MaggieMayhem

So, that whole positive post last time? Ha. Hahahahahaahahahahaaahahahaaa.

Monday evening into Tuesday morning, and through Wednesday, the Wasatch Front experiences hurricane force Eastern downslope winds. The damage was considerable up and down the valley, with Ogden being one of the cities hit hard. Power went out about three in the morning. That place where my tree had dropped a branch? The neighbor’s tree came down there, right on top of all the new landscaping. Toppled over from the roots, the whole big tree. Missed my power line, but ripped the Comcast line apart. Smashed the blue bottle tree, and killed the Japanese Maple which MyLarry had planted for me. I still cry over that.

Branches and leaves everywhere. Our street was blocked at both ends by downed trees. Many streets were. I could see six mature trees down just from my front porch. There are still trees down in private yards.

I was without power for five days. I lost all my frozen and chilled food. I have a gas stove I can light, so I was able to make omelets and coffee. Stuff like eggs and cheese can survive less than optimal chilled temperatures. I charged my phone with our Goal Zero power station, but even that started running low. Several of my flashlights had rechargable batteries. Ha. Hahahahaaa.

I don’t know how long this will take to clean up. Quite the set back. I am distressed but just exhausted. So tired. I do not want to deal with this, it sucks. Oh, I’m okay, but not as okay as I was last week.

So much for the sprinkler guys.

The panini press does indeed cook steaks nicely and in minutes. Burgers too, so that’s nice. Not too hard to clean either. Genius and Rarity came and took me on a picnic, we took along my new portable propane grill. Easy to use, cooks tasty fancy sausages in a flash. Nice.

The family room is done! The rugs are down, I have put up the art, and am working through all the stuff. I even emptied some drawers. Tossed out our flight papers from Japan in 1995. Got the girls a cute new scratching post, and am sorting through the ceramic miniatures to gift away.

I hired actual landscapers. Meggio, a burner, has started a new business, Om & Garden. They really made a dent in the yard weeds and overgrowth. The back yard looks fantastic, they did a thorough and meticulous job. Matt came and did the mowing, because the yard kid ghosted. I have been doing work myself, although a simple hour of work puts me down for a few hours after. No stamina, but I am chipping away. Got rid of Larry’s recycle station, and the pile of stumps and branches. It’s sad, but practical. I organized a lot of the random wood pieces for projects, and sent a lot of scraps to the dump. Matt will be back to sort the trucker items, and he can sell some of that. The sprinkler guys will be here tomorrow to properly repair my yard systems. Not inexpensive, but something I must do if I want a decent front yard.

Meggio has listened to my plans to put rock in the tiny side yard, and behind the lean too. Why have grass in unused areas, hard to maintain? And I may get a front yard island next year with a tiny tree.

Matt took the Harley. He will pay me, of course. I am just sad we never rode as much as we could have. There’s a lot of baggage in the emotional warehouse with that bike.

Using the new laptop now. I was right to mistrust the old one, it crapped out as I was trying to transfer my data files. I now have the pleasure of allowing PC Laptops to do a data recovery for me to my external hard drive.

Trying to get the truck registered. Turns out if you turn off the battery, the truck loses its mind and will not pass emissions. So it has to be driven around. We went up the the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. Desi had never been there. Larry and I used to drop in now and then. Dad used to take me fishing out there when I was a teenager. Summer is not the best time, but the usual suspects were there. Lots of swallows, pelicans, loons, grebes, ibis, and the majestic Blue Herons. And wasps, angry aggressive summer wasps.

Still waiting for the family room to be finished. All I need is the furniture to be moved, get the rug down. I cannot do that alone.

Picking away at the yard. Slow going, but it goes.

I used the new panini press today. It is a little large for my counter, but a cutting board helps. My learning curve commences; my grilled cheese was a bit soggy. I have tiny thawed steaks, perhaps they will be dinner.

No pictures, sorry. I have not put on the phone sync app yet.

Still hanging in there. Desi took me to the commissary, and I did a nice stock up. I have a new laptop; it is still in the box at the foot of the bed, but I have it. This one has issues, I dare not trust it much longer. I cannot remember how old it is, which is weird. If I power up the one I had before, I could tell by the dates of the photo albums. Meh.

I try to do something each day, preferably both inside and in the yard. Watering if nothing else. Weeds, every morning, even if it is only a few. I’ve looked over the north side of the house, there’s a lot there to be done. Big weeds, taller than my head, a couple young maple trees. I did cut back one of the two bushes this morning, right down to twigs and stems. The gas meter was being blocked, and I know Dom Energy hates that. Most of the branches are on the grass, but that’s dead anyway. Must be chopped up and put in the trash bin. I can get after the dead dry leaves by the meter with the leaf sucker soon. So that’s a thing completed. Half. Ish.

The basement ceiling tiles arrived, but are still in boxes. No word from Tony. I need to take the Dali Alice lithograph and have it rematted, it did take water damage after all. I mopped the floor, washed the gazing ball and the big crystal rose bowl. Still dusty as heck down there.

All my beads and beading things are now in my closet rather than in the basement. I made two Loki meditation strands to help me focus. Promptly redid the glass one two days later. I like them and it felt good to make something. I need to make a sun catcher for Desi, and am resisting the siren call of Swarovski crystals online.

I didn’t post much, because there wasn’t much to say. In the last week though, I have moved into my bedroom completely. I still have one or two things to get settled, but I am in my room with the AC.
The coffee corner looks great, I even got some art which goes with the aqua up above it. I finally took all of Larry’s shoes and clothes out of the closet, his closet is now mine. I left his dress uniform shoes in the shoe drawer, but at the back. His dresser, with 11 drawers, now holds mostly my stuff. I moved his junk drawer down, and his funeral drawer to the bottom.
Mrs. Bucky the skeleton came upstairs, I dressed them in Larry’s black leather jeans, the shirt he wore when we got married, cowboy boots, Harley belt, and big black hat. Now Named Lucky Barry, and stands in the living room.

I have my Loki altar set up, with a candle offering bowl, incense, trinkets and a great Loki figure. Gives me a place to talk and meditate. Plus I get a shot of liquor each evening.

I got out the weed whacker and am learning how to use it. The tree guys did come, the wood is gone. I have done weeding in spurts in the morning when it is cool. Still need to find someone to fix the front sprinklers. The swamp cooler guy is scheduled for Monday, it is 90 degrees in the kitchen and hall. If I can cool those, and the front room, I can work on cleaning, and on art. The basement ceiling should be finished on Tuesday. Still waiting for people to come pick up other things, but I know how that goes.

While I am still very sad most of the time, and cry at least once a day, am still lonely as hell, and quite bored; I feel as if I have turned a corner. Maybe optimism, maybe a calm place inside. Still very up and down. Spending too much money. But somehow, I feel like I have a tiny measure of hope that everything will be okay.

Jinx.

Nothing changes, it seems. The wood is still piled in the backyard. everything from my bedroom is either in the basement or in the pod in the driveway. The attic is insulated now, the bedroom mostly painted, and the wall in the basement painted. I found the other place water came down, in the truncated hall, onto the plastic Christmas bins. I can’t get to the tea chest to check it. I did lose my Lennox Joy bath mat, all covered in mildew spots. All the rugs were in a roll together, the cheap ones have been machine washed, but I think the fancy expensive one which cannot be replaced is covered in mildew spots. Well hell.
The power outage took out my programmable coffee pot. I got reimbursed for it, ordered a copper colored Cuisinart. Built a whole new coffee corner in anticipation. Turquoise trays, tea tins, a glass spoon rest, titanium flower teaspoons, put my fiber and stevia in glass canisters. Beautiful . Just got a notice that my package was probably lost, had to ask for a refund. The good news is the retro aqua coffee maker I wanted is back in stock. Sigh.

I am always tired though. I do not sleep properly, or I do the cat thing and doze too often. A little gardening gets done, but I am not up to much. I do paint a bit, which is relaxing. The Gospel according to Loki is catching my interest, I read one or two very short chapters daily. I sleep to Sacre Bleu on Audible, just cannot stay awake through the story. Any story would do it. I am not using my Kindle enough, or reading my comics. I let a couple of my streaming subscriptions go for now. Keeping Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney (free for now), and of course Xfinity//Comcast. It is sufficient.

Desi and I went for a massage, first one since February. Every person wears a mask the entire time, even during the massage. Good distancing, and the appointments are staggered. Very, very clean. My therapist’s partner is compromised, so she takes every precaution. That makes me feel okay. Still some risk, but not a ton.

I miss flowers in my front pots. Michael’s has them on sale, so I got a bunch of bunches to put in my blue pots out front. Tacky, I know, but better than just dirt and dead weeds.

The wind damage was covered after all. Rocky Mountain even sent tree guys. Sure, I have logs cut and stacked in inconvenient places, but they’re done. New breaker box in a new location, all up to code. Very fancy. I lost dome chilled and frozen food, but not too bad.

However, it all caught up to me. I am physically exhausted, just drained. I didn’t dress until later in the morning, now it is three in the afternoon and I already took an epsom salt bath and crawled back into my nightshift. Time to siesta.

So,I spilled coffee and now my touchpad seems to have vanished off the laptop. May need a new one, unsure. Accidentally ordered four mouse, mouses? Mice? Cheap ones at least.

The front water sprinkler system master valve I paid so much to have fixed leaked the first time I turned everything on. Nobody likes to fix these things, so I have to figure it out.

Most of my seeds I planted have not germinated.

The garage gutters are full of maple seeds.

Waiting to hear from the insurance company about the next stage of home restoration.

I got a small dead branch off the power line about the patio. All proud of myself. This evening I hear a BOOM! A quarter of the maple split off and fell northward, onto Javier’s fence. Took out their power line. Mine is still connected, but ripped the meter off the house. Not covered by homeowners, because it didn’t hit a car or structure. Wind damage tends to be minimal or non-existent.

I am locked out of my online banking.

So, how is your fucking week?

Rinse and repeat from the last blog. Doing this and that chore, hip gets better then worse, Lolo pees on me. House is still in pieces, demo signed off, waiting to hear from the restoration side. Haven’t done much outside, the tree on the fenceline is down and That Stupid Dog stands on the stump, paws on the fence, growling at me. She could be over in a flash, it is unnerving and I am not up for being terrorized.

Hot upstairs. I have fans going, but no swamp cooler or AC. There’s a pedestal fan in the basement, but it is noisy and bulky. I should have a new tower fan here tomorrow, for the bedroom. It is cool down here, but stuffy.

I went through a lot of Dad’s old Navy stuff, what is in the drawer, not the big bin. Found a patch and added it to his shadowbox. Posted a picture of the box on Reddit, got a good response.

All the news on TV is bad. I do not feel well this afternoon, queasy, warm, and in pain. I should have washed my hair, but no energy for that. I need to pack up house hippos to go to their new homes.

I just miss Larry a hell of a lot today. A lot a lot. I do not want this. Please, let’s rewind to better days.

Whenever I get a little housework done, I feel a little better. I have been making art, got the kitty boxes done, the trash out, washed some dishes. Unpacked my go bag I put together after the earthquake, which meant I found the socks and t-shirts I was wondering about. Oops. Listed a handful of items on the local online yardsale. Tidied a little, swept a little. Got mom’s glass strawberry back up into the kitchen cubby. I need to do garden things, but am unmotivated to go out. Getting there.

The bedroom is scraped and the fans are running. The basement is dry, but torn and part and dirty. The attic is the attic, needs insulation. Waiting for them to call to come by and do the wetness checks.

Sleeping too much. The dreams are good though.

Hip is improving, but once the prednisone is done, we shall see how I feel. Lolo hasn’t peed on me in two days, so there’s that.