So I had to mark the day given the number and all...LOL. Today has been "a day" that's for sure. I woke up this morning all set you make the hour drive over to Sundance to help Paula out with art therapy...no hot water...great! I figured it fitting given my number of days sober (and also something else) and that my higher power was just telling me to take a cold shower! No, Kabe, your head won't explode!!
So after my fast cold shower, cold shave and a cup of cold yesterday's coffee I was out the door at 8:00 on the dot and got to my car only to find the driver's window busted out, glass everywhere and everything inside tossed. So much for the $599 extra I spent on the alarm! I've lived in NY and LA where you expect things like that to happen but the Sunridge Retirement Condominiums in Surprise??? Being that it's a ragtop and only one slice away from entry anyway I don't keep much in it other than a pair of sunglasses, a few CD's and maybe half a pack of smokes and some gum but the fuggers got two things that pissed me off.
First, I had kept my Sundnace "coin" from my coin out in the ashtray as a reminder to:
A) Not to smoke in my car (I got one of thse butt buckets in the cupholder anyway).
B) Not to stop in for a cold one as I pass the seemingly endless numbers of bars on my two hour roundtrips out to Sundance and back! I swear they must have opened up a few hundred new bars in the seven weeks I was tucked away all safe and sound out at Sundance!!
So, I'm sure I can get another coin but it won't be "the" coin that was passed around to everyone to charge during my coinout on my 50th birthday so I'm kinda bummed about that; especially, given the fact that it's probably just tossed in the bushes somewhere. I worked damned hard to earn that coin and it meant the world to me! Oh well!
Second, the got my friggin Barry White's Greatest Hits CD!! How's a guy supposed to break his "other sobriety" without a Barry White CD??? I still got my Al Green CD but there's just no substitute for making your moves with the top down blasting "Never Gonna Give You Up" now is there?? Chances are that was fliped like a Frisbee down into the Aqua Fria "river" bed to the east of the parking lot.
That's another thing, while I'm in my Andy Rooney mode here. Why do they call dry gullys out here "rivers"?? I don't see no fuggin water in there??? Ah, but I digress.
So, then I cleaned up the glass, most of it anyway (just found a glass "cube" in my back pocket) and headed eastward towards Sundance while calling my dealership to schedule it in tomorrow for the window replacement, tune-up and oil change which was needed anyway. That's another first for me, oil changes. I never got the oil changed in my cars. I'd just add a quart when getting low but when they really needed an oil change I'd just trade them in. Coming from the life I used to lead before Sundance whatever car I owned was generally getting pretty "hot" around town by about the 10,000 mile mark anyway and was starting to get a nice collection of bullet holes in it and it was time to ditch it anyway...LOL (PMPN8EZ). I finished the drive out on the phone with the Director of Web Services at Hythiam, Inc trying to see if he had approval on my proposal to build and manage their social network all the while kicking myself for countering their intial offer and asking for more money and breaking my "First one to speak loses" rule by being the first one to call the other after submitting my counter offer last week. "Does he smell my desperation?" Does he know I'm at under $500 to my name with rent, insurance and a car payment coming up next week?" Does he know about my innate adversion to having to get a j-o-b where wearing a name tag is involved?" Well? Does he?? I hung up without revealing any of these grim realities of my current situation and pulled into Sundance.
So I get to Sundance about an hour late but it was with a sigh of relief!! Got hugs from Melissa, Jamie and Susan, poked fun of Dr. Ravi's shirt, the white hair in Chuck's reemerging facial hair and all was well with the world once again...I was home....safe! Then back ino the art room where I got to see you guys, kiss Kimberly on the cheek, share a moment with Matt and his "inner thesbian", Kabe's latest clay phallus, Kathy's hand holding the world, Susan's jeweled heart shaped box, Hailey's beautiful mushroom painting and see her finished drama masks drawing which I had helped her with two weeks ago (it turned out killer!), Danika's pink box and Sandy's radiant & sparkley sun and top it all off with seeing Jon and Marina and a big old nurturing Paula hug!! I was recharged and ready to get back out there and complete my day out here in the hinderands of my new reality! Bumped into Chris in the parking lot which was cool as he said how good it was to see me and to see me doing well out here....LOL...I spared him all of the above and joted myself a note to start working out so I can look a bit more like the big guy....LOL...I'll start tomorrow (or NOT!).
Then it was off to my storage unit up in Fountain Hills to get some stuff out of there then back down the hill to mid-city for my first therapy session with EMDR therapist Ana Gomez who Annette referred me to and made it at 1:00 sharp! Annette didn't tell me that Ana is like my dream woman in living flesh. Oh my God!! After I stoped drooling I signed the client agreement and thereby erradicated any possability whatsoever that she'd ever consider going out with me for LIFE!! I felt somewhat relieved and actually grateful for that cold shower earlier...not that this incredibly hot and intelligent professional woman would go out with me anyway but humor me here ok??? Work with the artist!!
Had a great session with Ana and I think I actually heard a few words she said by the end of the hour and made a regular standing appointment for Monday afternoons. I feel good about her and think we can continue the work I started with Annette out at Sundance but there's a lot more inside I need to look at. Annette and I really only cracked the door open, dusted a few cobb webs out of the way and let a few "bats" fly out of the recesses of my soul. Suddenly I'm thinking that between Paula's art classes and Ana's therapy sessions I'm atually gonna like "Mondays" which I'm sure will start to change once she starts my EMDR therapy sessions and I ball like a baby and get snot on my shirt in her office every week.
Quick zip up to Lenscrafters at Paradise Valley Mall to pick up my new prescription and sun glasses and I can "see" again!! Turning fifty is a dual edged sword. On one hand I had to increase the bifocal prescription so I can read but on the other I did get to whip out my new AARP card and get a 10% discount!! (Just wait, you'll get there yourself and think of me whne you whip out yours too!!).
Back in the car and drive through late afternoon crosstown traffic on Cactus all the way out to Glendale & 67th Ave just short of my 4:00 deadline for my regular check-in meeting with my Probation Officer which went well but not as well as I anticipated because she informed me that she was not going to be able to submit my case for early release on October 17th because she wants to keep me under supervision "for a few additional monhs" to see how I do in the real world outside of Sundance. Shit! That means another few months living out here in East Jesus and now I have to start looking for another place to live (again) since this studio jumps up from $725/mo to $1,100/mo on December 15th when all the "Snowbirds" flock back out here from Wisconsin or where ever the fuck they come from every year like the swallows returning to Capistrano but I still have to reside in Surprise unless I want to transfer to another probation officer which I do not want to do with 18 written violations in my file over the past 12 months. Mine has been very cool with me giving me second, third and fouth chances and has not sent me back to the judge so rather than take my chances with a new PO I guess I'm loking for another place to live out here in Surprise(aka:East Jesus) starting in a few weeks and sucking it up and living life on life's terms. Novel concept although quite foreign to me.
Then a long drive into the direct setting sun further westward up Grand Avenue made only bearable due to my new prescription Ray Ban's and ino the safe confnes of my little furnished studio here at the glorious "Sunridge Retirement Condos", pulled the Murphy bed down out of the wall and flopped down for a two hour nap and writing this as my Banquet meatloaf, mashed potato and corn TV dinner cooks (Hey, they were only $1.00 a piece last week as I shopped at Walmart after being greeted at the door by my Ghost of Christmas future....and NO I don't want help out to the car you old fuck!! Get away from me you creep!).
Oh well, it could be worse ehh?? I could be busy covering my windows with aluminum foil and hand "cleaning" my carpet right??
Nahhh!!
In the imortal words of the late, great Barry White (*sigh*). "Quittin just ain't my stick!"
Nite
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