Oh the heat is coming

So it appears that tomorrow is May the first, with Mother's Day coming up in ten days. As I am no longer talking to my mother, this causes a slight decision: I will buy a card and mail one. They have made no attempts to contact me since they moved on March 10, so I feel okay about returning the same non-attention. It is a sad ending to a troubled parent-child relationship. But I will always be grateful to my father for the financial help he gave me after I became a single mom of four children who struggled to provide her kids with what they needed. I see his help as making the difference between abject poverty, and the genteel type of poverty that we managed to enjoy.

The current state of my life is still "Limbo in God's Waiting Room" as I do more physical work than I ever imagined I could, while, at the same time, less than men do in a tenth of the time. A simple task like bringing a tall extension ladder can take me an hour, as the ladder is too heavy for me to lift, so I pull it along on a dolly, and then, getting it to make the turns needed to get inside the house is challenging to my understanding of physics, as well.

So, hallelujah, the ladder is inside the house--now to get it to stand up against the wall and, also, to get it to extend to the height required (24 feet). It is not easy to do, as pushing up on the ladder is too strenuous, so it has to be on the ground, extended, and then stood up. This requires moving much of the furniture to make room for the long ladder, and so forth.

Oh, none of this is major: it just keeps me busy until the house gets rented or sold. I have decided to have solar heat put into the pool because being able to swim will make my time here more pleasant. It should, also, make it more appealing to renters or buyers. I am cleaning out my IRA, but I am not one to hold money away for a future that I do not anticipate enjoying. So I am going to make my home comfortable, in the unlikely event that I am STUCK here.

OMG.

Still wondering WTF

It was going to be perfect: I was going to do some off-color standup stuff at the local open mic yesterday night. But, alas, I was in the recuperation stage of a stubborn sore throat, and then lost my voice. I still considered going as a spectator, but had some guilt about possibly giving my infection to someone else, and I am not exactly Mother Teresa, but I do care enough about strangers to not give them an illness that is extremely painful. 

The sad thing for my former family is that they needed me more than I needed them: I already had a large extended family, including my four children, their significant others, my granddaughters, plus two of my aunt's families which are large (both had six kids), so I have enough family to last me. I even am close to many  members of my former husband's family. These people who were part of my nuclear family have only a very few family members to care about them. Why do people shoot themselves in the foot?

Even though my lawyer friend has, by mutual consent, left my life, I see his advice about taking bad things and people, putting them into a box, and tossing them out, to be appropriate for me at this time. I get messages from two older friends urging me to make it up to my parents, but it was they who hurt me: I didn't do anything wrong, so what is there for me to say?

Back in the world of doing things, I am still trying, but not so hard, to get my house done--am still finding new holes in the bathroom to plug and sand, but it will happen when it happens. 

I kinda want to get another car, a sedan, to have when I don't need the truck. I can probably afford something used, so long as it runs, and does not require repairs.