Stupid is stupid does.

Song of the day: “Thank God I’m a country boy” by John Denver, of course.

Another busy couple of days, naturally. What else is new, right? That seems to be par for the course this summer.

Yesterday was an official workday for big brother and me. The temps weren’t as pleasant as the other day. The Mercury hit the nineties around noon and so much went wrong that I wondered for a bit if it was worth staying.

First off, big brother was feeling a little off. The night before he’d vomited. Caregiver had to stay at the hospital until two in the morning, meaning that we got a call to come pick her up about an hour after we went to bed. We’d planned on that by going to bed despite the fact that she wasn’t home yet, and since we didn’t think it smart that either of us would drive there alone with our sleepy heads, we opted to go together for safety reasons. He was already feeling bad when I phoned him awake, and then when we got home round four in the morning, he started retching in the middle of the terrace. Fun, that. But anyway, we both rushed to bed and slept ‘till nine instead of the planned eight, went through all the necessary chores such a feeding the dogs and checking everything that we didn’t leave home until ten thirty. Then, just as we were about to reach Alozaina (village near the job site) to get the first load of sand, I discovered that I had forgotten my purse and…the house keys!!! Aaaaargh. "Stupid is, stupid does," right?
So I called home to have grandpa check (yes it was at home), at which point he agreed to drive the moped half the way (he remembered the route pretty well from back in the day when he had a gardening job in the area) and then give me my purse and a bottle of pre-mixed fuel for the mower. Luckily he rather enjoyed the ride.
But anyway, before I could meet him halfway big brother and I had to unload the car of some 800 pounds of gravel and some 1900 pounds of sand from the trailer. Then there were all the tools to get out, and the wheelbarrow from the top, and before that was done it was already one o’clock, meaning that I had to hurry to get at least the bags of cement from the construction company…
Which reminds me. I LOVE• computers. I had ordered ten bags of cement and three times half a cubic meter of sand which I would come pick up during the course of the day. Now, the trick is that on cubic meter of sand costs about 18 bucks, while half a cubic meter will cost you 13 bucks. Fun part would be that the computer would accept three halfs and kept making it into one and a half. He ended up having me pay for one cubic and a half, meaning we got a bit of a discount paying our expenses for hauling it up there. The location is a little iffy for bigger transports so our solution is to haul it up there bit by bit…which would be practically impossible without a 4X4.
But anyway, I had planned to take the trailer so I could pick up both cement and sand on the way back from meeting grandpa, but since unloading took so long I decided to not take the trailer and only pick up cement before siesta closing time. Had to explain to the women at the counter what had occurred that morning and waited outside while the youngest of the two followed me out and looked at the lift truck. She doubted and then asked me to put the car with the pallet of bags. I said fine, put it there and then shrugged when she disappeared inside. There were ten of them, so I loaded the ten up, not realizing that there was this dude watching me do exactly there somewhat confusedly. I was just about done when the guy who’d helped me that morning arrived. Apparently the girl had called him to load up, so he was a tad surprised when I’d already done it. Like I’m going to give up a chance on weightlifting now that I don’t have time to do that at home. *snort* Spanish folks get it even less when a girl does construction work. Hah.
I got back on site at one thirty where big brother had spent his time spreading the gravel where it needed to be and watering the plants, and doing some more mowing. We unloaded and then took some time to eat lunch, do some writing, and a very, very short nap, all three during the hottest two hours of the day.
At four, once they were open again, I arrived at the construction company where I got another load of sand. The entire trip takes me about forty minutes, seeing as going back up the mountain means going about 9 mph in many places.
Third trip over and done with, and nicely sore from unloading and wheelbarrow-ing the cement and first two loads of sand to where big brother had set up the concrete mixer for me, I got to mixing concrete. Unloading the last load would have to wait until the end of the day.
All in all, I hauled about 15 70 pound bags of cement around the place, so I definitely got my fitness done.
Mixed several loads of concrete for big brother while he did the masonry on the small wall that is going to keep the new floor in place once we start pouring. It will be natural rock, so it’ll look nice at least, and fit the general idea of the yard.
Did get my fair share of puzzling with rocks, though, while I shoveled concrete for big brother and hauled more rocks in for his use.
Since I had Knight there on his own, I decided, when I saw that his foot was rather swollen again, to remove his bandage entirely and just keep track of him. He did rather well most of the day, but regretfully, by the end of the day, he tore open one of his calluses, which had me wrap him back up just to be safe.
After seven the temps dropped nicely, and boy was I happy for that fifteen minute nap when we finally called it a day at nine fifteen (had to make the normal eight hours after me messing up like that after all) and started cleaning everything up…not to mention that we still had to unload that sand. Hah.
That took until well after dark, and driving home certainly was interesting. Hah.
Was in bed at twelve thirty and out for the count about three minutes later. *sigh*

Tenant is still at the hospital, and not happy about it. I can imagine, but since she refuses to drink most of the time, there is really nothing I can do about it. She’ll have to decide what is more important to her. Getting out of hospital or holding on to her dislike for drinking. We’re going to look her up tomorrow after the Land Rover’s MOT.

Then, before I knew it my phone was ringing. Cousin Ed telling me it was nine in the morning while I had told her the night before that I was planning to get up at eight so I could get some writing done. Drat. Did have enough sleep, so in that regard it wasn’t a disaster, eh?
No time for anything this morning, though. I had done no substantial Spanish the entire week, and since I first had to go to the vet (he’s doing well so I won’t have to be back until four days from today, yay!) then had to go through the village getting all sorts of stuff for mom in establishments that had miles of rows waiting at the registers. I was all in a tiffy about the complete shortage of time when I finally got home, about fifteen minutes before we had to leave for Spanish lessons. I would have been able to get some of my homework done too, if I hadn’t needed to change out of my grubby sweats, and get some food into my gut before the morning coffee departed entirely and left my stomach bare. Grrr.

Ended up reading some of Jack Vance’s Dirdir in the car, meaning I at least had Spanish in my head when we arrived at class. The lesson didn’t go bad either, so I guess not all was bad. Actually learned quite a bit and she complimented us that we are coming along nicely. Good thing, that, because in my darkest moments I sometimes doubt. Hah.

Spanish lessons over and done with, we headed for town for a pick up, which thankfully didn’t take as long as it could have. Then we rushed back home to work on the car and prepare it for tomorrow’s MOT.
Yep. There were the seatbelts that had to be fixed, all sorts of messes to remove from inside and outside, and the whole thing to wash from top to bottom. Our baby is looking beautiful now, thank you very much, with everything that we could get fixed, fixed. Hah.

Got a phone call from AuthorHouse trying to sell me a promotion package for “Trust Me” Said the Spy. Not that I don’t want to invest in my book, but seriously, at the moment we worry about paying the month’s bills and buying frivolous stuff like food, paying some odd 600 bucks for promotion that didn’t work the first time round is not even on my top hundred list. *sigh* Was a nice young fellow, though, and I could hardly blame him for needing to make a living. So I let him do his spiel, explained the situation to him, before we chatted a little about the dogs and said our goodbyes. By then I was starving because I missed lunch and was well passed supper time. *sigh*

Next there was a quick dip into the pool, followed by a short writing session before my stomach started to crawl its way up and started hitting my brain demanding where the food was. Headed up to finish up the tomato soup Cousin Ed had started on, made fondue and took the whole lot down for a quick supper while working on my computer.

Managed about a page at least, at which time I had to start on today’s blog…which I now declare done. I’m off to bed. Yay!