I got my favorite and only nurse riled up last night when I told her the news story about the guy who tried to beat his wife with the family poodle. (The dog died, she had minor bruising, he's in jail). Nurse jumped out of her chair and started screaming about family violence, God, white slavery and something else I didn't get because I walked away laughing. She launched! Well I thought it was a hoot. If I were the cop that got called to this I would have requested a photographer before I even went in the house. Uh, watch out who you get your medical advice from. She may hit you with a dog!
The Canada geese are gone. I think somebody from the new management brought a team in the middle of one night and absconded with them. Things are looking up!
And we had a fire call one day last week. The alarm went off. I felt my door to see if it was warm (it wasn't), opened it and didn't smell any smoke, and went back to sleep. My afternoon nap. In a few minutes two engines and a ladder pulled up along with a Chief. I am told. Apparently one of the nice old ladies on another floor put some eggs on to boil and then got in her car and went to the Dayton Mall. The burnt eggs exploded all over the kitchen and part of the entrance way and the entire floor smelled like somebody tried to fast-cook a possum. With fur. I gather something like this happens about once every 2 months or so. Thank God for a steel and concrete building!
The City of Dayton has a new ordinance. Homeless people ( panhandlers to the landed gentry) can no longer stand on street corners or freeway entrances and beg "Will work for food." Or, "Not hungry, just want beer money." The Chief of Police whines that they don't want people stepping out in front of cars and getting hit. Most people really know that the landed majority just don't want their neighborhoods looking tattered around the edges. I think that for every stop or arrest the officers make, the Chief should buy that person (homeless) one decent meal. If he is willing to afford it. What you see is not what you get.....
Same deal with the Red Light Traffic Cameras. Some few have been in operation for 8 or 9 years and more are being installed. "It is to save lives" say the City leaders. Oh for heaven's sake! It was about money then and it's about money now. The City gets $55 for every red light ticket (even though they don't have the personnel to identify and collect the offenders. Some collection agency is doing it now). When I was a little kid I was told that it was a sin to lie. I must have been the only one they told. Ta!
If you're not fond of the occasional book you can feed this one to the birds. I love dead people in Iceland because that country suddenly is producing mystery authors of some talent. The plots are all murder but the locations, language, customs, values and myths are as different as a bat from a buffalo. Yrsa Sigurdardottir has written a couple fine stories with great skill, including My Soul To Take, and a fellow named Arnaldur Indridason has a good handful in print, of which my favorite is Jar City.
I am having great fun reading these. The Swedes have come up with some equally capable new authors and there is a homicide in Lapland called Snow Angels, a land that is totally dark twenty four hours a day in winter. Or if you want something grubby and familiar to read, go to the grocery and get a copy of the National Enquirer.
An idea for a greeting card from a dead people book:
(front) "This has been a stressful time for both of us..."
(inside) "...so would you please go to the nearest piranha farm and throw yourself in one of the tanks."
Ta!
We went from icy winter and cracked ribs to solid rain for weeks. The ark-building shops opened up again and each ark held two cats, two dogs, two men and forty women. Which is the approximate composition of the population here. Now it is hot and humid and High summer is two weeks away, the longest day of the year and a work-free holiday in Sweden, Finland and Norway. Lucky them.
The compressor on my air conditioner crashed so, after a couple days, Maintenance brought up a swell sixty-pound job guaranteed to keep dry ice solid, make coffee in the morning and start the bacon. And it did all that for three hours and died. The compressor was fine but the fan refused to rotate. Maintenance is now looking again for me for a replacement. I have to emphasize that the air conditinoer is my responsibility, not the Complex'. That's in the Rule Book. But a little baksheesh goes a long way here and I will get one that works. Free.
The bedbug scare is over and, over the past week, I have unpacked all my clothes and hung them back up, and replenished the contents of my dresser drawers. The canvases and framed pictures are still sitting out because, if it cools off some, it might be fun to hang them on the walls. ANd with this I am doing dishes, cooking, cleaning, working with addicted kids and managing an afternoon nap. Or a morning nap some days just after breakfast when my blood sugar goes up and my eye lids go down.
We have two House meetings tomorrow, one about bedbugs, which may be causing some problems on at least one floor. It will be sparsely attended. And one about Medicare which will be well attended by old folks claiming Foul Operating Procedures. Well it is a government operation after all.
I have lost thirty pounds since I've been here, eight months now. This has been caused by the spring rains and stress over the loud and intrusive Canada geese. Who have mostly flown away now but will be back in April again. Also in the rule book there is a section about not feeding the fowl as it attracts them and they bay and honk for bread crumbs. This morning one old biddy (did I say --tch?) was feeding an entire family of them from a large bag of something. I think that somebody should go to her room tonight with a two-by-four and slam it into both her ears until she understands that being nice to the nice geese is not nice. I wish it could be me.
While doing dishes this morning I invented a recipe for a gumbo of brown rice and either chicken or pork tenderloin with blackened seasoning. I am going to make it in the crock pot in a day or so and try it out on Mabel across the hall. She is (a fine!) 87 and could eat nails for breakfast without it affecting her. She also uses mountains of salt on her food. She is healthy as a horse. She does not need a doctor. That is Mabel's picture somewhere here. She is as suave as I am and I love having her for a neighbor. Maybe she and I together can beat the goose-woman to death!
I am reading Charles Todd World War I mysteries and I have just watched UNSTOPPABLE which is about train wrecks and heroism. High adventure.
I don't know how the title fits in here, it was supposed to be for something else. But I promised it in an earlier post, so there it is!
Ta!
