Tuesday was an incredibly bad day.
I write this on Wednesday morning, 2:36AM. Air quality is bad. I’m about to get out my painter’s mask as I’ve been outside twice now to feed stray animals and the smoke from the Canadian wildfires has left a haze that you can’t see but you can definitely feel in the pitch-black darkness outside the house right now.
For those who haven’t picked up on the on-going gag on the Welsh News Network that I’m going to die on the planned trip around America from the world’s worst allergies, well, there’s truth to that bit at least tonight anyway.
I am allergic to 55 of the 55 things they test for at my allergy doctor. The last time I was tested, I had such a reaction that my face swelled up to briefly look like a lesser version of the elephant man. It took several EpiPens and Benadryl injections to bring me back and somehow, I managed to drive home afterwards on my own in the longest 20-mile ride of my life.
Allergy shots are probably going to be a part of my life for a very long time. I’m stable now, though, I can sit in the grass in the front yard without swelling but a roll in the hay… better be worth it ‘cause I’m not prepared to die for anything.
That long winded explanation aside, I was already having a bad day on Tuesday from air quality. I’m having a moment now as I now have my air conditioner cranked and I’m trying to breathe.
I’ve never been one to rant and rave in the time of crisis. I was known for my anger as a kid, but unlike my sister, who would rage at the world and make everyone know that she was going to “murder” everyone who came near her until the rage subsided, I’d internalize things, walk away and deal with the anger in ways that would call for me to be away from people for a while.
As a kid in the Seattle area, even with bad allergies, it would mean riding my bike for miles. Exploring trails on my bike, going to stores, making long treks to the 7-11 to buy comics or the immortal Big Gulp to sneak home and puzzle my parents with as it appeared in the refrigerator, since no one would normally notice I was gone.
I would have killed to be a kid again yesterday and have somewhere to run to. Instead, around mid-day, I received the news that the simple spark plug change in my Jeep had somehow turned into a crisis where the entire engine needed to be replaced.
The Jeep was my first “new” car. I don’t go anywhere normally as I work from home. I had always settled on used cars and a half decent experience since they weren’t truly mine. I bought the Jeep after a huge promotion to a role at Oracle and we needed a vehicle since my mom’s van was literally dying and wouldn’t hold up on the long treks her job takes her on.
While she’s put more miles than humanly possible in “my” Jeep over the years, I think I’ve barely scratched 2,000 miles. It’s still a nice looking vehicle, I still baby it at the dealership and thankfully the only work I’ve had done on it over the last few years has been at the dealership. I figured it’d probably be my only new car in this lifetime at this rate, so if I baby it, I baby it. It’s mine.
I don’t really remember much after the call from the dealer. Extended warranty *may* cover it, $8,000-$10,000 if not. I still owe $10,000 on the loan for it which I was on schedule to pay off in the next year and… I ended up in a bathtub, soaking my knee in what was supposed to be a one-hour session that went at least two and a half. Don’t remember if I filled the tub with water or not, I just sat there staring at the wall and losing time as one of my Amazon playlists played.
In bed by 8pm, politely declining to being on air on WNN last night. I’m proud of my fellow panelists for the job they did last night in the D-Day special. I would have had a minor role in the show last night (as world history is not my subject), but I’m glad they were able to pull it off so well in light of everything going on.
I’ve got the Nintendo Switch on my desk again and I’m assuming a new Zelda: Beath of the Wild save. Instead of riding around the woods in the Seattle area, I run around in Zelda. I’m not a Nintendo person, but that game is so charming and there’s so much to do in it, I enjoy the freedom of the world and escape in times of crisis. I guess I started over last night, again, not in the head space to remember much about it right now and apologize to everyone for lack of news coverage yesterday.
It’s now 3:04AM, I’m catching up and about to start writing the news. Going to be in a lousy head space for the next few days and if I’m a grump, I’m a grump. I’ll be back to my normal self soon enough. It was just one more thing to add to the stress of dad’s slow recovery from the stroke-ish incident that has left him in the recovery unit at a nursing home.
2023 has kind of sucked so far, but I’ll recover and move forward. I always do. I just may be a grump about it for a while.
Now wearing the filtered painter’s mask and cursing life, hope your Wednesday goes fantastic.
Jim
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