As If It Couldn't Get Worse

The first thing that happened wasn't a surprise.  The Supervisor rang our bell at 7:30 to share his plan for the day.  Once certain measurements were made and approved, his team would fill in the hole and be out of our way.  We were to expect him to be back around 10am.

10am came and went.  

At 11:06am, we had lost everything except electricity.  No internet.  No land line.  No television.  No wifi hot spot. 

After resetting the system with Xfinity's AI (shudder) didn't help, I wandered back to the burly young men in the ditch behind my home and asked if it might be possible that our problem began with them.

Much mumbling ensued.  Feet were objects of great interest.  When they realized I wasn't going away, one of them said something about maybe cutting a cable.  The Supervisor wasn't around.  I left them in the ditch.

Inside, I called Xfinity and explained the situation to a live human.  She bumped it up the food chain.  When I returned from lunch (a post to come) TBG met me in the hall.  They called with the worst possible news.  Xfinity won't come if there's an open hole and work in progress.  The guys say they won't be finished until Friday.  We have an appointment for next Monday.

No connectivity for a week was unacceptable to TBG, who watches the markets and Perry Mason and over-dressed humans talking about sports all the day long.  I wondered if Little Cuter remembered how to post here, to explain my absence.  

As TBG considered expensive solutions, I called the contractor.  The receptionist listened to my tale of woe and said the person I needed to speak to was gone for the day.  She did not realize to whom she was speaking.

I explained that her company had broken stuff, that we were unwilling to shoulder the burden of living without this stuff that they broke, that it seemed to me that they were going to be on the hook for our hotel bill... which reservation I couldn't make because I had no internet.  I needed help because this was an emergency, a disastrophe of their making.  I tried to sound as pitiful as I could.

She sent me to a voice mail but he'll be off the phone soon and call you, I  know he'll call you.  (He never called.)

The Supervisor rang the bell as TBG fumed.  He was perfect.  He'd fill in the hole and Xfinity would do their thing and all would be right with the world.

A delightful if somewhat talkative young man at Xfinity called a friend, if I would just hold on for a bit, and before I knew it I had an appointment later that afternoon.  

Things were looking up.  Then the doorbell rang.  We shared a look, I opened the door, and saw an Xfinity guy in a red polo shirt running to a white Xfinity repair truck while waving to me and saying You're good to go!

After calling into the house to share the good news with TBG, I walked out back to The Supervisor.  

Did you do that?  How did you do that?

I have friends in low places.

Best answer, ever.  

He laughed and told me about the status of the project, what to expect going forward, all the while smiling as I gazed upon him with admiration and respect and delight and profound pleasure in spending time with someone who is very good at all aspects of his job.  

And one who is willing to, as he told me, make calls to low places.

I hesitate to say the saga ends here........

 

Earth Day (Belated)

 (This is the 8th post I ever wrote, back in 2009.  I like it just as much today as I did then.  That must be true, since I have now posted it 14 times... even one day late, it still resonates.)

I like Earth Day. I was there at the start, after all.

Created in large part by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, in the world of 1970 it was a touchy-feely alternative to the harsher realities of the anti-Vietnam War protests. War was such an uncomfortable subject and arguing against it made your parents wonder why they were spending tuition dollars while you were telling the lawfully elected President of the United States of America that you knew more than he did. With your picture in the crowd on the front page of the NY Times. At 18 years of age, no less. 

But planting trees? Recycling newspaper? Not littering? And all this in service to Mother Earth. Who could be aggravated about supporting Mother Earth?

Earth Day had teach-in's. They were more fun than sit-in's, which invariably involved police and disciplinary action. They were less fun than be-in's, which owed more to Timothy Leary and The Grateful Dead than to anything political or practical. Teach-in's were earnest and had hand-outs and statistics and pictures of desolate landscapes ravaged by the cruelty of man. There was science and legislation and outrage and lots of tree give-aways.

Earth Day had no mandatory family gatherings. It required no gift giving, no card sending. You went outside and did something - cleaned a playground, weeded a median strip, planted one of those free trees. You felt good because you were doing good.

Now there is Earth Week and "We're greener than you are" tv networks. Were this still 1970, there would be protests about the idea being "co-opted by 'the man'". Instead, Sheryl Crow is designing re-useable grocery bags for Whole Foods and Wal-Mart is selling others next to the discounted paper towels.

And Mother Earth is grateful.

All Things Come To Those Who Wait - A Gardening Snippet

Sixteen years ago I planted two yellow Mexican birds of paradise, anchoring a corner of the front yard.  Their cousins, the reddish ones, have thrived over the years.

I transplanted one to a shadier spot a few years ago, on the theory of the right plant in the right place.  It died.

So imagine my surprise when I went to pick up the Sunday paper and saw this.

My patience with the scrawny bush has been rewarded.  It's finally joining the yellow season.

Summer is Coming

My bluebells are spent.  They now look red on the bottom and white on the top and scruffy all over. They really need to go.  The gardeners aren't coming for two more weeks and these guys will only get worse over time.  Obviously, it's a chore for me.

I started on it on Monday.  I filled a giant blue IKEA bag with plants I pulled from the ground.  They released quite easily, their root systems apparently designed for a short lived burst of color rather than as an anchor for a long and prosperous life.

Bending over wasn't difficult.  I started with the Nanny Pose, my mother-in-law's stiff legged, bent at the waist with arms dangling method.  TBG always described it with laughter.  I look at it as the first step in getting all the way down there.

I moved on to the Bent Knee Nanny, then took it to the ground.  On a foam kneeling pad, I sat in High Kneeling, letting my arms swing around me, grabbing what I could easily reach.  That devolved into sitting back on my heels, then cross legged on my butt, and then the bag was full.

Fifteen minutes and I was drenched in sweat.  

It was mid-afternoon, the temperatures were in the 70's, the sun was blazing, and the desert was reminding me that yard work starts at sun up these days.  I proved that to myself all week, as my calendar took me away from home every morning and deposited me in my driveway around noon.

Now, it's 6am, the sun just peeked over the Pusch Ridge, and there are shadows everywhere.  I'm off to pull more weeds.  I think I'll change out of my night shirt first.

The Last One, I Promise

When push came to shove (oh, I cannot believe that not only did I type that but that I'm leaving it in) the decision was clear.  I was never going to walk outside and use the purple porta-potty.

Yes, upon closer inspection the thing is bright purple.

Turns out that the hand washing station is outside the business end of the situation.  This is important since I misunderstood the description of the disruption - nothing should go down any drain during their working hours.... showers and sinks as well as toilets.  

We wash our hands a lot in this house.  Hand sanitizer doesn't quite feel the same.  Washing while admiring the view feels like an acceptable sacrifice in the service of functioning waste disposal. 

Beyond that, we each have a designated bathroom far from the bedroom.  It's not ideal, but it's a lot. 

 

A Decision Has Been Made

There is a bright blue porta-potty sitting on my neighbors' driveway.

Next to it is a shiny silver sink and soap apparatus.  

I'm wondering if random unhoused people will see it and take advantage of the fact that it's neither locked nor hidden away.  

I debated walking over and checking it out for myself, but the thought of walking outside to do what must be done had pushed me to deciding that there is no way I'm going to be taking advantage of that clean and private space, provided by my County at no charge, for eight hours every day.

There are places I can go.  

Okay, I'm just leaving that there for a moment.  

I will spend some time at Prince and I'll go out for lunch.  Amster's house is always available.  It's only from 7:30 til 2:30; I think we'll survive.

Definitely a first world problem, and one that's bringing a murky problem into specific relief. (Kudos if you got the American President reference.)  There are women all over the under-developed world who go in pairs to the bushes to avoid being preyed upon when they are most vulnerable.  It feels kind of churlish to ignore the kindness of a personal potty right next door.

Damning With Faint Praise

I fell in love with John Grisham when I read The Firm.  In 1991 I was living in Chicago, with two kids, a wonderful sitter, and time to indulge myself.  I knew lots of Big Law lawyers like John Grisham.  I was impressed that a partner at a fancy, downtown law firm had the time to write a best seller.  And he wrote some good ones.  

I enjoyed The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill and The Rainmaker.  The Runaway Jury told the best of all of those stories, and that's saying something.  Each one of them is memorable, decades later.  The names of the characters have escaped me, but their escapades are still kicking around in my deeper memory banks.  

Things happened in those books.  There were surprises.  You had to pay attention because not everything was what it seemed.  

That was not the case with his latest oeuvre.  The Exchange is a sequel to The Firm.  It's about gathering money to ransom a kidnapped lawyer.  The title was kind of a spoiler.  

If I cared about any of the characters, I might have been as insulted as they were that phone calls weren't returned in a timely fashion, that national governments were reluctant to negotiate on the main character's terms, that Big Law partners were greedy. 

But Grisham never expands on any of them beyond where they live and how much money they have.  For those without money, their descriptions lie within their rung on the corporate ladder.  The kidnapped woman cries a few times.  Her sick father is hospitalized a few times.  Told from a distance, that's about as emotional as the story gets.

When a serious bout of food poisoning - the who/why/how of which was a tantalizing storyline left disappointingly unexplored - is the most action packed sequence in the book, you can bet there is trouble ahead.  The kidnappers were never identified  Absolutely nothing unexpected happened, and what did happen was boring.

Flying on private planes sounds like fun.  Five star hotels and limousines and friends with secluded island retreats who would just love to have your twin boys and your in-laws drop in for a few weeks to hide from dangerous bad guys sounds like fun.  

It's too bad the book is no fun at all. 

I wish the words lived up to the quality of the paper they were printed on.  It was a pleasure to turn the pages; they were thick and the perfect shade of white and made a satisfying sound when grasped. 

It's pretty sad when the physical book outshines the content.  I can't recommend this one at all.

Casual Misogyny

It was a lovely funeral, celebrated for one of TBG's spin class buddies.  It was a two-fer; her sister died three weeks before she did.  They were both active in the church which hosted the service; their ashes were sprinkled on the grounds, beneath a cross, together forever.

The pastor knew them both quite well.  So did most of the attendees.  Stories were shared, praise was heaped, love was everywhere.... until it wasn't.

One of the stories revolved around a dance, referred to as a meet market. At least that was how I interpreted the sweet story to which it was attached, until mention was made of the meat and the heifers he saw there.  

I tried not to gasp too loudly.  The pastor smiled broadly, and repeated the tale, in all its cringe-worthiness, as he delivered the final Prayer for Peace.

I'd been able to find beauty in some of the passages he read.  I was impressed with his kindness to the congregation, most of whom he'd seen just three weeks before.  He was welcoming and thoughtful and his casual misogyny rankled all the more because of that.

This is why an 1864 law can be passed in modern day Arizona.  The disrespect, the obliviousness, the hurt that any woman who'd ever had that insult tossed her way, all this from the pulpit, from a man of God, an authority figure.... this normalizing of the indefensible is why we are where we are today, teetering on the edge of electing a sexual predator to the highest office in the land.

It's just not right. 

An Unfortunate Occurrence

Our Neighbors On The Other Side noticed effluence spewing from the backflow valve down in the open space between and behind our houses.

Pima County was quick to the rescue, sending a crew to survey the scene and plan for the repair.  Apparently, that repair requires shutting off our sewer service while the contractors fix the leak.  A lovely supervisor rang our bell and explained that they work from 7:30am until 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon, and that they'd probably be here for several days.  He encouraged us not to flush our toilets during that interval.

He offered us brand new, really clean, private Port-A-Potties to use for the duration.  One here... or over here... and one for them over on their side.

The situation offers many avenues to wander.  Do we visit friends for the day?  We have lots of bathrooms; do we not flush and bear the consequences? Do we let them install those celebrity portable toilets on our front yard?  Would we use them?  And how about the New Next Door Neighbors whose house is on the market for a sizeable sum?  Big, blue toilets don't add much to the ambience.

We will survive.  It's annoying but necessary.  I just wanted to share.

Sticker Shock

Have you rented a car lately?

TBG refuses to take two trains from the suburbs to the suburbs on our next vacation.  He wants to rent a car, even though it means he has to drive on a highway he detests.  He won't have to share his space with anyone but me.  He won't have to worry about the motorman's competence.  He will be master of his own fate.

I didn't think it was a bad idea to rent a car and make the 2 hour drive.  A one day rate wouldn't be terrible, and anything is better than a grouchy travel companion.  

Then I searched.  And I gasped. The least expensive day rate was $169.  

And then I looked at the public transportation options.  Amtrak for $130 and 5 hours.  Local trains, with a 38 minute lay over over a 4 plus hour trip, clocked in between $84 and $184.

And none of them were convenient.

So we'll bite the bullet and rent a car and recognize that while on paper Joe Biden is doing a great job with the economy and jobs an infrastructure, it now costs $200 to rent a car for a day.

Easy to see how inflation is still at the top of voters' minds.