Thursday, August 30, 2018

It's been One of THOSE Weeks

I spent the weekend doing what I could with my pony, Chip.  We battled Navicular Syndrome with him for several years & I knew the end was coming.  My wife, Marg, scheduled the vet & knacker for Monday.  I went to work & he was gone by the time I got home, but the new fish pond had lost half its water.  It was a tough way to start the week.

Bummed out over Chip, the fish pond problem was icing on the cake.  I spent weeks & $200 building it just a couple of months ago.  After an hour of searching, I might have fixed a tiny leak in one place & corralled some splash as the water rolled down the front of the fairy princess, but I wasn't sure I'd found the problem.  Frustrating!




Tuesday was better; I found my wife's Aunt Irene.  Yeah, we'd lost her.

Irene is 85 years old & lives in Wisconsin.  She has no family save for her 2 nephews & her niece, my wife.  Since Irene lives so far away, I've only met her a few times & the boys haven't kept in touch at all.  We called & wrote back & forth half a dozen times a year, but we're not really close.  We thought we knew who her 'friend' (social worker) was, but found out that we didn't when our last letter came back as undeliverable.

How do you find an old relative?  Social Services & Jane, the manager of her independent living apartment building, couldn't give us any information due to HIPA.  It insures our privacy - too well in this case.  Apparently we're not on the right list.  Jane swore she passed a couple of messages along for us, but we never heard from Irene.  Adult Protection Services, the ombudsman, & even the police wouldn't help.  It's not their job.  They suggested hiring a private detective. Instead, I googled all the nursing & assisted living homes in the area.  There are 30 & I called each in turn as if I expected them to put her on the phone.

Number 25 told me she was at lunch!  I asked the nurse to have Irene call us.  When I got home, I found that the fish pond was still full!  Things were looking up.

Wednesday started with lost emails.  Email started out as a simple texting system with no security & is now an immense kludge.  I filter out 90% of the emails & users still complain about getting too much spam.  Users expect email to work perfectly every time, but I wonder why it works at all - quite a difference in expectations.  It's a small company & my boss is good at marketing.  Usually that's a plus since he leaves me alone.  When things like this come up, it can be frustrating for all concerned, though.

I didn't get a call back from Irene & tried calling her again.  She was at breakfast this time.  We were suspicious, so Marg tried a couple more times & managed to speak to Irene briefly.  We know she's alive, but she didn't know who Marg was.  Sigh.

That night, we looked at a 6 year old Halflinger, a possible replacement for Chip.  It's not a breed that I'm familiar with, but he seemed as calm as advertised from the ground.  The seller offered to let my daughter, Erin, ride him bareback.  There was no mounting block so my son-in-law gave my daughter a leg up while the seller held the reins.  Erin went up too high, the pony moved forward, & Erin came down on the pony's kidneys.  The pony bolted over top the seller with Erin flopping around on her belly as she went over his rump.  Erin bounced back up, but we didn't get a test ride since the seller was skinned up, bruised, & quite put out.  Oh well.

Thankfully, Thursday has been uneventful so far.  I hope it stays that way.  I really need a boring rest of the week.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home