One of the problems w/ being unemployed…uhmm, “retired”…is that your schedule (such as it is) is out out whack with everybody else’s.
11:30 a.m.
JUST ready to draw a bath, get dressed, and head out for errands. This, after loafing all morning playing computer games.
Arise from my leather throne. Stumble toward the back bathroom, reach for the tub faucet. And…
RRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
WHIRWHIRWHIRWHIRWHIR!!!
RRRR RRRR RRRR!
oh holee sheeut!
Gerardo’s guys are out there cleaning up the unholy mess that is the yard.
Could he have told me they were coming today? Maybe even have let me know they were on the way?
Course not. What else does the Li’l Retired Woman have to do but sit around and twiddle her thumbs?
So now I can’t jump in the shower and get dressed.
Because as you know, the minute my clothes are off and my hair is sopping wet, it’ll be BING BONG!
Now I can’t prepare for the meeting I have with a client, because RRRR RRRR RRRR! BLAST BLAST BLAST! THUMP WHUMP THUMP! is remarkably counterproductive to thinking through a problem.
Now I won’t have time to run by the store before the client gets here, because I’ll need to sit here and wait till the boys exit, stage left.
Now I’ll have to think through the stuff Client and I need to discuss…to the symphonic roar of weed whackers and leaf blowers.
Now I won’t have time, on the way to the grocer’s, to go by the office complex where the dermatologist’s office supposedly resides and try to find his place. (Yesterday’s expedition was a FAIL!)
LOL!
Isn’t it wacky that all it takes is ONE thing like that to dork up your entire damn day? At least half the things I needed to do this afternoon are not gonna get done.
😮 huh o-:
Y’know, it doesn’t seem to me that, when I was younger, I used to have this problem. Yes, I would be annoyed at being interrupted in the middle of something I’d planned to do. Yes, it would (or at least could) dork up my schedule. But it didn’t bother me all that much.
It didn’t leave me feeling inconvenienced and pi$$ed.
Strange that I’d feel that much different about it, now that I’m old.
😮
Ohhhhhh sheeeUT! They had to replace a strip of piping: $120!
And, trotting around and inspecting, I see they had to replace a bunch of smaller stuff, too. Ugh!
That whole irrigation system needs to be rebuilt. I had it installed when I moved in here…what? Ten years ago? More than that???? And now, it all being plastic, it’s pretty well shot.
Question is: is it worth having the system dug up and replaced? That will be a several-thousand-dollar job.
And…well…y’know… I’m probably not gonna be here that long. Surely not long enough to recoup the cost of digging up and rebuilding the whole system.
One of three things is gonna happen:
- I’m gonna drop dead (if I’m lucky).
- I’ll survive a stroke or a heart attack and end up rotting away in some care home.
- Or decrepitude will force me to sell the house and move into an old-folkerie.
Arrrrghhhh! What a golden, shining future!
Seriously…
If I were certain my son would move into this house when I’m gone, I’d have that system replaced right now. Then it would be a gift to him (of sorts…paid out of his future inheritance…). It would keep the yard running smoothly, and that would be one fewer headache he’d have to attend to when he moves in here.
Or sells it. If you know the irrigation system is cattywampus, you’re pretty well gonna have to get it fixed before you put the house on the market.
But…the future. Ahhhh the future. How DO you plan for something you can’t really know?
If I dropped dead tomorrow, my son could figure these things out at his leisure, and pretty easily. He being one of the brighter pennies in the Coin Collection of Humanity.
But dontcha just know that ain’t a-gonna happen? Women in my family who haven’t fu*ked themselves to death or smoked themselves to death have lived well into their 90s…with no medical care! They were Christian Scientists! Since I don’t smoke and I don’t frolic with strange men, the chances that I’ll last well into my dotage are pretty good.
Better yet: my Berkeley relatives stayed in their homes right up until the end.
Well, no; that’s not correct: my great-aunt allowed her son to persuade her to move to an apartment in downtown Berkeley. Smart move, that: the cute little Frank Lloyd Wright knockoff house she lived in was infested with termites. Even though the neighborhood was still a galloping fine investment, it was one that would cost homeowners more and more as those houses aged, aged, and aged some more.
But…but…ahem! About those termites….
WHY DIDN’T GREAT-AUNT OR COUSIN KNOW ABOUT THEM?????
Possibilities:
* Good cousin told his mother to have the place inspected, and she blew him off with a fib to the effect that she had the job done and no termites were found.
* He clued her, but she blew him off with “yes, dear.”
* She had it inspected and got a “no bugs” report.
* She had it inspected, was told it needed an exterminator, and blew it off.
* Neither one of them thought of having the place inspected.
See what I mean about “GAAAH”?
Just stop the damn world so we can get off.
Seriously: I don’t want to leave conundrums like this to M’jihito. Not even one just conundrum.