Pondering the world

a summer cold is a different animal!

All right!  Anyone who was an adult or a kid in the 1960's, sing along!  Come on, you remember the jingle to this commercial...

 

A summer cold is a different animal!  An ugly animal--ooo!
It hits you in the stomach, and you don't know what to doooooooooo!

And the product was.....  Contac cold medicine, which tried to get you to buy their cold medicine by telling you that a summer cold was different, and their cold medicine would take care of it and other cold medicine would not.

I am just finishing up a nasty summer cold which, in spite of our care and best efforts, has now been passed on to my husband.

And that ugly animal, before it makes a departure, has settled in my right maxillary sinus and evolved into a sinus infection that is sitting right on top of my jaw, resulting in the feeling of having a toothache AND sinus congestion AND feeling like someone punched me in the eyeball.

Sing it, baby.

so much for a desperation haircut...

Just over a week ago I had to get my hair cut.  HAD to.  It was blowing in my face and making me nuts.  You know those movies with women with long hair blowing in the wind across their eyes?  That would not be me.  I'm the Jo March who goes and gets all her hair chopped off and declares that it feels very "liberating."  I told you my hair does what it wants, and it wants to be short.  It's sort of like having a cat--just give in.

I was at a party the other day sitting next to friend Tracy, who has been a hairdresser for a lot of years and now is an ace salesperson in the hair care products biz.  I hadn't realized she was scrutinizing my haircut until she stood up and looked at the top of my head.

"Well, I thought she did an okay job on your hair... until I stood up and looked at the top of your head.  She should be shot for what she did to your hair."

Well, that's very comforting.  Thanks.

"Let's give it about a week to grow out a bit more, and I'll take care of that for you, shall I?"

wrong answer

The other day I wrote about someone throwing a burrito over the wall.  After the initial anger at having trash thrown into my yard, it made for a funny story.

Today I wasn't laughing any more.  I was working in the driveway when I heard some kids come out of the side door of the school and a man was talking to them.  They walked out to the playground and I heard a thunk as something came over the wall .  It sounded just like a wad of gum hitting the truck, and I knew I'd have to get that off right away before it became a gooey mess in the hot sun. 

I looked at the truck and found someone had tossed a chunk of cookie over the wall.  Enough already.

I walked around to the school gate and found a worker inside the gym.  They're having vacation Bible school there this week, and she's one of the administrators.  I told her what happened and said I was getting pretty upset about it since it's the second time this week and it's completely unacceptable.

"When did this happen?" she asked.

"Less than five minutes ago.  I walked right over after it happened.  They came out of the side door, tossed this over my wall and went into the playground."

As I turned to leave, a man and some young teenagers came around from the playground.

"What have you been doing?" she asked him.

His response?  "You don't really want to know."

As Bruce Willis says in The Fifth Element, "wrong answer!"

I was already walking away and didn't hear the conversation, but I would imagine she was giving him grief about both his disrespectful answer to her and also about throwing stuff over the wall.

I like to think there's some justice in the world and that people get what they deserve.  I'm idealistic that way.

driving in the turning lane--don't try this at home

A few days ago I was driving up Rio Grande Blvd. to the Albuquerque Water Garden store.  I needed something to help filter the gunk and keep my fountain pump from getting clogged up.  Darn pigeons.

It was only about a 10-minute drive but in an area I wasn't familiar with.  Okay--drive north on Rio Grande Blvd., go under I-40, then look on the left--Floral, Lilac, a couple of streets, then left on Rice Street.

In that part of Rio Grande Blvd., there's a continuous center lane for turns because of all the side streets and businesses along there.

I passed Floral, there's Lilac.  I anticipated turning left in a couple of streets, so as I glanced into the mirror and into my blind spot, I saw a pickup barreling along in the center turning lane.  Up ahead was a car coming the other way in the turning lane, so I assumed the guy in the pickup was going to turn left.

But, noooooo........ he played chicken with the car and made the car swerve back out into traffic to avoid getting hit.

When did I find that out?  When I went to get into the center turning lane and found the pickup still there, barreling along in my blind spot.

I was ahead of him, so I started turning left onto Rice Street.  Wouldn't you know that the guy actually swerved around me into the oncoming traffic lane, cut me off, turned left onto Rice Street and nearly sideswiped me?  I laid on the horn and the bugger actually flipped me off as he went speeding through the neighborhood.

Yes, I'm a very good driver.  Always have been.

And yes, his pickup truck was all bashed in, had a cockeyed front bumper, and was multi-colored parts.

I think there's a correlation there.

the malling of America

Have I ever mentioned that I really dislike malls?  We have two here plus a new "outdoor mall."  I'd like to say I can count on one hand the number of times I've been to the mall in the four years we've lived here, but it's probably been 6 or 7 times, so I'd need both hands for that.  And those visits were only because the store I needed to visit was at the mall, so I didn't have any choice. 

When I needed to get a haircut on a Sunday, my only choice was a place at the mall.  After I put my name on the list and had about 20 minutes to kill, I walked over to the food court. 

Have you watched people at a mall?  There's a reason the way people walk is called the "mall crawl."  They shuffle along in packs, often window shopping from the middle of the walkway.  And the noise was deafening.  The mall I visited has mostly hard surfaces, so the sound bounced all over. 

Lunch was half a slice of probably the worst pizza I've ever had. 

I've been malled.

When I stop talking to someone, it's a bad sign.

I may post more on this later.  The situation I'm writing about has not been resolved yet, but I expect it will be soon.  Just in case the other person involved happens to read my blog, let's keep it just between you and me for a while, okay?

When I'm upset with someone and afraid that if I speak to them it will all come tumbling out and I'll lose my temper, I just stop speaking to them.  I'm not a particularly chatty person by nature, but when I completely stop talking to someone?  That's a bad sign.

warning: reaching for the soap may be hazardous

A couple of days ago while taking a shower, I reached over for the soap, felt something in my elbow go "crick" and it's been touchy since then.  The pain radiated down into my arm (like carpal tunnel syndrome), and I haven't been able to pick up anything heavy for a few days.

Dang, I hate getting old.  My eyesight continues to deteriorate, I have tinnitis and am no doubt on my way to other hearing issues.  Now all I need is to start losing my mind, and I'll hit the Trifecta.

A letter to my (almost) housekeeper

Dear Almost My Housekeeper:

I'm sure you were confused and upset when you left this morning, since I fired you before you even worked for us for one minute.  I explained as carefully as I could why I hired you yesterday but told you today that you would not be working for us.  But since listening and paying attention are apparently not your strong points, let me tell you again.

I said yesterday that the most important thing to me is having someone who is reliable.  I specifically said that means showing up for work on time on the days you're scheduled to work.  If you're going to be late or not come to work, I need to know as soon as possible.  You assured me that you had a cell phone and would call me if that ever happened.

Needless to say, I was perhaps surprised when you finally arrived at 10:40 a.m., fully 40 minutes late.  You said you thought I had said you could arrive anywhere between 9:30 and 10:30.  No, I reminded you that we arranged it for 10:00 so I would have time to finish with guests and get the dishes cleaned up.  And 10:40 is not between 9:30 and 10:30.

"Is this just for today or forever?" you asked.  Well, being late to both your interview and your first day of work is an indicator of future performance, so this is not going to work out.

Sincerely,

Your Almost Boss

P.S.  My name is not Jane.  Nor is it Margaret.

change of view

Several weeks ago I took this photo of the red sky at morning.  It was one of those days we were supposed to get slammed with a snowstorm, but it didn't happen.  We got some wind and it was cold, but that was it.  This shot is east toward the mountains across the neighboring schoolyard. 

Imagine our surprise when suddenly the view looked like this.  (That big tree in the first photo above is just to the left in this picture.)

And just so you get the full impact, if you are taller than me, it looks like this.  (I was standing on our garden bench.)

It's not that I begrudge the school having room to grow.  I had seen them working on a foundation over there, but I thought they were actually going to build a new small building from scratch.  Silly me.

about to possibly be uninsured

I was going to post some nice photos of our spring flowers today, but instead, today's post is brought to you by the Great American Insurance Rip-off.

We received the annual notice of premiums from our health insurance provider today, and this year our insurance premiums are going up ANOTHER 21%!  That's an increase over the 25% increase last year and the big increase the year before that.  In three years it's gone up 80%.

And this is not even good insurance.  It's pretty crappy, with things not covered, high deductibles and high co-pays. 

You've heard about poor people and the elderly having to make choices between paying for prescriptions or paying the rent, paying utilities or buying food.  Most of our friends are small business owners, and we're starting to hear choices like having only catastrophic health insurance or even not having any insurance at all.  Today we had to make the choice (once we opened the dang premium notice) between advertising and health insurance.  Guess what the choice was?