Certainly not at 1:00 in the morning… The wind is howling up quite the storm. The Soleri bell in back is jangling madly. Tbe corgi is unnerved. Haven’t peered out to see what’s going on, but figure the pool will be filled with debris by dawn.
Fortunately for me (but not for him…), Pool Dude is slated to show up shortly after dawn. He’ll have quite the mess to clean up.
Just now life is tending toward mess, national and international events aside. Even if the wind weren’t wailing, I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Developed a cyst thing in my eye. Besides being damned creepy, it itches and it burns enough to keep Dracula himself awake all day. And me all night…
The aged eye doctor I found (the guy must be 85 if he’s a day…maybe older than that!) insists that it probably will go away. Sources I’ve found say you can treat it with steroid eye drops, but he declines to prescribe anything other than over-the-counter eye drops, which do (as far as I can see) little or nothing. So I suppose in a day or so I’m going to have to brave the bureaucracy at the Mayo and try to get my doc out there to refer me to one of their specialists.
Shee-ut! Like I have nothing else to do but spend two hours driving back and forth to northeast Scottsdale.
Speaking of the which, yesterday I traipsed out to the Apple store at the wildly fancy Kierland Commons, whence Apple’s corporate (un)wisdom sent its formerly centrally-located store. They give lessons on how to use the iPhone, it develops. So I made an appointment and then drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and…etc., arriving in Scottsdale right on time: 10 a.m., as they opened,
Except…not.
They didn’t open.
Their servers were down, said they. So they sent everybody who was standing around outside away!
It’s a 45-minute drive out there! So I wasted 90 minutes and a quarter-tank of gas schlepping to Scottsdale for nothing! And I still have no clue how to use the miracle iPhone…
“Wanna make another appointment?” say I to the young woman engaged in shooing away customers, She does, after all, have an iPad in her nicely manicured paw.
“We can’t! Because the servers are down!” Never heard of a pencil and a pad of paper, I guess. 😀
Back to the car, via Restoration Hardware, where I spotted a sofa and chair that would be perfect for my son were the price anywhere near what someone other than Steve Jobs could afford.
Out in the parking lot I find a black guy standing by a car now parked right next to mine.
He is cute. Very, very cute.
He looks impatient, and he also looks a little nervous about the old white broad spotting him as he lurks near her car.
“You look like a man who’s waiting for his wife!” say I.
“That’s right!” He laughs. We chat.
Born 30 years too late. {sigh}
Eventually I climb in the Dog Chariot and cruise off down Greenway Road, whence I came.
Outward bound, I’d spotted a housing tract on the north side of Greenway: 1970s and 80s mass-produced houses. Curious, I dodge into the place and drive around.
It’s actually quite a pleasant neighborhood, very similar to the ’Hood. Matter of fact, I spot one house made of cinderblock that looks for all the world like it’s the same model as the Funny Farm. Most of the places, though, are considerably more fancy-looking. I wonder what houses cost there (though I can imagine) but can’t find any “for sale signs,” so never do get a line on that. Back at the Funny Farm, though, I do find some listings posted on the Web.
- Holee mackerel:lookit this thing! It’s in the general area…a million dollars for a house the size of mine, elbow-to-elbow with the neighbors! Auuughhhh! Thanks, I’ll take my pet burglars…
- eeeeek! For 2/3 of a million bucks: this is 270 square feet smaller than my house, same kind of slump-block construction. Fake stove. Home Depot kitchen cabinets. No pool. Only three bedrooms. And…huh…that’s odd. It actually looks like the pool might have been filled in. Jeez…did a kid drown there?
Meanwhile, the eye cyst is getting very much on the old lady’s nerves, and I’ve been told Aged Eye Doc went into the hospital to have surgery on a knee.
When I get home, I call Young Dr. Kildare’s office to try to get a referral to another ophthalmologist. I cannot get past the telephone runaround. After “If yada yada yada, press nine,” I hang up in a rage.
I try to reach the eyeglass place: they’re not open. (They’re never open. Is the place a front for a cocaine operation or what????)
Now I decide to drive to Costco, which has a very good and very busy optometry department, and ask for a referral to an ophthalmologist that they know. And buy a few groceries while I’m at it. Okay: acquire a list of names, buy a few pieces of junk, drive home.
These supposed eye docs comprise a list of guys working for some chain eye-care outfit. Oh well: any port in a storm.
Calling one number, I get a lady on the phone who is a complete, blithering MORON. I cannot make her understand that I need to see a doctor promptly because I have a lump growing in my eye and it HURTS. Finally I lose my temper at her impregnable barrier of brainless obtuseness and hang up.
What to do, what to do??????
Call Aged Eye Doc’s place, hoping his staff will be there. And yea verily! Get his appointment lady. Ask if they could please refer me to one of Eye Doc’s colleagues, because this thing is not getting better (as he had hoped it would) but instead is getting bigger and worse.
Incredibly, she says he’s in the office for short periods and will see me TOMORROW MORNING!!!
Whaaaaaa???!!!?
I say But he just had surgery on his knee!
She says Yeah, he did, but he’s coming in to the office for a couple of hours a day.
I say He’s a man of steel!
She laughs and makes an appointment for 10 ayem. Thank the heavens!!!!!
So I show up at that duly appointed hour this morning. He proposes to do nothing about it. Says the alternative to waiting and watching and hoping the eyedrops help is surgery. He’s in no hurry to do surgery. I mention that I learned that steroid eyedrops are often used on these things. He demurs.
Well, at least he’s not knife-happy. Surgery on an eye does not sound like a good thing.
It’s now 2:00 in the morning, as we scribble. The wind died down for…oh, about five minutes. Now it’s wailing around again. “Gusting,” I suppose that is.
The dog is asleep. Wish I were, too…