Domestic Breakdown

As I've said--I'm living with bad ju-ju right now.  It won't go away.

Ili made dinner for my mother and I last night.  I drove my mother to the little town on the river where she lives.  It was a good dinner of braised short ribs and sweet potato bits and sautéed green beans followed by little cake balls from the German bakery.  After dinner, we went out to take a walk.  It was hot.  Too hot.  Temperatures were in the mid-nineties yesterday afternoon, far above the norm. We strolled for a bit in the shade of the big oak trees, but not for long.

And then, dinner over, it was time to take my mother home and head back to my own home town.

When I stepped in the door, I could feel it.  It was too hot, too humid.  The a.c. was running, but it wasn't cooling the house.  It just won't end.  $2,000 for the trees, $2,000 for lumber, deck framing, and power washing my house, my mother's house, and the apartment.  That is just the last month.  The lumber is still piled in the yard.  I have a call into the a.c. repairman.  I hope they can come today.

No more thoughts of new cameras.  I've spent a lot of money on the Hasselblad, two lenses, the Leica, two lenses. . . .

No more thoughts of going away on vacation.  Nope.  Just thoughts of going to work, coming home to work some more, of suffering the summer heat.

All this led me to think about the world's economy.  There is money everywhere, but there are lots of people without it, too, and I wondered if there is enough money to sustain the world?  I mean, is there?  I am pretty certain there is not at current prices.  What people charge for things is prohibitive. I know many people without enough money.  They are always getting deals.  They don't pay retail.  They get things at a different price.  But what if everyone got the going market value for everything? Doctors are expensive.  Computers are expensive.  Automobile repairs and tires are expensive.  Air conditioning.  Kids athletic outfits.  Etc.  I don't think there is enough money to go around.  I think we may not know it yet, but the world is bankrupt.  Surely it is.  There can be no way that there is enough money to pay for everything at current market prices.

I'm going to be a broke sonofabitch, that is for sure.  Sitting in the rising morning's heat and humidity, I am about to go mad with it.  I need some reprieve.  The stars will have to shift, the ju-ju will have to fade.  My nerves are shot, and all about me are things calling for my labor.

I must call the repair place again, then call the lumber yard.  No matter how hard I work, it seems. . . it is like the scene in "Fantasia" where the mops and buckets keep multiplying at an exponential rate.  I fix one thing and twelve more pop up.

There is no justice in this world.