When last I posted, I was lamenting the fact that the weather was dashing my plans to make a quick run to Michigan and retrieve my new RV (don’t look at the price, I got one that was a demo and much MUCH cheaper, but exactly the same thing!).
As it turned out, I couldn’t have gone anyway because the flights got so snarled up due to heavy snows and ice storms that no one was flying anywhere. Up here on my mountain, there were a few inches of snow topped with a crunchy layer of ice. No way I could even have made it to the airport, so I canceled my flight last night. That turned out to be the wrong thing to do, because since I never checked in for the flight, I had to pay for it even though it ended up being canceled. Go figure. Better than being stuck in the damn airport for who knows how long, anyway.
But never mind the flight–my most urgent issue with the weather has to do with my arthritic joints. Every time I move my right shoulder it goes “clunk.” Sometimes the clunk is accompanied by a grating sort of pain, and sometimes not. I have a touch (OK, maybe more than a touch) of fear when that happens, because my dad (may he rest in peace) had similar clunks that just got worse and worse. I’m sure that’s what will happen with mine, because so far I’m following in his arthritic footsteps. Too bad I didn’t inherit his artistic talent and drive to make art, along with the arthritis!
Last night was a busy one as I searched for a comfortable position for my arthritic neck. No rest for the weary. So today I’m yawning. I hope I’ll get some sleep tonight.
I can’t take most pain meds, as they either cause me to stop breathing or to itch. I don’t know which is worse. If I stopped breathing suddenly, that would make the pain go away, but from prior experience I can tell you that the road to apnea is fraught with much wheezing and gurgling. I would probably panic and make use of the dreaded Epi-Pen, the epinephrine auto-injector with a needle the size of an elephant’s trunk. Then I’d be back at square one, except now with a large bleeding hole in my thigh.
So I’m ingesting as much turmeric as I can stomach, which does help, and slathering my homemade Frankincense Oil concoction all over my shoulder and neck. My hair is greasy with it, but since I can’t get down my icy dirt driveway and no one can get up it either, I have no worries about being seen with straw-hair.
I am grateful that the power has stayed on, and the propane seems to be holding out. I got a $600 delivery just before it precipitated; but then the temperatures dropped into the single digits with winds that blew off part of the roof of my shed, so I have no idea how much fuel I have left. I’m not going out to the tank and risking busting my arse on the slippery stairs. The salt I spread before the storm merely melted some of the snow; and it froze back up, creating a skating rink on my stairs. Fuck it, I say. I turned the heat down to 65 and put on another layer of silk underwear. That’s the best, I’ve found, because it adds warmth without bulk and you can layer it without feeling like the Michelin Tire Man.

I’ve been using my time somewhat productively. For some reason, even though I spend most days holed up away from the world, for the past couple of days I’ve been noticing what a horrid cluttered mess I live in. It’s actually bothering me.
Even more astonishing: I’ve been doing something about it! Going through piles of papers–I am ashamed to say that I am finding things in my “action necessary” pile that date back to 2013…sigh…I need a personal secretary. A volunteer, because after the RV I can’t pay anybody.
I do still have a little whisky, though, so at leastI can offer a bit of merriment in the evenings. Alcoholics will have to make do with tea. I have a lot of tea, ranging from strong black stuff to the delicious mint I’m sipping now. That’s how it goes around here: tea in the daytime, whisky and smokes at night. I’m single and I do what I want!
And now it’s time to get back to reading my mail from a couple of years ago. Who knows, there could be a check for $50,000 hiding among the junk mail! My luck, it would have expired, like some of the coupons and offers I’ve already unearthed.
Oh shoot, I can’t worry about that. My neck hurts too much. Did I show you the excellent hard shell bionic brace the spine people gave me? No? Maybe next time.
I can’t quite tell which hurts worse, the brace cutting into the back of my skull, or my neck without the brace.
But it looks really cool on. That’s what I used to tell the fancy ladies who came into the Michigan Avenue high fashion boutique I worked in, the winter quarter I had to take off from undergraduate school in Chicago, to make money for tuition: “This Armani is a fabulous piece. The rack doesn’t nearly do it justice. It looks incredible on!” Then once you got it on her, of course it needed the belt, the bag, the necklace, the earrings–accessorize! That’s where you made your money, the accessories.
So I have developed an entire line of accessories to go with the Amazing Bionic Neck Brace–scarves, mostly, because that’s really all you can do with a neck brace, but since I have a vast collection of scarves and hats, it comes out looking rather…surreal, like an alien sister to the Michelin Tire Man.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I got fired from the Michigan Avenue Boutique (right across the street from Tiffany’s!) because I couldn’t sell water in the desert, let alone high fashion when I myself owned a total of two outfits, very worn and tatty. Now I have piles of clothes. They are lying around in laundry baskets littering up the place. Most of them are also falling apart. Some date from the 1980’s when I was three sizes smaller. “Oh, maybe I’ll get back into them someday,” I think to myself.
Between you and me, I rather doubt it. Maybe I should make a pile to take to the resale shop. But how can I part with them, when each one holds so much history? This is the shirt I wore when we went to the Grand Canyon. This natty pair of slacks is the one I wore on my first date, two husbands ago. Never mind that they only fit up to my ankles. Now that I am eating healthy food (after I finish this bag of potato chips), it’s possible that…oh darn, I’ve ripped them! A whole chapter of my life, gone!
I must get back to the pile of mail.