JUST BITCHIN'

Waking up to a dreary day shouldn’t be a problem. For the last week plus, the weather’s been sunny and lovely. I guess I shouldn’t complain about a dreary Monday. But, I feel the need to complain, so…

The day became one filled with minor aggravations. Dealing with house “stuff” is always a pain. When I called for the annual plumbing inspection, I asked for our favorite plumber and a first appointment, 6 weeks in advance. The scheduler said that he could only give me an 8AM-12PM window. Although I told him that they’ve always honored my first appointment request, and this is far in advance, he hemmed and hawed. So, I did my usual “Mauree”—I asked for the manager. He put me on hold and returned in under a minute. He’d asked the supervisor, who okay’d my request. One aggravation behind me. Not a big deal, but it could have been smoother. A dreary day experience.

Howard looked outside. Our pool cleaning equipment was stuck again. And we just opened last week. This cleaner is a cute little device that runs around the pool bottom, sucking up dirt. Cory named it Ralph. It’s our only pet. Avery loves Ralph and is very protective of him. When we closed last year and she saw the pool cover, her quick response: “Ralph can’t breathe!”. I explained that Ralph goes on vacation when we close, and he’s happily sitting in the garage, breathing and waiting for next year. But now, he’d eaten his tail——for the umpteenth time in less than a week. Howard, exasperated, went out to fix him. Howard called the pool service. Mark and Matt will take care of Ralph. They’re so good that I wish I could clone them to service all house needs. But, today, another dreary day minor aggravation.

I think that we have a giant condor living somewhere on our property. Our property’s not so big, so I don’t know why we haven’t seen him. We just know that he’s here because he leaves his calling card everywhere. Bird poop on the shutters, on the trash cans, on the driveway, on the mailbox. Today, we noticed his significant and onerous gifts. Howard took the hose to the driveway and shutter. I wiped off the mailbox. I guess the good news is that when we see that he’s anointed our property, it means that summer is here. But still, aggravation on a dreary Monday.

It’s time to renew prescriptions. Howard called to see if they were ready. Walgreens had a recording—they were closed. At 10:30 AM? Weird. He called another Walgreens to check on store status. The other one was closed, too. We finally reached them about an hour later. The associate giggled and said that the company had thought that it was Memorial Day, although it’s really next week. HaHa! (Come on, Mauree—mistakes happen.) I long for the days when Howard and I just took a vitamin. Now, as we age, we require a variety of drugs just to get us to status quo. At $600 plus in copays, status quo is expensive. One more dreary day aggravation.

Now, for the good stuff—donuts—the 6th essential food group. With COVID, we order online and pick up at the drive through. There’s always the question of whether they’ll get the order right. One time we’d ordered and arrived to find that there were no donuts. Someone had bought 12 dozen and cleaned them out. What kind of gathering requires 144 donuts, especially in COVID status? We keep them stocked in the freezer, but even we don’t stockpile that many. Then there was the time that they didn’t have what we wanted, so found that they’d substituted flavors that we didn’t like. But today, they got it right. After life returns to normal, I don’t think that we’ll order food so much. Too many opportunities for errors. Anticipated errors on a dreary day, but found a dreary day surprise.

More in the world quotidian. Now that it’s warmer, it's time to determine whether the BQ Basement snafu last fall had caused a permanent problem. Yep, the humidity’s too high. We need a new de-humidifier. While we’re lucky to be able to feel more confident with our heating service handling it now, it’s still underwear money. Howard and I call money spent on maintenance and not-fun-stuff underwear money—just a necessity. More dreary day stuff.

Now, my car. I needed a tire, so changed my June appointment for maintenance/inspection to today. Well, at least they could accommodate me. And, I talked them into a discount. But still ended up with an $800 plus bill. More underwear money. But, the good news is that I have a nice new tire, they vacuumed my car carpets and had the car ready within a reasonable time frame. Dreary day, high spending, but lucky to catch a little break. Trying to look on the bright side.

Why am I complaining? Because I hate dreary days. I hate necessary drudgery. But, I need to get over myself. The details are annoying, but the big picture is good. Howard and I have each other. We have our family and our friends. We’ll have Avery and Emilia visiting this weekend, and Cory will visit this summer. We’re better off COVID-wise this summer than we were last summer. Count your blessings, Mauree, and stop complaining.

IF THE BIG THINGS ARE IN PLACE, ALL’S GOOD.

BUT THE LITTLE THINGS CAN STILL MAKE YOU CRAZY

JUST REMEMBER TO PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE, AND YOU’LL BE OKAY