Peeing on Power Strips

Today I am dirty and irritable and wearing the wrong shoes for such a long walk (we are over at the sensory gym, it's just after 4). About an hour ago Wally peed on the power strip the computer was plugged into and it starting sparking. I turned it off and pulled it out of the wall.

One by one he's destroying the plants in the apartment. Today he smashed a violet plant pot against the radiator. The dirt was easy enough to sweep away. The plant can be repotted, I suppose. But the plants were my grandmother's and I liked the idea of taking care of them, something living of hers that remains here. We've taken on their care but we're doing a terrible job. My nieces love to water them with the elephant watering can I got from the five n' dime in West Concord. Wally loves to overwater them. It seems somehow or other he'll find a way to kill them -- either with a bang or quietly and slowly, by drowning. Sky used to dig all the dirt out of plant pots. Sometimes she ate the leaves and got sick.

Give up on having plants in your apartment. You have a toddler. You can't expect him to leave the plants alone. (This is the annoying voice that keeps talking back to me lately. A modified version of my therapist M. from last fall who says, basically, there are easy solutions, take them. Tell people you can't meet at 5:30.

"But I told her 'How about 8?' and she said, '5:30 is better for me.' So I didn't have a choice. I'm roped in. There's nothing I can do."

"You can call her up right now and tell her 5:30 is not going to work."

"Well I hesitated when I agreed to 5:30, she should have picked up on that.")

***

I drank too much coffee today and never once got that satisfying coffee buzz where you feel super productive, racing through your list of things to do, making awkward phone calls you'd been putting off, that kind of thing.

I'm annoyed at how much time got sucked up today in one-sided conversations that went like this: (Gentle female voice) "Sorry, I didn't understand that. Let's try again. It sounds like you want to speak to an operator. Let me see if can help you. Say, 'My account'".

I'm starting to try to open mail and actually deal with things that are supposed to be dealt with. Like bills from the electric company or student loans. When I first moved to New York, I never opened stuff until it got to a collection agency and even then not until the 3rd or 4th "attempt" (Alex is, if you can believe this, even worse than me). It never occurred to me things like that were my responsibility. Reminds me of a story my parents love to tell about how when I was four a Tootsie Roll candy dropped out of my mouth into the dirt. Through furious tears I admonished my parents, "Why didn't you have your hand under my chin?"

Later

We hooked up a new power strip. Wally's just about done with his grand finale; the shrieking always spikes up right before his head hits the pillow. There are still a few plants out there that need to be watered. Tomorrow is pretty jam-packed (which is obviously the way I like it, much as I protest). Tootsie Rolls in free fall.