The Manic Mechanic

I found out today that my primary credit card number has been used for fraudulent purposes. Thankfully the card issuer stopped it from going any further, but it tossed a spanner into the works at a bad time. I luckily have a backup card from another financial institution, so not all is lost. I don't use the secondary card often, and I'm worried my sudden usage of it doesn't trigger suspicious activity warnings on it until I get the replacement primary card. In the meantime, more stress piled on at critical times.

Today I took Kodi the the vet for his annual checkups as well as to have a chipped tooth looked at. The little guy had to have the tooth removed, and other tests found he has bladder stones which will require surgery to remove. I was upset, as was Jeff when I informed him. Couple that with his crying as I left him with the vet and I was pretty upset. We have to schedule the surgery date in the near future, as there is a risk of the stones shifting and blocking his urethra, causing even more dire situations. I guess this trip was a blessing in disguise, as the vet originally wanted to give him x-rays for look for other things. I want our "children" to live a long, healthy life with us.

Speaking of doctors, after dropping Kodi off, I headed up to my orthopedist to get some relief for my increasing pain and immobility. He will go through the same process as I've been using for many years now, which begins with shot into my spine. I did get some good news, for this time I won't have to take another trip through the MRI, an ordeal made far worse because of the pain becoming excruciating when I try to lay down. This will save me some money and time too. That was an unexpected surprise.

The little bit of good news wasn't enough to offset the stress, and when I later got the call from the vet about Kodi's condition, I was becoming a complete wigged-out mess. While sitting at the studio workstation I disturbed something on the already cluttered desk that caused a chain reaction of stuff falling, including a glass of water, which landed squarely in my lap. That was the last straw, and I proceeded to clear everything from the desk, clutter, hard drives, peripherals, mixers, paperwork and other debris by hurling it onto the floor. The stress, pain, frustrations and general hate for the world as a whole caused me to pop my cork. I stumbled into the bedroom, climbed into bed, tried to find a position with minimum pain, and checked out for the rest of the day until Jeff came home with Kodi. Snickles, despite being chased out of the room by the initial cursing and flying objects, joined me immediately in bed with a concerned look on his face, then burrowed under the sheets and cuddled closely against my chest. I call this his teddy bear mode, and he seems to know to activate it when I am not myself (pretty often, of late). We both conked out, me with chemical additives to accelerate the process, my arm on top of him.

I am really hoping for some relief from the doc with nothing more than this procedure. I had a similar flare-up in June, which was putting a huge damper on our wedding preparations, and after a couple weeks, I was doing much better. The doctor even remembered about us getting married, asking me about it while at the office today. That put a smile on my face as I gave him the Reader's Digest version. He didn't have any prompting from me, he remembered on his own. I've noticed a lot of folks having definite positive reactions about our wedding, both before and after. So, not everything was tantrum-worthy today, but sometimes blowing off steam is a net positive.

A lot has been going on over here. Pictures have been taken, but I haven't been in much of a posting mood. Big changes in store for the weeks to come, I'll elaborate later (maybe).

I'm in one of those moods where I am avoiding almost all news, current events and, of course, politics. I truly detest large numbers of the human race. Seeing various crap and reading about it, not to mention directly experiencing it only makes it far worse. So, the shields are up, defenses ready and hopefully nothing will cross my tripwires.

And things like this to remember there is some good left in this world:

Amazing how much joy comes from a little wagging tail.

Since last night, our area is being socked with tropical storm-like conditions, with tornado warnings earlier in the day, and generally is a super-soaked mess outside. No damage out there to report, other than some early dropping of leaves.

Inside, however, is another matter. My health issues as well as my financial situation of late has put the brakes on getting the house and garage roofs done. I figured I'd see how things held up during the deluge. Well, there's now wet spots in places on the house ceilings, and there are puddles inside the garage from the roof leaking there as well. In other words, it's gotten much worse. With my surgery date looming in a week and a half and the fact that I have become essentially immobile now, there's little I can do at this point. My involvement in the actual work is minimal, I just have to crawl up into the attic space and frame the areas in the roof for the three skylights, and pick up the actual skylights from the building supplier. There's no way I'll get that done beforehand, and there has to be a substantial wait time after my surgery where I plan to do little but sit around the house as I recover. I'm not taking any chances there, I don't need to be a permanent cripple.

Needless to say, I am upset as hell. More work needs to be done, and more money spent. Part of it is my fault for not getting things done sooner, but it seems just as things are going my way, something trips me up and I have to put things on hold. I was doing remarkably good at the beginning of the year and figured things would have all been taken care of by now, but you know how that story went.

I'm seriously screwed now. And I am a bundle of nerve and anger as a result.

I've not been posting much around these parts for fear that it would be filled with the typical downer screed of recent entries. Suffice it to say, I've been trying my best to make good out of a bad situation, and, frankly, it's finally started to wear me down. This past weekend was our last camping trip of the summer. Jeff was stuck working, so I managed to load up the stuff into the truck, fetched the trailer then headed on up to Hillside for the final time of the year. THis time it was a bit different, since we had guests already staying on the site earlier in the week and had been awaiting our arrival. I had a bunch of wonderful help in getting set up, once that was done, however, I was in so much pain I was miserable, and that fact was not lost among my fellow campers. Since I was not going to take any of my Rush Limbaugh feelgood pills before piloting nearly 50 feet and six tons of truck and trailer a couple hundred miles with a crazy dog in my lap for fear of falling asleep at the wheel (the damn stuff knocks me out), by the time I had arrived, set up and tried to unwind, I was a twitchy, pain-addled mess. Once I popped the pills and stretched out, I eventually felt a bit more comfortable and enjoyed my company. We all turned in early that night, and I was blessed with Hillside's eerie silence before the weekend people began to show up. The 'contin makes me have strange, often extremely entertaining dreams of a vivid nature that make Yellow Submarine seem like a budget planning meeting by comparison. The very cool (mid-40s!) nights made sleeping more like hibernating, only adding to the psychedelia.

Jeff came down the next day after having to work on his day off (sound familiar?), and he joined us in the evening before dinner. He was having his own pain issues as well, but we made the best of it. I was stuck hanging around the campsite again, though I did make one trek up the hill to the afternoon party on Saturday, but did not stay long. I'm sure I missed out on seeing some folk, I hope to see them again in the future when I'm not such an invalid. The weekend overall was positive for me, but I know I was being quite antisocial despite my efforts to the contrary. I just don't do well around friends or crowds when I am ailing. And since this condition has kept on progressing for the worst, I'm pretty much Groucho Grouchy McGroucherson (nee Crankypants).

I sense that Jeff is finally starting to tire of my condition as well, and even my ability to make use of my time is starting to fade. Slowing down like this puts me into a deeper funk, and I mostly wander off now just to minimize my effect on others. I'm still waiting for a time for my unavoidable surgery, which has become more involved than originally planned. The laminectomy that was to be performed on a single vertebra has been increased in scope to the L4, L5 and T1 segments, for a total of three. While I am being reassured that I will maintain most if not all of my mobility/abilities, something tells me that having not just one, but three consecutive sections of bone removed leaving the muscles unattached to anything but themselves leads me to believe that a lot of what I was able to do as a young punk is now firmly in the past. Time will tell, of course, and anything would be better than what I am currently experiencing. My bruised shins from stumbling and falling are outward evidence that life is not all peaches and Mayhem anymore. Jeff had tickets for the Penn State opener next weekend, He sent them away, hopefully to be used. I know he was looking forward to this game, but dragging me along to is was probably going to be an exercise in (more) futility for him. I feel awful for that, and I really wish I could crawl under a rock.

I will manage all of this in some way. Having my finances now firmly below the poverty level will add another layer of stress. At least it's not zero. Yet. Now all I have to do is try and get the medical end of it all in gear. Things move at a glacial pace for some reason. All I wish for is for this to be over and a return to normalcy in my life.

I should learn to control my at-times short temper. Most of the time I am docile as a lamb, patience of Gandhi, bad stuff rolls off my back like nobody's business. But there are two situations I can positively lose it. Serious bouts of road rage, and while working on stuff. I can forgive a moment's stupidity on someone's part on the road if I know it was accidental. But if I know the other person's (I care not if it's a male or female) actions are obviously hostile, I will proceed to make their life on the road a living, vicious hell. Just ask Jeff. I've chased down sports cars with my big old Dodge Cummins 4x4, and I've taken on semis in the Mini Cooper. And somehow I've managed to remain here and talk about it.

There are times when I am working on stuff and I just get fed up with some recalcitrant part and I end up flinging it across the garage. Or if I clumsily knock stuff off a table I will sometimes clear it the rest of the way. Or if I manage to hurt myself somehow, I get sent into a rage. Take Exhibit A:



This is one of my shop grinders. Not seen in the picture to the right is the wall between the pair of garage doors. Since my latest project in The Garage Of Mayhem is replacing the two garage door openers, I had to attach and futz with a pair of sensors just off the floor and on either side of the big door opening. I found the clip-on mounts lacking, and made up a set of spacer blocks that also attach the sensor bracket to the wall in addition to the door track. This makes the bracket a great deal more solid and the sensors a lot less likely to go out of alignment and preventing the door from closing. After making myself comfortable sitting on the floor and installing all these pieces, I stood up. As my luck would go, I bashed my head on the tool rest attached to the 100+ pound machine. In the haze of stars and pain my instinct was to eke out my revenge. I punched the glass face shield, shattering it and bending up the frame and mounting.

Yeah, it's stupid, senseless, and, as usual, expensive. But for the few seconds after the impact as I held onto my throbbing skull, I did feel better. Reality sank in soon after and I went ahead with my work in the garage. Today while doing more work and cleaning up, I looked around and found an identical shield I had removed when I converted a similar grinder into a buffer, which has a completely open wheel with no enclosure or face shield. So I made up with my trusty machine and replaced it's mangled and shattered parts.

I've been like this for as long as I can remember. The incidents are too isolated to be indicative of some disorder, though I know when I had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed and I should not involve myself in intricate or involving projects or with anything expensive. Still, accidents will happen, then so will I.

Now, before anyone asks, no, I don't bust up people as I do inanimate objects. At worst I will get into a shouting session, but feel awful afterward. And in the case of road rage incidents that became face-to-face encounters, I kept my distance and mostly made the other party back off. But the guy who ran me off the road and cost me more than 1600 dollars in ultra-lightweight SSR Comp wheels, he drove off with the rear quarter of his Accord kicked in. Tit for tat, bitch.

I know I am in good company as well, since I recall a few LJ posts by some on my flist describing similar outbursts, sometimes with pictures of the resulting carnage. And besides, there is something primal and satisfying taking out one's frustration on that which done ya wrong. I stick with objects, since they don't lawyer up.