Identify what is most important )0( Eliminate everything else
The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Dr. Paul Farmer
The suffering of others is not alleviated when no one knows about it.
There is no one right way to live. Daniel Quinn Ishmael
The only thing that you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right sort of people.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut

Saturday, December 24, 2016

life is wacky

I am not much of a holiday person lo these past several decades.  Lots of reasons, many of which other folk know, but in the spirit of not being a holiday person, they, those reasons, are best left behind and I am trying (yes, a real thing) to leave all that crap behind.

Time, huh?

So, anyway, yesterday I kicked ass.  It was my own ass, but an ass nevertheless.

In the last move, I was still clinging to some safety issues and I chose to notify every need-to-know person, company, entity of the move personally.  I made a lot of phone calls and fielded almost as many inquiries about why I did not simply create a change of address with the postal service.  Well, if you are still stuck on something as ridiculous as personal safety, you do not do that post office notice.

It really does work well, but my auto license plate tag renewal fell through one of the abysses and, on the way home from work and the library Thursday night, I found myself on the receiving end of many brightly colored flashing lights, a huge SUV and a lively driver who was not St. Nick, but one of our village's cops.

He wished me a happy holiday and asked if I knew why he had pulled me over.  Of course, I had not a clue and confessed to the same.  You have to confess when dealing with cops.  I think it might even be an actual law when you get pulled over.

He told me that I had expired tags and then asked to see my driver's license and proof of insurance.  Well, I help myself properly, but inwardly I was thinking, 'well, I have this part solid'.

Driver's license, sure.  Insurance card, nope.

He let me go with two papers that suggested that it would be nice if I could, should I feel like it, you know, get that registration updated and find something that proved that I was properly insured, vehicle-wise.

I detoured to fetch my meds from the pharmacy, went home, made a wee martini (have to confess that it was not we) and went online to do both of those things.  The insurance was easy.  Apparently I chose to go paperless when I renewed my car and renter's insurance last March and, also apparently, when you do that, the insurance company does not send you a card/proof/plastic thing.  If you want, you can print a card or request to have one specially sent, neither of which I did.

At least it is a weird kind of proof that I did not need proof, as I have not had the pleasure of being stopped by cops in a couple of years, so ten months of not having a physical proof of insurance did me no harm or inconvenience.

I had the insurance card image sent to my phone, and I loaded it onto my Hello Kitty flash drive.  Covered.

When I went to the DMV web site, I discovered that I could not renew my auto license tags on-line because it was one of the alternate years when you have to present yourself and your vehicle in person to have an emission test to make sure that you are not polluting the planet any more than necessary and I suspect that they, the testers, are also covertly assessing the drivers as well.

There are no sites for emission testing open at night.  In fact, a few years ago the state decided that having their own emission testing sites was too expensive and too stressful having to deal with drivers in person, and in their wisdom they farmed out testing equipment to car dealers, which also earns the dealers some kind of income.  Whilst that has not saved the state any money, at least they do not have to deal with actual in-person people.

I did everything I could on-line, including the option to receive both e-mail and text reminders when any of that stuff is due for something.  Then, yesterday I drove to one of the car dealer testing sites, had the car tested.  It passed and for a mere ten dollar/US counter fee, was able to have the registration process completed.  Except that the car guys would not accept the fee from me, which was nice.

I then drove to the police station where they were amazed that I got it all done in one day, given the wonkiness of hours of business due to the holidays and all.  Oh, the reason I had to have the insurance information on my phone is that the library was closed yesterday.  An especially long weekend off for all of them, which, of course, they deserve because they are so nice about accepting my huge overdue fines.  Yes, I am working on that, too.

A nice conversation, some show-and-tell with the coppers, some noodling around on their computers and I am fine.  The tickets they gave me had to be completed withing fifteen days, so managing all that in less than twelve hours had me all chuffed.  And, rightfully so.

Even though I am, well, not exactly broke, my funds are cramped because I went bat-shit crazy with gifts for everyone, I treated myself to dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant.  Whilst there, it snowed, so I walked next door to the grocery store and stocked up on comfort food so that I do not have to leave my house for the next week.

I did by enough healthy and reasonable food, but I also bought three kinds of tea, three kinds of cookies to have with them...no playing favorites here.  And, now I am comfortably ensconced in my properly tarped and carpeted little home.

But, this is where the wacky stuff comes in.

In no particular order:

This village is like a small town, a really small town, like a really small town where even if you are not from here, you may have just gone ahead and been born and grown up here.
Two examples are that a month ago I had, actually one of my big, fat fingers missed the lock button on the car lock thing and instead opened the trunk.  That stayed open for five days and drained the car battery enough to keep that little light on, but no enough to start the car.  A long story short is that I decided to do what every old babe does...fix it myself.  Turns out no amount of will power will fix a dead battery, car or otherwise.  I called the hardware store to buy one of those things that you plug in, in the house, and get it all charged up for when you drain your car battery.  They hardware guy offered to bring it to my house and then use his car to charge mine.  I declined, mostly because it was weird to have a stranger offer that, and then mentioned that I was going to call R, the guy who owns the gas/service station a block from my house.  I called R and whilst I was waiting for him to come and charge me up, the hardware guy called to tell me that he found exactly what I wanted.  Great.  Cool.  But, I asked, had he known my telephone number.  When he found that piece of equipment, after our phone call, he called R and asked for my phone number.
This sort of thing most likely goes on all the time in all kinds of places, but it has never happened to me.

The cop that pulled me over on Thursday evening was the same one who followed me into the hospital parking lot where I had gone to take physical therapy after my heart operation.  The reason he followed me was to let me know that one of my car tires was low on air.

 Whilst checking out at the grocery store last evening (post Chinese dinner) I was embraced by the woman checking out in front of me.  She attended the holiday party held by the place I work/volunteer because her son was playing in the jazz quartet entertaining us.  I talked to her because, well, because she was there alone and she confided in me about how she was experiencing some estrangement from her son because her soon-to-be ex-husband was being a ass hat and trying to turn their children against her because she refused to obey him.  Turns out he has been abusive and here we are, strangers, me chatting with her and her somehow knowing that in the midst of everything she was experiencing and how vulnerable she was, she had found someone who not only would listen to her, but could be helpful.

We really have to trust our gut feelings, that intuition that does its best to help us find or meet or discover exactly what we need.

I really should have been more frugal and not driven to treat myself to Chinese dinner.  Not only was it so good, like a dream full of Asian goodness, but doing so taught me two things.  The first is that whilst I had spent all of the money I saved for the holidays, still had enough to pay all my bills and rent to the end of January, I ignored that bit of good sense and had a wonderful meal and had the blessing of running into that woman from the party.  She shared that she worked in that little strip mall and invited me to come visit her at work.  She invited me four times.  I suspect that she really means the invitation and that I will do exactly that and also that I may have found/re-found someone who is going to be a friend of the best kind.

Trying my best and accepting that trying is a legitimate and valuable behavior and attitude is becoming more helpful and supportive the more I acknowledge the effort.  I can keep heart and keep on trying.

All I use Facebook for is to play bubble and mah jong games and as a touchstone with some of my friends and a very few family members.  However, today one of my friends re posted something that I really liked, and I rarely pay attention to all of that self-esteem happy thoughts claptrap stuff.

Set some goals
Stay quiet about them
Smash the shit out of them
Clap for your damn self

Like totally best wishes to all my friends, some of my family and, gosh, just be good to yourselves first and clap your damn ass off for your damn self.


4 comments:

  1. Sounds like you've landed in a wonderful place where everyone is nice and cares about each other. Maybe it is time to relax a little and trust your gut and make new friends.

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  2. Thanks. I think that you are finding your way and some measure of wonderfulness yourself.

    A good new year for all of us.

    Love,
    Juds

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  3. J, I agree with Rob. It sounds like you may have a found yourself a new friend. I hope so anyway.

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  4. Juds this is the first time I have ever read your blog, and am enjoying every word. You have a way with words! I wasn't on DTE in the early years to know anything about your past, so you have always been a bit of a mystery to me. Your past is yours alone, but I will take a long distance interest in your present and future!
    Hugs
    Gina aka georgiegirl

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