Thursday, October 27, 2016

Beautiful day here in bucolic Joshua, Texas

Well, it's a beautiful day here in bucolic Joshua, Texas. And everything is going well except for a couple of small bumps in the road. One of those bumps is my old Ford Ranger. While I was in Peru Italo made a present of rebuilding the entire engine from the block up. Purrs like a kitten. Cost was $1,000 just for parts but no sweat. Treated the truck to a new windshield and two used but good front tires, another $300. Then the clutch started slipping last week. Italo had not rebuilt that. Now it's bad and I'll need to put another several hundred into it to get the clutch redone and the slave cylinder in the transmission fixed. Damnit, total of two grand and I'll still need bushings for another $300.
    So I've no car at the moment. Which makes it hard to do my job as a journalist.
    And the air conditioner that I just spent about $700 on is on the fritz as well. The pan that collects the condensation is just overflowing and so it must be stuffed up but I can't even get to it and don't know how to clear it so I just can't use it until Italo--he's always the hero lately--takes a look and fixes it. Fortunately, it's not the condenser that was recently replaced, but it's still a pain in the neck, what with water dripping and the ceiling sheetrock ready to fall.
    Then my Ipad was borrowed and somehow has come up missing.
    And several people who said they were signing up for the January and February Amazon tours--I mean said they were transferring deposits via paypal immediately--have not done so and i cannot dun them or I will lose them. Of course, I may already have lost them.
    Then someone on social media made a really nasty and WAY OUT OF LINE comment about me on a forum about ayahuasca and since I don't know the person and to the best of my knowledge have never met him, it will take on a life of its own among his friends and I'll look like a schmuck with no way to defend myself. Just responding that he's full of shit will only stir the pot. I did ask him to be more, much more specific, in terms of time, place and so forth (I know he has nothing because, as I said, I never met this person), but he has not and will not respond.
   By chance, the same day that appeared and was pointed out to me, Madeleina happened to be home from college and asked, out of the blue, whether I'd ever actually witnessed negative black magic. I showed her what the guy wrote and said: "Darling, that's black magic. Someone, for some reason only they know, is jealous of me and decided to make up a complete lie about me that will affect future clients who read it. The administrator of the site has asked the man for some proof--it not only involved me specifically, but another member of my Amazon team--and will take the message down if the fellow cannot provide satisfactory specifics. So yea, Madeleina, that's black magic in the negative sense of the word."
    And I think the administrator will only give the guy another day or two to respond before she pulls the plug, but the comment, and subsequent comments, have already been seen by several hundred people, darnit! Fortunately, a few of the posters have come to my team and my defense, calling bs on the whole thing so it's not as bad as it could be, but still, I don't like it.
    Hey, other than those few details, the world is freaking beautiful down here in bucolic Joshua! Have a great day everybody. And yes, the car will be repaired and run beautifully for another year or two; the ipad will be found, the guests will eventually join the trip with their deposits. And the bum who wrote the nasty thing will have to deal with his own karma. So it's gonna be okay after the clouds lift.

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