Toasty, thankful, and thinking...

I was only awake a couple of hours yesterday, minutes here and there.  I slept much of Friday evening, then most of Friday night, then most of Saturday, then most of Saturday night, and dragged myself out of bed today at 1:30 because it was time for Erythromycin ... which I had to go fetch from Target.

This great level of exhaustion is puzzling to me.

At Target, every single handicapped parking space was taken.  Never have I encountered this.  All the wheelchair shopping carts were taken, too.  So, I draped myself across a shopping cart and shuffled over to the pharmacy.  It seems the whole of Fort Wayne was at Target, but no one needed prescriptions save for me.

The pharmacist had called to let me know that I am in the donut hole, so I counted out all my pills on Friday.  I will be 5 days short, but I am still not going to pick up most of my prescriptions until the new year.  I talked with the pharmacist and told her that I was choosing the Erythromycin, the hormones, and the thyroid medication.  Those three are just around $400 when I am paying for them.  I do know the arthritis medication and the heart medication will stay with me a couple of days before I notice the effects. I am only on one asthma medication now because of the theophylline, so I am not sure what will happen.

I would like to find out how to write a customer appreciation letter for the weekend pharmacist.  She has been really understanding about all the problems with the insurance and doctor's office, as well as all my attempts to save money.  Today, she asked if I needed anything else and had me get the milk and things I needed so she could ring me up.  That way I would not have to stand in the long lines at the front of the store.

I called Becky on the way home because my legs were quivering so much I was not sure that I would be able to hold down the pedals for the duration of my trip home.  She was able to stay on the phone with me until I got myself home, the milk put away, and climbed beneath the blanket the Browns sent me.

[I started watching the Eagles game, glad to see Detroit was winning, whilst we were talking.  I should have hung up with Becky, the Pennsylvanian.  Why give up an opportunity to talk with my best friend?  Because whilst we were nattering, the Eagles pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and stomped all over the Lions.  Seriously, Detroit, if you are playing in a snow bowl, you RUN the ball.  Your opponent runs and scores.  You throw and go three-and-out.  RUN.  My 'Boys need to win tomorrow to keep pace.  Right now, the 49ers are losing. I like their quarterback and would like them to win, but I think their losing would help the Cowboys.]

Yes, I am toasty.  Correction, Amos and I are extremely toasty!  As early Christmas presents, they sent me a foot warmer for the bed and an electric blanket for the GREEN chair.  I have figured out that if I set the blanket on 3 and put the quilt over it, I create a warm pocket of air that keeps me toasty, but does not tip me over into the getting overheated.

Maybe I am sleeping so much because I am so very comfortable?

Amos has been curling up against the foot warmer once I turn out the lights.  And he has been burrowing himself beneath the electric blanket.  I wish I could stand back and take a photo of myself because I look rather odd, lying in the GREEN chair with a huge mound on my midsection.  If you look closely enough, you will see the blankets rise and fall with Amos' breathing.

Firewood Man stopped by this afternoon to measure the yard.  I could wish for it to happen later, as in having time to save up for the work, but he's coming in a week or so to run drain pipe extenders to the side walk, burying them in the yard, from the two corners of the house.  When it rains, that is where the water comes into the basement a bit.

During a recent torrential downpour, I went to study what was happening on the right side of the house (as you stand and face it).  You see, the sidewalk rounding the left side is broken, so the drain water is actually funneled back to the house.  That makes sense for there to be water at that corner, then.  But I could not figure out why I get some on the left side.  Well, getting drenched showed me the problem: my neighbor's house.

My neighbors gutters are clogged up top, so the water is falling off the roof in sheets on the side corner of her house.  But her downspout extender is also clogged, because water comes up out of where it is fitted to the downspout.  Basically, when there is a strong downpour of rain, a lake forms between the two houses.  I tried to talk with her about the blockages I noted, but she walked away shouting that her ex-husband ruined the house and she wasn't going to lift a finger to make it better because that was his job.  SIGH.

Tim is going to put in two catch basins in that area (right at the property line) and funnel those to the drainage pipe he will be burying for me.  That way, my house will no longer be affected by her poor drainage.

We talked about doing this over a year ago.  But, well, in order to bury the left hand pipe, Tim is going to have to either lift up a section of sidewalk, break off a piece of it, or tunnel beneath it.  None of those are actions he is looking forward to taking.  It is my fervent hope that my idea actually works:  the lifting option.  Since the section is broken on both sides, I think a lever might work.  I also told him I would have no problem if he decided to cut the corner in half with his saw and then just lift that section.  It would look almost as if it was planned that way, because the corner is the largest section of any of the sidewalks on my property.

Since the basement channels have always done their job, I have not been bothered that Tim has put off the work.  Frankly, I don't blame him.  However, it would be nice if the channels in the basement were not needed.  Tim told me to call for utility marking this week.

Okay, so what am I most concerned about in this process?  Well, at first I thought of the grass.  But Firewood Man has made such a lovely expanse of GREEN for me in my yards that if some of the grass dies from being dug up in the cold, I know he will fix the matter next Spring.  What does worry me is that Tim does not share the same fervent love of ferns that I do.  And the current extension pipe on the left side runs along side the back of the fern bed.  I would actually like for it to be buried deeper, but I am fearful doing so will result in the ferns being ruined.  I am hoping that he can make a connection on the end that exits at the edge of the bed.

That way, the only plant in jeopardy is the very beleaguered cotton easter.  I would not be so bereft if that finally gave up the ghost.  Though, to give it credit, the cotton easter managed to blossom and berry this year.  It is only half dead at this point.  What I would like to do is to dig it up in a ginormous clump of dirt (to protect the roots), run the pipe, and then move it back about 12 inches so that the part that is growing could continue to fill the corner of the bed and the dead part would be better hidden by the brick wall of the steps.

My plan is to put up "We LOVE Ferns!" signs along the side of the house so Tim sees them as he works!

I have two antique wooden boxes on the mantle.  One of them has cash in it that I use to pay Tim.  Whenever I do an odd job and get some cash, I stick it in the box.  At the moment, there is only $45 left.  While most of the odd jobs he does are "twenty bucks," I am fairly sure that this will be an exception.  However, we have already firmly established that those tires utterly destroyed any chance of finishing the year without another retirement early withdrawal.

When I was watching As Time Goes By, I learned a new phrase.  That show is where I learned about "having a clear out," how a British person would describe the organizing/reducing/donating/recycling bouts.  Well, were I British, my grousing about having to buy tires would be "having a moan."  That cracked me up.  Judi Dench was grousing about something and Geoffrey Palmer notes that she was pushing the matter a bit and she replied, "I'm having a moan."  I like that.

I am most definitely still having a moan about the tires.

However, really I should take the opportunity to re-do the budget.  I have not spent a penny on the car in three years save for a single oil change (I forgot about doing that, too).  I need to try and figure out what other things I need to be thinking about what maintenance I might have with a soon-to-be an 11-year-old Highlander that has just over 72,000 miles on it.  Goodyear did send me a coupon for a $9.95 oil change that does not expire until March.  I should probably put that in the maintenance budget.  I wonder about things like belts and hoses or flushing the radiator or things like that.  I had dealer paid maintenance through 55,000 and have not done anything since then except for replacing the brakes nearly 4 years ago when they did not pass inspection.  And replace the battery before I moved.

This will all be new territory for me.  My first car was destroyed in a wreck caused by a thief fleeing a robbery.  I only had it a couple of months, so I don't really count it as ownership. So my second "first" car I owned 11 years and my "second" car I owned 10 years.  This is really only my third car.  I really do not know about older-car-ownership needs.

Times like this makes being chronically ill and cognitively challenged hard.
As well as being single.
And fatherless.

I would rather be a bit old-fashioned and leave all thoughts of car care on the shoulders of a male.  Too bad Amos doesn't count.  He's the only testosterone in my life.

After Tim left with his measurements in hand, I laid a fire and crawled back beneath the new electric blanket.  Thankful ... and thinking.

Receiving the gift of warmth has been a great blessing, as have Tim, Electrician Man, and now the  new weekend pharmacist—all folk who have gone far beyond the call of duty to help and serve me, to show me mercy.  Too, I have been extremely thankful for Marie's visits and cooking sessions.  Those are all good things, gifts from my Good Shepherd.  And, really, to be fair about it, the manager did not have to give me a discount on a tire that had a rebate so that he could make the cost as close as possible to the tires I had chosen online. It was not his fault the dealer put rims on the Highlander that do not match the specs of the vehicle.  It was not his fault that I did not already know I had off-sized tires on my vehicle.  Instead, he made a choice to help me.

Perhaps there is some website out there that is a guide to what you should do for older car maintenance.  Or some website on car maintenance in general. Or some website for female car owners ... a gender stereotype kind of website that would still be helpful.  The Goodyear manager did tell me that even with my low level of driving, I should rotate the tires once a year and he included free rotation for the warranty life of the tires. I should probably change the oil once a year ... or something like that.  For car No. 2, I found a really great, extremely honest mechanic in Alexandria, who guided me on what to do/not do as that car aged after the warranty maintenance was finished.  In fact, he was the one who encouraged me to buy the Highlander, because I was headed toward a higher maintenance cost window.  Perhaps I can find someone like that here.

I miss "Click and Clack."  Don't you?

For the record, though, I'm not yet done having a moan over having to buy tires now after working so very hard—and rather creatively—to finish the year under the budget I set for myself.  The timing just stinks.  And, well, I still really need new glasses.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!