Don — Page 40

Day Ninety

June 11, 2020 at 9:37 am by Claudia

We are in the middle of a torrential rain as I write this. Wow. It’s been humid for a few days and it rained all night long, but this particular line of storms is very intense. Hopefully, on the other side of this, the humidity will drop.

More info about Cheers: one of my readers says the entire series is on Hulu. So if you’re watching it on Netflix and have Hulu, you’ll be able to keep on going. (We don’t have Hulu.) And Don’s episode is in Season 6, Episode 7: The Last Angry Mailman. Don made a couple of appearances on Frasier as well and has known Kelsey Grammer for years. They were in a couple of plays together in Los Angeles, right when Kelsey first started appearing on Cheers, and Kelsey also had a relationship with the Old Globe. Small world. I think it was Cheers – I’ll have to check that with Don – that Don was filming right after we moved in together and the guy who warmed up the audience called me to ask me questions about Don and I was speaking live on the set. Weird, but funny and that was, of course, his goal.

Both Don and I love Cheers, of course, but after watching it in this way – start to almost-finish – we’re convinced that it was at its best when Shelley Long was still on the show. She left after year number five. Another little story: I saw Shelley years ago, live, as a member of the cast of Second City in Chicago. This was before Cheers. That cast was full of people who eventually went on to SNL. I remember thinking Shelley was brilliantly funny.

Did a lot of work on the puzzle yesterday, but boy, is this one hard! (Of course I say this about every puzzle.) But it is true – this one is harder than the previous one, the Mucha. Two more puzzles (from Galaxy Puzzles) are arriving in today’s mail. One is a Van Gogh. Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment. And the other is a beautiful vase of flowers done by an artist that I can’t remember at the moment.

I’ve been sleeping erratically this week. Last night it seemed as if I didn’t sleep at all, but I must have. It was one of those nights where you wake frequently, so it seems as if you haven’t been sleeping. In the middle of the night, I asked Don to hold me and that helped a great deal. I slept in and I’m grateful that I did. Who knows why? It’s been a momentous and tragic two weeks in this country, we’re in the middle of a pandemic, Don and I are feeling a bit restless as we hit the three-month mark in our self-isolation – all of that certainly takes its toll.

It will pass.

The rain just stopped and I can hear a tree frog in the distance. I think we’re due for more later in the morning.

Hey, I don’t have to water the seedlings today! I may have to check on them, as this rain certainly pummeled them to the ground.

Reading Maigret Defends Himself, one of the later books in the series. I’m not reading them sequentially. Today, more work on the puzzle, maybe some work on the dollhouse – we’ll see.

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.

Day Eighty-Eight

June 9, 2020 at 9:52 am by Claudia

We both woke up at an impossibly early hour this morning. Neither of us knows why. Consequently, we had our second cup of coffee a bit earlier than usual. I managed to catch a glimpse of the groundhog, who had heard our voices and was moving away from the area right by the front porch. Hmmm…. A bit too close, my friend. He doesn’t have the gray around his muzzle that Henry had, so I think we officially know that Henry is gone.

I told the groundhog that if he is going to move into Henry’s home, he had better be a gentleman like Henry was. No ifs, ands, or buts. Henry was the most gentlemanly of groundhogs.

Because of our early wakeup, I got outside to take some photos.

In the Secret Garden.

More later this week.

We’re laying low today. We were going to do that yesterday, but we got word Don’s car was ready – to the tune of $600 – and I drove him into the neighboring town to get it. A word about that. We had a message over the weekend it was ready. So Don called the guy (who he really likes) yesterday and his jaw dropped open when he heard the price. This followed a long explanation of what the guy had done to find the source of the problem, which had been a mystery, and they had the car for several days while they tried to solve it. Understood.

My beef was that he had never given us an estimate. This car is 20 years old, and while we’re not ready to give it up, money is tight. Don spoke to him at length and then I got on the phone with him and was very firm about the lack of an estimate. He was defensive. (He’s a good guy and he has saved this car more than once and I am aware of that.) I didn’t yell or anything, I just said – after another longwinded explanation of what he had done – that in the future we require an estimate. Interestingly, the night before Don said that he was sure it must be a modest bill or R. would have called us to get our okay on the price.

Here’s my question: I have this tendency to review what I said afterward and feel guilty. Why is that? I was polite, I was firm, but I made my point clear. I didn’t say anything wrong. The car is in my name and I have a right to question the lack of an estimate. Nevertheless, I worried that it might have an effect on Don’s client relationship with the guy who I’ll call R. Both Don and I have a history of being people pleasers and it’s only in the last 15 years or so that we have learned to be firm about certain things. We both have issues with feeling guilt afterwards. I certainly did yesterday. We don’t like to make a fuss, we’re uncomfortable with conflict. Asserting myself when necessary is something I’ve had to learn to do over time, especially in my career.

Some of this need to avoid conflict is part of being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. I recognize that. Anyway. R. ended up admitting he should have given us an estimate. I’m fine now, but I’d really like to get over this guilt I feel when I rightfully assert myself. Is this part of being a female raised in the fifties and sixties? Is this because I hate conflict? Is this because I don’t like people being upset with me? All of the above? I think it’s all of the above.

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.

Day Ninety

Day Eighty-Eight

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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