being Sunday, that meant I had to make do until today, when the plumber could send his son to clear out the pipes.

This morning, during a visit from yet another Cox technician, we learned that Cox’s shitty equipment just doesn’t work at all with the VSR Call Blocker 5000, which is damned annoying.

After 309 intercepts, most of the robocallers have given up. It’s been relatively quiet around here the past few days, with the device disconnected.

They’ll be back in due time, of course. At that point, I’ll either switch the phones to Ooma and NoMoRobo (as I should have done at the outset) or deep-six the landlines and replace them with a few cell phones. I figure I can get a real cell phone — an actual smartphone, now that one of my friends has volunteered to teach me to use it — and then acquire a few ultra-cheap clamshells with prepaid minutes to set around the house for emergency use. These can just be left turned off, and the proposed smartphone can take my present phone number.

Last night at about 12:15 a.m. (that actually would be this morning, wouldn’t it?), Firefox (!!! Firefox!) crashed with a resounding roar. In doing so, it took down a website I’d been working on half the day, losing about two hours’ worth of coding. I hate coding. I hate coding even more than I hate grading freshman comp papers. And that is a lot. And yes. Yes, the page was saved. Do you really think I don’t hit “Save” about every thirty seconds, after all my fun escapades in Computer Science?

So spent two hours this morning reconstructing the disappeared content and design. Good morning, fuckin’ America!

In the Hole in the Head Department, y’know what I really think I should do?

I think I should give over all pretense of doing anything that in any way looks like work. Toss a couple pair of jeans, a few shirts, a jacket, the camp stove, the dwarf dogs, and a sleeping bag in the car and just…start…driving.

And never. come. back.

Techno-skeptic: I could’ve predicted this…

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Friday: Dispatch to NextDoor readers…

Ohhhh the techno-life just gets better and better!

You may recall my whinging a few days ago about Cox’s announcement that it’s taking down the copper connection to our land-line telephones, and that if we want to continue to have a land-line-like set of phones (i.e., a phone in every room), we’ll have to get Cox’s digital phone service, which is connected through one’s computer via a second modem to clutter up your desk.

The Cox guy showed up: extremely nice man, seemed to be competent. Yes, he admitted: if the power goes down — no phone. If my computer crashes — no phone. If my computer’s modem crashes — no phone. If the extra annoying modem goes down — no phone.

Sooooo…now we have three ways from Sunday for your phone to die. And say what? you need to call 911? Well ..|.. very much!

Ohhhkayyy, well there doesn’t seem to be much choice here. I can buy an Ooma modem and pay a guy $90 or $180 to come over and help my untechie self connect it to my computer and attach my call-blocker to it. Or I can have Cox come over and install its wondrous modem for free. And continue to gouge me $35 a month for less-than-optimal phone service.

I decide to opt for Cox despite the rip-off, because it’s at least sort of a known quantity. The lash-up was installed Wednesday.

Two days into this Brave New World… A phone solicitor calls. I pick up the phone so I can cut off the call and capture the number in the call-blocker before the voicemail picks up. And what I hear when I pick up the phone is this LOUD racket that sounds like an unmuffled motorcycle engine accelerating: b-r-r-r-B-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R

I figure this is the robocaller SOBs doing a number on me. Hang up. Block the number. Pick up the phone and try to call another number, and when I do, I get the same racket. My phone has been taken over by a motorcycle on meth!

Now I walk across the street carrying one of the system’s handsets and call Cox from my neighbor’s phone. As usual, this entails a great hassle getting through the aggravating phone tree, but eventually I reach a very helpful tech guy.

He is beyond extremely nice and is anxious to help, but he has NEVER HEARD of what the phone is doing. But since my handset’s signal reaches all the way across the street and into my neighbor’s home, I dial up a phone number out of the device’s memory and get B-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R…, which of course he can hear loud and clear. He tries to manipulate the modem from his end, but it’s not working.

I go back to my house and disconnect the call blocker, which is in-line with the modem. This does not help.

He arranges for a workman to show up here tomorrow morning — because after all what DOES the little woman have to do with her day than sit around waiting for yet another workman, eh?

Meanwhile, he suggests I try unplugging the modem, letting it set for 20 or 30 minutes, and then replugging and testing. This I do, with baleful results.

The phones are now completely nonfunctional. You can sometimes(!) get a dial tone and if you do, you can dial out, but within 30 seconds the meth-headed motorcycle starts back up again.

Okay, I’m willing to allow that maybe there’s something wrong with my phones. But I doubt it. LOL! Guess I should be glad this little fiasco hasn’t taken my computers down. Yet…

* * *
Comes the Dawn…
* * *

So it is now “tomorrow”: Saturday.

Right about as scheduled, a new Cox guy shows up. Actually, this one is not “new” but grizzled and road-worn. This is a fellow who has had long experience. Let us, I reflect, hope that most of his experience has to do with the electronics of telephone systems.

The guy is flummoxed by the motorcycle on meth serenade: admits he’s never heard anything like it. He tests every piece of equipment on the line. He discovers an outmoded DSL connector, which he tosses. So far: nothing works. What, he asks, is really connected to this line, amongst the 6 handsets I say I have online???

Finally we figured out that the problem is the old Panasonic base, which for reasons unknown continued to operate after I plugged in then five-handset Uniden base with which I intended to replace it. Long as it was working, I just left it sitting there, giving me a 6th phone. Very convenient.

Upon examination, we realized the reason it was working was that it wasn’t really talking to the Uniden. It was plugged into the copper wiring, and so was ringing on its own: not as a de-facto sixth handset, but as an entirely separate unit. That thing, he theorized, could be causing a short.

Interestingly, the copper wiring has been disconnected and none of the outlets work anymore. Yet…wait…that phone does have a dial tone. Wot the hell?! We unplug it, and damned it that doesn’t work!

So now the phone system is working. I’m down one handset in a location close to the floor, where I might reach it if I fall and hurt myself. Fortunately, one of the Uniden handsets was in a location where I rarely go, and so I just moved it into the family room, where…yea verily, I can crawl to it if I fall in the kitchen, dining room, or family room. I hope.

Once again, then, all is well in the Brave New World. For the nonce…

Life’s Daily Vicissitudes vs. Blood Pressure

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Or, we could say, vicissitudes vs. your health…

Okay, so here’s what happened:

1) A friend noticed the post in which I whinged at great length about Cardiodoc and the crazy blood-pressure reading in his office taken, after a nightmare drive down there, by a clerk who didn’t know what she was doing and…oh, hell, on and on and freaking on. She remarked that stress indeed does jack up your blood pressure, and that you can often bring the numbers down by deep-breathing for a few minutes before allowing yourself to be subjected to the test. If you’ve ever taken LaMaze or yoga or voice classes, you know how to do this breathing technique.

2) I think…oh, yeah? That sounds like woo-woo. A brief Google search shows it is not woo-woo and that indeed, a study has been done that shows a five- to ten-minute period of controlled breathing indeed can lower blood pressure numbers. Yea verily, no less an authority than Harvard University reports the results of said study. Indeed, there’s a gadget — which the Mayo approves(!) — that can help with this scheme. Alternatively, silently repeating a mantra about 100 to 150 times will also do the trick. One such mantra is the Ave Maria, in Latin (not the English version), which I can rattle off as easily as my usual mantra, “Quit that damn barking!”

3) Izzat so? think I. Okay, let’s test that little fucker. Why ohhhh why do I not believe it? So along about 5:30 in the afternoon, I take the usual series of three readings, one after another, as instructed by the cardiodocs who have harassed…uhm, seen me. Then I try a brief period, about three to five minutes, of deep breathing, the kind I was taught to do in LaMaze classes and then later by a yoga instructor. And… God help us, here are the results:

Got that? Systolic pressure — the one that really counts — dropped from 136 (on the high side of “moderately elevated”) to 129 (on the low side of “moderately elevated”) after just a few minutes of relaxation exercise. That’s seven points. Diastolic, interestingly, rose a point…

4) I think that is batshit crazy and prepare to disregard it. But still: I’m kinda impressed.

5) A night goes by and the next morning SDXB shows up at the door with NG (New Girlfriend). This alone is enough to raise my blood pressure, but, as usual, that’s another story. We go out and walk for an hour or so behind North Mountain. Then we go to a restaurant, where I have a cup of iced tea and they reveal their right-wing tendencies. Which is OK, but…blood-pressure enhancing. On the way, we have been discussing the craziness that is Phoenix-area traffic…and…just as we’re all agreeing that given our choice we would stay off the roads here, the sounds of brakes and a CRASH erupt behind us. The woman behind us has been rear-ended by the chucklehead behind her. By the grace of God, she was far enough behind us to miss rear-ending SDXB’s car. But it was a close call, and it was evident that her passenger was injured. In the Suspicions Confirmed Department: charming.

6) So I am stressed when I get home. Also very hungry. I fix a fairly hefty meal of a couple lamb chops, grilled potatoes, tomatoes, and spinach braised in butter with almonds and pine nuts. And I have two glasses of wine and a fistful of chocolate chips. (Bad!) Then I start to tear around to pick up the backyard, the kitchen, and the house, test the pool, cope with barking dogs, dodge the daily cop helicopter buzz-over, pay the bills and…and…

7) As all this controlled chaos is going on, I think “What would happen if I tried the deep-breathing thing with the BP monitor, right now in the middle of all this hectic racing around?

Hmmm…. As noted in this spreadsheet, I did not wait several minutes to “rest” before running the BP monitor. Between the first and second test, I did about three or four minutes of deep breathing. The second test, interestingly, registered a 10-point drop in systolic pressure; five points for diastolic. Trying again without the fancy breathing maneuver got a rise in PB of four points. That notwithstanding, 125 is within the permissible range for an old bat like me.

Average BPs were 132/80.8 last night and 125.7/81 this afternoon. Last night: after sitting quietly before testing, and including one (1) test with deep breathing. This afternoon: no rest before the first measure but with deep-breathing before the first and second measures; with no deep breathing between the second and third measures.

Normally, if I did not sit and rest before the first measure, my blood pressure would be several points higher. I simply hate, loathe, and despise the blood-pressure test — not because it’s uncomfortable especially, but because it’s a damned time-suck and because it makes me nervous. I just really, really do not enjoy this procedure, whether done at home or in a doctor’s office. It stresses me out every time, and I suspect that alone elevates my blood pressure.

So what is implied here is that deep breathing before the first effort this afternoon, done — against all advice — directly after eating a large meal, after drinking alcohol, and after hassling around physically, probably pushed the first measure down significantly, to 131/80. Since my average blood pressure readings over the entire month of December was 133/83, always taken on an empty stomach and after resting, that is very probably a nontrivial difference. Certainly 121/75 is nontrivial.

What if my belly were not stuffed and I had not just scarfed down two glasses of wine and I had been sitting quietly as usual and then had tried the LaMaze/yoga/chanteuse breathing maneuver?  Welp, we’ll have to wait awhile for that part of the experiment. But…it’s interesting, isn’t it?

By the time I got to Cardiodoc’s office the other day, I was in a rage. I’d encountered two truly crazed drivers, one of whom tried to get me to break the law before doing so himself. I was trying to balance a computer and a blood-pressure machine in my arms when the receptionist shoved a bureaucratic form in my face to fill out — one that I’ve filled out three times already, identically every time — and then demanded that I dig out a bunch of Medicare and insurance cards that she also had photocopied three or four times already in the past and that had not changed. Before I could fill out even half a page of the damned form I was called into the back office, where an apparently oblivious underling took my blood pressure incorrectly — clearly had no training (or if she did, it hadn’t registered in her pea brain…).

So, if stress and annoyance affect your blood pressure — and they most certainly do — then it was not surprising the figures elicited at Cardiodoc’s office were outrageously high.

Do they justify putting me on a medication that will make me sick? Possibly, if the numbers were consistent. But they’re not.

One of Those High Blood-Pressure Days

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Hugely one of those days, for Godsake.

This morning I had what I expected to be my LAST regular appointment with CardioDoc. The blood pressure has been well in the normal zone most of the time, except for a few moments of rage or drunkenness, despite the fact that I’ve gained 12 pounds since going off the Great Diet Plan and I only get off my duff when forced to it. Overall average for December was 132/83, despite several spikes attributable to a) dental pain and b) episodic stress.

Like, for example, today’s episodic stress.

You know how much I love sharing the roads with my fellow homicidal drivers. This morning, as per usual, all my pet morons sensed that I was climbing into my car and so leapt into theirs and swarmed onto the roads.

Dear God, where do You find these people?????

Notable winners:

Runner-up: The guy who decided to dawdle down Indian School Road. Traffic is moving OK, but this one thinks 35 mph (5 mph under the limit) is too fast and he’d better hold up the parade. He’s in the center lane. We come to the signal at Central. The light turns green and he…sits there. That might seem reasonable because the four or five cars ahead of him are also very slow off the mark: we all just sit there. I notice the adjacent traffic lane is empty, so glide into that…and find space for three or four cars between him and the car ahead of him, who is not moving, either. He has stopped for the light at least three car-lengths behind the guy ahead of him.

Grand Prize: Now I’m headed south and need to turn left off Seventh Street. The light is green and the northbound lanes are clear except for ONE guy, who, instead of moving through, STOPS in the fast, left-most traffic lane. I’m in the southbound left-turn lane waiting for him to get the fuck out of the way so I can make my turn. He stands there, in the traffic lane, and starts FLASHING HIS LIGHTS AT ME.

I think…Whaaa? Am I in the wrong lane? Am I standing in the oncoming lane??? Noooo. Close inspection reveals that I am indeed in the left-turn lane and he is not: the northbound left-turn lane is vacant, and he is in the fast northbound traffic lane. Sitting there. Flashing his lights.

What the FUCK? Finally the idiot swerves left in front of me, across four southbound lanes. Apparently he decided belatedly that he needed to turn west there, after he’d missed his chance to go into the left-turn lane; so, of course, instead of proceeding north a block where he could have turned left into the neighborhood and made his way right back to where he was supposed to be going, he went wackshit.

Meanwhile, in the Where’s Yore Sign competition, I make a wrong turn. Actually I make two wrong turns: one is just a normal wrong turn that sends me in the wrong direction; the other is a stupid decision. Second “wrong turn” is an effort to turn left onto 7th Street off the side street where I now find myself….you’d think I’d know better by now, wouldn’t you? Eventually I had to make an Arizona Turn: this maneuver involves turning right, then left, then right again so as to turn left across or onto a major thoroughfare. Or even a minor thoroughfare.

These exercises slow me down considerably, but I reach CardioDoc’s office in plenty of time. I’m clenching my teeth by the time I pull into his office.

My blood pressure is always higher than usual in any doctor’s office, so much do I love dealing with those places. Truly, I do hate doctors’ offices and hospitals as much as I hate and fear anything. But we’ve found that if I’m allowed to sit quietly in his waiting room focusing on something that doesn’t annoy me and doesn’t scare me, by the time I get in to see him and his army of sidekicks, the numbers are in the normal range. So yes, I’ve brought my computer so as to have something to amuse myself.

But no. First thing they do is shove a two-page form in my face: fill this out AGAIN — same form I’ve filled out four or five times. Then they demand insurance cards: I say nothing has changed. They say insurance companies require that they scan the cards once a year. I say look, give me an e-mail address and I’ll scan them and send you a PDF. She says she can’t do that. I’m irked. Go off to find some place to sit down and jump through these aggravating hoops. Again.

Before I can even fill in half of page 1, they’re calling me back there!

They do an EKG, requiring me to pull off my shirt in front of a man (yes, and a woman) and expose my exquisite scars. Then his tech takes my blood pressure. She does it wrong, allowing my arm to fall down by my side. This will jack up the blood pressure reading, even if you have, as advised, sat quietly for half an hour without any distraction or annoyance. Which (this latter) was decidedly not the case. I say to her, why don’t doctor’s offices follow the instructions put out by the makers of these devices and by the Mayo Clinic?

Huh?

You know, you’re supposed to have the person’s arm at about the level of the heart.

Okay, let’s try again.

Now she holds my arm at shoulder-joint height! Shit…I give up.

The doc surfaces forthwith. Of course, the result of this test is sky-high, after a half-hour on the road and the bullshit in the clinic and now this ignoramus. I’ve enjoyed a good 40 minutes of aggravation and hassle and haven’t even had a chance to take a deep breath.

He now decides he should put me on blood pressure medication. This is something to which I highly object and that I suspect can be avoided. I point out that my regular BP is not that high. Well, says he, nevertheless, better a few side effects (like swollen ankles and vertigo…) than a stroke.

Welp, I do not think I am in immediate danger of a stroke, although it must be admitted that less risk would apply if I never had to drive another frikkin automobile as long as I live. Nor am I about to put myself on a possibly unneeded drug after the circus I’ve just been through.

On the way home, I decide I will pick up the medication at the Walgreen’s; then set it on the kitchen counter for a week. During that time I will a) get back to exercising every day (have let that lapse with a vengeance!); stay completely off the sauce; and start working on shedding the ten pounds that I could do without.

When I point out to him that I drink a fair amount, for a little old lady, he says you can drink two glasses a day without affecting your blood pressure.

Oh yeah? That’s news to me. Apparently to the American Heart Association, too, which says women should drink no more than one (very small!) glass of wine a day. SDXB’s docs told him to stop drinking altogether, and the Mayo seems to favor that strategy, too.

I figure a week of brisk daily exercise — of better quality than being dragged forward by Ruby and backward by Cassie around a mile-long trace through Richistan — will start to have an effect, if an effect is to be had. Plus if I quit drinking and lay off the pasta and the sweets, in a week I’ll drop a pound or two, no problem.

Let us, I think, make a baseline measure after a half-hour or forty-five minutes of quiet this afternoon, and then compare it with a new set of measures after a week of this mild proposed routine. If there’s no change, then I’ll start swallowing pills. But if it’s back down into the normal range, I’ll call the Mayo itself and arrange an appointment to discuss the issue.

Right. A half-hour or forty-five minutes of quiet: NOT so much.

Run by the Walgreen’s to pick up the pills. Line is out the door. I stand and stand and stand and stand watching nothing happen…and finally think, oh screw it! This can wait for a day or for the proposed week.

Get home: Decide to make my first dog-free speed-walk of the day right now, hoping to run off some of the frustration and residual jaw-clenching stress. Fly around the park — that’s a mile and a half. When I get back, the phone is jangling with a recorded message to come pick up the effin’ pills. But meanwhile a lot of other Hell has broken loose. Gerardo, who was supposed to come over tomorrow to do a messy and much-needed job in back, has left word on the machine saying he wants to come today and will  be here around 2 p.m.  It is now after 1:00.

I need to do a bunch of stuff out back before they can get to the jungle vines that need to be hacked back. Race out there to do that; find some tarps to help keep the worst of the mess down. Haul around and thrash around.

SDXB gets on the phone and announces he wants to come over not on Thursday but on Friday, a typical swivel-hipped move. What is it about men — TWO of them in one day! — that they think women have nothing to do but sit around waiting with bated breath for them to show up? Hassle with the junk in back, hassle with an Excel spreadsheet, hear Gerardo’s truck pull up in front.

By the time he and his guys leave, it’s after 3 p.m. and I’ve been charging around since 10:30 in the morning.

Needless to say, I have not spent five minutes seated in a straight chair with my feet flat on the floor, trying to relax. 😀