Happy New Year?
Posted by Eileen Roddy-Phillips on Feb 6th, 2008
2008 hasn’t started too well for me. I think I’ve become entangled in a bundle of bad karma.
The saga of mishaps started on New Year’s Eve when our furnace ended its life with a series of loud vibrations that rocked our bedroom, and sent my husband scurrying to turn the whole system off. So there we were, without heat, during the coldest of spells.
The engineer arrived pretty promptly, and told us the furnace had been leaking carbon monoxide.
I shuddered. The furnace had been serviced (by a local Company) in November, and I’d been very specific with my questions.
“Are you sure there are no cracks or leaks? It’s an older furnace and I want to make sure we are safe.”
“It’s working perfectly, and it isn’t cracked,” the serviceman said.
The vibrations started the next day, but I thought it the furnace working more efficiently. I know; it sounds really stupid, but that’s the kind of thing I do.
I don’t always add two and two together and get four.
The furnace and our carbon monoxide detectors have now been replaced.
We were luckier than my 33-year-old nephew who died a year earlier in Ireland (on Christmas Eve) from carbon monoxide poisoning leaking through a faulty fireplace.
As I was recovering from this episode, my little Corolla was assaulted by a large SUV when it was minding its own business in a downtown parking lot.
Is it my imagination or is it a fact that parking lots are more dangerous than highways these days? I’ve had several narrow misses as cars hurtle around without “due care and attention.” In this instance, the driver admitted liability immediately, his insurance was fully paid up, and the car is having surgery this week.
They say these things come in threes. My third episode was with the new glasses which I finally obtained in December — after several mishaps. I discovered, after further (three) trips to the optical store, that I’d the wrong prescription for the lens in the right eye. I wish I could tell you the lens problem has been solved. That would be expecting too much wouldn’t it? After waiting two weeks, the lens arrived, but “the lab got it wrong again.” Another two weeks wait, and it still hasn’t arrived. I’m “in dialogue” with the manager of the store who promises to resolve the matter “quickly.”
The year has to get better, doesn’t it?
I’m reminded of a poster I once read which said:
“Out of the darkness a voice said to me:
Cheer up, behold things could get worse;
so I cheered up and behold:
things did get worse.”
Do any of you know why these things all seem to happen around the same time? Is there any way we could space them out a bit more? I mean, couldn’t our computers have waited until March or April to breakdown, and the chest infections/flu postponed their visits until August or sometime later in the year, instead of jumping on the January 2008 ban
at 7:41 p.m.
I have learned NEVER to say, "what's next?"
at 8:52 a.m.
Hi Eileen. Hoping this comment find you with a return to your "normal." I can handle things one at a time, but when everything hits at once, it's hard to stomach.
My daughter and I have a blog that deals with boomer issues to boomerang issues (her generation). I will be referring to your blog quite a bit because I have not found a better source in the blogosphere than BoomerGirl.
Cheers,
Beckie