I survived the great blackout of 2003 and all I got was this dumb t-shirt!
It hasn’t been a good start of my well deserved vacation. The first night, my water heater broke at 1 in the morning. Otto and I spent most of the night mopping up hot water on a hot humid night (think sauna but with clothes on). The next day was spent looking for a “professional” to replace it. I don’t know how many professionals give out their personal cell phone numbers though…. So that cost well over 500 bucks. CHa-ching!
The next day we had to take DooDoo to the doctor. Since the removal of half his jaw, despite reassurance from the surgeons, his jaw did not realign itself. So his lower fang was biting into his top lip causing this awful painful looking sore. We found a very well known and liked “specialist” that charged us well over 1200 bucks to extract teeth and file some teeth down. Cha-ching!
The specialist was located in Long Island, about 45 minutes from me (if I’m lucky), so Otto and I decided to hang around the Island since we were going to pick up the cat in the same day. With an hour left to go, we decided to go to Petco (what guilty pet owners do when they put them through any kind of surgery) and within 5 minutes the power goes out. We decide that we should probably head over to the Vet’s right away but fortunately for us, the biggest mall in the city is right across the street. Hundreds of cars began filing out of the mall making situations worse since not a single traffic light was working. We rushed out with me wishing I had looted something from Petco (of course later, Otto says “YOU WANTED TO LOOT FROM PETCO?! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? WHY NOT BEST BUY?”). We decide to slip into the mall for a few since we weren’t going anywhere but across the street and we meet a man who apparently lives around the corner from us for the past 18 years. He knew who Otto and I was, said he remembered me when I was a child walking my dog, and even described our current car to us, yet Otto and I had no idea who he was, this being the first time we ever laid eyes on this guy. Being slightly creeped out, we left (and of course now we see him all the time - after all he does live right around the corner, right?).
The vet was really about 15 -20 minutes away from where we were and it took us about 2 hours to get there. A friendly gasoline attendant helped us with shortcuts (but that took an hour and a half for us to decide to ask someone for help). We finally got there, met yet another person we knew, and left with our cat. I was getting worried about my mother (cell phones were out of service) since she was coming from Manhattan. We decide to stop at my parent’s only to find that my father went to pick her up at the usual meeting place near my house 3 hours ago, yet my mother had already made it home (thanks to her keen survival skills - the ability to wave her hand violently for a cab). Otto and I went out to find my father, me thinking the worse of the worse, only to find him reading the newspaper in his air conditioned car (probably smoking too! a habit he’s not allowed to have).
We spent the rest of the night sitting outside on our porch with the rest of entire neighborhood, meeting people we’ve never met before but lived next to for several years. It was hot, humid, and, well, painful for me. I need my air conditioning and hermit like ways. Much of the night was spent giving away candles to everyone and griping about how hungry we were since we didn’t think to buy food or eat at my parent’s. Of course all that is put into perspective when our 60ish year old neighbor comes walking in after a 5 hour WALK from Manhattan to Queens at 10 at night. The day had a slight reminiscent ambience of 9/11, a day when the neighbor’s son took the same walk his father did, but with a less threatening air. People were a lot nicer and much more helpful than usual. It was like God or whatever the Hell is up there, said “Hey, remember when 9/11 happened and you all came together? Well that shit ain’t happening any more, so let me give you something to remember it by” or something like that…
All in all, it was a very expensive start to my vacation - and I didn’t even go away yet. Luckily, I still have another week or so left! Yay!