if a storm is a high, the aftermath is the hangover...

well, I knew it was coming... the fix-it people... the roofers are walking (and pounding) on the roof... the dryers are moving in their industrial strength de-humidifiers and hot air blowers... the hustle and bustle is everywhere... and me, well, I'm looking for a reasonably comfortable place to sleep... the big green chair looks like the likely candidate, but with Precious out of school, the TV stays on... and of course all the fix-it people work all day, so how's a night shift worker like me supposed to get any shut-eye... sleep, that is... subconsciousness, at least...

the positive side of all this is we don't have to pay for all these services... owning a home has many advantages for the long haul (like a place to retire with minimal monthly payments or at least a decent retirement nestegg)... but living in an apartment has many advantages too (like no lawn to mow or repairs to make or expenses to deal with in emergencies)... of course there's the compromise on both ends of the ownership-rental spectrum and for a few days, at least, I'll be giving up my privacy and control of this living space to maintenance and other fix-it contractors who are here to do a job at their pace in their time...

sleep?...

this is gonna be another long week...

on the fun side, I've explored my Gmail a bit and it's simple and cool and has a small footprint so it runs well on my laptop with a dial up connection... maybe well enough to actually stay open and used (as no other web based mail service has been used as a regular address before simple because the graphic ads and interface demanded way too much memory (and time) for my liking... still, the ease of scrolling through messages with an actual mail program is my preference... what surprises me is that I've actually used the dang Gmail, responding to two mails that came in there (thank you so much for that you wonderful people)...

and for additional semi-background fun, I've been watching Night Visions all day... for those of you who don't know, the Sci-Fi channel tends to put on eight hours of a series on... so we're coming to the end of a series called Night Visions... it's cool because I've not seen most of the episodes of this series (I did recognize a few) and that's surprising cuz I usually try to catch these sort of strange story shows... of course Sally changed the channel to the news as soon as the show were over, and then promptly left the room... I'm switching to music...

and about thirty minutes later...

there are now two massive floor fans (almost three feet across) in the kitchen, two in the dining room, and two in my bedroom... and there's a dehumidifier (the size of a Marx Brothers trunk, and if that doesn't reference it for you, almost four feet high and two feet wide on each side) in the dining room and one in my bedroom... I'd estimate the Db levels at over 70, since there's no way to have any sort of conversation in here now without yelling... kind of like being at a professional sports game at the moment of a scare, or perhaps a better analogy would be standing under a water fall... a big one... not quiet Niagara, maybe, but a big one...

did I mention the pounding on the roof?...

the good news (there's always good news, ya know) is the TV is drowned out completely... I can hear the fans outside of the headphones (Pink's Can't Take My Home currently blares in my ears) I have on (yeah, they are cheap ones), but it's ok... kind of like being at an outdoor concert at the beach in a thunderstorm... or hurricane... with a tornado bearing down... interestingly, the cure for a hurricane is more wind almost as loud as the storm itself...

I find that oddly amusing...

and comforting...

it's the balance, ya know?...

Precious just found out she doesn't have school again tomorrow... she seems pleased, but it's not going to be easy to pack in all the studies she's going to have to do, especially since this is her first year in the IB (a special gifted-type program) and she's on probation cuz she's starting a lot later than the rest of the kids in the IB (cuz she just moved down here... it's rare they let a kid into IB in midstream, so she's got an impressive start but needs to prove herself to the program supervisors and missing two weeks of school in the first month is a setback she didn't need... her genius will just have to blossom)...

I think it's time for me to try to sleep a big, since I am yawning and have watery eyes and a sleepy head... do you droop too when you get really tired?...

so with the indoor (and dry) storm winds blowing (and roaring) and the feet and hammers pounding on the roof and good music fillinf what's left of my ears, I'm kicking back in the big green chair and nodding... hope your evening is even more exciting than my dreams...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)