Disaster after disaster, or just life?

Hah.

Song of the day: “Just haven’t met you yet” by Michael Bubblé. It’s been going back and forth through my head for two days now, and though the song isn’t by any means bad, I am getting a little tired of it.

So it’s been an incredibly busy couple of days, and if memory serves me right I finished the last blog with a mention of me needing to go out to bring grandpa to the hospital.

Well, we went. Arrived at the hospital and headed for the ER, as instructed by the physician in the village. Things started out fine, we identified ourselves through the security glass, got a wrist band with a name for grandpa, and a companion sticker for me and were sent through a door…to a half-full waiting room.

My first sinking sensation was short-lived since we were there for less than five minutes before grandpa’s name was called over the intercom (you have no idea as to how they can mess up foreign names, it took me a full minute of deciphering before I nudged grandpa in the right direction) and directed us to triage number 1. (That should have tipped me off, but I didn’t make the connection until much, much later.) We showed the letter or recommendation form the doctor and this wet behind the ears girl looked it over before she informed us that grandpa would be called when it was his turn.

That’s when the waiting started. Poor big brother, only one person was allowed to go inside with grandpa, so big brother spent the rest of the evening on his own. One hour passed, with grandpa and me watching the people before us passing through the proverbial cues. We didn’t start to worry until after midnight, when gradually the people who came AFTER we did were being led to the consultation rooms, while we got skipped time and again. Around one in the morning I decided to tackle the translator who appeared every hour, or so, carrying paperwork with him for the foreigners with different insurance papers waiting there.

Luckily he was a friendly guy, and when I asked, he did check if grandpa was even on the list (we had our doubts, you see). He was, and the guy (not a day over 25, if that) apologized for it taking so long. One in the morning was nothing, and since my stomach thought my throat had been cut, I finally succumbed and called big brother to beg for something to eat and drink. He came to the rescue with a donut (eeewww, but it was sugar, so what the heck) a bag of chips and a bottle of practically frozen water. *sigh* I could have fainted from the sheer bliss, and for a moment there wished I still smoked. Hah. Seriously, two years ago I would have gone through two pack waiting there. Smoking is such a wonderful thing to do when you’re waiting, and now that they have those fascinating pictures on the packages, you could actually start a collection to boot. Hah.

I don’t get that, by the way. The fact that people still smoke really doesn’t have anything to do with ignorance about what the supposed effects are. Seriously, who in this day and age hasn’t heard all the horror stories? Putting those pictures…heck, even the stupid “smoking kills” texts on it, just shows bad taste of the governments and whatnots who insist on them. It won’t help, I promise you that. The biggest regret about quitting smoking is definitely that I was never able to do this particular scenario:

Non-smoker: “This is a non-smoking area.”
Smoker: “Uh-huh. I read the sign.” Puffs on a cigarette.
Non-smoker: “Second-hand smoke kills, you know.”
Smoker: “Not reliably, it doesn’t.”

*snort* Of course I never would have had the nerve to say it, but I can hope, right. Hah.
All in all, the reason I like quit smoking is that I am no longer dependent on something so bloody expensive. Ah well.

But where was I? Right. Waiting.
Another hour passed, and I had just stepped outside for some more necessary stretches, (I’d gone out three times already) and another bite of the chips (there was a no eating and drinking sign in the waiting area. Morons!) when through the window I saw grandpa jump up at the appearance of a really grumpy looking guy in a white coat and scruffy jeans. I was already heading inside as grandpa opened the door looking around frantically.

I barely had time to gather our things at the impatient gestures of the doctor, and basically had to run after the guy who flopped behind a desk and started tapping on a computer while he asked what the problem was. His English was about as minimal as my Spanish, but we managed to make each other understood at least.

He glanced at the reference note, nodded and then said, “follow” in Spanish. We rushed after him, seriously, you’d think the guy was doing a marathon, and I was still juggling our things. Hah. In another room, gynaecology oriented, mind you, he shoved grandpa from one spot to the next, spritzed his eyes, examined them, rubbed at them, only to come to the conclusion that we had to come back on Monday because he didn’t have the right machine for it at the moment. Turns out they have to drill this small piece of metal out of grandpa’s lens. Now the metal is not the only problem, seeing as it has been in there so long, apparently, that a ring of oxidation has formed around it. *sigh* Poor grandpa.

Can’t blame him for being a tad worried, really. He often talks of the last time when he got eye surgery. He was just a boy then, and it was in the middle of WWII. He had an eye that crossed towards the center, so they had to correct the problem. He remembers that he was tied to the bed and that they operated on him, cutting through a muscle, without anesthetics. Then the bomb raid started, and they left him tied to the bed while he was wheeled to the basement. His eyes were covered, and all around him the sound of bombs coming down. Yikes.

I don’t know if I would be able to make myself go through this particular procedure with that memory in my head. Talk about scary.
Right. With grandpa half blind from the stuff the doctor had done, and carrying with us medication that is supposed to see him through the next few days. Grandpa was rightly outraged about the treatment, and it took me a solid ten minutes of joking to get him to relax a little while we headed home.

We didn’t get home until four thirty in the morning. My poor doggies were outraged and hurt. They just didn't understand why they had been locked up for so many hours, and before bed-time to boot. After their usual cacophony and greetings, it was five in the morning. Darn it. But what the hey, I set the alarm an hour later, and conked out for the night.

Yesterday…well, not a lot happened. Just a lot of busywork on my part, really. I walked tenant down. We worked in the yard for a bit, and I cooked dinner…which turned out rather nice I might add. I was on the phone with the garage, because, surprise surprise, we’re going to need a new exhaust pipe and muffler for the friggin’ Opel. Aaaargh, which brings us to today.

Yep, today was a day spent in town for me, and nope that didn’t make me happy at all.
I wouldn’t have minded sleeping in late, but we had a garage appointment and headed right down to town only fifteen minutes later than planned.
After dropping off the car we went back to the Land Rover only to discover that we were locked out of the driver’s side. Yep. The lock broke!!! I couldn’t believe it, and big brother and I messed with it for a solid fifteen minutes before we requested the aid of the mechanic of our garage, who, like us, failed to get the thing to open.
He said he could break it open for us, but then we wouldn’t be able to close the door until Monday, when he could get us a new one. *double sigh*

So we went grocery shopping, just a bit to tide us over for the next couple of weeks, crawling over the center every time. Of course then we realized that mom will need the car on Sunday, and that she can’t possibly get in that way.

Back we went, and entered to the news that the new muffler/exhaust pipe was the right one for an Opel Astra, but not the Opel Astra Merrit. Grrr. Need to drop it by on Monday too, and now drive it while it sounds like a friggin’ race car. They took an hour to take out the lock, and it was seriously busted. So either we had to go past junkyards to get a 2nd hand one, or order an expensive new one. We were gifted a list of phone numbers for local junkyards apparently there are seven big ones in Malaga, and a warning for the seventh, which is in the gypsy area. This place is where our mechanic went once, and almost go hold up for his money. Fascinating. Almost makes me want to go, just to see. Hah.

We jerry rigged the door and headed home where big brother took about an hour to figure out a proper lock for the door…and succeeded. There was supper, there was a dip in the pool, and there was a quick check of the yard before the day’s blog had to be written and I am where I am now, ready to call it a day, but still four hours away from actual bed time. Gotta edit, remember?

Ah well. This’ll do, won’t it?

Screwed up. :-/

Song of the day: “This is it” by Michael Jackson. I like the song, but I gotta put a big question mark behind it in reference to the annoying little thing called “quit smoking”. I have to admit that I am vastly disappointed by the entire thing. I mean, seriously, I’ve been hearing horror stories of how hard it is to quit, the shivers, the desperation, the resulting binges, falling off the wagon and the absolute need for one last cigarette, if I were to believe the tales, I’d be crawling the walls ‘round day two…or so I’d thought.

I was literally prepared for the worst, hoping for some dramatic story I could write here on the blog. For instance: Me, curled up in the corner of the shower, valiantly battling against temptation, crying miserably but holding on by showing grit. Me, fighting the almost insurmountable desire to lick out the dirty ashtray when I’m incapable of finding an almost burned down bud: or me, getting in snippy debates with the sibs while they try to convince me that I gotta keep my promise to myself no matter what the cost. Everything would be better than now just complaining about the complete lack of any such thing.

Honestly, what kind of epic battle is there to describe when the worst of it felt like seeing a large bag of potato chips lying on the table and not being allowed to take any of the paprika, while the classics are free for grabs. Come to think of it, that might actually be worse…or not? Hmmm. I don’t know…maybe. Hah.

I have to admit that I feel a tad slighted on the entire thing. I would have liked to be able to tell dramatic tales of conquering this so-called HUGE addiction. Like, “I had to fight it so hard that at one point I actually passed out”…but no, the worst of it was, being a little light-headed in the twentieth hour, a little bored with my hands during the course of the given day, and a little flighty in the brain on the overall…got that more often, also when I smoked, so, nothing new there, hah. Had and extra glass of cola, two coffee and a chocolate cookie extra (gasps in mock horror) but that’s about the extent of binging so far.

Like I said, severely slighted and mislead. I thought the least I was going to get from the experience was the sense of fortitude and accomplishment for having such a marvelous strength of character, grrr. In a fantasy novel this would amount to the hero being promised a dangerous trek through a maze filled with booby traps, only to find that if he goes to the right and then straight through, he’ll get there, no prob. Aaaargh. Annoying to say the least.

But enough about that, let’s get back to the issue at hand, because if I let myself, I’ll continue with stupid analogies for the entire day…gawd, the stupid things kept me up all night…the analogies, that is. Hah.

So, yeah. The past couple of days. Nothing special going on, really, just the daily things such as chores, (love the new washing machine, by the way. Spins so hard stuff is almost dry immediately when I hang it up) and writing.

Added another ten pages “A.T.O.L.” manuscript since the last time I wrote the blog, we’re getting there, got the total up to 140 now, yay. Still don’t know if it is any good, but that only time and lots of editing will tell, hah.

Considering that the day before yesterday was a totally boring day with only minor tasks throughout, yesterday I decided to start on the my own bookshelves at last, which meant, sawing wood, sanding it and then putting the simple design together today. The first one is basically done and it’s looking good, I’m thinking. It’ll be some time yet before the rest will get done, but all in all, it should look pretty darn neat in the end.

I’m thinking real wood shelving for the books and then a big wall structure of light yellow MDF for my statues and such, giving them all a proper display case. The latter will be quite a task yet, not to mention a heavy construction all in all, but considering that I’m going to be spreading it out, I don’t suppose that will be much of a problem.

Other than that, little sister did a bit more work in the bathroom, which now only needs to have a border added to the window frame and the light switch. Little brother has been attacking the spider webs with the vacuum cleaner, and seeing that the cloth coverings of the second floor banister had to be removed anyway, I threw them in the laundry now that I had the chance.

Song of the day yesterday was, “I wish I was your lover” by Enrique Iglesias, by the way. Marvelous song.

Our tenant’s exercises are going steadily still. Yesterday, for the first time since her stroke, she managed to lift her left arm up a little. We’d been working with the arm for a while now, and though, pushing at stuff, and even holding on was starting to work pretty well, she still couldn’t lift the appendage on her own…but she did it now, yay! Hah.

And I’m starting to draw a blank again. Not that this is bad, since I really should get back outside and get to work again. With a little luck, Knight II will actually keep his big trap shut (chortle) but I’m not holding my breath, hah. Gotta do something about training the giant…heck, while I’m at it, gotta do something about training the rest of the ninety-something pack, too.

Laters!

To stop, or not to stop....grrrr.

Happy New Year!!! Aren’t you just itching to see what 2010 is going to bring? *perky smile*
Well, I might be sarcastic about it, but I am curious as to the new year, not so much due to the “new year”, but more in the way of thinking back about last year, and realizing how much has changed in that time.

Song of the day: “I will survive” by Gloria Gaynor. Very appropriate, all things considered, hah.

So yeah, disaster struck the day before yesterday; the price cigarettes had gone up another few cents, passing the limit I had put myself (back in the day) just in case…so now it’s gotta happen, I’ve got to try to stop smoking, because…well, because I promised I would if it ever reached this point. Darn it!

I am basically a conscious smoker. Started when I was twenty four/three very deliberately, because, well, I wanted to, and because I simply do no believe in the ongoing crusade against cigarettes. Ya can yap to me all about statistics and whatever but I refuse to believe that tobacco is even remotely as dangerous as (for instance) car exhausts.

Sure, not smoking at all is healthier…in a world where there wasn’t a single polluted fluff in the air, but in the bigger scheme of things (i.e. engines) cars, planes and anything else with an exhaust, chemical factories (no matter how environmentally safe) nuclear power plants and all that crap out there, a cigarette would be little more than an annoying zit.
But, it’s an expensive one, so I’m afraid I’m screwed and need to quit.

42 hours, 37 minutes and 51 seconds gone (give or take a second or two) without the blessed, relaxing nicotine, and I’m…well, coping well enough, I guess. I’m having very distinct images of me, sitting back and lighting one up (sorta like someone prodding me all the time, and driving me bonkers) breathing in deeply, and doing it again, keeps popping up for some reason.
I’m a tad irritable…while yesterday I applied the technique, it is not that bad, today I’m doing the how-much-would-I-have-smoked-if-I-hadn’t-quit-and-lit-one-up-every-time-I-wanted: I’m at 37…ehm, make that 38, hah.

I don’t know if it has anything to do with the stop smoking bit, but for some reason I’m pretty tired since yesterday, even though I’m getting enough sleep. On the most part we’ve been doing only minor little projects. Three Christmas trees were put in the ground the other day, and were shored up today.

I got to dig a rather big hole (yes, I’ve found that keeping busy is rather helpful, hah) searcher for the water vein that has decided to come up on our property. It would be rather handy if we had our own water source this summer, but after digging out a 3 by 3 surface, a foot and a half deep I don’t know if it works out. We’ll have to see, I guess.

Four Cocker Spaniels got shaven yesterday by the sisters, which means that we need to do only two or three more dogs. (Oops, there went 39 imaginary cigarettes…boy are you going to read about cigarettes a lot the next few weeks.) Considering I’ve never tried to stop before, I’ve not a clue how long this is going to take. I am presuming that it’s going to be a lot worse…Oh my gawd, I just grabbed my lighter to light up the toothpick I’ve been chewing on for the past two days. Hah. Insanity. This is going to be fascinating; how bad are things going to get? Will I get more than a little nervous, snippy, crappy, downright upset? Am I going to scavenge for that last cigarette…oh wait, they’re just lying there, right in the open cabinet in the kitchen and I can take one whenever it gets to be too bad. Is it too bad yet? *thinks* Nah, I can last another hour, or so…I think.
Isn’t temptation horrid…will I manage it, I wonder? I don’t know, this morning it took me exactly forty minutes before I thought of a cigarette…drat, I did it again: 40!

Little sister and I made pie last night. One half was crumble peach, and the other half raspberry cherry, and the second pie was a whole apple pie. Even though we were missing several ingredients, what with the last minute decision to make them, but they worked out well; added raisins, some walnuts and almonds to the apple pie, just to make up for the lack of cinnamon.
What with nine people eating from it, you can imagine how long it lasted. Hah.

Got my “birthday” present in the shape of a new washing machine, yay! (Apparently, big brother has been putting a bit aside for the past year after all, and saw a sale he had to get) An eighteen-pounder that ‘ll cycle 1200 a minute during the centrifuge stage. Phew. It’s also a little smaller than the last one, so it fits perfectly on the pedestal in the corner of the courtyard.

Of course, when I was blissfully hanging almost dry laundry this afternoon, the beam of the lines broke of the pillar. Stupid thing, there I was, just barely managing to grab it before three loads worth of laundry went all over the dirty ground. Aaargh. Big brother hung the beam back up with metal wires for the time being, but it looks like I’m going to have to hang them all over again.

During the course of the past couple of days, I made a metal carousel like device for grandpa, over the new work bench, and it holds all the hammers. It worked out rather nicely, though I am not sure if it’s going to stay there, simply because I have no idea if it is at all handy. It seemed like a good idea when I thought of it, but we’ll have to see.

Mom finished her new quilt for me, and it is now on my bed. Patchwork always works well, and the orange/yellow colors always work well. Had a friend come over for a visit the other day, and that was a fun change in the usual routine. The dogs definitely took advantage of relatively naïve hands, that didn’t realize their sneaky technique of getting more attention.

42…jeez, even in my least frugal days I didn’t smoke that many in a day. Hah.

Wrote a total of twelve more pages for the book, bringing the total up to more than 130. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Hah.

I’ve been having a lot of déjà vu again of late, which is definitely freaking me out. I’d be in the middle of some action, like working in the carport at the new table that is just barely finished, and then getting this chill over your back when you just KNOW that you’ve done the action before, right there in that spot with the conversations going on around you, and the people, the light, everything exactly the same. FREAKY, I tell ya.

Well, I’m definitely behind today. I really should be writing on the book right now, but…I’m distracted and…well, you know why. Hah. Heck, last night I actually felt a tad light headed, and thinking of it, I’m experiencing it a bit now too. Grrr. Feels like being high, which I don’t like at all, darn it.

The worst of it is that now it seems as if I did some sort of whacky New Year’s resolution, I DIDN’T, darn it…the price just went over what I had set as a limit a few days before the year change.
So don’t come with good luck with the New Years resolutions please, the one hasn’t got anything to do with the other and I quit at midnight on the 29th, thank you very much. I HATE New Year’s resolutions. I don’t need a special day and some big party to make me change something.

Boy, I’m sounding a bit snarky, don’t I…like I told the sibs, this experience is probably going to be worse for those around me than me. You’ll see, soon I’ll be holding folks’ offers for a cigarette off with; “No no, I’m fine,” while they beg, “No really, take one…a drag then. Inhale, deeply, pulleeeease!” Images like that just choke me up. Hah.

But seriously, let’s see the next couple of days as an adventure and try to find out if I can go against the wonderful addiction called smoking, or if I’m going to give in and inhale that tobacco once more…Gawd, I really, really want to, hah.
The theory is, as long as I don’t say, I CAN’T take one (leave the option open that if I can’t take it, I can just light one up), I won’t HAVE to take one. Hah. Only time will tell if it works, I guess. *sigh*

Seeya later and wish me luck.
#43. Crap!