Lost Doctor Seuss Poem

thought provokers

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do.
Attitude determines how well you do it."
--Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), American writer

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
--Winston Churchill

"Catch a passion for helping others and a richer life will come back to you!"
--William H. Danforth (1870-1956)
--Businessman and philanthropist

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
–-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

How is your day?

This is about where I feel I've been lately.

A month or so ago, I suddenly got a toothache like I've never had before. I was walking around with ice on my face.
The dentist sent me for a root canal. Extra anesthetic had to be used but I made it through. The endodontist took me off the antibiotic the dentist had prescribed and gave me Vicadin and prednisone.
Within a couple of days, it started hurting again. I called the endodontist who told me it wasn't supposed to be doing that! Duh! He said we'd watch it for a couple more days and go from there. Something told me to go back to the antibiotic, so I did. And that did the trick.
During this, I apparently got a case of salmonella. It hit Friday afternoon at work. I managed to get home somehow. Everytime I ate or drank, I ended up doubled over in pain. The next morning, driving Zack to his SAT was difficult. I probably should not have been on the road. I could not concentrate on what I was doing. I did not get back to work until Wednesday. Don't ever want to try that again!

A couple of faucets in the house were clogged with deposits and not flowing well (1 almost barely at all), so I got some CLR and cleaned them up.
Then we started having trouble with our hot water supply and water pressure?!?!? Was this related to cleaning the faucets? It didn't make sense but what else had changed?
In April, we had a tankless water heater installed. We shouldn't be running out of hot water!! The shower head seemed to be the main issue so I took it off again. Inside was a plastic strainer-type thing. It looked to have been dislodged so I got it back into place. Maybe it was restricting the flow too much and keeping the water heater from turning on?? Got some hot water for a couple of days before we lost hot water all together. What now? Turning on only the hot water in the laundry room sink (within a few feet of the water heater), I could see that the power light was turning on. The heater was trying to do something. At best, I could get bits of lukewarm water.
Turned out that a cut-off switch inside the unit itself had tripped. We had checked the circuit breakers but did not realize that it also had these internals switches. For some unknown reason(s), one of the internal tanks overheated so the switch tripped. Once we rest it, we had hot water again.
I also had to take it apart another time through all this to clean crud out of it. We are having major construction on the road, watermains, etc right behind us. They are probably stirring up everything that has settled in the system over the years. Regular cleanings will probably be a part of life for a while.
Then, that Friday afternoon at work, I got an email that we had a watermain break right across the street from us. What would that do to our water supply and heater?!?!? They worked till almost 11pm trying to figure out why we had water and everyone else in the neighborhood did not. It almost sounded like the system was running backwards from what they thought it did. It's repaired now, just have to get a coupke of areas in the complex re-landscaped.

The odometer in the car I drive is now on the fritz. It usually works but sometimes stops. It is usually 12+ miles to work. One day it only recorded 5.5 miles! Expensive to fix so I'll just have to track approximate mileage via gas consumption. I've always tracked gas mileage so this should not be difficult. i have the entire history since we've owned the car so i can use that as a foundation.

Zack had a run-in at school with someone he's had trouble with before so we had a meeting with the assistant principal. Since Zack is now 18, he got to sign the 'behavior agreement' and will have to deal with any consequences of his actions.

Somewhere in this, Ditz, our 'Stupidog' started acting a little funny. Couldn't quite put our finger on it but he wasn't quite as 'prancy' as usual. Then he started having trouble getting up onto our bed and then onto the couch also. One vet visit and we were told he had hurt his back. He was prescribed some anti-inflamatory medication.
Within two days, he was having major trouble walking.
A second vet also said back injury but it would probably take hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to figure it out. Even an X-ray probably wouldn't tell anything since animals aren't good at sitting still enough to get good pictures. Maybe a broken spine, maybe a slipped disc, maybe a tumor, maybe who-knows??? And what would we be able to do about most of those problems anyway? And the anti-inflamatory was stomach irritating so he wasn't eating or drinking much. He was switched to pain meds and steroids. There was already signs of nerve damage. Steve was basically told we would have to decide by about Monday whether to put him down.
Ditz has now lost almost all use of his rear legs. He has minimal movement and no strength so he drags himself with his front legs. His tail still wags and he appears to have most bladder control but has not pottied since. We carry him in and out, up and down, wherever he needs to go.
One night, Steve woke up to thumping sounds. Ditz had gotten himself down 18 steps toward the basement and outside. Only 7 more steps to go but Steve took care of them for him and carried him outside. We are looking into doggie wheelchairs and other assorted assistive devices.

Thursay morning, I headed out to the old car to go to work and found that stuff had been stolen overnight. The cell phone charger was gone (of course!), as was my fleece with Brian's football picture button, my sunglasses, my calculator for figuring gas mileage, the gas mileage book (remember the odometer issue?), most of the goodies from the glovebox, even my insurance cards! They separated out the registration and left it on the console, cleaned out the glove box and left it open. The 2 newer cars were not touched. Neither were the neighbors' from what I could tell.

Friday, my temporary crown came off while I was at work. (I think I need to give up working on Fridays! Something always seems to go wrong.) Tuesday I go for the permanent one so I'll make due till then.

And then when I came home, I wanted to get online to do some more looking at doggie wheelchairs. I turned on my laptop and logged in. Then it went completely dead. Like someone had flipped a switch. No power, no sounds, no nothing. I tried a different, universal cord that Steve had for his work computer. Still nothing. Today, I stopped at Computer Rennaissance and the intial guess was the power plug/port had broken away from the mother board. It's fixable... to the tune of $250! I could bring it in and they could look at it to figure out for sure. When I came back home, I looked and the port did seem to wiggle. Argh!
I brought it in and it actually did turn out to be the power cord itself, not the port! $50 for a different universal cord and I was back in business. If I have to have trouble, I guess $50 beats $250!!

When do I cry 'Uncle'?!?!?!?