Classic: Stinky Cesspool Antics

One of the times I went to visit the boys in Oregon I slept in a small moble home next to my ex's house. Everything was fine until I had to use the "facilities." When I was finished, the stuff wouldn't flush. So I called Sue's dad, Joe Boyd, and asked him what I should do. The holding tank for the bathroom needed to be emptied into a cesspool accessible in the backyard. How to get it from here to there? A long series of 6" pipes, carefully fitted to each other so that everything made it from there to here. Unfortunately, one of the pipes fell open so that there was a huge pool of waste that never made its destination.  I found out later that a friend of Sue's and his girlfriend had stayed in the mobile home just a few days before I arrived.

 

Housekeeper Horrors

A couple of years back after I'd been injured and Moreen was in Europe, she arranged for our housekeeper, Maria, to stay with me in the house at night and during some days. After a very hard day at work, and a call from an attorney about my son, I was very tired. When I came home that evening Maria asked if I wanted her to prepare something for me for dinner. All I wanted to do was go to bed, but I sat at the dining room table sort of watching the news.  Maria took my indecision as an insult to her and she said I didn't need her help and she was going to go home.  Huh? "You're like so many men who just ignore women when they ask a question," she said. "Do you want me to go home?" Do you want to go home?  "Do you want me to?" Do you want to go? "If you don't want me here I will leave. It sounds like you don't care if I'm here or not so I'm going to leave." She marched down the hall and started opening and slamming drawers, packing her suitcase. "You haven't wanted me here this whole time. I can tell. I can tell when men don't like me. I'd think you would be more sensitive and understand my feelings (blah blah blah.)"

She picked up her suitcase, walked out the door as she yelled goodbye, and drove away. What in God's name just happened? Later in the evening I called her apartment and apologized (?) for any misunderstanding. Then I told her I'd had a real hard day and come back on Thursday to make me the vegetarian sandwich the promised. I got her message machine. Later she called back and I really didn't want to talk with her then, so I let it go to record, and asked her to come back, that I did enjoy having her here, etc. "I'll be back on Friday afternoon to clean the house one last time before Moreen comes home." Friday afternoon, to skip the details, was laughable. "No, I will not make you a sandwich. I don't know what it is about men that after they fight they want me to cook for them. I couldn't cook for you because I know you don't love me. It's like make up sex." I sat on the couch dumbfounded as she spent an hour cleaning, changing the sheets on Moreen's bed, and stepping over the dogs without saying hello like she usually does. And she was gone.  I explained to Moreen that Maria and I had a misunderstanding, that she left here very upset on Wednesday evening, and I really didn't know what she was talking about. Oh, and she should be fired.  Moreen called Maria and God knows what they talked about, but Maria apologized to Moreen and said that she didn't know I'd had such a hard day. Had she asked... Well, I still see Maria come to the house every two weeks and clean.  "She does a good job cleaning, and the dogs love her."

Garage Parked and Still Running

I'd taken Misty and Penny to the La Jolla Recreation Center and returned home. I unloaded the dogs and went inside. About an hour later I went back out to the garage and heard what sounded like the drier, or the washing machine, but neither were in use. It sounded like a hamster running around inside a wheel.   It was the car. I had forgotten to take the keys out of the ignition.   I am so glad I discovered this before Moreen went to the garage. She gets upset with me when I leave the coffee maker on.

My Bedtime Chocolate

In preparation for Valentine's Day, Moreen put two squares of Godiva dark chocolate on my pillow so I could have a treat while I read my book. She started this and got me hooked. It hadn't occurred to me that a chocolate lover such as myself could fall asleep to that particular sweetness. So now that V Day's over I've become my own supplier. I have a bag of dark chocolate (from breaking up a Trader Joe's organic bar, 60% cacao, into a plastic bag) in the drawer next to my bed. Now I have another reason (besides being sleepy) to go to bed.   One morning I (reluctantly) woke up at the request of our corgis and prepared to take them for a walk. Brushing my hair I noticed something next to my mouth. It was about an inch and a half of brown drool. It was leftover chocolate from my evening forays.   Another evening getting ready for bed I noticed little crumbs of chocolate on the sheets. When I tried to brush them away, the specs smeared across the sheet. I was hoping I could go all winter without changing my sheets. (Think about it -- with pj's and socks there's nothing touching the surrounding sheets, so it's not so important to wash them. I guess I should have considered washing the pillow cases. Instead I just switched the two pillows so the one with a clean pillow case was now on top. So if I did this every week, switching the pillows around, I would have four "clean" pillow cases before I'd be forced to wash them.)   Because of the chocolate I did have to wash my sheets. Oh, and my  pjs . The chocolate bits were melted into back of my night clothes. Jeez, all this chocolate everywhere, maybe I should start a new habit?   So now instead of biting or breaking chocolate in half in preparation for eating I pop the entire square (or squares) into my mouth. Voila! No more chocolate crumbs.

Gown Tying

During one of my hospital visits: It was easy for him to tell me to put the gown on, with the back open, and wait for the doctor. But when was the last time he had to tie a bow backwards at the neck and back? I must have stood there for 10 minutes trying to tie those strings and, because the doctor was expected soon, I decided to proceed with the tying process sitting down. I mean, really, part of the prep to go to see a doctor should be the ability to tie the strings. Every time I thought I had it in a bow, when I pulled it tight it fell apart. Again. And again. I know I shouldn't be griping about something like this (there are millions of people who don't have health coverage) For those entrepreneurs among us, perhaps a gown with straps in front would be the next medical breakthrough. Or perhaps I can bring that part of the gown in front of me, tie it, and then pull it around the correct side. But that's too easy.

The Bee Sting (Poor me)

A while back I got stung by a bee in the bookstore. Yes, I was inside. I got stung behind my left ear while I was moving books. When I bent down to pick up some books I thought a spider had gotten on my head, so I brushed it off. But not before the nonspider stung me. I saw the bee fly to the floor and I stepped on it. (I picked it up with a tissue later to show people the bee in case they didn't believe me.) I ran next door to Burns Drugs to see if they had anything to use on bee stings. We didn't have any baking soda at the store. (You can make a small poultice from baking soda and water and apply it to the sting, or so I'm told.) There were only two clerks in the store and they both had lines of people waiting to be helped. So I went back to the book store, my ear hurting from the top to the lobe. It felt like a vice was tightening around my ear. It didn't get any worse, so I went back to work. A few people later said they had heard I'd been stung by a bee and wanted to see my swollen ear. Meanwhile when I was in pain I couldn't get any sympathy from my coworkers because they were too busy helping customers. Not that I was looking for sympathy (much). I just needed a little hand holding and someone telling me how awful it was that I got stung by a bee in the store. I think that was the worst part of the whole thing: No one had time to pity me.

My new hearing aids

I got my hearing aids last week. I didn’t want to get hearing aids but I had no choice. I couldn’t hear anything. Well, not anything, but I was missing a lot of conversation…directed at me…or missing the punch lines to jokes…or overhearing juicy gossip. I told my housemate that the only reason I’m getting hearing aids is for my work at the bookstore. Uh, no, that’s not the only reason, she said, and began listing all the non-work examples including dinner table conversation with her. Well, I suppose. And wanting captions on movies at the theater. (They are whispering when they talk? No, Jim, they’re not whispering.)

But I really didn’t want to get them. Can’t people at work accommodate me by talking louder? Jim, they’d say, even when we do that you don’t hear us. The worst is on the phone. I ask people if they can please speak up, and they do and I still can’t understand what they’re saying. But until now I could use a little trick. I would put the person on hold and call out “Can someone get line three?” and walk away, hoping someone else could hear what the caller said.

The eureka moment (in reverse) when I had no choice but to get hearing aids was when I was standing behind the counter and repeatedly asking if she could speak up. Four colleagues behind the counter (and I think six customers) all turned to me at the same time and said, “Great Gatsby! She wants Great Gatsby.”

Yes, okay, I’ll get hearing aids. So I got fitted at Scripps and two weeks later I had the little techs to stick in my ears, and they seemed so blasted fragile to have cost so much money. (It’s a worthwhile investment, a friend said. Well, can you pay for them then?)

I love/hate my new hearing aids. At dinner, I commented on now much our corgi, Penny, panted, and I could hear her walking around the house, stopping to drink water, go out the dog door, etc. Is she always that loud? No, that’s the way it has always been. I can hear Brian Williams without captions!

Everyone at work is absolutely thrilled. Someone asked me a question while I was working on a project and, when I immediately answered, she was almost jumping up and down with glee. You heard me! You heard me! Was it that bad about my hearing? Yes, yes! And darn, I can’t turn phone calls over to someone else…It’s the new Jim Stewart!

Over the Sunday paper I was chatting with my roommate and she said something funny, and I pretended I could hear her, nodding my head seemingly at the right time.

So I put my hearing aids on.