MAY 17, 2022

Nerves and more nerves on top of more nerves all jangling. Isabel all wound up about dealing with her brother in Peru and a remodeling project that’s going on with people who want to take advantage of us as soon as they find out someone’s from the United States where of course all of us are millionaires and so they think they have to immediately start charging more and that the flow of money is one long limitless river to the south. So there’s all kinds of tension and anger about everything going into this ongoing project including its setbacks… getting things determined measured understood paid for etc
Then we get in the car to go to some stores, which we don’t do much of because of the pandemic… We have practically
everything delivered now to our door and we’re as close to being hermits as we’ll ever get … and Isabel wants to go into the store to buy some things for said brother in Peru to be taken by our daughter when she goes there in a few days and Isabel has to wear two masks and her glasses fog up and she notices people are getting close to her… often guys wannabe Casanovas… and this makes her more nervous and on edge and she is sweating… her doctor telling her maybe you’re one of the ‘lucky’ ones who has menopause to the grave and then her sugar drops too and that makes her more feel like she’s dying and gets more nervous and confused and she calls and I have to go pick her up and she’s all in edge and worn down just from her short excursion into the store and then the dog is high strung in the car because he hates going in the car and we can’t leave alone at home either and we forgot to give him his tranquilizer pill that the vet, Dr. Lee, just gave us and I swear Isabel needs a tranquilizer too when I drive her somewhere because every intersection every vehicle we pass or turns our way or whatever ….she has a bit of a breakdown thinking for sure we’re going to crash so I don’t know whether she needs a tranquilizer maybe just for any car rides and at the end she says I would just prefer to stay at home forever.  I try to reassure her that I don’t have automobile accidents… it’s not that I never could but I’ve driven many miles and many years without one … and that I don’t even see many wrecks here… even in spite of all the traffic. We don’t go out much and I am careful (despite her thinking otherwise). The bottom line is all this high anxiety screeches on MY usually steady nerves as well as it obviously screeches on Wookie’s and hers.
NOTE: With all of the nervous energy and obstacles she was still able to get three pairs of pants in his size for the and he will appreciate that.

I’m in the parking lot winding down listening to Leonard Cohen and people who cover him in tribute and an audiobook travels with Charlie which I read in high school prior to my hitting the road myself. Right now in the book he’s up in northern Maine where I hitchhiked that time all the way up to Fort Kent on the Canadian border, even finding myself in a goofy dilemma being stuck on a bridge between Canada and the United States with no ID and neither country wanting to let me in.