I was awakened at midnight by loud voices. At first, I thought it was the neighbor down the street at play. Before the virus, he frequently had people over to his house to play one game or another, pool, horseshoes, etc. As he played, he screamed on top of his lungs in response to something or another, cursing like a sailor. As long as it was over by ten, I thought it was funny. However, the night it went on till 1 am. I called the cops. Enough is enough.
As I was rousing, it became clear the noise I was hearing was not about a game. It was a man and a woman screaming at each other. I got up and went out on the lanai to determine where it was coming from. There is one family on the adjacent street that has had similar events. It’s between a son and his mother. I don’t know what he’s about, but she is reduced to something less than the adult she should be in the interaction.
I heard her say, “Get out of my house! Get out of my house!” I heard a car alarm go on, then off, then on again, and then a car drove away. I had dialed 911 just before the end. I thought I hadn’t pushed the call button, but the next thing I knew, my phone rang. It was the 911 operator. I asked her if someone else had called in about the incident on the neighboring street. She wanted to make sure that I was alright first. Once I assured her I was, she told me that others had called in the fight already. I went back to bed but had some trouble falling asleep.
I was confused. I had first thought the departing man was the son coming back for a visit getting in a fight with his mother again. He was 17 at the time, a few years ago. Recently loud music started coming from that house. My immediate thought was, “Hunter’s back.” I hadn’t heard any screaming until last night.
I had set my alarm for 4:30 am to participate in a zoom family event, a baby naming in New York at 11 am. When my alarm went off, I hit the snooze button. The next thing I knew, it was 6 am. Too late to participate. I got up and did my morning walk with Elsa. I emailed my cousin, who had invited me. I realized that I had not received a zoom invitation. I think she assumed that I wouldn’t join because of the time difference.
I spent the rest of the morning meditating and working on the Step Up Program videos. They put their tutoring applicants through a more rigorous application procedure than any other ‘job’ I’ve ever applied for. I think they are discouraging people from joining. However, I may have found navigating the program more difficult than most because of my own ignorance.
Every time I completed one section of the program, I had to go back to the email, download the original document, and find where I was. When I got to the end of the program, I realized that I could have returned to the original program by clicking on a tab. However, were no directions on how to do this. These computer sophisticates assume everyone knows the ‘obvious.’ Ha!
As part of their tutor-instruction program, they gave some information about using zoom and a few other programs that can be used with screen sharing. I am looking forward to learning more about these.
I craved more of General Tao’s chicken. I had bought a frozen package from Costco. I was on my fourth serving from one bag. It’s a good deal. However, when I dumped the remains of the bag into the heated frying pan, all that was left was broccoli. I had noticed that there was more chicken than broccoli in the last servings. Now, I knew why. The broccoli was all sitting at the bottom.
This was not going to provide enough protein for me. I grabbed a frozen salmon patty out of the freezer and threw it into the heated frying pan along with the broccoli from General Tao’s Chicken package. Ah, I found a way to prepare those patties so I can enjoy them - fry them to death.
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