Musings of a Medical Zebra

Archive for the ‘Misc. Stuff’ Category

Another Palm Pre — Yay!

So last night we went to Best Buy and picked up another Palm Pre. (The lady my husband spoke with from Sprint informed him that we could get one cheaper through Best Buy.) Since I backed up the information from the broken Palm Pre — which is now listed on Ebay — I didn’t have to re-enter my phone numbers or the stuff in my calendar.

Palm Pre

I finally got around to replacing my Sprint Mogel on Monday. I bought a Palm Pre. The phone is awesome. Unfortunately, I accidentally dropped it on the way home from the post office yesterday. The screen cracked and the phone is now useless. Sprint said they can replace the phone…for $600. I am displeased by this.

The extension cord

Last night my husband used a very long extension cord to plug in our hot tub heater. It reminded me of an incident that occurred in Lincoln. At one point, our neighbor Doug allowed two of his male friends to move in with him. One of the guys — whom I recognized as living with Doug, but had not met — approached me as I was preparing to walk inside our house. He said, “Can we borrow an extension cord.” Before I answered his question, I asked how long the extension cord needed to be.  He said, “One long enough to reach from your house to ours because Doug forgot to pay the electricity bill.” I almost laughed out loud. I told him that we didn’t one long enough, and quickly closed the door behind me.

“Neighborhood Watch”

I’m going to file this one under The Squatter Saga, even though it’s not about The Squatter. This post is about our ex-neighbor. I’ll call him Doug. I was checking my e-mail one morning when I decided to open the window in the office. As I was opening it, I happened to look at neighbor’s house and noticed something interesting — a security camera. It was pointed at the driveway we shared. In my mind, this confirmed my suspicion — there was drug related activity going on in the house. Since I didn’t have a job, I was home most of the time. I’d see cars coming and going a lot over there.  It was a different car each time and they’d stay for 10 minutes or so.  Doug also acquired a pit bull around that time, which we also thought was odd.

I was most alarmed by the security camera. We had a good relationship with Doug, so I decided to ask him what the camera was for one day while we were talking to him outside. He said, “Neighborhood watch.” He also said he could not only see everything that was going on in the driveway we shared, but he could also hear it. Nice…

I figured we might as well have some fun with it. When we’d arrive home from grocery shoppping or whatever, I’d get out of the car, wave at the camera, and say” Hi, Doug.”  Several times he appeared at the door and waved back. Creepy…

The Nature Preserve

The thing that I admired about The Squatter was that he mowed the lawn. I also admired his dedication to getting the job done. After all, it wasn’t unusual for him to spend at least a couple hours outside with the mower on a weekly basis. Notice I  used the words “with the mower” and not “mowing the lawn.” This is because much of  his time was spent with his hands on the mower, but the mower wasn’t actually turned on.

I observed that on several occasions. I’d happen to look outside and see him in the front yard with the mower.  He’d stand there for several minutes with his hands on the mower, just staring off into space. Then he’d go inside, come back out to the mower, and do the same thing. Other times, he’d turn the mower on, but he’d just stand in one place with it running. After awhile, he’d actually start moving. It never lasted very long, though.  From start to finish, it would take him about two hours to mow what should have taken about 20-30 minutes. For whatever reason, he’d always leave a 5 x 10 foot patch of the back yard unmowed. It was the same area each time. We referred to it as The Nature Preserve.

The Arrival of The Squatter

Those of you expecting a health related post today might be disappointed (or relieved). Today’s post has nothing to do with my health; it’s about a situation that occurred a couple years ago.

Before we moved here, we rented a small house in a town of about 15,000 people. Our neighbor also rented his house, and we shared a landlord. One day our neighbor abruptly moved out of his house. Soon after he moved out, another guy moved in. We recognized him as one of our ex-neighbor’s friends. Unlike our ex-neighbor, the new guy moved in without the permission of the landlord. For this reason, we called him The Squatter.