Summer Vibes (Long As Usual) in Thirty-Nine

Hey friends, how are we all doing this Wednesday morning. I have been awake for an hour or so at this point. Lately if I sleep until 8:30 or later, my whole body ends up hurting the rest of the day and it’s a wasted sleep.

But anywho, yesterday was rough, I got up at like 5:30 just beyond sick, so I spent hours in the bathroom being uncomfortable. Grr. But it’s all better today thankfully.

So, what’s been going on? I didn’t even realize I hadn’t sat down and wrote anything since April. These last few months have gone by so quickly thankfully. Well the end of June was like a year and a half long, but otherwise it’s been going ok.

April, what happened after April, I need to check my FB lol

May was a cluster fuck of WTF situations, but we got through it. Randy had found a job, got hired, gotten his uniforms and then someone didn’t like something he said or did during training and they basically told him to fuck off. It was a really weird situation so we were back to square one at that point.

June came along and he actually got hired somewhere so that was awesome. I had to have Carpal Tunnel surgery on my left hand. That went really well, was very strange being awake while they snipped away the ligament in my hand lol.

I had told the dr that I like gaming and stuff, so later on when he was deep into my palm, he chuckled and I was like hmm??? He just said “you have very muscular thumbs. You can tell you are a gamer. Most women’s thumb muscles aren’t this well developed.” haha. But yeah that went very well. I’m about 6 weeks out and had my 2nd follow up yesterday. He went ahead and canceled my 3rd follow up because everything is looking good enough that there’s really no point in me going back to 2 seconds for him to look at it and say I am good lol.

Now I just gotta wait to do the other side. I think I’m just gonna go ahead and wait until the beginning of the year. Things will be much calmer at that point I think.

Moving on to that aspect of things, I have a lot of stuff to talk about lol. So Randy started his job on June 5th. I had my hand surgery June 6th. Then the following week, he was in Tucson/Nogales all week because they were working on some new stores. So he was busy, I was alone with my newly surguried hand lol. But overall it was good.

Uhmmm we had a stray cat sneak into our house. She had been around for some years, had kittens in our shed two years ago, but always just slinking around. Poker treed her in the apricot tree last year. Anyway, so she almost offed me one morning because she got spooked and bolted into the ceiling, subsequently knocking a large statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague, an old glass oil lamp (that didn’t have oil, thankfully) and my dad’s wedding reception glass. They’re all on a shelf in the bedroom above my side of the bed lol.

So we finally were able to get her down and put into the bottom half of the rat cage. We only had the three boys, so the bottom half wasn’t being used. She was good in there for a while, definitely pregnant. We fed her, kept her watered and provided a litter box for her. We named her Cleo and she was doing well.

She ended up having three kittens a couple weeks later, but none of them survived. So we took care of them, gave them a proper burial. She stayed well in the cage for another few weeks. Then we decided to let her have space to roam. So she was ok with that too. She was starting to get more adventurous and explore the house. She was hunting the mice too.

I think Josie told her to skedaddle though because they had gotten into it a couple times and then one day to the next she was just gone. I’m not sure how she got back out, but she did. I’ve seen her around a few times since then, but she just runs off. I have left some food out for her though so she at least has something to eat.

Anywhoozle, so what else....there’s so much going on lol.

I had gotten involved with a county Co-Ed softball league that they had started up kind of on a whim lol. But that ended up being a clusterfuck and I told them to run the team however they decided since I couldn’t ever get any feedback and they were upset about the decisions I had made. So they got their shit sorted I guess. One less thing I had to worry about.

The rest of the month went by fine. With Randy working we have been able to do a few more things. One of the local dispensaries was celebrating their one year anniversary of being open. So we went down there to see what was going on and they had a bunch of shit happening. A bunch of vendors and stuff so that was good. We went early in the day but Randy had to come home from 12-4 for his D&D game, so after he was done with that, we went back and hung out for a bit there. Got super stoned and it was just a good time. We came home with some flower that one of my former teachers grew hahaha! Good times indeed.

The rest of the month was pretty much a non-event. We did end up losing Thanquol around that time. He had developed a nasty Zymbals Gland Tumor and within days it took over his entire head and mouth. We were scheduled to take him to the vet on Monday to get him comfortable and on his way, but he passed the day before. So now we just have Lurk and Boneripper left. I think I’m gonna try and convince Randy to let me get some female babies next week when we are in El Paso lol. I have a couple contacts that I made so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

I have to see my rheumatologist on the 24th. They called me last week to confirm my appointment and let me know they’re no longer doing over the phone appointments so I will need to be there in person. Not a big deal. I had gotten a neurology appointment as well, finally! My PCP had taken a few weeks and made some phone calls to his colleagues about where to send me, so they finally are sending me to a place called Advanced Neurology, Epilepsy and Sleep. They have a whole research department so I’m hoping they will have the tools to help me out.

I had had to move that appointment from July 9th to August 6th because Randy had to work and I wasn’t about to drive to El Paso in the Journey by myself. Our tires were balding and it was just a huge risk, so I had asked my Aunt if she could take me. Well on Saturday my cousin (her son) messages me that she won’t be able to take me because she was at the ER with Covid.

I thought about renting a car, but we wouldn’t have had enough money to cover it. So I just rescheduled it. Well I ended up calling yesterday to see if they had any openings on the 24th since I was going to be down there, and sure enough they did, so I get to see both drs on that day.

Our 4th of July was a lot of fun! We went down to the Parade and then walked over to the Silver City Museum. They have an annual thing there too. An ice cream social, music and a Cake walk. Randy saw the cake walk ad and was like we NEEED to do that lol. He ended up winning a Strawberry Boston Cream Cake! He was like a little kid. I love that about him so much lol. After that we trekked back up to the Park where we sat around for a few hours. Actually got to enjoy some of the food there. Some bomb ass bbq nachos with brisket, pulled pork and chicken. holy shit they were good.

Went home for a bit after that and then went back to the fireworks show later that evening. Was a good day for sure.

Onto the other news, that I haven’t talked about anywhere.

We went out to the lake on the 6th for Randy’s birthday which was a ton of fun. Dogs loved it, there was a ton of people. But yeah the Journey struggled. It was slipping out of gear randomly while we were driving down the highway, so we’d have to pull over, turn it off and restart and it would be good for a while. The back tires were misaligned so the inner part of the tire was nearly bald. It was having more and more trouble starting, sometimes would just completely lose power and we’d have to jiggle things to get it going again.

Monday, the 8th, Randy was off, and we had a few errands to run. We did those and then went to a little pot lot to look at some cars. Neither of them had anything we could get into, so we just went to the main Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep dealership.

My cousin had told us to go talk to someone specific so when we started getting out to look at the cars this guy comes out and starts helping us. I knew it was the dude she was talking about (she said, short, bald, one of the only black guys there) so we introduced ourselves and said she had recommended we come by so there we were.

We looked at a few cars on the lot but nothing was what we were really looking for (something the same size or slightly bigger than the Journey), so he talked to some people and showed us a 2016 Kia Sorento that they were working on. We were looking to use the Journey as our trade in and they surprisingly gave us $3,000 for it. We bought it for $4500 lol.

So that was amazing. After all the paperwork and running numbers, we decided that we could definitely afford a newer car. It’s not brand new, but 7 years newer is a huge difference. So that’s what we’ve been doing this last week or so. Getting things all sorted out for that. We have to make a down payment on Friday and then we’ll be good to go for the rest of the month. It’s just been something that has been needed very much. The Journey gave me ridiculous anxiety every time I got into it because I didn’t know if I was going to make it to my destination and back in one piece.

So far it has been good. The Serpentine belt did somehow snap off the 3rd day we had it. I got into the car to run to the grocery store and the Battery light was on and the AC didn’t work. Everything else looked fine. but I turned around and came back to tell Randy. So he went with me to make sure nothing would happen. Got my stuff done and when we were coming back home, we noticed a belt on the road, but didn’t think anything of it. Randy was checking under the hood and lo and behold there was no fucking belt running anything in there. So he went and picked it up and headed to the dealership. They replaced it.

But yesterday the engine light came on, with no other warnings or “symptoms” if you will. Randy’s gonna take it to Autozone and have the code read and possibly get a report so he can take it back to the dealership and have them fix whatever is wrong. We have the Powertrain warranty so they’ll fix it up.

Otherwise, it is great having a car that’s not going to explode. I haven’t really told many people, it’s not on FB for reasons. It’s not that I’m trying to hide it, I just want to enjoy something without being made to feel guilty about it or to have someone tell me I made a bad decision. Because that SAME person would have told me it was my fault that my janky ass car exploded and I died. So yeah. I’m just keeping it quiet for now and then in a few months when we’re doing much better I’ll be like hey, look what we’ve been doing this whole time.

So yeah that’s that. We are naming it Nolan (already got a sticker on the way, lol). Extra points if you understand that lol.

One of my extra curricular friends, we’ll call him D. He’s a 60 year old man from Georgia that moved out here to get away from his family who was taking advantage of him (including his ex wife lol, no kids though). I met him last March (2023) and we’ve gotten to be really good friends. We have fun when we’re together and we talk nearly daily.

On Sunday, the 30th, I had talked to him that morning, it was a Sunday, and he said he had to go to work for a couple hours and that he would talk to me later. We ended up going to my cousin’s daughters birthday party (she turned 1, and that’s where my cousin told me about the guy at the dealership). I didn’t hear anything else from D that afternoon. But that evening I got a message from him saying “Hey, I’m in El Paso, was hit by a car on my way to work this AM....had to be airlifted” WHAT THE FUCK.

He drives a motorized bicycle. I had JUST helped him transport it from the UPS store to his little camper trailer where lives a handful of days before that. I was just in shock (as I’m undoubtedly sure he was too!) but yeah he was ok for the most part. had fractured his fibula and torn a bunch of ligaments and stuff in his knee, ankle and shoulder.

He was finally able to have surgery on Friday to fix it all and as of this morning he said he was just uncomfortable after the surgery, but was ok otherwise. I had gone by his place to check on it to make sure things were ok, the door was still locked and that nothing was damaged. We’ve had some nasty storms come through. I also threw away the giant box that his bike had come in so he’d have one less thing to worry about.

I’m going to try to get his keys to his house next week when I’m down there so I can go clean it up for him. I’m sure his refrigerator is not looking great lol. But yeah we will see what happens then. Blah I just feel terrible for him. but he’s got a positive attitude and that matters a lot.

Hmmmmm what else. I suppose that is it. We’re in the process of selling Randy’s 3D printer and accessories so hopefully we’ll get there soon. But otherwise we are actually doing well for once. I just don’t physically feel the greatest…but hopefully that will start to get resolved next week at the neurologist!

I hope you all made it this far! Have a good rest of the month.