Vida Loca

Nothing interesting happened today...so far!

My Day

I woke up this morning with a large black man. I know what you're thinking. Spring break! No really, you're hysterical. It was the plumber, come to fix the commode even though I'd already fixed it and on Monday called the landlawd to cancel the repair order. One always wonders how one will react in a Situation. One may never have found himself in a steaming jungle surrounded by Viet Cong, armed with nothing other than a will to live and a letter from home. One can report that one drew himself up manfully and shrieked like a tea kettle. It was 8:30, I didn't have my contacts in and I really wasn't expecting company. At least somebody got to see me naked.

DC's a mess, but probably not as bad as your local news is making it out to be. A lot of gubmint buildings are flooded out, I saw a wood chipper just off Penn. Avenue grinding up a tree that had fallen over and there is a lot of crap in the roads, but other than that business is normal. Everybody in DC is on the road, I guess after being cooped up for three days. I heard that the basements flooded out in a couple of the museums and they're closed, and there's a dam in MD that they say could break any minute flooding several houses and commuter lanes. MD always gets the brunt of shitty weather.

I had another thrill last night when I went to sign onto Amazon and got smacked down. I had emptied out the temporary Internet files that day (first time in a long time) and had to re-enter everything but I knew that the username and password I was using were correct. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and called Amazon. First group I spoke with was the call center in India. Very polite, but they told me that the email address I gave them was no longer associated with the account and if I couldn't give them the new email address there was fuckall they could do about it, for security reasons. So I'm sitting there with Apu from the Simpsons telling me that he is the thin blue line separating buyers of Harry Potter action figures from total anarchy...and I take my responsibility very seriously, Mr. Hurley, so until you can give me the correct email address associated with this account there is very little that I can do for you. Nice guy, I'm going to put him on my Christmas card list. I hung up and called again, this time I got the US office, but the guy told me pretty much the same thing. By now I'm sure that someone has hijacked the account and is charging a ton of stuff to my card, the Amazon rep won't tell me diddly about recent activity and as I'm talking to him I'm also thinking of all the credit card people I'm going to have to call that night, and the bank and who knows what else. Finally I said that there were only a couple of emails that I use and I read them off to him, and he says 'That's it! That's the one! Sign on using that address and you'll be fine.' So I did and I was. Thing is, I have no recollection of ever having changed the address and can't figure out why I would have done it--the new address is for professional use only. Since Alzheimer's takes out about a third the people in my family, I spent 20 minutes obsessing about it and the next four hours high as a Georgia pine on Xanax. You take the good with the bad. Hell, I might have been gassed on Xanax when I changed the address. Makes more sense that way.

OK, I'm going to chill for the rest of the day.

The Creeks Done Rised

It's been raining here in DC for three days. We've got flooding everywhere- homes inundated, babies washed out to sea, the bum with the jump suit who haunts my neighborhood finally had a bath (I saw him in sitting in the park across the street from Eastern Market, with his jumpsuit pulled down and airing out his red long johns. That was really hot.)

It's not a state of emergency yet, I know because congress hasn't run screaming across the Capitol grounds and into Union Station to get a drink. Congress is the nation's canary in the mine, you see them running and you know you got problems. Actually, you see Congress period and you know you got problems, the biggest bunch of gasbags and sociopaths outside of the middle east. But enough about Nanci Pelosi.

Last night the power went off on Capitol Hill, the first time its happened in the nine years I've been living here. I was really surprised when the lights snapped off (about midnight). Hell, things run so smoothly in the neighborhood I figured there was a giant generator under the Capitol to keep things running. That huge snow storm we had a few years back? Power. Hurricane Isabella? Power never flickered, even when the rest of the region was dark for days, sometimes weeks. There were pockets of Maryland that didn't have power a month after the hurricane, but don't get me started about the People's Republic of Maryland.

It was tippy-toe quiet on the Hill, dark as hell, and if I wasn't half expecting a busload of looters to show up any minute I'd have enjoyed it more. I lit a couple of candles, snapped my fingers to try to make the lights come back on (I suck at close work magic) and finally went to bed. Not a sound, not even many cars. Then some fucking bird started to chirp and ruined it until he got bored. Siiilent night, hoooly night, if someone's car is jacked, don't let it be mine.