(written on the 11th}
Apparently, Rover either came with some brown recluse spiders, or it inherited some with all of the boxes and what not that were moved from the house to the van and out.
I think I’ve killed three, maybe?
I was stretching last night, just before falling asleep, And the small of my back was uncovered because my shirt was stretched up a little bit, and I felt something crawling on the small of my back. I quickly brushed it off, shined my light down on the mattress, and I don’t know if it was a brown recluse or not, because I killed it so quickly. It was running toward me as fast as it could go, so I didn’t take time to try and identify the species.
🙃
But first thing in the morning, when I opened up the back hatch, there was indeed a brown recluse right there between the back hatch and the generator compartment.
I quickly squashed him with my fist.
Sticky traps show up later today. 🙏
I don’t like sticky traps. Crappy way to die. But not sure what else to do in this little enclosed van of mine.
Lots of critter stories lately. Did I mention that After getting bitten by a brown recluse herself, my mom had a run in with a copperhead snake?
Good gravy.
She’s okay. No bite. Snake definitely worse off than she. 🙃
I’ve had it on my mental to-do list for days now to put power steering fluid in my Honda Civic. It whines and is low on fluid, so there’s a leak somewhere. But I keep forgetting until I drive it and then hear it whining. I finally got it actually written on my to-do list, so it was the first thing that I did this morning. Topped off the fluid. Didn’t bother checking to see about the leak itself. Too many other things to worry about.
Sticky traps arrived, as did more Little 12 quart storage bins that I had ordered. Hopefully that’ll help make things easier to organize.
One of the big things on the list to do today was to replace the brakes on my mom’s juke. Front and rear, just the pads.
There was a part of me toying with the idea of maybe fixing cars again a little bit just because it’s familiar and something I’ve been doing for so long. Easy to get back in the groove. But doing just the pads on my mom’s car was enough to send me into another complete meltdown. Right in front of my mother. Poor Mama.
It took nearly 2 hours just to do one side of the front. I couldn’t get the pads to retract with the hardware springs the way they were supposed to. One side would, but the other one wouldn’t, and sometimes it would catch And couldn’t be pressed against the rotor.
It was a nightmare. It’s the reason that I can’t stand doing brakes. Very few of the brake systems that I work on go back together like they ought to. Sure, they go back together just fine. I could pad slap it, not pay any attention to the imperfections in the way that it’s functioning, and be done in 15 minutes. But how do you do that? How do you put something back together knowing that it’s not working properly? Even if it’s still going to work. The car is going to stop. It’s just going to wear out the pads maybe a little bit faster. Maybe a little bit unevenly. This happens with the vast majority of the brake apps that I do. And so it takes hours just to do stupid little pad slap jobs.
I don’t have it in me to not do the job so that everything goes back together And functions the way that it’s supposed to. I’m sure there’s a “good enough,” But what if the uneven wear is on one of the pads that doesn’t have the wear sensor, and what if it wears out faster and ruins their rotors because of it?
Anyway…
At least I got my mom’s brakes done. She still needs more brake work because her emergency brakes aren’t working properly, but I was done. I had a complete and utter mental and emotional breakdown, right down to the writhing on the ground in emotional agony.
It’s also stupid. It’s just brakes.
But I have nothing left of me. I function only because I’m forcing myself to keep moving. To keep going forward. To keep being productive. But I’ve got no reserve strength in the tank. I’m on empty.
I just keep getting worse. I haven’t been myself for probably close to 9 years.
God please just let this be done. Please let this just be all over. All of it.
After regaining my composure and finishing my mom’s front and rear brakes, I sent her on her way, and then I went and got my steamer and some of my distilled water, and I spent the next hour or two cleaning my Volkswagen.
I love that little steamer. It’s freaking awesome.
I also did a little Jimmy rig fix for the bumper and fender liner issues. It’s a pretty decent little car. It looks nice. It’s got plenty of issues, but at least I hope it’s a decent little thing.
I took pictures of it and got it ready to list for sale. I’ll probably list it for sale in the morning.
Got rid of my TV. I would have kept it, but I have no place to put it. And I’m just stuffocated. Overwhelmed.
After getting rid of the TV, I drove over to the deck for whatever reason. I started cleaning up the trash that was left there from the family get together. I went over to the trash can, and inside was a possum stuck there. It must have been in there for a wow. It was in the bottom in like 3 or 4 in of water. Soaking wet. It had an infected eye, and I noticed that it had a baby in with it didn’t it died And was mostly submerged in the water.
😞
I don’t like seeing the Little things suffer.
I carefully transplanted it from the garbage bin to a storage tote, drove over to the Pea Ridge military Park, and let it out on the side of the road right next to a spring so it could have fresh water.
When I first gently dumped it out of the bin, it immediately looked like it was pretty much dead. I hoped that it hadn’t scared itself to death writing in the tote in the back of my pickup truck. But it looked awful. I figured it was probably super dehydrated from being in there with water That was undrinkable because it was filled with trash and a dead baby possum.
I bought a bottle of Coca-Cola from the vending machine at the military Park, drank the cola, and went to the spring and filled it up with water to try and give the possum some water.
Well I was gone, I remembered that it was a possum, and that it acting the way that it was may very well have been playing dead.
What did I find when I got back?
No possum. It had left. It indeed was playing dead, and was now gone. It had a water source. Hopefully it’s eye will get better. 🤞
I had joined a Facebook group in the effort to try and figure out what to do with the poor little thing, and there were lots of comments very quickly, some of them felt a good bit rude, but others were great. It’s funny to me how some animal lovers can be so vicious toward humans and so gentle toward animals.
Go figure.
I left the Facebook group as soon as I let the little possum go in the military Park. I went back to the deck, cleaned up trash, coiled up the electrical cords and brought them up to Jim and Steph’s house, and then I headed down to my little Greenhouse staging area.
For a good long while I just sat on the trailer attached to my broken down van.
I am not well.
I tried to reach out to other people to try and be a lift and a support to others. Sent lots of text messages and Facebook Messenger messages and what not. Connected with some people. Hopefully I’m able to lift the world a little bit even in my own shattered state.
Another day done.
~ stephen
Lift the World 