Accentuating the Positive
Firstly, a heart felt thanks to all that emailed me or commented on my previous post. The support and the thoughtfulness of your kind words was appreciated, I thank you all so very much. I am going to attempt to keep that part of my life out of future posts, I'll deal with it privately. It's best that way for obvious reasons, and as wonderful as you have all been, noone likes a misery guts forever.
So, keeping in mind my head's a little on the screwed up side, let's forge ahead and find something more uplifting to talk about. Let me tell you about a 24 hour period in my life last week.
***
One of my tenants pops her head out the door as I'm walking past just after finishing work. "Hey Lisa, is there a special way to use the oven in here? Like a timer or something I can't find?"
Apparently the oven died....*poof*...just like that....no spark, no click, nothing...just...dead. She was in the middle of cooking dinner. Using two elements on the cooktop and with a casserole in the oven. Everything stopped...dinner half cooked. She finished cooking the rest of the meal by using the BBQ. Go Betty!
I went inside and had a fiddle with the power switch and plug etc, don't know why I bothered doing that....it's not like I knew what I was doing, but there's a certain amount of comfort in touching something to be sure it's really broken before spending a zillion bucks on a repairman I reckon.
I called Mr Fix-It...."sorry ma'am, may not be able to get a serviceman there until about Monday". After sounding like a helpless female landlady who couldn't possibly leave her tenants without any cooking facilities for almost 5 days, he relented and sent me someone first thing the following morning.
Anyway, the serviceman came upstairs after having a shufti and said "She lives". Yes! Reckoned she was on her last legs and will need to be replaced sometime this year. I don't mind that, if I can just get another 6 months out of her I'll be happy, that'll give me time to get over the financial bashing that christmas, the wedding and the boys starting back to school has rained on me.
Next on the agenda is my cat. There is not a lot of love lost between me and my cat, but that doesn't mean I want anything nasty to happen to her right? The afternoon of the rebirth of the oven, I looked out the slider to see my cat perched precariously on a rotten piece of wood that was attached to the balconey. I say WAS because as I watched it crumpled beneath her. She scrambled to take hold of something, anything to get back on solid ground. Unfortunately that didn't work...she only had more parts of the same piece of wood to grab for....it did nothing but fall to pieces in her grasp. As I watched, mouth agape, knowing I wasn't going to get there soon enough, she disappeared over the side. That's maybe a 10 foot drop (I'm not good with measurements but I think that's not a bad guess). Heart lurching, I rushed forward to look down, frightened of what I might see.
She wasn't there...she'd scarpered...which I was hoping wasn't such a bad thing, it meant she was still able to move. I spent the next half hour scouting around the outside of the house, looking in as many nooks and crannies as I could, calling her name...."Come on, please, I'll look after you better...I'll give you more love, if you let me....just come out of where you are...let me check you're ok....I'll even let you sleep on my bed"....but nope. The boys came home from school and took up the search. Still no cat.
Three hours later she waltzed in the door, like nothing had happened....no limping, twitching...even let us stroke her....she headed directly for her food dish. That's one proud ballsy cat I've got. After a fall like that, she ran off to lick her wounds and came back when she was ready, not when we were trying to push her to come home. She probably sat around the corner unharmed, hearing us all calling out for her and decided to let us suffer. She's a bit that way inclined.
Next incident that day...my gammy knee...the one I injured years ago playing softball. During the missing cat episode, I had gone back out on the balcony to see if I could spy her skulking around in the bushes....it was wet (the balcony, not the cat).....planted my right foot and immediately slid forward....the edge where the cat fell fast approaching. Luckily I'm hopeless at balancing and went down, forcing all my weight directly onto my bad left knee. That's a lotta weight to be dumping on a dodgy ligament I can tell you. Obviously relieved I hadn't shot over the side I stood up on shaky legs and for my trouble, I share with you my trophy from that day.
I used it as an excuse not to shave my legs for a couple of days. No, I don't have hairy knees, but it seemed a good enough reason to skip the shaving anyway lol.
There's a moral/lesson in this post. Something about not appreciating what you've got until it's broken or fallen off the edge or injured, but that's a bit deep to be heading into that territory at the moment.
Now...*weak smile*....that was more uplifting to read wasn't it?
So, keeping in mind my head's a little on the screwed up side, let's forge ahead and find something more uplifting to talk about. Let me tell you about a 24 hour period in my life last week.
***
One of my tenants pops her head out the door as I'm walking past just after finishing work. "Hey Lisa, is there a special way to use the oven in here? Like a timer or something I can't find?"
Apparently the oven died....*poof*...just like that....no spark, no click, nothing...just...dead. She was in the middle of cooking dinner. Using two elements on the cooktop and with a casserole in the oven. Everything stopped...dinner half cooked. She finished cooking the rest of the meal by using the BBQ. Go Betty!
I went inside and had a fiddle with the power switch and plug etc, don't know why I bothered doing that....it's not like I knew what I was doing, but there's a certain amount of comfort in touching something to be sure it's really broken before spending a zillion bucks on a repairman I reckon.
I called Mr Fix-It...."sorry ma'am, may not be able to get a serviceman there until about Monday". After sounding like a helpless female landlady who couldn't possibly leave her tenants without any cooking facilities for almost 5 days, he relented and sent me someone first thing the following morning.
Anyway, the serviceman came upstairs after having a shufti and said "She lives". Yes! Reckoned she was on her last legs and will need to be replaced sometime this year. I don't mind that, if I can just get another 6 months out of her I'll be happy, that'll give me time to get over the financial bashing that christmas, the wedding and the boys starting back to school has rained on me.
Next on the agenda is my cat. There is not a lot of love lost between me and my cat, but that doesn't mean I want anything nasty to happen to her right? The afternoon of the rebirth of the oven, I looked out the slider to see my cat perched precariously on a rotten piece of wood that was attached to the balconey. I say WAS because as I watched it crumpled beneath her. She scrambled to take hold of something, anything to get back on solid ground. Unfortunately that didn't work...she only had more parts of the same piece of wood to grab for....it did nothing but fall to pieces in her grasp. As I watched, mouth agape, knowing I wasn't going to get there soon enough, she disappeared over the side. That's maybe a 10 foot drop (I'm not good with measurements but I think that's not a bad guess). Heart lurching, I rushed forward to look down, frightened of what I might see.
She wasn't there...she'd scarpered...which I was hoping wasn't such a bad thing, it meant she was still able to move. I spent the next half hour scouting around the outside of the house, looking in as many nooks and crannies as I could, calling her name...."Come on, please, I'll look after you better...I'll give you more love, if you let me....just come out of where you are...let me check you're ok....I'll even let you sleep on my bed"....but nope. The boys came home from school and took up the search. Still no cat.
Three hours later she waltzed in the door, like nothing had happened....no limping, twitching...even let us stroke her....she headed directly for her food dish. That's one proud ballsy cat I've got. After a fall like that, she ran off to lick her wounds and came back when she was ready, not when we were trying to push her to come home. She probably sat around the corner unharmed, hearing us all calling out for her and decided to let us suffer. She's a bit that way inclined.
Next incident that day...my gammy knee...the one I injured years ago playing softball. During the missing cat episode, I had gone back out on the balcony to see if I could spy her skulking around in the bushes....it was wet (the balcony, not the cat).....planted my right foot and immediately slid forward....the edge where the cat fell fast approaching. Luckily I'm hopeless at balancing and went down, forcing all my weight directly onto my bad left knee. That's a lotta weight to be dumping on a dodgy ligament I can tell you. Obviously relieved I hadn't shot over the side I stood up on shaky legs and for my trouble, I share with you my trophy from that day.
I used it as an excuse not to shave my legs for a couple of days. No, I don't have hairy knees, but it seemed a good enough reason to skip the shaving anyway lol.
There's a moral/lesson in this post. Something about not appreciating what you've got until it's broken or fallen off the edge or injured, but that's a bit deep to be heading into that territory at the moment.
Now...*weak smile*....that was more uplifting to read wasn't it?
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