Day's End

There's nothing like being busy all day long, from sunrise to sunset.

Kind of makes you feel like a homesteader --

Okay, not a homesteader, that would be an exaggeration that the ghosts of homesteaders would haunt me for. Nevertheless, I was busy today from before the sun rose until ... well, it's well after dark and I'm not done yet.

A simple enough start: I got up, dressed, and said my morning prayers. I took care of the livestock, receiving grateful doggie kisses in return. I fed myself, sat in the morning sun with Bernie for about ten blissful minutes, and then set to the hard task of the day: calling our homeowner's insurance.

Saturday's torrential downpour for some unknown reason caused a leak in the garage ceiling in a number of places -- a freakout disaster for me because that's where my studio is. Fortunately, the leak did not touch any of my canvases or papers or pastels, and Bernie was clever enough to get a bucket under the worst leak before it soaked the rugs.

Indeed, the insurance people were very helpful. I told AAA that I had never had to call them before, and what should I do? They had a plan in seconds (wow, almost like they do this as a business) and investigators and more investigators would be here by suppertime to investigate all the wet bits and possible causes.

Then it was getting the Piker Press up and running for the week. The major obstacle was trying -- after three years of not doing it -- to get a Fever Dreams cartoon to upload properly. That, and the omnipresent laundry cycle, took until it was time for a quick lunch, then ...

The neighborhood erupted like a bunch of ants. The man across the street had some lumber for us (for kindling, or whatever) and some pavers, which we did need for a project, and then the neighbor next to him was trying to unload landscape blocks (which are damned expensive) and did we want them (hell, yes, a savings of about a hundred dollars. Haul, stack, haul, stack.

The insurance dudes arrived. Lots of explanation and chat, photos, photos, then the next round of insurance dudes, lots of paperwork, more explanation and chat, finally done, time to return to the laundry room to fold two bigass loads of clothes and stuff, shift the next two batches.

So good to see the sun go down, and find my chair and my laptop and finally relax.

49 Days

Pansies and violas are winter color here.

These lovelies are in the vegetable garden boxes, because their petals are edible: peppery if you like pepper. I occasionally use them in salads or as garnishes, but I love them for their intense color and the velvety touch of them as well.

Today I needed a little "pretty" in my life: I went to the dentist -- oh, God, voluntarily -- and had him put a crown on a tooth he's been nagging me to have done for the last ten years. Better a crown than a root canal or an extraction, and this is the last chance for me to have dental work done with dental insurance taking up the bulk of the cost.

In 49 days (if not a bit less) all our medical and dental and eye insurance disappears, like a popped balloon, as Bernie's job ends permanently. Horror of horrors! Unemployment! Drastically reduced income! Oh, the social stigma!

While the dentist and his assistant crawled into my mouth with their hobnailed boots and jackhammers, (and I was stoned to the gills on nitrous oxide), I kept thinking, "This is it. This is the last for a long, long time. No more 'Doctor wants to replace that filling because he's sure it will expand and break your tooth.' No more crowns, they're all done with this visit; see ya around the campus, Doc, don't call me I'll call you." (NOT.)

As is my nature, I left the dentist's office feeling a bit over-used and weary. It was idiotic of me to have errands and cooking on my daily list after such an appointment, but I managed to take my recyclables down to the City site, get water, stop at the drug store for my favorite wine, go to the grocery store for the items I forgot yesterday, and once home, set up the rotisserie oven and put a couple fat chickens on to roast. All the while, I kept thinking, "I'm done. I've done all the crap I needed to do before Insurance Ragnarok."

And while I've done all the crap I needed to do before the insurance runs out, it still remains to be seen that the laundry HAS to be folded and loaded and switched over before I can crash tonight. Which means that tomorrow, most likely, I'll be blogging about how other people react to the countdown to Bernie's plant closure.