Eye of the Beholder

This morning felt like earthquake weather — hot, muggy, humid.

Not feeling motivated, I came thisclose to calling off on working out in the Pain Cave.

But I didn’t.

I pushed through, was glad I did, and now have the next two days when, hopefully, I won’t have to go into the outside world.

The trolley dolly arrived on Wednesday, so this morning, before it got unbearably hot, I was easy peasy able to roll the old microwave down the stairs and into the dumpster.

Returning to my unit from the dumpster, I bent down to take a photo of another rather large new rock addition at the far end of the pathway.

As I stood up, I spotted Assistant Maintenance Guy (AMG) walking down the pathway, towards me.

"It’s getting out of control”, said he (probably repeating what he's heard Community Manager say).

"But it’s all so pretty”, replied I.

"J___ (Complex Manager) told us to pick ‘em up, because there’s been complaints”.

So, now I know why some of the rocks disappeared.

As for AMG saying there’d been complaints, my response was “You’re kidding …. What’s to complain about?”

"You know how it is. You see what you want to see, and one person, I’m not going to say what nationality he is, took offense to the rock painted RUN”.

Inasmuch as AMG was hesitate to say a nationality, I’m assuming his hesitancy is because the complainer is Black.

“You see what you want to see”.

It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

I took one of the RUN rocks and placed in with my rock collection, because I associated it with the 5Ks I participate in. This other individual is associating it with racism, as in Run, Get Out, Leave.

Oh, well. Takes all kinds to make a Universe.

I asked AMG, “When you pick them up, what do you do with them? Do you throw them in the trash”.

He couldn’t look me in the eye as he mumbled an undiscernible reply, so I’m assuming that’s a big 10-4. So, I requested that, in future, if rocks were picked up, he not toss them, but give to me.

Doubt that will happen but, if it does, I’ll just relocate them. Once the weather cools down, and the University reopens to us walkers, I’ll leave the rocks he gives me, IF he gives them to me, at various locations on campus. Also, when in-person 5Ks restart, I can drop them off along the trails.

Complex Manager is turning into a douche bag. I don’t have a problem with him specifically — he's nowhere near as awful as that mean Nurse Ratched we were stuck with for a while, but one does have to ride his arse in order to get things done. Like, recently, I noticed water on the kitchen counter, realized it appeared to be leaking from the base of the faucet, sent Manager an email to have maintenance come take a look at it.

Received no reply or response.

A second and third email elicited no reply or response.

A day or so after the condo disaster in Miami, I sent Manager a fourth email asking if he was “going to wait until something bad happened, like in Miami”. That the leak wasn’t likely to take the building down, but it might end up in overflowing over the counter to damage kitchen tile, flow over into the carpet area, maybe even leak down into the unit below.

Now none of that was in danger of happening, I was just being extra, making a mountain out of a molehill, because I wanted to scare him into thinking he could be held responsible for a disaster. I even hinted at his being held responsible saying, that “If anything bad happens as a result of the leak, I’ve got proof I tried to get help”.

Head Maintenance Guy showed right up after that, put in a new washer something or other and said that morning was the first he’d been advised of a request for service.

So, like I said … one has to ride Manager’s arse to get him to take care of things, turn in a work order.

That got my mind to wondering … just exactly what is it that Manager does? Why do we even need him?

Checking yelp, to see if there have been any updates on this property, I find his name has been specifically mentioned in an unflattering light … “I still have not heard a phone call from the human resources about the manager J___!! I can't believe they allow this manager to be this cruel that it sickens me to think of how he treats the elderly! Get a shirt that labels manager or a name tag since you’re going to allow this animal to work here he thinks he owns the place.”

When the reviewer talks about “Human Resources”, she’s referring to Corporate. She’s been contacting Corporate about Manager.

Corporate doesn’t care. Not unless and until he does something like Nurse Ratched did — stole money orders submitted as rent payments.

It may be Manager is non-responsive because he wants us to sign up for “Rent Café” — this thing that he, and Corporate, have been pushing for us to buy into.

The premise of Rent Café is that, "for our convenience", a third party, for a minimum charge, takes control.

This third party will pay our monthly rent, drawing the funds directly from our bank accounts and, also "for our convenience", we can submit work orders through this third party.

I’m not giving a third party access to my banking information and, if it’s this difficult to get a maintenance request through Manager, what guarantee is there that going through a third party would be easier.

Rent Café sounds like a highway to taking advantage of the elderly — access to their financials and personal information by some unknown third party, so no … not this elder.

And with some of the seniors actually signing up for that, again I ask, “What does Manager do … What do we need him for?”

So all set for two days inside, in the midst of typing this post, along about 1:00, up pops a Plot Twist … the power went out.

No Wi-Fi, no A/C.

Fortunately, it came back on, along about 5:30, because it’s too hot for this nonsense.

Hopefully, remainder of the weekend is smooth sailing.

Guardian of the Rock Garden

Hearing the sounds of the landscaping crew yesterday, feeling protective of Jan’s rock garden, I stood guard in the patio window.

One landscaper edged the grassy areas, the other used the blower to clean up behind the first guy, neither touched the painted rocks.

Lucky for them because, I was prepared to yell had they dared.

Actually, they appeared to have cared less, showed no interested in them whatsoever as the rocks did not interfere with their duties. Which confirms Community Manager was lying when he told Jan the landscapers were complaining.

Last time I caught Jan in the act, she said her friend that wants to teach line dancing to us seniors, was going to provide her with a fresh batch of rocks.

I guess he did, but she didn’t say they were going to be boulders, because the two additions I mentioned in the video are HUGE, and they appear to be rough, porous, in their natural rock state — making it difficult to paint on.

Taking a closer look, the one on the left says You Are Talented.

I'm glad that I don't have time to take on painting rocks because, if I did, I'd probably write something controversial, like BLM or, at the very least, something that would tick folks off.

For instance, instead of "You are talented", I'd have thought it would be devilish fun to paint "You is smart. You is kind. You is important". ROFLMAO!

On the right, we have Run and Play.

I began hearing noises like the plumbers were here shortly after 8:15 yesterday and, around 8:30, the water was shut off.

The outage was painless.

I had everything I needed to do done long before the shutoff and there was no having to cook lunch when I returned from the Pain Cave, because I had coffee and a salad waiting for me.

Waking up from a nap, just in time to watch Judge Judy, I checked and the water was back on.

So, unless, we get a notice from management that there’s more to be done, looks like repairing the broken lines are a done deal.

Second Time’s the Charm

Heading down the walkway today, on my way to the mall to exchange a jacket for a smaller size, I saw that Jan had added to her painted rock dance.

Returning to the complex, I found a notice posted to the door indicating management was going to give another go at turning off the water — tomorrow, 8:00 to 4:30.

I’ll be up at 6:00, to make sure I can shower, make coffee, wash the breakfast dishes. Then we’ll see if the second time’s the charm.

As for Jan’s new “Do You Remember” layout, I’ve no problem remembering the Swim, Limbo. As for the Mashed Potato, I remember, as a teen, having to lean on a chair until I could get my feet to move simultaneously, in different directions, but I learned it well because, when we had a dance party in the Community Room three years ago, and the Mashed Potato song came on, I was up doing it. My feet knew just what to do.

The Hitch Hike, was a little nerdy, so I don’t remember that being done at any of the parties I went to back in the day.

Jan's Locomotion rock has that darn "everybody's doing it" song stuck in my head.

Not on Jan’s list are the Watsui, Jerk, Hully Gully, three other favorites of mine that, if called upon, I think my body would remember the moves. Also, not on the list are Stroll, Pony.

Looking on youtube at the dances mentioned, it occurs to me that dancing in our day was much simpler, easier to learn the steps, way easier to move the body then, and now, because it’s mostly wiggling this that the other — and we can all still manage to at least wiggle some of this that the other. LOL.

Mentioned in the video are the Hand Jive and Madison.

I thought the Hand Jive ridiculous, never did it, and never heard of the Madison.

Now days, dancing is so precise, so many steps, not to mention so fast ….. so very fast, warp speed.

I’ve been trying to learn some of the TikTok dances, but the intricacy is beyond my ability, not to mention the movements so fast that I get lost, except for one — which is more a Challenge than a Dance.

Moving to a specific song entitled Touch Down Cause Hell, created for the challenge, you slowly walk into frame, back to camera, and walk away.

Really …. that’s it, and it’s wildly popular. 

I can’t get enough of seeing others, sometimes groups of others, in differing locals, different occupations — there's even a funny video of a bus driver doing the challenge, slowly walking into frame, back to camera, and then walking away — usually shaking their butts.

I don’t have much room in my unit, not to mention the right equipment to record a TikTok video, so this example, snapped on my cell phone  — showing off the new jacket, is the best I can do … minus the butt shake, cause I ain’t doing that.

So there you have it … my first quasi TikTok video — for your eyes only, not posting to TikTok, LOL.

Tales of the Weekend

I can’t believe it’s Monday already, a workout day.

Monday has rolled around way too soon, and I don’t feel ready to face another week of life outside — errands, workouts.

However, with the memory of having run into Not Dead Nancy (NDN) on Saturday fresh in my mind— the only time I left the unit over the weekend, to purchase extra-large trash bags and check mail, and seeing how much more she’s deteriorated since the days we participated in the pool’s Water Aerobics class, and she was hot-to-trot with the guys on the complex, I’ll push through, seize the day and the week.

For new readers, and to refresh others — since NDN hasn’t been mentioned in the blog since 2019, NDN was thusly named because, at one time, we had two Nancy’s.

One was Nancy The One Who Runs into Things (NWRiT) because she always was — once backing her car into the tree out front, almost taking out the gate at another time. There were dings all over her car.

The other Nancy was when NDN was known on the blog as Loosey Goosey because she was an insatiable man chaser.

When, in 2016, the Crisis Team came in and took her boyfriend (the perv known as Creepy Guy) to the VA Hospital for evaluation, because someone saw him outside the complex, standing in the same spot for two hours, talking to himself, and Loosey Goosey realized he wasn’t coming back, was on his death bed actually, she visited and tried to get him to marry her so she could collect on what was rumored to be a nice chunk of change in his bank account, plus bonds and a pension.

Creepy Guy’s doctor got wind of Loosey Goosey trying to take advantage of a dying man, and had her banned from the facility.

THEN, looking for another sponsor, Loosey Goosey approached my buddy Apache, who she knew was plush with cash, asking, “Do you need a girlfriend?”

Apache declined the offer.

So here we were with two Nancy’s being discussed on the grapevine, and sometimes it was a bit confusing as to which Nancy was being discussed, i.e., the one I referred to as Loosey Goosey or NWRiT.

Once I was clear on which Nancy the grapevine was talking about, I could have easily referred to them on the blog as White Nancy (NWRiT) or Black Nancy (Loosey Goosey), but that would have been wrong. LOL.

At any rate, when Nancy NWRiT was found deceased in her unit (natural causes) and people would continue to talk about a Nancy, I one day heard someone clear up the issue of which Nancy by saying, “The Nancy who’s not dead yet”, and thus Nancy, formerly known as Loosey Goosey, became Not Dead Nancy here on the blog.

Did that explanation of the naming algorism make sense?

At any rate, having seen NDN at the mailbox, I can now cross her off the Roll Call List as still living here — post pandemic present and accounted for.

Now completely dependent on a walker since developing balance problems, NDN tells me her doctor recommended exercise so she recently bought an indoor bike, which she got on and promptly threw out her hip. So now, she's dependent on a walker and dealing with pain because her hip is stuck in gear.

I can relate to that. The day after my very first session at the Pain Cave, I was in the drug store, buying every pain aid imaginable so I could work through the pain of kinks loosening up, rather than succumb to them.

Now, almost two years later, though I still can't perform like the younger clients do, my joints are nicely oiled, loosened, and I rarely if ever hurt ... knock on wood, other than when I occasionally aggravate an old rotator cuff injury — and even then, my recovery time is swift and sometimes doesn't even require the shoulder brace I used to wear.

"Don't give up, take it slow, shake it off and work through", was my advice to NDN, but she said she hurt and wasn't planning on getting on the bike again. LOL.

I did manage to clear some recorded television programs off my bucket list, and made some very little progress on the needlepoint project over the weekend. Remainder of the time was napping, and working out how to get the possessed microwave out of the unit, down to the dumpster.

Thinking back on how I managed to get it upstairs in the first place, it would have to have been by use of a dolly — and here we are again with my getting rid of things I would ultimately find useful at a later date because, clearing out the outdoor storage area in December, seeing no further need for the dolly, I gave it away.

I could ask Handsome Man to help me out, but I don’t want to open that can of worms.

His ego would interpret, “When you have a moment, can you please stop by, help me get something down to the dumpster", as "When you have a moment, can you please stop by, wha, wha, wha, wha she likes me, she wants me".

I don’t need the headache, so I ended up ordering another dolly, but one specific to stairs.

In the interim, I managed to get the microwave off the counter — aggravating that old torn rotator cuff injury in the process (no brace needed), but it’s off the counter and in a corner, wrapped in that large trash bag I picked up, waiting for the trolley to arrive.

That one time I was outside over the weekend, I also ran into Negative Nelly — the woman I’d promised to perform the Rebuking Ceremony on should she want to get into it with me again over her dislike of the painted rocks and/or my calling her awful to her face.

As I walked towards the mailbox, just before I saw NDN, here Negative Nelly comes, straight at me, down the walkway, but rebuking didn’t happen.

It appeared she didn’t remember me or the incident because, passing right by me, she looked dead in my eyes, smiled, gave me a cheery, “Good morning” and kept on going.

I’d had a feeling this would happen. That she, being old (though no more older than I), that as time went on — even though it was only two weeks ago, she'd probably forget the incident.

She evidently did, and it’s difficult to be unpleasant to someone who has no recall and is being pleasant, so I begrudgingly returned the greeting with a simple “hello”.

She WAS Ready

Fourth of July weekend and nothing happening around here.

Nothing happened on Thursday either.

After all the preparation I did for that day’s water shutoff — to repair “two broken main lines”, the water was never turned off.

I don’t think the plumbers ever showed up because, with the point of the break being just around the other side of my building, where I would have heard sounds or felt the vibration of motorized tools, I never heard any sounds to indicate plumbing equipment, nor did I feel said vibrations.

Outside only once that day, just long enough to take out the trash, check the mailbox, I never saw any of the maintenance guys OR a plumber’s truck and, whenever I was in the kitchen — which was a lot because I had the munchies, I’d check to see if water was still on.

It was.

Then, of course, there’s the thing that when water is shut off, there’s a sputtering when water is eventually turned back on.

There was no sputtering at any time during the day to indicate water had been off, even for a short time, that I might have missed.

So, who knows what screw up management has wroth upon us this time, but the good news is I had plenty of cold filtered water to quench my thirst that day and the next, plus I didn’t have to cook.

Upon returning from the Pain Cave yesterday, I made a point to take the long way around, in order to walk by the area where I’d previously seen water leaking from the broken main lines.

Though it’s difficult to discern in the photo, the dark shadow is wet with running water leaking up from the concrete.

Too bad that water can’t be diverted to the grassy knoll, and other areas that could use it. The drought is having a severe effect on grass around here — everything is turning brown.

At any rate, management doesn’t seem to be worried about the situation because, attached to our doors yesterday, instead of a notice indicating why water was not turned off and when it will be, was the monthly calendar indicating management is off on a three-day weekend.

I swear, if it wasn’t for the cheap rent, the Pain Cave and everything else I need so close by, also the perfect placement of my unit to see pretty much everything and everyone, I’d blow this joint.

On another note, there’s been a complete reversal on my decision to live with that ghost in the machine — the ghost that causes the microwave to operate in the off position when the door is opened.

Even if it is just a problem with the sensor in the door, inasmuch as the issue has elevated to ongoing —spreading gama rays all over me when I open the door to put the coffee cup inside, and then again when I open the door to remove the coffee cup, I’ve decided that was way more radiation coming at me than I was comfortable with.

I unplugged the machine and, deciding it an opportunity to get more counter space, I did my research and have ordered a compact microwave.

The one I’ve ordered is kinda weird looking — more like a TV than a microwave, but had great reviews, doesn’t take up much space and weighs only 5 pounds, with still plenty of room inside for my needs.

It doesn’t arrive for pickup until the end of August, which means I’m now warming up coffee on the stove, in my old stainless-steel pot, rather than nuking.

As for why such a long waiting period ….. I’m guessing they either have to build it or it’s an import or both.

Either way, I’m crossing my fingers it lives up to the hype and doesn’t leak radiation.

So, with nothing fun or interesting going on, if anyone is looking for me, I’ll be right here — all weekend long, inside, catching up on recorded television programs, and working on the needlepoint canvas I began in February.

Have a Safe and Sane Holiday.

She Ready

After returning from the Pain Cave yesterday, I had to really hustle, because there was a notice on the door of water shut off scheduled for today, 8:00 am to 3:30 pm.

Evidentially, two main lines are broken and need to be repaired.

Since I, unlike other residents, can’t just go to the fast food place for meals, or drink bottled water, I had to pre-cook meals for today so, unable to cook if water was involved, there would be no cooking, just reheating.

I set the coffee pot up with water and grinds, so all I had to do this morning was plug the pot into the outlet.

I ran water through the Brita Filter Pitcher to fill not only my drinking thermos, the pitcher itself, but set up several backup cups of filtered water in Dixie-to-Go Project Runway Limited Edition cups I’d almost tossed last week, because I was in a clearing out mood — rid myself of items held onto, but not used in some time.

Project Runway fans might recognize the cups as being based on Brandon's Season 16, Episode 9 winning design — aired in 2017.

It's more than annoying when I’ve held onto something, finally let go, got rid of it AND immediately after find a use for, wish I’d held onto just a bit longer. Fortunately, this time something stopped me from trashing the cups.

Knowing the water would be shut off at 8:00 this morning — maybe earlier if the plumber so saw fit, I set the alarm for 6:00 so I could shower without fear the water would end while I was still all soapy.

So as of now, a little after 7:15 am, she ready, as I've showered, had breakfast, slapped on some makeup and am now watching the disturbing news, coffee cup in hand, that Bill Cosby is out of prison while Brittany is still, in a sense, locked up.

Heading to the Pain Cave for yesterday’s workout, I ran into Jan.

The Talker’s brother has what I can only describe as a mobile food bank. The back of his truck is filled with what looks to be fresh fruit, vegetables, drinks, and a lot of other stuff I’ve never taken the time to peruse, though invited to take whatever I wanted — as I’m usually headed for my workout without the time to stop.

Evidently, the brother takes his load to a church foodbank with a stop here for his sister to take what she needs, and she invites others she sees out and about when brother is here, to take what they need.

No set schedule that I know of. It just happened that twice, when I was headed to the Pain Cave, the brother was here with his load.

At any rate, Jan was at the brother’s truck and I happened to look over just as she wrapped her hand around a rather large cucumber and said something to the brother that had him laughing out loud.

The way Jan was handling that cucumber, it didn't take much imagination to guess whatever Jan said was naughty in nature, so I walked over, said, “Is Jan doing something naughty?” to which the brother laughed even louder, saying, “Did you see that?”

”I most certainly did”, said I with a grin.

Jan got such a kick out of my telling her how I’d turned her dance rock display into a quiz.

She said she knew ALL the dances, even the fox trot, because she took dance in high school and later worked as a dance instructor.

So Jan is not only a sweet lady, but a little bit naughty (cucumber) and interesting.

I forgot the name of the studio she taught dance, but it was similar to what Arthur Murray studios used to be.

Lastly, while at Macy’s last week, I happened to see a bling sandal on sale that matched one of my masks.

Unfortunately, my size was sold out which I thought good, because it would have been an impulse buy. I saw it, I wanted it, even though I didn’t need another pair of sandals.

However, once back at the complex, I couldn’t stop thinking about the sandal, got online, found ‘em through another source — not on sale, actually twice the price, but hey, I was meant to have ‘em.

She most definitely Is Ready ... and ready in style.