Raining in the dining room

Well it’s “raining” again in our dining area. The 2nd floor bathroom of the apartment next door is once again dripping into our place. We are optimistically hoping it is clean water. Most of the previous occasions have been. It somehow gets into the wall and ALWAYS drips down into our place instead of theirs. It would be so much easier if it leaked into their own place – then they would believe that there’s a problem. Sigh!

The handyman came by yesterday and tore out a piece of our ceiling. Ew, what a smell! It’s extremely mildewed and moldy with a hint of something worse. Obviously some slow leaking has been going on a long time to get that much mildew up there. But of course the worker was not able to see what the problem was. He could see where it’s running out of the concrete wall but of course since the pipes are in the wall in the next apartment he can’t see anything from our place. We told him that, after all we have been through this many times over the years but each new handyman wants to rip apart OUR ceiling and see for himself. I’m going to take pictures this time and hopefully save the next guy the trouble!

The worker was uneasy about disturbing the neighbor, after all it’s not dripping into THEIR dining area. He suggested things like cutting a hole in our upstairs floor. Can’t imagine what good that would do, if he can’t see through the hole he already made in the ceiling he won’t see anything additional through a hole in the floor! The water pipes are embedded in the concrete wall – and the waste pipes are above the neighbor’s ceiling.. (I can just see somebody staggering out of bed and falling through a hole in the floor upstairs!) His other suggestion was to chip through the concrete wall from our side to try to get at the neighbor’s pipes.. (Just what we need, a window into the neighbor’s bathroom.)

Sometimes the best thing to do is to just go in your office, shut the door and play a computer game.

Distortion of reality

It’s been a wild week or two around here in the third of my worlds. Two weeeks ago I noticed an eye problem. At first I thought it was due to fancy graphics on a website I was reading but then noticed ALL the windows on the computer were like that. Even the clock across the room looked dented in on one side. Being still a bit jet-lagged it took me awhile to figure out what to do. To make a long story short, I finally got in to see an eye doctor the following week and the next day had some tests. To see a doctor you find out his or her clinic hours and then show up early to get your name on the list. First come first serve. Even coming early doesn’t guarantee you won’t be waiting 3-4 hours on a hard, crowded bench in a tiny hot waiting room.

Having diagnostic tests is always an interesting experience. But even finding this place was an experience. I just kept asking security guards all along the way. You had to wend your way through the hospital and find the back door, go down a dirt alley out to a paved alley and kitty-corner across to what looked like a parking ramp. People I asked insisted the eye place was in there and after wending my way thru rows of cars in the semi-dark saw that there were indeed signs of a building back there. I guess they didn’t want to waste space and so built a parking ramp right at the front entrance. The eye place was cheerfully painted and lighted inside and was well air conditioned. The waiting room was much bigger than clinics around here usually are so I didn’t even need to worry about my knees blocking anyone’s way.

One test involved using a dye. Before the test they wanted to make sure I wasn’t allergic to the dye so they injected a small amount of the dye into the skin of my arm – like a TB test. The guy said it would sting a bit – yikes! He wasn’t kidding! I was NOT prepared for the excruciating pain~ all I could do was try to breathe like they teach women in labor to do. It left a fluorescent green welt on my arm the rest of the day.

Anyway the tests went fairly well once I figured out that when the technician told me to look right or left she usually meant HER right or left not mine. They had been saying I needed a companion to go home (maybe because people come out of there disoriented not knowing which direction was really right and which was left?? Ha, ha!). But since I felt fine I just got a taxi and went home. They gave me the results on two CDs so naturally I copied them and had fun looking at them on my computer.

So far treatment is anti-inflammatory eyedrops that give me a headache. It isn't doing any noticeable good but at least it's not invasive! I still haven’t heard what the doctor thinks is causing the bleeding. Sigh! I sure hope it improves in another week or so and no further treatment is needed. Meanwhile I’m chowing down the green leafies and antioxidents.

Choices, TV, Noisy houses and snow removal

Sometimes people ask what my impressions are of the first of my worlds after having been away for awhile. There are many but here are a few:

People seem to value lots of choices, unending choices in fact, at least over trivia. Coffee shops added another choice since my last visit: dark, medium or light roast. Even sandwich shops- you think you ordered a number 2 and solved all the choice issues? Oh no, you are still asked what kind of bread (6 choices) what kind of cheese? (4 choices) what do you want on it? (10 items to choose from, onions, olives, pickles, tomatoes, etc) What sauces? Mustard? What kind (3 choices of mustard). But not done yet, do you want it heated? Here or to go? Yikes!

Go down the cereal aisle in the grocery store or the soft drink aisle. Guess that says a lot about people's diets, huh? (Here it would be the powdered milk aisle or the junk food aisles.) It's not just food, there are endless cable TV channels, books, movies, magazines.

Some things, however, offer few choices such as the color of cars or the color of siding on new homes. Curiously clothing also offered few choices in style or even color. Example, women's winter tops were long sleeved but way too low in the neck. What's with that? This isn't Florida! And there were only certain colors available, didn't matter what store.

Yet other things offer no choices, such as political parties. The only thing different is the rhetoric. Actions and outcomes are the same.

Television? Unbelievable. Does anybody really watch it anymore??? News-tainment about the fallen hero of the day. And scaring people about the flu. Commercials? Lots of prescription drug ads, all of which have long lists of horrendous side effects including death and suicide.

Noisy houses. Furnaces, water heaters, sump pumps, blowers, beepers, buzzers, dingers, etc. My first nights back here– as I wake up at 2 and 3 am – by contrast were pretty quiet. The house was totally quiet other than my fan and out my open window all I could hear was the Swiss neighbor's cuckoo clock, a distant dog barking, a few leaves rustling in the breeze. That's it.

Snow removal is amazing. After the Christmas storm I saw thick ice on the highways mysteriously GONE overnight! I saw snowbanks being loaded up in trucks and carted away, and other snowbanks literally shoved back from the edge of the roads.

Nothing new in the public bathroom scene. It seems that everything that could be automated already has been. I did notice that in my home state 9/10 bathroom stalls had the TP very low down making it difficult for tall people to reach. Not so in other states. Maybe the state legislature was bored last summer???