I felt like a snail riding on the back of a turtle yesterday--Wheeeee, Wheeeee! I mean. . . it felt like a breakneck speed though nothing really happened at all. Kind of like stepping out of the hospital after a week's stay.
First off, I met the carpenter. It was/he was as I feared. But I didn't find that out right away. I asked him how he was with all intentions of asking whether or not he was up for this job. He mumbled and moaned as we moved the washer and dryer out of the little cubby where he would be removing the floor. Then we went outside to have another look. He pulled off some more of the rotten joist--but it wasn't rotten through and through. Indeed, much of the joist wasn't rotten at all. That is when he saw that there were joist abutting this one running in the opposite direction. I was looking with him as he shown his flashlight underneath. I stood up. I thought a minute, then I said, "Bob. . . tell me I'm not crazy. Tell me that isn't as bad as you thought it would be."
He looked up at me for a minute.
"It's not as bad as you thought it would be."
Fuck yea!
"Good. Good. Maybe I'll be able to sleep now. My anxiety has. . . ."
"Maybe I'll be able to sleep, too. I was awake all last night trying to think of what to do here."
I knew it! I knew he was worried when he said, "I've got this. . . don't worry."
He has decided that he doesn't need to take out as much floor as he thought. He will cut a little section. . . . I feel like he's got this now.
We talked for a long while, then he left to get stuff he would need at the lumber yard. He doesn't need me there to do the work, he said. He was bringing a helper. So I gave him a key to the house.
But it wasn't long before he called me.
"I just wanted to tell you. . . my birthday present. . . I'm getting a colonoscopy on Monday."
He had just turned 65 the day before. This may be his last job, he said.
I had to stick around for the electricians who were coming between noon and five. It was nearing noon and I was hungry, so I called the company to see if I would have time to run out and get a sandwich before they came.
I did, so I went to Chic-fil-A.
Not long after, there was a knock on the door. Two electricians, one Black, one White, each about twelve years old. I took them to the electrical panel and told them the problem. The Black kid looked at me like I was stupid. I walked to the corner of the house and said, "Come here." He just looked at me. I crooked my finger. "Come here." Finally he did, slowly. I pointed to the kitchen light. "On," I said. Then to the other kid at the box, "OK, flip the breaker." The a.c. and the light both went off. "Off," I said. "That is what I'm told ain't right. You can't run kitchen lights off a 220 breaker."
The Black kid started mumbling about amps and wattage. . . I don't know. Then they started taking apart junction boxes (I just learned that term) and following wires--red, yellow, black, white.
I'll skip ahead. There was another electrical box in the attic. After a long while, they came down the ladder and said it was alright. Weird, they said, but alright.
"O.K. Just amuse me for a minute. So the wire that comes from the pole to the house carries 220 volts, right?"
"240. . . 220, yea."
"And so something reduces that voltage to 110?"
"120. . . 110. . . yea."
"And so all boxes are fed by 220 volts?"
"Yea."
There is something called one pole and two pole, or maybe it is poll, I don't know. What I do know is don't stick your tongue on them to see if they are live.
That trip cost me $140. But things were good. I was tired. I took a nap.
When I got up, it was four. I have been really fatigued. Things are wearing me down badly. I needed to do many things including making dinner for my mother. . . so I concocted a drink. I was making a Negroni, but I was so out of it, I left the gin in the shot glass. The Negroni looked small, but it tasted fine. I took it to the deck and kicked back. When I went back inside, though, I saw the gin I hadn't drunk.
"Good lad."
When I got home, my mother told me she had fallen that day and had to crawl across the floor to the bed to pull herself up.
"I called Debbie," she said. "She came down and sat with me for a couple hours."
My mother was using the walker in the house now.
When dinner was done, there was a knock on the door. It was the across the street neighbor. He was bringing cornbread he had just baked. Mom asked him if he wanted a drink.
"I'll have some of that good whiskey," he said. He stayed for a couple of big pours while we argued about political shit. I think it made my mother nervous.
"His father always did this," she said.
After an hour or so, the neighbor left and I cleaned up the kitchen. It was approaching nine when I finished. I sat on the couch and commandeered the television. I put on YouTube music and let it take me wherever it went.
At nine-thirty, my mother went to bed. I stayed up listening to music until ten.
So. . . since I don't have to rush over to my house this morning, I thought I might get to go to the gym. I thought I might have something approaching a more normal day. Then, just moments ago, my mother called me. She needed help. She was dizzy and wanted me to help her to bed to lie down.
"I may need to go back to the hospital," she said. "Something's not right."
And so. . . this is my life. I'm expecting a call from the carpenter sometime telling me things are worse rather than better, too.
I felt liberation was near. I was almost happy.
Piss shit fuck goddamn.
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