Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Scores
Electricity: 0 Wildlife: 1
Serenity: 0 Floor: 1
I’ll start this off by stating that I have not taken my Oxycodene in about a day and a half and when I slept last night, I recall laughing my self senseless in my dreams. Finally had a good dream. Don’t really rememeber what it was about, just know there was a lot of laughing.
Which is good considering one of my bigger fears came true last night. At least partially...as far as I know.
I had run out of food and my brother is out of town so I was trying to think of what I could do. At first I thought, “Well, I can call a cab and do it myself I guess” and was going to do that last night until it occurred to me, “Brilliant. And just how do you propose to carry your selections around in the store when you have two hands operating crutches?” Oh yah. Damn. Now what? Ah! Pizza deilvery. (I really wanted Chinese but no place near here delivers.)
So, I knew that I needed to bathe before I opened the door to anyone. I’m not allowed to get my cast wet and the tub is deep so it’s a real delight accomplishing this task. But I, with the grace of a ballerina and strength of ten men, was successful in this chore.
I laid down again and read some while my hair dryed under the towel for a little bit. Then it was time to take the towel off and try to run a comb through my hair.
I got up, balancing skillfully, gymnasts would be in awe at my incredible abilities, got the towel off of my head and was in the process of wiping the hair out of my face when BAM! Down I went.
I had been using the wall to keep me steady and because the towel was in one hand, I had to take my other hand off the wall to get the hair out of my face and I completely missed it when I went to reach for it again as I started to get off center.
Of course my right leg went down, instinctively, weight was put on it and onward I crumbled. I give myself an 8 for that spectacular show. I laid there for a moment waiting to see if any agonizing pain was about to wash over me. Not much actually. Hmmm....I have staples...better check for blood from torn skin. Nothing. Ok. Maybe I got off lucky.
I got back up and planted myself in bed....where I apparently belong and should stay since I have issues with keeping myself upright, and decided to monitor myself for awhile. I had a tiny bit of pain on the left side of my ankle and a wee bit of pain on the right side, the surgery side. Still, not bad really. Told myself that if it got worse or things started not looking or feeling right, I’d go back to the VA and tell them that Queen Klutz was here to see them.
I still have a tiny bit of pain but I think really all I did was just slightly strain some ligaments that were already strained. I think I’ll be okay.
Just as long as I don’t try to do anything ever again. And yes, it’s slightly embarrassing but that’s what ya like about me isn’t it?
Needless to say I didn’t call the pizza guy last night. I was a little shaken. Today I woke up and was so hungry I thought I was going to starve to death so I decided I would call them.
Since it was still a little early for pizza places to be open, I started reading sites on the net. After about an hour, I began to get tired and had just “put the computer away” (meaning, set the wireless keyboard and mouse down), and was going to take a short nap.
Right at that moment, the power went out. Oh well. I was going to nap anyway. But first I better get up and see if it’s the whole house or a fuse. It was the whole house. Nothing I can do about that, back to bed.
I climbed back into bed and laid there for about a half an hour when the electricity came back on.
I had just enough time to say, “Oh...co...” when it went off again and there was an extremely loud “BOOM!”
Aww jeezus, what the fuck now!
It sounded like it was from the kitchen or something so I thought I better get up and make sure the house wasn’t on fire. I have a lot of respect for electricity. I love it. I’m glad we have it but I also know, it can do damage. So I respect it and never assume everything is okay.
Checked the entire house, garage, front and back yards. Nothing. Now look, it just isn’t cool when the electricity goes out, comes back on for two seconds and a very loud boom follows it, killing the electricity again. I wouldn’t have been happy if I had two good legs to use but I was even less happy that I was on crutches and not knowing what the hell was going on.
Approximately 20 minutes later, BOOM!
Oh fuck this. This is some serious bullshit. It figures. It fucking figures. No one is here, I’m on crutches, the electricity is out which means IF something is happening, I can’t call a damn soul. BAH!
I did what any helpless, reasonable person would do at that moment. I went back to bed. What the hell could I do?
Maybe 10 minutes after that I heard large trucks outside so I peeked out my bedroom window and saw the electric company had stopped in front of my and my neighbor’s houses. Wow. That was fast. In Seattle if the electricity goes out for anything non weather related, you could be out for HOURS while they decide whether or not they are going to investigate the cause.
Not having anything better to do, I decided to become a nosy resident and went outside. One of the electric guys came up to me to ask for access to my backyard while some of his crew members were getting into my neighbor’s backyard.
I crutched back in to the house, out to the garage and into the side yard to unlcok the fence for him. He asked me what I had heard, had I heard two “booms”? I told him the story.
He said, “Well, I guess we better look to see if maybe it was a squirrel.”
Now I had thought of that for about 3 seconds while I was checking things out but I was really hoping that wasn’t the case. Poor squirrel!
I watched them take the power box down...don’t know the proper term, from the electric pole that sits right on the edge between the two properties. I watched them put up a new one. I wasn’t going to ask because I didn’t want confirmation that a poor little squirrel met its maker today but curiosity got the better of me.
“So what happened? Was it a squirrel?”
“I didn’t see a squirrel up there. I guess it just went bad.”
Whew! No dead squirrels! And there was much rejoicing. Yay! Although there was a slight uneasiness at thinking the power box, “just went bad” and made those noises it made.
Anyway, about 2 hours after I lost electricity, it was back. I called the pizza guy and stuffed my face after it was delivered.
And I’m back in bed where I have every intention of staying put for some time as I, apparently, am not capable of handling simple tasks like staying vertical.
Time for a nap.
<--- Here Endeth The Lesson

