Oh F!ck It. That’s about all I can say.
I give up on trying to go to the last art lesson. I give up on all of it.
You know, every single time I have the temerity to indulge myself with some little luxury like a month & a half of art lessons for $175, convened by a city museum in a beautiful historic house, every goddamn thing that can go wrong BREAKS AND FALLS ON MY HEAD! It never, ever fails.
I was up in the air about going out there this morning, anyway. The damn city has closed 32nd Street, a big thoroughfare and one of the roads I take to get there. Last Thursday, just the city’s getting ready to shut it down jammed up Glendale Avenue for miles to the west. I had to make an eight- or ten-mile detour to get around that mess reach to my meeting in Scottsdale.
To get over to the Schemer gallery this morning, I’ll have to make my way through three neighborhoods to reach a north-south road that I can turn east on. Then drive all the way down to Missouri. Then east on Missouri, which will drop me in some of the worst traffic on Camelback right at the tail end of the rush hour. Then easterly, easterly, easterly, easterly through bitchy traffic. It’ll take about 40 minutes to get there — that’s a drive that should take 20 minutes.
And y’know what?
I don’t wanna.
My scheme to keep the water turned off at the frontyard standpipe, turning it on only when the irrigation system needs to run, did NOT work.
When I turned the two shut-off valves back on this morning, I got sprayed in the face with some kind of backwash: water had been building up under pressure in there and it came squirting out when the valves were opened.
Then the damn irrigation system hung up on zone 3. So I had to turn on each zone manually…BUT…
Ah yes, but…
That allowed me to see that Gerardo was right when he said there’s another leak! He’d noticed a wet patch near one of the orange trees and said it looks like a pipe’s broken under there. But the water system had been running, and that tree is watered with a standing bubbler that floods the irrigation basin under it. I figured water had leaked out from under the river-rock dam I’d built around there.
Wrong.
Turning on the water this a.m. created another wet patch in that spot…and the water had yet to come on under the trees.
So that’s going to be another expensive fix.
Gerardo charges about $80 to $100 to dig up the piping, find the leak, pull out the low-grade PVC pipe Richard installed, and replace the rotted length with new PVC. Since I’m having to get it fixed about once a month now, I guess it’s time to replace the system or shut it down altogether.
If I shut down the irrigation system and leave it off — as I’ve done with the ovens that gave up the ghost (again) — I’ll have to drag hoses around the yard once a week in the winter and every day in the summer. This yard is almost a quarter of an acre… The alternative is to let all the plantings die. And of course…the yard is the main reason I live in this house.
It costs $4,000 to $10,000 (depending on who does it) to replace one of these systems front and back. It will entail digging up the landscaping and repairing all the damage where new trenches have to be dug. So…if Gerardo does the job? My guess would be $4,000 to $6,000.
So. Resurfacing the aging swimming pool this winter is now out of the question. So is putting any leftover savings into a Vanguard index fund. Every penny I’ve managed to pinch is going to go into paying the $750 or $800 overage from this month and then rebuilding the irrigation. That won’t leave anything to get my teeth fixed, BTW.
The pool is not an emergency. It will be OK for another year or two — won’t look great, but as far as I can tell there are no leaks in the gunite, so…it should hang in there.
The plumbing? That is an emergency.
OMG! A thrasher just caught a gigantic bug! At first I thought he’d nabbed one of those accursed paloverde beetles, but now I see it’s a carpenter bee, a funny and mostly harmless creature. That’s too bad…but something was wrong with the bee — it was already stressed, allowing the bird to catch it with hardly any effort.
Good bird! These birds do catch the accursed paloverde beetles (of which we seem to have a slight dearth this summer, lhudly sing huzzah) and, more to the point, they eat ants in gay abandon.
Well, that was a Moment of Nature interlude, entertaining enough in a morbid way. Maybe I won’t kill myself after all.
When I went to turn on the computer at 5 this morning, the better to respond to emails, emit a receipt to one of the Chinese scholars, and return copy and an invoice to another of those worthies, the damn thing was hotter than a two-dollar cookstove!
I’d left it plugged into the recharger…despite having noticed that thing was running pretty hot yesterday afternoon. It had recharged the battery 100%, but the whole lashup felt like it was ready to combust.
Shut down shut down shut down shut down shut down shut down force quit force quit force quit force quit SHUT DOWN DAMMIT!
Finally got the current versions of the really large files I’ve been working on saved to DropBox, shot off the correspondence to the Chinois, and managed to close all the open programs, shut down the computer, and set it on the cool floor tiles.
It seems to be OK for the nonce. But obviously, another expensive catastrophe is brewing there.
So I don’t know whether it’s the prospect of thousands of bucks going out the door for things that I do NOT want to spend money on, or whether it’s the endless confinement in the house through this hot, penurious summer, or whether it’s the fact that the art thing turned out to be kind of a bust because in my age I seem to have lost what little talent I had (at one time I actually could draw pretty well…but no more!), or whether maybe the melatonin stuff is doing something to me but damn it! I am so depressed. Sometimes I just don’t even see the point of hanging around. If it weren’t that I can’t imagine what to do with the dogs, I would be out the Cosmic door by now.
Guess I could just take them down to my son’s house and leave them there while he’s at work. Doesn’t seem like a very polite way to say good-bye, though.
Last night I cut the 5 mg melatonin tablet in two and swallowed the smallest part. It did seem to keep me asleep until almost 5 a.m. — close to seven hours. And I do feel less crazed than I did yesterday morning. But still: not very happy. I suspect the drug is affecting the mood.
There may be worse things than four-hour nights.
Image:
Acagastya. CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38313449
Aaaah Funny! Nothing better than seeing that “exclaim” to open your blog. First, hang in there it could be worse….just turn on the TV….hold on you don’t have one. Anyway just take a look on the internet at those poor folks in Louisiana…who have just about lost everything, thru no fault of their own. Sorry to hear about the art class being a “bust”, sounded pretty cool to me. BUT I will tell ya, I for one have to be in the “mood” to be creative. If I’m in the “mood” to be creative/industrious I can make “gasoline out of goat piss”…but if the creative juices aren’t flowing….no dice. Might be asking a little much with all you have on your plate…. to get right into “art mode”.
Here at the “Rancho Bravo” we have had a bit of bad luck health wise with DW. She was diagnosed a while back as diabetic and was prescribed a bunch meds. Some worked….some didn’t….some had terrible side effects…..like throwing up. She went to the Doc yesterday and had a troubling 1AC number and the Doc basically said we have to get this under control or DW has to go on insulin. WHICH went over like a “fart in church”. DW has been “off the chain” a bit lately but MAN this is a tough one. She took the prescribed meds last night and promptly threw up at 2AM. It was “swell”…We go back in 30 days. In addition she/we have signed up for an educational class to teach us how to effectively deal with diabetes thru diet….exercise…etc. Hope it helps as we’re like corks bobbing in the water at the moment.
Sorry to hear about all the house troubles….Home ownership is not cheap and it does seem to come in spurts….or puddles in your case….Hang in there….what choice do we have??
That sounds terrible! Are there no meds they can offer that don’t make her sick?
And is there in fact any chance she could fight back through diet and exercise? Friend of mine at GDU was diagnosed with diabetes. She was pretty overweight and sedentary. She went on a diet and started an exercise routine, and within a few months was able to get off the meds. It took some serious determination, though!
There’s this from NIHS, for example. Possibly even if she can’t break free of the noxious drugs, she may be able to minimize them. http://nihseniorhealth.gov/diabetes/dietandexercise/01.html
Heh hah… “Mall walking”… My kinda exercise!! 😀
Yeah….if you’re feeling sorry for yourself, cast your mind over what happens to other people. Like this one: http://healinghunter.blogspot.com/ Don’t read unless you’re prepared for some tears.
Sorry to hear about all the maintenance issues. Has your son followed up with his work about moving to Oregon? I bet there is a lot less need for constantly-busted irrigation systems in the PNW.
Nothing more on that subject…for the nonce. He’s the strong, silent type, though! 😀
Heh…you probably need a bucket to bail water up there.
Many thanks for the advice Funny. All the reading I have done says exercise is key….which DW doesn’t want to hear…She hasn’t been exercising because of the heat. We have a “significant” amount of exercise equipment that has been doing duty as a clothes rack. She’ll be putting that to work and hopefully turn this thing around with a new commitment to diet and exercise. Diabetes is a very frustrating condition and each person is different.
I’m with ya on things going wrong. Seems like when you make a little headway something comes up….car repair…home repair….medical expense….it never fails. Are you sure about the dental expenses? MAN that sounds a bit pricey for the dental work you describe. I just broke a tooth and you’re giving me nightmares!
Har har! You know what we call that home exercise equipment? “Bedroom sculpture.”
Has she arrived at the Golden Age of Medicare? Maybe you can get into Silver Sneakers — I think it’s something that’s associated with Medicare Advantage programs. A couple of my friends have it, and they LOVE it. All sorts of healthy activities, and they’re apparently fun and un-annoying.
If you live near an indoor mall, in these parts they open the mall doors (but not the stores, o’course) early in the morning, around 7 a.m., so people can use the mall as a kind of air-conditioned walking track. A LOT of people take them up on it. That way she could not only get some exercise but do some window-shopping, And maybe even get a cup of coffee (hold the cream, hold the sugar) if there’s a Starbucks in the place.
Also…this might require you to become involved… Y’know, dancing is surprisingly vigorous exercise and it is ridiculously fun: both ballroom dancing and square dancing. Community colleges often offer inexpensive courses in their PE departments, as do some community centers. Why don’t you go as a couple and brush up your dancin’ skills? That could be a hoot, and by accident it might just happen to give you some exercise. 🙂
“Bedroom Sculpture”….hilarious…. DW IS a dancer….me …not so much. DW and I are a bit behind you on the “dusty road to retirement” and aren’t at Medicare yet. My thought/theory is that we will get to the SS/Medicare “window” to collect just in time for them to go under or reduce benefits… She has been getting some sound advice from friends….one gal is a “nurse practitioner” who is up on this and sent her a study on curcumin which claims that this supplement is “500 times” more effective than metformin…WHAT???? I’m gonna read over it….it’s an older study from 2009.
If you’re less than four years from the Gilded Age of 65, you’ll probably be OK, assuming Trump doesn’t get in. After the Republicans get the White House, you can be sure ALL social programs will be under siege and Medicare and SS are two of the programs that are most hated by those people.
Y’know…don’tcha wonder? Sometimes I want to catch one of those nitwits and demand to know WHO DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO SUPPORT YOUR PARENTS IN THEIR DOTAGE if they have no pension and they have no Social Security and they have no Medicare??? Are you going to just let them set up camp under the freeway overpass? FICA and Social Security taxes are one hell of a lot cheaper than having to pay one’s parents’ rent, health insurance (which presumably will cover nothing), health care bills, food, and transportation.
So anyway, if she likes to dance, how about getting her into a class or a club where people cut the rug?
Never too late for you to learn to dance, either. 😉
I understand. I paid the garage door guy to fix the overhead door last week because it wasn’t opening. He told me I had an older style opener that will need replacing, but the price he quoted me was $200 more than the cost of fixing the one I have, and I just had him fix the current one.
Then last weekend I found out that the neighbor across the street can open my overhead door with one of the buttons on his opener. And just this afternoon, my overhead garage door started opening again. I was not near the opener, neighbor across street wasn’t at home, and I and can’t figure out where the signal that triggered it to open came from. So wonderful to know that everything I have stored in the garage, including my bike, tools, etc could be exposed for hours at random times. Ugh.
Oh yeah. That has to do with the era of the garage door opener. Until some years ago (the way I understand it), there were a limited number of codes for the gadgets. So if you took your garage door opener for a drive around the neighborhood and pointed & clicked at every house you passed, you would get SOME doors to open. As you can imagine, if you were a teenager, you thought that was awful funny! If you were a burglar, you thought it was wonderful.
Newer garage door openers are not vulnerable to the point-&-click hack. So when you do change it out, you’ll dispense with that problem.
There’s a fix, but it only works while you’re in the house. Or if you never park your car in the garage. Get a sliding bolt. Secure it to the wooden frame around the door and to the door itself. When you’d like to discourage magical-mystery openings, slide the bolt shut.
The other thing you can do to stave off the purchase of a new opener, if you’re concerned about security, is simply disconnect the door opener (if it has a cord hanging down, pull it firmly downward to disengage the door opener). Then you have to open and close the door by hand, but no one can make it open remotely. To reengage, pull the cord toward the back or the front of the garage. Again, you’d want to secure it with a sliding bolt.
Next time you’re at Home Depot or Lowe’s, take a look at Genie garage door openers, and ask how much they’d charge to send a guy over to install the thing. You may be able to get it cheaper than through a company. Really: it’s a handyman job.
Also check at Costco — I think they install garage door stuff, too. By subcontractors, of course.
Yeah, I’m sort of ticked that I didn’t know about this issue with the phantom garage door opener problem until AFTER I had paid the guy to fix the old one. I could have saved that money for a new garage door opener instead! Ugh!
I may just completely disengage the door, as you suggest, while I’m out of town next week just to be safe. I’ll stick a screw driver or something like it through the opening in the track so that if someone does the overhead door opener to activate it won’t open the door. Or I could just unplug it, I guess, too.
Well Funny….We are taking positive steps. Have done research and DW is now taking Turmeric which is supposed to help with diabetes if you can believe the published test results. They seem encouraging….time will tell. In addition, I drug some exercise equipment up the stairs and into the living room so DW can use her exercise bike at her leisure throughout the day. She seems to be making headway already as her morning “sugar” testing level has dropped almost 50 points in two days….Kinda crazy…
Wait, what? the test changed that much in a matter of days?
Well, I would suspect that indicates that one or the other of the tests is wrong. She might want to do the tests more often and also look into how reliable they are.
The difference made by exercising and by losing a few pounds is pretty darned amazing, though. I think these are the best forms of self-help we can inflict on ourselves. You also start to FEEL a lot better after you’ve lost even just a five pounds or so — it’s pretty surprising.
Water is such a complete pain in the butt, isn’t it? You need it for everything and there are places where millions of gallons of it exist at once with no issue, but when it starts going where it isn’t supposed to go, even a few gallons is the equivalent of pouring acid on your skin. Unreal. I hope the woes get better.