Sensory Overload

Too much learning of new stuff going on over here.

I still haven’t figured out all the bells and whistles on the jeep. I did figure out how to use the GPS which, by the way, is awesome. I also figured out how to turn the radio on, find my favorite country station, but can’t figure out how to turn it off.

Research online indicates I can’t turn it off … ever. I can mute it, but once turned on, I’m stuck with hearing music as soon as I start up the car, when I’d rather not.

The popup accessory I ordered to organize the trunk is working out.

The four compartments hold up very well when filled.

However, it took so much finger strength to snap the organizer together that I seriously doubt I’ll ever unsnap and fold it down when not in use.

Then there’s the new cellphone. I’ve learned that going from an S4 to and S9 is a huge leap in technology, and with no instructions in the box, it’s all how do I do this that and the other YouTube videos, but I’m getting there.

One function I’m going to find useful, once I figure out how to load and apply it, is the blood pressure monitor.

Optical BP monitoring is in its infancy but inasmuch as I keep a close eye on my BP, because I prefer holistic remedies, only take medications when I absolutely must, do not follow doctor’s orders to take daily and, instead, try to take as infrequently as possible, but don’t want to mess up and have a stroke, a monitor on the phone will come in handy.

Insofar as sensory overload, I used to be a sponge for learning new things. Was always reading, studying, taking classes, keeping pace with technology; but now not so much, because things are changing too fast, getting too unnecessarily fancy.

On another note, long-time readers will remember when, back in 2015, I was headed to the market and saw one of our residents down on the ground, walker turned over.

She’s been having okay days, bad days and worse days since then, but gave up the ghost and passed away yesterday morning.

That’s the third resident we’ve lost this month.

First was the suspicious death of Apache’s neighbor. Second was a death in the family of three in my building, living in a unit around the corner.

In that unit is an elderly father, an elderly mother, and a middle-aged son who, although in constant pain himself, is caretaker for the mother and father.

It’s scary how one’s life can change in an instant, and so it was for this middle-aged gentleman. He was working construction digging a ditch, jumped in to continue his digging and, just like that, the impact of that jump so damaged his spinal cord that he can no longer work and is in constant pain.

It was his mother who passed away this past Sunday.

I saw the ambulance take her to the hospital a few days prior, and she succumbed there.

Third was the now 95-year old I’d blogged about back in 2015.

Three in one-month is a lot. Girls in the office are so over-whelmed that they’ve signed themselves up with a grief counselor to learn how to deal with loss of residents they’ve become attached to.

Happy First Day of Spring

I was three hours without a phone yesterday and saw more butt cracks in those few hours than I’ve seen in my whole entire life, so wanted to capture the absurdity of it all, but could not because my phone was in transition at the cellphone store.

My S4 had begun giving me trouble last month. Photos were coming out blurry, it didn’t always ring when calls came in, didn’t always notify of messages, and completely died on me twice. I lived with the blurry photos and managed to jiggle the battery to bring the old girl back to life when she died, because I didn’t want to purchase an S8 so close to it being outdated by arrival of the S9.

The S4 held on, the S8 arrived either Friday or Saturday and, not wanting to press my luck any further, off to the cellphone store I went yesterday.

The young lady that assisted me in the purchase started off great.

Off course, she tried to sell me a lot of accessories I didn’t want or need, including a Tablet.

Having researched new phones, I’d been saving and was prepared to pay the three times more than I paid for the S4 outright, but was stunned to be told I could not. That their system doesn’t allow customers to buy the phone outright.

I could finance it, yes. I could put down a sizeable down payment so the monthly bill wouldn’t be too high, but I could not pay it off outright.

I found this difficult to believe. It’s like saying, we don’t take cash, we do credit only.

No other way around it and guaranteed there will be no finance charges, I opted to be billed monthly, but was told I could return in 30 days, and pay it off.

Once the paperwork was out of the way, it should have been a simple matter of transferring data from one phone to another, but she had to first put the S9 on a charger. Saying it would be a little wait, I opted to take care of other errands in the area.

First, I walked over to the craft store, then to the office supply store next door.

Checking out of the office supply store was a lengthy process, because there was a young man holding up the cashier. He had bandages on his arms that looked like he’d just been released from the hospital and he wasn’t acting quite right. He was not wearing those awful saggy pants young boys wear that purposely expose butt cracks, but the pockets of his pants were heavily weighted down to the point where his pants were literally being pulled off his body and he was not wearing underpants.

He was tripping so hard, holding up the line, deciding he wanted to add candy items on the shelf behind him, bending over, picking up bags, pants being pulled down, butt crack to the world, pulling pants back up, bending down again, pants sliding, butt crack to the world, pulling pants back up, us ladies in line trying to look away, obviously embarrassed by what we were seeing.

I came to the conclusion he was on drugs or medication of some kind. Something about his face reminded me of the nephew whose funeral I’d gone to a few months back, my heart felt heavy and instead of being disgusted by what I was seeing, I felt sorry for whatever it was that brought him to this point and began to silently know the truth (pray) for him.

He must have felt something because he turned around, four several pound bags of candy in his arms and asked me, “Is this too much candy? Be honest”.

Yes, I said.

He mumbled some other things as he tried to simultaneously balance the candy, pull his pants up, pull his shirt down, and asked me to choose for him.

I chose the Hershey’s Miniatures.

He wanted to know why.

“Because if you’re going to put all that sugar into your system, the pure chocolates are your best health bet.”

By then, another cashier had arrived, the line was whittling down as his cashier was still waiting to complete his purchase, giving me a “What’s the matter with this guy look” I giving her a “Who knows” look in reply.

He was still mumbling something to the cashier about the candy I’d suggested he purchase as the second cashier checked me out and I was heading out the door.

I hope the kid wasn’t driving. 

Arriving back at the cellphone store, I found the saleswoman with another customer, a male customer wearing Jordan high-tops (what Manoli Blahnik's are to women, Jordan's are to men), bending over her station, butt crack to the world, no sign of underpants.

“Is this a thing now?”, I began thinking to myself.

“Do men not wear underpants nowadays?”

His pants weren’t falling down. It was just that when he bent over, his shirt rode upwards on his body, and his jeans were such that plumber’s crack popped out to say hello, with no sign of underpants.

I kept glancing away, as I waited. And it was a long wait, as I listened to the salesgirl service him in a way I thought flirtatious. She even gave him her business card saying pointedly, “This is me. Call anytime.”

She didn’t give ME her card. Plus, my phone wasn’t ready. She evidently didn’t charge it while I was gone because she tried to do something and it died on her.

Told she had to put it back on the charger, I had time to run another errand, I went grocery shopping, to the bank, and returned to the cellphone store to find her serving other customers – two girls this time.

She wouldn’t break away from that guy she was flirting with, but had no problem, leaving the girls just long enough to give me both phones, say something about wait more.

I waited and waited and waited. Saw an older gentleman come into the store, bend over, again with the plumber’s crack but, being an older gentleman, he did have the decency to flash to where I saw underpants.

I waited so long as the salesgirl chatted and sold to the two women that finally another salesperson approached.

He looked confused as to what I was waiting for, said everything looked fine, but I told him, “She’s not transferred the data yet”.

He looked even more confused as he said, “She hasn’t?”

It was he who transferred the data and familiarized me with the new phone.

When all was said and done, I could have walked out with both the S4 – which I’d sold back to her for $50 and S9, as both were in my possession and the salesgirl was done serving me, I’d become invisible to her.

She must work on commission.

At any rate, I walked the S4 over to her, gave her an exasperated “I’m disappointed in you look” and walked out a full three hours after I first walked in.

She’d better hope I don’t receive a follow-up survey.

When the other salesperson was transferring my data, I sought to confirm the salesgirl had told me correctly that I could not purchase the S9 outright.

He said that was correct and it has something to do with scams.

It still sounds unbelievable to me, and I’d like to know how a company gets scammed on a cash sale when you have a customer's address, telephone number, and the customer still has to pay you monthly for data usage.

Oh well, it is what it is.

Today is Pizza Tuesday. Not sure if I’ll go down to people watch.

Missed Opportunity

Having tried to head to the University campus for the last three weeks to collect Poké Balls, only to be thwarted by errands or rain, I found myself with nothing pressing to do today, and a dry somewhat sunny day, perfect to head out, catch some balls, log in walking miles, except I didn’t. I let the opportunity for fresh air and exercise pass me by and settled for sitting activities -- television and needlepoint.

Yesterday’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration was a major success.

The green deviled eggs went fast.

They weren’t as green as I’d have liked, but I didn’t have enough food color left in the bottle to get the darker green I would have preferred. I also thought the filling was a little dry. 

I used Rea Drummond’s recipe, but replaced the ingredients with gluten free products -- gluten free mayo, gluten free mustard, gluten free pickle juice, so I could eat and not get sick. I don’t think anyone noticed the difference – if they did, no one said, but if I were to make them again, and I probably will, I’ll just add more mayo than the recipe calls for, and a touch of olive oil, to counteract the dryness coming from there being none of the dreaded soybean oil in gluten-free mayo.

Apache hooked up a karaoke machine for after-dinner entertainment.

Entertaining it was as none of us can sing, though we tried, which made karaoke a hoot and a holler.

Ran into something interesting on Friday, when I attempted to get cash from the ATM.

The machine, located in what had been a safe area, next to where Starbucks had been until it relocated across the street, is now pretty much surrounded by a homeless encampment behind the building and up in the hills.

Getting out of the car, I took a step or two towards the machine, eyes on the cellphone to capture Poké Balls, because the ATM has not one but two PokeStops surrounding it. That was not a good idea. Knowing of the encampment, I should have stayed alert and aware of my surroundings. But, fortunately, before stepping too close to the ATM, too far from the car, I looked up and noticed a scary looking guy standing next to the machine, talking to himself. 

My instincts told me he was playing crazy while actually waiting for the right victim to draw cash, at which time, he’d probably knock the person out and take off with the cash. So, I fast backed into the car, locked the door, turned in the seat, snapped a photo for this blog and took off.

I did think about calling the police about a suspicious looking individual lurking around the ATM but, after the poor response I got from them when I called about the pervert who tried to corner me in the mailbox area and exposed himself, I told myself calling is not worth the effort and promised myself not to bother them again.

At any rate, I won’t be returning to that ATM. Inasmuch as it was the only one in the area where I felt safe, now that it isn’t -- with the encampment, I’ll be driving to the bank from now on.

TMI

Good morning and Happy St Patrick’s Day.

Caught a glimpse of the new neighbor moving in yesterday. This would be the person moving into the unit across the quad previously occupied by Grumpy – the woman who was quite nice, but complained about anything and everything.

Grumpy relocated to the Long Island area of New York just in time to experience the nor’easter, and is probably complaining about it right now, wishing she were back in California.

New neighbor is a guy, so we’re finally getting some testosterone in this quad, but he’s not tall, not handsome. He’s coming to us from Minnesota and is battling cancer.

If I only caught a glimpse of him, how do I know all this?

Community Manager announced it in Thursday’s Residents/Management meeting.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought it was TMI (too much information).

Suppose new neighbor wanted to deal with his medical issue in private.

If it were me, I know I wouldn’t appreciate it.

Back in 2012, shortly after I first moved in and was becoming acquainted with residents, I quickly learned that, when I could not place a resident’s name to a face, I was given a rather blunt description – usually something about the person’s physical appearance that later became obvious to me, like “The woman with the big butt” … “The woman with one tooth in her head”, "The woman that looks like a man" … or “Pepe Le Pew” because the man always had a bad body odor. Fortunately, as I later learned, residents were much kinder in describing me as “The walking lady with dreadlocks”.

Since we’ve all been told about the new resident’s condition, when his name can’t be placed to his face, he’s sure to be referred to as “the man from Minnesota with cancer”.

And it didn’t end there. It was said we have eight new move-ins, one move back and an eviction in progress. One of the new move-ins is bedridden, another is just out of rehab. (That’s not drug rehab, but medical rehab).

As for the move back, it’s not unusual for residents who’ve decided they don’t like it here to move out, find the grass is not greener elsewhere, reapply and move back. 

A woman, who was one of dozens who left us because they couldn’t tolerate the former Community Manager – that evil Nurse Ratched, reapplied but has been denied.

There are only three reasons for that – a criminal record, which I know she does not have, a problem on one’s credit report, or being over the income limit.

At any rate, going to be a lot of new faces around here.

This afternoon, the Residents Volunteer Committee (RVAC), disappointed with Activity Director’s St. Patrick’s Day Hotdog Potluck, is hosting a celebration of its own -- corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and karaoke.

You might remember, at last month’s Residents/Management meeting, the Community Manager disbanded the RVAC, saying all events had to go through her in future.

The committee brushed that off as her being stressed about the urgency to pass the then impending super bowl of inspections, kept right on with their meetings/planning. And today’s event is not a potluck. The committee is providing everything.

Even though we don’t have to bring anything, no longer feeling the need to close myself off, instead feeling open again, I was up early this morning, doing what I said I’d never do again – making deviled eggs, dyed green for the event, turning my thumb green in the process.

Residents/Management Meeting

Yesterday’s Residents/Management meeting was civil, jovial even –- that is until a resident brought up the pit bull. Not much got said because the Community Manager refused to discuss it, allow discussion about it and quickly changed the subject.

She was, however, willing to discuss the departure of Assistant Maintenance Guy (AMG), saying she was only doing so because she wanted to dispel the rumor that he was fired.

Body language speaks volumes. She looked down, rather than out at the crowd, while saying, “He had some issues he had to take care of. We were actually very sad. We took it hard as a team. He brightened up our day.”

I did hear from a reliable source that Community Manager had cried when AMG left. That she’d hoped writing him up was enough, but Corporate was pushing to have him fired, so he quit rather than wait to be axed.

I still think he should have let it happen so he could at least collect unemployment, but there’s no one but himself to blame. He let his pride and ego lead him into battling when he should have just sucked it up, put on a game face and played the game as I learned from experience is how you survive in a corporate culture when you’re a minority.

Community Manager has a soft heart. In addition to managing this complex, she has a husband, small children, is a youth minister at her church. She’s a nurturer. And all this caring and support of others -- getting involved in the lives of residents to the degree she does, is cause to worry about her own health problems and well-being as she tries to navigate between nurturing us residents and her staff while pleasing Corporate.

It’s obvious how heavily AMG’s departure weighs on her, because she mentioned him several times during the meeting. First to explain why there’s a backlog in handling maintenance requests -- because AMG isn’t here and he was fast she said; and second to explain why no one was doing this that and the other -- again she said because AMG is no longer here. Also, when a resident entered the room well after we were on to other topics, she felt compelled to let that person know the departure of AMG had been discussed, and “He was not fired. He had other things to do.”

Community Manager also touched on the dead guy, saying only “Mr. G______ passed”, and that some of his furniture was given to a new resident who “Literally has nothing”.

Again with the nurturing, she asked if we had items to donate to this new resident.

Also discussed was the laundry room.

I’d been wondering why I was sleeping straight through and not being awakened by someone doing laundry at 3:30 in the morning. Not since I’d convinced my downstairs neighbor that was where the sound disturbing her peace was coming from, that it was not me roaming round at 3:30, have I heard a sound from the Laundry Room.

Turns out there’s a master lock on the Laundry Room door – the lock we do not have a key for, and Apache has been going around locking that master in all the Laundry Rooms at 10PM, reopening at 7 AM.

How in the world did they get a resident to perform this duty … a resident who pays for his unit when we have Head Maintenance Guy and Assistant Community Manager living here rent free?

How wacked is that?

One of the two can’t do it?

I’ll have to ask Apache how he got roped into this. I have a sneaky suspicion the office used my name. I never complained about the sound, that was Little Miss Looney downstairs who did the complaining. But if the office told Apache I’d mentioned to Looney that I’d been awakened as well, being as protective of me as he is, he would have agreed to do it.

At any rate, Apache doesn’t seem to mind, but they should at least take something off his rent for putting himself out like that. 

Other announcements were an Easter Potluck on April 3.

Inasmuch as this is Activity Director’s event, I wonder if it’ll be something illogical like sandwiches or hotdogs again.

I’m done with her tacky potlucks, so I’m out. Probably won't even do a walk-thru to take photos for our Facebook page.

Lastly, the complex passed that super bowl of government inspection.

That’s good news for Community Manager because Corporate was all over her about the necessity to pass to the point where it looked like her job depended on it.

Out of the 178 units on this complex, only 24 were inspected at random. Community Manager said, with the exception of two units that were “very disappointing”, she was “impressed” with how well residents maintained their units.

Slave to Technology

The laptop’s annoying blue screen was something I could live with and was living with. However, the backspace key becoming inoperable was the Achilles heel that sent me to the Geek Squad yesterday.

Thanks be to the Universe for that Achilles heel, because it was a keyboard corruption issue, covered by the warranty, and the warranty was set to expire in 10 days.

Dodged an expensive bullet there.

As things stand, the laptop was shipped out to the service center for keyboard replacement. When returned to the geeks, they will do a factory reset – wipe everything out, make it as though just purchased, out of the box. I then go back, give them the virus protect and Office cards to reinstall and, supposedly, things will be “technical bliss”.

Inasmuch as my faith in Windows is nil, I seriously doubt things will be blissful because Windows 10 will run yet another unstoppable update and another and another.

I think I heard some time back that Bill Gates might run for POTUS. If that happens, he won’t get my vote because, if he runs the country the way he’s running his Microsoft Windows Product, we’ll be plagued with daily updates, malfunctions, crashes, corruption, aggravation, frustration.

Oh wait … we’re already having those from the current POTUS aren’t we.

I’m such a slave to technology (television, cell phone, computer) that the idea of being without any one of those for a day, let alone a month, would ordinarily drive me to drink. Fortunately, I solved being without a laptop when Windows 10 sent the HP in for service last time. I’m coming to you now from a backup – the little Dell. Inasmuch as updates are now beginning to run unstoppably on the Dell, it’s probably just a matter of time before this laptop fails me as well.

Oh … and that blue screen on the HP meant the operating system had been corrupted.

All in all, that’s a lot of damage to a laptop not yet a year old. One that I only used for blogging, manipulating photos, browsing the internet, Facebook, Instagram, playing Candy Crush and AlphaBetty Saga.

I asked the technician if I could turn it in as a down payment on a MAC. He never answered the question, instead said, “You paid a lot for this laptop”.

He got that right, too much to be having these kinds of issues.

He went on to say, “It’s top of the line”, that it’s got a this and a that, etc.

If this is top of the line with all these issues, I’d hate to own bottom of the line.

At any rate, we’ll see how things are when the laptop is returned to the geeks, they do what they do and all is said and done. But honestly, I hope the laptop gets lost in the process, so they’ll have to pay me for the loss and I can take the money and head over to the Apple store.

By the way, there were three other customers in for laptop repair. All three were the same brand as mine … HP’s with Windows 10.

This afternoon is the Residents/Management meeting.

Since I bungled arriving at the correct time last month, and missed all the action, I’m setting my alarm for 2:45 to make sure I’m downstairs by 3:00.

If it’s raining as hard at 3:00 as it is now – rain so heavy and so hard that it sounds like the angels are throwing rocks at us, I doubt many residents will attend.