Waiting for a call from the Gas Service people. You know how that works... "we'll call you...sometime in the morning... you be there in fifteen minutes or we'll do it some other time...". I see their logic, but it isn't fair. It Isn't fair! I tell you! The world isn't fair. As Ann Landers says, Kwitcherbitchin'.

I have gone so far downhill I'm quoting Ann Landers. Forgive me, please.

Actually, I'm not upset about it at all. Gives me more time here. I did get a good nights' sleep last night, went to bed at 21:00 and got up this AM at 08:00. I feel pretty good, rested for a change. I forgot to take my Zantac before going to bed last night, so I woke up with chest pain at 01:30 this morning. I wish I wouldn't do that, it scares the shit out of me when I do. In that couple of minutes between having the pain start and being fully awake I'm always sure that I'm having another coronary and that I'm gonna die before I can get outa bed. It's never happened yet, though...

Pills. I am so utterly dependent on the handfull of pills that I take every day... I used to get a kick out of seeing the older people come in to the hospital Emergency Room with a grocery bag full of prescription medicines. The older I get, the more I understand about these things, and a lot of other things, too. I would never take all my pills to the ED, of course. No. I have a list that I carry in my wallet. Because I can't remember them all, especially when I get excited. Or I'm tired. Or even when I'm neither. I'm really looking forward to them discovering the Super Memory Drug. This will probably happen in conjunction with a cure, or as a side effect of a cure for Alzheimers. Or maybe I'm in the beginning stages already. Scary thought.

Just got back from my 4th trip to the rental house. Kind of a Keystone Komedy type of thing. The Gas people called me right at 09:30. I run over there and wait an hour for them. They don't show up. I had forgotten the cell phone, so I come back home, and find two messages on the answering machine. #1: 09:40: "We had to pull the guy off your call for an emergency. We'll call back later." #2: 10:38: "We're on the way!" And I got home at 10:45. So I call the number on the caller ID. No answer. It turns out that they don't answer that phone, it's just for the dispatchers to make outgoing calls on. So I call the district office, explain to the lady what's going on, she finally gets ahold of the dispatcher and tells him to tell the guy to wait for me. So I hustle back over there. The gas guy is there waiting patiently.

He says that the service was never turned off. I say, howcome the valve is turned off? He says I dunno, let's turn it on. He does, the little dials start spinning fast. I say howcome that's doing that? he says I dunno, but it's dangerous. He turns the valve off. We walk in the house. Full of gas. Look around. I says go turn it on again while I stay inside. He does. The tenants removed their gas dryer and left the valve on for the gas. We turn the valve for the dryer off, everything's hunky-dory. The furnace kicks on, we have heat. I open up a bunch of windows and decide not to smoke in the house for a while.

So I call Karen on the cell phone and go have lunch with her at BC/BS. She is a wonderful woman and I love her so much.

Then I go back to the house and pick up some other stuff that I'll need at the rental and take the cell phone this time, 'cause the water people are gonna call next. They wouldn't turn on the water until the gas was on. I put the cell phone in my pocket and start working. Pretty soon the cell phone goes off. I can't answer it, though. It rings and rings. Finally I realize that it's telling me that the battery's dead almost. I plug it back in and it's OK. But I can't hear it when I'm not in the room where it is if it rings, the volume of the ringer is too low. So I decide the hell with it and come back home to wait for them to call. When I get home there's an unidentified person on the caller ID. I figger that's the water people, I've missed their call, so I have to wait until Monday. Bummer. As I'm consoling myself with a cookie and coffee, the phone rings. Yay! It's the water people. They will be there in fifteen minutes. So I'm off again.

Amazingly, The guy was there and the water got turned on with no problems. I was amazed. This was not in the script! Something went right! So I piddled around a little more and locked the place up and came home.

Another surprise when I got home... Lisa was here! I'd almost given up on her. She's been feeling sick lately, still looks pretty pale, but cheerful. We got a bunch more stuff moved out of her room into the computer room, we're almost ready to put the bed up. I still gotta move my clothes out of the closet, though, and we need to get her a dresser or something.

And... it's just about time for my Babe to get home, so this is it for today!