Brokedown Palace/Condo, Brokedown Laura

Where, oh where to begin???? Let's just hit ya with the big one: I had a breakdown last night. The big kind. With tears. And sucking-in breathing. And splotchy face. And next-day swollen, alien eyes. Not pretty.

Let's set the stage...

Monday night, I decided to go to trivia with Megan's crowd. It was a great idea. I had a really good time, answered the fashion question (Last week I answered the history one- that's right folks, history! Thanks, Coach Jones!) and just chilled. At Megan's before we left, I got an email from Childcare Solution about a job opening. I pondered, even asked Megan, "Should I take this and make some money or should I leave a day completely free to get ready for DC? Odds are my air conditioner is broken because our house is hottish...I'll just take it." Megan tried to talk me out of it at first, but we both realized I'm finished with things at Lockeland. Anything undone at this point in time will easily be remedied in the two days without students.

So...

While at trivia, where you are NOT allowed to even show your cell phone (you could be cheating to get the answers) I was expecting a call from Yuri from Chicago. She called- from a payphone, but since I was on vibrate and did not want to get my highly competitive team disqualified or docked points, I ran out. Well, I missed her. But I called the number right back in hopes that she was not using a phone card; she wasn't. We talked for about 45 minutes. Here I am, on the sidewalk across from the Green Hills Kroger, jabbering away in Spanish. Toward the end, she converted to English, so that was good. I absolutely despise speaking Spanish in the States and in front of people, but I did it and am so excited to meet her Sunday! She's precious!

Okay, so also that morning, I had found out that my temporary housing for Yuri for the first month while we continue looking had fallen through. Keep that on the back burner.

Get back to my house, bound and determined that the air conditioner will have fixed itself. (Channelling CW) It hadn't, but wasn't miserable, so I was holding out hope.


Ashley and I sweated through the night pun intended and the next morning, she decided to pack up Macy (her parents’ poodle that we’re keeping while they’re in Florida) and head to her parents’ house for her getting-ready-for-work scenario. I, on the other hand, decided just to babysit dirty. I was very dirty by this point. I’ll spare you the details. I babysat out in Franklin and we spent some time at the pool in the afternoon. I at least got rinsed off. I was happy with that by then. I leave babysitting at 5:30 in order to get back to Ashley’s parents’ house to prepare dinner for Emily and Stephen. Emily and Stephen are some of my favorite people (and I’m not just testing to see if they’re reading). Emily is the friend I have in Nashville that I’ve had the longest. We were roommates at Governor’s Scholars Program in Kentucky the summer of 1998. Wow. Ten years. Kinda just realized that. I remember thinking last year it would be ten years we’d known each other. So we’re good buddies. She went to Vandy while I was at Lipscomb but we managed to see each other an average I think of once a year in Nashville. Now that she and Stephen live here, we have monthly dinner dates. Ashley started coming along a little over a year ago and now two of Emily’s three sisters live here and they come, too!
Thankfully at home, strike that, the Smiths’ home, Ashley was following my cooking instructions via cell phone. The potatoes were baking the first go-round and the pork had just started cooking when I walked in. I got to it with the twice-baked conglomerate (?) that would be mixed with the actual potato part much later.
Basically, it all went off without a hitch and as usual, the Prathers and Mulloys were overly complimentary and I can’t even put into words how much I love our little get togethers. We have one more and I’m sad thinking about it. But that’s not the tears part.
So, they leave, but Emily has so graciously given me some of her mint plant. At some point last fall, we went to their house and sipped on mint tea while Emily prepared dinner. We loved it so much that we asked if we could have some mint. At 9:15 pm Tuesday night, I’m headed back to Yorkshire Circle to pack my yoga bag for the next day as well as get my pillows, clothes and shower stuff for our slumber party at the air-conditioned Smiths’. As I head north on 65, I call Megan (the other Spanish teacher and Yuri’s mentor while I’m gone) and vent about life. Air, living out of my car, my messy house, my unpacked DC suitcase, etc. She asks me if I’m crying and I’m not, but I’m definitely not in a good mood. I stay on the phone with her as I’m “packing my bags” for the sleepover…
My house is still hot, so I have to get over the hopes of magical a/c. Add to that I’m on my phone and the heat from my phone’s overuse at this point is making me hotter. It was bad. I go out back to plant my mint in full sun. Well, my light for my backyard is a motion-sensor light. After I turned it on and got my shovel and walked the three steps to the future home of mint, the light went out. So I try again. Nope. I’m too scared of the snake that happens to show itself in my backyard occasionally to try this in the dark. So I get the bright idea of the front garden. My right garden is gorgeous: petunias, hostas, lilies, etc. It’s nice. The left side is unloved. There is one coral bell plant that Amanda brought me from her mom’s house in Glasgow I think that I love, but its flowers are thin so from the walkway you can’t really see it. Other than that, my hostas came back more like pansies this year and there’s nothing else. This seems like a decent place for some mint. My front porch light, big shocker, does not shed light on this side of my garden. By now it’s approaching 10 pm and I am super-annoyed. I just stick the shovel in the dirt in the dark and hope for the best. Note: it’s not perfect, but it’s in the ground and no choral bells were injured in the process. Thank goodness for two days of storms to acclimate it to the garden because I for one have not been home enough to deal with it.
So there’s Tuesday. Enter the ride home. I’m still on the phone with Megan walking out of my house, hot, tired, and muddy-handed. I’m beyond perturbed at this point and have only what matters in life: yoga clothes and pillows. That’s right; no toothbrush, shower stuff, pjs, or anything that I had truly gone home for. I don’t care at this point. I want out of the house and I don’t want to have to pay thousands of dollars to be comfortable in it the next time I return.
On 65 southbound, I call Ashley and we chat for a few and then I vent and whine and then I get silent. Ashley, having heard this (not often, but) enough, knew I was crying and tried to help. There’s no help to be given. I have no home for Yuri, I have no air in my home, I have thousands of things in my car (it literally looked like a homeless person’s home), I have very few free minutes before take-off to DC for a week where I need to be prepared to prepare Yuri for life in her homeless Nashville. AHHHHH!!!!!! DO you feel me at least a little? I’m a procrastinator by nature. I’m fairly certain my whole clan is. I know Andy is and I think PK is. Anyhow, I’m used to things boiling down to the last minute. But I’m also used to that being because I haven’t done my part until then. I have been looking for houses for her since MAY. And I most certainly did not ask to have my air break down.
I just felt so helpless. Looking back, it’s so stupid, but I just really couldn’t see a happy ending anywhere. I don’t like that feeling and plan on not having it again (although if I’m leaving for Mexico on August 26, I’m envisioning somewhere around the 20th)!
At the Smiths’, I had a great night’s rest. I rose promptly at 5:20 am to hit 6 o’clock yoga to steady my mind (and to feel like I could eat all I had eaten on Tuesday)! Yoga was amazing. I felt much better, I had a list of things to do for the day, starting with leave yoga to go to the UPS pick-up center to pick up the camera I ordered. I know many of you know that I already have two cameras. My Kodak that I’ve had for at least two years is amazing, but too big for my purse. This spring, I bought a small camera for my purse using gift cards I earned for doing a project at school. Well, this camera is TERRIBLE. It’s really awful. No picture has good enough quality to print larger than a wallet. True story. Just look on my uploaded pictures from February on. So I’m going to eBay that beauty.
I digress.
I pick up my camera and head back to the Hades-esque condo I call come. Thankfully, Ashley’s dad is always super-helpful when I comes to Laura’s crises in Nashville. Ashley was texting him when I bought my car so he could do research to see if I was paying too much (I wasn’t) as one example. He told her who they used for their heat/air problems. She gave me that number and I put it on my list of things to do.
Next on the agenda is pack for the day of babysitting. This family was the one I had had to ask Megan if I should take it. They’re a hard family to sit for, not because it’s challenging, but because they watch tv all day. There’s no creativity, no conversation, nothing. There are three tvs on in the house at all times. However, it was a 9-5 job, so I would make substantial money and I had finished stuff at school. So I did it. Since the two boys take care of themselves with tv as well as napping for over 3 hours, I took my laptop to work on things and my new camera to get it going and my planner to get the air people called, my flight (finally) booked, and such. Their house is in a cell black hole, so I called the company, and Ashley from the house phone. They told me it would be 3:00 easy before they made it there. I had left my key hidden, but I told Ashley and she said she’d meet them there. Megan had also offered to sit in our blazing (106.7 any Nashvillians feel me?) house and work on her homework for her Masters. I’m pretty sure if I’m doing homework in the summer, the last place I want to do it is someone else’s unairconditioned house in the heat of the day.
Ashley met them there at 11. By 12:45 she had to leave to let Macy (poodle) out at her parents’. The guy calls me on babysitting house phone to tell me he’ll be leaving but other guy is coming blah blah blah blah. All I’m thinking is time is ticking and hours are costing me more and more. He informs me they won’t know the price til later, but 150 for the call itself, plus hourly fee, plus $23 per liter or whatever and he thought it would hold ten. So we’re already at 400 bones and they’re still there. By 5 when I leave I have yet to hear from them. Fearful for my ever-depleting Mexico fund, I walk in and see the house is empty and there’s a work notice. “Leak in copper [something-or-other] caused by roofing nails plus 9L [Freon].” Nice. My house is cooling off as we speak, and the roofers (whole other story) who re-roofed my house on Monday, had caused the damage. Therefore, sir conditioning is not my problem. Money is not my problem. Babysitting money I made this week will not go to part of a service call. Life is good.
I attacked my list of things to do and got packed for DC save for toiletries and things I would need between Wednesday and Friday. I also got some laundry done as well as some tidying.
I’m still stressed, as Yuri is still homeless. However, things are better. For example, I am writing this as I babysit my new favorite family. I’m sad that I only met them last week because they’ve been in Nashville for two years and now I’m leaving for a year. Anyhow, it’s not everyday that you find a babysitting job where you really like the kids, really like the parents, and the feeling is mutual. They seem to be really neat people. And considering all the headache I’ve gone through this week, I’m limiting my post-DC babysitting gigs to them. There are four kids. 3 boys and a baby girl. I’m at home with the napping baby right now while Mom is at a movie with the boys.
Oh! And I just talked to Wright Travel and Debbie is going to take care of me. I’m basically set. Now all I have to do is be oriented, visit all family members possible, clean out Grandmother’s garage for car storage, pack and clean my house for Ashley2 to move in.
Thanks for reading. Hope your life is not stressing you out right now. Soon, in the 4.5 hour days of school season, my life won’t be either.
Love and hugs.
PS- think happy house thoughts. I need a place for Yuri and it just totally seems to not be happening!