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Robinson was programming my doorbells – for some reason he couldn’t get it to work and he opened it up and realized that some of the circuits weren’t soldered so he happened to have a solder gun in his truck and he fixed it. No one would have realized that – certainly not the electrician. I love it when someone actually knows something.

I hung around after he left and put the doors in their places so the carpenters wouldn’t spend too much time putting “everything in its place” tomorrow (for crying out loud). When I was walking out, the red motion lights came on on cue – except the back one – but at least the side ones did.

Josh, my next door neighbor, was going into his apartment and he asked me if I knew where Ken was because he had his drycleaning – I simply responded (smile on face), “Ken is not ever coming back” – he said, does that mean dump his drycleaning? – I said, “dunno” – but I wanted to follow up with HE GOT YOU TO DO HIS DRYCLEANING? – what goes on?

She puked three times today – fearing pancreatitis she is now not getting fed and is looking at me like I’m a murderer. I don’t know what made her puke, but she did it day before yesterday too. I thought it was because she had licked paint thinner. Good grief – she always seems to be a walking manifestation of my life out of control.

Robinson came over today and programmed my doorbell – when you ring it downstairs in the mainhouse it plays “Who shot the LaLa” – upstairs elephants trumpet in my office. Pretty cool.

My gas grill is in my second bedroom because the room is truly just an expensive storage area. Rusty found a place between it and the corner where he could hide for the first 24 hours. Now he is directly under it having stretched out a little. He let me pet him and he has been eating. But I can’t tell if he has used the litter box (doesn’t look like it) so don’t know what to think about that. But he’s a sweet cat, he’s big and looks a little fierce, but he’s really pussycat.

My team of carpenters – Javier and Arturo – arrived today. They just got the lowdown and then left. But J calls me later and wants to know exactly how they are getting paid and wants to make sure I understand how much he makes and that it is double because they are two and he says he’d like me to show up in the morning to discuss this again. Oh boy, I say to myself hanging up the phone.

I called him a little later to ask what time he’d like me to show up to discuss money and he starts talking about how they work, he says, “this is what we do, we come in, and we put everything where it is supposed to go, we put the doors by the doorways they go in, and we put everything out…” but it’s a bad cell connection and so I interrupt him and say we can talk about this tomorrow and he said, “let me finish, here’s how we work, we put everything where it is supposed to go, and …”

I hang up the phone and one tiny part of me wants to chuck the phone into the trash and then set it on fire. I’m sure I’m not cracking up because it’s only a tiny part of me.

Joe called – he had left a few messages while I was in St Maarten – wondering why he hasn’t heard from me – uh my grass isn’t growing cuz it’s winter, was the message I thought about leaving him. But then his last message was he just wanted me to call to say hi and could I just holler back. So I called back and said, hey I ain’t no holler back girl, ain’t no holler back girl – since I doubt he listens to Gwen Stefani as he likes that cool, suave R&B (that’s where my radio is tuned everytime he takes Blue to the dump) it was probably lost on him. But whatyougonnado?

I took my mom to the doctor today. She fell last week walking up concrete stairs and has been in pain. Helping her into Blue, where I almost had to heave her up since it’s so high, then watching her try to get her seat belt on was a little unnerving. When we got to the doctor’s parking lot, she did, surprisingly, what old people do – she began to tell me the directions into the office – “We’re going to go up this walkway, then we’re going to turn left, and then it is the second door on the left” – almost as if she wasn’t going to be there with me when this happened.

It’s strange – I don’t remember her becoming an old person.

Then we go inside the doctor’s waiting room and I got her signed in and waited. I was reading a report a reporter had just sent in, and I saw her hand shaking out of the corner of my eye and so I held her hand. After a half hour, I asked the receptionist if the doctor was running late and got one of those looks. Shortly afterwards, we were shown to a room and I helped my mother get up on the examining table – she seemed hardly able to move.

The doctor came in and asked her questions. She had warned me that he is “mean” before he got there. When he asked if she had pains shooting down her leg, she said no. And I interjected – Mom, I thought you said you were having sciatica – she said no pain in the leg. But just like that the doctor quit looking at her and talked to me the rest of the time as if she weren’t even in the room.

When he walked out, I whispered “he thinks your deaf,” and she laughed out loud. I then helped her over to the Xray room and helped her get on the table. Her skin looked old – she always had the best skin – that’s where I get it from – but now it looked old and sinewy like a chicken you wouldn’t eat.

As I went inside the drugstore to fill her prescription, I looked back in the car and with the rain fogging up the window, I could barely see her and it wretched my heart to the point of tears popping into my eyes as I walked in the door.

So we go to Swirl and walk in and the usual crowd is there but more and you know, we are both in a heightened mood and ready to be out and about – and Moosey is fun and said he had had a great day too, and he has the hottest sidekicks going (I might add) and we hang out and G & I end up going to Rooster’s on Carrollton – that whole area is actually coming along quite well – there are three great Asian restaurants, Roosters (I had an oyster salad, which was good for a hamburger joint) and we heard a good Mexican restaurant is opening right down the street – and anyway, it’s amazing to me that in one evening in New Orleans we can meet new people (there are still new people to meet?) – all interesting.

M had left Swirl with K and we met up again at the restaurant – M and his family own a series of medical facilities and he told me someone is opening a private hospital on Carrollton, also he is Turkish so part of the Turkish contingency in our city, and so is K, who is just a doll. Moosey helped K get his restaurant going.

M said Turks are all into restaurants – funny, not Turkish restaurants though, which is odd.

Lots of fun – great conversation – and so good to get out and celebrate a day that was a long time coming.

Here are all my reasons to celebrate:

1. Rusty moved in today.
2. Mechanical, Plumbing and Electrical Permits today.
3. Ken gone – fired – not there today.
4. YAHOO!!!! – need I say anything – six months of torture on my biggest positive call last year and finally the *Come to Jesus* happened today on their earnings call – YAHOO!
5. Mom lent me money to squeak to the finish line.
6. G doesn’t have a date tonight with Mr. Big.
and last but not least
7. I feel on top of the world!!!!!!!!!!

Today the LaLa got inspected for mechanical, electrical and plumbing. And then I wrote checks galore. Looks like tomorrow I get to go officially on the grid with gas and electric.

As soon as the gas is on – I’m taking my bubble bath over to the LaLa and soaking in the tub till I prune!