I don’t normally have problems with the power company.  We don’t have many outages and the ones we do have don’t usually last long.  I’m not counting the outages during the great snow storms of February 2010, though.  That’s nowhere near normal for us.  Not to mention that I was only without power for about an hour, though I was without heat for much longer.  But that was Leland Pointe’s fault.  I digress.  I’m not too happy that rates will be going up soon, but I can live with it.

So why, you wonder, am I upset?  (And yes, I’m upset.  I’ve been fuming, panicking, and grumbling off and on, though rarely all at the same time.)  Duquesne Light has decided that they are going to upgrade the power system in Cantebury Commons.  Great! Wonderful for Cantebury Commons people.  Well, except for those who are furious that they will now have boxes in their yards.  They are also going to do some upgrading to Castlewood.  Wonderful! Why am I upset?  Because not only will I be without power during the day between the hours of 8:00 am and 4:30 pm M-R next week (though they said at the meeting that they would probably not shut the power off till Tuesday or Wednesday since they had to bring all the equipment in and junk), the power will be on and off intermittently for the next 6 weeks.   Yes, you read that right. 6 freaking weeks.

Mom went to the meeting they held on Tuesday and found out several things.  The representative (who retired from DL and now consults for them) said that the cables and equipment were 30 to 40 years old.  Um…we moved in in 2001 and Castlewood (the plan I live in) was only about 5 years old, if that, at that time.  So that makes our plan 14 years old.  Cantebury is that old, but now us.  The issue is that Castlewood is behind Cantebury.  You have to go through Cantebury to get to Castlewood.  So all the power goes through Cantebury to get to Castelwood.  So the entire time they will be working on the main part of the project (Cantebury) we (Castlewood) will have power interruptions.  It will take six weeks or so to get through it all.  They need to put three types of boxes in.  Castlewood has 2 of the 3 in spots around the neighborhood already.  All we need is the mini coffin one (the reps description, not mine).  Cantebury has no boxes – they all have underground sewer-type access.  As they progress through Cantebury the people there will stop having power outages.  The people closest to the beginning will be out the shortest amount of time.  Those of us who are practically up to date will be with power the most amount of time.

Did I mention that they didn’t bother to check the demographics of the people living in these plans?  Cantebury is younger people and middle-aged people.  Castlewood, however, is a patio home community.  The majority of the residents are retirees.  The didn’t have enough room at their meeting because they didn’t expect anyone to show up since the outages would basically be during work hours.  He said that, looked at the group there, then made the remark that they hadn’t bothered to check the demographics.  *sigh*  Now that he’s seen the people at the meeting they will definitely bring a cooling trailer in for next week.   He also said to duct tape the fridge closed so no one opens it.  Yup, duct tape.  To people over 65.  Yeah, I could an 80 year-old grandmother getting out the duct tape for that.  *rolls eyes* Mom’s going to have to unhook the electric garage opener to make it manual.  The family who has someone who needs oxygen will get a generator that will run the oxygen and the fridge.

So why won’t I be around?  Because I will be staying at my father’s house and I’m not sure how I will be able to use the internet.  He has it, but I’m not sure how I would hook it up and all that.  You see, I get up at 10:49 am.  I live upstairs in the loft on the side of the house that faces the sun in the morning.  On an afternoon when the sun was on the other side of the house and was going down, the loft went from 73 degrees to 80 degrees in less than 2 hours with the air off.  The windows do have black out drapes and yes, I have 2 windows.  However, the windows are in dormers which do not provide much air circulation.  You need a fan for that and with no power I have no fan.  Also, I will have no lights to see by.  I will not have an alarm clock to wake me up.  No hot water for my shower, not to mention that the bathrooms (both of them) are in the inside of the house with no windows.  Hard to do hair, brush teeth, put contacts in without being able to see.  I do salads for my lunch with an apple.  I would have to open the fridge to get it (I put ham on my salad for some protein.) I normally make a hot dog in the microwave and eat it as I drive out of the plan. I can do almost none of that with no power!  So I’m removing to my father’s and Kathy’s for the week.

Did I mention that they don’t work on F, S or S?  And that they can’t leave until the power goes on each day no matter how late it takes (though it should never be later than 8 pm)?  And that we should unplug everything so they don’t get fried in power surges when the power goes back on each night?

See, the first week isn’t that difficult.  I’m just going to Dad’s where there will be power even if there’s no a/c.  But at least I’ll be able to use a fan or 2!   The difficult part (for me) is the next 5 weeks.  There is no set schedule as to when the power will be out.  We can call after 5 pm to find out who the power will be out for the next day and when.  Isn’t that nice of them?  Of course, some nights I don’t get home until after 3 am which doesn’t give me much time to figure out what  the hell I’m going to do if they decide to shut the power off between 10:45 am and 12:25 pm.  And since I live in Castlewood, that could happen often.  But only on M-R!  Of course, I only work M-R and I have no time to take off until my vacation at the end of September (which is 7 weeks away, of course) and no time to take off after that until December!  If I did, I would have stayed home sick on Monday! I’m sorry, I have 5 hours.  That’s half a day.   It’s not going to go very far over 5 weeks.  Not  to mention that until I get to the last hour, I have to to take it in 2 hour increments.   So I can use it three times.  *sigh*  I wish I could move somewhere until the end of September.  It would make life so much easier.  Although I would miss Mom, Jack, Gracie, and especially my baby Kit Kit.  Who for some reason feels the need to try and cover his water dish.  I don’t know why, but I was just watching him paw the carpet and table shelf around his water bowl.  And no, I can’t just run over to Dad’s and take a shower on those days after the first week.  He lives 45 minutes or so away from Mom!  Argh!

But if you don’t see me next week, that’s why.  Stupid power company and their stupid upgrades and not upgrading Cantebury when they extended the lines to build Castlewood.

There are days when I don’t really like my life. Well, it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s that I don’t find it all that impressive. It usually happens around the time I see my sister. She showed up on Thanksgiving and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve been cry-y all day. She noticed that I had lost weight, but freaked when she found out I was off of my low carb diet. She asked me if I was engaged yet and then proceeded to tell me that I should wait six years before getting married. I guess she really doesn’t want me to have children. I’ll be 36 by then. That’s a little old for that type of thing. Mom had us when she was 30 and 32 and was the oldest mom at the bus stop. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t want kids. Not that I know when I’ll every get proposed to. Tom is insisting on buying me a diamond even though I’ve told him that I’d be perfectly happy with an Epiphany engagement ring. Then again, I don’t know how I would afford a wedding. I have so much debt. And I never could afford one that could compare to my sister’s. I do have a gorgeous wedding gown that I love with all the trimmings (though I would have to find the shoes), but…I don’t know. She had her’s at Phipp’s Conservatory. I could never afford a place that nice. She had everything so nice. Our CA relatives (and their children from various parts of the US) flew/drove in for her wedding. Including our 92 year old grandfather. I don’t think they’d do that for mine. Debbie flies out and sees all of them all the time. She knows our cousins and our cousins children. I don’t. They would come out if Grandpa was coming because we all know our time is short with him. If he came to this coast for anything (cause most of the cousins are in MA area) they’d come for it. I don’t think he’ll be around in 6 years. Of course, it may be six years before I can afford a wedding. Tom wants a big wedding, too. I’m thinking more of sneaking off to Vegas or Fl or one of the Carolinas and getting married. Maybe on the beach. No pressure. I’d fail, but I wouldn’t fail in front of everyone else.

I feel so lonely these days. I rarely see anyone. People are too busy to see me. They have families and children and lives. I don’t think I have much in common with them anymore. We have memories, but they all are from years gone by (think high school and college). They don’t invite me places (though the Steel City Knitter did invite me for Thanksgiving). Once again I feel like I don’t belong. Tom loves me, but he’s away for most of the week and goes to bed before I get off of work every night. Mom loves me, but she’s an hour away and again, goes to bed before I get off of work. Dad and Kathy love me, but I think they are the busiest of them all. Kit Kit and Jack love me. I get kisses from them. But I’m having a rough day and I don’t feel loved right now.

All through growing up great things were expected of me. I was an honor’s student, in GATE clases and advanced science and math courses. I sang, which I don’t do anymore. I was in musicals. I performed. I took part in things. I was in advanced classes in college as well. It was expected that I would go into math or science and do great things, make money, and make people proud. I didn’t do that. I changed from meteorology to English in college and then dropped out. I started temping and fell in love with data entry. I got a good job at a bank downtown earning a lot of money and I didn’t like it. I hated it, in fact. So I went back to data entry. I moved up in my data entry position and am now making more than I did at the bank job, but come on – it’s data freakin’ entry. Not complicated. Not difficult, unless you count reading handwriting as difficult. Although, it’s not. I love my job. I do it ten hours a day, four days a week. I’m fairly good at it, too. But I don’t do anything special, or complicated, or important. Debbie went to college, learned to fly, graduated early, got a job as a pilot, moved up in the ranks, married a pilot, has a house, makes money, is not in debt, and doesn’t have a huge list of failures in her portfolio. The only ones of those that I’ve done is gone to college and moved up in the ranks. Not especially impressive. And apparently I’m bossy, too. And know-it-all. Both Mom and Tom said I was. No wonder the ones who truly want me around are Tom, Mom, Jack, and Kit Kit. I don’t think I would want me around either.

I mentioned in September in this post that I had lost 13 lbs over the summer, which is great. I have continued to lose weight since then. Once I got off of my risperidal I did a search at work to find out about risperdal (something I now know I have access to). I had noticed something odd a few days after I stopped taking the med. I stopped enjoying the salads. (Okay, originally I thought it was the flu I caught. I went home sick my first week out on the floor and missed another day due to it. Luckily the only time I threw up was on the way home from work. And I manged to get out of the car before that happened.). I would take a bite of the salad and couldn’t eat. I tried changing lettuce mixtures and it was no help. I was still eating my apples and the ham from my salads but that was it. I also wasn’t as hungry. The apple and the ham and the second apple I had on my last break would last me for the rest of the night. I wasn’t eating once I got home from work either. Well, when I looked up the risperidal I discovered that it increases your appetite. You could have pushed me over with a feather when I saw that one. These days I’m eating two pieces of Italian bread with butter and an apple for dinner. (Yeah, so much for my low carb diet!) I have had some popcorn on my first break and an apple on my last break and a couple of pieces of candy and that’s about it. I went out to dinner with Mom on Friday and I could finish my steak. And it was only a 7 oz steak. I ate almost none of my fries, although I did eat a bunch of mozzarella sticks. It’s one of the few ways I’ll actually eat cheese. I had been in size 18 jeans over the summer and several weeks back when I was at Mom’s I grabbed some size 16′s and a bunch of nice blouses from my Mellon job which at that point either fit or almost fit me. About a week after that I switch to wearing the size 16′s. They got very baggy very quickly. Also the end of my belt was sticking out very far. Way too long for the first belt loop, but not quite long enough for the second. Friday I put on the size 14 jeans I had grabbed from Mom’s and they fit. Woohoo! I bought a smaller belt (went from a 42” to a 38”) and when I got back to mom’s I weighed myself. Since May (or so) I have lost a grand total of 31 lbs! That’s a not so small dog. Or three + Jack’s:

The most amazing thing is that I have done nothing except get off my meds. I have exercised exactly twice (and one of those the hot water went off during so I got to take a cold shower that night). Exercising is not one of my strong points. I have not been following my low carb diet very well at all. (I’m hoping that the weight loss with help with the triglycerides.) I have just stopped taking the meds. I also have not gained any weight since starting the Celexa, so that wasn’t the drug that was causing the problems with my weight. It’s so exciting. My face has thinned out and I can wear clothes I have worn in over a year. My face is no longer round! Getting off of the meds wasn’t easy for me or my family. Tom bore the brunt of it and he held up remarkably well. No, it was most certainly not easy. But it paid off. It was worth it.

A Kit picture

Something I want to hang on my wall

Another thing to hang on my wall

This week’s photo hunt

More Kit Kit pics:

Gracie

Jack

Tom’s fave flower

Tom

This is a picture of our last puppy Mitzi. She lived to a ripe old age and died a couple of years ago. She was the constant companion of my mother for many years and moved from Gemini Dr to Moon with us. She used to get us in all types of trouble with the HOA, but we loved her. Miss you Mitzi!

Kit the Cat

Tom got this frame for my name card

Amazing Grace – and it will go on a wall. Someday.

Dinner – yummy!

Boxes of books from Dad’s closing sale

More boxes of books

The roses I got Tom all dried up

My fave lamp. See the little flowers?

Look – no blood! It came out with hot water and a paper towel. Yay!

The tree outside my apartment window.  (Supposedly it’s Spring. I see no buds.)

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