Not My Day

When I last wrote, I was about to take my frustrations and anger with the Trump administration to a gathering of people who would be writing postcards to protest.

The gathering as at the URC (University Retirement Community) where my friend Joan lives.  It's a huge complex with, if I'm not mistaken, about a dozen parking spots for guests.  I hate going there.  There is a garage with maybe four spots for visitors, if you get there in time but today I drove down the very steep slope to the garage only to find that it was closed and locked...and I wasn't completely certain that there was even enough room to turn the car around (I definitely was not going to try backing up that hill!)

I did one more circle of the "visitor parking" area, but it was parked up solid, except for handicap spots. One of these days I'm going to get a placard!  There was a big empty parking lot nearby, with every empty slot labeled "reserved."

I did one more circle of the facility and found that every spot that could be used by visitors (there are precious few of them) was filled with either piles of twigs or oversized gardener trucks.  One truck nearly smashed my car because it was almost too wide for me to drive around it and there was nowhere else to go.

I was just angry so I decided to screw it and go to the store instead.  The battery in my iPod was dead (it had played, plugged in, for a whole 20 minutes before the battery died.) but I kind of wanted to listen to a talk show anyway.  The drive to the URC is about 5 minutes, from URC to the store is maybe 7 minutes.  In that time I heard nothing but commercials.

I did my shopping, got back in the car, turned the radio back on to hear more commercials, a traffic report, and a promo for what was upcoming.  The program finally came on a block from home.  I was not happy.

At the supermarket, I was again frustrated as I am every week.

Every time I come to the tuna shelf, I hope against hope that StarKist has brought back their "spicy tuna" flavor, but they have not.  Lemon flavor, yes,  Spicy, my favorite, no.

Like wise what's with Quaker?

Look at all those flavors.  My very favorite is strawberry and I used to buy a whole box of strawberry flavored oatmeal.  You can still find "fruit oatmeal" which contains blueberry, strawberry, and banana.  But you can't get strawberry any more ... and I'm not a big fan of blueberry or banana, but if I want strawberry, I have to put up with the others.

These are first world problems.

I took a nap and when I woke up, it felt like I woke up in the Twilight zone.  It was unreasonably quiet (I found a note from Walt that he had gone to the library).  And the internet was out.  Could not get a signal and my provider's phone line was busy.  So I did the only logical thing -- I went to Atria.

There was no parking for love nor money, not in the visitor slots and not on the street.  I was about to just go home, but I spied someone a block away pulling out of a parking place and managed to get it.  Maybe my day was picking up.

I spent an hour and we had absolutely nothing to talk about.  I keep trying to find very simple things to say to her but she never understands them.  She probably asked me a dozen time what I was doing tonight (going to review Kinky Boots).  A couple of times she asked what it was about, but had forgotten before I finished giving her a very simple plot summary.  The first time I finished she asked "so do you get to play with them when you get home?"  (I wasn't sure if she thought I was taking home kinky boots or a drama queen!)

When I got home again, the internet was back and the provider said that yes, they had been down earlier in the afternoon.

We had an early dinner and then headed to Sacramento for the show.  But the news reported that they had closed the bridge we have to cross to get into town because a woman was on the bridge with a bomb.  Traffic was backed up for miles. 

We left early and took an alternate route, but things seem to have been settled by then.

The drive home was OK except my colleague, who drives with us, never listens to me and when I'm in the middle of saying something, he almost always interrupts me with his own opinion.  I was frustrated (as usual) and just shut up and kept quiet for the rest of the drive home while he expounded on whatever he felt knowledgeable about tonight.

The day ended on a high, though.  Jon Stewart was a surprise guest on Colbert (this is why I record shows like this every night, so in case I missed it (which I had), I can still see it.  It was so good to hear Stewart talking about Trump and you realize that though I have come to really enjoy Trevor Noah, there is nobody like Jon Stewart.

Also I got a text message from Tom letting me know that Benny is a big hit with the girls.  Now I'm going to work on adventures for him!

I'm sure tomorrow will be a better day.