Princess Loser

Hi, I'm Janet. This is my journal. Most of the entries in here are open. In fact, most are cross-posts from my blogs. If an entry is NOT a cross-post, then it might be friends only. This leads to the whole friending issue.

Here's the deal:

• If I know you in real life (i.e. family, schools I've gone to, church), then we can't be friends on here. I'm sorry, but there are 2 places in my life where I have this policy (Twitter & here).
• If you've ever stalked me (i.e. the infamous Canadian), then you're not welcome here.
• If you and I have talked online before, let me know.
• If you and I have interests in common, let me know.
• If you will not forgive the occasional ramble about things like vampires, then chances are you won't like it here.

What do I need to know?

1. Your name/alias
2. A little about you.
3. If I know you from somewhere

Okay, I think that's it. Oh, and if you're just looking for icons/captures/fanart, go to likesototallyme . This is where I mainly talk about the less glamorous stuff.

Oh, and since I mentioned Twitter, I thought I'd pimp out those accounts:

I have one for my personal tweets: @janersm
I also have one for my graphics related stuff (i.e. stuff that goes in my graphics journal, screen caps site): @likesototallyme
I have another for Urban Sunrise: @urbansunrisemb (3ndboss , whisperintheway , skankzila , yakusoku , mrsmedcalf also have access to this account, since they are on staff)

If you don't know me, but want to friend me anyway, you should know:

1. I have a somewhat turbulent relationship with my parents.  I love them, but we have issues.
2. I have a fair amount of health problems of both the physical and mental varieties.  I can mock these...you cannot.
3. I might come off as brash--I'm not necessarily trying to be rude.  I have a temper.  I have a short fuse.  I have anger issues, and I've pretty much repressed them all my life.  I'm trying to express myself in healthy manners, but 20+ years of bad habits can't be cured overnight.
4. I am a fangirl.
5. I will plug my sites whenever and wherever I pick.  Since it's my journal, I'm allowed that.

If you like me, join the fanlisting.  If you don't, then you probably shouldn't be here.  ;)

Other social network type places to look for me at:

• Amazon Profile
• Amazon Wishlist
• BlogHer
• CoComment
• DailyBooth
• DandyID
• DeviantArt
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Formspring
• Goodreads
• Hi, I'm
• Last.fm
• Posterous
• Tumblr
• WeHeartIt

 

Losing someone you love is one of the hardest things a person can go through. It isn’t easy. It shouldn’t be easy. It isn’t fun. It’s not something that you jump for joy over, and there’s a reason for that. It is an end. And endings are scary. The uneasiness associated with death is logical, as are fears of the dark, deadly creatures, heights, and other things that make us feel so terrified.

But death isn’t the worst part. I think the grieving may be worse. It always has been. As a person who feels guilt over just about every unfortunate occurence, grief and the guilt associated with it have always been hardest for me. Well, that and the asthma attacks that I have from crying.

So, now I’m grieving. Grieving a loss that I expected, but didn’t. One I should have prepared for, but refused to. One I had convinced myself would never come.

Xander died. Actually, he was euthanized this afternoon. He wouldn’t have died today except that my dad and a vet decided that this was the best thing for him. I’m not mad at them. Like I said, I take on the guilt over everything. I’m mad at me.

On Saturday morning, he woke up and he was so lethargic. My perky little boy, who never acted his age or his species, was tired. And I was worried. I knew he wasn’t feeling well. He wouldn’t eat at first and he was so cold. So, I covered him up in a blanket, held him, and fed him some peanut butter. I figured that if PlumpyNut could save the lives of starving children that peanut butter could save my baby’s life. And it seemed like it worked for a while. He wouldn’t eat any of the dog food. He would drink any water, but he acted like he felt a little btter.

Before I fell asleep last night, I picked him up and curled warm, clean blankets around us and held him while we slept. When Gretchen woke us up at about 6:45 this morning, his back legs weren’t working. I thought they might just be “asleep” from being curled. They never started working, so my dad and I took him to the vet.

Because it was Easter, our family vet wasn’t open, so we had to go to the local emergency clinic. While we were there, I continued to hold him as much as I could. I only took a couple of breaks. I kept nuzzling him and telling him it would be okay. I thought it would be.

The vet tech gave me some hope by saying he had reflexes in his legs, but the veterinarian dashed those when he said they were just reflexes and that he was paralyzed. He started trying to explain it to me, which I guess he felt he needed to do. My dad asked what they could do. When they discussed how we didn’t have much money, the vet and my dad had a bit of a silent understanding that they were going to euthanize him. Somehow, I wouldn’t let myself understand that agreement, so when the secretary came in and had my dad sign a body disposal form, I pretty much started screaming. Xander go stressed out, and the secretary told me to calm down so that he wouldn’t be so stressed. I tried, but I felt like someone was ripping my heart from my body. It hurt so much. I just cradled him and cried as quietly as I could.

They offered me the chance to be with him when the drugs were administered. I couldn’t do that, and that made me feel worse. I couldn’t remember him in that kind of writhing state that euthanasia causes, but I felt so bad making him die alone. I still do. I keep seeing his eyes as the tech took him away. He didn’t seem to understand, and I feel like I just committed the worst sin a human being can ever commit. I let them kill my baby, and I don’t know how to get over that. I was supposed to love him and protect him, and I didn’t protect him. I couldn’t trade his life for mine, and I wanted to so badly. I wanted to save him so much.

I just can’t imagine my life without him. We’ve had him since 2001. He was here when I was going nuts and had no one outside of my family to talk to. He was here when I felt better physically, and he protected me when I felt worse. He was with my mom when she tried to kill herself, and he tried to keep the paramedics from hurting her that day. He’s the one who always would sit with me during the storms, no matter what. He always tried to perk me up, and he was the only one who really could sometimes. He made me smile more than anyone else, and now I’m crying so much. I’m crying and reacting the way that I did when Granddaddy died. I felt like I lost everything that day. And now I feel worse.

I just don’t know what to do.

I want him to come home. I want to hold him. I want to pet him. I want him to be here so much, and he’s not. And I just don’t know how I’m supposed to move past this. I’ve lost pets before, but this is so hard. It’s so painful, and I don’t know how to deal.

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

I’m supposed to get my laptop fixed on Friday. For once in my life, I guess I’m going to have to treat Good Friday as if it actually is good. I hope that the technician is able to fix it, but I’m not going to assume that it will be that easy. Experience has taught me not to expect things to happen as quickly or easily as one would hope. That is especially true of repairs.

In the meantime, my dad is being nice about letting me have time on his computer. I guess he’s become accustomed to my laptop deciding to take a sabbatical. I guess that that makes sense.

My mom is being extremely difficult lately. I know that that has become the norm lately, but it seems like she is getting worse. And it seems like it is about the weirdest things.

When my dad and I came home from the emergency room on Wednesday, she decided that because I wasn’t admitted to the hospital, told what was wrong with my digestive system, and wasn’t dead that I was feeling well enough to be bossed around. She felt that it was appropriate to start having me get her things within five minutes of coming in. If she hadn’t just heard that I was anemic and that my blood pressure was low, then I could probably give her a break on that, but she’d heard both things and she just didn’t care. Actually, she seemed a bit pissed that I went to the hospital instead of her.

When my parents went to the grocery store last week, I had put chips and chocolate (in that order) on my list, which is normal. My dad understood that because the two things were on separate lines, I wanted chocolate and chips. My mother, on the other hand, decided that I wanted chocolate chips. When they got home and I asked why they had gotten 2 bags of chocolate chips, she told me that chocolate chips had been on my list. I knew that wasn’t possible. (I had written the list out twice because I felt the first time I was a bit too rude about what I didn’t want [i.e. food I can't eat] them to get for me.) My dad still had the list, so I got it from him and I showed it to my mom. I asked her where on the list had I asked for chocolate chips. She realized that she’d made a mistake. Of course, she had already taken the “fun” step of accusing me of trying to make her look bad. That wasn’t the case. She told me that I was lying and that I was definitely trying to make her look incompetent.  She says that anytime anyone calls her on being wrong.  She thinks that it is my mission in life (and my dad’s mission in life) to make her miserable and make her seem like she doesn’t have a clue about what is going on.  I guess she thinks we enjoy giving her a hard time.

The next day, she asked if she was going to be getting my bank statements and bills and access to my accounts, so that she could get my finances “all straightened out”. She had decided that she was going to do this about a week before, after she’d told my dad that I had overdrawn my bank account again. (I hadn’t.) She’d come home from the grocery store that week to tell me that I was being irresponsible with the money in the account and that it was all due to being bipolar. She felt that, though she has a tendency to spend money as easy as (or easier than) me, she was the person who should be in charge of the accounts. At first, I had agreed, but that was only after she’d basically forced me to the brink of tears. By last Friday, though, I’d decided that I didn’t like that idea and I didn’t like how the “agreement” had been reached. When I told her, she said, “Your father told me that you would never let me do that.” I replied, “Well, I guess he knows me better than you do.” That pissed her off. She said, “I don’t know how.” I told her that dad and I had gotten a bit closer lately. She pointed out all the things that she had done for me in my life, and that my dad was always too busy for me. Basically, she was trying to use my insecurities with my dad against me. When she realized that that wasn’t going to work, she told me that she expected them to get the $200 per month that I owed them, even if I couldn’t pay any other bill or became overdrawn. And she seemed to think that I would definitely become overdrawn without her.

I realized about then that my mom has definitely been using me a lot more than I thought she did. I don’t know if she intentionally does it or if it’s just a “happy consequence” of the stuff I went through as a kid. I guess I’ve become so dependent on her for love and approval that I’ve given away my sense of personhood. The reason that I feel unappreciated and like a slave in my own house is probably that on some level, she doesn’t appreciate me and she does think of me more as a slave than as a daughter. And that’s depressing. I practically worshipped her for the majority of my life, and I feel like she never really valued me. Maybe I’ve let people step all over me my whole life because I just don’t feel like I deserve a real say in things.

Oh, I’m considering moving the posts from Hyperaware and Blah Blah Biddy Blah onto this domain. I’ve got a poll on the Facebook page for fuzzypinkslippers.com. If you could vote on it, I would appreciate it. I think it would be easier on and cheaper for me to combine them, but I want to know what other people think. Feel free to comment there or here about what you think about the possible combination.

Now, I’m about to talk about some stuff that might be gross for some folks, so don’t look if you’re squeamish.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

I’m having to have my laptop repaired again.  Guess what the repair is for?  If you guessed motherboard, then you obviously know my laptop better than the guy at tech support.  He told me that it had the motherboard replaced once and the only other repairs that were done were the palm rest and the LCD.  Um, no.  It has only been repaired onsite (meaning at my home or at Nana’s house) for those issues, but when it has gone to the depot, it has had all kinds of stuff replaced.  Honestly, it’s got more new parts than all of the plastic surgery addicts of Beverly Hills combined.  The constant repairing led to me submitting a question to WHNT about my state’s lemon law.  I’m hoping it gets picked/answered.  This is what I submitted:

I purchased a computer about 3 years ago from Dell and almost a year after I purchased it, it had a motherboard failure. Since then, there have been about 4 more motherboard failures plus many other repairs. The laptop is being repaired about every 3-4 months. It’s become really frustrating and I feel like my laptop is a lemon. Would it be covered under the lemon law? Or does that only apply to certain products? If it is covered, what would I need to do? I would really like to be able to get my geek on without contacting tech support so much.

So, maybe they’ll pick it.  Keep your fingers crossed.

In other lemon-related news, I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon.  Before I can get my GI referral, I have to jump through just a few more hoops.  Namely, I have to have my Amylase, CMP (which was done at the ER), Lipase, and Lipid levels checked, as well as an abdominal ultrasound, 2 urine tests, and 4 (this is gross) stool tests.  I have a feeling that insurance will kick the CMP when I go for it, because it was just checked less than a week ago.  The other stuff, they will probably allow.  The family doctor apologized to me yesterday when he was doing the exam.  I made sure to yelp, scream, and holler when he would hit certain spots–something I have finally learned to do.  I was surprised when he said he was sorry for hurting me.  His attending came in and repeated the exam.  She also was somewhat apologetic.  (Maybe because I had been mentioning the pain and the issues somewhat persistently since I started to go to that clinic.)

When the nurse did my vitals, my blood pressure was doing its fun bottoming out thing.  The top number was either 122 or 127 (one was for BP and one was for pulse), but the lower number was 53.  It was kind of funny that it was so low because the nurse checking me in had just asked me if I was on blood pressure medicine about a second before the number popped up.  I think that, because of my weight, she was expecting it to be super-high.  She does not know how my body likes to operate.  She and the doctors also didn’t seem to realize that the constant up and down, including laying back and raising back up was making me nearly pass out.  I wanted to tell them, but when I would get so dizzy and light-headed, I couldn’t exactly think straight enough to get my point across.

When the nurse checked my weight, it almost looked like she was going to go with 298, but she decided to go up to the 300 range and settled on 312.  The scale seemed like it “thought” I was closer to the 298, but she went with 312.  Don’t know why.   After she went with 312, she made sure to announce it vocally, which is something I hate.  I understand if she thinks that I need to know the number, but believe it or not, I can read a scale well enough to tell what my weight is.  I don’t like having the whole world hear it, though.  Anyway, if it is at 298, then it has hit a new low.  If it is at 312, it may be one of the lower numbers for their scales.

I had to describe what was wrong to her, and, wouldn’t you know, she tried to convince me that I could be pregnant.  When I told her that it wasn’t possible, she gave me a look of disbelief.  Yeah, I know, I’m going in complaining of nausea and pain, among other things, and I’m 28 and on Medicaid, but I’m not an effing stereotype.  It is, as far as I know, impossible to get pregnant without having Miss Egg introduced to Mr. Sperm.  I’m pretty sure that I would know if I had had sex with someone.  I guess she thought I would be too ashamed to mention it, or something.  God, I hope that if I had sex and got pregnant or thought I was pregnant that I wouldn’t be too ashamed to tell a nurse about it.  I may be shy and hesitant about talking about certain things, but I hope that wouldn’t be one of them.

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

Oh, Chrome, I love thee, but you really need to get your shit together on some things.

One major thing that bothers me is that you don’t know how to spell certain words.  It may seem like a small thing to have an issue with, and I guess that if you don’t use those words that it wouldn’t be a big deal.  Of course, people with blogs, i.e. me, might actually need to use those words, so you need to learn them.

One of the words you don’t know is rheumatologist.  Every single time I talk about mine, you throw up that ugly red squiggle.  It’s quite annoying because I know that I’ve spelled the word correctly.

Another is gastroenterologist.  Again, I know I’ve spelled it right, but the dreaded red squiggle comes up and has me doubting my ability to spell.  I don’t like doubting that ability.

Now, while I don’t like the dude, I also find it unacceptable that the annoying Prick Rick Santorum’s last name always triggers a squiggle.  I know that he’s a jerk and that he doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged, but he is (technically) an important figure in current events.  It would make sense if his last name were added to your dictionary.

Of course, I know how to add the names to the dictionary, but I shouldn’t have to.  These are words that could be used by just about anyone, except maybe Santorum, who makes it a point to tell us how much he hates science and men.  These are words that some smartypants that works with the Chrome project should add to the dictionary.

P.S. – It’s quite odd that you can’t get real words like rheumatologist and gastroenterologist into your dictionary, but pseudo-word smartypants is there.  Clearly, you have your priorities totally screwed up.

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

I finally got up the nerve to call my family doctor’s office for a referral to a new GI.  I couldn’t get the referral or even a promise of a referral by just calling.  I hadn’t seen the doctor there since September, though I did get blood drawn a few months ago for him or her, so they can’t just give out a referral.  (I don’t even know the gender of my current family doctor.)

It’s a sound policy.  I know it is important that they have up-to-date records on anyone they send to see another doctor, but it is also frustrating.  I’ve been a GI patient since my early (maybe even pre-) teens.  I have reflux.  I have things that make reflux seem like a cake walk.  It should be fairly simple to just get an appointment with a gastroenterologist.

But it isn’t.

Of course, I should have been able to see the doctor who sent me to have my gallbladder removed at 13.  I should have been able to see him, but stupid insurance makes it impossible.  Have I mentioned lately how much I detest the American health care system?

Honestly, though, I think I’m a little glad that I won’t be seeing him.  I found his custody case versus his ex-wife online, because sometimes I randomly Google people that I’m about to see, and it was horrible.  I know that divorce and custody cases bring out the absolute worst in humanity, but this made the usual “acrimonious case” look like a cupcake dipped in sprinkles, love, frosting, peace, syrup, teddy bears, puppies, and all the sweetness and goodness in the world.  I mean, it was horrible!  It made me kind of nervous, but I figured I could compartmentalize it the same way that I compartmentalize my therapist’s membership in the local roller derby team.  Now I don’t have to try to do that, I guess.

So, now I haven an unexpected doctor’s appointment this week (actually, this afternoon) so that I can see a specialist.  Fun, fun.  Maybe I’ll at least get the results from that old blood work.

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

Right around Christmas, I made the decision to go to a privately-run (through Humana) version of Medicare. It’s basically Medicare that has been HMO’d. Some doctors don’t accept it. Some do. I never thought that making the decision to go with them would end up really impacting my care in a negative way. I just needed a way to see doctors without getting that judgmental, anti-Medicaid look that I would get so often. I also needed dental insurance, which the Humana offered. Well, today, I learned what my decision could have caused me.

Today was my appointment with my gastroenterologist. This is the doctor who I’ve seen since my gallbladder “died” when I was thirteen. He was the only one who believed me on that. I always knew that he had my back. I knew that he wouldn’t really let me down.

I was wrong.

He let me down. Actually, his billing people did. When I showed up for my long-needed appointment, I was told that they didn’t accept Humana and that I would have to leave. I’ve had doctors tell me that they didn’t take an insurance I had, usually with the Medicaid or when I was younger with PPO and HMO coverage, but I have never had one tell me that they didn’t take my insurance and that (because they didn’t take it) that I would have to leave.

I left, in tears. They had given me two phone numbers for doctors, but I know what the wait is for new patients to see specialists. And I felt hopeless and sick. I was in pain. I was nauseated. I felt weak, and I knew that, at the rate I was going, I might not make it to that appointment. And I told my dad that I would be better off going to the ER.

My dad took me to the ER. Even though I was going in the afternoon, when they weren’t super-busy, I knew it could be a long wait before I saw a doctor. Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long. It was about twenty minutes until the triage nurse saw me. When she got through doing her part, she rushed me back to a monitored bed. She was worried because when she had done my vitals, my pulse was at 146. I didn’t feel woozy or anything. I was too busy concentrating on the stomach pain and nausea and overall crappy feeling. My blood pressure was 146 over 86, which basically meant that I was in a good deal of pain. When I got back to the room, my pulse dropped the longer I stayed seated. When I was laying back, my pulse ranged from the 80′s to around 106. When I would sit up, it would go between 115 and 125. When I would stand, it would go up higher. The nurses in the ER didn’t really know what to do with me, so they had me wait until the doctor “examined” me. He ordered some blood work and a urine test. While I waited for the results, he had the nurse put in an IV fluid drip and administer some Morphine and anti-nausea medicine.

The nausea medicine helped long before the morphine did. Of course, what the morphine did was a little more sinister, in the long-run. At first, it felt pretty good, with the pain lessening and my brain feeling a little giddy. (I believe my exact words to my dad were, while giggling, “there are fireworks going off in my head.” That could have been dehyrdration, though, because I can seem extremely high or drunk when I’m just really dehydrated.) About a half an hour after the drugs were administered, I felt like someone was trying to cause my chest and upper abdomen to explode. I was having to actively remind myself to breathe. My blood pressure had gone from being in the 140/80 area to being 85/35. It was checked again, after more fluids had gotten into my system, and had gone to 91/58. The top number continued to increase to a relatively normal number. The bottom number never got over 60 again and had dropped back to about 36 right before I was officially sent home. (The top number was about 114 when I was discharged.)

The doctor said I was a little anemic. The nurse had said the same thing, but had asked if I had ever had to have blood for my anemia before, so I was a bit freaked out. (My anemia can get pretty severe, but I’ve never had a transfusion before.) He said I wasn’t really dehydrated, though the nurse said I was and his ordering of fluids kind of indicated that he thought I was, as well. The nurse had said that they had been discussing giving me another thing of fluids, but apparently he decided against that. She checked my pulse after the bad of fluids and it was now only maxing out in the 120′s. So, I think that the fluids helped that a little.

I’m supposed to take 2mg of Imodium for my ongoing abdominal issues. I’m also supposed to get an appointment with a local GI doctor–one who takes my insurance. I have a feeling that, in the mean time, I should start taking iron again. Or at least get some better quality multi-vitamins to counteract the anemia.

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

About two and a half years ago, around the time of my mom’s first broken ankle, I had some wrist pain. The pain ended up being a type of tendinitis that was actually in my thumb.  I had to wear a funky little splint that kept my thumb straight and immobilized.  It got better pretty quickly after the splinting.  I had almost forgotten about how bad it was until the other day.

I was moving my laptop and the “desk” (a piece of shelving) I use for it off of my lap to get my mom some water when it happened.  I picked them up and felt that familiar tear-like sensation.  The first few times that I had the sensation, it didn’t hurt.  I remembered that the sensation would eventually become painful around the time that I was trying to check my thumb for other creaking and cracking noises.  Unfortunately, checking for the noises only caused the pain to come on much more quickly.  So, I’m going to have to remember how I did things sans thumb back in 2009.  I’m also, probably, going to have to take a couple of tramadol to get through the pain, which will mark the first time that I’ve taken any since the neurologist suggested I go off of them.

I also need to find that stupid splint, so that I can help it heal a little better.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to lull the tendinitis back to sleep without having to make an appointment with the orthopedist.  Actually, to get to see the hand specialist from the TOC again, I’d probably have to make an appointment with the family doctor, get my hand/wrist scanned, have that doctor say that he/she didn’t know what was causing the swelling that was visible on the scan, get the referral to see the orthopedist, and wait the two or more weeks for an appointment spot to open up with that doctor.  So, I really hope I can ease the pain on my own, because I don’t want to have to wait longer than necessary for it to get better.

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

I know that I’ve mentioned my stomach/gastrointestinal issues on here.  Even though they are a daily issue for me, I try not to discuss them here because, well, I feel grossed out discussing them.  I kept trying to ignore them and not call the gastroenterologist.  I didn’t want to deal with whatever was making me sick, and part of the reason is that I also feel disgusted by them when talking to doctors and nurses.  It was easier to ignore the need for the doctor and continue being sick than it was for me to admit that I really needed to see someone.

I think the problem shifted from not a priority to a major priority when my mom, who doesn’t really notice what’s going on with me, pointed out that I had quit eating.  I was eating some, but the amount had dwindled down to the point where my parents didn’t have to get me anything other than the junk food that was keeping my calorie intake high enough to function without having to down any real meals.  And, though I had been telling people for months (and, for some, years) that I had cut out healthier food because that food made me hurt worse, I hadn’t realized just how sensitive my system was getting.

After my mom pointed out my lack of eating, I tried to eat things.  Anything I swallowed, whether it was water, soup, pasta, or anything that shouldn’t cause a person pain, was making me hurt so much that I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry for days on end.  The nausea was getting worse, too.  And I realized that I had been vomiting more often than usual.  (Since having gastric bypass surgery, I’ve thrown up more times than I had prior to the surgery–even when I was just drinking water or eating something small.)

So, after a long, long, long time of stalling on calling the doctor, I finally made the call this morning.  The first available with my doctor is the 28th of this month, not long of a wait for this office.  The receptionist told me that if I needed to be seen any sooner that I should call them and they would get me into see someone at the clinic as soon as possible.  I almost asked for the next available with any doctor, but I think I’d feel more comfortable being examined by a doctor who has known me since I was in middle school than one I have never met before–or one that I’ve met once or twice during an emergency appointment.  But, if I start feeling any worse, I will call them to get worked in.

Hopefully, it won’t be long before I figure out what’s going on and get it fixed.

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.

At the end of February, the house insurance expired. We haven’t been able to get any new insurance because of the roof damage that was sustained in the April 27th tornadoes; damage that, even with a check from our old insurance company, we can’t afford to have fixed. So, with severe weather season already here, I’m constantly worried about the possibility that some storm will damage the house and we’ll be left homeless. Of course, when it isn’t stormy, I’m worried about other things damaging up the house.

The roof and lack of insurance isn’t the only issue. About five years ago, our (at the time) eight-year old microwave decided to die. (It now functions as the “bread box” and sometimes the place where we put potato chips and candy.) The microwave we now use is one that is around the same age as me. It was in this house when I used to visit Mamama and Dadada in the eighties and very early nineties. It doesn’t really work that well; if you want to cook something that should take about 30 seconds, it will usually need at least 2 minutes.

The plumbing is a hot mess, as well. The toilets in both bathrooms are basically on life support. My father’s bathroom’s toilet just has problems getting enough water into the tank. The one in my bathroom (the bathroom I share with my mom) doesn’t pull any water into the tank and has trouble flushing, even when sufficient water is poured into the tank via a bucket that we keep under the shower in the bathroom to catch the constant drip. The sinks all drip constantly.

The central air conditioner hasn’t actually worked since the nineties. Luckily, the heating unit of it works still. But the air conditioner, something that is a necessity in this sub-tropical part of the world, doesn’t. I remember, as a kid, the repairman used to come out to fix it at least once every year. My parents gave up having it fixed after Dadada died in 1996. We started relying on window air-conditioners, which have also been a pain. (There’s the one in my bedroom that caused my wall and floor to get soaked, leading to a mildew and mold problem in there.)

We used to store food in this huge standing freezer in the laundry room. It died around April of last year, too. It was about as old as the house, around thirty-five, so I guess it was its time.

The wiring in the house is another fun little thing we deal with regularly. There are some lights that blow regularly, like the one in my bathroom. We try to use the energy saving bulbs now, which usually take more time to blow than the regular light bulbs we used to use. Of course, they still blow aftter a few months.

Let’s see, what else is wrong?

Oh, yes. The stove has had at least one eye on it that won’t work since the year that we got it. We’ve been using the oven part of that stove fairly regularly until this week, when it decided that it was not going to work properly anymore. Apparently, the thermostat on it has been fried, which led to me nearly burning down the house twice–Thursday and Friday nights. So, now we’re reliant on that old microwave, until it breaks.

It would be nice if all of this stuff could be fixed, but I don’t know how that would ever be done. It is even more of an impossibility when the lawn is taken into account. It is already just at the “legal limit” set by the city of Huntsville, so we’re going to have to find someone to mow it on the cheap.

Life is never easy, is it?

Mirrored from fuzzypinkslippers.com.