All Complications Going Well.

This week, things are going well. I say that because every week, every single week, something goes awry and disrupts everything. The daily drama, the weekly crisis routine continues, though oddly enough, not this week *knock on wood.

I’ve mentioned that seemingly, a lot of deformed, injured, sick, or dying birds find their way to our little urban wildlife sanctuary. Sometimes that happens with animals too. Years ago, we had a tail-less young raccoon visit. We often see squirrels with severely shortened ears and tails. We’re occasionally visited by a non-standard colored opossum (not albino but somewhere in between).

Last weekend, I spotted a one-armed opossum munching on the grapes we set out nightly (to keep the raccoons from raiding the squirrel nut box which keeps the squirrels from raiding the bird feeder). It didn’t have any trouble at all eating the grapes, politely I might add in that it didn’t eat the entire bunch, leaving some for whomever wandered by next.

A polite, one-armed opossum. Surely, there’s a story there. Or maybe a good wine/beer label name.

My writing is going well at the moment. I haven’t fallen into any sort of routine like I wish I could (the daily drama, weekly crisis thing prevents that) but I’m happy where I’m at. Both Floyd and Cecil have seen their competition and big car show number two is in process. I have to come up with a completely new chapter in the next day or two to join two chapters that sorely lacked a middle. Surely, life is proceeding smoothly at uber-busy Peerless Automotive, right? I mean, short one mechanic and another on the verge of being fired with only Peggy (Cecil’s wife and shop accountant) running the place while shop manager Vern is at the show babysitting the nerve-wracked Cecil who’s flip-flopping over whether to quit car shows or not; doesn’t sound too complicated, does it?

Hmm, uh, yeah, I mean, no, not complicated at all.

Finally today, The Dimmers are arguing loudly next door. They don’t have air conditioning so all their windows are wide open for all around to hear their business. Sounds like Mrs. Dimmer is upset that Mr. Dimmer hasn’t had any jobs over the past few days and bills are due. He started a new home-repair business, the latest of some eighteen or twenty he’s started up and sunk over the past six years. Doesn’t sound like this one will be a winner either.

While I was out picking blueberries in our backyard (yea for blueberry season!), Mrs. Dimmer was screaming on about some lawsuit he’s got against him already. When I talked to him last month, or rather, when he cornered me as I was watering out front, he couldn’t stop talking about how busy he was now that he finally got his construction license. Then of course, he had to buy a trailer, for business expansion reasons he said, and modify his fence (and not at all in an attractive, future home marketable way) so he could back in the trailer without having to hitch and unhitch it from his truck every night, and he had to buy a whole bunch more tools and shelving material and the like, plus take the time to put it all together during which Mrs. Dimmer and the Dimmer children took a vacation to Boston to visit her parents.

Sounds like she just now realized during that time, he didn’t work at all. And he laughs at her in a creepy manner and is just as loud in making fun of how she’s screaming her frustrations.

Tight urban living. It ain’t for wimps.