Two Plumbers, Two Swans and Two Mahjong Lessons

Two weeks ago I had four blog posts in my scheduler which meant I could take a breather to wait for something interesting to happen in the wonderful world of---wait, let me rephrase that. I’m old and I shouldn’t be waiting around for things to happen. I should be making them happen, taking control of my time instead of waiting to see if Suzy down the hall got her mole removed or to see if enough people signed up to go to the Navy Band Concert downtown. In truth I couldn’t care less about either of these things but I mention them because someone out there probably does want to know the full range of activities that goes on in a continuum care complex like the one I’ve been living in for just over six months now. I care more about the watercolor set and paper I just ordered from Amazon. Don't ask me why but my acrylic paints and I are are not on speaking terms right now and I'm hoping a new media will inspire me.

I’ve been thinking about doing one of those betting pools like you can set up at Baby Bookie or BabyHunch to guess when a human baby will arrive only with my pool the residents here would be betting on when the swans will hatch their eggs. The only reason I don’t make that pool happen is because my apartment is not facing the lake so I couldn’t pinpoint the exact date and time the cygnets will emerge from the eggs. Did you know it can takes 2-3 weeks for all eggs to be laid and only then will the incubation period begin and that lasts for next six weeks? That way the hatching will be synchronized. How the pair of swans decides how many eggs they want is a mystery but experts believed it has something to do with the abundance (or lack there of) food the nesting pair thinks they'll be able to gather to feed their family once they are born. Birth control based on a couple's ability to support their babies; what a concept.

What I do know for sure is that no one is supposed to go near the nest until well after the eggs have hatched unless you want to risk the wrath of mean-spirited parents-to-be. They aren’t like humans who are nesting and they want to show off all the neat baby gear they’ve accumulated for the big event. 

Have I mentioned I’m taking a class to learn how to play Mahjong? Today was my second lesson and we are learning to play by the National American Mahjong League Rules. From what little I’ve learned online the Chinese version looks simpler, and it doesn’t requirement players to buy new score cards every year to go with your set of tiles---sounds like a scam to make more money to me but I’m a total newbie so what do I know. Back when I was involved in the senior citizen hall in my old neighborhood they filled 8-9 tables of players once a week. But they weren’t friendly to newbies. They only offered to teach newbies once a year and then you had to sit and watch them play for x-number of games before you got a chance to be a sub unless they had enough newbies to form their own table. 

With the first lesson here, we had a table of five of us (two people pairing up as one player) and the instructor walked around the table approving or suggesting tiles to discard. I didn’t understand the combination I was trying to build based on the score cards in front of me and I kept trying to build poker hands with my tiles which, of course, didn’t mean jack diddly squat in Mahjong. Today’s game was easier because I’d done some research and studying online but it was still confusing until about half way through and a light bulb went off in my head. I ended up winning the game with a lot of help from blind luck. Who draws five jokers early in the game? Me that’s who and there are only eight jokers total. None the less I was so excited. I think I’m going to love Mahjong so in the future if you want to rob my apartment do it on a Wednesday between three and five o’clock. 

Remember the milk colored water issue I was having in my bathroom? The one where someone in the office closed my Maintenance Request without even sending anyone out to investigate. Last time I wrote about it I had gone to the CEO who sent a maintenance guy over who in turn wrote up another work order to get a certificate plumber to stop out. 

One morning two plumbers and a maintenance man stopped on their way to doing a bigger job. I was still in my long, chenille bathrobe and let me just say it was a good thing I remembered to use my exhaust fan before they showed up unannounced. That could have been embarrassing with the four of us all crowed in my bathroom. Turns out my apartment is the first one in the whole complex to get water from the city line and the day I got drenched with water, and the milky colored water started, was the day they put a booster in the line to increase the water pressure. 

They did some experiments and proved to me without a shadow of a doubt that the milky appearance is caused by microscope air bubbles and it's perfectly safe. If I don’t turn the faucets on full-force the water runs clear, if I turn them on all the way the water is milky colored. The milkiness in a glass does dissipate in two minutes but I think I’ll just get an opaque bathroom cup so I don’t have to remember not to turn the water on full force like I’ve been doing my entire life. Out of sight, out of mind. I've always had great water pressure, but the people on the third floor didn't thus the power booster worth a couple of grand was added which helped them but created the weirdness for me. Google University backs them up so I'm good now. ©

Mishap Month, the Milky Water Mystery and War

 

April 5^th I had an appointment card in my hand, written by a receptionist at my internist’s office that said my appointment was for 1:00 on Tuesday April 5^th. It was 12:30 and I was trying to register on their stupid, self-serve check-in computer which wouldn’t let me past the screen asking if I was a walk-in or if I had an appointment. Finally, the girl whose job it is to check on the five of us trying to register, to see if she can speed things along came over to help. She says the system doesn’t show I have an appointment. Duh, I knew that much already and she asked me to step over to another computer where she verified that I’m not on the books until the next week, the 12^th at 3:15.

“I didn’t make that appointment,” I said, “I haven’t made an appointment for anything after 2:00 in over 20 years. “Do you want to cancel it?” “No, I need my yearly physical in April!” Changing it would have delayed it several months to get on the books again. She offered no apology or explanation for how my appointment got screwed up. Even showing her my appointment card didn’t lay a little guilt trip at her door. I was the victim of multi-tasking, I’m sure, but she acted like I was just another old person who showed up on the wrong day. If she cared that I’d have to psych myself back up again to get half naked in front of my doctor, she didn’t show it. And that twig of a girl wouldn’t care if that late afternoon appointment adds extra bloat pounds to stand next to me on the scales. I can only hope that late time slot doesn’t also shave a few IQ points off my brain because this is the hour long physical that includes the infamous set of Medicare questions.

Meanwhile on the home front I woke up one morning, turned on the faucet in the bathroom and got completely drenched down the front of me. It wasn’t long after when I discovered that the water coming out of the tap looked like 2% milk. The rest of the day I worn my Nancy Drew Mystery Solver hat and investigated the situation. Milky water was only coming out my master bath faucets and five of my close neighbors weren’t have any issues with being reminded of Bessie the Guernsey when attempting to brush their teeth or wash their faces.

The following morning I filed a Maintenance Request and asked if they could take care of it sooner rather than later because I’ll be using bottle water in the bathroom until the water runs clear again. Two days later I got an email saying that it was "coming from the city municipal and the power booster" (that the complex added over a month ago to a building I don't live in) and the anonymous person answering the request closed it! I don’t get mad often but that dismissal ticked me off. I knew from a google search that it was probably from air or a broken aerator in the line and was safe to use and far less likely it was c-zone disinfectant the city uses but either way I shouldn’t have been blown off like that. So I marched myself down to the CEO’s office and asked him who I see about a response to a Maintenance Request that I’m not happy with. “You can tell me,” he replied. So I told him my sob story from the start to finish and he promised to call their city contact and their plumber and get back to me. 

The next morning the maintenance man I love stopped by to see my milky water, take a photo of my faucets and to try a simple fix that the plumber suggested. But it didn't work, so a new service request got written up and bumped up the ladder for the plumber to get involved. The saga continues...

All things are relative and my problems are minuscule compared what the people in Ukraine are dealing with. I haven’t written about what is going on over there because, like everyone else, I’m frustrated and angry that something like this is even happening right before our eyes. I don’t even want to call it a war because it’s actually an invasion with the occupied country forced to fight back and its going to rival the Holocaust if something isn’t done soon to stop Putin. 

But what can any of us do personally while sitting in our well-cocooned and privileged lives other than what I’ve done already which is to wring my hands and make donations to humanitarian groups working over there: The International Red Cross, The International Humane Society, The World Kitchen and Doctors Without Borders? 

I see the worry here at the CCC whenever the topic comes up which isn't often because someone always shuts it down as being too "depressing." "Can't even watch the news!" is a common refrain. Ya, I get that. I'm good at avoidance too. Then the avoidance makes me feel guilty wondering if this is the way those who sat by watching the Holocaust unfold felt at the beginning. At times like that I ask myself again and again, when is empathy not enough before we invite WWIII to our own doorsteps? Do we only care about the inhumanity and atrocities others commit when they come for us? 

On the other hand, is it more humane to sacrifice Ukraine like a virgin thrown into the eye of a volcano to save the world from Putin starting a Nuclear Winter that will kill the entire planet? He's already sent unprotected Russian soldiers into the radioactive dust in Chernobyl's Red Forest only to get sick and track it farther outside of the hot zone. Why? Why do any of the old men with power want more of it when they could retire and live happily after on a tropical island? He doesn't care about his own people, he's unpredictable and has no soul. I would hate to be one of the world leaders right now as they debate and struggle to weigh all the difficult responses to Putin.  ©