Bad Kharma

I am exhausted and really cannot continue anymore at this pace and with the type of news I am getting on the weekends. I actually think work will be easier than weekends!

Friday evening. Getting the spring and summer clothes out of the tiny apartment closet and exchanging them with the fall/winter clothes down at the house. (EVERYTHING going both directions appears to need spot cleaning or washing or mending or just throwing away--but no time now.)

Rushing to move all the furniture and loose and breakable stuff as the apartment management has promised a free carpet cleaning on Monday. I will not miss all the spots of my history this past year, but cannot do any cooking.



Saturday:
Loaded the car with STUFF. Stopped at Radio Shack and bought a battery charger for the phone that will work in Europe to prepare for my Friday departure to Italy. Visited my phone vendor and got them to set up international calling on the cell—setup is free but the calls are 99 cents a minute.

Called my sister to let her know I have the international service so we can arrange a meet up in Rome via cell after her week in France. Unloaded the car at the house and then tried to salvage the lawn with my husbands suggested tool of a pick axe, wheelbarrows full of top soil and handfuls of grass seed followed by armloads of straw. Setting many timers and many sprinkler moves was how I spent a long, dusty, and muddy Saturday afternoon outside.


In between times I swept away a hundred spider webs across each window and over each door. Hubby even shook out a spider from my tennis shoe which I had kicked off near the front door just 30 minutes before. The web across the mouth of the shoe caught his eye in the late afternoon sunlight and gave him the clue.


Sunday:
Sunday morning was spent hanging the bathroom mirrors…all four…which are VERY heavy. Husband and I had reached the point of yelling at each other because we could not seem to be able to successfully measure and complete the hanging in one try--both of us have graduate degrees mind you. We did achieve success with the the last mirror and that probably saved the marriage. Did laundry while waiting for a furniture delivery which never happened because the furniture truck broke down. Wrote the final punch list for the builder as I walked through all the rooms with pen in hand. Boiled and cleaned crabs for the freezer (husband's project).



Sunday Evening:
Driving home, and in the dark, unloaded the pile of winter clothes and boots and leftover food from the refrigerator. Vacuumed the apartment in preparation for the carpet cleaners, put clean sheets on the naked bed and then ate leftovers before falling into same dressed bed.

While Drifting to sleep in the eve and the phone rang. It was my daughter who told me that S.I.L. and baby brother in Colorado had been trying to reach me all weekend and left messages on my cell --- none of which I got. The quick jist: Dad fell on Saturday afternoon two steps into the sunken living room which resulted in breaking the ball joint in his hip. He was found shortly after the fall sitting up on the bottom step and continuing to eat the cookies which had been the motivation for the errand up the steps inthe first place. He claimed he had no pain but a trip to the hospital by ambulance was necessary.

Saturday night at the hospital they decided at first that there was no reason to do hip replacement on a 92-year-old. Then the nurse tells the doctors to look at the patient and evaluate him --- thank goodness someone thinks in that hospital. They decided he is in excellent health with more years ahead of him and proceeded to set up surgery on Sunday morning for a hip replacement. My daughter tells me that she was told surgery went very well and he does not appear to be in pain and they are going to get him up and walking on Monday morning. (It was after 11:00 at night by then, and of course, I had trouble falling asleep.)

Monday morning:
Here I sit in the office waiting for the Colorado morning time to call and see what is happening. Finished the call and all is as well as can be expected. They are not letting my sister know as she is in the middle of a week of gourmet classes in France and all of us feel she should enjoy her expensive vacation. (Wondering now if she will meet up with us in Italy or head on back.)

Called Dad this P.M. and between my bad cell connection, the hospitals 'iffy' phone, Dad's slurred speech due to drugs and his bad hearing, it was a most frustrating although sometimes funny phone call. He is in pain and discouraged. I gave second brother a pep talk about what lies ahead (had the same process with my M.I.L. when she came to visit years ago). I will call again Wednesday before I decide if I am going to cancel the Italy trip and lose all the money.

Oh, it is now 4:51 and no one has shown up to clean the carpets yet! Maybe this equinox thing is bad kharma.