The early part of this week was relatively dreamy in spite of sweltering summer temperatures and a blinky air conditioner. We sweated our way through Tuesday until we could bear it no more and asked our HVAC guy to top off the freon until he could come back and find the leak for real. He obliged and it was downright chilly when I woke up Wednesday.
The dogs went to school both Tuesday and Wednesday. Unfettered, I accomplished what seemed like everything. In reality I am still treading water but: some laundry done, new sheets washed, floor mopped, masks made. I felt great.
Yesterday I had a FaceTime appointment with a new dog trainer. (This is for the puppy as you might imagine.) It went fine but the thing about dog training is that it’s a lot of work. So I felt a little overwhelmed after the appointment today. I’m supposed to put the puppy in her crate 5-7 times per day until she learns to be chill about it, which is going to be interesting considering neither of my dogs have any chill whatsoever.
Since Wednesday, I’ve been waiting for our plumbers to arrive. They were supposed to come Wednesday afternoon but got caught up in another job and had to postpone until Thursday. And then yesterday there was some miscommunication and we had to reschedule for today. I tried to reframe my annoyance as sympathy for whatever homeowner had a big enough disaster happening that it took a plumbing crew all day to deal with it, but now I am back to feeling sorry for myself. EMPATHY LIMIT REACHED.
We have a break from the heat today and in fact it is just going to get cooler until Sunday when the high is 57. WTF? I don’t really care, and I will definitely use the opportunity to try on a new jacket I bought on sale and could not bring myself to put on when it was 86 degrees in my house on Tuesday. But if we could maybe agree on a compromise, say, 75 degrees every day instead of near 90 on one day and then closer to 40 by the end of the week, that would be grand.
It will not surprise you to hear that I have been having a hard time with the news in the last few days. This morning I feel especially low, like I am just flailing against the outrageous madness of this world. I can give money to the Minnesota bail fund, for example, but the truth is that I am sitting here in my quiet peaceful house, working my good job, untouched in many important ways by all the bad things. I’m grateful for this of course but: I’ve benefited from a system that hurts people.
By design, I don’t use this newsletter to get politically topical. You can get that anywhere. I don’t want to rant about the president here, there are spaces in my life he doesn’t get to claim and anyway it makes me too tired. But today…woof.
Anyway, I hope you are navigating safely through everything today.