Friday, July 1, 2016

First monsoon of the season and a fatality


This week's big news is our first monsoon of the season yesterday. Of course, the timing was horrible. The minute I got in the shower to get ready for work the thunder and lightening started. It was a speed shower. Good thing it wasn’t hair wash day. Lightening around here is pretty scary and can do a lot of damage. Being in the shower isn’t the place to be. I would have liked to have gone out and watch the whole thing, but I had other priorities like getting myself to work on time.

I lost my big shade sail to the wind. The fatality. :( But it was old and I am really kind of surprised that it lived as long as it did. I used it two summers in IP, and it has been up here since I moved in almost a year and a half in the Arizona sun. Again, the timing could have been better as I was on my way to work and didn’t have time to deal with it. I cut the rest of it down this morning and have ordered two new ones on Ebay. I went with a similar color. They call it red, I call it rust. I may put both of them up, or I could save the second one for when the new one fails, and it will fail in the AZ sun eventually. It sure looks different without it this morning.


It hadn’t stopped raining by the time I went to work. The brand new remade Moon Mountain Raod that I had to travel, flooded. It was very slow going. People are saying it is worse than before they fixed it. I couldn’t say as last year I never left the park during or right after a monsoon. It was pretty bad, water coming in on both sides of the road. I can’t really go in any other direction to get to work because I have to cross a wash in whatever direction I go. I have to cross one here in the park to get to the back gate, or one if I turn left out of the park, and one if I turn right out of the park. Wash water is like a raging river and can be dangerous to cross. There may come a day when I will be late for work because of that. Lots and lots of flooding. I saw huge puddles when I came home last night. Other than the shade sail, I had no other damage that I can see. But we have some happy citrus trees and happy cactus. First rain in months. Came from the east, everything on the patio got wet in spite of the shade cloth, just came right thru it. And loud! The rain was so loud on the metal patio roof that it hurt my ears.

Today is supposed to be cooler but we also have another 20% chance of rain. It is really humid and there are some clouds in the sky, we will probably have another blow. We also have a breeze which is nice. I should make a pass around the park to check on damage this morning, especially the places I am supposed to be watching. I go to work at 2 today, so I should be able to pull it off. I also want to get the new solar lights in the passage way put up even though I probably will park in my own driveway again tonight, and take the rotten shade sail to the dumpster so it doesn’t go flying off somewhere. The scooter hasn’t been out for a while so that will be a good outing for it.

Work was OK. The AC has been fixed. It was cooler, but I was still sweating. I just didn’t have the rivers running off my face. But it is an improvement. All the chocolate has stopped melting. As far as work days go, it went well. I managed to get quite a bit of stuff shelved. I’m learning something new every day and they are being pretty patient with me. Ryan said it took him a long time and he was really nervous about it.  I’m getting better at shelving. It isn’t taking me as long to find things and where they go, so I guess it is progress all around. I'm getting 100 to 150% of my daily steps in and that doesn't count the weight lifting. I am dropping weight quite fast. My new jeans are getting uncomfortably loose. I had to start wearing a belt and have taken it in a notch since I started wearing it.

Waiting to go to work in the afternoon sucks tho. I would much rather go first thing in the morning and then have some day leftover after work. I haven’t learned opening yet, want to get closing under my belt first, but maybe I can get mornings some time in the future. I will talk to Patsy or the new manager about it in a few weeks.

Monday and Tuesday were spent recovering from my two weeks of non-stop working and stress. It was nice. Got my shopping done on Monday. Got most everything I needed at Family Dollar so I didn't have to go to DG on my day off, and what I couldn't get at FD, I picked up after work on Wednesday. I had a pretty good haul at Sal's, some more material, a plate, a Los Algodones red cotton jacket, and a couple other little things. And I slept a lot. I needed the down time. Although I was still a little stressed about the whole work thing both days. Hoping that will go away as I get more confident.

Finished watching all of The Gilmore Girls and will start McCleods Daughters on Monday. Hoping the new DVD player does what it is supposed to do. Supposed to be region free, my old one wouldn't play region 4 DVD's. I do have to seriously consider buying a TIVO if I am going to continue to work nights. I would just stream what I wanted to watch but with pay per gig internet, it would be way too expensive.

I think I am going to just take the hummer feeder that I have hanging in the grapefruit tree in. The ants fill it and drown in it every time I change it and the hummers don't use it when there are ants in it. It will make changing the one on the pole easier as I can just fill the clean one and swap it out with the old one instead of the whole process of emptying them and hosing them down and refilling outside. I think everyone will be happier since I will be more likely to change it more often and it will be less fuss for me.

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