Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Life's little disasters

Everyone has days like this--everything goes wrong. My first clue should have been when I discovered the people who clean my house once a month had left the litter box sitting on the commode, where the cat couldn't reach it. Actually I had said, "Never mind. I'll fix it," and then forgot. The cat was obedient--peed all over the floor where the box should have been. Cleaned that up, which put me behind in getting to my haircut appointment. Tried to turn on the TV in my office and got a screen full of snow. Forgot about that to go get my hair cut. Electric gate opened just fine with the remote but would not close for love nor money--I had to close it by hand. Got the haircut,, came back and spent 45 minutes on the phone with AT&T U-Verse trying to fix my snowy screen, following all sorts of directions about unplugging this and pressing that and so on. Finally had to leave for lunch, but the technician assured me it should work. It didn't.
After lunch I decided to tackle the TV again because I hate unsolved minor problems like that--they niggle at me. This time I learned a lesson--instead of calling the help number and going through all that automated nonsense, I instituted an online chat with a technician. This is a big lesson for me, because sometimes technicians speak English as their second language and they're hard for me to understand with my impaired hearing (a gentle way of putting it!). The online exchange is great, and with Praveen's help I figured out that the cleaning ladies had unplugged something. That had been a lurking suspicion in my mind, and I'd checked once but overlooked this plug. Voila! I had TV again.
The gate should be fixed tomorrow by someone smarter than I. Now if I could just fix that loose piece of rubber on the window lining of my car, I'd be in good shape. The VW service people said, "We've never seen anything like that." (Don't you love being the person who brings them a new problem?) They said to get at it, they'd have to remove the chrome, etc, and I asked, "What if I tried glue?" The mechanic said, "Yeah, try Superglue." So I will. I always have a fear of glueing my thumb to my forefinger!
Speaking of hearing impaired, the other day Jacob said to me, "I got a Lunchable."
Me: "You got in trouble?"
Jacob: "No." Repeated the line.
Me: "You want a vegetable?"
Jacob: "Juju, where are your hearing aids?" I put one in, and he looked at me and said, "Do you have another one?"
And then later that night he watched me clean my face and said, "Omigosh! Where did your eyebrows go?"
When we were all in Houston recently, four-year-old Kegan looked at my bare feet and asked what "that" was. I explained it was a corn because my feet are old. He looked at me and said, "You're crazy." Then after a long pause, "Nice, but crazy."
And, finally, Kegan and Jacob were playing outside when they came bursting into the kitchen.
Jacob: "Aunt Lisa, Kegan said I'm not his friend any more."
Kegan: "I didn't say that."
Jacob: "No, but you were about to!"
I love kids!

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