Yesterday and Today and Lucas Ridgeston

Yesterday as Thursday, I stayed home and tried to sleep. And that worked for most of the day. But I did have to go to the bank yesterday afternoon. I'd received my income tax refund Wednesday, but not deposited it. But I'd written a number of checks and knew I needed to make the deposit. The only way I could muster the willpower to go forth was to do everything one step at a time. Which finally got me into the car.

My bank was recently purchased for the second time in less than a year. And one thing I've noticed is quirky staffing. There were at least 20 people standing in line but only two tellers. Now that I think of it, this has been a fairly consistent pattern for about six months. Today's local paper indicated that four cases of embezzlement, involving former employees of the same bank, were handled in federal court yesterday. One case involved more than $1,000,000 over a five-year period. Yikes! No wonder they can't afford to staff the bank properly.

Once out, I thought I may as well hit the evening seafood buffet at Shoneys. I know better! There was plenty of food, but it was either overcooked, or tasteless. And a tad pricey.

It began to rain early this morning around 1 but soon stopped. I was hoping for a little more but to no avail. Although the calendar says May, it is already summer with temps in the 90s. One of the curiosities of an almost semi-tropical clime is no spring and no autumn. All you get is a very long summer and a usually short mild winter. This makes for a great place for pollen, spores and mold, since it rarely gets cold enough to kill off anything. And it's humid enough to make trees, bushes, plants, etc., grow without pause.

You did notice that I knew it was raining because I couldn't sleep. It must have been almost 3 before I dozed off. Then at 4:30, I was awakened by the burglar alarm. Not the sound of the alarm going off, but a warning beeping indicating that the system was working off the battery backup. My first thought was that the cats had knocked the AC tranformer out of the outlet. But when I glanced at the clock, it was off. In a moment of great mental gymnastics, I deduced that the power was off. Luckily, I keep a small flashlight in the chest for such emergencies. I was able to make it to the kitchen without breaking my neck, no thanks to the cats who scampered and romped underfoot.

My first thought was to look up the "reporting an outage" telephone number. Which I was able to do by holding the flashlight in my mouth like a safe cracker. Visions of me and Tom Cruise breaking into the CIA began to enter my mind. But this was not the time for male bonding with Tom. You call the number, and a voice confirms the number you're calling from and your account name. It then confirms that you've reported an outage. It then gives you an estimate of when power will be restored. Then asks if you want a call back indicating that power has been restored. Or if you want a wake-up call. Wow!

I hesitated to go back to bed because in the past, the warning beep re-starts every fifteen minutes until you re-set the alarm panel. I thought of doing a journal entry but gave up after discovering I couldn't see the keyboard on the laptop. But within about 20 minutes, no beeping occurred, so back to bed I went.

I woke up a couple of times and finally got up at 11:30, for no other reason than I felt wretched and knew I should go to the doctor. After fifteen minutes of attempting to make myself look presentable, I gave up and left. There was only one person in the waiting room, and he mentioned to the nurse he was also having sinus problems. Once I was back in the examining room, the nurse said they had been inundated with patients with sinus problems. And when the doctor came in, he sounded terrible. He told me his problem started two weeks ago, and he was now on his third round of antibiotics. He gave me a nice bag of antibiotics and decongestants, so I was excited about saving a few bucks. BUT when I checked out, I discoverd that because I'd not met the deductible in my past visits, there were overdue charges of $200. (Gosh! Golly! Gee! Oh, Fudge!) Remember the income tax check I put in the bank yesterday? Well, here went another chunk. (Double gosh! Double golly! Double gee!)

The doctor is one of the sexiest men I've ever met. Some years ago, when I first met him, I almost wet my pants, I thought he was so adorable. He reminds me of an older Lucas Ridgeston. He always wears scrubs and running shoes. His complexion is a natural golden hue. And you notice golden hair peeking out from beneath the neckline of the scrub shirt. The last couple of times, I've been tempted to tell him I'm gay. Not that it has anything to do with my maladies. And I've written of being seized by that impulse. Maybe, it indicates some sign of intense respect for the other person by sharing something of such a personal nature. But I also realize it can be disconcerting for the other party, so I've held my tongue. Maybe, next time, I'll complain of a groin injury. "I'm sure a little massage will help it. That feels great, doc, now if you could just rub a littler harder, I'm sure the swelling will soon go away."

PAX!