NOT MUCH

There is simply nothing going on. The heat and humidity continue to be
seriously oppressive. By mid-day the sparrows that use the bush in the front yard as a resting spot have moved to it's innards, and even so their beaks are gaping as they pant.
The dogs go out and walk around part of the yard, then want in. Half the time, Cooper won't go out unless he is desperate and/or I force him.
I have no new photos, nothing to photograph.
I am waiting for my Jimmy Buffett songbook to arrive so that I can tease myself by looking at songs I want to play on the piano and are so far above my level of ability that I might as well forget for a couple of years, or perhaps eons.
Conley is pretending to throw up on my bare foot. I moved.
(He went outside.)

I have all the swatches and samples for the house but they are so far from that point as far as I can tell that I might have saved myself the trouble.
Llewis just asked to be lifted onto the bed. This annoys Nigel who thinks it is HIS bed. Tough luck.

See? Not much.

THE DECISION MAKER

This morning I got a computer generated call from Northern Illinois Gas. The male person on the other end of the line said he had an offer fo change the way we pay the gas bill. Since we are currently paying the gas bill for two houses, I was of course interested. Not much, because my experience is that these things generally cause all kinds of upsets and you end up paying more. But a little. So I said, "Yes?" and he said well actually....uh...was John Szaton there because he needed to speak with, and this is a quote: "the DECISION MAKER"!

oh! Well. I see.

I have a bit of a problem with these things. I also sometimes forget that the trigger on my temper is filed down and it often needs only a touch. I said:

"Well, the DECISION MAKER has stepped out! Clearly the only person left here is the lowly and undecided subordinate spouse of the DECISION MAKER. She who is not allowed to make...DECISIONS!!... so perhaps you should call back another time when the DECISION MAKER is in the castle and you can speak to someone equal to you in social standing, OKAY? Bye."

The actual Decision Maker thought this was very funny, and began laughing as soon as I started to relate the story, because he knew perfectly well what the effect of the language was going to have on me.

Years ago I went to buy a car. A Chevvy. In cash. I had my checkbook and I had the money and it was to be MY car. The man who waited on me showed me the roomy trunk, the snazzy upholstery, the gadgets on the dashboard, the big glove box, the pretty hubcaps, the different colors it came in... and I said well how much will you give me for the car I have? And he PUT HIS ARM AROUND ME (now he would lose his testicles just for that, but I was younger) and said "Honey, you bring the Hubby in tonight and he and I can talk money."

I stopped. I pulled out my checkbook. I waved it in his face. I said (loudly-- there were other people in the showroom and I wanted them to hear) "Your sexual condescension just cost your company and you this sale. I was prepared to buy the car now, but I will never buy from this company and EVERY WOMAN I KNOW is going to hear about your rude and inappropriate behavior towards me as a customer." And I stomped out, with him chasing me,saying "wait wait" and I will NEVER EVER buy a Chevrolet.

Sometimes I get it right, instead of sputtering incoherently and sobbing with fury. Not often, but now and then.
Ah! I have to run. The DECISION MAKER needs the salt!!

        The DECISION MAKER and his chief advisor. (Take your pick.)

DIGGING YOUR WAY OUT OF TROUBLE

The first time the washing machine drained and the toilet overflowed and flooded the bathroom and warped the bathroom door here at the rental, we called the Landlord, or the person we had been led to believe was the personal representative of the landlord.
The next time, when we realised that the raw sewage was bubbling (I use the word under advisement) up in the front yard I called again and got the Landlord himself who was horrified.
The next morning a crew of twenty-somethings with lithe, lean bods and tattoos and baseball caps arrived with shovels and began digging up the sewer line.
Watching them dig was not so exciting but come on, I'm old and fat but I remember and I'm not dead so I got kind of a kick out of watching these kids, any one of whom was almost old enough to be my grandson.

So today they came back with a Bobcat. Not, alas, a real one, which would have been VERY exciting if they had tried to dig with it, but a backhoe.
And they began to dig.

I didn't get their names. This one seemed to be in charge altho to be honest they all worked just as hard as the next one and all of them seemed to know exactly what they were doing. This kid did this a thousand times, stuck his head out the front, and each time I expected the Bobcat to buck and snap his neck.

This one had the most interesting tats which I did not get a photo of. They kind of wrapped around his ribs on the other side and were very tribal. The sign on the truck they drove said "Gutters" and I made some crack that it was a long way from gutters to sewers. He said he had started in sewers and felt of the two it was by far the most secure career. He laughed. He was covered with sweat and dirt and clay and god only knows what else, standing in a hole at least 6 feet deep peppered with broken tree roots, cigarette in his mouth, laughing.

They are filling in the hole. They had us run all the water for like a half hour. Now the huge pile of dirt and cement pieces and roots are being shoveled back into the enormous hole. I have no idea what they get paid for this. A lot, I hope. I do not see anyway the dirt is going back in the hole. I know it will sink, but....

I do hope the Landlord is not expecting us to water it every day.....my real yard and garden are a complete disaster, having been left for an entire growing season to go completely wild with weeds, and it has.

They have just cut our lawn mowing down by  a good bit, I guess.

AND

of course, I can flush the toilets again!!!
As a pioneer or explorer I would not have been much of a success, I'm afraid. It's not the bugs and beasties that bother me, but the lack of a loo.

Not a glass of beer: the color of our drinking water at the moment..... some days I feel as if I need Cody Lundin just here in the house.

THE TROUBLE WITH CIVILIZATION

Here we are just finishing the space age and trotting around carrying our Tablets and iPods and Smart Phones and other space age gadgetry: phones that tell you where to park and cars that do it for you and food you heat up in a microwave right in the package and $3000 grills for your outdoor kitchen....

and here is what I know.
When it goes wrong, it really goes wrong.
Like when a simple tarp is not on a roof correctly and it rains and your house drowns and you have to live someplace else for 6 months.
Or when the snazzy thing on your car that keeps the fumes from poisoning the atmosphere blows a hole and you don't HAVE the $500 to fix it.
Or you have to stay in a rental house where the insurance company is paying almost $2000 a month for you (because, remember the roof?) and suddenly you notice that water is pouring out of the sewer pipe two feet from the front door and then you notice it ISNT JUST WATER, that it is RAW SEWAGE...... and you had called about this before and the landlord did, in fact have someone come out and rod the pipe twice....
And here you are in your $2000 a month rental home and you cannot flush the damn toilet because it is going to run out that pipe down the sidewalk.
And you are NOT HAPPY.
And you want to bathe in bleach.
And when you said please get someone here now, you meant an hour ago.
And you went out and poured pure, 100% chlorox bleach all over the lawn to hell with the grass anyway.
Not a good day. Where's the wine.

DOG DAYS OF JULY

As most of us know already this summer the weather has been passing strange. Not to mention horrible. It has been one of the muggiest summers I can remember and I remember a few.

The Basset 500 has been re-invented in the rental house. Inside. The track is on the bare laminate floor so as to get the greatest effect from the sounds of nails hitting the floor and the echo of the ahroos as they circle the dining room table. We are so impressed with the impermeability of the flooring to dog nails that we are going to install it in the real house, if and when we get that far.

Sunning has been adapted to climate change as well, now being no longer than 5 or 10 minutes on the incredibly hot cement before they want back into the air conditioning. This morning, for the first time in a week, the A/C is off. Probably not for long. The dewpoint is creeping up to match the temperature outside and the breeze I had at 5 a.m. has dissipated.

In between, the boys have found ways to express themselves.

                            The Coopster, asleep. (He really was.)

Wait. What was that flash?

YOU! Leave me alone!!

The nose is always at the front and always working whether it appears to be or not.

Less apt to miss something when it is rightside up.

Some of us, of course, assume we will awaken instantly, no matter what:

PIANO

THE PIANO LESSONS

(photo from NYPublic Library/Google


Ok I have had 2 lessons with my teacher. I paid for three. We do not seem to be connecting at all. There is no common ground other than my interest in learning to play again.

The room is very very small. Very small. I am self-conscious about my inability to get things going. The smallness of the room escalates the sound of my mistakes. I am almost 66 years old and in book 1, the same book I was probably in when I was 7 years old and just starting, only I progressed faster. I know two lessons is not enough to make a judgement.

I practice about 30 to 40 minutes at a time, anywhere from once to four times a day depending on my sense of frustration and my level of tolerance for it.
I wear earphones so no one else has to listen to it over and over and over and over. If I get the timing I hit a wrong note. If I get the notes I mess up the timing. Sometimes I look at a note in the middle of something and it appears to be in a foreign tongue: I have never seen it before even though it turns out to be middle D and I have seen it and played it approximately 1000 times that day already. My brain stalls. My timing disintegrates. My fingers tangle on the keys.

The teacher and I do not connect. I said that but to me it makes a difference since I work harder for people I like and want to please. I don't dislike her at all but I get no sense of accomplishment from her. She writes "Good Job!!!" in big loopy script in my book. I am not twelve. A check-mark would be fine.

And there is her perfume. Whatever it is she uses lots of it and by the time my half hour is up I have a raging headache. It takes about 45 minutes to dampen it down to tolerable levels.  Luckily the headache doesn't start until right near the end. During the lesson I spend maybe 15 minutes actually playing.

The teacher is very nice and accomplished plus of course she has a beautiful voice and a serene manner. Her fingers are very long and thin, like spiders on the keys, beautiful to watch: mesmerizing. I look at my bumpy-with-arthritis, white, comparitively stubbly fingers (altho they are not stubbly) and despair.

This inability to do several things successfully at one time has always plagued me. I cannot get a multi-dish meal on the table all at one time. Something is always late-- the rolls, the corn, the gravey for the dressing and potatoes... I do usually manage to get the wine served.....

Anyway John and I discussed all this and he thinks I should bail and look for another teacher, one I can relax and relate to.Convenience is what led to me this place. I will have to look around. Meanwhile, does anyone have page 1 to the JSBach Minuet?

THE THINGS WE SHOULD HAVE CARRIED

(With apologies to Tim O'Brien for co-opting his title)

When the rains hit, when the house flooded, when we had to get out that day, and in the week following that, John and I were in deer-in-the-headlight mode. Whatever we were told to do we did. The push was to get our "things" out of the house so it could be torn to shreds and dried out. It seemed-- and probably was-- urgent that we work fast.

But John and I have more "things" than I think the company had expected. They thought we were normal. Never suspecting, until they were committed, that we are borderline Hoarders. Which meant there were many, many more "things" to pack than they had imagined. Cow skulls, sea shells, bird's nests, boxes of geneaology stuff, cameras, gadgets, paintings, dolls from my childhood that I never played with anyway, Stacey's clothes from HS, Christopher's first glass pieces, empty boxes with the Marshall Field's logo, empty Frango Mint boxes (after all, you can't get those any more.) well anyway, the list is endless. They were stunned: we were stunned.

They told me that they would pack everything out, if I wanted, and so in my room I packed up some fragile things ( 6 tubs as I recall marked "fragile" to "Ultra Fragile" I consigned to their care but I packed them.) and then it got to me, the amount of work left and I said you know, just take it.

And they did. Oh, they did. Lock, stock and barrel. Well no--we learned they cannot transport liquids or guns but I drank the liquids. (Just kidding. They meant even hand lotion.) And they put it in a truck and took it to Batavia, Illinois. Which is a long ways from my house.

Thinking it would be several weeks.

And it has been. That was May 26th. And it will still be "several weeks"-- they say 8. They have started work on repairs, so that is a great and wonderful thing but in the meantime, some things we should have kept are gone.
My radio-- John thought to set his aside because it is a gadget.
Wine bottle stopper: I currently cut the corks down to use.
(Actually I looked for it and could not find it. I thought I had it at the motel but couldn't find it there, either.)
The dog's records.
My wire whisks, my good set of knives, the potato masher.
More clothes.
The grooming table.
My stereo/CD player with speakers
More dog towels

Mostly I miss my radio since I do not like TV news and would rather listen to WBBM without the visuals.

And at the risk of offending, I loathe Nancy Grace. She is almost as annoying as the young woman she is currently vilifying.