Saturday, December 9, 2006
Seems like almost everything is messed up lately.
I actually made it to bed by midnight last night, because I wanted to go to the recycle center today. But at 4 am, I was still wide awake and working crossword puzzles. I managed to wake up by 11 am, and made it to the recycle center (it closes at 1), so I cleared the cardboard, newspapers, and a huge bag of plastic and glass out of the kitchen. I can move around in there again. That's the good thing.
Then I went to the grocery store to buy iced tea mix and coffee yogurt. No coffee yogurt, and they didn't have any iced tea (of the 15 choices there) without any sweetener of any kind. Very annoying.
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When I got home, I noticed my driver's license on the passenger side floor in the van. The license and one credit card normally live in the inside pocket of my purse. Thursday night the purse fell off the seat, and the license must have fallen out. No problem, except that there's no sign of the credit card. I don't know whether to worry or not.
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Daughter has decided that she doesn't want to read this blog, apparently she has emotional reactions to some things I say (for example, if I even mention a male, she immediately hates him), so we've decided to keep in touch by telephone - one or the other will call every evening about 7:30. I hate the telephone. Plus Daughter is famous for moods, and I always seem to call at exactly the wrong moment, and then I manage to say exactly the wrong thing. Half the time I can't figure out what I said wrong.
Last Sunday Daughter mentioned that her father (Ex#2) was in the hospital in Colorado. I thought, "Oh, great. If he gets out of the hospital and needs someone to take care of him for a while, Daughter is going to feel a responsibility to do it, which means missing work, and probably messing up her holidays." So I told her that if he needed care, I'd be willing to go, so she wouldn't have to. Unfortunately, I also added that I'd rather hit myself in the head with a hammer, but for her I would. She took offense. She said she'd rather hit herself in the head with a hammer than go, too, but now I'm going to make her hit me in the head with the hammer, and why should she do that? I said because I'm older and hammers don't hurt so much any more. We both feel the same way about it, but it's simply easier for me to do it.
Anyway, we got through that, and talked again Monday, and I tried to explain better, and I thought everything was ok.
But she hasn't called me since, and when I call I get to leave a message on voice mail. I called her cel today a little after noon, and it went to voice mail again. I left a message that now I was getting worried, so I was going to call SIL to find out what hospital she was in, and I called his cel. He answered. I asked if Daughter was ok, and he said she didn't answer her phone because they were in a restaurant with friends, but when they heard the immediate second call from me, they thought it might be an emergency. I said, ok, as long as you're fine I'll let you go, and I did. It's now 8:30 pm, and she hasn't called. I'm pissed.
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Late Wednesday evening I ordered some things from the online Smithsonian catalog (for a total of $35.98). The items I ordered absolutely dare not freeze, and it's been in the 'teens and twenties here lately, so I paid $26.90 for FedEx overnight delivery (from Tennessee), as was recommended. A difficult but necessary decision. Thursday morning I got the notice from Smithsonian that the order had shipped, along with a tracking number.
Friday. No package. I went to the Smithsonian site and asked about the order number, and got the message "order not found", because I hadn't registered (which was optional) when I made the purchase. So then I went to the FedEx site and tried the tracking number, and got the "not found" message again.
Saturday. No package. I called Smithsonian about 5 pm today to ask what happened, and surprise! They screwed up and sent it UPS ground. Delivery next Tuesday. The manager says she noticed the error immediately, but was unable to fix it. Yes, they'll refund a portion of what I paid for shipping, and yes, they'll replace the items if they were damaged by freezing during shipping.
I am extremely annoyed. If they're obviously damaged, and I have to reorder, that means I won't get the replacements until like two days before I need them. They could be damaged but not show it for a few weeks. When the manager noticed the error, Smithsonian really should have notified me.
If I were running the company, I'd have immediately sent out a second set by overnight, and then asked me to not accept or to return the slower order when it finally arrived. I really expected better from them.
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The flies are driving me batty! I've killed hundreds of them (yes, I counted!) and they're still around. They're like very small regular houseflies, and they love to land on skin. They especially like to land on my face, get between my glasses and my eye, and try to climb up into my nose. No matter where I am in the house, there are five of them pestering me. They are not helping my mood.
I don't understand where they're breeding. They have to be breeding, because I keep killing them and they keep coming. There's no food out. Thunder's uneaten canned food gets cleared up and they don't seem interested in the dry food. The litter box gets cleaned out and the lumps flushed away everytime Thunder uses it. They can't get into the garbage can. Everything in the pantry is in mouse-proof glass, plastic, or metal containers. So where are they coming from? What are they eating? They can't multiply from nothing, can they?
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One of the reasons I hate talking to May on the phone is that she has several cordless phones, and every one of them dies within 10 minutes and she has to switch to another. Roman said it was because she leaves them in the charger all the time, and that kills them, that you shouldn't put a rechargeable battery in the charger until it's low. So when I bought this phone, my first cordless, I was careful not to leave it in the charger all the time. The booklet says that there will be a "battery low" indication on the screen when it needs recharging. What they forgot to tell me is that you can look at it every day, and the screen won't say battery low, even if it is, until you actually try to make a call. THEN it says "battery low". Gee, thanks. That delayed my call to Smithsonian for a few hours.
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I must have missed a watering or something, but my 30-year-old curly-leaf variegated Hoya, the one with multiple 15-foot trailers that I've looped over each other, the one that puts out huge balls of scented pink blossoms twice a year, one of the few plants to survive my depression after Jay died, yeah, that one, seems to be really sick. The leaves are crinkled and drying. I really think it's missed waterings. I've traveled some lately, and I guess I got off schedule. I feel really bad about that. It's a rare variety. I feel guilty.
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Miss Thunderfoot's dry cat food comes in bags with a zip lock. Lately, they won't zip lock. In fact, everything I've bought lately that's supposed to zip lock won't. Except the "real" zip lock freezer bags. Everything else is folded closed and wearing clothespins.
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Miss Thunderfoot and I have been battling every night, and lately it has escalated to all-out war. She wants to sleep next to my shoulder. I don't want her higher than my hip. She's a long-hair fine-fur cat with skin problems, and worse, she scratches herself a lot at night. I don't want her next to my face! I know she knows exactly what I'm trying to tell her, but she seems to think that I am dense, that I don't fully understand what she wants, so she keeps trying to show me.
I push her away and say nasty things when she's above my waist, and I pet her and tell her what a good girl she is when she's below my waist, and she still tries to move up as soon as I stop moving. She settles next to my face with a contented sigh, like "Well, I'm glad she's finally given up for tonight." It's beginning to be a serious problem.
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Since our final breakup in July, either I call Roman or he calls me once a week, just to chat. The last two weeks, he made the call. This week, I didn't call and he didn't either. I kept putting it off. I sort of just wondered what would happen, how I would feel, how he might feel, would he call if I didn't call. Wondering if I would miss talking with him. I got an email from him today - his elderly father was taken to the hospital on Friday. Now I feel bad.
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I'm fighting with Bloglines. Some of my favorite reads are now flashing multiple bogus alerts every day. I like Saudisphere (in my links on the right), but two or three times a day it claims Saudisphere has 18 to 24 new posts. In reality, there's one new post every few days. When I click to see if there's really a post this time, it takes forever to load all 24 complete entries, because they're full of photos, and then I find nothing's new after all. I may have to remove it from my alert list, which would be a pity.
Saudisphere is the worst offender, but several others, from several different blog hosts, are doing the same thing, off and on. (Note - if you switch from "old" Blogger to "new/beta" Blogger, you get the "24 new posts" alert on Bloglines, but that SHOULD happen only ONCE.)
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My browsers have been bouncing badly. Something about "plugins" doing something "illegal". It's so bad I haven't been able to leave comments on other blogs, because with all the restarting added onto the super slow dial up connection, there's no time for optional stuff.
I suspect it has something to do with that "flash" whatsis, because it seems to happen mostly when there're fancy ads on the page, so I suspect it will fix itself when the browsers notice something's wrong and update themselves. I've been through these periods before, but experience makes them no less painful.
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It's now 10:40 pm. Daughter called at 10 pm-ish, and we had a very good talk. She didn't realize that so much time had passed, things were pretty busy for her this week, stuff got put off, etc. Apologies.
Ex#2 has been transferred to a rehab facility, and will be there a minimum of two weeks. He's too weak to even roll over in bed, but will eventually recover. Good. That being off Daughter's mind may partially account for our pleasant conversation.
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Ah, sweet misery. Necessary for balance.
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