😀 It got even better this afternoon, in the bizarro department.
Along about mid-day, I decide I need more of the generic Albertson’s dextromethorphan (DXM) cough syrup, having discovered that the Mucinex I’d bought at AJ’s in hope of avoiding any more driving around and standing in line than absolutely necessary was too vile to gag down. So I stumble in and grab two bottles of generic cough goop off the shelf.
After a not very good snack passing for lunch, I decided I really need to go to bed. I need to go to sleep. If I can get two or three hours of sleep in, maybe I’ll feel better.
Right?
Oh, sure.
Just about then, up comes Gerardo. He blocks my driveway with his gigantic truck and sets his dudes to work, blowering and raking and cleaning and, oh yeah: while he’s at it, he decides to repair the broken plumbing in front.
So they bang around and bang around. Eventually it becomes clear that I’m not going to get any sleep. So go to open one of the bottles of cough medicine and find, lo! It’s not DXM 30%. The goddamn stuff is generic Mucinex!
Ohhhhh ugh!
There’s about one dose of DXM 30% left.
So I wait and wait while Gerardo and the boys throw themselves around. They are, as usual, working like horses. But… I. Need. That. Cough. Medicine.
Finally ask him to please move the truck, which he kindly does.
Traipse back down to Albertson’s. Return the Mucinex knockoff. Find a bottle of the plain DXM 30%, but not in the generic, so one bottle costs about 12 bucks. Get one (1) bottle. This requires standing in line and standing in line and then standing in line again.
Dodge a bum going into the store. Dodge the same bum going out. Evade a panhandling pounce — I”m getting good at this.
Return to the Funny Farm. By now the men have the entire front flowerbed dug up. They’ve succeeded in getting one watering zone to run, but the one that serves that flowerbed — with the brand-new bougainvillea planted in it — ain’t working.
Back in the house: I remember that I set the parts of the steamer (“humidifier”) to soaking in vinegar, in hopes of getting the thing to work again. These are sitting in the garage sink.
Scrub this stuff down with a brush and run water through all the parts.
Fill the contraption up with water, drag it back to the bedroom, and plug it back in… And LO! It works!
Hallelujah.
Meanwhile, I’m still awake. Gerardo and crew are still banging around. The boss has to go buy a cable to repair a break, which he does while his guys are heaving around.
I cook an artichoke and eat most of it. Not as delicious as expected. Stomach is upset. But at least now I have the cough medicine.
By the time the repair project is done — the guys get the system working better than it has in a couple of years — it’s way too late for napping.
They leave. I climb on the bed with the dog and waste some time playing with the computer.
Phone rings: church friend. A lengthy chat ensues. That’s very nice and cheering. And it passes time.
Dog demands to get down. I get off the phone, levitate the hound off the mattress, let her outside.
Forthwith a cop helicopter starts to buzz the ‘Hood. Naturally.
Hie the (unhappy!!) dog back in the house. Feed her dinner as a bribe. Cook up some pasta for myself…also tasteless. Food in general seems to have lost all flavor.
By now I’ve come out on the other side of so-tired-I-can’t-hold-my head-up.
Watch Mike Pence try to bully Judy Woodruff on PBS News, going on about how the American people don’t care about the impeachment proceedings.
Great distraction, this al-Baghdadi coup, isn’t it? Are we really supposed to ignore the extraordinary timing? Oh, God. Rome burns and the fiddles play.
We’ve fallen through a wormhole and crawled out on some other planet. I’m sure of it.
