The Day That Just Won't End

This morning started out with Music Man taking our poor beat up truck to the shop. Yep, it was breaking down again. When he spoke to them yesterday they said it sounded like the starter. So he'd bought a starter, they were going to squeeze him in. It was going to be fine.

Meanwhile I had a doctor's appointment and Miss Goofy had to go to work. So the Cranky Old Man agreed to be our chauffeur for the morning. Oh and he was going to pick up Music Man from the shop.

Music Man texted me and told me, it's not the starter, its the key. This truck is barely old enough to have a key with a chip in it, but it is old enough. So he was heading down the mountain, to the east this time, to a dealership to get a new key. No problem.

Miss Goofy, the Cranky Old Man, and I head out. They drop me off at the doctor's office, Miss Goofy goes to work and Cranky heads home to wait for anyone who might need a ride.

I got to have a "Well Woman Exam", which means a breast exam, a pap smear, and oh my Bob, I'm still hurting from the pap smear. I've done well with those. I also learned that I'm anemic, which I've been before so it wasn't a huge shock and my triglycerides are high, which they've been high before so I'm not surprised. Otherwise everything looks good. No infections, no other issues.

That said, my doctor was concerned about the anemia, since it's iron deficiency anemia. So, I get to have an upper GI done. Which works out well, cause I also need to have a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer cause my dad died very young of colon cancer. Thank you to the military for all that Agent Orange poisoning.

So I called Music Man figuring he should be home, but no he's still at the dealership, waiting on the new key. Okay, no problem. I call Cranky. Who comes and picks me up and we head home. I wasn't home long when Music Man calls to tell me the dealership is saying the starter on the truck is bad. Very long story short, Cranky and I fly down the mountain to find out what the smurf the dealership is trying to pull cause Music Man was too upset to articulate it in a coherent fashion.

Somehow, the truck's starter, which was fine just a few hours earlier, went from fine to needing to be replaced. Not in the time it took to drive it from the shop to the dealership, cause it was fine when he got to the dealership. It started when they moved it into the dealership's shop. Not it died after they programmed the new key. Which the guy swore to me, programmed correctly.

We think they screwed up the anti-theft system. So, we'll try to fix it on Monday. But for the weekend, we have no vehicle. So much fun.

We finally get Music Man, Cranky, and myself back up our mountain and go have lunch, cause at this point it's 2 in the afternoon. I haven't eaten all day, Music Man hasn't eaten all day, I think Cranky had breakfast but it had been quite a while. We talked over lunch about what to do, eventually deciding to sleep on it and decide on Monday.

Cranky went and picked up Miss Goofy from work. She got home, walked in the door, looked at me and said, "The store manager got fired this afternoon."

So we talked over dinner about what that means and what she should do to maintain her job.

It's been a long day and that's why I haven't updated until now at nearly 11 at night. It was the first chance I had. I'm going to go to bed now. I'm exhausted but hopeful tomorrow will be better.

So This Week It Was My Turn

I got to have a slightly annoying medical test done this past week. I make it sound like a treat, don't I? In any event, on Tuesday night I had a sleep study done. I'd post a really scary picture of what I looked like all hooked up to the electrodes but no. I looked in the mirror and decided I didn't want to see that ever again. So no pics.

On the plus side I was actually able to go to sleep which was a huge thing for me. I don't like sleeping in strange places, and going to sleep when people I don't know are around is not something I'm usually able to do. That said, I felt very comfortable with the nice woman from the sleep study place and was able to get a little bit of rest.

Then Music Man came and got me. I was so happy to see him. We went to the hotel room we'd rented for the rest of the morning. Yes, at a sleep study, it starts very early in the evening and ends somewhere between 3 and 4.

Here's the thing, I got the call on like Thursday to schedule. Normally that would have made me push it off for several days, but when she said she had an opening for Tuesday, I took it. No hesitation, no putting it off. Just let's do this. It's something new I'm trying. And yes, that was a horrible pun.

Oh and then on Wednesday night, we got to take our truck to have the U-joint replaced. Both of them. That was awesome. Definitely an expense we needed.

So, I'm just about ready for an exam for school on Sunday, followed by a doctor's appointment for on Friday. It's my well-woman exam, so that's something to look forward to.

But possibly the best part is that the manager of our mobile home park and or the owner of the park have lost their minds and decided that trash pick is going to be done by the park, taken to the back to be compacted and then the disposal people can come pick up the compacted stuff. So, yeah, that's happening too.

I'm thinking Ventura sounds really good. I'll just go live on the beach and drink something fruity and alcoholic all day.

I'm off to live in a fantasy world, have a great week!

Ants, Doctors, and Blistering Heat, Oh What a Fun Couple of Weeks

Music Man had two doctors appointments around our anniversary. We chose to go to the coast for the day of our anniversary, since we had a rental car, stay the night, and then go to his first appointment.

Let me start with the coast. It was so heavenly. It was only 80. That was refreshing after near 100 on our mountain. Which is hot anywhere but on our mountain that's really hot. So the coast was wonderful. We went to our favorite pizza place. We laughed. We teased each other about the tacky 70's style hotel room. We went to the dollhouse store. It was a great break in the middle of a long and exhausting term in school not to mention the stress from Music Man's injury.

On to the doctor, the day after our anniversary. He was kind of, well, I don't want to say a jerk and I don't want to call him incompetent, but he didn't look at my husband's file and he did mention the state of another patient calling her Miss _________ and then showed us her x-rays. Now, it is possible that's a fake name and phony x-rays showing a condition much worse than my husband's but I'm pretty sure it's still a HIPAA violation.

In any event, Music Man got a cortisone shot, I did not faint at the sight of the needle sticking in his knee, I did want to vomit but managed to contain myself, and for about a week he had almost no pain. He's back to having some but it's much better than it was.

We came home through the big town at the base of our mountain and decided to go to the movies and dinner. We saw Central Intelligence and it was hilarious. We enjoyed ourselves a lot.

The next day he had another doctor appointment. This one was an initial health assessment as required by our new insurance. I'm sad to say that the incredibly sweet LVN from my appointment was yelled at that morning. Not by a patient. By the Nurse Practitioner. For writing down too much information in patient charts. Apparently, it's supposed to be the Nurse Practitioner's job to get the medical history. But like I told our sweet nurse, I'd rather something I say in passing that she thinks might be important get written down. I'm not a medical professional and don't know what's important to tell the doctor or nurse but something I may say offhand, could help them with whatever I'm being seen for. So, I will be writing a letter to the doctor of the facility and the insurance company and expressing my displeasure.

In addition, the Nurse Practitioner was abrupt, rude, and loud. She wore a hearing aid and I doubt she could tell how loud she was but I was concerned other patients and staff could hear her speaking. Where is the privacy in that? We will not be scheduling when she's on again.

One day last week as Music Man was letting me know dinner was about ready, I happened to move the keyboard for my computer and discover ants under it. They were under the monitor too. So I sprayed the crud out of my desk, and hopefully took care of it. I saw a few after dinner so we sprayed some more. Music Man was very helpful and sprayed where I couldn't reach. They seem to be gone now. I hope. Although the Grumpy Old Man had a ton of them in his room the other night and didn't spray cause he didn't want to do it while the a/c was on. Something about it going all over the house. Frankly I don't care if it does, I just want the ants gone.

We've had a couple of days where it has only gotten up to the low 80's which has been very helpful to the electric bill. And to my sense of hearing. The fans going all day and the house closed up winds up hurting my ears after a while.

Well, that's all the news from the mountain. Ours isn't the one on fire right now. I'm sure it will be at some point this summer though. There's a lot of brush and a lot of stupid people.

Remember, California is in a drought, everything is ready to burn. Be careful out there.