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June 23,1998
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You'd think I'd get more done given a whole free day - no commitments, no appointments, no nothing. I slept late of course, finally rousing myself around 9:30 or so. After the morning routine, I called in a prescription refill to CVS Rapid Refill since I was out of something this morning - Oops. It'd be ready at 1:30. I went off to Starbucks in search of coffee and coffee buddies. I ran into Tom outside the thrift shop but he and Julie were headed home already. I drank my coffee and ate my lunch while reading A Naturalist Along the Jersey Shore. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it. I read the piping plover chapter twice and will probably read it again to make sure I absorbed everything. Ned arrived just as I was leaving. I gave him a big hug and we chatted briefly. Just as I was telling him I was on my way to pick up my vacuum cleaner from the repair shop where it was being reconditioned after my cleaning lady used it without a bag, my accountant walked in. I said hi to her and told her I'd call when I get the grant (power of positive thinking here: when not if). Everybody in line to buy coffee was amused at my vacuum cleaner story. The fact that it set me back $55.15 made it somewhat less amusing to me but maybe it was just the rain coloring my mood. Yes, it was raining again. Anyway, I drove over to the vacuum cleaner place and got the lowdown on the repairs: replaced cracked fan housing, replaced belt, unclogged tubes, new bag, etc. etc. etc. The woman at the store wanted to know if it was really raining outside. Like was it an optical illusion? Mass hysteria? Sudden onset of an on location film shoot? Yeah, it's really raining. She tells me it wasn't raining earlier. Like seconds before I got there. I told her again that it was indeed raining and had been raining for some time. At least in Andover. Over in Middleton they have different weather I guess. Now the door of the shop was open and her cash register was about 8 feet from the door. She could easily see that it was raining. There were no other customers in the shop so she could have stepped over to the doorway to check for herself. Instead she asks me. When she finally puts through my credit card, the receipt printer thingie is down to the red part. There's barely enough there for me to sign. She goes into a tirade about her employees and why they couldn't change the tape when they saw it getting pink. Me, I just want my vacuum cleaner and to get the heck out of there. It's possible I'm the first human she's talked to all day. She's still talking to me when I'm in the parking lot putting the vac in my car. The traffic crawled at a snails pace all the way back to CVS to pick up my prescription. There was no line but the pharmacy technician was on the phone. I twiddled my thumbs for awhile. Finally I get her attention and get my prescription. I had her my credit card and she asks for the 99,000th time if I have new insurance. Nope. Nope. Nope. By the time I get out of there and over to A&M Appliances to ask about how to clean the dead mites and mite poison out of my air conditioner it's after 2:00. Where did the day go? The lady at A&M Appliances tells me she's had birds in her house too but not in the air conditioner. She wants to know how they got in there - there was a small hole and they made it bigger - and whether the babies have hatched - yes and they've fledged - and lots more. She advises me to slide the air conditioner out into my bedroom (with plastic under it of course), cover the fan motor with plastic, and clean the whole thing with Lysol. She shows me the fan motor on a unit that's being repaired so I know exactly what to cover before I clean. The day continues to tick away. Back at home I call a handyman service and leave a message for them to call back. No way am I gonna take the a/c unit out myself. My chiropractor is rich enough already! So while I wait for them to call, I get the snail mail out of the front hall, sort it, read it, throw it away, and then briefly connect to world to get my e-mail. At some point today I actually answered a slew of e-mail messages that had accumulated since Friday. E-mail is supposed to be so immediate, but I didn't check it all weekend and then I wanted to make thoughtful replies. Or at least correctly spelled replies. However, reading over my own words in a reply to one of my messages I realized I hadn't been careful enough. I must be getting senile because I used they're for their, messed up subject verb agreement, and used insufficient or excess commas. At least I spelled my name right. |
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