December 27, 2016

Last night when I took the dogs out for their pre-bedtime pee, my neighbor was standing by the left from tire of his Class A. He then accused me of letting my dogs shit all over my yard and his. He watched me pick Addison by her neck with her leash in order to try to get her to pee on the grass. She hates wet grass in particular, and she has grown to hate Florida grass because she gets burrs in her feet. She jumped off the grass. Jasper peed on it from the sidewalk. Not only is my neighbor a dick for the baseless accusation, he's also a creep for stalking me to have a confrontation: he must have been sitting in his dinette watching for me to emerge so he could verbally accost me. If he does it again, I call the police.

​This morning, I decamped to run errands in Melbourne: USPS, Quest Diagnostics, PetSmart, SuperCuts, and Publix. I drive right and pass left. If I'm in the left lane and not passing, I'm going to make a left turn. This morning, I was in the right lane of US 192 eastbound when the right lane became a turning-only lane. If there was a warning, I didn't see it. I moved into the left lane at an angle because there was no room for me to pull through and straighten. The first car which passed me on the right had a mangled left from fender, and the driver shouted explicatives at me while giving me the finger aggressively. I think he over-reacted.

I hope I never have to go to Quest Diagnostics again. I was there for an hour and a half to get blood work. I checked in via their tablet, waited, waited, waited, was called to do the paperwork, then I waited, waited, waited. I have never spent so much time waiting to get blood work in my life. Quest must be extraordinarily inefficient or understaffed. I think the former. However, the initial waiting period was serendipitously delightful because I sat next to a Korean Police Conflict veteran. He (a white boy) grew up on a Mohawk reservation in Upstate New York and became an ironmonger. (Read about the Native Americans who built the Verrazano Bridge.) He told me all about his army experience – his respect for his fellow infantry men up and down the chain of command but his dislike of the army in general. His ironwork took him all over the US, and he built everything from bridges to buildings to a 2,000 feet tower without ever wearing a harness. I was sorry when his name was called (it's the same as a famous football coach!) because I could have listened to him all day. He is a lovely, happy man and I'm sure his five children adore him.

I parked BOB in the Home Depot plaza which also housed SuperCuts. I ate lunch and walked into the shop. I had to wait about 20 minutes, but that was fine – especially after my longer wait at Quest. I took with me pictures of Meg Ryan with a pixie and Diane Keaton with a layered bob. I told the stylist that I might like to get to Diane Keaton's look at some point, but perhaps Meg Ryan's pixie would be a means of getting there. The hair wash took too long and was not that pleasant. The haircut was mostly frightening: the girl cut fearlessly and with ferocity. The only way I would have lost more hair is if she buzz-cut me. Instead of Meg Ryan's long-layered, highly texturized pixie, I have Jamie Lee Curtis's cut without the grey, without the face, and without the body (not that I have Meg Ryan's or Diane Keaton's face, either). While I love the quality of my hair when it's longer, a pixie really suits my lifestyle, as well as my lack of girlie talents.

On my way home, I stopped at a local grocery store in Melbourne Beach because Publix sells Bota Box for $6 more than it. I bought every box of Malbec and Pinot Noir that the shop had. It's only a little over three miles from where BOB is parked, so I can get two boxes in my backpack if I run out of wine before my next BOB run.