insomnia

Could not sleep last night. At nearly 3 AM, I decided to take a sleep aid and I slept until 10 AM this morning. Last night's restlessness was probably a result of anxiety over the thought that I have wasted the last seven years of my life here alone, essentially,  without any livelihood or community.  Other than K & B and one pal at the dress shop, I really don't have any friends here and I'm too different from the culture here. The unpredictable schedule at the dress shop prevents me from any hobbies or classes I might try to take but it's the only work I can get here. I do not have freedom of movement at the house to really set up anything there so my days are spent staring out from a static position at the store or pacing inside the house. 

Birthday gift

Karen is back from her extended trip to Chicago to help her mother. She and Bob got together with us last night at Casa WereMonster for my birthday.  It was great to hang out with them and have a little birthday dinner party. Karen cooked chicken parmesan for us here since their house is in the middle of a big renovation project.  

She and Bob gave me this dark fairies that she found during her time in Illinois. She was made by a local artist there whose name I do not have. She's a lovely dark pixie with her tiny bat companion. 

late summer

My trip to Ireland was good. I apologize for not blogging during it like I planned to. I wanted to have a travel blog to remember the trip but at the end of each day on a busy bus tour with my sister and her family,  I just chose to sleep.  

Now, Summer is finally fading and the potted moon flowers that nearly died the week I was in Ireland are blooming at night. 

scents

 The bedroom was a bit stuffy this morning so I decided to start a new scented candle I'd gotten as a gift.  The name of the scent was “Sanctuary” so it sounded relaxing - appropriate for the bedroom. A little while later, as I was checking my email, I could smell the candle all the way at the other end of the house in my office. It was not a good scent to me. It smelled like hospital waiting rooms or public bathrooms. I couldn't figure out where I'd smelled it before at first and then it struck me, as I was snuffing the candle and putting it away. It smelled exactly like sanitary napkins. 

Eau de Kotex. 

Although the gift was a sweet gesture, the candle is in the bin now. 

Tuesday Morning

 Couldn't sleep last night so I stayed in bed late. Got up around 10 a.m. and checked on the cat. Still no poop in the box. I was able to call the veterinarian's office this morning. The receptionist asked how old Ellie was and I told them she is at least 10 years old but, since she's a rescue kitty, we have no idea. She did not sound concerned. Maybe that's a good sign. I was able to get an appointment for 2:00 pm tomorrow. They said they would do senior blood work.  

Easter 2022

This weekend has had its ups and downs. I'm up late worrying about those around me and having an anxiety attack over my unfinished taxes. I do not know what my brother is doing with them.  I am depending on him to handle them for me this year and it occurs to me that we are past April 15 and I still haven't heard anything from him. 

Friday night, MonsterMustDie gave me a major scare. I worked closing shift at the dress shop and when I got home, he was asleep in an odd position in front of the TV. The movie he was watching, Encanto, (third time he's seen it) was over and he was snoring loudly. I got ready for bed, turned off the TV, and turned out unnecessary lights and then went to wake him up to send him to bed. By the time I returned to the loveseat where he'd fallen asleep, he was sitting up awake but talking gibberish. Nothing he said came out right or made any sense - the language part of his brain was disconnected. I couldn't decide if I needed to to call an ambulance in case he was having a stroke so I had him sit up with me for while until he seemed to regain his senses and was speaking normally. He was very angry with me for my concern - he was not aware of how he was talking and kept insisting he was fine. The problem was with me in his view and must not have been hearing him correctly or listening to him if I couldn't figure out what he was saying to me. I kept him up for a while and before he went to bed, he was speaking clearly. 

Ellie cat has not been doing so well this weekend either. She's off her food and has not been doing much in the litter box. Things don't seem to be working their way through like they should. I phoned the vet today but only got a busy signal, which was not surprising on the day after Easter. Holidays are tough on many pets that get into the wrong things and I'm sure they had a lot of emergencies. I will try to take her in to the vet tomorrow if I can get through to them. She is still nibbling slowly and drinking some water. 

Easter Sunday was okay. We had dinner with our friends in Greensboro. It was a nice meal of sauteed fresh mushrooms from the Farmers Market, along with angel hair pasta and skirt steak. I brought some Humboldt Fog and a baguette for snacks before the meal as well. However, the night before, they had gone to see Hamilton and she had a bad fall outside the venue after the play and was banged up with a contusion on one foot and something seriously injured (a pulled muscle?) in her hip. Stairs are a challenge for her but she is mending fast. They went to an emergency room and there are no broken bones. 

Tonight, we watched the latest episode of Moon Knight. MonsterMustDie did not remember that we both watched it together a few days ago and I just kept my mouth shut. I know that telling him that we already watched it once before just a couple of days ago would only make him mad and he would just insist I was wrong, so we watched it together and he made exactly the same comments that he made the first time he saw it - at least, he is consistent with his opinions. 

I feel like I'm lucky to be intact this week with so many around me falling apart this week. 

I do still have my periodontal surgery to look forward to next month. 

better

Feeling better tonight.  Woke up still feeling ill but I think the Immodium has worked for my belly. I've been on a soft diet today. Had a couple of bowls of miso soup and smoothies. Drank a single cup of coffee and took an Excedrin for the mild constant headache I've had. Now I just need a good night's sleep. 

Still falling apart

 As it turns out, I am now scheduled for periodontic surgery in May. I found this extremely distressing until I heard from a couple of friends, younger than me, who have already had it. The gum above my left canine tooth is still receding and it is still freaking me out but, according to my dentist and surgeon, there is a common solution for it that they tell me only has to be done once. 

In other news, I've been having gut problems since Thursday. I took one Immodium and started on a semi-liquid diet on Friday after everything I ate started going straight though me on Thursday. Saturday, I stayed on liquids alone because I kept having abdominal cramps. Last night I went to bed early and woke up repeatedly with cramps so now, at midnight, I've taken two Immodium tablets and am continuing to just have liquids. If that doesn't work, I'll try to go to a clinic on Monday when they are open. I do not want to over-do the meds and have worse problems in the opposite direction. I just want to be able to sleep without my gut waking me up. 

#welcometohighpoint

 I have even more reasons to hate this place I live in. 

Good news: a visit at the home of a friend who is is an electronic engineer for a car company appears to have easily and quickly fixed all the problems I've been having with my car. I am delighted and relieved. 

Bad news: The KIA dealership here did not do ANY of the work they charged me for... in fact, they made my car worse. None of the maintenance I have been paying them for has actually been performed - not even running diagnostics on the thing. 

MonsterMustDie had a similar experience a couple of years ago (pre-Covid) at the local Honda dealership here in High Point, North Carolina and he swore off ever bringing his car a dealership here again. 

More bad news for others:
MonsterMustDie has often remarked about the tendency of people living here to all have warehouse units for their stuff. It's a North Carolina thing.   
In other local news, word on the street and in the dress shop this week is that a local mini warehouse business that was recently sold to a larger company has destroyed all of their buildings and sent all of the contents of people's units to the landfill. These were not abandoned units. They were paid up to date and no warning was given that the land they sat on was sold and the buildings would be emptied and demolished. People just showed up at their spaces and found either no building or the doors removed and all of their space emptied. One woman showed me photos on her phone of it all. Others were talking about it. I can only guess this was a tragic clerical/managerial error on the part of the new corporate entity that owns the property because no one was warned they had to empty their units. They only let people know that their rent was going up in the future because of new ownership, a common thing that most found acceptable. High Point is a very depressed area so I doubt there will be any legal punishment for destroying poor and lower-middle-class people's possessions after taking their money to store it. I am curious to see what washes out there. 

Good news: More people are shopping at the dress shop to replace summer wardrobe and vacation gear at the dress shop.  

things are falling apart

Everything is in need of repairs,  from my car to my body. 

I have one tooth that, after my last dental appointment the gum started receeding an alarming amount above a tooth so I now need periodontal surgery. 

My car appears to be dying. After three trips to the mechanic  it still makes a puttering sound when it's running at a slow speed and the check engine light stays on. A message on the console tells me it has an electronic problem. 

memories of the Hardy's house

My waking dream this morning was my father's mother, Nanny Hardy, telling me that she remembered my tricycle when I was little and asking if I remembered their house. I started telling her the first thing that popped into my mind, which was their carport and the folding aluminum lawn chairs with braided nylon. She stopped my there and walked away, satisfied enough and not caring what else I remembered. Even in dreams, it seems like she never liked me but that did leave me thinking about their last house and elements of it. I wish I had photos of it and the elements within it. 

They had a back yard surrounded by chainlink fence. In one back corner of the yard, there was a long, fruit-bearing muscadine vine hanging from the trees. There was a set of horribly uncomfortable metal furniture - slider sofa and two chairs. There must have been a matching metal table but I don't recall one. 

The downstairs finished base level (not quite underground) was where the laundry machines were along with the inner workings of the house that was always making odd mechanical sounds at night. It was mainly used for my grandfather's workshop, which was impressive to me even as a child. I rarely saw it because it was certainly not a child-friendly place but it was a big immaculately organized space with large machines & tools and perfectly ordered and separated small items like screws, bolts, etc. 

He kept everything in the house clean and perfectly running just like his car, which was huge, maybe an oldsmobile but I'm not sure, that was formerly my father's car. Dad gave it to him when he got a newer car and my grandfather had the car running and shining like it was fresh out of a dealer's lot. The only real evidence of use was the deeply imbued smell of tobacco. Granddaddy Hardy smoked both cigars and, mostly, a pipe. He did not smoke cigarettes and Nanny Hardy never smoked at all. 

They had vinyl slipcovers on all the furniture in their living room and a gray carpet that was actually equal amounts of multicolored fibers. There were TV trays with metal tops and I believe that was what they usually used at dinner. They watched TV a lot. I don't remember a single show they liked. 

There was always a crochet project or two that my grandmother was working on. Usually, it was a large throw-blanket of some sort. That was her only hobby. She had no friends - it was just my grandfather and the TV to keep her company. She had "bad nerves" and was a bit agoraphobic. He was much more sociable and loved doing things at the Masonic lodge in town. He was always working on some sort of small construction project at the lodge. She complained about them getting a lot of work from him for free. Whether he was being taken advantage of or not, I think all that matters is that he really enjoyed it. 

They lived there until he became disabled by a series of events following what was minor elective surgery. He got hepatitis from a blood transfusion during surgery and then one thing after another happened as a result of that. Without him there, my father sold the house and set her up in a very nice apartment in a retirement community near our house. She seemed to flourish there, with my father visiting her often. She lived to be 96 (young - both of the Hardy's came from families that lived into their 100's) when she passed away very quickly and painlessly from what was probably a stroke. It was the classic end of never waking up from a night's sleep. 

it never got better

After being stuck in High Point,  NC for over 5 years, I hate living here just as much or more than when we moved here from Atlanta. Never have I been so bored, lonely and unemployed. 

Even in the city,  I was a quirky individual. It took me years to build the social and professional networks that I was a part of. 

High Cost Of Living

 I am still reeling from the realization that no doctor really wants my business here in High Point, North Carolina. 

I am married. My husband is on medicare and pays none of my healthcare costs - never has, never will.  I make 20,000 a year. I filled out an application at for healthcare.gov because I am not able to afford health insurance. The lowest estimate I got for bare-bones healthcare is a $626.14 monthly premium. That is for Basic: $0 Well Visit, $0 Vision Exam, etc. 

WTF?!  

I assume I can't get health insurance for the rest of my life because I am married.  I only make $20,000 a year because I gave up my career in the move to North Carolina to follow my husband's job that he got fired from after three years. Now we are stuck here in the NC Triad for the rest of our lives. 

scoring points, then sulking

I was nearly late to work this morning after I lost track of time while finishing our holiday cards. I made it on time, but just barely. Because I insisted on showering  - I felt sticky. 

Then MonsterMustDie had to be a hero today, bringing my official Saturday work shirt to me after I had forgotten what day of the week it was. Then he went to a friend's house to bring in packages, water the tree, and feed the fish - but first he had to go BACK to my workplace to get the extra garage key from my car, after he had to put a new battery in my extra car key that was at the house. He's still recovering from today's adventures and still angry at me for making things so complicated this morning. He's sitting in the dark and not talking to me.