Earthquake Weather

Today is one of those dry heat days, what I remember from childhood as being described as Earthquake Weather. So I won’t be surprised if not tonight, then sometime this week, there’s a bit of shake rattle roll in my area.

So long as the Wi-Fi doesn’t go out, I’m good with it.

It’s been a quiet but chaotic week for me thus far. Too much to do, too much needing to be done.

Because I was busy, had more important things to do yesterday, I was more than a half hour late for Activity Director’s Summer Social Luncheon.

Color me surprised to see no Activity Director and only two residents when I arrived at the Community Room.

"It’s been cancelled" the two women said. "She cancelled it, sent out no notice, posted no notes to the doors (Community Room Doors)".

I’d have been miffed had I made attendance a priority, put aside my other to-dos in order to arrive on time. I’d have been kicking myself for being the fool once again because, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know Activity Director has a history of screwing up. However, since I had not looked forward to the event, not gone out of my way to arrive on time, it was merely no harm no foul headed back upstairs, get back to my to-dos.

One thing on my list was to leave a review for the hotel I was booked into for last month’s Retreat and schedule an appointment with my doctor for an issue I’ve dealing with for a while.

I had expected to get a "How was your stay" follow up from the hotel but, since that never happened, it had been on my mind for a while to report my experience.

Instead of Yelp, I clicked on the hotel and added my two cents to their Google reviews — where I found a 4.5 Good rating.

The review I left was fair, factual and hopefully will result in A/C units being checked and brought to working order BEFORE someone checks in ……… "Beginning to feel ill from problems with the A/C unit, checked out early to protect my health. Maintenance did respond and come up with a temporary fix, but the inability to regulate the room temperature turned into a sore throat and checking out early before health declined further".

Then I set about trying to get in to see my doctor, whom I’ve not had an office visit with since February 26, 2020 and only then because an office visit had been required to get a referral to the gut specialist.

Ordinarily, I view it as a good thing that I have so few medical issues requiring an office visit — probably because my first go-to is the holistic route. Except now, holistic isn't working and I need to see her in person.

Evidently, a lot has changed since my last visit. Getting in to see her now has turned into reaching and unreachable star.

She’s booked three months ahead. So far that no more appointments are being scheduled, so I was offered an appointment with the first available doctor ……… in August ……… two months away.

A person could die, not that what I'm dealing with seemed like that. I'd chalked it up to needing an antibiotic but, had it been something I felt needed major care, I'd be in big trouble.

Asking if I could walk in or get a same day appointment, the answer was no, but arrangements could be made for a doctor not my own to call me this morning.

So I get the call this morning, describe what I think is a delayed reaction to the booster shots, but which the doc thinks is something called folliculitis. (I’m counting on commenter Drum Major to tell me how in hell I got whatever that is on my legs).

At any rate, doc prescribes an antibiotic (just what I thought I needed) but says he can’t say for sure it's folliculitis unless I come in.

When I tell him I’d tried that and it was impossible to book any doctor, he seemed surprised, said he didn’t know why there had been a problem.

That’s interesting. The doctors don’t know they’re booked ahead and patients in need of immediate care can’t catch a break.

Long story short, I’ve an office visit appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning, which meant I had to reschedule my manicure/pedicure appointment to next week.

No problem said the spa receptionist when I rescheduled from this Thursday to next Wednesday. But then, I remembered Wednesday is a workout day, so I called the spa back and played the old lady card to get the appointment changed to next Tuesday.

What’s the old lady card you ask?

That’s when I play old and pitiful to get what I want, like the time the cable company wanted to walk me though an issue I didn’t want to be walked through and ended up getting a technician to show up because I said I was an old lady and couldn’t handle stuff like that.

The way I played it with the spa was to immediately call back, get the rescheduled appointment rescheduled again by sayin "I’m sorry. I’m old and get easily confused".

The receptionist ate it up, and everything got squared away for next week.

Heading out to the medical center to pick up the antibiotics after this morning’s workout, I made a U-Turn when I saw a squirrel doing a high-wire act.

On his way out of town before the earthquake, I initially thought, but then saw he was just crossing the street in a safe way, on the wire, rather than risk being squashed by cars.

I was expecting the poor squirrel to fry and the power to go out when I saw him reach what I took to be a transformer, but he made it past that hurtle.