I really can’t begin, Gentle Reader, to describe the multiplicity of snafus and fubars that have kept me from this little blog of late. At one point the Partner, ashen faced, sat down at the table, looked at me and said, I have to rethink this whole thing. YOU HAVE THE WORST LUCK IN THE WORLD. After I stopped panicking and thinking this meant We Were Through, I was able to review things quickly and realize that, quite possibly, I do. Have the worst luck in the world. Or at least, it’s right up there. Friends who have known me for a long time will, musingly or cheerfully, tell tales of people they’ve met who “have worse luck than you do! It’s INCREDIBLE!”. These stories usually involve at a minimum, exploding fireplaces, incineration of importance, major nerve damage or disfigurement, or, my current favorite. This involves someone who got shot in the back of the head having the bullet come out through the mouth with all associated teeth exiting as well, in front of a hotel waiting for an appointment to show up. The appointment showed up, fainted, and things carried on with excruciating trauma, permanent damage, the whole nine yards. Life continued on because this individual, (like those of us, so I’m told: oh, but they’re like you! so calm! they just keep going! who routinely have above standardly weird shit happen), was plucky and resourceful. So that when a bus came out of nowhere and ran this person over a few years later, it should come as no surprise that the permanent and difficult damage rendered in the original brouhaha was remedied because the hospital happened to have a specialist who dealt in just that awful sort of thing. I guess getting run over by a bus was worth it in the end. Then I thought about my first car. It was parked, I was in it. It got partially crushed by a (really) Winebago Renegade whose elderly driver was cleaning his glasses instead of steering. He had them clean enough to leave the scene, however, and the policeman who arrived for my report was not, let’s just say, sympathetic to my story. So fastforward to the repair shop mandated by my insurance company. It was a Samoan operation out in East Oakland. I was thus infuriated but not surprised to learn that the loaner car they gave me to use while my poor car went under the bondo was stolen. How did I find this out? BECAUSE A HIGHWAY PATROLMAN TRIED TO ARREST ME ON THE VALLEJO BRIDGE, THAT’S HOW. This being just one story among many, what could I say to the Partner except to snuffle agreement?
A brief list of the recents, just to get up to speed:
A) The yurt is now officially hosting squads of scorpions.
B) The State has disappeared my income tax refund, and says helpful things like I need to give them the phone number of a specific person in my bank for them to talk to. Yup. The bank, of course, says it’s the State’s fault, and they only have an 800 number. The State seems to take the position that I am enjoying WASTING HOURS OF MY TIME trying to fraudulently get a SECOND TAX REFUND. I give up, I think.
C) Really the most fun, almost. We, up to now, have done a Summer Art Fair every year. Not without its’ challenges, it still supplies that ever so desperately needed thing: money. So after days of preparation, we wend our way to this thing- which now takes us twice as long to get to although it isn’t physically as far away from us as it was when we lived in the Bay Area- and it is as though we entered into a parallel dimension. We pull up, the guy at the entrance squints at me when I tell him I’m a vendor and need to sign in. Do you have your packet? he barked. We finally get that horsed around and I go to the redoubt where the Vendor sign in has been secreted. They at last give me my wristbands and welcome letter!, then the guy there says, frowning in a patronizing sort of way: Are you going to drive your car in there? (Meaning into the state park where the fair is held) At this point it’s been a long lifetime already, and I’m just wondering what to say. Well, I said. I AM a vendor here, let’s see. So that means I have stuff to sell. That means I have stuff. In my car. To unload. So, unless you have some pack animals here, YES I DO HAVE TO DRIVE IN THERE FOR A MINUTE TO UNLOAD. OK, he says, I’ll have to give you a parking permit. They’ve never done this before, since usually they have staff managing the loading stuff and nobody parks until later, because it’s just not workable. You get a parking permit if you’ve paid for parking. So, fine, I say. Then he says, but I need a phone number. I felt a tear leaking out of my eye then. My cel phone doesn’t work at this park, of course. I don’t have a phone here, I said. Well then I can’t give you the parking permit, he said. Feeling that I might turn into a multi-headed Hydra at any minute, I just made up a goddamned phone number, and he was happy. So, on to our spot, which we couldn’t even get to because? There were vehicles parked bumper to bumper along the whole grassy area where the vendors were supposedly to ply their wares. No parking permits to be seen. The people next to us, whom I remembered from the prior year for their…ongoing high level of adjusted attitude let’s just say, had sprawled all their multitude of metal bars and bamboo fence and piles of frames and all kinds of stuff, all over OUR space and all behind it. They seemed to think it was rude when, after they told me they’d dumped all that stuff there until “THESE people show up”, I said, well WE are THESE people. Long story short, we finally got our canopy up, after what verged on armed struggle. That thing did not want to be there, which it demonstrated by immediately going ass over teakettle and blowing about 40 feet across the grass. You might guess if you were paying attention that it was only windy right at our spot and everyone else? Who had the exact same canopy? was just fine.
D) Are we at D already? We came home, another four hours, it was 85 degrees at midnight but we were home! The parrots were fine and our garden was ok too. So I pulled self together, got the attitude adjusted, and then? Yesterday. There was supposed to be a chance of a tenth of an inch of rainfall. What there was, was high winds, an astounding thunder and lightening storm that went on for over two hours, drenching downpour and large marble sized hail. The entire area around the yurt was like a pond. Then, the power went out. Cross words ensued between Partner and Self, and it was my job to sally forth. He wanted me to go to the neighbors’ but, their power being out also, what was the point? I had to get to someplace where my cel phone would work so I could call PG&E and impersonate my landlady in order to find out if we were going to be without power for long- since with no power, we have no water or phone or ANYTHING. So, a gallon of gas later I found I was the first person to report the power outage which had everybody out here in the dark for a minute. It was on the way that I met the dog. A man was walking down the middle of our road as I was endeavoring to find cel phone reception. This is pretty odd in itself- you don’t see strollers around here. I stopped and immediately realized that he was either completely stoned out of his mind or suffering from dementia. Given the neighborhood, I reckoned number One was the answer. While I was wondering how to get on my way since there was nothing I could do for him it seemed, he grinned unpleasantly and said, Have you met my dog?
I turned to my left (He was undulating on the driver’s side of the car) which of course was just Right There, and the window was partly open and what should my wondering eyes behold but the head of a gigantic black mastiff sticking itself right in there, albeit partially. Very big teeth but fortunately, no bad breath to go along with the drool.
So there I was between Mr. Crazypants and His Giant Dog. In a river of mud under roiling dark clouds and thunder so loud you couldn’t hardly hear yourself think. TO BE CONTINUED.
Not really, I’ve just always wanted to do that. Surprised by my suavity I somehow extracted myself from that Moment of Hideousness with only minor claw marks on the door (don’t be mad at me, the guy was bellowing, how could I be? I said, you are just a DOLL!), the power did come back on, other upsetting things happened, and here we are. I did finally understand something about life, however, which WILL have to wait for the next episode. Just inch back into your chair, it won’t be too long.
Boozilla: learning to fly one room at a time 